uspense, the major sent a little party,
mounted on their fleetest horses, to scour the prairies at least halfway
to the foothills of the Big Horn, and just at nightfall they came
back--three at least--galloping like mad, their mounts a mass of foam.
Folsom's dread was well founded. Red Cloud, with heaven only knew how
many warriors, had camped on Crazy Woman's Fork within the past three
days, and gone on up stream. He might have met and fought the troops
sent out three days before. He must have met the troops dispatched to
Warrior Gap.

And this last, at least, he had done. For a few seconds after the fall
of the buffalo bull, the watchers on the distant ridge lay still, except
that Dean, turning slightly, called to the orderly trumpeter, who had
come trotting out after the troop commander, and was now halted and
afoot some twenty yards down the slope. "Go back, Bryan," he ordered.
"Halt the ambulances. Notify Captain Brooks that there are lots of
Indians ahead, and have the sergeant deploy the men at once." Then he
turned back and with his field glass studied the party along the ravine.

"They can't have seen us, can they, lieutenant?" muttered the trooper
nearest him.

But Dean's young face was grave and clouded. Certainly the Indians acted
as though they were totally unaware of the presence of troops, but the
more he thought the more he knew that no big body of Sioux would be
traveling across country at so critical a time (country, too, that was
conquered as this was from their enemies, the Crows), without vigilant
scouts afar out on front and flank. The more he thought the more he knew
that even as early as three o'clock those keen-eyed fellows must have
sighted his little column, conspicuous as it was because of its wagons.
Beyond question, he told himself, the chief of the band or village so
steadily approaching from the northeast had full information of their
presence, and was coming confidently ahead. What had he to fear? Even
though the blood of settlers and soldiers might still be red upon the
hands of his braves, even though fresh scalps might be dangling at this
moment from their shields, what mattered it? Did he not know that the
safeguard of the Indian Bureau spread like the wing of a protecting
angel over him and his people, forbidding troops to molest or open fire
unless they themselves were attacked? Did he not laugh in his ragged
shirt sleeve at the policy of the white fool who would permit the red