lf "sleeps" to what he wanted to show them,--a prospect,
a gold mine maybe,--and so Cromwell and the English-American detached
themselves and set out at the heels of the mute Cree in search of
something.

On the morning of the third day the old Indian could scarcely control
himself, so eager was he to be off.

All through the morning the white men followed him in silence. Noon
came, and still the Indian pushed on.

At two in the afternoon, rounding the shoulder of a bit of highland
overlooking a beautiful valley, they came suddenly upon a half-breed boy
playing with a wild goose that had been tamed.

Down in the valley a cabin stood, and over the valley a small drove of
cattle were grazing.

Suddenly from behind the hogan came the weird wail of a Colorado canary,
who would have been an ass in Absalom's time.

They asked the half-breed boy his name, and he shook his head. They
asked for his father, and he frowned.

The mute old Indian took up a pick, and they followed him up the slope.
Presently he stopped at a stake upon which they could still read the
faint pencil-marks:--

C.M.
M. Co.
L'T'D

The old Indian pointed to the ground with an expression which looked to
the white men like an interrogation. Cromwell nodded, and the Indian
began to dig. Cromwell brought a shovel, and they began sinking a shaft.

The English-American, with a sickening, sinking sensation, turned toward
the cabin. The boy preceded him and stood in the door. The man put his
hand on the boy's head and was about to enter when he caught sight of a
nugget at the boy's neck. He stooped and lifted it. The boy shrank back,
but the man, going deadly pale, clutched the child, dragging the nugget
from his neck.

Now all the Indian in the boy's savage soul asserted itself, and he
fought like a little demon. Pitying the child in its impotent rage, the
man gave him the nugget and turned away.

Across the valley an Indian woman came walking rapidly, her arms full of
turnips and onions and other garden-truck. The white man looked and
loathed her; for he felt confident that Ramsey had been murdered, his
trinkets distributed, and his carcass cast to the wolves.

When the boy ran to meet the woman, the white man knew by his behavior
that he was her child. When the boy had told his mother how the white
man had behaved, she flew into a rage, dropped her vegetables, dived
into the cabin, and came out with a rifle in her hands.