He was in a humor that was fiendish, and Jennie heard him explain the situation in a few words, and glad was her heart, though she showed no sign of understanding what had been said, as she asked in an innocent way: "Where is the scalp of the white captain, which the Red Hatchet was to show me?" "It hangs at the belt of the Red Hatchet. The Snow Flower will never see the white captain again," was the response. Jennie made no reply, and placing himself by her side the Red Hatchet took her bridle rein and led on toward the retreat in the Bad Lands. Jennie noted all as she went along, and saw how well chosen the position of the hostiles was to resist attack. But the chief went on at a rapid pace, ascended to the plateau, where the camps of the hostiles came in view, and going to a large tepee apart from the others called out to an aged Indian squaw as he rode up: "The mother of the Red Hatchet will care for the Snow Flower, who is the friend of our people." And thus poor Jennie found herself a captive in the hostiles' retreat. CHAPTER XXXV. MOON EYES, THE BRULE MEDICINE MAN. The Indians are wedded to their superstitions, and their medicine men hold an influence over them far more powerful than the priests of a church in civilization would over their congregations. A medicine man of tact, cunning, and courage can move a tribe to his liking, even the war chiefs fearing to go against his commands. And these same medicine men are respected and feared, their slightest vagaries tolerated, and their every wish gratified, be it what it may. Of late the influence of the war chiefs has been upon the wane, and it was, perhaps, that they realized this fact, and many of them sought, by an Indian war against the whites, to recover their waning prestige. The power of the medicine men, however, has held firmly, and yet only those who could show their claims to be just by deeds, were acknowledged men of influence. The contract of the Indians with the whites has caused evolution to work among the tepees of the red men as well as in the haunts of civilization. I refer to this fact to show how it was possible for a medicine man to wield great power over the superstitious minds of the redskins, and it will be remembered that Sitting Bull, the greatest Roman of them all, was a medicine chief, that his call to be rescued was promptly answered, and that a medicine man, Red Hatchet, brought on the fight at Wounded Knee Creek. Upon the night following the entrance of Red Hatchet and his captive into the hostiles' camp an Indian with bent form, carrying a red staff, and with his black, bushy hair overhanging his face, as though to shield it, was making his way into the Bad Lands. He wore the costume of a Brule medicine chief, a robe of white beaver skins being thrown over his form, and his war-paint, where visible, was of the most gorgeous hues and disfiguring.