he made a bed
of blankets on the floor and said: "I never turn anybody out. A white
man is just as good as an Indian as long as he behaves himself as well.
You can bunk here."

The Indians didn't understand his words fully, but they did understand
his gesture, and they smiled and accepted the courtesy, so like their
own rude hospitality. Then they all smoked a pipe of tobacco in silence,
and at last Wilson turned in and went serenely off to sleep, hearing the
mutter of the Indians lying before the fire.

In the morning he gave them as good a breakfast as he had--bacon and
potatoes, with coffee and crackers. Then he shook hands, saying: "Come
again. I ain't got anything against you. You've done y'r duty. Now go
back and tell your chief what I've said. I'm at home every day. Good
day."

The Indians smiled kindly, and drawing their blankets over their arms,
went away toward the east.

During April and May two or three reconnoitering parties of land-hunters
drifted over the hills and found him out. He was glad to see them, for,
to tell the truth, the solitude of his life was telling on him. The
winter had been severe, and he had hardly caught a glimpse of a white
face during the three midwinter months, and his provisions were scanty.

These parties brought great news. One of them was the advance surveying
party for a great Northern railroad, and they said a line of road was to
be surveyed during the summer if their report was favorable.

"Well, what d'ye think of it?" Wilson asked, with a smile.

"Think! It's immense!" said a small man in the party, whom the rest
called Judge Balser. "Why, they'll be a town of four thousand
inhabitants in this valley before snow flies. We'll send the surveyors
right over the divide next month."

They sent some papers to Wilson a few weeks later, which he devoured as
a hungry dog might devour a plate of bacon. The papers were full of the
wonderful resources of the Jim Valley. It spoke of the nutritious
grasses for stock. It spoke of the successful venture of the lonely
settler Wilson, how his stock fattened upon the winter grasses without
shelter, etc., what vegetables he grew, etc., etc.

Wilson was reading this paper for the sixth time one evening in May. He
had laid off his boots, his pipe was freshly filled, and he sat in the
doorway in vast content, unmindful of the glory of color that filled the
western sky, and the superb evening chorus of the prairie-chickens,
holding con