At three o'clock in the morning, while the stars were still bright in
the eastern sky, the little party of troopers, Dean at the irhead, had
ridden away from the twinkling lights of camp, and long before sunrise
had crossed the first divide to the north, and alternating trot, lope
and walk had put miles between them and Fort Emory before the drums of
the infantry beat the call for guard mounting.
At ten o'clock the party halted under some spreading willows, deep in a
cleft of the bold, high hills that rolled away toward the Sweetwater
valley. Horses were unsaddled and picketed out to graze. A little cook
fire was started close to the spring that fed the tiny brook, trickling
away down the narrow ravine, and in a few moments the aroma of coffee
and of appetizing slices of bacon greeted the welcoming nostrils of the
hungry men. The sun that had risen clear and dazzling was now obscured
by heavy masses of clouds, and time and again Dean cast anxious eyes
aloft, for a storm seemed sweeping eastward from the distant Wahsatch
range, and long before the little command had dived downward from the
heights into the depths of this wild, romantic and contracted valley,
all the rolling upland toward Green River, far to the west, lay under
the pall of heavy and forbidding banks of hurrying vapor. Coffee and
breakfast finished, Dean climbed the steep bluff overhanging the spring,
a faithful sergeant following, and what he saw was sufficient to
determine immediate action.
"Saddle up. We'll push ahead at once."
For an instant the veteran trooper looked dissent, but discipline
prevailed.
"The lieutenant knows that Carey's not in yet," he ventured to say, as
he started back down the narrow game trail which they had climbed.
"Yes; but yonder he comes and so does the storm. We can't be caught in
this canon in case of a hard rain. Let Carey have some coffee and a
bite, if he feels well enough. Then we'll push on."
Ordinarily when making summer marches over the range, the first "water
camp" on the Sweetwater trail was here at Canon Springs. On the road to
Frayne, which crossed the brook ten miles to the east, all wagon trains
and troops not on forced march made similar camp. In the case of
scouting detachments or little parties sent out from Emory, it was
always customary to spend the first night and make the first camp on the
Box Elder at furthermost, then to push on, ready and refreshed, the
following day. Dean well knew that to get the best work out of his
horses he should start easily, and up to nine o'clock he had fully
intended to make the usual camp at the Springs. But once before, within
a few years, a big scouting party camping in the gorge of the Box Elder
had been surprised by one of those sudden, sweeping storms, and before
they could strike tents, pack up and move to higher ground, the stream
took matters into its own hands and spared them all further trouble on
that score, distributing camp and garrison equipage for long leagues
away to the east. Two miles back, trooper Carey, who had been
complaining of severe cramp and pain in the stomach, begged to be
allowed to fall out and rest awhile. He was a reliable old soldier when
whisky was not winning the upper hand, and this time whisky was not at
fault. A dose of Jamaica ginger was the only thing their field
pharmacopoeia provided, and Carey rolled out of his saddle and doubled
up among the rocks with his hands on the pit of his stomach, grimacing.
"Go back if you think best, or come ahead and catch us at the Springs if
well enough," were the orders left him, while the men pushed on, and
now, as the lieutenant said, Carey was coming himself. Some of the party
were already dozing when the sergeant's sharp order "Saddle up" was
given, but a glance at the lowering sky explained it all, and every man
was standing to horse and ready when the missing trooper came jogging in
among them, white, peaked, but determined. A look of mingled
disappointment and relief appeared on his face as he saw the
preparations for the start, but his only comment was, "I can make it,
sir," as he saluted his young commander. Less than two hours from the
time they unsaddled, therefore, the troopers once more mounted, and,
following their leader, filed away down the winding gorge. Presently
there came the low rumble of thunder, and a sweep of the rising wind.
"Trot," said Dean, and without other word the little column quickened
the pace.
The ravine grew wider soon and far less tortuous, but was still a narrow
and dangerous spot. For a mile or two from the Springs its course was
nearly east of north, then it bore away to the northeast, and the
Sweetwater trail abruptly left it and went winding up a cleft in the
hills to the west. Just as they reached this point the heavens opened
and the clouds descended in a deluge of rain. Out came the ponchos,
unstrapped from the saddle, and every man's head popped through the slit
as the shiny black "shedwater" settled down on his shoulders.
"That outfit behind us will get a soaking if it has been fool enough to
follow down to the Springs," said Carey to the sergeant, as they began
the pull up the slippery trail.
"What outfit?" asked Dean, turning in the saddle and looking back in
surprise.
A blinding flash of lightning, followed almost on the instant by the
crack and roar of thunder, put summary stop to talk of any kind. Men and
horses bowed their heads before the deluge and the rain ran in streams
from the manes and tails. The ascending path turned quickly into a
running brook and the black forms of steeds and riders struggled
sidewise up the grass-grown slopes in search of higher ground. The
heavens had turned inky black. The gloomy ravine grew dark as night.
Flash after flash the lightning split the gloom. Every second or two
trooper faces gleamed ghastly in the dazzling glare, then as suddenly
vanished. Horses slipped or stumbled painfully and, man after man, the
riders followed the example of the young soldier in the lead and,
dismounting, led their dripping beasts farther up the steep incline.
Halfway to the summit, peering through the wind-swept sheets of rain, a
palisaded clump of rocks jutted out from the heights and, after a hard
climb, the little band found partial shelter from the driving storm, and
huddled, awe-stricken, at their base. Still the lightning played and the
thunder cannonaded with awful resonance from crag to crag down the deep
gorge from which they had clambered, evidently none too soon, for
presently, far down the black depths, they could see the Box Elder,
under a white wreath of foam, tearing in fury down its narrow bed.
