elt myself in duty bound to drive back the
Indians. I had a giant's strength, and no Baronet was ever seriously
called a coward.

The hours at Fort Barker were busy ones for Colonel Forsyth and
Lieutenant Fred Beecher, first in command under him. Their task of
selecting men for the expedition was quickly performed. My heart beat
fast when my own turn came. Forsyth's young lieutenant was one of the
Lord's anointed. Soft-voiced, modest, handsome, with a nature so
lovable, I find it hard to-day to think of him in the military ranks
where war and bloodshed are the ultimate business. But young Beecher was
a soldier of the highest order, fearless and resourceful. I cannot say
how much it lay in Morton's recommendation, and how much in the
lieutenant's kind heart that I was able to pass muster and be written
into that little company of less than threescore picked men. The
available material at Fort Harker was quickly exhausted, and the men
chosen were hurried by trains to Fort Hays, where the remainder of the
Company was made up.

Dawned then that morning in late Summer when we moved out from the Fort
and fronted the wilderness. On the night before we started I wrote a
brief letter to Aunt Candace, telling her what I was about to do.

"If I never come back, auntie," I added, "tell the little girl down on
the side of the hill that I tried to do for Kansas what her father did
for the nation, that I gave up my life to establish peace. And tell
her, too, if I really do fall out by the way, that I'll be lonely even
in heaven till she comes."

But with the morning all my sentiment vanished and I was eager for the
thing before me. Two hundred Indians we were told we should find and
every man of us was accounted good for at least five redskins. At
sunrise on the twenty-ninth day of August in the year of our Lord 1868,
Colonel Forsyth's little company started on its expedition of defence
for the frontier settlements, and for just vengeance on the Cheyennes of
the plains and their allied forces from kindred bands. Fort Hays was the
very outpost of occupation. To the north and west lay a silent, pathless
country which the finger of the white man had not touched. We knew we
were bidding good-bye to civilization as we marched out that morning,
were turning our backs on safety and comfort and all that makes life
fine. Before us was the wilderness, with its perils and lonely
desolation and mysteries.

But the wilderness has a siren's p