“If you’d be putting your foot here, milady, I’ll boost you up.”
Waxworth glowered at him.
One hand on the saddle, Mrs. Tremaine slipped her foot into O’Reilly’s keeping, and he pushed her up and into place. She anchored her leg about the pommel and unhooked her long skirt to drape it over the side.
“Thank you both.” She looked to Will. “Lieutenant Prescott, perhaps you should introduce your men. It doesn’t seem right to shout ‘Ho, Private!’ every time I want their attention.”
“You can call us anything you like,” Waxworth assured her as she gathered her reins. “We’ll always come a-running.” That grin would have melted butter.
“Mount up, Soldier,” Will ordered, and his private collected himself and hurried to his horse.
“Incline your head when I call your name,” he told his men. “Lercher.”
The German bobbed his blond head, nearly knocking off his fatigue cap.
“Waxworth.”
The toady smiled fatuously at her, then apparently remembered Will’s command and bobbed like a bird on a wire.
“O’Reilly.”
The strawberry-blond-haired private bent over his horse’s mane in a bow. “At your service, milady.”
“Franklin.”
His private’s lean face turned red as he inclined his head. “Mrs. Tremaine. Thank you for your help.”
“Private Smith is in camp,” Will finished. “I’ll explain the terrain to him when we return.”
“Very good.” She directed her horse away from theirs and turned the mare to face them.
“Gentlemen,” she said, voice as clear as a bugle call. “Welcome to the Lower Geyser Basin. This part of the park has more fountains and hot pools than any other. It has some of the prettiest waterfalls and sweeping vistas too. I understand you have the honor of protecting it all from despoiling.”
Franklin and Lercher sat taller in their saddles. O’Reilly bunched up his cheeks, leaned over his horse, and caught Mrs. Tremaine’s eye. Swallowing the spit, he straightened.
“Allow me the honor of protecting you,” she continued. “The water in many of these pools is hot enough to scald. So is that mud. It’s also thick with the minerals that give it those lovely colors. Don’t splash it on you or in you. If you see one of my guests or anyone else getting too close, I’d appreciate it if you’d warn them away.”
His men glanced over at the colored mud pots as if reconsidering them.
“Today,” she said, “I’ll take you on a tour of the area nearest the hotel so you can familiarize yourself with the beauties and the dangers of the areas you’re going to patrol.”
Lercher was nodding, but Waxworth and Franklin were beginning to frown.
“Didn’t realize she was such a schoolmarm,” his cook muttered to his engineer.
He’d have to have words with them later. They were all in Yellowstone’s school now, and Mrs. Tremaine was their best hope for a teacher.
“Column behind me and Mrs. Tremaine,” Will ordered when it became clear she had finished speaking for now. She turned her horse and waited as he drew Bess alongside. His men fell into place, two abreast, behind them.
The same two older hotel guests who had watched him repair the stairs yesterday ventured out onto the porch. They must be the Cavell party Mrs. Tremaine had mentioned. As before, their clothing would have graced the finest parlors back in Boston.
“Oh, are we having a parade?” the woman asked in a British accent.
“Cheers to the men in uniform,” the gentleman, most likely her husband, called. “Subdue those red savages.”
Will’s stomach clenched at the crude term. “Column, move out,” he ordered, and Mrs. Tremaine clucked to her horse. The lady guest waved her handkerchief as they rode past.
“You probably won’t see an Indian in the park,” Mrs. Tremaine said, voice hinting of sadness. “They’ve all been sent to reservations.”
He knew. The First Cavalry had had a hand in that, and he still wasn’t sure it had been the right thing to do. Warlike tribes no longer preyed on peaceful tribes or settlers, yet both warlike and peaceful groups had been misplaced from the lands on which they had been accustomed to hunt and raise their families for generations. And there had been so many casualties.
“The Bannocks still come through sometimes,” she added, oblivious to the memories that stalked closer to him. “They hunt and fish and gather berries. I suppose Captain Harris won’t like that.”
Will roused himself. “No hunting on park lands. No exceptions.”
She nodded as they circled the paint pots. Even the well-trained cavalry horses drew back from the sulfurous smells, the belching plops.
“That’s probably wise,” she said. “The bison herd, in particular, is having difficulties. They deserve our protection.”
He had only heard of the great beasts. The herds had been gone from the plains when he’d ridden through as a young private, and there had been none in Oregon and Washington Territory, where he’d seen much of his service. Still, it was hard to imagine anything as strong and sturdy as a buffalo herd needing his protection.
She nodded to an area where orange streaked across the chalky ground, steam rising. “That’s the Silex Spring. Trust me, you do not want to drink that water.”
“No, ma’am,” Waxworth agreed with a shudder.
“And keep your horses well away,” she advised, causing O’Reilly to swerve back into line. “What looks like solid ground may well be only a crust, with boiling water just below.”
All his men were more careful after that.
A little farther along, she reined in beside a pool as blue as the sky overhead. His men stopped around her, and O’Reilly craned his neck to peer over his horse’s head into the depths.
“As you can see by the steam, every pool around here is hot. This one is Celestine Spring, but most of the others are geysers. Unlike Old Faithful, they’re not predictable. If you’re riding, listen for a hiss and watch for an increase in steam. If you’re on foot, you’ll feel the rumble in the ground before they start.”
So, that was how she’d predicted the eruption yesterday. He caught her eye and nodded. Her smile brightened the day even further.
She led them past a group of lodgepole pines
