Obedient to his orders the Irish sergeant, with a little squad at his
heels, had kept straight on. A few minutes later, rounding the bluff at
the gallop, eyes flashing over the field in front of them, the party
went racing out over the turf and came in full view of the scene of the
fight. Five hundred yards further down stream was a deep bend in the
Laramie. Close to the water's edge two horses lay stretched upon the
ground, stone dead. Out on the open prairie lay an Indian pony still
kicking in his dying agony, and as the soldiers came sweeping into view
two men rose up from behind the low bank of the stream and swung their
hats--Hal Folsom and one of his hands safe, unwounded, yet with a look
in their gray faces that told of recent mortal peril.
"We're all right! Go on after them. They've run off a dozen of my best
horses," said Folsom, "and I'm afraid they cut off Jake."
"No! Jake reached the ranch all right--leastwise somebody did," said
Shaughnessy. "That's how we got the news. They got somebody, or else
they were only bluffing when they waved that scalp. How many were
there?"
"At least a dozen--too many for you to tackle. Where's the rest of the
troop?"
"Close at their heels. The lieutenant led them right over the ridge.
Listen!"
Yes, far up in the foothills, faint and clear, the sounds of the chase
could now be heard. Dean's men were closing on the fleeing warriors, for
every little while the silence of the range was broken by the crack of
rifle or carbine. Shaughnessy's fellows began to fidget and look eagerly
thither, and he read their wish. "Two of you stay with Mr. Folsom," he
said, "and the rest come with me. There's nothing we can do here, is
there? Sure, you're not hit?"
"No, go on! Give 'em hell and get back my horses. I'd go with you, but
they've killed what horses they couldn't drive. All safe at the ranch?"
Shaughnessy nodded as he spurred away. "We'll be gettin' the lieutenant
a brevet for this," said he, "if we can only close up with those
blackguards." And these were the words Folsom carried back with him, as,
mounting a willing trooper's horse, he galloped homeward to reassure his
wife, thanking God for the opportune coming of the little command, yet
swearing with close compressed lips at the ill-starred work of the day.
Thus far he had striven to keep from her all knowledge of the threats of
the Ogallallas, although he knew she must have heard of them. He had
believed himself secure so far back from the Platte. He had done
everything in his power to placate Red Cloud and the chiefs--to convince
his former friends that he had never enticed poor Lizette, as Baptiste
had called the child, from her home and people. They held he should
never have left her, though she had accused him of no wrong. Burning
Star, in his jealous rage, hated him, because he believed that but for
love of the paleface Lizette would have listened to his wooing, and
Folsom's conscience could not acquit him of having seen her preference
and of leading her on. He could not speak of her to his wife without
shame and remorse. He had no idea what could have been her fate, for the
poor girl had disappeared from the face of the earth, and now, at last,
this day had proved to him the threats of her lover and her brothers
were not idle. He had had so narrow a squeak for his life, so sharp and
sudden and hard a fight for it that, now that the peril was over, his
nerve began to give way, his strong hands to tremble. Armed with
breech-loaders, he and his two friends had been able to stand off the
attacking party, killing two ponies, and emptying, they felt sure, two
saddles; but little by little the Indians were working around their
position, and would have crawled upon them within an hour or two but for
Jake's daring ride for help and the blessed coming of the blue-coats in
the nick of time. Folsom swore he'd never forget their services this
day.
And as he cantered homeward he could still hear the distant firing dying
away in the mountains to the north. "Give 'em hell, Dean!" he muttered
through his set teeth. "They're showing fight even when you've got 'em
on the run. I wonder what that means?"
Not until another day was he to know. Late on the evening of the attack,
while he was seated with his wife by Jake's bedside, half a dozen
troopers, two of them wounded and all with worn-out horses, came
drifting back to camp. Twice, said they, had the fleeing Indians made a
stand to cover the slow retreat of one or two evidently sorely stricken,
but so closely were they pressed that at last they had been forced to
abandon one of their number, who died, sending his last vengeful shot
through the lieutenant's hunting shirt, yet only grazing the skin. Dean,
with most of the men, pushed on in pursuit, determined never to desist
so long as there was light, but these who returned could not keep up.
