white man was more comfortable as a friend than as a foe, that
rations and gifts of clothes and farming implements were better than
battles and prisons. Once their superstition was set alight, these three
thousand Crows might suddenly follow Cheschapah to burn and kill and
destroy.

"How does he manage his soda-water, do you suppose?" inquired Haines.

"That's mysterious. He has never been known to buy drugs, and he's
careful where he does his trick. He's still a little afraid of his
father. All Indians are. It's queer where he was going with that dog."

Hard galloping sounded behind them, and a courier from the Indian agency
overtook and passed them, hurrying to Fort Custer. The officers hurried
too, and, arriving, received news and orders. Forty Sioux were reported
up the river coming to visit the Crows. It was peaceable, but untimely.
The Sioux agent over at Pine Ridge had given these forty permission to
go, without first finding out if it would be convenient to the Crow
agent to have them come. It is a rule of the Indian Bureau that if one
tribe desire to visit another, the agents of both must consent. Now,
most of the Crows were farming and quiet, and it was not wise that a
visit from the Sioux and a season of feasting should tempt their hearts
and minds away from the tilling of the soil. The visitors must be taken
charge of and sent home.

"Very awkward, though," said Stirling to Haines. He had been ordered to
take two troops and arrest the unoffending visitors on their way. "The
Sioux will be mad, and the Crows will be madder. What a bungle! and how
like the way we manage Indian affairs!" And so they started.

Thirty miles away, by a stream towards which Stirling with his command
was steadily marching through the night, the visitors were gathered.
There was a cook-fire and a pot, and a stewing dog leaped in the froth.
Old men in blankets and feathers sat near it, listening to young
Cheschapah's talk in the flighty lustre of the flames. An old squaw
acted as interpreter between Crow and Sioux. Round about, at a certain
distance, the figures of the crowd lounged at the edge of the darkness.
Two grizzled squaws stirred the pot, spreading a clawed fist to their
eyes against the red heat of the coals, while young Cheschapah harangued
the older chiefs.

[Illustration: "BOASTING IN INDIAN FASHION"]

"And more than that, I, Cheschapah, can do," said he, boasting in
Indian fashion. "I know how to make the white ma