flat beyond the corral the
troopers had unsaddled, and the chargers, many of them stopping to roll
in equine ecstasy upon the turf, were being driven out in one big herd
to graze. Without and within the ranch everything seemed to speak of
peace and security. The master rode the range long miles away in search
of straying cattle, leaving his loved ones without thought of danger.
The solemn treaty that bound the Sioux to keep to the north of the
Platte stood sole sentinel over his vine and fig tree. True there had
been one or two instances of depredation, but they could be fastened on
no particular band, and all the chiefs, even defiant Red Cloud, and
insolent, swaggering Little Big Man, denied all knowledge of the
perpetrators. Spotted Tail, it was known, would severely punish any of
his people who transgressed, but he could do nothing with the
Ogallallas. Now they were not two hundred miles away to the north, their
ranks swollen by accessions from all the disaffected villages and
turbulent young braves of the swarming bands along the Missouri and
Yellowstone, and if their demands were resisted by the government, or
worse, if they were permitted to have breech-loaders or magazine rifles,
then just coming into use, no shadow of doubt remained that war to the
knife would follow. Then how long would it be before they came charging
down across the Platte, east or west of Frayne, and raiding those new
ranches in the Laramie Valley?

Reassuring as he meant his words to be, Marshall Dean himself looked
anxiously about at the unprotected walls. Not even the customary
"dugout" or underground refuge seemed to have been prepared. Almost
every homestead, big or little, of those days, had its tunnel from the
cellar to a dugout near at hand, stocked with provisions and water and
provided with loopholes commanding the neighborhood, and herein the
besieged could take refuge and stand off the Indians until help should
come from the nearest frontier fort. "The name of Folsom is our
safeguard," said Mrs. Hal, in her happy honeymoon days, but that was
before the mother told her of the threats of Burning Star or the story
of the Ogallalla girl he vainly loved. "All that happened so long ago,"
she murmured, when at last the tale was told. But Hal should have known,
if she did not, that, even when it seems to sleep, Indian vengeance is
but gaining force and fury.

Presently Mrs. Hall came tripping forth again, a little _carte de
visite_ in h