entrance. The rocky barrier grows hotter and hotter; the air within
denser and more stifling. The water in the canteens and pails is no
longer cool. It is hardly even cooling. The few men who remain with
Drummond in the front of the cave are lying full length upon the
floor. The pain in Drummond's battered head has become intense: it is
almost maddening. Wing is moaning and unconscious. Walsh is incoherent
and raving. All are panting and well-nigh exhausted. The front of the
cave is like an oven. Overcome by the heat, one or two of the men are
edging towards the inner cave, but Drummond orders them back. To the
very last the lives of those fair girls must be protected and
cherished. In silence, almost in desperation, the men obey, and lie
down again, face downward, their heads at the rear wall of the cave.
And then Costigan comes crawling to the lieutenant's side,--
"Have you heard any more logs thrown down lately, sir?"
"No, corporal. I have heard nothing."
"They were yellin' and shootin' out there in the gulch half an hour
ago. Have ye heard no more of it, sir?"
"No; no sound but the flames."
"Glory be to God, thin! D'ye know what it manes, sir?"
"I know what I hope," is Drummond's faint answer. "Our fellows are
close at hand, for the Indians are clearing out."
"Close at hand, is it?" cries Costigan, in wild excitement, leaping to
his feet. "Listen, sir! Listen, all of ye's! D'ye hear that?--and
that? And _there_ now! Oh, Holy Mother of God! isn't that music?
Thim's the thrumpets of 'K' throop!"
Ay. Out along the crests of the winding cañon the rifles are ringing
again. The cheers of troopers, bounding like goats up the rocky sides,
are answered by clatter of hoof and snort of excited steeds in the
rocky depths below. "Here we are, lads! Dismount! Lively now!" a
well-known voice is ordering, and Costigan fairly screams in ecstasy
of joy, "Tear away the fire, captain, an' then we'll heave over the
rocks."
Stalwart forms, brawny arms, are already at the work. The
wagon-tongues are prying under the heavy, hissing, sputtering logs.
Daring hands scatter the embers. Buckets of water are dashed over the
live coals. "Up wid ye now, boys!" shouts Costigan. "Heave over thim
rocks!" Down with a crash goes the barricade. A cloud of steam rushes
into the cave. A dozen sturdy troopers come leaping in, lifting from
the ground the helpless and bearing them to the blessed coolness of
the outer air, and the last thing Jim Drummond sees--ere he swoons
away--is the pale, senseless face of little Ruth close to his at the
water's brink; her father, with Fanny clinging about his neck,
kneeling by her side, his eyes uplifted in thanks to the God who even
through such peril and distress has restored his loved ones, unharmed,
unstained, to his rejoicing heart.
XII.
It is a sultry day, early in July, and the sun is going westward
through a fleet of white, wind-driven clouds that send a host of deep
shadows sweeping and chasing over the wide prairie. Northwards the
view is limited by a low range of bluffs, destitute of tree or
foliage, but covered thickly with the summer growth of bunch-grass.
Southward, three miles away at least, though it seems much less, a
similar range, pierced here and there with deep ravines, frames the
picture on that side. Midway between the two ridges and fringed with
clumps of cottonwood and willow, a languid stream flows silently
eastward and is lost, with the valley, in the dim distance. Out to the
west in long, gradual curve the southward range veers around and spans
the horizon. Midway across this monotone of landscape, cutting the
stream at right angles, a hard prairie road comes twisting and turning
out of one of the southern ravines and, after long, gradual dip to the
ford among the cottonwoods, emerges from their leafy shade and goes
winding away until lost among the "breaks" to the north. It is one of
the routes to the Black Hills of Dakota,--the wagon road from the
Union Pacific at Sidney by way of old Fort Robinson, Nebraska, where a
big garrison of some fourteen companies of cavalry and infantry keep
watch and ward over the Sioux Nation, which, one year previous, was in
the midst of the maddest, most successful, war it ever waged against
the white man. That was the Centennial year--'76. This is another
eventful year for the cavalry,--'77; for before the close of the
summer even the troops so far to the southeast are destined to be
summoned to the chase and capture of wary old Chief Joseph,--the
greatest Indian general ever reared upon the Pacific slope,--and even
now, on this July day, here are cavalrymen at their accustomed task,
and though it is five years since we saw them under the heat and glare
of the Arizona sun, there are familiar faces among these that greet
us.
