“I don't like this Indian guise,” he said, vexatiously. “I'm not at home in it, and then Golden George is not obliged to wear it in Sioux land, anyway.”
As Golden George rode from the spot where he had found his horse, he threw off the rough cavalry jacket which fitted his body, and drew a soft hat from his bosom; then a little water from the canteen that was hidden by one of the skirts of the saddle, removed the colouring from face and hands, and as he passed the belt of timber and emerged upon a little open country, lit up by the rising moon, he was Golden George, the Sport, not the mock Indian of the Sioux town.
“Hist!”
The horse stopped suddenly, and threw his slender ears erect.
“A horn, by my life!” ejaculated the Sport, a look of surprise in his eyes. “It sounds like a military bugle; but there are no troops in these parts. I'm near no Government station. They have wild stories about Deadwood, that the ghost of Custer's bugler haunts this Indian land; but that's all bosh—old women's twaddle. A horn it is—not a trumpet—there it goes again! Ghost or not, that trumpet belongs to some regiment.”
Still puzzled, but determined to solve the mystery, the Sport galloped ahead again, crossed the valley, penetrated the timber, and saw the moonlight on the waves of the swift little river that rushed toward the broad bosom of the Missouri.
He turned his horse's head up the stream to whose bank he had ridden, and the animal was already obeying the pressure of the spurs, when Golden George suddenly drew rein.
Another moment and he was on the ground, holding in his hand a beautiful silver bugle on whose shining surface could be seen the inscription, “Seventh Cavalry, U. S. A.” The mystified look in the Sport's eyes was complete.
“I'll blow a blast,” he thought. “Maybe it will bring the ghost back.”
Then a musical call, weird but beautiful, came from the mouth of the historic bugle, and Golden George listened with a smile at the echoes that came back from the wood.