The battalion had halted at the foot of the slope, each troop closing up on its predecessor and huddling in shivering silence. No trumpet sounded; no word of command was heard. Every troop leader threw up his hand when he thought he had gone far enough and rolled stiffly out of saddle, his horse only too willingly standing stock-still the instant he found himself no longer urged. "Dismount" either by signal or command would have been an affront to a cavalry force two-thirds of whose array seemed to be dismounted already, some towing along by taut bridle-rein the famished relic of a once spirited charger, others comforting themselves with the reflection that at least they had now only their own carcass to care for, others still wishing they had not even that responsibility, wondering how much longer their aggrieved stomachs might have to struggle with the only pabulum upon which they had been allowed to expend their gastric juices for over forty-eight hours, and suffering the pangs of remorse, both physical and mental, in the poignant consciousness that the cause of this distress was the undigested portion of some late faithful four-footed friend and companion, for the command for rations had been reduced to horse meat on the hoof. Three hundred miles from the nearest post when their supplies gave out, in the heart of the Bad Lands and the height of the worst season of the year, except midwinter, it had turned its back to the forts and its face to the foe, true to its orders, still following the trail of the hostile tribe,—the only hot thing it had struck for a week. "Live on the country, there isn't anything else," were their orders, as they cut loose from the main command, and their major—a reserved and conservative fellow at other times—came away from the grim presence of his commander with blasphemy on his bearded lips. The only human habitation within scores of miles of his line of march were Indian lodges, and both grass for the horses and game for the men had been fired off the face of the earth by those active foemen before the drenching wintry rain set in and chilled to the marrow the shelterless forms of starving trooper and staggering steed.

"Live on the country, indeed! Two antelope and ten prairie dogs was the sum total of the game secured by the hunters in three days' pursuit. And what are they," said Captain Truman, "among so many? Barley loaves and Galilee perch might be made to go round in a bigger crowd in the days of miracles, but this isn't Jordan's strand," he added, as he glanced around at the dripping, desolate slopes, and then, fortified in his opinion by the gloomy survey, concluded, with cavalry elegance, "not by a damn sight."

"What's the matter ahead, anyhow?" hailed a brother captain, up to his shins in sticky mud, who had been making mental calculation as to how many more hours of such wearing work and wretched weather it would take to unhorse his entire company.

"Don't know," was the short answer. Men fight, but they seldom talk on empty stomachs.

"Why, I thought I saw you talking with Hastings when he rode back." Hastings being the battalion adjutant. "Didn't he say what they were pow-wowing about?"

"No, and I didn't ask. There was nothing to eat in sight, and that's the only matter that interests my people just now. Just look at those poor brutes!" And Truman heaved a sigh as he gazed about among his gaunt, dejected horses, many of them so weak as barely to be able to stand.

"My men are as bad off as the horses, pretty near," said Captain Devers, the other. "There isn't one of them that hasn't turned his saddle-bags inside out to-day for the last crumb of hard-tack. They're worn to skin and bone. Three of them broke down entirely back there at the creek crossing, and if there weren't Indians all round us, nothing would have fetched them along. There goes Davies, coddling 'em again, damn it! That man would spoil any troop——Mr. Davies!" he called, and a gaunt, wiry fellow, with a stiff beard sprouting on his thin, haggard face, turned away from a bedraggled trooper who had thrown himself in utter abandonment among the dripping sage brush at the side of the trail, and came to his troop commander.

"I wish you wouldn't make such a fuss over those men," said Devers, petulantly. "Just leave 'em alone. They'll come out all right. This coddling and petting isn't going to do any good. Soldiers are not like sick children."

"A good many of ours seem to feel that way just now, sir," said the young officer. "I only thought to cheer him up a bit."

"Well, when my men need nursing, Mr. Davies, I'll have you detailed in that capacity, but be so good as to refrain from it otherwise. I don't like it. That's all."

Without a word Davies turned on his heel and went back to his horse. Truman, looking after him with a not unkindly interest in his tired eyes, saw that he swayed a little as he ploughed his way through the thick and sticky mud. "That boy's as weak as a sick child himself, Devers," said he. "You'll have to have a nurse for him before we get in."

"Well, it's his own fault, then. He had just as much in his haversack as I had when we cut loose from the main column. I 'spose he's given it away."

"I know he has," was the curt rejoinder. "Neither of those two men could stomach tough mule meat. I suppose that was the only way to get 'em along."

