Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1892-10-31

easily away.
Meantime, old Berrien, who has noted
the signals of the vedette referred to,
has joined him, with the brief inquiry,
ssWhat is it, Scott?"
"Why, sir. I was posted here by the
sergeant, and he had no sooner gone
than / saw what / took to be horsemen
in the valley several miles out yonder to
the southwest. The major can see the
whole country from butte that lies
perhaps three hundred yards farther out
beyond this ridge. But here comes the
sergeant back, SIR"
It is Ellis, cantering briskly from the
advanced position Scott has designated,
and coming to them now around the
shoulder of the bluff a little to the right
That Ellis has seen something is evil
dent; his face shows it in an instant.
.'An Indian war party. major. per-
haps dozen, rode from behind a long
ridge over to the west and down into
the valley of what take to be branch
of the Porcupine. That butte hides a
good deal of the valley; but we can see
it from there, though
"You three men come with me-" says
Berrien quietly. 1--WE must look into
this
Two minutes lope brings them to the
butte Ellis has pointed out. Leaving
their horses with the orderly, Berrien,
the sergeant and the sentinel go crouch
ing up the hither slope, throw them
selves on the ground and crawl to the
summit. AS the vedette has said, the
whole country for miles in every direc-
ton can be seen-a country of bold con-
tours, of bare, rounded bluffs and buttes,
of deep, shadowy ravines and gulches-
a country bare of trees save the ghostly,
leafess cottonwoods perched by the
banks of many frozen stream. Miles
and miles to the north and northwest
the wild Indian land spreads before their
eyes. Close at hand, tumbling, billowy
and abrupt, the ridges follow or inter-
cept one another in rapid succession.
The face of the land is cut up into tor
tuous breaks" the deep, narrow beds
of countless little streams, all winding
tributary to the river that flows placidly
away to the northeast in the broad val
ley from which the column marched at
dawn. Beyond that, west of north,
clearly, sharply defined in the distance,
already alternating glaring surface and
the westering sun, a tumbling mass of
jagged, fantastic shapes, tangle of
vertical cliffs and scanned and furrowed
walls. labyrinth of gorges, gullies,
washed out channels, deep, black crew
ices, and broad, yawning, impossible
CULTS, the stored Bad Lands of Dakota,
Stunned by all except the renegade and
outlaw i'll the past, now habitable only
by the Indian. Beyond these, faint and
dim in the distance, the snow covered,
pine crested SUBMITS in the Black Hills.
All the rest of the surface, east, west
and south, a frozen sea of gray, glinting
here and there in the declining rays; and
there off to the southwest. perhaps five
miles away, lies the valley into which
the party of dusky warriors has gal
1oped SO short a time before-the valley
beyond which, a long, long days march
away, stands the guarded camp of COM
rade soldiery awaiting their return.
Berrien studies the scene long and care
fully through his glasses. intermediate
ridges are not many, but they are sharp
and clearly defined.
"Who was it reported that the ad-
vance saw signal smokes south of us at
noon?' he asks.
Corporal Waite, sir; he and two of
the men saw them plainly, and they
seemed TO be answered off here" And
Ellis points miles away to the west.
Berrien ponders moment.
"Where away would you locate the
agency, sergeant, if you were going to
take bee line for it?''
tOut off here, SIR
''And they crossed that line going into
the Valley"
'sThey certainly did, sir, and Look,
major! look yonder! Another band,
and from exactly the same place.
A little bevy of dark objects darts
suddenly into view from behind cur
tainlike divide and goes Swimming over
level stretch toward the lowlands of
the valley. Berrien's glasses seem glued
to his eyes.
Twenty of them in that partyl What
do they see? What's their hurry? They
would not expose themselves to our
view unless there were urgent need for
haste.''
s'The old road comes in from that di-
rection, SIR, answers Ellis. 1--WE left it
few hours out from the cantonment,
as you remember Can anything have
been seen along that road to give rise to
signal smokes?
Berrien turns half over and looks
keenly into the sergeant's intelligent
face
1.That road has been abandoned for
weeks past. Everybody to the east of
us has taken refuge at the railway long
since Nobody would he co1ninor from