time, much
mens come. Yo' sabe. Baumberga all time talkum, him heap frien'
Peacefu'--heap snake all time. Speakum two tongue Yo' no b'lievum. All
time heap big liar, him. Yo' go, speakum Squaw-talk-far-off. Bueno, dat
squaw. Heap smart, all same mans. Yo' go. Pikeway." He settled back with
a gesture of finality, and so Good Indian left him.

Old Hagar shrilled maledictions after him when he passed through the
littered camp on his way back to where he had left his horse, but for
once he was deaf to her upbraidings. Indeed, he never heard her--or if
he did, her clamor was to him as the yelping of the dogs which filled
his ears, but did not enter his thoughts.

The young squaw smiled at him shy-eyed as he went by her, and though
his physical eyes saw her standing demurely there in the shade of her
wikiup, ready to shrink coyly away from too bold a glance, the man-mind
of him was blind and took no notice. He neither heard the baffled
screaming of vile epithets when old Hagar knew that her venom could not
strike through the armor of his preoccupation, nor saw the hurt look
creep into the soft eyes of the young squaw when his face did not turn
toward her after the first inattentive glance.

Good Indian was thinking how barren had been his talk with Peppajee, and
was realizing keenly how much he had expected from the interview. It is
frequently by the depth of our disappointment only that we can rightly
measure the height of our hope. He had come to Peppajee for something
tangible, some thing that might be called real evidence of the
conspiracy he suspected. He had got nothing but suspicion to match his
own. As for Miss Georgie Howard--

"What can she do?" he thought resentfully, feeling as if he had been
offered a willow switch with which to fight off a grizzly. It seemed to
him that he might as sensibly go to Evadna herself for assistance,
and that, even his infatuation was obliged to admit, would be idiotic.
Peppajee, he told himself when he reached his horse, was particularly
foolish sometimes.

With that in his mind, he mounted--and turned Keno's head toward
Hartley. The distance was not great--little more than half a mile--but
when he swung from the saddle in the square blotch of shade east by
the little, red station house upon the parched sand and cinders, Keno's
flanks were heaving like the silent sobbing of a woman with the pace his
master's spurred heels had required of him.

Miss Georgie gave her hair a hast