Through the reserves round about for many
miles swarth heralds proclaimed that the great Chief Big
Bear was giving a White Dog feast to his braves before
summoning them to follow him upon the war-path. The feast
was, in Indian experience, a magnificent one, and before
the young men departed they swore to Big Bear that they
returned only for their war-paint and arms, and that
before the set of the next sun they would be back at his
side.
True to their word the Indians came, hideous in their
yellow paint. If you stood to leeward of them upon the
plain a mile away you could clearly get the raw, earthy
smell of the ochre upon their hands and faces. Some had
black bars streaked across their cheeks, and hideous
crimson circles about their eyes. Some, likewise, had
stars in pipe-clay painted upon the forehead.
Now the immediate object of the warlike enthusiasm of
all these young men was the capture of Fort Pitt, an
undertaking which they hardly considered worth shouldering
their rifles for. But when it came to the actual taking
it was a somewhat different matter. There were twenty-one
policemen in the Fort and they had at their head an
intrepid chief, Mr. Inspector Dickens, already referred
to in this chapter. It was useless to fire bullets at
the solid stockades; massacre was out of the question,
for keen eyes peered ever from the Fort. Big Bear now
had grown very ambitious.
"Fort Pitt hardly worth bothering about," he said to his
braves.
Pages:
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178