and directly on the trail, where Little Fellow was awaiting me.
Returning from a look at their condition one evening, I heard a band of
hunters had come from the Upper Missouri. I was sitting with a group of
men squatted before my fatherly Indian's lodge, when somebody walked up
behind us and gave a long, low whistle.

"Mon Dieu! Mine frien', the enemy! Sacredie! 'Tis he! Thou cock-brained
idiot! Ho--ho! Alone among the Sioux!" came the astonished,
half-breathless exclamation of Louis Laplante, mixing his English and
French as he was wont, when off guard.

Need I say the voice brought me to my feet at one leap? Well I
remembered how I had left him lying with a snarl between his teeth in
the doorway of Fort Douglas! Now was his chance to score off that
grudge! I should not have been surprised if he had paid me with a stab
in the back.

"What for--come you--here?" he slowly demanded, facing me with a
revengeful gleam in his eyes. His English was still mixed. There was
none of the usual light and airy impudence of his manner.

"You know very well, Louis," I returned without quailing. "Who should
know better than you? For the sake of the old days, Louis, help to undo
the wrong you allowed? Help me and before Heaven you shall command your
own price. Set her free! Afterwards torture me to the death and take
your full pleasure!"

"I'll have it, anyway," retorted Louis with a hard, dry, mirthless
laugh. "Know they--what for--you come?" He pointed to the Indians, who
understood not a word of our talk; and we walked a pace off from the
lodges.

"No! I'm not always a fool, Louis," said I, "though you cheated me in
the gorge!"

"See those stones?" There was a pile of rock on the edge of the ravine.

"I do. What of them?"

"All of your Indian--left after the dogs--it lie there!" His eye
questioned mine; but there was not a vestige of fear in me towards that
boaster. This, I set down not vauntingly, but fully realizing what I owe
to Heaven.

"Poor fellow," said I. "That was cruel work."

"Your other man--he fool them----"

"All the better," I interrupted.

"They not be cheated once more again! No--no--mine frien'! To come here,
alone! Ha--ha! Stupid Anglo-Saxon ox!"

"Don't waste your breath, Louis," I quietly remarked. "Your names have
no more terror for me now than at Laval! However big a knave you are,
Louis, you're not a fool. Why don't you make something out of this? I
can reward you. Hold _me_, if you like!