Even the top of the tall flag-staff which arose from the parade ground in the fort was hidden from view by the last swell over which the pony had carried him.
But there was no danger of getting lost, for the trail was as clearly defined as any country road he had ever travelled.
He followed it to the summit of the next hill, which, being higher than the surrounding ones, brought the flag-staff and a portion of the hamlet of Julesburg again into view, and there he stopped to take a survey of the country.
The ridge on which he stood stretched away behind him as far as his eye could reach, and in front terminated in a steep bluff, perhaps a hundred feet in height, at the base of which flowed the dark waters of the Platte.
To the north and west the long, regular swells gave place to innumerable ravines, which crossed and recrossed one another, and twisted about in the most bewildering fashion.
They were deep and dark, and their precipitous sides were so thickly covered with stunted oaks and pines that the light of the sun rarely penetrated to the bottom of them, even at mid-day.
In the years gone by these same ravines had afforded secure hiding-places for the hostile Sioux, who had so stubbornly resisted the onward march of the white man.
From their cavernous depths they had poured forth in overwhelming numbers to pounce upon some wagon train, and in them they had found refuge when worsted in conflict with the troops, their perfect knowledge of the ground enabling them to effectually baffle pursuit.
Far beyond the ravines, long miles away, and yet rendered so distinct by the clear atmosphere that it seemed to Oscar that but a few hours’ ride would be required to take him to it, was a tract of level prairie, which stretched away through four degrees of longitude to the foot-hills.
This level prairie was known as the Laramie plains, and even so far back as the day Oscar gazed upon it it was historic ground. Little mounds of stone, and the bleaching and crumbling bones of horses and cattle, marked the spot where more than one desperate battle had been fought between the hardy pioneers and their savage foes, and when Oscar, a few days later, was brought face to face with these mementoes, he wondered at his own temerity in so eagerly accepting a commission that took him to a country in which such scenes had been enacted.