"Yes; that's a mystery; how can they tell? The air is full of rumours, anyway. Chamreau says that Red Cloud has been seeking everywhere for fast horses. He had a man go as far as Omaha and another to Denver. Some say he did pick up a racer, a half-blooded Kentucky—some that he had got a wonderful pinto cayuse from Cheyenne; this latter is the more persistent rumour, though Chamreau says he can't find any one who has actually seen one or the other. Anyhow, no one knows what their entry will be. We have a pretty good idea of ours"; and Hartigan smiled proudly.
The two chiefs, with their followers, conversed earnestly, and with much gesture. They looked and pointed at the Crow camp and the rain sign came in many times, and emphatically. The old feud between the Sioux and the Crows had broken out afresh in a trader's store. Two young men from the opposing camps had quarrelled. They had drawn their knives, and each had been wounded. These things were common talk, and Belle and Jim watched the two chiefs ride toward the Crow camp with an eager curiosity to know more about it. When the Red men were a mile away and within half a mile of the Crow village, they followed at a good pace and reached the tepees in the secluded corner in time to see the two visiting chiefs making an address mainly by signs, as they sat on their horses. Chamreau was there, and in answer to Jim's question translated Red Cloud's address to the Crows thus:
"You make bad medicine so we lose race, we kill you." Then, indicating Howling Bull, "He say, 'you make bad medicine, bring rain, I kill you.'"
Having delivered their ultimatum, the visiting chiefs turned haughtily and rode to their own camp.
"I don't know just what they really did say," said Hartigan, "but if I'm any judge of looks, there'll be trouble here if those Crows don't get out."
It was four o'clock in the morning of the Fourth of July when the thunderbolt struck Fort Ryan. It was not very loud; it damaged no building; but it struck the very souls of men. A thousand thunder claps, a year's tornadoes in an hour, could not have been more staggering; and yet it was only four words of one poor, wheezing Irish hostler at the Colonel's window:
"Colonel! Colonel! For the love of God—come—come—come at once—Blazing Star is gone!"
"What?" and the Colonel sprang up.
The reveille had sounded, the men were just rising; but one group there was already about the stable talking with an air of intense excitement. The Colonel went without waiting to dress—the officer of the day with him. In terrible silence they hurried to the stable; there was Rover in his box, whinnying softly for his morning oats; but the next—the box of Blazing Star—was empty; and the far end, the outer wall, showed a great new doorway cut. Beyond, out in the growing light, troopers rode to every near-by lookout; but never a sign of horse did they see, or, indeed, expect to see. The case was very clear; the horse was stolen, gone clean away—their hope for the race was gone.