. Time was when they fancied only
neche scalps. It's not that way now. No, sir. I'm figgering now how
long we'll be safe here, in this Fort. There's just two hundred and
odd miles between us, and---- Say, when do you figger you're making
that way? Fall?" Kars nodded. "The time they got Allan. Don't do
it. I warn you solemnly. And I guess I--know."

Murray's warning was delivered with urgency. There was no mistaking
its sincerity. He seemed to have risen above his antipathy for this
man. He seemed only concerned to save another from a disaster similar
to that which had befallen his partner.

Kars thanked him and held out one powerful hand.

"I'm obliged," he said, in a sober way as they gripped hands. "I've
had full warning, and, maybe, it's going to save me trouble. Anyway if
my way does take me around that region, and I get my medicine, well--I
guess it's up to me. Good-night, Murray. Thanks again. I'll be off
before you're around to-morrow morning. So long."

Murray McTavish accompanied his visitor to the door. There was no more
to be said. His smile returned as he bade him farewell, and it
remained for a few moments as he stood till the night swallowed up the
departing figure. Then it died out suddenly, completely.

CHAPTER X

THE MAN WITH THE SCAR

Two men moved about slowly, deliberately. They were examining, with
the closest scrutiny, every object that might afford a clue to the
devastation about them. A third figure, in the distance, was engaged
similarly. He was dressed in the buckskin so dear to the Indian heart.
The others were white men.

The scene was complete in horror. It was the incinerated ruins of a
recently destroyed Indian encampment, set in the shadow of a belt of
pine woods which mounted the abrupt slopes of a great hill. The woods
on the hillside were burnt out. Where had stood a dense stretch of
primordial woodland, now only the skeleton arms of the pines reached up
towards the heavens as though appealing despairingly for the vengeance
due to them.

The day was gray. The air was still, so still. It reeked with the
taint of burning. It reeked with something else. There were bodies,
in varying stages of decomposition, lying about, many of them burned,
many of them half eaten by the wild scavengers of the region. All were
mutilated in a dreadful manner. And they were mostly the bodies of
women and children.

Not a teepee remained standing. The m