tart of them. Do you know
what became of those two men who were here? Well, the Cheyennes have got
them."

"The Cheyennes!" exclaimed Tom.

Elam looked at him and nodded, and got off his horse with difficulty.
Tom looked at the long ragged streak in his neck, and did not wonder
that he was glad to be rid of his rider.

CHAPTER XIII.

ELAM INTERVIEWS THE MAJOR.

When Elam mounted his horse and set out for the fort that morning, it
was with the secret determination to confront Aleck and his companion,
or, failing in that, he would push on ahead, and by seeing the colonel
or the sutler he would render their attempts at disposing of the furs of
no account. He had already borne enough from one of these men to put him
pretty well out of patience. Although Elam said nothing about it, Aleck
had been at the bottom of three desperate attempts upon his life, as
well as of four efforts that had been made to rob him, and Elam thought
he couldn't stand it any longer. He rode along just outside of the
willows that skirted the foot-hills, so that he could not be picked off
by a stray rifle shot, and keeping a close watch of the prairie on all
sides of him, and when night came he hadn't seen anything of the
robbers. When darkness fell, he allowed his horse to browse around him
while he ate some of the lunch that was wrapped up in his blanket, and
then put out again. He was satisfied that by this time he had got beyond
the men, and now he wanted to get to the fort and put the people there
on their guard. Was Elam flustered while he was doing all this? Not a
bit of it. He went about his work as he would have tried to compass the
death of some wild animal that had escaped him. When the first gray
streaks of dawn were seen in the east, he camped in a sheep-herder's
dugout, but it was empty. Beyond a doubt the men had gone into the
mountains to escape the blizzards. There was a small stack of hay behind
the cabin, and to this Elam staked out his horse, and went in and
tumbled into an empty bunk. He was within twenty miles of the fort.

Elam slept the sleep of the weary, and when he was aroused to
consciousness, it was by a note of warning from his horse. Elam was wide
awake in an instant. He caught up his rifle and hurried to the door of
the cabin, and the summit of the hills over which he had come the night
before was crowded with horsemen. They were so far off that he could not
distinguish anything, but he knew by certain si