forebade. It was nightfall when the litter-bearers
reached the post, Hay's rejoicing mules braying unmelodious ecstasy at
sight of their old stable. It was dark when the wounded chief was borne
into the guard-house, uttering not a sound, and Nanette was led within
the trader's door, yet someone had managed to see her face, for the
story went all over the wondering post that very night,--women flitting
with it from door to door,--that every vestige of her beauty was
gone;--she looked at least a dozen years older. Blake, when questioned,
after the first rapture of the home-coming had subsided, would neither
affirm nor deny. "She would neither speak to me nor harken," said he,
whimsically. "The only thing she showed was teeth and--temper."

Then presently they sent a lot of the Sioux--Stabber's villagers and
Lame Wolf's combined,--by easy stages down the Platte to Laramie, and
then around by Rawhide and the Niobrara to the old Red Cloud agency,
there to be fed and coddled and cared for, wounded warriors and all,
except a certain few, including this accomplished orator and chieftain,
convalescing under guard at Frayne. About his case there hung details
and complications far too many and intricate to be settled short of a
commission. Already had the tidings of this most important capture
reached the distant East. Already both Indian Bureau and Peace Societies
had begun to wire the general in the field and "work" the President and
the Press at home. Forgotten was the fact that he had been an
intolerable nuisance to Buffalo Bill and others who had undertaken to
educate and civilize him. The Wild West Show was now amazing European
capitals and, therefore, beyond consulting distance. Forgotten were
escapades at Harrisburg, Carlisle and Philadelphia. Suppressed were
circumstances connecting him with graver charges than those of repeated
roistering and aggravated assault. Ignored, or as yet unheard, were the
details of his reappearance on the frontier in time to stir up most of
the war spirit developed that September, and to take a leading part in
the fierce campaign that followed. He was a pupil of the nation, said
the good people of the Indian Friends Societies--a youth of exceptional
intelligence and promise, a son of the Sioux whose influence would be of
priceless value could he be induced to complete his education and accept
the views and projects of his eastern admirers. It would never do to let
his case be settled by soldier