"The major was impatient.
"'I won't talk or parley with you,' he broke in; 'it is surrender or fight; I await your answer.'
"'We surrender—we done so before, but could not find you,' said Big Foot.
"I had my eye on the chief, who just then turned and motioned with his arm to his own battle line. They seemed to be looking for the signal, 'cause the white flag was shown at once. We rode forward quick like and surrounded them, and a courier was sent off post haste for four troops of the Seventh, and Leftenant Taylor's scouts to help guard and disarm the party. They arrived the same day. Big Foot had one hundred and fifty warriors fully armed, with two hundred and fifty squaws and many children. Despite the surrender, we all knowed trouble was coming, and it was not long before it came, like one of them Kansan cyclones."
CHAPTER VIII.
"THE BUCKS WERE COMING UP ALARMINGLY FAST."
"When General Forsyth arrived," continued the scout, in his description of the battle of Wounded Knee Creek, "he ordered the male Indians to come for a talk. They come out, scowling and sullen, and gathered in a half-circle in front of Big Foot's tent. The chief was inside, ill with pneumonia.
"The general told them they must surrender their arms in groups of twenty. By this time they were thoroughly enraged, but most of our boys thought they were so cowed they would obey without much trouble. I didn't like their looks, and told Jenkins at my side to hold himself ready, for I believed them fellows meant mischief, and a fight was sure.
"'I guess not,' he answered; 'they're obeying orders.'
"The first score slunk back without a word. We waited a long while, and by-and-by they came out agin, and how many guns do you 'spose they brought with 'em. Just two miserable pieces, worth so much old iron.