side? It's what I say, and it's what
Bright Sun thinks."

The man's manner was gross and materialistic, so repellent that
Dick would have turned away, but at that moment Bright Sun
himself approached. Dick regarded him, as always, with the
keenest interest and curiosity mixed with some suspicion. Yet
almost anyone would have been reassured by the appearance of
Bright Sun. He was a splendid specimen of the Indian, although
in white garb, even to the soft felt hat shading his face. But
he could never have been taken for a white man. His hair was
thick, black, and coarse, his skin of the red man's typical
coppery tint, and his cheek bones high and sharp. His lean but
sinewy and powerful figure rose two inches above six feet. There
was an air about him, too, that told of strength other than that
of the body. Guide he was, but leader he looked.

"Say, Bright Sun," exclaimed Conway coarsely, "Dick Howard here
thinks you're too friendly with the whites. It don't seem
natural to him that one of your color should consort so freely
with us."

Dick's face flushed through the brown, and he shot an angry
glance at Conway, but Bright Sun did not seem to be offended.

"Why not?" he asked in perfect English. "I was educated in a
mission school. I have been with white people most of my life, I
have read your books, I know your civilization, and I like it."

"There now!" exclaimed Conway triumphantly. "Ain't that an
answer for you? I tell you what, Bright Sun, I'm for you, I
believe in you, and if anybody can take us through all right to
California, you're the man."

"It is my task and I will accomplish it," said Bright Sun in the
precise English he had learned at the mission school.

His eyes met Dick's for a moment, and the boy saw there a flash
that might mean many things--defiance, primeval force, and the
quality that plans and does. But the flash was gone in an
instant, like a dying spark, and Bright Sun turned away. Conway
also left, but Dick's gaze followed the Indian.

He did not know Bright Sun's tribe. He had heard that he was a
Sioux, also that he was a Crow, and a third report credited him
with being a Cheyenne. As he never painted his face, dressed
like a white man, and did not talk of himself and his people, the
curious were free to surmise as they chose. But Dick was sure of
one thing: Bright Sun was a man of power. It was not a matter of
surmise, he felt it instinctively.

The tall figur