“Give them a couple of shots just at dawn, Benedict, and the other camps will do the same to show them that we have guns at each ford.
“We will camp at the fords for a couple of days yet, and then return by easy marches to the fort, for I do not believe a redskin will venture across the river for a long while to come. Eh, Cody?”
“I do not think so, either, sir, unless Eagle, the outlaw, puts them up to some act of deviltry,” was the scout’s answer, and, after a snack, the lieutenant and his two companions returned to their own camp.
The stay of the commands at the fords was continued for three days longer, and every morning and evening what the troops called the “sunrise and sunset guns” were fired across the river at the Indian camps, the guns being loaded with shell.
Since the first night of the firing not an Indian had been seen or heard. They were either gone or in hiding farther off.
Sergeant Fallon volunteered to go across and discover, making the site of the three fords in the night along the trail upon the other side, but Lieutenant Worth said that he did not care to have him take any more chances.
Then the sergeant said it would be well for him to cross just where he had before, and let the Indians feel that he was still trying to serve them, also giving them another ghost story about the troops intending to remain for some time.
Thus urged, the lieutenant yielded, and, rigging out in his Indian costume once more, Sergeant Fallon rode slowly away from the fort after supper one night.
Lieutenant Worth and Buffalo Bill accompanied him to the river, and then waited.
It was bright moonlight, and the other shore could be plainly seen, the officer and the scout watching the sergeant all the way across and until he disappeared in the shadows of the other side.