"Thunder Hawk is a traitor and a liar! He has sold himself to the whites! He is their prisoner, and when they have used him they will iron and brand and starve him. Even a sub-chief of the Dakotas shall not live to be their tool. Thunder Hawk rides back with us at once or dies here and now." And around came the ready weapon, muzzle to the front, with Red Dog's hand at the guard.
"Ride back to your men, lieutenant," muttered the old Indian. "You have my word that I will join you as soon as I can, but this man is crazed. He means to force a fight."
"If that be so my place is here with you," was the answer. "What does he demand?" "No parlying with your soldier friends," shouted Red Dog, again in the Sioux tongue. Then, as though losing all control of himself in his hatred of his captor, he dashed furiously at Davies. "Back!" he shouted. "Back!" And he pointed with grand dramatic action up the valley. "Back to your own people! This is Indian land." Then seeing that his words fell on heedless ears and that Davies never relaxed his cool, steadfast gaze into the raging red face, he fell into such English as he knew. "Run or I kill."
And then Lutz and his reserve, just reaching their comrades under Corporal Clanton, saw a sudden flash of sunshine from the silver mountings of the Indian's beautiful Winchester as it was whirled to the brawny shoulder, saw sudden rear and plunge of Davies's spirited horse, a grapple as though in mid-air, and with a mad cry of "My God! They'll murder him!" young trooper Brannan dashed forward from the ranks just as the shot from Red Dog's rifle whirled harmless into space, and horse and man, the pride of the Ogallalla hostiles, were rolling in the dust, overthrown by the officers heavier charger, while the butt of the polished weapon, wrested from the warrior's grasp and wielded by muscular hand, came down with resounding whack on the head of the struggling chief, and for the second time, in the very face of his astonished braves, Red Dog, the redoubtable, went sprawling to earth, downed by the white chief whom he affected to despise.
In the fierce mellay that followed the advantage lay with the first to move. Lutz and his party had not really checked their gait, and so leaped into the charge with a flying start. Sixteen ready troopers had darted forward to the support of their beloved young officer. Thunder Hawk had lashed his pony so as to interpose between him and the rush of the Indian band, but even as those red-skins nearest the centre, where the drums and rattles were keeping up their low, threatening din, with one impulse dashed forward to rescue the chief, those on the flanks, far-seeing, held wisely back, even while around the prostrate chief there raged for a brief, hot, furious moment a wild babel of threat and execration, a mad whirl of brandishing knives and pistols and naked red limbs and brawny arms in dusty blue, Hawk and two other stalwart Sioux had thrown themselves between avenging blows and the young white chief, standing afoot now with pale, set face, over his writhing victim. Lutz and his men, lunging in among the lighter ponies, bore them back by sheer force of weight. 'Only one or two shots were heard; even in that frantic turmoil friend and foe alike seemed to realize that a battle must be avoided so long as each side held possession of its own. And then from the outskirts came loud yells of warning. By fives and tens the mounted warriors melted hurriedly away, and presently all the broad prairie to the eastward, back toward the lodges from which they came, was alive with circling, darting, screaming red-skins, keeping up their shrill appeal to brethren still hot-handed in the struggle for out from behind the curtain of the agency corral swept the long column of galloping horse under its curtaining cloud of dust, and down at full speed came the whole squadron, far more than Red Dog's band dare tackle in heady fight. Out from beneath his struggling pony they dragged him, bleeding and bedaubed with sweat and paint and blood, and when presently as the long skirmish line of Cranston's troop swept over the spot and drove before it all the mounted warriors, only two or three of the faithful remained to share the fortunes of their fallen chief, for like Thunder Hawk, Red Dog was the prisoner, not of the Great Father's agent, who was somewhere far to the rear, but of the soldier chief of the cantonments, who came galloping up in the wake of the cavalry, wrathful, if anything, that the whole thing was over without a fight.
And then, and not until nearly ten minutes after he had downed his man, was it noticed that Mr. Davies had not recovered color, that he was too faint to remount his horse.
"What is it, lad?" murmured Cranston, with keen anxiety in his eyes.
"I'm stabbed, captain. I—think you'd better not let Mrs. Davies know."
But Davies need not have worried on that score. When a little later they bore him, faint, unconscious from loss of blood, to his own roof at the agency, there was lack of woman's nursing, there was dearth of woman's tears,—Mira had fled with the McPhails with the first alarm, and was in hiding somewhere up at the cantonment.