at McArthur. "I don't aim to sleep on dead men's clothes!"

The Indians looked at the blanket, and at McArthur, whom they had grown to
like and trust. They recognized it now, and in the corner they saw the
stiff and dingy stain, the jagged tell-tale holes.

McArthur mechanically held it up to view. He had not the faintest
recollection where it had been purchased, or of whom obtained. Tubbs
always had attended to such things.

No one spoke in the grave silence, and Smith leered.

"I likes company," he said. "I'm sociable inclined. Put him in the
dog-house with me."

Susie had listened with the Indians; she had looked at the blanket, the
stain, the holes; she saw the blank consternation in McArthur's face, the
gathering storm in the Indians' eyes. She stepped out a little from the
rest.

"Mister _Smith_!" she said. "_Mister_ Smith"--with oily, sarcastic
emphasis--"how did you know that was White Antelope's blanket, when you
never _saw_ White Antelope?"

XXII

A MONGOLIAN CUPID

With his hands thrust deep in his trousers pockets, Ralston leaned against
the corner of the bunk-house, from which point of vantage he could catch a
glimpse of the Schoolmarm's white-curtained window. He now had no feeling
of elation over his success. Smith was a victorious captive. Ralston's
heart ached miserably, and he wished that the day was ended and the
morning come, that he might go, never to return.

He too had seen the mist in Dora's eyes; and, with Smith's words, the
air-castles which had persistently built themselves without volition on
his part, crumbled. There was nothing for him to do but to efface himself
as quickly and as completely as possible. The sight of him could only be
painful to Dora, and he wished to spare her all of that within his power.

He looked at the foothills, the red butte rising in their midst, the
tinted Bad Lands, the winding, willow-fringed creek. It was all beautiful
in its bizarre colorings; but the spirit of the picture, the warm, glowing
heart of it, had gone from it for him. The world looked a dull and
lifeless place. His love for Dora was greater than he had known, far
mightier than he had realized until the end, the positive end, had come.

"Oh, Dora!" he whispered in utter wretchedness. "Dear little Schoolmarm!"

In the room behind the white-curtained window the Schoolmarm walked the
floor with her cheeks aflame and as close to hysteria as ever she had been
in her life.

"What