the betting.

At first, the Colonel demurred. "Was it quite honourable?"

"Why not? Didn't they come and run their horse against ours in a trial,
right here on the garrison track, without asking our leave? We are not
going to hurt the pony in any way."

The temptation was too much for human nature. The Colonel finally
agreed; and all that was needed was the working out of details. Hartigan
was eager to be one of the jockeys. "Sure it wasn't a real race in the
sense that stakes were up." The Colonel shook his head. "If you were
about one hundred pounds lighter we'd be glad to have you, but one
hundred and eighty pounds is too much for any horse."

It was no easy matter to get the right weight. The cavalrymen were all
too heavy; but an odd character had turned up, the second son of an
English baronet, a dissipated youth, barely a hundred pounds in weight;
an agglomeration of most weak vices, but thin, tough, and a born and
trained horseman. He was selected for one, and Little Breeches, a cowboy
of diminutive proportions, for the other. All the material was now in
sight for the scheme.

CHAPTER XXV

The Secret of Yellowbank Canyon

Lou Chamreau was of French and Indian blood, chiefly Crow Indian. For
twenty years he had been trading out of Pierre, Dakota, among the
western tribes. He spoke French and Crow perfectly, he knew a little
Sioux, and he was quite proficient in the universal Sign Language. Lou
had lost money on the July horse-race, and was quite ready to play the
white man's game.

On a certain afternoon in the latter part of August the trader might
have been seen driving a very rickety wagon along the rough trail
through the Badlands twenty miles to the eastward of Fort Ryan. Much
hard luck had pursued him, if one might judge by the appearance of his
outfit and from his story. In his extremity his teamster had left him
and he was travelling alone. It was just as he reached the
boulder-strewn descent into Yellowbank Creek that the climax came. The
wagon upset and, falling some twenty feet, was lodged between the
cutbanks in very bad shape. The horses were saved though the giving way
of the harness; and having hobbled and turned them out to graze, Lou
mounted a butte to seek for sign of help.

The sun was low in the west now; and across the glowing sky he noted a
thread of smoke. Within a few minutes it had been his guide to an Indian
tepee--a solitary tepee in this lone and little-known canyon