nspiring, but impressions crowded so fast one
upon another that the boy from the Alleghanies could realize only that
he was filled with sensations of delight as his wiry buckskin
clattered furiously along the faint trail that carried him and his
guide to the north and west. The sun was high when Scott reined up
and, dismounting, tethered his horse in a glade hidden by a grove of
aspens and bade Bucks do the same.

"Getting hungry?" asked Scott, smiling at his companion. An answer
was written pretty plainly on Bucks's face.

"Didn't bring anything to eat, did you?" suggested Scott.

Bucks looked blank. "I never thought of it," he exclaimed. "Did you
bring anything?"

"Nothing but this," answered Scott, holding up a small buckskin sack
fitted with drawing strings.

"What is that, Bob?"

"It is what I carry wherever I ride. I carry nothing else. And it is
only a little bag of salt."

"A bag of salt!" cried Bucks. "Do you eat salt?"

"Wait and see," answered the scout. "Pull your belt up a notch. We've
got a little walking to do."

Scott, though of Chippewa blood, had been captured when a boy by the
Sioux and, adopted into the tribe, had lived with them for years. He
knew the mountains better than any man that served Stanley, and the
latter trusted him implicitly--nor was the confidence ever betrayed.

Walking rapidly over a low-lying divide beyond which lay a broad
valley marking the course of a shallow creek, Scott paused behind a
clump of cedars to scan the country. He expected to find antelope
along the creek, but could see none in any direction. Half a mile more
of scouting explained the absence of game, and Scott pointed out to
Bucks the trail of an Indian hunting party that had passed up the
valley in the morning. They were Cheyennes, Scott told his companion,
three warriors and two squaws--reading the information from signs that
were as plain to him as print--though Bucks understood nothing of it.
In the circumstances there was nothing for it but a fresh venture,
and, remounting, the Indian led the boy ten miles farther north to
where the plains stretched in a succession of magnificent plateaus,
toward the Sleepy Cat Mountains.

"We are in real Sioux country now," observed Scott, as he again
dismounted. "And we are as likely now to uncover a war party as a herd
of antelope."

"What should you do, Bob, if we met Sioux?"

"Run," smiled Bob, with Indian terseness. Yet somehow the boy felt
that Bob, in