BLACK CANYON.
The red sun is going down behind the line of distant buttes, throwing
long shadows out across the grassy upland. Every crest and billow of the
prairie is bathed in crimson and gold, while the "breaks" and ravines
trending southward grow black and forbidding in their contrasted gloom.
Far over to the southeast, in dazzling radiance, two lofty peaks, still
snow-clad, gleam against the summer sky, and at their feet dark waves of
forest-covered foot-hills drink in the last rays of the waning sunshine
as though hoarding its treasured warmth against the chill of coming
night. Already the evening air, rare and exhilarating at this great
altitude, loses the sun-god's touch and strikes upon the cheek keen as
the ether of the limitless heavens. A while ago, only in the distant
valley winding to the south could foliage be seen. Now, all in those
depths is merged in sombre shade, and not a leaf or tree breaks for
miles the grand monotony. Close at hand a host of tiny mounds, each
tipped with reddish gold, and some few further ornamented by miniature
sentry, alert and keen-eyed, tell of a prairie township already laid out
and thickly populated; and at this moment every sentry is chipping his
pert, querulous challenge until the disturbers of the peace are close
upon him, then diving headlong into the bowels of the earth.
A dun cloud of dust rolls skyward along a well-worn cavalry trail, and
is whirled into space by the hoofs of sixty panting chargers trotting
steadily south. Sixty sunburned, dust-covered troopers ride grimly on,
following the lead of a tall soldier whose kind brown eyes peer
anxiously from under his scouting-hat. It is just as they pass the
village of the prairie dogs that he points to the low valley down to the
front and questions the "plainsman" who lopes along by his side,--
"That Black Canyon down yonder?"
"That's it, lieutenant: I didn't think you could make it to-night."
"We _had_ to," is the simple reply as again the spur touches the jaded
flank and evokes only a groan in response.
"How far from here to--the Springs?" he presently asks again.
"Box Elder?--where they found the bodies?--'bout five mile, sir."
"Where away was that signal smoke we saw at the divide?"
"Must have been from those bluffs--east of the Springs, sir."
Lieutenant Lee whips out his watch and peers at the dial through the
twilight. The cloud deepens on his haggard, handsome face. Eight
o'clock, and they have been in saddle almost incessantly since yesterday
afternoon, weighed down with the tidings of the fell disaster that has
robbed them of their comrades, and straining every nerve to reach the
scene.
Only five days before, as he stepped from the railway car at the supply
station, a wagon-train had come in from the front escorted by Mr. Lee's
own troop; his captain with it, wounded. Just as soon as it could reload
with rations and ammunition the train was to start on its eight days'
journey to the Spirit Wolf, where Colonel Stanley and the --th were
bivouacked and scouring the neighboring mountains. Already a battalion
of infantry was at the station, another was on its way, and supplies
were being hurried forward. Captain Gregg brought the first reliable
news. The Indians had apparently withdrawn from the road. The
wagon-train had come through unmolested, and Colonel Stanley was
expecting to push forward into their fastnesses farther south the moment
he could obtain authority from head-quarters. With these necessary
orders two couriers had started just twelve hours before. The captain
was rejoiced to see his favorite lieutenant and to welcome Philip
Stanley to the regiment. "Everybody seemed to feel that you too would be
coming right along," he said; "but, Phil, my boy, I'm afraid you're too
late for the fun. You cannot catch the command before it starts from
Spirit Wolf."
And yet this was just what Phil had tried to do. Lee knew nothing of his
plan until everything had been arranged between the young officer and
the major commanding the temporary camp at the station. Then it was too
late to protest. While it was Mr. Lee's duty to remain and escort the
train, Philip Stanley, with two scouts and half a dozen troopers, had
pushed out to overtake the regiment two hundred miles away. Forty-eight
hours later, as the wagon-train with its guard was slowly crawling
southward, it was met by a courier with ghastly face. He was one of
three who had started from the ruined agency together. They met no
Indians, but at Box Elder Springs had come upon the bodies of a little
party of soldiers stripped, scalped, gashed, and mutilated,--nine in
all. There could be little doubt that they were those of poor Philip and
his new-found comrades. The courier had recognized two of the bodies as
those of Forbes and Whiting,--the scouts who had gone with the party;
the others he did not know at all.
