by Charles King
CHAPTER XIX.
The blizzard that swept down on the broad valley of the Platte the nightof the hop,--the night Davies marched away,--though severe, had been ofshort duration. A warm wind and a strong wind from the Arkansas met andoverthrew it, and pursued its decisive victory to the Dakota line. Thesnow was "slumping," said the little Leonards, when Messrs. Burtis andWillett drove out from Braska Friday afternoon and took Mrs. Davies andMrs. Darling sleighing up the valley. It was freezing, of course, againby sundown, but judging from Mira's glowing cheeks the drive in theexhilarating air had done her a deal of good, and she sat with Willett,while Mrs. Darling faced the breeze at the side of his accomplishedassociate. Many women watched the start and some saw the finish, andnone with more interest than Mrs. Flight, who had never before beenleft on such occasions, nor with more distress than Mrs. Cranston, whoknew not what to say. The party dined at the Darlings' quarters thatevening, and later some of the boys came to Leonard and asked if itwouldn't be possible to have a few of the band in the hop-room. Theywanted to dance and Darling's house was too small. Leonard said theyknew the colonel's decision,--the bandsmen were expected to play once aweek as late as any one cared to dance in consideration of certain smallextra pay. If they played at any other time, they had a right to expectcompensation. He would not order them out. Messrs. Sanders and Dot andJervis could go and see the leader and arrange with him as to terms andmen, if they chose, and have their dance. It wasn't what the boysexpected; moreover, it was late, but they were young, energetic, andenthusiastic. Three musicians were found and a dozen couples, and longafter midnight the lights and laughter and merry strains of music toldthat the younger element of Scott was enjoying itself irrespective ofanything that might be going on at the almost forgotten agency. Thechaplain and his wife, going earlier in the evening to call and cheerAlmira, were met by Katty at the door and the information that "themisthress was dinin' at Mrs. Darlin's." Katty was short with hervisitors for two reasons. She didn't approve of the dominie, as he wasnot of the faith of her Irish fathers, and she did approve of CorporalLenihan, who had come to spend the evening. When, therefore, the worthycouple announced that they would return later after making other callsin order to see if there were not something they could do for Mrs.Davies, who must be dreadfully sad, Katty replied, "'Deed and theyneedn't worry, for it's more'n _she_ did." The stern discipline of thepost took Lenihan off to his troop at tattoo, but Katty lacked not forcompany. "It wasn't becoming," said her mother, "that she should be leftto herself at the dead of night with no one but that lout Barnickel tolook after her." So she came up from Sudsville at taps to discuss Mrs.Davies's tea and preserves and, incidentally, her character with herblooming daughter, and Barnickel was sociably disposed, and the kitchencongress was in animated session when at 11.30 P.M. there came a sharpring at the bell.
"Bless us! I didn't suppose they'd be home till long after midnight,"said Katty, as she scurried away. It wasn't the misthress, however; onlyMrs. Darling's maid, to say that Mrs. Davies would not come home; shewould spend the night at Mrs. Darling's, and Letty had come for herthings. This necessitated Mrs. Maloney's remaining all night to furtherlook after Katty, and what more natural than that they should light Mrs.Davies's lamp and spend a blissful hour in her simply furnished butpretty room, looking over the new gowns and garments and jimcracks, andso absorbed were they in this occupation that they took no heed of time;and so it happened that the good old chaplain, coming shortly aftermidnight over from the hospital, whither he had been summoned to thebedside of a sorely-stricken trooper, rejoiced to see that Mrs. Davies,at least, had not gone to the dance, but was keeping wifely vigil in thesanctity of her own room, praying, probably, for the safety of the lovedyoung husband now on perilous duty eighty miles away. At the corner, atthe end of the long row of quarters, a solitary figure was standing. Thechaplain recognized the beaver overcoat in the soft moonlight and thesoldierly face under the forage-cap.
"Ah, Cranston! Officer-of-the-day, I see. Just going the rounds?"
"I was,--yes,--but I saw you coming, so waited. How's Hooker?"
"Very low, poor fellow! Typhoid has him in tight grip. He's flightyto-night. He thinks he's back on the summer campaign again, and his talkis all of the Antelope Springs affair. Odd! this makes the third man tocome back from Boynton's party, two with typhoid fever and one with themail-carrier and a bottle,--Brannan I mean,--and they all talk aboutthat. From what I have gathered it would seem that Devers blamed Mr.Davies for the whole tragedy, but the men, when their tongues areloosened by fever or rum, lay loads of blame elsewhere."
"Yes?" said Cranston, with deep interest, yet reluctant to talk ofregimental scandal with an outsider. "I should like to know what theysay."
"Well, they say McGrath could tell a tale if he were alive, and thatLutz and the men at the agency believe they were shoved up there becausethey had said things which First Sergeant Haney overheard and reportedto the captain. It seemed queer, even to me, so many men going fromDevers's troop under command of somebody else's lieutenant, and nowDavies himself has gone, and suppose he should hear of this talk?"
