“Me? Oh, yes. I tell you, Mr. Landray, the valley's no healthy place unless you keep on the right side of him. I've heard father say that even after he'd been made elder, he kicked over the traces, and they had to baptise him all over a few times, to give him a fresh start. I reckon they didn't keep him in long enough 'airy time, if I'd been doing the job I'd left him in over night.” While he talked his glance had been continually straying in the direction of the fur trader. The latter's apparently earnest conversation with his companions had come to an end, and the two halfbreeds had stretched themselves on the ground, but Basil still sat beside the camp-fire, his pipe between his teeth, moody and solitary. The deserter hitched a little nearer Stephen, and dropped his voice to a low whisper. “I'd like mighty well to tie up with you gentlemen, and give Basil yonder the slip. It was downright underhand of him to run me and the breeds in on you the way he done; I was real distressed, honest I was. It'd about serve him right if you helped me cut loose; we could wait until we got to the valley, and then if you'd just furnish me with a gun—” He looked wistfully at the row of rifles that leaned against the wagon-bed, each within easy reach of its owner's hand “and if there was any shooting to be done—him, I mean—I'd do it. Of course, his being kin to you, you wouldn't just want to do that yourselves. I'd want to feel though, that you'd take care of the half-breeds until I done for Basil. You never can trust a half-breed anyhow.” “You're not in earnest, Raymond; you're surely not serious?” cried Stephen, drawing away from him in disgust and horror. The deserter gave him a swift, searching glance, then he laughed easily. “Well, no, I ain't. I was joking—just joking.” “It was a poor joke,” said Stephen sternly. Raymond came slowly to his feet. “Well,” said he, “I'll turn in. You couldn't oblige me with the loan of a rifle, if I made up my mind to strike off for Fort Bridger?” “No, we have no guns to spare,” said Stephen shortly. A look of keen disappointment appeared on the deserter's face, but it swiftly passed and left him smiling and ingenuous. “Good-night,” he said. The camp-fire died down until nothing remained of it but a mass of glowing embers. The teamsters and Walsh had put away their cards and wrapped themselves in their blankets; Bushrod and Rogers had followed their example; their heavy breathing told that they already slept. The night wind that threshed the wagon canvases blew raw and cold. Stephen took up his rifle and made the circuit of the wagons, looking closely to the mules and horses, for the first watch was his.