The infection had gripped the Indian camps. Chiefs were haranguing, women and children were scuttling and shrieking, drums and whistles were sounding, warriors were arraying. The Nez Percé camp, there before him, and the Flathead camp, adjacent, in particular prepared for welcome. White-God men! White women! Bring Book of God. Tois-good!

Ute and Crow and Snake looked on curiously, but restrained. Whisky was coming too-powder, blankets, sugar, tobacco, red cloth, and more whisky; so why all this childish pother about white men and white women?

He himself, puffing at his pipe, seemed to be the only person deaf to the acclaims and blind to opportunities. White woman! Not again. Whisky? He thought no. Tommy's death had accomplished this, at least. Tommy should now be making ready for Oregon. The other had been accomplished by white woman herself.

Here was his wife, hurrying with the baby, from the Nez Percé camp. She glowed.

God-men come. White woman come, Yellow Buffalo. It is true. You do not go?"

"I do not go."

Many go to see. Nimipu [Nez Percés], Salish [Flatheads], make ready. Everybody happy." She looked at him wistfully. "You not happy? You not go to see?"

"I wait here. Dawn Star may do as she pleases," he said.

When white woman come," she agreed.

"Then I go see. My hama not care about white woman? Maybe he likes red woman better."

Aye," said he. "Is that not so?"

"Tois-good," she smiled. "It must be so. All white

men in this country have red wife. He is white man,

he has red wife, he has fine baby. White woman cannot tend him like Dawn Star does. When white women come I will say: 'See! I am Nez Percé. A great white chief chooses me to be his wife. This is our baby. We keep his lodge and make him happy.' They will envy Dawn Star-you bet."

"Good Lord!" he murmured.

And she prattled on. The day waned amid incessant preparation, and much galloping of lookouts. At last, all panoplied, they sat their saddles, statuesque-those ranks of wild horsemen, each band solidly combined under its chiefs; with buffalo horn casques, with caps of red-tipped feathers, with bear-claw and panther-claw necklaces, with mantles of bear skin and panther skin and white wolf pelt, with blankets red and blue and shirts and leggins and moccasins heavy in beads and quills, with faces painted, and spears and guns burnished, and the evening light reflected from a thousand ornaments of copper, brass and shell.

Now the distance unfolded in the east was broken. Out of it figures neared, riding furiously-and they were white, and they were red, of guises scarcely opposed. The waiting ranks stiffened, intent, so that for a moment even the bells of the horses were stilled.

The figures careened in; their guns puffed white smoke to the sunset sky, and while their mounts' forehoofs ploughed the soil they lifted rigid arms in signal. The caravan, the caravan, and the white women! Come!

The eagle-bone war-whistle of the Nez Percé captain chief shrilled piercingly. The savage troops stirred; and with every man checking his restive horse, as wild as he, the ranks flowed onward. The whistle shrilled again; and there burst the apparent bonds of discipline. A hundred whistles-wing-bone of eagle, wing-bone of trumpeter swan, wing-bone of gray goose, responded; whistle,

and rattle, and drum, and a chorus infernal from human throats.

The horses sprang, the riders lashed and yelled, and still in fronts unbroken the barbaric cavalry swept away and on, while the heavens and the valley shook. Presently the reports of their guns echoed in their wake. This part of the rendezvous camp was deserted by all save the women and children; and the flaxen giant seated before his lodge.

Time would be short now. Nearer in that distance a mob swirled. Caravan, mountain-men and Indians had coalesced. And all increased upon the sight: a nucleus, forming line of march by Fitzpatrick's pack-train and doubtless the missionary train; and an active, delirious escort of riders prancing, darting, shooting, yelling, as fantastic as Bacchic celebrants.

Then, forming as the van, the Indians led up the valley, with lance butt and rattle and drum beating time to the sonorous chant of the Nez Percés.

In the sunset gold the concourse halted. 'Twas there, well removed from him, that camp was to be made. Very good. Aye, excellently good. White women! God grant he need not see them, nor they him. They should pass on, leaving him to his life, for of their world he asked nothing beyond powder, and lead, and traps, and days and nights unquestioned.

He bethought of his squaw. She had risen, clutching the baby, her lips parted and her eyes fixed; and in her forward pose all the eagerness of a child entranced.

"Go," he said. She went, running for her horse, as other Indian women were running.

The throng at the camp dispersed a little. Chiefs and warriors were returning to their own camps, to eat and to change horses; trappers themselves wrenched free, and

various figures dashed across the plain. Finally Black Harris came, to tumble off, incoherent with sensations.

"Ow-owgh! By thunder, I say! Hi-yah! Hi-yah! Hi-yah! Whoo-oop! This coon wants to sing. Nope! Can't sing, can't drink, can't chaw, can't nothin'. He's seen white women ag'in."

"There, are they?"

Harris gawked.

"Thar? Wall, if they ain't thar whar be they? You been sittin' hyar like a bach beaver at his hole?" he demanded.

"Aye."

The rambunctionest time you ever did hear tell of,” Harris blatted. Gin 'em a how-de-do, we did. What with the racin' an' the yellin' an' the whoopin' an' the shootin' we made 'em 'come,' we did. Thought we was all Injuns gone fâchés, they did, an' Fitzpatrick was nigh to fortin' the hull train ag'in us 'fore he was up to trap an' read our sign. Ow-owgh! May I be rumboozled if that ain't true."

How many white women?"

"This chile don't exac'ly know. Thar mought be one, thar mought be two, thar mought be three, an' the hull train mought be full of 'em. For what with the screechin' an' the r'arin' an' the ka-whangin' hyar's a coon as sorter felt squaw like; an' fust time he clapped eye on one o' them white women an' she gin him a look back (right purty she was, too) his peepers went bleary an' durned if he didn't run like a Digger Injun. Now it's up traps an' get."

"Why that?"

"'Cause a sight o' white she-skin spiles brown skin. My old Crow squaw somehow don't shine. Thought she was right han'some, I did, but danged if she ain't ugly as

a buzzard an' I feel like takin' a lodge-pole to her. White women are goin' to ruin beaver country, an' I mean to light out fur as I can go, an' cache, till my heart's done pumpin'. T'otherwise it's gone hos an' beaver for old Black Harris, an' he's liable to travel straight along to the Columby. Yep, you done proper to set hyar."

"Who's down there, Harris?"

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'Fitzpatrick fetched the caravan, 'long with the missioners. The doctor missioner ag'in-him who butchered the arrers out o' you an' Bridger last year; an' two-three other missioners, an' I hear tell them women are their squaws. An' thar's a two-gun Britisher greenhorn on the scalp trail, looks like, fixed up right han'some for Injun fodder; jined along of a Hudson's Bay outfit from the north, at the Laramie Fork"

"Aye? An Englishman? Hunting?"

Britisher, I said. If he ain't a Britisher, on ha'rraisin' trip, somebody's a liar. An' if that ain't him, comin' now, I'm a liar myself. Comin' hyar, mebbe. But this coon don't stay to see. He's seen enough, for one day. White women! His blinkers are so weepy he'll never shoot center ag'in."

Black Harris vaulted upon his horse and galloped away. Another man, ahorse, was coming on methodically, by course oblique across the wide valley; and the golden twilight in his face displayed the details of him.

British-aye! There was no mistaking that plaid costume, complete from cap to gaiters, nor that solid seat in the saddle. The rendezvous crowd, white and red, still churned around the new camp yonder-even Dawn Star was neglecting lodge duties, and likely would be absent. until late; so that the man rode upon open way.

He approached, somewhat questingly, yet direct as if with firm intent; and the flaxen giant stared; startled, he