Part 12 (2/2)
The general desires that you send the couriers back within twenty-four hours of their arrival, after you have had time to scout the line of the Platte say twenty miles each way, giving full report of every Indian seen or heard of. He enjoins vigilance and hopes to keep the Sioux so busy that they can send no more in your direction. Should they do so, however, he will pursue at once. He trusts that you are doing everything possible to comfort and rea.s.sure Mrs. Hay, and that you can send good news of Lieutenant Field.
And this when he had just refused to remove the sentries or to visit Mrs. Hay:--this when he had just been told by Dr. Waller that Lieutenant Field was distinctly worse.
”He is simply fretting his heart out here,” were the doctor's words to him but a short time before, ”and, while unable to mount a horse, he is quite strong enough now to take the trip by ambulance, slowly, that is, to Rock Springs. I fear his father is failing. I fear Field will fail if not allowed to go. I recommend a seven days' leave, with permission to apply to Omaha for thirty--he'll probably need it.”
”I can't permit government teams and ambulances to be used for any such purpose,” said the major, stoutly. ”It is distinctly against orders.”
”Then, sir, he can go in my spring wagon and we'll hire mules from Mrs.
Hay,” was the doctor's prompt reply. ”He can do no good here, major. He may do much good there.”
But Flint was full of information and official zeal. The matter of Field's going had been broached before, and, when told of it, the Wilkins pair had been prompt with their protests. ”Of course he'd be wantin' to get away,” said Wilkins, ”wid all that money to account for, let alone these other things.” The Irishman was hot against the young West Pointer who had derided him. He doubtless believed his own words.
He never dreamed how sorely the lad now longed to see his father,--how deep was his anxiety on that father's account,--how filled with apprehension on his own, for that rifled desk had brought him reason for most painful thought. Wilkins and Field had been antagonistic from the start. Neither could see good in the other and, egged on by his worthy spouse's exhortations, the quartermaster had seized the opportunity to fill the post commander's too receptive mind with all his own suspicions--and this at a crucial time.
”I can't listen to it, Dr. Waller,” said the major, sternly. ”Here's a matter of near a thousand dollars that young man has got to answer for the moment he is well enough to stir. And if he can't account for it--you well know what my duty will demand.”
CHAPTER XIX
A SLAP FOR THE MAJOR
The columns of Colonel Henry and Major Webb, as said ”the Chief,” had united, and here were two men who could be counted on to push the pursuit ”for all they were worth.” Hitherto, acting in the open country and free from enc.u.mbrance, the Indians had been hard to reach. Now they were being driven into their fastnesses among the mountains toward the distant shelter whither their few wounded had been conveyed, and where the old men, the women and children were in hiding. Now it meant that, unless the troops could be confronted and thrown back, another transfer of tepees and _travois_, ponies and dogs, wounded and aged would have to be made. Lame Wolf had thought his people safe behind the walls of the Big Horn and the s.h.i.+fting screen of warriors along the foothills, but the blue skirmish lines pushed steadily on into the fringing pines, driving the feathered braves from ridge to ridge, and Lame Wolf had sense enough to see that here were leaders that ”meant business” and would not be held. Henry had ten veteran troops at his back when he united with Webb, who led his own and the Beecher squadron, making eighteen companies, or troops, of Horse, with their pack mules, all out at the front, while the wagon train and ambulances were thoroughly guarded by a big battalion of st.u.r.dy infantry, nearly all of them good marksmen, against whose spiteful Springfields the warriors made only one essay in force, and that was more than enough. The blue coats emptied many an Indian saddle and strewed the prairie with ponies, and sent Whistling Elk and his people to the right about in sore dismay, and then it dawned on Lame Wolf that he must now either mislead the cavalry leader,--throw him off the track, as it were,--or move the villages, wounded, prisoners and all across the Big Horn river, where hereditary foemen, Shoshone and Absaraka, would surely welcome them red-handed.
It was at this stage of the game he had his final split with Stabber.
Stabber was shrewd, and saw unerringly that with other columns out--from Custer on the Little Horn and Washakie on the Wind River,--with reinforcements coming from north and south, the surrounding of the Sioux in arms would be but a matter of time. He had done much to get Lame Wolf into the sc.r.a.pe and now was urging hateful measures as, unless they were prepared for further and heavier losses, the one way out, and that way was--surrender.
Now, this is almost the last thing the Indian will do. Not from fear of consequences at the hands of his captors, for he well knows that, physically, he is infinitely better off when being coddled by Uncle Sam than when fighting in the field. It is simply the loss of _prestige_ among his fellow red men that he hates and dreads. Therefore, nothing short of starvation or probable annihilation prompts him, as a rule, to yield himself a prisoner. Stabber urged it rather than risk further battle and further loss, but Stabber had long been jealous of the younger chief, envied him his much larger following and his record as a fighter, and Stabber, presumably, would be only too glad to see him fallen from his high estate. They could then enjoy the hospitality of a generous nation (a people of born fools, said the unreasoning and unregenerate red man) all winter, and, when next they felt sufficiently slighted to warrant another issue on the warpath, they could take the field on equal terms. Lame Wolf, therefore, swore he'd fight to the bitter end. Stabber swore he'd gather all his villagers, now herding with those of Wolf; and, having segregated his sheep from the more numerous goats, would personally lead them whither the white man could not follow. At all events he made this quarrel the pretext for his withdrawal with full five score fighting men, and Lame Wolf cursed him roundly as the wretch deserved and, all short-handed now, with hardly five hundred braves to back him, bent his energies to checking Henry's column in the heart of the wild hill country.