Leaving the dead body of the young brave where it lay among the rocks,
they slowly journeyed back to camp. No further tidings came, and at
daybreak Folsom, with two ranchmen and a trooper, rode out on the trail
to round up the horses the Indians had been compelled to drop. Mrs. Hal
clung sobbing to him, unable to control her fears, but he chided her
gently and bade her see that Jake lacked no care or comfort. The brave
fellow was sore and feverish, but in no great danger now. Five miles out
in the foothills they came upon the horses wandering placidly back to
the valley, but Folsom kept on. Four miles further he and a single
ranchman with him came upon three troopers limping along afoot, their
horses killed in the running fight, and one of these, grateful for a
long pull at Folsom's flask, turned back and showed them the body of the
fallen brave. One look was enough for Hal and the comrade with him.
"Don't let my wife know--who it was," he had muttered to his friend. "It
would only make her more nervous." There lay Chaska, Lizette's eldest
brother, and well Hal Folsom knew _that_ death would never go unavenged.
"If ever a time comes when I can do you a good turn, lieutenant," said
he that afternoon as, worn out with long hours of pursuit and scout, the
troop was encountered slowly marching back to the Laramie, "I'll do it
if it costs me the whole ranch." But Dean smiled and said they wouldn't'
have missed that chance even for the ranch. What a blessed piece of luck
it was that the commanding officer at Frayne had bidden him take that
route instead of the direct road to Gate City! He had sent men riding in
to both posts on the Platte, with penciled lines telling of the Indian
raid and its results. Once well covered by darkness the little band had
easily escaped their pursuers, and were now safe across the river and
well ahead of all possibility of successful pursuit. But if anything
were needed to prove the real temper of the Sioux the authorities had
it. Now was the time to grapple that Ogallalla tribe and bring it to
terms before it could be reinforced by half the young men in the
villages of the northern plains. The Platte, of course, would be
patrolled by a strong force of cavalry for some weeks to come, and no
new foray need be dreaded yet awhile. Red Cloud's people would "lay low"
and watch the effect of this exploit before attempting another. If the
White Father "got mad" and ordered "heap soldiers" there to punish them,
then they must disavow all participation in the affair, even though one
of their best young braves was prominent in the outrage, and had paid
for the luxury with his life--even though Burning Star was trying to
hide the fresh scar of a rifle bullet along his upper arm. Together Dean
and Folsom rode back to the ranch, and another night was spent there
before the troop was sufficiently rested to push on to Emory.
"Remember this, lieutenant," said Folsom again, as he pressed his hand
at parting, "there's nothing too good for you and "C" Troop at my home.
If ever you need a friend you'll find one here."
And the time was coming when Marshall Dean would need all that he could
muster.
Two days later--still a march away from Emory--a courier overtook him
with a letter from his late post commander: "Your vigorous pursuit and
prompt, soldierly action have added to the fine record already made and
merit hearty commendation." The cordial words brought sunshine to his
heart. How proud Jess would be, and mother! He had not had a word from
either for over a week. The latter, though far from strong, was content
at home in the loving care of her sister, and in the hope that he would
soon obtain the leave of absence so long anticipated, and, after Jess's
brief visit to Pappoose's new home, would come to gladden the eyes of
kith and kin, but mother's most of all, bringing Jessie with him. Little
hope of leave of absence was there now, and less was he the man to ask
it with such troubles looming up all along the line of frontier posts to
the north. But at least there would be the joy of seeing Jess in a few
days and showing her his troop--her and Pappoose. How wonderfully that
little schoolgirl must have grown and developed! How beautiful a girl
she must now be if that photograph was no flatterer! By the way, where
was that photo? What had he done with it? For the first time in four
days he remembered his picking it up when Mrs. Hal Folsom collapsed at
sight of Jake's swooning. Down in the depths of the side pocket of his
heavy blue flannel hunting shirt he found it, crumpled a bit, and all
its lower left-hand corner bent and blackened and crushed, Chaska's last
shot that tore its way so close below the young soldier's bounding
heart, just nipping and searing the skin, had left its worst mark on
that dainty _carte de visite_. In that same pocket, too, was another
packet--a letter which had been picked up on the floor of the hut at
Reno after Burleigh left--one for which the major had searched in vain,
for it was underneath a lot of newspapers. "You take that after him,"
said the cantonment commander, as Dean followed with the troop next day,
and little dreamed what it contained.
