pointed to a snug corner beside the
friendly bull-calf, and fairly skimmed the hard snow. He had already
gone forty long miles since morning. Yet, undaunted, he took up the
return with good zest, holding a smart pace unwearily. He breathed deep,
and his long Roman nose--thrust out on a line with his rocking
back--smoked like an eager charger's.

In the first half-hour that followed the evangelist's disquieting
admission, he listened to a wild, profane tirade: against himself, for
having failed to speak of Matthews; against Dallas, for being in such a
tarnal hurry; against Lounsbury on general principles. The section-boss
found only one person wholly exempt from blame--himself. So he cursed,
he threatened, he wrung his hands, he grabbed a crutch, and, leaning
forward, poked the straining flanks of the white horse.

"Gentle, gentle," admonished David Bond. "He goes fastest who goes
steadily. I have driven Shadrach ninety miles in twenty-two hours. And
if we are patient with him now, he will get us home by reveille."

But Lancaster only groaned ungratefully and continued to ply the crutch.

On they went. As the short day ended and darkness came, they steered
farther to the left, for there was a possible danger of pitching over
the river-bank. When they approached the coulee, the same peril again
met them. Shadrach, however, insured them against accident. He struck
his own trail, and knew it. At once, he quickened his speed, pulling the
reins taut. Behind him, his master, though utterly wearied, kept awake
to watch their course and commend him kindly. Not so the section-boss.
His anger finally spent, he put up his crutch and made himself
comfortable. Then, swaying as the pung swayed, he slept.

Far away at Fort Brannon the council was at an end. Lanterns were
whisking to and fro like giant lightning-bugs about the long garrison
granary and the quartermaster and commissary storehouse, where wagons
were being loaded with tents, ammunition, rations, and forage--enough
for sixty days. The library window at headquarters was bright: Colonel
Cummings and a surgeon were respectively commanding and persuading young
Jamieson to await his mother and sister at the post. Nick Matthews,
attended by a watchful sergeant, was having his hair cut by the citizen
barber. While Lounsbury, too joyfully excited to sleep, was in the
sutler's billiard-room, giving Fraser, who was about to depart with the
expedition, a sympathetic history of th