ad buried its dead; from there he drew the
route southward, to the ferry and Fort Brannon. Here, he stuck the
splinters in a circle to picture the stockade below the barracks. At
last, rising, he drew his blanket close about him, put the grain-sack
over his tangled hair and, with a parting look toward Dallas and the
evangelist, went slowly out.

Perfect quiet followed the pariah's going. His recital of the conflict,
dumb though it was, had powerfully stirred the little audience. For, as
he had proceeded with his crude mimicry, the imagination of the others
had filled in the scenes he could not sketch.

The section-boss spoke first. Not incapable of feeling, yet disliking to
show emotion because it might be counted a weakness, he hastened to
clear the air. "Say, Dallas," he drawled, with a survey of the
battle-field, "he ought t' had some red Mexican beans fer his Injuns."
But the remark failed to appeal.

David Bond made a shake-down for himself beside Lancaster's bunk, using
an armful of hay and the robes and quilts from his pung. However, the
fact that he needed rest, or that his couch was ready, did not tempt him
from the fire. Long after his host disappeared behind the swinging
Navajo blankets, he sat by the hearth. And Dallas stayed with him,
Marylyn's sleepy head pillowed in her lap.

The elder girl felt strangely drawn to him. He returned the interest he
inspired. Like Lounsbury, he marked the unusual character of this woman
of the far frontier. But he saw further than had the younger man: With
her father and sister, she was all firmness and strength, as if she held
herself to be the mainstay of the family; yet, now and then,
unwittingly, she betrayed qualities that were distinctly opposite. Like
Lounsbury, too, when he touched upon the subject of her life it was to
inquire if she had spent any of its years in a town. He felt certain
that she had not; at the same time, his belief was curiously
contradicted by her bearing.

"I'll always live on the plains," she said, having told him of the
_mesa_ and their migration north; "if I left 'em for a while, I'd learn
things I don't know now; and when I came back, maybe I wouldn't be
satisfied with the shack, or with dad and Marylyn."

"Child, where did you get that thought?" he asked, astonished.

"I don't know--only my mother would 'a' been happy in Texas if she'd
been born there. But she wasn't, and she wanted her old home till she
died."

She wanted her old