"Th' hull passel?" he demanded; then, with a grunt, "Wal, good riddance o' bad rubbish."
Later on, as Dallas circled the shack with the plow, turning up a wide strip as a protection against fires, she found that the reason she had given for the trumpet's varying was the true one. The sun, dispersing the fog, had unshrouded the river and unveiled the barracks and the bluffs. When she saw that, of the canvas row below the stockade not a tent remained, and the campground lay deserted. While from it, heading northward through the post to the faint music of the band, moved an imposing column of cavalry. Arms and equipment flashed gallantly in the sun. Horses curveted. Handkerchiefs fluttered good-bys from the galleries of the Line. Up Clothes-Pin Row, the wives and babies of troopers waited in little groups. At the quarters of the scouts sounded the melancholy beat of a tom-tom. Accompanying it, and contrasting with it weirdly, was a plaintive cadence—the monotonous lament of Indian women.
The column wound on its way, at its rear the heavy-rolling, white-covered wagon-train. The band had ceased to play. The groups that had been waving farewells sorrowfully dispersed. The tom-tom was still, and no wail of squaws was borne across the river. Then, Dallas again started up Ben and Betty.
And now a sudden fit of depression came over her. The dew sparkled on the grass, the air was soft, the breeze caressing, the sun was warm on her shoulders. Yet with all the brightness on every hand, a sense of uneasiness would not be shaken off.
She found herself reining often to look toward Clark's. Midway of the eastern ridge was a long, buff blotch—the crossing of the coulée road. Would a horse and rider pass across that spot to-day? Probably not. A wave of loneliness and of undeserved injury swept her, welling the tears to her eyes.
She was halted close to the corn-land when cheery singing reached her. Marylyn had left the shack and was going riverward, dawdling with studied slowness.
"We saw the Indians coming,
We heard them give a yell,
My feelings at that moment
No mortal tongue could tell.
We heard the bugle sounding,
The Captain gave command—
'To arms! to arms! my comrades,
And by your ponies stand!'
We fought there full nine hours
Before the strife was o'er.
Such sight of dead and wounded
I ne'er had seen before—
Five hundred noble Rangers
As ever saw the West
Were buried by their comrades,
May peaceful be their rest!"