All along under the cottonwoods below the crossing the bivouac
extends. Long before sunrise these hardy fellows were in saddle and,
in long column, have come marching down from the north,--four strong
troops,--a typical battalion of regular cavalry as they looked and
rode in those stirring days that brought about the subjugation of the
Sioux. Out on the prairie the four herds of the four different troops
are quietly grazing, each herd watched by its trio of alert, though
often apparently dozing, guards. One troop is made up entirely of
black horses, another of sorrels,--two are of bays. Another herd is
grazing close to the stream,--the mules of the wagon-train, and the
white tops of these cumbrous vehicles are dotting the left bank of the
winding water for two or three hundred yards. Cook-fires are
smouldering in little pits dug in the yielding soil, but the cooking
is over for the present; the men have had their substantial dinner and
are now smoking or sleeping or chatting in groups in the shade,--all
but a squad of a dozen, commanded by a grizzled veteran on whose worn
blouse the chevrons of a first sergeant are stitched. Booted and
spurred, with carbines slung and saddles packed, these sun-tanned
fellows are standing or sitting at ease, holding the reins of their
sleepy chargers and waiting apparently for the passengers who are to
start in the stout-built "Concord" drawn by four sleek, strong-looking
mules, now standing in the shade near the canvas homestead of the
commanding officer.
Presently two soldiers following a young man in civilian dress come
forward lugging a little green painted iron safe, and this, with a
swing and a thud, they deposit in the wagon.
"You've seen that before, sergeant," laughs the civilian.
"I have, begad, an' when it had a heap more green inside an' less
outside than it has now. Faith, I never expected to see it again, nor
the paymaster either. We were both bored through and through. 'Twas
our good habits that saved us. Sure your predecessor was a game
fighter, Mr. Barnes, if he _was_ a tenderfoot."
"Yes, the major often tells me he wishes he had him back, and me in
the place he has instead of the one he had," answers the clerk,
whimsically. "Does he know you're to command the escort in? You got
him into such a scrape then that he's never tired of telling of it."
"Then he may feel gratified at the honor I am doing him now. Sure it's
beneath the dignity of a first sergeant to command a squad like this
except on extraordinary occasion, and it's to take the taste of the
last time out of his mouth I volunteered to escort the major now.
'Twas a strong taste to last five years, though my reminder will go
with me many a year longer. Here they come now."
As the sergeant speaks a little group of officers issues from the
battalion commander's tent. Foremost among them, in loose flapping
raiment and broad-brimmed hat and green goggles, the rotund and portly
shape of Major Plummer, the paymaster.
"Well, old man," says the cavalry leader, "you can hardly get into a
scrape 'twixt here and Sidney. We've seen you through all right so
far; now we'll go on about our scouting. Your old friend Feeny asked
permission to see you safely to the railway."
"What, Feeny? and a first sergeant too? I'm honored, indeed! Well,
sergeant," he adds, catching sight of the grizzled red face under the
old scouting hat, "I'll promise to let you run the machine this time
and not interfere, no matter what stories come to us of beauty in
distress. All ready?"
"All ready, sir, if the major is."
"He wasn't that civil to me in Arizona," laughs the paymaster, as he
turns to shake hands with the officers about him.
"You see you were new to the business then," explains a tall captain;
"Feeny considers you a war veteran now, after your experience at
Moreno's. We all had to serve our apprenticeship as suckling
lieutenants before he would show us anything but a semblance of
respect. Good-by, major; good luck to you."
"Good-by all. Good-by, Drummond. Good-by, Wing.--Here! I must shake
hands with you two again." And shake he does; then is slowly "boosted"
into his wagon, where, as the whip cracks and the mules plunge at
their collars and tilt him backward, the major's jolly red face beams
on all around, and he waves his broad-brimmed hat in exuberant
cordiality as they rattle away.