"Beg pardon, lieutenant," shouted the veteran sergeant in the young
commander's ear, even in that moment never forgetting the habitual
salute, "but if I didn't see the reason for that sudden order to saddle
I more than see it now. We would have been drowned like rats down there
in the gulch."
"I'm wondering if anybody _has_ drowned like rats," shouted Dean, in
reply. "Carey says another party was just behind us. Who could they be?"
But for answer came another vivid, dazzling flash that for an instant
blinded all eyes. "By God! but that's a stunner!" gasped a big trooper,
and then followed the deafening bang and crash of the thunder, and its
echoes went booming and reverberating from earth to heaven and rolling
away, peal after peal, down the bluff-bound canon. For a moment no other
sound could be heard; then, as it died away and the rain came swashing
down in fresh deluge, Carey's voice overmastered the storm.
"That's struck something, sir, right around yonder by the Springs. God
help that outfit that came a-gallopin' after me!"
"What was it? Which way were they coming?" Dean managed to ask.
"Right along the bluff, sir, to the east. Seemed like they was ridin'
over from the old camp on the Frayne road. There was twenty-five or
thirty of 'em, I should say, coming at a lope."
"Cavalry?" asked Dean, a queer look in his face.
"No, sir. They rode dispersed like. They was a mile away when I sighted
them, and it was gittin' so black then I don't think they saw me at all.
They were 'bout off yonder, half a mile east of the Springs when I
dipped down into the ravine, and what seemed queer was that two of them
galloped to the edge, dismounted, and were peering down into the gorge
like so many Indians, just as though they didn't want to be seen. I was
goin' to tell the lieutenant 'bout it first thing if I had found our
fellows off their guard, but you were all mounted and just starting."
Instinctively Dean put forth his hand under the dripping poncho and
tugged at the straps of his off saddle-bag. No need for dread on that
score. The bulky package, wrapped, sealed and corded, was bulging out of
the side of his field pouch till it looked as though he had crammed a
cavalry boot into its maw.
"Thirty men--mounted?--no wagons or--anything?" he anxiously asked.
"Full thirty, sir, and every man armed with rifle as far as I could
see," said Carey, "and if it was us they was after, they'd have had us
at their mercy down in that pocket at the Springs."
A shout from one of the men attracted the attention of the leaders. The
storm had spent its force and gone rolling away eastward. The thunder
was rumbling far over toward the now invisible crest of the Black Hills
of Wyoming. The rain sheets had given place to trickling downpour. A dim
light was stealing into the blackness of the gorge. Louder and fiercer
roared the Box Elder, lashing its banks with foam. And then came the cry
again.
"I tell you it is, by God! for there goes another!"
All eyes followed the direction of the pointing finger. All eyes saw,
even though dimly, the saddled form of a horse plunging and struggling
in the flood, making vain effort to clamber out, then whirling
helplessly away--swept out of sight around the shoulder of bluff, and
borne on down the tossing waves of the torrent. Men mean no irreverence
when they call upon their Maker at such times, even in soldier oath. It
is awe, not blasphemy.
"By God, lieutenant, that's what we'd a been doing but for your order."
It was the sergeant who spoke.
And at that very hour there was excitement at Fort Emory. At eight
o'clock the colonel was on his piazza looking with gloomy eyes over the
distant rows of empty barracks. The drum-major with the band at his
heels came stalking out over the grassy parade, and the post adjutant,
girt with sash and sword-belt, stood in front of his office awaiting the
sergeant-major, who was unaccountably delayed. Reduced to a shadow, the
garrison at Fort Emory might reasonably have been excused, by this time,
from the ceremony of mounting a guard, consisting practically of ten
privates, three of whom wore the cavalry jacket; but old "Pecksniff" was
determined to keep up some show of state. He could have no parade or
review, but at least he could require his guard to be mounted with all
the pomp and ceremony possible. He would have ordered his officers out
in epaulets and the full dress "Kossuth" hat of the period, but epaulets
had been discarded during the war and not yet resumed on the far
frontier. So the rank and file alone were called upon to appear in the
black-feathered oddity a misguided staff had designed as the headgear of
the array. "Pecksniff's" half-dozen doughboys, therefore, with their
attendant sergeants and corporals in the old fashioned frock and felt,
and a still smaller squad of troopers in yellow-trimmed jackets and
brass-mounted forage caps, were drawn up at the edge of the parade
awaiting the further signal of adjutant's call, while the adjutant
himself swore savagely and sent the orderly on the run for the
sergeant-major. When that clock-governed functionary was missing
something indeed must be going wrong.
Presently the orderly came running back.
"Sergeant Dineen isn't home, sir, and his wife says he hasn't been back
since the lieutenant sent him in town with the last dispatch."
"Tell the first sergeant of "B" Company, then, to act as sergeant-major
at once," said the adjutant, and hurried over to his colonel. "Dineen's
not back, sir," he reported at the gate. "Can anything be wrong?"
"I ordered him to bring with him the answer to my dispatch to the
general, who wired to me from the railway depot at Cheyenne. Probably
he's been waiting for that, and the general's away somewhere. We ought
to have an operator here day and night," said Pecksniff petulantly. But
the irritation in his eyes gave way to anxiety when at that moment the
sutler's buggy was seen dashing into the garrison at headlong speed, his
smart trotter urged almost to a run. Griggs reined up with no little
hard pulling at the colonel's gate, and they could see a dozen yards off
that his face was pale.
"Have you any idea, colonel," he began the moment the officers reached
him, "where Major Burleigh can be? He left the depot somewhere about
three o'clock this morning with that Captain Newhall. He hasn't returned
and can't be found. Your sergeant-major was waylaid and robbed some time
after midnight, and John Folsom was picked up senseless in the alley
back of his house two hours ago. What does it all mean?"