the narrow forehead and secretive countenance of the Reverend Mr. Dodd.
In his hand was an artillery bugle. Beyond him, though he wore an Indian
dress, rose the broad shoulders and square, black-shadowed forehead of
Father Le Claire.

"It is the hallucination of this mirage-girt land," I told myself. "The
Plains life is affecting my vision, and then the sun has blinded me. I'm
not delirious, but this marching is telling on me. Oh, it is at a
fearful price that the frontier creeps westward, that homes are planted,
and peace, blood-stained, abides with them."

So I meditated as I watched the sun go down on that September night on
the far Colorado Plains by the grassy slopes and yellow sands and thin,
slow-moving currents of the Arickaree.

CHAPTER XVII

IN THE VALLEY OF THE ARICKAREE

A blush as of roses
Where rose never grew!
Great drops on the bunch grass.
But not of the dew!
A taint in the sweet air
For wild bees to shun!
A stain that shall never
Bleach out in the sun!

--WHITTIER.

Stillwell was right. Sharp Grover knew, as well as the boy knew, that we
were trapped, that before us now were the awful chances of unequal
Plains warfare. A mere handful of us had been hurrying after a host,
whose numbers the broad beaten road told us was legion. There was no
mirth in that little camp that night in mid-September, and I thought of
other things besides my strange vision at the gorge. The camp was the
only mark of human habitation in all that wide and utterly desolate
land. For days we had noted even the absence of all game--strong
evidence that a host had driven it away before us. Everywhere, save
about that winking camp fire was silence. The sunset was gorgeous, in
the barbaric sublimity of its seas of gold and crimson atmosphere. And
then came the rich coloring of that purple twilight. It is no wonder
they call it regal. Out on the Plains that night it swathed the
landscape with a rarer hue than I have ever seen anywhere else, although
I have watched the sun go down into the Atlantic off the Rockport coast,
and have seen it lost over the edge of the West Prairie beyond the big
cottonwood above the farther draw. As I watched the evening shadows
deepen, I remembered what Morton had told me in the little cabin back in
the Saline country, "Who ever fights the Indians must make his will
before the battle begins." Now that I was face to face with the real
issue, life became very sweet to m