The Last of the Chiefs Part 34

The moon and stars came out. A dark-blue sky, troubled by occasional light clouds, bent over him. He began at last to feel the effects of the long strain, mental and physical. His clothes were nearly dry on him, but for the first time he felt cold and weak. He went on, nevertheless; he had no idea of stopping even if he were forced to crawl.

He reached the crest of a low hill and looked down again on the Indian village, but from a point far from the hill on which he had stood during the battle. He saw many lights, torches and camp fires, and now and then dusky figures moving against the background of the flames, and then a great despair overtook him.

To rescue Albert would be in itself difficult enough, but how was he ever to find him in that huge village, five miles long?

He did not permit his despair to last long. He would make the trial in some manner, how he did not yet know, but he must make it. He descended the low hill and entered a clump of bushes about fifty yards from the banks of the Little Big Horn. Here he stopped and quickly sank down. He had heard a rustling at the far edge of the clump, and he was sure, too, that he had seen a shadowy figure. The figure had disappeared instantly, but d.i.c.k was confident that a Sioux warrior was hidden in the bushes not ten yards away.

It was his first impulse to retreat as silently as he could, but the impulse swiftly gave way to a fierce anger. He remembered that he carried a rifle and plenty of cartridges, and he was seized with a sudden vague belief that he might strike a blow in revenge for the terrible loss of the day. It could be but a little blow, he could strike down only one, but he was resolved to do it--he had been through what few boys are ever compelled to see and endure, and his mind was not in its normal state.

He turned himself now into an Indian, crawling and creeping with deadly caution through the bushes, exercising an infinite patience that he might make no leaf or twig rustle, and now and then looking carefully over the tops of the bushes to see that his enemy had not fled. As he advanced he held his rifle well forward, that he might take instant aim when the time came.

d.i.c.k was a full ten minutes in traveling ten yards, and then he saw the dark figure of the warrior crouched low in the bushes.

The Sioux had not seen him and was watching for his approach from some other point. The figure was dim, but d.i.c.k slowly raised his rifle and took careful aim at the head. His finger reached the trigger, but when it got there it refused to obey his will. He was not a savage; he was white, with the civilized blood of many generations, and he could not shoot down an enemy whose back was turned to him. But he maintained his aim, and using some old expression that he had heard he cried, "Throw up your hands!"

The crouching figure sprang to its feet, and a remembered voice exclaimed in overwhelming surprise and delight:

"d.i.c.k! d.i.c.k! Is that you, d.i.c.k?"

d.i.c.k dropped the muzzle of his rifle and stared. He could not take it in for the moment. It was Albert--a ragged, dirty, pale, and tired Albert, but a real live Albert just the same.

The brothers stared at each other by the same impulse, and then by the same impulse rushed forward, grasped each other's hands, wringing them and shouting aloud for joy.

"Is it you, Al? How on earth did you ever get here?"

"Is it you, d.i.c.k? Where on earth did you come from?"

They sat down in the bushes, both still trembling with excitement and the relief from suspense, and d.i.c.k told of the fatal day, how he had been bound to the tree on the hill, and how he had seen all the battle, from its beginning to the end, when no white soldier was left alive.

"Do you mean that they were all killed, d.i.c.k?" asked Albert in awed tones.

"Every one," replied d.i.c.k. "There was a ring of fire and steel around them through which no man could break. But they were brave, Al, they were brave! They beat off the thousands of that awful horde for hours and hours."

"Who led them?"

"I don't know. I had no way of knowing, but it was a gallant man with long yellow hair. I saw him with his hat off, waving it to encourage his men. Now tell me, Al, how you got here."

"When they seized us," replied Albert, "they carried me, kicking and fighting as best I could, up the river. I made up my mind that I'd never see you again, d.i.c.k, as I was sure that they'd kill you right away. I expected them to finish me up, too, soon, but they didn't. I suppose it was because they were busy with bigger things.

"They pushed me along for at least two miles. Then they crossed the river, shoved me into a bark lodge, and fastened the door on me. They didn't take the trouble to bind me, feeling sure, I suppose, that I couldn't get out of the lodge and the village, too; and I certainly wouldn't have had any chance to do it if a battle hadn't begun after I had been there a long time in the darkness of the lodge. I thought at first that it was the Sioux firing at targets, but then it became too heavy and there was too much shouting.

