Personally, I thought those two old plainsmen
wouldn't thank Major Lessard or any one else for disturbing their last,
long sleep; the wide, unpeopled prairies had always been their choice in
life, and I felt that they would rather be laid away in some quiet
coulee, than in any conventional "city of the dead" with prim headstones
and iron fences to shut them in. A Western man likes lots of room; dead
or alive, it irks him to be crowded.
I fully expected to find the four waiting for me at Pend d' Oreille, and
I was prepared to hear a good deal of chaffing about getting lost. What
of my waiting on the ridge that afternoon, and bearing more or less away
from the proper direction at night, I did not reach the post till noon;
and I was a bit puzzled to find only the men who were on duty there. I
was digesting this along with the remains of the troopers' dinner, when
Goodell and his satellites popped over the hill that looked down on Pend
d' Oreille, and, a few minutes later, came riding nonchalantly up to the
mess-house.
"Well, you beat us in," Goodell greeted airily. "Did you find a short
cut?"
"Sure thing," I responded, with what irony I could command.
"Where the deuce _did_ you go, anyway, after you stopped in that
creek-bottom?" he asked, eying me with much curiosity.
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