And all these chapters it has taken to tell how it came about that Second Lieutenant George Montrose Graham was quite a celebrity in the —th Cavalry before ever he reported for duty with his troop. Several weeks the Silver Shield Mining Company spent in a squabble among themselves that ended in the smothering of "the Breifogle interest," and came near to sending "the Boss of Argenta" to jail. Several days elapsed before Captain Lee and Lieutenants McCrea and Graham felt it entirely prudent to leave, but when they did it was with the assurance that stockholders who had endured to the end, as had Graham, Lee, and McCrea, were now to reap the reward of their tenacity.
It is a recorded fact that, within threeweeks after the departure of McCrea and Geordie from West Point for the West, there came an offer to Dr. Graham of something like six times the cost price of his shares, and the offer was declined, with thanks.
It is a recorded fact that Silver Shield was reorganized within the summer, to the end that the controlling interest passed from Colorado to Chicago.
It is a recorded fact that, from afar out in the Rockies, there came to Lieutenant Colonel Hazzard, Commandant of Cadets, a "wire" that puzzled him not a little until he laid it before his clear-headed wife, who gave him a delighted kiss and scurried away to show it to Mrs. Graham. It read:
"You win. I lose; and, losing, am a heavy winner."
"You win. I lose; and, losing, am a heavy winner."
For Bonner had supplied the money that paid for much of that costly plant, most of which would have gone up in smoke and down in ruin could the mob have had its way. Bonner himself had rushed out to Denver at news of the trouble. Bonner sent for Cawker and Nolan, and others of theemployés, and learned for himself how things had been going, and was not too civil to Stoner and his Denver colleagues. Bonner, a director in the Transcontinental, heard from Anthony and Cullin all about the young fireman they spirited up to the mines, and the elder Breifogle had to hear how that young fireman cared for the battered son and heir, after his "beating up" at the fists and feet of the rioters, and if Breifogle bore no love for the Grahams, he at least loved his own.
It is a recorded fact that old Shiner got well of his wound after many long weeks, and his brave boy in much shorter time, and that both were handsomely rewarded. Cawker came in for a good thing by way of a raise, but it was Long Nolan whom Bonner and the magnates set on a pinnacle—Long Nolan, and, as Nolan would have it, Nolan's young commander.
It is a matter of record that when Captain Lee went back to the regiment he congratulated Lane, for one thing, on having held on to his stocks—almost the only one atReno who did—and, for another, on having such a youngster for second lieutenant. "He has won his spurs," said Lee, "before ever he donned his uniform." And there was rejoicing in the regiment over Lee's description of events, for five of the younger officers, graduated within three years, knew "Pops" in his cadet days and remembered him well; and all of the old officers who had served at Camp Sandy and at Fort Reynolds knew him in babyhood, or boyhood, or both. So did most of the veteran troopers.
And it is a matter of record that, on the eastward way again, both McCrea and Geordie dined with Mr. Bonner at the Chicago Club, and the new major-general commanding the military division graciously accepted Bonner's bid to be one of the dinner-party, and took Geordie aside after coffee had been served, noting that the silent young fellow neither smoked nor touched his wine, and asked him a few questions about the Point and many about the mines, and at parting the general was so good as to express the wish that when Geordie came out tojoin in September he would stop and see him, all of which was very flattering to a young fellow just out of cadet gray, and Geordie, as in duty bound, said that he certainly would, little dreaming how soon—how very soon—he and the old regiment would be riding hard under the lead of that hard-riding leader, and facing a foe led by warriors true and tried—a foe any ten of whom could have made mince-meat of ten times their number of such foemen as Graham had met at the mines.
How could they, the brave young class, have dreamed, that exquisite June day of their graduation, that within six months some of their number were destined to do desperate battle with a desperate band of the braves of the allied Sioux in the Bad Lands of South Dakota?
For it is also a matter of record that Lieutenant and Quartermaster McCrea made application, as he had promised, for six months' leave of absence, with permission to go beyond sea, and with every intention of spending most of the winter in sunnyItaly. But he spent it in saddle and snowdrift, in scout and skirmish, and in at least one sharp, stinging, never-to-be-forgotten battle with the combined bands of the Sioux, and came within an ace of losing his life as well as his leave, for many a brave soldier and savage warrior fell in that bitter fight—Geordie Graham's maiden battle. Little wonder he hopes he may never see another like it.
