PRISON AND PROMOTION.
That afternoon the court room was crowded when Sergeant Dawson retook
his seat and glanced for the first time at the prisoner before him. In
front of the boy was a little table, on which was a number of slips of
paper. One of these was quietly passed to the judge advocate, who took
it, wheeled in his chair, and read aloud:
"What answer did you give Lieutenant Blunt when he asked if you had
been outside the sentry-line the night the prisoner disappeared?"
"I told him that I had not, sir," was the prompt reply.
The judge advocate posted the reply on his record sheet, and wrote the
answer below. Then came another slip.
"What answer did you give the captain when asked if any man had ridden
back toward the Niobrara the morning the troop left there for Red
Cloud?"
The sergeant's throat seemed to clog a little, but he gulped down the
obstruction. "I said no man went back, sir."
"What buildings, if any, were there near the spot where the troop was in
bivouac on the Niobrara?"
Dawson's face was losing its ruddy hue, but the beads of sweat were
starting afresh.
"An old empty log hut, sir. I didn't take much notice of it, sir."
"How far from the sentries was it?"
"I don't just know, sir. Two or three hundred yards perhaps." His lips
were beginning to twitch, and his eyes to wander nervously from face to
face.
"How much money did you lose with your wallet that night?"
"Over sixty dollars, sir; every cent I had."
"What answer did you give Captain Charlton at Red Cloud when he asked
you if you had seen anything of it since that night?"
"I told him no, sir."
"With whose money were you playing cards then, below Red Cloud, on the
Sunday the troop marched away, leaving you behind?"
Dawson's face was ghastly. He choked for a moment, then seemed to make a
desperate effort to pull himself together. "It wasn't so, sir," he
muttered; then more loudly, "It was just a few dollars I borrowed," he
began, but looking furtively around he caught one glimpse of his
captain's stern face, and just beyond him, through the open window, the
sight of a tall, straight form in the uniform of the infantry. It was
the provost sergeant from Fort Robinson.
"It wasn't mine," he weakly murmured.
Another slip, and in the same cool, relentless tone the judge advocate
read:
"What reason had you for taking your horse to the post blacksmith,
instead of the cavalry farrier, to be shod the evening you reached Fort
Robinson?"
Again the pallor of his face was almost ghastly, a hunted and desperate
look came into his flitting eyes. One could have heard a pin drop
anywhere in the court room, so intense was the silence. For the first
time Dawson began to realize that his every movement had been watched,
traced, and reported--and still he strove to rally.
"He was a better horse-shoer, that's all."
"You have testified that you did not go outside of the line on the night
of the camp on the Niobrara, and did not allow anyone to go back after
the troop marched away. For what purpose did you, yourself, ride back
and enter the log hut you described?"
"I--I never did," gasped Dawson, with glaring eyes and ashen face,
"I----" but his tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of his mouth, for
Captain Charlton quietly arose, stepped forward, and placed upon the
table a large, flat wallet, at sight of which the sergeant's nerves gave
way entirely. He made one or two efforts to speak, he struggled as if
to rise, his eyes rolled in his head, and in another instant he was
slipping helplessly to the floor. A young surgeon sprang to his side as
the bystanders strove to lift him, and with one brief glance turned to
the court: "Mr. President, this man is in a spasm, and should be taken
to the hospital."
"Very good, sir," was the calm reply. "Major Edwards, will you see to it
that a sentry is posted over him. That man must not be allowed to
escape."
Two more witnesses were examined that afternoon--the provost sergeant
and Captain Charlton. The former testified that Dawson had been gambling
and had lost heavily in the post before pay day; that on that fateful
Sunday, bill after bill he had seen him pay--over one hundred dollars at
the table in the gamblers' tent down below the reservation--before he
interfered, warned him of the departure of his troop, and ordered him to
report in garrison with his horse at once. Donovan had merely been a
looker-on at the mad game in which the sergeant had sought to recover
his losses.
Charlton stated that, after his investigation at Red Cloud, he was
confident that Dawson was the trooper who rode back to the old ranch,
and that something must be concealed there. Searching it late, Sunday
night, he found in the dugout a spot where the earth had been recently
scooped away, and there in Dawson's old rubber poncho was the wallet
with his papers and about two hundred dollars of the missing money, or
what his men believed to be such.
And then, amid the sympathetic glances of all the court, young Fred told
his strange but soldierly story. It was Dawson who asked him to get the
chloroform for him at Red Cloud and gave him the folded pencil note; it
was Dawson who suggested to him the idea of sleeping down below the
bivouac that evening near where Donovan was posted, and it was Dawson
who roused him suddenly and startlingly in the dead of the night. "Up
with you, Fred, boy!" he had said. "Up with you, but make no noise.
There's the devil's own news! The Indians are out everywhere! The
lieutenant's just got a courier from Robinson, and he and Sergeant
Graham have to write dispatches to go right to the captain at Laramie.
You know the whole Platte valley, and how to get across and reach the
Sidney road below?" Of course he did. "Then the lieutenant says, for
God's sake lose not a minute; go for all you're worth; keep well to the
west until you cross the Platte, and then make for the southeast, and
warn back everybody who is coming north. He says Mrs. Charlton and the
children were to come that way, Saturday or Sunday, to join the captain
at Red Cloud. You can save them, if you're in time."
Suddenly roused from sleep, Fred was bewildered for an instant; could
only realize that his loved benefactors and friends were in deadly peril
and that he was chosen to haste and rescue them, Dawson lifted him into
the saddle; pressed some money into his hand to buy food when he reached
the settlement or Sidney, in case he met no travelers this side; led him
to the water's edge, and bade him lose not an instant. He never dreamed
of harm or wrong or plot until his wounded father told him the foul
charge against him, after his long and gallant ride that blazing
Sunday.
Then for a moment the little man broke down and sobbed; and old war-worn
soldiers in the court turned away with glistening eyes, and the
president, rapping on the table, huskily ordered the room to be cleared.
Charlton's arms were around his trumpeter's shoulders as he led him to
the open air, and to his father's bedside. "Cleared!" he said, in answer
to the longing look in the sergeant's eyes. "Cleared! There isn't a man,
woman, or child in all the post that doesn't know the verdict, and that
Dawson is doomed to four years in prison." And then he left them
together and alone.
[Illustration: HE SOUNDED THE RETREAT.]
Dawson's trial and confession settled it all. He himself was the thief,
who sought in this way to replace the money lost in gambling and to
throw upon Fred Waller, should he escape, the burden of the crime. But a
merciful God had watched over the boy in his brave and loyal effort; had
guided him in safety through a host of savage foes, and led him on to
honor and vindication in the end. For months there was no happier boy on
all the wide frontier than the little hero of the Sidney route; no
happier father than brave old Sergeant Waller.
Long years afterward, riding one evening into a cavalry camp on the
Southern plains, Captain Cross and the writer noted a tall, blue-eyed,
bronzed-cheeked trooper, whose twirling mustache was almost the color
of the faded yellow of the chevrons on his sleeve. Despite dust and the
rough prairie dress, no finer soldier had met their eyes in the long
column that went flitting by.
"Who is that young first sergeant?"
"That?" answered Cross in surprise. "Don't you know who that is? Why,
man, that's Charlton's old Trumpeter Fred."
THE END.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
Text in italics is enclosed with underscores: _italics_.
Inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation have been retained from
the original.
Punctuation has been corrected without note.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected as follows:
Page 22: fellowed changed to followed
Page 70: aint changed to ain't