"My speech was just a little weak coming on top of a charge of cavalry," the General admitted. "And that fellow put his finger right on the place. I'll give you my notion, captain. If I had said we had more soldiers behind the hill, like as not this squaw of ours would have told him I lied; she's an uncertain quantity, I find. But I told him the exact truth--that I had no more--and he won't believe it, and that's what I want." So Glynn understood. The pack-train had been halted in a purposely exposed position, which would look to the Indians as if another force was certainly behind it, and every move was now made to give an impression that the forty were only the advance of a large command. Crook pitched his A tent close to the red men's village, and the troops went into camp regardlessly near. The horses were turned out to graze ostentatiously unprotected, so that the people in the thicket should have every chance to notice how secure the white men felt. The mules pastured comfortably over the shallow snow that crushed as they wandered among the sage-bush, and the square bell hung once more from the neck of the leader and tankled upon the hill. The shelter-tents littered the flat above the wash-out, and besides the cook-fire others were built irregularly far down the Malheur North Fork, shedding an extended glimmer of deceit. It might have been the camp of many hundred. A little blaze shone comfortably on the canvas of Crook's tent, and Sergeant Keyser, being in charge of camp, had adopted the troop cook-fire for his camp guard after the cooks had finished their work. The willow thicket below grew black and mysterious, and quiet fell on the white camp. By eight the troopers had gone to bed. Night had come pretty cold, and a little occasional breeze, that passed like a chill hand laid a moment on the face, and went down into the willows. Now and again the water running through the ice would lap and gurgle at some air-hole. Sergeant Keyser sat by his fire and listened to the lonely bell sounding from the dark. He wished the men would feel more at home with him. With Jack Long, satirical, old, and experienced, they were perfectly familiar, because he was a civilian; but to Keyser, because he had been in command of a battalion, they held the attitude of school-boys to a master--the instinctive feeling of all privates towards all officers. Jones and Cumnor were members of his camp guard. Being just now off post, they stood at the fire, but away from him. "How do you like this compared with barracks?" the sergeant asked, conversationally. "It's all right," said Jones. "Did you think it was all right that first morning? I didn't enjoy it much myself. Sit down and get warm, won't you?"