"Back in the mountains--back on the Stinking Water; a long way from here, but a good place for the animals. It is where I come from, and I haven't been home in nearly a year. I should like to see my people," continued Ermine. "Anywhere will do; we will go to the Stinking Water, which I hope belies its name. You have relatives living there, I take it." "Not relatives; I have no relations anywhere on the earth, but I have friends," he replied. "When shall we start?" Ermine waved his hand a few times at the sky and said "So many," but it failed to record on the Englishman's mind. He was using the sign language. The scout noted this, and added, "Ten suns from now I will go if I can." "Very well; we will purchase ponies and other necessaries meanwhile, and will you aid me in the preparations, Mr. Ermine? How many ponies shall we require?" "Two apiece--one to ride and the other to pack," came the answer to the question. A great light dawned upon Harding's mind. To live a month with what one Indian pony could carry for bedding, clothes, cartridges, and food. His new friend failed, in his mind, to understand the requirements of an English gentleman on such quests. "But, Mr. Ermine, how should I transport my heads back to this point with only one pack-animal?" "Heads? heads? back here?" stumbled the light-horseman. "What heads?" "Why, the heads of such game as I might be so fortunate as to kill." "What do you want of their heads? We never take the heads. We give them to our little friends, the coyotes," queried Ermine. "Yes, yes, but I must have the heads to take back to England with me. I am afraid, Mr. Ermine, we shall have to be more liberal with our pack-train. However, we will go into the matter at greater length later." Sterling Harding wanted to refer to the Captain for further understanding of his new guide. He felt that Lewis could make the matter plain to Ermine by more direct methods than he knew how to employ. As the result of world-wide wanderings, he knew that the Captain would have to explain to Ermine that he was a crazy Englishman who was all right, but who must be humored. To Harding this idea was not new; he had played his blood-letting ardor against all the forms of outlandish ignorance. The savages of many lands had eaten the bodies of which the erratic Englishman wanted only the heads. So to Lewis went Harding. "I say, Captain, your Ermine there is an artless fellow. He is proposing to Indianize me, to take me out for a whole moon, as he calls it, with only one pack-pony to carry my belongings. Also he fails, I think, to comprehend that I want to bring back the heads of my game."