Al went into the woods and informed his mother that rescuers had come to them and, without mentioning their character, led her and Annie out. Mrs. Briscoe was much alarmed when she first saw the party of Indians assembled to meet them, but the latter greeted her so kindly and sympathetically that she soon felt easier. Three of the red men dismounted in order that she and Annie and Al might ride; and so, with the Indians leading their ponies, the cavalcade started southward at once in the direction of the fort. Al found that his confidence had not been misplaced, for in less than two hours they rode into the fort, safe but very weary and depressed. Fort Ridgely was nothing more than a collection of buildings,--quarters for troops, storehouses, stables, and the other structures necessary for a permanent military establishment, standing on an exposed hill surrounded by ravines and having no stockade or other defences whatever around it; for it was designed merely as a cantonment and supply depot and not as a defensive fortification. When the Briscoes entered it on that afternoon of August 19, it presented a scene of confusion and distress hard to imagine. It was thronged with refugees,--men, women, and children, from all the surrounding country, many of them destitute of everything save the clothes they wore. Some were wounded or badly burned in escaping from houses set on fire by their assailants; and others were arriving now and then who had escaped almost miraculously from the devastated section about the Lower Agency or from more distant points in other directions. These people were being fed from the stores in the Government warehouse; and the post barracks were not large enough to accommodate them, for, fortunately, more troops had arrived since the day before. Mrs. Briscoe soon found a friend in the warm-hearted Mrs. Olsen, who, as Al had conjectured, had come in on the previous day with her husband and children after having received warning of the uprising from Mr. Briscoe. Mrs. Olsen burst into tears on learning of the sad fate of the man to whom they very likely owed their own lives, and of the carrying off of poor little Tommy. She instantly brought them food, and after they had refreshed themselves, she insisted on Mrs. Briscoe and Annie taking her bed in their covered wagon and resting, at least until more commodious quarters could be found for them. Having seen his mother and sister thus as comfortably cared for as present circumstances would permit, Al started out to look for another place for them which would not so greatly inconvenience the Olsens, and to learn what could be done about sending pursuers after the Indians who had carried away Tommy.