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My horse, luckily for me, was able to lay me alongside my game within a few hundred yards. I coursed close to a big black bull and, obeying injunctions old Auberry had often given me, did not touch the trigger until I found I was holding well forward and rather low.
Orme was leading by the bridle his own horse, which was slightly lame from a strain received in the hunt. "Some buck'll slip an arrer into him, if he don't look out," said Auberry. "He's got no business out there." We saw Orme making some sort of gestures, pointing to his horse and the others. "Wonder if he wants to trade horses!" mused Auberry, chuckling.
Two or three hundred yards from the place where the Indians halted, Auberry told Belknap to halt his men. We four, with one private to hold our horses, rode forward a hundred yards farther, halted and raised our hands in sign of peace. There rode out to us four of the head men of the Sioux, beautifully dressed, each a stalwart man.
"Go back to the north and west, where you belong," said Auberry. "You have no business here on the wagon trails." "The Sioux hunt where they please," was the grim answer. "But you see we have our women and children with us, the same as you have and he pointed toward our camp, doubtless knowing the personnel of our party as well as we did ourselves. "Where are you going?" asked our interpreter.
Yet, as Orme straightened out this blanket, it was white as it had been before! Auberry looked at his knife blade as though he would have preferred to throw it away, but he sheathed it and it fitted the sheath as before. Orme smiled at us all pleasantly. "Do you believe in the Indian telegraph now?" he inquired.
Belknap spurred in between them. "Here, you men," he commanded with swift sternness. "Into your places. I'm in command here, and I'll shoot the first man who raises a hand. Mr. Orme, take your place at the wagons. Auberry, keep with me. We'll have fighting enough without anything of this." "He murdered that Sioux, Lieutenant," reiterated Auberry.
As he approached he pointed, and we looked down the valley toward the east. Surely enough, we saw a faint cloud of dust coming toward us, whether of vehicles or horsemen we could not tell. Auberry thought that it was perhaps some west-bound emigrant or freight wagon, or perhaps a stage with belated mails. "Stay here, boys," he said, "and I'll ride down and see."
They lay or knelt or stood back of the wagon line, imperturbable as wooden men, and waited for the order to fire, though meantime two of them dropped, hit by chance bullets from the wavering line of horsemen that now encircled us. "Tell us when to fire, Auberry," I heard Belknap say, for he had practically given over the situation to the old plainsman.
"They're Sioux!" said Auberry. "Like enough the very devils that cleaned out the station down there. But come on; they don't mean fight right now." Belknap and Auberry took with them the sergeant and a dozen troopers. I pushed in with these, and saw Orme at my side; and Belknap did not send us back. We four rode on together presently.
"I don't think they mean trouble, Lieutenant," he said, "and I think the best thing we can do is to let them alone and go on up the valley. Let's go on and pull on straight by them, the way they did us, and call it a draw all around." Belknap nodded, and Auberry turned again to the four Sioux, who stood tall and motionless, looking at us with the same fixed, glittering eyes.
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