And it all came about as such affairs have so often occurred in the past. Unheeded warnings, unnoted threats, unpunished outbreaks, that experienced soldiers about the reservation could readily understand, and foretell what was coming, and make their own individual preparations for the inevitable. But nothing they could report to superiors would shake the serene confidence of the Department of the Interior in the pacific purposes of its red children, the wards of the nation. All along in the summer and the early autumn the "ghost-dance" had been spreading from tribe to tribe, the war drum had been thumping in the villages, the Indian messiah, a transparent fraud, as allmight see, wandered unrebuked from band to band—half a dozen messiahs, in fact—and along in September, instead of Geordie Graham's best-loved chum and classmate, Connell, of the Engineers, there came to the Point a letter from that young officer, that Graham received with rejoicing, read with troubled eyes, and for the first time in his life kept from his mother. There came a time, later still, when there were many letters to be kept from her, but those sorrowful days were not as yet. This letter, however, he could not bring himself to show her, for it told of things she had been dreading to hear ever since the papers began telling of the ghost-dancing on the plains. It read:
"Pecatonica, Wisconsin,September 5th."Dear Pops,—I fully intended to be with you to spend a week as promised, before joining at Willett's Point, but you are more likely to be spending that week with me. I am just back from a run to the Black Hills with father. He has some property about Deadwood. Returning, I stopped two days at Fort Niobrara, as the guest of 'Sampson' Stone, whose troop is stationed there, and I tell you it was interesting. He took me up to the reservation, and I had my first look at the Siouxon their native heath, and saw for myself how peaceful they are. Everybody at the agency is scared stiff. Every officer at the fort, from the colonel down, is convinced that war is coming. The governor of Nebraska has been up looking after the settlers and ranch folk and warning them away. General Miles has an officer there watching the situation. From him I heard that your regiment is to be sent to the field at once to march northward; that other troops are warned, and I suppose you'll be joining somewhere on the way. But the row, when it comes, will break out north of the Niobrara, and the —th may not get there in time."Stone says if you want a taste of the real thing, to apply for orders to report for duty to the commanding officer at Fort Niobrara until the arrival of your regiment. I have begged the Chief of Engineers to let me have a few weeks in the field with General Miles, and am assured that the general will apply for me. Not that I can be of any value as Engineer Officer, but just to get the experience, and perhaps see what we've been reading of a dozen years—a real Indian campaign. Now, old man, you know that country. You were there as a boy.Youcould be of use. Why not ask for orders at once? Then we can push out via Sioux City together. I know how the mother will protest, especially since she was robbed of three precious weeks in July; but, isn't it the chance of a lifetime? Isn't this what we are for, after all? Wire decision. Yours as ever,"Connell."
"Pecatonica, Wisconsin,September 5th.
"Dear Pops,—I fully intended to be with you to spend a week as promised, before joining at Willett's Point, but you are more likely to be spending that week with me. I am just back from a run to the Black Hills with father. He has some property about Deadwood. Returning, I stopped two days at Fort Niobrara, as the guest of 'Sampson' Stone, whose troop is stationed there, and I tell you it was interesting. He took me up to the reservation, and I had my first look at the Siouxon their native heath, and saw for myself how peaceful they are. Everybody at the agency is scared stiff. Every officer at the fort, from the colonel down, is convinced that war is coming. The governor of Nebraska has been up looking after the settlers and ranch folk and warning them away. General Miles has an officer there watching the situation. From him I heard that your regiment is to be sent to the field at once to march northward; that other troops are warned, and I suppose you'll be joining somewhere on the way. But the row, when it comes, will break out north of the Niobrara, and the —th may not get there in time.
"Stone says if you want a taste of the real thing, to apply for orders to report for duty to the commanding officer at Fort Niobrara until the arrival of your regiment. I have begged the Chief of Engineers to let me have a few weeks in the field with General Miles, and am assured that the general will apply for me. Not that I can be of any value as Engineer Officer, but just to get the experience, and perhaps see what we've been reading of a dozen years—a real Indian campaign. Now, old man, you know that country. You were there as a boy.Youcould be of use. Why not ask for orders at once? Then we can push out via Sioux City together. I know how the mother will protest, especially since she was robbed of three precious weeks in July; but, isn't it the chance of a lifetime? Isn't this what we are for, after all? Wire decision. Yours as ever,
"Connell."
"Good old Badger," murmured Geordie. "He always was right." Then that letter went to an inner pocket, and for the first time in his life, with something to conceal from her, George Graham turned to his mother.
It was a beautiful September evening. The gray-and-white battalion had just formed for parade. The throng of spectators lined the roadway in front of the superintendent's quarters, and with that proud mother clinging as usual to his arm, with that ominous letter in the breast of his sack-coat, so close that her hand by a mere turn of the wrist could touch it, George Graham stood silently beside her as she chatted happily with Mrs. Hazzard. Not ten feet distant, leaning on a cane, was an officer lamed for life and permanently retired from service because of a desperate wound received in savage warfare. With him, eagerly talking, was a regimental comrade who had survived the bloody day on the Little Big Horn, and he was telling of things he had seen and men whom he had met, men whose names werefamous among the Sioux and were now on the lips of the nation at large. Foremost of these was the old-time enemy of every white man, long the leader of the most powerful band that ever disputed the dominion of the West, Tatanka Iyotanka—Sitting Bull.
