In order to protect the railway-builders he raised four companies of friendly Pawnee Indians. With these trusty scouts he would creep out stealthily at night from the constructional camp, make his way with impunity to the tepees of the Cheyennes or Sioux, and ascertain their projected operations. Sometimes he would surprise an Indian camp, and scatter the inmates who were on the warpath to the four winds. His marauding expeditions became so audacious that the natives were compelled to withdraw a respectable distance from the grade. He became so universally detested among the foe that the mention of North’s name was sufficient to provoke the most dismal howls of execration and vicious snarls of vengeance. At times he was absent so many days from the railhead camp that the engineers wondered gravely whether or not he had met an untimely end. Then when they were on the point of giving up hope of seeing him again, he would trot unconcernedly into camp, with his Pawnee shadows, as if returning from a hunt, but his general appearance and self-satisfied air told the navvies that he “had been at the Indians again.” He provoked the hostile Red Men to such an extreme pitch that they turned out in tremendous force sworn to his capture or death. Four times a pitched battle was fought, with tremendous losses; four times the Indians drew off, leaving North flushed with victory. At last the enemy became so disheartened that it withdrew, retreated for miles from the line, and there was a sullen interval in the conflict. North, however, was not to be lulled into a false sense of security. He divined that some ulterior move was projected. So it proved. The Indians, instead of concentrating their energies upon the destruction of the forces at the railhead, decided to attack the long line of communication at various points, to surprise and destroy the supply trains. A guerilla war broke out, and this baffled North, for he could not bring them to a pitched battle.