train backed up to camp and work was resumed as if
nothing had happened.

After waiting a few days, Stanley, always restive under idleness,
determined to push on across the Sweet Grass country with horses, to
learn how the timber cutters on the river were faring with their
slender military guard. The party, consisting of the detail of ten men
and the two scouts and Bucks, started one morning at sunrise and made
their way without molestation into the little-known mountain range
called then, as far south as Colorado, the Black Hills.

Stanley explained to Bucks during the morning how the chief
engineering difficulty of the whole transcontinental line confronted
the engineers right where they were now riding. Here the mountains
were thrown abruptly above the plain to a great height and the
locating engineers were still at their wits' ends to know how to
climb the tremendous ascent with practicable grades. Stanley became
so interested in studying the country during the day, as the
difficulties of the problem presented themselves afresh to him, that
the party made slow progress. Camp was pitched early in the afternoon
under a ridge that offered some natural features for defence. Here the
cavalrymen were left, and Stanley, taking Scott, started out after
some venison for supper. Bucks stood by, looking eager as the two made
ready for the hunt.

"Come along if you like," said Stanley at length. "You won't be happy,
Bucks, till you get lost somewhere in this country."

Sublette lent Bucks a rifle, and the three men set out together,
riding rapidly into the rough hills to the northwest. Scott covered
the ground fast, but he searched in vain for sign of antelope.
"Indians have been all over this divide," he announced after much hard
riding and a failure to find any game. "It doesn't look like venison
for supper to-night, colonel. Stop!" he added suddenly.

His companions, surprised by the tone of the last word, halted.
Leaning over his pony's neck the scout was reading the rocky soil. He
dismounted, and walking on, leading his horse, he inspected, very
carefully, the ground toward a dry creek bed opening to the east.

He was gone perhaps five minutes. "Colonel," he said, smiling
reassuringly, when he returned, "this is no place for us."

"Indians," said Stanley tersely.

"Cheyennes. Back to camp."

"Down the creek?" suggested Stanley.

"The bottom is alive with Indians."

"Up then, Bob?"

"Their camp is just abov