There rushed out upon us a wild horde of excited savages, warriors and squaws, who pushed us about in sheer delirium, and even struck viciously at us across the shoulders of our indifferent guard, so that it was only by setting my teeth that I held back from grappling with the demons.

But Heald, older in years and of cooler blood, laid restraining hands upon my arm.
"'T is but the riff-raff," he muttered warningly.

"The chiefs will hold them back from doing us serious harm." As he spoke, Little Sauk uttered a gruff order, and the grim warriors on our flank drove back the jeering, scowling crowd, with fierce Indian cursing and blows of their guns, until the way had been cleared for our advance.

We moved on for two hundred yards or more, the maddened and vengeful mob menacing us just beyond reach of the strong arms, and howling in their anger until I doubted not their voices reached the distant Fort.
We came to a great wigwam of deer-skin, much larger than any I had ever seen, with many grotesque figures of animals sketched in red and yellow paint upon the outside, and clearly revealed by the blazing fire without.

A medicine-man of the tribe, hideous with pigment and high upstanding hair, sat beating a wooden drum before the entrance, and chanting wildly to a ferocious-looking horde of naked savages, many bleeding from self-inflicted wounds, who danced around the blaze, the leaping figures in the red glare making the scene truly demoniacal.
Little Sauk strode through the midst of them, unheeding the uproar, and flung aside the flap of the tent.
"White Chief and Long Knife wait here," he said Sternly.