Bert Wilson in the Rockies | Page 7

much formality wasted on them.
"You boys sure have the nerve," he went on. "You got away with it all right, but you took an awful chance."
"Yes," quoted Dick:
'An inch to the left or an inch to the right, And we wouldn't be maundering here to-night.'"
"Those born to be hung will never be shot," laughed Tom. "I guess that explains our escape so far."
"It beats the Dutch the faculty you fellows have of getting into scrapes and out again," commented Melton. "I believe you'd smell a scrap a mile away. You'd rather fight than eat."
"You won't think so when you see what we'll do to that supper of yours to-night," retorted Tom. "Gee, but this air does give you an appetite."
"The one thing above all others that Tom doesn't need," chaffed Dick. "But he's right, just the same. The way I feel I could make a wolf look like thirty cents."
"You can't scare me with that kind of talk," challenged Melton. "Let out your belts to the last notch and I'll guarantee they'll be tight when you get up from the table."
"That listens good," said Tom. "I'm perfectly willing you should call my bluff."
With jest and laughter the afternoon wore on and the shadows cast by the declining sun began to lengthen. After their long confinement on the train, the boys felt as though they had been released from prison. They had been so accustomed to a free, unfettered life that they had chafed at the three days' detention, where the only chance they had to stretch their limbs had been afforded by the few minutes wait at stations. Now they enjoyed to the full the sense of release that came to them in their new surroundings. The West, as seen from a car window, was a vastly different thing when viewed from the seat of a buckboard going at a spanking gait over the limitless plains.
For that they were limitless was the impression conveyed by the unbroken skyline that seemed to be a thousand miles away. Only in the northwest did mountains loom. They had never before had such an impression of the immensity of space. It seemed as though the whole expanse had been created for them, and them alone. For many miles they saw no human figure except that of a solitary cowboy, who passed them at a gallop on his way to the town. The country was slightly rolling and richly grassed, affording pasturage for thousands of cattle that roamed over it at will, almost as free as though in a wild state, except at the time of the round-up. They crossed numerous small rivers, none so deep that they could not be forded, although in one case the water flowed over the body of the wagon.
"That's the Little Big Horn River," said Melton as they drew out on the other side. "Perhaps you fellows remember something that happened here a good many years ago."
"What," cried Bert. "You don't mean the Custer Massacre?"
"That's what," returned Melton. "Right over there where the river bends was the place where Sitting Bull was encamped when Custer led the charge on that June morning. I've got to breathe the horses for twenty minutes or so, and, if you like, we'll look over the field."
If they would like! The boys thrilled at the thought. They had read again and again of that gallant and hopeless fight, where a thousand American cavalrymen led by Custer, the idol of the army, had attacked nine thousand Indians, and fighting against these fearful odds had been wiped out to the last man. In all the nation's history no one, except perhaps Phil Sheridan and Stonewall Jackson, had so appealed to the imagination of the country's youth as Custer, the reckless, yellow-haired leader in a hundred fights, the hero of Cedar Creek and Waynesboro and Five Forks, the Chevalier Bayard of modern times, "without fear and without reproach," who met his death at last as he would have wished to meet it, in that mad glorious dash that has made his name immortal, going down as he had lived with his face to the foe. To these ardent young patriots the place was holy ground, and their pulses leaped and their hearts swelled as Melton pointed out the features of the field and narrated some of the incidents of that awful, but magnificent, fight. It was with intense reluctance that, warned by the gathering shadows, they tore themselves away.
"Can't wait any longer now," said Melton as they retraced their steps to the place where the horses were browsing; "but some day soon we'll come down here early and spend the whole day. It won't be any too long to get a clear idea of the fight and all that led up to it."
The mustangs, refreshed by the