CHAPTER XXXII.REVENGE OF PRICE.
Before the final downfall of Price he had been deeply interested in the beautiful sister of the wife of Doctor Karl Griffin, of Bozeman. Although he received no encouragement from the young lady, Miss Dorothy Reed—called Dot—he took it upon himself to feel encouraged, and had been a frequent visitor at the doctor’s residence.
Doctor Griffin had no love for the Indian agent, but as the latter had large influence and was constant in his manifestations of good will, he felt obliged to tolerate the agent’s presence in his household.
The doctor’s wife and Miss Reed also were politely tolerant only. They had heard much of the character of Price, and concerning their approval or disapproval it is only necessary to say that both were highly respectable and intelligent young ladies. Both were graduates of an Eastern college and reared in a good old Virginia home.
The doctor, after receiving his diploma from McGill University and serving a year in a New York hospital, married Miss Clarice Reed and went West for health and fortune, and to devote himself to his profession.
Miss Dottie Reed, after graduation, had come to pay her sister an extended visit. She loved the big West with its possibilities. It made the East seem narrow, and pinched, and crowded. She loved the purple haze of mountains and the greenish brown of the plains. From Castle Rock to the gorges of the Bridger Range sheloved the wild, free life with its crudeness and roughness of the unhewn block of civilization.
And Price, coarse as he was, dishonest as he was, and generally bad as he was, first admired, then respected, and finally entertained a warmer emotion for the gay little college girl.
Such were conditions in that part of Bozeman that centred around young Doctor Griffin and his family, when Lieutenant Avery, just out from West Point, arrived on the scene.
Long horseback rides in the beautiful Gallatin Valley with Miss Dot Reed won for the dashing lieutenant the cordial hatred of Price and culminated in an open insult in public, for which the young lieutenant disarmed and then soundly thrashed Price, the first time he saw the Indian agent alone.
Price’s threats were blood-curdling in their intense hatred, and twice after that attacks were made on Lieutenant Avery at night after he had left the residence of Doctor Griffin.
Miss Dot became Mrs. Avery in the autumn preceding the exciting events which ended the career of Price as an Indian agent and his arrest by Buffalo Bill.
But before his arrest and imprisonment Price had perfected a scheme for revenge on Lieutenant Avery through his acquaintance and influence with certain officers, one of whom was jealous of young Avery’s advancement over him in the army.
After his marriage Lieutenant Avery was sent to Fort Phil Kearney, and while Buffalo Bill was in the Bad Lands, Lieutenant Avery and his young bride had disappeared from Fort Phil Kearney.
It was a puzzle for the military men, and it was even whispered about that Lieutenant Avery was in troublein the East and had fled with his wife to take up their abode beyond the reach of the law.
These whispered rumors were at first sternly discountenanced, but were insistently repeated from some unknown source, and then it was said that Lieutenant Avery had married a girl in the East while in college, and that this wife number one had heard of his marriage to Miss Reed and was on the way West to confront him with his perfidy.
Young Avery had firm friends in the army, and they refused to accept a word of these stories. They believed the young lieutenant and his wife had been captured or murdered by a roving party of red men, and they continued active search.
An order was sent to Buffalo Bill to report at old Fort Phil Kearney for further orders. General Sheridan, because of some things that had been brought to his notice, distrusting a certain officer through whose hands this order must pass to Buffalo Bill, gave no detail of the scout’s commission. He knew that Cody would report at Fort Kearney at the earliest possible moment, and in the meantime the general would prepare and forward his orders to that place.
As subsequent events proved, it would have been better had he ordered Buffalo Bill to investigate that portion of the military organization in the Northwest.
Through what connivance Price was the second time enabled to escape, probably never will be known. At that time it was as much a mystery as was the disappearance of Lieutenant Avery and his bride, and there was a strong inclination in the army toward the belief that both were engineered by the same hand.
Nothing could be proved, however, and it remained a mystery for some time.