ever see another like it.

And it all came about as such affairs have so often occurred in the
past. Unheeded warnings, unnoted threats, unpunished outbreaks, that
experienced soldiers about the reservation could readily understand,
and foretell what was coming, and make their own individual
preparations for the inevitable. But nothing they could report to
superiors would shake the serene confidence of the Department of the
Interior in the pacific purposes of its red children, the wards of the
nation. All along in the summer and the early autumn the "ghost-dance"
had been spreading from tribe to tribe, the war drum had been thumping
in the villages, the Indian messiah, a transparent fraud, as all might
see, wandered unrebuked from band to band--half a dozen messiahs, in
fact--and along in September, instead of Geordie Graham's best-loved
chum and classmate, Connell, of the Engineers, there came to the Point
a letter from that young officer, that Graham received with rejoicing,
read with troubled eyes, and for the first time in his life kept from
his mother. There came a time, later still, when there were many
letters to be kept from her, but those sorrowful days were not as yet.
This letter, however, he could not bring himself to show her, for it
told of things she had been dreading to hear ever since the papers
began telling of the ghost-dancing on the plains. It read:

"PECATONICA, WISCONSIN, _September 5th._

"DEAR POPS,--I fully intended to be with you to spend a week as
promised, before joining at Willett's Point, but you are more
likely to be spending that week with me. I am just back from a
run to the Black Hills with father. He has some property about
Deadwood. Returning, I stopped two days at Fort Niobrara, as
the guest of 'Sampson' Stone, whose troop is stationed there,
and I tell you it was interesting. He took me up to the
reservation, and I had my first look at the Sioux on their
native heath, and saw for myself how peaceful they are.
Everybody at the agency is scared stiff. Every officer at the
fort, from the colonel down, is convinced that war is coming.
The governor of Nebraska has been up looking after the settlers
and ranch folk and warning them away. General Miles has an
officer there watching the situation. From him I heard that
your regiment is to be sent to the field at once to march
northward; that other troops