The Indians could not have known how many might be concealed about them, and the delay and incertainty would have given time and the possibility of Bentz returning with assistance.

But Mitchell remained quiet and the Indians made the rush. Notwithstanding his disabled condition, Anderson did work the Spencer to the effect that four more Indians bit the dust before they dragged him from the brush and killed him. He was laid upon his back, and nine slashes made across his breast, one for each of the nine Indians he had killed.

Captain Mitchell lived and told the story to Bentz and his party that soon arrived, but the dead Indians told it better, and we have never heard that the valor of the captain ever advanced him in rank among his brothers military. If one soldier, especially an officer, could lay quietly and see another who was making a heroic fight, dragged out, killed, and mangled, it is no surprise that the old time frontiersman held the soldiers in contempt.

SUNSET ON THE PLATTE -- THE GIBRALTER OF NEBRASKA - SON BELLECHUG WATER

CHEYENNE

There are incidents occasionally that connect the past with the present, and ties one generation to another in mysterious manner, other than by the usual laws of consanguinity. Similar circumstances and environment will awaken in one the same line of thought that may have once been alive, but has been buried for generations.

It was back in 1889 that the writer, then a budding young poet (as he thought), visited Gering, on the Fourth of July. The party consisted of Miss Ida Eckerson, now Mrs. A. E. Scott of this city, Miss Minnie Shumway, now Mae Shumway Enderly of Los Angeles, William Wallace White of Gering, and the writer. We crossed the old bridge that had then but recently been built, and as we crossed the sun went down.