"He will know what to do, chaplain. Davies has earnest friends who willnot see him further wronged, but just now, as you probably understand,nothing can be done. Now excuse me a moment. I may have been mistaken,but I thought I saw a man's figure hanging about the back gate of NumberTwelve as I came up the bluff from the wood-yard. I thought he wentthrough Davies's yard and that I'd see him crossing the parade when Igot to the corner, but not a soul was in sight and it is almost as lightas the day. If he didn't go through he must be in the shadows there ofthe wood-shed. There's been some prowling, and though this isn't thesort of night for that sort of thing, it's still possible. Will youkindly wait here and watch the front and this side while I beat up therear?"
Wonderingly the chaplain assented, and, with his sabre clanking at hisside, Cranston strode away northward along the line of whitepicket-fence until he came to the high rear barrier of the row, one ofblack unplaned boards, and around behind that he disappeared. Across theintervening yard and through the open gate-way at the back the chaplaincould see a patch of the snow-clad valley, and watched for theappearance of Cranston's sturdy form in that silvery gap.
But another eye had also been alert. The very instant the figure of theofficer-of-the-day disappeared from view behind the high back fence, outfrom the shadows of the shed there sprang a lithe, slender form, clad insoldier overcoat, and, in less time than it takes to tell it, around itdarted behind the shed, was one instant poised at the top of the fencethat separated the yard of Davies's quarters from that of theirnext-door neighbor, then noiselessly dropped out of sight on the otherside. The next minute Cranston appeared in the gap.
Instead of shouting, fearful of disturbing the inmates, the chaplainquit his post, hastened along the front to Davies's gate and around thehouse to the rear, where he found Cranston searching.
"There was a man. I saw him. He leaped the fence into the next yard. Atall, slender fellow."
But search in there and in its fellows revealed nothing. The prowler hadhad time to skip from yard to yard, and nothing short of the services ofthe entire guard would be apt to result in his capture.
"I wish you had shouted to me. I could have grabbed him in Hay's yard,"said Cranston.
"Well, I didn't like to for fear of startling Mrs. Davies," said thechaplain, simply, and Cranston glanced quickly and queerly up at himfrom under the visor of the little cavalry cap.
"Why, she----" he began, then checked himself abruptly.
"Could you give no description of him? Did he leave no trace?" askedCaptain Devers at the office next morning when the oldofficer-of-the-day made his report.
"No, sir, but the chaplain might. He saw him plainly,--said he was talland slender."
And Captain Devers replied,--
"Very good, sir. You're relieved," and then turned to the new incumbent,Captain Rogers, of the infantry: "I wish especial attention given tothi
s matter, Captain Rogers, and probably I shall take a turn with youto-night after twelve."
But that night long after twelve the whole post took a turn. It wastowards four A.M. when the telegraph operator, who slept always besidehis instrument, came banging at the door of "A" Troop's office. It wasopened by an indignant Irish sergeant. "Go rout out the captain at once.You know how to rouse him and I don't. There's hell to pay and the wholecrowd wanted." And Haney, who would have damned his impudence anothertime, donned his clothes without an instant's delay, and together theyran across the parade and brought up with a bang at Devers's storm-door.
Agatha Loomis was probably a light sleeper. It was her tap at theCranstons' room that first roused them.
"What is it?" cried Margaret, up in an instant and filled with no otherapprehension than that of more sore throat or cough in the nursery.
"There's some excitement and running about the post. The office islighted and people are hurrying over there."
Cranston looked at his watch,--4.15. Peering out of the dormer-window atthe front, he could see dark forms scurrying across the parade andlights beginning to pop up here and there and everywhere along the rowof barracks. Hurriedly donning his stable dress and furs, he went downto the hall-way, Margaret, pale and silent now, following. A man wasknocking at the door of the adjoining quarters, and Cranston recognizedthe form of Lieutenant Jervis. "What's up?" he queried.
"Big row at the agency," came the murmured reply. "Reckon mosteverybody will have to go." And though he spoke in low, guarded tone,Margaret heard, and then clung to her husband's arm.
"Again! so soon?" she cried. "Oh, God! Are we never to know one-halfyear of peace?"
Cranston led her into the warm little parlor and took her in his arms."I must go to head-quarters at once," he whispered. "Doubtless I shouldhave been there before; but don't borrow trouble, Meg, dear, wait untilI know what's to be done." Then he left her with Agatha and went hisway.
