and thought Mr. Long produced a flat bottle,
warm from proximity to his flesh. Jones swallowed some drink, and looked
at the little tree. "Snakes! but it feels good," said he, "to get
something inside y'u and be inside yerself. What's the tax at Mike's
dance-house now?"

"Dance 'n' drinks fer two fer one dollar," responded Mr. Long,
accurately. He was sixty, but that made no difference.

"You and me'll take that in, Jock," said Jones to his friend, the
black-haired boy. "'Sigh no more, ladies,'" he continued, singing. "The
blamed banjo won't accompany that," he remarked, and looked out again at
the tree. "There's a chap riding into the post now. Shabby-lookin'.
Mebbe he's got stuff to sell."

Jack Long looked up on the bench at a rusty figure moving slowly through
the storm. "Th' ole man!" he said.

"He ain't specially old," Jones answered. "They're apt to be older, them
peddlers."

"Peddlers! Oh, ye-es." A seizure of very remarkable coughing took Jack
Long by the throat; but he really had a cough, and, on the fit's leaving
him, swallowed a drink, and offered his bottle in a manner so cold and
usual that Jones forgot to note anything but the excellence of the
whiskey. Mr. Long winked at Sergeant Keyser; he thought it a good plan
not to inform his young friends, not just yet at any rate, that their
peddler was General Crook. It would be pleasant to hear what else they
might have to say.

The General had reached Boise City that morning by the stage, quietly
and unknown, as was his way. He had come to hunt Indians in the district
of the Owyhee. Jack Long had discovered this, but only a few had been
told the news, for the General wished to ask questions and receive
answers, and to find out about all things; and he had noticed that this
is not easy when too many people know who you are. He had called upon a
friend or two in Boise, walked about unnoticed, learned a number of
facts, and now, true to his habit, entered the post wearing no uniform,
none being necessary under the circumstances, and unattended by a single
orderly. Jones and the black-haired Cumnor hoped he was a peddler, and
innocently sat looking out of the window at him riding along the bench
in front of the quarters, and occasionally slouching his wide, dark
hat-brim against the stinging of the hard flakes. Jack Long, old and
much experienced with the army, had scouted with Crook before, and knew
him and his ways well. He also looked out of the window,