Page:B M Bower - Heritage of the Sioux.djvu/210

THE HERITAGE OF THE SIOUX turn his own loose before he went to sleep. Certainly there was nothing to be gained by rousing the camp.

He did not suspect the trick being played upon him, though he did wonder if someone was leading the horses away. Still, in that case whoever did it would surely have sense enough to muffle the bell. Besides, it sounded exactly like a horse feeding and moving away at random—which, to those familiar with the sound, can never be mistaken for the tinkle of an animal traveling steadily to some definite point.

It was an extremely puzzled young man who rode and rode that night in pursuit of that evasive, nagging, altogether maddening tinkle. Always just over the next little rise he would hear it, or down in the next little draw; never close enough for him to discover the trick; never far enough away for him to give up the chase. The stars he had been watching in camp swam through the purple immensity above him and slid behind the skyline. Other stars as brilliant appeared and began their slow, swimming journey. Pink rode, and stopped to listen, and rode on again until it 198