The group of officers presently disperses, two tall lieutenants
strolling off together and throwing themselves under the spreading
branches of a big cottonwood. One of them, darker and somewhat heavier
built now, but muscular, active, powerful, is Drummond; the other, a
younger man by a brace of years, tall, blue-eyed, blonde-bearded,
wearing on his scouting-blouse the straps of a second lieutenant, is
our old friend Wing, and Wing does not hesitate in presence of his
senior officer--such is the bond of friendship between them--to draw
from his breast-pocket a letter just received that day when the
courier met them at the crossing of the Dry Fork, and to lose himself
in its contents.
"All well with the madam and the kid?" queries Drummond, after the
manner of the frontier, when at last Wing folds and replaces his
letter, a happy light in his brave blue eyes.
"All well; Paquita says that Harvey has captured the entire household,
and that Grandpa Harvey is his abject slave. There isn't anything in
Chicago too good for that two-year-old. They've had them photo'd
together,--the kid on his grandfather's shoulder."
"Aren't you afraid his Arizona uncle will be jealous for his own boy's
sake?" laughs Drummond.
"I don't believe Ned would begrudge Fanny anything the old man might
feel for her or for hers. He is generosity itself towards his sisters,
and surely I could never have found a warmer friend--out of the army.
You know how he stood by me."
"I know, and it was most gratifying,--not but that I feel sure you
would have won without his aid. The old man simply couldn't quite be
reconciled to her marrying in the army and living in Arizona."
"A strange land for a honey-moon certainly,--yet where and when was
there a happier? Do you remember how the Apaches jumped the Verde
buck-board the very week after we were married?"
"And you spent half of the honey-moon scouting the Tonto Basin? I
should say so! What with a courtship in a robbers' cave, a marriage in
a cavalry camp, and a wedding tour in saddle, you had a unique
experience, Wing, but--you deserved her." And Drummond turns and grips
his comrade's hand.
Wing is silent a moment. His eyes are wistfully searching the elder's
half-averted face.
"Jim, you told me awhile ago of your sister's approaching marriage.
Are you not going on?"
"Yes. It will be early in October. She's blissfully happy is Puss, and
he's a very substantial, solid sort of a fellow. I'm well content, at
last, that her future is assured."
"And you are a free agent, practically. Isn't it time we heard of
your own happiness,--your own vine and fig-tree, old man?"
"Time's gone by, I reckon," laughs Drummond, yet not merrily. "I've
had too much to think of,--too much responsibility, and probably have
lost my chance."
Wing looks as though he wanted mightily to say something, but conquers
his impulse.
"October is a long way off," he finally remarks, "and I thought you
might find earlier opportunity of going East. Now that Ned has entire
charge of the business in Arizona the old gentleman takes life easier.
The winter in Cuba did him a lot of good, and Fan writes that he seems
so happy now, having his two girls and his little grandson under the
same roof with his sister and her children. What a reunion after all
these years!"
"Where are they living in Chicago?"
"You would know better than I, for--think of it!--I have never been
east of the Missouri since my babyhood," answers Wing. "Fan writes
that her aunt has a lovely house on what they call the North
Side,--near the great water-works at the lake front."
"I know the neighborhood well," says Drummond. "Chicago is as familiar
to me as San Francisco was to you. Only--I have no roof to call my own
anywhere, and as soon as Puss is married shall not have a relative or
friend on earth who is not much more deeply interested in somebody
else." And the senior lieutenant is lying on his back now, blinking up
at the rapidly scudding clouds. Presently he pulls the broad brim of
his campaign hat down over his eyes. "What do you hear from your
mother, Wing?"
"Nothing new. Bless the dear old lady! You should have seen her
happiness in Harvey. She could hardly bear to let the little fellow
out of her arms, and how she cried and clung to him when we parted at
the Oakland wharf! Poor little mother! She has never given up the hope
of seeing that scapegrace of an uncle of mine again."
"Has she ever heard how he tried to murder his nephew?" queries
Drummond, grimly.
"Never. Nor have we the faintest trace of him since the break up of
the old Morales gang at Fronteras. They went all to pieces after their
encounter with you and 'C' troop. What a chain of disasters! Lost
their leaders and three of their best men, lost their rendezvous at
Moreno's, lost horses and mules,--for what our men didn't get the
Apaches did,--and won absolutely nothing except the twenty-four-hour
possession of a safe they hadn't time to open. Whereas I got my
commission and my wife; Feeny, honorable wounds and mention and the
chevrons of a first sergeant; Costigan got his sergeant's stripes and
the medal of honor, Murphy his sergeantcy, Walsh and Latham medals
and corporalships; and the only fellow who didn't get a blessed thing
but scars was the commanding lieutenant,--your worthy self,--thanks to
wiseacres at Washington who say Indian fighting isn't war."
