Dreth crossed out a march interval while the cavalry waited beneath the camp's sagging awnings.
Kenny clamped his good hand over the empty left sleeve while Dreth compared grain figures beside the open timing book. Outside the pavilion, horses stamped against their tethers while the waiting squadron held its ranks well short of the pass.
Kenny waited beside the turning page, and nobody gave him leave to go.
"The twelfth survey rider's back from the lower pass," he reported, edging off the table's corner as a groom passed outside, "with the route notes the captain wanted."
Dreth kept one finger pinned to the oats column beneath the cavalry's projected march.
"The mount?"
Kenny glanced toward the horse being led away beyond the pavilion's open side, "Blown, three leagues at a gallop, and he never cooled it before the climb."
Dreth entered another figure beside the returned man's name in the roster.
