Bud tramped along through the snow, wishing it was not so deep, or else

deep enough to make snow-shoeing practicable in the timber; thinking

too of Cash and how he hoped Cash would get his fill of silence, and of

Frank, and wondering where he would find him. He had covered perhaps two

miles of the fifteen, and had walked off a little of his grouch, and had

stopped to unbutton his coat, when he heard the crunching of feet in the

snow, just beyond a thick clump of young spruce.

Bud was not particularly cautious, nor was he averse to meeting people

in the trail. He stood still though, and waited to see who was

coming that way--since travelers on that trail were few enough to be

noticeable.

In a minute more a fat old squaw rounded the spruce grove and shied

off startled when she glimpsed Bud. Bud grunted and started on, and

the squaw stepped clear of the faintly defined trail to let him pass.

Moreover, she swung her shapeless body around so that she half faced him

as he passed. Bud's lips tightened, and he gave her only a glance. He

hated fat old squaws that were dirty and wore their hair straggling down

over their crafty, black eyes. They burlesqued womanhood in a way that

stirred always a smoldering resentment against them. This particular

squaw had nothing to commend her to his notice. She had a dirty red

bandanna tied over her dirty, matted hair and under her grimy double

chin. A grimy gray blanket was draped closely over her squat shoulders

and formed a pouch behind, wherein the plump form of a papoose was

cradled, a little red cap pulled down over its ears.

Bud strode on, his nose lifted at the odor of stale smoke that pervaded

the air as he passed. The squaw, giving him a furtive stare, turned and

started on, bent under her burden.

Then quite suddenly a wholly unexpected sound pursued Bud and halted him

in the trail; the high, insistent howl of a child that has been denied

its dearest desire of the moment. Bud looked back inquiringly. The squaw

was hurrying on, and but for the straightness of the trail just there,

her fat old canvas-wrapped legs would have carried her speedily out of

sight. Of course, papooses did yell once in awhile, Bud supposed, though

he did not remember ever hearing one howl like that on the trail. But

what made the squaw in such a deuce of a hurry all at once?

Bud's theory of her kind was simple enough: If they fled from you, it

was because they had stolen something and were afraid you would catch

them at it. He swung around forthwith in the trail and went after

her--whereat she waddled faster through the snow like a frightened duck.




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