of the prairie. Susan was
instantly interested and wanted to see it and David stood by, listening
in sulky silence while Leff pointed out the way. The sun was sinking
and they faced it, the young man's indicating finger moving back and
forth across the vagaries of the route. The prairie was cut by long
undulations, naked of verdure, save a spot in the foreground where,
beside a round greenish pool, a single tree lifted thinly clad boughs.
Something of bleakness had crept into the prospect, its gay greenness
was giving place to an austere pallor of tint, a dry economy of
vegetation. The summits of the swells were bare, the streams shrunk in
sandy channels. It was like a face from which youth is withdrawing.

The Indian encampment lay in a hollow, the small wattled huts gathered
on both sides of a runlet that oozed from the slope and slipped between
a line of stepping stones. The hollow was deep for the level country,
the grassed sides sweeping abruptly to the higher reaches above. They
walked through it, examining the neatly made huts and speculating on
the length of time the Indians had left. David remembered that the day
before, the trail had been crossed by the tracks of a village in
transit, long lines graven in the dust by the dragging poles of the
_travaux_. He felt uneasy. The Indians might not be far and they
themselves were at least a mile from the camp, and but one of them
armed. The others laughed and Susan brought the blood into his face by
asking him if he was afraid.

He turned from her, frankly angry and then stood rigid with fixed
glance. On the summit of the opposite slope, black against the yellow
west, were a group of mounted figures. They were massed together in a
solid darkness, but the outlines of the heads were clear, heads across
which bristled an upright crest of hair like the comb of a rooster.

For a long, silent moment the two parties remained immovable, eying
each other across the hollow. Then David edged closer to the girl. He
felt his heart thumping, but his first throttling grip of fear loosened
as his mind realized their helplessness. Leff was the only one with
arms. They must get in front of Susan and tell her to run and the camp
was a mile off! He felt for her hand and heard her whisper:

"Indians--there are six of them."

As she spoke the opposite group broke and figures detached themselves.
Three, hunched in shapeless sack-forms, were squaws. They made no
movem