CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XXII.
CHAPTER XXIII.
CHAPTER XXIV.
Riding at ease in the lazy afternoon sunshine a single troop of cavalrywas threading its way in long column of twos through the bold andbeautiful foothills of the Big Horn. Behind them, glinting in theslanting rays, Cloud Peak, snow clad still although it was late in May,towered above the pine-crested summits of the range. To the right andleft of the winding trail bare shoulders of bluff, covered only by thedense carpet of bunch grass, jutted out into the comparative level ofthe eastward plain. A clear, cold, sparkling stream, on whose banks thelittle command had halted for a noontide rest, went rollicking awaynortheastward, and many a veteran trooper looked longingly, evenregretfully, after it, and then cast a gloomy glance over the barren anddesolate stretch ahead. Far as the eye could reach in that direction theearth waves heaved and rolled in unrelieved monotony to the very skyline, save where here and there along the slopes black herds orscattered dots of buffalo were grazing unvexed by hunters red or white,for this was thirty years ago, when, in countless thousands, the bisoncovered the westward prairies, and there were officers who forbade theirsenseless slaughter to make food only for the worthless, prowlingcoyotes. No wonder the trooper hated to leave the foothills of themountains, with the cold, clear trout streams and the bracing air, totake to long days' marching over dull waste and treeless prairie,covered only by sage brush, rent and torn by dry ravines, shadeless,springless, almost waterless, save where in unwholesome hollows dullpools of stagnant water still held out against the sun, or, furtherstill southeast among th