Once more there was silence. A sentry, as he neared, was humming an unconscious warning. When he was gone again, there was more talk. But it was low-toned, and Charley could not hear. He did not wait longer. Slipping away a rod, he dropped on all fours.
When Standing Buffalo emerged and looked to see if he might safely return, he observed that in the enclosure nothing moved but a dog, which was going toward the shingle roof. So, composedly drawing his sheet of cow's hide about him, he strode to his lodge.
Until daybreak, two Indians did not join the others in their rest. The one sat harking for the call of a mourning-dove. The other sat cross-legged beside the smudge; and as a splinter new and then revived the fire, he wafted prayers of thanksgiving to the Great Spirit on its upward-rising smoke.
CHAPTER XXXII
THE EVE OF OTHER THINGS
The wide valley was brown, with green splots and tracings for slough and stream. The distant ranges were grey. The sky showed the misty blue of the dog-days. Far off to the north and west, black streaks edged the horizon, where smoke rolled up from prairie-fires.
Brannon was quiet to the point of lethargy. Guard was mounted, and daily dress-parade held ceremoniously. The trumpet blew its unvarying round of commands. There was no hunting, and no field duty beyond the scouting of the eastern shore. The hoarse salute of an upward-plying steamer roused the garrison to life one morning. But the interruption lasted barely half an hour. Then the steamer, her pilot-house screened by sheet iron, and her decks aswarm with infantry, rounded a bend in the river and went coughing away out of sight. Once again, interest centred at the site of the pony corral, where a platform was slowly building.