Great Soldier Prevents an Indian Attack is the quiet, almost invisible climax of the Ingalls family's time in Indian Territory — a crisis of war-cries and drums that never becomes a battle, because one Osage chief argues it out of existence. For nights the Ingalls family huddles in their little house while the Indian camps along the creek erupt in howls that Laura finds worse than wolves, and Pa watches at the window with his gun. Yet the attack never comes. The event that saves them is not a fight but a negotiation, conducted in a language the family cannot understand, by a man they have met only once before. When the truth finally reaches them, it reframes everything: the terrifying noise was not a war against them but an argument among tribes, and the tall Indian who once sat silently by their fire was, all along, their protector.

The Gathering Storm and the Night of War-Cries

The crisis builds through a season of mounting dread. After the Indian camps swell with tribes gathering to hunt buffalo, Mr Edwards tells Pa he does not like so many Indians so near, and Mr Scott voices the settlers' harshest view: "The only good Indian is a dead Indian." Pa disagrees, saying he thinks the Indians are as good as anyone if they are left alone, but he acknowledges that the government has moved them west so many times that they naturally hate white settlers, and that they are only held back by fear of the white soldiers at Fort Dodge and Fort Gibson. Some settlers begin talking of building a stockade, but Pa argues against it, telling Mr Scott and Mr Edwards that if they need one they will need it before they can build it, and that the worst thing is to show they are afraid. Laura wonders at this, because Pa is never afraid — but she is. Every night the Indian drums beat faster and faster, and the cries grow wilder and wilder. One night she sits straight up in bed and screams at a terrible sound, and Ma hushes her gently, telling her she must not frighten Carrie. The drums seem to beat inside Laura's head, and the wild howls are worse than wolves. Then they hear a running horse. In the moonlight Laura sees a little black horse with an Indian on its back — a blanket around him, feathers on his head, a gun at his side — riding by as fast as the wind. Pa recognizes him: it is the tall Osage Indian who came to the house once and talked French to him. Nobody can say what he is doing out at that hour, riding so fast. The next day the family cannot leave the house; there is not one sound from the camps, and the whole wide prairie is still. But that night the noise is worse than before, the war-cries terrible, and Pa watches at the window with his gun while Laura and Mary stay close to Ma and little Carrie cries, and Jack growls all night long, howling when the war-cries come. All night there is not a minute's rest, and just before sunrise the last war-cry ends and Laura falls asleep in Ma's arms.

The Chief's Identity Revealed

The revelation comes the next afternoon. Pa has gone down the creek road with his gun while Laura, Mary, and Ma wait the whole long day, and when he returns in the late afternoon he says everything is all right. He has gone up and down the creek and seen many empty Indian camps — all the tribes have left, except the Osages. In the forest he met an Osage who could speak English, and that man told him the whole story. All the tribes except the Osages had wanted to kill the settlers. The tall Indian had ridden so far and so fast that night because he did not want them to kill the white people. He was an Osage chief, and his name was Great Soldier. He went on arguing with the other tribes day and night until the other Osages agreed with him, and then he told the other tribes that the Osages were ready to fight them to save the white settlers. That was why there had been so much noise in the camps — the tribes were howling at each other. In the end, the other tribes did not want to fight Great Soldier and the Osages, so they went away. "That's one good Indian!" Pa says. The event reframes the family's terror: the war-cries that kept them awake were not a prelude to massacre but the sound of diplomacy, and the man they had seen only as a silent, beaded stranger had spent his nights arguing on their behalf.

The Silent Visitor Reconsidered

The revelation casts new light on the one encounter the family had with Great Soldier. Earlier, when the tall Indian first came to the house, he said "How!" to Pa, and Pa held onto Jack and replied "How!" before tying the dog to the bed. The Indian came in and sat down by the fire, and Pa sat next to him, friendly but not talking, while Ma finished cooking dinner. Laura and Mary were quiet on their bed in the corner, unable to take their eyes from him. He was so still that the beautiful eagle feathers in his hair did not move. He wore trousers made of animal skins, and his moccasins were covered with beads. Pa and the Indian ate silently, and then Pa gave him some tobacco for his pipe; they filled their pipes, lighted them, and silently smoked until the pipes were empty. All this time nobody had said anything, until the Indian said something to Pa, and Pa shook his head and said, "No speak." They all sat silent a while longer, and then the tall Indian got up and went away without a sound. That silence, which had seemed merely strange, is revealed in retrospect as the bearing of a man who would later risk his own people's safety to protect strangers who could not even speak his language.

The Departure of the Tribes and the Family's Farewell

After another long night of sleep, Pa opens the door to the warm spring air and calls Caroline, Mary, and Laura to the step. Laura runs out first and is surprised: the Indians are coming. First comes the tall chief who saved their lives, his black horse very near, and Laura's heart beats fast. She looks at his moccasins, his colourful blanket, his naked brown-red arms that carry the long gun; his face is still and fierce, and only the long eagle feathers in his hair move in the wind. "Great Soldier himself," Pa says softly, and lifts his hand to say hello. But the horse and the chief go by without looking at Pa or Ma or Mary or Laura or the house. Then other horses and Indians with eagle feathers go by, brown face after brown face, bright beads shining in the sun, horses' tails and eagle feathers blowing in the wind. The women and children ride behind the men; little naked brown Indians no bigger than Mary and Laura ride by, their straight black hair blowing and their black eyes shining with happiness. Laura looks and looks at the Indian children, and they look at her, and she has a sudden wish to be a little Indian girl, to ride naked in the wind and the sun. Then the mothers ride by with babies in baskets at the sides of their horses, and Laura looks straight into the bright eyes of one little baby, black as a night when no stars shine. The procession is not a threat but a leave-taking, and the chief who saved them passes without acknowledgment, as if the protection he gave required no thanks.

Aftermath and the Decision to Leave

The event does not end the family's time on the prairie; it ends their safety. Not long after, Mary and Laura are washing dishes when they hear Pa's voice, loud and angry, and see Mr Edwards and Mr Scott in the field with him. "No, Scott!" Pa says. "I won't stay here until the soldiers take me away like a criminal. The government in Washington told us it was all right to build our houses here. But if now they want us to go, we'll go. We won't wait for the soldiers to make us leave. We're going now!" Ma asks where they are going, and Pa says he does not know, but they are leaving — Scott and Edwards say the government is sending soldiers to make the settlers leave Indian Territory. The threat of Indian violence has been dissolved by Great Soldier's diplomacy, but the threat of state removal remains, and it is the government, not the Indians, that finally drives the family out. Pa climbs to his place beside Ma and takes the reins; Jack goes under the wagon, and Pet and Patty walk away from the little house on the prairie. As far as they can see, to the east and south and west, nothing is moving but the green grass waving in the wind. "It's a great country, Caroline," Pa says, "but there will be wild Indians and wolves here for many years." Pa and Ma are still and silent, and Mary and Laura are quiet too, but Laura feels all excited inside. The event's deepest irony is that the man who saved the family is also the reason they must leave: Great Soldier's protection proves the settlers can live among the Indians, but the government's policy proves they cannot stay. The chief's peacemaking secures their lives, and the state's decree takes their home.