"The firing went on a long time, and I pulled and kicked for an hour at the lodge door. Because no one came, no matter how much noise I made, I knew that something big was going on, and I worked all the harder. When I looked out at last, I saw many warriors running up and down and great clouds of smoke. I sneaked out, got into a smoke bank just as a Sioux shot at me, lay down in a little ravine, after a while jumped up and ran again through the smoke, and reached the bushes, where I lay hidden flat on my face until the night came. While I was there I heard the firing die down and saw our men driven off after being cut up badly."

"It's awful! awful!" groaned d.i.c.k. "I didn't know there were so many Sioux in the world, and maybe our generals didn't, either.

That must have been the trouble."

"When the darkness set in good," resumed Albert. "I started to run. I knew that no Sioux were bothering about me then, but I tell you that I made tracks, d.i.c.k. I had no arms, and I didn't know where I was going; but I meant to leave those Sioux some good miles behind. After a while I got back part of my courage, and then I came back here to look around for you, thinking you might have just such a chance as I did."

"Brave old Al," said d.i.c.k.

"You came, too."

"I was armed and you were not."

"It comes to the same thing, and you did have the chance."

"Yes, and we're together again. We've been saved once more, Al, when the others have fallen. Now the thing for us to do is to get away from here as fast as we can. Which way do you think those troops on your side of the village retreated?"

Albert extended his finger toward a point on the dusky horizon.

"Off there somewhere," he replied.

"Then we'll follow them. Come on."

The two left the bushes and entered the hills.

Chapter XX Bright Sun's Good-by

d.i.c.k and Albert had not gone far before they saw lights on the bluffs of the Little Big Horn. d.i.c.k had uncommonly keen eyes, and when he saw a figure pa.s.s between him and the firelight he was confident that it was not that of a Sioux. The clothing was too much like a trooper's.

"Stop, Al," he said, putting his hand on his brother's shoulder.

"I believe some of our soldiers are here."

The two crept as near as they dared and watched until they saw another figure pause momentarily against the background of the firelight.

"It's a trooper, sure," said d.i.c.k, "and we've come to our own people at last. Come, Al, we'll join them."

They started forward on a run. There was a flash of flame, a report, and a bullet whistled between them.

"We're friends, not Sioux!" shouted d.i.c.k. "We're escaping from the savages! Don't fire!"

They ran forward again, coming boldly into the light, and no more shots were fired at them. They ran up the slope to the crest of the bluff, leaped over a fresh earthwork, and fell among a crowd of soldiers in blue. d.i.c.k quickly raised himself to his feet, and saw soldiers about him, many of them wounded, all of them weary and drawn. Others were hard at work with pick and spade, and from a distant point of the earthwork came the sharp report of rifle shots.

These were the first white men that d.i.c.k and Albert had seen in nearly two years, and their hearts rose in their throats.

"Who are you?" asked a lieutenant, holding up a lantern and looking curiously at the two bare-headed, brown, and half-wild youths who stood before him in their rough attire of tanned skins. They might readily have pa.s.sed in the darkness for young Sioux warriors.

"I am d.i.c.k Howard," replied d.i.c.k, standing up as straight as his weakness would let him, "and this is my brother Albert. We were with an emigrant trail, all the rest of which was ma.s.sacred two years ago by the Sioux. Since then we have been in the mountains, hunting and trapping."

The lieutenant looked at him suspiciously. d.i.c.k still stood erect and returned his gaze, but Albert, overpowered by fatigue, was leaning against the earthwork. A half dozen soldiers stood near, watching them curiously. From the woods toward the river came the sound of more rifle shots.

"Where have you come from to-night? And how?" asked the lieutenant sharply.

"We escaped from the Sioux village," replied d.i.c.k. "I was in one part of it and my brother in another. We met by chance or luck in the night, but in the afternoon I saw all the battle in which the army was destroyed."

"Army destroyed! What do you mean?" exclaimed the officer.

"We were repulsed, but we are here. We are not destroyed."