There was still sufficient light to see the Indians more or less clearly as they deployed in four large columns until they completely encircled the little fort.
They did not advance immediately to the attack, as the defenders expected. Instead, they sat on their horses like bronze statues, as soon as they had taken up their positions.
The men of the little garrison, clutching their rifles tightly, waited impatiently for the fray behind the log walls where they lay concealed.
In a few moments three men rode out from the Indian host, one of them, in the center, bearing a white flag, which he waved above his head as he approached the walls of the fort.
He was a man of gigantic stature, and he rode a big horse which absolutely dwarfed the small ponies of his companions.
As he halted about twenty yards outside the fort, Buffalo Bill could see at a glance that he was a white man, although he was dressed in the paint and feathers of a Sioux chieftain.
His two companions were redskins, one being a Cheyenne and the other a Crow. Thus the three tribes which had entered into a confederacy were represented under the flag of truce.
“That’s the renegade Irishman, sure enough!” said Buffalo Bill to the colonel, who nodded agreement.
Kennelly, the renegade, otherwise known as Bad Eye, reined up his horse and shouted, in English: