But the medicine chief, apparently an old man, did not appear to notice him, even when sternly came the words in the Sioux tongue:
"Let the medicine chief beware! I understand his words to his braves!"
But the medicine chief sang on, and, walking rapidly toward the colonel, Kit Carey told him what the medicine chief was saying, and that he was urging the warriors to refuse to yield their weapons, if they died with them in their hands.
Quickly Colonel Forsythe gave an order to Captain Wallace to dismount his men and form about the braves.
The soldiers were quickly dismounted, and formed in open file between the warriors and their tepees.
Then details of soldiers were ordered to search the tepees, and as they moved forward to obey, under command of Captain Wallace and Lieutenant Carey, the bent form of the medicine chief straightened up partially, and he began to make incantations to the sun, and chant aloud a war-song to the Indian messiah.
The effect upon the Indians was electrical, for they stood like wild beasts at bay; their squaws and children caught up the weird chant of the medicine man, who suddenly stooped, grasped up two handfuls of dirt, and threw them upon the soldiers.
Then he threw off his robes, and, appearing in his full costume as a chief, revealed that he was the ghost spirit, marked with red Indian characters.
At the same instant he drew from beneath his blanket a rifle, and fired full at Kit Carey, while from his lips came the war-cry that ushered in the terrible tragedy that followed.