Under Fire Part 30

CHAPTER x.x.x.

If there be any truth in the saying that a burnt child shuns the fire, the two officers who led "C" troop in its dash on the village should have been almost anywhere else, and at least ten of Cranston's men bore the scars of previous battle, either in the South or on the frontier.

The captain was still reminded of his ugly wound, received the previous summer, by sharp, burning twinges of pain. Davies, the junior, as we know, had not yet recovered his strength, and had gone on this sudden raid, stepping practically from a sick-bed to the saddle. Twice that morning, as the captain looked with ill-concealed anxiety into the face of his friend and subaltern, he noted its pallor, despite the expression of stern determination. Had there been time he would covertly have warned three or four "stalwarts" of the first platoon not to lose sight of their lieutenant, and to hold themselves close in support, but there was no time. Indeed, as the sequel proved, there was no need. Soldier stories fly fast among the rank and file, and the men of "C" Troop had heard from many a source how the young officer on his first campaign had denied himself, stinted himself, starved himself, nearly, in order to share his scant supply of food with the weak and suffering in his own troop, and so they welcomed his presence with them now when the column marched from the cantonment, and spoke among themselves their admiration of the pluck of the young officer in being so soon again on duty.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "LOOK OUT! DON'T HARM THE WOMEN."

Page 431.]

And so it happened that as the pace quickened that stirring June morning and the long line swept down upon the rousing, shrieking village, and the first shot came singing over their heads and the wild cheer leaped to their lips as the trumpet sounded charge, while many troopers sought their own course through and among the fire-spitting lodges, Sergeant Grant with Donovan and two others drove their horses close at the heels of the lieutenant's. Only squaws or children appeared among the tepees as they dashed furiously in. "Look out! Don't harm the women!" they heard him cry, as he held his own pistol hand well aloft, but in another second a scowling, painted faced flashed one brief instant into view as their leader went lunging by, a shot rang on the air, and flame and smoke jetted from the lodge opening. Three pistols barked in answer and Davies galloped on unhurt, but poor Donovan, with an Irish howl, dropped his revolver, clapped his hands to his stomach as he toppled out of saddle. "My G.o.d, fellers, I've got it," was his moan, as Davies, a superb rider, quickly turned his horse about, and in the twinkling of an eye leaped to the ground to the trooper's side.

"Quick, sergeant. Quick, men, help me lift him on my saddle, I'm too weak," was his almost breathless order, and gallantly did they answer him.

"Are ye badly hit, Jimmy?" gasped an honest Irish lad, as he strove to raise him from the ground. But deathly pallor and staring, sightless eyes were the sole reply. "My G.o.d, lieutenant, he's killed outright.

There's no use staying," cried another trooper. "Mount, sir, mount for G.o.d's sake! They'll be on us in a minute." But tugging still at the limp and lifeless form, Davies did not seem to hear. The fierce clamor of the charge was receding. Already the second and third platoons had cleared the village and were reining about and rallying on the flats up-stream.

Already the pony herds, driven full tilt by Canker's squadron, were out of sight in the dense dust-cloud and could be heard thundering up the valley. Only a portion of Truman's troop could be dimly seen through the settling dust, but, worst of all, the warriors recovering from their panic came rus.h.i.+ng from their lodges, and in a moment all would be over with the struggling little group of blue-coats. Fortunately, they were at the western skirt of the village, and almost all the rallying braves were running, rifle in hand, down to the southern edge, the direction of the chase. Some few, springing upon the scattered ponies left among the tepees, rode furiously away into the dust-cloud in the hope of recapturing some of their stampeded stock, and so it happened that, except for some shrieking women, only one or two Indians appeared aware of the little knot of troopers still in their midst, but that was more than enough. Davies's horse, pierced by a rifle bullet, went rolling in agony upon the ground just as a devoted Irishman was trying to bolster the almost exhausted officer into saddle, and, luckily for him, Davies was borne to earth out of the way of the shots that came driving at them from the surrounding lodges. "Save yourselves," he faintly called to the remaining men. Already Grant had darted away for help, receiving his death wound as he rode. Then down came another horse, while Donovan's, snorting, tore away among the tepees, and then there was help for it.

