Going, as usual, next day to read an hour or so to the invalid major, still under injunctions not to tax his eyes, Miss Sanford became conscious of an undercurrent of something akin to sensation, something approximating unusual excitement. Both doctors had earlier been there, and Wallen came again. The hospital attendant seemed abnormally anxious and officious. Félicie, infelicitously named, if it was her name, fluttered upstairs and down, in and out of my lady's chamber, effusively greeting the neighbors who somewhat significantly began coming in with anxious inquiry, tender of sympathy, etc. "Couldn't help noticing the doctor had been over three times, so fearing the major might have had a turn for the worse," etc., etc., but it wasn't the man so much as his wife of whom they hoped for tidings. But Félicie could fence, and would not favor even the adroit with the desired information. Madame was still reposing herself. Madame would assuredly promenade at horse or in vehicle later. Madame adored the fresh, free air, and though Madame was desolate that, alas, her physicians, these medicines, adjured her that it was the most important she should at this time live hours in the air and sunshine, and she was forbidden the bliss of sharing her husband's confinement and alleviating his ennui, it was for his sake more than her own and for the sake of their cherished hope that she meekly yield to their mandates; and was it not a circumstance the most felicitous that the charming Mademoiselle should be so ever-ready to read to Monsieur the Commandant?
With all its graceful, polished pleasantries at the expense of the unmarried sister of thirty and upwards, the social world that professes to regard her matrimonial prospects as past praying for, and herself as oddly unattractive, is quick to take alarm when, apparently accepting their unflattering view, she likewise accepts duties denied, as a rule, to those who are attractive. The very girls who giggled behind "Aunt Priscilla's" back and pitied her undesired lot were promptly and properly aggrieved that she should prove to be so forward, so unmaidenly. Because the right man does not happen to come into a woman's life until so late, or because the wrong one happened in and won her fresh young heart all too early, it results that many a better, wiser, lovelier woman lives unmated to-day than many a woman married in her teens. Lucky is the man the Indian summer of whose life is blessed by the companionship of such. Minneconjou laughed at Priscilla so long as she read to the man in hospital or the bed-ridden dames in the married quarters; but it shied violently at her spending an hour or more each day in reading to Dwight, even though the attendant was never away, and Mrs. Ray, with her needlework, was often present. Was Minneconjou already consigning the present incumbent to outer darkness and thinking of prescribing another mate for Oswald Dwight?
Not only did Priscilla note the incessant flittings about the house, but presently she saw that Dwight's attention was wandering. From the adjoining room the muffled sound of voices, in petulant appeal or expostulation, was at times distinctly audible. Félicie wished Madame to do something, apparently, which Madame was determined not to do.
Félicie came once or twice with Madame's devoted love to ask if there was anything Monsieur desired or lacked, and to flash guarded malevolence at Priscilla. Félicie came again to say Madame was recalcitrant. She feared Monsieur had not rested wellcette nuit, and she wished well to postpone her promenade, but the doctor he had prescribed and Monsieur he had desired that Madame neglect no opportunity to take the air, and would not Monsieur again conjure Madame? Madame was deaf to these the protestations of her most devoted. Dwight rose slowly from his reclining chair and, excusing himself to the patient reader, was gone but a moment or two, and Madame was ravishingly gowned and most becomingly hatted and veiled when, just for a moment, as the day's session was closing and the fair reader about departing, Madame rustled in to archly upbraid Monsieur for his cruelty in ordering her to take her drive when it was impossible for him to be at her side. "Ah, but next week—next week!"—this, doubtless, for the benefit of Priscilla—"we shall see!"
The phaeton was at the door and Priscilla walked silently, thoughtfully, homeward. Aunt Marion was at her desk, writing pages to the soldier-husband and father in the distant Philippines. The sweet face was looking grave and careworn. There were traces of tears, there were dark lines, about the soft blue eyes, as Priscilla bent and tenderly kissed her. "Do come down and let me make you a cup of tea," she pleaded. "You've been writing—and I reading—long. I'd like some, too. Is—is Sandy home?"
"Riding," said Aunt Marion briefly, and Priscilla knew.
Ordinarily, half a dozen women would come drifting in to Mrs. Ray's during the summer afternoon. To-day there were none. They heard voices on the walk, voices that seemed to hush as the gate was neared, and only to resume in low tone after it was passed. Priscilla could not account for the unusual depression that had seemed to possess Aunt Marion even when struggling against it herself. At breakfast time Aunt Marion had been unusually silent, unusually watchful of Sandy, who, before he would touch his fruit or sip his coffee, had gone forth to the bench in rear of quarters, searching, he said, for some memoranda he might have dropped out there at night. He had hunted all through the pockets of his khaki rig, that he happened to be wearing at that time, and to no purpose. He must have whipped it out with his handkerchief, he said—"just that little flat memorandum book" they had often seen him have, with a few loose pages—no earthly use to anybody but him, no great consequence, and yet, after breakfast, he was searching again, and had Hogan searching, and again he returned and hunted all through his room, and investigated cook and housemaid, and again went forth. Priscilla found herself unable to cast it from her mind or to cause her aunt to forget it. Sandy had been gone an hour when she returned, and had said not to wait dinner; he might ride late and long and far.
"But not toward the reservation," he assured his mother, seeing the trouble in her face. "Though I'd more than like to ride over there with the troop and round up those blackguard reds that turned me back."
"Those blackguard reds" were forbidden by their agent to set foot north of the Minneconjou, where the ranchers and settlers and miners were frequent. But still the mother was anxious, filled with dread she could not speak, and even as she now sat, absently toying with her teaspoon, the maid came in with a note. "A soldier friend of Blenke" had just brought it for Miss Sanford.
So Priscilla opened and read:
Miss Sanford will pardon, I pray, the liberty I probably take in presuming to address her, but our plea to the captain was fruitless. He insists on my going with the detachment to the wood camp; so, long before this reaches Miss Sanford we shall have started, and it may be days before relief will come. Meantime, with my assurance that with Heaven's help I shall yet redeem myself in her estimation, I remain Miss Sanford's grateful and humble servant,P. Blenke.
Miss Sanford will pardon, I pray, the liberty I probably take in presuming to address her, but our plea to the captain was fruitless. He insists on my going with the detachment to the wood camp; so, long before this reaches Miss Sanford we shall have started, and it may be days before relief will come. Meantime, with my assurance that with Heaven's help I shall yet redeem myself in her estimation, I remain Miss Sanford's grateful and humble servant,
P. Blenke.
Verily, the young man wrote with a pen of the courtier and scholar of olden time rather than the rude trooper. Verily, Blenke was a man of parts—and played them.
"Where is that wood camp?" asked Aunt Marion, with languid interest, relieved, she knew not why, that Blenke should be gone.
"Far up the foothills—west. It seems that lately the Indians have been threatening and abusive," said Priscilla. "That's why the guard was sent. They march soon after reveille, and—he was so unwilling to go just now, when he hoped to arrange matters about his—commission," and Miss Sanford's clear gray eyes, much finer and softer they seemed without thepince nez, were lifted again, half timidly, half hopefully.
"How could he expect or hope for such a thing now?" answered Mrs. Ray, with some asperity. "What officer would recommend him after that—that exhibition?"
Priscilla colored. That episode was a sore point, but not a settler. "He said it depended little on the officers, auntie," was the gently forceful answer, "so long as he had the senator behind him." Whereupon Aunt Marion arose and peered through the one window in the little dining-room that opened to the west. She was forever peering up the valley now, and Priscilla well knew why. The maid again appeared. "Phelps, ma'am, Blenke's friend, came back with this," and she held forth a letter. "He said it was found on sentry post up the bench."
Mrs. Ray turned quickly and held forth her hand. Silently Miss Sanford passed the letter to her. It was an ordinary missive, in business envelope, addressed to Lieutenant Sanford Ray, Fort Minneconjou, and it had been opened. The torn flap revealed the fact that there were two or three separate inclosures. For a moment Mrs. Ray turned it in her slender fingers, thinking intently, then, suddenly recollecting, told the maid to give her thanks to the soldier if he were still waiting. She wished to ask had anything else been found, but that, if he cared to, was for Sandy to do when he came. Then she took the letter to her room, and stowed it in a pigeonhole of her desk against her boy's return—then sat her down to wait.
