Mr. Pepin did not wish to return to the whites; the Indians were devoid of contraltos. The Lone Wolf filled his lodge with buffalo beef and robes. By way of receiving return, he came once a week, and asked his heart’s brother to make the ghosts in his “medicine” tell him their impressions. Under Mr. Pepin’s spell the ghosts were sure to talk hopefully and with courageous optimism. Their usual discourse took the form of “Johnny Comes Marching Home,” or “The Girl I Left Behind Me.” These never failed to make the Lone Wolf’s heart both bold and good. Mr. Masterson presently met the Lone Wolf. That warrior was wearing his fiddle-case “medicine” on his back, after the manner of a squaw carrying her pappoose. The Lone Wolf had a prideful look which he held was one of the beneficent effects of his “medicine.” He confided to Mr. Masterson that Mr. Pepin’s Cheyenne name was a rumbling procession of gutturals that, translated, meant “The-toad-that-sings-like-a-thrush.” CHAPTER X THE INTUITIONS OF MR. ALLISON For a moment the signs promised hugely of smoke and flying lead and sudden death, and the interest of Dodge was awakened. Later, when the episode had been thoroughly searched, it grew to be the popular conclusion that the affair was wholly of the surface. Mr. Allison himself said that he was saved in a manner occult, and not to be understood, and explained how his intuitions warned him of a pending peril. Had it not been for those warning impressions, which he insisted came from guardian spirits interested for his safety, Mr. Allison held that the business might have taken on a serious not to say a sanguinary hue. Cimarron Bill declined the theory of guardian spirits as maintained by Mr. Allison; he took the blame of that gentleman’s escape upon himself. “Clay never got no speritual hunch,” said Cimarron. “Which it was my own ontimely cur’osity that give him warnin’. I’m in the Long Branch at the time, an’ nacherally, after gettin’ Bat’s word, I keep protroodin’ my head a whole lot, expectin’ every minute’s goin’ to be Clay’s next; an’ he ups an’ notices it.” Mr. Short joined with Cimarron, and expressed a skepticism as to Mr. Allison having been bucklered by disembodied influences. “I never did go a foot,” concluded Mr. Short, “on speritualism, with its table-tippin’ an’ its ghost-dancin’. Cimarron’s argument sounds a heap more feasible. In my opinion, Clay saw thar was a hen on by Cimarron’s face.” “You can gamble a handful of reds,” remarked Cimarron Bill, disgustedly, “he sees it in my face. Which it’ll be a lesson to me to hide myse’f the next time one of them Las Animas terrors comes bulgin’ into camp, ontil Bat’s added him to the list. I shore won’t sp’ile another sech a layout by bein’ prematoorly inquisitive that a-way.” “Well,” returned Mr. Masterson, with whom Mr. Short and Cimarron Bill were in talk, “whether Clay was saved by spirits, or by just his own horse sense, I’m glad it ended as it did.”