glad to have it over. The General watched him, and slowly, after a
pause, he demanded:
"May I ask, Colonel, why you chose that blond baby to send on a mission
of uncommon danger and importance?"
The Colonel answered quietly: "There were several reasons, General--good
ones. The blond baby"--that ghost of a smile touched the Colonel's lips
again--"the blond baby has some remarkable qualities. He never loses his
head; he has uncommon invention and facility of getting out of bad
holes; he rides light and so can make a horse last longer than most,
and"--the Colonel considered a moment--"I may say he has no fear of
death. Even among my officers he is known for the quality of his
courage. There is one more reason: he is the most popular man I have,
both with officers and men; if anything happened to Morgan the whole
command would race into hell after the devils that did it, before they
would miss their revenge."
The General reflected, pulling at his mustache. "It seems a bit like
taking advantage of his popularity," he said.
"It is," the Colonel threw back quickly. "It's just that. But that's
what one must do--a commanding officer--isn't it so, General? In this
war music we play on human instruments, and if a big chord comes out
stronger for the silence of a note, the note must be silenced--that's
all. It's cruel, but it's fighting; it's the game."
The General, as if impressed with the tense words, did not respond, and
the other officers stared at the Colonel's face, as carved, as stern as
if done in marble--a face from which the warm, strong heart seldom
shone, held back always by the stronger will.
The big, fresh-colored young Captain broke the silence. "Has the General
ever heard of the trick Morgan played on Sun Boy, sir?" he asked.
"Tell the General, Captain Booth," the Colonel said briefly, and the
Captain turned toward the higher officer.
"It was apropos of what the Colonel said of his inventive faculties,
General," he began. "A year ago the youngster with a squad of ten men
walked into Sun Boy's camp of seventy-five warriors. Morgan had made
quite a pet of a young Sioux, who was our prisoner for five months, and
the boy had taught him a lot of the language, and assured him that he
would have the friendship of the band in return for his kindness to Blue
Arrow--that was the chap's name. So he thought he was safe; but it
turned out that Blue Arrow's father, a chief, had got into a row with
Sun Boy, and the latter would not think of ratifying the boy's promise.
So there was Morgan with his dozen men, in a nasty enough fix. He knew
plenty of Indian talk to understand that they were discussing what they
would do with him, and it wasn't pleasant.
"All of a sudden he had an inspiration. He tells the story himself, sir,
and I assure you he'd make you laugh--Morgan is a wonderful mimic. Well,
he remembered suddenly, as I said, that he was a mighty good
ventriloquist, and he saw his chance. He gave a great jump like a
startled fawn, and threw up his arms and stared like one demented into
the tree over their heads. There was a mangy-looking crow sitting up
there on a branch, and Morgan pointed at him as if at something
marvellous, supernatural, and all those fool Indians stopped pow-wowing
and stared up after him, as curious as monkeys. Then to all appearances,
the crow began to talk. Morgan said they must have thought that spirits
didn't speak very choice Sioux, but he did his best. The bird cawed out:
"'Oh, Sun Boy, great chief, beware what you do!'
"And then the real bird flapped its wings and Morgan thought it was
going to fly, and he was lost. But it settled back again on the branch,
and Morgan proceeded to caw on:
"'Hurt not the white man, or the curses of the gods will come upon Sun
Boy and his people.'
"And he proceeded to give a list of what would happen if the Indians
touched a hair of their heads. By this time the red devils were all down
on their stomachs, moaning softly whenever Morgan stopped cawing. He
said he quite got into the spirit of it and would have liked to go on
some time, but he was beginning to get hoarse, and besides he was in
deadly terror for fear the crow would fly before he got to the point. So
he had the spirit order them to give the white men their horses and turn
them loose instanter; and just as he got all through, off went the thing
with a big flap and a parting caw on its own account. I wish I could
tell it as Morgan does--you'd think he was a bird and an Indian rolled
together. He's a great actor spoiled, that lad."
"You leave out a fine point, to my mind, Captain Booth," the Colonel
said quickly. "About his going back."
"Oh! certainly that ought to be told," said the Captain, and the
General's eyes turned to him again. "Morgan forgot to see young Blue
Arrow, his friend, before he got away, and nothing would do but that he
should go back and speak to him. He said the boy would be disappointed.
