“She ain’t married,” Mike told me.  “She’s the chief’s daughter, and she looks better to me than a silver mine.”

Durin’ that evening we give the impression that we was well heeled, so the tribe wasn’t in no hurry to break camp on the following morning.

Along about noon I missed Mike, and I took a stroll to look for him.  I found him—­and the chief’s daughter—­alongside of a shady trout pool.  She was weavin’ a horsehair bracelet onto his wrist, and I seen the flash of his ring on her finger.  Mike could travel some.

He was a bit flustered, it seemed to me, and he tried to laugh the matter off, but the girl didn’t.  There was something about the look of her that I didn’t like.  I’ve seen a whole lot of trouble come from less than a horsehair bracelet.  This here quail was mebbe seventeen; she was slim and shy, and she had big black eyes and a skin like velvet.  I spoke to Mike in words of one syllable, and I drug him away with me to our tent.

That afternoon some half-grown boys got to runnin’ foot-races and Mike entered.  He let ’em beat him, then he offered to bet a pony that they couldn’t do it again.  The kids was game, and they took him quick.  Mike faked the race, of course, and lost his horse, that bein’ part of our progam.

When it was all over I seen the chief’s daughter had been watchin’ us, but she didn’t say nuthin’.  The next mornin’, however, when we got up we found a bully pinto pony tied to one of our tent stakes.

“Look who’s here,” said I.  “Young Minnie Ha-ha has made good your losin’s.”

“That pony is worth forty dollars,” said Mike.

“Sure.  And you’re as good as a squaw-man this minute.  You’re betrothed.”

“Am I?” The idy didn’t seem to faze Mike.  “If that’s the case,” said he, “I reckon I’ll play the string out.  I sort of like it as far as I’ve gone.”

“I wish she’d gave us that cream-colored mare or hers,” I said.  “It’s worth two of this one.”

“I’ll get it to-day,” Mike declared.  And sure enough, he lost another foot-race, and the next morning the cream-colored mare was picketed in front of our tent.

Well, this didn’t look good to me, and I told Mike so.  I never was much of a hand to take money from women, so I served a warnin’ on him that if we didn’t get down to business pretty quick and make our clean-up I proposed to leave him flat on his back.

That day the young men of the tribe did a little foot-runnin’, and Mike begged ’em to let him in.  It was comical to see how pleased they was.  They felt so sure of him that they began pro-ratin’ our belongin’s among one another.  They laid out a half-mile course, and everybody in camp went out to the finish-line to see the contest and to bet on it.  The old chief acted as judge, bookmaker, clerk of the course, referee, and stakeholder.  I s’pose by the time the race was ready to start there must of been fifty ponies up, besides a lot of money, but the old bird kept every wager in his head.  He rolled up a couple of blankets and placed ’em on opposite sides of the track, and showed us by motions that the first man between ’em would be declared the winner.  All the money that had been bet he put in little piles on a blanket; then he give the word to get ready.