The little Irishman, Carney, bending low, strove to drag his prostrate leader, stunned by a kick from his dying horse, around behind the nearest lodge, when he, too, was sent blindly stumbling forward and sprawling in the dust, shot through and through from an unseen rifle not ten feet away, and the gallant fellow never heard the furious cheer with which "C" Troop came charging back to the rescue.

It is one thing to dash into an Indian village; it is another to get out of it. Wounded or unhorsed, any men left behind are doomed to cruel and certain death. Within another minute, Cranston and his men came tearing in, firing right and left at every dusky form that appeared. Within a minute the prostrate bodies were found, and half a dozen men, Brannan among them, had sprung from their saddles, while the others rode blazing with their revolvers at the nearest lodges, some bringing their carbines into play. But even within that minute the scalping-knife had been at work, and poor Donovan's mutilated head lay in a pool of blood.

Short-lived triumph for the scalper, sneaking to shelter with his hideous prize, for Cranston's pistol stretched him in his tracks, and Sergeant Buckner's big charger knocked the foremost of the rescuing warriors scrambling back between the lodges, where other troopers drove their horses trampling them under foot. But every wigwam had its garrison. The village swarmed with maddened braves, who now came rus.h.i.+ng to the scene, and, they on foot and the troopers in saddle, they with their repeating rifles, the troopers with their pistols or single-shooters, annihilation of the latter could be but a question of a few moments. Even before Davies and his brave defenders could be lifted to the saddle and led away, two or three more of Cranston's horses went down, and Corporal Bertram was shot through both thighs. Then came the effort to retire fighting, covering their dead and wounded. There was only one way to go,--out across the westward flat, where the ponies were peacefully grazing when the attacking column hove in sight. Even as he shouted his orders to his savagely fighting troop, Cranston looked back with keen anxiety. To what pitiless fire must they be exposed in retreating over that prairie! Yet, with Indians on every hand within the village, it was manifestly his duty to get out. "Go on with the wounded!" he cried to the men afoot. "Go on! We'll cover you." And then Davies slowly opened his eyes and began to look feebly about him. Oh, if Truman would only come! Every second the fight waged fiercer, hotter, and more men dropped as they backed slowly away. Down went Buckner's horse. Down went the guidon, and then, when it seemed as though half the troop must fall before they could reach the open field, the half-frenzied, half-joyous cheer of Truman's men rose shrill above the clamor, and again the dancing, howling Indians dove for cover underneath the tepees as "F" Troop came thundering through.

"By the Lord, but that's the hottest place I ever struck!" cried Sergeant Buckner a moment later, as, slowly falling back now, most of the men fighting on foot, with the led horses and the disabled soldiers well beyond them, "C" Troop was making its way southwestward towards the clump of Cottonwoods and willows, close along the stream. Truman's men, after their spirited and successful charge, were now rallying well to the north of the village beyond the ridge, where for the time being they were safe from the Indian fire. But once more now the warriors in the village were swarming along its western limit and, flat on their bellies, firing vengefully on Cranston's retiring line, now three hundred yards away, and every moment some horse would rear and plunge, stung by the hissing lead, but only one more soldier had been hit.

Davies, faint and dizzy and only semi-conscious still, was riding slowly away with Brannan's supporting arm about him. The bodies of Carney and Donovan were thrown across led horses and lashed on with lariats, and Cranston had just sent a corporal to tell the horse-holders to move more quickly when, up the slopes to the north, the men caught sight of a horse and rider darting toward them from the distant ridge over which Truman's men had disappeared. Straight as an arrow's flight they came, heedless of the fact that their course was along the western edge of the Indian village and barely two hundred yards away. "My G.o.d, fellers, it's little Millikin!" cried an excited trooper. "Ride wide, you young idiot!" yelled another, but all to no purpose. The boy trumpeter who had borne the message to Truman and charged with him through the village was now on his homing flight to rejoin his own. Vengeful yells and war-whoops rang from the village as warrior after warrior caught sight of him and blazed away. Throwing himself out of saddle, Indian fas.h.i.+on, and clinging like a monkey to the off side, the young dare-devil drove straight onward, the bullets nipping the bunch gra.s.s and kicking up the dust under his racer's flying feet, yet mercifully whizzing by him.

