n the beating hoofs. The
horses plunged at the elastic edges of this excellent fortress,
sometimes half lifted as a bent willow levered up against their bellies,
and the forward-tilting men fended their faces from the whipping twigs.
They could not wedge a man's length into that pliant labyrinth, and the
General called them out. They rallied among the sage-brush above,
Crook's cheeks and many others painted with purple lines of blood,
hardened already and cracking like enamel. The baffled troopers glared
at the thicket. Not a sign nor a sound came from in there. The willows,
with the gentle tints of winter veiling their misty twigs, looked serene
and even innocent, fitted to harbor birds--not birds of prey--and the
quiet smoke threaded upwards through the air. Of course the
liniment-drinkers must have heard the noise.

"What do you suppose they're doing?" inquired Glynn.

"Looking at us," said Crook.

"I wish we could return the compliment," said the captain.

Crook pointed. Had any wind been blowing, what the General saw would
have been less worth watching. Two willow branches shook, making a
vanishing ripple on the smooth surface of the tree-tops. The pack-train
was just coming in sight over the rise, and Crook immediately sent an
orderly with some message. More willow branches shivered an instant and
were still; then, while the General and the captain sat on their horses
and watched, the thicket gave up its secret to them; for, as little
light gusts coming abreast over a lake travel and touch the water, so in
different spots the level maze of twigs was stirred; and if the eye
fastened upon any one of these it could have been seen to come out from
the centre towards the edge, successive twigs moving, as the tops of
long grass tremble and mark the progress of a snake. During a short
while this increased greatly, the whole thicket moving with innumerable
tracks. Then everything ceased, with the blue wands of smoke rising
always into the quiet afternoon.

"Can you see 'em?" said Glynn.

"Not a bit. Did you happen to hear any one give an estimate of this
band?"

Glynn mentioned his tale of the three hundred.

It was not new to the General, but he remarked now that it must be
pretty nearly correct; and his eye turned a moment upon his forty
troopers waiting there, grim and humorous; for they knew that the
thicket was looking at them, and it amused their American minds to
wonder what the Old Man was going to do ab