THE WAR-DANCE AND THE CHARGE
With two days' cooked rations in their saddle-bags now, with a line of
hearty appreciation from Major Berry and renewed instructions to go
ahead, with a dozen more men than he had at the start, and the best
wishes of his temporary commander, Geordie Graham had pushed on again
northeastward down the right bank of the Fork. Waiting until the party
was fairly out of sight over the far-distant "divide," and watching
meantime the movements of the still remaining Indians in the timber,
Captain Garrett finally put his puny command in march for the Mini
Chaduza, bringing the wagon and the now semi-restored charioteer along.
Five of Gunnison's pack-mules, sent on with the troop, had so lightened
the wagon of its load that the lately abused horses, given a good feed
of oats and a swallow of water, were able to trundle it lightly along.
With another day it was started under escort for Niobrara, its late
owners, cursing their fate, unwilling passengers inside.
It was late afternoon when the two halves of "F" Troop lost sight of
each other, the captain going, grumbling, back to the main body with a
much disappointed command; the subaltern riding swiftly away down the
widening valley, with an exultant platoon at his back, all hands
rejoicing that theirs was the first capture of the campaign. Parallel
with them, afar across the stream, darting from cover to cover and
keeping vigilant watch, rode half a dozen redskins. Most of their
brethren, by this time, were far away toward Eagle's Nest, in quest of
the main body. These few were charged with the duty of keeping track of
the little troop, in order to be able to report exactly the direction
in which it was going and that no pursuit was intended. This definitely
settled, they, too, galloped away, and the valley, so far as Geordie
could judge, was now free of red riders.
The sun was low in the west. The wagon-tracks still led on. The night
was near at hand, and the troopers in advance had seen no sign of a
camp. Ten miles, at least, had they marched, and, avoiding a deep
westward bend of the stream, the trail now led them over a low ridge,
from whose crest the scouts signalled, "Nothing in sight."
Yet, a few minutes later, Graham and Connell, dismounting there the
better to scour the country with their glasses, were seen by the main
body to spring to their feet and then to saddle, Graham facing toward
them and with his hat signalling, "Change direction half left," whereat
Sergeant Drum, riding steadily along perhaps four hundred yards behind
his young commander, simply turned his horse's head in the direction
indicated, left the wagon-track, and silently his comrades followed.
"They've found it," said Drum, and found it they had.
Though the wheel-marks still held to the northward, and the three
troopers far in the lead had seen nothing as yet worthy of special
report, the strong lenses of the signal-glass had told their own story.
"Look yonder, Connell, in that clump of cotton-woods beyond the low
point," were Graham's words as he sprang to his feet. "See those black
things in the timber? They're buzzards!"
Five minutes later the corporal, too, was signalling, he and his men at
a halt. They, too, had made discoveries: the track, as it later
developed, of two shod horses pursued by shoeless Indian ponies.
Southeastward this trail went up a long, shallow ravine, then veered
round to the south. It told of fugitives and, for a time, of pursuers.
Ten minutes after the first discovery, down in the sandy bottom and
close to the stream, the officers caught sight of a brace of prairie
wolves, skulking away from the timber, among the branches of which some
grewsome birds were flapping and fluttering, while two or three sailed
slowly overhead. Presently the riders came in view of a little
scooped-out shelter where the sand was all torn by hoofs, and herein
lay the poor remains that served as confirmation of the driver's
story--all that was left, as was soon determined, of poor Gamble, one
of the most feared and fearless men of the Western frontier.
Shot twice, and from behind, he had managed to gallop a few hundred
yards up-stream, and then, weak from loss of blood, had toppled out of
saddle, crawled to this hollow, and presently died. Half a mile farther
down-stream the camp site was found, hoof and moccasin tracks in
myriads about it, camp-kettles and débris still scattered around, empty
cans, sacks, and boxes flung at the edge of the stream. Here,
evidently, the traders had spent two or three days, and here, there,
and everywhere were fragments of pasteboard cartridge-cases. A thriving
industry, this, until suddenly swooped upon by Gamble, who paid for his
discovery with his life. Here, then, was closed one chapter of the
hunters' tale. But what had become of their partner? What had broken up
their camp and driven them, terror-stricken, from the reservation?
Not until the dawning of another day was this fully determined.
Meanwhile there came new complications--a strange and stirring
adventure of their own.
