“I did, sir.”
“Then you won’t go; you can bet your bottom dollar on that. You don’t want to hide from them,” continued the captain, seeing that the lieutenant looked disappointed over what had been said. “You want to go by them openly and above-board, so as to let them know that we are not afraid of them. If they see that we know they are going on with the dance, I think they will stop it. Be careful in the future, when the colonel is talking of sending you on an expedition, that you don’t say anything about hiding. That’s a word that won’t go down.”
“But look here, captain,” said Parker, a bright idea striking him, “the colonel suggested that I get something to eat before I go.”
“W-h-e-w!” whistled the captain. “This beats me. Here you are ordered to take dispatches through a band of savages who have never yet done the first thing to indicate that they were on the warpath excepting to point their guns at those two men that Galbraith sent out to stop them in their Ghost Dance, and the colonel does not object to your hiding from them! I can’t understand it.”
“Perhaps he does not want it to get out among them that he has been sending dispatches to General Miles,” suggested Parker.
“Oh, he needn’t think to stop it that way. Mark my words,” said the captain, approaching close to Parker and laying his forefinger upon his shoulder, “the Sioux will know of that dispatch as soon as Miles will. You needn’t think to keep it from them.”
So saying the captain walked away, leaving Parker lost in wonder. He glanced about the parade ground, but he couldn’t see anything of a Sioux brave there; and then, seeing his men drawn up in line and waiting for him to dismiss them, he beckoned Leeds to approach him.
“Break ranks,” said he, “and set two of the men at work cutting up some of that game for supper. Remember that the captain wants some of that elk.”
Having thus disposed of his men, Lieutenant Parker walked slowly toward the place where Carl, the Trailer, was standing, waiting to see what was going to happen.
“Say, Carl,” he said, sinking his voice almost to a whisper, “do you see any Sioux Indians around here?”