“Well,” said Hugh, “if you’ll hold your horses a little bit I’ll go ahead. The story ain’t half finished yet.”
“I beg your pardon, Hugh,” replied Jack, “I was in a little too much of a hurry.”
“Well,” said Hugh, “Bruce took good care of the horse and whenever he rode him after that kept a bright lookout. Nothing happened, and after a while he got a little careless, and one day, as he was riding along and went around a point of the bluffs he saw, not a hundred yards away, Lone Wolf riding along the trail toward him, with his rifle across his saddle. Bruce had a revolver, but he didn’t dare to reach for it, because he knew that would mean a fight, and at the distance which separated the two men, the rifle would be likely to get him before he could do anything with his pistol. He was afraid to turn and run, for Lone Wolf might paste him in the back, so he kept on, never letting on that he noticed Lone Wolf, or had any feeling about him. He played with his quirt some and finally after twisting it about a little, let his hand fall on the handle of his pistol. All the time he was getting nearer and nearer to the Indian, which gave him a lot of comfort.
“Lone Wolf never said or did anything, and presently Bruce rode up to him, and turning his horse so as to bring him on the side opposite the butt of the rifle, told Lone Wolf that Steele had sent him out to look for him to ask him to come to the post, where he had a present for him, because he wanted to make friends. The Indian looked at the pony and smiled a little and then said he’d go, and the two rode side by side into the fort, talking in a friendly way, but each one of them on the watch, you can bet.
“When they got to the store Lone Wolf was fed and given a lot of tobacco and ammunition, and he made Steele a present of a handsome parfleche, which he had on his saddle.
“Bruce kept the horse, and Lone Wolf and he never had any trouble again. Lone Wolf was killed a few years afterwards by the Crows.
“Well, that’s the end of how Bruce got the horse; and now, if you like, I’ll tell you what finally became of him.
“It was some years afterwards, in the late ’60’s, and the Indians were bad. A good many men had been killed, miners and trappers and freighters; and a lot of horses had been run off. People did not like to go far from the post, and at night they had a guard round the town, fearing that maybe the Indians would attack them. The horses were on short commons; there was mighty little hay in town and the only place folks dared to pasture them was down on the flat where the feed was mighty poor, because that was where the freighters camped and fed their stock. There were a few people whose horses were on ranches at some distance from the post, and as there was nobody traveling back and forth in the country, most of these people thought that their horses were gone and made up their minds to pocket the loss. However, a friend of Matt Carroll’s had a couple of fine driving horses that were running on a ranch about fifteen miles below Benton. This man needed his team.
“Two or three times Carroll had tried to get men to go for the horses, but nobody was willing to make the ride. At last it occurred to Carroll that Bruce might go, and he offered him fifty dollars to ride down and bring up the animals. With a good horse, it would take him only two hours to go down and perhaps three more to return, so that by making an early start, he could get back to the post in time for dinner. Bruce never was afraid of much of anything, and he had a good deal of confidence in his luck, and fifty dollars to him looked like a lot of money; so he agreed to go.
“That evening, feeling pretty good about the money that he was going to earn, Bruce started out for a good time in the barrooms and dance-houses of the town, but about the middle of the night, when he started to go home, he remembered that he was on patrol duty for the morning watch, so instead of going to bed he simply slept a little in a chair by the barroom stove until called to go on patrol.