"Didn't I get a letter of thanks from the department commander?" grins
Drummond. "What else could I expect?"
"What else?" is Wing's impulsive rejoinder. Then, as though mindful of
some admonition, quieting at once and speaking in tone less
suggestive. "Well, in your case I suppose you can be content with
nothing, but bless me if I could." Then, suddenly rising and
respectfully touching his weather-beaten hat, he salutes a
stoutly-built, soldierly-looking man in rough scouting dress, whose
only badge of rank is the tarnished shoulder-strap with the silver
leaf on the shabbiest old fatigue-coat to be found in the battalion,
most of whose members, however, wear no coat at all.
"Hullo, Wing!--didn't mean to disturb your _siesta_,--Drummond here?"
says the commander in his off-hand way, and at sound of the well-known
voice Drummond, too, is on his feet in a twinkling.
"Seen the papers that came in to-day?" queries the colonel,
obliterating from his sentences all verbal superfluities.
"Not yet, sir; any news?"
"Hell to pay in Chicago, so far as heard from. The railway strike has
taken firm hold there. Police and militia both seem unable to do
anything against the mob, and the authorities are stampeded. Your
home, isn't it?"
"It was once, sir, but that was many a long year ago."
"W-e-ell," says the colonel, reflectively, stroking his grizzled
beard, "it's my belief there is worse to come. It isn't the striking
railway hands that will do the mischief, but every time there's a
strike all the thieves and thugs and blackguards in the community turn
out. That's what happened in Pittsburg,--that's what's the matter in
Chicago. It looks to me as though the plea for regular troops would
have to be granted."
"Think we can get there, sir?" asks Wing, eagerly.
"Can't say. We're supposed to have our hands full covering this
section of Nebraska, though I haven't heard of a hostile Sioux this
summer. Besides, they have full regiments of infantry at Omaha and
along the lakes. Doesn't Mrs. Wing say anything about the trouble?"
"Her letter is four days old, sir, and only says her father looks upon
the situation as one of much gravity; but women rarely see troubles of
this kind until they come to their doors."
"Well, this is the _Times_ of two days ago. It reached Sidney at
breakfast-time this morning, and Hatton brought two or three copies
out when he came with the mail. I thought you two might be
interested." And with that the colonel goes strolling along down the
bank of the stream, pausing here and there to chat with some officers
or give some order relative to the grazing of the horses,--one of his
especial "fads."
And this evening, just as the sun disappears over the low bluff line
to the west and the horses are being picketed for the night, while
from a score of cook-fires the appetizing savor of antelope-steak and
the aroma of "soldier coffee" rise upon the air, a little dust-cloud
sweeps out from the ravine into which disappears the Sidney road and
comes floating out across the prairie. Keen-eyed troopers quickly note
the speed with which it travels towards them. Officers and men, who
have just been looking to the security of their steeds, pause now on
their way to supper and stand gazing through the gloaming at the
coming cloud. In five minutes the cause is apparent,--two swift
riders, urging their horses to full speed, racing for the ford. Five
minutes more and the foremost throws himself from saddle in the midst
of the group at the colonel's tent and hands that officer a
telegraphic despatch, which is received, opened, read with
imperturbable gravity, and pocketed. To the manifest chagrin of the
courier and disappointment of his officers, the colonel simply says,--
"W-e-ell, I'm going to supper. You all'd better have yours too."
"Why, blame his old hide!" pants the courier later, "the quartermaster
told me never to lose a second, but git that to him before dark. The
hull outfit's ordered to Chicago by special train."
And so, finding the secret out, the colonel presently puts aside
professional _sang-froid_ and condescends to be human again.
"Get a hearty supper all round, gentlemen, then--'boots and saddles'
and away for Sidney!"
