frostwork amid the hair. Gradually with the change, their breathing
became audible, louder and louder, until in unison it mingled with the
dull impact of their feet on the heavy sod like the exhaust of many
engines. No horseman who values the life of the beast between his legs,
fails to heed that warning. Landor did not, but at the first dawdling
prairie creek that offered water and, with its struggling fringe of
willows, a suggestion of shade, he gave the word to halt, and for four
mortal, blistering hours while, man and beast alike, the others slept,
kept watch over them from the nearest rise. Relentless to others this
man might be, but not even his dearest enemy could accuse him of sparing
himself.

It was three by the clock when again they took up the trail. It was 3.45
when they swam what is now the Vermilion River, the last water-course of
any size on their way. The dew was again beginning to gather when, well
to the south, they approached the bordering hills that concealed the
site of Sioux Falls settlement. Then for the first time since they
began that last relay Landor gave an order.

"It'll be a miracle if we don't find Sioux there in the bottom, men," he
prophesied. "Perhaps there are a whole band, perhaps it'll only be
stragglers; but no matter how many or how few there may be, charge them.
If they run you know what to do--this is no holiday outing. If they
stand, charge them all the harder." He faced his horse to the north and
gave the word to go. "It's our only chance," he completed.

What followed belongs to history. Over that last intervening rise they
went like demons. The first to gain the crown, to look down into the
valley beyond, was Landor. As he did so, grim Anglo-Saxon as he was, his
whole attitude underwent a transformation. Back to the others he turned