the chuck-wagon propped
himself on elbow and shouted greeting to us. In the semi-dark I couldn't
see his face, but I recognized the voice. It was our friend of the
whisky-keg episode, Piegan Smith.

"Hello, thar, fellers!" he bellowed (Piegan always spoke to a man as if
he were a hundred yards away). "Say, Flood, yuh ain't been t' Benton an'
back already, have yuh?"

"Faith, no," I owned, between mouthfuls, "and it's hard telling when I
will get there. How come you to be pacing along this trail, Piegan? Gone
to freighting in your old age?"

"Not what yuh could notice, I ain't," he snorted. "Catch _me_ whackin'
bulls for a livin'! Naw, I sold my outfit to a goggle-eyed pilgrim that
has an idea buffalo hides is prime all summer. So I'm headed for Benton
to see if I kain't stir up a little excitement now an' then, to pass
away the time till the fall buffalo-run begins."

"If you're looking for excitement, Piegan," MacRae put in dryly, "you'd
better come along with us. We'll introduce you to more different brands
of it in the next few days than Benton could furnish in six months."

"Maybe," Piegan laughed. "But not the brand I'm a-thirstin' for."

Mac was on the point of replying when there came a most unexpected
interruption. I looked up at sound of a startled exclamation, and beheld
the round African physog of Lyn Rowan's colored mammy. But she had no
eyes for me; she stood like a black statue just within the firelight, a
tin bucket in one hand, staring over my head at MacRae.

"Lawd a-me!" she gulped out. "Ef Ah ain't sho'ly laid mah ol' eyes on
Marse Go'don. Is dat sho' 'nuf yo', wid yo' red coat an' all?"

"It sure is, Mammy," Mac answered. "How does it happen you're traveling
this way? I thought you were at Fort Walsh. Is Miss Lyn along?"

"She suttinly am," Mammy Thomas emphatically asserted. "Yo' doan catch
dis chile a-mosyin' obeh dese yeah plains by huh lonesome. Since dey
done brought Miss Lyn's paw in an' planted him, she say dey ain't no use
foh huh to stay in dis yeah redcoat country no longer; so we all packed
up an' sta'ted back foh de lan' ob de free."

MacRae, I am sure, was no more than half through his meal. But he
swallowed the coffee in his cup, and tossed his eating-implements into
the cook's wash-pan.

"I'll go with you, Mammy," he told her. "I want to see Miss Lyn myself."

"Jes' a minute, Marse Go'don," she said. "Ah's got to git some wa'm
watah f'om dis yeah Mr. Cook."

The cook si