forces."

The gamblers, though baffled for the time being, of course "get square,"
and more too, with the unfortunate general in this sort of warfare, but
they are a disgusted lot as they hang about the wagon-train as last of
all it is being hitched-in to leave camp. Some victims, of course, they
have secured, and there are no devices of commanding officers which can
protect their men against those sharks of the prairies when the men
themselves are bound to tempt Providence and play. There are two
scowling faces in the cavalry escort that has been left back with the
train, and Captain Hull, the commanding officer, has reprimanded
Sergeants Clancy and Gower in stinging terms for their absence from the
command during the night. There is little question where they spent it,
and both have been "cleaned out." What makes it worse, both have lost
money that belonged to other men in the command, and they are in bad
odor accordingly.

The long day's march has tempered the joviality of the entire column. It
is near sundown, and still they keep plodding onward, making for a
grassy level on the river-bank a good mile farther.

"Old Hull seems bound to leave the sports as far behind as possible, if
he has to march us until midnight," growls the battalion adjutant to his
immediate commander. "By thunder! one would think he was afraid they
would get in a lick at his own pile."

"How much did you say he was carrying?" asks Captain Rayner, checking
his horse for a moment to look back over the valley at the long,
dust-enveloped column.

"Nearly three thousand dollars in one wad."

"How does he happen to have such a sum?"

"Why, Crane left his pay-accounts with him. He drew all that was due his
men who are off with Crane,--twenty of them,--for they had signed the
rolls before going, and were expected back to-day. Then he has some six
hundred dollars company fund; and the men of his troop asked him to take
care of a good deal besides. The old man has been with them so many
years they look upon him as a father and trust him as implicitly as they
would a savings-bank."

"That's all very well," answers Rayner; "but I wouldn't want to carry
any such sum with me."

"It's different with Hull's men, captain. They are ordered in through
the posts and settlements. They have a three weeks' march ahead of them
when they get through their scout, and they want their money on the way.
It was only after they had drawn it that the news came of