hunting parties of the Sioux
and the Northern Cheyenne, who clung to the Big Horn Range and the
superb surrounding country with almost passionate love and with jealous
tenacity. There had been aggression on both sides, then bloodshed, then
attempts on part of frontier sheriffs to arrest accused or suspected red
men, and equally determined and banded effort to prevent arrest of
accused and identified whites. By due process of law, as administered in
the days whereof we write, the Indian was pretty sure to get the worst
of every difference, and therefore, preferred, not unnaturally, his own
time-honored methods of settlement. In accordance therewith, had they
scalped the sheriff's posse that had shot two of their young braves who
had availed themselves of a purposely given chance to escape, and then
in their undiscriminating zeal, the Sioux had opened fire from ambush on
Plodder's hunting parties and the choppers at the wood camp, who
defended themselves as best they could, to the end that more men, red
and white, were killed. The Indians rallied in force and closed in about
Fort Beecher, driving the survivors to shelter within its guarded lines,
and then, when Plodder needed every man of his force to keep the foe at
respectful distance, so that his bullets could not reach the quarters
occupied by the women and children at the post, there reached him by
night a runner from the stage station far over to the southeast, on a
dry fork of the Powder, saying that the north and south bound stages had
taken refuge there, with only ten men, all told, to stand off some fifty
warriors, and therefore imploring assistance. Not daring to send a
troop, Plodder called for volunteers to bear despatches to Major Webb,
at Frayne, and Pat Kennedy, with half a dozen brave lads, had promptly
stepped forward. Kennedy had managed to slip through the encircling
Sioux by night, and to reach Fort Frayne after a daring and almost
desperate ride. Then Ray was ordered forth, first to raise the siege at
the stage station, then, either to hold that important relay ranch or go
on to reinforce Plodder as his judgment and the situation might dictate.

He knew enough of the stout adobe walls of the corral on the Dry Fork,
and of the grit of the few defenders, to feel reasonably sure that,
with ammunition, provisions and water in plenty, they could easily hold
out a week if need be against the Sioux, so long as they fought on the
defensive and the Indians we