Meanwhile the object of so much thought and love and care had ridden many a mile, his brain in a whirl of conflicting emotions. There had come to him the previous night, in the interval between that brief interview with Blenke and the later meeting with his mother, a messenger with a note. It was the same messenger, Butts, the soldier groom, who had only a short time earlier met him with her note upon the parade. Ray, fleeing from a possible meeting with Priscilla, had left her and her soldierprotégétogether, and slipping out of the rear gate had gone walking up the bluffs. It was not quite time for taps and the sentries to begin challenging. He could have gone through the yard of any one of the adjacent quarters and so reach the front, the promenade walk and the wide parade, but he wished to be alone, under the starry skies. He needed to think. What could she have meant by saying, "How they tricked me—how I lost you?" He had blamed her bitterly, savagely, for her cold-blooded, heartless jilting of him, without ever a word of explanation. It was so cruel, so abominable a thing that, perhaps, even Inez Farrell could not, without some excuse or reason, be guilty of it. And now she was striving to tell him, to make him understand; now she was alienated from her husband and not, so Dwight's own references to Foster would go to prove, not because of this affair with Captain Foster. She said it was her right to be heard. Perhaps it was. If she had been tricked, deceived, wronged—such things had happened—the story was old as the Deluge and might be true, and if true, was it decent to treat her with studied contempt? If she had been tricked into throwing him over—if, if she had been true in saying she loved him, as fervently she swore that last sweet night under the cherry blossoms in Japan, was it manly to—to crush and scorn her now?
He was again, with downcast eyes, slowly pacing the bluff and in rear of the major's quarters when, far over toward the guard-house, the soft, prolonged notes of "Lights out" were lifted on the night, and he almost collided with a man coming quickly forth from the gate. The rear door had closed with a bang but the moment before, and Félicie's voice, in subdued tone, had been faintly audible. The man proved to be the same who had come to him so short a time before, and the mission was practically the same, "A note for the lieutenant."
Ray took it to the west gate and read it under the lamp.
I ask for only five minutes, at the old place, about the same hour to-morrow. I will never ask again, for I am to leave Minneconjou—and him—forever.
I ask for only five minutes, at the old place, about the same hour to-morrow. I will never ask again, for I am to leave Minneconjou—and him—forever.
Startled, stunned, he read her words. Was it then soveryserious as this would imply? Was it her doing, or her husband's, that she should leave? Was it possible that he, Sandy Ray, was even remotely a cause? He could not fathom it. He would not rudely refuse. That would be simply brutal. But why could she not see him here at home on the veranda? Why must the meeting be so far from the post—so close to the—clandestine? Mother had said——Then suddenly he bethought him that mother wished to speak with him, that he had promised her to be home about taps, and, even though he could not, dare not, talk with her to-night, he could and should go to her at once.
He started; then, hearing laughing voices and light footsteps along the walk ahead of him, hesitated. Some of those teasing, tormenting garrison girls, of course! He could not face them. Abruptly he turned again, passed round in rear of Dwight's, stowing the note in a little notebook as he sped and the book in the breast pocket of his khaki tunic. Some backstair flirtation was going on in the dusk of the summer night, not ten paces ahead, for there was sound of playful Hibernian pleading, a laughing, half-repelling, half-inviting "Ah, g'wan now!" followed by a slap. A trim young trooper leaped backward from a gateway to avoid another shock—and met it on Ray's stout shoulder. The collision startled one and staggered both. The Irish lad, all confusion, sprang for his officer's hat and restored it with, "Beg a thousand pardons, Lieutenant," and blessed his young superior's kindly, "No harm done, Kelly," as, whipping out his handkerchief, Ray sped along, dusting off the felt.
And that harm had been done he never knew till later.
He had managed to put mother off until the following day; had gone forth a second time, as has been told; had passed a second time the gate where earlier in the evening she had awaited him. All at the moment was apparently quiet. He had almost reached home when the sound of harsh voices out beyond the east gate caught his ear—more poor devils coming or being dragged home from the hog ranch. Suddenly there came the sound of muffled curses and blows. Sandy wondered why No. 2 did not call the corporal. He hastened onward and out beyond the gate and came upon the explanation: no need to call the corporal when two were already there, with several of the guard, striving hard to lug peaceably to the prison room a sextette of soldier revelers who resented being either lugged or persuaded. The guard couldn't bear to hurt their fellows: who could say but that conditions and parties might be reversed within the week? The row subsided with the sight of Lieutenant Ray, but not until it had prevented his hearing the call for the corporal that came from No. 4. He found the front door bolted when he got back to the house, and, remembering having bolted it, passed round to the rear steps and then—met his mother at the door.
She had even more to ask him then, yet once more he pleaded: "Wait until to-morrow night." So wait she did, patiently, prayerfully, trustfully, until the morrow's night; and then, not so patiently, but, oh, even more prayerfully, longer, very much longer.
"At the usual place and about the usual hour" the pretty phaeton, with its fair charioteer and her black-browed companion, drew up that afternoon under such shade as the cottonwoods afforded and waited for the coming of a rider who, starting some time ahead, was now some time behind. Nor did he seem to hasten when finally he came suddenly into view at the mouth of that well-remembered ravine, and rode straight but slowly to the rendezvous. She, the charioteer, exquisitely gowned as we saw her parting from her invalid husband, watched him with dilating eyes, alighted as he neared the grove, walked a dozen yards or so to meet him and by his side as he led his mount to a point beyond earshot of the carriage. "Youmay trust that woman, Mrs. Dwight," said he, "but I do not. I have come at last and against my judgment to hear——"
"Mrs. Dwight!" she began, with pouting reproach. "Are we at the hop room, Sandy, or are we,"—and the dark eyes slowly lifted,—"are we back again at Nagasaki?"
"We are neverthat!" was the quick reply, as he bent and knotted the reins about a sapling at the brink; then, suddenly facing her: "I said I should not meet you here again. I have come for this last time solely at your urging. Never until this week have I shrunk from my mother. Never after this day shall I do it again. You say I have wronged you—hurt you—inexpressibly, and you wish to tell me why. Go ahead!"
With that he pulled his hatbrim well down to his eyebrows, folded his arms, crossed one spurred heel over the tan-booted mate and leaned against a sturdy cottonwood. There was just a spice of the theatrical about it all, but he was young, sore-hearted and hurt. It left no support for her, unless she leaned on him, which nothing in his attitude seemed to invite. Inez had no use for folded arms. To her they should be either outstretched or enfolding.
"You are harsh and cold and bitter, Sandy. You make it so much harder for me to begin," she whimpered, pathetically, prettily, like a spoiled child sure of ultimate triumph. "Why did you never answer my letter from San Francisco?"
"I never got it."
"Then even that early he had begun to doubt me and to fear—you," and again the lovely eyes were making play. "And now he hates me, because he himself was a brute to his boy. He upbraids me for that, and—and for Mr. Foster."
"God! I should think he might!"
