"There is no doubt, Carey, but that you have more influence among the Sioux than any officer in the service, and if you accomplish the mission you are to be sent on, untold good will come of it; but let me tell you that your last gallant act of self-sacrifice to save my daughter has shown that the peace we have had on the border has not dulled either your courage or your gallantry. That my loved daughter and myself will ever remember it you may feel assured."
"I am glad to know that Miss Foshay arrived in safety."
"Oh, yes, she came to camp all right, though she said it was cowardly to desert you."
"That she could not help, sir, for the horse she rode has an iron jaw, and no man could have checked him."
They were returning to camp now at a trot, and the moment the troopers arrived, Captain Foshay led the gallant young officer to the quarters of the general, who welcomed him most heartily, complimented him upon his escape, and, hearing his story, said:
"Now, Lieutenant Carey, General Miles has ordered that Sitting Bull be arrested in his camp and brought here. He had sent upon the mission Buffalo Bill, a man of unbounded influence with the chief and others of his tribe, but for some reason the President countermanded those orders, and you are the one now named to carry out the instructions of General Miles in regard to the arrest. Are you willing to undertake this most perilous mission, as you must know it to be?"
"I am sir," was the firm reply of Kit Carey.
"That you have seen Sitting Bull secretly away from his camp proves that he is visiting other chiefs to foster trouble, and General Miles has knowledge that the old fellow is at the bottom of all the present trouble. Now, when will Sitting Bull return to his camp, think you?"
"By morning, sir, for I waited to see what trail he took from the ridge."