"Back!" said the man, over his shoulder, and to the command the inquisitive nose of the white horse receded in the darkness. The man shut the door, behind which, immediately, a philosophical munching of bit began to sound. He walked across the room with a low bow which caused the wide brim of his hat to sweep the floor; and to Charles-Norton's invitation sat himself on the bench by the fireplace. Dolly perched herself on the side of her bunk, Charles-Norton on his. They formed thus a triangle, of which the stranger was the apex. Dolly's face was flushed, her eyes were bright, but she kept them carefully averted from the gleaming visitor. Charles-Norton, on the contrary, stared at him frankly. A reminiscence was coming slowly, like a light, into his brain.
"I've seen you before," he said. "Twice I've seen you with your horse, here, among the rocks."
"Did you see me?" said the man, with a smile.
"I couldn't place you then. But now I know. I know who you are. You're Bison Billiam, aren't you; Bison Billiam, the great scout."
"So I am popularly known," said the man, with a bow.
"I remember you. It's ten, twelve years ago. You came out of a lot of cardboard scenery at the end of the hall, hunting buffaloes. The calcium light was on you, and you looked like this——"
Here Charles-Norton placed his right hand above his eyes in most approved scouting style, and peered to right and left. "Humph," said Bison Billiam, seemingly not altogether delighted with this representation.
"And you saw the buffalo—three of them—father and mother and son, I guess—standing in the center of the arena. You galloped right into them, and emptied the magazine of your Winchester into them—but they wouldn't run. They knew you too well, I suppose."
"I suppose," agreed Bison Billiam. "The buffaloes I've hunted in the last twenty years have known me pretty well. It was not so once," he said reminiscently; "not so, not so——"
There was a little silence at this evocation of the melancholy of gone days. The fire crackled. It was Bison Billiam who spoke first. "I've been watching you fly," he said.