Having dressed himself, George passed through the colonel's office and out through the hall to the parade. In the outer door was seated a man who was bent half double, with his elbows resting on his knees and his face buried in his hands. Hearing the sound of the boy's footsteps, he raised his head, revealing a countenance so haggard and sorrowful that George was startled at the sight of it. The man moved aside to allow him room to pass, and then covered his face with his hands again, and as George walked out he was sure he heard him utter a suppressed moan. The man was not a soldier, for he was dressed in citizen's clothes. He looked like a rancheman; and as George was a rancheman himself, he naturally felt some sympathy for the unknown sufferer. After hesitating a moment, weighing in his mind the propriety of the step he was about to take, he turned back and asked,
"What is the matter with you, sir? Are you ill?"
"'Ill'?" repeated the man, without looking up. "Worse than that—worse than that."
"Is there anything that I can do for you?" asked George. "You seem to be in great trouble."
As these words fell upon his ear the man straightened up, and, gazing at George with a pair of wild-looking eyes, said, in a voice that was rendered husky by some strong emotion,
"I am in trouble, partner, and although I do not think you can help me in any way, I feel grateful to you for your sympathy. I have been bounced by the hostiles and cleaned out—completely cleaned out."
"That is bad," returned George, who told himself that the man took his loss very much to heart. He knew a good many stock-raisers who had been "bounced" and "cleaned out," but he had never before seen one who seemed to be so utterly broken down by his misfortunes as this one did. The stranger's next words, however, explained it all.
"The loss of my ranche and stock I don't mind," said he; "that's nothing. But when one sees his two motherless boys carried off by the red fiends, while he is powerless to help them, it's pretty rough, it's pretty rough."
"Why, this must be the man the colonel told me about last night," said George to himself.
"I should not fear that the savages would raise their hands against the lives of the boys (they are too young to be put to torture, one being eight and the other ten years of age) if it were not for one thing," continued the bereaved father, jumping to his feet and pacing back and forth like a caged tiger. "I made a hard fight of it, and dropped a Kiowa for every year of my oldest boy's age. Of course the death of those warriors will have to be avenged by their relatives. Perhaps you don't know it, but that is Indian law."