He was not allowed to exult long in the pleasant hallucination.
Followed by the eyes of all, the young chief walked off with a proud step towards the woods.
On arriving near the edge of the timber, he faced round to the fort, drew the shining blade from his belt, waved it above his head, and in defiant tones shouted back the war-cry, “Yo-ho-ehee!”
Three times the wild signal pealed upon our ears; and at the third repetition, he who had uttered it turned again, sprang forward into the timber, and was instantly lost to our view.
There was no mistaking the intent of that demonstration; even the self-glorifying commissioner was convinced that it meant “war to the knife,” and men were hurriedly ordered in pursuit.
An armed crowd rushed forth from the gate, and flung themselves on the path that had been taken by the ci-devant captive.
The chase proved bootless and fruitless; and after more than an hour spent in vein search, the soldiers came straggling back to the fort.
Gallagher and I had stayed all the morning in my quarters, expecting the order that would confine me there. To our astonishment it came not: there was no arrest.
In time, we obtained the explanation. Of my two duelling antagonists, the first had not returned to the fort after his defeat, but had been carried to the house of a friend—several miles distant. This partially covered the scandal of that affair. The other appeared with his arm in a sling; but it was the impression, as Gallagher learned outside, that his horse had carried him against a tree. For manifest reasons the interesting invalid had not disclosed the true cause of his being “crippled,” and I applauded his silence. Except to my friend, I made no disclosure of what had occurred, and it was long before the affair got wind.