“Who did?” Walter asked eagerly.

And Spellman answered that question with the last words he ever spoke.

It was at this time that Injun, still crouching behind his boulder, saw something like a miracle—­a dead man coming to life.  The man had fallen at the first volley, and the fight had swung past him.  And now he rose, and stole hastily on his moonlit way.  Injun watched solemnly.  He had no mind to give a warning, and probably get shot for his pains.  He might even have admired the trick, if he had not had a closer view of the runaway, who was Henry Dorgan.

When Injun discovered this, he was solemn no longer.  He reached for his bow, but there was no arrow to fit in it.  The last had been shot at the ranch house.  Injun watched Dorgan disappear into the night, and said bitter things—­in the Injun language.

So ended the last of this engagement in the cattle-sheep war, except for one incident.  The cause of it all was still to be dealt with—­the sheep.  And here was another picture that Whitey fortunately missed.  A tragic picture, seen from the hills at dawn, as the white, panic-stricken creatures, crowding, bleating, and complaining, were forced through the canyon to the bed of the narrow, shallow stream, on their way to the opening in the cliffs, through which the brook fell in a tiny waterfall over the edge of the precipice.  These innocent instruments and victims of the greed and passions of man!

These things happened, my friends.  Let you and me, and all of those who love America and the West, send up a silent prayer to the Creator that they are of the past, that they may never happen again—­to leave such harrowing pictures in the minds of men.

CHAPTER XVI

“MEDICINE”

The sun was shining on the Star Circle Ranch.  Whitey sat in the doorway of the bunk house, and listened to the talk and laughter of two or three idle punchers inside.  Two days had passed since the tragedy.  Though the laughing cowboys had not forgotten it, it was already a thing of the past; “all in a day’s work.”  For it was like that in the West, in those times—­death one day, laughter the next.

Another being sat in the sunshine near the distant Bar O Ranch house; squat, bow-legged, his face wrinkled with anxiety and expectancy, he looked longingly off at the dusty road along which Whitey had gone, waiting and hoping for his friend’s return.  Thus sat Sitting Bull, forgotten but not forgetting.

Injun approached Whitey, from the direction of the Star Circle Ranch house.  In his hand was an object which he regarded gravely as he walked.  Two grunted words at a time he used in telling Whitey the meaning of this object.

The ranchmen had thought that Injun’s services on the night of the fight deserved some reward.  A messenger had been sent to Jimtown, and had returned with the reward, which had just been presented to Injun.  It was a stickpin, a large imitation emerald, in a solid gold setting, to be inserted in one’s necktie, the latest thing in fashion in a country where few men wore ties.  Whitey looked at the pin, and, glad of the chance, he laughed and laughed.  Injun did not laugh.  He liked the stickpin.  He was proud of it.