remained within, moving about from place to place; and
when he again returned it was to do a peculiar thing indeed. In his arms
were several articles of clothing rolled into a bulky bundle. Without a
halt he made his way back to the place where he had eaten. The fire
which he had builded had burned low ere this; and, standing there beside
it, he scraped away the ashes with the toe of his moccasined foot until
the glowing embers beneath came to view. The bundle he carried had
opened with the action, revealing clearly the various articles of which
it was composed. Outside was an old army-blue greatcoat; within a
battered felt hat and a pair of moccasins, wholly unused. A moment the
Indian stood looking at them meditatively, intensely; then gently as
though they were a lost child he was returning to its mother's arms he
laid them fair upon the glowing coals. Wool is slow to catch ablaze and
for the moment they lay there black against the brown earth; then of a
sudden, like the first lifting of an Indian signal smoke, a tiny column
of blue went trailing upward. Second by second it grew until with a
muffled explosion the whole was ablaze. Before the man had merely stood
watching; now deliberately as before, yet as unhesitatingly, he returned
to the tent.

This time he was gone longer; and when he returned it was with an armful
of books--and something more. The fire was crackling merrily now, and
volume by volume his load disappeared. Then for the first time he
hesitated. There was still something to destroy, something which he had
gathered in the old felt hat from off his own head; yet he hesitated.
Greedy as a hungry animal deprived of its due the fire at his feet kept
sending out spurts of flame like longing tentacles toward him; yet he
delayed. Like the sulky thing it was, it had at last drawn back into
passive waiting, when of a sudden, without a single glance, the man laid
this last sacrifice, as he had done the first, gently down. But this
time he did not watch the end. Swiftly, his bare black head glistening
in the sunlight, he started away toward the now expectant broncho; and
back of him the pathetic little gathering of useless trinkets, bearing
indelibly the mark of a woman's handiwork, a woman's trust, mingled with
the ashes of the things which had gone before.

Long ere the fire had burned itself out, the wicked-looking cayuse
following a bridle's length at his heels, he was back; waiting
impatiently for the fl