Part 30 (1/2)

CHAPTER x.x.x.

If there be any truth in the saying that a burnt child shuns the fire, the two officers who led ”C” troop in its dash on the village should have been almost anywhere else, and at least ten of Cranston's men bore the scars of previous battle, either in the South or on the frontier.

The captain was still reminded of his ugly wound, received the previous summer, by sharp, burning twinges of pain. Davies, the junior, as we know, had not yet recovered his strength, and had gone on this sudden raid, stepping practically from a sick-bed to the saddle. Twice that morning, as the captain looked with ill-concealed anxiety into the face of his friend and subaltern, he noted its pallor, despite the expression of stern determination. Had there been time he would covertly have warned three or four ”stalwarts” of the first platoon not to lose sight of their lieutenant, and to hold themselves close in support, but there was no time. Indeed, as the sequel proved, there was no need. Soldier stories fly fast among the rank and file, and the men of ”C” Troop had heard from many a source how the young officer on his first campaign had denied himself, stinted himself, starved himself, nearly, in order to share his scant supply of food with the weak and suffering in his own troop, and so they welcomed his presence with them now when the column marched from the cantonment, and spoke among themselves their admiration of the pluck of the young officer in being so soon again on duty.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”LOOK OUT! DON'T HARM THE WOMEN.”

Page 431.]

And so it happened that as the pace quickened that stirring June morning and the long line swept down upon the rousing, shrieking village, and the first shot came singing over their heads and the wild cheer leaped to their lips as the trumpet sounded charge, while many troopers sought their own course through and among the fire-spitting lodges, Sergeant Grant with Donovan and two others drove their horses close at the heels of the lieutenant's. Only squaws or children appeared among the tepees as they dashed furiously in. ”Look out! Don't harm the women!” they heard him cry, as he held his own pistol hand well aloft, but in another second a scowling, painted faced flashed one brief instant into view as their leader went lunging by, a shot rang on the air, and flame and smoke jetted from the lodge opening. Three pistols barked in answer and Davies galloped on unhurt, but poor Donovan, with an Irish howl, dropped his revolver, clapped his hands to his stomach as he toppled out of saddle. ”My G.o.d, fellers, I've got it,” was his moan, as Davies, a superb rider, quickly turned his horse about, and in the twinkling of an eye leaped to the ground to the trooper's side.

”Quick, sergeant. Quick, men, help me lift him on my saddle, I'm too weak,” was his almost breathless order, and gallantly did they answer him.

”Are ye badly hit, Jimmy?” gasped an honest Irish lad, as he strove to raise him from the ground. But deathly pallor and staring, sightless eyes were the sole reply. ”My G.o.d, lieutenant, he's killed outright.

There's no use staying,” cried another trooper. ”Mount, sir, mount for G.o.d's sake! They'll be on us in a minute.” But tugging still at the limp and lifeless form, Davies did not seem to hear. The fierce clamor of the charge was receding. Already the second and third platoons had cleared the village and were reining about and rallying on the flats up-stream.

Already the pony herds, driven full tilt by Canker's squadron, were out of sight in the dense dust-cloud and could be heard thundering up the valley. Only a portion of Truman's troop could be dimly seen through the settling dust, but, worst of all, the warriors recovering from their panic came rus.h.i.+ng from their lodges, and in a moment all would be over with the struggling little group of blue-coats. Fortunately, they were at the western skirt of the village, and almost all the rallying braves were running, rifle in hand, down to the southern edge, the direction of the chase. Some few, springing upon the scattered ponies left among the tepees, rode furiously away into the dust-cloud in the hope of recapturing some of their stampeded stock, and so it happened that, except for some shrieking women, only one or two Indians appeared aware of the little knot of troopers still in their midst, but that was more than enough. Davies's horse, pierced by a rifle bullet, went rolling in agony upon the ground just as a devoted Irishman was trying to bolster the almost exhausted officer into saddle, and, luckily for him, Davies was borne to earth out of the way of the shots that came driving at them from the surrounding lodges. ”Save yourselves,” he faintly called to the remaining men. Already Grant had darted away for help, receiving his death wound as he rode. Then down came another horse, while Donovan's, snorting, tore away among the tepees, and then there was help for it.

The little Irishman, Carney, bending low, strove to drag his prostrate leader, stunned by a kick from his dying horse, around behind the nearest lodge, when he, too, was sent blindly stumbling forward and sprawling in the dust, shot through and through from an unseen rifle not ten feet away, and the gallant fellow never heard the furious cheer with which ”C” Troop came charging back to the rescue.

