tuff. I could hear no sounds of their working on the
safe. All at once the door of Taggart's store opened and they came out
carrying a lot of rope and other things. Then I saw that they were not
the men I had thought, after all, but a band of Sioux Indians.

CHAPTER X

A Townful of Indians: with how I hide the Cow, and think of Something
which I don't believe the Indians will like.

When I saw what my visitors were I do not know if I was relieved or
more frightened. I saw that I need no longer worry about the safe
being robbed, but that seemed to be almost the only thing in their
favor over the Pike gang. I knew, of course, that they had no ill
feeling against me, and probably had no intention of harming any one;
but, on the other hand, I well understood that if I should appear and
try to stop their plundering the town they would not hesitate to kill
me. By their dress I recognized them as Sioux from the Bois Cache
Reservation, fifty or seventy-five miles north, because I had seen
some of them during the fall while they were on their way to visit
some of their relatives a hundred or more miles south at the Brule
Agency. I supposed they were going for another such visit, and had
blundered on the town. These Bois Cache Indians I knew were a bad lot;
many of them had been with Little Crow in the great Sioux Massacre in
Minnesota in 1862, when hundreds of settlers were killed.

They came directly to the pile of things near their horses, and put
down the rope; and then they started off in all directions looking for
more plunder. Two of them came to the depot and walked about on the
platform over my head. I flattened out on the ground and scarcely
breathed, expecting every minute that they would look under. I heard
them talking and trying the windows. I thought they were going away;
then there was a sound of breaking glass, and I heard them tramping
about inside. Then they came out and went over to the pile again. I
peeped out and saw that they had the two Winchesters which I had
hidden in the depot. Another came from the town with a shot-gun which
he had found somewhere. I had no doubt that they would find and carry
off every weapon there was, and leave me with nothing except the small
revolver which I had in my pocket.

For an hour I lay there under the platform watching the Indians
plunder the town. They already had much more in their pile than they
could possibly carry away with the horses they had. Suddenly