ur brothers cannot come?" said Matthews.

Lame Foot answered. "The white chief will send us to Standing Rock
Agency. From there, braves will go out to hunt--and arrows fly silently.
There are some of two tips. These bite like the rattlesnake----"

Matthews rubbed his chin. He knew that what Lounsbury had told him in
the colonel's library was true. All legal and moral claims to the
valuable town site across the river were gone. He could secure the Bend
now only by underhand means. And here were those who would do what he
dared not.

"They make a cunning wound," continued Lame Foot, "and no one finds the
arrow."

Colonel Cummings was growing impatient. "Interpret, interpret," he
ordered.

"They think it's all up with 'em if I don't go," said Matthews. He
looked down thoughtfully. The trip would be a comparatively short one,
and offered good reward. Whatever happened, if the Indians kept their
word with him, he would have both the pay and the land.

"Will they tell me where the camp is?" asked the Colonel.

Matthews met his eye. "Ye-e-e-s," he answered. "If _I_ go." He addressed
the warriors: "If your promise is a promise----"

An old chief caught his arm. "We are not liars," he said.

"It is a task for a child," added Lame Foot.

"Enough," answered Matthews. To Colonel Cummings he said, "I'm your man,
sir."

"Good!"

Then the interpreter and the Indians, with the commanding officer
unwittingly taking a part, sealed their compact in a pipe of peace.

CHAPTER XIV

ANOTHER PROMISE

The green pung was ten miles or more beyond Clark's before the
section-boss recovered appreciably from his long sulk. "What d' y'
s'pose Lounsbury reckoned could happen t' my gals?" he demanded of David
Bond.

The evangelist shook the reins at Shadrach. "A storm, cold, want," he
replied. "There are many evils that might befall two young women alone
in a shanty on the prairie."

"Wal, nothin' 's ever happened t' 'em before," declared Lancaster. But
he whistled to stay a change in good fortune, and rapped the wood of the
wagon-box with his bare knuckles.

David Bond busied himself with urging on his horse. "God will watch over
them," he said devoutly. "'Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither
slumber nor sleep.'"

The section-boss sniffed. Sure of the safe trend of his affairs, he was
in a mood to scoff at any religious allusion. Reverence, with him, was
entirely a matter of urgent physical need. He had called