A hundred yards across the prairie was the "double file" trail of the detachment on its straight line for the ridge, and here, only a little distance out, were the hoof-prints of a troop horse both coming and going. Even more interested now, the captain went some distance out across the prairie, and still he found them. Leaving the hut and following to overtake the troop, the horse had instantly taken the gallop; the prints settled that. But what struck Captain Charlton as strange was that the other tracks, those which were made by the same horse in coming to the hut, were still to be found far out toward the northeast. It was evident, then, that the rider had not turned back from the command until it had marched some distance from the Niobrara; that he had not gone back to the bank where they had been in camp, as would have been the case had he lost or left something behind, but had come here to this abandoned hovel southeast of the trail. Now, what did that mean? One other thing the captain did not fail to note; that horse had cast a shoe.
Late as it was when he reached the camp on White River that night--after midnight, as it proved--Charlton found his young lieutenant up, and anxiously awaiting him. When the horses had all been cared for, and the two officers were alone near their tents, almost the first question asked by the captain was:
"Did you give any man permission to ride back after you left the Niobrara Friday morning?"
"No, sir," answered Blunt in some surprise. "No one asked, and every man was in his place when we made our first halt."
Immediately after reveille on Sunday morning, a good hour before the sun was high enough to peep over the tall white crags to the east of the little camp, the two officers were out at the line, superintending the grooming of the horses. Fifty men were now present for duty, and fifty active steeds were tethered there at the picket rope, nipping at each other's noses or nibbling at the rope itself, and pricking up their ears as the captain stopped to pat or to speak to one after another of his pets. Always particularly careful of his horses, Captain Charlton on this bright sunshiny morning was noting especially the condition of their feet. Every one of those two hundred hoofs were keenly scrutinized as he passed along the line. But there was nothing unusual in this--he never let a week go by without it.
