After supper had been eaten and rations distributed for the next day, it was nearly sunset, and Al and Wallace sat down on the ground near General Sully's tent to clean their weapons and enjoy a few minutes of welcome rest.

"I never saw anything like that canyon we were in to-day," said Wallace. "More than once I thought we were going to be cleaned out there, and we would have been if we'd had civilized troops to deal with."

"Why, of course," Al answered. "Civilized troops one-tenth as strong as we could have held it against us for a year. Yet we've lost only eight or ten men wounded all day. The Indians haven't enough staying qualities, though they have plenty of dash and are magnificent horsemen."

"Yes, that's true," agreed Wallace. Then suddenly he dropped his ram-rod and sprang to his feet. "Look there!" he exclaimed. "Are they going to try some more of their dash this evening, after all they've done to-day?"

The dry expanse of prairie where the camp lay, sloped gradually up to the eastward, terminating in a ridge at a distance of about a mile from the camp. Over the crest of this ridge a throng of Sioux warriors was now galloping, much as they had come over that other ridge at the opening of the battle of Tahkahokuty. The emigrant camp lay nearest to them, and here a great confusion and panic immediately arose, and women and children began to emerge from the corral and run toward the military camp, shrieking and calling piteously for help. Without waiting for orders scores of soldiers seized their weapons and rushed out across the prairie toward the fugitives, many of whom, as soon as they were within the lines, fell to the ground exhausted or weeping hysterically. The soldiers, once started, continued their advance on the enemy, the swiftest runners distancing the rest. The Indians halted and fired, then seeing that their antagonists were not checked, began sullenly to retire, not even hastening much from the shells of the cannon, which had opened along the eastern edge of the camp. So the retreat and pursuit continued to the crest of the ridge, where the Indians went out of sight into the Bad Lands just beyond.

Al and Wallace, who had run out at the first alarm, presently found themselves, in company with one of the Sioux guides and a couple of soldiers of the Sixth Iowa, on the edge of the ridge with a deep, narrow valley before them, bounded on its farther side by four hillocks, or small buttes, shaped like sugar loaves and each separated from the next by crooked gullies, washed deep by rains. At the left end of this series of buttes lay a long, open space, entirely bare of vegetation, apparently extending around behind them. Not an Indian was in sight, but Wallace suggested,

"I believe some of the redskins are hiding behind those buttes. Let's surprise them. I'll tell you what we can do. You fellows," he addressed the two cavalrymen, "stay here and the rest of us will go back a little way and then sneak around and down across that open space and get in behind the flank of the buttes. If there are any Indians there, we can shoot them before they can get away."

"But there may be a lot of them," objected one of the troopers, "and they'll clean you out."

"No," declared Wallace, with conviction. "It's only a little way across, and if there are too many of them we can run back while you cover us with your fire. Besides, lots of the boys are near by."

This was true; a number of soldiers were still a short distance back on the plateau.

"What do you think of it?" asked Al, turning to the Sioux guide, who happened to be one who could speak English, as well as his own tongue.

"Good," said the Indian. "I go."

"Come on, then," urged Wallace, who seemed determined to have an adventure if possible.

Followed by Al and the guide he walked back across the prairie until the ridge hid them from view of any watchers who might be on the buttes. The two troopers, meanwhile, lay down on the edge of the ridge to wait developments. As soon as they were out of sight of the buttes, the boys turned north and ran for some distance, then swinging east again regained the edge of the ridge opposite the open ground below. Here they could not be seen from any except the northernmost butte and, hastening down the slope, they ran across to the base of this butte and around to its farther side. Looking up, they saw two Indians lying behind the top of the next adjoining eminence, peeping over at the two soldiers across the valley. Simultaneously the three adventurers fired. The head of one of the warriors dropped between his outstretched arms and he lay still without a struggle. His companion sprang to his feet, cast one terrified glance at the unexpected assailants below him and leaped with a few long bounds down the steep slope into the ravine at its base and around the third butte, where he disappeared. Al and Wallace gave a shout, in which the Indian scout joined, and Al ran on in the direction taken by the warrior, followed by Wallace. But the scout hesitated.

