"It shall not be too late to avenge him if he has fallen," sternly said Captain Foshay, whose troop was ordered at once to mount and away. Off dashed the gallant troopers in the darkness, Captain Foshay in command, and they had gone but half a dozen miles from camp when in a voice that brought them to a sudden halt, came the challenge: "Halt!" Then quickly followed the words: "I am Lieutenant Kit Carey of the Seventh." A cheer followed his words, and springing forward to where Kit Carey sat upon his Indian pony, Captain Foshay seized his hands, while he said, earnestly: "My noble Carey, I have heard all from Emma, and was going to rescue you, or avenge you." "No need of either now, Captain Foshay, though I thank you for your coming; but Sitting Bull remembered a service I once rendered him when I was a mere boy, and he professed friendship, and released me." "Sitting Bull away from his camp?" said Captain Foshay, anxiously. "Yes, sir; but returning to it now." "The red scamp is away plotting mischief, for we know now that he is at the bottom of this Messiah craze, and is fomenting trouble among all the tribes who acknowledge his leadership. You are just the man, Lieutenant Carey, whom the general wishes, and if I am not mistaken you will start at once upon a mission that will either bring peace or war." "I wish I could feel that I could use such influence, captain," responded Kit Carey. "There is no doubt, Carey, but that you have more influence among the Sioux than any officer in the service, and if you accomplish the mission you are to be sent on, untold good will come of it; but let me tell you that your last gallant act of self-sacrifice to save my daughter has shown that the peace we have had on the border has not dulled either your courage or your gallantry. That my loved daughter and myself will ever remember it you may feel assured." "I am glad to know that Miss Foshay arrived in safety." "Oh, yes, she came to camp all right, though she said it was cowardly to desert you." "That she could not help, sir, for the horse she rode has an iron jaw, and no man could have checked him." They were returning to camp now at a trot, and the moment the troopers arrived, Captain Foshay led the gallant young officer to the quarters of the general, who welcomed him most heartily, complimented him upon his escape, and, hearing his story, said: "Now, Lieutenant Carey, General Miles has ordered that Sitting Bull be arrested in his camp and brought here. He had sent upon the mission Buffalo Bill, a man of unbounded influence with the chief and others of his tribe, but for some reason the President countermanded those orders, and you are the one now named to carry out the instructions of General Miles in regard to the arrest. Are you willing to undertake this most perilous mission, as you must know it to be?" "I am sir," was the firm reply of Kit Carey.