"Sandy, Sandy!" she cried, stepping impetuously a pace nearer. "Do you, too—do youdarethink me so base—me, when at Naples I would not even let you stay—you whom I longed to speak with? Ah, how unjust!—how mean! how cruel! And now, when I am almost friendless, you who professed so much—youare the first to turn from me." Indeed, he was turning, and his face was growing very white again—his eyes were gazing anywhere but at her, and she saw it, and with both her firm little hands seized his left arm as though to turn him back. "Sandy, youshallhear me, for I'm desperate, starving, and that man, he—he tells me I lied to him; and I did, I did lie—for you! He talks to me of a—settlement—of sending me home. Why, Ihaveno home! I have no father. My own was buried years ago. I have no mother, for she has no thought but for him—who has disgraced us all and robbed Major Dwight of thousands and dared to threaten me—me, because the major would not send more. Oh, youshalllisten! It's for the last time, Sandy, and youshallknow the truth! Oh, howcanyou so humiliate a woman who—who——Lookat me, Sandy, look, oh, my soldier boy, and see for yourself! They robbed me of you, my heart's darling! They stole every letter. They never let me see you, and they——Oh, you think this the old worn-out story of the cruel parent and the suffering child, but Iwillconvince you!" And now her hands quit their hold upon his arm and tore at the bosom of her dainty gown—tore it open to the filmy lace and ribbon underneath—tore off the driving glove from her right hand, hurling it to the ground, and then the slim, nervous little fingers went burrowing within. "Youdaredoubt I love you!" she cried, and now her eyes were ablaze, her rich, red lips were parted, her breath came panting through the pearly gate, her young bosom was heaving like a troubled sea. "I told you I had burned your letters—such as I had. They burned them for me, but they could not burn your picture—Idid that—I, with my mad kisses, Sandy!" And from its warm nest she drew it, the very one he had given her in Manila, the brave, boyish face in its tiny frame of gold, moist and blurred as though indeed her lips, her tears, had worn it dim. "You will not look?" though one quick glance he shot, then, with the blood surging through his veins, he turned again and covered his eyes with his arm. "Then hear—this—and this," and long, passionately, repeatedly she kissed the senseless, unresponsive counterfeit, and then, letting it hang by its slender chain, once more seized his arm and burst into a passion of tears. Then suddenly, fiercely, she thrust him aside, turned, started swiftly away, took but four tottering steps and, finally, almost as she did the day of the drive, toppled headlong.
When Félicie thought it time to take another decorous look, Mr. Ray was kneeling by that fair, prostrate form, lifting the lovely head upon his knee, one arm about her neck, the other drawing her to his breast, and he was raining kiss after kiss upon the sweeping, long-lashed eyelids, upon the pallid cheek, upon the exquisite mouth, and presently a slender arm stole languidly about his neck and drew and held his lips to hers.
It was nearly five that evening when the pretty phaeton whirled homeward through the west gate. It was nearly nine when Lieutenant Ray came slowly up-hill from the stables and, climbing the short flight to the rear doorway, found his mother and Priscilla awaiting him in the dining-room. He had eaten nothing since a late breakfast, and an appetizing supper was in readiness. He looked very pale, very tired, and to the fond and anxious eyes uplifted hopefully at first, very ill—too ill, perhaps, to note how ill she looked, the loving and tender and faithful one, who long hours had been waiting, watching, listening for his step, praying for his safe return, hoping for the promised confidence. She knew when the phaeton came, though she said naught of it to her niece. Nearly a mile of the valley road could be seen from Sandy's window, where she hovered much of the time until the sun went down. Now she quickly rose and went to him, and with her soft hands on his temples kissed his forehead, for he bowed his head, and for the first time in his life his lips dared not even touch her cheek. "I—I'm about used up, mother," he faltered. "I—can I have some tea? Then I'll get a warm bath, please, and go to bed. Has—anyone been here for me—inquired for me?"
The sudden upward look, the anxiety in his tone, might well have warned her, but there was something she had to know, something that ever since evening gunfire had been preying on her mind. No. 4's story had spread by this time all over the post, growing, probably, with each repetition. There had been a tragic scene of some kind at Major Dwight's shortly after midnight. Jimmy had prepared her for that much. No. 4 had heard screams; then lights went flitting to and fro, and there was sound of scuffling and running about, and the guard had almost arrested someone who came dashing from the rear gate and was lost in the darkness and the yards below. No, nobody had come to ask for Sandy! It seemed strange that so very few of the officers had even passed that way. Everybody had business at the office, the Club, the barracks, the guard-house; even at Dwight's there had been a sort of impromptu conference, but nobody had been there to disturb them in any way—no officers, at least; but Sandy read the impending truth in his mother's eyes. She was talking nervously, with hardly a pause, as though she wished him to know all she knew before he could speak, and, even as Priscilla moved noiselessly about, brewing his tea and arranging his supper, Marion, the mother, talked rapidly, wretchedly on.
Yes, there was something. The notebook had been found and brought home. She would get it for him. It was right there in her desk. Priscilla handed it, and he almost snatched it from her, swiftly turning the leaves; then, seizing it by the back, shook it vehemently. A few scraps and clippings fluttered to the floor, but not the paper he needed.
"Who brought it? How did it come?" he demanded, a world of trouble, almost terror, in his eyes.
"Major Dwight's man," she answered, her blue eyes almost imploringly fixed upon his face.
"Dwight'sman! But how,how, mother? Was there no word? Was it wrapped, or——?"
"Just as you see it, Sandy. He merely said it had been picked up and left at the house. He brought it here when he heard it was yours."
The tea stood untasted before him. He had not even taken his seat. Pale to his lips, and with hands that trembled almost as did her own, Sandy stood facing his mother, and Priscilla stepped quietly from the room.
"Did he saywhofound it—and where?" he asked.
"He finally said it was—picked upatMajor Dwight's," was her answer, and imploringly still the blue eyes searched his face, and for an instant lighted with hope.
"But I never set foot at Major Dwight's—I've never been inside his gates since I called there with you. The nearest I've been was the front gate, and then,thiscouldn't have been with me."
"Why, Sandy?"
"Because it was in the breast pocket of my khaki—the thing I wore when we said good-night; but it seemed to grow chilly—or I did. I changed to the blue coat before going out at twelve. Lucky, too, for I had to go out front and help with some poor devils brought in from Skid's. I saw your light when coming home over the parade and wondered if the row had kept you awake."
"You—came in thefrontway, Sandy?" And the blue eyes seemed to implore him to stop, to reflect, to remember.
"Why, certainly, mother. I was afraid you'd hear me trying the front door or hobbling round on the planks. What brought——Why,mother!"
With her heart almost stilled, with her hands on her breast, with a blanched face and stricken eyes, Marion slowly found her feet, then rested one hand upon the table before she could steady herself to speak:
"Sandy, think! Do you mean you were not—therewhen the sentry No. 4 called; that you did not come hurrying home and stop there—at the back gate?"
"Mother, dear, what can you mean? When I met you at the door I had just come round from the front, from over near the guard-house. The officer of the guard had his hands full and——Priscilla, quick!"
And Priscilla came at speed, and, after one swift look as they lifted the drooping form to a sofa, whispered: "The doctor! Run!"
And though running was beyond him, Sandy limped in frantic haste, for the mother's heart and health had seemed failing her for weeks, and this was most alarming. Even at ten o'clock she had not fully regained consciousness, but was mending, and by that time both doctors had come to her, and Mrs. Stone was at her bedside, while Priscilla, calm, grave and self-poised, was answering the many anxious, sorrowful inquiries, for no woman at Minneconjou was loved and honored more than Marion Ray, who, believing the evidence of her own senses sufficient to confirm an ever-growing, dreadful suspicion, had gone down under the blow.
There had been, as was said, some kind of conference during the late afternoon. The colonel, the post surgeon, two or three wise-heads among the field and senior line officers and that indispensable adjutant. There had come quite late an aide-de-camp of the department commander, who had been at Wister and at some investigation over at the Minneconjou agency, who had something to say concerning the state of mind in which he found Captain Foster, which was bad; the state of mind in which he found the redmen—which was worse; and finally the state of things on both sides of the stream at Minneconjou—which was worst of all. Foster's rancor against Ray was venomous as ever, and he claimed to have new evidence, the mention of which made both Stone and the surgeon look grave. The agent's worry as to his turbulent charges was doubled by new events, and he demanded immediate aid. The post guard reports and the ranch-keeper's defiance told all too vividly how the devil had triumphed at Minneconjou. The colonel, the chaplain, the commissioned force, were helpless against the Act of Congress that had taken away their best hold on the men and turned the men over to the enemy. The situation, so far as Skid and his saloon and satellites were concerned, was past praying for. But there were "some things, thank God," said Stone, in which he could still strike for the good name of his garrison. Foster's new evidence should be investigated, said he, and as for the agent, he should have his guard, and a strong one, forthwith.
"How did you leave Mrs. Ray, doctor?" he asked his medical man and next-door neighbor on the left, as Waring came tramping home soon after taps.
