end of the Missouri, and
on the Yellowstone, and west to the Rockies."

"How could that be?" asked Orme, suddenly, with interest. "You talk as
if there were something in this country like the old 'secret mail' of
East India, where I once lived."

"I don't know what you mean by that," said Auberry, "but I do know that
the Injuns in this country have ways of talkin' at long range. Why,
onct a bunch of us had five men killed up on the Powder River by the
Crows. That was ten o'clock in the morning. By two in the afternoon
everyone in the Crow village, two hundred miles away, knowed all about
the fight--how many whites was killed, how many Injuns--the whole
shootin'-match. How they done it, I don't know, but they shore done it.
Any Western man knows that much about Injun ways."

"That is rather extraordinary," commented Orme.

"Nothin' extraordinary about it," said Auberry, "it's just common. Maybe
they done it by lookin'-glasses and smokes--fact is, I know that's one
way they use a heap. But they've got other ways of talkin'. Looks like a
Injun could set right down on a hill, and think good and hard, and some
other Injun a hundred miles away'd know what he was thinkin' about. You
talk about a prairie fire runnin' fast--it ain't nothin' to the way news
travels amongst the tribes."

Belknap expressed his contempt for all this sort of thing, but the old
man assured him he would know more of this sort of thing when he had
been longer in the West. "I know they do telegraph," reiterated the
plainsman.

"I can well believe that," remarked Orme, quietly.

"Whether you do or not," said Auberry, "Injuns is strange critters. A
few of us has married among Injuns and lived among them, and we have
seen things you wouldn't believe if I told you."

"Tell some of them," said Orme. "I, for one, might believe them."

"Well, now," said the plainsman, "I will tell you some things I have
seen their medicine men do, and ye can believe me or not, the way ye
feel about it."

"I have seen 'em hold a pow-wow for two or three days at a time, some of
'em settin' 'round, dreamin', as they call it all of 'em starvin', whole
camp howlin', everybody eatin' medicine herbs. Then after while, they
all come and set down just like it was right out here in the open.
Somebody pulls a naked Injun boy right out in the middle of them. Old
Mr. Medicine Man, he stands up in the plain daylight, and he draws his
bow and shoots a arrer plum through that boy.