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I could look away to the horizon in every direction, and, except for one little herd of buffalo feeding peacefully on the westward slant of the ridge, I could see nothing but rolling prairie, a vast undulating spread of grassland threaded here and there with darker lines that stood for creeks and coulées, and off to the north the blue bulk of the Cypress Hills.
Not until November, therefore, when the ice bridge spanned the still reaches of the Platte, and the snow lay deep in the brakes and coulées, did the foremost of the homeward-bound commands come in view of old Fort Frayne, and meantime very remarkable things had occurred, and it was to a very different, if only temporary, post commander that Sandy Ray reported them as "sighted."
Alice gasped, and for a moment it seemed as though she could not go on. Spread out before her like a huge relief map were the ridges and black coulees of the bad lands, and directly below hundreds of feet below the gigantic rock fragments lay strewn along the base of the cliff like the abandoned blocks of a child. She closed her eyes and shuddered.
Endicott tied the scarf about her face and assisted her to mount, then, throwing her bridle reins over the horn of his saddle as the Texan had done, he headed down the coulee. For three hours the horses drifted with the storm, following along coulees, crossing low ridges, and long level stretches where the sweep of the wind seemed at times as though it would tear them from the saddles.
In days gone by her adventurous, lonely spirit had driven her to the prairies, savagely riding her Indian pony through the streets of Manitou and out on the North Trail, or south through coulees, or westward into the great woods, looking for what: she never found. Her spirit was no longer the vague thing driving here and there with pleasant torture.
It was nearing the middle of June, and it was getting to be a very hot June at that. For two days the trail-herd had toiled wearily over the hills and across the coulees between the Missouri and Milk River. Then the sky threatened for a day, and after that they plodded in the rain.
An hour's climb, during which they skirted patches of scrub pine, clattered over the loose rocks of ridges, and followed narrow, brush-choked coulees to their sources, found them on the crest of the Cow Creek divide. The wind, blowing half a gale from the south-east, whipped about their faces and roared and whistled among the rocks and scrub timber.
We had just enough of a start, though, and our mounts were just good enough and fresh enough to gradually draw away from them. And as we were then out of the network of protecting coulées and pattering over the comparative level of Lost River bottoms, I was very glad that we were beyond carbine-range and that it was near sundown. "Barring accidents, they can't get up on us now," Mac declared.
Of course, the impressive order of march at the beginning could not be maintained throughout the gruelling expedition. A thousand miles across swamp and coulées and rivers, over areas of waste and desolate prairie, where fires had swept every vestige of grass away, through sections where flies and drought and excessive heat, turning into cold as the autumn approached, played the inevitable havoc.
Snow there was in abundance in the coulées and ravines, snow in sheets in the lee of every little ridge or hummock, but elsewhere the icy sod was swept hard and clean, and the sharp hoofs rang as though they struck macadam. Three miles out two "rigs" were passed, westward bound, filled with town folk who had been to Arena for the dance. Had they seen or heard aught of Mr. and Mrs.
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