though I liked you well enough, it would not be in my way to be playing
a sort of schoolmaster business to a young tenderfoot; but I had got to
like the notion before we left Denver, and now it seems to me that we
have had a rare good time of it together."

"We have indeed, Jerry; at least I have had. Even if the Indian would
agree to take me I should miss you awfully."

Jerry made no reply, but sat smoking his pipe and looking into the fire.
As he was sometimes inclined to be taciturn, Tom made no attempt to
continue the conversation; and after moving out and shifting the
picket-pegs so as to give the horses a fresh range of grass to munch
during the night, he returned to the fire, wrapped himself in his
blankets and lay down, his "Good-night, Jerry," meeting with no
response, his companion being evidently absorbed in his own thoughts.

"You are not going on to-day, Jerry, are you?" Tom said, as he threw off
his blankets and sat up in the morning. The sun was not yet up, but
Jerry had already stirred up the embers, put some meat over them to
cook, and put the kettle among them.

"No, I shall stop here for a day or two, lad. I am in no special hurry,
and have no call to push on. I have not made up my mind about things
yet."

They had scarcely finished breakfast when Leaping Horse came down from
the fort.

"Tom here has been asking me, chief, whether there was any chance of
getting you to guide him to his uncle. I said, of course, that I did not