the main village of the Cheyennes!

They had come ten miles from their arroyo, and were at the South
Republican River in western Kansas. This time they crawled along under
the river bank, and into the tall coarse grass of a bayou that bordered
the river. They could see the village; they could hear the squaws
chanting the mourning songs for dead warriors, and might watch them
carrying bodies to the scaffolds.

Had that village known two white scouts were so near--! Why, once
during the day a party of warriors watered their horses not thirty feet
from where Scouts Trudeau and Stillwell were lying; and time after time
other war parties crossed and recrossed the river here. It was a ford.

The second long day passed. In the darkness of the third night out
they crossed the river themselves, and side-stepping the village and
its wolfish dogs struck south once more. They had to dodge
night-roving Indians, as before, but they traveled steadily; there was
no sign, by any of the Indians they met, that the island had been
taken. This gave hope, still.

"We're getting through, Jack," spoke Scout Trudeau, toward morning.
"But we'll have to do better. Will you risk day travel with me, so we
can finish up. There are anxious hearts, back yonder; and by this time
the boys are suffering something fearful."

"I'm game, 'Pet.'"

So they did not stop, with daylight. Keeping to the coulees or washes,
and the draws, and the stream beds, they zigzagged on. They had
counted upon the Indians all being attracted in to the island, by this
time; but they had counted too soon.

About eight o'clock, while they were crossing a high rolling prairie,
Scout Trudeau suddenly dropped. Scout Stillwell imitated--did not
hesitate an instant.

"Don't move! Don't breathe! Look yonder!"

A long file of mounted Indians had emerged around the base of a low
hill not a mile away, off to the north-west, and were coming on.

"We'll have to cache ourselves in a hurry."

The table-land was bare and level. For a moment their hearts sank.
Then they noted a patch of tall, stiff yellowed weeds growing from an
old buffalo wallow. In the wet season the buffalo had rolled in the
mud here, until they had scooped a little hollow; the hollow had formed
a shallow water-hole; the rains had collected and sunk in, and provided
moisture for the weeds long after the surrounding soil had dried.

It was the only cover in sight, and for it they crawled.

T