Bob Hampton of Placer

Many an unexpected event has resulted from the formal, concise orders

issued by the War Department. Cupid in the disguise of Mars has thus

frequently toyed with the fate of men, sending many a gallant soldier

forward, all unsuspecting, into a battle of the heart.

It was no pleasant assignment to duty which greeted First Lieutenant

Donald Brant, commanding Troop N, Seventh Cavalry, when that regiment

came once more within the environs of civilization, from its summer

exercises in the field. Bethune had developed into a somewhat

important post, socially as well as from a strictly military

standpoint, and numerous indeed were the attractions offered there to

any young officer whose duty called him to serve the colors on those

bleak Dakota prairies. Brant frowned at the innocent words, reading

them over again with gloomy eyes and an exclamation of unmitigated

disgust, yet there was no escaping their plain meaning. Trouble was

undoubtedly brewing among the Sioux, trouble in which the Cheyennes,

and probably others also, were becoming involved. Every soldier

patrolling that long northern border recognized the approach of some

dire development, some early coup of savagery. Restlessness pervaded

the Indian country; recalcitrant bands roamed the "badlands";

dissatisfied young warriors disappeared from the reservation limits and

failed to return; while friendly scouts told strange tales of weird

dances amid the brown Dakota hills. Uneasiness, the spirit of

suspected peril, hung like a pall over the plains; yet none could

safely predict where the blow might first descend.

Brant was not blind to all this, nor to the necessity of having in

readiness selected bodies of seasoned troops, yet it was not in soldier

nature to refrain from grumbling when the earliest detail chanced to

fall to him. But orders were orders in that country, and although he

crushed the innocent paper passionately beneath his heel, five hours

later he was in saddle, riding steadily westward, his depleted troop of

horsemen clattering at his heels. Up the valley of the Bear Water,

slightly above Glencaid,--far enough beyond the saloon radius to

protect his men from possible corruption, yet within easy reach of the

military telegraph,--they made camp in the early morning upon a wooded

terrace overlooking the stage road, and settled quietly down as one of

those numerous posts with which the army chiefs sought to hem in the

dissatisfied redmen, and learn early the extent of their hostile plans.

Brant was now in a humor considerably happier than when he first rode

forth from Bethune. A natural soldier, sincerely ambitious in his

profession, anything approximating to active service instantly aroused

his interest, while his mind was ever inclined to respond with

enthusiasm to the fascination of the plains and the hills across which

their march had extended. Somewhere along that journey he had dropped

his earlier burden of regret, and the spirit of the service had left

him cheerfully hopeful of some stern soldierly work. He watched the

men of his troop while with quip and song they made comfortable camp;

he spoke a few brief words of instruction to the grave-faced first

sergeant, and then strolled slowly up the valley, his own affairs soon

completely forgotten in the beauty of near-by hills beneath the golden

glory of the morning sun. Once he paused and looked back upon ugly

Glencaid, dingy and forlorn even at that distance; then he crossed the

narrow stream by means of a convenient log, and clambered up the

somewhat steep bank. A heavy fringe of low bushes clung close along

the edge of the summit, but a plainly defined path led among their

intricacies. He pressed his way through, coming into a glade where

sunshine flickered through the overarching branches of great trees, and

the grass was green and short, like that of a well-kept lawn.