"Well, you see, it's this way," was the rejoinder. "They are plaguy mad just now, as you say, but they'll be madder by-and-by. A classical authority has said, `agree with thine adversary quickly,' and I'm going to agree with mine." "You're a dead man if you do," said the storekeeper. "No fear. Mahto-sapa and I are rather friends. I reckon I'm going to sleep in his village to-night, and I'll risk twenty dollars if you like, Seth Davis, that I look round here again, with all my hair on, within a month." "Done!" said the storekeeper, shortly. They watched him join the group of sullen and brooding savages--moving among them, alone, absolutely fearless, as among a crowd in an English market-town--addressing one here, another there. Then they saw him fetch his horse and ride away with the band, which had been preparing to take its departure. "Gosh! I never saw such a galoot as that pard of yours," said Seth Davis, ejecting an emphatic quid. "Takes no more account of a crowd of Ingians a-bustin' with cussedness, nor though they were a lot o' darned kids. Wal, wal! Reckon that wager's on, all there; hey, Smokestack Bill?" "That's so," was the laconic reply. "Let's liquor." CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. "THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY." About a month later than the events just detailed, a solitary individual might have been descried occupying one of the high buttes overlooking a large tract of the northern buffalo range, somewhat near the border between the territories of Montana and Wyoming. Howbeit, we must qualify the statement in some degree. Save to the keen eye of yon war-eagle, poised high aloft in the blue ether, the man was not to be descried by any living thing, for the simple reason that he took very especial care to keep his personality effectually concealed. Beneath lay the broad rolling plains extending in bold undulation far as the eye could reach, stretching away to the foothills, and then the distant snow peaks, of the Bighorn range. No cloud was in the sky. The atmosphere in its summer stillness was wondrously clear, all objects being sharply definable up to an incredible distance. From his lofty perch the man looks down upon the surrounding country as upon a map lying outspread before his feet. That something is occupying his attention is evident. Lying flat on his face, his gaze is riveted on the plain beneath. What object has attracted his keen vision--has sufficed to retain it? Crawling onward, unwinding its slow length like some huge variegated centipede, comes a waggon train, and, though it is at least ten miles distant, the observer, from his vantage-ground, can with his unaided vision master every essential detail--several great lumbering waggons, veritable prairie schooners, their canvas tilts looking like sails upon that sea of rolling wilderness; a little way ahead of these a lighter waggon, drawn by a team of four horses. He can also make out a few mounted figures riding in front.