e was fading. All the thin forest was clothed now in dusk, and the
figure of the chief himself grew dimmer. Yet the twilight enlarged him
and lent to him new aspects of power and menace. As he made his gesture
of defiance, young Clarke, despite his courage, felt the blood grow
chill in his veins. It seemed at the moment in this dark wilderness that
the great Indian leader had the power to make good his threats and close
the way forever to the white race.

The other Indians, ten in number, stood with their arms folded, and they
neither stirred nor spoke. But they listened with supreme attention to
every word of their redoubtable champion, the great Mahpeyalute. Will
knew that the Sioux were subdivided into nations or tribes, and he
surmised that the silent ones were their leaders, although he knew well
enough that Red Cloud was an Ogalala, and that the Ogalalas were merely
one of the Tetons who, federated with the others, made up the mighty
Sioux nation. But the chief, by the force of courage and intellect, had
raised himself from a minor place to the very headship.

Red Cloud was about fifty years old, and, while at times he wore the
white man's apparel, at least in part, he was now clothed wholly in
Indian attire. A blanket of dark red was looped about his shoulders, and
he carried it with as much grace as a Roman patrician ever wore the
toga. His leggings and moccasins of fine tanned deerskin were decorated
beautifully with beads, and a magnificent war bonnet of feathers,
colored brilliantly, surmounted his thick, black hair.

He was truly a leader of wild and barbaric splendor in surroundings that
fitted him. But it was not his tall, powerful figure nor his dress that
held Will's gaze. It was his strong face, fierce, proud and menacing,
like the sculptured relief of some old Assyrian king, and in very truth,
with high cheek bones and broad brow, he might have been the
reincarnation of some old Asiatic conqueror.

The young officer seemed nervous and doubtful. He switched the tops of
his riding boots with a small whip, and then looked into the fierce eyes
of the chief, as if to see that he really meant what he said. Kenyon was
fresh from the battlefields of the great civil war, where he had been
mentioned specially in orders more than once for courage and
intelligence, but here he felt himself in the presence of an alarming
puzzle. His mission was to be both diplomat and warrior. He was not sure
where the duties of