er since we ran out of rations Mullen and
Phillips, as well as dozens of other men in the regiment, have been out
hunting on the flanks every day. They never stopped to ask permission
this time. I never knew that they were gone until they were out of
sight. I supposed, of course, they wouldn't be away so long."

"I have told you more than once, Mr. Davies, that you were reckless of
my instructions, and I've sent for you to show, once and for all, what
it has cost. Stand aside there!" he said sternly to the men, whom some
instinct of pity had prompted to gather between them and the stiffening
forms of the dead. "There are your hunters,--two of my best men, Mr.
Davies, and who but you is responsible for this?"

For a moment the young officer gazed as though stricken with sudden
horror, his blue eyes staring, his gaunt, pinched features ghastly
white, and then Sergeant Haney and another trooper sprang from their
horses and ran to his side. Weak, worn, starved, he had quailed at the
dreadful sight, and was toppling head-foremost to the ground, swooning
away.

[Illustration: "THERE ARE YOUR HUNTERS,--TWO OF MY BEST MEN."

Page 96.]

When half an hour later the captain with his silent and gloomy party had
resumed his march for the river, only with the field-glasses could
occasional glimpses be had of the main command far away to the southwest
in the gathering dusk. Lieutenant Calvert, with his invalid corps, was
dragging wearily after them, something like two miles away over the
rolling surface, sometimes dipping out of sight among the swales and
_coulees_, sometimes crawling over some low wave, and Davies, restored
to consciousness and accompanied by one of Devers's oldest troopers,
Sergeant McGrath, had once more ridden away to join his distant and
isolated party. Just before it grew too dark to see anything at all he
was faintly visible at the top of the divide where he and the sergeant
had halted, evidently searching in the gloom of the lowlands beyond for
sign of the squad he had left over an hour before. Then they disappeared
and were seen no more.

Ten miles up-stream, around rousing camp-fires, in the thick of the
timber, the main body of the expedition--their lately starving
comrades--were holding high carnival. Men and horses were astonishing
their stomachs with dainties to which they had long been unaccustomed,
for wagons had come out from the settlements to meet them, pouring in
all the afternoon, and, mind