and found, just as they expected, that other
sympathetic souls had been before them, that Mrs. Ray was still holding
quite a reception, Priscilla and Sandy being conspicuous by their
absence, Priscilla having retired with a throbbing headache, Sandy,
still tingling and nervous, having sent for his horse but a short time
before and gone for a ride. They stayed quite a while, did the Stones,
and Mrs. Ray seemed gladdened and comforted by their coming. It meant so
much just then. Indeed, the bugles were sounding the ten o'clock call
when finally they took their leave, and Sandy had not returned. True, he
had then been gone little over an hour, and he could ride but slowly,
though he declared he had neither strained a muscle nor started anew the
trouble in the old wound. Perhaps it was too soon to be sure, but at all
events a ride, a gentle amble on a nimble, easy horse over the elastic
turf in the soft, summer moonlight would soothe and quiet him more than
anything else, so, wisely, Marion had interposed no objection.

Taps sounded and the lights were lowered in the barracks and the
sentries called off half-past ten o'clock, and still there had come no
sign of the westbound Flyer, far over the southward waves of prairie,
slowly breasting the long upgrade to the Pass. The big compound engine
of the Midland Pacific had a deep-toned, melodious, flute-like signal,
utterly different to the ear-piercing shriek of the old-fashioned
railway whistle, and on still evenings the sharp, rhythmical beat of the
exhaust, the steady rumble of the heavy Pullmans, and the occasional
blast, rich and mellow, of the misnamed whistle could be followed
westward for many a mile, until at last the echoes of the signal died
away among the cliffs and canyons of the frowning Sagamore.

Some distance out across the rolling prairie, a mile or more beyond the
Minneconjou, was the siding of a deserted station, once built there by
the quartermaster's department with the idea of making a much shorter
haul for supplies than that afforded by the broad and fairly level road
from town. The wear and tear on mules, harness and running gear
consequent upon the up-hill and down-dale character of the road, and the
unprecedented volume of blasphemy supposedly necessary to successful
fording of the Minneconjou, within earshot of the pious-minded at the
post, led to eventual abandonment of that route in favor of the far
longer but undeniably safer line to Silver Hill.