ound each rolled up in his tarpaulin like a boulder. Altogether
it was a stirring glimpse of ranch life for my city-bred wife.

Primeau's home ranch and store which we reached about eleven the next
forenoon was an almost equally sorry place for a delicate woman, a sad
spot in which to spend even a single night. Flies swarmed in the kitchen
like bees, and the air of our bedroom was hot and stagnant, and
mosquitoes made sleep impossible. Zulime became ill, and I bitterly
regretted my action in bringing her into this God forsaken land. "We
shall return at once to the fort," I promised her.

It was an iron soil. The valley was a furnace, the sky a brazen shield.
No green thing was in sight, and the curling leaves of the dying corn
brought back to me those desolate days in Dakota when my mother tried so
hard to maintain a garden. Deeply pitying the captive red hunters, who
were expected to become farmers under these desolate conditions, I was
able to understand how they had turned to the Great Spirit in a last
despairing plea for pity and relief. "Think of this place in winter," I
said to Zulime.

One of the men whom Primeau especially wished me to meet was Slohan, the
annalist of his tribe, one of the "Silent Eaters," a kind of bodyguard
to Sitting Bull. "He lives only a few miles up the valley," Primeau
explained, and so to find him we set off in a light wagon next morning
drawn by a couple of fleet ponies.

As we rode, Primeau told me more of "The Silent Eaters." "They were a
small band of young warriors organized for defense and council, and were
closely associated with Sitting Bull all his life. Slohan, the man we
are to see to-day, is one of those who stood nearest the chief. No man
living knows more about him. He can tell you just what you want to
know."

An hour later as we were riding along close to the bank of the creek,
Primeau stopped his team. "There he is now!" he exclaimed.

Looking where he pointed I discovered on a mound above the stream an old
man sitting motionless as a statue, with bowed head, and lax hands.
There was something strange, almost tragic in his attitude, and this
impression deepened as we approached him.

He was wrinkled with age and clad in ragged white man's clothing, but
his profile was fine, fine as that of a Roman Senator, and the lines of
his face were infinitely sad. In one fallen hand lay a coiled rope.

He did not look up as we drew near, did not appear to hear Primeau's
res