t way,
but they mean all right. Of course they have young plug-uglies amongst
'em jest the same as 'mongst any other c'munity, but the majority of 'em
druther be peaceful with their neighbors. What makes 'em wildest is
seein' the buffalo killed off. It's like you havin' your water right cut
off."

As the talk went on, Mose squatted there silently receiving instruction.
His eyes burned through the dusk as he listened to the dark little man
who spoke with a note of authority and decision in his voice. His words
conveyed to Mose a conception of the Indian new to him. These "red
devils" were people. In this man's talk they were husbands and fathers,
and sons, and brothers. They loved these lands for which the cattlemen
and sheepmen were now about to battle, and they had been dispossessed by
the power of the United States Army, not by law and justice. A desire to
know more of them, to see them in their homes, to understand their way
of thinking, sprang up in the boy's brain.

He edged over close to the plainsman and, in a pause in the talk,
whispered to him: "I want you to tell me more about the Indians."

The other man turned quickly and said: "Boy, they're my friends. In a
show-down I'm on their side; my father was a half-breed."

The night passed quietly and nearly all the men went home, leaving the
Pratts to meet the storm alone, but Jennison had a final word. "You send
your boy to yon butte, and wave a hat any time during the day and we'll
come, side arms ready. I'll keep an eye on the butte all day and come up
and see you to-night. Don't let 'em get the drop on ye."

It was not until the third day that Williams, riding the line in person,
came upon the new settler. He sat upon his horse and swore. His face was
dark with passion, but after a few minutes' pause he drew rein and rode
away.

"Another butter maker," he said to his men as he slipped from the
saddle at his own door, "some ten miles up the river."

"Where?"

"Next to Pratt's. I reckon it's that brother o' his he's been talking
about. They cut my wires and squatted on the Rosebud flat."

"Give the word and we'll run 'em out," said one of his men. "Every
son-of-a-gun of 'em."

Williams shook his head. "No, that won't do. W've got to go slow in
rippin' these squatters out o' their holes. They anchor right down to
the roots of the tree of life. I reckon we've got to let 'em creep in;
we'll scare 'em all we can before they settle, but when they settle