I had nothing
to do with the job put up on him to-night. I scorn to use such means in
a battle. Colonel, you may be as bald as an apple, or an egg, yes, or a
_plate_, but you can play more checkers than any man I ever met; more
checkers than any other man on God's green footstool. With one single,
lone exception--myself."

At this moment, somebody hit the Squire from Cerro Gordo with a decayed
apple, and as the crowd shouted and groaned Robie turned down the lights
on the tumult. The old Colonel seized the opportunity for putting a
handful of salt down Walters' neck, and slipped out of the door like a
ghost. As the crowd swarmed out on the icy walk, Editor Foster yelled:

"Gents! let me give you a pointer. Keep your eye peeled for the next
edition of the Rock River _Morning Call_."

And the bitter wind swept away the answering shouts of the pitiless
gang.

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PART VII.

DRIFTING CRANE: THE INDIAN AND THE PIONEER

Before them, surely, sullenly and slow,
The desperate and cheated Indians go.

DRIFTING CRANE.

The people of Boomtown invariably spoke of Henry Wilson as the oldest
settler in the Jim Valley, as he was of Buster County; but the Eastern
man, with his ideas of an "old settler," was surprised as he met the
short, silent, middle-aged man, who was very loath to tell anything
about himself, and about whom many strange and thrilling stories were
told by good story-tellers. In 1879 he was the only settler in the upper
part of the valley, living alone on the banks of the Elm, a slow,
tortuous stream pulsing lazily down the valley, too small to be called a
river and too long to be called a creek. For two years, it is said,
Wilson had only the company of his cattle, especially during the
winter-time, and now and then a visit from an Indian, or a trapper after
mink and musk-rats.

Between his ranch and the settlements in Eastern Dakota there was the
wedge-shaped reservation known as the Sisseton Indian Reserve, on which
were stationed the customary agency and company of soldiers. But, of
course, at that time the Indians were not restricted closely to the
bounds of the reserve, but ranged freely over the vast and beautiful
prairie lying between the coteaux or ranges of low hills which mark out
"the Jim Valley." The valley was unsurveyed for the most part, and the
Indians naturally felt a sort of proprietorship in it, and when