ain, silence. The old man knocked
louder. After a short wait, the door was thrown wide. A thick-set man,
whose eyes squinted at cross purposes over his flat, turned-up nose,
filled the entrance.

"What in the devil do you want?" he demanded roughly, when he saw David
Bond. But his seeming anger illy concealed his relief that it was not an
officered guard, searching for recreant soldiers.

"I wish for nothing in the name of the devil," was the simple answer.
"But in the name of God, I ask for a roof."

"That buck with you?" The squint-eyed man shut the door behind him as he
pointed at Squaw Charley.

"No; he lives in the stockade yonder."

"Oh! He's the one that goes prowlin' 'round here day an' night, sneakin'
an' stealin'!"

"He may prowl," said David Bond, stoutly, "but he does not steal. He is
a good, honest Indian."

The keeper of The Trooper's Delight laughed immoderately. "Get out! Who
ever heerd tell of a' honest Injun? Say!"--tauntingly--"where'd you an'
your broom-tail come from, anyhow?"

"From Dodge City."

"Dodge City!" the man cried. "Then maybe you seen my brother there, or
heerd if he' comin'. Nick Matthews is his name----"

David Bond lifted one hand and opened his mouth to answer. But the words
stopped at his lips. For, from the top of the high bank behind the line
of shanties, there came a shout. Looking up, the squint-eyed man, David
Bond, and The Squaw saw a face peering down upon them.

"Hello!" came the voice again. "Hello, Babe! Hello, gran'pa! you beat me
here, didn't y'? Look out! I'm a-comin'!"

And amid a little avalanche of snow, icicles, dirt and stones that
frightened the milk-white horse so that he all but overturned the pung,
Nick Matthews tobogganed down the bank on his overcoat and landed beside
them on the shelf.

"Short cut," he said, as he got up and shook out the coat. "Well, Babe,
old socks, how's things goin'? How"--he threw his thumb back over his
shoulder toward the east--"how 'bout over there? What news y' got?"

Squaw Charley followed the direction of the pointing.

"You ain't come a minnit too soon," declared Babe. "Only just a day or
two left of your six months, an' they----" The two moved toward the
shanty, whispering together.

David Bond called to the brothers appealingly. "May I put up here?" he
asked. "Have you a vacant building that I may share with Shadrach? I
have hay and food of my own."

Nick Matthews came back. He had a putty-coloured face up