United States or North Korea ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
But Neale soon ascertained that there was nothing to shoot at, outside of some white puffs of smoke rising from behind rocks on the slope. There was absolutely not a sign of an Indian. The graders were firing, but Neale believed they would have done better to save their powder. Bullets pattered against the logs; now and then a leaden pellet sang through a window, to thud into the wall.
The graders greeted this information with loud hurrahs. But when Anderson pointed out a large band of Sioux filing down from the hilltop the enthusiasm was somewhat checked. It was the largest hostile force of Sioux that Neale had ever seen. The sight of the lean, wild figures stirred Neale's blood, and then again sent that cold chill over him.
Many were killed by the white hunters to furnish meat for the railroad graders and the troups at the frontier forts.
Frantically he searched the inclosure, questioned every man he met, rushed back to the burning cabin, where the fire drove him out. But there was no trace of Allie. Then the conviction of calamity settled upon him. While the cabin burned, and the troopers and graders watched, Neale now searched for the face of the man he had recognized the ruffian Allie called Fresno.
Why, somewhere my father and mother busied, mindless; somewhere Benton roared, mindless; somewhere the wagon train toiled on, mindless; the stage road missed us not, nor wondered; the railroad graders shoveled and scraped and picked as blithely as if the same desert did not contain them, and us; cities throbbed, people worked and played, and we were of as little concern to them now as we would be a year hence.
Word Of The Day