CRISIS
There had been frequent communication with the agency by courier and by
telephone. Ray held the fort, he said, and though there had been some
bluster and swagger on part of a few Indians, the agent seemed relieved,
reassured. They no longer crowded, bullying, about his office. "They are
obviously," wrote the agent (not Ray), "impressed by the firm stand I
have taken, and now I shall proceed to arrest the ring-leaders in the
recent trouble, employing the lieutenant and his troopers for the
purpose, in order that the Indian police may see that I am entirely
independent of them." Stone received this by mounted messenger about
nine o'clock of a Wednesday night, and Mrs. Stone knew the moment his
lips began to purse up, as she expressed it, and to work and twist, that
he much disliked the letter. "I'll have to go over to the
quartermaster's," said he, "and call up Ray by 'phone. This agency man
will be making mischief for us, sure as--sure as the reds are making
medicine." But the last words were muttered to himself, as he took his
cap, and leave.
Stone had served many a year on the plains, and knew the Indian, and had
his opinion as to the value of civil service in dealing with him. Stone
had served two years in the South in the so-called reconstruction days,
and in his mind there was marked similarity between a certain few of the
Indian agents he had met and an uncertain number of the deputy marshals
of the "carpet-bag" persuasion, then scattered broadcast over the States
"lately in rebellion." If there was one thing more than another the
deputy loved and gloried in, it was riding about his bailiwick, with a
sergeant and party of dragoons at his back, impressing the people with
the idea that he had the army of the United States at his beck and call.
Now, here was a new man at the business over a thousand-odd Indians,
many of whom had fought whole battalions of troopers time and again, and
were not to be scared by a squad, and this new man reasoned that,
because the Indians had been undemonstrative for two days, they were
ready to surrender their leaders and be good. Stone knew better.
It took ten minutes to get the agency by way of town, and but ten
seconds thereafter to get Ray. He and his guard were billeted about the
main building. "What do you think of this idea of going out and
arresting ring-leaders?" asked Stone. "You weren't sent there for any
such purpose." And Ray answered: "He has gone to a pow-pow with Black
Wolf's people, and was thinking better of it after a little talk we
had."
"Well," said Stone, "how about the--the situation? Do you think they'll
make trouble? Do you need more men?"
And Sandy answered "Not to-night, sir. Tell better in the morning."
Stone did not like the outlook, but what was he to do? The agent had
called for no more troops, and, until he called, Stone was forbidden to
send unless some dire emergency arose, and then he must accept all
responsibility, as one or other side was sure to get the worst of it,
and he the blame. He went over and told Mrs. Ray he had just been
talking with Sandy, who was all serene, said he, and all reassuringly he
answered her anxious questions. Then he asked for Jimmy, whose
temperature was ominously high, and for Dwight, whose spirits were
correspondingly low. Dwight came out from the den, haggard, unshaven,
gaunt. Never before had he been known to lack quick interest when danger
threatened a comrade. To-night he hardly noted what Stone said about the
situation at the agency. He was thinking only of his boy, and Stone,
vaguely disappointed, went in search of Hurst, the senior captain, and
Hurst looked grave. He, too, had had his share in Indian experience, and
liked not the indications.
"I don't fancy the agent's going to that pow-wow. He should have had the
chief men come to _him_," said Hurst.
"They wouldn't--said they feared the soldiers might shoot," said Stone,
in explanation.
"Anybody with him, sir?"
"Ray says he insisted on an orderly, so one man went with him, to hold
his horse while he talked. Skelton was chosen. He speaks a little
Sioux."
"Man we had a while ago on account of the Foster matter?" asked Hurst,
with uplifted eyebrows.
"Same. He's at home among the Indians, and some of them like him. Guess
he's seen 'em before."
At 11:30, when Stone would have called again to speak with the agency,
it transpired that Central always went to bed at eleven--there was not
enough night business to warrant the expense of keeping open. At 7 A.
M., when again he would have spoken, Central had not come. It was eight
before news could be had from the agency, and then it came in a
roundabout way, for the line was down or cut or something was wrong far
over toward the Minneconjou reservation. At 8:10 the trumpets of the
cavalry were ringing, "To Horse!" the bugles of the foot, "To Arms!" At
8:30 the squadron was trotting, with dripping flanks, up the southward
slope beyond the Minneconjou, a gaunt skeleton, with pallid cheek and
blazing eye, leading swiftly on.
