?"

"Well, the sutler said so."

"I think there's a mistake. B Troop has had no surplus rations."

"Had no----" she began, amazed.

"Must have been the sutler's own stuff."

"But he wrote----" From between the leaves of a book on the mantel, she
produced a folded paper.

"Or someone else's," went on Oliver.

She had been about to hand him Blakely's letter. Now, as if struck by an
idea, she put it back into the book. When she turned, her eyes were
swimming.

"It likely _was_ 'someone else,'" she said.

"God bless you anyway! To think of such a thing in the midst of your
worry! Even if you did owe B Troop, it would vote you its full rations,
and be proud to go hungry. Please think again about Bismarck for the
summer."

"I can't give up the claim, Captain. I want to know what happened--I
want to be here if--if dad comes back."

"But aren't you forgetting that, Indians or no Indians, there's danger
from this secret enemy?"

"Secret enemy," she echoed; "secret enemy. Go to Bismarck is just the
thing he wants to see us do. You heard what he did in the winter? Well,
he came again yesterday. He saw the wagon leave, and he thought it was a
good chance to move in."

"Move in?" rejoined Oliver. "If that was all, why did he bother about
moccasins?"

"You're right," she cried. "He meant to kill!"

And now as if some great hidden spring of feeling had been touched, she
came round upon the officer, defiant, resolute and undaunted.

"Maybe I'd 'a' gone before--I'd go this minute for Indians. But that
man!--he's had his price for this claim, he's had his price! Now, the
Bend belongs to _me_--and I'm going to stay."

The captain bent toward her. "Too risky, too risky, Miss Lancaster," he
advised, "unless we get the man. For how could you ever do any outside
work----"

Dallas interrupted, intrepid spirit ringing in her voice.

"Get him or not, I'll stick it out all the same. And my outside
work--I'll plow and I'll plant just like I used to. But _this_ time,
I'll do it with a gun!"

CHAPTER XXV

THE INQUIRY

A Ree scout scoured every foot of ground leading up to the shack. He
trailed the mules, The Squaw, the troopers. He followed those moccasin
prints that came across the draw and went again. He found the last
behind the lean-to, along the side nearest the coulee, on the back-fire
strip in front. And declared they had been made by a white man.

Two circumstances pointed strongly to the truth of this