Shove ahead."
And this was the last conference between the three officers that
eventful morning. As once again the advance guard pushed cautiously
forward toward the banks of the arroyo in the bottom, Ray turned to
Field. "Skirmish work suits you better than office duty, Field. You look
far livelier than you did yesterday. Don't you begin to see that the
major was right in sending you out with us?" And the dark eyes of the
trained and experienced soldier shone kindly into the face of the
younger man.
"I'm glad to be with you, Captain Ray," was the prompt answer. "It
isn't--my being sent, but the _way_ I was sent, or the--cause for which
I was sent that stings me. I thought then, and I think now, that if you
had been post commander it wouldn't have been done. I don't know yet
what charge has been laid at my door----"
"There was no time to talk of reasons, Field," interposed Ray, though
his keen eyes were fixed on the distant ridge ahead, beyond which the
last of the Indians had now disappeared. The outermost troopers, with
Sergeant Scott, were within a few hundred yards of the little clump of
cottonwoods that marked the site of a water hole. To the right and left
of it curved and twisted the dry water course between its low, jagged,
precipitous banks.
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