"I will wait willingly, Jerry; I should know nobody inside the fort if I went in. I will see to making a fire and boiling the kettle, and I will have supper ready at seven o'clock."
"I shall be sure to be back by that time; like enough I sha'n't be a quarter of an hour away."
It was but half an hour, indeed, before Tom saw him returning, accompanied by a tall red-skin.
"This is a friend of mine, Tom. He was a chief of the Senecas, but his tribe are nearly wiped out, and he has been all his life a hunter, and there are few of us who have been much out on the plains who don't know him. Chief, this is Straight Harry's nephew I was telling you of, who has come out here to join his uncle. Sit down, we have got some deer-flesh. Tom here knocked one over on the run at two hundred and fifty yards by as good a shot as you want to see; while it is cooking we can smoke a pipe and have a chat."
The chief gravely seated himself by the fire.
"What have you been doing since I last saw you up near the Yellowstone?"
"Leaping Horse has been hunting," the Indian said quietly, with a wave of his hand, denoting that he had been over a wide expanse of country.
"And fighting with 'Rappahoes and Navahoes."
The Indian nodded. "Much trouble with both; they wanted our scalps. But four of the 'Rappahoe lodges are without a master, and there are five Navahoe widows."
"Garrison was with me among the 'Rappahoes; and the Shoshone hunter, Wind-that-blows, was with me when the Navahoes came on our trail."
"They had better have left you alone, chief. Do you know the Ute country?"
"The Leaping Horse has been there. The Utes are dogs."
"They are troublesome varmint, like most of the others," Jerry agreed. "I was telling you Straight Harry is up in their country somewhere. Tom here is anxious to join him, but of course that can't be. You have not heard anything of him, I suppose?"
"The Leaping Horse was with him a week ago."
"You were, chief! Why did you not tell me so when I was saying we did not know where he was?"
"My white brother did not ask," the chief said quietly.
"That is true enough, chief, but you might have told me without asking."
The Indian made no reply, but continued to smoke his hatchet pipe tranquilly, as if the remark betrayed such ignorance of Indian manners that it was not worth replying to.