alled for, to steal through the deadly
circle and carry messages to Fort Wallace, one hundred miles south.
There was no lack of men eager to try; Scouts "Pet" Trudeau and "Mack"
Stillwell were chosen.

Scout Trudeau was a grown man, but Jack Stillwell was only nineteen,
and boyish looking. Nevertheless, he, too, was a man. He knew Indians
and he knew the plains; he was able to give a good account of himself.
Scout Trudeau asked no better comrade on the danger trail.

They prepared to leave in the dark. At midnight they shook hands with
their officer and their nearest fellows. With a piece of horse-flesh
for food, with revolvers at belts and carbines in hand, and their boots
slung from their necks, in their stockinged feet they quietly vanished,
wrapped in their blankets so as to look as much like Indians as
possible.

At first Trudeau led, because he was the older; toward the end Jack
Stillwell led, because he proved to be the stronger. As they crossed
from the little island to the dry bottom of the river-bed, they turned
and walked backward. On the sand their stockinged feet made tracks
like moccasin tracks, all pointing for the island. The Indians would
not know that anybody had escaped.

Quiet reigned all around, except for the yapping of the coyotes. But
they two were well aware that the camps of six hundred warriors were
scattered everywhere, resting only until daylight.

Having entered the dry channel of the river, they did another wise
thing. They crossed it, instead of keeping on down; and crawling, they
stuck to the high ground, even the tops of the bare ridges, instead of
taking to the ravines and washes.

"Never do what the enemy expects you to do," is a military maxim,
although rather hard to follow in modern fighting. The natural trail
for scouts through the lines would be by the river bottom, and by other
low ground out of sight. The Indians, Scout Stillwell learned
afterward from chiefs themselves, were watching all the river channel
and all the ravines, this night. The two scouts fooled them, and found
the ridge trails thinly guarded. Those Indians not on guard were
sleeping out of the breeze.

Through every yard of their crawl the hearts of the two scouts were in
their throats. To creep amidst the dark, this way, with Indians
before, behind, on right, on left--who knew where?--was nerve-racking.
When the stars began to pale only two miles had been covered. Slow
work, careful work