Two days later. A fierce July sun is pouring down a flood of humid,
moisture-laden heat upon a densely-packed, sweltering mass of
turbulent men, many of them flushed with drink, all of them flushed
with triumph, for the ill-armed, ill-disciplined militia of the
seventies--a pygmy force as compared with the expert "Guardsmen" of
to-day--has been scattered to the winds: the sturdy police have been
swept from the streets and driven to the shelter of the stations. Mob
law rules supreme. Dense clouds of smoke are rising from sacked and
ruined warehouses and from long trains of burning cars. Here and there
little groups of striking employés have gathered, holding aloof from
the reckless and infuriated mob, appalled at the sight of riot and
devastation resulting from their ill-advised action. Many of their
number, conscious of their responsibility for the scenes of bloodshed
and pillage and wanton destruction of property, public and private,
would now gladly undo their work and array themselves among the few
defenders of the great corporations they have served for years and
deserted at the call of leaders whom they never saw and in a cause
they never understood, but there can be "no footsteps backward" now.
The tide of riot has engulfed the great city of the West, and the
majesty of the law is but the laughing-stock of the lowest of the
masses. Huddled in their precinct stations the police are bandaging
their bruised and broken heads. Rallied at their armories, the more
determined of the militia are preparing to defend them and their
colors against the anticipated attack of fifty times their force in
"toughs,"--Chicago's vast accumulation of outlawed, vagabond, or
criminal men. The city fathers are well-nigh hopeless. Merchants and
business-men gather on 'Change with blanched faces and the
oft-repeated query, "What next? What next?" Every moment brings
tidings of fresh dismay. New fires, and a crippled and helpless
department, for the rioters slash their hose and laugh their efforts
to scorn. A gleam of hope shone in at ten o'clock, and the Board-room
rang with cheers at the president's announcement that the regulars
were coming,--a whole regiment of infantry from Omaha was already
more than half-way. But the gleam died out at noon when, with white
lips, an official read the telegram saying the strikers had
"side-tracked" the special trains bearing the soldiers and they could
not advance another mile.
And so they had on one road, but there are others, better guarded,
better run. The sun is well over to the west again, Chicago is
resigning itself to another night of horror, when from the suburbs
there comes gliding in to the heart of the city the oddest-looking
railway train that has been seen for years: a sight at which a host of
riotous men break away from the threatening front, dragging with them
those "pals" whom drink has either maddened or stupefied; a sight at
which skulking blackguards who have picked up paving-stones drop them
into the gutters and think twice before they lay hand on their
revolver butts. No puffing engine hauls the train: the motor-power is
at the rear. First and foremost is a platform car,--open, uncovered,
but over its buffer glisten the barrels of the dreaded Gatling gun,
and around the gun--can these be soldiers? Covered with dust and
cinders, hardly a vestige of uniform among them, in the shabbiest of
old felt hats, in hunting-shirts of flannel or buckskin, in scout-worn
trousers and Indian leggings, but with their prairie-belts crammed
with copper cartridges, their brawny brown hands grasping the browner
carbine, their keen eyes peering straight into the faces of the
thronging crowd, their bronze features set and stern, the whole car
fairly bristles with men who have fought tribe after tribe of savage
foes from the Yellowstone to the Sonora line, and who hold a savage
mob in utter contempt. Here by the hub of the Gatling's wheel stands
old Feeny, close at the elbow of dark-faced Drummond. "C" troop's
first platoon "mans" the Gatling gun, and under its old leader of the
Arizona campaigns "leads the procession" into the "Garden City" of the
ante-bellum days. By Drummond's side is a railway official gazing
ahead to see that every switch is properly set and signalling back to
the engineer when to "slow," when to come confidently ahead. Behind
the platform car come ordinary baggage and passenger coaches, black
with men in the same rough, devil-may-care scouting rig. All but their
horses and horse equipments left with the quartermaster at the Sidney
station, the battalion has been run to Chicago exactly as it came from
the plains, and Chicago's "toughs," who would have hooted and jeered,
perhaps, at sight of polished brasses and natty uniforms, recoil
bewildered before this gang of silent and disciplined "jay-hawkers."
Steadily, silently, ominously, the train rolls along. As it is
rounding a curve several ugly-looking fellows are seen running at
speed towards the switch-lever at the next street-crossing. Excitedly
the railway man clutches Drummond's elbow and points. Two troopers are
kneeling close at hand.