It is one thing to dash into an Indian village; it is another to get out of it. Wounded or unhorsed, any men left behind are doomed to cruel and certain death. Within another minute, Cranston and his men came tearing in, firing right and left at every dusky form that appeared. Within a minute the prostrate bodies were found, and half a dozen men, Brannan among them, had sprung from their saddles, while the others rode blazing with their revolvers at the nearest lodges, some bringing their carbines into play. But even within that minute the scalping-knife had been at work, and poor Donovan's mutilated head lay in a pool of blood.

Short-lived triumph for the scalper, sneaking to shelter with his hideous prize, for Cranston's pistol stretched him in his tracks, and Sergeant Buckner's big charger knocked the foremost of the rescuing warriors scrambling back between the lodges, where other troopers drove their horses trampling them under foot. But every wigwam had its garrison. The village swarmed with maddened braves, who now came rus.h.i.+ng to the scene, and, they on foot and the troopers in saddle, they with their repeating rifles, the troopers with their pistols or single-shooters, annihilation of the latter could be but a question of a few moments. Even before Davies and his brave defenders could be lifted to the saddle and led away, two or three more of Cranston's horses went down, and Corporal Bertram was shot through both thighs. Then came the effort to retire fighting, covering their dead and wounded. There was only one way to go,--out across the westward flat, where the ponies were peacefully grazing when the attacking column hove in sight. Even as he shouted his orders to his savagely fighting troop, Cranston looked back with keen anxiety. To what pitiless fire must they be exposed in retreating over that prairie! Yet, with Indians on every hand within the village, it was manifestly his duty to get out. ”Go on with the wounded!” he cried to the men afoot. ”Go on! We'll cover you.” And then Davies slowly opened his eyes and began to look feebly about him. Oh, if Truman would only come! Every second the fight waged fiercer, hotter, and more men dropped as they backed slowly away. Down went Buckner's horse. Down went the guidon, and then, when it seemed as though half the troop must fall before they could reach the open field, the half-frenzied, half-joyous cheer of Truman's men rose shrill above the clamor, and again the dancing, howling Indians dove for cover underneath the tepees as ”F” Troop came thundering through.

”By the Lord, but that's the hottest place I ever struck!” cried Sergeant Buckner a moment later, as, slowly falling back now, most of the men fighting on foot, with the led horses and the disabled soldiers well beyond them, ”C” Troop was making its way southwestward towards the clump of Cottonwoods and willows, close along the stream. Truman's men, after their spirited and successful charge, were now rallying well to the north of the village beyond the ridge, where for the time being they were safe from the Indian fire. But once more now the warriors in the village were swarming along its western limit and, flat on their bellies, firing vengefully on Cranston's retiring line, now three hundred yards away, and every moment some horse would rear and plunge, stung by the hissing lead, but only one more soldier had been hit.

Davies, faint and dizzy and only semi-conscious still, was riding slowly away with Brannan's supporting arm about him. The bodies of Carney and Donovan were thrown across led horses and lashed on with lariats, and Cranston had just sent a corporal to tell the horse-holders to move more quickly when, up the slopes to the north, the men caught sight of a horse and rider darting toward them from the distant ridge over which Truman's men had disappeared. Straight as an arrow's flight they came, heedless of the fact that their course was along the western edge of the Indian village and barely two hundred yards away. ”My G.o.d, fellers, it's little Millikin!” cried an excited trooper. ”Ride wide, you young idiot!” yelled another, but all to no purpose. The boy trumpeter who had borne the message to Truman and charged with him through the village was now on his homing flight to rejoin his own. Vengeful yells and war-whoops rang from the village as warrior after warrior caught sight of him and blazed away. Throwing himself out of saddle, Indian fas.h.i.+on, and clinging like a monkey to the off side, the young dare-devil drove straight onward, the bullets nipping the bunch gra.s.s and kicking up the dust under his racer's flying feet, yet mercifully whizzing by him.

Running the gauntlet of more than half the length of the village, the little rascal darted, grinning, through the cheering skirmish line, and tumbled to his feet before his beloved chief.

”Captain Truman's compliments, sir, and he'll rejoin you at the timber,”

was his message, delivered while his quivering horse stood flicking his long tail at a red seam in his silky coat where one bullet at least had scored its way, and Cranston bade him take his horse--and no more such fool chances--and get under cover straightway.

