.
Here they watched the old woman rub and scrub him down from head to
foot, while the boy brought in a truss of very good-looking hay from
some hidden supply. The old woman went carefully over the bundle,
throwing away portions of it. "She throw away all bad medicine plants,"
said the Crow. After half an hour, another Indian came forth from the
lodge and brought a bag of something for the pony. They could not see
what it was, but the Crow Indian said it was "white man's corn, the
little sharp kind that makes a horse's legs move very fast."

"Bedad, there's no mistaking that," said Hartigan; "they're training on
oats; an' that hay is too green for prairie grass and not green enough
for alfalfa. I wonder if they haven't managed to get some timothy for
their 'hope of the race!'"

The first important fact was that the cattlemen had discovered the
training ground of the Indian racer; the second that the Red men were
neglecting nothing that could help them to win. Now to be a complete
story of a good scouting, these watchers should have stayed there all
day, to see what the Indian methods were; but that would have been a
slow job. They were too impatient to wait. It was clear, anyway, that
the redskins had adopted all they could learn from the whites, and that
the buckskin cayuse was no mean antagonist. The Crow scout assured them
that every morning, an hour or so after eating, the pony was raced up to
"that butte, round and back here. Then, by and by, sun low, go again."

So, fully informed, the white spies retired; sneaked back to their
horses and in less than two hours were at Fort Ryan.

"Well, Colonel, we sure saw the whole thing," said Hartigan. "They are
not taking any chances on it. 'Tisn't much of a stable--nary a shingle
overhead--but they're surely training that buckskin; and it's
hand-picked hay they give him and sandpapered oats, worth gold; and they
don't neglect his coat; and by the same token it's out for a race they
are."

And now Kyle unfolded his plan to the Colonel. It was nothing less than
this: to send a half-breed trader to the Indian training camp with a
supply of whiskey, play on the weakness of the Red man till man, woman
and boy, and others if there were any, were stupid drunk; then have Red
Rover brought secretly, and at dawn, take the buckskin out of the
corral, put a jockey on each, develop the best speed of both horses
around the Indian training track, and so get an absolute gauge to guide