The Freeman

[continuation] decision. He held out the bridle, and Burnt Bear permitted him to lead the pony down to the forge fire.

It well suited the young blacksmith to halt in the darkness, run to the shop for a harmless bottle of volatile oils which would smell loud and look well.

Then, stooping, he took the slim pastern in his hands. The foot was hot and throbbing. Those deft digits warned where to seek, cleverly interrogated the hair about the smallest portion of the joint. Ah, it was there! He snapped it. The relieved pony put down a grateful nose toward his shoulder. Then with skilled movements Hochaska rubbed and kneaded the member to hasten the impeded circulation.

For an hour he worked thus: the dramatic values must be preserved. Occasionally he walked the pony about and its owner could see the lameness decreasing. At the end of that time he straightened up and said:

"Burnt Bear, your horse is sound. Shall I name my price?"

The old man grunted, felt the foot, saw that the fever was all out of it, then, taking the bridle rein into his hand, led the pony back and forth till he was certain there was no limping in that gait. "It is magic indeed!" he declared, with proud generosity, then turned, peered over his shoulder into the darkness of the trail and lifted his hand sharply.

From where she had stood an hour or more, motionless as the stems of the young birch trees about her, there slipped silently forward and approached him a slim, light-footed Indian girl. Impassively he motioned toward Hochaska, and she fled to her lover.

But following her, so that one might almost have thought it her shadow, the form of a man entered the circle of light.

"This is the way you keep your bargains, you old renegade, is it?" Mallock snarled, pointing to where the lovers stood hand in hand.

"I make a new bargain," returned Burnt Bear imperturbably. "I make any bargain when my pony go lame."

Mallock's loosely hanging hands clinched themselves into fists. Rage seemed to overpower caution. "Nine Spot lame? Who lamed him?" Looking about and receiving no answer, he went on in a louder, more confident tone: "Who lamed Nine Spot?" he inquired hotly. "I'm here to prove that Hochaska slipped in and lamed the beast to get even with you about Ally, and now you give him your daughter to cure it. Burnt Bear, you're nine sorts of a fool!"

It is not courteous or even safe to tell a Sioux chief that he is as much as one sort of plain, unqualified fool. Burnt Bear started for Mallock, and the Englishman began to explain how he had seen Hochaska tying a horse-hair around Nine Spot's pastern to produce the lameness.

Burnt Bear halted uncertainly. It was apparent that he had been tricked by some one, and when he felt sure of the culprit there would be a reckoning.

Matters hung thus in the balance for a moment. Hochaska tightened his arm about the girl and decided to assume the responsibility of anything Billy had done, but to keep Ally now he had her.

"Hold on, hold on, my noble red man!" cried a cheerful voice, and a rider galloped up to the smithy.

"It's all right to eat Mallock, Burnt Bear," the cowboy explained as he leaped from saddle, "but you want to know just what you're eatin' 'im for."

The Englishman drew back. "Don't go," urged Billy, laying a constraining hand upon his arm. "We can't spare you."

He turned to the three Indians, who stood regarding the white man curiously.

"Burnt Bear," he began, "you know what I've bet on Nine Spot. I've been watchin' that cayuse most as close as you have. Tonight, before you got around to him, I was up on the knob where he grazes. You thought it was light enough so you could see the hawse from where you was down at the camp—settin' by the door of your wicky-up. But there was a great big snake in the grass that you couldn't see, worming itself along to Nine Spot's heels, and I thinks to myself, 'Does the feller want to have his brains kicked out?' Then as I watches 'im he nooses up a long, stout hawse-hair, so fash, and slips it around the pony's hock."

"Let go of me," growled Mallock under his breath.

"An' that there snake in the grass warn't Hochaska," explained Billy genially. He suppressed the further information that there was a rubber band in his own pocket prepared to do a like service at the time he discovered Mallock playing the trick ahead of him.

"Here's your pony lamer, Burnt Bear—take him." And with a sudden unexpected jerk the cowboy flung Mallock almost into Burnt Bear's arms.

"Bless you, my children," he concluded, turning to Hochaska and the girl. "I'll skip down to Casey's and take some good bets on the pony. Mallock has done spread the news that Nine Spot's gone dead lame, and we stand to make good money if it don't get out too soon that Hochaska has cured him."