f the
prairie is bathed in crimson and gold, while the "breaks" and ravines
trending southward grow black and forbidding in their contrasted gloom.
Far over to the southeast, in dazzling radiance, two lofty peaks, still
snow-clad, gleam against the summer sky, and at their feet dark waves of
forest-covered foot-hills drink in the last rays of the waning sunshine
as though hoarding its treasured warmth against the chill of coming
night. Already the evening air, rare and exhilarating at this great
altitude, loses the sun-god's touch and strikes upon the cheek keen as
the ether of the limitless heavens. A while ago, only in the distant
valley winding to the south could foliage be seen. Now, all in those
depths is merged in sombre shade, and not a leaf or tree breaks for
miles the grand monotony. Close at hand a host of tiny mounds, each
tipped with reddish gold, and some few further ornamented by miniature
sentry, alert and keen-eyed, tell of a prairie township already laid out
and thickly populated; and at this moment every sentry is chipping his
pert, querulous challenge until the disturbers of the peace are close
upon him, then diving headlong into the bowels of the earth.

A dun cloud of dust rolls skyward along a well-worn cavalry trail, and
is whirled into space by the hoofs of sixty panting chargers trotting
steadily south. Sixty sunburned, dust-covered troopers ride grimly on,
following the lead of a tall soldier whose kind brown eyes peer
anxiously from under his scouting-hat. It is just as they pass the
village of the prairie dogs that he points to the low valley down to the
front and questions the "plainsman" who lopes along by his side,--

"That Black Canyon down yonder?"

"That's it, lieutenant: I didn't think you could make it to-night."

"We _had_ to," is the simple reply as again the spur touches the jaded
flank and evokes only a groan in response.

"How far from here to--the Springs?" he presently asks again.

"Box Elder?--where they found the bodies?--'bout five mile, sir."

"Where away was that signal smoke we saw at the divide?"

"Must have been from those bluffs--east of the Springs, sir."

Lieutenant Lee whips out his watch and peers at the dial through the
twilight. The cloud deepens on his haggard, handsome face. Eight
o'clock, and they have been in saddle almost incessantly since yesterday
afternoon, weighed down with the tidings of the fell disaster that has
robbed them of their comrades,