ittle shaky myself sometimes when I'm ridin' that road alone at
night. Looks like some of them Injuns ought to have been hung for that
murder, right off the reel, and then folks'd feel a lot easier in their
minds."

The talk then would drift invariably to the subject of the murder and
the general folly of the court in allowing Fire Bear to go on the Indian
agent's recognizance. But Talpers, though he heard the chorus of
denunciation from the back of the store, and though he was frequently
called upon for an opinion, never could be drawn into the conversation.
He bullied his clerk as usual, and once in a while swept down, in a
storm of baseless anger, upon some unoffending Indian, just to show that
Bill Talpers was still a man to be feared, but for the most part he
waited silently, with the confidence of a man who holds a winning hand
at cards.

The same days that saw Talpers's confidence returning were days of
dissatisfaction to Lowell. He felt that he was being constantly
thwarted. He would have preferred to give his entire attention to the
murder mystery, but details of reservation management crowded upon him
in a way that made avoidance impossible. Among his duties Lowell found
that he must act as judge and jury in many cases that came up. There
were domestic difficulties to be straightened out, and thieves and
brawlers to be sentenced. Likewise there was occasional flotsam, cast up
from the human sea outside the reservation, which required attention.

One of those reminders of the outer world was brought in by an Indian
policeman. The stranger was a rough-looking individual, to all
appearances a harmless tramp, who had been picked up "hoofing it" across
the reservation.

The Indian policeman explained, through the interpreter, that he had
found the wanderer near a sub-agency, several miles away--that he had
shown a disposition to fight, and had only been cowed by the prompt
presentation of a revolver at his head.

"Why, you 're no tramp--you're a yeggman," said Lowell to the prisoner,
interrupting voluble protestations of innocence. "You're one of the
gentry that live off small post-offices and banks. I'll bet you've
stolen stamps enough in your career to keep the Post-Office Department
going six months. And you've given heart disease to no end of
stockholders in small banks--prosperous citizens who have had to make
good the losses caused by your safe-breaking operations. Am I bringing
an unjust indictment aga