"Nothing can be done just now," answered Waller, gravely. "He has had high fever during the night--has been wakeful and flighty again. I--should rather no one entered just now." And then they noted that even the steward who had been with poor Field was now hovering about the door of the dispensary and that only Dr. Waller remained within the room. "I am hoping to get him to sleep again presently," said he. "And when he is mending there will be a host of things for you both to do." But that mending seemed many a day off, and Mrs. Hay, poor woman, had graver cares of her own before the setting sun. Avoiding the possibility of meeting the general just now, and finding Mrs. Dade both silent and constrained at mention of her niece's name, the trader's wife went straightway homeward from the hospital, and did not even see the post commander hurrying from his office, with an open despatch in his hand. But by this time the chief and his faithful aide were out on the veranda, surrounded by anxious wives and daughters, many of whom had been earnestly bothering the doctor at the hospital before going to breakfast. Dade much wished them away, though the news brought in by night riders was both stirring and cheery. The Indians had flitted away from Webb's front, and he counted on reaching and rescuing the Dry Fork party within six hours from the time the courier started. They might expect the good news during the afternoon of Thursday. Scouts and flankers reported finding _travois_ and pony tracks leading westward from the scene of Ray's fierce battle, indicating that the Indians had carried their dead and wounded into the fastnesses of the southern slopes of the Big Horn, and that their punishment had been heavy. Among the chiefs killed or seriously wounded was this new, vehement leader whom Captains Blake and Ray thought might be Red Fox, who was so truculent at the Black Hills conference the previous year. Certain of the men, however, who had seen Red Fox at that time expressed doubts. Lieutenant Field, said Webb, had seen him, and could probably say. Over this despatch the general pondered gravely. "From what I know of Red Fox," said he, "I should think him a leader of the Sitting Bull type,--a shrew, intriguing, mischief-making fellow, a sort of Sioux walking delegate, not a battle leader; but according to Blake and Ray this new man is a fighter." Then Mrs. Dade came out and bore the general off to breakfast, and during breakfast the chief was much preoccupied. Mrs. Dade and the aide-de-camp chatted on social matters. The general exchanged an occasional word with his host and hostess, and finally surprised neither of them, when breakfast was over and he had consumed the last of his glass of hot water, by saying to his staff officer, "I should like to see Mrs. Hay a few minutes, if possible. We'll walk round there first. Then--let the team be ready at ten o'clock."