There he enjoyed the discontented tranquillity of a United States reservation, with occasional privileges if he was good. Lone Wolf had gone into the north country at the head of three hundred efficient fighting men, well armed with rifles, rich in ammunition, ponies, and the luxuries of daily existence. He came back as the nominal chief of thirty-five warriors, with few firearms, and less wealth. Counting in the women, children, and old men, his original band had numbered nearly a thousand souls--a large camp even for the old days. Now there remained barely a tenth of that number. Misfortunes such as these must have a reason. Gitche Manitou is stern, but he is not unjust. Everybody knows that. And the reason Lone Wolf's band was so afflicted, Big Thunder, the medicine man, had discovered, lay in the fact that the defiling of the tribe's token, after the Little Big Horn, had been done by a member of the tribe itself. Until the culprit should be brought to justice the wrath of Gitche Manitou would continue to be visited impartially on the entire band. The recognition of Rippling Water made a profound impression on those standing about. There flashed into Lone Wolf's eagle face a gleam of satisfaction so intense that Black Mike started. He had not the remotest notion that he was in any actual danger, for his dealings with the tribe in those old times when he had been a member of it had always been rather to its advantage than to his own. That it was unfriendly to him because of his unceremonious desertion of it, he did not doubt. Nor did he hope to escape a typical Indian tirade from the two old hags who, so short a time ago, had been his not unattractive young wives. But beyond this, and perhaps--as he glanced over the motley indications of their poverty--the promise of gifts, he anticipated nothing more serious in the end than a delay. A delay, however, was what he could not at present afford. "Ah, well," he acknowledged in the Indian tongue, "I am he, Man-who-speaks-Medicine. You have known me. It is I. It is many moons that I have not seen my brothers, but I have accomplished many things, and I have gathered gifts for my brothers which will rejoice their hearts. I go to the lodges of the white men near Swift-water now, and I haste; so I cannot linger to clasp my brothers' hands; but to-morrow I return bearing the gifts." [Illustration: "MY LITTLE MOLLY," HE CHOKED.] He took up his reins with all confidence, for in those days no one was afraid of Indians--at least when they were accompanied by their women and children. The two bucks at the horses' heads did not move, however; and at a signal from Lone Wolf three others leaped lightly into the wagon-body behind the half-breed and pinned his arms to his sides. So suddenly was it done that Lafond could not even struggle.