AWAY ON THE WARPATH
And all these chapters it has taken to tell how it came about that
Second Lieutenant George Montrose Graham was quite a celebrity in the
--th Cavalry before ever he reported for duty with his troop. Several
weeks the Silver Shield Mining Company spent in a squabble among
themselves that ended in the smothering of "the Breifogle interest,"
and came near to sending "the Boss of Argenta" to jail. Several days
elapsed before Captain Lee and Lieutenants McCrea and Graham felt it
entirely prudent to leave, but when they did it was with the assurance
that stockholders who had endured to the end, as had Graham, Lee, and
McCrea, were now to reap the reward of their tenacity.
It is a recorded fact that, within three weeks after the departure of
McCrea and Geordie from West Point for the West, there came an offer to
Dr. Graham of something like six times the cost price of his shares,
and the offer was declined, with thanks.
It is a recorded fact that Silver Shield was reorganized within the
summer, to the end that the controlling interest passed from Colorado
to Chicago.
It is a recorded fact that, from afar out in the Rockies, there came to
Lieutenant Colonel Hazzard, Commandant of Cadets, a "wire" that puzzled
him not a little until he laid it before his clear-headed wife, who
gave him a delighted kiss and scurried away to show it to Mrs. Graham.
It read:
"You win. I lose; and, losing, am a heavy winner."
For Bonner had supplied the money that paid for much of that costly
plant, most of which would have gone up in smoke and down in ruin could
the mob have had its way. Bonner himself had rushed out to Denver at
news of the trouble. Bonner sent for Cawker and Nolan, and others of
the employés, and learned for himself how things had been going, and
was not too civil to Stoner and his Denver colleagues. Bonner, a
director in the Transcontinental, heard from Anthony and Cullin all
about the young fireman they spirited up to the mines, and the elder
Breifogle had to hear how that young fireman cared for the battered son
and heir, after his "beating up" at the fists and feet of the rioters,
and if Breifogle bore no love for the Grahams, he at least loved his
own.
It is a recorded fact that old Shiner got well of his wound after many
long weeks, and his brave boy in much shorter time, and that both were
handsomely rewarded. Cawker came in for a good thing by way of a raise,
but it was Long Nolan whom Bonner and the magnates set on a
pinnacle--Long Nolan, and, as Nolan would have it, Nolan's young
commander.
It is a matter of record that when Captain Lee went back to the
regiment he congratulated Lane, for one thing, on having held on to his
stocks--almost the only one at Reno who did--and, for another, on
having such a youngster for second lieutenant. "He has won his spurs,"
said Lee, "before ever he donned his uniform." And there was rejoicing
in the regiment over Lee's description of events, for five of the
younger officers, graduated within three years, knew "Pops" in his
cadet days and remembered him well; and all of the old officers who had
served at Camp Sandy and at Fort Reynolds knew him in babyhood, or
boyhood, or both. So did most of the veteran troopers.
And it is a matter of record that, on the eastward way again, both
McCrea and Geordie dined with Mr. Bonner at the Chicago Club, and the
new major-general commanding the military division graciously accepted
Bonner's bid to be one of the dinner-party, and took Geordie aside
after coffee had been served, noting that the silent young fellow
neither smoked nor touched his wine, and asked him a few questions
about the Point and many about the mines, and at parting the general
was so good as to express the wish that when Geordie came out to join
in September he would stop and see him, all of which was very
flattering to a young fellow just out of cadet gray, and Geordie, as in
duty bound, said that he certainly would, little dreaming how soon--how
very soon--he and the old regiment would be riding hard under the lead
of that hard-riding leader, and facing a foe led by warriors true and
tried--a foe any ten of whom could have made mince-meat of ten times
their number of such foemen as Graham had met at the mines.
How could they, the brave young class, have dreamed, that exquisite
June day of their graduation, that within six months some of their
number were destined to do desperate battle with a desperate band of
the braves of the allied Sioux in the Bad Lands of South Dakota?
For it is also a matter of record that Lieutenant and Quartermaster
McCrea made application, as he had promised, for six months' leave of
absence, with permission to go beyond sea, and with every intention of
spending most of the winter in sunny Italy. But he spent it in saddle
and snowdrift, in scout and skirmish, and in at least one sharp,
stinging, never-to-be-forgotten battle with the combined bands of the
Sioux, and came within an ace of losing his life as well as his leave,
for many a brave soldier and savage warrior fell in that bitter
fight--Geordie Graham's maiden battle. Little wonder he hopes he may
never see another like it.
And it all came about as such affairs have so often occurred in the
past. Unheeded warnings, unnoted threats, unpunished outbreaks, that
experienced soldiers about the reservation could readily understand,
and foretell what was coming, and make their own individual
preparations for the inevitable. But nothing they could report to
superiors would shake the serene confidence of the Department of the
Interior in the pacific purposes of its red children, the wards of the
nation. All along in the summer and the early autumn the "ghost-dance"
had been spreading from tribe to tribe, the war drum had been thumping
in the villages, the Indian messiah, a transparent fraud, as all might
see, wandered unrebuked from band to band--half a dozen messiahs, in
fact--and along in September, instead of Geordie Graham's best-loved
chum and classmate, Connell, of the Engineers, there came to the Point
a letter from that young officer, that Graham received with rejoicing,
read with troubled eyes, and for the first time in his life kept from
his mother. There came a time, later still, when there were many
letters to be kept from her, but those sorrowful days were not as yet.
