"That wouldn't be a bad idea," I replied, "but what shall we call it? The only things we see here are buffaloes, coyotes, and antelopes, with a few prairie-dogs and rattlesnakes. How would it do to call our place 'Camp Antelope'?"
"I think it would be more to the point," said Jack, "to call it 'Camp Coyote.'"
"Well," said Tom, "why not compromise and call it 'Camp Coyotelope'?"
"Let it be so," said I, and I so dated my letter, and from that time on we spoke of our winter home as Camp Coyotelope.
Nothing unusual happened while Tom was gone. Jack tended his traps, while I did the wolf baiting and skinning.
On the second evening, just in time for supper, Tom returned from Fort Larned, bringing our mail, and as we gathered around the table we asked him anxiously what he had learned about the dead man.
"A whole lot," replied the old man between mouthfuls, "an' not just what I wanted to find out, either. None of 'em could make out the man's name or where he come from any nigher than we did. I went right to the adjutant's office, where I found several of the officers, an' when I brought out the bones an' told 'em the story they became interested. One officer had heard something about a party of hunters being wiped out by the Injuns about a year ago, but he didn't know the particulars. That writing on the old shoulder-blade attracted 'em most, an' each one had to take it an' examine it. But they couldn't make it out.
"I suggested to the adjutant that maybe French Dave might know something, an' he sent an orderly for Dave right away, an', sure enough, the ol' French-Canadian did know something.
"Ol' Dave asked me: 'Where you find 'em?' An' then I told him all I knew about the matter, an' what the signs seemed to show, an' read to him the writing on the shoulder-blade, for Dave can neither read nor write. He studied awhile an' then said: 'Yes—mus' be same lot. I know 'bout yother two. See 'em bones where Injuns kill 'em. No see this one bones, but Satanta tell me 'bout it one day. Mus' be same one.'
"The story of the affair," continued Tom, "as I gathered it from Dave, is about thisaway: Three wolf hunters with a wagon an' team had established their camp on Walnut Creek, an' from what Dave says the remains of that camp an' the bones of two of the men must be down the creek from here about five miles, on the same side we are on.