phet of all the Crows, and
he led the armies of the faithful. Each man stripped his blanket off and
painted his body for the fight. The forms slipped in and out of the
brush, buckling their cartridge-belts, bringing their ponies, while many
families struck their tepees and moved up nearer the agency. The spare
horses were run across the river into the hills, and through the yelling
that shifted and swept like flames along the wind the hostiles made
ready and gathered, their crowds quivering with motion, and changing
place and shape as more mounted Indians appeared.

"Are the holes dug deep as I marked them on the earth?" said Cheschapah
to Two Whistles. "That is good. We shall soon have to go into them from
the great rain I will bring. Make these strong, to stay as we ride. They
are good medicine, and with them the white soldiers will not see you any
more than they saw me when I rode among them that day."

He had strips and capes of red flannel, and he and Two Whistles fastened
them to their painted bodies.

"You will let me go with you?" said Two Whistles.

"You are my best friend," said Cheschapah, "and to-day I will take you.
You shall see my great medicine when I make the white man's eyes grow
sick."

The two rode forward, and one hundred and fifty followed them, bursting
from their tepees like an explosion, and rushing along quickly in
skirmish-line. Two Whistles rode beside his speeding prophet, and saw
the red sword waving near his face, and the sun in the great still sky,
and the swimming, fleeting earth. His superstition and the fierce ride
put him in a sort of trance.

"The medicine is beginning!" shouted Cheschapah; and at that Two
Whistles saw the day grow large with terrible shining, and heard his
own voice calling and could not stop it. They left the hundred and
fifty behind, he knew not where or when. He saw the line of troops
ahead change to separate waiting shapes of men, and their legs and
arms become plain; then all the guns took clear form in lines of
steady glitter. He seemed suddenly alone far ahead of the band, but
the voice of Cheschapah spoke close by his ear through the singing
wind, and he repeated each word without understanding; he was watching
the ground rush by, lest it might rise against his face, and all the
while he felt his horse's motion under him, smooth and perpetual.
Something weighed against his leg, and there was Cheschapah he had
forgotten, always there at his side, veeri