Lieutenant Parker, accompanied by his guide, rode up to the head of the line, where he could get a good view of the Indian. His face was very pale—he knew it as well as if he had glanced into a mirror to see it—and he looked at the savage through his binoculars. He thought of Lieutenant Kidder, who, with the thirteen men composing his expedition, had been completely annihilated by these same Indians, and wondered if destiny had the same fate in store for himself. The Indian was alone, but that was no proof that his band might not be on the opposite side of the swell, waiting to see what the result of his investigation was going to be. He was dressed in war costume. On his head was a bonnet gaudily ornamented with feathers which trailed and fluttered behind him, and he held a gun of some description in his hands. Page 54 As Parker looked at him he dismounted from his horse, held his gun up so that the hunters could see it, and laid it upon the ground.
“He is disarming himself,” said the lieutenant.
“That is a sign that he wants to speak to you,” said Carl.
“Well, I don’t want to speak to him. If he comes any nearer to us I shall send him back.”
The expedition had not halted at all during this time, but kept straight ahead, as though the way was perfectly clear. Having disarmed himself, the Indian mounted his horse and rode down the hill to meet the hunters.
“There are Sioux on both our flanks,” said the guide after a little pause.
“So there are,” said Lieutenant Parker, casting a hasty glance on both sides of him. “Keep your eyes open, Carl, and the first move they make let me know it. That Indian has come close enough.”
The lieutenant raised his hand and made a signal to halt and go back, just as a boy who is playing “I spy” does to a comrade whose Page 55 interest it is to keep out of sight. The Indian stopped and made other signs which Parker did not understand; but the Indian understood the signal to halt, however, and when it was repeated with more energy than usual, he turned his horse and rode back to the top of the swell. Parker glanced at his men, and was gratified to see that every one had put away his pipe and held his carbine in readiness for use. It certainly looked as though there was going to be a fight. He thought of all the instructions the colonel had given him, and was ready to carry them out. His voice was as steady as usual when he inquired of his guide:
“What did that Indian mean when he made those other signals?”
“He simply wanted to communicate—that was all,” replied Carl.
“And what do you suppose would have been the result if I had spoken to him?” continued Parker.
“He would have come up and held some conversation with you through an interpreter, and in the meantime his band would have Page 56 slipped over and been all ready to carry out his programme, whatever it is.”
“Then you really think he has got some other Indians waiting for him on the other side of the hill?” said Parker.
“Certainly I do. They would have come over here one by one, so as not to arouse your suspicions, and when there were enough of them here to overpower us the chief would have given his war-whoop, and in less than two minutes we would all have been dead men.”
“But some of them would have done their last shooting,” said Parker, his eyes flashing while he gripped his Winchester with a firmer hold. “My soldiers were all ready.”
“Of course; that was to be expected. But you don’t suppose that the loss of a few warriors would whip his whole band?”
“Well, I did perfectly right in telling that chief that I did not want to speak to him,” said Parker, drawing a long breath of relief. “Do you think he will pitch into us when we get to the top of the hill?”
“No, for he could not choose a worse battleground. Page 57 He will probably follow along behind us for a few miles and then give it up.”
Lieutenant Parker afterward said that he never in his life felt such a tremor of fear as he did when he mounted the swell on which the Indian had stood half an hour before. He expected that the appearance of his cap above the hill would be the signal for a volley of rifle-balls. His guide rode beside him all the way, and as Parker looked at him he wished he had some of that boy’s fearlessness. He did not seem to care for the Indians at all, and neither did his face change color. He took off his sombrero, smoothed his long hair down across his shoulders and out of range of his eyes, all the while keeping his gaze directed toward the hills on each flank, to see that the savages did not make a rush upon them. When they mounted to the top of the swell not an Indian was to be seen, either in front or on the flanks. They had disappeared completely.
“Well, that squad of Sioux was easily whipped,” said Parker; and only those who have been in similar situations can realize Page 58 how great was his satisfaction. “I looked for us to be laid out the minute we came in sight.”
“There isn’t a gully within half a mile of here,” said Carl, “and this proves to be the sort of fighting-ground that they don’t want. They would surround us with a horde of shrieking savages, all going at the top of their speed, so that we would find it difficult to hit one of them, and when they tired their horses they would go into that gully and rest and make up some other scheme for getting the advantage of us. Then they would come out and go at it again.”
“I declare there is some more of them over there,” said Parker, whose eyes had been constantly sweeping the horizon.
“Yes, and I am glad to see them.”
“Are they soldiers?” exclaimed Parker.
“They are, and the Indians caught sight of them before we did. That is what drove them away.”
Lieutenant Parker breathed easy after that. With his glass he could not make out the blue uniforms because they were so far away, but Page 59 he had faith in his guide’s word; and just then Sergeant Leeds came up and saluted.
