"What's the matter with your Rees?"
"That's just it! You see, that bunch of Sioux out there"—he jerked his head toward the stockade—"helped in a bit of treachery two summers ago. Rounded up some friendly Rees at a dance and scalped 'em. So—there's poison for you! In this business on hand I couldn't trust even my head scout." He began pacing the floor. "Anyway, sign language, when there are terms to be made and kept, isn't worth a hang!"
"I wish I could suggest a man," said Lounsbury. "Fact is, Colonel, I'm terribly worried myself. I came to ask you for help in some trouble——"
The old soldier threw up his hands. "Trouble!" he cried. "Why I'm simply daft with it! Look at that!" He pointed to the farthest side of the room.
It was dimly lighted there. Lounsbury stepped forward and peered down—then recoiled, as startled as if he had happened upon something dead. On the floor was a man—a man whose back was bent rounding, and whose arms and legs were hugged up against his abdomen and chest. Torso and limbs were alike, frightfully shrunken; the hands, mere claws. Lounsbury could not see the face. But the hair was uncovered, and it was the hair that made him "goose-flesh" from head to heel. It was white—not the white of old age, with glancing tints of silver or yellow—but the dead white of an agony that had withered it to the roots. Circling it, and separating the scalp from the face and neck, ran a narrow fringe that was still brown, as if, changing in a night, it had lacked full time for completion.
Lounsbury could not take his eyes from the huddled shape. Colonel Cummings paused beside him. "This morning," he said, speaking in an undertone, "a sentry signalled from beyond the barracks. Two or three men took guns and ran out. They found this. His clothes were stiff with ice. He was almost frozen, though he had been travelling steadily. He was utterly worn out, and was crawling forward on his hands and knees." The ragged sleeves and trousers, stained darker from the wounds on elbows and knees, were mute testimony. "He couldn't see," continued the colonel. "He was snow-blind. They laid him out on a drift and rubbed him. The surgeon did the rest. He begged to see me. They brought him in, and he told his story. It's an old one—you've heard it. But it's always new, too. This is Frank Jamieson, a young——"
As he heard his name, the man stirred, straightened his legs and let fall his arms. He looked up.
"Young!" gasped Lounsbury. "Good God!" The face was aged like the hair!
Jamieson struggled weakly to his feet, using the wall to brace him.
Colonel Cummings hastened across and lent the support of an arm. "No, no," he protested. "You mustn't talk. You're too weak."