CHAPTER XVI.
What Claude Knew.
“Yes, sir, I am going to get away from here as soon as I can,” repeated Claude, giving his cousin a good looking over as he rode a little in advance of him. “I know just what I will have to do when I arrive at the shanty they call home. Uncle has not said so, but I infer he is going to make a cowboy out of me. If there is anything I do despise it is a horse; and I know this wild Indian will take great delight in giving me the wildest one there is on the range to ride. Then what will I do during my off times? Not a billiard-table nor a bowling-alley here! I wish I could think up some way to get around the old man.”
Claude was filled with such thoughts as these during his ride to the ranch, although he tried his level best to keep up his end of the conversation. He laughed when the others did, when Carl told his father of the time that Thompson had had breaking in the sorrel mare—not because he could see any fun in it, but for the reason that he did not want to let his uncle and cousin see how completely his mind was taken up with other matters. Finally he aroused himself and began to take more interest in what they were saying. It would be well enough, he thought, to wait awhile before getting away from there.
“Carl, do you see anything of the Indians out here?” was his first question.
“Oh, yes; we see them every day,” replied Carl.
“But do you have any trouble with them? I have heard that Indians are always on the warpath, and that they shoot and scalp every white man they see.”
“Well, it is not so. We are on the Sioux reservation, and we know that they have been peaceable ever since their surrender.”
“What did they surrender for?”
“To pay for killing Custer and his band,” replied Carl, looking at his cousin with some surprise.