Winters, swollen with rebellion because of the secondary part he had to play, surlily consented to sit with Two Horns.
"Crow, you camp here," called Curtis, and the trusted Tetong scrambled to his seat. "Drive on, Two Horns."
For an hour and more no one spoke but Two Horns, gently urging the horses to their best pace. Curtis welcomed this silence, for it gave him time to take account of many things, chief of which was Brisbane's violent antagonism. "He overestimates my importance," he thought. "But that is the way such men succeed. They are as thorough-going in destroying the opposition as they are in building up their own side."
He thought, too, of that last intimate hour with Elsie, and wished he had spoken plainer with her. "It would have been definite if I had secured an answer. It would have been a negative, of course, and yet such is my folly, I still hope, and so long as there is the slightest uncertainty I shall waste my time in dreaming." His mind then turned to the question of the mob. There came into his mind again the conviction that they were waiting to intercept the sheriff at the boundary of the reservation; but he was perfectly certain that they would relinquish their designs when they found the sheriff reinforced by three determined men—one of them an army officer and the agent. He had no fear on that score; he only felt a little uneasy at leaving the agency.
A sharp exclamation from Crow brought his dreaming to an end, and, looking up, he saw a horseman approaching swiftly, his reins held high, his elbows flapping. "That's young Streeter," he said, on the impulse.
"So it is," replied Winters, hot with instant excitement. "I wonder what's his hurry?"
Calvin came up with a rush, and when opposite set his horse on his haunches with a wrench of his powerful wrist, calling, in lazy drawl: "Howdy, folks, howdy. Well, I see you've got 'im," he remarked to Curtis.
"You've been ridin' hard," said Winters; "what's your rush? Anything doin'?"
Calvin looked down at his panting, reeking horse, and carelessly replied: "Oh no. I'm just takin' it out o' this watch-eyed bronco." He exchanged a look with the sheriff. "I thought I'd ketch ye 'fore ye left the agency. I'd like a word with you, sheriff; tumble out here for a minute. You'll wait a second, won't you, Major?"
Curtis looked up at the sun. "Yes; but be quick."