Peppajee looked back to see why Grant paused there, and then, wrapping his blanket tightly around him, crawled through the fence, and went on, keeping to the broad belt of shade cast upon the ground by the row of poplars. Where the shade stopped abruptly, and beyond lay white moonlight with the ranch buildings blotching it here and there, he stopped and waited until Good Indian stood close beside him. Even then he did not speak, but, freeing an arm slowly from the blanket folds, pointed toward the stable. Grant looked, saw nothing, stared harder, and so; feeling sure there must be something hidden there, presently believed that a bit of the shadow at that end which was next the corral wavered, stopped, and then moved unmistakably. All the front of the stable was distinctly visible in the white light, and, while they looked, something flitted across it, and disappeared among the sage beyond the trail. Again they waited; two minutes, three minutes, five. Then another shadow detached itself slowly from the shade of the stable, hesitated, walked out boldly, and crossed the white sand on the path to the house. Baumberger it was, and he stopped midway to light his pipe, and so, puffing luxuriously, went on into the blackness of the grove. They heard him step softly upon the porch, heard also the bovine sigh with which he settled himself in the armchair there. They caught the aromatic odor of tobacco smoke ascending, and knew that his presence there had all at once become the most innocent, the most natural thing in the world; for any man, waking on such a night, needs no justification for smoking a nocturnal pipe upon the porch while he gazes dreamily out upon the moon-bathed world around him. Peppajee touched Grant's arm, and turned back, skirting the poplars again until they were well away from the house, and there was no possibility of being heard. He stopped there, and confronted the other. “What for you no stoppum stable?” he questioned bluntly. “What for you no stoppum ranch, for sleepum?” “I go for stoppum Hicks' ranch,” said Good Indian, without any attempt at equivocation. Peppajee grunted. “What for yo' no stoppum all same Peaceful?” Good Indian scorned a subterfuge, and spoke truly. “That girl, Evadna, no likum me. All time mad me. So I no stoppum ranch, no more.” Peppajee grinned briefly and understandingly, and nodded his head. “Me heap sabe. Yo' all time heap like for catchum that girl, be yo' squaw. Bimeby that girl heap likum yo'. Me sabe.” He stood a moment staring at the stars peeping down from above the rim-rock which guarded the bluff. “All same, yo' no go stoppum Hicks,” he commanded. “Yo' stoppum dis ranch all time. Yo' all time watchum man--yo' callum Baumberga.” He seemed to remember and speak the name with some difficulty. “Where him go, yo' go, for heap watchum. All time mebbyso me watchum Man-that-coughs. Me no sabe catchum ranch--all same, me watchum. Them mans heap kay bueno. Yo' bet yo' life!”