The men were visibly uneasy at his going, but that didn't affect him. He
ordered them to wait, and back he went, pell-mell, all alone into that
horde of fiends. They hadn't got over their funk, luckily, and he saw
Blue Arrow and made his party call and got out again all right. He
didn't tell that himself, but Sergeant O'Hara made the camp ring with
it. He adores Morgan, and claims that he doesn't know what fear is. I
believe it's about so. I've seen him in a fight three times now. His cap
always goes off--he loses a cap every blessed scrimmage--and with that
yellow mop of hair, and a sort of rapt expression he gets, he looks like
a child saying its prayers all the time he is slashing and shooting like
a berserker." Captain Booth faced abruptly toward the Colonel. "I beg
your pardon for talking so long, sir," he said. "You know we're all
rather keen about little Miles Morgan."
The General lifted his head suddenly. "Miles Morgan?" he demanded. "Is
his name Miles Morgan."
The Colonel nodded. "Yes. The grandson of the old Bishop--named for
him."
"Lord!" ejaculated the General. "Miles Morgan was my earliest friend, my
friend until he died! This must be Jim's son--Miles's only child. And
Jim is dead these ten years," he went on rapidly. "I've lost track of
him since the Bishop died, but I knew Jim left children. Why, he
married"--he searched rapidly in his memory--"he married a daughter of
General Fitzbrian's. This boy's got the church and the army both in him.
I knew his mother," he went on, talking to the Colonel, garrulous with
interest. "Irish and fascinating she was--believed in fairies and ghosts
and all that, as her father did before her. A clever woman, but with the
superstitious, wild Irish blood strong in her. Good Lord! I wish I'd
known that was Miles Morgan's grandson."
The Colonel's voice sounded quiet and rather cold after the General's
impulsive enthusiasm. "You have summed him up by his antecedents,
General," he said. "The church and the army--both strains are strong. He
is deeply religious."
The General looked thoughtful. "Religious, eh? And popular? They don't
always go together."
Captain Booth spoke quickly. "It's not that kind, General," he said.
"There's no cant in the boy. He's more popular for it--that's often so
with the genuine thing, isn't it? I sometimes think"--the young
Captain hesitated and smiled a trifle deprecatingly--"that Morgan is
much of the same stuff as Gordon--Chinese Gordon; the martyr stuff, you
know. But it seems a bit rash to compare an every-day American youngster
to an inspired hero."
"There's nothing in Americanism to prevent either inspiration or heroism
that I know of," the General affirmed stoutly, his fine old head up, his
eyes gleaming with pride of his profession.
Out through the open doorway, beyond the slapping tent-flap, the keen,
gray eyes of the Colonel were fixed musingly on two black points which
crawled along the edge of the dulled silver of the distant river--Miles
Morgan and Sergeant O'Hara had started.
* * * * *
"Sergeant!" They were eight miles out now, and the camp had disappeared
behind the elbow of Black Wind Mountain. "There's something wrong with
your horse. Listen! He's not loping evenly." The soft cadence of eight
hoofs on earth had somewhere a lighter and then a heavier note; the ear
of a good horseman tells in a minute, as a musician's ear at a false
note, when an animal saves one foot ever so slightly, to come down
harder on another.
"Yessirr. The Lieutenant'll remimber 'tis the horrse that had a bit of a
spavin, Sure I thot 'twas cured, and 'tis the kindest baste in the
rigiment f'r a pleasure ride, sorr--that willin' 'tis. So I tuk it. I
think 'tis only the stiffness at furrst aff. 'Twill wurruk aff later.
Plaze God, I'll wallop him." And the Sergeant walloped with a will.
But the kindest beast in the regiment failed to respond except with a
plunge and increased lameness. Soon there was no more question of his
incapacity.
Lieutenant Morgan halted his mount, and, looking at the woe-begone
O'Hara, laughed. "A nice trick this is, Sergeant," he said, "to start
out on a trip to dodge Indians with a spavined horse. Why didn't you get
a broomstick? Now go back to camp as fast as you can go; and that horse
ought to be blistered when you get there. See if you can't really cure
him. He's too good to be shot." He patted the gray's nervous head, and
the beast rubbed it gently against his sleeve, quiet under his hand.
