Chapter 20

Bright Sun's Good-by

Dick and Albert had not gone far before they saw lights on the bluffs of the Little Big Horn. Dick had uncommonly keen eyes, and when he saw a figure pass between him and the firelight he was confident that it was not that of a Sioux. The clothing was too much like a trooper's.

"Stop, Al," he said, putting his hand on his brother's shoulder. "I believe some of our soldiers are here."

The two crept as near as they dared and watched until they saw another figure pause momentarily against the background of the firelight.

"It's a trooper, sure," said Dick, "and we've come to our own people at last. Come, Al, we'll join them."

They started forward on a run. There was a flash of flame, a report, and a bullet whistled between them.

"We're friends, not Sioux!" shouted Dick. "We're escaping from the savages! Don't fire!"

They ran forward again, coming boldly into the light, and no more shots were fired at them. They ran up the slope to the crest of the bluff, leaped over a fresh earthwork, and fell among a crowd of soldiers in blue. Dick quickly raised himself to his feet, and saw soldiers about him, many of them wounded, all of them weary and drawn. Others were hard at work with pick and spade, and from a distant point of the earthwork came the sharp report of rifle shots.

These were the first white men that Dick and Albert had seen in nearly two years, and their hearts rose in their throats.

"Who are you?" asked a lieutenant, holding up a lantern and looking curiously at the two bare-headed, brown, and half-wild youths who stood before him in their rough attire of tanned skins. They might readily have passed in the darkness for young Sioux warriors.

"I am Dick Howard," replied Dick, standing up as straight as his weakness would let him, "and this is my brother Albert. We were with an emigrant trail, all the rest of which was massacred two years ago by the Sioux. Since then we have been in the mountains, hunting and trapping."

The lieutenant looked at him suspiciously. Dick still stood erect and returned his gaze, but Albert, overpowered by fatigue, was leaning against the earthwork. A half dozen soldiers stood near, watching them curiously. From the woods toward the river came the sound of more rifle shots.

"Where have you come from to-night? And how?" asked the lieutenant sharply.

"We escaped from the Sioux village," replied Dick. "I was in one part of it and my brother in another. We met by chance or luck in the night, but in the afternoon I saw all the battle in which the army was destroyed."

"Army destroyed! What do you mean?" exclaimed the officer. "We were repulsed, but we are here. We are not destroyed."

The suspicion in his