Dumont’s Camp opined that it was a good thing for the old cripple that he hadn’t stayed longer, else he might have found himself minus his squaws, especially the young one. But Dumont’s Camp would have been mightily puzzled had it seen how the limp and stoop went out of the squaw-man’s body the moment he had left their camp behind, how the foolish leer and stuttering speech disappeared from his mouth, and how, straight-backed and stern-visaged, he threw the bottle of hooch away in contempt and hurried on toward Fifty Mile. Reivers had played many strange parts in his tumultuous life, and his squaw-man was a masterpiece. Fifty Mile had its sensation early next morning. The half-witted, crippled-up squaw-man with the two extremely desirable squaws came through, stopped for another bottle of hooch, and drove on and made camp just outside the settlement. “He certainly was one soft-headed old bum,” said Jack Raftery, leaning on the packing-case that served as bar in his logcabin saloon. “Yes, men, he certainly is bumped in the bean and locoed in his arms. Gimme that chunk o’ meat there for a bottle o’ hooch. ’Bout fifty pounds, it’ll weigh. I’d give ‘im a gallon, but he grins foolish and says: ‘Bottle. One bottle.’ ‘Drag your meat in,’ says I. Well, gents, will you b’lieve he couldn’t make it. No, sir; paralysed in the arms or something. “That young squaw o’ his did the toting. A beaut’? Gents, there never was anything put up in a brown hide to touch it. An’ that locoed ol’ bum running ’round loose with it. Tempting providence, that’s what he is, when he comes parading ‘round real men-folks with skirts like them. Shouldn’t wonder if something’d happen to him one o’ these cold days. Looks like he might ‘a’ been an awful good man in his day, too. Well built. Reckon he’s been used mighty rough to be locoed and crippled up the way he is.” “I reck-ong,” drawled Black Pete, who ran the games at Raftery’s when there was any money in sight. “I reck-ong too mebbe he get handle more rough some tam ef he’s hang ‘round long wid dem two squaw. Tha’ small squaw’s too chic, she, to b’long to ol’ bum lak heem.” The assembled gents laughed. Had they seen the “ol’ bum” at that moment their laughter would have been cut short. Reivers, in a gully out of sight of the settlement, had thrown away his hooch, pitched camp, tethered the dogs and made all secure with a swiftness and efficiency that belied the characterisation Black Pete had applied to him. He had the two tepees set up far apart, the dogs tied between them, and Tillie and Neopa had one tepee, and Reivers the other, alone. Having made camp, Reivers knew what the boys would expect of him in his character of sodden squaw-man. Having resolved to use the most shameful means in the world to achieve his end, he played his base part to perfection.