Not fifty miles from Standing Rock Agency, surrounded by devoted followers, dwelling in Indian ease and comfort, but rejoicing in new opportunities for evil, Sitting Bull, said the spokesman, was holding frequent powwows with the ghost-dancers, urging, exciting, encouraging all, and still the Indian Bureau would not—and the army, therefore, could not—interfere. Everywhere from the Yellowstone to the confines of Nebraska the young braves of the allied bands were swarming forth and holding their fierce and ominous rites, and the autumn air of the Dakotas rang with the death song and war-whoop. The blood craze was upon them and would not down. The messiah had appeared to chief after chief, warning him the time had come to rise and sweep the white invaders from the face of the earth,promising as reward long years of plenty and prosperity, the return of the vanished buffalo, the resurrection of their famous dead, a savage millennium the thought of which was more than enough to array the warriors for battle. "It's coming; it'sboundto come!" said the captain, in his decisive way, "and if old Bull isn't choked off speedily we'll have work for a dozen regiments as well as ours."
Graham listened, fascinated, yet praying his mother might not hear. Secure in the possession of her stalwart son, full of joy in their present and pride in his past, she chatted merrily on. Mrs. Frazier, too, had joined them, another woman who had reason to rejoice in Geordie's prowess at Silver Shield. They were so blithely, busily, engaged that he presently managed to slip unobserved away and join the little group about the speaker. Colonel Hazzard, too, was there and held forth a cordial hand to the new-comer. Geordie's father never betrayed half the pride in him that the colonel frankly owned to.
"This must interest you not a little," said he.
"More than I can tell you, sir," was the quick answer. "More than I dare let mother know! But I have come for advice. I've a letter from Mr. Connell. Read it, sir, and tell me how to go about it. Before mother can get wind of it, I want orders to report at Niobrara."
The dawn of an autumn day was breaking over a barren and desolate landscape. The mist was rising from the silent pools of the narrow stream that alternately lay in lazy reaches and sped leaping and laughing in swift rapid over pebbly bed—the Mini Chaduza of the Sioux. The sun was still far below the eastward horizon, but the clouds were gorgeous with his livery of red and gold, and the stars had shrunk from sight before the ardor of his beams. The level "bench" through which the stream meandered, the billowing slopes to the north and south, were bare of foliage and uninviting to the eye, yet keen and wary eyes were scanning their bald expanse, studying every crest and curve and ridge in search of moving objects. Only at the very brink ofthe flowing waters, and only in far-scattered places along the stream, little clumps of cottonwood-trees gave proof that nature had not left the valley utterly without shade and refuge when the summer's sun beamed hotly down upon the lower lands of the Dakotas. And now only among these scattered oases could even practised eyes catch any sign of life.
Here and there under the banks and shielded from outer view, near-by watchers might discover little, dull-red patches glowing dimly in the semi-darkness. Here and there among the timber and along the brink little groups of dark objects, shifting slowly about, betrayed the presence of animal life, and afar out upon the prairie slopes tiny black spots on every side, perhaps a dozen in all, told the plains-practised eye that here was a cavalry bivouac—a little detached force of Uncle Sam's blue-shirted troopers, thrown out from the shelter of fort or garrison, and lurking for some purpose in the heart of the Indian country.
For Indians there were by scores righthere at the old antelope crossing only the night before. The sands of the ford were still trampled by myriad hoofs of ponies and streaked by the dragging poles of the travois. The torn earth on the northward rise out of the stream was still wet and muddy from the drip of shaggy breast and barrel of their nimble mounts. No need to call up Iron Shield or Baptiste or young Touch-the-Skies, Sioux scouts from the agency, to interpret the signs and point the way. The major commanding and all his officers and most of his men could read the indications as well as the half-breeds, natives to the soil. A big band of young warriors, with a few elders, had yielded to the eloquence of the messengers of Sitting Bull and were out for mischief. They had been missing from the agencies several weeks; had been ghost-dancing with their fellows from Pine Ridge to the west, and were by this time probably on their way to swell the ranks and stiffen the back of that big chief of the Minniconjou Sioux—"Big Foot," as known to the whites, Si Tanka, as known to the Indian Bureau,and "Spotted Elk," so said Iron Shield, the scout, as known to the Sioux themselves.
