f the men; I watched closely, and then I
saw they were Indians.

My first thought was that it was daylight and no jack-lantern would
scare them away. I saw I must depend on harsher measures. In almost no
time I had got over town, locked the barn, shut Kaiser in the hotel,
run through my tunnel to the bank so as to be on the west side of
town, and stood peeping out a loophole with two fully loaded
Winchesters on a table beside me.

CHAPTER XIV

I have an exciting Hunt and get some Game, which I bring Home with a
vast deal of Labor, only to lose Part of it in a startling Manner:
together with a Dream and an Awakening.

I had not had my eyes to the loophole ten seconds when I found out
something more about the coming invaders; what I had taken for cattle
were buffaloes, a thing which surprised me very much, for they were
even then extremely scarce. There were about a dozen of them, and they
were coming on all in a bunch and throwing up the snow like a
locomotive.

I saw that the buffaloes would follow the swell of ground and that it
would bring them in close to town, and perhaps right across the square
between the stores and the depot. But I did not believe that they
could ever flounder through the drifts to the south and east, so it
seemed as if the hunters would overtake them so near that they would
probably stay and again take possession of the town. I think I should
rather have seen the outlaws coming. I decided to fire at them and see
if I could not drive them off. But it was not necessary. I think some
of them must have been the same Indians that called on me Christmas
Day, and went away so suddenly, without stopping to say good-by.

I am sure of this, because when still a good half-mile from town they
stopped and began circling around, and waving their guns in the air,
and making all sorts of strange motions. I suppose they were trying to
drive away the evil spirit which they thought was in the place, and
which I had had in the pumpkin lantern, and which had also been in
Fitzsimmons's barrel. Then one of them who had been sitting still on
his horse rode a little forward and got off, and I could see a thin
ribbon of blue smoke arising. I suppose he was the medicine-man of the
tribe making medicine to frighten the evil spirit; or rather, perhaps,
to get up their own courage to face it. This kept up for half an hour.
The buffaloes in the mean time had walked slowly along till they were
not much more tha