Devers turned gloomily about. Down in the bottom of his heart he felt that in his annoyance at what he considered disregard of his instructions he had spoken harshly and unjustly to a young officer of whom he had heard many a word of praise during the hard and trying campaign now drawing to a close. True, the words had fallen mainly from the lips of those of the rank and file or from seniors whom he didn't like. In some, cases, especially among the enlisted men, they would appear to have been spoken for the captain's especial benefit. Devers, while a painstaking officer and not unmindful of the care of his men, was one who "lacked magnetism," to say the least, and never won from them the enthusiastic homage they often lavished on others among their superiors. The fact that Lieutenant Davies, finding Moore and Rupp actually so weak from lack of food that they could hardly drag one leg after another, had been sharing with them his own slender store of provision was not the first thing the men had noted in his favor, but that was no reason, thought Devers, why they should raise their voices and glance covertly in his direction when referring to it. Devers was one of the kind sometimes called unsympathetic, that is, he seemed so, but it was more in manner than in fact, for few troop commanders in his regiment were really more careful in providing for their men than he. But these were days that tried men's tempers as well as their souls, and the officer who could look back on that long campaign against the Sioux without regretting some speech wrung from him by the exasperation produced by incessant exposure, hardship, and finally by starvation, were few indeed. Devers was honest enough to admit to himself at the moment that he wished he hadn't said what he did say to Davies, but not so honest as to confess it to any one else. Yet stealing a glance at the young fellow whom he had humiliated, now wearily leaning against his saddle, Devers would have been glad to find some way of making amends, but, stealing another glance around another way after Truman, of whom he was both jealous and afraid, he hardened his heart. It is one thing to say "I was in the wrong" to the victim, and quite another to admit it to one's fellows. It is fear of what the world will say that keeps many a man from righting many a wrong, and men, too, who wouldn't flinch in front of a mile of batteries.

Standing listlessly by their horses, the men of Devers's troop had, some of them at least, been silent witnesses of the scene. One or two officers also had marked and conjectured, though they had not heard, what had taken place. Truman alone was cognizant of all, and, whatever may have been his views, this was neither the time nor place to express them. But he took occasion to stop as he was returning to the head of his own troop and speak to the young officer in the case.

"Davies," said he, kindly, "come over with me a moment. I've got a little chunk of antelope in my saddle-bags, and you need it, man. We'll all have something to eat to-night—sure. We'll make the Belle Fourche by nine."

Davies looked up gratefully. "I'm ever so much obliged, captain," he began, "but I can't eat with all those poor fellows looking at me. They're about done up."

"Oh, it's rough, I know, but all they've got to do is tag along with the column till night and then eat their fill. You haven't had enough to live on, and may have work ahead. Here comes Hastings now."

And as he spoke the battalion adjutant came spurring down from a low ridge at the front fast as a miserably jaded horse could bear him. Earlier in the campaign every man would have felt the thrill of coming excitement,—a chase, a brush of some kind, perhaps,—but now all were weak and weary. Even the Patlanders in Truman's troop, men of whom it had often been said that they'd rather fight than eat, were no more full of fight to-day than they were of food.

"What's he want?" growled Devers, sauntering over to where the officer stood. "We've left the Indians miles behind. Surely there can't be any between us and the river."

Many eyes were fixed on the coming horseman or on the little group of scouts and soldiers surrounding the major, who, kneeling, was levelling his field-glasses over the ridge at some objects far away, apparently towards the southeast.

"They're everywhere,—damn them!" was the curt answer, "except where we want them. But he's looking off square to the left, not ahead."

This was true. Whatever it might have been far to the front of the weary column that caused the little squad of scouts to signal halt after their first cautious peep over that ridge, the object at which so many were now excitedly peering and pointing was at right angles to the direction of the march. Yet did the advance keep well concealed against observant eyes ahead, though why they should do so when every Indian in Dakota by this time knew all about them, their movements, and those of the main column farther over towards the Little Missouri, Truman couldn't understand.

"Have you ten horses that can stand a side scout?" asked the adjutant, urging his mud-spattered mount to the head of Devers's troop. He spoke abruptly, and without salute, to his superior officer,—his own captain at that.

"What are we on but a side scout now?" demanded that officer, in the surly tone the best of men may fall into under such circumstances.

