s captors looked on him with respect--they did not
laugh at him nor evince any anger. It was impossible for him to read
any clue in their stolid faces what was going forward.

Half a dozen of them carried him up the bank and laid him at the door
of a teepee. Presently Watusk passed by. Ambrose so violently
demanded an explanation that the Indian was forced to stop. He said,
still without meeting Ambrose's eye:

"Myengeen say you kill Tom Moosa. You got to take our law."

"It's a lie!" cried Ambrose, suffocating with indignation.

Watusk shrugged and disappeared. It was useless for Ambrose to shout
at any of the others. He fumed in silence. The Indians gave his
dangerous eyes a wide berth.

Meanwhile the camp was plunged into a babel of confusion by the order
to move.

Boys ran here and there catching the horses, the teepees came down on
the run, and the squaws frantically to pack their household gear.
Infants and dogs infected with a common excitement outvied each other
in screaming and barking.

Ambrose saw only the beginning of the preparations. A horse was
brought to where he lay, and the six men whom he was beginning to
recognize as his particular guard unbound his ankles and lifted him
into the saddle.

They never dared lay hands on him except in concert--he took what
comfort he could out of that tribute to his prowess. They tied his
bound wrists to the saddle-horn, and also tied his ankles under the
horse's belly, leaving just play enough for him to use the stirrups.

The six then mounted their own horses, and they set off at a swift lope
away from the river--one leading Ambrose's horse.

They extended themselves in single file along a well-beaten trail.
This, Ambrose knew, was the way to the Kakisa River--their own country.

A chill struck to his breast. Any intelligible danger may be faced
with a good heart, but to be cast among capricious and inscrutable
savages, whom he could neither command nor comprehend, was enough to
undermine the stoutest courage.

Nevertheless he strove with himself as he rode. "They cannot put it
over me unless I knuckle under," he thought. "They're afraid of me.
No Indian that ever lived can face out a white man when the white man
knows his power."

Several dogs followed them out of camp. There was one that the others
all snapped at and drove from among them. Ambrose suddenly recognized
Job, and his heart leaped up.

He had left him at Grampierre's the