tant the attention of the whole fight in the rear of the
camp was drawn upon the rash brave and his pursuer. Bucks, with
straining eyes and beating heart, awaited the result. He saw Stanley
steadily closing the gap that separated him from his fleeing enemy.
Then the revolver was thrown suddenly upward and forward, and smoke
flashed from the muzzle. The echo of the report had hardly reached
Bucks's ears when the revolver, swung high again to balance the rhythm
of the horse's flight, was fired again, and a third time, at the
doomed man.

The Indian, bending forward on his horse, caught convulsively at his
mane, then rising high in his seat plunged head-foremost to the
ground, and his riderless horse fled on. His pursuer, wheeling, threw
himself flat in his saddle to escape the fire bent upon him from
behind as he rode back. At that moment Dan Casement and his men
hurried up on the double-quick. With him came Bucks, who had secured a
rifle and fallen in. Some men of the welcome reinforcement were set at
putting out the fire. Others strengthened Stanley's scattered skirmish
line.

Convinced by the determined front now opposed to him of the
impossibility of rushing the camp, the Sioux chief gave the signal to
retire.

As if the earth had opened to swallow them up, the warriors melted
away, and as suddenly as the plain had borne them into life it now
concealed their disappearance. In twenty minutes they had come and
gone as completely as if they had never been. But in that short
interval they had left death and consternation in their wake.

CHAPTER X

Stirred by the increasing boldness of the Indians, Stanley returned
with his party to Medicine Bend to take further measures for the
defence of the railroad men.

Bucks, when he reported to Baxter, the train despatcher, found new
orders waiting for him. He was directed to take charge of the station
at Goose Creek. The train did not leave till night, and Bucks took
advantage of the interval to go uptown to make some necessary
purchases of linen and clothing. On his way back to the station,
with his package under his arm, he saw, on the edge of the broad
sidewalk, Harvey Levake. Levake was standing near a wooden-Indian
cigar-store sign, looking directly at Bucks as the latter walked
toward him. The operator, nodding as he came up, asked Levake,
without parley, whether he would give him the money for the
express charges on the cartridges.

If Bucks had exploded a