Give the devil his due, the first man to warn the fort that there was
"hell to pay at the agency" was Skidmore himself. He had kicked the
truth, he said, out of a skulking half-breed, who drifted in to beg for
a drink soon after seven. They hated each other, did Stone and Skid, but
here was common cause. The trouble began at the pow-wow. The agent
refused the Indians' demands; was threatened; "got scared," said the
frowsy, guttural harbinger of ill, and swore he'd arrest the speakers in
the morning, and they arrested him right there. In some way word of his
peril reached the agent's wife, and she rushed to the lieutenant, who
mounted, galloped, and got there just in time to rescue Skelton, who had
pluckily stood by the lone white man, whom some mad-brained warrior,
madder than the rest, had struck in fury; Skelton in turn had felled the
Indian assailant, and, despite the efforts of the chief, who knew it
meant defeat in the end, the lives of the two would have been forfeit
but for the rush of Ray and a few troopers to the spot. It was the
lieutenant's first charge in nearly a year, but he forgot his wound. He
managed, thanks in no small measure to the resonant orders of old Wolf
himself, to get the two back to the buildings, more dead than alive. He
tried to send word to the fort of the new peril, but the wary Indians
were on the lookout and drove back his riders, while a furious council
was being held at the scene of the strife. From all over the reservation
warriors young and old came flocking to Black Wolf's lodge, and the
elders were overwhelmed. In spite of warning, entreaty and protest from
chiefs who knew whereof they spoke, the turbulent spirits had their way.
Brethren had been beaten and insulted in Skidmore's old place. Brethren
had been beaten and abused at the new. Brethren had been swindled and
abused by that very young chief of the soldiers now at the agency, and
some of his men; and, finally, Strikes-the-Bear, son of a chief, a chief
to be, had this night been struck down by the soldier the fool agent
dared bring with him. Let the warriors rise in their wrath and strike
for vengeance! If the little band of soldiers showed fight, and the
chances were that many a brave would bite the dust before the buildings
could be fired and the defenders driven out and killed, then offer
terms. Against such hopeless odds the young white chief would easily
yield. Get him and his men into the open; promise safe conduct to the
fort, then let others surround and slowly butcher them, while they, the
negotiators, took care of the agent, the assailant of Strikes-the-Bear,
the employees and their families. Aye, promise to spare the lives of the
lieutenant and his men; say that they might go back to their friends at
the fort, but they must leave the agent; they must leave their comrade
who struck the redman; they must leave their arms and their horses. Mad
as it was, that was the ultimatum of the deputation at the door of the
agency at five o'clock in the morning, and Sandy Ray answered, just as
his father's son could be counted on to answer, and in just three
comprehensive and significant words.
It led before long to a battle royal. It led first to barbaric council
and speechmaking, then to a display of savage diplomacy, and finally to
the spirited climax: savage science, skill, and cunning, with
overwhelming numbers on the one hand, sheer pluck and determination on
the other. The defenders were to fight, to be sure, behind wooden walls
that hid them from sight of their swarming and surrounding foes, but
that might be an element of danger just so soon as the Indians could get
close enough to fire them. Anticipating precisely such a possibility,
Ray had set his men to work beforehand. Sacks of meal, flour, and bacon,
bales of blankets, tepee cloth, etc., had been piled breast-high and
around all four walls of the storehouse within. All the available tubs
and buckets and pails had been fresh filled with water and stowed
inside. The horses were removed from the stable and turned into the
corral. Each of the eight barred windows had its two or three marksmen.
The women and children of the whites about the agency were all before
dawn moved over into the main building, for when his messengers were
driven back Ray well knew what to expect. Ray himself posted a keen and
reliable man at the forage shed, and one or two others in certain of the
outlying buildings, with kerosene-soaked tinder in abundance, and orders
to fire them at his signal, then run for the storehouse; Ray would leave
no structure close at hand to serve as "approach" or cover for the foe.
So long as no wind arose to blow the flames upon his little stronghold,
no harm would result to them, whereas the smoke would surely attract
attention at the distant fort and speedily bring relief. Ten days
earlier, before seeing his wards in war paint, the agent would have
forbidden such wanton destruction of government property. (Ten days
later, indeed, the Indian Bureau might call upon the War Department for
reimbursement, and the department upon Ray, but the youngster took no
thought for the morrow, only for his men and those helpless women and
children). So long as the warriors kept their distance and contented
themselves with long-range shooting, so long would Ray spare the torch,
but just the moment they felt the courage of their numbers and charged,
up should go the shingles. The find of a few small kegs of powder lent
additional means to the speedy start of the fire when needed, and now,
with his little fort well supplied and garrisoned, with the big fort
only ten miles away, with thirty or more stout men to stand by him, with
only one man demoralized,--the agent, small blame to him,--and only one
as yet disabled, Trooper Skelton, whom Ray had practically dragged from
under the knives of the savages, that young soldier felt just about as
serenely confident of the issue as he did of his men, and happier a
hundred fold than he had been for nearly a year.
