"Tirty dollar."
"Where are the others?"
"No got."
"You rode off with four ponies from the lodge of Bear-Rides-Double two nights ago. Where are the other two?"
Pete turned sickly gray. Could this white-faced soldier read visions and dreams and thoughts? Was he a medicine-man?
"No got," he sullenly answered once more.
"You will leave these two with me for safe-keeping," said Davies, "and go and fetch the others at once, even if you have to take them from Pulls Hard, and get back here with them at noon without fail. No, you need not appeal to the agent, or I'll tell him that you loaded Bear with drugged liquor and marked cards and cogged dice. Off with you, Pete," he continued, and the half-breed rode away on his Cayuse pony with scared face, and told in the camp of Red Dog that the young chief Davies was a seer, a mind-reader as well as a brave who feared not to grapple their war chief; and when he was gone, Bear-Rides-Double was summoned and bidden to ride double if he could, but to go and sin no more with cogged dice, and the Minneconjou looked with evident awe and wonderment upon the grave, reticent cavalryman, and went away homeward on one of the recovered ponies, his women-folk, laden with Mira's discarded finery and leading the other, trudging contentedly along behind him afoot.
"You'll be a heap bigger man among the Indians than the agent can ever hope to be, lieutenant," said Gaffney, with an Irish grin.
But Davies said nothing. Had he overstepped his authority? Would McPhail approve? The point was soon settled. Through the hangers-on about the store McPhail heard rumors flitting like lightning among the villages. The young officer was a medicine-man, a mind-reader, and far and wide the Indians spoke of him in fear and reverence. It might be a good thing, said the canny Scot, to back him up and reap the benefit. "Just so long as I can keep him here in charge of the guard we can run things to suit ourselves, for no red-skin will dare buck against him."