possibly reach the
scene.

"No you don't, Stabber!" laughed Ray, as Field, not a little chagrined,
and the dozen at his back, came trotting within hearing distance. "That
dodge was bald-headed when I was a baby. Look, Field," he continued.
"They were jabbing at nothing there on the prairie. That was a fake
captive they were stabbing to death. See them all scooting away now.
They'll rally beyond that next ridge, and we'll do a little fooling of
our own."

And so, with occasional peep at feathered warriors on the far left
flank, and frequent hoverings of small parties on the distant front,
Ray's nervy half hundred pushed steadily on. Two experiments had
satisfied the Sioux that the captain himself was in command and they had
long since recognized the sorrels. They knew of old Ray was not to be
caught by time-worn tricks. They had failed to pick off the advance, or
the officers, as the troop approached the second ridge. Lame Wolf's big
band was coming fast, but only a dozen of his warriors, sent lashing
forward, had as yet reached Stabber. The latter was too weak in numbers
to think of fighting on even terms, and as Ray seemed determined to come
ahead, why not let him? Word was sent to Wolf not to risk showing south
of the Elk Tooth spur. There in the breaks and ravines would be a famous
place to lie in ambush, leaving to Stabber the duty of drawing the
soldiers into the net. So there in the breaks they waited while Ray's
long skirmish line easily manoeuvred the red sharp-shooters out of their
lair on the middle divide. Then, reforming column, the little command
bore straight away for the Elk.

But all these diversions took time. Twenty miles to the north of Frayne
stretched the bold divide between the Elk Fork, dry as a dead tooth much
of the year, and the sandy bottom of the Box Elder. Here and there
along the ridge were sudden, moundlike upheavals that gave it a
picturesque, castellated effect, for, unlike the general run of the
country, the Elk Tooth seemed to have a backbone of rock that shot forth
southeastward from the southern limit of the beautiful Big Horn range;
and, in two or three places, during some prehistoric convulsion of
nature, it had crushed itself out of shape and forced upward a mass of
gleaming rock that even in the course of centuries had not been
overgrown with grass. "Elk teeth" the Indians had called these odd
projections, and one of them, the middle one of the three most
prominent, was a la