Red Wing tried to lead a fierce resistance, and fell at the head of his following.
The other young bucks who had taken so gayly to the bloody warpath broke and fled, most of them being captured the next day, while some, resisting, were killed. Thus the threatened Cheyenne war was nipped in the bud.
The medicine man, though wounded by Barlow, escaped otherwise unscathed.
Buffalo Bill insisted that the sacred nuggets should be returned to him; which was done, though some of the troopers would have despoiled him if they had been permitted.
Thus the end came to Lieutenant Barlow, the young renegade, in the moment when he hoped for the success of his plans.
The end of the campaign was a quiet wedding, in the little sod house out on the prairie near Fort Cimarron.
Buffalo Bill and Wild Bill attended the wedding, and so did Colonel Montrose, and many of the troopers from the fort. As a wedding present, the colonel gave May Arlington the gold nugget which had first been brought to her in the letter.
No happier bridegroom ever lived than Ben Stevens. As for Wilkins, the young man who had carried the letter and had been to some extent the tool of Barlow, he made a full confession at his trial by court-martial. He lost his position in the army, but was not otherwise punished.
CHAPTER XXXII.
ALCOHOL AND ELOQUENCE.
“There were extenuating circumstances for the young fellow,” remarked Cody to Wild Bill, commenting on the trial of Wilkins, a few days later. “Chief of them is his youth. I really felt sorry for him when he told me about his difficulties.”