f-beats of
their horses marking a rhythmic measure that trembled along the ground
in musical vibration, while overhead--oh, the grandeur of God's gracious
dawn fell never on a thing more beautiful--swept out by the free winds
of heaven to its full length, and gleaming in the sunlight, Old Glory
rose and fell in rippling waves of splendor.

On they came, the approaching force, in a mad rush to reach us. And we
who had waited for the superb charge of Roman Nose and his savage
warriors, as we wait for death, saw now this coming in of life, and the
regiment of the unconquerable people.

We threw restraint to the winds and shouted and danced and hugged each
other, while we laughed and cried in a very transport of joy.

It was Colonel Carpenter and his colored cavalry who had made a dash
across the country rushing to our rescue. Beside the Colonel at their
head, rode Donovan the scout, whom we had accounted as dead. It was his
unerring eye that had guided this command, never varying from the
straight line toward our danger-girt entrenchment on the Arickaree.

Before Carpenter's approaching cavalry the Indians fled for their lives,
and they who a few hours hence would have been swinging bloody tomahawks
above our heads were now scurrying to their hiding-places far away.

[Illustration: Like the passing of a hurricane, horses, mules, men, all
dashed toward the place]

Never tenderer hands cared for the wounded, and never were bath and
bandage and food and drink more welcome. Our command was shifted to a
clean spot where no stench of putrid flesh could reach us. Rest and
care, such as a camp on the Plains can offer, was ours luxuriously; and
hardtack and coffee, food for the angels, we had that day, to our
intense satisfaction. Life was ours once more, and hope, and home, and
civilization. Oh, could it be true, we asked ourselves, so long had we
stood face to face with Death.

The import of this struggle on the Arickaree was far greater than we
dreamed of then. We had gone out to meet a few foemen. What we really
had to battle with was the fighting strength of the northern Cheyenne
and Sioux tribes. Long afterwards it came to us what this victory meant.
The broad trail we had eagerly followed up the Arickaree fork of the
Republican River had been made by bands on bands of Plains Indians
mobilizing only a little to the westward, gathering for a deadly
purpose. At the full of the moon the whole fighting force, two thousand