Orion was setting already, and the stillness became more terrible every moment, the live menacing silence. Before I had even time for an alarm shot the rebel scouts might rush me, for if they meant to attack the fort at dawn it was high time they put me out of action. Stars rose upon my left, they set upon my right, then the earth's edge darkened black against the east, and it looked as if some angel with a brush made a faint wash of stars to paint the sky.
Up the hill behind me came thud of hoofs, and swish of skidding runners, clank of harness, voices, "Gid-up you! Haw, Mollie!" I sensed a mounted man leading a string of sleighs up the long hill from the fort, but never saw them until they topped the brow curving past me filmy-gray like ghosts. They were bound, they told me, to get the traders' stores from Duck Lake Post before the rebels came.
I heard reveillé sound, its notes faint silver, tingling the fine air. The eastward sky was lemon flecked with rose, the snow-field was changing from indigo to lilac, then the red sun shone level through poplar groves, and made their frosted branches cornelian in mist of fire. The sky was cobalt next, and shadows like blue pools filled all the hollows, while the poplar groves were changing to tremulous white diamond. It was time for breakfast, but my relief was late. Then I was drowsy pacing old Anti on a measured beat to keep us both awake. Half sleeping I heard at distant intervals the bugles calling "Dress," "Stables," "Grub pile."
The string of teams came rattling homeward now, at a sharp trot, taking the hills on a lope, the teamsters shouting chaff one to another, the men in the sleigh beds with their carbines ready, peering back. The sleighs came past me empty, and somebody shouted, "Rebels! Run, Blackguard! Rebels coming!"
"Send my relief," I yelled as they went swinging down the curve, the first patrol of the regiment which ever showed its tail to an enemy.
For a long time I scanned the rolling plain ahead with all its frozen pools and clumps of aspen. There was no sign of rebels. Then from the fort I heard the bugle crying a new call: "Boot and saddle!"
Not knowing what that was, I rode to the lookout, from whence I could see the square aswarm with men, all falling in like atoms of some crystal until a general parade stood rigid on command. It was but a mile. I could see Paddy making a speech, and heard the thin thread of sound, lost in a riot of cheering. Then there were short sharp barks of command while the advance guard formed fours, the little brass seven-pounder swung her little tail, dismounted men piled into all the sleighs sent out again to load at Duck Lake Post, and the rear-guard covered all—out through the water-gate, round the stockade, across the trampled meadow and up the timbered hillside. Two scouts came ramping past me and plowed on into the blinding glare. Next Paddy, attended by his bugler, rode up to the hill crest, and I begged him to let me come.
"Fall in," said he, "rear-guard." So I spurred through the drifts to get there lest he should change his mind.
The column was in half sections, the last consisting of Buckie who fancied himself with the stiff cavalry seat, and the Montana cow-hand who rode easy. I dropped in behind them and called Joe Chambers back. Had he seen Sarde, I asked.
He had not.