sent stores of wine for the use of both invalids, and had come down
herself to see the start, for, without a word indicative of reproof, the
general had bidden Flint remove the blockade, simply saying he would
assume all responsibility, both for Mrs. Hay and the young Indian girl,
given refuge under the trader's roof until the coming of her own people
still out with Stabber's band. Flint could not fathom it. He could only
obey.

And now, with the general gone and Beverly Field away, with Hay home and
secluded, by order, from all questioning or other extraneous worry; with
the wounded soldiers safely trundled into hospital, garrison interest
seemed to centre for the time mainly in that little Ogalalla
maid--Flint's sole Sioux captive--who was housed, said the much
interrogated domestic, in Mrs. Hay's own room instead of Miss Flower's,
while the lady of the house, when she slept at all, occupied a sofa near
her husband's bedside.

Then came the tidings that Blake, with the prisoners from No Wood Creek
and Bear Cliff was close at hand, and everybody looked with eager eyes
for the coming across the snowy prairie of that homeward bound
convoy--that big village of the Sioux, with its distinguished captives,
wounded and unwounded; one of the former, the young sub-chief Eagle
Wing, alias Moreau;--one of the latter a self-constituted martyr, since
she was under no official restraint,--Nanette Flower, hovering ever
about the litter bearing that sullen and still defiant brave, whose side
she refused to leave.

Not until they reached Fort Frayne; not until the surgeon, after careful
examination, declared there was no need of taking Moreau into
hospital,--no reason why he should not be confined in the prison room of
the guard-house,--were they able to induce the silent, almost desperate
girl to return to her aunt. Not until Nanette realized that her warrior
was to be housed within wooden walls whence she would be excluded, could
Mrs. Hay, devoted to the last, persuade the girl to reoccupy her old
room and to resume the dress of civilization. Barring that worsted hood,
she was habited like a chieftain's daughter, in gaily beaded and
embroidered garments, when recaptured by Blake's command. Once within
the trader's door, she had shut herself in her old room, the second
floor front, refusing to see anybody from outside the house, unless she
could be permitted to receive visits from the captive Sioux, and this
the major, flintily,