“Order Captain Meinhold and Company B to go at once,” said the commandant to his adjutant. “They are the boys for this kind of work. Tell Captain Meinhold to spare no effort to bring the girls back. That is the first consideration. Even the punishment of the Indians is a secondary matter.”
CHAPTER XXI.
TROOPERS ON THE TRAIL.
Captain Meinhold was on old Indian campaigner, and his lieutenant, a gallant young fellow named Lawson, although much younger in the service, took to the work naturally.
They were fortunate in having all the essentials of a good troop. They had good horses, well seen to and in fine order. Next, they had good men, well disciplined, who liked their officers, and consequently were ready to endure hardship and extra duty without murmuring.
No company, therefore, was better prepared than Company B of the Third Cavalry to make a good record whenever it had a chance.
Pushing on by night as well as by day, and taking only such time to rest and feed as was actually necessary, even Steve Hathaway himself—an old “Overlander” who was used to getting through at all costs, even if the stock went under in doing it—was satisfied with the progress made by the soldiers.
On the third day out from the fort they had news from Buffalo Bill, for the scouts he had promised to send back met them, and now the order to “hurry up” did not require to be repeated.
Feeling almost certain that an Indian fight was before them, the seasoned troopers were as keen as war horses who snuff the smoke of gunpowder. There was no hanging back on the part of any one of them.