Steals the Ponies was not so confident. Perhaps the rangers had relocated to a larger camp. If the white men were no longer fighting among themselves, more might choose to join the struggle to drive The People onto the reservation. It appeared obvious that they intended to take over all the old hunting grounds and either violate the earth with their steel-pointed plows or chase off the buffalo and substitute their spotted cattle. Such a thing was a blasphemy too profane to be tolerated.

Wolf Eyes asked, “What do you want to do?”

“We shall find if the rangers have truly left or if they are still somewhere around. You have been telling me you want to take horses. You saw those that graze near the white men’s houses?” He pointed in the direction of the settlement that was Fort Belknap.

“There did not seem to be even a guard.”

“We shall rest in the timber until night. Then we shall take the horses and see if the rangers come after us. If they do not, we will know they are no longer anywhere near.”

“And if they are not?”

“Then when the grass is cured and the moon is full, we shall come back. We shall take all the horses we want and show the hair-faced teibos that this land belongs to The People.”

CHAPTER

EIGHT

It had been a long, wearisome walk for Pete Dawkins and his friend Scully. They had quietly taken leave of their company in the middle of the night without bothering to notify the officer in charge. Pete had seen no reason to disturb the captain’s sleep. Everybody had been mourning the loss of the war, declaring the Confederacy crushed, complaining that no one was going to be paid what was due him. Pete saw no reason to stay around for formalities or to surrender to some damned Yankee outfit. For all he knew, the defeated Confederate soldiers might be herded into a prison camp. If he had been willing to go to prison he would not have joined the army in the first place.

He and Scully had made a futile effort to liberate two horses from the officers’ picket line but had found them too well guarded. He doubted that anyone would be shot for deserting a collapsing army, but they might be shot for trying to get away with someone else’s horses. The two had made their getaway afoot, hoping for better luck somewhere along the road. Pete had always felt that luck was not a matter of waiting for something good to happen on its own. A man made his own luck, grabbing whatever came to hand.

“Scully,” he said, “do you remember that good little blaze-faced sorrel I had, the one we found just wanderin’ around loose on the Tonkawa reservation?”

“I remember it like to’ve got us scalped.”