In about two hours the party arrived at the mouth of Spillman Creek, and the first evidence of the acts of the savages confronted the men. Riding up to a small cabin which the Indians had not consigned to the torch, no doubt having missed it on their fiendish rounds, they discovered two little girls crouched in one of its dark corners. One of them was only six years old, and her sister but eight. They were very bright for their age, and told a wonderfully sad story of their escape from the Indians. They said that a big band of savages rode up to their home very early in the morning; that their father and mother were not yet out of bed. The Indians killed both of them, and after setting the house on fire, threw the children on their ponies and rode off. Coming to the top of a high hill, they saw a company of soldiers in the distance, and they then dropped them on the prairie and hurried away as fast as their ponies could run. The girls were not hurt at all. They wandered on, frightened nearly to death, and seeing the cabin down in the valley, they went to it and slept there all night. They had waked very early in the morning, and on going out of doors, saw the wild grapes growing on the vines at the creek; they ate some for their breakfast, but soon hearing the sound of horses' hoofs, and thinking the Indians were coming to look for them, they crawled back into the corner where the scouts had found them. Captain Tucker and the rest of the scouts were in a dilemma at first when they found themselves with the two little orphaned children on their hands; and they did not know exactly what to do. But soon Joe's excellent judgment manifested itself. He proposed that one of the men should be sent back to Colonel Keogh's camp to tell him of their discovery, and ask him to send his ambulance out to take the children to Fort Harker, where they would be cared for by the kind ladies of the post. The suggestion was acted upon at once. Every man volunteered to go, so it was left to the Captain to select one. This he did, started him off, and left Mr. Thompson to stay with the little girls until the arrival of the ambulance. He and the others of the party then rode up on the valley of Spillman Creek, as the savages appeared to have confined their atrocities to that narrow region. As they were riding close to the bank of the stream, about three miles from where they had found the two girls, they saw a wagon with the horses still attached. As they came up to it for a closer examination, two men, both of whom were known to Alderdyce, came out of the underbrush.