d the fair sister in her medicine clothes."

"Will Jack come back Rock Creek when beaver cut 'em big tree?" asked the
Indian girl.

Jack figured that April would be early enough, and even that would
require him to use snowshoes a great part of the distance. The Berthoud
pass would not be open until June, and he doubted if the snow would be
passable for ponies on the high divide they had just crossed, but the
Gore range could be crossed farther north and obviate the high ridge and
its deep snow.

"Jack will come back the first new moon after beaver begin cut. Will
Chiquita be in tepee near Pony Creek or White River?" He both answered
one question and asked another.

"Me no sabe where Chiquita then," she replied, in a rather sorrowful
tone, continuing: "Mebbe so all go to agency, mebbe so stay on Pony
Creek. White man no find Chiquita on Pony Creek, go all same agency find
'em Yamanatz. Where Yamanatz there Chiquita wait for white man Jack."

That being settled, Jack took the blankets and distributed them on the
willow beds. He then replenished the fire with some half-green logs
pulled from a pile of drift wood, examined the picket ropes of the
ponies and lit his pipe for another smoke. Chiquita wrapped herself in
her blanket, tucked herself into a big wildcat-skin bag, which made a
part of her bed on the willow branches, and was soon asleep.

Through the rings of smoke which curled from his pipe Jack sensed the
future, as a spiritualist would say, and, realizing that this would in
all probability be his last night of outdoor life for some time to come,
he was loath to close his eyes in sleep, shutting out the grand
retrospect of independence which a few months' experience on the
frontier had taught him--a life absolutely free from conventionalities,
police interference and taxes.

"No wonder," he soliloquized, "that the red man prefers the avenues of
the forest, the virgin plains of grass, the rugged canons running with
sparkling water, the smoke of his tepee fire and a starry dome for his
homestead, to the cobblestones, the plowed ground, the artificial goose
ponds, the greasy-surfaced rivers, the steam-heated, foul-smelling
hothoused monuments of man's industry and civilization."

The ponies snorted as though an intruder was lurking on the outskirts of
the camp. Jack kicked one of the smoldering logs and a shower of sparks
were borne upward into the dark night air. A few moments later and the
prowler's deep, d