girls
who stood shrouded in their ragged blankets, bidding them follow and be
the mothers of men and braves and warriors and not remain in the lodges
of faint hearted curs. There were Brules there, young braves who longed
for battle then and there, and who leaped to their gaunt ponies and
shouted challenge and defiance, but Two Lance interposed. There must be
no fratricidal warring, said he. They would lay the matter before the
council fire of Sintogaliska,--he who had ruled the Brules since first
the white tents of the soldiers gleamed along the Platte--Sintogaliska
who never lied. And this too was jeered and flouted. Sintogaliska,
indeed! Sintogaliska was a traitor, an old woman whom the white father
had bought with beads and candy. The warriors of the Sioux, the only men
fit to lead, were such as Red Dog and Kills Asleep. But still Two Lance
kept his temper and the public peace, and again he rode to the agent and
told his story, and Boynton fired up and said in common decency the
agent must do something to put a stop to Red Dog's insolence, and the
agent sent for Red Dog and bade him report himself at the agency
forthwith, and Red Dog replied that he would when he got ready, and if
the agent wanted him sooner, why, to come and get him, and Elk-at-Bay,
who brought his defiance, lunged in and laughed when he gave the
message, and helped himself to the cigars remaining in the agent's box
and swaggered out with them.

That evening in sudden brawl and in plain view of Mr. McPhail, the
agent, one of Red Dog's braves stabbed to the heart the lover of a
Brule girl whom he had affronted.

"Arrest him!" ordered McPhail, who then turned and ran in-doors,--after
his pistol, as he said, possibly forgetting that it was already on his
hip. Boynton and his men were at the picket-line grooming horses, three
hundred yards away at the moment, and the young brave mounted his pony
and dared any one to take him, and rode singing defiantly down the
snow-covered valley. Only the previous day the mail rider had gone on
his weekly trip, and now a special messenger was needed to convey the
agent's despatch to the railway, for the flimsy single wire to the
reservation was down and useless. The Indian who attempted to carry the
letter was pulled off his pony by frolicsome friends of the murderer and
treated to a cold bath in the Niobrara. Not until Sunday night did he
get back, half frozen, and tell his story. Meantime there was more
defiance