Moreover, his dauntless front and contemptuous answer had had its effect
on the Indians. "The young chief must be sure the soldiers are coming,"
reasoned the elders, so before taking the fateful plunge it were wise to
take a look. Young warriors dashed away northeastward over the rolling
divides, and others galloped after to intermediate bluffs and ridges,
but it was well-nigh an hour before the signals came whirling back. "No
soldiers, no danger," and even then they temporized. In trailing war
bonnet, his gleaming body bare to the waist, his feathered head held
high, his nimble pony bedizened with tinsel and finery, a white "fool
flag" waving at the tip of his lance, with two young braves in
attendance, each with his little symbol of truce, Black Wolf came riding
gallantly down from the distant southward bluffs, demanding further
parley. Black Wolf had tidings worth the telling, he said. He had stood
the white man's friend and endeavored to prevent hostilities, but since
the affair of the previous night all that was hopeless, and now he must
stand by his people. His young men, he shouted, at dawn had attacked the
guard at the wood camp, and the scalps of every man, still warm and
bloody, hung at the belts of his braves, even now galloping back to
swell the ranks of their brothers. He urged the young white chief to
make no such error as had the sub-chief, the sergeant, at the camp, who
had fired upon his warriors when offered mercy. There was still time for
the young chief to consider. He was surrounded, cut off from help and
home. His brethren dare not quit the shelter of the fort to come to aid
him. They would be annihilated on the open prairie, as was the "Long
Hair" at the Little Horn a generation ago. This, then, should be the
young chief's warning and his opportunity. Let him and his men, save
one, depart in peace, leaving everything and everybody else as they were
before the young chief came. Black Wolf would await the reply. In
resonant periods, in ringing, sonorous tones, the speech of the
orator-chief had been delivered, his deep, powerful voice fairly
thundering over the valley, and echoing back from the crags of Warrior
Bluff, a mile away to the west. A spirited, barbaric group it made, that
magnificent savage with his bright-hued escort all gleaming in the
slanting sunshine, full two hundred yards away. On every little
eminence, on every side, were grouped listening bands of his braves. One
could almost hear their guttural "Ughs" of approval. One could almost
count their swarming array. Farther to the south, along the jagged line
of the barricade ridge, score upon score of blanketed squaws and
bareheaded children huddled in shrill, chattering groups, too distant to
hear or to be heard, but readily seen to be wild with excitement. Out in
front of the grimly closed and silent agency, with only the half-breed
interpreter at his side, but in humorous recognition of the solemn state
of the Indian embassy, with two sergeants in close attendance, Ray stood
listening, and turned for explanation to the official go-between,
impatiently heard him half through, then flung out his hand, palm
foremost, in half circular sweep to the front and right--the old signal.
"Be off," it said as plain as did the later words of the assistant.
"Tell him to go where I told him before," said Ray. "If he wants the
agent, or my soldiers, or my guns, or me, let him come and take them,"
winding up as he faced his antagonist, with the swift, significant
gesture that the Sioux know so well: "Brave, that ends it!" and turned
abruptly away.
"What did you answer?" whispered the agent, as the young soldier
returned to his post. It was the Bureau man's first real clash with his
red children, and thoughts of Meeker, a much-massacred predecessor in
the business, had dashed his nerve.
"He wanted you and this poor fellow who fought for you," said Ray
bluntly, as he went on and bent over the blanket on which lay Skelton,
bandaged, weak, but clear-headed, "and I told him where to go--where, by
gad, we'll send him if he comes again."
The eyes of the wounded soldier, fixed full upon his young commander,
began slowly to melt and then to well over. A silent fellow was this odd
fish of a trooper, a man little known among the others and even less
trusted. He looked up through a shimmer of moisture into the pale young
face with its dark, kindly eyes and sensitive mouth. He put forth a
feverish and unsteady hand, while his lips, compressed and twitching
from pain, began to frame words to which Sandy listened,
uncomprehending.
"Lieutenant, I wish I'd known you, 'stead of classing you the way I--was
taught. If I ever get out of this all right, there'll be a story
comin'." And Ray wondered was Skelton wandering already.