"I am Captain Curtis, the agent. This is Cut Finger, charged with the murder of a white man. I have brought him in. The sheriff is just behind." He turned to the prisoner and signed. "Get down! Here is the strong-house where you are to stay!"
Cut Finger clambered slowly down, his face rigid, his limbs tremulous with emotion. To go to the dark room of the strong-house was the worst fate that could overtake a free man of the hills, and his heart fluttered like a scared bird.
"It would be a good plan to let his wife go in with him," suggested Curtis. "It will save trouble."
The poor, whimpering girl-wife followed her culprit husband up the steps and into the cold and gloomy hall to which they were admitted, her eyes on the floor, her sleeping child held tightly in her arms. When the gate shut behind him Curtis signed to the prisoner this advice:
"Now be good. Do not make any trouble. Do what these people tell you. Eat your food. I will ask the sheriff to let your wife see you in the morning, and then she will go home again. She can come once each month to see you." He touched the wife on the arm, and when she comprehended his gesture she uttered again that whimpering moan, and as she bent her head in dumb agony above her babe, Curtis gently led her to the door, leaving Cut Finger to the rigor of the white man's law.
XXXII
AN EVENTFUL NIGHT
At the railway station Curtis alighted. "Go to Paul Ladue's," he said to Two Horns. "Put the horses in his corral and feed them well. Sit down with Paul, and to-morrow morning at sunrise come for me at the big hotel. Be careful. Don't go on the street to-night. The white men have evil hearts."
"We know," said Crow, with a clip of his forefinger. "We will sleep like the wolf, with one eye open."