Me Smith

together in this—friends of White Antelope! Our hearts are down; they are heavy—so. You all know that he came from the great Cree country with my father, and he has told us many times stories of the big north woods, where they hunted and trapped. You know how he watched me when I was little, and sat with his hand upon my head when I had the big fever. He was like no one else to me except my father. He was wise and good.
    “I could kill with my own hand the man who killed White Antelope. I want his blood as much as you. I’d like to see a stake driven through his black heart on White Antelope’s grave. But let us not be too quick because the hate is hot in us. My heart tells me that the white man talks straight. Let us wait—wait until we find the right one, and when we do we will punish in our own way. You hear? In our own way! ”
    Smith understood something of her plea, and for the second time he paid her courage tribute.
    “She’s a game kid all right,” he said to himself, and a half-formed plan for utilizing her gameness began to take definite shape.
    That she had won, he knew before Running Rabbit recoiled his rope. After a moment’s talk among themselves, the Indians went to hitch the horses to the wagon, to bring White Antelope’s body home.
    Smith was well aware that he had only to point to the saddle blanket, the barest edge of which showed beneath the leather skirts of McArthur’s saddle, to make Susie’s impassioned defense in vain. Why he did not, he was not himself sure. Perhaps it was because he liked the feeling of power, of knowing that he held the life of the despised bug-hunter in the hollow of his hand; or perhaps it was because it would serve his purpose better to make the accusation later. One thing was certain, however, and that was that he had not held his tongue through any consideration for McArthur.
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    VI
THE GREAT SECRET
    It was the day they buried White Antelope that Smith approached Yellow Bird, a Piegan, who was among the Indians paying visits of indefinite length to the MacDonald ranch. “Eddie” Yellow Bird, he was called at the Blackfoot mission where he had learned to read and write—though he would never have been suspected of these accomplishments, since to all appearances he was a “blanket Indian.”
    Smith spoke the Piegan tongue almost as fluently as his own, so he and Yellow Bird quickly became compadres , relating to each other stories of their prowess, of horses they had run off, of cattle they had stolen, and hinting, Indian fashion, with significant intonations and pauses, at crimes of greater magnitude.
    “How is your heart to-day, friend? Is it strong?”
    “Weak,” replied Yellow Bird jestingly, touching his breast with a fluttering hand.
    “It would be stronger if you had red meat in your stomach,” Smith suggested significantly.
    “The bacon is not for Indians,” agreed Yellow Bird.
    “But the woman would have no cattle left if she killed only her own beef.”
    “Many people stop here—strangers and friends,” Yellow Bird admitted.
    “There is plenty on the range.” Smith looked toward the Bar C ranch.
    “He is a dog on the trail, that white man, when his cattle are stolen,” Yellow Bird replied doubtfully.
    “I’ve killed dogs—me, Smith—when they got in my way. Yellow Bird, are you a woman, that you are afraid?”
    “Wolf Robe, who stole only a calf, sits like this”—Yellow Bird looked at Smith sullenly through his spread fingers.
    “You have talked with the forked tongue, Yellow Bird. You are not a Piegan buck of the great Blackfoot nation; you are a woman. Your fathers killed men; you are afraid to kill cattle.” Smith turned from him contemptuously.
    “My heart is as strong as yours. I am ready.”
    It was dusk when Smith returned and held out a blood-stained flour sack to the squaw.
    “Liver. A two-year ole.”
    The squaw’s eyes sparkled. Ah, this was as it should be! Her man provided for her; he brought her meat to eat. He was clever and brave, for it was other men’s meat he brought her to eat. MacDonald had killed only his own cattle, and secretly it had shamed her, for she mistook his honesty for lack of courage. To steal was legitimate; it was brave; something to be told among friends at night, and laughed over. Susie, she had observed with regret, was honest, like her father. She patted the back of Smith’s hand, and looked at him with dog-like, adoring eyes as they stood in the log meat-house, where