I have told you many things of this strange man, Gordon Orme, and I
shall need to tell yet others. Sometimes my friends smile at me even yet
over these things. But since that day, I have not doubted the tales old
Auberry told me of our own Indians. Since then, too, I have better
understood Gordon Orme and his strange personality, the like of which I
never knew in any land.
CHAPTER XXI
TWO IN THE DESERT
How long it was I hardly knew, for I had slink into a sort of dull
apathy in which one day was much like another; but at last we gathered
our crippled party together and broke camp, our wounded men in the
wagons, and so slowly passed on westward, up the trail. We supposed,
what later proved to be true, that the Sioux had raided in the valley on
both sides of us, and that the scattered portions of the army had all
they could do, while the freight trains were held back until the road
was clear.
I wearied of the monotony of wagon travel, and without council with any,
finally, weak as I was, called for my horse and rode on slowly with the
walking teams. I had gone for some distance before I heard hoofs on the
sand behind me.
"Guess who it is," called a voice.
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