A famous character was Si Tanka. Next to Sitting Bull, now that Gall was out of the way, dying of illness and old age, Si Tanka had more influence than any chief afield, and he longed to be acknowledged head of the allied Sioux. He had been to Washington, had been photographed side by side with Mr. Blaine on the steps of the Capitol; had sold to the whites the right of way for a railway through his Cheyenne River lands. He belonged to the Cheyenne River Agency far to the east, and declined to live there. He had his own village up in the Cherry Creek country, midway between the troops at Fort Meade in the Black Hills and Fort Bennett on the Missouri. He had white man's log-cabins, wagons, furniture, horses, hens, and chickens. He had, moreover, hundreds of cartridges, and the means and appliances wherewith to reload his shells, and he had, what was worse, a lively son, Black Fox, who had more Winchesters than he knew what to do with, and aninsatiable longing to use them against the whites.
Ever since the ghost-dancing had begun, Si Tanka stayed in the open. Agents went forth and begged him to come in where he belonged—to the Cheyenne Agency at the east, or to the Pine Ridge to the southwest, or the Rosebud to the southeast, or, if his lordship preferred, he might even go camp near Fort Meade, or surrender at Standing Rock Agency to the northeast, but to be out in the wilds and barely one hundred miles from Sitting Bull, also posing as a private and sovereign citizen, accepting government support but declining government supervision—that was something the Indian Bureau viewed with alarm, and well it might, for if Tatanka Iyotanka (Bull Sitting Big) and Siha Tanka, Si for short (Foot Big), should take it into their dusky heads to be allies and not rivals, if the great Uncapapa and the big Minniconjou were to join forces, there would be the mischief to pay all over the West. So the Bureau sent and civilly requested. Si Tanka most uncivillyreplied, and Tatanka Iyotanka scorned to reply at all.
What made matters bad was this, that young braves were eternally getting crazy over the ghost-dancing and going off to join these big chiefs. "Akichita hemacha" ("I am a warrior"), being all they had to say to friends and teachers who sought to dissuade them.
Away up at Fort Meade, in the Black Hills, were some high-mettled fellows, cavalry and infantry, who were eagerly watching the indications, one burly major of Horse fairly losing his temper over the situation, and begging the powers to let him take his capital squadron, with one or two companies of infantry, and, between his horsemen, his "walkaheaps," and himself, sturdy "Napa Yahmni," as the Sioux had named him, swore he'd bring Big Foot to his senses and back to the agency. Napa yahmni meant "three fingers," that being all that were left on one of his hands after a scrimmage with Southern sabres during the great Civil War. Really, there was reason why something should bedone, or surely the settlers and ranch folk would be made to suffer. And with troops there at Fort Meade, in the Hills, and over at Fort Yates, on the Missouri, and at Fort Robinson off to the southwest, or Niobrara here to the east, it was high time Mr. Big Foot was made to behave, and still the government stayed its orders and held its hand.
One cool-headed, nervy, mild-mannered young officer had taken his life in his hands, and a half-breed interpreter in civilized clothing, visited Si Tanka's big village and had a talk with his turbulent braves, to the end that as many as forty decided to quit, go home and be good, give up evil spirits, intentions, and ghost-dancing, to the rage of Black Fox and the amaze of Napa Yahmni, but it wasn't a week before another Messiah broke loose among the sand-hills of western Nebraska, and braves by the dozen sped thither to hear him; and presently both agencies had another influx of outsiders, urging revolt and uprising, and the old men counselled vainly, and preachers and teachers pleaded without avail. The young wards ofthe nation were ripe for mischief. The day of their deliverance had come. The Messiah was calling his chosen to the wild wastes of the Bad Lands, where they could sing and shout and dance till they dropped, and then if they went mad with religion, and away to the warpath, it meant woe for western Nebraska and for the Dakotas far and near. This was the situation that called for a scout from Fort Niobrara, and thus it happened that for over a fortnight a little column of cavalry had been patrolling the breaks and the valleys away to the northwest, peering into the old haunts of the Sioux along the headwaters of the pretty streams rising among the hills beyond the weather-beaten landmark of Eagle's Nest. They found lodge poles a-plenty on Black Pipe Creek, and the ashes of many a little fire along Pass Creek and Bear-in-the-Lodge, and away to the Yellow Medicine. They circled clear round the wild worshippers, it seems, far west as the Wounded Knee, without ever encountering one; and yet keeping them on the move had broken up their incantations, and, as themajor believed, had worn out their obstinate determination to stick to their medicine-men and Messiahs whether the Great White Father would have it or not.
For two days the column had followed, eastward now, the trail of a big band, and just when Baptiste and Touch-the-Sky, interpreters, would have it that the crazy chiefs and their followers had been fairly headed off and balked of their purpose of joining Big Foot beyond the Cheyenne, just when it seemed likely that another day would enable the troops to overhaul them and herd them peaceably, if possible, forcibly, if not, back to the sheltering wing of the agency and the Indian police, lo, just at sunset, after a long day's march, a corporal had come galloping, full cry, from the rear-guard, while the scouts were still far out to the front: "The Indians are back of us at least six miles, going like mad for the north!"