"Maybe better go back now, eh?" he called.

"Oh, no; come on!" Al shouted back. "We can get out anywhere and we've got him on the run."

The scout said no more, but followed. They passed the ravine and the base of the next butte, and came to the gully between that and the fourth and last eminence to the south. From this eminence a little ridge ran eastward out across the open ground. As they came toward it an Indian rose half his height behind it, then, seeing them, dropped down again. Al ran to the left to get around behind him, and, as he did so, Wallace and the scout both saw another warrior, farther up on the fourth butte, stand erect and aim at him.

"Look out, Al!" shouted Wallace.

"Drop, Briscoe!" cried the guide at the same instant, and Al instinctively flung himself full length upon the ground just as the Indian fired. The bullet passed over him; but at this moment Wallace noticed still another hostile raise his head above the ridge and look eagerly toward Al. He had no time to interpret the glance, but the thought came to him that more Indians were showing themselves than he had expected, and he cried,

"Come on out, boys! They're getting too thick."

Followed by his companions, he sprang into the gully close at hand, expecting to see the valley beyond and the prairie ridge where the two Iowa soldiers were lying. But, instead, a few yards up the trench-like gulch he came to a sharp turn. As he rounded it, he caught a glimpse of several Indians crouching down a little farther on, their guns cocked and ready, and he dodged back again, almost colliding with Al and the scout, behind him.

"I guess we're goners," he exclaimed, as he heard the swift patter of moccasined feet behind and on the edges of the gully above them. "Oh, what an idiot I was to get you fellows and myself into this. It's my fault."

"No, it isn't, Wallace," declared Al. "It's mine. If I'd minded this scout, we'd have gotten back all right."

But at this moment, which it seemed evident must be their last, they heard a deep, commanding voice speak a few rapid words in the Sioux tongue, and the sound of footsteps ceased.

"They're going to rush us," whispered Al, his voice shaking but his eyes still courageous. "Let's give them all the shots we can and then kill ourselves. Good-bye, Wallace, old man,—and good-bye, mother, and Annie, and Tommy," he added, to himself.

Thoroughly expecting death within a few seconds, he could hardly believe his ears when he heard the same deep, masterful voice which had halted their pursuers, say, loudly,

"Al Briscoe! Al Briscoe!"

Al, shaking and pale, looked at his companions, too amazed and bewildered even to hear the Sioux words, unintelligible to him, which followed his name. The mere utterance of the latter, in such a place and under such circumstances, was of itself ominous and terrifying enough to chill his blood, for it seemed to single him out from his companions for some special and horrible fate. But the Sioux scout looked at him solemnly.

"You understand?" he asked.

"No," answered Al, shuddering.

"He say, 'Al Briscoe, I, Te-o-kun-ko, want talk with you.'"

"Te-o-kun-ko?" exclaimed Al, his strength coming back to him at that familiar name. "Indeed, yes. If he does kill me, I shall at least find out first."

He prepared to scramble up the side of the gully, but the scout restrained him.

"No go till he say he not kill," said he.

"Ask him," Al replied.

The scout called out the question in Sioux and Te-o-kun-ko answered, a note of surprise and satisfaction in his voice. The scout himself looked relieved.

"He say, 'you got interpreter. Good!'" he repeated. "He say, 'come up and bring him. We no kill.'"

