Page:B M Bower - Heritage of the Sioux.djvu/198

THE HERITAGE OF THE SIOUX the arroyo, Luck stopped for breath after a sharp climb up through a narrow gash in the sheer wall of what was now a small cañon, and saw that to search any farther in that direction would be useless. Across the arroyo—that had narrowed and deepened until it was a cañon—Andy Green was mopping his face with his handkerchief and studying a bold hump of jumbled bowlders and ledges, evidently considering whether it was worth while toiling up to the top. A little below him, the Native Son was flinging rocks at a rattlesnake with the vicious precision of frank abhorrence. Down in the cañon bottom Big Medicine and Pink were holding the horses on the shady side of the gorge, and the smoke of their cigarettes floated lazily upward with the jumbled monotone of their voices.

Andy, glancing across at Luck, waved his hand and sat down on a rock that was shaded by a high bowlder; reached mechanically for his "makings" and with his feet far apart and his elbows on his thighs, wearily rolled a cigarette.

"How about it, boss?" he asked, scarcely raising his voice above the ordinary conversational tone, though a hard fifteen-minutes' climb up and 186