. go straight . . . look out for your wildness and temper . . . That’s all. Good night.”

Then he went out, leaving Neale speechless.

* * * * *

Neale had many callers that night and the last was Larry Red King. The cowboy stooped to enter the tent.

“Wal, how aboot you-all?” he drawled.

“Not so good, Red,” replied Neale. “My head’s hot and I’ve got a lot of pain. I think I’m going to be a little flighty. Would you mind getting your blankets and staying with me tonight?”

“I reckon I’d be glad,” answered King. He put a hand on Neale’s face. “You shore have fever.” He left the tent, to return presently with a roll of blankets and a canteen, which he carried awkwardly. Then he began to bathe Neale’s face with cold water. There was a flickering campfire outside that threw shadows on the wall of the tent. By its light Neale saw that King’s left hand was bandaged and that he used it clumsily.

“What’s wrong with your hand?” he queried.

“I reckon nawthin’.”

“Why is it bound up, then?”

“Wal, someone sent thet fool Army doctor to me an’ he said I had two busted bones in it.”

“He did? I had no idea you were hurt. You never said a word. And you carried me and my instrument all day . . . with a broken hand!”

“Wal, I ain’t so shore it’s broke.”

Neale swore at his friend, and then he fell asleep. King watched beside him, ever and anon re-wetting the hot brow.

The campfire died out and at length the quietness of late night set in. The wind mourned and lulled by intervals; a horse thudded his hoofs now and then; there were soft steady footsteps of the sentry on guard, and the wild cry of a night bird.

Chapter Three

Across the Black Hills some miles from the camp of the engineers lay a valley watered by a stream that ran down from Cheyenne Pass.

A band of Sioux Indians had an encampment there. Viewed from the summit of a grassy ridge the scene was colorful and idle and quiet, in keeping with the lonely beautiful valley. Cottonwoods and willows showed a bright green; the course of the stream was marked in dark where the water ran, and light where the sand had bleached; brown and black dots scattered over the valley were grazing horses; lodge-pole tents gleamed white in the sun, and tiny bits of red stood out against the white as lazy wreaths of blue smoke rose upward.

The Black Hills were split by many such valleys and many bare grassy ridges sloped up toward the mountains. Upon the side of one ridge, the highest that rose boldly between the camp of the white men and that of the red men, there stood a solitary mustang, haltered with a lasso. He was a ragged, shaggy wild beast, and there was no saddle or bridle on him, nothing but the halter. He was not grazing, although the grass bleached white grew long and thick under his hoofs.