Free The Ferguson Rifle by Louis L’Amour Page B

was foreign to him, for to most Indians any stranger was a potential enemy, and chivalry, by our standards, was alien to their thinking. Yet the Indian had his own chivalry, and that was the way in which I explained.
    â€œIt is like counting coup,” I said. “To strike a living armed enemy is to count coup. To take a scalp is to count coup. According to the code of chivalry, to help the helpless is to count coup.”
    He was immediately interested, but he was growing restless. There were enemies about, both Indian and white, and our companions were drawing farther and farther away. We took time for a quick swing around to see if we could pick up the trail, and we could not.
    As for the five men who had come to the camp, without doubt they were those who had killed the man whose body we found, but whom they had not found. Why?
    The question was a good one. The trail had been easy to follow, the body lying at the end of it, but there had been no tracks to indicate discovery, nor had the body been searched except by me.
    Had they been so sure he was dead? Or didn’t they care? Then why shoot him at all?
    Obviously they wanted something he had, yet nothing had been taken from him. Hence it was something he had that he did not carry on his person … or somebody.
    Perhaps it was not he whom they wanted, but those he accompanied?
    That would explain why once he had been shot and put out of the game they had not followed. They had followed the others.
    Yet someone had slipped into our camp, stolen bacon, meal, and a little powder and escaped … not a girl, surely. But a lad now, a healthy, ambitious lad? There was a likely thing.
    We rode swiftly to overtake the others, but the problem nagged at my attention. If the lad had come to rob our camp, and the now dead man had gone off in another direction, where was the woman? Or girl or whatever she was?
    And what were they doing out here in the wilderness, and why were they pursued?
    We rode down into the bed of the North Fork. There was much sand, little wood except driftwood, most of it half buried in sand, although growing on the bluffs in the distance appeared a few low trees that I took to be cedar.
    When we came up to our party, they were encamped in a little valley where a fresh spring sent a small stream meandering down through a meadow. Near the spring there was a scattered grove of pines and cedars, gooseberries and currants growing in great profusion. We camped near them, their thorny wall offering protection from intruders on two sides.
    There was wood, fresh water, and grass for our animals.
    All heads turned as we rode in. As I was stripping the gear from my horse, I explained what I had found and what we suspected.
    Solomon Talley squatted on his heels, chewing on a long stem of grass. “Peculiar,” he said, “mighty peculiar.”
    â€œI don’t like to think of no woman out yonder alone,” Ebitt commented. “Still, it ain’t our affair.”
    â€œI’ve decided it’s mine,” I replied. “Do you go on and set up winter quarters. I’ll follow when I’ve discovered what’s happening here.”
    â€œYou’ll be killed,” Kemble warned. “A man alone has small chance.”
    â€œSomewhat more than a woman,” I said. “Still, if one of us is to be a damned fool, let it be me. I’m better fitted to play Don Quixote than the rest of you.”
    â€œDon
who
?” Sandy demanded.
    â€œDon Quixote,” Heath explained, “was a Spanish knight who mistook a windmill for a giant.”
    Bob Sandy stared at him. “Why, that’s crazy! How could a—!” He looked from one to the other of us, sure we were making a joke of him.
    â€œThere ain’t no such thing as a giant,” he scoffed. “Those are tales for children.”
    â€œI don’t know,” Kemble replied. “If you’ve never seen either a windmill or a giant, one is as