WAR RUMORS.
The announcement that Captain Truscott had gone to Washington was
received at the officers' mess with no little excitement. Questioned as
to the meaning of it, the commandant of cadets unreservedly replied that
Truscott would not risk failure, but, with the full permission of the
superintendent, had gone to see the Secretary of War and get immediate
orders to join his regiment. The --th was to take the field at once,
said the colonel, and Truscott felt that it was his duty to go. Things
looked very much as though there would be a stubborn and protracted
Indian war, and undoubtedly the captain was right in his view of the
matter. In this opinion there was general acquiescence among the staff
and artillery officers present,--it is always safe to adhere to general
principles which are not apt to be personal in their application, and
the staff and artillery rarely were called upon to take part in such
hostilities,--and Mr. Ferris being a cavalryman of spirit was quite
disposed to think it the proper thing for him, too, to ask for orders,
although the possibility of his regiment's being involved was indeed
remote. One or two officers, however, maintained that the principle was
bad as a precedent; that hereafter officers might feel it a reflection
upon them if they did not immediately ask to be sent to their commands
on the first rumor of hostilities, no matter how important might be the
duties upon which they were detached. On this view of the case very
little was said, but one or two gentlemen whose regiments were known to
be marching on the Yellowstone country looked gratefully at the
originator and nodded their heads appreciatively. It was mid June now,
and except the fight with Crazy Horse's band on Patrick's Day and an
unimportant brush with the Sioux on the head-waters of the Tongue River,
nothing that could be called "hostilities" had really taken place. "The
Indians will be surrounded and will surrender without a blow," said
those who sought for reason to evade going; but no man who knew anything
of Indian character or Indian methods believed that for an instant.
Every experienced officer knew, and knew well, that a mortal struggle
must come and come soon, and come it did.
But Jack Truscott needed no such spur to urge him on the path of duty.
What it cost to cut loose from all that was so beautiful to him in his
happy home no one ever knew. What it cost his brave young wife to let
him go was never told. Barely half a year had they rejoiced together in
their love-lit surroundings, the most envied couple at the Point,--and
there is vast comfort in being envied,--and Grace Truscott had never for
an instant dreamed that so rude an interruption could come; but come it
had, with blinding, sudden force, that for a time stunned and wellnigh
crushed her. Jack had lifted her in his strong arms and almost carried
her to their room the night when he _had_ to tell her of his
determination, but, once satisfied that his duty was plain, she rallied,
like the soldier's daughter she was, and spoke no word of repining. She
looked up in his eyes and bade him go. True, she cherished faint hope
that in Washington there would be attempt to dissuade him, for she had
good reason to know that in the days whereof we write there were
officials of the War Department who regarded Indian warfare on the
frontier as a matter quite beneath their notice,--one which might of
course concern the officers and men actually engaged, but that could be
of small moment to the Army,--that is, the Army as known to society, as
known to the press, and, 'tis to be feared, as understood by
Congress,--the Army in its exclusive and somewhat supercilious existence
at the National Capital. Colonel and Mrs. Pelham were there, and Jack
would of course see them; and was it not possible that there would be
officials of the highest authority who could convince him that his
services were not needed at the front, but could not be dispensed with
at the Point? Poor Grace! She little dreamed that for such a place as
her husband held there were dozens of applicants, and that senators and
representatives by the score had favorites and friends whom they were
eager to urge for every Eastern detail; and then, even now she did not
entirely know her Jack: so gentle, loving, caressing, as he was with
her, she could hardly realize the inflexibility of his purpose. The
interview with the Secretary of War was over in five minutes, and never
had that functionary experienced such a surprise. He had received
Captain Truscott's card and directed that he be admitted, vaguely
remembering him as the tall cavalry officer whom he had seen at the
Point on the first of the month, and whom, after the manner of his kind,
he had begged "to let him know if there should ever be anything he could
do for him in Washington," and now here he was, and had a favor to ask.