"Resting quietly, colonel. She will do very well to-morrow."
Stone had come down to the gate to meet him. One glance he threw to the right and left, then lowered his voice.
"Any reason why Sandy shouldn't go in command of a guard to the agency in the morning?"
"No reason why he shouldn't, sir, and—several why he should."
"For such light duty as he may be able to perform," read the order that had brought Sandy Ray to Minneconjou. First it was the Canteen, and under the young officer's zealous management that fiercely assailed and finally abolished institution had been a credit to the post and a comfort to the men. It was not the duty Ray best loved, by any means, but, being debarred by his wound from active exercise, compelled as yet to ride slowly and with caution, he had thankfully accepted and thoroughly performed it. Then had come his serious trouble, and then, when, had he known the stories in circulation, he should have remained to face them, he was ordered away, leaving, like Sir Peter Teazle, his character behind him.
He was ordered to a difficult, probably dangerous and possibly perilous duty, and, knowing this, he could not for an instant delay or demur. It wasn't in the blood of the Rays to shirk. Far better might it have been for Sandy had someone, either friend or foe, suggested that his being selected, when he belonged to neither regiment represented in the garrison, was in itself intimation that the stories at his expense were believed, and if that were true he should be sent to Coventry—not to command. There were young fellows in both the cavalry and infantry at Minneconjou who would eagerly have welcomed the detail, with its chance of swelling an efficiency record. Under any other circumstances there might have been protest, there would have been growling. Now there were only silence and significant looks. Even at the Club (Minneconjou had set its seal against the time-honored, but misleading, appellation "Mess"), where her name could not be mentioned, even in a whisper, the order was accepted without comment. There was a woman in the case!
Ordinarily, under circumstances demanding the detail of a guard for such purposes, post commanders would send a company under a captain, or half a company under a subaltern; but Stone hated to lose a unit from his regimental line. He had sent to the wood camp a sergeant with a dozen picked men—one or two from each of his infantry companies. Now he sent a lieutenant and thirty of the rank and file, selected at random, to the aid of the agent. Of this thirty a sergeant, two corporals and twelve men were taken from the squadron, for it might be necessary to send out mounted men to make arrests, said the agent, and the agency police were sullen over recent happenings. Sandy was notified by a call from the post adjutant about 11:30, just as he was softly locking up for the night. He listened in silence, made no comment, asked no questions, completed his few preparations, bade Priscilla keep it all from his mother until after he was gone, for rest and sleep were most essential, and at dawn, with dark-rimmed eyes and solemn face, he stole to the half-open doorway, beyond which the night lamp dimly glowed; listened; entered one moment and softly kissed the dear hand that lay so wearily upon the coverlet; looked fondly at the gentle, careworn face, and then, with firm, set lips, turned stealthily away. Priscilla was up and had hot coffee ready for him below stairs, and possibly admonition, but this she spared him. Oh, if Priscilla had but known what Aunt Marion had seen at the rear gate two nights before, what might she not have said to both! for Priscilla, too, had had her vigil, had both seen and heard and knew more than Aunt Marion even thought she knew.
"It is barely ten miles," said Sandy. "Couriers will be riding to and fro. Then there's the telephone by way of town, unless the wires are cut. Let me hear of mother night and morning, Pris. Now, I've got to go."
She stood at the window of his room an hour later, watching the little command as it wound away among the dips and waves of the southward prairie, until finally lost to sight. This was a new phase to the situation. Priscilla had never pictured the modern redman save as she had heard him described at church sociables, peace society meetings and the occasional addresses of inspired "Friends of the Indian," who came soliciting the sympathies—and subscriptions—of the congregation. The few specimens that had met her gaze about town, the station and the fords were, she felt sure, and justly sure, but frowsy representatives of a magnificent race. It was only when the agent, himself a godly man, had come and told his recent troubles, after evening service, that Priscilla began to realize how, despite his innate nobility of character and exalted ideals and eloquence, the average ward of the nation was not built on the lofty plane of Logan, Osceola and Chief Joseph. He was quite capable of extravagant demands of his own and of raising the devil when he didn't get what he wanted.
There were other eyes, and anxious eyes, along the bluffs and the southward windows of officers' row. There were women and children, even at that early hour, clustered at the little mound beyond the west gate, whence the last peep could be had at the "byes" as they breasted and crossed Two-Mile Ridge. There were garrison lads on their ponies, little Jim among them, who rode forth with the detachment as far as the railway, and were now racing back. There were even watchers in the upper windows at Skid's, for the word had gone from lip to lip that the Indians were in a fury and meant business this time. But there was darkness, there was silence, there were only drawn blinds and lowered shades and apparent indifference at Major Dwight's. Possibly Jimmy was the only one who had heard. Possibly Inez did not know; mayhap she did not care.
The boy's face was hot and flushed that afternoon, and he lay down a while, an unusual thing with him, but he had been up very early and out very long and riding in the breeze. All this might tend to make him drowsy. He had come as usual to tell his father all about Mr. Ray's march and the boy escort. A prime favorite and something of a hero was Sandy Ray among the boys about the post, and Jimmy did not know just why daddy seemed so uninterested. Perhaps he, too, was tired. After breakfast Jim had gone to see Aunt Marion, and returned disappointed, and, after an inning or two of ball, which he played but languidly, had come home for a snooze, and found daddy talking gravely with gentlemen from town who had been to see him before, and had queer-looking papers for him to sign, not a bit like the innumerable rolls, returns and company things he had to attend to when captain of a troop. Jim awakened only with difficulty and only when called. He had promised to lunch with Harold Winn, and went, slowly and heavily, but came back soon with a hot headache, and was again sleeping when the phaeton drove round for mamma and Félicie, and he did not know that this time mamma came not to see daddy before starting. He did not know that Miss Sanford came not to read. He did not know just what to make of things when he found daddy bending over him at sunset, with anxiety in his face, and young Dr. Wallen was helping undress and get him regularly to bed.
Mamma and Félicie had come home before the usual time, and Jim never knew that, or what happened later, until very long after. But something, it seems, had occurred during the drive to greatly agitate mamma, and that evening her condition demanded the ministrations of both the physician and her maid. That night something further occurred that led to much more agitation and weeping and upbraiding and reproaches and accusations and all manner of things his father evidently wished him not to hear, for he firmly closed the door between their rooms. The doctor came a third time, and in the morning, burning with fever and caring little whither he went, Jimmy was only vaguely conscious that he was being gently borne down the stairway and into the open air, and thought he was flying until again stowed away between sheets that seemed so fresh and cool, and once he thought daddy was standing over him, dressed again in his uniform, and he was sure Aunt Marion had bent to kiss him, and then that every now and then Miss 'Cilla placed a slim, cool hand upon his forehead and removed some icy bandage that seemed almost to sizzle when it touched his skin. From time to time something was fed him from a tiny spoon, and all the time he was getting hotter and duller, and the lightest cover was insupportable, and he wished to toss it off—toss everything off—toss himself off the little white bed; and then, mercifully, Jim knew nothing at all but dreams for many a day until he and Minneconjou came once more slowly to their senses, for Minneconjou had been every bit as flighty, as far out of its head, as Jimmy Dwight, and it had not typhoid to excuse it, either.
