e sun soon tinged
the misty mountain tops to the far north, and Dean saw before him an
open rolling country, over which it would be impossible to march without
attracting Indian eyes, if Indian eyes there were within twenty miles.
And with proper caution he ordered his men to keep in concealment,
horses grazing under guard in a deep depression near a stream, men
dozing soundly by turns until the twilight came, and then the
stars--their night lights for a long, long march. Dawn of the fifth day
found them huddled in a deep ravine of the southern foothills, with
Warrior Gap not thirty miles away, and now, indeed, was prudence
necessary, for the faint light showed the fresh prints of innumerable
pony hoofs on every side. They were close on Machpealota's lurking
braves. Which would see the other first?

It must have been somewhere toward five o'clock in the afternoon that
Dean, searching with his field glass the sunlit slopes far out to the
east, heard the voice of his sergeant close at hand and turned to
answer. Up to this moment, beyond the pony tracks, not a sign had they
seen of hostile Indians, but the buffalo that had appeared in scattered
herds along their line of march were shy and scary, and old hands said
that that meant they had recently been hunted hard. Moreover, this was
not a section favored of the buffalo. There was much alkali and sage
brush along their trail, and only here and there in scanty patches any
of the rich, nutritious bunch grass which the roving animals so eagerly
sought. The day had been hot and almost cloudless. The shimmer of heat
along the lazy roll of the land to the south had often baffled their
blinking eyes. But now the sun was well to the west, and the refraction
seemed diminishing, and away over to the northeast a dull-colored cloud
seemed slowly rising beyond the ridges. It was this that Sergeant Bruce
was studying when he murmured to his young commander:

"I think that means a big herd on the run, sir, and if so Indians
started them."

One or two troopers, dozing close at hand, sprawled full length upon the
ground, with their faces buried in, or hidden by, their blue-sleeved
arms, slowly rolled over and came crouching up alongside. Dean dropped
his glasses and peered in the direction indicated by his comrade of
humbler rank. Dust cloud it was beyond a doubt, and a long peep through
the binocular proved that it was slowly sailing across the horizon in a
northerly direction. Did tha