"That isn't the question," replied Mr. Hastings, "and we've no time for points. Davies, it's your detail. There's something—we can't make out what—over towards the river. Report to the major and I'll find your party."

"I doubt if my horse can stand any side scout," said Davies, slowly, "but I am ready."

"Oh, your horse's as good as any in the outfit," interposed the adjutant, impatiently. "The major wants ten men from your troop at once, captain,—the ten who have the strongest horses. It won't take 'em more than a dozen miles out of the way, I reckon. The whole crowd would go, only men and horses can barely make the day's march as it is."

"See any Indians?" asked Truman, lounging up.

"I haven't. Crounse and the scouts say they have, and it's likely enough. Of course you've seen the pony tracks, and what's queer is that many of them head over towards the very point where this smoke is drifting from. Looks as if they'd jumped some wagons and burned them."

Meantime, Mr. Davies had slowly mounted and was urging his reluctant horse into some semblance of a canter. As the slope in front of him steepened, however, both horse and rider abandoned the effort, and, full fifty yards below the point where the battalion commander and his scouts were in consultation, the lieutenant dismounted, and leaving his steed unguarded to nibble at a patch of scant and sodden herbage that had survived the Indian fires, he slowly climbed the ascent. "I am ordered to report to you, sir," was all he had to say.

The major lowered his field-glass and looked back over a broad, burly shoulder garbed in canvas shooting-jacket. Not a stitch of uniform graced his massive person from head to heel, yet soldier was manifest in every gesture or attitude. A keen observer might have said that a shade of disappointment crossed his fine, full-bearded face as he heard the subaltern's voice, but no sign of it appeared in his tone when he spoke.

"Mr. Davies, just take this glass and see what you make of that smoke off yonder. The sun is getting low and it baffles me somewhat." Silently the lieutenant obeyed, and creeping up towards the crest he knelt and took a preliminary peep.

Issuing from the Bad Lands the jaded column had been plodding all day long, though with frequent enforced rests, through a rolling sea of barren, turfless earth. What grass had carpeted its surface in the spring had been burned off by sagacious Indians, bent on impeding by every known device the march of troops through their lands,—and what device the Indian does not know is little worth knowing. Under a dripping leaden sky the earth lay desolate and repulsive. Miles away to the north the dim, castellated buttes and pinnacles of the range were still faintly visible, and the tortuous trail of the column of twos winding its way over wave after wave of barren prairie like the wake of some terrestrial bark in a sea of mud. Far to the westward a jagged line of hills, sharply defined, seemed to rear their crests from the general level of the land, and somewhere along the eastern slope of that ridge, and not far from where two twin-pointed buttes seemed peeping over at these uncouth invaders, the main command of the expedition should have passed earlier in the day, making for the crossing of the swift-running stream that circled the northern border of some black, forbidding heights lying like a dark patch upon the landscape at its southwestern edge. Black as it looked, that was their one refuge. There alone dare they hope to find food. Thither had been sent an advanced detail with orders to buy at owners' prices flour, bacon, bread, coffee, anything the outlying settlements might have for sale that would sustain life. Men who had been living on horse or prairie-dog would not be fastidious. Here, too, the major had hoped by night to bivouac his weary men, but it seemed desperately far away. The march had been much impeded, and now, far out on his left flank was something that could not be passed uninvestigated. He, with his worn battalion of four troops, had been detached from the main column three days previous with orders to follow the trail of a war-party of Sioux, and smite them hip and thigh if he could catch them in forty-eight hours; if not, to veer around for the valley and rejoin the column at its bivouac among the foot-hills. There they should rest and recuperate. The pursued Indians, fortunately, had turned southward and gone jogging leisurely away towards their reservations, until warned of the pursuit by ambitious young braves still hovering about the troops in hope of slicing off the scalp of some straggler. Then, every man for himself, they had apparently scattered over the face of the country, laughing gleefully to think what fun the white chief would have in deciding which trail to follow. The situation on the third day out had been summarized by Crounse, the guide, about as follows: "So long as this outfit pulls together it won't catch an Indian; so soon as it doesn't pull together it'll catch hell," which being interpreted meant that the four companies united were too strong for the number of Indians within striking distance, or say three days' march, but that if it were divided into little detachments, and sent hither and yon in pursuit of such small parties as would then allow themselves to be seen, the chances were that those pursuing squads would one by one be lured beyond support, surrounded, cut off, and then massacred to a man. The major and his officers, most of them, knew this as well as Crounse. They knew, moreover, that even so large a command as theirs had been cut off, surrounded, and massacred more than once in the history of Sioux warfare, but then the Indians were massed, not scattered helter-skelter all over the continent as was the case the end of this eventful summer. Well did Major Warren understand that with such broken-down horses and weakened men he could now effect little or nothing against the Indians after whom he had been sent, even could he overtake them, and his instructions were literally obeyed. It was high time for him to restore his men to their comrades. He was making the best of his way to the rendezvous, hoping almost against hope to reach the welcome of the bivouac fires, and hot tins of coffee and toothsome morsels of hard-tack and bacon, things they had not had a scrap of for three days, and only occasional reminders of for the previous ten, when lo! off to their flank, far to the southeast there appeared this unwelcome yet importunate sign. Was it appeal for help or lure to ambush? Who could say? Only one thing was certain,—a thick smoke drifting westward from the clump of wallows and timber surrounding what Crounse said was a spring could not be passed unheeded.