But now in falling back the skirmish line had made an irregular half wheel to the southward with a flying pivot toward the village, and the Indians were darting or crawling out south of the tepees so as to get an enfilading fire on the line. Cranston's quick eyes saw the danger and warned his right skirmishers. ”Back there! Fall back, you men! Run for it!” he shouted; and to the jeering rage of the Indians the run began, the men halting and refacing the village as soon as beyond danger of flank fire, and then came still another excitement. Even while falling steadily back, with wary eyes on the smoking lodge lines, the men at the right became suddenly aware of a rush of several Indians to the point where the troop had re-formed after its initial charge. ”They're making for the timber,” was the first cry, for a few scattered, stunted trees grew along the low ridge. Then came a yell from the rear, from the sergeant in charge of the led horses.

”It's one of our men lying there wounded. For G.o.d's sake save him!” and that was enough. Every carbine along the line was brought to bear on the stooping, crouching, scurrying warriors who had ventured so far out from the sheltering tepees. Obedient to Davies's order, Brannan and two or three men in saddle left the wounded to take care of themselves, and spurred headlong across the prairie to the scene, and Cranston, catching sight of the affair at the same instant, waved his cap in eager signal, while his voice, now hoa.r.s.e and choked, could hardly be heard in the order ”By the right flank.” Truman's column of fours, reappearing at the instant at the north, but well to the westward of the village, could not imagine what that distant manoeuvre meant, but it was no time to ask questions. ”Gallop” was the order, and down they came. And so it happened that barely twenty minutes after the first shot was fired the comrade troops of the Eleventh were once more united, and, facing nearly north, were in furious fight with an overwhelming force of Indians, while Chrome, turning deaf ear to Sanders's supplications, was vainly striving to round up a galloping herd of several hundred ponies full three miles away. Picking up the body of Sergeant Grant, saved from scalping and mutilation by the dash of Brannan and his squad, ”C” Troop was once more wearily retiring toward the timber along the Wakon, and Truman deploying his dismounted skirmishers to their relief.

And then, as the horses were huddled at last under the bank, and the wounded were tenderly lowered to the shade of the willows, and the dead, with soldier reverence, laid, blanket covered, under a spreading tree, the captains met to compare notes and sum up the losses. Grave indeed were their faces, for two of the best sergeants were killed as well as five veteran troopers, and nearly a dozen were more or less severely wounded. Davies, unscarred by bullet, lay faint from loss of blood, and dizzy and dazed from the blow from his horse's hoof. The knife wound, Red Dog's treacherous work, had reopened as a result of his violent throw to earth, and there was no surgeon nearer than Chrome's battalion, now out of sight far up the Ska. ”Thank G.o.d! they've got few ponies left,” said Cranston, fervently. ”We can hold them here until help comes.”

And help was coming, hard and fast,--harder and faster than Cranston dreamed, but not to them. Within the next quarter hour, greeted by frantic acclamations from the hostile village, there rode into view on the opposite bluff, and came shouting their war-song, brandis.h.i.+ng feathered lance or gleaming rifle, more than a hundred red warriors,--Ogallallas, Brules, Minneconjous all, with Red Dog himself, escaped from durance at the agency, madly revelling in their midst.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

It was barely sunrise when Chrome's battalion struck the hostile camp this hot June day, and two hours later the situation was comfortless enough--for the strikers. Hampered with their wounded and having lost a dozen horses killed, the two troops of the Eleventh on whom had devolved the harsher share of the work had been compelled to halt in the timber and stand off the now exultant Indians. With a hundred mounted warriors at his back and as many more afoot in the village, Red Dog promptly took the offensive, sent his yelling braves in big circle all around the clump of timber in which Truman and Cranston had posted their men, cut off communication with Chrome's party, now ”doing herd guard duty half a dozen miles up the Ska,” as some of Cranston's men derisively said, and then, little by little, established the dismounted braves in every hollow, behind every little ridge or mound, and soon had a complete circle of fire all about the wearied little force. As senior officer, Captain Truman was now in command of the detachment, but between him and Cranston there was a bond of cordial esteem and comrades.h.i.+p, and the command was purely a matter of form. Each had had long years of experience in frontier warfare, each knew just what had to be done, and neither regarded the situation as either desperate or particularly dangerous. It would have been an easy matter to cut their way out anywhere but for the helpless wounded, who would be butchered to a man if left behind. Here in the timber, with water in abundance, and comparative shelter for the disabled men and for the horses under the banks, they could remain until relief should reach them. This with Chrome's two troops not very far away and their own old colonel, with half the regiment, somewhere over in the hills to the southwest, they felt very well a.s.sured ought to be only a matter of a few hours. ”It was big luck,” said Truman, ”that our little pack-train got in when it did.

