left to forward
word of any kind?

Monday night the cavalry reached the snow-covered banks of the Niobrara,
and went into bivouac on the northern shore to await the coming of the
black speck that, just before dusk, could be seen far in their wake
picking a way through the drifts in its descent from the crest of the
divide. "It's the general, of course," said everybody, and the general
it was.

"Anybody come ahead yet from Winthrop?" was his first question. No! The
Sidney road was covered in places by drifts that had lain unbroken ever
since the storm. "Any news from the agency?"

Not a word, and it lay now barely a dozen miles away. Tuesday morning,
too impatient to wait for coming reinforcements, and confident he could
hold his own with the little force at hand, the Gray Fox pushed ahead.
All were up and off at the break of the wintry day, and at eight o'clock
had neared the top of the divide between the shallow, placid Niobrara
and the swift Chasing Water beyond. Little Sanders, trotting far in the
advance with three or four light riders, threw himself from his horse,
unslung his field-glass, and peered long and anxiously into the
northward valley. All seemed desolate and deserted. A smoke was drifting
lazily upward from the site of the distant agency; not from peaceful
chimney, but rising from a mass of smouldering ruins. The villages of
Red Dog, Kills Asleep, Little Big Man, even of Two Lance, had
disappeared, and of the Ogallalla Agency not another vestige could be
seen but the grim outlines of the stockade.

CHAPTER XX.

When Sanders, with solemn face, turned to meet the general and report
his discovery, the difference between the young and the old campaigner
was told in their own words.

"I'm afraid we're too late to save 'em, sir. Everything's wiped out but
the stockade."

"If the stockade's left, they've saved themselves," was the answer, and
the Gray Fox was right. Long before the column reached the lowlands of
the valley horsemen could be seen spurring eagerly forward to meet it,
and the first-comer was Trooper O'Brien, who saluted the general with
all soldierly grace and the rest of the array with a sociable grin.

"We're all right, general,--leastwise most of us is. Two of the boys is
killed, and Loot'n't Boynton's wounded,--and four others,--but the
women's all safe, and the agent--bad scran to him! Is there a doctor
along?" A doctor was along,--Burroughs,--riding with the senior captain