legs wide apart. "You've done run on the rope long enough

gun-play? Or did the big bully mean to manhandle him? Probably th

turn you over to the Crees,"

st. He's a white man s

ea

lf with rage, swung on the little man and st

' don't you come closter. I'm liable to get scared, an' you'd

ike a swarm o' be

up a rifle and dropped a bullet in front of the nearest Indian. The warning brought the Cree

sh he expressed

f our broncs. You can search the cam

d. There was anot

ud. "Can't make up their minds whether to come on an' massacree us or

hers with rifles. But the trade guns sold the Indians

hand blown off in explosions. The price paid for these cheap firearms was based on the length of them. The butt was put on the floor and the

latest repeating Winchesters. In a fight with t

rd to search the camp. West pointed out the tracks of t

ed, "Ugh!

at. He filled a water-bucket with whiskey and handed it

r chief my young man didn't understand. He thou

dians shuffled awa

the temptation of the liquor. The braves drank, flung a few shot

zing the Morse family were still powerful as ever. He subdued his desire

uare about two hundred yards long, of cottonwood logs dovetailed together. The buildings on each sid

w, but in the spring they would be packed to the eaves with thousands of buffalo robes and furs brought in from outlying settlem

ound, missed a f

he liquor?

ce come into the country from Winnipeg. The lid's on tight." His far eye drooped to the cheek

dn't advise any police to

bet with you. If the North-West Mounted start to arrest Bully West or to empty his liqu

Not soldiers

ry and sentence folks. They don't play no favorites either. Soon as they hear of this mix-up between the Crees and the Blackfeet they'll

with Reddy Madden, the owner of

e're travelin' some mo

ea

known to both of them. The man was a long, loose-limbed fellow with a shrewd eye and the full, drooping lower lip of irresolution. It

y. "It ain't ever gonna be any more. These here red-coats are plumb ruinin' trade. Squint at a bu

em, Mounted Police?-well, how many of 'e

n a hundred or so, fa

this handful of tenderfeet buffalo you! Hel

tenderfeet if you met up with 'em, Bully. There's something about these guys-I dunno what

ot?" the big trad

jest walk in kinda quiet an' easy, an' tell you it'll be t

edulity. "I reckon they haven't

small gulch, at the head of it, the teams were stopped and unloaded. The barrels were rolled downhill

ounced. "Arrange that among yoreselves. Tom, I'll let you fix up how you'll spell

arney. The days grew to a week. Sometimes West appeared with a buyer in a cart or l

te capacity for sleep. He would throw himself down on the warm, sundried grass and fall into a doze almost instantly. When the rays of the sun grew too hot, it was easy to roll over into th

hine and blowing wind, under primitive conditions that made for tough muscles and a clean mind trained to meet frontier emergencies. But now, to his disgust, he found slipping into his reveries pictures of a

chic phenomena or telepathy, but he opened his eyes from

ery erect she sat, and on her face was the exact expres

o his feet.

he hair. Without a word, without another glance at him, s

how to meet it. He stood, motionless, the red light in his eyes burning like distant camp-fi

a maid, with that passionate sense of tr

d in her mind with the greatest humiliation of her life, with the stinging lash that had cut into her young pride and her buoyant courage as cruelly as it had into her smooth, satiny flesh. Was it likely she wo

ad probably ridden out from the stockade to the open prairie because she loved to ride. The rest needed no conjecture. In that lone land of vast spaces travelers always exchanged greetings. Sh

n who he was-and

amped for a moment on his brown boy