"Starcus."

"Git out!"

"I'm not mistaken," insisted young Starr, compressing his lips and
shaking his head. "He's painted and dressed like his people, but his
short hair made me suspicious, and when he turned to jump down from the
bowlder, he made a movement that fixed his identity beyond all doubt."

"Wal, ye're so sartin about it that I can't help belaving ye; but if it
was Starcus, why did he act that way? Why didn't he spake, and why
didn't he coom forward and shake hands wid us?"

"That's what troubles me; it wasn't like him. It makes me believe he has
joined the hostiles."

"But if that is the case why did he interfere whin the grizzly was about
to chaw me up?"

"His whole action was strange, but I explain it this way: He was
prowling through this place, probably to help the bucks that are now on
the warpath, when he heard our guns, made his way forward, and seeing
the bear about to pounce upon you, he fired with the wish to save you.
Your danger caused him to feel friendly toward us; for otherwise,
instead of killing the bear he would have shot you and me."

"Maybe he fired at me instead of the bear," suggested Tim, "and it was a
chance shot that saved meself."

"That cannot be, for he is too good a marksman to make such a miss. I
have fired at a target with him and never saw a better shot than he.
Then, too, when he found he missed, he could have turned his Winchester
on us in turn and brought us both down."

"And ye think after his doing us that kindness, he became an inimy
agin?"

"He has caught the craze that is setting his people wild, and though you
didn't recognize him yesterday among that party of bucks near the house,
I believe he was either there or was one of the horsemen that stampeded
the cattle. He is with them body and soul. His last shot was given
through impulse. Of course he knew us both, and acted from a generous
motive. He may have stood there debating with himself whether to
continue that friendship, when your advance scattered all his good
resolutions to the winds. He has gone off to join the others, and when
we meet again he will be our bitter foe, eager to serve us both as he
served the grizzly. Let us not deceive ourselves about that."

"There's one thing that looks well," remarked Tim a moment later; "if
Starcus is wid the ither spalpeens, they haven't found your fayther and
mither, for they're not in this part of the counthry."

"That gives me relief," said Warren, with