es you might be able to swear in in a week couldn't
bring in Fire Bear if he gave the signal to the young fellows around
him. We're going alone, except for those two Indians out there, who will
just look after camp affairs for us."

"I dunno but you're right," observed Redmond after a pause, during which
he keenly scrutinized the young agent's face. "Anyway, I ain't going to
let it be said that you've got more nerve than I have. Let the lead hoss
go where he chooses--I'll follow the bell."

"Another thing," said Lowell. "You're on an Indian reservation. These
Indians have been looking to me for advice and other things in the last
four years. If it comes to a point where decisive action has to be
taken--"

"You're the one to take it," interrupted the sheriff. "From now on it's
your funeral. I don't care what methods you use, so long as I git Fire
Bear, and mebbe this half-breed, behind the bars for a hearing down at
White Lodge."

The men walked out of the office, and the sheriff was given his mount.
The Indians swung the pack-horses into line, and the men settled
themselves in their saddles as they began the long, plodding journey to
the blue hills in the heart of the reservation.

* * * * *

The lodges of Fire Bear and his followers were placed in a circle, in a
grove somber enough for Druidical sacrifice. White cliffs stretched high
above the camp, with pine-trees growing at all angles from the
interstices of rock. At the foot of the cliffs, and on the green slope
that stretched far below to the forest of lodgepole pines, stood many
conical, tent-like formations of rock. They were even whiter than the
canvas tepees which were grouped in front of them. At any time of the
day these formations were uncanny. In time of morning or evening shadow
the effect upon the imagination was intensified. The strange outcropping
was repeated nowhere else. It jutted forth, white and mysterious--a
monstrous tenting-ground left over from the Stone Age. As if to deepen
the effect of the weird stage setting, Nature contrived that all the
winds which blew here should blow mournfully. The lighter breezes
stirred vague whisperings in the pine-trees. The heavy winds wrought
weird noises which echoed from the cliffs.

Lowell had looked upon the Camp of the Stone Tepees once before. There
had been a chase for a cattle thief. It was thought he had hidden
somewhere in the vicinity of the white semicircle, but