"Yessirr. The Lieutenant'll ride slow, sorr, f'r me to catch up on ye,
sorr?"
Miles Morgan smiled and shook his head. "Sorry, Sergeant, but there'll
be no slow riding in this. I'll have to press right on without you; I
must be at Massacre Mountain to-night to catch Captain Thornton
to-morrow."
Sergeant O'Hara's chin dropped. "Sure the Lieutenant'll niver be
thinkin' to g'wan alone--widout _me_?" and with all the sergeant's
respect of his superiors, it took the Lieutenant ten valuable minutes to
get the man started back, shaking his head and muttering forebodings, to
the camp.
It was quiet riding on alone. There were a few miles to go before there
was any chance of Indians, and no particular lookout to be kept, so he
put the horse ahead rapidly while he might, and suddenly he found
himself singing softly as he galloped. How the words had come to him he
did not know, for no conscious train of thought had brought them; but
they surely fitted to the situation, and a pleasant sense of
companionship, of safety, warmed him as the swing of an old hymn carried
his voice along with it.
God shall charge His angel legions
Watch and ward o'er thee to keep;
Though thou walk through hostile regions,
Though in desert wilds thou sleep.
Surely a man riding toward--perhaps through--skulking Indian hordes, as
he must, could have no better message reach him than that. The bent of
his mind was toward mysticism, and while he did not think the train of
reasoning out, could not have said that he believed it so, yet the
familiar lines flashing suddenly, clearly, on the curtain of his mind,
seemed to him, very simply, to be sent from a larger thought than his
own. As a child might take a strong hand held out as it walked over
rough country, so he accepted this quite readily and happily, as from
that Power who was never far from him, and in whose service, beyond most
people, he lived and moved. Low but clear and deep his voice went on,
following one stanza with its mate:
Since with pure and firm affection
Thou on God hast set thy love,
With the wings of His protection
He will shield thee from above.
The simplicity of his being sheltered itself in the broad promise of the
words.
Light-heartedly he rode on and on, though now more carefully; lying flat
and peering over the crests of hills a long time before he crossed
their tops; going miles perhaps through ravines; taking advantage of
every bit of cover where a man and a horse might be hidden; travelling
as he had learned to travel in three years of experience in this
dangerous Indian country, where a shrub taken for granted might mean a
warrior, and that warrior a hundred others within signal. It was his
plan to ride until about twelve--to reach Massacre Mountain, and there
rest his horse and himself till gray daylight. There was grass there and
a spring--two good and innocent things that had been the cause of the
bad, dark thing which had given the place its name. A troop under
Captain James camping at this point, because of the water and grass, had
been surprised and wiped out by five hundred Indian braves of the wicked
and famous Red Crow. There were ghastly signs about the place yet;
Morgan had seen them, but soldiers may not have nerves, and it was good
camping ground.
On through the valleys and half-way up the slopes, which rolled here far
away into a still wilder world, the young man rode. Behind the distant
hills in the east a glow like fire flushed the horizon. A rim of pale
gold lifted sharply over the ridge; a huge round ball of light pushed
faster, higher, and lay, a bright world on the edge of the world, great
against the sky--the moon had risen. The twilight trembled as the yellow
rays struck into its depths, and deepened, dying into purple shadows.
Across the plain zigzagged pools of a level stream, as if a giant had
spilled handfuls of quicksilver here and there.
Miles Morgan, riding, drank in all the mysterious, wild beauty, as a man
at ease; as open to each fair impression as if he were not riding each
moment into deeper danger, as if his every sense were not on guard. On
through the shining moonlight and in the shadow of the hills he rode,
and, where he might, through the trees, and stopped to listen often, to
stare at the hill-tops, to question a heap of stones or a bush.
