He struck the spurs into the one he rode, and it started on with such a jump that he was almost thrown out of the saddle. She began to scream then, though they were so far from the fort by this time that her screams could not reach it. “I’ll have to force you to stop that, if you don’t stop it yourself,” he threatened. His anger was growing. In spite of the threat she screamed the louder, and threshed about so violently that he began to fear he could not hold her on the horse. In the midst of this there was a clatter of pony hoofs, and a mass of dark riders loomed before them as if they had leaped out of the ground. The next minute Barlow and the girl were in the midst of a body of Cheyennes. The young Indians clutched the horses by the bridles and threw them back on their haunches. They pressed close up to the riders, and grunted when they saw that one of them was a girl and the other an officer of the army. “What do?” the leader asked in broken English. The cries of the girl had drawn them, though it seemed probable they would have heard Barlow in his flight any way. Barlow was himself very much startled and frightened. However, he took courage, for the Indian who spoke to him, he discovered, was one he knew; a young buck he had once aided, and with whom since he had been more or less on terms of friendship. “See here!” he shouted. “Is that you, Red Wing?” Red Wing and the other young Cheyennes grunted. “Is that you, Red Wing? I’m Barlow, you know--Lieutenant Barlow, at the fort.” Red Wing pushed nearer. All the girl could see in the darkness was the outline of his feathered head and the glitter of his eyes. “What got?” said Red Wing, peering at the girl, who shrank from him. “This is my sister, Red Wing. We were on our way to the home of a friend who lives out here. You’ll let us go on?” The other Cheyennes began to murmur. Their restive, prancing ponies, the guttural talk, and exclamations, the fluttering of their feathers, combined in the darkness to give to the girl such feelings of terror that she could hardly keep from again screaming outright. “The Wolf Soldier speaks with a straight tongue?” questioned Red Wing. The other Cheyennes set up a clamor, fearing the prisoners were to be released. These were the first white people they had encountered in their efforts at raiding, and they did not want them to slip through their fingers now. “I speak with a straight tongue, Red Wing,” Barlow protested. “She is my sister, and we are going to visit a friend.” But they were not to be permitted to go on. “Wolf Soldier stay with me, and she stay with me,” was the announcement, whereupon the Cheyennes closed in about their prisoners. But because the Wolf Soldier was known to Red Wing, the prisoners were not tied, nor were they treated to any savage brutality, as would otherwise have been the case.