“Indians!” yelled the fugitive, making an effort to resume his flight. “Come,” said Mr. Masterson, refusing to be shaken off, “it’s only a joke. What you need now is a drink. Let’s push for Luke Short’s.” While Higginson Peabody stood at the Long Branch bar and restored that confidence in his fellow-men which a two-days’ stay in Dodge had done much to shake, Cimarron Bill and a select bevy, clad in full Cheyenne regalia, faces painted, blankets flying, feathers tossing, came whooping down the street. They jumped from their steaming ponies and joined Mr. Masterson and their victim. “The drinks is on me!” shouted Cimarron Bill, giving the counter a resounding slap. “Which I’m as dry as a covered bridge!” “The drinks is on the house,” said Mr. Short, severely. Then to Higginson Peabody, “Here’s to you, stranger! An’ let me say,” concluded Mr. Short, while a colour of compliment showed through his tones, “that if ever you do run a footrace I’ll string my money on you.” As he considered the incident, Higginson Peabody was inclined to refuse the boon of Mr. Wright’s further acquaintance, but Mr. Masterson and Mr. Kelly explained that to do so would be regarded, by the liberal sentiment of Dodge, as churlish in the extreme. “That scamper into camp,” urged Mr. Kelly, “oughtn’t to count. It’s only folks we like an’ intend to adopt into our midst on whom we confer them rites of initiation.” “That’s whatever,” observed Cimarron Bill, who came up. “Which we shore wouldn’t take that much trouble with any gent onless we liked him.” During his last year at Harvard Higginson Peabody edited the college paper, and that, when he landed in Dodge, had been the whole of his journalistic experience. While he conducted that vehicle of college information his one notable triumph was an article on Bible reading, in which he urged that all Bibles be bound in red. He pointed out an inherent interest to abide in red and quoted its effect on turkey gobblers. On the other hand, black, the usual cover-colour of Bibles, was a hue sorrowful and repellant; so far from inviting human interest, it daunted it. Higginson Peabody insisted that were every copy of the scriptures bound in red a score would read where only one perused them in their black uniform of gloom. This article gained him the compliment of a reprimand from the university heads and an accusation on the part of rivals that he was trying to promote an importance for his college colours.