like, raise money anyhow, you can't
go wrong on this. We've got the wily Red men skinned. Now we'll get our
money back and more." "Of course it's fair, anything's fair to get ahead
on a horse race." And as the tale was whispered round, it grew until it
would seem that Red Rover had cantered in, while the buckskin strained
himself to keep within a couple of hundred yards of the racer.

So the gossip went and one serious thing resulted: the training
slackened. Why bother when the horse was going to have a walk-over? The
Colonel was too much engrossed with other matters to do more than give
good advice. The trainer's laxity pervaded those about him, and Red
Rover was let down with all the rest. When they ran out of baled timothy
the shortage was not revealed till it occurred. This meant a week's
delay. The trainer, going to Cedar Mountain on a celebration, left an
underling in charge who knew no better than to stuff the horse with
alfalfa for a change, and a slight cold was the result. What the Colonel
said when he heard of it was not couched in departmental phraseology.

Gambling has always been a racial sin of the Indian. He did not drink or
horse-race or torture pioneers till the white man taught him; but gamble
he always did. And under the stimulus of great excitement and new stakes
the habit became a craze. Within a few days, Red Cloud appeared at the
Fort with a great retinue, a whole village complete when they camped,
and announced that he and his people had some fifty thousand dollars in
sight to stake on the race; which, of course, was to be a scratch race
for both. The soldiers, being very human, raised all they could--and
much that they couldn't, really--to cover this handsome sum. Red Cloud
then returned to his camp.

The next day he was back to say that, in case the whites had no more
money to bet, the Indians were willing to bet horses and saddles, goods,
etc., and thereupon a new craze possessed them. A government plough was
wagered against a settler's looking-glass, a hen and her chickens
against a buffalo robe, and many another odd combination. The Indians
seemed to go wild on the issue. At last the U. S. Indian Agent came to
the Colonel to protest.

"Colonel, I can manage these people all right if they are let alone, but
this horse race and the betting are upsetting everything. I suppose you
have a dead sure thing or you wouldn't be so reckless, but you are
making awful trouble for every one else, and