Parking his train then and there, sending back to the railway for an
infantry company to hasten forward and take charge of it, Mr. Lee never
hesitated as to his own course. He and his troop pushed on at once. And
now, worn, weary, but determined, the little command is just in sight of
the deep ravine known to frontiersmen for years as Black Canyon. It was
through here that Stanley and his battalion had marched a fortnight
since. It was along this very trail that Phil and his party, pressing
eagerly on to join the regiment, rode down into its dark depths and were
ambushed at the Springs. From all indications, said the courier, they
must have unsaddled for a brief rest, probably just at nightfall; but
the Indians had left little to aid them in forming an opinion. Utterly
unnerved by the sight, his two associates had turned back to rejoin
Stanley's column, while he, the third, had decided to make for the
railway. Unless those men, too, had been cut off, the regiment by this
time knew of the tragic fate of some of their comrades, but the colonel
was mercifully spared all dread that one of the victims was his only
son.
Nine were in the party when they started. Nine bodies were lying there
when the couriers reached the Springs, and now nine are lying here
to-night when, just after moonrise, Romney Lee dismounts and bends sadly
over them, one after another. The prairie wolves have been here first,
adding mutilation to the butchery of their human prototypes. There is
little chance, in this pallid light and with these poor remnants, to
make identification a possibility. All vestiges of uniform, arms, and
equipment have been carried away, and such underclothing as remains has
been torn to shreds by the herd of snarling, snapping brutes which is
driven off only by the rush of the foremost troopers, and is now
dispersed all over the canyon and far up the heights beyond the outposts,
yelping indignant protest.
There can be no doubt as to the number slain. All the nine are here, and
Mr. Lee solemnly pencils the despatch that is to go back to the railway
so soon as a messenger and his horse can get a few hours' needed rest.
Before daybreak the man is away, meeting on his lonely ride other
comrades hurrying to the front, to whom he briefly gives confirmation of
the first report. Before the setting of the second sun he has reached
his journey's end, and the telegraph is flashing the mournful details to
the distant East, and so, when the "Servia" slowly glides from her
moorings and turns her prow towards the sparkling sea, Nannie McKay is
sobbing her heart out alone in her little white state-room, crushing
with her kisses, bathing with her tears, the love-knot she had given her
soldier boy less than a year before.
Another night comes around. Tiny fires are glowing down in the dark
depths of Black Canyon, showing red through the frosty gleam of the
moonlight. Under the silvery rays nine new-made graves are ranked along
the turf, guarded by troopers whose steeds are browsing close at hand.
Silence and sadness reign in the little bivouac where Lee and his
comrades await the coming of the train they had left three days before.
It will be here on the morrow, early, and then they must push ahead and
bear their heavy tidings to the regiment. He has written one sorrowing
letter--and what a letter to have to write to the woman he loves!--to
tell Miriam that he has been unable to identify any one of the bodies as
that of her gallant young brother, yet is compelled to believe him to
lie there, one of the stricken nine. And now he must face the father
with this bitter news! Romney Lee's sore heart fails him at the
prospect, and he cannot sleep. Good heaven! _Can_ it be that three weeks
only have passed away since the night of that lovely yet ill-fated
carriage-ride down through Highland Falls, down beyond picturesque
Hawkshurst?
Out on the bluffs, though he cannot see them, and up and down the canyon,
vigilant sentries guard this solemn bivouac. No sign of Indian has been
seen except the hoof-prints of a score of ponies and the bloody relics
of their direful visit. No repetition of the signal-smokes has greeted
their watchful eyes. It looks as though this outlying band of warriors
had noted his coming, had sent up their warning to others of their
tribe, and then scattered for the mountains at the south. All the same,
as he rode the bluff lines at nightfall, Mr. Lee had charged the
sentries to be alert with eye and ear, and to allow none to approach
unchallenged.
The weary night wears on. The young moon has ridden down in the west and
sunk behind that distant bluff line. All is silent as the graves around
which his men are slumbering, and at last, worn with sorrow and vigil,
Lee rolls himself in his blanket and, still booted and spurred,
stretches his feet towards the little watch-fire, and pillows his head
upon the saddle. Down the stream the horses are already beginning to tug
at their lariats and struggle to their feet, that they may crop the
dew-moistened bunch grass. Far out upon the chill night air the yelping
challenge of the coyotes is heard, but the sentries give no sign.
Despite grief and care, Nature asserts her sway and is fast lulling Lee
to sleep, when, away up on the heights to the northwest, there leaps out
a sudden lurid flash and, a second after, the loud ring of the cavalry
carbine comes echoing down the canyon. Lee springs to his feet and seizes
his rifle. The first shot is quickly followed by a second; the men are
tumbling up from their blankets and, with the instinct of old
campaigners, thrusting cartridges into the opened chambers.
