s had
come to the colonel. Everybody knew that the Indians would be wild with
delight over the news from Sitting Bull. Indeed, there was reason to
believe that it was being whispered at the reservations before the
telegraph flashed the tidings broadcast on the 5th of July. Were there
not two days there on the Mini Pusa--the 2d and 3d of July--when little
parties of Indians were chased towards as well as from the White River?
Wayne's orders were to scout the valley and report whether Indians were
venturing out that way. Before he had been two days away from the
regiment he found trail after trail of war-parties crossing the valley
northward. Signal-smokes and night-fires were in the hills beyond. The
evidence was conclusive to expert eyes, but Wayne said that, all told,
no more than one hundred warriors could have gone out. He was bent on
going farther and seeing how many more there were. Ray, as second in
rank among the five officers present, ventured to suggest that they had
seen quite enough, and that without delay they should either return
directly to the regiment or send word. Wayne would not send because only
a hundred tracks had been seen, and by the time he had run over double
that number the two scouts with them refused to go back. "We would be
cut off and killed, sure as fate," was their comprehensive reason. They
bivouacked that night in the timber, keeping out strong guards and
pickets, but with early dawn were astir, moving back up the valley. Once
again had Ray offered a suggestion,--that they should put back during
the night, but Wayne was nettled at the fact that Ray's prophecy had
come true. They had stayed too long and gone too far. He was a John Bull
sort of fellow, full of the ponderous, bumptious courage which prompts
the men of that illustrious island empire to be shot down like cattle by
Boers and Zulus and Arabs and Afghans, adhering rigidly to the tactics
of Waterloo to fight the scientific light troops of the savages sooner
than depart from that which was the conventional British method of
making war. Wayne was lacking only in moral courage. He was afraid to
say he was wrong and Ray was right. Before they had gone two miles he
was forced to admit it. He was hemmed in on every side.

The valley had narrowed considerably just here, and the bare, rounded
bluffs came down to within two hundred and fifty yards of the timber
along the stream. Willows in sparse groups and cottonwoods in
sun-bleached fo