Part 4 (2/2)
Bang! goes Cross' piece. Bang! bang! the rifles of the nearest soldiers. The mules plunge wildly, and are tangled in an instant in the traces. Over goes the wagon with a crash. Bang goes Gaines' big Springfield as he coolly spreads himself on the ground. An Indian pony stumbles and hurls his rider on the turf, and Cross gives an exultant cheer. Yet all the same he knows full well that now it is life or death.
The little party is hemmed in by a host of savage foes.
CHAPTER XII.
MYSTERIOUS HOOF-PRINTS.
It was Sat.u.r.day night that, from far up the Platte, the news came to Captain Wallace of the dash made by the Sioux for the Sidney road. For two days previous he had been hunting Indians upstream toward the Rawhide, and had found a perfect network of pony tracks and had had some very distant glimpses of flitting warriors. His scouts had told him that the Sioux and Cheyennes were swarming over the country to the northwest of him, and that none had appeared to the east. It was his business, therefore, to move against them, and move he did, trusting that Forrest and the Grays would be alert along the southern verge of the reservations that no formidable parties could slip southward in his absence.
But this was simply part and parcel of the Indian scheme. Having lured him two days' march away from the Sidney crossing, these enterprising warriors kept him occupied, while their confederates, making a wide detour around Forrest, slipped across the Platte and swooped down upon the poor fellows with the freight wagons. Only one of their number managed to escape, and he, madly riding westward, came upon some herdsmen who promptly joined him in his flight. They had seen the cavalry going up the north bank a day or two before, and they never drew rein until they found them. Wallace at once sent couriers westward to Fort Laramie with the news, and at break of day started downstream with his whole troop. They had not marched five miles before they came upon the hoof-prints of a single horse, and just beyond the point where these hoofprints crossed their trail, the tracks of half a dozen Indian ponies met their eager eyes. One old sergeant, reining out of column to the right, followed the shod tracks over to the river bank, and a lieutenant spurred out and joined him when he signaled with his broad-brimmed scouting hat. The rest of the troop moved stolidly ahead.
Presently the young officer overtook the column and reined in beside his captain.
”Where did they go, Park?”
”Straight into the stream, sir, and evidently to the other side.
Sergeant Brooks says 'twas a troop horse with a light rider, and that he had to swim across. The river is six feet deep out there, but it was his only way of escape. The Indians couldn't have been far behind, and yet they didn't follow. Their tracks turn down the bank on this side. Brooks is following them now.”
”Who on earth could have come through here at such a time? Why, the country has been running over with Indians!”
”That's what puzzles me, sir, but Brooks says there is no mistake. It's the cavalry shoe, of course. It's just after pay day at Robinson. Could it have been a deserter?”
”No man in his senses would have dared such a thing,” is the impatient answer. ”It may be some other infernal trick to get us away from our legitimate business. What we've got to do is reach that Sidney road by sunset. By Jove! if I'm court-martialed for this business, it won't surprise me.” And the captain's horse evidently felt the sudden grip of the knees, for he took a sudden spurt and set most of the troop at the nerve-wearing jog-trot. Mr. Park said nothing more, but for the life of him he could not help thinking of those lone hoofprints and of that solitary rider. Who could he be?
It is time we got back to him. Only one man or boy, known to us at least, could have come that way. It was Trumpeter Fred.
Daybreak Friday had found him a few miles south of the Niobrara, and close to the Laramie road. At noon Friday he had halted at the Rawhide to rest his horse and take a bite of luncheon, but all his young soul was athrill with eagerness; every faculty was alert. Warned of the recent presence of Indians on every side, he was yet seeking to gain the Platte before nightfall; cross to the south bank, where there was comparative safety; ride southeastward until his horse was exhausted, picket him where gra.s.s and water were near at hand, sleep till dawn again, and then push on. He must reach the Sidney road before Sunday morning and strike it far below the river.