Finding fair grass on the "bench" a few rods farther down the stream,
Geordie had chosen a site for the bivouac, and disposed his little
force for the night. While there had been as yet no overt act of
hostility on the part of the Sioux, and while all the Indians taking
part in the affair of the morning had now, apparently, ridden off to
join the renegade band, and were presumably far to the northwest, no
chances could be taken. The horses, after two hours' grazing, were led
into the timber and hoppled. The sentries were posted well out. The
little camp-fires had been screened under the bank, and full half the
command had rolled in their blankets and settled to sleep. When the
moon came peering up over the distant eastward heights, Geordie and
Connell, chatting in low tones under a sheltering cotton-wood, were
suddenly summoned by a trooper coming in on the run from the outpost
below, a mile at least from where they had buried poor Gamble.
"Indians, sir," said he, "and lots of 'em, coming up the valley on the
other bank."
"Douse your fires, there!" was the first order. "Look well to your
horses, sergeant. Stay here in charge. I'll send word what to do."
Then, with eager stride, Geordie hurried away after the messenger,
Connell close at his heels. Two hundred yards they followed, winding
along under the bank, and presently came to a sharp bend, beyond which
and across the stream the prairie lay open and undulating for many a
league, the only obstruction to the view being a little grove of
cotton-woods on the opposite shore and possibly half a mile away, and
that little grove and the level bench about it were alive with Indians
and Indian ponies, the former at least in high state of excitement.
Kneeling behind the trunk of a fallen cotton-wood, two troopers were
intently studying the situation. "They came riding down from over
yonder to the northeast, sir," said one of them, a corporal, making
room for his lieutenant. "There must have been as many as a hundred all
told, with others trailing behind. There's going to be a pow-wow of
some kind. They've unsaddled and turned the ponies out, and some
feller's shoutin' and singin'--you can hear him now, sir."
Hear him! As he warmed up to his speech, incantation, or whatever it
was, the speaker could have been heard distinctly a long mile away, and
all the bivouac up-stream, not already sound asleep, sat up to listen.
War-chief or medicine-man, he had a voice that dinned upon the ear of
night and dominated all other sounds, from guttural grunt of assent to
frantic yell of applause, as the roar of Niagara in the Cave of the
Winds drowns the futile babble of the guides. Once in early boyhood
Geordie had heard an Indian orator of whom his father and
fellow-officers spoke ever in honor and esteem--a chief whose people
wellnigh worshipped him--"Rolling-Thunder-in-the-Mountains," they
called him ("Hin-Mato-Iya-Latkit," in their weird dialect). And as
George and Connell knelt here now, listening to this deep, reverberant
voice, thundering from bluff to bluff across the mile-wide valley, the
name and fame of old Chief Joseph, whom the whites had so misunderstood
and wronged, came back to the young commander with redoubled force.
But no such chief as Joseph was this who, standing in the leaping
firelight, high among the red warriors about him, was lashing them to
frenzy with his resounding words. No interpreter crouched with the
little party at the point; none was needed to tell them that he was
preaching of battle, blood, and vengeance. From time to time the wail
of women could be heard, wild as the scream of the panther, and, as one
sign led to another, it dawned upon Geordie and the veteran trooper by
his side that some brave of the band had recently been done to death by
foul means or treachery, that now the tribe was being roused to a pitch
of fury, to a mad thirst for vengeance; and even before the red orator
had finished his harangue the war-drum began its fevered throb, the
warriors, brandishing knife, club, hatchet, or gun, sprang half
stripped into the swift-moving circle, and with shrill yells and weird
contortions started the shuffling, squirming, snake-like evolutions of
the war-dance. Faster, wilder went the drumbeats; fiercer, madder went
the dance; and, unable to resist the impulse, Graham and Connell,
secure in the belief that the Indians were utterly engrossed, crept
cautiously onward and outward, with the corporal at their back,
determined to see what they could of this savage and appalling
ceremony.
Half-way to the scene had they crept when the shrill wailing of the
squaws gave way to shriller screams, to almost maniac laughter. The
orator had ceased his incantations. The wild drummers stopped their
pounding. The warriors, as though with one accord, clustered about the
fire in fascination, and for the moment all save the squaws were
stilled, and the crouching watchers, quarter of a mile away, looked
blankly into each other's faces for explanation. "What on earth are
they up to now?" whispered Connell.
