e
corral. It had slipped through the canvas cover of a wagon on the
opposite side as so much paper and caught fair a woman who was lying
there, a nursing baby in her arms, shielding it, as she thought, with
her body. But the missile had cut through one of her arms, pierced the
head of the child and sunk into the bosom of the mother deep enough to
kill her also. The two lay now, the shaft transfixing both; and they
were buried there; and they lie there still, somewhere near the Grand
Island, in one of a thousand unknown and unmarked graves along the Great
Medicine Road. Under the ashes of a fire they left this grave, and drove
six hundred wagons over it, and the Indians never knew.

The leaders stood beside the dead woman, hats in hand. This was part of
the price of empire--the life of a young woman, a bride of a year.

The wagons all broke camp and went on in a vast caravan, the
Missourians now at the front. Noon, and the train did not halt. Banion
urged the teamsters. Bridger and Jackson were watching the many signal
smokes.

"I'm afeard o' the next bend," said Jackson at length.

The fear was justified. Early in the afternoon they saw the outriders
turn and come back to the train at full run. Behind them, riding out
from the concealment of a clump of cottonwoods on the near side of the
scattering river channels, there appeared rank after rank of the Sioux,
more than two thousand warriors bedecked in all the savage finery of
their war dress. They were after their revenge. They had left their
village and, paralleling the white men's advance, had forded on ahead.

They came out now, five hundred, eight hundred, a thousand, two thousand
strong, and the ground shook under the thunder of the hoofs. They were
after their revenge, eager to inflict the final blow upon the white
nation.

The spot was not ill chosen for their tactics. The alkali plain of the
valley swung wide and flat, and the trail crossed it midway, far back
from the water and not quite to the flanking sand hills. While a few
dashed at the cattle, waving their blankets, the main body, with
workman-like precision, strung out and swung wide, circling the train
and riding in to arrow range.

The quick orders of Banion and his scouts were obeyed as fully as time
allowed. At a gallop, horse and ox transport alike were driven into a
hurried park and some at least of the herd animals inclosed. The
riflemen flanked the train on the danger side and fired contin