me we reached the pine-barrens up
near Deadwood. The scanty supply of forage there obtained (at starvation
price) would not begin to give each surviving horse in the three
regiments a mouthful. And so by short stages we plodded along through
the picturesque beauty of the wild Black Hills, and halted at last in
the deep valley of French Creek. Here there was grass for the horses and
rest for the men.

For a week now Van had been my undivided property, and was the object of
tender solicitude on the part of my German orderly, "Preuss," and
myself. The colonel had chosen for his house the foot of a big pine-tree
up a little ravine, and I was billeted alongside a fallen ditto a few
yards away. Down the ravine, in a little clump of trees, the
head-quarters stables were established, and here were gathered at
nightfall the chargers of the colonel and his staff. Custer City, an
almost deserted village, lay but a few miles off to the west, and
thither I had gone the moment I could get leave, and my mission was
oats. Three stores were still open, and, now that the troops had come
swarming down, were doing a thriving business. Whiskey, tobacco, bottled
beer, canned lobster, canned anything, could be had in profusion, but
not a grain of oats, barley, or corn. I went over to a miners'
wagon-train and offered ten dollars for a sack of oats. The boss
teamster said he would not sell oats for a cent apiece if he had them,
and so sent me back down the valley sore at heart, for I knew Van's
eyes, those great soft brown eyes, would be pleading the moment I came
in sight; and I knew more,--that somewhere the colonel had "made a
raise," that he _had_ one sack, for Preuss had seen it, and Chunka Witko
had had a peck of oats the night before and another that very morning.
Sure enough, Van was waiting, and the moment he saw me coming up the
ravine he quit his munching at the scanty herbage, and, with ears erect
and eager eyes, came quickly toward me, whinnying welcome and inquiry at
the same instant. Sugar and hard-tack, delicacies he often fancied in
prosperous times, he took from my hand even now; he was too truly a
gentleman at heart to refuse them when he saw they were all I had to
give; but he could not understand why the big colt should have his oats
and he, Van, the racer and the hero of two months ago, should starve,
and I could not explain it.

That night Preuss came up and stood attention before my fire, where I
sat jotting down some