ts. One hundred and fifty of us against fifteen hundred
fighting braves.

In the early morning of a long, hot August day, we came to an open plain
beyond the Prairie Dog Creek. Our supply-wagons and pack-mules were
separated from us somewhere among the bluffs. We had had no food since
the night before, and our canteens were empty--all on account of the
blundering mismanagement of the United States officer who cammanded
us. I was only a private, and a private's business is not to
question, but to obey. And that major over us, cashiered for cowardice
later, was not a Kansas man. Thank heaven for that!

A score of us, including my cousin and myself, under a sergeant, and
with good Scout Pliley, were suddenly ordered back among the hills.

"Where do we go, and why?" Beverly asked me as we rode along.

"I don't know," I replied. "But Captain Jenness and a file of men were
lost out here somewhere last night. And Indian tracks step over one
another all around here. I guess we are out to find what's lost, maybe.
It isn't a twenty minutes' job, I know that."

"And all our canteens empty, too! Why cut off all visible means of
support in a time like this? Look at these bluffs and hiding-places,
will you! A handful of Indians could scoop our whole body up and pitch
us into the Prairie Dog Creek, and not be missed from a set in a
war-dance," Beverly insisted. "Keep it strictly in the Clarenden family,
Gail, but our honorable commander is a fool and a coward, if he is a
United States major."

"You speak as one expecting a promotion, Bev," I suggested.

"I'd know how to use it if I got it," he smiled brightly at me as we
quickened our pace not to fall behind.

Every day of that campaign Beverly grew dearer to me. I am glad our
lives ran on together for so many years.

The canons deepened and the whole region was bewildering, but still we
struggled on, lost men searching for lost men. The sun blazed hotly, and
the soft yellow bluffs of bone-dry earth reached down to the dry beds of
one-time streams.

High noon, and still no food, no water, and no lost men discovered. We
had pushed out to a little opening, ridged in on either side by high,
brown bluffs, when a whoop came from the head of the line.

"Yonder they are! Yonder they are!"

Half a dozen men, led by Captain Jenness, were riding swiftly to join us
and we shouted in our joy. For some among us that was the last joyous
shout. At that moment a yell from savage throats