my skin ef some of 'em ain't bringin' their wives and sisters along too.
There was a lord and lady passed through here under escort last week,
and we're goin' to pick up some more of 'em at Fort Biggs tomorrow,--and
I reckon some of us will be told off to act as ladies' maids or
milliners. Nothin' short of a good Injin scare, I reckon, would send
them and us about our reg'lar business. Whoa, then, will ye? At it
again, are ye? What's gone of the d--d critter?"

Here the fractious near horse was again beginning to show signs of
disturbance and active terror. His quivering nostrils were turned
towards the wind, and he almost leaped the centre pole in his frantic
effort to avoid it. The eyes of the two men were turned instinctively in
that direction. Nothing was to be seen,--the illimitable plain and
the sinking sun were all that met the eye. But the horse continued to
struggle, and the wagon stopped. Then it was discovered that the horse
of an adjacent trooper was also laboring under the same mysterious
excitement, and at the same moment wagon No. 3 halted. The infection
of some inexplicable terror was spreading among them. Then two
non-commissioned officers came riding down the line at a sharp canter,
and were joined quickly by the young lieutenant, who gave an order.
The trumpeter instinctively raised his instrument to his lips, but was
stopped by another order.

And then, as seen by a distant observer, a singular spectacle was
unfolded. The straggling train suddenly seemed to resolve itself into a
large widening circle of horsemen, revolving round and partly hiding
the few heavy wagons that were being rapidly freed from their struggling
teams. These, too, joined the circle, and were driven before the
whirling troopers. Gradually the circle seemed to grow smaller under the
"winding-up" of those evolutions, until the horseless wagons reappeared