"I don't mean these poor savages," he said. "I mean the Southern fops who are even now threatening to secede from the Union. There'll be blood spilled from Baltimore to Galveston before that conflict's settled, I'll wager. It's the Southern boys I called "renegades"'--and they are renegades, by God. I'd like to ride south on my good horse, Hector, and kill every rebel fop between Charleston and Mobile." Captain Scull cased his binoculars and looked at the two of them with a mean grin. "Of course, all rebels ain't fops, gentlemen.

There's mettle on both sides, plenty of it.

That's why it will be a terrible war, when it comes." "Maybe it won't come, Captain," Augustus said, with a glance at Call. He was uneasily aware that the Captain was a Yankee, whereas he and Call were Southern. If such a war did come, the Captain and the two of them might find themselves on different sides.

"It will come within five years," Inish Scull said confidently. He stood up, walked to the very edge of the cliff, and spat a great arc of tobacco juice into the canyon.

"It'll be brother against brother, and father against son, when that war comes, gentlemen," he said. He turned and was about to walk to his horse when Augustus saw a movement, at the far south end of the canyon. It was just some moving dots, but there had been no dots there a few minutes earlier, when they had been looking at the Comanche horse herd.

"Captain, look," he said. "I think there's more Indians coming." Inish Scull took out his binoculars and scanned the southern distance with some impatience.

"Damn it, every time I make a sensible plan, something happens to thwart me," he said. "There are more Indians coming. If we tried to spook the horse herd now, we'd be heading right into them." Call looked where the others were looking but could only see a faint, wavy motion.

"Mr. Call, go rouse the men--we better skedaddle," Scull said. "It's old Slow Tree and he's got his whole band with him.

We're but twelve men, and Buffalo Hump knows it. Even if he's not in much of a fighting mood, some of the young men are bound to be excited by an advantage like that." Call knew that was true. It was well enough to look forward to the day when the Comanche would be a broken people, no longer dangerous--but that day was not in sight, and speculation along those lines was premature, in his view. There were now four or five hundred Comanche warriors right below them, a force strong enough to overrun any army the U.S.

government could put in the field. Call could now see a line of Indians, moving up from the south.

There were still the size of ants, but he knew they would sting a lot worse than ants, if it came to a fight.

"Go, Mr. Call--g," Captain Scull said. "Wake up the nappers and get everyone mounted. We're a tempting morsel, sitting up here on the top of this hole. At least we better make ourselves a morsel in motion." When Augustus looked to the south again he saw that the lead warriors had scared up a little pocket of buffalo that had been grazing in a small side canyon. There were only four buffalo, running for their lives, with a wave of warriors in pursuit.

"Those buffalo would have done better to stay hid," he remarked. "They'll soon be harvested now." Inish Scull seemed uninterested in the buffalo.

"I met old Slow Tree once, at a big parley on the Trinity," he said, his binoculars still pointed south. "Quite the diplomat, he is. He'll talk and promise peace, but it's just diplomacy, Mr.

McCrae. It won't help the next settler he encounters, out on the baldies somewhere." He paused and spat.

"I'll take Buffalo Hump over your diplomatic Indians," he said. "Buffalo Hump don't parley--don't believe in it.

He knows the white man's promises are worth no more than Slow Tree's. They're worth nothing, and he knows it. He scorns our parleying and peace-piping and the lot. I admire him for it, though I'd kill him in a second if I could get him in range." Augustus was watching the buffalo chase.

Only once, long ago, had he had the opportunity to watch Indians run buffalo.

That time it had been two tired Indians and one tired buffalo--in their desperation to bring down the meat they had chased the buffalo right through a ranger encampment, to the astonishment of the rangers, who roused themselves from cards and singsongs just in time to shoot the animal. The tired Comanches, badly disappointed, made it into the brush before the disorganized rangers could think to shoot them.

This time there were four buffalo and at least twenty young Indians in pursuit. Soon the buffalo fanned out, each with four or five Comanches at tail and side. None of the Comanches had guns.

Augustus saw one buffalo absorb six arrows without slackening its pace. Another was lanced and almost managed to turn under the horse of the young brave who lanced it, but the brave avoided the charge and returned to strike the buffalo twice more.

Soon, prickling with arrows, the buffalo began to stumble. Two fell, but two ran on.

Inish Scull, by now, was as absorbed in the chase as Augustus.

"What grand sport!" Inish Scull exclaimed. "I wish Hector and I were down there. Big Horse Scull and the Buffalo Horse could show them what for, I reckon!" Augustus didn't say anything, but he agreed. He and Woodrow had run buffalo a few times; even Woodrow got caught up in the sport of it. Even though they might need the meat, there was always a letdown when the buffalo fell and the skinning and butchering had to begin.

The third buffalo, prickly with arrows, finally fell, but the fourth ran on, although the whole force of Comanches was now after it, the braves crowding one another in order to aim their arrows.

"Look at it--why, you'd think the beast was immortal," Inish Scull said. "There must be thirty arrows in it." The buffalo, though, was not immortal. Finally it stopped, swung its head at its pursuers, and dropped to its knees. It bellowed a frothy bellow that echoed off the canyon walls. Then it rolled on its side and lay still--the young Comanches milled around it, excited from the chase.

Augustus watched for a moment. The Indian women were already skinning the first of the buffalo to fall.

"That's that--let's be off, sir--else they'll be skinning us next," Captain Scull said.

Augustus mounted, but turned his horse to watch the scene for another moment. He hadn't done the chasing or made the kill, but, for some reason, he felt the same letdown as if he had. The Comanche braves had stopped milling. They simply sat on their horses, looking down at the fallen beast. Though he could barely see the fallen animal--it was just a dot on the canyon floor--in his mind's eye he saw it clearly.