For one morning, soon after breakfast, when Hazel was practising
in the music-room, and Hilary and Cecily feeding their rabbits, Jack
came up in a highly-excited state of mind to the verandah where his
officer was seated doing nothing in particular. 'General,' he said, with
a very creditable salute, 'do come down to the camp at once.'

'Oh, bother!' said the veteran warrior, who had, by the way, shown
rather a tendency to rest on his laurels of late.

'No, but it isn't humbug, really,' protested Jack; 'it's something
you'll like awfully.'

The General marched down in a very stately manner; it would have been
undignified to run, eager as he was to get down to the stockade,
thinking it not unlikely that Lintoft, the carpenter, really had found
time to make a cannon for them after all, or, at the very least, that
there would be some change in the internal arrangements of the
stronghold which it would be his duty as superior officer to criticise,
if not condemn.

Now it must be explained here that, during the last two or three days,
the outside wall of the fort had been placarded with various bills, all
glorying in the recent repulse of the enemy by a single-handed defender,
and containing most insulting reflections on the courage of Red Indians
as a race; while, in case they might not have enough knowledge of
English to understand these taunts, they were accompanied by sketches
which were certainly scathing enough to infuriate the least susceptible
savage.

To do Clarence justice, they were not due to any elation on his part,
but had all been executed by the army in the wild hope that they might
thus stir up the foe to a fresh demonstration, when they themselves
might recover their lost spurs.

These placards, as Clarence found on reaching the stockade, had been
scrawled over with a kind of red and yellow paint so as to be quite
illegible.

'Ochre,' said Guy; 'but that's not the best of it, for we found this
pinned with an arrow to one of the posts.' And he produced a thin strip
of white bark, on which were writing and drawings in crimson. 'They must
have done it with their own blood,' commented Jack, with great gusto;
'but read it--do read it.'

Clarence did not need a second invitation to read the document, which
was as follows:--

'WAH NA SA PASH BOO (YELLOW VULTURE),

_Chief of Black Bogallala Tribe, to the Great White Chief,
Tin Lin_, DEFIANCE.