"It will be west," he said, " till I've put her in safety. White women are there."

Thus they had debated, these nomad chiefs of beaver stream and chartless trails: had debated, weighed, and had decided, around their council fire, with a slim damsel from another world the unconscious subject of their grave discussion.

That she was voiceless in a debate so pertinent to herself, ordering, as it did, the assignment of her body, even her life, cut no figure; for they were men, and wise, she was woman, and ignorant. In she had come, out she must go.

Meanwhile she slept in that hide shelter, companioned by a woman of race foreign to her; nevertheless a woman, essentially a woman, who should be lenient with her through the common bond of sex. One blanket covered New York and Oregon, and the child, type of home, between. A demonstration symbolical.

The white Indian, Yellow Buffalo, made master to two women (which, as could be seen, perplexed him) sat and smoked, as if he would read the morrow's trail by crystalgazing through his puffs.

To the west, again; he, and she, his wife and the child. She'd not object, he hoped. In fact there was nothing else to be done, as he would explain if necessary. She should be placed with the other white women. He would get her through-had no doubt of that. His country, this was; and his affair. She had trusted Shunan; she would have to trust him.

The Indians? Oh, there were no Indians to be reckoned with, west of here, Carson had said. And Carson knew. A larger party would be of no advantage. He himself and Dawn Star would do all that could be done to make her journey easy. She need not fear Indians.

Those Blackfeet had engaged to hold off for twenty-four hours. The chief always kept his word, Carson said.

Aye? "No mountains are high enough to part us," the chief had promised also." On the trail look behind you for War Eagle." This in private advice. Another pledge; quite another pledge. To be kept? He had a fierce eye and an inflexible hate, and there were mountains, near and far, in the west as elsewhere. Kit generally was right, about Injuns; a determined vicious scoundrel, that Le Borgne; scrupulous-as an enemy.

By the Eternal, then, let it be man to man, in good time. A little shiver, as from a cold hand laid upon his bare back, had passed through him while he cogitated. He shrugged it away, and with it shrugged away the voice of the War Eagle. Two could play at vengeance, after Alice had been dismissed to safety. One thing at a time.

She, first; then he would take up the case of Tommy, Duncan, yes, and of the child, if so required. That would lend a little zest to life.

The camp was prompt to the dawn, and she with it: duly up and out, this fair white girl as phenomenal, here, as an Amphitrite rising before the eyes of sailors upon a tempestuous sea. She appeared, caparisoned as though she had overheard, and knew. Somewhat drawn, she was, and dark of eyes, but she greeted him with a smile bravely breaking.

"I'm ready," she said. "You all have disposed of me?"

"It's decided that I'm to take you on," said he. "Alone, that is?"

"If you'll accept. Other men offered, but Bridger agrees that we'd perhaps do better without. Besides, he needs them; we don't."

"Of course," she said.

ask?"

"Where do we go, may I

"For Oregon. I propose to place you with the missionary company. That is the quickest trail now."

She assented meekly.

"Yes, I suppose so. You are right. We must start at once. I'm sorry to trouble you, Ralph. You have your wife and baby, and your business, but I'll travel as fast as I can and try not to be a bother."

There had been that moment of comradeship, even of tie stronger, illumined by the peril to him flashed upon her in the Le Borgne lodge. This had passed—had faded out. Gone was the bitter sweetness, like a dream. She was dispassionate, now, and neutral; and in her apology she had reminded him of fact confuting fancy. Yet what else could he expect?

Bridger urged haste.

"Ketch up, ketch up. We'll be standin' yere in the road a spell. Aim to toll them Bugs Boys on to whar thar'll be poppin' plenty, or I don't know Injun. It's time you war movin', yoreself. We'll take keer of yore traps for you."

Leaving Bridger, Carson and all to "stand in the road," against the "Bugs Boys" (that cant term for the Blackfeet: Devil's Own) they set out, traveling light: he upon his gray, his wife and the child upon their Flathead horse, the girl upon a mount lent by Carson (a good animal it was), and the pack-horse sparingly laden.

Peace apparently accompanied them; but on the third day he felt that something sinister hung upon their trail.

CHAPTER XX

SOMETHING SINISTER

His trail heretofore had been his own, trending ever, as country permitted, for the west and that trader and missionary trail which bored up from the southward, to the Columbia of farthest Oregon.

Fort Hall of the Hudson's Bay Company lay yonder beside the trail and the Snake River; the missionary women could scarcely out-travel him and his women into Fort Hall.

And the first two days had been benevolent.

"My hama is a great chief. He should have wives. Black Bear says Chief Solomon of the Good Book had many wives. If the Yellow Buffalo takes the white woman into his lodge it is all right. We shall be happy together," the Nez Percé pronounced.

And inasmuch as she clung to the idea, and Alice did not understand the words, rather than draw attention by arguing he let the matter stand in its innocence.

Indeed, they got along together amazingly well, those two, the red woman and the white. The brunt of the camp work fell to the Indian, of course, by training and tacit custom; but it chafed him to observe how the white girl tried to help-with a docility and an eagerness even pathetic, so awkward she was, so unskilled in these primitive measures and simple expedients which to the Nez Percé were second nature. Aye, and if he could not avoid a modicum of pain in seeing Alice Colton bewildered by domestic shifts connate with the daily life of

both white and Indians in these parts, he also fed upon a proper pride in the mettle of his own race.

She, Alice, had pride, too. For although she voluntarily joined in the routine, and submitted without question to the guidance of him and of the Dawn Star, she was only with them, not of them—maintaining a pleasant but high reserve that baffled like the line of caste. They were three, and she was one.

The child she did not touch. As if in new modesty his wife had ceased to give it breast; but her fondling and crooning and her shy glances, jealously provoking, brought no responsive gesture beyond a friendly smile. The two women, and the child, slept under shelter; and he outside.

During the second night the Carson horse vanished. When he went out upon morning gather he found only the three horses where four should be. This puzzled him. It was a strange forbearance that had taken one horse and declined the others. He revolved the problem in his mind while leading the animals in on return to camp.

"Your horse has gone on the back trail, I think," he announced to the girl.

"Oh!" she cried.

Can't you find him?" "No. They sometimes do that." He said nothing about the cut picket rope.

"I'm sorry," she deplored. "But you'll follow him? He may not be far.”

"He's probably traveled a long way by this time. We'll do better by keeping on."

She repeated:

"I'm sorry. I see I'm to be a bother, but I'll walk as fast as I can.'

"There's no need of anybody walking," said he. “I'll