Chapter 48

Elijah Wallston, Major, United States Dragoons, was a man beyond his prime but still capable of field life. Once past the pleasantries, he reverted to type and put hard questions to me regarding the situation in my part of the country in a manner that demanded cooperation. I gave it to him, declaring the Yanube peaceable, but like all the tribes possessed of a few hotheads. I admitted they were as perplexed over the army as was the army over them.

I considered confessing the fate of the two man-stealers but withheld that information as one—together with their ponies and wares—had been hidden beneath the ground at my insistence. The other felon had been swept away in the Yanube’s spring runoff and never seen again. Fearful some of the young bucks who thought my caution foolish would excavate the two buffalo guns, Cut and I rendered them useless by dropping stones weighing at least a quintal squarely atop them.