It was just dawn when he reached his home, and having washed off his paint and resumed his civilized garb, he sought his father. The latter seemed to feel that he had been unsuccessful, for he asserted, rather than asked: "You came back alone?" "Yes." "Why?" "The Red Hatchet would not give her up." "You saw him?" "I did, and he refused." "You saw Jennie?" "No, for she was in the medicine lodge." "Ah! that looks bad; but it shows that the Red Hatchet intends she shall not be given up, but made a daughter of the tribe." "So he said." "Well, did you find out that the red fools intend to fight?" "I was so disappointed that I asked nothing, returning at once." "Well, that affair at Wounded Knee has infuriated the soldiers. Sitting Bull, their head, has gone, they have had a fight at the agency, attacked a train and were beaten off, and they killed that fellow Carey----" "Ha! is Kit Carey dead?" cried Herbert Bernard, eagerly. "Yes, he ventured too near their lines, a courier told me, and was killed." "I am glad of that." "Yes, it puts him out of your way as a rival; but possession is nine points of the law, and Red Hatchet has Jennie in his power, and the fool believes that the redskins will whip the soldiers." "All of them do, and their medicine men tell them that the ghost shirts will render them bullet-proof." "Fools! poor deluded fools! But I must get the girl, and, perhaps, I can persuade the chief to bury the hatchet--yes, it would be better so, for Miles knows what he is about and has got them hemmed in completely, and if the soldiers attack they will remember Custer and his men, and show no mercy--yes, and avenge Kit Carey, too, for he was the most popular officer in the army," said Vance Bernard, believing that it was Kit Carey who had been killed, as did the Sioux themselves, and also many in the army. "Well, can you rescue Jennie?" impatiently asked the young man. "Yes, and I will go to-night and do so," was the confident response of the settler. CHAPTER XL. THE WHITE RENEGADE. In his assumed character of Moon Eyes, the medicine man, Captain Kit Carey had managed to have several interviews with Jennie Woodbridge, and it had been arranged that she was to have a disguise as an Indian boy, and hold herself in readiness to go with the officer whenever he deemed it safe to lead her from the retreat of the hostiles. He had made another night visit to the ravine, where his two Indian soldiers were in hiding, for the courier sent to General Miles had returned in safety, and it was with a glad heart the young soldier read the words of praise, and learned that he had been given the two bars of a captain upon his epaulettes.