ad been there. On
soundless moccasined feet he had come. Motionless as an inanimate thing,
he had remained. Not two rods away the flock were feeding. More than
once the water they carelessly spattered had fallen upon him; but he did
not stir. He had no gun or weapon of any kind. Though they were within
stone's throw, he had not brought even a rock. Unbelievable to an
Anglo-Saxon sportsman, he merely lay there observing them. With that
object he had come; for this purpose he remained. A long dark statue, he
peered through the woven grasses steadily, admiringly; with an
instinctive companionship, a mute forbearance, that was haunting in its
revelation. Lonely as death itself were the surrounding unbroken
prairies. Lonely as a desert of sand, their absolute isolation. Lonely
beyond comparison, beyond the suggestion of language, was that silent
human in their midst this autumn day.

How long he would have remained there so, idly watching, no one could
have told; the man himself could not have told; for at last,
interrupting, awakening, a new actor appeared. Answering, with a great
quacking and beating of webbed feet, the flock sprang a-wing; and almost
before the shower of water drops they scattered in their wake had
ceased, a road waggon, with a greybearded old man on the seat, drew up
beside the tent.

Then, for the first time in hours, the Indian arose and stretched
himself. Still in silence he came back to where the newcomer was
waiting.

They exchanged the conventionalities, and thereafter the white man sat
eyeing the other peculiarly, analytically.

"Well, where's your game?" he queried at last. "There seemed to be
enough around when I came."

The Indian smiled; the smile of one accustomed to being misunderstood.

"I wasn't hunting," he said. "I was merely watching."

A moment longer Manning continued the inspection; then with an effort he
dismounted.

"I was over to see Hawkins yesterday on business," he digressed
abruptly, "and he said you were out here somewhere, so I thought before
I went back I'd look you up." The man was not accustomed to
dissimulation, and the explanation halted lamely. "If you don't mind
I'll go inside and smoke a bit."

In silence the Indian led the way to the tent and buttoned back the
flap. There was but one chair and he indicated it impassively.

"I'm very glad to see you," he said then simply.

Manning lit a pipe clumsily with his crippled hand, and thereafter drew
on it de