forgotten
the Indians.

And one afternoon they came. On horseback and in wagons, war bonnets and
full regalia glittering in the sun, the Indians were coming straight
toward the Ammons settlement. Neither of us had ever seen an Indian
outside of a Wild West show.

We were terrified. Into the shack we scurried, locked doors and windows,
and peeped out through a crack in the drawn blind.

The Indians had stopped and turned their horses loose to graze. We could
hear them walking around the store and print shop--and then came savage
mutterings outside our door and heavy pounding. We crawled under the
bed. A woman we knew had escaped being scalped once by hiding behind a
shock of corn. But there was no such refuge here.

"How! How kill 'em?" an old Indian was bellowing. No use trying to
escape. This was the end.

Trembling, hearts pounding, we opened the door. Two big savage-looking
creatures with battered faces stood there motioning toward the shop
where a group of them were sauntering in and out.

"How kill 'em?" they still muttered. Dazed, we followed them. They had
taken possession of the shop. Women were sitting on the floor, some with
papooses strapped to their backs. Men with hair hanging loose, or
braided down their backs, tied with red string, were picking up
everything in the print shop, playing like children with new toys.

They led us into the store, muttering, "_Shu-hum-pah; she-la_," as they
pointed to the shelves. At last we found they wanted sugar and tobacco,
and we lost no time in filling the order.

At sunset they rode away toward the Indian settlement, and we discovered
that we had been misled by the talk of "segregation." To us that had
meant that the Indians were behind some high barricade. But there wasn't
a thing to separate us from the tribe but another barb-wire fence, with
the gates down.

For several days after the red men came we moved in a nightmare of fear.
The Sioux had cherished this tall grass country as a hunting ground, and
we had invaded it. Suppose they were intent upon revenge!

Then, absorbed in our many duties, we almost forgot about the Indians.
But a week after their first visit they came again. They arrived shortly
before sundown, adorned in beads and feathers, stopped across the trail,
and to our horror pitched camp. Pinto commenced to neigh and kept it up,
a restless whinny, eager for his own people.

It looked as though the whole Sioux tribe had moved over to Ammons.