e-bags and tould her was it Machpealota, and she said it was, and
he was wid Box Karesha--that's ould Folsom--not six hour ago, an'
Folsom's gone back to the cantonment."

"Then the quicker we skip the better," were the aide-de-camp's words.
"Get us to Reno fast as you can, Dean. Strike for the road again as soon
as we're well beyond their buffalo. Now for it! There's something behind
all this bogus hunt business, and Folsom knows what it is."

And every mile of the way, until thick darkness settled down over the
prairie, there was something behind the trooper cavalcade--several
somethings--wary red men, young and wiry, who never let themselves be
seen, yet followed on over wave after wave of prairie to look to it that
no man went back from that column to carry the news of their presence to
the little battalion left in charge of the new post at Warrior Gap.

It was the dark of the moon, or, as the Indians say, "the nights the
moon is sleeping in his lodge," and by ten P. M. the skies were
overcast. Only here and there a twinkling star was visible, and only
where some trooper struck a light for his pipe could a hand be seen in
front of the face. The ambulance mules that had kept their steady jog
during the late afternoon and the long gloaming that followed still
seemed able to maintain the gait, and even the big, lumbering wagon at
the rear came briskly on under the tug of its triple span, but in the
intense darkness the guides at the head of the column kept losing the
road, and the bumping of the wagons would reveal the fact, and a halt
would be ordered, men would dismount and go bending and crouching and
feeling their way over the almost barren surface, hunting among the sage
brush for the double furrow of the trail. Matches innumerable were
consumed, and minutes of valuable time, and the quartermaster waxed
fretful and impatient, and swore that his mules could find their way
where the troopers couldn't, and finally, after the trail had been lost
and found half a dozen times, old Brooks was badgered into telling Dean
to let the ambulance take the lead. The driver shirked at once.

"There's no tellin' where we'll fetch up," said he. "Those mules can't
see the trail if a man can't. Take their harness off and turn 'em loose,
an' I suppose they can find their way to the post, but sure as you turn
them loose when they've got somethin' on 'em, or behind 'em, and the
doggone cussedness of the creatures will prompt them to s