Again and again he
sank down, pillowing his eyes from the pitiless sun glare; only to
stagger upright once more, ever bending lower and lower beneath his
unconscious burden.
CHAPTER IV
ON THE NAKED PLAIN
It was two hundred and eighteen miles, as the crow flies, between old
Fort Bethune and the rock ford crossing the Bear Water, every foot of
that dreary, treeless distance Indian-haunted, the favorite
skulking-place and hunting-ground of the restless Sioux. Winter and
summer this wide expanse had to be suspiciously patrolled by numerous
military scouting parties, anxious to learn more regarding the
uncertain whereabouts of wandering bands and the purposes of
malecontents, or else drawn hither and thither by continually shifting
rumors of hostile raids upon the camps of cattlemen. All this involved
rough, difficult service, with small meed of honor attached, while
never had soldiers before found trickier foemen to contend against, or
fighters more worthy of their steel.
One such company, composed of a dozen mounted infantrymen, accompanied
by three Cree trailers, rode slowly and wearily across the brown
exposed uplands down into the longer, greener grass of the wide valley
bottom, until they emerged upon a barely perceptible trail which wound
away in snake-like twistings, toward those high, barren hills whose
blue masses were darkly silhouetted against the western sky.
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