scuttle away of
jack-rabbits, until by noon the long lines of Custer came into sight.

These three days of sudden descent from high levels to the terrible
monotony of the thirsty plains, without shade, with the thermometer
still in the nineties, began to show curiously in the morale of the
outfit. The major got up earlier and rode farther: our English captain
walked more and more around the camp-fire. On one day the coffee gave
out, and on the next the sugar, and everything except the commissary's
unfailing good-humor, which was, unluckily, not edible. Mr. T. rode in
silence beside the judge, grimly calculating how soon he could get a
railroad over these plains. Even the doctor fell away in the "talk"
line. Says Mr. Jump: "These 'ere plains ain't as social as they might
be." Some one is responsible for the following brief effort to evolve in
verse the lugubrious elements of a ride over alkali plains with failing
provender, weary horses, desiccating heat and quenchless thirst:

Silent and weary and sun-baked, we rode o'er the alkaline grass-plains,
Into and out of the coolies and through the gray green of the sage-brush--
All the long line of the horses, with jingle of spur and of bridle,
All the brown line of the mule-train, tired and foot-sore and straggling;
Nothing to right and to left, nothing before and behind us,
Save the dry yellowing grass, and afar on the hazy horizon,
Sullen, and grim, and gray, sunburnt, monotonous sand-heaps.
So we rode, sombre and listless, day after day, while the distance
Grew as we rode, till the eyeballs ached with the terrible sameness.

By this time the command was straggling in a long broken line, all eyes
set on the fort, where, about 1.30, we dismounted from our six hundred
miles in the saddle to find in the officers' club-room a hearty welcome
and the never-to-be-forgotten sensation of a schooner of iced Milwaukee
beer. From Fort Custer we rode a hundred and thirty miles in ambulances
to Fort Keogh. This portion of our journey took us over the line to be
followed by the Northern Pacific Railroad, and gave us a good idea of
the wealthy grass-lands, capable of easy irrigation, bordering the
proposed line of rail. The river is navigable to Custer until the middle
of September, and in wet seasons still later. Already, much of the best
land is taken up, and we were able to buy chickens if we could shoot
them, and eggs and potatoes, the latter the b