with the squaws when there was anything to do; but when we were
on the move, he fell to the rear."

"Didn't try to get away?"

"No; just straggled along."

"Ah. Do you know whether or not he took part in the fight the day we
captured them?"

At the question, a swift change came over Squaw Charley. He retreated a
little, and bent his head until his chin rested upon his breast.

Lieutenant Fraser threw out his arm in mute reply. No feathers, no
paint, no gaudy shirt or bonnet marked the Indian as a warrior.

The elder man approached the silent, shrinking figure not unkindly. "And
what do you want me to do for him, Robert?" he asked.

Lieutenant Fraser sprang forward eagerly, his face shining. "He's so
quiet and willing, sir--so ready to do anything he's told. I'd be
grateful if you thought you could trust him outside the stockade. He
could get the odds and ends from the bachelor's mess."

"I'll be hanged! Robert," cried his superior, annoyed. "Most men, just
out of West Point, have an eye to killing redskins, not coddling 'em."

The other crimsoned. "I'm sorry you look at it that way, Colonel," he
said. "I'm ready to punish or kill in the case of bad ones. But--you'll
pardon my saying it--I don't see that it's the duty of an officer to
harm a good one."

Squaw Charley raised his head, and shifted timidly from foot to foot.

"Well, Robert," replied Colonel Cummings, quietly, "you still have the
Eastern view of the Indian question. However, let me ask you this: Has
this man a story, and what is it? For all you know, he may deserve being
'banged around.'"

Lieutenant Fraser was shaking his head in answer, when swift came one
from the pariah. He searched in his bosom, under the tattered waist,
drew out the rag-wound paper and handed it to the commanding officer.

Very carefully the latter read it, his interest growing with every line.
Finally, giving it over to the lieutenant, he smiled at Squaw Charley.

"That tells the tale," he said. "I knew the man that wrote that when I
was with Sibley in Minnesota, the summer after the massacre. He's a man
that writes the truth. He talks the truth, too, and I wish I had him
here, now, so that he could interpret for me."

"Why, sir!" exclaimed the younger man, "it says this chap knows
English!"

"By all the gods! Of _course_ it does. Robert, I'll make him my
interpreter." The colonel strode up and down in his excitement, pausing
only to contend with the other for the