ing on us."

Kinney rode forward alone, with one hand raised; and seeing that sign,
they paused, and crept nearer, like crafty rabbits, while the sun rose
and turned the place pink. And then came the parley, and the long
explanation; and Stirling thanked his stars to see they were going to
allow themselves to be peaceably arrested. Bullets you get used to; but
after the firing's done, you must justify it to important personages who
live comfortably in Eastern towns and have never seen an Indian in their
lives, and are rancid with philanthropy and ignorance.

Stirling would sooner have faced Sioux than sentimentalists, and he was
fervently grateful to these savages for coming with him quietly without
obliging him to shoot them. Cheschapah was not behaving so amiably; and
recognizing him, Stirling understood about the dog. The medicine-man,
with his faithful Two Whistles, was endeavoring to excite the prisoners
as they were marched down the river to the Crow Agency.

Stirling sent for Kinney. "Send that rascal away," he said. "I'll not
have him bothering here."

The interpreter obeyed, but with a singular smile to himself. When he
had ordered Cheschapah away, he rode so as to overhear Stirling and
Haines talking. When they speculated about the soda-water, Kinney smiled
again. He was a quiet sort of man. The people in the valley admired his
business head. He supplied grain and steers to Fort Custer, and used to
say that business was always slow in time of peace.

By evening Stirling had brought his prisoners to the agency, and there
was the lieutenant of Indian police of the Sioux come over from Pine
Ridge to bring them home. There was restlessness in the air as night
fell round the prisoners and their guard. It was Cheschapah's hour, and
the young Crows listened while he declaimed against the white man for
thwarting their hospitality. The strong chain of sentinels was kept busy
preventing these hosts from breaking through to fraternize with their
guests. Cheschapah did not care that the old Crow chiefs would not
listen. When Pretty Eagle remarked laconically that peace was good, the
agitator laughed; he was gaining a faction, and the faction was feeling
its oats. Accordingly, next morning, though the prisoners were meek on
being started home by Stirling with twenty soldiers, and the majority of
the Crows were meek at seeing them thus started, this was not all.
Cheschapah, with a yelling swarm of his young friends, beg