It was a fine sight on
clear evenings to see the long trail of electric lights gleaming white
against the darkness, come rounding a distant bluff to the east, and
then, skirting for a mile or so the south bank of the Minneconjou, go
alternately burrowing and bridging the prairie divides and hollows until
finally lost behind the sharp spur known as Two-Mile Ridge. The Flyer
had a way of waiting at Omaha for the last of the express trains of five
great railways bringing their loads from Chicago and St. Louis, all
scheduled to reach Council Bluffs about the same hour, and some one or
more of them being frequently behind. The Midland could make up no time
between the Missouri and the Minneconjou, so light was the roadbed, so
heavy the traffic, so many the stops. It was not until beyond the
Sagamore the Flyer began to deserve its name. Due at Silver Hill this
year of which we write as early as 5:30, the Flyer not infrequently
stopped for supper as late as eleven, and not until eleven this night
did the sentry on the southward front hear the big compound tooting for
the crossings at Bonner's Bluff, and see the long line of electrics come
gleaming into view far down the eastward valley.

Private O'Shea, sentry on No. 3, overlooking the flats whereon stood the
stables, was straining his ears to catch the expected call of eleven
o'clock from No. 2, and watching the distant trail of lights, and was
able to say next morning that the Flyer was just shoving its nose behind
Two-Mile Ridge as the second call, that of eleven o'clock, started
round. The moon in its first quarter, though bright and clear, was then
dipping low in the west and objects were by no means as distinct as they
had been when he came on post soon after nine and saw Lieutenant Ray set
forth, mounted, up the Minneconjou. O'Shea remembered that Hogan, who
took care of the lieutenant's horse, had come back across his post, and
they had had a brief talk about him, Hogan saying the lieutenant wasn't
half satisfied with having blackened the eyes of a bigger man. "He was
that savage and snappy he rowed me for keeping him so long waiting,
when, dear knows, he couldn't have stood at the back gate ten minutes."
O'Shea owned that he and Hogan, "all the fellers, for that matter," had
wished their little bantam of a canteen officer could have had two
minutes more at "the big feller." Foster had no friends among the
enlisted men at the fort. It presently became a question whether