That very day, in the heavy, old-fashioned sleeping-cars of the Union
Pacific, two young girls were seated in their section on the northward
side. One, a dark-eyed, radiant beauty, gazed out over the desolate
slopes and far-reaching stretches of prairie and distant lines of bald
bluff, with delight in her dancing eyes. The other, a winsome maid of
nineteen, looked on with mild wonderment, not unmixed with
disappointment she would gladly have hidden. To Elinor the scenes of her
childhood were dear and welcome; to Jessie there was too much that was
somber, too little that was inviting. But presently, as the long train
rolled slowly to the platform of a rude wooden station building, there
came a sight at which the eyes of both girls danced in eager interest--a
row of "A" tents on the open prairie, a long line of horses tethered to
the picket ropes, groups of stalwart, sunburned men in rough blue garb,
a silken guidon flapping by the tents of the officers. It was one of
half a dozen such camps of detached troops they had been passing ever
since breakfast time--the camps of isolated little commands guarding the
new railway on the climb to Cheyenne. Papa, with one or two cronies, was
playing "old sledge" in the smoking compartment. At a big station a few
miles back two men in the uniform of officers boarded the car, one of
them burly, rotund, and sallow. He was shown to the section just in
front of the girls, and at Pappoose he stared--stared long and hard, so
that she bit her lip and turned nervously away. The porter dusted the
seat and disposed of the hand luggage and hung about the new arrivals in
adulation. The burly man was evidently a personage of importance, and
his shoulder straps indicated that he was a major of the general staff.
The other, who followed somewhat diffidently, was a young lieutenant of
infantry, whose trim frock-coat snugly fitted his slender figure.
"Ah, sit down here, Mr.--Mr. Loomis," said the major patronizingly. "So
you are going up to the Big Horn. Well, sir, I hope we shall hear good
accounts of you. There's a splendid field for officers of the right
sort--there--and opportunities for distinction--every day."
At sound of the staff officer's voice there roused up from the opposite
section, where he had been dozing over a paper, a man of middle age,
slim, athletic, with heavy mustache and imperial, just beginning to turn
gray, with deep-set eyes under bushy brows, and a keen, shrewd face,
rather deeply lined. There was a look of dissipation there, a shade of
shabbiness about his clothes, a rakish cut to the entire personality
that had caused Folsom to glance distrustfully at him more than once the
previous afternoon, and to meet with coldness the tentatives permissible
in fellow travelers. The stranger's morning had been lonesome. Now he
held his newspaper where it would partly shield his face, yet permit his
watching the officers across the aisle. And something in his stealthy
scrutiny attracted Pappoose.
"Yes," continued the major, "I have seen a great deal of that country,
and Mr. Dean, of whom you spoke, was attached to the troop escorting our
commission. He is hardly--I regret to have to say it--er--what you
imagine. We were, to put it mildly, much disappointed in his conduct the
day of our meeting with the Sioux."
A swift, surprised glance passed between the girls, a pained look shot
into the lieutenant's face, but before the major could go on the man
across the aisle arose and bent over him with extended hand.
"Ah, Burleigh, I thought I knew the voice." But the hand was not
grasped. The major was drawing back, his face growing yellow-white with
some strange dismay.
"You don't seem sure of my identity. Let me refresh your memory,
Burleigh. I am Captain Newhall. I see you need a drink, major--I'll take
one with you."