LIFE AT PIONEER POST.
Pioneer Post was a gem as a frontier post, for it was charmingly
located upon a bluff overhanging a river, with sloping hills
stretching down from the plateau on the summit to the plains below,
and a vast expanse of scenery upon every side.
Strongly built, it was well armed and an ideal fort. Many officers
had their families there, and Colonel Dunwoody, the bachelor
commandant, had a most hospitable staff, while he was ever ready to
add to the enjoyment and comfort of those under his command.
He was a handsome man, who had been promoted from lieutenant to the
rank of colonel for services rendered in action. He was a perfect
soldier, a thorough disciplinarian, and though having the means to
live in luxury in the fort, he yet was ready to put up with the
greatest hardships in the field.
There was an officers’ club in the fort, a ladies’ club, and with
polo, lawn-tennis, rowing on the river, hunting, riding, and
fishing-parties, life passed most pleasantly to all, notwithstanding
the fact that danger was constantly near, and the shadow of death
often came into their midst.
The garrison was a large one, and there were numerous belles and
beaux in the military family of the colonel. There was one bachelor
captain of cavalry, Dick Caruth, who was a general favorite with
all, and considered a fine parti by mothers with daughters in the
matrimonial mart, for he was a very handsome, daring fellow, with a
fortune and the hope of speedy promotion.
Lieutenant Vassar Turpin, the colonel’s aide, was another catch, and
there were half a dozen more.
Among the ladies were two who were known as the Rivals. One was Nina
de Sutro, a Mexican maiden reared mostly in the United States, and
who dwelt with her guardian and kinsman, Colonel Ravel de Sutro and
his beautiful wife, who was also a native of the sunny land of Mexico.
It was no wonder that Nina de Sutro at twenty was a belle, for she
was very beautiful, and she was brilliant and accomplished, though
perhaps a little too satirical and bitter at times.
Her rival was Clarice Carr, a young lady who was as popular with her
own sex as with the men. Those who made comparisons between Nina de
Sutro and Clarice Carr were wont to decide almost invariably that the
latter was the loveliest woman of the two.
She was highly accomplished, having passed much of her life abroad,
was an artist, songstress, and musician, as well; while few men dared
follow her lead when mounted. With a very large fortune under her
control, she preferred to live with her old schoolmate and relative,
Mrs. Lester, the wife of Major Lionel Lester, next officer in rank to
Lieutenant-Colonel De Sutro at the fort.
“I love the free life of these Western wilds far more than all the
gaieties of metropolitan life,” she was wont to say, and there was
little doubt but she spoke the truth.
Thus far neither Clarice Carr nor Nina de Sutro had been won by any
of their numerous lovers, and men began to fear that they had both
taken secret vows to become old maids.
If a rivalry existed between the two, it was Nina, not Clarice, that
revealed it, for the latter appeared to know no rival and to live for
others rather more than herself.
She admired Nina de Sutro greatly, yet felt pained at times to hear
her cut deeply when the opportunity offered, and often wound the one
she gave the stinging rejoinder to, while, with a look or smile she
would call him again to her side.
“She is a sad coquette, or heartless one, perhaps, and cannot help
it. At times I fear she has had some great sorrow to embitter her
life, and, if so, I pity her and could never reproach.”
So said Clarice Carr of Nina de Sutro to her confidante and devoted
friend, Louise Lester.
“So I have thought, Clarice, and Lionel also suggested it, for she is
all softness at times, and again almost cruel toward her admirers,”
was Mrs. Lester’s comment.
When Silk Lasso Sam, in his disguise as the wounded passenger hero,
Austin Marvin, had come to the fort, he had devoted himself at first
to Nina de Sutro, and she claimed to have met him in Mexico, where he
had saved her life.
But the secret of that meeting, the secret that was between them, she
did not reveal, and he dared not do so.
But soon after he turned his attention to Clarice Carr, and it
ended as the miner related to Bonnie Belle, in the leading of the
maiden into a treacherous trap from which she would not have escaped
without large ransom, but for Deadshot Dean’s tracking the outlaws
to their lair, with Buffalo Bill.
When the maiden was rescued, and the outlaws brought prisoners into
camp, the excitement was intense, and disciplined soldiers though
they were, there were mutterings of such intense hatred heard against
Silk Lasso Sam that a double guard was placed about him.
That they had all been most cleverly taken in, every officer had to
admit, though they could not but admire the magnificent nerve and
daring of the outlaw chief, who they realized was no ordinary man,
and hoped that an end would soon come to his many red deeds when he
died on the gallows.