fy."

"Eh?" cried the medicine man who had addressed him in the Sioux, "you
c'n speak English yourself, can you, young 'un?"

Rube looked across at him in astonishment. Surely he was not an
Indian, speaking like this! He was an old, old man with a wrinkled
face, white hair, and a matted white beard and dim blue eyes. In dress
and manner, however, he was very little different from his companions.

"It's the only language that I c'n speak," said Rube.

"Barrin' your own," winked the medicine man. "But you're not the only
one of your tribe that can speak English. Broken Feather himself's a
dab hand at it, so I hear. A clever scoundrel is Broken Feather.
Togged you out like a Paleface and sent you into this reservation to
spy around and find out how many braves and warriors we've got, how
many war-horses we possess, and how far it's safe for him to come out
on the war-trail against us. Well, young 'un, you're caught at it, and
you've got to take the consequences, which is as much as to say that
you're going to be tortured to death. You asked for plain English, and
now you've got it. Quit!"

"But you haven't let me explain," Rube objected hotly.

The old man closed his dim blue eyes and drew his red blanket closer
about his shoulders.

"No explanations needed," he grunted.

At a sign from the chief, the scouts dragged Rube forcibly away, and
again tied his hands.

They took him into an empty teepee and there bound his legs together
and mounted a guard outside so that he could not possibly escape.

No food and no drink were given to him during the rest of the long,
weary, monotonous day. He watched a shaft of sunlight moving slowly
across the earthen floor of the wigwam until it became a thin streak
and then faded.

At dusk a new guard entered--two powerful young Indians with
grotesquely painted faces. They loosened the bonds about his legs, but
did so only that he might walk as they led him out into a lane broken
through a dense crowd of excited braves and squaws and curious
children, waiting to witness his torture.

He saw Falling Water with his medicine men and principal warriors in
their full war-paint seated in a group in the midst of an open circle
of the expectant people. Drums were being beaten, weird Indian songs
were being chanted, braves wearing hideous masks were dancing round a
blazing fire.

In the middle of the wide ring was the charred stump of a tree, and to
this Rube was led. Wh