542 The Book of Woodcraft 



for trails, Lieutenant Baxter had discovered this campfire, 

 and, quite naturally assuming that none but a consider- 

 able band of the Indians would venture upon building a 

 campfire so near to the garrison, had immediately sent a 

 trooper courier into the garrison with advice of his dis- 

 covery. 



Then he dismounted his command and approached the 

 campfire in open skirmish order, until it was plain to be 

 seen that the fire was deserted. The trail of a single Indian 

 led into the washout, and imprints in the snow showed where 

 he had sat, evidently for some hours, beside the fire. But 

 of the washout's fugitive tenant no trace could be found, 

 no trail showing his route of departure. In one direction 

 along a sharp ridge leading toward the hogback's crest, 

 the snow was blowTi away, the ground bare, and this 

 seemed to be his natural line of flight from Baxter's 

 detachment. 



After what all believed a thorough search of the vicinity 

 of the fire. Lieutenant Baxter left Corporal Everett and a 

 trooper near the fire, and, remounting, led the balance of 

 his men up the slope with the view to cut the Cheyenne's 

 trail wheresoever it might again enter the snow. 



Baxter was gone barely ten minutes when he was startled 

 by two rifle shots in his rear, from the vicinity of the fire ! 

 Looking back, he saw his two troopers prostrate in the 

 snow, and later learned that Everett and his mate, while 

 stamping about to keep warm, had approached a httle 

 shallow washout within thirty yards of the fire that all 

 vowed they had looked into, and suddenly had discovered 

 the Indian lying at its bottom, wrapped in a length of dirty 

 old canvas the precise color of the gray clay soil which 

 doubtless had served to conceal him through the earlier 

 search. The moment the Indian made sure he was dis- 

 covered, he cast open his canvas wrap and fired twice with 



