“What is up?” demanded Carl, who raised himself on his elbow and looked at the man in surprise. He thought, from the look of his face, that something dreadful had happened.

“Young man,” replied Harding, coming close to the place where the scout lay, hissing out the words from between his clenched teeth and shaking both his brawny fists under his nose, “the English language is not strong enough to make me do this subject justice. You are at the end of your rope, and I would not give two cents for your life. Nobody knows, except the few who were with me when you were captured, that I have got you a prisoner here in the camp; but if one of those warriors chooses to split on me, you would be food for the wolves in less than half an hour.”

Page 156

“Well, can’t you tell me what is the matter?” exclaimed Carl, growing more surprised. “I haven’t been doing anything.”

“No, but your kind have. Sitting Bull is murdered—shot through the body by Bull Head and Red Tomahawk, who were men that he has led into action more than once.”

A wonderful thrill went all through Carl Preston as he listened to these words. Sitting Bull was dead! How often had he wished for that very thing to happen, but he had never dreamed that it would be done by some of his own men. The squawman watched him closely to see how he took the news, but Carl never showed in his countenance what his feelings were. He could have listened to the worst news that any boy ever heard, but he wouldn’t show it in his face.

“Why, how did it happen?” said he, knowing that he must say something.

“You know as much about it as I do,” returned the squawman. “Now the next thing is——”

He turned and spoke some words to the Indian women; but Carl, although he had Page 157 been on the plains all his life, could not understand him. He hated an Indian as he hated nothing else on earth, and he had not taken the pains that some people do to acquire a knowledge of their language. But the Indian women understood him, and straightway set up a howl as if they had lost some of their friends. One would think they were professional criers who had been hired to shed abundant tears over Sitting Bull’s untimely death.

“Can’t you keep still for a minute?” shouted the squawman, shaking both his fists at the women, and forgetting in his excitement that he had been addressing them in their own language. “You two stay here and watch this prisoner while I go down and see how it all came about. You had better keep your eyes on him, for the Indians may come up and call for him at any moment.”

The squawman plunged through the door and went out, but he left three excited women behind him. They wanted to learn the full particulars of the murder of Sitting Bull the same as the squawman did, but for a Page 158 time they kept their places on the bed, comparing notes with each other and howling alternately. Finally one arose to her feet and slipped through the door, and she had been gone but a little while before another went out.

“I tell you the time is coming for me to make a strike for freedom,” soliloquized Carl, drawing his feet under him so that he could go out of the other side of the tepee if this one should follow the example of her comrades. “If I once get out of this tepee, I bet they will never see me again.”

Carl did not know much about women, but he naturally judged of what he would have done himself if he were left with a task on his hands in which he was not particularly interested. He would not have sat there alone in suspense while all the rest of the camp, men, women and children, were out to hear the report of the scout and get all the news. She sat uneasily on her bed, but finally got up and went to the door. As she did so a long, mournful howl, followed by a chorus of yells which denoted that some of the tribe were Page 159 growing excited, came to her ears, and that was more than she could stand. In an instant she opened the door and went out.

Almost any one who was placed in Carl Preston’s situation would have been thrown off his balance by this unlooked-for incident, coming as it did on the heels of his disappointment in regard to the Ghost Dance, but it had no effect upon the scout. His face never changed its color, and his hands never trembled a particle. Quietly he arose to his feet and approached the door. It was dark outside, and he could not see a single thing. The yells had ceased now, and the braves were listening to a speech from somebody.

“Now is my chance, if ever,” said Carl, going back to the squawman’s bed and hastily tumbling the buffalo robes and blankets aside. “If I stay here I will surely be staked out, and I believe I would rather die at once.”

Carl speedily found the Winchester of which he was in search, together with a murderous-looking knife, which he proceeded to buckle around his waist. Then he caught up the rifle, drew his knife, and with two quick Page 160 steps approached the side of the tepee opposite the door. One slit with his knife and he was free; or at least he was free until the Sioux got after him and captured him. With long, noiseless strides he took his way over the hill in front of which the tepee was pitched, and then turned abruptly off to the right and followed a direction exactly contrary to the one in which he wanted to go. Fort Scott lay pretty near south of him, and he argued that when the Sioux came to pursue him, which would be in the course of a few minutes at the very farthest, they would turn in the direction of the fort. When they had given up the pursuit he would turn around and follow his rightful road.

Meanwhile the squawman, having left his prisoner, as he supposed, in safe hands, broke into a run, and arrived at the dancing-ground just as the medicine man began his speech. He was urging the warriors to take to the warpath immediately and avenge the death of Sitting Bull. For a time it seemed as though he would succeed in arousing the anger of the Sioux to fever heat; but when it Page 161 came right down to the point, their chief man was gone, and there was no one ready to take his place. After he got through, the scout, who had brought the news to the camp, took upon himself the part of orator. He gave a pretty strict account of the death of Sitting Bull, and we will go on and tell it in our own way, for it was a long time before Carl heard the truth of the matter.

It happened on the morning of December 14th, although the arrest was not made until the 15th. At that time a courier came from Grand River with the news that Sitting Bull had received an invitation to appear at Pine Creek Agency, for the Messiah was about to appear. Sitting Bull at once resolved to go, sending a request to his agent for permission to do so; but at the same time he saddled his horses, to be ready to take a long and hard ride in case that permission was refused. The agent saw that something must be done immediately, and he at once held a consultation with General Miles, during which it was decided that the arrest should take place on the 15th. The arrest was to be made by the Indian Page 162 police, assisted by a detachment of troops, who were to follow within supporting distance.

The next thing was to inform the police of what was expected of them. There was already a camp of twenty-eight policemen under Lieutenant Bull Head, a man of undo............