oes catch, it won't be me," he concluded. He felt pretty sure there
would be war now.

Dawn showed the summoned troops near the agency at the corral, standing
to horse. Cheschapah gathered his hostiles along the brow of the ridge
in the rear of the agency buildings, and the two forces watched each
other across the intervening four hundred yards.

"There they are," said the agent, jumping about. "Shoot them, colonel;
shoot them!"

"You can't do that, you know," said the officer, "without an order from
the President, or an overt act from the Indians."

So nothing happened, and Cheschapah told his friends the white men were
already afraid of him. He saw more troops arrive, water their horses in
the river, form line outside the corral, and dismount. He made ready at
this movement, and all Indian on-lookers scattered from the expected
fight. Yet the white man stayed quiet. It was issue day, but no families
remained after drawing their rations. They had had no dance the night
before, as was usual, and they did not linger a moment now, but came and
departed with their beef and flour at once.

"I have done all this," said Cheschapah to Two Whistles.

"Cheschapah is a great man," assented the friend and follower. He had
gone at once to his hay-field on his return from the Piegans, but some
one had broken the little Indian's fence, and cattle were wandering in
what remained of his crop.

"Our nation knows I will make a war, and therefore they do not stay
here," said the medicine-man, caring nothing what Two Whistles might
have suffered. "And now they will see that the white soldiers dare not
fight with Cheschapah. The sun is high now, but they have not moved
because I have stopped them. Do you not see it is my medicine?"

"We see it." It was the voice of the people.

But a chief spoke. "Maybe they wait for us to come."

Cheschapah answered. "Their eyes shall be made sick. I will ride among
them, but they will not know it." He galloped away alone, and lifted his
red sword as he sped along the ridge of the hills, showing against the
sky. Below at the corral the white soldiers waited ready, and heard him
chanting his war song through the silence of the day. He turned in a
long curve, and came in near the watching troops and through the agency,
and then, made bolder by their motionless figures and guns held idle, he
turned again and flew, singing, along close to the line, so they saw his
eyes; and a few that had been talki