“Funny, that war!” broke in Big John. “Shore tickled this _hombre’s_ sense of the reedic’lous! Thar we was, afraid to make a move fer fear of offending them pore Injuns’ feelin’s, with their medicine panther an’ all that. But Ruler, here, he don’t know nothin’ about no sacred panther! All he smells is cat, red hot, an’--most impolite,--takes out after the heap big medicine trick panther! I pilgrims out of me blankets and heaves a saddle on wild Bill, an’ Scotty an’ I rolls our tails after thet b’ilin’ of dawgs, leavin’ the Colonel to fix up some lie that’ll pacify the Injuns. Now we shore is wanted back to home, boys! I’ll tote that saddle of yourn, Sid, somehow, an’ Scotty, you carry the extra rifle while Sid takes yore stirrup and runs with us. Let’s get movin’--we’ve got all of ten miles to lope.” Sid got to his feet and passed up the saddle to Big John. Then Scotty took his rifle and, with Sid getting a grip on the stirrup, the ponies started cantering down the side chasm. In a mile more they were out in the main canyon and riding steadily up its huge amphitheater of cliffs. Sid was dog-tired with the alternate walking and trotting of the horses when, shortly before sunset, the wide plain of the Navaho settlement came to view. Running with a stirrup-hold was far easier than he had anticipated; walking was another story, for a horse’s stride is so long as to take a very rapid pace to keep up with it. As they looked about over the semidesert plain it was hard to realize that there must be at least fifty hogans in plain sight at that very moment. But, so carefully concealed were they that if this party of theirs had been hostile invaders they would be walking right in to a first-class ambush. But, as they drew near Neyani’s, the entire vicinity seemed dotted with busy Indians, all preparing for the great Fire Dance. From every direction they were dragging in wood, small dead mesquites, greasewood bushes, anything that would burn. A huge pile of it twenty feet high was being assembled near the hogan, with an inclosure of brush formed in a ring about it. Indians passed them, gayly decorated with barbaric jewelry, in white cotton shirts and colored leggings, the older ones wearing broad, striped “chief” blankets. All were noisy, and busy on one errand or another, and behind brushwood screens they could see the young men and warriors of the various clans and secret societies decking themselves in ceremonial costumes. Then Colonel Colvin came galloping out, his face one huge smile of glad relief and astonishment. “Sid, my boy!--where _have_ you been? What in the devil has happened to you, son?” he cried, as he reined up his horse to lean over and wring Sid’s hand. “You have come just in the nick of time. It will at least relieve young Niltci of any suspicion of having harmed a white man. But the Fire Dance ceremony must go ahead, I fear. Any news of that infernal panther, John?”