were hampered have they appeared in
fighting-trim. But combinations have been too much for them, and at last
they have been "herded" down to the Elk, have crossed, and are now
seeking to make their way, with women, children, tepees, dogs,
"travois," and the great pony herds, to the fastnesses of the Big Horn;
and now comes the opportunity for which an old Indian-fighter has been
anxiously waiting. In a big cantonment he has held the main body under
his command, while keeping out constant scouting-parties to the east and
north. He knows well that, true to their policy, the Indians will have
scattered into small bands capable of reassembling anywhere that signal
smokes may call them, and his orders are to watch all the crossings of
the Elk and nab them as they come into his district. He watches, despite
the fact that it is his profound conviction that the Indians will be no
such idiots as to come just where they are wanted, and he is in no wise
astonished when a courier comes in on jaded horse to tell him that they
have "doubled" on the other column and are now two or three days' march
away down stream, "making for the big bend." His own scouting-parties
are still out to the eastward: he can pick them up as he goes. He sends
the main body of his infantry, a regiment jocularly known as "The
Riflers," to push for a landing some fifty miles down-stream, scouting
the lower valley of the Sweet Root on the way. He sends his wagon-train,
guarded by four companies of foot and two of horsemen, by the only
practicable road to the bend, while he, with ten seasoned "troops" of
his pet regiment, the ----th Cavalry, starts forthwith on a long detour
in which he hopes to "round up" such bands as may have slipped away from
the general rush. Even as "boots and saddles" is sounding, other
couriers come riding in from Lieutenant Crane's party. He has struck the
trail of a big band.

When the morning sun dawns on the picturesque valley in which the
cantonment nestled but the day before, it illumines an almost deserted
village, and brings no joy to the souls of some twoscore of embittered
civilians who had arrived only the day previous, and whose unanimous
verdict is that the army is a fraud and ought to be abolished. For four
months or more some three regiments had been camping, scouting, roughing
it thereabouts, with not a cent of pay. Then came the wildly exciting
tidings that a boat was on the way up the Missouri with a satrap of the
pay