During the next ten days he and his followers were a fruitful source of newspaper interest. His experience had taught him, among other things worth remembering, that if you kill a man he is done for. Had his education taught him proportion he would have known it was wasted labor on his part to begin the extermination of sixty odd millions of human beings with the means and men he had at hand. Not appreciating this, he began his ambitious undertaking at once, moving across the plains with no fixed plan or destination, gathering in the settlers along his line of march; and the gathering in was attended by horrors not to be told. Then he took himself off toward the mountains with the most complete and extensive collection of scalps made in many years. Through all these days of success his interest in the total destruction of the white race never flagged; but certain of his followers were not so constituted that they cherished a lofty ideal purely for the ideal's sake. These, after the first flush of war had paled its glow for them, began to think sadly of consequences. The hard life, the thirst and starvation of the foray, grew stale and tedious; they longed for the ease and sloth of the reservation, where water was plenty and rations had the noble quality of regularity. Two Indians in particular wished to be taken back into the fold; and as the days came full of effort and hunger, this wish thrived apace, and they agreed that the white father would doubtless pay well for a little information as to Le Boyen's whereabouts. To furnish him with the coveted knowledge it would be necessary for one to remain with the band, while the other deserted. Their plan was no sooner perfected than it was acted upon, and Le Boyen, suspecting the meaning though not the extent of the disaffection, put his people on forced marches. For four days they toiled into the mountains, while the traitor in their midst left his fatal marks on every rod of land they crossed. On the fourth day the band went into camp, that Le Boyen might have time in which to mature plans for the future. Day had scarcely dawned again when the traitor stole out to inspect his surroundings. All the warriors slept, even to the guards, who, as they sat about the ashes of the fires, nodded over the guns in their laps. The only ones astir were a few Indian mothers, who were already lashing their babies to the travaux strapped to their lean dogs. The traitor had mounted a rugged bluff that overhung the canyon leading back into the valley where the temporary encampment was made, and straining his eyes to the farthest distance he saw what he yearned to see, a long line of mounted men. Rations were destined to be regular and his heart was glad. Without a backward glance toward the camp he started on a run in the direction of the approaching horsemen.