but no can bear pain! Ugh!"
The interpreter turned in time to catch Peter. He had fainted.
CHAPTER III
A hot afternoon on the plains. A dusty cavalcade of United States
cavalry and commissary wagons, which from a distance preserved a certain
military precision of movement, but on nearer view resolved itself into
straggling troopers in twos and fours interspersed between the wagons,
two noncommissioned officers and a guide riding ahead, who had already
fallen into the cavalry slouch, but off to the right, smartly erect and
cadet-like, the young lieutenant in command. A wide road that had the
appearance of being at once well traveled and yet deserted, and that,
although well defined under foot, still seemed to disappear and lose
itself a hundred feet ahead in the monotonous level. A horizon that
in that clear, dry, hazeless atmosphere never mocked you, yet never
changed, but kept its eternal rim of mountains at the same height and
distance from hour to hour and day to day. Dust--a parching alkaline
powder that cracked the skin--everywhere, clinging to the hubs and
spokes of the wheels, without being disturbed by movement, incrusting
the cavalryman from his high boots to the crossed sabres of his cap;
going off in small puffs like explosions under the plunging hoofs of the
horses, but too heavy to rise and follow them. A reeking smell of horse
sweat and boot leather that lingered in the road long after the train
had passed. An external silence broken only by the cough of a jaded
horse in the suffocating dust, or the cracking of harness leather.
Within one of the wagons that seemed a miracle of military neatness and
methodical stowage, a lazy conversation carried on by a grizzled driver
and sunbrowned farrier.
"'Who be you?' sezee. 'I'm Philip Atherly, a member of Congress,' sez
the long, dark-complected man, sezee, 'and I'm on a commission
for looking into this yer Injin grievance,' sezee. 'You may be God
Almighty,' sez Nebraska Bill, sezee, 'but you look a d--d sight
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