Keyser saluted.
“You will detail eight men to go with you into the Indian camp. The men are to carry pistols under their overcoats, and no other arms. You will tell the Indians to come out. Repeat what I said to them last night. Make it short. I’ll give them ten minutes. If they don’t come by then a shot will be fired out here. At that signal you will remain in there and blaze away at the Indians.”
So Keyser picked his men.
The thirty-one remaining troopers stopped joking, and watched the squad of nine and the interpreter file down the bank to visit the three hundred. The dingy overcoats and the bright green shawl passed into the thicket, and the General looked at his watch. Along the bend of the stream clear noises tinkled from the water and the ice.
“What are they up to?” whispered a teamster to Jack Long. Long’s face was stern, but the teamster’s was chalky and tight drawn. “Say,” he repeated, insistently, “what are we going to do?”
“We’re to wait,” Long whispered back, “till nothin’ happens, and then th’ Ole Man’ll fire a gun and signal them boys to shoot in there.”
“Oh, it’s to be waitin’?” said the teamster. He fastened his eyes on the thicket, and his lips grew bloodless. The running river sounded more plainly. “—— —— it!” cried the man, desperately, “let’s start the fun, then.” He whipped out his pistol, and Jack Long had just time to seize him and stop a false signal.
“Why, you must be skeered,” said Long. “I’ve a mind to beat yer skull in.”
“Waitin’s so awful,” whimpered the man. “I wisht I was along with them in there.”