This letter, however, he could not bring himself to show her, for it
told of things she had been dreading to hear ever since the papers
began telling of the ghost-dancing on the plains. It read:
"PECATONICA, WISCONSIN, _September 5th._
"DEAR POPS,--I fully intended to be with you to spend a week as
promised, before joining at Willett's Point, but you are more
likely to be spending that week with me. I am just back from a
run to the Black Hills with father. He has some property about
Deadwood. Returning, I stopped two days at Fort Niobrara, as
the guest of 'Sampson' Stone, whose troop is stationed there,
and I tell you it was interesting. He took me up to the
reservation, and I had my first look at the Sioux on their
native heath, and saw for myself how peaceful they are.
Everybody at the agency is scared stiff. Every officer at the
fort, from the colonel down, is convinced that war is coming.
The governor of Nebraska has been up looking after the settlers
and ranch folk and warning them away. General Miles has an
officer there watching the situation. From him I heard that
your regiment is to be sent to the field at once to march
northward; that other troops are warned, and I suppose you'll
be joining somewhere on the way. But the row, when it comes,
will break out north of the Niobrara, and the --th may not get
there in time.
"Stone says if you want a taste of the real thing, to apply for
orders to report for duty to the commanding officer at Fort
Niobrara until the arrival of your regiment. I have begged the
Chief of Engineers to let me have a few weeks in the field with
General Miles, and am assured that the general will apply for
me. Not that I can be of any value as Engineer Officer, but
just to get the experience, and perhaps see what we've been
reading of a dozen years--a real Indian campaign. Now, old man,
you know that country. You were there as a boy. _You_ could be
of use. Why not ask for orders at once? Then we can push out
via Sioux City together. I know how the mother will protest,
especially since she was robbed of three precious weeks in
July; but, isn't it the chance of a lifetime? Isn't this what
we are for, after all? Wire decision. Yours as ever,
"CONNELL."
"Good old Badger," murmured Geordie. "He always was right." Then that
letter went to an inner pocket, and for the first time in his life,
with something to conceal from her, George Graham turned to his mother.
It was a beautiful September evening. The gray-and-white battalion had
just formed for parade. The throng of spectators lined the roadway in
front of the superintendent's quarters, and with that proud mother
clinging as usual to his arm, with that ominous letter in the breast of
his sack-coat, so close that her hand by a mere turn of the wrist could
touch it, George Graham stood silently beside her as she chatted
happily with Mrs. Hazzard. Not ten feet distant, leaning on a cane, was
an officer lamed for life and permanently retired from service because
of a desperate wound received in savage warfare. With him, eagerly
talking, was a regimental comrade who had survived the bloody day on
the Little Big Horn, and he was telling of things he had seen and men
whom he had met, men whose names were famous among the Sioux and were
now on the lips of the nation at large. Foremost of these was the
old-time enemy of every white man, long the leader of the most powerful
band that ever disputed the dominion of the West, Tatanka
Iyotanka--Sitting Bull.
Not fifty miles from Standing Rock Agency, surrounded by devoted
followers, dwelling in Indian ease and comfort, but rejoicing in new
opportunities for evil, Sitting Bull, said the spokesman, was holding
frequent powwows with the ghost-dancers, urging, exciting, encouraging
all, and still the Indian Bureau would not--and the army, therefore,
could not--interfere. Everywhere from the Yellowstone to the confines
of Nebraska the young braves of the allied bands were swarming forth
and holding their fierce and ominous rites, and the autumn air of the
Dakotas rang with the death song and war-whoop. The blood craze was
upon them and would not down. The messiah had appeared to chief after
chief, warning him the time had come to rise and sweep the white
invaders from the face of the earth, promising as reward long years of
plenty and prosperity, the return of the vanished buffalo, the
resurrection of their famous dead, a savage millennium the thought of
which was more than enough to array the warriors for battle. "It's
coming; it's _bound_ to come!" said the captain, in his decisive way,
"and if old Bull isn't choked off speedily we'll have work for a dozen
regiments as well as ours."
Graham listened, fascinated, yet praying his mother might not hear.
Secure in the possession of her stalwart son, full of joy in their
present and pride in his past, she chatted merrily on. Mrs. Frazier,
too, had joined them, another woman who had reason to rejoice in
Geordie's prowess at Silver Shield. They were so blithely, busily,
engaged that he presently managed to slip unobserved away and join the
little group about the speaker. Colonel Hazzard, too, was there and
held forth a cordial hand to the new-comer. Geordie's father never
betrayed half the pride in him that the colonel frankly owned to.
"This must interest you not a little," said he.
"More than I can tell you, sir," was the quick answer. "More than I
dare let mother know! But I have come for advice. I've a letter from
Mr. Connell. Read it, sir, and tell me how to go about it. Before
mother can get wind of it, I want orders to report at Niobrara."