t wait for any answer. "Thank the good God!" he
exclaimed, at seeing the boy Dean Drake unharmed, standing with a gun.
And to their amazement he sped past them, never slacking his horse's
lope until he reached the corral. There he tossed the reins to the
placid Bolles, and springing out like a surefooted elephant, counted his
saddle-horses; for he was a general. Satisfied, he strode back to the
crowd by the demijohn. "When dem men get restless," he explained to
Drake at once, "always look out. Somebody might steal a horse."

The boy closed one gray, confidential eye at his employer. "Just my
idea," said he, "when I counted 'em before breakfast."

"You liddle r-rascal," said Max, fondly, "What you shoot at?"

Drake pointed at the demijohn. "It was bigger than those bottles at
Nampa," said he. "Guess you could have hit it yourself."

Max's great belly shook. He took in the situation. It had a flavor that
he liked. He paused to relish it a little more in silence.

"Und you have killed noding else?" said he, looking at Uncle Pasco, who
blinked copiously. "Mine old friend, you never get rich if you change
your business so frequent. I tell you that thirty years now." Max's hand
found Drake's shoulder, but he addressed Brock. "He is all what you tell
me," said he to the foreman. "He have joodgement."

Thus the huge, jovial Teuton took command, but found Drake had left
little for him to do. The buccaroos were dispersed at Harper's, at Fort
Rinehart, at Alvord Lake, towards Stein's peak, and at the Island Ranch
by Harney Lake. And if you know east Oregon, or the land where Chief
E-egante helped out Specimen Jones, his white soldier friend, when the
hostile Bannocks were planning his immediate death as a spy, you will
know what wide regions separated the buccaroos. Bolles was taken into
Max Vogel's esteem; also was Chinese Sam. But Max sat smoking in the
office with his boy superintendent, in particular satisfaction.

"You are a liddle r-rascal," said he. "Und I r-raise you fifty dollars."

A Kinsman of Red Cloud

I

It was thirty minutes before a June sundown at the post, and the first
call had sounded for parade. Over in the barracks the two companies
and the single troop lounged a moment longer, then laid their police
literature down, and lifted their stocking feet from the beds to get
ready. In the officers' quarters the captain rose regretfully from
after-dinner digestion, and the three lieutenants sought t