"Certainly. And, Captain Glynn, I took the liberty of giving a few directions myself. We'll take an A tent, you know, for you and me. I see Keyser is sergeant in F troop. Glad we have a non-commissioned officer so competent. Haven't seen him since '64, at Winchester. Why, it's cleared off, I declare!"

It had, and the General looked out of the open door as Captain Glynn, departing, was pulling at his cigar. "How beautiful the planets are!"

exclaimed Crook. "Look at Jupiter--there, just to the left of that little cottonwood-tree. Haven't you often noticed how much finer the stars shine in this atmosphere than in the East? Oh, captain! I forgot to speak of extra horseshoes. I want some brought along."

"I'll attend to it, General."

"They shouldn't be too large. These California fourteen-and-a-half horses have smallish hoofs."

"I'll see the blacksmith myself, General."

"Thank you. Good-night. And just order fresh stuffing put into the aparejos. I noticed three that had got lumpy." And the General shut the door and went to wipe out the immaculate barrels of his shot-gun; for besides Indians there were grouse among the hills where he expected to go.

Captain Glynn, arriving at his own door, stuck his glowing cigar against the thermometer hanging outside: twenty-three below zero. "Oh Lord!"

said the captain, briefly. He went in and told his striker to get Sergeant Keyser. Then he sat down and waited. "'Look at Jupiter!'" he muttered, angrily. "What an awful old man!"

It was rather awful. The captain had not supposed generals in the first two hours of their arrival at a post to be in the habit of finding out more about your aparejos than you knew yourself. But old the General was not. At the present day many captains are older than Crook was then.

Down at the barracks there was the same curiosity about what the "Old Man" was going to do as existed at the post commander's during the early part of supper. It pleased the cavalry to tell the infantry that the Old Man proposed to take the infantry to the Columbia River next week; and the infantry replied to the cavalry that they were quite right as to the river and the week, and it was hard luck the General needed only mounted troops on this trip. Others had heard he had come to superintend the building of a line of telegraph to Klamath, which would be a good winter's job for somebody; but n.o.body supposed that anything would happen yet awhile.

And then a man came in and told them the General had sent his boots to the saddler to have nails hammered in the soles.

"That eer means business," said Jack Long, "'n' I guess I'll nail up mee own cowhides."

"Jock," said Specimen Jones to c.u.mnor, "you and me 'ain't got any soles to ourn because they're contract boots, y'u see. I'll nail up yer feet if y'u say so. It's liable to be slippery."

c.u.mnor did not take in the situation at once. "What's your hurry?" he inquired of Jack Long. Therefore it was explained to him that when General Crook ordered his boots fixed you might expect to be on the road shortly. c.u.mnor swore some resigned, unemphatic oaths, fondly supposing that "shortly" meant some time or other; but hearing in the next five minutes the definite fact that F troop would get up at two, he made use of profound and thorough language, and compared the soldier with the slave.

"Why, y'u talk almost like a man, Jock," said Specimen Jones. "Blamed if y'u don't sound pretty near growed up."

c.u.mnor invited Jones to mind his business.

"Yer muss-tache has come since Arizona," continued Jones, admiringly, "and yer blue eye is bad-lookin'--worse than when we shot at yer heels and y'u danced fer us."

"I thought they were going to give us a rest," mumbled the youth, flushing. "I thought we'd be let stay here a spell."

"I thought so too, Jock. A little monotony would be fine variety. But a man must take his medicine, y'u know, and not squeal." Jones had lowered his voice, and now spoke without satire to the boy whom he had in a curious manner taken under his protection.

"Look at what they give us for a blanket to sleep in," said c.u.mnor. "A fellow can see to read the newspaper through it."

"Look at my coat, c.u.mnor." It was Sergeant Keyser showing the article furnished the soldier by the government. "You can spit through that." He had overheard their talk, and stepped up to show that all were in the same box. At his presence reticence fell upon the privates, and c.u.mnor hauled his black felt hat down tight in embarra.s.sment, which strain split it open half-way round his head. It was another sample of regulation clothing, and they laughed at it.

"We all know the way it is," said Keyser, "and I've seen it a big sight worse. c.u.mnor, I've a cap I guess will keep your scalp warm till we get back."

