"Yes. Lean Bear was glad when he killed Tough Kelly."
"H'm! Indian, eh?" said Dan. "But Indians are usually glad when they've rubbed out a Paleface. Lean Bear?" He repeated the name. "Why, wasn't that the chap you spared last week in the skirmish back of the fort? I saw what happened. I was ridin' behind you. I saw him tumble from his horse. You had the upper hand of him, and just as you were goin' to pull the trigger he yelled out to you, and you lowered your weapon, lettin' him escape, as if he'd been an old pal of yours 'stead of a deadly enemy."
Sergeant Silk leant forward with an elbow on his knee.
"Yes, that was the chap," he acknowledged. "But any other trooper would have done the same, and let him live."
"Why?" questioned Dan. "Wasn't he the same as all other Injuns—a rotten, ungrateful brute?"
Sergeant Silk did not answer at once. He slowly took out his pipe and tobacco pouch and laid them beside him on the pine log before buttoning up his overcoat. He was silent for a long time—silent and thoughtful. Dan Medlicott knew that this mood meant a story.
"Fire away," he urged, "I'm listenin'. I hope it's goin' to be a yarn about yourself, and none of your second-hand snacks about some fellow who isn't half so good and brave."
Silk shrugged his shoulders.
"It's just about Lean Bear himself," he resumed. "Lean Bear and—and a young trooper who had charge of the post at Rosetta's Crossing. Corporal Pretty John was what he was commonly called, though he wasn't pretty and John wasn't his name.
"Lean Bear was well known on the Rosetta Patrol. He was just an idle, good-for-nothing loafer of the plains, picking up a poor living by trapping on the creeks, doing odd jobs, sponging on people who had more of this world's goods than himself, and drinking, drinking whenever he could get hold of a drop of firewater to flush down his scraggy throat.