then a dash down the
Cheyenne, a week's ride in the glad October sunshine, and, one brilliant
evening as they returned, heading in toward the agencies, there met them
the courier with despatches and letters, and Ray's heart went bounding
up into his throat as four dainty envelopes, all addressed in the same
hand, were lifted up to him as he sat on Dandy, and then Jack Truscott
came riding quickly to his side, his eyes glowing, though wet with
emotion, his lips compressed, yet a world of joy and gratitude shining
in his face. Ray looked up eagerly, and their hands clasped.

"I have a son, Billy, and all is well,--thank God!"

* * * * *

And then came the day when with the long skirmish lines deployed, far as
eye could see, the --th, with the comrade battalions of the other
regiments that had shared the rigors of the Yellowstone campaign of '76,
came sweeping over the open prairies from the north, and whirling in
ahead of them the sullen, scowling, blanketed bands of old Machpealota;
"herding" them up the valley of the White River towards the agency, and
penning them between the glistening crags of Dancer's Butte and the
barrier bluffs on the other side, while MacKenzie's troopers, trim and
fresh in their natty garrison dress, "rounded them up" from the south
and west, and by night the work of disarming and dismounting the silent
Indians was begun. New forces were all there ready to take the field
against the hordes of Cheyennes still lurking in the mountains; but for
the --th the campaign of the centennial year was virtually over. A few
days of rest and jubilee and greeting of old and new friends among the
regiments there assembled, and then they turned their horses' heads
southward, gave one backward look at the valley where they turned the
tables on the Cheyennes, where Wayne had so nearly sacrificed his whole
command, where Ray had run the gauntlet of death by torture to save
them, where Truscott's night dash to the rescue had brought him charging
just in time, and over the rolling prairies they marched to seek far to
the south their winter homes.

Thither had Ray and Truscott already gone. The summer's work was done.
The campaign was ended, and there came by telegraph from Cheyenne a
notification that Lieutenant Ray would be needed as a witness on the
trial of the owners of that gambling-den in which the soldier Wolf had
been done to death. The "Gray Fox" was sending in his ambulanc