rting arm was
withdrawn; he stumbled and sank to the ground.

In his stupor he heard a wild yell from the Redskins robbed of their
victim. His eyes nipped painfully, but by the light of the leaping
flames he could distinguish Kiddie standing at bay above him, with a
revolver in each outstretched hand swinging threateningly from side to
side as the Indians made a rush towards him.

Believing that Kiddie's life was now in imminent peril, Rube managed to
scramble to his knees. He felt instinctively for his gun, forgetting
that it had been taken from him.

But Kiddie was not shooting. Were his pistols empty? Rube wondered.
He saw the crowd of Redskins fall back with lowered weapons and sullen
looks and hoarse grunts of disappointment.

"Best put them guns out of sight now," Rube heard some one advise. He
turned and saw the English-speaking medicine man standing at Kiddie's
side. "You've managed all right up to now," the same voice continued.
"Boy's not much harmed, by the look of him. You pulled him out just in
time, though. Another minute and they'd have been at him like a pack
of wolves. Hold hard while I go forward and explain to 'em."

He strode off and harangued the Indians in a loud voice of command.

"Who is he, Kiddie?" Rube was curious to know. "Who and what is he?"

"A man of the name of Simon Sprott," Kiddie told him. "Used to be a
friend of Gid Birkenshaw's years ago, when Gid was a lone trapper in
Colorado."

"Then he ain't a Crow Injun?"

"Well, he is and he isn't," returned Kiddie, helping the boy to his
feet. "When Gid knew him at first he was just an Englishman, come out
West on a trip of adventure. Then he got mussin' around with the
Redskins, married a squaw, and took the blanket. They made him a
chief, calling him Short Nose, and when he became too old to lead the
braves on the war trail they made him a boss medicine-man. That's
about all I know of him. I ran up against him when I was sneakin' into
the village on your track, and it was him that put me wise about what
they were doin' to you. I guess you'd a narrow squeak, eh?"

"I just had." Rube nodded. "But all the time I kinder felt as you'd
turn up, somehow. I gotter 'normous faith in you, Kiddie. I was plumb
certain you'd foller on my tracks, though I didn't blaze no trail."

"You blazed it quite enough for me, Rube," Kiddie averred. "I didn't
fool around any, searchin' for your dead body at the foot of the cliffs
i