But Charlie Bent was not run down that night. Before we had time to get
over our surprise a scream of pain rang through the camp. Another
followed, and another, and when an hour had passed a third of our forces
was writhing in the clutches of the cholera.

I shall never forget the long hours of that night beside the Walnut, nor
Beverly Clarenden's face as he bent over the suffering men. For all of
us who were well worked mightily to save our plague-stricken comrades,
whose couches were of prairie grass and whose hospital roof was the
starlit sky. However forgetful Beverly might be of names and faces, his
strong hand had that soothing firmness that eased the agony of cramping
limbs. Dear Bev! He comforted the sick, and caught the dying words, and
straightened the relaxed bodies of the dead, and smiled next day, and
forgot that he had done it.

At last the night of horror passed, and day came, wan and hot and weary
out of the east. But five of our comrades would see no earthly day
again; and three dozen strong men of the day before lay stretched upon
the ground, pulseless and shrunken and purple, with wrinkled skin and
wide, unseeing eyes.

Before the sun had risen our dead, coffined only by their army blankets,
lay in unmarked graves. Our helpless living were placed in commissary
wagons, and we took the trail slowly and painfully toward the Arkansas
River.

If Charley Bent had gathered up his band to strike that night there
would have been a different chapter in the annals of the plains.

I cannot follow with my pen the long marches of that campaign, and there
was no honorable nor glorious warfare in it. It is a story of
skirmishes, not of battles; of attack and repulse; of ambush and pursuit
and retreat. It is a story of long days under burning skies, by whose
fierce glare our brains seemed shriveling up and the world went black
before our heat-bleared eyes. A story of hard night-rides, when weary
bodies fought with watchful minds the grim struggle that drowsiness can
wage, though sleep, we knew, meant death. It is a story of fevered
limbs and bursting pulse in hospitals whose walls were prairie
distances. A story of hunger, and exhausted rations; of choking thirst,
with only alkali water mocking at us. And never could the story all be
told. There is no rest for cavalrymen in the field. We did not suffer
heavy loss, but here and there our comrades fell, by ones, and twos, at
duty's post; and where they fell the