A ROBBER IN CAMP.
The trumpet played the retreat, the sunset gun thundered its good-night
to the god of day; the adjutant hurried over and received the reports of
the companies, the staff, and band, and then a messenger came running to
them: "Mrs. Charlton wants you, Sergeant Waller. Fred's all safe, but
they had a sharp fight."
The old man could not trust himself to speak. "Listen to this,
sergeant," exclaimed Mrs. Charlton, as she hurried through the little
group of ladies at her doorway, and looked up in his face with
tear-dimmed eyes:
"Tell Waller that in a running fight of four miles Fred rode close
at my heels and no man could have shown more spirit or less fear. I
am sure it was a shot from his carbine that tumbled one war pony
into the Laramie; and every call he had to sound rang out clear as a
bell. I'm proud of the boy."
Waller's face was twitching and working; he cleared his throat and tried
to speak; he dashed his hand across his eyes and ground his heels into
the gravel of the walk; he heard the kind and gentle voices of the
ladies joining in the chorus of congratulation, but he could not see
their faces; a mist had risen before his eyes. Even the old formula, "I
thank the captain's lady," had deserted him. He mumbled some
inarticulate words, and then, in dread of disastrous breakdown, turned
suddenly away and strode across the drive. More than one woman was in
tears. There was not a ripple of faintest laughter when it was seen that
in his blindness the old sergeant had collided with the tree box at the
edge of the acequia. Straight to his humble quarters he went; but they
were beautiful to him, radiant with the light of joy, pride, gratitude,
and love that beamed and burnt in his honest heart.
And now, a year later, all the cavalry was in the field. Gold had
tempted explorers and miners innumerable to the Black Hills of
Dakota--Indian land by solemn treaty. The Government warned the invaders
back, but to no purpose. The Indians swarmed from the agencies and
massacred all whom they could overpower. Charlton's troop had early been
hurried up to Red Cloud, and now with others was engaged in the perilous
work of patrolling the trails around the Indian haunts.
Two months of hard and most exciting work had they had, and still the
troubles were not over; and then just after the paymaster with his iron
safe and bristling escort had paid the outlying posts a visit, and
Captain Charlton had been ordered in with him to attend a court-martial
at Fort Laramie, there came a week that no man in "B" troop ever forgot.
Mr. Rayburn had been wounded and was in the hospital at Fort Robinson.
Twenty of the men were away on escort duty, and so it happened that only
young Lieutenant Blunt and about thirty troopers were left at the camp
just west of the Agency. Fearful that the money, "burning" as it always
does in the soldiers' pockets, would tempt his men to gamble or drink
and get into mischief around the crowded post, Charlton had ordered that
the troop should march at once to the Niobrara and wait there for his
return. It was known, of course, that many Indian bands were out, and it
promised to be adventurous. It was Mr. Blunt's first independent
command, too, and he felt a trifle nervous. All went well, however,
until the morning of the second day, when Sergeant Graham excitedly
called his young commander, his face clouded with dismay.
"Lieutenant," he cried, "Sergeant Dawson and several men were robbed
last night. The money's clean gone!"
Blunt was out of his blanket in an instant. "How much is missing?" he
asked.
"I can't tell yet, sir--a good deal. But that is not the worst of it."
"What on earth could be worse?"
"Trumpeter Waller's gone, sir--deserted; taken his horse, arms, and
everything!"