"Ho! Ho! and what?" Canada John halted close to Squaw Charley. "There is a cottonwood lodge beyond the river," he said. "It should belong to The Double-Tongue. He is kept out. An old pale-face and his two daughters seized it in the Moon of Wild Cherries, and they would not go." "An old man, you say?" "But he hunts the white buffalo. Only the daughters are there." "Are they young?" "Young and sleek. One is called The Plow-Woman. She is tall, and she watches like the antelope. The younger has hair like the grass when it is withered." "They live alone?" "The Squaw guards----" "Wuff!" "And The Man-who-buys-Skins. May he be struck by the zigzag fire!" "Who is to have the women?" Canada John scratched his nose. "The Medicine-Giver says, 'He that first reaches them.'" Big Ox shook his head in doubt. "The swiftest may yet fail to keep." "Should any pursue, the women will be killed. The soldiers will think them bit by rattlesnakes." Again Big Ox burst forth with laughter. "Sh!" A hammer clicked from the stockade top. A sentry began to bawl angrily. "Git, you pup-eaters," he ordered, and slanted his gun to them. Casting dignity aside, they ducked into the nearest lodge. Squaw Charley dragged himself back to the shingle roof. There he fell prone, resting his forehead against the ribs of a dog. The strength was gone from his body, the light from his eyes. The wind of that other's nostrils had blasted him. He was like the scattering ash-heaps of the evening smudges, where the last bit of fuel was crumbled, and the last red coal was dead. Long, he stayed upon his face. When the first numbness was past, and his brain was rallying slowly, a very scourge of sorrow visited him--sorrow for the fate of the shack, where he had warmed himself so often, relieved his hunger, and known a kindly smile. With sorrow came remorse. He had not done his part for the little home. He had not guarded as he ought. And he had helped by bringing rattlesnakes--which he had been told were to be used for medicine--in the plot for its destruction. When sorrow and remorse had their turn, a stronger passion gnawed and racked him. It was the yearning for reinstatement. Dwelling upon this, he became two Indians, and one of him opposed the other. They travelled separate trails--trails that bent different ways, like the horns of a buffalo. The trail to the right was a warpath. It led him behind his brothers, through the hole in the stockade. For a while he loitered, loath to share in the work on the Bend. Afterward, he joined them. They were free, and crazy with their freedom. He matched his strength with theirs; dared where they faltered; won--won---- But there was no hope for The Plow-Woman!