d again it was
noted how often Devers would climb the bank and anxiously gaze off to
the west toward that fatal curtain,--the spur that separated him from
the sacrificed detachment the night before. What his thoughts were could
only be conjectured, but little Sanders seemed to hit pretty near the
mark when he confided to Hastings that Differs didn't seem to care a
damn whether Warren followed the Indian trail or not; what he was afraid
of was that the major would "get onto" his own. And indeed as the
morning wore on it began to look as though that were what the major was
bent on doing. The scouting-parties had come back with their report of
what they had found in the river bottom, and by this time Warren with
his escort was three miles over to the west and slowly searching along
the east face of the spur, peeping into every hollow and depression that
might shelter a human form and looking everywhere for the print of
horses' hoofs. At ten o'clock he had sent to Devers for some intelligent
non-commissioned officer who could point out about where they had last
seen Davies as he crossed the ridge returning to his men at sundown, but
Devers very plausibly responded that while it might not be difficult to
do so from where they parted, "just over on the west side," it couldn't
be reliably done from so far to the east. The reply must at least serve
to delay matters awhile, and every moment was of value to Devers.

His own theory was that, as twilight was setting in as Davies recrossed
the ridge, everything beyond in the low grounds was in deep obscurity.
The attack had probably begun about the time the young officer, with
Murray, first crossed the ridge in obedience to the captain's orders to
report to him in person. Less than an hour, Devers thought, elapsed
before he could again have come within sight of the spot where he left
his little command. By that time all was practically over. In the
gathering darkness and in the glut and greed of their savage triumph the
Indians had crowded about the victims. Davies and the sergeant,
returning, had been allowed unmolested to make their way well down
toward the scene. The fire in the bottom was fed to lure them on (it was
still smouldering when Warren's men trotted thither in the morning), and
the two had either been captured alive and run off with the main body to
grace the stake at the scalp-dance to be held with fiendish rejoicing
somewhere beyond danger of interruption, or else, wa