and, and
finished up with the word "Tepee."

"I must get back the day after to-morrow," Seth said. "Guess I'll hit back
through the Reservations. I want to see Parker."

"Good," said the Indian, and relapsed into that companionable silence
which all prairie men, whether Indian or white, so well understand.

That night the two men sheltered in the tepee belonging to Jim Crow. It
was well off the Reservation, and was never pitched in the same place two
nights running. Jim Crow's squaw looked after that. She moved about,
acting under her man's orders, while the scout went about his business.

After supper a long talk proceeded. Seth became expansive, but it was the
Indian who gave information.

"Yes," he said, in answer to a question the white man had put. "I find it
after much time. Sa-sa-mai, my squaw. She find it from old brave. See you.
Big Wolf and all the braves who come out this way, you make much shoot.
So. They all kill. 'Cep' this one ol' brave. He live quiet an' say
nothing. Why? I not say. Some one tell him say nothing. See? This Big
Wolf. Before you kill him maybe. So he not say. Bimeby Sa-sa-mai, she much
'cute. She talk ol' brave. Him very ol'. So she learn, an' I go. I show
you. You give me fi' dollar, then I, too, say nothing."

"Ah." Seth pulled out a five-dollar bill and handed it to the scout, and
went on smoking. Presently he asked, "Have you been there?"

"No." Jim Crow smiled blandly. He had the truly Indian ambiguity of
expression.

"Then you don't know if there's any traces, I guess."

"See. I go dis place. Little Black Fox hear. He hear all. So. There are
devils on the Reservation. Jim Crow much watched. So. They know. These red
devils."

Seth noted the man's air of pride. He was keenly alive to his own
importance and exaggerated it, which is the way of his class. Jim Crow was
a treacherous rascal, but it paid him to work for the white folk. He would
work for the other side just as readily if it paid him better.

"That's so," observed Seth, seriously; but it was his pipe that absorbed
his attention. "Wal, to-morrow, I guess," he added after a while. And,
knocking his pipe out, he rolled over on his blanket and slept.

On the morrow the journey was continued, and at sundown they neared the
great valley of the Missouri. Their route lay over a trail which headed
southeast, in the direction of Sioux City. The sun had just dropped below
the horizon when Jim Crow suddenly drew rein. Whateve