They saw him, as the sun was nothing more than a dull orb in the sky. The speck on the horizon grew more distinct as the rider came into sharp focus and Cole, reining in his horse, brought the eyeglasses out of their leather case.
“He is a soldier,” said Brown Bear, “I can see his blue trousers, the yellow stripe.”
“I’m trying to make out who exactly he is,” said Cole, not wanting to engage the Indian scout with largely useless explanations that he too could see the rider was a soldier. All he wanted to know was if it were Burroughs. It wasn’t. It was a cavalryman he did not recognise, but by the look of him, he was fleeing from something, something massive.
Brown Bear was already drawing his Winchester from its scabbard.
“I reckon you’ll need that, but not just yet,” said Cole, return