Then the major commanding said things that made his pilots' ears tingle. It was all gospel truth. Finding themselves followed and being steadily pressed onward towardthe fort and the settlements, the astute warriors had left a goodly sized party ambling along in front, to lead the cavalry on; had dropped away all afternoon by twos and threes as though looking for antelope or black tail, not northward where the valley of the upper Chaduza was open and shallow and they could be seen for miles, but southward among the breaks and ravines where they were hidden entirely; had reassembled on a little branch to the southwest and then, when the column was well out of sight, had rushed for the north and the wild country so recently left; had forded the Chaduza and by moonrise were doubtless safely camped for the night on the south fork of White River. All the major could do was order his men to the right-about, march to the crossing (another weary six miles after the thirty-six of the day), and, with drooping horses and riders, unsaddle, cook supper, and settle for the night, then send couriers to the post in the morning.
And now morning had come and couriers had not yet gone, for an hour before the firstbreak of day—theanpaniyaof the Sioux—there had come galloping from the northeast a riderless horse, at sight of whose blood-stained saddle and stirrup hood the herd-guard woke the officer of the pickets. The captain unrolled from his blanket, took one look by the light of the moon, and bade the corporal find Baptiste, who needed not to see the saddle; he knew the horse at a glance.
"Pete Gamble's," said he. "They've begun killing!" And Pete Gamble was a ranchman well known to them all, both Indian and white. "If they would killhim," said he, "they would kill anybody."
And as if this were not enough, barely half an hour later two men, mad with terror, came spurring in over the northward ridge, almost delirious with joy to find themselves in the presence of friends. Their little hunting camp, they said, had been suddenly "jumped" early in the night. They had managed to get out with stampeded horses, but every one else was butchered, and the Indians were afterthem. The major doubled his guards to the north and awaited theIndian coming. He would not rouse his wearied men until actually assailed.
But now it was fairly broad daylight, and not an Indian feather had shown nor an Indian shot been heard. Slowly, sleepily, at the gruff summons of their sergeants, the troopers were crawling out of their blankets and stretching and yawning by the fires. No stirring trumpet-call had roused them from their dreams. A stickler for style and ceremony was the major in garrison, but out on Indian campaign he was "horse sense from the ground up," as his veterans put it. He observed all formalities when on ordinary march, and none whatever when in chase of the Indians.
He had let them sleep to the very last minute, well knowing he might have stern demands to make that day. He and his adjutant had reduced the statements of the hunters to writing, and a brief, soldierly report was now ready to go to the general commanding the department, who had come out to Fort Niobrara to be nearer the scene of action. The fort lay nearly fifty miles away,south of east, the agency even farther to the north and east, and the recalcitrant braves were heading away through the wilds of their old reservation, and might stop only for occasional bite, sup, or sleep until they joined forces with Big Foot or Black Fox, full a hundred miles as the crow flies, for now were they branded renegades in the light of the law.
In the crisp, chill air of the late autumn morning tiny smokes from the cook-fires sailed straight aloft, melting speedily into the blue. For nearly half a mile along the stream horses and pack-mules were scattered upon the "bench," browsing eagerly on the dew-laden bunch grass. Farther out beyond them on every side, with their campaign hats pulled down over their grim eyebrows and their heads deep in the collars of their cavalry overcoats, the men of the guard still kept vigilant watch. Long years of experience on the Indian frontier had taught their leaders the need of precaution, and the sentries took their cue from the "old hands." By a little camp-fire,booted, spurred, slouch-hatted, like his troopers, and muffled in a light-blue overcoat that could not be told from theirs, the major commanding was giving brief directions to three troopers who stood silently before him, their carbines dangling from their broad shoulder-belts, with the reins of their chargers in hand. Wiry and gaunt were these chargers, wiry and gaunt were the men, for those were days when neither horse nor rider went over-weight on campaign, or came back with a superfluous ounce. But horses and men had stripped for the day's work. Blanket, poncho, and overcoat, saddle-bags, side lines, lariat, and picket-pin—everything, in fact, but themselves, their arms, cartridges, canteens, saddles, saddle-blankets, and bridles—had been left to the pack-train. A good breakfast to start with, a few hardtack and slices of bacon in the breast-pocket of the hunting-shirt, settled the question of subsistence. They were to start at once, deliver those despatches at Niobrara, unless headed off by Indians, long before set of sun, and be back with reply before its rise on the morrow.
Then came the question as to the fate of the poor fellows of Gamble's and the hunters' camp.
"Mr. Willard," said the major to his adjutant, as the couriers mounted and rode away, "send one platoon over to Gamble's camp—it'll take 'em all day—and another back on the trail of the teamsters, and see what they can find of the outfit. They'll have to hunt for it themselves. The hunters say they wouldn't go back for a million apiece."
