When Johnny crept around to the front of the house he saw that he was not mistaken. The old chief, bound and gagged, sat disconsolately in the rig. Aaron had gone back upstairs. The boy could hear him closing a door. “Here’s where I take it on the run,” Johnny told himself. A minute later he was in the buckboard beside the Indian. Grabbing the reins and giving the horses the gad took only a second. When Gallup came out the team was gone. He cursed and ranted, but Johnny and Thunder Bird were beyond the sound of his rage. A mile out of town the boy brought the team to a halt. Thunder Bird’s eyes expressed no surprise. When Johnny had untied him and removed the gag from his mouth the chief made no attempt to speak. “Men come soon, chief,” Johnny said, thoroughly provoked at the other’s reticence. “You make talk pretty quick.” Thunder Bird shook his head slowly. “No talk, me,” he mumbled. “No?” Johnny exclaimed hotly. “Mebbe so you change um mind. All the same I not come, Gallup kill you.” A sound, almost a laugh, broke from Thunder Bird’s lips. “I think—me—mebbe so you come. I see you on top train.” Johnny disregarded the Indian’s words. “Chief,” he said, “many, many years you not come to white man’s town. Why you come tonight?” “No tell him that?” “Gallup old friend with you, eh? You come, he tie you up—why you let him do that?” Thunder Bird’s chin was resting upon his chest. “_Huy!_” he grunted. “Too old, me—too old.” Johnny was not getting anywhere. “Chief,” he drawled, unpleasantly, “it was you that Traynor came to see.” Thunder Bird turned his shrewd old eyes on the boy. “Mebbe,” he answered. It was admission enough. “So,” Johnny continued, “you know who kill him, too, eh?” The Indian did not answer at once. When he did, he surprised the boy. “Mebbe me.” A soft, mocking laugh followed. Johnny stared at him. “No,” he said at last. “No—no! He come on Reservation—he come away from Reservation. You no kill him. White man kill him.” Johnny tapped his chest. “Me, I know how”—pointing to the chief—“you know why. Traynor no fool. He watch. Man catch him when he sleep. If you not tell me his name, chief, easy me, I find out who brung you to town. Mebbe that man talk. Lots of men talk by and by. You talk now, eh?” Thunder Bird shook his head determinedly. “No talk, me. You wait—two, t’ree day you find out.” It was an artful answer. Johnny understood the cunning insinuation it carried. A muttered “Humph!” escaped him. “You mean, chief, that in two or three days somebody’ll find a man with a bullet hole clean through him or with a knife stuck in his back, and he’ll be the man that killed Traynor. I savvy your talk, but it don’t go. Dead men don’t talk. No talk, no good.” “Man talk, jail catch um.” This observation gave Johnny renewed hope. “You talk now,” he said, “law catch um man, no catch um you. No talk now, mebbe so law catch um you by and by.”