They were all in a circle about the fire. Its flickering glow
lighted Vic Burleigh's rugged face, and gleamed in his auburn hair.
Elinor sat between him and Vincent Burgess. Dennie was just
beyond Vincent, who noted incidentally the play of light and shadow
on the blowsy ripples of her hair that night and remembered it
all on a day long afterward.

"Once upon a time," Dennie began,

there was a beautiful Kickapoo Indian maiden--"

"Yep, any Kickapoo's a beaut. Hurry up, Dennie. I hear something coming."
It was the big lazy guard again.

"Oh! Vic Burleigh, sit on his prostrate form. Go on, Dennie,"
the company insisted, and she continued.

"Her name was The Fawn of the Morning Light, her best lover was Swift Elk."

"You be Mrs. Swift Elk--" but Vic Burleigh's arm about Trench's
throat choked his words.

"And there was a wily Sioux, named Red Fox. who loved
the Fawn and wanted her to marry him. She wouldn't do it.
The Kickapoos were heap-big grafters, and they had this old Corral
full of ponies and junk they had relieved other tribes of caring for.
And the only way to get in here, besides falling over the bluff
and becoming a pin-cushion for poisoned arrows, was to come
in by the shallows in the river where the ford is now above old