not girthed with cavalry saddles now. Nor were there
lacking other bodies to prove that the victims of the sudden storm were
not Uncle Sam's men, much as two, at least, of the drowned had been
wanted by Federal authorities but a week before. What the denizens of
Gate City and Fort Emory dreaded and expected to bear was that Dean and
his little party had been caught in the trap. But, living or dead, not a
sign of them remained along the storm-swept ravine. What most people of
Gate City and Fort Emory could not understand was the evidence that a
big gang of horse thieves, desperadoes and renegades had suddenly
appeared about the new town, had spurred away northward in the night,
had kept the Frayne road till they reached the Box Elder, riding hard
long after sun-up, and there, reinforced, they had gone westward to the
Sweetwater trail, and, old frontiersmen though they were, had been
caught in the whirl of water at Canon Springs, losing two of their
number and at least a dozen of their horses. What could have lured them
into that gloomy rift at such a time? What inspiration had led Dean out
of it?

Singly or in little squads, many of them afoot, bedraggled, silent,
chagrined, the "outfit," described by Trooper Carey had slunk away from
the neighborhood of the Box Elder as soon as the storm subsided.
Solemnly, as befitted soldiers, silent and and alert despite their
dripping accoutrements, the little detachment of cavalry had pushed
ahead, riding by compass over the drenched uplands, steering for the
Sweetwater. Late in the afternoon the skies had cleared, the sun came
out, and they camped in a bunch of cottonwoods on the old Casper trail
and slept the sleep of the just and the weary. Early next day they
hastened on, reaching the usually shallow stream, with Devil's Gate only
a few miles away, before the setting of a second sun. Here they feasted
and rested well, and before the dawn was fairly red on the third day out
from Emory they were breasting the turbid waters and by noon had left
the valley far to the south and were well out toward the Big Horn
country, where it behooved them to look warily ahead, for from every
ridge, though far to the west of their probable raiding ground, Dean and
his men could expect to encounter scouting parties of the Indians at any
moment, and one false step meant death.

The third night passed without alarm, though every eye and ear was
strained. The morning of the fourth day dawned and th