left, came Scotchman McPherson; but though he passed fair before the leader's eyes and not a yard away, no number was spoken; no hint of recognition, of cognisance, crossed the latter's face. Implacable, relentless as time, he awaited the next in line, then voiced the one word: "Three."

On filed the line; close formed as convicts, as convicts silent—halting at a lifted hand. A moment they paused, one and twenty men who counted but as a score, started into motion, halted again; as by common consent every head save one of a sudden going bare. Hitherto silent as they, the watching group back in the stockade had that instant found voice. All but to the ground swept twenty sombreros as out over the prairies, out where no human ear could hear, rolled a cheer, and repeated, and again; tribute of Fort Yankton to those who went. At the rear of the column one rider alone did not respond, apparently did not hear. Implacable as Landor himself, he looked straight before him, awaited the silence that would bring with it renewed activity.

And it came. With a single motion as before, every hat returned to its place, was drawn low over its owner's eyes. From his position by the gate Landor advanced, took the lead. Behind him, impassive again as figures in a spectacle, the others fell in line. At first a mere walk, the pace gradually quickened, became a canter, a trot. By this time the confines of the tiny frontier town were passed. Before them on the one hand, bordering on the river, stretched a range of low hills, dun-brown from its coat of sun-dried grass. On the other, greener by contrast, glittering now in the level rays of the early morning sun on myriad dew-drops, and seemingly endless, unrolled the open prairie. Straight into this Landor led the way, and as he did so the cavalcade for the first time broke into a gallop; not the fierce, short-lived pace of civilisation, but the long-strided, full-lunged lope of the frontier, which accurately and as tirelessly as a clock measures time, counts off the passing miles. Hitherto a preliminary, at last the play was on.

Sixty-odd miles as migrates the sandhill crane, separated the settlements of Yankton and Sioux Falls. Trackless as a desert was the prairie, minus even the buffalo trails of a quarter century before; yet with the sun only as guide, they forged ahead, straight as a line drawn taut from point to point. Nothing stopped their advance, nothing made them turn aside. Seemingly destitute of animal life, the country fairly teemed at their approach. Grouse, typical of the prairie as the blue-faced anemone, were everywhere; singly, in coveys, in flocks. Troops of antelope, startled in their morning feeding, scurried away from the path of the invaders; curious as children, paused on the safety of the nearest rise, to watch the horsemen out of sight. Every marshy spot, every prairie pond, had its setting of ducks. The teal, the mallard, the widgeon, the shoveller, the canvasback—all mingled in the loud-voiced throng that arose before the leader's approach, then, like smoke, vanished with almost unbelievable swiftness into the hazy distance. Prairie dog towns, populous as cities of man a minute before their approach, went lifeless, desolate, as they passed through. In the infrequent draws and creek beds between the low, rolling hills, great-eyed cotton tails scampered to cover or, like the antelope, just out of harm's way, watched the passage of this strange being, man. Wonder of wonders that display of life would have been to another generation; but of it these grim-faced riders were apparently unconscious, oblivious. Their eyes were not for things near at hand, but for the distance, for the possibility that lurked just beyond that far-away rise which formed their horizon, when they had reached that for the next beyond, and the next.

Hour by hour the morning wore away. Hotter and hotter rose the sun above them. Instead of drops of dew, tiny particles of sun-dried grass flew away from beneath the leaders' feet, mingled with the dust of prairie, became a cloud shutting the leaders from the sight of those in the rear. From being a mere breath, the south wind augmented, became positive, insistent. Hot with the latent heat of many days, it sang in their ears as they went, bit all but scorching, at their unprotected hands and throats. Under its touch the horses' necks, dark before with sweat, became normal again: between their legs, under the, edges of the great saddles where it had churned into foam, dried into white powder, like frostwork amid the hair. Gradually with the change, their breathing became audible, louder and louder, until in unison it mingled with the dull impact of their feet on the heavy sod like the exhaust of many engines. No horseman who values the life of the beast between his legs, fails to heed that warning. Landor did not, but at the first dawdling prairie creek that offered water and, with its struggling fringe of willows, a suggestion of shade, he gave the word to halt, and for four mortal, blistering hours while, man and beast alike, the others slept, kept watch over them from the nearest rise. Relentless to others this man might be, but not even his dearest enemy could accuse him of sparing himself.

It was three by the clock when again they took up the trail. It was 3.45 when they swam what is now the Vermilion River, the last water-course of

any size on their way. The dew was again beginning to gather when, well to the south, they approached the bordering hills that concealed the site of Sioux Falls settlement. Then for the first time since they began that last relay Landor gave an order.

"It'll be a miracle if we don't find Sioux there in the bottom, men," he prophesied. "Perhaps there are a whole band, perhaps it'll only be stragglers; but no matter how many or how few there may be, charge them. If they run you know what to do—this is no holiday outing. If they stand, charge them all the harder." He faced his horse to the north and gave the word to go. "It's our only chance," he completed.

What followed belongs to history. Over that last intervening rise they went like demons. The first to gain the crown, to look down into the valley beyond, was Landor. As he did so, grim Anglo-Saxon as he was, his whole attitude underwent a transformation. Back to the others he turned his face, and, plain as on canvas thereon was portrayed war, carnage, and the lust of battle.

"They're there; a hundred, if a single red!" he shouted. "Come on!" and the rowels of his great spurs dug deep at his horse's flanks, dug until the blood spurted.

But a few minutes it took to make the run, yet only a fraction of the time that mounted swarm in the valley held their ground. Outnumbering those who charged many times, it was not in savage nature to face that unformed oncoming motley of howling, bloodthirsty maniacs. Slowly at first began the retreat; then as, with great swiftness, the others shortened the distance intervening, it became a contagion, a mania, a stampede. Every brave for himself, stumbling, crowding through the dismantled ruins of what had the day before been a settlement, howling like their pursuers, seeking but one thing, escape, they headed for the thicket surrounding the river bank; the whistle of bullets in their ears, cutting at the vegetation about them. Into its friendly cover they plunged, as a fish disappears beneath the surface of a lake, and were swallowed from sight. That is, all but one. That one, unhorsed by accident, was left to face that oncoming flood. . . . But why linger. Like the charge itself, his fate is history. These men were but human, and thick about them were the ashes from the roof-trees of their friends.

Summer night, dreamy with caress of softest south wind, musical with the drone of myriad crickets, with the boom of frogs from the low land adjoining the river, melancholy with the call of the catbird, with the infrequent note of the whip-poor-will, was upon the land of the Mandans when the score and one, their dripping ponies once more dry, took up the last relay of their journey.