First there were stifled sounds of scuffle from the interior of the guard-house; then shrill, wrathful screams; then a woman's voice unlifted in wild upbraidings in an unknown tongue, at sound of which Trooper Kennedy dropped his rein and his jaw, stood staring one minute; then, with the exclamation: "Mother of God, but I know that woman!" burst his way through the crowd and ran toward the old log blockhouse at the gate,--the temporary post of the guard. Just as he turned the corner of the building, almost stumbling against the post commander, there came bursting forth from the dark interior a young woman of the Sioux, daring, furious, raging, and, breaking loose from the grasp of the two luckless soldiers who had her by the arms, away she darted down the road, still screaming like some infuriated child, and rushed straight for the open gateway of the Hays. Of course the guard hastened in pursuit, the major shouting "Stop her! Catch her!" and the men striving to appear to obey, yet shirking the feat of seizing the fleeing woman. Fancy, then, the amaze of the swiftly following spectators when the trader's front door was thrown wide open and Mrs. Hay herself sprang forth. Another instant and the two women had met at the gate. Another instant still, and, with one motherly arm twining about the quivering, panting, pleading girl and straining her to the motherly heart, Mrs. Hay's right hand and arm flew up in the superb gesture known the wide frontier over as the Indian signal "Halt!" And halt they did, every mother's son save Kennedy, who sprang to the side of the girl and faced the men in blue. And then another woman's voice, rich, deep, ringing, powerful, fell on the ears of the amazed, swift-gathering throng, with the marvellous order: "Stand where you are! You shan't touch a hair of her head! She's a chief's daughter. She's my own kin and I'll answer for her to the general himself. As for you," she added, turning now and glaring straight at the astounded Flint, all the pent-up sense of wrath, indignity, shame and wrong overmastering any thought of prudence or of "the divinity that doth hedge" the commanding officer, "As for you," she cried, "I pity you when our own get back again! God help you, Stanley Flint, the moment my husband sets eyes on you. D'you know the message that came to him this day?" And now the words rang louder and clearer, as she addressed the throng. "_I_ do, and so do officers and gentlemen who'd be shamed to have to shake hands with such as he. He's got my husband's note about him now, and what my husband wrote was this--'I charge myself with every dollar you charge to Field, and with the further obligation of thrashing you on sight'--and, mark you, he'll do it!" CHAPTER XX THE SIOUX SURROUNDED