“You ain't got any? Then what in blazes are you doing here all by yourself?” demanded Jim; he was quite indignant. The child made no response to this, but his restless glance searched the faces of the two men. His expression was one of dark mistrust; it almost seemed that he meditated flight; but the Missourian's hand was on his shoulder. “And so you ain't got no pa?” said the latter ingratiatingly, for he recognized something of the boy's distrust and suspicion, though he was quite at a loss to account for it. “He's dead,” and his lips trembled pathetically. “Dead,” repeated the Missourian after him. “You knew that,” and the child turned on him with sudden fierceness, his small hands tightly clinched, and his eyes glittering feverishly. “I suspicioned it,” said the Missourian. “The Indians killed him!” the boy added dully. “But I allow your pa put up a pretty stiff fight; it was on a hilltop, now warn't it? and your pa drove his teams up there and took out and fit them from behind the wagons—him and those who was with him?” The child shrank from the questioner's touch, but he answered: “Yes, it was on a hill.” “I knowed it,” declared the Missourian triumphantly. “Knowed what?” demanded Jim with some impatience. “Why, this little cuss came out of that scuffle back yonder; most anybody would have guessed that but you, Jim.” “And he come here all by himself? Not any,” but his friend ignored what he said to turn again to the boy. “There were four other men beside your pa with the wagons, warn't there, son?” The child nodded, but his eyes still flashed with a precocious sense of wrong and hate. “I knowed it,” declared the Missourian in triumph a second time. “And it was the Indians they fit with, you're sure about that?” “It was the Indians,” said the child indifferently. “My pop said it was the Indians.” “I reckon he ought to have knowed,” said the baffled Missourian. “But they were certainly curious Indians from what we seen.” “It was the Indians, they said they was Indians.” “Who?” cried the Missourian quickly. “The men,” answered the child. “The Indians told you that, did they? Well, they was real obliging.” He turned to Jim. “I'm having doubts about these heah Indians.” “Look here, son, what was your idea about them redskins?” asked Jim. The child did not answer him, but there came a sudden flash of intelligence to his pinched little face which the instant before had been quite expressionless in its abject misery. It was plain he understood what the man meant when he spoke of the Indians; then he smiled slyly, cunningly. “What I want to know,” said Jim, “is how he got away from them.” “That's so, son, how do you happen to be heah?” “The Indians fetched me here,” answered the child readily enough. “And left you heah?” “I ran away in the night; when they was all asleep.” “So you fooled 'em—well, you was smart; but didn't they hunt for you any afterwards?”