The answer came within the minute: a sound sweeter to savage ears than
love-lay of the maidens, than war-song of the braves, than even the
wild, triumphant chorus of the scalp-dance; a sound that suddenly rose
for a moment above the clamor of the squaws, and then was answered and
overwhelmed and drowned in mad, exultant, even fiendish, yells of
delight--it was the scream of a strong man in awful agony.
"My God!" cried the corporal. "They've got some poor devil there,
torturing, burning him to death!"
"To the horses! Come on, Con!" was the instant answer. And the three
went bounding back along the bank, pursued and spurred by the savage
shouting from below, but, as God so willed it, without so much as a
glance. Over the lair of the picket they flew, with only the orders
"Come on!" Away over the elastic "bench" they dashed, hot-foot for the
bivouac, and Drum, the veteran, saw them coming like the wind, and read
their tale and the instant need. "Saddle up!" he shouted, while the
group was still afar. "Jump for it, men! There's not a second to lose!"
Up from their blankets sprang the few sleepers. In from their stations
scurried the outlying sentries. Rattle went the bits between the teeth
of the excited chargers. Slap went the saddles on the broad, glossy
backs. There was hurry and rush and swift leaping for arms, the snap of
cinchas, the snorting of steeds, yet not a word was spoken until the
low order to lead into line; and straightway old Drum marshalled his
men, silent, yet with hearts beating like hammers, and then down their
front rode their youthful lieutenant, a stranger to all but a month
agone, yet now they lived on his slightest word. Oh, what
thoughts--what thoughts of mother and home, and the brave old days of
boyhood and the Point, had been winging through his brain during the
long hours of the day! But now--now there was no time for thought!
There was time only for action; for a fellow-man lay in deadly peril,
in dreadful torment, only a short mile away.
"Not a sound--not a shot, men," he ordered, as the quivering line
reined up before him. "Follow our lead, stampede the ponies, and charge
through the crowd; then rally quick as you can."
Splash! drove the leaders into the shallows. Breast deep, foaming, they
spurred through the stream, the troop plunging after, with carbines
slung over their shoulders. Out on the opposite bank and up to the
"bench" they swarmed, then veered away northward over the resounding
level, Geordie and Connell, classmates and chums, bounding away in
advance. No danger of Indian eyes or ears, no dread of hindering shot
or ambush. When the pale-face writhes at the torture stake, even Indian
vedette forgets his trade for the lust of such luxury as witnessing
that. Up into line with the leading four galloped the chargers in rear.
On toward the leaping flames in the grove led those lithe young riders
ahead. Mad with excitement, some nervous new horses snatched at their
bits and burst from the line, and Geordie, glancing back, saw them
gaining in spite of restraining hand. What mattered it, anyhow?
Every second was precious. The ground was open, the herded ponies less
than half a mile forward, and already alarmed. "Let 'em go!" he
shouted, with a wave of the revolver over his head. "Straight through
the herd, men. _Ch-a-a-a-rge!_"
[Illustration: "'STRAIGHT THROUGH THE HERD, MEN.
_CH-A-A-A-RGE!_'"]
Then up went a cheer that rang over the valley, shrill above the
thunder of hoofs, the shriek and scream of terrified squaws, the shouts
of astonished braves. Away like the wind went the streaming swarm of
ponies, in mad flight for the north! Away like scatter-brained rabbits,
darting hither and thither in the firelight, rushing madly to shelter,
leaping from the "bench" to the sandy bottom below, scurrying in wild
panic anywhere, everywhere, went warriors, women, and children; for,
close on the heels of the vanishing herd came unknown numbers of
blue-coated, brave--hearted, tumultuous riders, tearing through camp
like a human tornado, turning the scene of the late revel into a
turmoil of woe. Vain the few shots aimed in haste and excitement. Vain
the rallying cry of a fighting chief. A blow from the butt of Ned
Connell's revolver sprawled him headlong over a prostrate form--a white
man "staked out" in front of the fire, swooning from mingled misery,
weakness, and joy.
It was Pearson, the missing "partner," captured alive by the Sioux,
doomed to die by slow torture, in revenge for a young warrior shot down
by the gun-traders in a senseless squabble two nights before.
And the troop had saved him and his fellow-captive, the cook, without
so much as firing a shot.