that with such
broken-down horses and weakened men he could now effect little or
nothing against the Indians after whom he had been sent, even could he
overtake them, and his instructions were literally obeyed. It was high
time for him to restore his men to their comrades. He was making the
best of his way to the rendezvous, hoping almost against hope to reach
the welcome of the bivouac fires, and hot tins of coffee and toothsome
morsels of hard-tack and bacon, things they had not had a scrap of for
three days, and only occasional reminders of for the previous ten, when
lo! off to their flank, far to the southeast there appeared this
unwelcome yet importunate sign. Was it appeal for help or lure to
ambush? Who could say? Only one thing was certain,--a thick smoke
drifting westward from the clump of wallows and timber surrounding what
Crounse said was a spring could not be passed unheeded.

"If we march the whole command over there, it will be another
twenty-four hours before we can reach the regiment. I don't think many
of the men, or horses either, can go that much longer without a bite,"
said Mr. Hastings, the battalion adjutant, seeing in his senior's eye a
permission to speak.

"Well, there are no settlements there and never have been," said
Crounse, "so it can't be cabins or shacks. Wagons it may be, but who'd
be damn fool enough to start a wagon-train up the valley this year of
all others, when every Indian at the reservation except old Spot is in
league with the hostiles? I can't believe it's wagons, yet it's on the
road full a mile this side of the river itself. What I'm afraid of is
that it's a plant. They want to coax us over there and cut us off, as
they did Custer." The major was silent and thoughtful. Davies, still
studying the distant objects, said not a word. Leading their horses,
eight troopers following a sergeant, all wet, weary, and heaven only
knows how hungry, came slowly forward up the slope until they reached
the spot where Davies's horse was nibbling. Here the foremost halted
without a word, and the others grouped about him or, stopping short when
their leader did so, threw themselves on the wet ground reckless of cold
or rheumatism, as spiritless a squad as frontier warfare could well
develop. Valley Forge knew nothing like it. The retreat from Moscow
might have furnished a parallel.

Leaving his horse to do as his jaded fancy might suggest, the battalion
adjutant, returning from his quest, c