“The colonel was getting skeary on account of us, sir,” said he, with a wink of his eye that spoke volumes. “Them are soldiers who are coming out to see what has become of us.”
At the end of an hour the approaching cavalcade was near enough for the hunters to see their uniforms, and Parker and his guide galloped out to meet them. There were two troops of them, and this proved that the colonel knew something of the strength of the band which he was afraid would meet them on the way.
“Well, old boy, I am glad to see that you got back safe,” said the captain in command, as he leaned forward and extended his hand to Lieutenant Parker. “Did you see any of them?”
“Yes, sir. We saw one standing on the top of that swell back there, and he made signs that he wanted to speak to us; but I replied that I did not want to speak to him, and at the same time my guide discovered some other Indians looking at us over the swells on our flanks.”
Page 60
“You did well, sir; you did well. You will make an Indian fighter one of these days. Now let us see how much game you have.”
“Did that other expedition get through all right, sir?” asked Parker.
“Oh, yes. They did not see any Sioux on the way to bother them at all. You see, the way we found out that they have an inclination to go on the warpath at all was this: Agent Galbraith sent a couple of men——Well, I will give it up. They got more game than we did, sergeant.”
While the captain was speaking he rode around to the rear of the wagon, lifted the canvas and looked under it. It was literally filled with the animals that had fallen to the hunters’ rifles; and when the officer reached in and felt the plump quarters of an elk his mouth watered.
“I must have a piece of that elk for my supper,” said he.
“How about the Sioux getting on the warpath, sir?” said Lieutenant Parker. He was anxious to hear about that.
“Oh, yes. Lieutenant Hawkins, you take Page 61 command of the column and march them back to the fort. I will ride behind with the boys. You see, Agent Galbraith sent up a couple of men to order the Sioux to stop their Ghost Dance, and when the Sioux found that they were coming they pointed their guns at them and warned them to go back. That was all the news we wanted. The next day they sent a band of warriors to loaf about the fort, and that is what scared the colonel. He was sure they would find you out here and he sent me to look you up.”
“I am sure it was very kind of him,” said Parker. “Are all the Sioux engaged in this Ghost Dance, sir?”
“No, there are probably twenty thousand of them in all, and more than half of them don’t take any stock in the Ghost Dance. They can no doubt raise six hundred or a thousand men, and we have three thousand to oppose them. We are all around them, too. I wish that old Sitting Bull was captured.”
During the ride to Fort Scott the captain, who talked plainly and explained many things about the Ghost Dance which the young officer Page 62 had failed to understand, finally convinced him that his guide had told him nothing but the truth. As American Horse, a brave chieftain of the Sioux, once said while making a speech before the Peace Commissioners: “We were made many promises, but have never heard from them since.” Take, for instance, the issue of beef which was made at the Standing Rock Agency. In one year it amounted to eight million pounds; and in three years more, after the whites had got all the land the Indians wanted to sell, it was reduced to four million pounds, or just half of what they wanted. It was no wonder that the Indians complained of starvation; and when they asked permission to go off their reservation to hunt for the food that was to keep their families from giving way to the appeals of hunger, they were refused.
“I don’t blame the Indians so much, after all,” said Parker.
“And if you come right down to that, neither do I,” whispered the captain. “The Government will not give the Indians over to the War Department, as many thinking men Page 63 advise them to do, and we have got to stand by and see them suffer. And another thing: you don’t know how those Indians behave themselves when they take the bit in their teeth and go off their reservation. I tell you, you would remember all the broken promises the whites have made you and go in strong for revenge. Of course we soldiers can’t stand by, with our hands in our pockets, and let innocent people suffer because of what the Department at Washington has done to them, and we have to stand between the settlers and Indian barbarities.”
“And the Sioux don’t think much of us any way, do they, sir?”
“Not now they don’t, for they are as well armed as we are. In olden times, when the trappers roamed through this country, the Indians were all armed with bows and arrows, and it was very seldom you heard of a company of men being annihilated. The trappers had so little to steal that the Sioux did not think it worth while to lose the lives of three or four men in the effort to get it. The trappers were dead shots, and they brought an Page 64 Indian every time they pulled on him. The Indians would keep an eye on the trappers’ camps, and when there was no one there to protect them they would sneak up and steal everything they could lay their hands on. But now the case is different. The savages are armed with rifles and revolvers, and it has to be a pretty strong force that can march through their country.”
“You really think there is going to be a war, do you, sir?”
“I do, unless we can go to work and arrest that Sitting Bull, and that will take our whole force. Those Sioux are not going to stand by and see us capture their biggest medicine man without some resistance.”
Lieutenant Parker drew a long breath and told himself that his prospects of seeing an Indian fight were very good indeed.