ing his onced-a-year coat," Kelley pursued. "That ain't for our
benefit, Joole."

"No, we're not that high in society." Both these cheerful waifs had
drifted from the Atlantic coast westward.

Cutler looked from them to his costume, and then amiably surveyed the
half-breed.

"Well, boys, I'm in big luck, I am. How's yourn nowadays, Toussaint?"

"Pretty good sometime. Sometime heap hell." The voice of the half-breed
came as near heartiness as its singularly false quality would allow, and
as he smiled he watched Cutler with the inside of his eyes.

The scout watched nobody and nothing with great care, looked about him
pleasantly, inquired for the whiskey, threw aside hat and gloves, sat
down, leaning the chair back against the wall, and talked with artful
candor. "Them sprigs of lieutenants down there," said he, "they're a
surprising lot for learning virtue to a man. You take Balwin. Why, he
ain't been out of the Academy only two years, and he's been telling me
how card-playing ain't good for you. And what do you suppose he's been
and offered Jarvis Cutler for a job? I'm to be wagon-master." He
paused, and the half-breed's attention to his next words increased.
"Wagon-master, and good pay, too. Clean up to the Black Hills; and the
troops'll move soon as ever them reinforcements come. Drinks on it,
boys! Set 'em up, Joole Loomis. My contract's sealed with some of Uncle
Sam's cash, and I'm going to play it right here. Hello! Somebody coming
to join us? He's in a hurry."

There was a sound of lashing straps and hoofs beating the ground, and
Cutler looked out of the door. As he had calculated, the saddle had
gradually turned with Duster's movements and set the pony bucking.

"Stampeded!" said the scout, and swore the proper amount called for by
such circumstances. "Some o' you boys help me stop the durned fool."

Loomis and Kelley ran. Duster had jerked the prepared reins from the
cottonwood, and was lurching down a small dry gulch, with the saddle
bouncing between his belly and the stones.

Cutler cast a backward eye at the cabin where Toussaint had stayed
behind alone. "Head him off below, boys, and I'll head him off above,"
the scout sang out. He left his companions, and quickly circled round
behind the cabin, stumbling once heavily, and hurrying on, anxious lest
the noise had reached the lurking half-breed. But the ivory-handled
pistol, jostled from its holster, lay unheeded among the stones where he
had stumble