And so, with occasional peep at feathered warriors on the far left flank, and frequent hoverings of small parties on the distant front, Ray's nervy half hundred pushed steadily on. Two experiments had satisfied the Sioux that the captain himself was in command and they had long since recognized the sorrels. They knew of old Ray was not to be caught by time-worn tricks. They had failed to pick off the advance, or the officers, as the troop approached the second ridge. Lame Wolf's big band was coming fast, but only a dozen of his warriors, sent lashing forward, had as yet reached Stabber. The latter was too weak in numbers to think of fighting on even terms, and as Ray seemed determined to come ahead, why not let him? Word was sent to Wolf not to risk showing south of the Elk Tooth spur. There in the breaks and ravines would be a famous place to lie in ambush, leaving to Stabber the duty of drawing the soldiers into the net. So there in the breaks they waited while Ray's long skirmish line easily manoeuvred the red sharp-shooters out of their lair on the middle divide. Then, reforming column, the little command bore straight away for the Elk. But all these diversions took time. Twenty miles to the north of Frayne stretched the bold divide between the Elk Fork, dry as a dead tooth much of the year, and the sandy bottom of the Box Elder. Here and there along the ridge were sudden, moundlike upheavals that gave it a picturesque, castellated effect, for, unlike the general run of the country, the Elk Tooth seemed to have a backbone of rock that shot forth southeastward from the southern limit of the beautiful Big Horn range; and, in two or three places, during some prehistoric convulsion of nature, it had crushed itself out of shape and forced upward a mass of gleaming rock that even in the course of centuries had not been overgrown with grass. "Elk teeth" the Indians had called these odd projections, and one of them, the middle one of the three most prominent, was a landmark seen for many a mile except to the south and west. Eagle Butte was the only point south of the Big Horn and in the valley of the Platte from which it could be seen, and famous were these two points in the old days of the frontier for the beacon fires that burned or the mirror signals that flashed on their summits when the war parties of the Sioux were afield.