Running the gauntlet of more than half the length of the village, the little rascal darted, grinning, through the cheering skirmish line, and tumbled to his feet before his beloved chief.

"Captain Truman's compliments, sir, and he'll rejoin you at the timber,"

was his message, delivered while his quivering horse stood flicking his long tail at a red seam in his silky coat where one bullet at least had scored its way, and Cranston bade him take his horse--and no more such fool chances--and get under cover straightway.

But now in falling back the skirmish line had made an irregular half wheel to the southward with a flying pivot toward the village, and the Indians were darting or crawling out south of the tepees so as to get an enfilading fire on the line. Cranston's quick eyes saw the danger and warned his right skirmishers. "Back there! Fall back, you men! Run for it!" he shouted; and to the jeering rage of the Indians the run began, the men halting and refacing the village as soon as beyond danger of flank fire, and then came still another excitement. Even while falling steadily back, with wary eyes on the smoking lodge lines, the men at the right became suddenly aware of a rush of several Indians to the point where the troop had re-formed after its initial charge. "They're making for the timber," was the first cry, for a few scattered, stunted trees grew along the low ridge. Then came a yell from the rear, from the sergeant in charge of the led horses.

"It's one of our men lying there wounded. For G.o.d's sake save him!" and that was enough. Every carbine along the line was brought to bear on the stooping, crouching, scurrying warriors who had ventured so far out from the sheltering tepees. Obedient to Davies's order, Brannan and two or three men in saddle left the wounded to take care of themselves, and spurred headlong across the prairie to the scene, and Cranston, catching sight of the affair at the same instant, waved his cap in eager signal, while his voice, now hoa.r.s.e and choked, could hardly be heard in the order "By the right flank." Truman's column of fours, reappearing at the instant at the north, but well to the westward of the village, could not imagine what that distant manoeuvre meant, but it was no time to ask questions. "Gallop" was the order, and down they came. And so it happened that barely twenty minutes after the first shot was fired the comrade troops of the Eleventh were once more united, and, facing nearly north, were in furious fight with an overwhelming force of Indians, while Chrome, turning deaf ear to Sanders's supplications, was vainly striving to round up a galloping herd of several hundred ponies full three miles away. Picking up the body of Sergeant Grant, saved from scalping and mutilation by the dash of Brannan and his squad, "C" Troop was once more wearily retiring toward the timber along the Wakon, and Truman deploying his dismounted skirmishers to their relief.

And then, as the horses were huddled at last under the bank, and the wounded were tenderly lowered to the shade of the willows, and the dead, with soldier reverence, laid, blanket covered, under a spreading tree, the captains met to compare notes and sum up the losses. Grave indeed were their faces, for two of the best sergeants were killed as well as five veteran troopers, and nearly a dozen were more or less severely wounded. Davies, unscarred by bullet, lay faint from loss of blood, and dizzy and dazed from the blow from his horse's hoof. The knife wound, Red Dog's treacherous work, had reopened as a result of his violent throw to earth, and there was no surgeon nearer than Chrome's battalion, now out of sight far up the Ska. "Thank G.o.d! they've got few ponies left," said Cranston, fervently. "We can hold them here until help comes."

And help was coming, hard and fast,--harder and faster than Cranston dreamed, but not to them. Within the next quarter hour, greeted by frantic acclamations from the hostile village, there rode into view on the opposite bluff, and came shouting their war-song, brandis.h.i.+ng feathered lance or gleaming rifle, more than a hundred red warriors,--Ogallallas, Brules, Minneconjous all, with Red Dog himself, escaped from durance at the agency, madly revelling in their midst.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

