oulders. "John,"
he said, before the other could speak, "I need an interpreter. You've
been about here for years--do you know one?"

"There's Soggy, that Phil Kearney fellow----"

The colonel gave a grunt of disgust. "In jail at Omaha," he said.
"Played cards with a galoot who had some aces in his boot-tops. Plugged
him."

"What's the matter with your Rees?"

"That's just it! You see, that bunch of Sioux out there"--he jerked his
head toward the stockade--"helped in a bit of treachery two summers ago.
Rounded up some friendly Rees at a dance and scalped 'em. So--there's
poison for you! In this business on hand I couldn't trust even my head
scout." He began pacing the floor. "Anyway, sign language, when there
are terms to be made and kept, isn't worth a hang!"

"I wish I could suggest a man," said Lounsbury. "Fact is, Colonel, I'm
terribly worried myself. I came to ask you for help in some trouble----"

The old soldier threw up his hands. "Trouble!" he cried. "Why I'm simply
daft with it! Look at that!" He pointed to the farthest side of the
room.

It was dimly lighted there. Lounsbury stepped forward and peered
down--then recoiled, as startled as if he had happened upon something
dead. On the floor was a man--a man whose back was bent rounding, and
whose arms and legs were hugged up against his abdomen and chest. Torso
and limbs were alike, frightfully shrunken; the hands, mere claws.
Lounsbury could not see the face. But the hair was uncovered, and it was
the hair that made him "goose-flesh" from head to heel. It was
white--not the white of old age, with glancing tints of silver or
yellow--but the dead white of an agony that had withered it to the
roots. Circling it, and separating the scalp from the face and neck, ran
a narrow fringe that was still brown, as if, changing in a night, it had
lacked full time for completion.

Lounsbury could not take his eyes from the huddled shape. Colonel
Cummings paused beside him. "This morning," he said, speaking in an
undertone, "a sentry signalled from beyond the barracks. Two or three
men took guns and ran out. They found this. His clothes were stiff with
ice. He was almost frozen, though he had been travelling steadily. He
was utterly worn out, and was crawling forward on his hands and knees."
The ragged sleeves and trousers, stained darker from the wounds on
elbows and knees, were mute testimony. "He couldn't see," continued the
colonel. "He was snow-blind. They laid