And this was the situation when the general's first despatches were sent in to Frayne,--this the last news to reach the garrison from the distant front for five long days, and then one morning, when the snow was sifting softly down, there came tidings that thrilled the little community, heart and soul--tidings that were heard with mingled tears and prayers and rejoicings, and that led to many a visit of congratulation to Mrs. Hay, who, poor woman, dare not say at the moment that she had known it all as much as twenty-four hours earlier, despite the fact that Pete and c.r.a.paud were banished from the roll of her auxiliaries.
Even as the new couriers came speeding through the veil of falling flakes, riding jubilantly over the wide-rolling prairie with their news of victory and battle, the post commander at Fort Frayne was puzzling over a missive that had come to him, he knew not how, mysterious as the anarchists' warnings said to find their way to the very bedside of the guarded Romanoffs. Sentry Number 4 had picked it up on his post an hour before the dawn--a letter addressed in bold hand to Major Stanley Flint, commanding Fort Frayne, and, presuming the major himself had dropped it, he turned it over to the corporal of his relief, and so it found its way toward reveille into the hands of old McGann, wheezing about his work of building fires, and Michael laid it on the major's table and thought no more about it until two hours later, when the major roused and read, and then a row began that ended only with the other worries of his inc.u.mbency at Frayne.
Secretly Flint was still doing his best to discover the bearer when came the bold riders from the north with their thrilling news. Secretly, he had been over at the guard-house interviewing as best he could, by the aid of an unwilling clerk who spoke a little Sioux, a young Indian girl whom Crabb's convalescent squad, four in number, had most unexpectedly run down when sent scouting five miles up the Platte, and brought, screaming, scratching and protesting back to Frayne. Her pony had been killed in the dash to escape, and the two Indians with her seemed to be young lads not yet well schooled as warriors, for they rode away pellmell over the prairie, leaving the girl to the mercy of the soldiers. Flint believed her to be connected in some way with the coming of the disturbing note, which was why he compelled her detention at the guard-house. Under Webb's _regime_ she would have been questioned by Hay, or some one of his household. Under Flint, no one of Hay's family or retainers could be allowed to see her. He regarded it as most significant that her shrillest screams and fiercest resistance should have been reserved until just as her guardians were bearing her past the trader's house. She had the little light prison room to herself all that wintry morning, and there, disdainful of bunk or chair, enveloped in her blanket, she squatted disconsolate, greeting all questioners with defiant and fearless shruggings and inarticulate protest. Not a syllable of explanation, not a shred of news could their best endeavors wring from her. Yet her glittering eyes were surely in search of some one, for she looked up eagerly every time the door was opened, and Flint was just beginning to think he would have to send for Mrs. Hay when the couriers came with their stirring news and he had to drop other affairs in order to forward this important matter to headquarters.
Once again, it seems, Trooper Kennedy had been entrusted with distinguished duty, for it was he who came trotting foremost up the road, waving his despatch on high. A comrade from Blake's troop, following through the ford, had turned to the left and led his horse up the steep to the quarters nearest the flagstaff. This time there was no big-hearted post commander to bid the Irishman refresh himself _ad libitum_. Flint was alone at his office at the moment, and knew not this strange trooper, and looked askance at his heterodox garb and war-worn guise. Such laxity, said he to himself, was not permitted where _he_ had hitherto served, which was never on Indian campaign. Kennedy, having delivered his despatches, stood mutely expectant of question and struggling with an Irishman's enthusiastic eagerness to tell the details of heady fight. But Flint had but one method of getting at facts--the official reports--and Kennedy stood unnoticed until, impatient at last, he queried:--
”Beg pardon, sir, but may we put up our horses?”
”Who's we?” asked the major, bluntly. ”And where are the others?”
”Trigg, sir--Captain Blake's troop. He went to the captain's quarters with a package.”
”He should have reported himself first to the post commander,” said the major, who deemed it advisable to make prompt impression on these savage hunters of savage game.
”Thim wasn't his ordhers, surr,” said Kennedy, with zealous, but misguided loyalty to his comrades and his regiment.
”No one has a right, sir, to give orders that are contrary in spirit to the regulations and customs of the service,” answered the commander, with proper austerity. ”Mr. Wilkins,” he continued, as the burly quartermaster came bustling in, ”have the other trooper sent to report at once to me and let this man wait outside till I am ready to see him.”
And so it happened that a dozen members of the garrison gathered, from the lips of a partic.i.p.ant, stirring particulars of a spirited chase and fight that set soldiers to cheering and women and children to extravagant scenes of rejoicing before the official head of the garrison was fairly ready to give out the news. Kennedy had taken satisfaction for the commander's slights by telling the tidings broadcast to the crowd that quickly gathered, and, in three minutes, the word was flying from lip to lip that the troops had run down Lame Wolf's main village after an all day, all night rush to head them off, and that with very small loss they had been able to capture many of the families and to scatter the warriors among the hills. In brief, while Henry, with the main body, had followed the trail of the fighting band, Webb had been detached and, with two squadrons, had ridden hard after a Shoshone guide who led them by a short cut through the range and enabled them to pounce on the village where were most of Lame Wolf's noncombatants, guarded only by a small party of warriors, and, while Captains Billings and Ray with their troops remained in charge of these captives, Webb, with Blake and the others had pushed on in pursuit of certain braves who had scampered into the thick of the hills, carrying a few of the wounded and prisoners with them. Among those captured, or recaptured, were Mr. Hay and c.r.a.paud. Among those who had been spirited away was Nanette Flower.
This seemed strange and unaccountable.
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