The adjutant was figuring in his note-book. He closed it, arose at once, and looked about him. Officers and men, the six troops, or companies, of the detachment seemed busy at breakfast. The aroma of soldier coffee floated on the keen morning air, and under the gentle, genial influence of the welcome stimulant men began to thaw out, and presently the firesides were merry with chaff and fun. A curious and sympathetic group, to be sure, hovered about the survivors of the hunters' camp, listening rather doubtfully to their tales, for the tales had takendevious turns under cross-examination. But for the bloody trappings of Pete Gamble's horse, telling mutely of tragedy, the hunters might have met only contempt and scoffing. Indian scares were old as the trails.
"Whose turn is it?" presently questioned the major, as Mr. Willard started away. The adjutant halted and faced about:
"'D' and 'F' troops, sir."
"All right. One officer and twenty men from each will be enough."
And then came striding forward, with quick, elastic steps, a young soldier in dark-blue campaign shirt and riding-breeches, a three weeks' stubble on his clear-cut, sun-burned face, a field-glass slung over one shoulder, a leather-covered note-book tucked away inside his cartridge-belt. No sign of rank was visible about his dress, yet there could be little doubt of it. The major looked up, smiling.
"Fast going for topographical notes yesterday, wasn't it, Mr. Connell?"
"I'm afraid so, sir. Indeed, I'm ashamed to submit them, but I wouldn't have missedthis scout for a month's pay, all the same."
"Well, we don't often see the engineers on this sort of duty. I'm glad the general sent you along. What is it, captain?" he broke off, turning to a gray-mustached, choleric-looking veteran who came suddenly upon them, breathing rather hard.
"Major," began the stout man, impetuously, "this makes the third time in ten days 'F' Troop's been ordered on side scout, or some part of it. Now we're ordered back to hunt up what's left of that wagon camp, and—"
"One moment, captain," interposed the commander, placidly. "You say 'we.' My orders are only one officer and twenty men."
"Well, I have only one officer with me, andhedon't belong," was the querulous rejoinder. "He's simply a volunteer with the command, and so utterly inexperienced that I consider it necessary to go myself. I can't trust my men to a mere boy just out of school."
"That will do, Captain Garrett," said themajor, promptly, yet with absolutely unruffled tone and temper. "IfIcan,youmay. Mr. Graham has had more experience than you are aware of."
"Does Mr. Graham go—in command?" asked Connell, eagerly, as Captain Garrett, silenced, but swelling with amaze, stood helplessly by. "MayIgo with him, sir?"
"By all means, Mr. Connell, if you wish."
In half an hour the sun was up and two little detachments of cavalry were up and away—one of them, under Lieutenant O'Fallon, filing out of the cotton-woods, at the eastward verge, and heading straight on the trail of the couriers, who were already out of sight down the valley; the other, leaving a few minutes later, was just disappearing from view of the watchers in the bivouac, over the low ridge or divide that spanned the northward sky-line. Once before, five years back, Geordie Graham had led a little cavalry command on a swift and successful chase after a gang of frontier desperadoes who had robbed the bank at Argenta. Now, for the first time in his life, he was both guide and commander. Now, as they had done time and again in cadetdays, Connell and Graham, "Badger" and "Coyote," went side by side, almost hand in hand, on the path of stirring and at last perilous duty.
To Connell the scout had thus far been one of almost unalloyed enjoyment and profit. Attached to the staff of the commander as engineer and topographical officer, he had ridden at will on the flanks of the column, a single orderly his sole attendant, a prismatic compass his only instrument. Then with the declining hours of the day came the making up of his notes, and after supper the hours of confab with Geordie, who, whenever possible, would come over to headquarters camp-fire. There was no sociability at his own.
"It is too bad," Major Berry had confided to Connell the third day out. "It just so happened that 'Old Grumbly' was the one captain without a subaltern when Mr. Graham reported for duty with us, and your fine young classmate had to take the place of one of the absentees. The colonel couldn't help himself. Grumbly is a goodsoldier in his way, Mr. Connell, and knows his trade, too. I suppose Graham has—sized him up?" This with a cock of his head and a keen glance.
"Shouldn't wonder, sir; but if he has, he's kept it to himself."
"Well, if Garrett gets to bothering Graham too much, you let me know."
"I will, sir, if Graham letsmeknow, but—I'm mistaken in Graham if he opens his head on the subject."
And though the scout was now in its third week, and things had been said and done by "Grumbly" Garrett that set other men to talking, not a word had come from "Coyote."
But it soon transpired that if Graham wouldn't speak of his troop commanderpro tem., neither did he speak to him, save when occasion required. Day after day on the march it was noted that while the senior lieutenant of each troop rode side by side with his captain, the young West Pointer serving with "F" was almost always at the rear of its column of twos, where, as it transpired, Garrett had given him orders to marchand see that the men kept closed. But no complaint came from Graham.
