“Dropping to my knees, I crawled into the long grass as fast as I could, and the only thing that saved me was because they had been busy with the cattle, and didn’t know where I was.

“After they’d hunted for me a while, they rounded up the critters, gathered in my pinto, and moved away.

“Just as soon as I heard ’em going I lit out in the opposite direction, and hoofed it back to Sam’s.”

CHAPTER X

BOB DOES A KIND ACT

As the stranger recounted this exciting adventure, Bob’s eyes grew larger and larger, and his mouth gaped in wonder.  Many a time had he read in story-books of similar attacks by Indians, but the thought that he was actually gazing at a man who had been through such an ordeal seemed too delightful to be true.  And so reverentially admiring was his manner toward his travelling companion that the other couldn’t but smile good-naturedly.

“Where did you say that place was?” inquired Bob, after a silence of many minutes, as he retold to himself the story of the scar and pictured the scene before his mind’s eye.

“Fairfax.”

“What part of the state is that?”

“It’s about the middle, as east and west goes, but nearer the northern than the southern border.”

“Are there—­are there any ranches near Fairfax now, do you suppose?”

“I reckon so, though it’s more than seven years since I came East.”

“Aren’t you ever going back there?” inquired Bob, in a tone which said plainly that it was beyond his understanding how a man could give up life on a ranch and settle down to the very ordinary, prosaic life of the East.

For a moment the man looked at Bob searchingly, and then replied: 

“I reckon that it’s better for my health here in the East.”

But the significance of this remark was lost on Bob.  For a few minutes he was silent, the expression on his face, however, indicating that he was thinking earnestly, and at last the cause of his deliberation was explained in his question: 

“Do you think there are any Indians around Fairfax now?”

“Not the kind there was in the early days when I was out there.  The government has tried to make them like white people, and now the Injuns that you would find are either lazy, or they have deteriorated into half-breeds.  Once in a while some of the bucks go on a rampage, but not very often.”

“I think I’ll go to Fairfax,” announced Bob after another period of deliberation.  “You don’t know any one out there with whom you think I could get in to work, do you?”

“No, I can’t say as I do, and besides a recommendation from me wouldn’t help you any.  But I think so long as you have no particular section of the state in mind, that Fairfax would be as good as any.”

Bob lost no time in taking advantage of the opportunity afforded by his companion for asking him about the customs of the cowboys and life on a ranch in general, and many were the valuable pointers the stranger gave him, some of which Bob afterwards remembered, but more of which he forgot.