ickly now. Santan, Beverly's "Satan," whom our
captain had defended, flashed to my mind, but I knew by Jondo's face
that he did not believe the old trapper's story.

"Them Kioways is still layin' fur you ever' year, I tell you, an'
they're bound to git you sooner or later. I'm tellin' ye in kindness."

The old man's voice weakened a little.

"And I'm taking you in kindness," Jondo said. "You may be doing me a
great service."

"I shore am. Take my word an' keep awake. Keep awake!"

In spite of his drink-bleared eyes and weakened frame, there was a hint
of the commander in him, a mere shadow of the energy that had gone years
ago into the wild, solitary life of the trapper who foreran the trail
days here.

"One more trip to the ha'nts of the fur-bearin' and it's good-by to the
mountain trails and the river courses fur me," he said, as he rose and
stalked unsteadily away, and--I never saw him again.

At daybreak the next morning we were off for Santa Fe. Our wagons,
loaded with their precious burdens, moved forward six abreast along the
old sun-flower bordered trail. Morning, noon, and evening, pitching camp
and breaking camp, yoking oxen and harnessing mules, keeping night vigil
by shifts, hunting buffalo, killing rattlesnakes, watching for signs of
hostile Indians, meeting incoming trains, or solitary trappers, at long
intervals, breathing the sweet air of the prairies, and gathering rugged
strength from sleep on the wholesome earth--these things, with the
jolliest of fellowship and perfect discipline of our captain, Jondo,
made this hard, free life of the plains a fascinating one. We were
unshaven and brown as Indians. We lost every ounce of fat, but we were
steel-sinewed, and fear, that wearing element that disintegrates the
soul, dropped away from us early on the trail.

But when the full moon came sweeping up the sky, and all the prairie
shadows lay flat to earth under its surge of clear light, in the
stillness of the great lonely land, then the battle with home-sickness
was not the least of the plains' perils.

One midnight watch of such a night, Jondo sat out my vigil with me. Our
eighty or more wagons were drawn up in a rude ellipse with the stock
corraled inside, for we were nearing the danger zone. And yet to-night
danger seemed impossible in such a peaceful land under such clear
moonlight.

"Gail, you were always a far-seeing youngster, even in your cub days,"
Jondo said, after we had sat silent for