it. Got to go back to the States and attend to some
business, sure. You can have all the grizzlies that are loose. By the
way, you got that silver tip since I left."

Jack was admiring a fine skin that was nailed up on the inside of the
cabin, taking up the greater portion of a wall ten feet long and eight
feet high.

"We got that out on the Blue about four weeks ago. I shot him eleven
times afore he quit bein' sassy," said Tracy, with little or no concern,
as if killing a grizzly was on a par with breaking a broncho. "I'll get
twenty-five dollars for that pelt in the summer if I take it to Denver."

With the dishes cleared away and everything in readiness for the night,
Jack, Tracy and Bill sat around the fireplace smoking their pipes. The
pine knots sputtered and glistened with deep, red-inflamed eyes as Jack
told of the Rock Creek pow-wows.

"You see, old man Meeker has been trying to teach the Utes how to plow,
how to subtract and divide and to carry wood, while the squaws crochet,
hemstitch and make sofa pillows."

"Yes, I see them redskin devils tote firewood," broke in Tracy. "If
there's anything an Indian despises it's work. They won't even walk when
the snow is belly deep. I've seen six of 'em on one little cayuse
wallerin' through big drifts at timber line. Why, durn their pictures, a
Ute won't cook if he can beg a bite anywhere, let alone plow, and he'll
freeze to death afore gettin' wood for a fire if thar's a squaw within a
mile to git it fur him. The trapper told us you would git yer fill of
Injuns."

Bill crossed his legs and then uncrossed them again, knocked the ashes
out of his pipe, and his neck began to swell. He wanted to say something
right bad. Pulling a string off his buckskin pants leg, he commenced
tying it into knots, nervously fingering the ends.

"Them gol durned skule teachers is all right back in the old red
skule-house in--in Missouri," he said, "but kingdom cum, when they try
to make them blanket Injuns plow it's time fur white folks in Middle
Park to put up a stockade and lay in lots of 45-90's for Sharp's old
reliable, and a dozen or two Colts' frontier sixes. Them's my
sentiments, and don't yer ferget it."

"Bill hit the nail on the head," echoed Tracy.

Jack was studying the red, gleaming eyes of the pine knots, and the
moccasin prints in the snow on the high divide seemed to gather again in
the ashes. He started suddenly, as if an inspiration struck him.

"Boys, it will