“Yes,” was the feeble answer. “Every dog has his day, George.”
“How came ye hare?” suddenly broke in the frontiersman. “Ye came out with a train, I suppose.”
“Yes; we were attacked this day about noon. It was a terrible massacre.”
“Who led the Pawnees?—for Pawnees, of course, the red dogs were.”
“A white man—the ‘Dandy Demon of the Plains,’ I should call him.”
Frontier Shack gritted his teeth.
“We’ll talk about that scoundrel—Tom Kyle—some other time,” he said. “How many escaped the butchery?”
“Three persons, besides ourselves. They were Mr. Denison, Government agent, his daughter Mabel, and his niece, Miss Aiken. After the massacre the band divided; the larger portion went northward with the three; we fell to the lot of the minority.”
“Where did that organ come from?”
“An Italian was crossing the plains with the emigrants, to try his fortune in the land of gold.”