There was nothing else to do, so the three scrambled to the top of the gully, Wallace bringing up the rear. When he had regained his feet, Al saw confronting him the superbly handsome figure of his brother's captor, the muscles of his arms, the curve of his deep chest, his proudly poised head, and eagle-like features, all mellowed and harmonized in the soft glow of early twilight, until he looked more like a bronze statue than a human being. The Indian was leaning on a long rifle and he wore a short tunic, buckskin leggings, and moccasins, all heavily embroidered with brilliant bead work, while a splendid war bonnet of brightly colored feathers hung from his head nearly to the ground. A handsome necklace of bears' claws, fastened around his neck and depending over his massive chest, completed a costume of savage magnificence strikingly becoming to this lord of the prairies. A few feet behind him stood a dozen or more warriors, their guns lying across their arms. They were as silent and motionless as Te-o-kun-ko, but the glances of sullen animosity which they flashed at Al and his companions showed clearly enough that it was only the strong hand of their leader which restrained them from instantly slaying the white boys and their Indian comrade.

Te-o-kun-ko did not move as his three involuntary guests came up before him but, leaning on his rifle, he regarded Al with a gaze so keen and steadfast that the latter's eyes wavered, and to break the silence he said,

"How."

"How, Al Briscoe," replied the Indian, still without moving.

A rush of indignation suddenly swept over Al as he remembered who this man was.

"Ask him," said he, sharply, to the scout, "where my brother is."

He was determined to learn at least this much before anything could happen to prevent.

The question was repeated, but Te-o-kun-ko did not reply immediately. At length he said, through the interpreter,

"You are bold for a boy, Al Briscoe. Do you hold your life of no value that you demand your brother now, when you are in my power?"

"I hold his life of more value than my own, Te-o-kun-ko," replied Al, stoutly. "Would you not feel the same for your brother?"

The Indian flashed a look at him which seemed almost one of sympathy.

"Yes," said he, and paused. Presently he went on, "If you were not brave you would not be worthy of such a brother. But I knew that you were brave the day I took him from you beyond the Yellow Medicine, and I knew it better eleven suns ago when you came after me like a hungry wolf under the shadow of Tahkahokuty. So I will tell you."

He paused again, as if reflecting, then continued in the following words, uttering them deliberately, and they were interpreted, phrase after phrase, by the Sioux scout:

"Your brother was such a one as should have been an Indian, and so I thought to make him. He fears neither the darkness nor the flood nor the lightning, the buffalo stampede nor the rush and shouting of armed men. No lad of my tribe can shoot straighter than he and he rides a horse as the gray goose rides the north wind. He learned our speech more quickly than a Cheyenne, of our own race, could have learned it, and he came to love our life; I know, for he told me so, often. And he loved me, who sought to be as his father, and my squaw, Techon-su-mons-ka (The Sandbar), and his foster brothers and sisters, Mah-to-che-ga (The Little Bear), Ka-pes-ka-da (The Shell), and Mong-shong-sha (The Bending Willow). Your brother himself I called Pah-ta-ustah (Fire Eyes), and so the tribe will ever know him.

"But even after I came to be chief of my band, twelve moons ago, when the old chief was killed in battle with the Crows beyond the river where the elks drink (the Yellowstone), he would talk to me of his own people. He would talk of his father and mother and you, Al Briscoe, and of a girl papoose he called Annie, and of the place where he once lived, far in the South, where there is more forest than prairie, and where many trees bear upon their branches red and yellow fruit larger than the largest plums we know. Many and many a time I have talked with him of those things in the hours when the sun has gone to sleep and the tepee fires wink back at the stars. And since he grieved always for those who had been his family, and since I knew that I had been one to stand by while his father was killed (which was a bad deed and hurt my heart) it came to me at last that I must put him in the way to go back to his own people. It is true, too, that the life of the Indian is not now, and never will be any more, what it was in the past. Our days are numbered in the land of our fathers, and those who are young among us have little to look forward to."

Te-o-kun-ko spoke the last sentences sadly, looking far off into the yellow western sky as if he saw there visions of the last refuge of his race. Then he threw back his head and concluded, abruptly,

"So I took him southward and one moon ago I left him at the trading post above the mouth of the Wak-pah-shika (Bad River), which is called Fort La Framboise. Then I sped back to bear my part in the battle against your army."

"What?" exclaimed Al, in great excitement, stepping close to Te-o-kun-ko as the scout interpreted his last sentences, "You took him to Fort La Framboise? He is there now?"

