picked up the
gun.

"Now, Hughes," he said quietly. "I'll talk, and you listen. In my
judgment you are a miserable sneaking cur, and I am going to trust you
just so far as I can watch you. I suppose I ought to shoot you where
you are, and have done with it. You killed one of the best men who
ever lived, a friend of mine, Sam Wasson--"

"Who?"

"Sam Wasson, a government scout."

Hughes dropped his face into his hands.

"Good Lord! I knew him!"

The Sergeant drew a deep breath, and into his face there came a look
almost of sympathy.

"Then you begin to realize the sort of fool you are," he went on
soberly. "They don't make better men out here; his little finger was
worth more than your whole body. But killing you won't bring Sam back,
and besides I reckon you 've told me the straight story, an' his
shooting was an accident in a way. Then you 're more useful to me just
now alive than you would be dead. My name is Hamlin, sergeant Seventh
Cavalry, and I am here after that man Le Fevre. We trailed his outfit
from Dodge until the storm struck us, and then came straight through
travelling by compass. I did not know the man's name was Le Fevre
until you told me; up in Kansas he is known as Dupont."

"That 's it; that's the name he took when he sold the cattle."

"The officer robbed and killed was Major McDonald, and it is his
daughter they hold. The fellow Dupont quarrelled with and shot was a
deserter named Connors. We found the body. Now where do you suppose
Le Fevre is?"

Hughes stared into the fire, nervously pulling his beard.

"Wall, I 'd say in west yere somewhar along the Cimarron. 'T ain't
likely he had a compass, an' the wind wus from the nor'east. Best they
could do, the ponies would drift. The Injuns would keep the gineral
direction, o' course, storm 'er no storm, an' Gene is some plainsman
himself, but thet blizzard would sheer 'em off all the same. I reckon
they 're under the banks ten mile, er more, up thar. An' soon as there
's a change in weather, they 'll ride fer Black Kettle's camp. Thet's
my guess, mister."

Hamlin turned the situation over deliberately in his mind, satisfied
that Hughes had reviewed the possibilities correctly. If Le Fevre's
party had got through at all, then that was the most likely spot for
them to be hiding in. They would have drifted beyond doubt, farther
than Hughes supposed, probably, as he had been sheltered from the real
violence of the wind a