r
or a touch of her trembling little hand, affecting to be so occupied in
preparation up to the instant of starting that he had no time for a
word with anybody. And yet Mrs. Miller had called him aside and spoken
to him as the group of officers and ladies gathered near the Laramie
bridge to see the little column start, and Nellie Bayard had looked up
wistfully at him as he rode by their party, merely waving his
scouting-hat in general salutation. It hurt her sorely that he should
have gone without one word for her,--and yet she scarce knew why.

And now here they were, squarely across the Indian trail, and ready for
their coming. Roswell Holmes could not have that distinction at all
events, thought McLean, as he tried the lock and breech-block of his
rifle to see that everything was in perfect working order. Come what
might,--if it were only Indians,--he meant to make a record in this
fight that any woman might be proud of; and if he fell,--well, he
wouldn't have to pay for Sergeant Marsland's stealings, or have the
misery of seeing her borne off by Holmes's big bank-account, as she
probably would be. Poor Mac! He had yet to learn that a reputation as
an Indian-fighter is but an ephemeral and unsatisfactory asset as an
adjunct to love-making.

Meanwhile, the dawn is broadening; the grayish pallor at the orient
takes on a warmer tint, and a feeble glow of orange and crimson steals
up the heavens. The slopes and swales around the lonely outpost grow
more and more visible, the distant ridge more sharply defined against
the southern sky. Off to the left, the eastward, the river rolls along
in a silvery, misty gleam; and their comrades, still sheltered under
the bluff, are beginning to gather around the horses and look to the
bridles and "cinchas." Now the red blush deepens and extends along the
low hill-tops across the Platte, and tinges the rolling prairie to the
south and west. A few minutes more and the glow is strong enough to
reveal an old but well-defined trail leading from the distant ridge
straight up to the little crest where McLean is lying. It seems to
follow a south-westerly course, and is the trail, beyond doubt, along
which the marauders from the reservations have time and again recrossed
with their plunder and gained the official shelter of those sacred
limits.

"Why, sir," says Corporal Connor, who is lying there beside the young
officer, "last October a party came over and scalped two women and
three te