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Attaining to the suht knoll, whence a someider

vista lay outspread, he partially turned his face toward thein the rear, while his hand swept across the dreary

scene

"If that line of trees over yonder indicates the course of the Bear

Water, Carson," he questioned quietly, "where are we expected to hit

the trail leading down to the ford?"

The sergeant, thus addressed, a little stocky felloearing a closely

clipped gray moustache, spurred his exhausted horse into a brief trot,

and drew up short by the officer's side, his heavy eyes scanning the

vague distance, even while his right hand was uplifted in perfunctory

salute

"There 's no trail I know about along this bank, sir," he replied

respectfully, "but the big cottonith the dead branch forking out

at the top is the ford guide"

They rode down in an

wearily cli hill opposite, apparently the last before

co directly down the banks of the strea

horse topped the uneven su an excla

intently down in his ile instant he appeared

to doubt the evidence of his own eyes; then he swung hastily frootten

"My God!" he cried, sharply, his eyes suspiciously sweeping the bare

slope "There are two bodies lying here--white people!"

They lay all doubled up in the coarse grass, exactly as they had

fallen, the irl

clasped vice-like in his ar sun Their strange, strained, unnatural posture,