m the height on which they stood a wonderful panorama of
hill and valley, river, lake and plain lay spread out before them. "All
that and for nine hundred miles beyond that line these Indians and their
kin gave up to us under persuasion. There was something due them, eh?
Let's move on."

For a mile or more the trail ran along the high plateau skirting the
Piegan Reserve, where it branched sharply to the right. Cameron paused.

"You see that trail?" pointing to the branch that led to the left and
downward into the valley. "That is one of the oldest and most famous
of all Indian trails. It strikes down through the Crow's Nest Pass and
beyond the pass joins the ancient Sun Dance Trail. That's my old beat.
And weird things are a-doing along that same old Sun Dance Trail this
blessed minute or I miss my guess. I venture to say that this old trail
has often been marked with blood from end to end in the fierce old
days."

"Let's go," said Mandy, with a shudder, and, turning her pony to the
right, she took the trail that led them down from the plateau, plunged
into a valley, wound among rocks and thickets of pine till it reached a
tumbling mountain torrent of gray-blue water, fed from glaciers high up
between the great peaks beyond.

"My Little Horn!" cried Mandy with delight.

Down by its rushing water they scrambled till they came to a sunny glade
where the little fretful torrent pitched itself headlong into a deep
shady pool, whence, as if rested in those quiet deeps, it issued at
first with gentle murmuring till, out of earshot of the pool, it broke
again into turbulent raging, brawling its way to the Big Horn below.

Mandy could hardly wait for the unloading and tethering of the ponies.

"Now," she cried, when all was ready, "for my very first fish. How shall
I fling this hook and where?"

"Try a cast yonder, just beside that overhanging willow. Don't splash!
Try again--drop it lightly. That's better. Don't tell me you've never
cast a fly before."

"Never in my life."

"Let it float down a bit. Now back. Hold it up and let it dance there.
I'll just have a pipe."

But next moment Cameron's pipe was forgotten. With a shout he sprang to
his wife's side.

"By Jove, you've got him!"

"No! No! Leave me alone! Just tell me what to do. Go away! Don't touch
me! Oh-h-h! He's gone!"

"Not a bit. Reel him up--reel him up a little."

"Oh, I can't reel the thing! Oh! Oh-h-h! Is he gone?"

"Hold up. Don't haul him to