“Hope so. Maybe you’ll be well enough to go with me to the ranch.”
But when the Virginian returned, a great deal had happened all at once, as is the custom of events.
Scipio’s vigorous convalescence brought him in the next few days to sitting about in the open air, and then enlarged his freedom to a crutch. He hobbled hither and yon, paying visits, many of them to the doctor. The doctor it was, and no newspaper, who gave to Scipio the first grain of that “something particular” which he had been daily seeking and never found. He mentioned a new building that was being put up rather far away down in the corner of the reservation. The rumor in the air was that it had something to do with the Quartermaster’s department. The odd thing was that the Quartermaster himself had heard nothing about it. The Agent up at the Agency store considered this extremely odd. But a profound absence of further explanations seemed to prevail. What possible need for a building was there at that inconvenient, isolated spot?
Scipio slapped his leg. “I guess what y’u call my romance is about to start.”
“Well,” the doctor admitted, “it may be. Curious things are done upon Indian reservations. Our management of them may be likened to putting the Lord’s Prayer and the Ten Commandments into a bag and crushing them to powder. Let our statesmen at Washington get their hands on an Indian reservation, and not even honor among thieves remains.”
“Say, doc,” said Scipio, “when d’ y’u guess I can get off?”
“Don’t be in too much of a hurry,” the doctor cautioned him. “If you go to Sunk Creek—”
“Sunk Creek! I only want to go to the Agency.”
“Oh, well, you could do that to-day—but don’t you want to see the entertainment? Conjuring tricks are promised.”
“I want to see Horacles.”