His nerves were like steel now, his hand steady, his heart beating without an accelerated throb.  He knew the work, and rejoiced in it.  This was why he was a soldier.  Silently, swiftly, he unbuckled his belt, refastening it across the straps so as to hold canteen and haversack noiseless, and then, revolver in hand, began creeping down under cover of the low banks.  He must explore the path first before attempting to bear her along in his arms; must be sure the passage was unguarded.  After it swerved to the right there would be little danger, but while it ran straight, some cautious savage might have chosen it to skulk in.  To deal with such he needed to be alone, and free.

He must have crawled thus for thirty yards, hands and knees aching horribly, his eyes ever peering over the edge of the bank, his ears tingling to the slightest noise.  The tiny glow of the fire far away to the left was alone visible in the intense blackness; the wind brought to him no sound of movement.  The stillness was profound, almost uncanny; as he paused and listened he could distinguish the throb of his heart.  He was across the trail at last, for he had felt and traced the ruts of wheels, and where the banks had been worked down almost to a level with the prairie.  He crossed this opening like a snake, and then arose to his knees beyond, where the gully deepened.  He remained poised, motionless, scarcely daring to breathe.  Surely that was something else—­that shapeless blotch of shadow, barely topping the line of bank!  Was it ten feet away?  Or five?  He could not tell.  He stared; there was no movement, and yet his eyes began to discern dimly the outlines—­the head and shoulders of a man!  The Sergeant crept forward—­an inch, two inches, a foot.  The figure did not stir.  Now he was sure the fellow’s head was lying flat on the turf, oddly distorted by a feathered war bonnet.  The strange posture, the utter lack of movement, seemed proof that the tired warrior had fallen asleep on watch.  Like a cat Hamlin crept up slowly toward him, poised for a spring.

Some sense of the wild must have stirred the savage into semi-consciousness.  Suddenly he sat up, gripping the gun in his hands.  Yet even as his opening eyes saw dimly the Sergeant’s menacing shadow, before he could scream his alarm, or spring upright, the revolver butt struck with dull thud, and he went tumbling backward into the ditch, his cry of alarm ending in a hoarse croak.  From somewhere, out of the dense darkness in front a voice called, sharp and guttural, as if its owner had been startled by the mysterious sound of the blow.  It was the language of the Arapahoes, and out of his vague memory of the tongue, spurred to recollection by the swift emergency, Hamlin growled a hoarse answer, hanging breathlessly above the motionless body until the “ugh!” of the fellow’s response proved him without suspicion.  He waited, counting the seconds, every muscle strained with expectancy, listening.  He had a feeling that some one was crawling over the short grass, wiggling along like a snake, but the faint sound, if sound it was, grew less distinct.  Finally he lifted his head above the edge of the bank, but saw nothing, not even a dim shadow.