of "soldier coffee" rise upon the air, a little dust-cloud
sweeps out from the ravine into which disappears the Sidney road and
comes floating out across the prairie. Keen-eyed troopers quickly note
the speed with which it travels towards them. Officers and men, who
have just been looking to the security of their steeds, pause now on
their way to supper and stand gazing through the gloaming at the
coming cloud. In five minutes the cause is apparent,--two swift
riders, urging their horses to full speed, racing for the ford. Five
minutes more and the foremost throws himself from saddle in the midst
of the group at the colonel's tent and hands that officer a
telegraphic despatch, which is received, opened, read with
imperturbable gravity, and pocketed. To the manifest chagrin of the
courier and disappointment of his officers, the colonel simply says,--

"W-e-ell, I'm going to supper. You all'd better have yours too."

"Why, blame his old hide!" pants the courier later, "the quartermaster
told me never to lose a second, but git that to him before dark. The
hull outfit's ordered to Chicago by special train."

And so, finding the secret out, the colonel presently puts aside
professional _sang-froid_ and condescends to be human again.

"Get a hearty supper all round, gentlemen, then--'boots and saddles'
and away for Sidney!"

Two days later. A fierce July sun is pouring down a flood of humid,
moisture-laden heat upon a densely-packed, sweltering mass of
turbulent men, many of them flushed with drink, all of them flushed
with triumph, for the ill-armed, ill-disciplined militia of the
seventies--a pygmy force as compared with the expert "Guardsmen" of
to-day--has been scattered to the winds: the sturdy police have been
swept from the streets and driven to the shelter of the stations. Mob
law rules supreme. Dense clouds of smoke are rising from sacked and
ruined warehouses and from long trains of burning cars. Here and there
little groups of striking employes have gathered, holding aloof from
the reckless and infuriated mob, appalled at the sight of riot and
devastation resulting from their ill-advised action. Many of their
number, conscious of their responsibility for the scenes of bloodshed
and pillage and wanton destruction of property, public and private,
would now gladly undo their work and array themselves among the few
defenders of the great corporations they have served for years and
deserted at the call of leaders