trousers, together with his high boots, bespoke the cavalry service,
while the front of his battered campaign hat bore the decorations of
two crossed sabres, with a gilded "7" prominent between. His attire
was completed by a coarse blue shirt, unbuttoned at the throat, about
which had been loosely knotted a darker colored silk handkerchief, and
across the back of the saddle was fastened a uniform jacket, the single
shoulder-strap revealed presenting the plain yellow of a second
lieutenant.

Attaining to the summit of a slight knoll, whence a somewhat wider
vista lay outspread, he partially turned his face toward the men
straggling along in the rear, while his hand swept across the dreary
scene.

"If that line of trees over yonder indicates the course of the Bear
Water, Carson," he questioned quietly, "where are we expected to hit
the trail leading down to the ford?"

The sergeant, thus addressed, a little stocky fellow wearing a closely
clipped gray moustache, spurred his exhausted horse into a brief trot,
and drew up short by the officer's side, his heavy eyes scanning the
vague distance, even while his right hand was uplifted in perfunctory
salute.

"There 's no trail I know about along this bank, sir," he replied
respectfully, "but the big cottonwood with the dead branch forking out
at the top is the ford guide."

They rode down in moody silence into the next depression, and began
wearily climbing the long hill opposite, apparently the last before