." And forty horsemen went laboring down
the gentle slope, lugging their rusty brown carbines, one by one, from
the mud-covered sockets.

CHAPTER VII.

Jaded as were the horses, it was only by vigorous spurring that they
were forced into anything like a gallop. Earlier in the campaign, only
with extreme difficulty could they have been held. In dispersed order,
spreading out, fan-like, to avoid the volleys of mud hurled back by the
leaders, the troop came struggling up to the opposite ridge, many of the
men loading as they rode, all with eager eyes and compressed lips
staring straight ahead for the first glance at what each knew must be
the foe. That no shot was to be dreaded from lurking Indians along the
ridge each reasoned from the fact that the trumpeter, after sounding his
signal and seeing them well on their way, had himself pushed on out of
sight. Once or twice the foremost thought they heard other shots. All
reined up as they reached the crest, and this was what they saw:

Far ahead, down towards the valley ran a long tongue or spur from the
high ground over which they had steadily been marching since the dawn.
Farther away, perhaps ten miles, a black fringe in the depths of the
valley marked the winding river-bed. Against this and the dull
background of the opposite rise a faint column of pale, blue-white smoke
was drifting slowly westward from a little patch of trees at least a
mile nearer them than the river. "That's Antelope Springs," said
Crounse, who knew every league of the valley. Straight towards this
point a little party of horse were now steadily moving, a dark spot upon
the slopes, and nearly a thousand yards away. They were gradually
descending to the valley along the eastern side of the long tongue
referred to, all ignorant, probably, of what might be going on upon the
other. Obedient to his orders then, Davies was riding by the shortest
line to the designated goal, and all with them thus far seemed tranquil
enough. But hardly half a mile to the right front of their supporting
comrades, afoot now, and stopping every minute to let drive a long-range
shot at some objects scurrying away over the slopes to the south, "the
Kid" was running, and ever and anon turning to beckon them on. One
glance told the experienced hands what those fleeing rascals
were,--Indians, fresh from some deviltry, their swift ponies bounding
over the little gullies and watercourses like so many goats. Once more
the tr