l days and nights, should it become
necessary.

Following the usual custom of sentinels, he shouldered his gun and
paced back and forth before the smoldering camp-fire, glancing in
every direction, so as to make sure that no enemy stole upon him
unawares.

It formed a curious picture, the small fire burning in the
valley, motionless forms stretched out before it, the huge steam man
silent and grim standing near, the dwarfed boy, pacing slowly back and
forth, and, above all, the moon shining down upon the silent prairie.
The moon was quite faint, so that only an indistinct view of objects
could be seen. Occasionally Johnny clambered up the bank and took a
survey of the surrounding plains; bat seeing nothing at all
suspicious, he soon grew weary of this, and confined his walks to the
immediate vicinity of the camp-fire, passing back and forth between
the narrow breadth of the valley.

As the hours dragged slowly by, the boy gradually fell into a reverie,
which made him almost unconscious of external things. And it was while
walking thus that he did not observe a large wolf advance to the edge
of the gully, look down, and then whisk back out of sight before the
sentinel wheeled in his walk and faced him.

Three separate times was this repeated, the wolf looking down in such
an earnest, searching way that it certainly would have excited the
remark and curiosity of any one observing it. The third glance
apparently satisfied the wolf; for it lasted for a few seconds, when
he withdrew, and lumbered away at an awkward rate, until a rod or two
had been passed, when the supposed wolf suddenly rose on its hind
legs, the skin and head were shifted to the arms of the Indian, and he
continued on at a leisurely gait until he joined fully fifty comrades,
who were huddled together in a grove, several hundred yards away.

In the meantime young Brainerd, with his rifle slung over his
shoulder, was pacing back and forth in the same deliberate manner, his
mind busily engaged on an 'improvement' upon the steam man, by which
he was to walk backward as well as forward, although he couldn't
satisfactorily determine how he was to go up and down hill with
safety.

Still occupied in the study of the subject, he took a seat by the
half-extinguished camp-fire and gazed dreamily into the embers. It had
been a habit with him, when at home, to sit thus for hours, on the
long winter evenings, while his mind was so busily at work that he was
tot