“Get your men out of here quick, captain. Those fellows are crazy,” directed the general. “Send somebody forward to parley, and tell ’em who we are.” Lieutenant Tom Custer volunteered. “You’d better crawl,” advised the general. Colonel Tom advanced, in the dusk, toward the low mound beside the station buildings. Presently he had disappeared; he was crawling. “Bang!” greeted him a shot. “Hello!” he hailed. “Don’t shoot. We’re cavalry, I tell you.” “Come in close then; stand up an’ show yourself, if you’re white,” retorted a voice. “I’m coming,” answered Tom. “I’m Lieutenant Custer of the Seventh.” The lieutenant arrived, and the column, listening, could hear him earnestly explaining. Now from the dug-out a light flickered, and the lieutenant shouted to the column to come on. The dug-out held five station-men. They were waiting, on the outside, and even in the starlight they were sombre-eyed and haggard. “What’s the meaning of this, sirs?” demanded the general, angrily. “Well, cap’n, you see it’s this way,” explained the leader, a huge man with great full beard reaching to his waist. “We thought you was Injuns, an’ we ain’t takin’ any chances, these days.” “But you heard us hail you in good English.” “Certain we did; but that didn’t prove much. No, sir-ee. There are Injuns who speak as good English as you do, an’ that’s one o’ their latest tricks. They’re up to every sort o’ scheme, cap’n; an’ while we’re sorry to shoot at you, lettin’ strangers get near at night is too risky a matter. Speakin’ English don’t count with us fellows. We’re on to that Injun trick.” Therefore every occupied stage station must be approached with great caution. Besides the station dug-outs, the negro infantry posted in squads along the route to protect it had their dug-outs, too. These were of a more military nature than the station dug-outs, and were styled “monitors,” after the Monitor which fought the Merrimac, during the Civil War. The negro squads first dug out a square hole about breast deep, and large enough—say fifteen feet or more square—to hold them all. About the rim they piled up the dirt and sod; and from side to side they laid a roof of planks covered with more sod. Then they cut small loop-holes in the low walls, and ran a tunnel out a short distance, with a trap door. And they were well fixed. They could not be touched by fire or arrow or bullet. These queer fortifications, like huge squat mushrooms upon the flat surface of the bare prairie, did indeed resemble a “cheese-box on a raft.” At one of them, when the column arrived, the five negro soldiers under a corporal were bubbling with glee.