It is only to a military man in the present time that this picture of Fort Harker would be interesting, and there is nothing now in all that peaceful land to suggest the frontier military station which I saw on that summer day, now nearly four decades ago. But everything was interesting to me then, and my greatest study was the men gathered there for a grim and urgent purpose. My impression of frontiersmen had been shaped by the loud threats, the swagger, and much profanity of the border people of the Territorial and Civil War days. Here were quiet men who made no boasts. Strong, wiry men they were, tanned by the sun of the Plains, their hands hardened, their eyes keen. They were military men who rode like centaurs, scouts who shot with marvellous accuracy, and the sturdy settlers, builders of empire in this stubborn West. Had I been older I would have felt my own lack of training among them. My hands, beside theirs, were soft and white, and while I was accounted a good marksman in Springvale I was a novice here. But since the night long ago when Jean Pahusca frightened Marjie by peering through our schoolroom window I had felt myself in duty bound to drive back the Indians. I had a giant's strength, and no Baronet was ever seriously called a coward.
The hours at Fort Barker were busy ones for Colonel Forsyth and Lieutenant Fred Beecher, first in command under him. Their task of selecting men for the expedition was quickly performed. My heart beat fast when my own turn came. Forsyth's young lieutenant was one of the Lord's anointed. Soft-voiced, modest, handsome, with a nature so lovable, I find it hard to-day to think of him in the military ranks where war and bloodshed are the ultimate business. But young Beecher was a soldier of the highest order, fearless and resourceful. I cannot say how much it lay in Morton's recommendation, and how much in the lieutenant's kind heart that I was able to pass muster and be written into that little company of less than threescore picked men. The available material at Fort Harker was quickly exhausted, and the men chosen were hurried by trains to Fort Hays, where the remainder of the Company was made up.
Dawned then that morning in late Summer when we moved out from the Fort and fronted the wilderness. On the night before we started I wrote a brief letter to Aunt Candace, telling her what I was about to do.