The bullies of the fort marked the time with empty whiskey cases which grew slowly and steadily outside McGlincy’s door.
Yellow Hair marked the time in quite a different way, having no interest in McGlincy aside from an occasional speculation on his probable demise at an early date.
The plains turned to a dun color. The leaves fell dry as parchment from the cottonwoods along the banks and rattled on the ground when the wind blew down from the north.
The river at last froze over and the dark clouds laid down their white cargoes and one morning even the fort looked clean in its ermine mantle.
Yellow Hair had fared fairly well. Trouble treated him like a magnet and he could not escape—indeed he welcomed—two encounters with the French-Canadian voyageurs of the north. That he bested them wa
