ronado and his three hundred
Spanish knights in their long weary march over a silent desolate level
waste day after day, pushing grimly to the northward in their fruitless
search for gold. What did this band of a thousand weary men go seeking
as they took the reverse route of Coronado's to the Southwest over these
ceaslessly crawling sands? Not the discoverer's fame, not the
gold-seeker's treasure led them forth through gray interminable reaches
of desolation. They were going now to put the indelible mark of
conquest by a civilized Government, on a crafty and dangerous foe, to
plough a fire-guard of safety about the frontier homes.

Small heed we gave to this history-making, it is true, as we pressed
silently onward through those dreary late winter days. It was a
soldier's task we had accepted, and we were following the flag. And in
spite of the sins committed in its name, of the evil deeds protected by
its power, wherever it unfurls its radiant waves of light "the breath of
heaven smells wooingly"; gentle peace, and rich prosperity, and holy
love abide ever more under its caressing shadow.

We were prepared with rations for a five days' expedition only. But
weary, ragged, barefoot, hungry, sleepless, we pressed on through
twenty-five days, following a trail sometimes dim, sometimes clearly
written, through a region the Indians never dreamed we could cross and
live. The nights chilled our famishing bodies. The short hours of broken
rest led only to another day of moving on. There were no breakfasts to
hinder our early starting. The meagre bit of mule meat doled out
sparingly when there was enough of this luxury to be given out, eaten
now without salt, was our only food. Our clothing tattered with wear and
tear, hung on our gaunt frames. Our lips did not close over our teeth;
our eyes above hollow cheeks stared out like the eyes of dead men. The
bloom of health had turned to a sickly yellow hue; but we were all
alike, and nobody noted the change.

As we passed from one deserted camp to another, it began to seem a
will-o'-the-wisp business, an elusive dream, a long fruitless chasing
after what would escape and leave us to perish at last in this desert.
But the slender yellow-haired man at the head of the column had an
indomitable spirit, and an endurance equalled only by his courage and
his military cunning. Under him was the equally indomitable Kansas
Colonel, Horace L. Moore, tried and trained in Plains warfare. Behin