“And they didn’t,” asserted Mr. Appleton. “They refused to obey Browne’s orders. They let the Sioux stampede the horses and mules, which seemed to satisfy the red-skins, who drew off. So this same night those eight soldiers made a litter of a blanket slung on carbines, and afoot they carried poor Percy fifteen miles through the sage-brush and the sand to LaClede stage station on the Overland. They didn’t save his life, though, for he died soon after they got in with him.”
“A gallant deed,” said General Rawlins. “I’ll see to it that it’s brought personally before General Grant himself. We must have those soldiers’ names.”
“The news was telegraphed from the stage station to Sanders,” continued Mr. Appleton, “but of course General Dodge had passed through, before that. The soldiers found us, where we were waiting for Mr. Browne to return. I went ahead running a line according to the instructions, until my party became pretty well exhausted through lack of water and provisions. I was coming in to Fort Sanders, for more supplies and for further instructions, and sighted your fires, here. I guess that’s about all. The rest of the party are about forty miles west. They’re short of water, and animals, and unable to move forward—but they hate to quit. With a little help we’ll push right along, as Mr. Browne had intended, and finish out the survey according to his plans.”
“By Jiminy! That’s the stuff!” applauded young Mr. Duff.
“Yes, sir. The survey shall be carried out. We’ll enter the Browne basin,” declared the general. “We’ll give Mr. Appleton and Mr. Bane a day’s rest here, while I check over with them. Unfortunately all of Mr. Browne’s notes were lost when the Indians attacked him. But we’ll march on, to the Appleton party ahead, fix them up, and proceed to find the Bates party, too. Nothing has been seen of them, Mr. Appleton says.”
The North Platte flowed through a wide and shallow valley of sage-brush and reddish gravel, blotched by bright green cottonwoods and willows, with a scattering of small pines and cedars on the slopes. The river had to be forded; but the wagons were tugged through, and they all toiled up the west slope to the top of a broad plateau.
“The beginning of the Bitter Creek plains,” General Dodge uttered. “Any streams in here, Frank?”
“We discovered none, sir,” Mr. Appleton answered. “That is, none now flowing. There are numerous dry courses.”
The high plateau stretched onward into the west. It was of reddish gravel, plentifully cloaked with sage, like the rolling swells of a mighty grayish sea, and now and again blotched with the white of alkali, like the patchy froth of a sea. Sharp buttes, like islands, rose in the distances around, breaking the surface. Altogether, it was a lonely sight.
“How far are your party, Frank?”