The crack of doom will never hit Fort Ryan harder. When the thousand painted Sioux came riding, yelling, wild with joy, shooting their rifles in the air, racing in a vast, appalling hoof tornado down the long track and then to the lodge of all the stakes, they went as men who are rushing to save their own from some swift flood that threatens. But they got an unexpected shock. The red sentry and the white sentry were standing—sullen, for they were forced to miss the race. Still, the result was clear.
The Sioux were each for claiming the bundle with his name. But the soldier on guard, with fixed bayonet, ordered all the frenzied rabble back.
"I don't know anything about your darned race, and here I stand till I get orders from my officer."
It was the very impudence of his courage that saved him from what they thought righteous vengeance. The Colonel came at once. The guard saluted and withdrew and the Red men seized their spoils. And, strange to say, among themselves they had not one dispute; none tried to overreach; each knew his mark and claimed his own.
The whites were like men under a gallows doom.
"Stung, stung!" was all the Colonel had to say.
The Adjutant, an erratic officer, had lost half a year's pay. The magnitude of the disaster was almost national, he felt, and sadly, shyly, he said: "Will you have the flag at half-mast, Colonel?"
"No!" thundered the Colonel. "I'll be darned if the flag shall hang at half-mast for anything less than the death of an American."
And the Rev. James Hartigan! He stared stonily before him as the race was won.
Belle was at hand and she watched him closely. He turned deathly pale.