to be feared from them.

The original band of marauders numbered over a score, and were under the
joint leadership of Tall Bear and Red Feather, both of whom were eager
to sweep along the thin line of settlements like a cyclone, scattering
death and destruction in their path. It may strike you that so small a
force was hardly equal to the task of such a raid; but I have only to
remind you that the famous Geronimo and his Apaches, who made their home
among the alkali deserts and mountain fastnesses of Arizona and New
Mexico, numbered few warriors at times, and yet they baffled for years a
regiment of United States cavalry. It was only when the chieftain chose
to come in and surrender himself under the pledge of good treatment that
hostilities ended.

The twenty-odd horsemen under the leadership of Red Feather and Tall
Bear were fitting types of that savage horde which in the early summer
of 1876 blotted out General Custer and his troops. It so happened,
however, with the smaller party that they found no such favoring
circumstances to help them. At the first settler's cabin assailed they
discovered the inmates ready for them. In some way or other, several
families had learned of their danger in time to prepare for their
assailants.

It was clear to the Indians that the settlers in that section had taken
the alarm, and Red Feather proposed they should abandon their first plan
and push northward towards Barwell, attacking the isolated homes to the
south of that settlement. Tall Bear opposed so warmly, and with such
slurs on his rival, that a personal conflict was narrowly averted.

The end of the quarrel was that Red Feather, with five of his followers,
drew off from the rest and rode northward. The result of this separation
was unsatisfactory to both parties.

The friendly Indian who had hastened toward Barwell to warn the pioneers
of their danger did his work so well that hardly one was neglected. The
inmates of the first cabin attacked by Red Feather were awaiting him.
Only a few shots were exchanged, when the wrathful chieftain withdrew,
and, pushing to the northward, next swooped down on the dwelling of
Archibald Clarendon.

No resistance was encountered there, for, as you know, the inmates had
left some time before. For some reason never fully explained, Red
Feather did not fire the buildings at once. Shortly after, Melville
Clarendon and his sister appeared on the scene, and the incidents which
followed have a