dly seeking their company.
Indians regard the insane as specially guarded by the Great Spirit and
look upon them with superstitious fear, but McGrath little dreamed how
narrow would become the border between the real and the feigned. Fleeing
in dismay from the sight of his slaughtered comrades, he had followed
the ravine to the timbered valley, lurked there two days and nights in
constant fear and nervous dread and suffering, and finally swooned from
exhaustion. When he waked with sudden, awful start, two Indian faces
were bending over him. Then he had fallen into the hands of the foe at
last.

But he was in better luck than he had dared to dream. They were of a
peaceful band, wanderers from the fold of Red Cloud who had sought the
lower valley for peace and protection. They had a hunting lodge and led
him thither, and their squaws gave him food and ministered to him as
best they knew how in the mad fever that followed. McGrath never
realized how long he was ill, but when he came to himself it was bitter
cold and he was living somehow among these strange people,--a small
village of them in the heart of the Bad Lands. Not for months did he
recover strength. Not until May did he try to ride or walk beyond the
limits of their camp. They were poor; they had no spare ponies, and they
made him understand he was many, many "sleeps" from his friends with
hordes of marauding hostiles intervening, and so induced him to remain
with them in hiding until the rebellious tribes were driven from the
reservations and Red Dog himself fled to their fastness. Then again had
McGrath to remain in hiding, secreted by his humble friends, and there
he lay when Winthrop's bugles sounded the charge and his own old troop
came dashing in. He was so worn, ragged, and changed that he had
difficulty in making even "A" Troop know him, but, once they did, their
joy was boundless, for McGrath was a popular man, and the meeting
between him and Davies was something long to be remembered, for each
believed the other dead. Then, as the wounded were led back to the Ska
and he recovered strength and was happy in seeing his Indian protectors
lavishly fed, clothed, and rewarded, he began to talk of the events of
the campaign of the previous summer and to inquire why the captain was
away now; and then Hastings and Archer took him in hand, and later poor
stricken Haney, conscious of the approaching end, begged to see him, and
then came Haney's broken confession. N