interest in store. Mile after mile rushed the little column, until it
came to some bluffs, where it drew reign and stood gazing across the
valley to the other hills.

Down in the bottoms they espied an officer and two men sitting quietly
on their horses, and on riding up found a lieutenant gazing at the
opposite bluffs through a glass. Far away behind the bluffs a sharp ear
could detect the reports of guns.

"We have been fighting the Indians all day here," said the officer,
putting down his glass and turning to the two "non-coms." "The command
has gone around the bluffs. I have just seen Indians up there on the
rim-rocks. I have sent for troops, in the hope that we might get up
there. Sergeant, deploy as skirmishers, and we will try."

At a gallop the men fanned out, then forward at a sharp trot across the
flats, over the little hills, and into the scrub pine. The valley
gradually narrowed until it forced the skirmishers into a solid body,
when the lieutenant took the lead, with the command tailing out in
single file. The signs of the Indians grew thicker and thicker--a
skirmisher's nest here behind a scrub-pine bush, and there by the side
of a rock. Kettles and robes lay about in the snow, with three "bucks"
and some women and children sprawling about, frozen as they had died;
but all was silent except the crunch of the snow and the low whispers of
the men as they pointed to the telltales of the morning's battle.

As the column approached the precipitous rim-rock the officer halted,
had the horses assembled in a side canon, putting Corporal Thornton in
charge. He ordered Sergeant Johnson to again advance his skirmish-line,
in which formation the men moved forward, taking cover behind the pine