BACK at the cavalry camp there was no little subdued chat and wonderment among the troopers. Lounging in the shade of the trees along the stream, and puffing away at their pipes, playing cards, as soldiers will, and poking fun at one another in rough, good-natured ways, the men were yet full of the one absorbing theme—Fred Waller's most unaccountable disappearance and the loss of so much of their hard-earned money.
"I would have bet any amount," said Corporal Wright, "that when the old man"—the captain is always the "old man" to his troops—"got back he would ride over Sergeant Dawson roughshod for letting Waller slip away on his guard; but I listened to him this morning and he talked to him just like a Dutch uncle. I tell you Dawson felt a heap better after it was over. He said the captain never blamed him at all."
Noon came, so did an orderly telling Mr. Blunt that the captain wished to see him over at the telegraph office, and to order the horses fed at once. Forty-eight big portions of oats were poured from the sacks forthwith. Dawson and Donovan were not yet back.
"Leave theirs out," said Sergeant Graham, "they'll be back presently. This means business again, and no mistake. Where's the trouble now, I wonder?"
Shall we look and see? Far to the south, far beyond the bold bluffs of the White River, far beyond the swift waters of the Niobrara,—"L'Eau qui Court" of the old French trapper,—far across the swirling flood of the North Platte, and dotting the northward slopes, swarms of naked, brilliantly painted red warriors in their long, trailing war bonnets of eagle's feathers are darting about on nimble ponies, or, crouching prone along the ridges, are eagerly watching a dust-cloud coming northward on the Sidney road. Behind them, between them and the Platte, are the weltering mutilated bodies of half a dozen herders and teamsters, and the smoking ruins of their big freight-wagons. Like the tiger's taste of blood, the savage triumph in the death of their hapless foes has tempted them far beyond their accustomed limits. Knowing the cavalry to be scouting only north of the Platte, they have made a wide detour and swooped around to this danger-haunted road, eagerly watching for the coming of other white men, who, like the last, should be ignorant of their presence and too few in number to cope with such a foe. Here along the ridge north of the little "Branch" of the Platte, half a hundred young warriors crouch and wait. Farther back, equally vigilant, other bands are hiding among the breaks and ravines near the river, while their scouts keep vigilant watch for the coming of cavalry. Forrest's Grays and Wallace's Sorrels cannot be more than a day's ride away, and will be hurrying for the road the moment they know that the Indians have slipped around them. Wallace, up the Platte, has already heard.
It is three o'clock this hot, still Sunday afternoon, and they have been six hours out from Sidney, driving swiftly and steadily northward, when, as they reach the summit of a high ridge and stop to breathe their panting team, Colonel Gaines takes a long look through his field glass. Just in front is the shallow valley of the little stream now called the "Pumpkinseed" though pumpkins were unheard-of features in the landscape of fifteen years ago.
Off to their right front, several miles away, lie the low, broad bottom lands of the Platte. Across the Pumpkinseed, a mile distant, another ridge, like the one on which they halted, only not so high; to the westward a tumbling sea of prairie upland—all buttes, ridges, ravines, coulées—but not a living soul is anywhere in sight. Far as his practiced eye can sweep the horizon and the broad lowlands of the Platte not a sign of living, moving object can Colonel Gaines detect. Turning around, he trains his glass upon the tortuous road they had been following, and along which the dust is slowly settling in their wake. Something seems to attract his gaze, for he holds the binocle steadily toward the south. Naturally Captain Cross and the two soldiers follow with their eyes; the third infantryman has dismounted, and is readjusting the girths of his saddle.
"What is it?" asks Cross.
"I can't make out," is the reply, "Something is kicking up a dust there, some miles behind us. A horseman, I should say, though I've seen nobody. Wait a few minutes. He's down in a swale now, whoever it is."