"If we march the whole command over there, it will be another twenty-four hours before we can reach the regiment. I don't think many of the men, or horses either, can go that much longer without a bite," said Mr. Hastings, the battalion adjutant, seeing in his senior's eye a permission to speak.

"Well, there are no settlements there and never have been," said Crounse, "so it can't be cabins or shacks. Wagons it may be, but who'd be damn fool enough to start a wagon-train up the valley this year of all others, when every Indian at the reservation except old Spot is in league with the hostiles? I can't believe it's wagons, yet it's on the road full a mile this side of the river itself. What I'm afraid of is that it's a plant. They want to coax us over there and cut us off, as they did Custer." The major was silent and thoughtful. Davies, still studying the distant objects, said not a word. Leading their horses, eight troopers following a sergeant, all wet, weary, and heaven only knows how hungry, came slowly forward up the slope until they reached the spot where Davies's horse was nibbling. Here the foremost halted without a word, and the others grouped about him or, stopping short when their leader did so, threw themselves on the wet ground reckless of cold or rheumatism, as spiritless a squad as frontier warfare could well develop. Valley Forge knew nothing like it. The retreat from Moscow might have furnished a parallel.

Leaving his horse to do as his jaded fancy might suggest, the battalion adjutant, returning from his quest, came slowly to the major's side. "I've picked out nine, sir. It was simply impossible to find another in the whole two hundred. Some of these look barely able to stagger as it is."

"And it's Davies's detail?" asked the major, in low tone.

"Yes, sir. He's the only sub in the battalion who hasn't been on detachment duty since we left the Yellowstone, and his horse is able to go. Look at him, actually kicking!"

This was true. The sergeant's starving charger, showing a disposition to poach on the little preserve that Davies's steed had pre-empted, was rewarded by a sudden whirl about and flourish of two shod hoofs.

"Davies," said the major, kindly, yet with quick decision, "I hate to impose additional work on worn-out men, but we can't leave that matter uninvestigated. I want you to ride over there and see what that smoke means. I don't think Indians in any force are near, and ten men ought to be enough to stand 'em off. If it's nothing of consequence you can follow on up-stream or camp as you please. If it's a wagon outfit attacked, and there's anything left to help, do your best. We'll keep a troop in supporting distance, and instead of marching straight for the hills, I'll edge off here towards the river, sending Devers well out towards you. We've got nearly three hours of daylight yet. Think you understand?"

"I think so, sir," said Davies, slowly replacing his glass, then looking hesitatingly around.

"Anything you want?" asked Warren.

"Well, I should like to see Captain Truman just a minute, sir."

"He's three hundred yards back there now, and time's precious. Can't I do?" asked the major, not unkindly. "Want to leave anything?"

"No, sir. It's of no consequence." And turning abruptly, Davies went half sliding, half shuffling down the slippery slope, kicked the mud off his boots, and briefly nodding to the sergeant, said "Mount," hoisted himself into saddle, and led his little party silently away. One of the men looked appealingly back towards Crounse.

"Got any baccy, Jim?"

"Not a pinch. I'd give my boots for a chew."

Davies heard the appeal and turned to his sergeant. "Tell Dunn to come up here alongside," said he, reaching down into his saddle-pocket; "I've half a plug left, sergeant, and we'll divide."

