“If there is anything I do despise it is to wait on an Indian until he gets ready to do anything,” said Carl, after they had waited three or four days to receive the Sioux who had gone into the Bad Lands. “An Indian has no idea of the value of time, and he thinks that a month or six weeks from now will do the same as though he came in to-morrow. All they want is a dance to make up their minds whether to come in and surrender or not.”

Lieutenant Parker was getting sadly impatient also, and he began to think that the Indians would not come in at all, that they would be alarmed at so many troops coming to surround them, and that they would decide to stay in the Bad Lands and fight it out; but one day they were electrified by the arrival of a courier who rode at once to Colonel Forsyth’s tent.

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“Something is going to happen now,” said Carl. “That man has brought news of some kind.”

“Go over there, Carl,” said Parker. “Our colonel is there. You are not an enlisted man, and you can go and come when you please.”

Carl mounted his horse, which he always kept saddled and ready for instant use, and rode over to Colonel Forsyth’s headquarters. He loafed around there for a spell, waiting to hear what was going on, and a few moments later his colonel came out.

“Can you tell me what’s up, sir?” said Carl.

“Oh, nothing, only the Indians are coming in at last,” answered the officer.

“How many of them are there?”

“About four hundred; but we have eight hundred men here, so I guess they will not attempt any tricks.”

Carl rode back to his camp in company with the colonel, who summoned his officers and held a short consultation with them. Parker and the rest of the young officers, who Page 356 had never seen a hostile camp before, listened to what Carl had to tell them, and then turned their attention to the pass through which the courier had come out. But it was a long time before the Indians arrived. Just as the sun was setting they came into view, and there were so many of them that Parker grew alarmed.

“Have those Indians all got guns?” he asked. “I don’t see anything to indicate the fact.”

“They have guns, for you never saw an Indian go on the warpath without one; but they have them hidden where we can’t find them,” said Carl. “When the order is given to disarm them, you will see what sort of weapons we are going to get—old, worthless things that you wouldn’t pick up in the street.”

“Then the soldiers will search their tepees for them,” said a young officer decidedly.

“Of course; and that is what is going to bring on the fight.”

“Are we really going to have a brush with them?”

“I think so, and you may make up your Page 357 mind to hear how a bullet whistles as it goes by your head.”

“Well, why don’t they begin it, if that is what they are up to?”

“It is too late to do anything to-day, but it will keep. You wait until to-morrow and you will wish that you were back at the fort.”

“Not much, I won’t,” said Parker indignantly. “If my men have come out here to fight Indians, I am going in, too.”

“I see a big tepee off there, sir,” said one of the officers to his captain, who at that moment came up, “and they are carrying somebody into it. Who is that, sir?”

“That is Big Foot, who is ill with pneumonia,” answered the captain; “and the doctor who has just gone in to attend to him is Colonel Forsyth’s surgeon.”

“And there are some soldiers taking in a stove,” added the officer. “They are going to warm him up. I supposed that when an Indian became sick he would kick out all the white surgeons and depend entirely on his medicine man.”

“So he does, generally,” said the captain, Page 358 “but old Big Foot is so bad now that he can’t attend to anything. I hope you boys will get a good sleep to-night, for we are going to have fun in the morning.”

But the boys did not get a good sleep, for they were busy thinking of what was going to happen when daylight came—that is, all except Carl, who would have found rest if he had known that the Indians were powerful enough to massacre their whole command. When morning came he was as bright as a lark, while Parker and the other young officers were pale and nervous, and kept looking forward to that order to disarm the Indians which would transform their peaceable camp into a scene that they did not like to think of.

It was the morning of December 29th, and as soon as breakfast was eaten the cavalry mounted their horses and stretched themselves out in a single line far beyond the ground occupied by the Indian encampment, and the infantry moved up within ten yards of their position. The Indians evidently did not like this, for they congregated in little groups, and talked violently, and made motions which Page 359 Lieutenant Parker thought meant war and nothing else. Finally an interpreter went among them, and after a long wait the warriors all moved out in a body and seated themselves on the ground. Then Colonel Forsyth took a hand in the matter, and, with the interpreter at his side, told the Indians that he had come out there for the purpose of disarming them, and ordered them back to their tepees to bring out their weapons. A part of the Indians went, and after a long wait they brought out two guns, which they handed to the soldiers.

“That won’t do,” said the colonel in a loud voice. “I want each one of you to bring out the weapons that you use in fighting us. If you don’t do it, my men will go in there and search your houses.”

“Now it is coming,” said Carl in a low tone to his friend, and he got down and buckled up his saddle. “When the soldiers go in there, you can make up your mind to advance.”

The Indians did not move, and all the while Yellow Bird, a medicine man, was walking about among them, blowing on a whistle made Page 360 of an eagle bone and talking to them in the Sioux language. He was telling them that they need not be afraid, for their ghost shirts would render the soldiers weak and powerless, and that their bullets would fall harmlessly to the ground.

“If I was Colonel Forsyth I would arrest that Indian the first thing,” said Carl, who was rendered awfully impatient by the Sioux actions. “Why don’t he make that man talk English.”

“What is he doing?” asked Parker.

“I don’t catch the words very distinctly, but he is urging them on to fight,” said Carl. &ldqu............