The Black Panther of the Navaho

Colonel Colvin sat in a great roomy armchair in the Colvin Trophy Den, puffing reminiscently at a short black pipe and gazing abstractedly into the flickering flames of glowing logs in the rugged stone fireplace that was the heart of the Den. Sid, his son, and Sid's chum, Scotty, were patching their cruiser moccasins with hand sewing-awls, the former now and then glancing over at his father anxiously.

The Colonel looked peaked and worn, -- a thin, gray ghost of his former robust self, -- for his duty during the War had been onerous in the extreme, as head of the Army Detail Office at Washington. Sid feared a total collapse of the old Indian fighter, for nothing is harder on the system of a man raised to years of violent outdoor life than a long period of desk work. Sid knew the only road back to health. His father knew it too, but, so far, he had not made the first move toward hitting the trail again. However, a certain expectant look in the Colonel's eyes, certain mysterious telegrams which the boy had been detailed to send, addressed to an old Army friend out in Arkansas, had distilled the air of big events to come which hovered persistently in the atmosphere of the Den.