The Indian inclined his head slowly.

"Yes," he replied, "if he has not already gone to the southward."

Al pressed his hand to his brow. His mind was in a whirl of bewilderment.

"Tommy at Fort La Framboise, and I here!" he exclaimed aloud, but speaking only to himself. "What shall I do now?" Then another idea occurred to him. "How do I know this is true?" he demanded, bold beyond discretion in his anxiety and satisfied, anyway, that he and his companions would be killed at the end of the interview. "Perhaps you still have him; perhaps he is dead."

But the Indian ignored the reflection upon his honesty.

"I tell you the truth, Al Briscoe," he asserted, solemnly.

He spoke Al's full name always, as if it were one word, as he doubtless thought it was. Then he lifted the necklace of bear's claws hanging around his neck and held it toward Al. At the bottom of it, between the two largest claws, was fastened a small ring of chased gold, its surface much worn, which Al instantly recognized as Tommy's.

"This he gave to me when I left him at Fort La Framboise," said he, "as a keepsake and a promise. And the promise was that he would come back some day, either to stay or to visit us, who are his Sioux kindred."

"So?" replied Al. He was beginning to realize dimly that Tommy must have had some very good reasons for his attachment to this magnificent warrior and his family, for he could hardly doubt longer the truth of what Te-o-kun-ko was telling him. The circumstances under which they were speaking together were not such as to tempt the Indian to deceit or apologies; for he was certainly master of the situation, and could either seize or kill Al and those with him whenever he wished. There was a moment's silence. Then Te-o-kun-ko stepped back and laid his rifle across his arm.

"You may go now, Al Briscoe," he said; "you and those with you."

"What?" cried Al, who had dared expect nothing but death. "You are going to spare our lives?"

"You may go in peace," responded the Sioux. "I do it for the sake of Pah-ta-ustah. Tell him so when you see him."

He stopped a moment, as if seeking words in which to express some oppressive thought. Then he went on,

"Your brother, Al Briscoe, knows not that his father is dead. I lacked ever the heart to tell him. But when you do so, tell him, likewise, that I, Te-o-kun-ko, have none of his blood on my hands. I fired no shot on that day at the place where you lived, though I did enough in all the time we were killing and burning along the Minnesota. My thoughts were on fire with the madness of slaughter, as were those of all who were there. Since then my mind has cleared and I know that the things which we did to the whites in Minnesota were bad; bad clear through. But we have been paying for them ever since; we are paying now, and is not the price even yet great enough? You have killed two, yes, four, of our men and women and children, for every one that we slew over there. You have burned our lodges and our robes and our winter meat; we shall starve and freeze in the time of snows which is soon to come. But it is the price, and we are paying."

A sudden impulse, mingled of admiration, gratitude and pity, seized Al toward this strange savage, so proud and yet so humble; so cold and yet so generous. He stepped forward and held out his hand.

"Will you not come in with us, Te-o-kun-ko?" he asked, "and make your peace with the Great Father? Why fight any longer? Can you not see that it is hopeless; that the red men can never prevail against the power and the numbers of the whites?"

The chief ignored the friendly, outstretched hand, but he looked at Al frankly, even though defiantly. "No, Al Briscoe," he made answer, firmly. "You and I are enemies. And while my people have strength left to fight the white men, we will be enemies. I know that what you say is true, though many of my people will not yet believe it. The whites will conquer in the end and take from us the last of this, our great, free, beautiful land to which they have no right except the right of being strong enough. But at least the Indian can fight to the end and die as a warrior should, with his face toward his foes, while his soul goes up in the battle smoke to the Happy Hunting Grounds of Wakon Tonka (the Great Spirit). No, Al Briscoe, I have no friend among the white men save only Pah-ta-ustah, your brother. Go quickly, for when you are on the prairie once more, I shall hold back my braves no longer, and you will be killed if you delay or come back. Go!"

