liked them both, which was
more than he did most people, for this AEsculapian countryman of Carlyle
had much of that eminent writer's sharpness of vision and bluntness of
speech together with even more of his contempt for the bulk of his
fellow-men. "No, Mrs. Cranston," said he, "don't wait a day for her.
Start just as soon as you are ready, and don't give a thought to this
little flibberty gibbet." And so the Cranstons, with Miss Loomis, bade
farewell to Scott, and one radiant winter morning drove buoyantly away,
almost all of the officers and ladies being out to wave them adieu.
Hastings, with a brace of troopers, trotted alongside as they crossed
the Platte and reported the camp wagon well on its way to Dismal River.
"I never was so glad to leave a place in all my life," said Margaret to
her friend, as they glanced back from the crest of the distant ridge
that spanned the northern sky. "I never have been at a post where there
were so few people I cared for." The driver halted his strong team at a
level spot after a long, tortuous climb, and let the mules breathe a
moment while his passengers took their final peep at the dim, dingy
patch, far away upon the southward slopes beyond the willow-fringed
river, which indicated the site of old Fort Scott. Already the snow had
disappeared on many an open tract and lay deep only in the ravines and
gullies, on the ice coat of the stream and in the dense undergrowth of
the islands. To right and left for miles the broad valley lay beneath
their eyes, the rigid line of the railway cutting a sharp, narrow slit
across the level prairie in the lowlands, straight away eastward until
all was merged in the misty, impenetrable veil at the horizon, while
westward near the forks of the river, in long, graceful curve, it swept
around an elbow of the snow-mantled stream and disappeared among the
roofs and spires of far-away Braska. The boys, with the agile energy of
their kind, had leaped out to scamper about on the rimy buffalo-grass,
dull gray, dried and withered, yet full of nutriment for the little
droves of horned cattle already browsing placidly along the slopes where
but a few years before the Sioux and Cheyenne chased great herds of
bison. Hastings and his men were riding along a hundred yards or so in
front, and the two women were left to their own low-toned confidences.

"I cannot help it," said Mrs. Cranston, "it may be uncharitable, unkind,
but I am simply glad she could not go w