shed his blanket and scrambled to his
feet, and stood glaring at us through his paint. But suddenly he met the
fixed sternness of Clark's gaze, and his own shifted. By this time his
followers were up. The North Wind raised his hands to heaven in token of
his innocence, and then spread his palms outward. Where was the proof?

"Look!" I cried, quivering with excitement; "look, their leggings and
moccasins are wet!"

"There's no devil if they beant!" said Tom, and there was a murmur of
approval from the other men.

"The boy is right," said the Colonel, and turned to Tom. "Sergeant, have
the chiefs put in irons." He swung on his heel, and without more ado
went back to his house to bed. The North Wind and two others were
easily singled out as the leaders, and were straightway escorted to the
garrison house, their air of injured innocence availing them not a whit.
The militia was dismissed, and the village was hushed once more.

But all night long the chiefs went to and fro, taking counsel among
themselves. What would the Chief of the Pale Faces do?

The morning came with a cloudy, damp dawning. Within a decent time (for
the Indian is decorous) blanketed deputations filled the archways under
the trees and waited there as the minutes ran into hours. The Chief of
the Long Knives surveyed the morning from his door-step, and his eyes
rested on a solemn figure at the gate. It was the Hungry Wolf. Sorrow
was in his voice, and he bore messages from the twenty great chiefs who
stood beyond. They were come to express their abhorrence of the night's
doings, of which they were as innocent as the deer of the forest.

"Let the Hungry Wolf tell the chiefs," said Colonel Clark, briefly,
"that the council is the place for talk."

And he went back into the house again.

Then he bade me run to Captain Bowman with an order to bring the North
Wind and his confederates to the council field in irons.

The day followed the promise of the dawn. The clouds hung low, and now
and again great drops struck the faces of the people in the field. And
like the heavens, the assembly itself was charged with we knew not
what. Was it peace or war? As before, a white man sat with supreme
indifference at a table, and in front of him three most unhappy chiefs
squatted in the grass, the shame of their irons hidden under the blanket
folds. Audacity is truly a part of the equipment of genius. To have
rescued the North Wind and his friends would have been chil