But here, as he neared the valley, a sight had met his eyes which made his young heart leap. The banks of the Rawhide were dotted here and there by fresh pony tracks, and, coming from the distant ridges to the east, they had gone in as though to water, and then turned down toward the Platte, the very way he wanted to go. An hour, with his horse hidden behind him in a shallow ravine, Fred Waller was lying p.r.o.ne upon the ground, and peering over a ridge into the low, level wastes stretching far to the southeast, bordering the Platte to the very horizon. What most attracted his gaze was a little dust cloud, miles away downstream, into which tiny black dots were moving, with other little dots scurrying about at some distance from the main cl.u.s.ter. No need to tell him they were Indians.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FLAT ON THE GROUND WAS PEERING OVER THE RIDGE.]
It was some minutes before he could determine which way they were really going, but when he finally saw that they were bound down the valley, the boy's heart beat high with hope. He could venture down to the Platte as soon as they had pa.s.sed entirely out of sight, and find some place to cross well to the west of them. An hour he waited and still they were in view. Then they seemed to disappear in a little clump of timber. He waited fifteen to twenty minutes, and they were still there. Then it suddenly dawned upon him that the whole band were resting in the shade while their scouts searched the neighborhood. He was five or six miles from the river, and every inch of ground in front was open. He knew well that their eyes were keener than his, and should he make a dash for it they would certainly see and give chase. What he could not detect, and did not dream of, was that miles still further away down the Platte another dust cloud was slowly advancing--Wallace's troop coming upstream--and their scouts were watching that.
At last, after another hour of anxiety, he determined to slip away westward, go up the Rawhide a few miles until he could gain the shelter of some low-lying ridges, crossing the stream, and making a wide circuit, sweep around to the Platte. He might still reach it before dark and find a ford, or at least a place to swim across; he could trust ”Big Jim” for that. But even as he would have put this plan in execution, he saw to his dismay a new move among the warriors. Four little dots came riding from the timber and pus.h.i.+ng back up the valley. These were only the advance. In half an hour the whole band came jogging leisurely out of the shadows, and little dots farther east came streaking across the flats to join them. Fred saw that the whole war party was now retracing its steps and coming back upstream, and that now, if he waited, he might pursue his original intention of crossing at the shallows, ten miles below the mouth of the Rawhide. And so, patiently and pluckily, he kept his ground,--”Big Jim” contentedly filling himself with buffalo gra.s.s the while,--and not until the sun was low in the west did Fred realize their real intent. Just as the scouts, far in advance of the main party, reached the winding banks of the Rawhide, they seemed to hold brief consultation; one of them plunged through to the western side, the other three turned and came straight toward the watching boy.
Great Heavens! It meant that the whole party was coming up the Rawhide, and before dark would find and follow his track. Fred's first impulse was to mount, and giving Jim the spurs, ride on the wings of the wind back to the north--back to the Niobrara, where he had left the troop in bivouac. There at least was safety, for they could not trail him in the dark. But the second thought covered him with shame. Go back--go back now! Never, so long as he had a chance for life and hope. Away from here, and instantly, he must speed on his mission, and in another moment his girth was tightened, and ”Big Jim,” astonished, was racing away eastward, but keeping the sheltered ridge between him and the Platte.
CHAPTER XIII.
AWAY TO THE RESCUE!
That night Fred Waller slept fitfully on the open prairie, with ”Big Jim” tethered close at hand. Sat.u.r.day morning found him ten miles to the east and ten miles further from the river than the point where he watched the Sioux the previous evening. Hungry and worn with anxiety as he was, the poor boy's heart sank within him when he cautiously peered over the ridge into the valley. After an early morning ride, he saw the dust clouds near the stream, and felt that he was still cut off. Noon was near when, far as he could see up or down, the valley was clear; and then creeping out from his lair, he again mounted and rode straight for the Platte. Warily he watched in every direction, but no intruders came.
He was spurring over the flats only a mile from the river before the first sign of pursuit was made. Then, far back toward the bluffs he had left, Fred spied a little party of warriors coming after him full tilt.
Never stopping for more than one glance he gave Jim the rein, urging him to full speed; marked, as he flashed across it only a few hundred yards from the bank, the trail of a cavalry command going up the valley and wondered whose it could be; then he and Jim went cras.h.i.+ng through the gravel at the water's edge and plunged boldly into the running stream.
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