Piercing its shrill way through the heavy mist that hung above the Missouri, came a strange, new trumpet-call from Brannon. The opening notes, reiterated and smooth-flowing, were unlike the first sprightly lilt of reveille. As Dallas stilled the squeaking of the well-pulley to listen, they fell upon her ear disquietly.

The summons ended. From behind, her father's voice called to her querulously. "Seem t' be changin' they mornin' toot over thar," he said. "Ah wonder ef it means anythin' particular."

"I think the soldiers are going," she answered.

"Th' hull passel?" he demanded; then, with a grunt, "Wal, good riddance o' bad rubbish."

Later on, as Dallas circled the shack with the plow, turning up a wide strip as a protection against fires, she found that the reason she had given for the trumpet's varying was the true one. The sun, dispersing the fog, had unshrouded the river and unveiled the barracks and the bluffs. When she saw that, of the canvas row below the stockade not a tent remained, and the campground lay deserted. While from it, heading northward through the post to the faint music of the band, moved an imposing column of cavalry. Arms and equipment flashed gallantly in the sun. Horses curveted. Handkerchiefs fluttered good-bys from the galleries of the Line. Up Clothes-Pin Row, the wives and babies of troopers waited in little groups. At the quarters of the scouts sounded the melancholy beat of a tom-tom. Accompanying it, and contrasting with it weirdly, was a plaintive cadence—the monotonous lament of Indian women.

The column wound on its way, at its rear the heavy-rolling, white-covered wagon-train. The band had ceased to play. The groups that had been waving farewells sorrowfully dispersed. The tom-tom was still, and no wail of squaws was borne across the river. Then, Dallas again started up Ben and Betty.

And now a sudden fit of depression came over her. The dew sparkled on the grass, the air was soft, the breeze caressing, the sun was warm on her shoulders. Yet with all the brightness on every hand, a sense of uneasiness would not be shaken off.

She found herself reining often to look toward Clark's. Midway of the eastern ridge was a long, buff blotch—the crossing of the coulÉe road. Would a horse and rider pass across that spot to-day? Probably not. A wave of loneliness and of undeserved injury swept her, welling the tears to her eyes.

She was halted close to the corn-land when cheery singing reached her. Marylyn had left the shack and was going riverward, dawdling with studied slowness.

Dallas shivered. The song suggested a cruel end for the gay troopers who had just gone forth. "Marylyn!" she called.

The younger paused to look back.

"Be careful, honey. Keep in sight."

Marylyn nodded, threw a kiss, and strolled on.

All day, Dallas tried to work away her troublesome thoughts. When she had known that an Indian was signalling from Medicine Mountain, she had felt no fear. Why was she growing fearful now? For it was fear—not any mere nervousness, or sadness over the marching of the troops. It was even more: There was a haunting feeling that something was going to happen! There was a terrible certainty weighing upon her—a certainty of coming harm!

Toward night, she began to watch about her—southward, to the shanty of the Norwegian; eastward, to where the tent of the Sioux Falls man had been; west, where the setting sun touched the sentinel guns on the bluffs; along the coulÉe, where the darkness always crept first.

She found herself examining the tops of distant rises. Medicine Mountain showed a dark speck at its summit,—had she ever noticed that before? Other peaks looked unfamiliar—were they the lookouts of savage spies? And north, far beyond the "little bend" was the smoke of a camp-fire. In fancy, she saw the one who had lighted it—a warrior with vindictive, painted face, who peered at the squat shack on the bend as he fanned and smothered the flame.

Night was at hand. The plover were wailing; the sad-voiced pewits called; one by one, the frogs began a lonesome chant. A light had sprung up in the shack. She glanced that way. And the window eyes of the log-house seemed to leer at her.

A warm supper, Marylyn's bright face, her father's placid retorts—all these did not suffice to drive away her forebodings. What was there in the coming night?

All her instinct spoke for caution. The lantern was shaken out before the table was cleared. Her father and sister early sought their beds. She only lay down in her clothes. The hours passed in a strange suspense. She listened to her father's deep breathing, to the mules, when they wandered into their stalls, to the snap of Simon's long brush as he whipped at the mosquitoes. Her eyes kept searching the black corners of the room, and the pale squares of the windows. Her ears were alert for every sound.

She fell to thinking of Squaw Charley. He had not come for his supper, or brought them the daily basket. Was he growing indifferent—to them?

It was when she could no longer keep awake that her thoughts assumed even a terrible shape. She dreamed, and in her dream a head came through the dirt floor close to her bed. It was covered by a war-bonnet of feathers. Beside it, thrust up by lissome fingers—fingers white and strangely familiar—was a tomahawk.

Soon, she made out a face—Matthews'. She squirmed, striving to summon her father. A flame flickered up in the fireplace. The face changed from white to red, and Charley danced before her. She squirmed again; the face faded——

She found herself sitting bolt upright. Her hands were clenched defensively, her teeth were shut so tight that her jaws ached. She was staring, wide-eyed, at the door.

The shack was no longer in darkness. Morning was come, and its light made everything clear. She sprang up and lifted the latch, then fell back, her stiffened lips framing a cry.

Before the shack, driven deep into the nearest bit of unpacked ground, was a sapling, new-cut and stripped clean of the bark. From its top, flying pennon-like in the wind, was a scarlet square. And at one corner of this, dangling to and fro in horrid suggestiveness, swung a shrivelled patch that held a lock of hair.