It was barely sunrise when Chrome's battalion struck the hostile camp this hot June day, and two hours later the situation was comfortless enough--for the strikers. Hampered with their wounded and having lost a dozen horses killed, the two troops of the Eleventh on whom had devolved the harsher share of the work had been compelled to halt in the timber and stand off the now exultant Indians. With a hundred mounted warriors at his back and as many more afoot in the village, Red Dog promptly took the offensive, sent his yelling braves in big circle all around the clump of timber in which Truman and Cranston had posted their men, cut off communication with Chrome's party, now "doing herd guard duty half a dozen miles up the Ska," as some of Cranston's men derisively said, and then, little by little, established the dismounted braves in every hollow, behind every little ridge or mound, and soon had a complete circle of fire all about the wearied little force. As senior officer, Captain Truman was now in command of the detachment, but between him and Cranston there was a bond of cordial esteem and comrades.h.i.+p, and the command was purely a matter of form. Each had had long years of experience in frontier warfare, each knew just what had to be done, and neither regarded the situation as either desperate or particularly dangerous. It would have been an easy matter to cut their way out anywhere but for the helpless wounded, who would be butchered to a man if left behind. Here in the timber, with water in abundance, and comparative shelter for the disabled men and for the horses under the banks, they could remain until relief should reach them. This with Chrome's two troops not very far away and their own old colonel, with half the regiment, somewhere over in the hills to the southwest, they felt very well a.s.sured ought to be only a matter of a few hours. "It was big luck," said Truman, "that our little pack-train got in when it did.

Ten minutes later and they'd have been cut off and ma.s.sacred."

But the further advantage lay with the Indians that they just knew exactly where Chrome was and Tintop, too, and knew that neither one was making the first effort to relieve his surrounded comrades, Tintop because he was twenty miles away and had no knowledge of what was going on at the mouth of the Spirit River, and Chrome because he was utterly rattled by the mounted warriors now beginning to appear in increasing numbers around him. He had sustained no loss to speak of. None of his men had been hit. Only two horses had been struck by their long-range fire. He was, to use his own words, "Really provoked at Truman and Cranston. They might know he needed them in holding such a big herd of ponies." Poor Sanders was in a miserable state of anxiety. He begged the major to let him take ten men and go back to find them, or even to let him go back alone. He pointed out that they must have had a fierce fight. He had found Sergeant Grant dead, and heard the fierce battling in the villages where both troops were engaged, and then he had galloped through the dust-cloud to Chrome, narrowly escaping death as he did so, and told him the situation, confidently expecting that Chrome would turn the ponies loose, rally his men and dash back to the village; but Chrome did nothing of the kind. "They should have come to me," he said. "We're the ones in need," then sent him with an order to Canker, who, out on the right flank, was making the morning blue with blasphemy, and Sanders poured his tale into Canker's ears, and begged him to come and make Chrome understand the situation, and Canker replied that nothing short of a pile-driver could hammer an idea into a skull as thick as Chrome's, and nothing short of a blast get anything out of it. The man was a born idiot and had no more idea how to command cavalry in the field than he, Canker, had of teaching Sunday-school. Oddly enough, many of Canker's contemporaries said the same of him, but one never knows and rarely suspects half what one's brethren say or think of him. The valley was black with ponies, the troopers were black with dust, and a pall as of night hung over the herd, so dense that the sun rays were swallowed up in its depths and gave but little light below, and tears of rage and misery that started from Sanders's eyes trickled down through a sandy desert on each sun-blistered cheek. He rode back to his temporary chief just as an Indian bullet had whizzed in front of the major's nose and made his eyes almost pop from his head. "Don't you see," he urged, reproachfully, "how very much more they are around us? If Truman or Cranston needed help they would have let us know long ago."

After a brisk gallop of three or four miles up the valley of the Ska, the troopers of the --th had permitted the stampeded ponies to take things more leisurely, and so it resulted that by six o'clock many of their number were stopping occasionally to nibble at the gra.s.s which grew here luxuriantly, but there was, all the same, a steady, persistent movement of the living ma.s.s,--an enforced migration at the rate of at least three miles an hour. Well out on the foot-hills Canker's troop had thrown its flankers, while the other in long skirmish line, with appropriate reserves, interposed between the herd and possible Indian attack from the north. The eastern banks of the Ska along here were high and steep, and the stream flowed deep and rapid at their base, so attack from that quarter was not to be dreaded. All the same, occasional warriors could be seen along the bluff, scampering from point to point, firing long-range chance shots at the officers or men distinguishable through the edge of the dust-cloud, but venturing no closer. It was Chrome's idea, as he frankly said, to keep moving southwestward until Tintop's scouts should see the huge column of dust, and send forth to meet and guide him with his prizes to the colonel's camp. Every quarter-hour, therefore, was taking him farther and father away from his corralled comrades down-stream, but he refused to see it. "Oh, they'll come along all right, Sanders," he declared, as he saw how his adjutant's eyes constantly gazed back beyond the dispersed line of skirmishers, "and we'll have a regular jubilee when we meet your colonel this evening. Some day, perhaps, you'll get a brevet for this."