The day following Jimmy's seizure, Major Dwight appeared in public again for the first time since his strange attack. He had ever been of spare habit, but now he was gaunt as a greyhound, and his uniform hung flabbily about his wasted form. He looked two shades grayer and ten years older. His eyes were dull and deep-set. His face was ashen. He was not fit to be up and about, said the doctors, but could not be kept at home. Mrs. Dwight was in semi-hysterical condition, requiring frequent sedatives and unlimited Félicie. There had been—yes, in answer to direct question, the physicians had to own—there had been a scene between the aging husband and the youthful wife and, though the details were fairly well known to these gentlemen, they were almost as fairly kept inviolate. But for the voluble, the invaluable Félicie, Minneconjou might have been kept guessing for ten days longer. Dwight spent his waking hours mostly at the Rays', wistfully watching the doctor and pleading to be admitted to the bedside of the burning little patient, a thing they could not permit, for Dwight was still too weak to exercise the needed self-control. It seemed as though he had forgotten the existence of Inez, his wife, the existence of Foster, the existence of Sandy Ray and everybody and anybody beyond Jimmy and those who were ministering to him. Mrs. Ray, once again moving, though languidly, about her household duties (for Priscilla was utterly engrossed with the boy) had made the major as comfortable as he would permit in the little library below stairs, where he had an easy chair in which he could recline, and books, desk, writing material, but no one to read to him; and, as it turned out, he would do nothing but move restlessly about, listen for every sound from the upper floor where Jim lay in Sandy's bed, and waylay the doctors or anybody who might have tidings. Once or twice, there or at home, he had to see the colonel, the adjutant or his own second in command, Captain Hurst, but the lawyers came no more. All proceedings were called off for the time being. Everything in his mind hinged on the fate of Jimmy, and, one thing worth the noting, Madame and the phaeton went no more abroad.
But if he had apparently forgotten, Félicie had not, the incidents of that stormy meeting, the episode that led to it and the consequences to be expected. Félicie felt that the public should be enlightened and public opinion properly aroused as to the major's domestic misrule. It was high time all Minneconjou was made to know this monster and "the hideous accusations he make against this angel, and this angel's the most devoted myself that to you speak." From the torrent of her tirade, occasionally, drops of information seemed to accord with the rumors dribbling about the garrison. Minneconjou knew that the well-named and impenetrable post commander was in possession of facts he could impart to nobody; that he had been questioning and cross-questioning corporal and men, the latter recent occupants of sentry posts Nos. 3 and 4; that these gentry had been ordered by him to hold no converse with anybody; that he had again called up two of the three men incarcerated at the time of the assault upon Captain Foster, and it was now definitely known that these two had both served under Foster in the —th Cavalry, although both now protested they always considered him a model officer and a perfect gentleman. To offset this was the statement of Sergeant Hess, of the Sixty-first, who said he had once served at the same post with them, though not in the cavalry, and knew they bore bad characters and would bear watching. Then he was sent for, and then it transpired that No. 3 of the suspected trio had gone with the guard to the agency, and he, said Hess, had been the worst of the lot. His name to-day was Skelton, but in those days they knew him as Scully. Had it not been that a dozen other men were out the night of that assault, this might have clinched the case against them. It was enough, at least, to keep them under surveillance.
But other stories, readily confirmed by Félicie, were to the effect that Dwight had accused his wife of deliberate falsehood in denying that she had met Mr. Ray at Naples; of deliberate intent to make him believe Jimmy a liar when adhering to his story that Mr. Ray had come and spoken to her (a dream! a vision! declared Félicie); of deliberately accusing him of rudeness, insolence, affront to Captain Foster and herself in refusing to deny he had seen them together in the parlor during church time ("a mere incident of the most innocent," said Félicie, "of which this infant terrible would have made a mountain"). Moreover, the monster had "accused Madame of all manner of misdoings with this most amiable the Captain Fawstair," and Félicie's humid eyes went heavenward at the retrospect; "and of lying to him, her husband, about,ah, ciel, that man!" And then to think that he should demand of Madame in her condition that she confess the truth about that midnight affair when her scream aroused the household! It was she, Félicie, who screamed. Madame could not sleep. She needed a composing draught. She, Félicie, had gone down to prepare it, had unbolted the back door, and was passing to and fro between the kitchen and the refrigerator in the addition without, and she could not find the cork-screw, and could not open the—Apollinaris, and Madame had become impatient, nervous, and had herself wandered down; and just as Félicie was returning they encountered at the doorway and, to her shame be it said, she screamed, so was she startled, "and Madame uttered too a cry, because I cry, but it was nothing, nothing!"
Nevertheless, Minneconjou was hearing of a slender form seen skulking along the back fence, hurrying away from Dwight's, and of items picked up at dawn near Dwight's back steps, and of a notebook sent to Lieutenant Ray, who had himself been out searching very early and very diligently. Then, something or other, picked up early that morning, had been sent to the colonel, for it came with his mail; and the adjutant and the orderly heard his exclamation, saw the consternation in his face, and the orderly told of it—told Kathleen at the doctor's; then had to tell other girls or take the consequences. Then there were these drives up the valley and the meetings at the cottonwoods. People who called to ask after the presumably lonely mistress of the house began asking after something Félicie had hoped no one had noticed.
For in upbraiding Inez, his wife, Major Dwight not once had mentioned her meetings near Minneconjou with Lieutenant Ray, who, as all this was going on at the post, stood facing a condition that called for the exercise of all his nerve and pluck and common sense. The Indian leaders, three days after his coming, had mustered their force and demanded the instant withdrawal of himself and his men, leaving all horses and arms and certain of their charges behind them.
There had been frequent communication with the agency by courier and by telephone. Ray held the fort, he said, and though there had been some bluster and swagger on part of a few Indians, the agent seemed relieved, reassured. They no longer crowded, bullying, about his office. "They are obviously," wrote the agent (not Ray), "impressed by the firm stand I have taken, and now I shall proceed to arrest the ring-leaders in the recent trouble, employing the lieutenant and his troopers for the purpose, in order that the Indian police may see that I am entirely independent of them." Stone received this by mounted messenger about nine o'clock of a Wednesday night, and Mrs. Stone knew the moment his lips began to purse up, as she expressed it, and to work and twist, that he much disliked the letter. "I'll have to go over to the quartermaster's," said he, "and call up Ray by 'phone. This agency man will be making mischief for us, sure as—sure as the reds are making medicine." But the last words were muttered to himself, as he took his cap, and leave.
Stone had served many a year on the plains, and knew the Indian, and had his opinion as to the value of civil service in dealing with him. Stone had served two years in the South in the so-called reconstruction days, and in his mind there was marked similarity between a certain few of the Indian agents he had met and an uncertain number of the deputy marshals of the "carpet-bag" persuasion, then scattered broadcast over the States "lately in rebellion." If there was one thing more than another the deputy loved and gloried in, it was riding about his bailiwick, with a sergeant and party of dragoons at his back, impressing the people with the idea that he had the army of the United States at his beck and call. Now, here was a new man at the business over a thousand-odd Indians, many of whom had fought whole battalions of troopers time and again, and were not to be scared by a squad, and this new man reasoned that, because the Indians had been undemonstrative for two days, they were ready to surrender their leaders and be good. Stone knew better.
It took ten minutes to get the agency by way of town, and but ten seconds thereafter to get Ray. He and his guard were billeted about the main building. "What do you think of this idea of going out and arresting ring-leaders?" asked Stone. "You weren't sent there for any such purpose." And Ray answered: "He has gone to a pow-pow with Black Wolf's people, and was thinking better of it after a little talk we had."
"Well," said Stone, "how about the—the situation? Do you think they'll make trouble? Do you need more men?"
And Sandy answered "Not to-night, sir. Tell better in the morning."
Stone did not like the outlook, but what was he to do? The agent had called for no more troops, and, until he called, Stone was forbidden to send unless some dire emergency arose, and then he must accept all responsibility, as one or other side was sure to get the worst of it, and he the blame. He went over and told Mrs. Ray he had just been talking with Sandy, who was all serene, said he, and all reassuringly he answered her anxious questions. Then he asked for Jimmy, whose temperature was ominously high, and for Dwight, whose spirits were correspondingly low. Dwight came out from the den, haggard, unshaven, gaunt. Never before had he been known to lack quick interest when danger threatened a comrade. To-night he hardly noted what Stone said about the situation at the agency. He was thinking only of his boy, and Stone, vaguely disappointed, went in search of Hurst, the senior captain, and Hurst looked grave. He, too, had had his share in Indian experience, and liked not the indications.
"I don't fancy the agent's going to that pow-wow. He should have had the chief men come tohim," said Hurst.
"They wouldn't—said they feared the soldiers might shoot," said Stone, in explanation.
"Anybody with him, sir?"
"Ray says he insisted on an orderly, so one man went with him, to hold his horse while he talked. Skelton was chosen. He speaks a little Sioux."
