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Injun.”
    “We’re gettin’ sociable,” said Smith mockingly.
    The woman glanced at Smith, and hesitated, but finally got up and seated herself on the bench.
    “Why don’t you try bein’ ’sociable’ with the Schoolmarm?” Susie sneered.
    “Maybe I will.”
    “And maybe you won’t get passed up like a white chip!”
    “Oh, I dunno. I’ve made some winnings.”
    “I can tell that by your eyes. You got ’em bloodshot, I reckon, hangin’ over the fire in squaw camps. White men can’t stand smoke like Injuns.”
    This needle-tongued girl jabbed the truth into him in a way which maddened him, but he said conciliatingly:
    “We don’t want to quarrel, kid.”
    “You mean you don’t.” Susie slammed the door behind her.
    The child’s taunt reawakened his interest in the Schoolmarm. He thought of her riding home alone, and grew restless. Besides, the dulness began to bore him.
    “I’ll saddle up, Prairie Flower, and look over the ranch. When I come back I’ll let you know if it’s worth my while to stay.”
    Tubbs was sitting on the wagon-tongue, mending harness, when Smith went out,
    “Aimin’ to quit the flat?” inquired Tubbs.
    “Feller, didn’t that habit of askin’ questions ever git you in trouble?”
    “Well I guess so ,” Tubbs replied candidly. “See that scar under my eye?”
    “I’d invite you along to tell me about it,” said Smith sardonically, “only, the fact is, feller, I’m goin’ down the road to make medicine with the Schoolmarm.”
    Tubbs’s eyes widened.
    “Gosh!” he ejaculated enviously. “I wisht I had your gall.”
    Before Smith swung into the saddle he pulled out a heavy silver watch attached to a hair watch-chain.
    “Just the right time,” he nodded.
    “Huh?”
    “I say, if it was only two o’clock, or three, I wouldn’t go.”
    “You wouldn’t? I’ll tell you about me: I’d go if it was twelve o’clock at night and twenty below zero to ride home with that lady.”
    “Feller,” said Smith, in a paternal tone, “you never want to make a break at a woman before four o’clock in the afternoon. You might just as well go and lay down under a bush in the shade from a little after daylight until about this time. You wouldn’t hunt deer or elk in the middle of the day, would you? No, nor women—all same kind of huntin’. They’ll turn you down sure; white or red—no difference.”
    “Is that so?” said Tubbs, in the awed voice of one who sits at the feet of a master.
    “When the moon’s out and the lamps are lit, they’ll empty their sack and tell you the story of their lives. I don’t want to toot my horn none, but I’ve wrangled around some. I’ve hunted big game and humans. Their habits, feller, is much the same.”
    While Smith was galloping down the road toward the school-house, Susie was returning from a survey of the surrounding country, which was to be had from a knoll near the house.
    “Mother,” she said abruptly, “I feel queer here.” She laid both hands on her flat, childish breast and hunched her shoulders. “I feel like something is goin’ to happen.”
    “What happen, you think?” her mother asked listlessly.
    “It’s something about White Antelope, I know.”
    The woman looked up quickly.
    “He go visit Bear Chief, maybe.” There was an odd note in her voice.
    “He wouldn’t go away and stay like this without telling you or me. He never did before. He knows I would worry; besides, he didn’t take a horse, and he never would walk ten miles when there are horses to ride. His gun isn’t here, so he must have gone hunting, but he wouldn’t stay all night hunting rabbits; and he couldn’t be lost, when he knows the country as well as you or me.”
    “He go to visit,” the Indian woman insisted doggedly.
    “If he isn’t home to-morrow, I’m goin’ to hunt him, but I know something’s wrong.”
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    V
SMITH MAKES MEDICINE WITH THE SCHOOLMARM
    Once out of sight of the house, Smith let his horse take its own