“No, I guess they’re away out, beyond reach. The soldiers say the Sioux are on a rampage, this year. Hope nobody else is killed. We’re going to travel along, just the same. The general means to find the Browne and the Bates gangs, and see about matters. We’ve got men enough to lick the reds.”
Fort Sanders was a small, lonely post, beside the Laramie River in the south end of the Laramie Plains, twenty-five miles from Sherman Summit. Colonel, or General, John Gibbon of the Thirty-sixth Infantry commanded. There was one troop, G, of the Second Cavalry, under First Lieutenant John A. Wanless.
Lieutenant Wanless and other officers paid a visit to the cavalry camp of the expedition; and when, after two or three days of resting and out-fitting, the expedition pulled out again, Lieutenant Wanless rode a half mile with his brother cavalrymen.
“Good-by and good luck,” he bade. “You clean the trail in the one direction and we’ll be watching for the engine smoke in the other.”
CHAPTER IX
MORE BAD NEWS
It was the easy Rattlesnake Pass that finally led out from the farther edge of the great Laramie Plains, and down to the North Platte River.
“There’s the last of the main streams which flow eastward, men,” remarked General Dodge, as from the top of the pass they emerged into view of the valley below. “Once across that, and over the next plateau, and we’ll be into the unknown country.”
“Can we see the Overland stage road, general?”
“It keeps to the base of those south hills, on the headwaters of the side streams, for fording.”
“I should think that the railroad would follow the stage road, by the trail already made,” spoke Mr. Corwith.