becoming involved.  Every soldier patrolling that long northern border recognized the approach of some dire development, some early coup of savagery.  Restlessness pervaded the Indian country; recalcitrant bands roamed the “badlands”; dissatisfied young warriors disappeared from the reservation limits and failed to return; while friendly scouts told strange tales of weird dances amid the brown Dakota hills.  Uneasiness, the spirit of suspected peril, hung like a pall over the plains; yet none could safely predict where the blow might first descend.

Brant was not blind to all this, nor to the necessity of having in readiness selected bodies of seasoned troops, yet it was not in soldier nature to refrain from grumbling when the earliest detail chanced to fall to him.  But orders were orders in that country, and although he crushed the innocent paper passionately beneath his heel, five hours later he was in saddle, riding steadily westward, his depleted troop of horsemen clattering at his heels.  Up the valley of the Bear Water, slightly above Glencaid,—­far enough beyond the saloon radius to protect his men from possible corruption, yet within easy reach of the military telegraph,—­they made camp in the early morning upon a wooded terrace overlooking the stage road, and settled quietly down as one of those numerous posts with which the army chiefs sought to hem in the dissatisfied redmen, and learn early the extent of their hostile plans.

Brant was now in a humor considerably happier than when he first rode forth from Bethune.  A natural soldier, sincerely ambitious in his profession, anything approximating to active service instantly aroused his interest, while his mind was ever inclined to respond with enthusiasm to the fascination of the plains and the hills across which their march had extended.  Somewhere along that journey he had dropped his earlier burden of regret, and the spirit of the service had left him cheerfully hopeful of some stern soldierly work.  He watched the men of his troop while with quip and song they made comfortable camp; he spoke a few brief words of instruction to the grave-faced first sergeant, and then strolled slowly up the valley, his own affairs soon completely forgotten in the beauty of near-by hills beneath the golden glory of the morning sun.  Once he paused and looked back upon ugly Glencaid, dingy and forlorn even at that distance; then he crossed the narrow stream by means of a convenient log, and clambered up the somewhat steep bank.  A heavy fringe of low bushes clung close along the edge of the summit, but a plainly defined path led among their intricacies.  He pressed his way through, coming into a glade where sunshine flickered through the overarching branches of great trees, and the grass was green and short, like that of a well-kept lawn.