Now, however, as the two old chums rode away on a side scout of their own, it might well be expected that "Coyote" would be less reticent. The eyes of half the command had followed them appreciatively as the detachment started, Graham and Connell in the lead, Sergeant Drum, and his nineteen following in compact column of twos. No sooner did they reach the outlying sentries, however, than it was noted that the young leader looked back over his shoulder, and the next moment two troopers detached themselves from the rest and spurred out ahead until full six hundred yards in the lead. Then two others obliqued out to the right and left until nearly as a great a distance on the flanks.
"Knows his biz," said the adjutant, sententiously.
"Knows nothing but what I've taught him day by day," snarled Captain Garrett. "And I wash my hands of all responsibility for that detachment once it's out of sight of us."
"Shut up," growled a junior. "The 'Old Man's' got ears, and he'll hear you."
"Well, Iwanthim to hear—it's time hedidhear—and heed," was the surly answer. But "Grumbly's" eyes were wisely watching the major as he spoke, noting that the "Old Man" was busy with his binocular, following Graham's movements up the long, gradual, northward slope. The moment the major dropped it and turned toward the group, Captain Garrett changed his tone. "What I'm most afraid of is his getting lost," said he.
"You needn't be, captain," said the bearded commander, placidly. "Mr. Graham knows this country better than we do. He spent long months here before ever we set eyes on it."
Garrett's jaw dropped. "Then why didn't he tell me? How was I to know?"
"Principally, I fancy," drawled the adjutant, who loved to rub "Old Grumbly's" fur the wrong way, "because you told him two weeks ago that when you wanted advice or information on any subject from him you'd ask it."
But while Graham had as yet won no friend in Captain Garrett, he had found many among the troopers. His fine horsemanship, his kind, courteous manner to them, his soldierly bearing toward their irascible captain, had appealed to them at the start and held them more and more toward the finish. They saw the second day out that he was no novice at plainscraft. The captain had asked his estimate of the distance from a ford of the Chaduza to a distant butte, and promptly scoffed at his answer; indeed, it surprised most of them. Yet "Plum" Gunnison, pack-master, who had served seven years at the post, said the lieutenant was right. They saw within the fourth day that the new-comer was an old stager in more ways than one. "Touch-the-Sky," scout and interpreter, said the lieutenant knew sign talk, which was more than their captain did. They were to see still more within the compass of a day's march, but they had seen enough in their two weeks' comradeship to give them confidence in the young officer they never felt for theirown and only "Grumbly," who, with all his experience, would often blunder, and Grumbly's blunders told on his troop, otherwise they might not have cared.
In low tone the troopers were chatting as they crossed the divide and once more came in view of the two far out in advance, riding now northeastward. They were following back, without much difficulty, the hoof-prints of the two fugitives who, riding in terror and darkness, had so fortunately found their bivouac at break of day. And it was of these two both the men and their young officers were talking as the little party jogged steadily on.
Peaceful hunters and law-abiding men the pair had represented themselves. They were originally five in all—three "pardners," a wagoner, and a cook. Their "outfit" consisted of a covered wagon with four draught and three saddle horses. They indignantly spurned the suggestion that they had whiskey to swap with the Indians for fur and peltries. They had a ranch down on Snake River, were well known in Valentine, had nevermade trouble, nor had trouble, with the Indians; but the game was all gone from their home neighborhood, and so long as they kept off the reservation they knew there was no reason for the Indians troubling them. And here came another suggestion. The "Old Man," Major Berry, had somewhat bluntly asked if they did not know they had been trespassing, had been well within the reservation lines and north of Nebraska, and the two swore stoutly that Lem Pearson, partner and projector of the enterprise, had said he knew the country perfectly, had been there half a dozen times, and they left it all to him. They never dreamed they were doing wrong until their camp was "jumped" in the dead of night, and the Sioux chased them every inch of the way till they got in sight of the cavalry.
Yet here was the detachment, at six o'clock of this sparkling morning, clear out of sight of the rest of the cavalry, and half-way across the long swale of the next divide, and, though the print of the shod horses was easily followed, not once yet, anywhere—althoughthe little troop was spread out in long extended line and searched diligently—not once had they found the print of a pony hoof. Now they were full an hour, and nearly four miles, out from camp, and Geordie signalled, slowly swinging his campaign hat about his head, for his men to assemble, then dismount and take their ten minutes' rest.
"Con," said he, presently, "it's my belief those scamps were lying. The only Indians near the Chaduza were those that skipped for White River last night and are probably heading for Eagle's Nest now. Their trail must be three miles or more west of us here, and South Fork isn't three miles ahead. We'll see it from yonder ridge."