"Man we had a while ago on account of the Foster matter?" asked Hurst, with uplifted eyebrows.
"Same. He's at home among the Indians, and some of them like him. Guess he's seen 'em before."
At 11:30, when Stone would have called again to speak with the agency, it transpired that Central always went to bed at eleven—there was not enough night business to warrant the expense of keeping open. At 7A. M., when again he would have spoken, Central had not come. It was eight before news could be had from the agency, and then it came in a roundabout way, for the line was down or cut or something was wrong far over toward the Minneconjou reservation. At 8:10 the trumpets of the cavalry were ringing, "To Horse!" the bugles of the foot, "To Arms!" At 8:30 the squadron was trotting, with dripping flanks, up the southward slope beyond the Minneconjou, a gaunt skeleton, with pallid cheek and blazing eye, leading swiftly on.
Give the devil his due, the first man to warn the fort that there was "hell to pay at the agency" was Skidmore himself. He had kicked the truth, he said, out of a skulking half-breed, who drifted in to beg for a drink soon after seven. They hated each other, did Stone and Skid, but here was common cause. The trouble began at the pow-wow. The agent refused the Indians' demands; was threatened; "got scared," said the frowsy, guttural harbinger of ill, and swore he'd arrest the speakers in the morning, and they arrested him right there. In some way word of his peril reached the agent's wife, and she rushed to the lieutenant, who mounted, galloped, and got there just in time to rescue Skelton, who had pluckily stood by the lone white man, whom some mad-brained warrior, madder than the rest, had struck in fury; Skelton in turn had felled the Indian assailant, and, despite the efforts of the chief, who knew it meant defeat in the end, the lives of the two would have been forfeit but for the rush of Ray and a few troopers to the spot. It was the lieutenant's first charge in nearly a year, but he forgot his wound. He managed, thanks in no small measure to the resonant orders of old Wolf himself, to get the two back to the buildings, more dead than alive. He tried to send word to the fort of the new peril, but the wary Indians were on the lookout and drove back his riders, while a furious council was being held at the scene of the strife. From all over the reservation warriors young and old came flocking to Black Wolf's lodge, and the elders were overwhelmed. In spite of warning, entreaty and protest from chiefs who knew whereof they spoke, the turbulent spirits had their way. Brethren had been beaten and insulted in Skidmore's old place. Brethren had been beaten and abused at the new. Brethren had been swindled and abused by that very young chief of the soldiers now at the agency, and some of his men; and, finally, Strikes-the-Bear, son of a chief, a chief to be, had this night been struck down by the soldier the fool agent dared bring with him. Let the warriors rise in their wrath and strike for vengeance! If the little band of soldiers showed fight, and the chances were that many a brave would bite the dust before the buildings could be fired and the defenders driven out and killed, then offer terms. Against such hopeless odds the young white chief would easily yield. Get him and his men into the open; promise safe conduct to the fort, then let others surround and slowly butcher them, while they, the negotiators, took care of the agent, the assailant of Strikes-the-Bear, the employees and their families. Aye, promise to spare the lives of the lieutenant and his men; say that they might go back to their friends at the fort, but they must leave the agent; they must leave their comrade who struck the redman; they must leave their arms and their horses. Mad as it was, that was the ultimatum of the deputation at the door of the agency at five o'clock in the morning, and Sandy Ray answered, just as his father's son could be counted on to answer, and in just three comprehensive and significant words.
It led before long to a battle royal. It led first to barbaric council and speechmaking, then to a display of savage diplomacy, and finally to the spirited climax: savage science, skill, and cunning, with overwhelming numbers on the one hand, sheer pluck and determination on the other. The defenders were to fight, to be sure, behind wooden walls that hid them from sight of their swarming and surrounding foes, but that might be an element of danger just so soon as the Indians could get close enough to fire them. Anticipating precisely such a possibility, Ray had set his men to work beforehand. Sacks of meal, flour, and bacon, bales of blankets, tepee cloth, etc., had been piled breast-high and around all four walls of the storehouse within. All the available tubs and buckets and pails had been fresh filled with water and stowed inside. The horses were removed from the stable and turned into the corral. Each of the eight barred windows had its two or three marksmen. The women and children of the whites about the agency were all before dawn moved over into the main building, for when his messengers were driven back Ray well knew what to expect. Ray himself posted a keen and reliable man at the forage shed, and one or two others in certain of the outlying buildings, with kerosene-soaked tinder in abundance, and orders to fire them at his signal, then run for the storehouse; Ray would leave no structure close at hand to serve as "approach" or cover for the foe. So long as no wind arose to blow the flames upon his little stronghold, no harm would result to them, whereas the smoke would surely attract attention at the distant fort and speedily bring relief. Ten days earlier, before seeing his wards in war paint, the agent would have forbidden such wanton destruction of government property. (Ten days later, indeed, the Indian Bureau might call upon the War Department for reimbursement, and the department upon Ray, but the youngster took no thought for the morrow, only for his men and those helpless women and children). So long as the warriors kept their distance and contented themselves with long-range shooting, so long would Ray spare the torch, but just the moment they felt the courage of their numbers and charged, up should go the shingles. The find of a few small kegs of powder lent additional means to the speedy start of the fire when needed, and now, with his little fort well supplied and garrisoned, with the big fort only ten miles away, with thirty or more stout men to stand by him, with only one man demoralized,—the agent, small blame to him,—and only one as yet disabled, Trooper Skelton, whom Ray had practically dragged from under the knives of the savages, that young soldier felt just about as serenely confident of the issue as he did of his men, and happier a hundred fold than he had been for nearly a year.
Moreover, his dauntless front and contemptuous answer had had its effect on the Indians. "The young chief must be sure the soldiers are coming," reasoned the elders, so before taking the fateful plunge it were wise to take a look. Young warriors dashed away northeastward over the rolling divides, and others galloped after to intermediate bluffs and ridges, but it was well-nigh an hour before the signals came whirling back. "No soldiers, no danger," and even then they temporized. In trailing war bonnet, his gleaming body bare to the waist, his feathered head held high, his nimble pony bedizened with tinsel and finery, a white "fool flag" waving at the tip of his lance, with two young braves in attendance, each with his little symbol of truce, Black Wolf came riding gallantly down from the distant southward bluffs, demanding further parley. Black Wolf had tidings worth the telling, he said. He had stood the white man's friend and endeavored to prevent hostilities, but since the affair of the previous night all that was hopeless, and now he must stand by his people. His young men, he shouted, at dawn had attacked the guard at the wood camp, and the scalps of every man, still warm and bloody, hung at the belts of his braves, even now galloping back to swell the ranks of their brothers. He urged the young white chief to make no such error as had the sub-chief, the sergeant, at the camp, who had fired upon his warriors when offered mercy. There was still time for the young chief to consider. He was surrounded, cut off from help and home. His brethren dare not quit the shelter of the fort to come to aid him. They would be annihilated on the open prairie, as was the "Long Hair" at the Little Horn a generation ago. This, then, should be the young chief's warning and his opportunity. Let him and his men, save one, depart in peace, leaving everything and everybody else as they were before the young chief came. Black Wolf would await the reply. In resonant periods, in ringing, sonorous tones, the speech of the orator-chief had been delivered, his deep, powerful voice fairly thundering over the valley, and echoing back from the crags of Warrior Bluff, a mile away to the west. A spirited, barbaric group it made, that magnificent savage with his bright-hued escort all gleaming in the slanting sunshine, full two hundred yards away. On every little eminence, on every side, were grouped listening bands of his braves. One could almost hear their guttural "Ughs" of approval. One could almost count their swarming array. Farther to the south, along the jagged line of the barricade ridge, score upon score of blanketed squaws and bareheaded children huddled in shrill, chattering groups, too distant to hear or to be heard, but readily seen to be wild with excitement. Out in front of the grimly closed and silent agency, with only the half-breed interpreter at his side, but in humorous recognition of the solemn state of the Indian embassy, with two sergeants in close attendance, Ray stood listening, and turned for explanation to the official go-between, impatiently heard him half through, then flung out his hand, palm foremost, in half circular sweep to the front and right—the old signal. "Be off," it said as plain as did the later words of the assistant. "Tell him to go where I told him before," said Ray. "If he wants the agent, or my soldiers, or my guns, or me, let him come and take them," winding up as he faced his antagonist, with the swift, significant gesture that the Sioux know so well: "Brave, that ends it!" and turned abruptly away.
