“Watch them close, boys,” whispered Auberry.  “They’ve got plenty of irons around them somewhere, and plenty of scalps, too, maybe.”

“Talk to them, Auberry,” said Belknap; and as the former was the only one of us who understood the Sioux tongue, he acted as interpreter.

“What are the Sioux doing so far east?” he asked of their spokesman, sternly.

“Hunting,” answered the Sioux, as Auberry informed us.  “The white soldiers drive away our buffalo.  The white men kill too many.  Let them go.  This is our country.”  It seemed to me I could see the black eyes of the Sioux boring straight through every one of us, glittering, not in the least afraid.

“Go back to the north and west, where you belong,” said Auberry.  “You have no business here on the wagon trails.”

“The Sioux hunt where they please,” was the grim answer.  “But you see we have our women and children with us, the same as you have—­and he pointed toward our camp, doubtless knowing the personnel of our party as well as we did ourselves.

“Where are you going?” asked our interpreter.

The Sioux waved his arm vaguely.  “Heap hunt,” he said, in broken English now.  “Where you go?” he asked, in return.

Auberry was also a diplomat, and answered that we were going a half sleep to the west, to meet a big war party coming down the Platte, the white men from Laramie.

The Indian looked grave at this.  “Is that so?” he asked, calmly.  “I had not any word from my young men about a war party coming down the river.  Many white tepees on wheels going up the river; no soldiers coming down this way.”

“We are going on up to meet our soldiers,” said Auberry, sternly.  “The Sioux have killed some of our men below here.  We shall meet our soldiers and come and wipe the Sioux off the land if they come into the valley where our great road runs west.”

“That is good,” said the Sioux.  “As for us, we harm no white man.  We hunt where we please.  White men go!”

Auberry now turned to us.  “I don’t think they mean trouble, Lieutenant,” he said, “and I think the best thing we can do is to let them alone and go on up the valley.  Let’s go on and pull on straight by them, the way they did us, and call it a draw all around.”

Belknap nodded, and Auberry turned again to the four Sioux, who stood tall and motionless, looking at us with the same fixed, glittering eyes.  I shall remember the actors in that little scene so long as I live.

“We have spoken,” said Auberry.  “That is all we have to say.”

Both parties turned and went back to their companions.  Belknap, Auberry and I had nearly reached our waiting troopers, when we missed Orme, and turned back to see where he was.  He was standing close to the four chiefs, who had by this time reached their horses.  Orme was leading by the bridle his own horse, which was slightly lame from a strain received in the hunt.