so he reserved
some odds and ends for him. When Chiquita had advanced far enough so she
could have time between mouthfuls--not bites--to answer, Jack gave
utterance to his thoughts.

"Colorow's ponies make pretty big track in snow--make heap big trail.
Mebbe so good for two sleeps on high mountain where wind blow."

Chiquita understood and stopped her struggles, with a rib of venison in
one hand and a grouse wing in the other, long enough to articulate:

"Chiquita comprehends. White man follow Utes; white man leave Chiquita
and Yamanatz to go Sulphur Springs, mebbe so Denver City."

Her smiles were gone, but not her appetite, as she renewed her attacks
on the remnant counter. Jack replied:

"Mebbe so Jack be gone four moons. Come back when honeysuckle on
mountainside and cactus on plain in bloom. Will Chiquita and Yamanatz go
then with Jack to Blazing-Eye-by-Big-Water?"

Jack decided to get out of the Ute country while the scalp was yet on
his head and not dangling at the belt of any warrior, or braided into
the make-up of any tepee pole. Just then the clatter of two ponies down
the trail caused him to look around. In a moment or two the willows
parted and Yamanatz, accompanied by a white man, whom Jack recognized as
old Joe Riggs, entered the camp. To Jack's greeting of "How?" the
newcomers both made response. Joe inquired as to the condition of Jack's
feet, and upon being assured that those necessary adjuncts to a man's
safety on Rock Creek were in fairly good order, the cattleman suggested
the opportunity presented for Jack to make an attempt to connect with
civilization.

Old Joe Riggs was known from the Cache le Poudre to the Rio Grande; to
cowman, miner, prospector and goods store folks. Old Joe was a part and
parcel of the main range. Forty-niners had bunked with him and
fifty-niners had divided buffalo steaks with him, while sixty-niners
from Missouri allowed old Joe could rock a cradle or shovel tailings
from the sluice boxes, and seventy-niners found him as ready to take his
turn at the drill or windlass as the best of them. In appearance old Joe
was a weird, uncanny being that made the creeps run up and down one's
crupper bone. Seated upon a chair in a room full of average-sized
people, Joe appeared a dwarf. His anatomy seemed to rest on the ends of
his shoulder blades, while his knees formed the hypothenuse of an
inverted right-angle triangle. When standing he overtopped every man in
a regiment of s