The chant suddenly changed to a yell. The drum beat quickened, and the great circle of dancing Indians broke and charged the crowd of whites. A number of them drew revolvers and began firing them into the air. Others drew taut the great bows they carried. The whites plunged backward precipitately.
Billy thrust Lydia behind him. "Don't move, Lyd," he cried, pushing aside a threatening buck as he did so.
"Kill 'em whites!" shrieked the squaws.
"Run 'em whites off our reservation!" shouted half a dozen young bucks.
Lydia was trembling but cool. "Good for them! Oh, Billy, good for them!" she exclaimed.
He did not reply. His great body circled about her, with shoulder and elbow buffeting off the surging crowd. Thus far the whites had taken the proceedings as a joke. Then a white woman screamed,—
"Run! It's a massacre!"
"Massacre" is a horrifying word to use to whites in an Indian country.
Men and women both took up the cry,—
"It's a massacre! Run!"
And the great crowd bolted.