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

coming directly down the banks of the stream. As his barely moving

horse topped the uneven summit, the lieutenant suddenly drew in his

rein, and uttering an exclamation of surprise, bent forward, staring

intently down in his immediate front. For a single instant he appeared

to doubt the evidence of his own eyes; then he swung hastily from out

the saddle, all weariness forgotten.

"My God!" he cried, sharply, his eyes suspiciously sweeping the bare

slope. "There are two bodies lying here--white people!"

They lay all doubled up in the coarse grass, exactly as they had

fallen, the man resting face downward, the slender figure of the girl

clasped vice-like in his arms, with her tightly closed eyes upturned

toward the glaring sun. Their strange, strained, unnatural posture,

the rigidity of their limbs, the ghastly pallor of the exposed young

face accentuated by dark, dishevelled hair, all alike seemed to

indicate death. Never once questioning but that he was confronting the

closing scene of a grewsome tragedy, the thoroughly aroused lieutenant

dropped upon his knees beside them, his eyes already moist with

sympathy, his anxious fingers feeling for a possible heart-beat. A

moment of hushed, breathless suspense followed, and then he began

flinging terse, eager commands across his shoulder to where his men

were clustered.

"Here! Carson, Perry, Ronk, lay hold quick, and break this fellow's

clasp," he cried, briefly. "The girl retains a spark of life yet, but

the man's arms fairly crush her."

With all the rigidity of actual death those clutching hands held their

tenacious grip, but the aroused soldiers wrenched the interlaced

fingers apart with every tenderness possible in such emergency, shocked

at noting the expression of intense agony stamped upon the man's face

when thus exposed to view. The whole terrible story was engraven

there--how he had toiled, agonized, suffered, before finally yielding

to the inevitable and plunging forward in unconsciousness, written as

legibly as though by a pen. Every pang of mental torture had left

plainest imprint across that haggard countenance. He appeared old,

pitiable, a wreck. Carson, who in his long service had witnessed much

of death and suffering, bent tenderly above him, seeking for some faint

evidence of lingering life. His fingers felt for no wound, for to his

experienced eyes the sad tale was already sufficiently clear--hunger,

exposure, the horrible heart-breaking strain of hopeless endeavor, had

caused this ending, this unspeakable tragedy of the barren waterless

plain. He had witnessed it all before, and hoped now for little. The

anxious lieutenant, bareheaded under the hot sun-glare, strode hastily

across from beside the unconscious but breathing girl, and stood gazing

doubtfully down upon them.




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