As the outer columns swung in, the inner spread out till the lapped wagons made a great oblong, Bridger watching them.  Quickly the animals were outspanned, the picket ropes put down and the loose horses driven off to feed while the cattle were close herded.  He nodded his approval.

“Who’s yer train boss, Bill?” he demanded.  “That’s good work.”

“Major Banion, of Doniphan’s column in the war.”

“Will he fight?”

“Try him!”

News travels fast along a wagon train.  Word passed now that there was a big Sioux village not far ahead, on the other side of the river, and that the caravan should be ready for a night attack.  Men and women from the earlier train came into the Westport camp and the leaders formulated plans.  More than four hundred families ate in sight of one another fires that evening.

Again on the still air of the Plains that night rose the bugle summons, by now become familiar.  In groups the wagon folk began to assemble at the council fire.  They got instructions which left them serious.  The camp fell into semi-silence.  Each family returned to its own wagon.  Out in the dark, flung around in a wide circle, a double watch stood guard.  Wingate and his aids, Banion, Jackson, Bridger, the pick of the hardier men, went out for all the night.  It was to Banion, Bridger and Jackson that most attention now was paid.  Banion could not yet locate Woodhull in the train.

The scouts crept out ahead of the last picket line, for though an attack in mass probably would not come before dawn, if the Sioux really should cross the river, some horse stealing or an attempted stampede might be expected before midnight or soon after.

The night wore on.  The fires of willow twigs and bois des vaches fell into pale coals, into ashes.  The chill of the Plains came, so that the sleepers in the great wagon corral drew their blankets closer about them as they lay.

It was approaching midnight when the silence was ripped apart by the keen crack of a rifle—­another and yet another.

Then, in a ripple of red detonation, the rifle fire ran along the upper front of the entire encampment.

“Turn out!  Turn out, men!” called the high, clear voice of Banion, riding back.  “Barricade!  Fill in the wheels!”

CHAPTER XVIII

ARROW AND PLOW

The night attack on the great emigrant encampment was a thing which had been preparing for years.  The increasing number of the white men, the lessening numbers of the buffalo, meant inevitable combat with all the tribes sooner or later.

Now the spring hunt of the northern Plains tribes was on.  Five hundred lodges of the Sioux stood in one village on the north side of the Platte.  The scaffolds were red with meat, everywhere the women were dressing hides and the camp was full of happiness.  For a month the great Sioux nation had prospered, according to its lights.  Two hundred stolen horses were under the wild herdsmen, and any who liked the meat of the spotted buffalo might kill it close to camp from the scores taken out of the first caravans up the Platte that year—­the Mormons and other early trailers whom the Sioux despised because their horses were so few.