ert. "I started to
run. I knew that no Sioux were bothering about me then, but I
tell you that I made tracks, Dick. I had no arms, and I didn't
know where I was going; but I meant to leave those Sioux some
good miles behind. After a while I got back part of my courage,
and then I came back here to look around for you, thinking you
might have just such a chance as I did."

"Brave old Al," said Dick.

"You came, too."

"I was armed and you were not."

"It comes to the same thing, and you did have the chance."

"Yes, and we're together again. We've been saved once more, Al,
when the others have fallen. Now the thing for us to do is to
get away from here as fast as we can. Which way do you think
those troops on your side of the village retreated?"

Albert extended his finger toward a point on the dusky horizon.

"Off there somewhere," he replied.

"Then we'll follow them. Come on."

The two left the bushes and entered the hills.

Chapter XX
Bright Sun's Good-by

Dick and Albert had not gone far before they saw lights on the
bluffs of the Little Big Horn. Dick had uncommonly keen eyes,
and when he saw a figure pass between him and the firelight he
was confident that it was not that of a Sioux. The clothing was
too much like a trooper's.

"Stop, Al," he said, putting his hand on his brother's shoulder.
"I believe some of our soldiers are here."

The two crept as near as they dared and watched until they saw
another figure pause momentarily against the background of the
firelight.

"It's a trooper, sure," said Dick, "and we've come to our own
people at last. Come, Al, we'll join them."

They started forward on a run. There was a flash of flame, a
report, and a bullet whistled between them.

"We're friends, not Sioux!" shouted Dick. "We're escaping from
the savages! Don't fire!"

They ran forward again, coming boldly into the light, and no more
shots were fired at them. They ran up the slope to the crest of
the bluff, leaped over a fresh earthwork, and fell among a crowd
of soldiers in blue. Dick quickly raised himself to his feet,
and saw soldiers about him, many of them wounded, all of them
weary and drawn. Others were hard at work with pick and spade,
and from a distant point of the earthwork came the sharp report
of rifle shots.

These were the first white men that Dick and Albert had seen in
nearly two years, and their hearts rose in their throats.

"Who are you?" asked