Just the sight of Needham and his old blue uniform coming at night, after taps, was a comfort to me.
Anxiety filled my soul, for Jack was scouting in the Stein Mountains all winter in the snow, after Indians who were avowedly hostile, and had threatened to kill on sight.

He often went out with a small pack-train, and some Indian scouts, five or six soldiers, and I thought it quite wrong for him to be sent into the mountains with so small a number.
Camp MacDermit was, as I have already mentioned, a "one-company post." We all know what that may mean, on the frontier.

Our Second Lieutenant was absent, and all the hard work of winter scouting fell upon Jack, keeping him away for weeks at a time.
The Piute Indians were supposed to be peaceful, and their old chief, Winnemucca, once the warlike and dreaded foe of the white man, was now quiet enough, and too old to fight.

He lived, with his family, at an Indian village near the post.
He came to see me occasionally.

His dress was a curious mixture of civilization and savagery.