in an aggrieved voice. "He
could've sent ten words fer the same price," he grumbled.

Red Snake was one of the younger chiefs of the Sioux. He was too young
to have had a share in the bloody last stand of his race in their
Montana wilderness; but he was old enough to have watched the dwindling
of spirit and power among them for twenty years.

And every day of watching kindled new hate in the breast of the
Indian. In him the spirit of his fathers had left the old unquenchable
belief in the Day of Restoration, when, by some supernatural
intervention, the Indians would return to their lands, the lands revert
to their primeval state, and civilization be lost in the obliterating
wilderness.

The officers of the Agency had had trouble with Red Snake on several
occasions. Twice he had started out at the head of war parties and had
been caught just in time to prevent bloodshed among the isolated
settlers. But of late he had been docile and peaceful. The new
disturbances--the occasional shooting of a cowboy and the petty
stealing of cattle dated from the beginning of the sway of a new
medicine man in Red Snake's principal village of Shi-wah-ki.

His name was of many syllables in the native language, but he was known
as Big Smoke. He was a young Indian who had spent some years among the
whites in the Southwest, had made a pretense at getting an education,
but had reverted violently to the life and faith of his fathers. Big
smoke had predicted to Red Snake the coming of the Great White Queen,
who would empower the arms of the red man to overthrow the whites and
would make him again master of his rightful lands.

Red Snake, squatted on a blanket beside his teepee, listened with
immobile features but with a thrilled heart. He summoned a council of
the chiefs, secretly, and the medicine man addressed his message to
them also.

Thereafter the Indians of Shi-wah-ki were restive. Their growing
spirit of rebellion manifested itself in foolish little offenses
against the white men. These were punished with the white man's
customary sternness and this increased the rancor of the Indians. It
increased, too, their eagerness for the fulfillment of the strange
prophecy of the coming of the White Queen.

On the very day when the white man's village of Rockvale was in a
hubbub of excitement because of the kidnapping of Pauline, the village
of Shi-wah-ki was tumultuous with a different fervor.

Into the circle of the assemb