At the time the boy had been four or perhaps five summers old. Steals the Ponies had resented him. He had beaten him when Buffalo Caller was not there to see. But the boy had fought back with the ferocity of a cornered bear cub, gradually gaining his adoptive brother’s respect and eventually his love. Steals the Ponies had become his protector against those who would antagonize him. Badger Boy had grown strong for his age, able to exact a painful price from anyone tempted to taunt him because of his light-colored skin and blue eyes. Seldom anymore did anyone try.

So far as Steals the Ponies could determine, the lad had forgotten his white past, his blood parents, even the white man’s language. He was as Comanche-born.

Steals the Ponies said, “I promise that when you are ready I will take you on a raid deep into the white men’s country and you will have many horses.”

“I am ready now.”

Warily eyeing the horizon for a sign of anyone on horseback, Steals the Ponies rode across what had been the ranger warrior society’s camp. The corrals remained as he remembered. He had stolen horses out of them more than once. Now they were empty, the gates sagging open. Where the ranger tepees had stood, he found only square areas of hard-packed earth.

Wolf Eyes suggested, “Perhaps you are mistaken. This may not be the place.”

“It is the place. I have taken ponies from this corral while the rangers slept.”

The two warriors had made their way here by the light of the moon, skirting the nearby settlement. He had no wish to stir up the white men and set them into pursuit. This was only a mission of discovery. Clearly, the rangers had evacuated the camp. But where had they gone? Surely they had not been killed off, for word would have spread like wildfire sweeping the prairies under a dry west wind. He suspected their removal had something to do with the end of the white men’s war, but it was unlikely the rangers had abandoned their war against The People.

The last attempted raid had shamed him in the eyes of the camp. Though outnumbered, rangers had caught the warriors by surprise and routed them ingloriously. He and his followers had been forced back across the river empty-handed, with fewer horses than when they had started. The failure still rankled. Like Wolf Eyes, he itched for redemption. But unlike his companion, he could be patient when patience was called for.

Wolf Eyes suggested, “If the rangers are gone, it will be easier for us. There will be no one to keep us from going among the settlements and taking the farmers’ horses.”