diers' buttons, but always
it was very beautiful to look upon, and always, she repeated, the white
men fled. No one slew them. They went hurriedly, leaving all their
tools.

"She knows," exulted Wetherell. "She knows, and she's the one living
Indian who can direct us." To Eugene he exclaimed: "Say to her pretty
soon she's going to be rich--mebbe go home to Cheyenne River. If she
shows us the trail we will take her to her own people."

Like a decrepit eagle the crone pondered. Suddenly she spoke, and her
speech was a hoarse chant. "You are good to me. The bones of my children
lie up there. I will go once more before I die."

Kelley was quick to take advantage of sunset emotion. "Tell her we will
be here before sunrise. Warn her not to talk to any one." And to all
this Eugene gave ready assent.

Wetherell slept very little that night, although their tent stood close
beside the singing water of the Little Wind. They were several miles
from the fort and in a lonely spot with only one or two Indian huts
near, and yet he had the conviction that their plans and the very hour
of their starting were known to other of the red people. At one moment
he was sure they were all chuckling at the "foolish white men"; at
another he shivered to think how easy it would be to ambush this crazy
expedition in some of the deep, solitary defiles in those upper forests.
"A regiment could be murdered and hidden in some of those savage
glooms," said he to himself.

Kelley slept like a top, but woke at the first faint dawn, with the
precision of an alarm-clock. In ten minutes he had the horses in, and
was throwing the saddles on. "Roll out, Andy," he shouted. "Here comes
Eugene."

Wetherell lent himself to the work with suddenly developed enthusiasm,
and in half an hour the little train of laden animals was in motion
toward the hills. Pogosa was waiting, squatted on the ground at some
distance from her tepee. Slipping from his horse, he helped her mount.
She groaned a little as she did so, but gathered up the reins like one
resuming a long-forgotten habit. For years she had not ventured to
mount a horse, and her withered knees were of small service in
maintaining her seat, but she made no complaint.

Slowly the little train crawled up the trail, which ran for the most
part along the open side of the slope, in plain view from below. At
sunrise they were so well up the slope that an observer from below would
have had some trouble in making o