Presently the young officer overtook the column and reined in beside his captain.
"Where did they go, Park?"
"Straight into the stream, sir, and evidently to the other side. Sergeant Brooks says 'twas a troop horse with a light rider, and that he had to swim across. The river is six feet deep out there, but it was his only way of escape. The Indians couldn't have been far behind, and yet they didn't follow. Their tracks turn down the bank on this side. Brooks is following them now."
"Who on earth could have come through here at such a time? Why, the country has been running over with Indians!"
"That's what puzzles me, sir, but Brooks says there is no mistake. It's the cavalry shoe, of course. It's just after pay day at Robinson. Could it have been a deserter?"
"No man in his senses would have dared such a thing," is the impatient answer. "It may be some other infernal trick to get us away from our legitimate business. What we've got to do is reach that Sidney road by sunset. By Jove! if I'm court-martialed for this business, it won't surprise me." And the captain's horse evidently felt the sudden grip of the knees, for he took a sudden spurt and set most of the troop at the nerve-wearing jog-trot. Mr. Park said nothing more, but for the life of him he could not help thinking of those lone hoofprints and of that solitary rider. Who could he be?
It is time we got back to him. Only one man or boy, known to us at least, could have come that way. It was Trumpeter Fred.
Daybreak Friday had found him a few miles south of the Niobrara, and close to the Laramie road. At noon Friday he had halted at the Rawhide to rest his horse and take a bite of luncheon, but all his young soul was athrill with eagerness; every faculty was alert. Warned of the recent presence of Indians on every side, he was yet seeking to gain the Platte before nightfall; cross to the south bank, where there was comparative safety; ride southeastward until his horse was exhausted, picket him where grass and water were near at hand, sleep till dawn again, and then push on. He must reach the Sidney road before Sunday morning and strike it far below the river.
But here, as he neared the valley, a sight had met his eyes which made his young heart leap. The banks of the Rawhide were dotted here and there by fresh pony tracks, and, coming from the distant ridges to the east, they had gone in as though to water, and then turned down toward the Platte, the very way he wanted to go. An hour, with his horse hidden behind him in a shallow ravine, Fred Waller was lying prone upon the ground, and peering over a ridge into the low, level wastes stretching far to the southeast, bordering the Platte to the very horizon. What most attracted his gaze was a little dust cloud, miles away downstream, into which tiny black dots were moving, with other little dots scurrying about at some distance from the main cluster. No need to tell him they were Indians.
