a white man. I have brought him in. The sheriff is just
behind." He turned to the prisoner and signed. "Get down! Here is the
strong-house where you are to stay!"

Cut Finger clambered slowly down, his face rigid, his limbs tremulous
with emotion. To go to the dark room of the strong-house was the worst
fate that could overtake a free man of the hills, and his heart
fluttered like a scared bird.

"It would be a good plan to let his wife go in with him," suggested
Curtis. "It will save trouble."

The poor, whimpering girl-wife followed her culprit husband up the steps
and into the cold and gloomy hall to which they were admitted, her eyes
on the floor, her sleeping child held tightly in her arms. When the
gate shut behind him Curtis signed to the prisoner this advice:

"Now be good. Do not make any trouble. Do what these people tell you.
Eat your food. I will ask the sheriff to let your wife see you in the
morning, and then she will go home again. She can come once each month
to see you." He touched the wife on the arm, and when she comprehended
his gesture she uttered again that whimpering moan, and as she bent her
head in dumb agony above her babe, Curtis gently led her to the door,
leaving Cut Finger to the rigor of the white man's law.

XXXII

AN EVENTFUL NIGHT

At the railway station Curtis alighted. "Go to Paul Ladue's," he said to
Two Horns. "Put the horses in his corral and feed them well. Sit down
with Paul, and to-morrow morning at sunrise come for me at the big
hotel. Be careful. Don't go on the street to-night. The white men have
evil hearts."

"We know," said Crow, with a clip of his forefinger. "We will sleep like
the wolf, with one eye open."

As they drove away, Curtis hurried into the station, and calling for a
blank, dashed away at a brief telegram to the Commissioner. While
revising it he overheard the clerk say, in answer to a question over the
telephone: "No, Senator Brisbane did not get away on 'sixteen.' He is
still at the Sherman House."

Curtis straightened and his heart leaped. "Then I can see Elsie again!"
he thought. Hastily pencilling two or three shorter messages, he handed
them in and hurried up the street towards the hotel, eager to relieve
her anxiety.

By this time the violet dusk of a peaceful night covered the town. The
moon, low down in the west, was dim, but the stars were beginning to
loom large in the wonderful deep blue to the east. The air was
windless. No