s you git straightened
out. Ain't many women-folks up there, but then they're fine what there
is. Say," and he drew Buford to one side as he whispered to him--"say,
they's a mighty fine girl--works in the depot hotel--Nory's her
name--you'll see her if you ever come up to town. I'm awful gone on
that girl, and if you git any chanct, if you happen to be up there, you
just put in a good word for me, won't you? I'd do as much for you. I
didn't know, you know, but what maybe some of your women-folks'd sort
of know how it was, you know. They understand them things, I reckon."

Buford listened with grave politeness, though with a twinkle in his
eye, and promised to do what he could. Encouraged at this, Sam stepped
up and shook hands with Mrs. Buford and with the girl, not forgetting
Aunt Lucy, an act which singularly impressed that late inhabitant of a
different land, and made him her fast friend for life.

"Well, so long," he said to them all in general as he turned away, "and
good luck to you. You ain't makin' no mistake in settlin' here.
Good-bye till I see you all again."

He stepped into the buckboard and clucked to his little team, the dust
again rising from under the wheels. The eyes of those remaining
followed him already yearningly. In a half hour there had been
determined the location of a home, there had been suggested a means of
livelihood, and there had been offered and received a friendship.
Here, in the middle of the great gray Plains, where no sign of any
habitation was visible far as the eye could reach, these two white men
had met and shaken hands. In a half hour this thing had become matter
of compact. They had taken the oath. They had pledged themselves to
become members of society, working together--working, as they thought,
each for himself, but working also, as perhaps they did not dream, at
the hest of some destiny governing plans greater than their own. As
Buford turned he stumbled and kicked aside a bleached buffalo skull,
which lay half hidden in the red grass at his feet.

CHAPTER X

THE CHASE

The summer flamed up into sudden heat, and seared all the grasses, and
cut down the timid flowers. Then gradually there came the time of
shorter days and cooler nights. The grass curled tight down to the
ground. The air carried a suspicion of frost upon some steel-clear
mornings. The golden-backed plover had passed to the south in long,
waving lines, which showed dark against t