Dick
forced Spraddle down the steep bank of the coulee, and was soon at the
bottom.
Hastily he set after the coyote, but suddenly stopped, for a man stepped
from behind a shoulder of rock and clay and caught his bridle.
Spraddle stopped so quickly that Dick was almost unseated. But he soon
recovered himself, and stared in amazement at the man who had thus
stopped him.
He was an Indian.
Dick had often seen Indians in the towns through which the broncho boys
had passed, and occasionally they had come into the camps they had
established on the drive of the herd up from Texas.
But this was the first time Dick had ever come in contact with an Indian
when he was alone. For a moment his heart stopped beating, for he was
afraid.
"How?" grunted the Indian.
It was all Dick could do to reply with a feeble, quavering "How?"
Many times around the camp fire, with the boys all about, when Bud was
telling one of his tales of Indians, Dick had thought what he would do
if he ever came in contact with a real, live, sure-enough redskin, and
always he had thought how brave he would be.
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