Stone did not like the outlook, but what was he to do? The agent had called for no more troops, and, until he called, Stone was forbidden to send unless some dire emergency arose, and then he must accept all responsibility, as one or other side was sure to get the worst of it, and he the blame. He went over and told Mrs. Ray he had just been talking with Sandy, who was all serene, said he, and all reassuringly he answered her anxious questions. Then he asked for Jimmy, whose temperature was ominously high, and for Dwight, whose spirits were correspondingly low. Dwight came out from the den, haggard, unshaven, gaunt. Never before had he been known to lack quick interest when danger threatened a comrade. To-night he hardly noted what Stone said about the situation at the agency. He was thinking only of his boy, and Stone, vaguely disappointed, went in search of Hurst, the senior captain, and Hurst looked grave. He, too, had had his share in Indian experience, and liked not the indications. "I don't fancy the agent's going to that pow-wow. He should have had the chief men come to _him_," said Hurst. "They wouldn't--said they feared the soldiers might shoot," said Stone, in explanation. "Anybody with him, sir?" "Ray says he insisted on an orderly, so one man went with him, to hold his horse while he talked. Skelton was chosen. He speaks a little Sioux." "Man we had a while ago on account of the Foster matter?" asked Hurst, with uplifted eyebrows. "Same. He's at home among the Indians, and some of them like him. Guess he's seen 'em before." At 11:30, when Stone would have called again to speak with the agency, it transpired that Central always went to bed at eleven--there was not enough night business to warrant the expense of keeping open. At 7 A. M., when again he would have spoken, Central had not come. It was eight before news could be had from the agency, and then it came in a roundabout way, for the line was down or cut or something was wrong far over toward the Minneconjou reservation. At 8:10 the trumpets of the cavalry were ringing, "To Horse!" the bugles of the foot, "To Arms!" At 8:30 the squadron was trotting, with dripping flanks, up the southward slope beyond the Minneconjou, a gaunt skeleton, with pallid cheek and blazing eye, leading swiftly on.