HEMMED IN BY SAVAGE FOES.
Back at the cavalry camp there was no little subdued chat and wonderment
among the troopers. Lounging in the shade of the trees along the stream,
and puffing away at their pipes, playing cards, as soldiers will, and
poking fun at one another in rough, good-natured ways, the men were yet
full of the one absorbing theme--Fred Waller's most unaccountable
disappearance and the loss of so much of their hard-earned money.
"I would have bet any amount," said Corporal Wright, "that when the old
man"--the captain is always the "old man" to his troops--"got back he
would ride over Sergeant Dawson roughshod for letting Waller slip away
on his guard; but I listened to him this morning and he talked to him
just like a Dutch uncle. I tell you Dawson felt a heap better after it
was over. He said the captain never blamed him at all."
Noon came, so did an orderly telling Mr. Blunt that the captain wished
to see him over at the telegraph office, and to order the horses fed at
once. Forty-eight big portions of oats were poured from the sacks
forthwith. Dawson and Donovan were not yet back.
"Leave theirs out," said Sergeant Graham, "they'll be back presently.
This means business again, and no mistake. Where's the trouble now, I
wonder?"
Shall we look and see? Far to the south, far beyond the bold bluffs of
the White River, far beyond the swift waters of the Niobrara,--"L'Eau
qui Court" of the old French trapper,--far across the swirling flood of
the North Platte, and dotting the northward slopes, swarms of naked,
brilliantly painted red warriors in their long, trailing war bonnets of
eagle's feathers are darting about on nimble ponies, or, crouching prone
along the ridges, are eagerly watching a dust-cloud coming northward on
the Sidney road. Behind them, between them and the Platte, are the
weltering mutilated bodies of half a dozen herders and teamsters, and
the smoking ruins of their big freight-wagons. Like the tiger's taste of
blood, the savage triumph in the death of their hapless foes has tempted
them far beyond their accustomed limits. Knowing the cavalry to be
scouting only north of the Platte, they have made a wide detour and
swooped around to this danger-haunted road, eagerly watching for the
coming of other white men, who, like the last, should be ignorant of
their presence and too few in number to cope with such a foe. Here along
the ridge north of the little "Branch" of the Platte, half a hundred
young warriors crouch and wait. Farther back, equally vigilant, other
bands are hiding among the breaks and ravines near the river, while
their scouts keep vigilant watch for the coming of cavalry. Forrest's
Grays and Wallace's Sorrels cannot be more than a day's ride away, and
will be hurrying for the road the moment they know that the Indians have
slipped around them. Wallace, up the Platte, has already heard.
It is three o'clock this hot, still Sunday afternoon, and they have been
six hours out from Sidney, driving swiftly and steadily northward, when,
as they reach the summit of a high ridge and stop to breathe their
panting team, Colonel Gaines takes a long look through his field glass.
Just in front is the shallow valley of the little stream now called the
"Pumpkinseed" though pumpkins were unheard-of features in the landscape
of fifteen years ago.
Off to their right front, several miles away, lie the low, broad bottom
lands of the Platte. Across the Pumpkinseed, a mile distant, another
ridge, like the one on which they halted, only not so high; to the
westward a tumbling sea of prairie upland--all buttes, ridges, ravines,
coulees--but not a living soul is anywhere in sight. Far as his
practiced eye can sweep the horizon and the broad lowlands of the Platte
not a sign of living, moving object can Colonel Gaines detect. Turning
around, he trains his glass upon the tortuous road they had been
following, and along which the dust is slowly settling in their wake.
Something seems to attract his gaze, for he holds the binocle steadily
toward the south. Naturally Captain Cross and the two soldiers follow
with their eyes; the third infantryman has dismounted, and is
readjusting the girths of his saddle.
"What is it?" asks Cross.
"I can't make out," is the reply, "Something is kicking up a dust there,
some miles behind us. A horseman, I should say, though I've seen nobody.
Wait a few minutes. He's down in a swale now, whoever it is."
[Illustration: HE TOOK A LONG LOOK THROUGH HIS GLASSES.]
Everybody turns to look and listen. Those were days when such a thing
as a single horseman following in pursuit had a meaning that is lacking
now.
Three, four minutes they wait in silence; then the colonel suddenly
exclaims:
"I have him--a mere dot yet!"
Presently he lowers his glasses, and dusts the lenses with his
handkerchief. His face is graver.
"Whoever that is, he is riding for all he is worth," he says. "I half
believe he wants to catch us."
Another long look. Utter silence in the party. A mule in the wheel team
gives an impatient shake of his entire system, and chains, tugs, and
swing-bars all rattle noisily.
"Quiet there, you fool!" growls the driver angrily, and with a
threatening sweep of his long whip-lash. Then the silence becomes
intense again, and every man strains his eyes over the prairie slopes
shimmering in the heat of the July sun. Suddenly an exclamation bursts
from two or three pairs of bearded lips. Far away, but in plain sight in
that rare atmosphere, a speck of a horseman darts into view over a
distant ridge, sweeps down the slope at full gallop, and plunges out of
sight again in a low dip of the rolling surface.
"No man rides like that unless there is mischief abroad," mutters Cross,
as he swings out of the wagon to the ground. "Give me my rifle,
Murray."
Then, sudden as thunderclap from summer sky, with wild, shrill clamor,
with thunder of hoofs, and sputter of rapid shots; with yell and taunt
and hideous war cry, from the very ground itself, from behind every
little ridge; up from the ravines, down from the prairie buttes; hurling
upon them in mad, raging race, there flashes into sight of their
startled eyes a horde of painted savages.
"The Sioux! The Sioux!" yells the driver, as he leaps from his box.
"Hang on to your mules!" shouts Cross. "Down with you, men! Fire slow!
They'll veer when they get in closer. Now!"
Bang! goes Cross' piece. Bang! bang! the rifles of the nearest
soldiers. The mules plunge wildly, and are tangled in an instant in the
traces. Over goes the wagon with a crash. Bang goes Gaines' big
Springfield as he coolly spreads himself on the ground. An Indian pony
stumbles and hurls his rider on the turf, and Cross gives an exultant
cheer. Yet all the same he knows full well that now it is life or death.
The little party is hemmed in by a host of savage foes.