n. "A longer one. Tell how
Old Man made medicine. A crackerjack!"

Clare looked at him wonderingly. If he were aware of the weirdness of
their situation no sign betrayed it. The crackling flames mounted
straight in the air, the smoke made a pillar reaching into the darkness.
Fifteen paces from Stonor lay his prisoner, staring unwinkingly at him
with eyes that glittered with hatred; and from all around them in the
darkness perhaps scores of their enemies were watching.

Mary stolidly began again:

"It was long tam ago before the white man come. The people not have
horses then. Kakisas hunt on the great prairie that touch the sky all
around. Many buffalo had been killed. The camp was full of meat. Great
sheets hung in the lodges and on the racks outside to smoke. Now the
meat was all cut up and the women were working on the hides. Cure some
for robes. Scrape hair from some for leather----"

The story got no further. From across the little stream they heard a
muffled thunder of hoofs in the grass.

Stonor sprang up. "My horses!" he cried. "Stampeded, by God! The
cowardly devils!"

Imbrie laughed.

Stonor snatched up his gun. "Back from the fire!" he cried to the women.
"I'm going to shoot!"

He splashed across the ford, and, climbing the bank, dropped on his
knee in the grass. The horses swerved, and galloped off at a tangent.
They were barely visible to eyes that had just left the fire. Stonor
counted seven animals, and he had but six with Imbrie's. On the seventh
there was the suggestion of a crouching figure. Stonor fired at the
horse.

The animal collapsed with a thud. Stonor ran to where he lay twitching
in the grass. It was a strange horse to him. The rider had escaped. But
he could not have got far. The temptation to follow was strong, but
Stonor, remembering his prisoner and the women who depended on him,
refused to be drawn. He returned to where Clare and Mary awaited him at
a little distance from the fire. Meanwhile the horses galloped away out
of hearing into the bush beyond the little meadow. Imbrie was still
secure in his bonds. Stonor kept a close watch on him.

They had not long to wait before dawn began to weave colour in the sky.
Light revealed nothing living but themselves in the little valley, or
around its rim. The horse Stonor had shot still lay where he had
dropped. Stonor returned to him, taking Mary. The animal was dead, with
a bullet behind its shoulder. It was a blue roan, an ugly bru