But the next day he took Injun into his confidence. Injun had no use for
String and Ham, and furthermore was a person who could keep a secret.
And here was something for the boys to keep to themselves--a
mystery,--something to be solved. They would lie low and await events.
It made them feel quite important.




CHAPTER III

MYSTERY


Awaiting events did not seem a very thrilling occupation. Of course,
there was always John Big Moose's tutoring to fill in the gaps, but that
was less thrilling than just waiting, if possible. The teaching took
place in the big living-room of the ranch house, a room with a great
stone fireplace, the stone for which had been carted down from the
mountains; with walls decorated with Indian trophies--tomahawks, bows
and arrows, stone pipes and hatchets, knives--and with beadwork,
snowshoes, and many other interesting things. All these were enough to
take a fellow's mind off his lessons, and besides there was the floor,
with its bear and moose and panther skins, each with its history.

And outside, viewed through the big windows, was the rolling prairie,
with the touch of early fall on it, sometimes revealed in a light
curtain of haze, at which a fellow could gaze and imagine he saw the
squaws of the savage tribes gathering the maize for the coming winter's