ey feared the soldiers might shoot," said Stone,
in explanation.

"Anybody with him, sir?"

"Ray says he insisted on an orderly, so one man went with him, to hold
his horse while he talked. Skelton was chosen. He speaks a little
Sioux."

"Man we had a while ago on account of the Foster matter?" asked Hurst,
with uplifted eyebrows.

"Same. He's at home among the Indians, and some of them like him. Guess
he's seen 'em before."

At 11:30, when Stone would have called again to speak with the agency,
it transpired that Central always went to bed at eleven--there was not
enough night business to warrant the expense of keeping open. At 7 A.
M., when again he would have spoken, Central had not come. It was eight
before news could be had from the agency, and then it came in a
roundabout way, for the line was down or cut or something was wrong far
over toward the Minneconjou reservation. At 8:10 the trumpets of the
cavalry were ringing, "To Horse!" the bugles of the foot, "To Arms!" At
8:30 the squadron was trotting, with dripping flanks, up the southward
slope beyond the Minneconjou, a gaunt skeleton, with pallid cheek and
blazing eye, leading swiftly on.

Give the devil his due, the first man to warn the fort that there was
"hell to pay at the agency" was Skidmore himself. He had kicked the
truth, he said, out of a skulking half-breed, who drifted in to beg for
a drink soon after seven. They hated each other, did Stone and Skid, but
here was common cause. The trouble began at the pow-wow. The agent
refused the Indians' demands; was threatened; "got scared," said the
frowsy, guttural harbinger of ill, and swore he'd arrest the speakers in
the morning, and they arrested him right there. In some way word of his
peril reached the agent's wife, and she rushed to the lieutenant, who
mounted, galloped, and got there just in time to rescue Skelton, who had
pluckily stood by the lone white man, whom some mad-brained warrior,
madder than the rest, had struck in fury; Skelton in turn had felled the
Indian assailant, and, despite the efforts of the chief, who knew it
meant defeat in the end, the lives of the two would have been forfeit
but for the rush of Ray and a few troopers to the spot. It was the
lieutenant's first charge in nearly a year, but he forgot his wound. He
managed, thanks in no small measure to the resonant orders of old Wolf
himself, to get the two back to the buildings, more dead than alive. He
tried to send word