er Harvey, have
killed the Spaniard. If there are any of his friends who want to take
it up let them come on"; and not a man in the fort dared to go. He had
been with Jim Bridger, when, on a wager, he went down Bear River in a
skin boat and came out on the waters of the Great Salt Lake.

Susan, who had stopped her talk with the voyageur to listen to this
minstrel of the plains, now said:

"Aren't you lonely in those quiet places where there's no one else?"

The old man nodded, a gravely assenting eye on hers:

"Powerful lonely, sometimes. There ain't a mountain man that ain't
felt it, some of 'em often, others of 'em once and so scairt that time
they won't take the risk again. It comes down suddint, like a
darkness--then everything round that was so good and fine, the sound of
the pines and the bubble of the spring and the wind blowing over the
grass, seems like they'd set you crazy. You'd give a year's peltries
for the sound of a man's voice. Just like when some one's dead that
you set a heap on and you feel you'd give most everything you got to
see 'em again for a minute. There ain't nothin' you wouldn't promise
if by doin' it you could hear a feller hail you--just one shout--as he
comes ridin' up the trail."

"That was how Jim Cockrell felt when he prayed for the dog," said the
tall man.

"Did he get the dog?"

He nodded.

"That's what he said anyway. He was took with just such a lonesome
spell once when he was trapping in the Mandans country. He was a pious
critter, great on prayer and communing with the Lord. And he
felt--I've heard him tell about it--just as if he'd go wild if he
didn't get something for company. What he wanted was a dog and you
might just as well want an angel out there with nothin' but the Indian
villages breakin' the dazzle of the snow and you as far away from them
as you could get. But that didn't stop Jim. He just got down and
prayed, and then he waited and prayed some more and 'ud look around for
the dog, as certain he'd come as that the sun 'ud set. Bimeby he fell
asleep and when he woke there was the dog, a little brown varmint,
curled up beside him on the blanket. Jim used to say an angel brought
it. I'm not contradictin', but----"

"Wal," said old Joe, "he most certainly come back into the fort with a
dog. I was there and seen him."

Leff snickered, even the doctor's voice showed the incredulous note
when he asked:

"Where could it have come from?"

The