At last, when his leg-weary horse was beginning to stumble a bit, he
saw, as he came around a turn, Massacre Mountain's dark head rising in
front of him, only half a mile away. The spring trickled its low song,
as musical, as limpidly pure as if it had never run scarlet. The
picketed horse fell to browsing and Miles sighed restfully as he laid
his head on his saddle and fell instantly to sleep with the light of the
moon on his damp, fair hair. But he did not sleep long. Suddenly with a
start he awoke, and sat up sharply, and listened. He heard the horse
still munching grass near him, and made out the shadow of its bulk
against the sky; he heard the stream, softly falling and calling to the
waters where it was going. That was all. Strain his hearing as he might
he could hear nothing else in the still night. Yet there was something.
It might not be sound or sight, but there was a presence, a
something--he could not explain. He was alert in every nerve. Suddenly
the words of the hymn he had been singing in the afternoon flashed again
into his mind, and, with his cocked revolver in his hand, alone, on
guard, in the midnight of the savage wilderness, the words came that
were not even a whisper:
God shall charge His angel legions
Watch and ward o'er thee to keep;
Though thou walk through hostile regions,
Though in desert wilds thou sleep.
He gave a contented sigh and lay down. What was there to worry about? It
was just his case for which the hymn was written. "Desert wilds"--that
surely meant Massacre Mountain, and why should he not sleep here
quietly, and let the angels keep their watch and ward? He closed his
eyes with a smile. But sleep did not come, and soon his eyes were open
again, staring into blackness, thinking, thinking.
It was Sunday when he started out on this mission, and he fell to
remembering the Sunday nights at home--long, long ago they seemed now.
The family sang hymns after supper always; his mother played, and the
children stood around her--five of them, Miles and his brothers and
sisters. There was a little sister with brown hair about her shoulders,
who always stood by Miles, leaned against him, held his hand, looked up
at him with adoring eyes--he could see those uplifted eyes now, shining
through the darkness of this lonely place. He remembered the big,
home-like room; the crackling fire; the peaceful atmosphere of books and
pictures; the dumb things about its walls that were yet eloquent to him
of home and family; the sword that his great-grandfather had worn under
Washington; the old ivories that another great-grandfather, the Admiral,
had brought from China; the portraits of Morgans of half a dozen
generations which hung there; the magazine table, the books and books
and books. A pang of desperate homesickness suddenly shook him. He
wanted them--his own. Why should he, their best-beloved, throw away his
life--a life filled to the brim with hope and energy and high ideals--on
this futile quest? He knew quite as well as the General or the Colonel
that his ride was but a forlorn hope. As he lay there, longing so, in
the dangerous dark, he went about the library at home in his thought and
placed each familiar belonging where he had known it all his life. And
as he finished, his mother's head shone darkly golden by the piano; her
fingers swept over the keys; he heard all their voices, the dear
never-forgotten voices. Hark! They were singing his hymn--little Alice's
reedy note lifted above the others--"God shall charge His angel
legions--"
Now! He was on his feet with a spring, and his revolver pointed
steadily. This time there was no mistaking--something had rustled in the
bushes. There was but one thing for it to be--Indians. Without realizing
what he did, he spoke sharply.
"Who goes there?" he demanded, and out of the darkness a voice answered
quietly:
"A friend."
"A friend?" With a shock of relief the pistol dropped by his side, and
he stood tense, waiting. How might a friend be here, at midnight in this
desert? As the thought framed itself swiftly the leaves parted, and his
straining eyes saw the figure of a young man standing before him.
"How came you here?" demanded Miles sternly. "Who are you?"
Even in the dimness he could see the radiant smile that answered him.
The calm voice spoke again: "You will understand that later. I am here
to help you."
As if a door had suddenly opened into that lighted room of which he
dreamed, Miles felt a sense of tranquillity, of happiness stirring
through him. Never in his life had he known such a sudden utter
confidence in anyone, such a glow of eager friendliness as this
half-seen, mysterious stranger inspired. "It is because I was lonelier
than I knew," he said mentally. "It is because human companionship gives
courage to the most self-reliant of us"; and somewhere in the words he
was aware of a false note, but he did not stop to place it.
The low, even voice of the stranger spoke again. "There are Indians on
your trail," he said. "A small band of Black Wolf's scouts. But don't be
troubled. They will not hurt you."
"You escaped from them?" demanded Miles eagerly, and again the light of
a swift smile shone into the night. "You came to save me--how was it?
Tell me, so that we can plan. It is very dark yet, but hadn't we better
ride? Where is your horse?"
