have supper ready at seven o'clock."

"I shall be sure to be back by that time; like enough I sha'n't be a
quarter of an hour away."

It was but half an hour, indeed, before Tom saw him returning,
accompanied by a tall red-skin.

"This is a friend of mine, Tom. He was a chief of the Senecas, but his
tribe are nearly wiped out, and he has been all his life a hunter, and
there are few of us who have been much out on the plains who don't know
him. Chief, this is Straight Harry's nephew I was telling you of, who
has come out here to join his uncle. Sit down, we have got some
deer-flesh. Tom here knocked one over on the run at two hundred and
fifty yards by as good a shot as you want to see; while it is cooking we
can smoke a pipe and have a chat."

The chief gravely seated himself by the fire.

"What have you been doing since I last saw you up near the Yellowstone?"

"Leaping Horse has been hunting," the Indian said quietly, with a wave
of his hand, denoting that he had been over a wide expanse of country.

"I guessed so," Jerry put in.

"And fighting with 'Rappahoes and Navahoes."

"Then you've been north and south?"