When the hairy white men and the unbearded savages had their fill and lay or squatted with gorged stomachs before the flaming logs a fiddle struck up. There was buck-and-wing and high stepping and Indian clogging, and some of the gay French lads took turns with the pretty Cheyenne maidens. A French trapper chucked a pretty squaw under the chin. It was Pierre Lafitte, _mon Dieu_, already celebrating his return and the money in his pockets. Out flashed a tomahawk, and a friendly Arapahoe was just in time to save Pierre’s skull from falling into two pieces. The trappers began their gaming before the fire. “Little enough to lose tonight,” shrugged Robert Bent, “tomorrow when the trading’s over they’ll squander their winter’s catch. Pierre,” he called out, “save out enough to stake yourself. You don’t want to go in debt for provisions for next winter.” “So you have thrown in your lot with the traders, my boy,” said Colonel Bent, kindly, to Steven. “My friend St. Vrain tells me that you are no tenderfoot; _au contraire_, that you tackled the Kiowa scout on the night of your first watch. It was perhaps just as well that you did not overtake our party, for we were attacked when nearly here, and two of my fr’en’s shot before my nose, almos’. And that with Major Riley jus’ behin’ us and Captain Felipe Cooke ahead. You did not meet him returning? Nor hear the news? “I have heard from a returning guide that the ten thousand dollars which the young traders from Franklin cache at Chouteaux Isle was all there. They find it all uncovered! The dirt had been washed away by the river and the rains; it was safe and sound, yet anybody could have taken it.” St. Vrain roared with laughter at such a tale of buried treasure, and Steve’s eyes were almost as round as a child’s. “We have had little trouble with the Indians,” Bent went on, seriously, “until just these past few years since the free traders began to come over the Trail. If you treat the Indian right he will treat you fair enough, I have found. I go everywhere, alone, up into the country among all the tribes, and am away for months at a time. But when your government breaks treaties, like where they give the Cherokees’ land on the Arkansas and the Verdigris to the Creeks, you see what happens! Reprisals, like the attack on the caravan you rescued. And traders are careless; go away from their wagons alone, get shot. Then the others shoot at all Indians, good or bad, and something is started, because some unfriendly Indians of a different tribe maybe kill one fellow off by himself. They do not behave that way with me. I have more trouble with the Spaniard,” he laughed; “but be careful in Santa Fe, _mon fils_.” “I have heard something from Colonel Ceran of the history of the traders to Santa Fe,” Steven replied.