ce with the post
commander; then, bidding him come on with all his cavalry, had pushed
ahead for Frayne. It couldn't be a long campaign, perhaps, with winter
close at hand, but it would be a lively one. Of that the chief felt well
assured.

Now, there was something uncanny about this outbreak on the part of the
Sioux, and the general was puzzled. Up to September the Indians had been
busy with the annual hunt. They were fat, well-fed, prosperous,--had got
from the government pretty much everything that they could ask with any
show of reason and, so they said, had been promised more. The rows
between the limited few of their young men and some bullies among the
"rustlers" had been no more frequent nor serious than on previous
summers, when matters had been settled without resort to arms; but this
year the very devil seemed to have got into the situation. Something, or
probably somebody, said the general, had been stirring the Indians up,
exciting--exhorting possibly, and almost the first thing the general did
as he climbed stiffly out of his stout Concord wagon, in the paling
starlight of the early morning, was to turn to Dade, now commanding the
post, and to say he should like, as soon as possible, to see Bill Hay.
Meantime he wished to go in and look at the wounded.

It was not yet five o'clock, but Dr. Waller was up and devoting himself
to the needs of his patients, and Dade had coffee ready for the general
and his single aide-de-camp, but not a sip would the general take until
he had seen the stricken troopers. He knew Field by reputation, well and
favorably. He had intimately known Field's father in the old days, in
the old army, when they served together on the then wild Pacific shores
"where rolls the Oregon." The great civil war had divided them, for
Field had cast his soldier fortune with his seceding State, but all that
was a thing of the past. Here was the son, a loyal soldier of the flag
the father had again sworn allegiance to when he took his seat in the
House of Representatives. The general thought highly of Field, and was
sore troubled at his serious condition. He knew what despatches would be
coming from the far South when the telegraph line began the busy
clicking of the morning. He was troubled to find the lad in high fever
and to hear that he had been out of his head. He was more than troubled
at the concern, and something like confusion, in the old doctor's face.

"You don't think him dangerously wo