Part 4 (1/2)

And Seth turned to the driving plate and sounded a preliminary whistle

CHAPTER IV

ROSEBUD

It is nearlywoods on the southern spur of the Black Hills are in full retreat Another desperate battle, such as crowd the unwritten history of the United States, has been fought and won The history of the frontiersht envy It is to the devotion of such , for without their aid, nopeace and prosperity to a land The power of the sword may conquer and hold, but there its mission ends It is left to the frontiersman to do the rest

The battle-field is streith dead and dying; but there are no white faces staring blankly up at the heavens, only the painted, seared features of the red man Their opponents are under cover If they have any dead or dying they are with the living These ht in the ence

But though the whitewoods have swept across the homestead of ”old man” Jason, for years a landmark in the country, and now it is no , a witness to the whitewoods are approachable only on the ard side, and even here the heat is blistering It is still impossible to reach the ruins of the homestead, for the wake of the fire is like a superheated oven And so theleft for theht and driven off the horde of Indians, who first sacked the ranch and then fired it But the inst theh plainsmen asked theration; then they shut their teeth hard andtheir inquiries further It was the only way

A narrow river skirts the foot of the hills, cutting the ho its bank, on the prairie side, is a scattered brush such as is to be found adjacent to most woods The fire has left it untouched except that the foliage is much scorched, and it is here that the victors of an unrecorded battle lie hidden in the cover Though the enemy is in full retreat, and the rearainst the horizon, not a man has left his shelter They are men well learned in the craft of the Indians

Dan So the sa the last of the braves as they desperately hasten out of range At last he moves and starts to rise fro hand checks hiain

”Not yet,” he said

”Why?”

But the sheriff yielded nevertheless In spite of his fledgling twenty-two years, Seth was an experienced Indian fighter, and Dan Somers knew it; no one better Seth's father and o at the hands of the Cheyennes It was jokingly said that Seth was a white Indian By which those who said it meant well but put it badly He certainly had remarkable native instincts

”This heat is hellish!+” So hard at a rather large bluff on the river bank, some three hundred yards ahead Then he added bitterly, ”But it ain't no use We're too late The fire's finished everything Maybe we'll find their bodies I guess their scalps are elsewhere”

Seth turned He began to h the grass like soreat lizard

”I'll be back in a whiles,” he said, as he went ”Stay right here”

He was back in a few minutes No Indian could have been more silent in his movements

”Well?” questioned the sheriff

Seth suess,”

he said ”Fill up”

And the two azines of their Winchesters

Presently Seth pointed silently at the big bluff on the river bank The next moment he had fired into it, and his shot was followed at once by a perfect hail of lead frooing was demonstrated

For nearly two minutes the fusilade continued, then Seth's words were proved There was a rush and scra of brush Thirty ed the whitefire Half the number were unhorsed, and the riderless ponies fled in panic in the direction of those who had gone before

But while others headed these howling, painted fiends Seth's rifle remained silent He knew that this wild rush was part of a deliberate plan, and he waited for the further developun leapt to his shoulder as a horse and rider darted out of the brush Theescape under cover of his staunch warriors' desperate feint Seth had him marked down He was the man of all whom he had looked for But the ai that looked like woo free Seth was very deliberate at all times; noas particularly so And when the puff of smoke passed from the itive had fallen, and his horse had gone on riderless

Now the few re braves broke and fled, but there was no escape for the too close Not one was left to join the retreating band It was a desperate slaughter