e man, firmly. "It's all right. I've
travelled through them Sand Hills myself, and I know how it is.
You're welcome to all you took, and you can have another sackful
if you want to go after it."

I thanked him, but told him that we expected to get some feed
at Gordon, the next town. After wishing us good-luck, he rode
away.

We started on, and made but a short stop for noon, near
Gordon. We found ourselves in a fairly well-settled country,
though the oldest settlers had been there but two or three years.
The region was called the Antelope Flats, and was quite level,
with occasional ravines. The trail usually ran near the railroad,
and that night we camped within three or four rods of it. Long
trains loaded with cattle thundered by all night. We were
somewhat nervous lest Old Blacky should put his shoulder against
the wagon while we slept, and push it on the track in revenge for
the poor treatment we gave him in the Sand Hills, but the plan
didn't happen to occur to him. It was at this camp that we
encountered a remarkable echoing well. It was an ordinary open
well, forty or fifty feet deep, near a neighboring house, but a
word spoken above it came back repeated a score of times. We
failed to account for it.

The next forenoon we jogged along much the same as usual and
stopped for noon at Rushville. This was not far from the Pine
Ridge Indian Agency and the place called Wounded Knee, where the
battle with the Sioux was fought three or four years later. We
saw a number of Indians here, and though they came up to Ollie's
idea of what an Indian should be a little better than the one
that rode with us, they still did not seem to be just the thing.

[Illustration: A Study in Red Men]

"I don't think," he said, "that they ought to smoke
cigarettes."

"It does look like rather small business for an Indian,
doesn't it?" answered Jack. "But then smoking cigarettes is small
business for anybody. What's your idea of what an Indian ought to
smoke?"

"Well, I'm not sure he ought to smoke anything, except of
coarse the peace-pipe occasionally. And he oughtn't to smoke that
very much, because an Indian shouldn't make peace very often."

"Right on the war-path all the time, flourishing a
scalping-knife above his head, and whooping his teeth
loose--that's your notion of an Indian."

"Well, I don't know as that is exactly it," returned Ollie,
doubtfully. "But it seems to me these are hardly right. Their
c