“Her letter is four days old, sir, and only says her father looks upon the situation as one of much gravity; but women rarely see troubles of this kind until they come to their doors.”

“Well, this is the Times of two days ago.  It reached Sidney at breakfast-time this morning, and Hatton brought two or three copies out when he came with the mail.  I thought you two might be interested.”  And with that the colonel goes strolling along down the bank of the stream, pausing here and there to chat with some officers or give some order relative to the grazing of the horses,—­one of his especial “fads.”

And this evening, just as the sun disappears over the low bluff line to the west and the horses are being picketed for the night, while from a score of cook-fires the appetizing savor of antelope-steak and the aroma of “soldier coffee” rise upon the air, a little dust-cloud sweeps out from the ravine into which disappears the Sidney road and comes floating out across the prairie.  Keen-eyed troopers quickly note the speed with which it travels towards them.  Officers and men, who have just been looking to the security of their steeds, pause now on their way to supper and stand gazing through the gloaming at the coming cloud.  In five minutes the cause is apparent,—­two swift riders, urging their horses to full speed, racing for the ford.  Five minutes more and the foremost throws himself from saddle in the midst of the group at the colonel’s tent and hands that officer a telegraphic despatch, which is received, opened, read with imperturbable gravity, and pocketed.  To the manifest chagrin of the courier and disappointment of his officers, the colonel simply says,—­

“W-e-ell, I’m going to supper.  You all’d better have yours too.”

“Why, blame his old hide!” pants the courier later, “the quartermaster told me never to lose a second, but git that to him before dark.  The hull outfit’s ordered to Chicago by special train.”

And so, finding the secret out, the colonel presently puts aside professional sang-froid and condescends to be human again.

“Get a hearty supper all round, gentlemen, then—­’boots and saddles’ and away for Sidney!”

Two days later.  A fierce July sun is pouring down a flood of humid, moisture-laden heat upon a densely-packed, sweltering mass of turbulent men, many of them flushed with drink, all of them flushed with triumph, for the ill-armed, ill-disciplined militia of the seventies—­a pygmy force as compared with the expert “Guardsmen” of to-day—­has been scattered to the winds:  the sturdy police have been swept from the streets and driven to the shelter of the stations.  Mob law rules supreme.  Dense clouds of smoke are rising from sacked and ruined warehouses and from long trains of burning cars.  Here and there little groups of striking employes have gathered, holding aloof from the reckless and infuriated mob, appalled at the sight of riot and