At
the southwest angle stood the guard-house, where oil lamps, backed by
their reflectors of polished tin, sent brilliant beams of light athwart
the roadway. Beyond these low buildings the black bulk of the Medicine
Bow Mountains, only a dozen miles away, tumbled confusedly against the
sparkling sky. All spoke of peace, security, repose, for even in the
flats under the westward bluff, where lay the wide extended corrals, hay
and wood yards and the stables, not one of the myriad dogs that hung
about the post was lifting up his voice to bay the autumn moon. Even
those easily-started night trumpeters, the big Missouri mules, sprawled
about their roomy, sand-floored stables and drowsed in placid comfort,
wearied with their musical efforts of the earlier hours of the night and
gathering impetus for the sonorous braying with which they should
presently salute the dawn.
Beyond the guard-house, at the edge of the plateau overlooking the
westward flats, but invisible from the flagstaff bluff, stood the big
wooden edifice known as the store, with its card and billiard room for
the officers on the southern side, another for the enlisted men upon the
northern, the bar and general merchandise establishment compressed
between them.
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