ayed for hours
yet to come. There was no mistaking the dull leaden sky, the chill in
the atmosphere, and that dark, increasing gloom which overspreads the
heavens at such times.

Young Warren was a fine specimen of the young hunter, though he had not
yet passed his nineteenth year. His home was in South Dakota, and he was
now on his return from Fort Meade, at the eastern foot of the Black
Hills, and had fully twenty miles to travel, though the sun was low in
the horizon, as he well knew, even if it was veiled by the snow vapor.

His father's ranch lay to the north of the Big Cheyenne, and the son was
familiar with every foot of the ground, having traversed it many a time,
not only on his visits to the fort, but in the numerous hunting
excursions of which he was so fond. He could have made the journey by
night, when no moon was in the sky, had there been need of doing so, but
he decided that it was better to give his pony the rest he required, and
to push on at an early hour the next morning. He had eaten nothing since
the noon halt, and his youth and vigor gave him a powerful appetite, but
he had learned long before that one of the first requisites of the
hunter is to learn to endure cold, heat, hunger, and hardship
unmurmuringly.

But the youth was in so uneasy a mental state that he rode slowly for
nearly an hour, debating with himself whether to draw rein or push on.
The rumors of trouble among the Sioux were confirmed by his visit to
Fort Meade. A spirit of unrest had prevailed for a long time, caused by
the machinations of that marplot, Sitting Bull, the harangues of
medicine men who proclaimed the coming Messiah, the ghost dances, the
eagerness of the young bucks to take the warpath, and the universal
belief that the last opportunity for the red men to turn back the
advance of the Caucasian race was to be made soon or never.

The fact that our Government had its military posts scattered through
the disaffected country, that the Indian reservations were comparatively
well governed, that the officers were men whose valor and skill had been
proven times without number, and that these authorities were keeping
close watch on the growing disaffection produced a quieting effect in
many quarters, though the best informed men foresaw the impending storm.
That which troubled Warren Starr on his lonely ride northward was the
fact that on that ranch, twenty miles away, dwelt his father, mother,
and little sister, known by