Ten minutes later and they'd have been cut off and ma.s.sacred.”

But the further advantage lay with the Indians that they just knew exactly where Chrome was and Tintop, too, and knew that neither one was making the first effort to relieve his surrounded comrades, Tintop because he was twenty miles away and had no knowledge of what was going on at the mouth of the Spirit River, and Chrome because he was utterly rattled by the mounted warriors now beginning to appear in increasing numbers around him. He had sustained no loss to speak of. None of his men had been hit. Only two horses had been struck by their long-range fire. He was, to use his own words, ”Really provoked at Truman and Cranston. They might know he needed them in holding such a big herd of ponies.” Poor Sanders was in a miserable state of anxiety. He begged the major to let him take ten men and go back to find them, or even to let him go back alone. He pointed out that they must have had a fierce fight. He had found Sergeant Grant dead, and heard the fierce battling in the villages where both troops were engaged, and then he had galloped through the dust-cloud to Chrome, narrowly escaping death as he did so, and told him the situation, confidently expecting that Chrome would turn the ponies loose, rally his men and dash back to the village; but Chrome did nothing of the kind. ”They should have come to me,” he said. ”We're the ones in need,” then sent him with an order to Canker, who, out on the right flank, was making the morning blue with blasphemy, and Sanders poured his tale into Canker's ears, and begged him to come and make Chrome understand the situation, and Canker replied that nothing short of a pile-driver could hammer an idea into a skull as thick as Chrome's, and nothing short of a blast get anything out of it. The man was a born idiot and had no more idea how to command cavalry in the field than he, Canker, had of teaching Sunday-school. Oddly enough, many of Canker's contemporaries said the same of him, but one never knows and rarely suspects half what one's brethren say or think of him. The valley was black with ponies, the troopers were black with dust, and a pall as of night hung over the herd, so dense that the sun rays were swallowed up in its depths and gave but little light below, and tears of rage and misery that started from Sanders's eyes trickled down through a sandy desert on each sun-blistered cheek. He rode back to his temporary chief just as an Indian bullet had whizzed in front of the major's nose and made his eyes almost pop from his head. ”Don't you see,” he urged, reproachfully, ”how very much more they are around us? If Truman or Cranston needed help they would have let us know long ago.”

After a brisk gallop of three or four miles up the valley of the Ska, the troopers of the --th had permitted the stampeded ponies to take things more leisurely, and so it resulted that by six o'clock many of their number were stopping occasionally to nibble at the gra.s.s which grew here luxuriantly, but there was, all the same, a steady, persistent movement of the living ma.s.s,--an enforced migration at the rate of at least three miles an hour. Well out on the foot-hills Canker's troop had thrown its flankers, while the other in long skirmish line, with appropriate reserves, interposed between the herd and possible Indian attack from the north. The eastern banks of the Ska along here were high and steep, and the stream flowed deep and rapid at their base, so attack from that quarter was not to be dreaded. All the same, occasional warriors could be seen along the bluff, scampering from point to point, firing long-range chance shots at the officers or men distinguishable through the edge of the dust-cloud, but venturing no closer. It was Chrome's idea, as he frankly said, to keep moving southwestward until Tintop's scouts should see the huge column of dust, and send forth to meet and guide him with his prizes to the colonel's camp. Every quarter-hour, therefore, was taking him farther and father away from his corralled comrades down-stream, but he refused to see it. ”Oh, they'll come along all right, Sanders,” he declared, as he saw how his adjutant's eyes constantly gazed back beyond the dispersed line of skirmishers, ”and we'll have a regular jubilee when we meet your colonel this evening. Some day, perhaps, you'll get a brevet for this.”

”d.a.m.n the brevet!” groaned the youngster. ”Give me a sight of 'C' and 'F' Troops safe and sound, and I'd rather have it than any brevet in creation.” Then a brilliant idea struck him. ”By the way, major, suppose they don't come along, what will you do for breakfast and dinner?