"Come on," said Al in a low tone to his companions. They turned and walked rapidly along the base of the butte toward the narrow valley west of it. As they passed its farther side, Al looked back. Te-o-kun-ko still stood as they had left him, a shadowy figure in the gathering dusk, regarding them with haughty attention, his rifle across his left arm. Only now his right hand was raised in a restraining gesture against his followers, who were crowding up behind him, cocking their guns and cursing in tones which grew rapidly louder and more threatening as they looked after their escaping victims.

Passing behind an angle of rock, Al exclaimed,

"Run! He can't hold them much longer!"

The three dashed across the narrow valley at top speed and almost as rapidly scrambled up the steep slope to the prairie, where they encountered the two cavalrymen, pale and excited.

"Good God, where have you been?" ejaculated one of the soldiers. "We thought you were killed or captured. There hasn't been a shot for twenty minutes."

"No, but there will be in about twenty seconds," Al responded. "Come, come! Keep running."

Away they went toward the camp, hastened by a chorus of fierce war whoops from the valley and then by the patter of shots as a number of Te-o-kun-ko's warriors came over the edge of the prairie a hundred yards behind and raced after them. The bullets, however, sang harmlessly by and in a moment half a hundred of their own men, hearing the firing, came running to their rescue; whereupon the Sioux gave up the chase and fell back into the Bad Lands as night descended.

The three self-appointed raiders returned to camp, Wallace and the Indian scout with feelings of unmixed delight and thanksgiving over their escape, Al with several new problems to perplex him. He had been greatly relieved by Te-o-kun-ko's statements concerning Tommy's devotion to the memory of his family, which showed that the little boy's strength of affection had prevailed over what must have been a very great liking for the life of the Indians. But, though the persistence of this affection on Tommy's part had finally induced his captor to give him his liberty, Al could by no means feel sure that such liberty might not be more dangerous for his brother than captivity had been. Had he been surrendered to the army, or at an army post, Al would have felt no anxiety, for he would have known that the boy would receive the best of care and be sent to his home safe and as promptly as possible. But what would such a mere child do among the hardened trappers and frontiersmen of Fort La Framboise, which Al knew was nothing more than a small trading-post of La Barge, Harkness and Company, fur traders of St. Louis? Tommy could have no idea of where his relatives were now and would be more likely to try to reach Minnesota than any other place. Moreover, if started off by the traders in that direction or even on a steamboat toward St. Louis, he knew nothing of travelling and might easily go astray or fall into dangerous company.

Al lay awake for a long time that night thinking over these problems and decided that next day he would talk them over with General Sully and ask his advice. But at daylight the movement of the army into column brought on an immediate renewal of the enemy's resistance; and for many hours, until the middle of the afternoon, the battle continued as hotly contested as on the previous day. Neither the General nor Al himself had a moment to think of anything except the gigantic task of repelling the Indian attacks.

Just before noon, Wallace was riding in from the left flank, where he had delivered a message to Major Brackett, when he was struck in the left arm, between shoulder and elbow, by a stray bullet. The wound soon became very painful and Wallace was obliged to dismount and go into an ambulance, where a surgeon extracted the bullet and made him as comfortable as possible. But Al, much as he was grieved over his friend's misfortune, could barely find time to spend a moment with him before hurrying back to his own pressing duties.

About mid-afternoon the country began to grow more level and the marching easier. The Indians, apparently discouraged, gradually ceased their attacks and at length the advance guard, mounting a rise from which a wide extent of country was visible in front, saw the last of the hostile army, several miles away to the southward, disappearing in a cloud of dust.

Hearty cheers arose from the whole army as the good news spread, for it was clear the final victory was won. A short halt was ordered and while it lasted the two bands with the Minnesota Brigade, one silver and the other brass, vied with each other in playing triumphant and patriotic airs, to the great delight of the men, who fully believed that the worst of their hardships were now over. But, unfortunately, experiences were yet in store for them not less distressing than those they had already passed through, though somewhat different in character.