"d.a.m.n the brevet!" groaned the youngster. "Give me a sight of 'C' and 'F' Troops safe and sound, and I'd rather have it than any brevet in creation." Then a brilliant idea struck him. "By the way, major, suppose they don't come along, what will you do for breakfast and dinner?

They've got the pack-train--unless the Indians have."

"By heavens, I never thought of the packs. They were way behind when we struck the village," said the major, whipping out his watch. "It's 6.30 now. Sanders, I reckon you'll have to go back and see what's become of them. Take six or eight men from the reserves here and try to rejoin us by eight." And glad enough to slip out from the shadows of that overhanging pall, Sanders went, half a dozen Arizona "jayhawkers" riding silently with him.

And that was the last Major Chrome saw of his battalion adjutant, of the "Eleventh" half of his battalion, and of all but one of the six jayhawkers referred to, in many a long week. One of the latter made his way back afoot in the course of half an hour, saying his horse was shot under him in the valley, which was thick with Indians, and Chrome looked yellow-white and a trifle undecided. But again the big herd of ponies from some unseen cause was in rapid motion, loping away southwestward.

All the guards and flankers were on the run, and it was half an hour before things quieted down again, and when eight o'clock came Canker sent in word that there were dozens of Indians on the bluffs ahead where the valley narrowed, and it would be well to halt and round up the herd right there and wait for Cranston and Truman, and Chrome so ordered.

Presently the dust-cloud began to settle, and by and by, when it floated slowly to earth again, half a dozen at a time, under cover of their comrades' carbines, the troopers ventured to the stream to fill their canteens and souse their grimy heads. There, peacefully grazing again, were the Indian ponies by the hundreds and their dusty guardians by the score; but, far as eye could see down the beautiful valley, not a sign of Sanders, his party, his comrades of the Eleventh, or, worse than all, of the pack-train, and Chrome and his people were getting hungry.

There were still with him the sergeant and trumpeter who had brought the despatch from Colonel Winthrop, and to them again did Chrome appeal for an estimate of the probable distance and direction of the colonel's camp. With an officer and twenty troopers as an escort they rode to the summit of the nearest bluff on the western sh.o.r.e, and with their field-gla.s.ses studied the landscape for miles. Far to the southwest lay the placid valley, unvexed now by sign of hostile force of any kind, and the sergeant indicated, some fifteen miles away, the b.u.t.te near which they made their crossing of the stream the previous day. Far to the west and northwest rolled a wild, tumbling sea of prairie upland, wave after wave of gray-green earth, spanned at the horizon by the black, pine-covered range of the Medicine Hills, pierced nearly due west from them by the deep slit the sergeant said was Slaughter Cove. To the northwest they could trace the general course of the Wakon valley, though the stream itself was nowhere in view, even among the broader levels toward its mouth, for everything down the Ska beyond a point three miles away was hidden from their sight by the bold cliffs that jutted out almost into the foaming waters. "Somewhere off there, fifteen or twenty miles," said the sergeant, pointing towards Slaughter Cove, "the colonel is probably marching." He had pursued the warriors into the hills after their heavy fight, and wouldn't let up on them till he ran them back to the agency, but the camp where he had left his wounded, his wagons, and supplies and their guard couldn't be more than twenty miles farther up the valley. Of the Indian village they had attacked at sunrise nothing could be seen. Eastward and south westward the opposite bluffs cut off the view, and such Indians as watched them did so from the concealment of the ridges and ravines. Chrome's triumphant rejoicing of the early day was rapidly giving place to uneasiness. In the absence of rations even martial fame is an empty thing. It was a bitter pill to have to go down and consult with Canker, but he did not know what else to do. Noon found him, watched by the lurking Indians among the bluffs, still guarding his captured herd and waiting for Sanders to come along with the pack-train. But there was no dinner for Chrome's command that day, and, by nightfall, even the ponies were gone.

