"Everything is so quiet along this Potomac," Ralston wrote, "that Watson is getting more pessimistic about Henry Underwood than ever. He has long felt that to lock Henry up would be the quickest means of giving High Ridge a long-needed rest, and now he feels confirmed in his faith--or in his unfaith, if you take that point of view. I have been tempted to stir up a little local ruction myself, just to give your side some moral support,--but I am not sure it would be moral support under those circumstances. How is that?"
"I'd better go back," mused Burton, as he folded the letter. "I'm accomplishing nothing here, and I'm wasting time." To Welch he said aloud: "Tell them I am going back to High Ridge this afternoon."
Welch made the announcement. After an undemonstrative silence of some moments, Washitonka put a question which Welch translated.
"He asks if you will see the man who lies on his back all the time."
"Ben Bussey?"
Washitonka caught the name and nodded.
"Yes, I shall see Ben Bussey," said Burton. "What then?"
Washitonka went to a side of the teepee and from a pile of folded blankets he drew out a red-stone pipe, beautifully carved. With an air of dignity that would have done credit to a Spanish grandee, he carried it to Burton and placed it in his hands with a guttural injunction which Welch translated.
"He wants you to give it to the cripple. He says he taught the boy to carve pipes many moons ago, and Ben's father ate of his corn and slept under his buffalo robe like a brother."
"Thank him for the pipe," dictated Burton. "Tell him I will carry it safely to Ben Bussey, the man who cannot walk, and it will speak to him of old friends. Ask him if he knows when Ben's father died."