And as if this were not enough, barely half an hour later two men, mad with terror, came spurring in over the northward ridge, almost delirious with joy to find themselves in the presence of friends. Their little hunting camp, they said, had been suddenly "jumped" early in the night. They had managed to get out with stampeded horses, but every one else was butchered, and the Indians were after _them_. The major doubled his guards to the north and awaited the Indian coming. He would not rouse his wearied men until actually assailed. But now it was fairly broad daylight, and not an Indian feather had shown nor an Indian shot been heard. Slowly, sleepily, at the gruff summons of their sergeants, the troopers were crawling out of their blankets and stretching and yawning by the fires. No stirring trumpet-call had roused them from their dreams. A stickler for style and ceremony was the major in garrison, but out on Indian campaign he was "horse sense from the ground up," as his veterans put it. He observed all formalities when on ordinary march, and none whatever when in chase of the Indians. He had let them sleep to the very last minute, well knowing he might have stern demands to make that day. He and his adjutant had reduced the statements of the hunters to writing, and a brief, soldierly report was now ready to go to the general commanding the department, who had come out to Fort Niobrara to be nearer the scene of action. The fort lay nearly fifty miles away, south of east, the agency even farther to the north and east, and the recalcitrant braves were heading away through the wilds of their old reservation, and might stop only for occasional bite, sup, or sleep until they joined forces with Big Foot or Black Fox, full a hundred miles as the crow flies, for now were they branded renegades in the light of the law.