With this sort of thing on the surface you will understand that it would be easy to stir up more serious trouble from underneath, and something of the sort was going on. It was something Whitey couldn't put his hand on, but he could read it in signs shown by some of the men. And there were mysterious meetings and gatherings of the disaffected ones. Of course, Injun was quick to sense all this, and had no scruples about butting in and finding out all about the trouble. As bad examples are as catching as good ones, and more so, Whitey joined Injun in his investigations. So behold! A dark night on the prairie. A tent showing only a streak of yellow light where the opening folds did not quite meet. Two boys lying on their stomachs near the edge of the tent, industriously listening. This was not their own tent. There seemed to be few grumblers in that. It was the tent in which Henry Dorgan was housed. And listen as they might, and sharp as Injun's ears were, they heard nothing definite. Just murmurs, an occasional oath or two, and what might have been threats, in louder tones. It was very discouraging. So at last they returned to their own tent, to the yarn-spinning threshers and the silent old cowpuncher. Whitey soon gave up this form of effort, but Injun did not; possibly because Dorgan was in the other tent. Friday night came, almost the last of the threshing. Injun was absent on his eavesdropping quest, which so far had yielded nothing. The men in Whitey's tent were merrier than usual and, it must be admitted, more profane. Then along came bad luck, in the person of Mrs. Gilbert Steele. Mrs. Steele, you must know, was one of these motherly women who didn't have anything to mother. She was stout, round-faced, good-natured, and industrious; quite the opposite to her rather cold-blooded husband. And this matter of her not having anything to mother was responsible for many things, as you shall learn. Threshing-time was rush time with her. She had few chances to think of anything except food, but this night she happened to have a little leisure, and had devoted it to consideration of Whitey. "That poor boy out in that tent with all those rough men. Why didn't I think of him before?" So Mrs. Steele had waddled out to the tent, and had arrived at a moment when there was a particularly strong outburst of profanity on the part of one of the rough men. Though this was nipped in the bud as Mrs. Steele entered the tent, it caused her to reproach herself more bitterly than before. She promptly took Whitey under her wing and told him that, crowded as the ranch house was, a place there should be found for him to sleep.