The Secretary sighed and looked up drearily from his papers, but rose
and shook hands with the young officer who entered, and blandly asked
him to be seated. Captain Truscott, however, bowed his thanks, said that
he had just left the adjutant-general, and had his full permission to
present in person this note from the superintendent of the Academy, and
his, the captain's, request to be immediately relieved from duty at West
Point with orders to join his regiment, then _en route_ to reinforce
General Crook.
The Secretary mechanically took the note between his nerveless fingers,
and simply stared at his visitor. At last he broke forth,--
"By the Eternal!" (and the administration was not Jacksonian either)
"Captain Truscott. This beats anything in my experience. Since I've been
in office every man who has called upon me has wanted orders for himself
or somebody else to come East. Do you mean you want to go West and
rejoin your regiment to do more of this Indian fighting?"
"Certainly, Mr. Secretary," was Truscott's half-amused reply.
"It shall be as you wish, of course," said the cabinet officer; "but
I've no words to say how I appreciate it. You seem to be of a different
kind of timber from those fellows who are always hanging around
Washington,--not but what they are all very necessary, and that sort of
thing," put in the Secretary, diplomatically; "but we have no end of men
who want to come to Washington. You're the first man I've heard of who
wanted to go. By Jove! Captain Truscott. Is there anything else you
want? Is there anything I can do that will convey to you my appreciation
of your course?"
"Well, sir, I have spoken to the adjutant-general about some six men of
the cavalry detachment at the Point who are eager to go to the frontier
for active service. If they could be transferred,--sent out with
recruits; we are short-handed in the --th, and my own troop needs
non-commissioned officers."
"Certainly it can be done. We'll see General T----about it at once."
That night Grace's last hope was broken by the telegram from Washington,
which told her that Jack would be home next day and that the orders were
issued.
Mrs. Pelham had stormed, of course, that is--to her husband. She stood
in awe of Jack, and had counted on spending much of the summer at the
Point. Living as they were at a Washington hotel, expenses were very
heavy, and madame had planned to recuperate her exhausted frame and
fortune in a long visit to dear Grace, who really ought to have a
mother's--"well, at least, if the captain is to be away so much of the
time, she will surely be lonely," madame had argued. It was really quite
fortunate that he had to go to Kentucky to buy horses. In his absence
she might recover much of the ground she felt she had lost in the last
year. The plan was fairly developed in her strategical mind, when who
should appear but the captain himself, and with the brief announcement
that they would start for Wyoming in a week.
Madame could not believe her senses; but either from shock or unusually
profound discretion, she refrained from an expression of her
sentiments, and Truscott continued his calm explanation. Grace had borne
up bravely at the idea of his throwing away the detail at the Point, but
had made one stipulation. She should go with him to the frontier,
rebuild their nest at the new station of his troop, and be near him as
woman could be during the summer's campaign, and all ready to welcome
him home at its close. He could not say her nay. Old Pelham's eyes
brimmed with tears, but when he spoke it was only to repress the
impetuous outbreak of his wife.
"Now, Dolly, no words. Truscott's right, so is Grace. It's bound to be a
sharp campaign no matter what your society friends say. By gad! I'd--I'd
give _anything_ to go, but I'm too old, Jack; I'd only be in the way.
You're right, my boy. You're right; you always are. Your place is with
the regiment when there's work to be done, and Grace is a soldier's
wife. She's right, too. Her place is near him."
In vain Mrs. Pelham argued that Grace could better remain East. Jack
knew his wife's mind. She would be just as comfortable; she would be far
happier in the cosey quarters of the big garrison at Russell. She would
have Mrs. Stannard, whom they all loved, for friend and companion, and
there were a dozen pleasant acquaintances among the ladies there to be
quartered. It was simply useless for madame to interpose. Everything had
been settled beforehand and without reference to her. The best they
could do was to accept Jack's invitation to come to the Point, be his
guests at the hotel, and see them off. He would dismantle his quarters
forthwith.
