rm occurred up the river, and six steers
were struck by lightning.

When the officers at Fort Custer heard of this they became serious.

"If this was not the nineteenth century," said Haines, "I should begin
to think the elements were deliberately against us."

"It's very careless of the weather," said Stirling. "Very inconsiderate,
at such a juncture."

Yet nothing more dangerous than red-tape happened for a while. There was
an expensive quantity of investigation from Washington, and this gave
the hostiles time to increase both in faith and numbers.

Among the excited Crows only a few wise old men held out. As for
Cheschapah himself, ambition and success had brought him to the weird
enthusiasm of a fanatic. He was still a charlatan, but a charlatan who
believed utterly in his star. He moved among his people with growing
mystery, and his hapless adjutant, Two Whistles, rode with him, slaved
for him, abandoned the plans he had for making himself a farm, and,
desiring peace in his heart, weakly cast his lot with war. Then one day
there came an order from the agent to all the Indians: they were to come
in by a certain fixed day. The department commander had assembled six
hundred troops at the post, and these moved up the river and went into
camp. The usually empty ridges, and the bottom where the road ran,
filled with white and red men. Half a mile to the north of the
buildings, on the first rise from the river, lay the cavalry, and some
infantry above them with a howitzer, while across the level, three
hundred yards opposite, along the river-bank, was the main Indian camp.
Even the hostiles had obeyed the agent's order, and came in close to the
troops, totally unlike hostiles in general; for Cheschapah had told them
he would protect them with his medicine, and they shouted and sang all
through this last night. The women joined with harsh cries and
shriekings, and a scalp-dance went on, besides lesser commotions and
gatherings, with the throbbing of drums everywhere. Through the
sleepless din ran the barking of a hundred dogs, that herded and hurried
in crowds of twenty at a time, meeting, crossing from fire to fire among
the tepees. Their yelps rose to the high bench of land, summoning a
horde of coyotes. These cringing nomads gathered from the desert in a
tramp army, and, skulking down the bluffs, sat in their outer darkness
and ceaselessly howled their long, shrill greeting to the dogs that sat
in the circle of lig