the Indians round the blazing woods on the
southern spur of the Black Hills are in full retreat. Another desperate
battle, such as crowd the unwritten history of the United States, has been
fought and won. The history of the frontiersman's life would fill a record
which any soldier might envy. It is to the devotion of such men that
colonial empires owe their being, for without their aid, no military force
could bring peace and prosperity to a land. The power of the sword may
conquer and hold, but there its mission ends. It is left to the
frontiersman to do the rest.

The battle-field is strewn with dead and dying; but there are no white
faces staring blankly up at the heavens, only the painted, seared features
of the red man. Their opponents are under cover. If they have any dead or
dying they are with the living. These men fight in the manner of the
Indian, but with a superior intelligence.

But though the white men have won the battle their end is defeated. For
the blazing woods have swept across the homestead of "old man" Jason, for
years a landmark in the country, and now it is no more. A mere charred
skeleton remains; smoking, smouldering, a witness to the white man's
daring in a savage country.

The blazing woods are approachable only on the windward side, and even
here the heat is blistering. It is still impossible to reach the ruins of
the homestead, for the wake of the fire is like a superheated oven. And so
the men who came to succor have done the only thing left for them. They
have fought and driven off the horde of Indians, who first sacked the
ranch and then fired it. But the inmates; and amongst them four women.
What of them? These rough plainsmen asked themselves this question as they
approached the conflagration; then they shut their teeth hard and meted
out a terrible chastisement before pushing their inquiries further. It was
the only way.

A narrow river skirts the foot of the hills, cutting the homestead off
from the plains. And along its bank, on the prairie side, is a scattered
brush such as is to be found adjacent to most woods. The fire has left it
untouched except that the foliage is much scorched, and it is here that
the victors of an unrecorded battle lie hidden in the cover. Though the
enemy is in full retreat, and the rearmost horsemen are fast diminishing
against the horizon, not a man has left his shelter. They are men well
learned in the craft of the Indians.

Dan Somers and Seth ar