ew drawn from my cave. I dragged behind me
the great grizzled hide of the dead bear, clutched in one hairy hand.
And somber and sullen as any savage, brutal and silent in resentment at
being disturbed, I stared at them.

"Who are you?" demanded the tall man of me sternly; but still I did not
answer. The girl's hands tugged at his shoulders. "It is my friend," she
said. "He saved me. It is Mr. John Cowles, father, of the Virginia
Cowles family. He has come to see you--" But he did not hear her, or
show that he heard. His arm about her, supporting her as she limped, he
turned back down the valley, and we others followed slowly.

Presently he came to the rude shelter which had been our home. Without
speaking he walked about the camp, pushed open the door of the little
ragged tepee and looked within. The floor was very narrow. There was one
meager bed of hides. There was one fire.

"Come with me," he said at length to me. And so I followed him apart,
where a little thicket gave us more privacy.

His was a strong face, keen under heavy gray brows, with hair that rose
stiff and gray over a high forehead, so that he seemed like some Osage
chief, taller by a third than most men, and naturally a commander among
others.

"You are John Cowles, sir, then?" he said to me at length, quietly.
"Lieutenant Belknap told me something of this when he came in with his
men from the East." I nodded and waited.

"Are you aware, sir, of the seriousness of what you have done?" he broke
out. "Why did you not come on to the settlements? What reason was there
for you not coming back at once to the valley of the Platte--here you
are, a hundred miles out of your way, where a man of any intelligence,
it seems to me, would naturally have turned back to the great trail.
Hundreds of wagons pass there every day. There is a stage line with
daily coaches, stations, houses. A telegraph line runs from one end of
the valley to the other. You could not have missed all this had you
struck south. A fool would have known that. But you took my girl--" he
choked up, and pointed to me, ragged and uncouth.

"Good God! Colonel Meriwether," I cried out at length, "you are not
regretting that I brought her through?"

"Almost, sir," he said, setting his lips together. "Almost!"

"Do you regret then that she brought me through--that I owe my life to
her?"

"Almost, sir," he repeated. "I almost regret it."

"Then go back--leave us--report us dead!" I broke out,