ghts at, providing you had time to set them at all?" and the veteran
Indian fighter smiled grimly.

The doctor shook his head.

"It is too big a puzzle for me," he answered. "Five minutes ago I would
have said three hundred at the utmost, but I don't know now."

"How about that, Nihil?" asked the colonel, turning to a soldier riding
with the head-quarters party.

Nihil's brown hand goes up to the brim of his scouting hat in salute,
but he shook his head.

"The bullet would kick up a dust this side of him, sir," was the answer.

"People sometimes wonder why it is we manage to hit so few of these
Cheyennes or Sioux in our battles with them," said the colonel. "Now you
can get an idea of one of the difficulties. They rarely come within six
hundred yards of us when they are attacking a train or an infantry
escort, and are always riding full tilt, just as you saw Ralph just now.
It is next to impossible to hit them."

"I understand," said the doctor. "How splendidly that boy rides!"

"Ralph? Yes. He's a genuine trooper. Now, there's a boy whose whole
ambition is to go to West Point. He's a manly, truthful, dutiful young
fellow, born and raised in the army, knows the plains by heart, and just
the one to make a brilliant and valuable cavalry officer, but there
isn't a ghost of a chance for him."

"Why not?"

"Why not? Why! how is he to get an appointment? If he had a home
somewhere in the East, and his father had influence with the Congressman
of the district, it might be done; but the sons of army officers have
really very little chance. The President used to have ten appointments a
year, but Congress took them away from him. They thought there were too
many cadets at the Point; but while they were virtuously willing to
reduce somebody else's prerogatives in that line, it did not occur to
them that they might trim a little on their own. Now the President is
allowed only ten 'all told,' and can appoint no boy until some of his
ten are graduated or otherwise disposed of. It really gives him only two
or three appointments a year, and he has probably a thousand applicants
for every one. What chance has an army boy in Wyoming against the son of
some fellow with Senators and Representatives at his back in Washington?
If the army could name an occasional candidate, a boy like Ralph would
be sure to go, and we would have more soldiers and fewer scientists in
the cavalry."

By this time the head of the compact column was