e is dead."

"My father was an Englishman,--Philip Atherly!" said Peter, with an odd
nervousness creeping over him.

The interpreter repeated the words to Grey Eagle, who, after a guttural
"Ugh!" answered in his own tongue.

"He says," continued the interpreter with a slight shrug, yet relapsing
into his former impassiveness, "that your father was a great chief,
and your mother a pale face, or white woman. She was captured with an
Englishman, but she became the wife of the chief while in captivity. She
was only released before the birth of her children, but a year or two
afterwards she brought them as infants to see their father,--the Great
Chief,--and to get the mark of their tribe. He says you and your sister
are each marked on the left arm."

Then Gray Eagle opened his mouth and uttered his first English sentence.
"His father, big Injin, take common white squaw! Papoose no good,--too
much white squaw mother, not enough big Injin father! Look! He big man,
but no can bear pain! Ugh!"

The interpreter turned in time to catch Peter. He had fainted.

CHAPTER III

A hot afternoon on the plains. A dusty cavalcade of United States
cavalry and commissary wagons, which from a distance preserved a certain
military precision of movement, but on nearer view resolved itself into
straggling troopers in twos and fours interspersed between the wagons,
two noncommissioned officers and a guide riding ahead, who had already
fallen into the cavalry slouch, but off to the right, smartly erect and
cadet-like, the young lieutenant in command. A wide road that had the
appearance of being at once well traveled and yet deserted, and that,
although well defined under foot, still seemed to disappear and lose
itself a hundred feet ahead in the monotonous level. A horizon that
in that clear, dry, hazeless atmosphere never mocked you, yet never
changed, but kept its eternal rim of mountains at the same height and
distance from hour to hour and day to day. Dust--a parching alkaline
powder that cracked the skin--everywhere, clinging to the hubs and
spokes of the wheels, without being disturbed by movement, incrusting
the cavalryman from his high boots to the crossed sabres of his cap;
going off in small puffs like explosions under the plunging hoofs of the
horses, but too heavy to rise and follow them. A reeking smell of horse
sweat and boot leather that lingered in the road long after the train
had passed. An external silence broken only