"Yes, it would be my duty--I have promised--but he will come. He trusts me. I have ordered him to bring all his people and camp as usual just above the agency store. Now, of course, no one can tell the precise outcome of all this, and if you, Miss Brisbane, and Mr. and Mrs. Parker, want to go down to the white settlement, I will send you at once. Mr. Lawson will go with you, or I will ask the sheriff to take you--" "The safest place on the reservation is right here!" said Lawson. "Suppose the ranchers return--they will take control here, and use the agency as a base of supplies; the fighting will take place in the hills. Besides, our going would excite the settlers uselessly, and put Captain Curtis deeper into trouble. I propose that we stay right here, and convince the employes and the Indians that we are not alarmed. I don't want to assume the responsibility of a panic, and our going this afternoon might precipitate one." Curtis was profoundly grateful to Lawson for this firm statement. "I think you are right, Mr. Lawson," he said, formally. "You see my position clearly. I feel sure I can control the sheriff by peaceable means--and yet my responsibility to you weighs upon me." He looked at Elsie again. "I think you can trust me. Will you stay?" "Of course we will stay," she replied, and Parker sank into his chair as if resigned to his fate. Curtis went on: "I am not speaking to reassure myself. Perhaps I am too positive, but my experience as an officer in the army has given me a contempt for these six-shooter heroes. The thing I really fear is a panic among the settlers. Naturally, I am disinclined towards the notoriety I would gain in the press; but the troops will certainly be here to-morrow, and that will settle the turmoil. The sheriff is less of an embarrassment, now that he has only Calvin as deputy." "Send the sheriff over here--we'll entertain him by showing him the photograph album," called Jennie. "We helped out this forenoon, and we can do it again." "I don't think such heroic methods are necessary; an extra good dinner will do quite as well," replied Curtis, smiling. "I'm sorry, Mr. Parker, that your expedition for material is coming to this grewsome end." Elsie interposed. "It is precisely what he wants; he will know from positive knowledge how a Tetong brave dresses for war. I have always claimed that no Indian ever wore that absurd war-bonnet." Lawson added: "And _you_ will gain valuable information as to the character of white settlers and 'Indian outbreaks.'" "I ought to telegraph papa." "I have already done so," replied Lawson--"in anticipation of the hullabaloo that will break forth in the papers of the State to-morrow." "I shall wire the department a full statement to-night," said Curtis. "But we must be careful what we say at this point." "Isn't it a foolish thing not to have a telegraph line connecting the fort and the agency?" cried Jennie. "The troops could have been half-way here by this time."