It was midsummer now, the chalk-white walls of the fort were bathed in
a scorching sunshine, and the nomads of the wilderness met and picked
up dropped threads in its courtyard. It stood up warlike on a rise of
ground with the brown swiftness of a stream hurrying below it. Once
the factors had tried to cultivate the land, but had given it up, as
the Indians carried off the maize and corn as it ripened. So the
short-haired grass grew to the stockade. At this season the
surrounding plain was thick with grazing animals, the fort's own
supply, the ponies of the Indians, and the cattle of the emigrants.
Encampments were on every side, clustering close under the walls,
whence a cannon poked its nose protectingly from the bastion above the
gate. There was no need to make the ring of wagons here. White man
and red camped together, the canvas peaks of the tents showing beside
the frames of lodge poles, covered with dried skins. The pale face
treated his red brother to coffee and rice cakes, and the red brother
offered in return a feast of boiled dog.

Just now the fort was a scene of ceaseless animation. Its courtyard
was a kaleidoscopic whirl of color, shifting as the sun shifted and the
shadow of the walls offered shade. Indians with bodies bare above the
dropped blankets, moved stately or squatted on their heels watching the
emigrants as they bartered for supplies. Trappers in fringed and
beaded leather played cards with the plainsmen in shady corners or
lounged in the cool arch of the gateway looking aslant at the emigrant
girls. Their squaws, patches of color against the walls, sat docile,
with the swarthy, half-breed children playing about their feet. There
were French Canadians, bearded like pirates, full of good humor,
filling the air with their patois, and a few Mexicans, who passed the
days sprawled on serapes and smoking sleepily. Over all the bourgeois
ruled, kindly or crabbedly, according to his make, but always
absolutely the monarch of a little principality.

The doctor's train had reached the fort by slow stages, and now lay
camped outside the walls. Bella's condition had been serious, and they
had crawled up the valley of the North Platte at a snail's pace. The
gradual change in the country told them of their advance--the intrusion
of giant bluffs along the river's edge, the disappearance of the many
lovely flower forms, the first glimpses of parched areas dotted with
sage. From the top of Sc