Chapter XX Bright Sun's Good-by
Dick and Albert had not gone far before they saw lights on the bluffs of the Little Big Horn. Dick had uncommonly keen eyes, and when he saw a figure pass between him and the firelight he was confident that it was not that of a Sioux. The clothing was too much like a trooper's.
"Stop, Al," he said, putting his hand on his brother's shoulder.
"I believe some of our soldiers are here."
The two crept as near as they dared and watched until they saw another figure pause momentarily against the background of the firelight.
"It's a trooper, sure," said Dick, "and we've come to our own people at last. Come, Al, we'll join them."
They started forward on a run. There was a flash of flame, a report, and a bullet whistled between them.
"We're friends, not Sioux!" shouted Dick. "We're escaping from the savages! Don't fire!"
They ran forward again, coming boldly into the light, and no more shots were fired at them. They ran up the slope to the crest of the bluff, leaped over a fresh earthwork, and fell among a crowd of soldiers in blue. Dick quickly raised himself to his feet, and saw soldiers about him, many of them wounded, all of them weary and drawn. Others were hard at work with pick and spade, and from a distant point of the earthwork came the sharp report of rifle shots.
These were the first white men that Dick and Albert had seen in nearly two years, and their hearts rose in their throats.
"Who are you?" asked a lieutenant, holding up a lantern and looking curiously at the two bare-headed, brown, and half-wild youths who stood before him in their rough attire of tanned skins. They might readily have passed in the darkness for young Sioux warriors.