transpired that this mysterious war
party, venturing to the south bank of the Platte, did not exceed half a
dozen braves. Crabb got back in thirty-six hours, with five exhausted
men. They had followed the wheel tracks over the open prairie and into
the foothills far to the Northwest, emboldened by the evidence of there
being but few ponies in the original bandit escort. But, by four in the
afternoon, they got among the breaks and ravines and, first thing they
knew, among the Indians, for zip came the bullets and down went two
horses, and they had to dismount and fight to stand off possible swarms,
and, though owning they had seen no Indians, they had proof of having
felt them, and were warranted in pushing no further. After dark they
began their slow retreat and here they were.

And for seven days that was the last heard, by the garrison, at least,
of these most recent captives of the Sioux. Gentle and sympathetic
women, however, who called on Mrs. Hay, were prompt to note that though
unnerved, unstrung, distressed, she declared again and again her faith
that the Indians would never really harm her husband. They might hold
him and Nanette as hostages for ransom. They might take for their own
purposes his wagon, his mules and that store of money, but his life was
safe, yes, and Nanette's too. Of this she was so confident that people
began to wonder whether she had not received some assurance to that
effect, and when Pete, the stable boy driver, turned up at the end of
the first week with a cock-and-bull story about having stolen an Indian
pony and shot his way from the midst of the Sioux away up on No Wood
Creek, on the west side of the hills, and having ridden by night and
hidden by day until he got back to the Platte and Frayne, people felt
sure of it. Pete could talk Sioux better than he could jabber English.
He declared the Indians were in the hills by thousands, and were going
to take Hay and the young lady away off somewhere to be held for safe
keeping. He said the two troops that, never even halting at Frayne, had
pushed out on the trail, would only get into trouble if they tried to
enter the hills from the South, and that they would never get the
captives, wherein Pete was right, for away out among the spurs and
gorges of the range, fifty miles from Frayne, the pursuers came upon the
wreck of the wagon at the foot of an acclivity, up which a force of
Sioux had gone in single file. Many warriors it would seem, how