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The air at this height, though rare, is keen and exhilarating, and one needs no second look at the troopers to see how bright are their eyes and how nimble and elastic is the pace of their steeds.

The commanding officer, with his adjutant and orderlies and a little group of staff sergeants, had halted at the crest of one of these ridges and was looking back at the advancing column. Beside the winding road was strung a line of wires,–the military telegraph to the border forts,–and with the exception of those bare poles not a stick of timber was anywhere in sight.

The whole surface is destitute of bush or tree, but the thick little bunches of gray-green grass that cover it everywhere are rich with juice and nutriment. This is the buffalo grass of the Western prairies, and the moment the horses’ heads are released down go their nozzles, and they are cropping eagerly and gratefully.

Far as the eye can see to the north and east it roams over a rolling, tumbling surface that seems to have become suddenly petrified. Far to the south are the snow-shimmering peaks; near at hand, to the west, are the gloomy gorges and ravines and wide wastes of upland of the Black Hills of Wyoming; and so clear is the air that they seem but a short hour’s gallop away.

There is something strangely deceptive about the distances in an atmosphere so rare and clear as this.

A young surgeon was taking his first ride with a cavalry column in the wide West, and, as he looked back into the valley through which they had been marching for over half an hour, his face was clouded with an expression of odd perplexity.

“What’s the matter, doctor?” asked the adjutant, with a grin on his face. “Are you wondering whether those fellows really are United States regulars?” and the young officer nodded towards the long column of horsemen in broad-brimmed slouch hats and flannel shirts or fanciful garb of Indian tanned buckskin. Even among the officers there was hardly a sign of the uniform or trappings which distinguish the soldiers in garrison.

“No, it isn’t that. I knew that you fellows who had served so long in Arizona had got out of the way of wearing uniform in the field against Indians. What I can’t understand is that ridge over there. I thought we had been down in a hollow for the last half-hour, yet look at it; we must have come over that when I was thinking of something else.”

“Not a bit of it, doctor,” laughed the colonel. “That’s where we dismounted and took a short rest and gave the horses a chance to pick a bit.”

“Why, but, colonel! that must have been two miles back,–full half an hour ago: you don’t mean that ridge is two miles away? I could almost hit that man riding down the road towards us.”

“It would be a wonderful shot, doctor. That man is one of the teamsters who went back after a dropped pistol. He is a mile and a half away.”

The doctor’s eyes were wide open with wonder.

“Of course you must know, colonel, but it is incomprehensible to me.”

“It is easily proved, doctor. Take these two telegraph poles nearest us and tell me how far they are apart.”

The doctor looked carefully from one pole to another. Only a single wire was strung along the line, and the poles were stout and strong. After a moment’s study he said, “Well, they are just about seventy-five yards apart.”

“More than that, doctor. They are a good hundred yards. But even at your estimate, just count the poles back to that ridge–of course they are equidistant, or nearly so, all along–and tell me how far you make it.”

The doctor’s eyes began to dilate again as he silently took account of the number.

“I declare, there are over twenty to the rear of the wagon-train and nearly forty across the ridge! I give it up.”