responsibility on your
shoulders. I have no doubt that, if we be attacked, the soldiers will
dispose of the gang; but I must take all possible precautions for the
safety of the passengers. We must not alarm them. They can be made to
think that the troops are going on a scout, and only a certain number
of resolute men need be told of what we expect. Can you, late this
afternoon, go through the cars, and pick them out? I will then put you
in charge of the passenger cars, and you can post your men on the
platforms to act in case of need. My place will be ahead."

"Major, you can depend on me," was Foster's reply. "I'll go through the
train and have my eye on some boys of the right sort, and that's got
their shooting-irons with them."

Through the hours of that day on rolled the train, still over the crisp
buffalo grass, across the well-worn buffalo trails, past the
prairie-dog villages. The passengers chatted, dozed, played cards,
read, all unconscious, with the exception of three, of the coming
conflict between the good and the evil forces bearing on their fate; of
the fell preparations making for their disaster; of the grim
preparations making to avert such disaster; of all of which the little
wires alongside of them had been talking back and forth. Watkins had
telegraphed that he still saw no reason to doubt the good faith of his
warning, and Sinclair had reported his receipt of authority and his
acceptance thereof. Meanwhile, also, there had been set in motion a
measure of that power to which appeal is so reluctantly made in time of
peace. At Fort ------, a lonely post on the plains, the orders had that
morning been issued for twenty men under Lieutenant Halsey to parade at
4 p. M., with overcoats, two days' rations, and ball cartridges; also
for Assistant Surgeon Kesler to report for duty with the party. Orders
as to destination were communicated direct to the lieutenant from the
post commander, and on the minute the little column moved, taking the
road to the station. The regiment from which it came had been in active
service among the Indians on the frontier for a long time, and the
officers and men were tried and seasoned fighters. Lieutenant Halsey
had been well known at the West Point balls as the "leader of the
german." From the last of these balls he had gone straight to the
field, and three years had given him an enviable reputation for
_sang-froid_ and determined bravery. He looked every inch the soldier
as