sed. "Twenty only,
men," he repeated. "All ready."

First through the opening went Crosby.

"One."

Close as before, at his horse's heels followed Conway.

"Two."

From out the motley, looking neither to right nor left, came Scotchman
McPherson; but though he passed fair before the leader's eyes and not a
yard away, no number was spoken; no hint of recognition, of cognisance,
crossed the latter's face. Implacable, relentless as time, he awaited
the next in line, then voiced the one word: "Three."

On filed the line; close formed as convicts, as convicts silent--halting
at a lifted hand. A moment they paused, one and twenty men who counted
but as a score, started into motion, halted again; as by common consent
every head save one of a sudden going bare. Hitherto silent as they, the
watching group back in the stockade had that instant found voice. All
but to the ground swept twenty sombreros as out over the prairies, out
where no human ear could hear, rolled a cheer, and repeated, and again;
tribute of Fort Yankton to those who went. At the rear of the column one
rider alone did not respond, apparently did not hear. Implacable as
Landor himself, he looked straight before him, awaited the silence that
would bring with it renewed activity.

And it came. With a single motion as before, every hat returned to its
place, was drawn low over its owner's eyes. From his position by the
gate Landor advanced, took the lead. Behind him, impassive again as
figures in a spectacle, the others fell in line. At first a mere walk,
the pace gradually quickened, became a canter, a trot. By this time the
confines of the tiny frontier town were passed. Before them on the one
hand, bordering on the river, stretched a range of low hills, dun-brown
from its coat of sun-dried grass. On the other, greener by contrast,
glittering now in the level rays of the early morning sun on myriad
dew-drops, and seemingly endless, unrolled the open prairie. Straight
into this Landor led the way, and as he did so the cavalcade for the
first time broke into a gallop; not the fierce, short-lived pace of
civilisation, but the long-strided, full-lunged lope of the frontier,
which accurately and as tirelessly as a clock measures time, counts off
the passing miles. Hitherto a preliminary, at last the play was on.

Sixty-odd miles as migrates the sandhill crane, separated the
settlements of Yankton and Sioux Falls. Trackless as a desert was the
prairie, minus