h the summer and fed them through the winter.
They, their squaws and pappooses, had fattened on his bounty when the
snows were deep and deer were gone, and their abundant rations had been
feasted or gambled away. Many of their number liked him well, but now
they were at the war game again, and, business is business with the
aborigines. Blake was a "big chief," and he who could wear at his belt
the scalp of so prominent a pale face leader would be envied among his
people. "Long Legs," as they called him, however, was no fool. Brave and
zealous as he was, Blake was not rash. He well knew that unless he and
his few men kept together they would simply play into the hands of the
Indians. It would have been easy for him, with his big racer, to
outstrip his little party and close with the Sioux. Only one of the
troopers had a horse that could keep pace with Pyramus, but nothing he
could gain by such a proceeding would warrant the desperate risk.
Matchless as we have reason to believe our men, we cannot so believe our
mounts. Unmatched would better describe them. Meisner's horse might have
run with the captain's, until crippled by the bullets of the Sioux, but
Bent's and Flannigan's were heavy and slow, and so it resulted that the
pursuit, though determined, was not so dangerous to the enemy but that
they were able to keenly enjoy it, until the swift coming of Kennedy
and his captive comrade turned the odds against them, for then two of
Blake's horses had given out through wounds and weakness, and they had
the pursuers indeed "in a hole."

That relief came none too soon. Blake and his fellows had been brought
to a stand; but now the Sioux sped away out of range; the crippled party
limped slowly back to the shelter of Frayne, reaching the post long
hours after their spirited start, only to find the women and children,
at least, in an agony of dread and excitement, and even Dade and his
devoted men looking grave and disturbed. Unless all indications failed,
Ray and his people must have been having the fight of their lives. Two
couriers had galloped back from Moccasin Ridge to say that Major Webb's
scouts could faintly hear the sound of rapid firing far ahead, and that,
through the glass, at least a dozen dead horses or ponies could be seen
scattered over the long slope to the Elk Tooth range, miles further on.
Webb had pushed forward to Ray's support, and Blake, calling for fresh
horses for himself and two of his men, bade the lat