Connell was squatting, tailor fashion, on the turf, and thoughtfully playing "mumble-t'-peg" with his hunting-knife, while his troop horse cropped thriftily at the bunch grass. Graham had been giving a glance over his little command, watching the resetting of a saddle or a careful folding of a blanket. It would presently be time to mount and start, but there was something on his mind, and,as of old, he wanted to have it out with his chum.
Connell drew his knife from the sod, then, with the point on the tip of the left forefinger and the haft deftly held between the thumb and finger of his right, shifted it over by his right ear and sent it whirling down, saw it sink two inches in the sand, bolt upright, then queried: "They said their camp was on the Fork ten miles away northward. Could that be?"
"It might. The Fork turns almost square to the north and runs back of Rosebud. But what I mean is, they weren't chased by the Sioux. I doubt if they fought them at all."
"How about Gamble's horse?—and the blood? There's been some kind of a fight. Look, Con! There's a signal!"
Surely enough. As Connell sprang to his feet and the men quickly turned to their grazing horses, one of the troopers, far in advance, could be seen close to the crest of the divide. He had dismounted to creep forward and peer over, and now, half-way back to where he had left his horse, waswaving his hat, with right arm extended from directly over his head down to the horizontal and to the east.
"Mount!" said Geordie, quietly, springing lightly to saddle with a thrill of excitement in his young heart. "Follow at a walk, sergeant, off to the northeast. That's where we're needed, Con."
For the advance-guard, mounting quickly, was now loping along parallel with the divide, yet keeping well down below its backbone, and, putting spurs to their horses, "Badger" and "Coyote," the chums of old, darted swiftly away to join them.
Five minutes more, while a trooper held the horses of the young officers and their guides, while in silence and with eager eyes the little detachment came jogging over the swale to the support of the leaders, three forms were crouching forward to the top of the wavelike ridge, and presently three heads, uncovered, were peering over into the valley beyond. Then the arm of one of them was outstretched, pointing. Then the field-glasses of two others were unslung, fixed and focusedon some distant object; and then back, still crouching, came one of the number, signalling to Sergeant Drum to come on. Whereupon, without a word of command, simply following the example of their foremost man, the riders gave the bridle-hand, and with the other whipped the ready carbines from their sockets, and with the butts resting on the right thigh, the brown muzzles advanced, came on at a swift trot, those in rear unconsciously pressing forward on those in front.
Then another signal—this time from their young commander, who had come running down afoot, leaving "Badger" at the crest. In the eagerness of the forward rush the riders were opening out, coming right and left front into line, as the soldiers say, and Graham's gauntleted hands—the same gauntlets Big Ben had coveted three months earlier—were extended full to right and left, the length of each arm, and then brought "palms together" in front. "Close in," it said, as plain as day, and almost instantly Drum's gruff voice could be heard in rebuke;almost as quickly the practised riders could be seen closing the outer leg and rein. Another moment and the little line was trotting almost boot to boot. Then as they neared the point where the slope became abrupt, Graham's right hand, palm forward, went straight aloft, a gesture instantly repeated by the sergeant, and in two seconds more the horses, panting a little with excitement, were pawing the turf, and Drum's voice, low and compelling, ordered, "Count fours!" The next moment the odd numbers darted forward four yards, and halted. The next, with carbines swung over their shoulders, numbers one, two, and three were swinging from saddle, the next all horses were again in one line, with every fourth trooper still seated in saddle; and the dismounted men deftly lashing their reins to the headstalls of numbers two and three, while three himself passed his reins up to number four. Then, nimbly, with carbines at trail, up came a dozen wiry young fellows in dusty campaign rig, running swiftly up the slope, and in another moment were sprawling ontheir stomachs close to the crest, their slouch hats flung aside.
And this was what they saw: Before them, to the right front, stretching away to the north, lay a broad valley, through which meandered a wider, bigger stream than the familiar Chaduza. It came winding down from the west before making its sweeping bend to the northward. It was fringed in spots by cotton-woods, and bare to the very banks in others. It was desolate and lifeless far as the eye could see, west and north. But away to the northeast, perhaps seven miles or so, a faint column of smoke was rising against the skies. Away to the northwest, perhaps a dozen miles, in alternate puffs, another and narrower smoke column was rising—Sioux signals, as they knew at once—and right down here before their eyes, midway between the shining river and the foot of the northward slope, perhaps two thousand yards out—a little more than a mile—was coming toward them a four-horse wagon, its white top a wreck, its struggling team lashed by the whip of thedriver and the quirts of half a dozen dusky outriders, while others still circled and shouted and urged them on, while afar back on the east bank of the stream other riders could be seen darting about in keen excitement. All on a sudden, but by no means all unprepared, "Corporal Pops" and his little command found themselves facing a new proposition and a band of turbulent Sioux.