“Daddy!  Daddy!  I want you.”  Then repeated with a throb in its depths that spoke louder than words.  “Daddy, come!  I’m afraid!”

CHAPTER III

DISCOVERY

More than a mere name was Fort Yankton.  Original in construction, as necessity ever induces the unusual, it was nevertheless formidable.  To the north was a typical entrenchment with a ditch, and a parapet eight feet high.  To the east was a double board wall with earth tamped between:  a solid curb higher than the head of a tall man.  Completing the square, to the south and west stretched a chain of oak posts set close together and pierced, as were the other walls of the stockade, by numerous portholes.  Within the enclosure, ark of refuge for settlers near and afar, was a large blockhouse wherein congregated, mingled and intermingled, ate, slept, and had their being, as diverse a gathering of humans as ever graced a single structure even in this land of myriad types.  Virtually the entire population of frontier Yankton was there.  Likewise the settlers from near-by Bon Homme.  An adventurer from the far-away country of the Wahpetons and a trapper from the hunting ground of the Sissetons drifted in together, together awaited the signal of the peace pipe ere returning to their own.  Likewise from the wild west of the great river, from the domain of the Uncpapas, the Blackfeet, the Minneconjous, the Ogallalas, came others; for the alarm of rapine and of massacre had spread afar.  Very late to arrive, doggedly holding their own until rumour became reality unmistakable, was the colony from the Jim River valley to the east; but even they had finally surrendered, the dogging grip of fear, that makes high and low brothers, at their throats, had fled precipitately before the conquering onslaught of the Santees.  Last of all, boldest of all, most foolhardy of all, as you please, came the tiny delegation from the settlement of Sioux Falls.  Hungry, thirsty, footsore, all but panic-stricken, for with the actual retreat apprehension had augmented with each slow mile, thanking the Providence which had permitted them to arrive unmolested, a sorry-looking band of refugees, they faced the old smoothbore cannon before the big south gate and craved admittance.  Out to them went Colonel William Landor, colonel by courtesy, scion of many generations of Landors, rancher at present, cattle king of the future.  The conversation that followed there with the east reddening in the morning sun was very brief, very swift to the point.

“Who are you, friends?” The shrewd grey eyes were observing them collectively, compellingly.

“My name is McPherson.”

“Mine is Horton.”

“Never mind the names,” shortly.  “I can learn them later.”

“We’re homesteaders.”  Again it was stubby, sandy-whiskered McPherson who took the lead.

“From where?”

“Sioux Falls.”