are
complete. You and friend Rube there were to have had a great time.
But that buffalo hunt isn't going to come off."

When Rube Carter awoke the following morning he found himself alone in
the teepee, and might have believed himself to be back in Kiddie's camp
on Sweetwater Lake but for the medley of sounds that came to him
through the open door-flap.

He heard the neighing of horses, the barking of dogs, and the
high-pitched voices of squaws and children.

He listened sleepily for a while. Just outside of the lodge a party of
young braves were quarrelling for possession of a cooking-pot.

"For people who have the reputation of bein' silent, Injuns are capable
of makin' a heap of noise," Rube said to himself, "I never heard such a
racket in all my days."

He sat up and reached for his moccasins, and was surprised to find his
lost fur cap, with the bedraggled eagle's feathers in it, lying beside
them. His revolver also had been restored to him.

He was examining the injury done by the fire to his leggings and
moccasins when he heard Kiddie's voice from outside raised almost to a
shout of command, as if he were drilling a company of soldiers. Rube
flung his blankets aside and crept across the floor to look out. What
he saw astonished him greatly.

The wide open space in front of the chief's lodge was now crowded with
mounted Indians, in full war paint, drawn up in regular ranks. Apart
from them, and halted in a group facing them, were Falling Water and
his principal warriors, all wearing their feathered war bonnets and
armed with rifles, clubs, and tomahawks.

Falling Water, mounted on a fine black mustang, carried his great staff
of high office, decorated with coloured beads and fringed with
scalp-locks. He looked very magnificent and dignified, and younger
than Rube had at first supposed him to be.

But it was the rider at the chief's side--a rider astride of a lank,
piebald prairie pony--who arrested Rube's closest attention. There
were but two feathers in his simple war bonnet, which was partly hidden
by his blue-and-white blanket. His back was towards Rube, who could
not see his face or know if it was painted with vermilion, but by his
seat on horseback and the way he held himself Rube instantly knew that
it was Kiddie.

Kiddie was giving commands to the Crows in their own language. Clearly
he had been placed in authority over them as their general and
field-marshal--he who, hardly twelve hou