And when he returned to Grace next day she was brave, smiling, really
happy. She gloried in the idea of going with her soldier husband back to
the dear old --th, and she had another plan,--a surprise. She and Marion
had had a long talk, and as a result Marion wanted to go too. It was
novel. It was almost startling, yet--why not? Several young ladies were
already visiting at Hays,--two of them were going,--had gone to Russell
with relatives who were married in the --th. Miss Sanford was to have
spent the summer with them at the Point. Why should she not accompany
Grace to Wyoming and see something of that odd army life of which she
had heard so much. If Captain Truscott would have her she knew no reason
to prevent. And they all knew that in the captain's enforced absence on
the campaign no one could be so great a comfort, so dear a companion to
Grace, as her schoolmate Marion. There was only one question, said
Truscott, "Will Mr. Sanford consent?"
"I will write to-night," said the young lady, in reply, "and I feel
confident of his answer."
Within a week, as we know, the telegram had reached the --th announcing
Truscott's move, and that very afternoon Mrs. Stannard, seated on the
piazza of her new quarters and gazing southward across the bare parade
to the dun-colored barracks on the other side and the snow-capped peaks
of Colorado seemingly just beyond, was startled by a sudden sensation in
the group of officers in front of Colonel Whaling's. Another telegram.
Presently her husband left the group and came quickly to her, hands in
his pockets as usual, and with his customary expression of
unastonishable _nonchalance_. Still, she saw he had disturbing news,
and she rose anxiously to meet him, her sweet blue eyes clouded with the
dread she strove to repress.
"What is it, Luce?" she asked.
The major unpursed his lips and abandoned the attempted whistle.
"Been a fight--way up on the Rosebud," he briefly said, as he dropped
into a chair, still maintaining his apparent indifference of manner.
"Yes; but--what was it? Who is hurt this time?"
"H----, of the Third; shot through the face; can't live, they say.
Reckon that isn't the worst of it, either. Crook found the Indians far
too many for him and he had to fall back to his camps."
"Oh, Luce! Then it will be a hard campaign. What news for the --th?"
"Nothing as yet. We march, of course, at daybreak, and I suppose the
rest of the regiment will be hurried up from Kansas. What must be looked
after at once is the great mass of Indians at the Red Cloud and Spotted
Tail reservations on White River. They will get this news within the
next twenty-four hours, and it will so embolden them that the entire
gang will probably take the war-path. There is where we will be sent, I
fancy. Orders will reach us at Laramie. They say Sheridan himself is on
his way to the reservations to look into matters. Mrs. Turner been
here?" he suddenly asked, with a quick glance from under his shaggy
eyebrows.
"Mrs. Turner? Not since morning. Why?"
"There was a sort of snarl down at the store this morning, Some mention
of it was made while we were talking there at Whaling's, and I was
anxious to get the particulars. Wilkins was saying something about Ray
that worries me. Have you heard nothing?"
"Not a thing, Luce. Did you suppose Mrs. Turner was possessed of all the
information and would come to me with it?"
The major looked uncomfortable. "She would be apt to go to somebody, and
you were the nearest. Both those youngsters, Dana and Hunter, were
present, and they are leaky vessels, I'm told. Turner never tells her
anything, but the boys do."
"What a thing to say, Luce!"
"Can't help it," growled the major, thrusting out his spurred boot-heels
towards the railing and tilting back in his chair. "You never heard, I
suppose, that between her and Mrs. Raymond and Mrs. Wilkins there was a
regular intelligence bureau at Sandy two years ago. So you heard nothing
about this affair?"
"Not a word; and it occurs to me, Major Stannard, that you look vastly
as though you wish Mrs. Turner _had_ come with the details. That's just
the way with you men. You rail at our sex for gossiping, and growl when
we can't or won't tell you anything. Luce! Luce! How consistent!" And in
her enjoyment of her burly lord's discomfiture, Mrs. Stannard forgot for
the moment her many anxieties and laughed blithely.
The major had too much to worry him, however, and this was so evident to
his devoted wife that her laugh was brief,--it was never loud or
strident,--and she moved her chair nearer to his own.
