Part 3 (1/2)
But later in the day that promise was forgotten in an excitement of far greater magnitude.
CHAPTER IX.
LURKING FOES.
Church was over. The bugler had just sounded mess call, and the soldiers in their neat ”undress” uniform were just going in to dinner, when a man on a ”cow pony”--one of those wiry, active little steeds so much in use around the cattle-herd--came full speed into the garrison and threw himself from the saddle at Major Edwards' gate. It was the telegraph operator at the railway station. In his hands were two brown envelopes, and Major Edwards, as he stepped forward to meet him, saw in his face the tell-tale look of a bearer of bad news.
”I've no idea whose horse that is, major. There were a half dozen of 'em in front of a saloon there in town, and I jumped on the first I saw.
These have just come--one from Laramie, one from Omaha. I dropped everything at the office to fetch them to you.”
Edwards tore open first one and then the other. The first read:
”Couriers in front of Captain Wallace report large war parties along the Platte, and some across, raiding the Sidney road. Four teamsters killed, scalped, and mutilated three miles south of river.
Bodies found. Warn back everybody attempting to go that way.”
The second was from the office of the department commander himself:
”Indians in force south of Platte, on Sidney road. If Colonel Gaines and Captain Cross have started, send couriers at once to recall them.”
The major's face was dark with dismay.
”They have been gone nearly four hours,” he exclaimed. ”Even if I had swift riders ready, who could catch them in time?”
”I've been a trooper all my life, sir,” came sudden answer. ”Give me a horse and carbine and let me go.”
The major might have known 'twas Sergeant Waller.
True to his word, and arranging with the officers of the court-martial to return in case his further testimony was required, Captain Charlton set forth at daybreak on Sat.u.r.day, intending to push straight through to Red Cloud as fast as mules could drag or horses bear him. To the Niobrara crossing the road was hard and smooth, when once they cleared the sandy wastes of the Platte bottom. He had a capital team, a light ambulance, and a little squad of seasoned troopers to go with him as escort. It was a drive of nearly ninety miles, but he proposed resting his animals an hour at the Niobrara, another hour at sunset; feeding and watering carefully each time, and so keeping on to the old Agency until he reached his troop late at night.
No danger was to be apprehended until the party got beyond the Rawhide, and not very much until they were across the Niobrara, but Charlton and his half a dozen troopers had been over each inch of the ground time and again, and very little did they dread the Sioux.
After midday the little party had halted close beside the spot where Blunt's detachment had made their bivouac so short a time before. Here were the ashes of their cook-fires and the countless hoof-prints of the horses. Here, too, was the trail in double file, leading away northward across the prairie--a short cut to the Red Cloud road. Charlton followed it with his keen eyes, and noted with a smile how straight a line its young leader must have made for the ”dip” in the gra.s.sy ridge a mile away, through which ran the hard, beaten track. Blunt prided himself on these little points of soldiers.h.i.+p, as the captain well remembered, and when charged with guiding at the head of a column, was pretty sure to fix his eyes on some distant landmark and steer for that, with little regard for what might be going on at the rear.
The ambulance mules, tethered about the tongue, were busily crunching their liberal measure of oats. Each cavalry horse, too, buried his nose deep in the s.h.i.+mmering pile his rider had carefully poured for him upon the dry side of the saddle-blanket. The men were contentedly eating their hard-tack and bacon and drinking their coffee from huge tin cups with the relish of old frontiersmen. One trooper, a few yards away out on the prairie, kept vigilant watch. Pondering deeply over the strange and unaccountable charge that had been laid at his young trumpeter's door, the captain was slowly pacing down the bank, puffing away at the briar root pipe that was the constant companion of his scouting days.
Suddenly he heard the sentry call, and, turning, saw him pointing to the ground at his feet.
”What is it, Horton?” he asked, going over toward him.
”Pony tracks, sir. The Indians have been nosing around here since our men left.”
There were the prints of some half a dozen little unshod hoofs dotting the sandy hollows in the low ground near the stream, and easily traceable among the clumps of buffalo gra.s.s beyond. Charlton could see where they had gathered in one spot, as though their riders were then in consultation, and then scattered once more along the bank. Two hundred yards away stood the lonely log cabin, all that was left of what had been the ranch, and following the trail, the captain presently found himself nearing it. Two tracks seemed to lead straight thither, and before he reached it were joined by several more. Close to the abandoned hut the ground was worn smooth and hard; yet in the hollows were acc.u.mulations of dust blown from the roadway up the stream. Around here the pony tracks were thick, and just within the gaping doorway were footprints in the dust--some of spurred bootheels and broad soles, one still more recent of Sioux moccasins. Through the solid log walls two small square windows had been cut and narrow slits for rifles, in the days when the occupants had frequent occasion to defend their prairie castle. The opening to the subterranean ”keep” was yawning under the eastern wall, its wooden cover having long since been broken up for fuel. Charlton stood for a moment within the blackened and dusty doorway, and glanced curiously around him.
Except for the new footprints it looked very much as it did when he had first taken occasion to inspect the interior, earlier in the summer.