And so at two in the morning F troop left the bunks it had expected to sleep in for some undisturbed weeks, and by four o'clock had eaten its well-known breakfast of bacon and bad coffee, and was following the "awful old man" down the north bank of the Boise, leaving the silent, dead, wooden town of shanties on the other side half a mile behind in the darkness. The mountains south stood distant, ign.o.ble, plain-featured heights, looming a clean-cut black beneath the piercing stars and the slice of hard, sharp-edged moon, and the surrounding plains of sage and dry-cracking weed slanted up and down to nowhere and nothing with desolate perpetuity. The snowfall was light and dry as sand, and the bare ground jutted through it at every sudden lump or knoll. The column moved through the dead polar silence, scarcely breaking it. Now and then a hoof rang on a stone, here and there a bridle or a sabre clinked lightly; but it was too cold and early for talking, and the only steady sound was the flat, can-like tankle of the square bell that hung on the neck of the long-eared leader of the pack-train. They pa.s.sed the Dailey ranch, and saw the kittens and the liniment-bottle, but could get no information as to what way E-egante had gone. The General did not care for that, however; he had devised his own route for the present, after a talk with the Indian guides. At the second dismounting during march he had word sent back to the pack-train not to fall behind, and the bell was to be taken off if the rest of the mules would follow without the sound of its shallow music. No wind moved the weeds or shook the stiff gra.s.s, and the rising sun glittered pink on the patched and motley-shirted men as they blew on their red hands or beat them against their legs. Some were lucky enough to have woollen or fur gloves, but many had only the white cotton affairs furnished by the government. Sarah the squaw laughed at them: the interpreter was warm as she rode in her bright green shawl. While the dismounted troopers stretched their limbs during the halt, she remained on her pony talking to one and another.

"Gray Fox heap savvy," said she to Mr. Long. "He heap get up in the mornin'."

"Thet's what he does, Sarah."

"Yas. No give soldier hy-as Sunday" (a holiday).

"No, no," a.s.sented Mr. Long. "Gray Fox go teh-teh" (trot).

"Maybe he catch E-egante, maybe put him in skook.u.m-house (prison)?"

suggested Sarah.

"Oh no! Lor'! E-egante good Injun. White Father he feed him. Give him heap clothes," said Mr. Long.

"A--h!" drawled Sarah, dubiously, and rode by herself.

"You'll need watchin'," muttered Jack Long.

The trumpet sounded, the troopers swung into their saddles, and the line of march was taken up as before, Crook at the head of the column, his ragged fur collar turned up, his corduroys stuffed inside a wrinkled pair of boots, the shot-gun balanced across his saddle, and nothing to reveal that he was any one in particular, unless you saw his face. As the morning grew bright, and empty, silent Idaho glistened under the clear blue, the General talked a little to Captain Glynn.

"E-egante will have crossed Snake River, I think," said he. "I shall try to do that to-day; but we must be easy on those horses of yours. We ought to be able to find these Indians in three days."

"If I were a l.u.s.ty young chief," said Glynn, "I should think it pretty tough to be put on a reservation for dipping a couple of kittens in the mola.s.ses."

"So should I, captain. But next time he might dip Mrs. Dailey. And I'm not sure he didn't have a hand in more serious work. Didn't you run across his tracks anywhere this summer?"

"No, sir. He was over on the Des Chutes."

"Did you hear what he was doing?"

"Having rows about fish and game with those Warm Spring Indians on the west side of the Des Chutes."

"They're always poaching on each other. There's bad blood between E-egante and Uma-Pine."

"Uma-Pine's friendly, sir, isn't he?"

"Well, that's a question," said Crook. "But there's no question about this E-egante and his Pah-Utes. We've got to catch him. I'm sorry for him. He doesn't see why he shouldn't hunt anywhere as his fathers did. I shouldn't see that either."

"How strong is this band reported, sir?"

"I've heard nothing I can set reliance upon," said Crook, instinctively levelling his shot-gun at a big bird that rose; then he replaced the piece across his saddle and was silent. Now Captain Glynn had heard there were three hundred Indians with E-egante, which was a larger number than he had been in the habit of attacking with forty men. But he felt discreet about volunteering any information to the General after last night's exhibition of what the General knew. Crook partly answered what was in Glynn's mind. "This is the only available force I have,"

said he. "We must do what we can with it. You've found out by this time, captain, that rapidity in following Indians up often works well. They have made up their minds--that is, if I know them--that we're going to loaf inside Boise Barracks until the hard weather lets up."

Captain Glynn had thought so too, but he did not mention this, and the General continued. "I find that most people entertained this notion," he said, "and I'm glad they did, for it will help my first operations very materially."

The captain agreed that there was nothing like a false impression for a.s.sisting the efficacy of military movements, and presently the General asked him to command a halt. It was high noon, and the sun gleamed on the bra.s.s trumpet as the long note blew. Again the musical strain sounded on the cold, bright stillness, and the double line of twenty legs swung in a simultaneous arc over the horses' backs as the men dismounted.

"We'll noon here," said the General; and while the cook broke the ice on Boise River to fill his kettles, Crook went back to the mules to see how the sore backs were standing the march. "How d'ye do, Jack Long?" said he. "Your stock is travelling pretty well, I see. They're loaded with thirty days' rations, but I trust we're not going to need it all."

"Mwell, General, I don't specially kyeer meself 'bout eatin' the hull outfit." Mr. Long showed his respect for the General by never swearing in his presence.

"I see you haven't forgotten how to pack," Crook said to him. "Can we make Snake River to-day, Jack?"

"That'll be forty miles, General. The days are pretty short."