any one else to suffer.' Then you proclaimed yourself. You
said: 'I alone did this thing.' Then you went on the hill to fight--I
cannot allow that. No more blood will be shed. I will not lie; I have
come to take you. You will be punished; you must go with me to the white
man's strong-house."

A whimpering cry arose, a cry which ended in a sighing moan of
heart-piercing, uncontrollable agony, and Curtis, turning his face, saw
the wife of Cut Finger looking at him from her blanket on the opposite
side of the tepee. A shout of warning from Crow made him leap to his
feet and turn.

Cut Finger confronted him, his eyes glowing with desperate resolution.

"_Sit down!_" commanded the Captain, using his fist in the sign, with a
powerful gesture. The fugitive could not endure his chief's eyes; he
sank back on his couch and sat trembling.

"If you touch the Little Father I will kill you," said Crow, gruffly, as
he stood with drawn revolver in his hand. "I, Crow, have said it!"

Black Wolf was looking on with lowering brow. "He says the white man was
driving his sheep on our land."

"So he was," replied Curtis, "but it is bad for the Tetongs when a white
man is killed. It is better to come and tell me. When a redman kills a
white man the white men say: 'Let us kill _all_ the Tetongs--spare no
one.' Cut Finger said he was ready to die. Well, then, let him go with
me, and I will make his punishment as light as I can. I am his
friend--a friend to every Tetong. I will tell the war chief at Pinon
City how it was, and he will say Cut Finger was not alone to blame--the
white man was also to blame. Thus the punishment will not be so heavy.
Cut Finger is a young man; he has many years to live if he will do as I
tell him. He will come back to his tribe by-and-by and be a good man."

So, by putting forth all his skill in gesture he conveyed to Cut
Finger's mind a new idea--the idea of sacrificing himself for the good
of the tribe. He also convinced the members of Black Wolf's band that
their peace and safety lay in giving him up to their agent, and so at
last the young desperado rose and followed his chief to the wagon
wherein Two Horns still sat, impassive and unafraid.

As he put his hand on the carriage-seat a convulsive shudder swept over
Cut Finger. He folded his arms and, lifting his eyes to the hills, burst
forth in a death-song, a chant so sad, so passionate, and so searching,
that the agent's heart was wrenched. Answering so