rometers warning us of a coming change. Something must have happened
to us that night which only the retrospect of years revealed. In that
hour Beverly Clarenden lost a year of his life and I gained one. From
that time we were no longer little and big to each other--we were
comrades.

It must have been nearly midnight when I crept out of bed and slipped
into the big room where Uncle Esmond and Jondo sat by the fireplace,
talking together.

"Hello, little night-hawk! Come here and roost," Jondo said, opening his
arms to me.

I slid into their embrace and snuggled my head against his broad
shoulder, listening to all that was said. Three months later the little
boy had become a little man, and my cuddling days had given place to
the self-reliance of the fearless youngster of the trail.

"Why do you make this trip now, Esmond?" Jondo asked at length, looking
straight into my uncle's face.

"I want to get down there right now because I want to get a grip on
trade conditions. I can do better after the war if I do. It won't last
long, and we are sure to take over a big piece of ground there when it
is over. And when that is settled commerce must do the real building-up
of the country. I want to be a part of that thing and grow with it. Why
do you go with me?"

My uncle looked directly at Jondo, although he asked the question
carelessly.

"To help you cross the plains. You know the redskins get worse every
trip," Jondo answered, lightly.

I stared at both of them until Jondo said, laughingly:

"You little owl, what are you thinking about?"

"I think you are telling each other stories," I replied, frankly.

For somehow their faces made me think of Beverly's face out on the
parade-ground that morning, when he had lifted it and looked at Mat
Nivers; and their voices, deep bass as they were, sounded like Beverly's
voice whispering between his sobs, before he went to sleep.

Both men smiled and said nothing. But when I went to my bed again Jondo
tucked the covers about me and Uncle Esmond came and bade me good
night.

"I guess you have the makings of a plainsman," he said, with a smile, as
he patted me on the head.

"The beginnings, anyhow," Jondo added. "He can see pretty far already."

For a long time I lay awake, thinking of all that Uncle Esmond and Jondo
had said to me. It is no wonder that I remember that April day as if it
were but yesterday. Such days come only to childhood, and oftentimes
when no one of