“Right ye are, Captain”; Pat grabbed up the demijohn and dashed off. When inside the shack he took another drink, then placing the jug in the cupboard, returned to see the Indians, who were trailing along slowly toward the waiting cowboys. “Looks like old Copperhead’s band,” said Dan. “Dave Johnson told me they were in the valley.” “Yes, and they hev been slaughterin’ game; the warden’s watchin’ ’em,” added one of the boys. “Them Redskins’ll stir up trouble in this country yet,” said Cap Hanks; “they’ll get mean when the new game laws are pulled on ’em. But Dave says he’s going to do it.” The Indians by this time were filing past the ranch gate a few rods from the barn. A frowsled, straggly band it was, but picturesque withal, with its rough herd of vari-colored ponies, ragged, wolfish dogs, towsled, half-clad papooses, squaws in bright but tattered calicoes, and sober bucks, decked in spangled and fringed buckskins, with gay blankets. The cowboys, out of curiosity, had dropped their work and gone to the gate to get a closer look at the dusky travelers. “Hullo! Where now?” called Cap Hanks to the leader. “Maybe so over there,” returned the chief, lifting his head and looking upward across the eastern mountains. “Maybe so catchum elk, huh?” Hanks suggested in a significant tone of voice. The chief scowled, but said nothing. “Maybe so game man catchum Injun,” Dick put in smartly. “Huh!” snapped the chief angrily; “maybe so white man put elk here, huh?” “Oh, hold on, Chief, don’t get mad,” said Cap Hanks. “White man no stingy; let Injun kill all he needs to eat, but no heap kill ’em for buckskin.” Old Copperhead’s eyes flashed. “What white man kill ’em for? Not meat, not buckskin. Heap fun. White man let Injun be, Injun let white man be. You savey?” With an angry jerk of the rein, he whirled his pony and started off when Dick, full of mischief, broke out again by jerking a flask from his pocket and saying, “Here, big Injun, maybe this cool ’em down; you likem whisky, huh?” “You smart fool!” Dan rebuked him, “put that stuff up. They’re chuck full of the devil all ready. Hell only knows what they’d do if they got whisky down their black throats.” Dick took the cut without a word, and put the bottle back, but not before the Indian had caught sight of it. The suggestion was enough to wake their thirst; but they filed away sulkily behind their chief, and pitched their tepees across the ford on the flat near an aspen grove. Later in the day several of the bucks came back, ostensibly to swap things with the cowboys, who were gathered about the old shack, Hanks having let them quit work somewhat earlier than usual. Pat was getting things ready for supper when they rode up. The Indians began to beg for tea, sugar, and everything else in sight, but they didn’t make much headway with Pat. Finally one of them caught sight of a flask projecting from the Irishman’s hip pocket and said, “Gimme fire water.” “Go way wid ye!” snapped Pat.