strong, was to make a terrible raid, spreading out on either side of the
Republican River, reaching southward as far as the Saline Valley and
northward to the Platte, and pushing eastward till the older settlements
turned them back. They were determined to leave nothing behind them but
death and desolation. Their numbers and leadership, with the defenceless
condition of the Plains settlers, give broad suggestion of what that
raid would have done for Kansas. Our victory on the Arickaree broke up
that combination of Indian forces, for all future time. It was for such
an unknown purpose, and against such unguessed odds, that fifty of us
led by the God of all battle lines, had gone out to fight. We had met
and vanquished a foe two hundred times our number, aye, crippled its
power for all future years. We were lifting the fetters from the
frontier; we were planting the standards westward, westward. In the
history of the Plains warfare this fight on the Arickaree, though not
the last stroke, was one of the decisive struggles in breaking the
savage sovereignty, a sovereignty whose wilderness demesne to-day is a
land of fruit and meadow and waving grain, of peaceful homes and wealth
and honor.

It was impossible for our wounded comrades to begin the journey to Fort
Wallace on that day. When evening came, the camp settled down to quiet
and security: the horses fed at their rope tethers, the fires smouldered
away to gray ashes, the sun swung down behind the horizon bar, the gold
and scarlet of evening changed to deeper hues and the long, purple
twilight was on the silent Colorado Plains. Over by the Arickaree the
cavalry men lounged lazily in groups. As the shades of evening gathered,
the soldiers began to sing. Softly at first, but richer, fuller, sweeter
their voices rose and fell with that cadence and melody only the negro
voice can compass. And their song, pulsing out across the undulating
valley wrapped in the twilight peace, made a harmony so wonderfully
tender that we who had dared danger for days unflinchingly now turned
our faces to the shadows to hide our tears.

We are tenting to-night on the old camp ground.
Give us a song to cheer
Our weary hearts, a song of home
And friends we love so dear.
Many are the hearts that are weary to-night,
Wishing for this war to cease,
Many are the hearts looking for the right
To see the dawn of peace.

So the cavalry men sang, and we listened to their singing with