Suddenly, for there had been nothing there a moment before, all suddenly, an Indian scout was outlined on the top of the low bluff nearest us. Motionless he sat on his pony a moment, then he waved a signal to the farther height beyond him. A second pony and a second Indian scout appeared. Another signal and then came a third Indian on a third pony farther away. Each Indian seemed to call out another until a line of them had been signalled from the purple mist, out of which they appeared to be created. Last of all and farthest away, was a pony on which two figures were faintly outlined. Down in the valley we waited, all eyes looking toward the hills as these two drew nearer. Up in a group on the bluff beyond the valley the Indians halted. The two riders of the pony slipped to the ground. With their arms about each other, in close embrace, they came slowly toward us, the two captive women for whom we waited. It was a tragic scene, such as our history has rarely known, watched by a thousand men, mute and motionless, under its spell. Even now, after the lapse of nearly four decades, the picture is as vivid as if it were but yesterday that I stood on the Texas Plains a soldier of twenty-two years, feeling my heart throbs quicken as that sunset scene is enacted before me. We had thought ourselves the victims of a hard fate in that winter of terrible suffering; but these two women, Kansas girls, no older than Marjie, home-loving, sheltered, womanly, a maiden and a bride of only a few months--shall I ever forget them as they walked into my life on that March day in the sunset hour by the Sweetwater? Their meagre clothing was of thin flour sacks with buckskin moccasins and leggins. Their hair hung in braids Indian fashion. Their haggard faces and sad eyes told only the beginning of their story. They were coming now to freedom and protection. The shadow of Old Glory would be on them in a moment; a moment, and the life of an Indian captive would be but a horror-seared memory. Then it was that Custer did a graceful thing. The subjection of the Cheyennes could have been accomplished by soldiery from Connecticut or South Carolina, but it was for the rescue of these two, for the protection of Kansas homes, that the Nineteenth Kansas Cavalry had volunteered. Stepping to our commander, Colonel Moore, Custer asked that the Kansas man should go forward to meet the captives. With a courtesy a queen might have coveted the Colonel received them--two half-naked, wretched, fate-buffeted women.