. They drove
their horses down to drink scrambled up the bank again, and then
presently, in answer to some sort of signal, quietly rode on a quarter
of a mile or so and pulled up at the side of the valley. They saw
abundance of meat lying there already killed, and perhaps guessed that
we could not use all of it.

"Auberry," said Belknap, "we must go talk to these people, and see
what's up."

"They're Sioux!" said Auberry. "Like enough the very devils that cleaned
out the station down there. But come on; they don't mean fight right
now."

Belknap and Auberry took with them the sergeant and a dozen troopers. I
pushed in with these, and saw Orme at my side; and Belknap did not send
us back. We four rode on together presently. Two or three hundred yards
from the place where the Indians halted, Auberry told Belknap to halt
his men. We four, with one private to hold our horses, rode forward a
hundred yards farther, halted and raised our hands in sign of peace.
There rode out to us four of the head men of the Sioux, beautifully
dressed, each a stalwart man. We dismounted, laid down our weapons on
the ground, and approached each other.

"Watch them close, boys," whispered Auberry. "They've got plenty of
irons around them somewhere, and plenty of scalps, too, maybe."

"Talk to them, Auberry," said Belknap; and as the former was the only
one of us who understood the Sioux tongue, he acted as interpreter.

"What are the Sioux doing so far east?" he asked of their spokesman,
sternly.

"Hunting," answered the Sioux, as Auberry informed us. "The white
soldiers drive away our buffalo. The white men kill too many. Let them
go. This is our country." It seemed to me I could see the black eyes of
the Sioux boring straight through every one of us, glittering, not in
the least afraid.

"Go back to the north and west, where you belong," said Auberry. "You
have no business here on the wagon trails."

"The Sioux hunt where they please," was the grim answer. "But you see we
have our women and children with us, the same as you have--and he
pointed toward our camp, doubtless knowing the personnel of our party as
well as we did ourselves.

"Where are you going?" asked our interpreter.

The Sioux waved his arm vaguely. "Heap hunt," he said, in broken English
now. "Where you go?" he asked, in return.

Auberry was also a diplomat, and answered that we were going a half
sleep to the west, to meet a big war party coming down the Platte,