of the
Yellowbank--and entering, he recognized an old acquaintance. After
sitting and smoking, he told of his troubles and asked the Red man to
come and help get the wagon out of the gully.

The Indian made the signs: "Yes, at sunrise."

Chamreau smoked for a time, then said: "I'm afraid I'll lose the 'fire
water' in that keg. It may be leaking under the wagon." To which the
Sioux warrior said:

"Let us go now."

The keg was found intact, and to obviate all risk, was brought to the
Indian camp. Chamreau deferred opening it as long as he could, so that
it was midnight before the "Cowboy's delight" was handed round, and by
three or four in the morning the camp was sunken in a deadly stupor.

According to the plan, Chamreau was to take a brand from the lodge and,
in the black night outside, make a vivid zigzag in the air a few times,
when his plot was obviously a success. But he became so deeply
interested in giving realism to his own share of the spree that he
forgot about everything else, and the rest of the scheme was omitted, so
far as he was concerned.

But with the dim dawn there arrived in camp a couple of horsemen, one an
Indian. The camp was dead. With the exception of a dog at the doorway
and a horse in the corral, there was none to note their arrival. The dog
growled, barked and sneaked aside. The Crow Indian hurled a stone with
such accuracy that the dog accepted the arrivals as lawful, and sat
down, afar off, to think it over.

The inmates of the lodge; man, woman, boy and Chamreau, were insensible
and would evidently remain so for many hours. The Crow Indian and Kyle
took brands from the fire and made vivid lightnings in the air. Within
ten minutes, a group of horsemen came trampling down the slope and up
the pleasant valley of the Yellowbank.

It was not without some twinges of conscience that Hartigan peeped into
the lodge to see the utterly degrading stupefaction of the poison, but
he was alone in feeling anything like regret. The rest of the party were
given over to wild hilarity. At once, they made for the corral. Yes,
there he was, really a fine animal, the buckskin cayuse that had proved
so important. And there, carefully protected, was a lot of baled timothy
hay and fine oats, brought there at great cost. It is not often that a
lot of jockeys and horsemen are so careful of the enemy's mount. They
handled that buckskin as if he had been made of glass, they watered him,
they groomed him, they