the slate-black clouds.

He made camp just out of sight around a point of rocks from the smoke,
stretching the canvas tarp which had floored the tent to make shelter
between boulders. He changed his clothes, dressing himself carefully in
the white flannel trousers, blue-and-green striped silk shirt, tan belt,
white shoes and his old Stetson tilted over his right eye at the
characteristic Casey angle. He was taking it for granted that an Indian
camp lay under that smoke, and he knew Indians. Inquisitiveness would shut
them up as effectively as poking a stick at a clam; but there were ways of
coaxing their interest, nevertheless, and when an Indian is curious you
have the trumps in your own hand and it will be your own fault if you
lose.

Casey's manner therefore was extremely preoccupied when he led a suddenly
limping William up the gulch and past a stone hut with a patched tepee
alongside it. A lean squaw stood erect before the tepee and regarded him
fixedly from under the shade of a mahogany-colored hand, and when Casey
came closer she stooped and ducked out of sight like a prairie dog diving
into its burrow. Casey paid no attention to that. He knew without being
told that he was under close scrutiny from eyes unseen; which was what he
desired and had prepared for.

The spring, as he had guessed, was above the camp. He threw a rock at two
yammering curs that rushed out at him, and drove them back with Caseyish
curses. Then he watered William at the trampled spring, made himself a
smoke, and went back down the gulch. Opposite the tepee the squaw stood
beside the trial. Casey grinned amiably and said hello.

"Yo' ketchum 'bacco? My man, him heap sick. Mebby die. Likeum 'bacco,
him." The squaw muttered it as if she would rather not speak, but had been
commanded to beg tobacco from the stranger.

"Sure, I got tobacco!" Casey's tone was a bit more friendly than before.
He pulled a small red can from his shirt pocket, hesitated and then tied
William to a bush. "Too bad your man sick. Mebby I can help him. He in
here?"

The squaw gestured dumbly, and Casey stooped and went into the tepee.

Inside it was so dark that he stood still just within the opening to get
his bearings. This happened to be very good form in Indian society, and we
will assume that Casey lost nothing by the pause. He dimly saw that a few
blankets lay untidily against the tepee wall and that an old Indian was
stretched upon them, watching Casey with