"What did you answer?" whispered the agent, as the young soldier returned to his post. It was the Bureau man's first real clash with his red children, and thoughts of Meeker, a much-massacred predecessor in the business, had dashed his nerve.
"He wanted you and this poor fellow who fought for you," said Ray bluntly, as he went on and bent over the blanket on which lay Skelton, bandaged, weak, but clear-headed, "and I told him where to go—where, by gad, we'll send him if he comes again."
The eyes of the wounded soldier, fixed full upon his young commander, began slowly to melt and then to well over. A silent fellow was this odd fish of a trooper, a man little known among the others and even less trusted. He looked up through a shimmer of moisture into the pale young face with its dark, kindly eyes and sensitive mouth. He put forth a feverish and unsteady hand, while his lips, compressed and twitching from pain, began to frame words to which Sandy listened, uncomprehending.
"Lieutenant, I wish I'd known you, 'stead of classing you the way I—was taught. If I ever get out of this all right, there'll be a story comin'." And Ray wondered was Skelton wandering already.
And then from the northwest, with vast clamor and shoutings and much wild horsemanship, came the reinforcements from the foothills of the Sagamore, where yesterday had stood the guarded wood camp; and then, five to six hundred yards away, in broad circle, their swift ponies at full gallop, scores of young warriors, all in war paint and finery, dashed and darted to and fro, some of them brandishing at the tips of their lances ragged, dangling objects limp and dripping. Black Wolf's story might indeed be true. Far away westward from the fort, as was the agency from the southwest, there had been no timely warning, no chance to send for aid. Overwhelmed at dawn by hundreds against their dozens, the guard had probably died fighting, and the wolves and lynxes by this time were scenting their breakfast and scurrying to the scene of butchery. The savage display had its effect on the little garrison, but—not just what was expected. Black Wolf's young braves might well have had a "walk-over" at the wood camp, pounced in a red torrent upon the unsuspecting party, and, with little loss to themselves, massacred all the hated palefaces. That sort of fighting the Indian most loves—that in which he can do and not suffer. Now came a different proposition. From chief down to little children the Indians well knew that thirty soldiers behind barricades were not to be "rushed," though a thousand essayed it, without many a warrior biting the dust; and that sort of fighting, said the Indian, is fool-fighting—lacks sense or science. Bravely and desperately as he will battle against odds when once in a hole, he will not battle at all, no matter how great his numbers, if by strategy he can "win out" another way. What Black Wolf and his warriors had hoped was so to weaken the nerve of the defenders that they would listen to his promise that their lives be spared, agree to the Indian terms, leave the demanded victims, their arms and horses and start out afoot for the fort; then, as was intimated, once fairly out on the open prairie, they could be butchered at leisure, and if the young chief could not be captured alive to furnish sport for the squaws and children of the braves he had defrauded and abused, at least they could have his scalp to hang in the lodge when once again peace was declared. Meantime the warriors, women and children,—all,—they could be off to the Big Horn before the troops at the fort would get word of the battle. Who, indeed, was to tell, with the lightning wire severed, and the whole party slain?
But the warriors wasted their time. Three hours spent in trying to scare were three hours lost to the redman. It was just about eight by the agency clock that in one magnificent dash, half a thousand strong, the legion came sweeping, chanting, and shouting down the slopes to the south, rode in solemn phalanx until almost within rifle range, then, bursting asunder like some huge human case-shot, scattered its wild horsemen in mad career all over the open prairie, and in a minute thereafter, amid the thunder of hoofs, half deadened by the rising pall of dust, twenty-score in number, the yelling braves were circling the agency, firing swiftly on the run.
Never a shot did they receive in reply. "Hold your fire till they come in closer, and you get the word!" growled the sergeants. Never a match did the besieged apply, for there was still no attempt to charge. It was young Ray's first tussle with the Sioux, but many a time as a boy at his father's knee had he begged for the stories of the old battles of the —th, and listened with quickened heartbeat and panting breath. He knew just how they would circle and charge, shout and shoot,—just what to look for and how to meet it,—and there were only two things about the defense that gave him the faintest worry.
East of the storehouse, barely fifty yards away, was the agent's modest little home, a shelter to the warriors should they decide to turn loose their ponies and collect two hundred strong behind it, ready for a rush in force upon his doors and windows the moment a similar force could be ready behind the shop and stable buildings at the corral. They probably could not force an entrance even then. They would surely lose many warriors in the attempt. But what they could do would be to rush upon the storehouse, crouch low at the walls and under the floor of the porch, where the rifles of the besieged could not reach them, and then start fire all at once in a dozen places, crawl back under cover of the smoke, and so burn out the defenders. Much as the mounted warrior hates to fight afoot, this was too obvious an opportunity, and presently Ray saw indication that something was coming. No time, therefore, had he or his people for further compunction.
"The shops, first," said he. "Start them at once. Open the corral gates and—get back," were his orders to the young corporal who stood ready to carry his message. "Our horses will make a break for home. The Indians will catch most of them, perhaps, but not all. Between them and the smoke the fort will see that something's up, and—you all know the colonel."
And so it happened that, just as the squadron, already alarmed, was spattering through the shallows of the Minneconjou, a black column of smoke was sighted far away to the southwest, sailing aloft for the heavens, and now every southward window, the roofs of many a building, the tower over the post Exchange, the cross-trees of the flagstaff, the crests of neighboring bluffs,—all had their occupants, staring through field-glasses or the unaided eye for any sign of the far-distant detachment under Ray—for any symptom of any check or signal from the swift advance of the squadron under the gaunt, semi-invalided major.
Barely three miles out, trotting in parallel columns of fours, the right troop was seen to swerve to the west, and presently in a far-away clump of willows in a deep ravine, found something, apparently, that gave them just a moment's pause. "A human being," said the lookouts with the best glasses, "and they're sending him in." True. Someone dismounted and helped something into a saddle. A sergeant and trooper came presently ambling homeward, leading between them a limp and drooping form. Many people could not wait. They ran out to the bluffs, and were not amazed, nor were they too well pleased, to find the lone watcher at the willows to be none other than that strange creature Blenke—Blenke in a state bordering on exhaustion. Straight to the colonel they led him, where that officer sat in saddle in front of his battalions and ready for a move. He was just about ordering the senior major to follow on the trail of the cavalry, when, followed by curious eyes innumerable, the sergeant with his prize came riding through the west gate.
"Private Blenke, sir," said he, saluting. "He can best tell his own story," and with trembling lips and mournful eyes Blenke began. Things looked so ominous the night before that it was evident the Indians meant mischief. Sergeant French, commanding the guard, decided that the colonel ought to be warned. Somebody would have to try to sneak through the prowling, truculent warriors, make his way to the post, and tell of their plight. The sergeant would order no man to risk his life in the attempt. He called for volunteers, and, modestly Blenke said, at last he felt it a duty to dare it. He found every rod of the valley beset by foes. He found it impossible eastward or northward to pass them even in the dark. He finally made his way out to the southward and, in wide circuit, dodging and skulking when night riders came hurrying to and fro, he at last managed by daybreak to get in view of the flagstaff, only to find dozens of Indians watching the post and skulking between him and the desired refuge. At last—but Stone shut him off:
"Take two companies, major," he ordered, "march for the wood camp and see what you can find. You know what to do."
So again was Blenke, the silent, in spite of prejudice and prediction, the hero of the occasion. They bore him off to be fed and fêted, but he begged first that Miss Sanford might be informed of his safe return. Then Stone, with anxious brow, dismounted, clambered to the tower of the Exchange, where his glasses swept the wide expanse of country and told him the excitement, so vivid here at the fort and over "beyond Jordan" at Skidmore's, was already spreading to Silver Hill. God grant his rescuers had not gone too late—or slowly!
