Sitting Bull was sleeping peaceably on the veranda.  Sitting Bull had no regard for the man who said that “early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy and wealthy and wise,” or he never had heard of him.  Sitting Bull always slept late.  There were other rules that boys must follow to which Bull paid no attention.  He did not chew his food carefully, as every one knows that boys should.  There were times when Whitey envied Bull, and this first day of school was one of them.

But when the boys started for the corral to get their ponies, Bull roused himself and expressed a wish to go with them.  He had a mistaken idea that he could keep up with the horses for nine miles, and it was with some difficulty that Whitey got him to give it up.

“He don’t know what he’s missing,” Whitey said sadly, as he and Injun turned from the disappointed Bull and walked reluctantly to the corral.

It was a beautiful day, too.  Did you ever notice that the first day of school always is beautiful?  Injun and Whitey’s ponies made short work of the nine miles of road that skirted the foothills and led to the Forks, the spirited animals seeming to drink in the bracing morning air that swept down from the mountains as though it were a tonic, which indeed it was.

The Forks was a spot at which a road that led down from the mountains joined the road to the Junction.  The mountain road was little more than a trail, seldom traveled, and almost overgrown with grass, and where it joined the other stood the shack which was used as a schoolhouse.  This shack had been built by some early homeseeker, who had long ago abandoned it to seek other pastures.  It was old and discouraged-looking, and patched in spots with pieces of tin and boards.  As a temple of learning it was not an inviting-looking place.

The pupils evidently had assembled in the shack, for tied in the shelter of some maples near by were four cayuses and two weary-looking mules.  There were eight scholars, as Whitey knew, so he guessed that the mules carried double.  Injun seemed much more cheerful on this occasion than Whitey, who dismounted and tied Monty near the other animals.  Then, before entering for the sacrifice, he tiptoed over to the shack and peeped into the window.  He tiptoed back to where Injun sat calmly on his pinto.  There was a look of horror on Whitey’s face.

“Girls!” he whispered.

Bill Jordan had not told Whitey that some of Miss Adams’s pupils were of the fair sex.  He had left that as a pleasant surprise.  And there were just two things in life that Whitey was mortally afraid of—­one was girls and the other was school.

Some persons regard the Indians as a cruel and heartless race.  I do not hold with this opinion, but I am bound to state what Whitey’s friend Injun did now.  He grinned—­actually grinned.  Whitey gave him a sad, reproachful look, and with his package of lunch under his arm, slouched into the schoolhouse.