"Whose is this?" he asked. "I do not remember seeing any of the men wearing one like this."
"None of them own it, sir. I've asked the whole party but Sergeant Dawson and the men on guard. They have these cheap red things for sale at the store there at the Red Cloud Agency, but none of the troop have I ever seen wearing them; they are too small for neck handkerchiefs. Dawson is out yet, trying to locate the trail. I've sent Robbins for him," and the sergeant looked anxiously away southward, searching the prairie with a world of pain and trouble in his eyes.
"What could possibly have induced the boy to turn scoundrel all at once?" asked the lieutenant. "It will break his old father's heart."
"I can't account for it, sir. He has been as honest and square as a boy could be ever since his enlistment; but the men tell me that he has been spending a good deal of time over in the post whenever we camped there, and I am afraid, from what Donovan says, that he has been gambling with the young fellows at the band quarters. There's a hard lot in there, I'm told; and the old hands encourage the boys to get all they can out of strangers, and then they turn to and fleece the boys. It is about four hundred dollars he has taken. A man knows that will last but a little while on the frontier, but to a boy it seems a big pile."
Then, rapidly approaching, the bounding hoofs of a troop horse were heard. Blunt eagerly turned and saw Sergeant Dawson galloping toward them down the north bank. Reining in so suddenly as almost to throw his panting bay upon his haunches, he vaulted lightly to the ground and stood before the lieutenant, his face beaded with sweat and his eyes glaring.
"Which way has he gone? could you tell?"
"Yes, sir, I trailed him out across the prairie yonder for three hundred yards or so. Then he took the Laramie road, and there the hoof tracks are all confused; but I knew he would never keep that line very long, and I'm almost certain I found the place where he turned off—a mile beyond the ford and well over the bluffs."
"Turned south toward the Sidney route?"
"Yes, sir, as though he was going to skirt the road a while, then make for Scott's Bluffs, keeping well west of the Sidney stage route. If he got on that he'd be likely to meet Captain Forrest's troop, sir."
"But you were in charge of the guard, sergeant. How came it that your sentries and you could let a man slip out with his horse and everything? The night was still, and they ought to have heard, even if they couldn't see."