ys, when we take
that name for our patrol. Glad to meet up with you; and by the way are
you Silver Fox, Red Fox, or Black Fox; though to be sure they all
belong to one family?"

"I thought I ought to know him," burst out Aleck Rawson, pushing
forward, "and now I'm dead sure of it. Hello! Fox, you sure must
remember me, Aleck; and the good times we used to have, when I lived
close to the Reservation?"

The young Indian extended his hand without hesitation.

"No forget Aleck, not much. But him not with other white boys down in
big timber. Where come by? How do? Much glad see again. My coyote
pony, Flicker, yet in the run. Ugh! Shake!"

"He means a pony I gave him when we came away from that place,"
explained Aleck, turning to Thad after gravely shaking hands with the
Indian. "The Fox is a Crow, and one of the smartest boys you ever saw.
He can do everything that a grown warrior could; and some day they say
he will be a chief in his tribe. We used to have great times racing
our ponies, and chasing coyotes over the prairie. And I'm right glad
to see him once more; though it puzzles me to know why he is up here,
so far away from the homes of his people; and armed, too."

"Well, if he's an old friend of yours, Aleck, and you can vouch for him,
why, of course he's going to be welcome at our fire. And it tickles me
to think that the bright painting of the fox head on each of our tents
was what attracted his eye, so that he just _couldn't_ keep from hanging
around at that other time. But surely that didn't draw him away up here;
he's got some other business in his head; for he only discovered our
camp just now, and was coming in to see us, I reckon, when Step Hen
mounted his back, and then called to us to help him."

"Anyway, I had him gripped good and tight, you all saw," grumbled
Step Hen. "When these good husky arms of mine get locked around
anything, it takes a heap to break me away. If he had been a hostile
Injun I'd a hung on like grim death, believe me."

No one ventured to try and take away any of his laurels. He had
certainly yelled for help in a way that could not easily be excelled,
they all thought.

Thad led the way to the fire, after inviting the Indian to join them.
He confessed to having just a little curiosity himself as to what had
caused the Fox to desert the teepees of his tribe, and wander so far
away from the reservation; but of course Thad knew better than to ask
about the personal affairs of the