Barely two hours after the triumphant appearance of Red Dog and his reinforcements on the scene of the morning's fight, Truman and Cranston, making the rounds together, came upon Davies among the rifle-pits on the north front, instead of resting with the wounded under the banks. He was still pallid and ill, but, having dressed and bandaged his wound and had a refres.h.i.+ng dip in the stream, he had made his way out among the men.

He shook his head gravely in answer to Truman's suggestion that he ought to be lying down. "We _are_ lying down all around here, sir," he said, "and I can get more rest out here than under the banks."

But Truman did not know that, weak as he was, the Parson was dividing his time between the wounded and the effectives, ministering to the one and cautioning the other, for the latter could not always resist the temptation to fire at such Indians as appeared in view within five or six hundred yards, and ammunition might be scarce before the siege was ended. Grimly, but without uneasiness, the command watched Red Dog's scientific manoeuvres in his "surround," the mounted warriors being gradually replaced, except on the open prairie, by the bereaved villagers. "Oh, we can stand off double their force easily," was the confident saying of the old hands. "We have food, water, ammunition, and a smart chance for more fighting," so what more could soldier ask? There was even jollity in the little command, despite the losses of the early morning. There was keen and lively interest in Red Dog's movements when, by nine o'clock, it was seen that he was calling most of the mounted warriors around him and could be heard haranguing them at the farther end of the village. None of the lodges had been taken down,--there were no ponies to haul them away,--but those nearest the southern end were now deserted of women and children and used only as shelter for a few lurking braves. Presently on every side the Indian prowlers opened sharp fire on the troops, a long-range and hap-hazard fusillade, for what with logs and earth, sand, trees, and river-banks and little wooded isles, the defence was well covered, only some of the horses being where they could be plainly seen. The bullets came zipping overhead or spitting vengefully into the sand, doing little harm, yet teaching the troopers to lie low; and then in the midst of it all Red Dog rode magnificently away from the north end of the village, across the open prairie, heading for some point far up the valley of the Wakon, and sixty braves rode valiantly at his back. He was a good half-mile away from the defence, but the troopers let drive a few shots, "for old acquaintance' sake," as one of them expressed it, but without disturbing the pomp and dignity of the procession. It was soon out of sight, and then the encircling fire slackened. "Now, what on earth are they up to?" was the question.

And in less than an hour after his disappearance there came new excitement, and the men set up a cheer. Sharp firing was heard toward the south. What could it mean but that their comrades of the --th were fighting their way back to join them? Then four or five hors.e.m.e.n appeared along the southward slopes, darting and das.h.i.+ng about as only Indians ride, evidently firing at something between them and the Ska, and Truman ordered a platoon to mount and drive away the Indians on that front so as to open a road for the new-comers to enter. This was accomplished with little loss, for the Indians broke from before the spirited dash, but rallied, of course, far out on the flanks, and again poured in their rapid fire from their repeating rifles, and then after a while the troops could be seen slowly retiring, firing as they fell back, some afoot now, and some leading and supporting in saddle others who were evidently wounded, and finally, as these latter came within a few hundred yards of the rifle-pits, the cry went up that it was Lieutenant Sanders and some of the --th, and so it proved. Four more wounded to care for, and Sanders, faint and heart-sick, among them.

"I tried to get old Chrome to drop that herd and come back to you," he moaned, "but it was useless. He wouldn't have let me come--only to get him something to eat. d.a.m.n this having to fight Indians under office soldiers anyhow!" And with this pithy protest on his blue lips the little bantam fainted away.

Then Chrome wasn't coming. Truman looked grave and Cranston angry. "No matter. We can lick them endwise by staying just where we are," he said.

"Relief is bound to come to-night."

Later that afternoon, under the shadows of the willows, there gathered a little group, perhaps a score of officers and men, all who could be spared from their stations in the rifle-pits, listening to the solemn tones of one of their number reading the service for the burial of the dead. Never did Cranston take the field without Margaret's stowing in the corner of his saddlebag a little prayer-book of her church, and this the captain had handed silently to Davies. Side by side the forms of the two sergeants and their comrade troopers were laid in the sandy pit.

