One cool-headed, nervy, mild-mannered young officer had taken his life in his hands, and a half-breed interpreter in civilized clothing, visited Si Tanka's big village and had a talk with his turbulent braves, to the end that as many as forty decided to quit, go home and be good, give up evil spirits, intentions, and ghost-dancing, to the rage of Black Fox and the amaze of Napa Yahmni, but it wasn't a week before another Messiah broke loose among the sand-hills of western Nebraska, and braves by the dozen sped thither to hear him; and presently both agencies had another influx of outsiders, urging revolt and uprising, and the old men counselled vainly, and preachers and teachers pleaded without avail. The young wards of the nation were ripe for mischief. The day of their deliverance had come. The Messiah was calling his chosen to the wild wastes of the Bad Lands, where they could sing and shout and dance till they dropped, and then if they went mad with religion, and away to the warpath, it meant woe for western Nebraska and for the Dakotas far and near. This was the situation that called for a scout from Fort Niobrara, and thus it happened that for over a fortnight a little column of cavalry had been patrolling the breaks and the valleys away to the northwest, peering into the old haunts of the Sioux along the headwaters of the pretty streams rising among the hills beyond the weather-beaten landmark of Eagle's Nest. They found lodge poles a-plenty on Black Pipe Creek, and the ashes of many a little fire along Pass Creek and Bear-in-the-Lodge, and away to the Yellow Medicine. They circled clear round the wild worshippers, it seems, far west as the Wounded Knee, without ever encountering one; and yet keeping them on the move had broken up their incantations, and, as the major believed, had worn out their obstinate determination to stick to their medicine-men and Messiahs whether the Great White Father would have it or not.
For two days the column had followed, eastward now, the trail of a big band, and just when Baptiste and Touch-the-Sky, interpreters, would have it that the crazy chiefs and their followers had been fairly headed off and balked of their purpose of joining Big Foot beyond the Cheyenne, just when it seemed likely that another day would enable the troops to overhaul them and herd them peaceably, if possible, forcibly, if not, back to the sheltering wing of the agency and the Indian police, lo, just at sunset, after a long day's march, a corporal had come galloping, full cry, from the rear-guard, while the scouts were still far out to the front: "The Indians are back of us at least six miles, going like mad for the north!"