CHAPTER XII.
More Couriers.
“If Tuttle was here now he would play smash with you for serving his woman in that way,” said Harding, laying a heavy hand upon Carl’s arm and jerking him toward the tepee. “Get inside, where you belong.”
Carl went because he could not help himself, and the door was closed behind him. He was alone in the tepee, the squawman and the women having stayed outside to see what was going to happen. Carl wanted to see, too, and by looking around the tepee he found a place where the skins of which it was formed had not been stitched as closely together as they ought to have been, or, if they had been, the constant moving of the tepee had drawn them apart. It did not take him long to make this hole larger than it was, and by placing his eyes close to it he found that he could see everything that happened on the dancing-ground. The braves were still huddled together awaiting the approach of the three horsemen, and finally they began shouting at them and waving their guns; but the police did not stop. They were under orders which must be obeyed. When they came up with the braves the spokesman of the three began a speech to which the Indians paid no attention. They began yelling as soon as he began speaking, and for a few moments a great hubbub arose. In all his life on the plains Carl had never heard such a commotion before. Six or eight hundred Indians could easily drown out three men, and Carl could not hear a word they said. He expected every minute that some excitable young braves would shoot the policemen, but finally the latter gave it up and turned their horses toward the fort. Carl was greatly disappointed. He left the side of the tepee and seated himself on the bed, and a moment later the door opened and the squawman came in.
“That was one time they did not make it,” said he, giving one of his hideous grins.
“What did they want?” said Carl.
“They wanted to know if Kicking Bull had gone home yet, and when somebody told them that he had, they gave us the agent’s order to stop the Ghost Dance.”
“Well, are the Indians going to do it?”
“Not much, they ain’t. We did not come up here thirty-five miles for nothing. We have got the ground right here, we are away from everybody so that we can’t disturb them, and we intend to go on with it.”
“The next time the agent sends men here to tell you to stop the dance he will send an army with them.”