We'll move our
camp down to theirs to-night, and like enough go on with them
to-morrow."
By the time I was ready to approach these new arrivals, they had their
plans for encampment under way with the celerity of old campaigners.
Their horses were hobbled, their cook-fires of buffalo "chips" were lit,
their wagons backed into a rude stockade. Guards were moving out with
the horses to the grazing ground. They were a seasoned lot of Harney's
frontier fighters, grimed and grizzled, their hats, boots and clothing
gray with dust, but their weapons bright. Their leader was a young
lieutenant, who approached me when I rode up. It seemed to me I
remembered his blue eyes and his light mustaches, curled upward at the
points.
"Lieutenant Belknap!" I exclaimed. "Do you remember meeting me down at
Jefferson?"
"Why, Mr. Cowles!" he exclaimed. "How on earth did you get here? Of
course I remember you."
"Yes, but how did you get here yourself--you were not on my boat?"
"I was ordered up the day after you left Jefferson Barracks," he said,
"and took the _Asia_. We got into St. Joe the same day with the _River
Belle_, and heard about your accident down river. I suppose you came out
on the old Cut-off trail.
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