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a hundred things he expected them to take care of before he should next see them.
    By the time he had finished, he had so far recovered his temper as to suggest that they have dinner before starting their long ride back to the South Fork and Willow Vista.
    Letty had no desire for food, but to humor him, she accompanied him to the dining-room of the hotel. He ate as slowly and methodically as he did everything else. Busy with his thoughts, he kept his eyes on his plate as he munched his food, and said nothing. Letty was equally engrossed in her own musing.
    They had almost finished when he surprised her by saying:
    â€œI made a mistake in not making Montana a foreman last year. There wouldn’t have been any of this nonsense to-day if I had. But like as not he would have done something else just as foolish. A man that can’t mind his own business isn’t worth his salt. He certainly made a spectacle of himself to-day, the contemptible ingrate!”
    â€œNot to me,” Letty murmured tremulously, her eyes fixed on the crowd moving away from the court-house. “I—I thought he was magnificent.”

C HAPTER V BACKS TO THE WALL
    P OETS have made immortal the exile of the humble Acadian farmers from the homes and the land they loved. The Squaw Valley Piutes had no poet to sing their swan song. But their passing was hardly less tragic. For countless generations they had waged incessant warfare against their natural enemies, the Bannocks and the Snakes, for the land of their fathers. They had even waged a long and losing fight against their white brothers. A remnant of a once proud race, they had consented to be herded together in Squaw Valley. Now even that last refuge had been taken from them.
    For fifty years a benign government had said in effect that one reservation was as good as another for an Indian. What difference could it possibly make to him where he found himself? Fort Hall was a big reservation. Three hundred Piutes would not overcrowd it. Of course it was a Bannock reservation. But what of that?
    Debauched, exploited, mute—perhaps it was strange that it could matter, that the blood hatred of a Piute for a Bannock still coursed through their veins.
    Old men and women, children—a troop of cavalry hurrying them along—they filed into Wild Horse, their worldly goods piled hit or miss on a long line of army wagons. In the truest sense, they all were children, with a child’s eagerness to be amused. Ordinarily, a trip to Wild Horse would have been an adventure. But their eyes were dull to-day, their faces stolid.
    â€œAie-e-e, aiee,” the old squaws wailed as they called on Nanibashoo, the god of their fathers, to help them.
    Little Boy, their tribal chief, a wrinkled and toothless old man, rode on the first wagon, proud and dignified, a chief even in his rags.
    â€œAie-e-e,” Montana echoed. He sat alone with Graham Rand, the sheriff, in the latter’s tiny office. His face was stern. “They don’t savvy this at all,” he said. “When Little Boy saw me, I got his thought. They think I did this to them.”
    â€œThey’re crazy!” The sheriff drew his shaggy brows down. “They never had a better friend. You’re all Indian under the skin, Jim.”
    â€œThere’s two of us. I reckon you’d throw that star away in a hurry if they’d only give us back this country as it used to be before the barbed wire hit it.” Montana mused to himself for a moment. “Graham, I didn’t see Thunder Bird in that bunch. Did you?”
    The marshal grinned mischievously as he shook his head.
    â€œI helped him to get away, Jim. He’s hiding out in the old Adelaide mine on Quantrell’s ranch. Plenty Eagles asked me to do something; his father didn’t want to leave the Malheurs. He’ll have to lay low for a couple of weeks.”
    â€œHe’s too old to work,” Montana thought aloud. “Plenty Eagles