"Keep your men together here, sergeant," is the brief order, and in a
moment more Lee is spurring upward along an old game trail. Just under
the crest he overtakes a sergeant hurrying northward.
"What is it? Who fired?" he asks.
"Morris fired, sir: I don't know why. He is the farthest post up the
bluffs."
Together they reach a young trooper, crouching in the pallid dawn behind
a jagged parapet of rock, and eagerly demanded the cause of the alarm.
The sentry is quivering with excitement.
"An Indian, sir! Not a hundred yards out there! I seen him plain enough
to swear to it. He rose up from behind that point yonder and started out
over the prairie, and I up and fired."
"Did you challenge?"
"No, sir," answers the young soldier, simply. "He was going away. He
couldn't understand me if I had,--leastwise I couldn't 'a understood
him. He ran like a deer the moment I fired, and was out of sight almost
before I could send another shot."
Lee and the sergeant push out along the crest, their arms at "ready,"
their keen eyes searching every dip in the surface. Close to the edge of
the canyon, perhaps a hundred yards away, they come upon a little ledge,
behind which, under the bluff, it is possible for an Indian to steal
unnoticed towards their sentries and to peer into the depths below. Some
one has been here within a few minutes, watching, stretched prone upon
the turf, for Lee finds it dry and almost warm, while all around the
bunch grass is heavy with dew. Little by little as the light grows
warmer in the east and aids them in their search, they can almost trace
the outline of a recumbent human form. Presently the west wind begins to
blow with greater strength, and they note the mass of clouds, gray and
frowning, that is banked against the sky. Out on the prairie not a
moving object can be seen, though the eye can reach a good rifle-shot
away. Down in the darkness of the canyon the watch-fires still smoulder
and the men still wait. There comes no further order from the heights.
Lee, with the sergeant, is now bending over faint footprints just
discernible in the pallid light.
Suddenly up he starts and gazes eagerly out to the west. The sergeant,
too, at the same instant, leaps towards his commander. Distant, but
distinct, two quick shots have been fired far over among those tumbling
buttes and ridges lying there against the horizon. Before either man
could speak or question, there comes another, then another, then two or
three in quick succession, the sound of firing thick and fast.
"It's a fight, sir, sure!" cries the sergeant, eagerly.
"To horse, then,--quick!" is the answer, as the two soldiers bound back
to the trail.
"Saddle up, men!" rings the order, shouted down the rocky flanks of the
ravine. There is instant response in the neigh of excited horses, the
clatter of iron-shod hoofs. Through the dim light the men go rushing,
saddles and bridles in hand, each to where he has driven his own picket
pin. Promptly the steeds are girthed and bitted. Promptly the men come
running back to the bivouac, seizing and slinging carbines, then leading
into line. A brief word of command, another of caution, and then the
whole troop is mounted and, following its leader, rides ghost-like up a
winding ravine that enters the canyon from the west and goes spurring to
the high plateau beyond. Once there the eager horses have ample room;
the springing turf invites their speed. "Front into line" they sweep at
rapid gallop, and then, with Lee well out before them, with carbines
advanced, with hearts beating high, with keen eyes flashing, and every
ear strained for sound of the fray, away they bound. There's a fight
ahead! Some one needs their aid, and there's not a man in all old "B"
troop who does not mean to avenge those new-made graves. Up a little
slope they ride, all eyes fixed on Lee. They see him reach the ridge,
sweep gallantly over, then, with ringing cheer, turn in saddle, wave his
revolver high in air, clap spur to his horse's flank and go darting down
the other side.
"Come _on_, lads!"
Ay, on it is! One wild race for the crest, one headland charge down the
slope beyond, and they are rolling over a band of yelling, scurrying,
savage horsemen, whirling them away over the opposite ridge, driving
them helter-skelter over the westward prairie, until all who escape the
shock of the onset or the swift bullet in the raging chase finally
vanish from their sight; and then, obedient to the ringing "recall" of
the trumpet, slowly they return, gathering again in the little ravine;
and there, wondering, rejoicing, jubilant, they cluster at the entrance
of a deep cleft in the rocks, where, bleeding from a bullet-wound in the
arm, but with a world of thankfulness and joy in his handsome face,
their leader stands, clasping Philip Stanley, pallid, faint, well-nigh
starved, but--God be praised!--safe and unscathed.