As the talk went on, Mose squatted there silently receiving instruction. His eyes burned through the dusk as he listened to the dark little man who spoke with a note of authority and decision in his voice. His words conveyed to Mose a conception of the Indian new to him. These "red devils" were people. In this man's talk they were husbands and fathers, and sons, and brothers. They loved these lands for which the cattlemen and sheepmen were now about to battle, and they had been dispossessed by the power of the United States Army, not by law and justice. A desire to know more of them, to see them in their homes, to understand their way of thinking, sprang up in the boy's brain.
He edged over close to the plainsman and, in a pause in the talk, whispered to him: "I want you to tell me more about the Indians."
The other man turned quickly and said: "Boy, they're my friends. In a show-down I'm on their side; my father was a half-breed."
The night passed quietly and nearly all the men went home, leaving the Pratts to meet the storm alone, but Jennison had a final word. "You send your boy to yon butte, and wave a hat any time during the day and we'll come, side arms ready. I'll keep an eye on the butte all day and come up and see you to-night. Don't let 'em get the drop on ye."
It was not until the third day that Williams, riding the line in person, came upon the new settler. He sat upon his horse and swore. His face was dark with passion, but after a few minutes' pause he drew rein and rode away.
"Another butter maker," he said to his men as he slipped from the saddle at his own door, "some ten miles up the river."
"Where?"
"Next to Pratt's. I reckon it's that brother o' his he's been talking about. They cut my wires and squatted on the Rosebud flat."
"Give the word and we'll run 'em out," said one of his men. "Every son-of-a-gun of 'em."
Williams shook his head. "No, that won't do. W've got to go slow in rippin' these squatters out o' their holes. They anchor right down to the roots of the tree of life. I reckon we've got to let 'em creep in; we'll scare 'em all we can before they settle, but when they settle we've got to go around 'em. If the man was a stranger we might do something, but Jake Pratt don't bluff—besides, boys, I've got worse news for you."