eak of day--the _anpaniya_ of the Sioux--there had
come galloping from the northeast a riderless horse, at sight of whose
blood-stained saddle and stirrup hood the herd-guard woke the officer
of the pickets. The captain unrolled from his blanket, took one look by
the light of the moon, and bade the corporal find Baptiste, who needed
not to see the saddle; he knew the horse at a glance.

"Pete Gamble's," said he. "They've begun killing!" And Pete Gamble was
a ranchman well known to them all, both Indian and white. "If they
would kill _him_," said he, "they would kill anybody."

And as if this were not enough, barely half an hour later two men, mad
with terror, came spurring in over the northward ridge, almost
delirious with joy to find themselves in the presence of friends. Their
little hunting camp, they said, had been suddenly "jumped" early in the
night. They had managed to get out with stampeded horses, but every one
else was butchered, and the Indians were after _them_. The major
doubled his guards to the north and awaited the Indian coming. He
would not rouse his wearied men until actually assailed.

But now it was fairly broad daylight, and not an Indian feather had
shown nor an Indian shot been heard. Slowly, sleepily, at the gruff
summons of their sergeants, the troopers were crawling out of their
blankets and stretching and yawning by the fires. No stirring
trumpet-call had roused them from their dreams. A stickler for style
and ceremony was the major in garrison, but out on Indian campaign he
was "horse sense from the ground up," as his veterans put it. He
observed all formalities when on ordinary march, and none whatever when
in chase of the Indians.

He had let them sleep to the very last minute, well knowing he might
have stern demands to make that day. He and his adjutant had reduced
the statements of the hunters to writing, and a brief, soldierly report
was now ready to go to the general commanding the department, who had
come out to Fort Niobrara to be nearer the scene of action. The fort
lay nearly fifty miles away, south of east, the agency even farther to
the north and east, and the recalcitrant braves were heading away
through the wilds of their old reservation, and might stop only for
occasional bite, sup, or sleep until they joined forces with Big Foot
or Black Fox, full a hundred miles as the crow flies, for now were they
branded renegades in the light of the law.

In the crisp, chill air of