"All right so far, but does Red Dog agree to dismount? Does he agree to hold his people where they are? Does he understand that if they advance we fire? Here, Red Dog," said Boynton, riding forward half a dozen yards, "you understand me well enough. If your crowd moves a pony length forward we fire, and, mark you, any trick or treachery and down you go, first man."
To this Red Dog deigned no other response than a scowl.
"Back up slowly, men, face to the front," said Boynton to his silent line. "Hold 'em, Davies. I'll go back to McPhail."
But when the agent was told the terms of the parley he refused. "Why, he'd knife or pistol me just as the Modocs did the Peace Commissioners," said he. "I won't step off the agency porch. We've got seven armed men here. Let him bring seven, and you have your soldiers ready inside the corral. Then if he wants to talk business he can see me here."
By this time, slowly retiring and gradually closing toward the centre, Davies and his skirmishers had come back within twenty yards of the building. Boynton swore a round oath. "There's no help for it, Parson, we've got to do as this chump decides. There's one chance yet. Get your men back to their loop-holes and join me here. No man to fire, remember, except as ordered."
Quickly the troopers scurried back to their positions along the stockade. Originally it had been intended to enclose all the buildings within this defensive work, but the returning tourists were prompt to express their disapprobation. Having just shaken hands with the Great Father at Washington, they were suspicious of such an exhibition of lack of confidence on the part of his agent. That the store-rooms should have iron-barred windows was another ground for remark and remonstrance. The red children refused to enter a stockade whose gates might be closed behind them, or a room whose windows were barred. An inspector came out and held a powwow and shook hands with everybody, and told the agent the red children were lambs who would never harm him and he mustn't show distrust. It hurt their sensitive natures. So the stockade only enclosed the shed and stables, but it abutted, luckily, upon the agent's house and office. Re-entering the house from the rear, after a few words of instruction to Sergeant Lutz and his men, Davies pushed through hurriedly to the front piazza. Red Dog in grand state, with an interpreter at his left rear and seven stalwart braves aligned like a general's staff six yards behind him, came riding with majestic dignity, straight to the dark portico. Red Dog afraid, indeed! Turning his horse over to an orderly and sending him within the stockade, Boynton ordered the gate closed.
"We'll have a breeze here in a minute," he whispered to Davies. "That sinner means mischief. You watch him and the agent. I'll keep my eye on the main body."
Fifteen yards away, Red Dog halted and silently studied the shadowy group on the agency porch. There stood the bureau's "ablegate," the official interpreter by his side. In the door-way, dimly outlined, were two of his assistants, men who had known the Sioux for years, but knew not influential relatives in the East. Boynton ranged up close alongside in hopes of prompting the official. "He's beginning to look knee-sprung already," whispered he to Davies, "but I'll brace him if I can." Just behind the agent stood one of his police, and this was before the days of an Indian police that, properly handled, proved valuable as auxiliaries. Then Red Dog in slow, sonorous speech began to declaim.
"Choke him off! Make him dismount and report at your office. He'll only insult you where he is," whispered Boynton.
"Red Dog says, as the agent didn't dare come and get him, he concluded to come in and see whether the agent would dare take him," began the interpreter, in trembling tones, the moment the Indian paused.