He threw the earnest questions rapidly across the black night, and the
unhurried voice answered him. "No," it said, and the verdict was not to
be disputed. "You must stay here."
Who this man might be or how he came Miles could not tell, but this much
he knew, without reason for knowing it; it was someone stronger than he,
in whom he could trust. As the newcomer had said, it would be time
enough later to understand the rest. Wondering a little at his own swift
acceptance of an unknown authority, wondering more at the peace which
wrapped him as an atmosphere at the sound of the stranger's voice, Miles
made a place for him by his side, and the two talked softly to the
plashing undertone of the stream.
Easily, naturally, Miles found himself telling how he had been homesick,
longing for his people. He told him of the big familiar room, and of the
old things that were in it, that he loved; of his mother; of little
Alice, and her baby adoration for the big brother; of how they had
always sung hymns together Sunday night; he never for a moment doubted
the stranger's interest and sympathy--he knew that he cared to hear.
"There is a hymn," Miles said, "that we used to sing a lot--it was my
favorite; 'Miles's hymn,' the family called it. Before you came
to-night, while I lay there getting lonelier every minute, I almost
thought I heard them singing it. You may not have heard it, but it has a
grand swing. I always think"--he hesitated--"it always seems to me as if
the God of battles and the beauty of holiness must both have filled the
man's mind who wrote it." He stopped, surprised at his own lack of
reserve, at the freedom with which, to this friend of an hour, he spoke
his inmost heart.
"I know," the stranger said gently. There was silence for a moment, and
then the wonderful low tones, beautiful, clear, beyond any voice Miles
had ever heard, began again, and it was as if the great sweet notes of
an organ whispered the words:
God shall charge His angel legions
Watch and ward o'er thee to keep;
Though thou walk through hostile regions,
Though in desert wilds thou sleep.
"Great Heavens!" gasped Miles. "How could you know I meant that? Why,
this is marvellous--why, this"--he stared, speechless, at the dim
outlines of the face which he had never seen before to-night, but which
seemed to him already familiar and dear beyond all reason. As he gazed
the tall figure rose, lightly towering above him. "Look!" he said, and
Miles was on his feet. In the east, beyond the long sweep of the
prairie, was a faint blush against the blackness; already threads of
broken light, of pale darkness, stirred through the pall of the air; the
dawn was at hand.
"We must saddle," Miles said, "and be off. Where is your horse
picketed?" he demanded again.
But the strange young man stood still; and now his arm was stretched
pointing. "Look," he said again, and Miles followed the direction with
his eyes.
From the way he had come, in that fast-growing glow at the edge of the
sky, sharp against the mist of the little river, crept slowly half a
dozen pin points, and Miles, watching their tiny movement, knew that
they were ponies bearing Indian braves. He turned hotly to his
companion.
"It's your fault," he said. "If I'd had my way we'd have ridden from
here an hour ago. Now here we are caught like rats in a trap; and who's
to do my work and save Thornton's troop--who's to save them--God!" The
name was a prayer, not an oath.
"Yes," said the quiet voice at his side, "God,"--and for a second there
was a silence that was like an Amen.
Quickly, without a word, Miles turned and began to saddle. Then suddenly
as he pulled at the girth, he stopped. "It's no use," he said. "We can't
get away except over the rise, and they'll see us there"; he nodded at
the hill which rose beyond the camping ground three hundred yards away,
and stretched in a long, level sweep into other hills and the west. "Our
chance is that they're not on my trail after all--it's quite possible."
There was a tranquil unconcern about the figure near him; his own bright
courage caught the meaning of its relaxed lines with a hound of
pleasure. "As you say, it's best to stay here," he said, and as if
thinking aloud--"I believe you must always be right." Then he added, as
if his very soul would speak itself to this wonderful new friend: "We
can't be killed, unless the Lord wills it, and if he does it's right.
Death is only the step into life; I suppose when we know that life, we
will wonder how we could have cared for this one."
Through the gray light the stranger turned his face swiftly, bent toward
Miles, and smiled once again, and the boy thought suddenly of the
martyrdom of St. Stephen, and how those who were looking "saw his face
as it had been the face of an angel."