Slowly at least they did not go, for Dwight, possessed of a very devil of nervous energy, pushed his four troops at steady trot. Well he knew it would not be long before some one of the ridge lines, successively to be passed, would suddenly spit fire at his advance, and that every device known to Indian strategy would be brought into play in the effort to stay his coming until all was over with Ray's little party at the agency. Physical weakness, personal danger, even Jimmy, his only child, now tossing in the throes of burning fever, he seemed for the time to have forgotten. Hurst, the senior captain, who had counted on leading the dash, reckoned without due comprehension of his major that day, and looked amazed when Dwight had come trotting down to the formation, his grim face lighting with something of the old fire, and sent his second in command to the head of the first troop. Once well out beyond the railway the major ordered a few picked skirmishers forward at the gallop from the head of each of his four columns, other active light-horsemen to cover the flanks, and the wary scouts and marksmen of the Sioux, crouching behind the crests, shook their scalp-locks in chagrin. There could be no picking off of prominent officers at close range, no ambuscading crowded ranks or columns. This chief knew his business, and they might better serve Black Wolf and their comrades in arms by galloping away to the agency and urging one desperate assault. Stopping this fellow was out of the question. The one stand, made just six miles out, resulted in no check to the cavalry, but a dead loss to two of their own braves.
And so it happened that toward ten o'clock of that blithe, sunshiny summer morning, when all nature was at its loveliest along the broad winding valley of the Cheyenne,—all save that cloud of black smoke that soared high into the otherwise unclouded heavens and there flattened out like some gigantic pall,—the bold heights that framed the wide bottom lands, the crags at Warrior Bluff, crowned with shrill yelling, applauding squaws and children, the grim, smoke-veiled walls of the remaining buildings at the agency all on a sudden awoke to the maddening chorus of renewed battle. There had been a lull to the fight. The shops had burned like tinder, and were a heap of smoldering ruins in a dozen minutes. The stampeded horses had rushed away over the prairie, to be rounded up and driven by Indian boys, with keen rejoicing, away toward the dismantled villages, for already the old men and most of the families were in full flight up the valley. If headed off from the hills they could scatter over the prairies and mingle with their red kindred at the other agencies, whence, indeed, came not a few young men to take a hand in the scrimmage. The agent's house, spared until after nine, had gone up in smoke. It covered too much of the charging front, and finally was blown to flinders at an expense of four kegs of rifle powder, borrowed for the occasion from the Indian supplies. Now, when the warriors rallied and charged and strove to reach Ray's wooden walls, it had to be over a dead level only faintly obscured by smoke, and dotted here and there by the corpses of war ponies lost in previous attempts.
Half-hearted, possibly, at dawn, old Wolf was all fire and fury now. One after another four assaults had been beaten back by the slow, sure, steady aim of the defense, and unless he could reduce that little fortress at once his power and prestige as a war chief were gone for all time, and a good name and reputation for all manner of deviltry in the past was utterly blasted for the future.
Of the defenders only three, besides Skelton, were out of the fight. A chance shot from the Indian circle had pierced the brain of one stout soldier, who never knew what hit him. Others had wounded two of the men, and Skelton, himself, who, in spite of his wounds, had crawled to a loophole to have a share in the fight, was now prostrate with a shot through the shoulder. It was God's mercy and Ray's fortune that that bullet was not through the head.
Water and food they still had in abundance, but ammunition was running low. The men thrust their hot rifles into the nearest tub, and laughed at Finnegan's loud claim for a patent on "K" Company's way of "bilin' wather." Sheltered by the bales and barricades, the women and children crouched unharmed. Corporal Sweeny, who had "swarmed" up a ladder to the garret, in defiance of shots that tore through the flimsy woodwork, called down the scuttle-hole that "the fellers must be comin' from the fort—there's Indians gallopin' back by the dozens!" And Sweeny was right, and his words carried cheer when cheer was needed, for now began the supreme effort of the redmen, and in one magnificent, yelling, streaming, lance-waving circumference they seemed to spring into view from every conceivable point of the compass, still a good thousand yards away from the threatened center, and, slowly at first, brandishing arms, beating shields, shouting encouragement and vengeance, they bore steadily inward, a slowly diminishing periphery, until they seemed almost to join for some barbaric "all hands round." Then, at sudden signal, unseen, unheard at the agency, all of the eastward semi-circle broke instantly into a mad race for the center, the dust and turf flying from the ponies' heels, the feathered crests and painted forms bending flat over the outstretched necks of the darting steeds, plumes, pennons, war-bonnets streaming in the wind, and every warrior screeching in shrill rage and exultation. To right and left at the same instant the westward warriors broke away, so as to avoid the rush and shots from the selected front, and then, rallying north and south, they, too, rode again into line in time to attack so soon as the first grand assault should sweep by. A gorgeous sight it was to see Black Wolf's chosen braves, a tremendous torrent of savage war, but Ray and his men gave no heed to its grandeur. The sharp, spiteful bark of the low-aimed rifles began the instant the foremost warriors came bounding across the road to the railway, Ray's five-hundred-yard mark, and here and there as the red surge came rushing on, a pony went down, a warrior was hurled to the plain, but up, and by, and beyond, with terrific clash and clamor, the yelling horde whirled past the fire-jetting walls; and out upon the westward prairie a keen old fighter saw that certain ponies, riderless, went loping after their fellows, and so shouted a word to Ray. "They've dropped a few, sir," and Sergeant Scott begged leave to take half-a-dozen men and rush out and tackle the dozen that had probably crept to the foot of the wall or squirmed through the dust cloud, like so many snakes, underneath the wooden piazza. Well they knew what that meant: Fire—fire as fierce as that the defenders themselves had kindled in the outbuildings, only a thousand times more terrible, for it meant fearful torture and death to these imprisoned ones within the walls, or the certain bullets of the merciless foe when driven forth. But, before this sally could be made down came the rush from the northward, less powerful and spectacular only in point of numbers, and every man of the defense was needed at the loopholes and windows again. Their shots told, too, for Sweeny yelled delightedly from his perilous perch aloft that half-a-dozen were down and the ponies loose; and then could be seen the dash of comrades to pick up and bear away the dead and wounded, a feat of daring and devotion in which the Indians of the plains have no superior. Now the shots of the defenders were telling in more ways than one. They busied so many of Black Wolf's people that the next rush was delayed, and delays tohisplan were more than dangerous. Someone had passed a field glass up the loft ladder, and Sweeny was shrieking new delight and encouragement. "Sure's yer born, sir, I can see the byes comin' like hell!" To the mind of the agent, livid and trembling behind his little parapet of blankets, more than enough, perhaps, in the way of hell had reached them already, but men at the windows set up a cry of thanksgiving that faltered a moment at sound of shot and shout from underneath, then swelled again into something like triumph, for Ray had prized up two or three boards from the floor; two or three slim fellows had crawled through the opening and wriggled to the low walls of rough stone which served for foundation, and here and there a would-be incendiary got sudden quietus and his fellows a stay, but not for long. There came presently another superb dash from the southern side that swept by like some human tidal wave of destruction, leaving its wreckage on the hard sod of the prairie, and, alas, its well-nigh desperate fire-workers at the edge of the wall. Ten minutes more and Ray's improvised stockade was encompassed on every side by a ring of yelling, firing, infuriated demons, most of them sprawling flat and shooting low, and the leaden missiles tore through the wooden walls in every direction, and the man who lifted head or arm above the parapet did it at risk of life or limb. Poor Sweeny's glass came clattering down from aloft, and he, poor follow, striving feebly to reach his friends and partial shelter, tumbled in a heap at the foot of the ladder, his life-blood welling from his gallant heart. Then—then other smoke, pungent pinewood smoke, came sifting through knotholes and seams, with ominous sounds of crackling and snapping from the side of the long porch. Then, coughing and strangling, the two men who had ventured below forced their way once more through the hole in the floor, a volume of thick smoke rushing up as they were dragged into the room. Then shrill yells of triumph and rejoicing rose on every side without, and then, within, the piteous, hopeless wailing of helpless women and children.