and actions, and even the most rebellious that night
knew he was least afraid of any man among us.

At midnight he wakened me. "I want you to help me, Gail," he said. "The
Kiowas will gather for us at Pawnee Rock. They missed us there once
because they were looking for a big train, and it was there we took
their captive girl. The boys are ready to mutiny to-night. I count on
you to stand by me."

Stand by Jondo! In my helpless babyhood, my orphaned childhood, my
sturdy growing years toward young manhood, Jondo had been father,
mother, brother, playmate, guardian angel. I would have walked on
red-hot coals for his sake.

"I want you to slip away to-night, when Rex and Bev are on guard, and
find out what's over that ridge to the north. Don't come back till you
do find out. We'll get to Pawnee Rock to-morrow. I must know to-night.
Can you do it? If you aren't back by sunrise, I'll follow your trail
double quick."

"I'll go," I replied, proud to show both my courage and my loyalty to my
captain.

The night was gray, with a dying moon in the west, and the north ridge
loomed like a low black shadow against the sky. There was a weird
chanting voice in the night wind, pouring endlessly across the open
plains. And everywhere an eyeless, voiceless, motionless land, whereon
my pony's hoof-beats were big and booming. Nature made my eyes and ears
for the trail life, and matched my soul to its level spaces. To-night I
was alert with that love of mastery that made me eager for this task. So
I rode forward until our great camp was only a dull blot on the
horizon-line, melting into mere nothingness as it grew farther away. And
I was alone on the earth. God had taken out every other thing in it,
save the sky over my head and the uneven short-grass sod under my feet.

On I went, veering to the northwest from instinct that I should find my
journey's end soonest that way. Over the divide which hid the wide
valley of the Arkansas, and into the deep draws and low bluffs of a
creek with billowy hills beyond, I found myself still instinctively
_smelling_ my way. I grew more cautious with each step now, knowing that
the chance for me to slip along unseen gave also the chance for an enemy
to trail me unseen.

At last I caught that low breathing sound that goes with the sense of
nearness to life. Leaving my pony by the stream, I climbed to the top of
a little swell, and softly as a cat walks on a carpet, I walked straight
into an Indian