great Stewart of the West that one of their number, half incredulously, buys a copy and reads aloud:  “Major Thornton, ——­th Infantry, Captain Langham and Lieutenant Bliss, ——­th Cavalry, and thirty men, are killed.  Captains Wright and Lane and Lieutenants Willard and Brooks, ——­th Cavalry, and some forty more men, are seriously wounded.  The rest of the command is corralled by an overwhelming force of Indians, and their only hope is to hold out until help can reach them.  All troops along the line of the Union Pacific are already under orders.”

“Oh, isn’t it dreadful?”

“Yes; but aren’t you glad it wasn’t Ours?  Oh, look! there’s Nina Beaubien over there in her carriage. Do let’s find out if she’s going to lead with Rollins!”

Vae victis!  Far out in the glorious Park country in the heart of the Centennial State a little band of blue-coats, sent to succor a perilled agent, is making desperate stand against fearful odds.  Less than two hundred men has the wisdom of the Department sent forth through the wilderness to find and, if need be, fight its way through five times its weight in well-armed foes.  The officers and men have no special quarrel with those Indians, nor the Indians with them.  Only two winters before, when those same Indians were sick and starving, and their lying go-betweens, the Bureau-employees, would give them neither food nor justice, a small band made their way to the railway and were fed on soldier food and their wrongs righted by soldier justice.  But another snarl has come now, and this time the Bureau-people are in a pickle, and the army—­ever between two fires at least, and thankful when it isn’t six—­is ordered to send a little force and go out there and help the agent maintain his authority.  The very night before the column reaches the borders of the reservation the leading chiefs come in camp to interview the officers, shake hands, beg tobacco, and try on their clothes, then go back to their braves and laugh as they tell there are only a handful, and plan the morrow’s ambuscade and massacre. Vae victis!  There are women and children among the garrisons along the Union Pacific whose hearts have little room for thoughts of germans in the horror of this morning’s tidings.  But Sibley is miles and miles away, and, as Mrs. Wheeler says, aren’t you glad it wasn’t Ours?

Out at the fort there is a different scene.  The morning journals and the clicking telegraph send a thrill throughout the whole command.  The train has barely whistled out of sight when the ringing notes of officers’ call resound through the quadrangle and out over the broader drill-ground beyond.  Wondering, but prompt, the staid captains and eager subalterns come hurrying to head-quarters, and the band, that had come forth and taken its station on the parade, all ready for guard-mount, goes quickly back, while the men gather in big squads along the shaded row of their quarters and watch the rapid assembly