Crack
again went the alert gun of the soldier, the ball striking the head just
below the scalp-lock and instantly jerking the body into a kneeling
position.

Then all was quiet in the gloomy woods.

After a time the sergeant addressed his voice to the lonely place in
Sioux, telling the women to come out and surrender--to leave the bucks,
etc.

An old squaw rose sharply to her feet, slapped her breast, shouted
"Lelah washatah," and gathering up a little girl and a bundle, she
strode forward to the soldiers. Three other women followed, two of them
in the same blanket.

"Are there any more bucks?" roared the sergeant, in Sioux.

"No more alive," said the old squaw, in the same tongue.

"Keep your rifle on the hole between the rocks; watch these people; I
will go up," directed the sergeant, as he slowly mounted to the ledge,
and with levelled six-shooter peered slowly over. He stepped in and
stood looking down on the dead warriors.

A yelling in broken English smote the startled sergeant. "Tro up your
hands, you d---- Injun! I'll blow the top off you!" came through the
quiet. The sergeant sprang down to see the Swede standing with carbine
levelled at a young buck confronting him with a drawn knife in his
hands, while his blanket lay back on the snow.

"He's a buck--he ain't no squaw; he tried to creep on me with a knife.
I'm going to kill him," shouted the excited Bordeson.

"No, no, don't kill him. Otto, don't you kill him," expostulated
Johnson, as the Swede's finger clutched nervously at the trigger, and
turning, he roared, "Throw away that knife, you d------Indian!"

The detachment now came charging in through the snow, and gathered
around excitedly. A late arrival came up, breathing heavily, dropped his
gun, and springing up and down, yelled, "Be jabbers, I have got among om
at last!" A general laugh went up, and the circle of men broke into a
straggling line for the return. The sergeant took the little girl up in
his arms. She grabbed him fiercely by the throat like a wild-cat,
screaming. While nearly choking, he yet tried to mollify her, while her
mother, seeing no harm was intended, pacified her in the soft gutturals
of the race. She relaxed her grip, and the brave Virginian packed her
down the mountain, wrapped in his soldier cloak. The horses were reached
in time, and the prisoners put on double behind the soldiers, who fed
them crackers as they marched. At two o'clock in the morning the little
comma