Beyond the outmost picket, moving as silently as two spectres, they found at last a coulee leading upward from the valley to the plains above.

To their left the Indian fires swept in half circle, and between were the dark outlines of savage foes.

From rock to rock echoed guttural voices, but, foot by foot, unnoted by the keen eyes, the two crept steadily on through the midnight of that sheltering ravine, dismounted, hands clasping the nostrils of their ponies, feeling through the darkness for each step, halting breathless at every crackle of a twig, every crunch of snow under foot.

Again and again they paused, silent, motionless, as some apparition of savagery outlined itself between them and the sky, yet slowly, steadily, every instinct of the plains exercised, they passed unseen.
In the earliest gray of dawn the two wearied men crept out upon the upper plateau, dragging their horses.

Behind, the mists of the night still hung heavy and dark over the valley, yet with a new sense of freedom they swung into their saddles, faced sternly the chill wind of the north, and rode forward across the desolate snow fields.