Reverently the bearded, war-worn men uncovered and stood with drooping heads while their grave young officer read the solemn words. Here and there along the big circle of their surrounding foe the faint distant crack of the rifle punctuated the sentences as they fell from soldier lips, and every moment a bullet whistled overhead. Somewhere down the valley, borne on the wings of the breeze, the wail of Indian women mourning their braves slain in the earlier battle echoed and almost overwhelmed the solitary voice that rose in soldier tribute to the soldier dead. Then with one brief, fervent prayer, the solemnly murmured "Amen," carving no line, raising no stone, but tamping deep and heavy the earth upon their blanket-shrouded forms, without the trooper volleys, with only the faint soft winding of the trooper's last earthly trumpet-call singing "lights out" to sadly listening ears, the little group dispersed, each man going to his post.

An hour later still and the bluffs were throwing long shadows across the valley, and the crack of Indian rifles and occasional loud bark of the carbine close at hand seemed growing more frequent, and watchers at the outskirts became conscious of increasing excitement among the warriors up the valley to the west as well as over to the south, and listening men, laying their ears to earth, declared that there was tremor and vibration, and dull distant thunder of myriad hoofs, and over in the village there was hurrying to and fro and growing clamor of squaws and children, and dusky women could be seen clutching their little ones and speeding away towards the hills down-stream, while others began rapidly tearing down the painted lodges of hide or cloth, and such Indians as had no mount, but were skulking under the banks or among the bluffs across the stream, could be seen leaping and crouching and racing back toward the village, and presently there went up a shout from the lookouts towards the upper Ska: "Big dust-cloud coming. Must be the pony herd again!" And men began springing to their feet and scrambling out of their shelters, and staring around them and waving their hats and shouting congratulation and encouragement, and ducking suddenly as more bullets came whistling in, and from a low rumble the sound rose to distant thunder, and from that to nearer uproar, and Truman and Cranston made a rush for their own herds, ordering the men to side line and hopple instantly, for the surviving horses were excitedly sniffing the air, pawing and snorting, and then there hove in sight up the valley the wiry leaders of the herd, galloping wearily, behind them a dull, dust-hidden, laboring ma.s.s, the main body of the Indian prizes swept away at sunrise. But who and what were these darting along the flanks of the coming host, las.h.i.+ng furiously in and out, ever guiding, controlling, commanding even while hurrying on? No blue-s.h.i.+rted, slouch-hatted, broad-belted troopers these! No cheering comrades of the stalwart --th, but in their stead few, but far more skilful, the most accomplished herdsmen in all creation,--Indians by the dozen. And then at last, amid the yell and clamor and shot and shout and furious rush of riderless steeds, came explanation of the mysterious foray up the Spirit valley. Circling far to the west and south, riding like the wind when once well out of sight of watching foes, the Ogallallas had swung around between the Ska and Winthrop's distant column, threaded ravines and depressions well known to them from boyish days, and finally creeping behind the curtaining bluffs into full view of the great herd drowsily nibbling in the broad, sunny valley, had burst with maddening yell and waving blankets and banging rifles, with sudden fury from their covert, tearing by the weary pickets, stampeding their horses, and so had gone thundering down upon the startled herd and, skilfully encircling it from the south, reckless of rallying cry and rapid shot from Canker's men, had sent the whole pack, with many a cavalry charger too, whirling before them in wild triumph down the echoing valley, back to the waiting village whence they came. "Red Dog versus Chrome Yaller," wailed little Sanders from his bed of leaves. "Who wouldn't have bet on the bay?"

Vain the major's valiant effort to mount and follow. Forty at least of his horses were swept away in the rush, his own among them; vain long-range shots and Canker's vivid blasphemy. Black in the face with rage, he mounted such men as had managed to restrain their horses and went charging after, leaving Chrome to the care of his fellows. Vain the rapid and telling fire opened upon herd and herders by Truman's men as they came within range. Down went two or three yelling, painted warriors, down a dozen ponies here and there, but on went the leaders, plunging breast-deep into the stream, and, followed by the whole ma.s.s, forded the Wakon in a flood of foam and splash and spray, losing only a trivial few in the glorious effort, and then, sweeping well around the rifle-pits of the command, were welcomed with mad rejoicing and acclaim in the heart of the thronging village.

