LAVA-BED KIT.
“Where’s McKay?”
“Still absent with his Warm Springers. I do not expect him before midnight.”
“And Artena?”
“Dead or alive, she is somewhere among the Indians. She promised to be here against sunset, and see, that hour is with us now.”
The first speaker glanced toward the west, and remained silent for a minute.
The handsome military man at his side quietly adjusted his field-glass, which he brought to bear upon a dark ridge against the horizon.
“General, this has been a bloody day,” said the rough borderman, venturing to disturb the officer in the midst of his observations. “We’ve lost as good boys as ever lived.”
Down came the field-glass, and General Gillem sighed as he turned to his companion.
“A disastrous day for us truly, Kit,” he said. “No nobler fellows than Thomas, Howe and Wright. Now shall the war be pushed with vigor. This day’s massacre has heated my blood till it tingles through my veins. The fiends expect no quarter, as none they give. By Heavens, none they shall have! If we could but get the master-spirit of this war—the Napoleon of these red Arabs.”