And now, day by day, his situation became more precarious. Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and the other chiefs had somehow waxed more than doubtful of late as to whether his services in regard to a possible British intervention would be of any use at all--and this idea was insidiously fostered by his enemies, who were many and powerful-- Mountain Cat, the Ogallalla war-chief, and Crow-Scalper, who hated all whites, and the band of young desperadoes who had attached themselves to the fortunes of War Wolf. The latter brave's bumptiousness had become simply overwhelming. Full of the recently-acquired importance conferred upon him by his captivity among the whites and subsequent escape, he would strut and swagger around, bedecked in all his war-paint and finery--passing Vipan with a contemptuous laugh or a remark of covert insolence. The only consideration that restrained the latter from inflicting summary chastisement was the certainty that the hour he did so would be his last. And his friend and protector, Mahto-sapa, was frequently absent on warlike or diplomatic expeditions. The sullen and hostile feeling growing around him was written on every grim and scowling face. He felt as helpless as a fly in a spider's web. Pondering over these things, he was seated one day alone in the lodge of his host--the latter being away upon one of those absences which constituted such a peril to himself--when a shadow darkened the entry and a feminine voice inquired in English: "May I come in?" He started, as well he might. The accent was pure and refined, the tone firm and pleasing. For answer he rose and bowed, and the speaker entered. Strange as it may seem, during all this while Vipan had seen his host's white wife by no more than a few stray passing glimpses, and then at a distance. It had always struck him that she avoided him with design, and he had respected her motives. She dwelt in two _teepes_, which she occupied all to herself--an unwonted luxury--and was attended on by a Shoshone slave girl of unrivalled hideosity, captured on one of the chief's forays into the country of the Snakes. He saw before him a tall, fine-looking woman who might or might not have been under forty. She was habited in the tasteful Indian dress, and the tunic and leggings of soft doeskin, beautifully embroidered, brought out every line and curve of a splendidly-moulded figure. Her face, browned and hardened by exposure to the sun, and a life not altogether free from privation, was lighted up by a pair of clear blue eyes, and must formerly have been one of striking beauty. But the chief attraction was her hair. This was not arranged in two long plaits after the Sioux fashion, but rippled over her shoulders in a heavy redundant mass, forming a very mantle of sheeny, ruddy gold, explaining to the astonished spectator the name she bore among her adopted compatriots, The Sun Queen. But--Heavens--what an apparition to meet with in the camp of the hostile Sioux!