It was an odd situation for the girl from New.  York, but she found herself amused.  Both Napoleon and Gettysburg had been cast for amusing roles, which they did not always fill.  Neither, as might be supposed from his name, had ever even smelled the faintest suggestion of things military.  Napoleon had once been a sailor, or, to be more accurate, a river boatman.  He was fat, short, red-headed, red-necked, red-nosed, and red-eyed.  His hands were freckled, his arms were hairy.  He turned his head to one side like a bird—­and promptly fell in love with demure little Elsa.

Gettysburg was as thin as Napoleon was fat.  He had a straggling gray beard, a very bald pate, high cheek bones, and a glass eye.  This eye he turned towards the maid, perhaps because it was steady.  He also had a nervous way of drawing one hand down his face till he lowered his jaw prodigiously, after which, like the handle of a knocker, it would fall back to place with quite a thump.  He did this twice as he stared at Beth, and then he remarked: 

“Quite a hike yit, down to Goldite.”

“I suppose it is,” said Beth in her interesting way.  “How far is it, really, from here?”

“’Bout twenty miles of straight ahead, and two miles of straight up, and three of straight down—­if a feller could go straight,” said Gettysburg gravely, “but he can’t.”

Beth looked very much concerned.  She had hoped they were almost there, and no more hills to climb or descend.  She felt convinced they had ridden over twenty miles already, and the horseman had assured her it was thirty at the most, from the station so far behind the mountains.

“But—­Mr. Van can’t walk so far as that,” she said.  “I’m sure I don’t see what——­”

She was interrupted by the reappearance of Van himself.

“Isn’t there a horse on the place?” he asked his partners collectively.  “What have you done with the sorrel?”

Gettysburg arose.  “Loaned him to A. C., yistiddy,” said he.  “But the outlaw’s on the job.”

“Not Vesuvius?” Van replied incredulously.  “You don’t mean to say he’s turned up again unslaughtered?”

“Cayuse here roped him, up to Cedar flat,” imparted Gettysburg.  “Cornered him there in natural corral and fetched him home fer fun.”

Napoleon added:  “But Cayuse ain’t been on board, you bet.  He likes something more old-fashioned than Suvy.  Split my bowsprit, I wouldn’t tow no horse into port which I was afraid to board.  When I was bustin’ bronchos I liked ’em to be bad.”

“Yes,” agreed Gettysburg, “so bad they couldn’t stand up.”

A bright glitter came for a moment in Van’s blue eyes.

“If Suvy’s the only equine paradox on the place, he and I have got to argue things out this afternoon,” he said, “but I’ll have my dinner first.”

Beth was listening intently, puzzled to know precisely what the talk implied.  She was vaguely suspicious that Van, for the purpose of escorting her on, would find himself obliged to wage some manner of war with a horse of which the Indian was afraid.