nquest of the Plains; the smell of powder was often the only incense
on the altars, and human blood was sprinkled for holy water. Fort
Wallace, with the Stars and Stripes afloat, looked good to me after
that ten days in the trackless solitude. And yet I was disappointed, for
I thought our quest might end here with nothing to show in results for
our pains. I did not know Forsyth and his band, as the next twenty days
were to show me.

While we were resting at the Fort, scouts brought in the news of an
Indian attack on a wagon train a score of miles eastward, and soon we
were away again, this time equipped for the thing in hand, splendidly
equipped, it seemed, for what we should really need to do. We were all
well mounted, and each of us carried a blanket, saddle, bridle,
picket-pin, and lariat; each had a haversack, a canteen, a butcher
knife, a tin plate and tin cup. We had Spencer rifles and Colt's
revolvers, with rounds of ammunition for both; and each of us carried
seven days' rations. Besides this equipment the pack mules bore a large
additional store of ammunition, together with rations and hospital
supplies.

Northward again we pushed, alert for every faint sign of Indians. Those
keen-eyed scouts were a marvel to me. They read the ground, the streams,
the sagebrush, and the horizon as a primer set in fat black type. Leader
of them, and official guide, was a man named Grover, who could tell by
the hither side of a bluff what was on the farther side. But for five
days the trails were illusive, finally vanishing in a spread of faint
footprints radiating from a centre telling us that the Indians had
broken up and scattered over separate ways. And so again we seemed to
have been deceived in this unmapped land.

We were beyond the Republican River now, in the very northwest corner of
Kansas, and the thought of turning back toward civilization had come to
some of us, when a fresh trail told us we were still in the Indian
country. We headed our horses toward the southwest, following the trail
that hugged the Republican River. It did not fade out as the others had
done, but grew plainer each mile.

The whole command was in a fever of expectancy. Forsyth's face was
bright and eager with the anticipation of coming danger. Lieutenant
Beecher was serious and silent, while the guide, Sharp Grover, was alert
and cool. A tenseness had made itself felt throughout the command. I
learned early not to ask questions; but as we came