Conner suddenly looked serious. “I’m afraid I’m not gonna lose it,” he said, and Hawk realized that he meant it. He was glad to see his friend was aware of the importance of maintaining military discipline. It was something that Mathew Conner had little respect for. At the present time, when there was no real fighting going on, it was especially important to maintain a strong command. Hawk had often worried that Conner might not realize that he ran a very loose command, and one day it might cost him. As if to reassure his friend, Conner called out a command to Johnson, loud enough for everyone to hear it. “Corporal Johnson! Order the men ‘To Horse.’ I don’t intend to spend the entire day dragging ass around here.”

As he promised, Conner gave the men twenty minutes to go into the store while he and Hawk talked to Trotter. When they walked in, Trotter met them with a wide smile for Hawk. “You shoulda hung around and took that second drink last night.”

“That so?” Hawk responded. “Why is that?”

“Not thirty minutes after you left, Barney Mayfield rode in, drivin’ a freight wagon, headin’ for Helena, and you and the lieutenant there would be tickled to hear what he was talkin’ about.”

“You reckon you could get around to tellin’ us what he told you?” Hawk asked.

“He said some of them folks on that missin’ mule train showed up day before yesterday back at Fort Benton.” When Trotter saw that he had both Hawk’s and Conner’s complete interest, he went on to expound on the news. “He said they said they was robbed, and most of ’em got killed.” Other than that broad statement, Luther had little additional information with which to answer Hawk’s and Conner’s questions. More anxious than before to get started, Conner ordered the men to get mounted and they were soon under way again.

* * *

Originally built as a trading post, primarily for the Blackfoot Indians, the American Fur Company sold Fort Benton to the military after the demise of the fur-trading industry. The army moved into the fort in 1870, but in the years since, the number of troops were reduced to the present-day skeleton garrison of custodians, commanded by Lieutenant Robert Sessions. The fifteen-man patrol from Fort Ellis arrived in Fort Benton at suppertime. It had been several years since Hawk had actually been inside the gates of the fort. Even so, he found it hard to believe the decline of what had been the most important fort on the upper Missouri for so many years.