"It'll help the men as much as a square meal, sir," said the trooper, gratefully; "but I never saw the lieutenant chew."

"I don't, but it's some I fetched along for just such an emergency."

Meantime the major and his party stood gazing silently after them. They saw them winding away down the southward face of the long ridge and crossing the shallow ravine at its foot. Beyond lay another long, low spur of treeless prairie.

"The Parson didn't seem over-anxious to go," muttered Mr. Hastings, as though to himself.

"Small blame to him!" promptly answered the major. "I don't blame any man in this command for declining any invitation, except to dinner. Hallo! What's that?"

In Davies's little party the men had been seen passing some object from one to the other. One or two who had ridden up alongside the young officer touched their hats and fell back to their place. Suddenly two of them left the squad and, urging their horses to such speed as they were capable of, went at heavy plunging lope over the southern end of the opposite ridge and disappeared from view.

"Antelope, by jimminy! I thought I saw a buck's horns over that crest yonder a minute ago," said an orderly.

"Antelope be damned!" said Crounse, gritting his teeth. "If those men knew this country as I do they'd think twice before they rode a hundred yards away from the column. I wouldn't undertake to ride from here to that butte yonder,—not for a beefsteak, I wouldn't,—God knows what else I wouldn't do for that!"

"Why, you can see the whole valley, and there ain't an Indian in sight," said the orderly trumpeter, disdainfully.

"Yes, and it's just when you can't see one that a valley's most apt to be full of 'em, kid," began the frontiersman, but the major cut him off.

"Ride after Mr. Davies with my compliments, trumpeter, and tell him to recall those men, and not to let them straggle, even after game."

The trumpeter touched his ragged hat-brim and turned away to get his horse, which he presently spurred to a sputtering lope, and went clattering away on the trail.

"We may as well mount now and push ahead," said the major, after a moment's reflection. "Keep Davies in sight as much as possible, Crounse." And so saying he went on and climbed stiffly into saddle, for he, too, was wet and chilled and sore-spirited; but it was his business to put the best face on matters in general, and the troopers, seeing the major mount, got themselves to their horses without further order. None of the horses, poor brutes, required holding, but stood there with dejected crest, pasterns deep in the mud, too weak to wander even in search of grass. Warren came riding slowly towards his men.

"Captain Devers," said he, "I have sent Mr. Davies off to the left to scout towards the valley. I wish you to follow his trail a mile, and then to march due south by compass, keeping about midway between him and us. Hold him in sight, if possible, and be ready to support him if he should be attacked. We will back you. If all is quiet by the time you strike the old road in the valley, turn west and follow on to camp."

But Captain Devers was one of those officers who seemed never to grasp an order at first hand. Even when it came in writing, clear, brief, and explicit, he often required explanations. "I don't think I understand, sir," he began, but Warren cut him short.

"I should have been prepared for that," he exclaimed, giving way for the first time to the generally peppery and irascible spirit of semi-starved men. "Mount!" he ordered. "Captain Truman, lead the column,—Crounse will show you the line. I will ride here awhile with Devers and show him what's wanted."

Now, it is one of the peculiarities of prairie landscape that where whole counties may appear to be one general level or open slopes when viewed from the distance, the face of the country is really cut up in countless directions by ravines, watercourses and coulÉes, so that, except in the level bottom-lands along a river-bed, it is next to impossible to keep moving objects continually in view. Davies and his little party were out of sight when the major reappeared on the ridge with Devers's ragged troop at his heels. So, too, were the would-be hunters. "Kid" Murray, the trumpeter, alone remained in view, and he had just reached the crest of a parallel ridge somewhat lower and about a quarter of a mile to the left.

Then those at the head of column saw a strange thing. The young trumpeter, instead of pushing forward on the trail, had suddenly reined in. Bending forward in his saddle, he was gazing eagerly in the direction taken by the antelope-stalkers; then, suddenly again, whirled about and began frantically signalling to the column. They saw him quickly swing his battered trumpet from behind his back and raise it to his lips, sounding some call. Floating across the wind, over the bleak and barren prairie, came almost together the muffled sound of two rifle-shots, then the stirring trumpet signal,—gallop.

"Away with you, Devers!" ordered the major. "Head Truman this way, Mr. Hastings. Tell him to come on." And forty horsemen went laboring down the gentle slope, lugging their rusty brown carbines, one by one, from the mud-covered sockets.