"Is Mr. Ray in any trouble?" she asked, with genuine concern.
"I don't know. Of the officers present at the conversation in the store
this morning all I have since seen were infantrymen, whom I couldn't
ask. Wayne and Merrill heard something of it and came to me at once
because of their regard for Ray, but Blake has gone to town. He is the
man who snubbed Crane and Wilkins. It seems Wilkins claims to have a
letter from somebody--that man Gleason probably--to the effect that Ray
has been on a perpetual tear with the very man of all others I dreaded
his meeting. You remember that contractor, Rallston."
"Mr. Ray's brother-in-law?"
"Yes; worse luck! I knew the fellow by reputation before we went to
Arizona. He's a scoundrel, and a very polished one, too. Ray is smart
enough ordinarily, but if Rallston has been trying to sell him horses
there will be trouble sooner or later. I'm more worried about that than
over the campaign news. Sorry about H----, of course, though I'd never
met him: They say he is a capital officer; but I can't start to-morrow
and have this thing haunting me all the way up to Laramie. I'll go down
to camp and hunt up Wilkins, and ask him flat-footed for his whole
story; then there will be time to write to Ray, or telegraph if need
be."
That was a dreary night at Russell. All the afternoon the telegraph
instrument at headquarters was clicking away with details of the brief
and sudden fight upon the Rosebud, and the officers read in silence the
description of the hordes upon hordes of savages that swooped down upon
Crook's little column, and whirled his allied Absarakás and Shoshones
off the wooded bluffs. "They must have been reinforced from every
reservation between the Missouri and the mountains," was the comment,
for the whole country swarmed with them. Scout after scout had been sent
out to strive to push through to the Yellowstone and communicate with
General Terry's forces, known to be concentrated at the mouth of the
Tongue. Some had come back, chased in to the very guard by yelling
"hostiles." Several had failed to return at all, but--significant
fact--none had succeeded in getting through. The last of June would soon
be at hand; the forces that were to co-operate--Crook's from the Big
Horn foot-hills at the south, Terry's from the banks of the Yellowstone
at the north--had reached their appointed stations and even gone beyond,
but not a vestige of communication could they establish one with the
other. Crook, striving to force his way through from his corrals and
camps, had been overpowered and thrust back by the concentration upon
him of five times his weight in foes. Terry, sending his cavalry
scouting up the Rosebud, found an unimpeded passage for miles and miles;
and even as our friends at Russell were reading with gloomy faces the
tidings from the front, a little battalion of cavalry, pushing
venturously up the wild and picturesque valley, came suddenly upon a
sight that bade their leader pause.
Up from among the wild rose-bushes along the sparkling stream, and
climbing the great "divide" to the west, there ran a broad, new-beaten,
dusty trail, pounded by the hoofs of ten thousand ponies, strewn on
every side with abandoned lodge-poles, worn-out blankets, or other
_impedimenta_, malodorous, unsightly. "The Indians have crossed to the
Little Horn within the last three days," said the experienced scouts in
the advance. Back went the column down the valley to report the news,
and three days afterwards two war-tried regiments of horse were _en
route_. From the south, heading for the Black Hills of Dakota, with
orders to find the trail leading from the reservations to the Indian
country and put a stop to the forwarding of reinforcements or supplies,
rode our old Arizona acquaintances of the --th. From the north, pushing
up the Rosebud into the very heart of the hostile regions, with orders
to find the lurking-place of the swarming savages and "hold them" from
the east, there came a command and a commander famed in song and story.
Between them and the Big Horn heights and cañons, where lay the comrade
force of Crook, there rolled a glorious tract of wooded crest, of
sweeping, upland prairie, of deep and sheltered valley, of plashing
stream and foaming torrent, and there in their guarded fastness,
exulting in their strength, mad with rejoicing over their easy victory,
lighting the valley for miles with their council-fires, rousing the
echoes with triumphant shout and speech, thousand upon thousand gathered
the Indian foemen, "covering the hills like a red cloud."