Instantly now did they send forward their own skirmish line,--scores of Indians crawling, snake-like, through the gra.s.s, and from all sides pouring rapid fire in on Cranston's front to keep him and his fellows from attempting to mount or attack, which, indeed, would have been a hopeless effort. The timber rang with the fierce volleying, and in the excitement and exposure that resulted four more of the little command were shot, Truman himself receiving a painful wound in the side. For half an hour there was yell and clamor and furious crash of firearms, but all this time the lodges were rapidly disappearing, the Indian households were piling their goods and chattels, their babies, the old and the wounded and the helpless, even their dead, on travois and drag of lodge-poles, and then, guided by old chiefs, whole families were flitting away down the Ska, and finally, as darkness lowered on the valley, and the last lodge was down and gone, and the last warriors drew away from their front, and silence and peace settled down upon the exhausted command, Cranston, laying his broad hand on Davies's shoulder, looked into his tired eyes with a world of soldier trust and admiration in his own, and said, "If there was such a thing with us as promoting a man on the battlefield, my lad, this day's work would win it for you."

And before the other could answer, far up the valley of the Wakon hailed a trumpet call. Over from the bluffs across the stream another answered, and man after man sprang from his blanket to give a welcome cheer. "We might have known those beggars would have been in no such hurry to get away," said Truman, faintly, "but for old Tintop's coming with the whole command."

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

They were discussing matters a week later at old Fort Scott, where two little companies of the Fortieth kept watch and ward over the women and children of their many comrades in the field. Barely mid-June now, yet how all plans and projects for the summer had been changed. Guarded by Chrome's "infantry," as his unhorsed troopers were jocularly described, most of the wounded were being carried by short stages into p.a.w.nee Station, where a field hospital had been established. Truman and Sanders were with these, but Winthrop, a.s.suming command of all the cavalry that was available at the forks, had gone on in pursuit of Red Dog's renegade band. With him were Cranston and Davies; with him, too, were Hay and Hastings. Only one officer of the Eleventh remained at Scott, the captain of "A" Troop, in arrest awaiting trial. It was a time of sore anxiety to wives and children, to some two or three sweethearts who had happened there, and they showed it plainly. It was a time of strange suspense and trouble to Captain Devers, but he hid it well. Few men could better have portrayed the chafing, indignant soldier, robbed of the right to lead his men to battle, than did Devers when his comrades took the field. Hastings as first lieutenant went in command of "A"

Troop, but Devers had importuned head-quarters with letters and telegrams imploring to be permitted to accompany the column. He asked for only temporary release from arrest. He courted--he _demanded_ the fullest investigation of his every act. He longed to meet his accusers--his defamers, rather, and overthrow them before a jury of his peers, but, as the court could not proceed now until the campaign was over, why hold him chafing here? It was all capital, it was even touching, but it "did not work." The general himself was far away in the distant Big Horn; his adjutant-general could not act, and the lieutenant-general in Chicago would not. Then, as Devers had been in close arrest much over seven days, he demanded "extended limits," which were readily accorded him. When "A" Troop marched away its captain's only solace had been a long, closeted conference with Sergeant Haney, who, as a consequence, had to gallop many a mile to overtake the troop.

The news of Red Dog's escape and the bolt of the Ogallallas from McPhail's bailiwick created consternation at Scott. With the cavalry and all but one company of White's battalion gone from the agency there was ample opportunity, but it had not been foreseen. Then, three days later, by way of p.a.w.nee, came the details of the fierce fighting on the Ska, of Truman's wound and Sanders's, of Chrome's catastrophe, the only humor in the situation being the contemplation of how Captain Canker must have sworn. Then came hurried letters, pencilled in the field, and Leonard himself took hers to Mrs. Cranston, and then went in search of Mrs.

Davies, whom he found at Darling's quarters, though Darling was not there. The ladies were at luncheon, and the adjutant contented himself with sending Mira's missive in. There was a letter for Captain Devers in the well-known hand of Sergeant Haney. This was sent him by the orderly.

There were others for others, which were duly delivered and brought at least momentary joy, but Mrs. Cranston's eyes were dancing with delight when Leonard met her half an hour later.

"I'm going to Mrs. Davies," she said. "I want to read her what the captain says of her husband's conduct all through that fight of Monday afternoon. He says he never saw anything calmer or braver in his life."

"Yes, I remember our chaplain's indulging in some prognostication to that end," said Leonard, gravely; "but, Mrs. Cranston, did you want to see Mrs. Davies?"