said nothing more, but felt right well he had no friend in Major Burleigh.

They left the infantry there to guard the site and protect the gang of woodchoppers set to work at once, then turned their faces homeward. They had spent four days and nights at the Gap, and the more the youngster saw of the rotund quartermaster the less he cared to cultivate him. A portly, heavily built man was he, some forty years of age, a widower, whose children were at their mother's old home in the far East, a business man with a keen eye for opportunities and investments, a fellow who was reputed to have stock in a dozen mines and kindred enterprises, a knowing hand who drove fast horses and owned quite a stable, a sharp hand who played a thriving game of poker, and had no compunctions as to winning. Officers at Emory were fighting shy of him. He played too big a game for their small pay and pockets, and the men with whom he took his pleasure were big contractors or well-known "sports" and gamblers, who in those days thronged the frontier towns and most men did them homage. But on this trip Burleigh had no big gamblers along and missed his evening game, and, once arrived at camp along the Fork, he had "roped in" some of the infantry officers, but Brooks and the engineer declined to play, and so had Dean from the very start.

"All true cavalrymen ought to be able to take a hand at poker," sneered Burleigh, at the first night's camp, for here was a pigeon really worth the plucking, thought he. Dean's life in the field had been so simple and inexpensive that he had saved much of his slender pay; but, what Burleigh did not know, he had sent much of it home to mother and Jess.

"I know several men who would have been the better for leaving it alone," responded Dean very quietly. They rubbed each other the wrong way from the very start, and this was bad for the boy, for in those days, when army morals were less looked after than they are now, men of Burleigh's stamp, with the means to entertain and the station to enable them to do it, had often the ear of officers from headquarters, and more things were told at such times to generals and colonels about their young men than the victims ever suspected. Burleigh was a man of position and influence, and knew it. Dean was a youngster without either, and did not realize it. He had made an enemy of the quartermaster on the trip and could not but know it. Yet, conscious that he had said nothing that was wrong, he felt no disquiet.

And now, homeward bound, he was jogging contentedly along at the head of the troop. Scouts and flankers signaled "all clear." Not a hostile Indian had they seen since leaving the Gap. The ambulances with a little squad of troopers had hung on a few moments at the noon camp, hitching slowly and leisurely that their passengers might longer enjoy their post prandial siesta in the last shade they would see until they reached Cantonment Reno, a long day's ride away. Presently the lively mule teams would come along the winding trail at spanking trot. Then the troop would open out to right and left and let them take the lead, giving the dust in exchange, and once more the rapid march would begin.

It was four P. M. when the shadows of the mules' ears and heads came jerking into view beside him, and, guiding his horse to the right, Dean loosed rein and prepared to trot by the open doorway of the stout, black-covered wagon. The young engineer officer, sitting on the front seat, nodded cordially to the cavalryman. He had known and liked him at the Point. He had sympathized with him in the vague difference with the quartermaster. He had had to listen to sneering things Burleigh was telling the aide-de-camp about young linesmen in general and Dean in particular, stocking the staff officer with opinions which he hoped and intended should reach the department commander's ears. The engineer disbelieved, but was in no position to disprove. His station was at Omaha, far from the scene of cavalry exploits in fort or field. Burleigh's office and depot were in this new, crowded, bustling frontier town, filled with temptation to men so far removed from the influences of home and civilization, and Burleigh doubtless saw and knew much to warrant his generalities. But he knew no wrong of Dean, for that young soldier, as has been said, had spent all but a few mid-winter months at hard, vigorous work in the field, had been to Gate City and Fort Emory only twice, and then under orders that called for prompt return to Frayne. Any man with an eye for human nature could see at a glance, as Dean saw, that both the aid and his big friend, the quartermaster, had been exchanging comments at the boy's expense. He had shouted a cheery salutation to the engineer in answer to his friendly nod, then turned in saddle and looked squarely at the two on the back seat, and the constraint in their manner, the almost sullen look in their faces, told the story without words.

It nettled Dean—frank, outspoken, straightforward as he had always been. He hated any species of backbiting, and he had heard of Burleigh as an adept in the art, and a man to be feared. Signaling to his sergeant to keep the column opened out, as the prairie was almost level now on every side, he rode swiftly on, revolving in his mind how to meet and checkmate Burleigh's insidious moves, for instinctively he felt he was already at work. The general in command in those days was not a field soldier by any means. His office was far away at the banks of the Missouri, and all he knew of what was actually going on in his department he derived from official written reports; much that was neither official nor reliable he learned from officers of Burleigh's stamp, and Dean had never yet set eyes on him. In the engineer he felt he had a friend on whom he could rely, and he determined to seek his counsel at the campfire that very night, meantime to hold his peace.

They were trotting through a shallow depression at the moment, the two spring-wagons guarded and escorted by some thirty dusty, hardy-looking troopers. In the second, the yellow ambulance, Brooks was stretched at length, taking it easy, an attendant jogging alongside. Behind them came a third, a big quartermaster's wagon, drawn by six mules and loaded with tentage and rations. Out some three hundred yards to the right and left rode little squads as flankers. Out beyond them, further still, often cut off from view by low waves of prairie, were individual troopers riding as lookouts, while far to the front, full six hundred yards, three or four others, spreading over the front on each side of the twisting trail, moved rapidly from crest to crest, always carefully scanning the country ahead before riding up to the summit. And now, as Dean's eyes turned from his charges to look along the sky line to the east, he saw sudden sign of excitement and commotion at the front. A sergeant, riding with two troopers midway between him and those foremost scouts, was eagerly signaling to him with his broad-brimmed hat. Three of the black dots along the gently rising slope far ahead had leaped from their mounts and were slowly crawling forward, while one of them, his horse turned adrift and contentedly nibbling at the buffalo grass, was surely signaling that there was mischief ahead.

In an instant the lieutenant was galloping out to the front, cautioning the driver to come on slowly. Presently he overhauled the sergeant and bade him follow, and together the four men darted on up the gradual incline until within ten yards of where the leaders' horses were placidly grazing. There they threw themselves from saddle; one of the men took the reins of the four horses while Dean and the other two, unslinging carbine and crouching low, went hurriedly on up the slope until they came within a few yards of the nearest scout.

"Indians!" he called to them as soon as they were within earshot. "But they don't seem to be on lookout for us at all. They're fooling with some buffalo over here."

Crawling to the crest, leaving his hat behind, Dean peered over into