The office was crowded. Devers sat in the colonel's chair pencillingdespatches to be sent to department head-quarters. Around him, sittingor standing, were most of the officers of the garrison, either silentlyregarding him or chatting in low tone. All that was known was that SamPoole, one of the best and most daring scouts employed at the agency,had ridden into Braska about three o'clock, his horse nearly spent, withthe news that the whole gang of Sioux had risen in revolt and attackedthe agent. He left at 8.15 Friday night with McPhail's plea for instanthelp and all they could send of it, but so deep were the drifts inplaces and so exhausted was his horse that it had taken him all thattime to reach the railway. The wire was still down and he bore thelatest news. There could be no mistake: the attack had fairly begunbefore he was out of hearing. The volleying and yelling beat anythinghe'd heard since the battle at Slim Buttes in September. Thequartermaster in charge of the depot at Braska had despatches wired atonce to Omaha and another out to the fort. Devers was up in a fewminutes and had sent his orderly for certain of the officers, and thenoise of ringing or knocking along the row had roused others. Cranstonand Hay were not of those sent for, but Devers explained that he took itfor granted they were prepared to take the field with their troops at amoment's notice, and did not care to disturb them until he knew whatthey would be required to do. It would be several hours before orderscould reach them from Omaha, he reasoned, and he had no idea what theorders would be. The whole command might be sent, or none of it.Meantime vigorous preparations were going on in the store-rooms andkitchens along the barrack row, "A" Troop's activity being conspicuous.But without waiting for orders from their captains, the veteran firstsergeants of the other troops were getting everything in readiness, andwhen Hay and Cranston walked over to the barracks to see how farpreparations were advanced, each had an approving word for his faithfulaide.
But Omaha was wider awake than Devers supposed. The Gray Fox was inpossession of the news almost as soon as the post commanders, and he andhis adjutant-general were at the telegraph-office within half an hour."I will go by first train," said he. "Meantime we must start a bigforce."
And so before the reveille bugles were singing through the wintrymorning along the slopes of the Rockies, the telegraph had roused theofficers at all the posts along the railway for five hundred miles.Russell, Sanders, and Sidney were up and astir with preparation. Specialtrains were ordered to meet and convey their detachments of horse, foot,and pack-trains, so that a big command might concentrate at once atSidney and march thence, 'cross country, to the Ogallalla Agency,Colonel Winthrop at their head. The commanding officer of Fort Scott wasdirected to start three troops of cavalry and two companies of infantryat once, with instructions to join Colonel Winthrop's column at theNiobrara crossing, and, his own troop being now the smallest at thepost, owing to these details at the agency, Devers very properly decidedon sending everybody else's. Truman, Hay, and Cranston of the Eleventhand Pollock and Muncey of the Fortieth were the captains ordered tomarch forthwith. Before eight o'clock on Sunday morning the littlecolumn had swung sturdily away over the prairies, and Captain Devers,with his own attenuated troop and two companies of "doughboys," remainedto guard the post and its supplies, and take care of the invalid coloneland the wives and children of the soldiers so summarily ordered into thefield.
And now Almira could not lack sympathizers, for both Mrs. Flight andMrs. Darling had been called upon to say adieu to their respectivelords, who marched with their sturdy comrades in the wake of thecavalry, guarding the few wagons which had to be taken; but thesegentlemen belonged to a famous regiment that had known no other historysince the day of its organization than that of constant active service.The Fortieth was forever in the field,--its wives "perenniallygrass-widowed," said the garrison wits,--its children so seldom blessedwith the sight of the paternal face as to be preternaturally wise inpicking out their own fathers. The Fortieth went as a matter of course.The two companies remaining behind looked upon that as a mere accidentthat time would surely rectify. The two that went made the customaryappeal to the post commander for the release of certain untried andunpunished of their weaker members who happened to be at the momentlanguishing in the guard-house, and the plea prevailed. Hearing this,the chaplain, backed by Dr. Burroughs, came to the office with anotherplea. There was the young man Brannan confined in the guard-house sinceWednesday morning last, he knew not on what charges and begged to bereleased from durance so utterly vile and permitted to go with thecommand to the rescue of his comrades at the agency,--what there mightbe left of them.
But Devers replied that Brannan's troop was not going. Furthermore, heintended to have Brannan brought before a garrison court on the morrow.This was the sorrowful message the chaplain carried, and Brannan wrunghis hands. "I have violated no regulation, missed no roll-call, beendrunk on no duty. I did drink when half frozen on that hard ride fromthe agency to the post. I drank after I got here, but drank no more andbehaved no worse than half a dozen others of the troop who were with meat the store, and some of whom drank more, got drunk and were allowed tosleep it off in quarters and nothing said about it. Why am I singled outfor punishment? Why is Paine--who went to town and had to be broughtback by a patrol--why is he released and allowed to go as wagoner, whileI am forbidden to go at all? There's surely something behind all this,chaplain."
And the dominie didn't say so to the man, but thought so to himself. Hewas still talking with the prisoner when the sergeant of the guard cameand said he was sorry, but orders had just come for Brannan to be sentto the quartermaster's corral at once to help load wagons, and the youngfellow, with tears in his eyes, was led mutely away. Cranston happenedto ride by the corral ten minutes later and caught sight of the pale,fine-featured face, whose-eyes looked up at him wistfully, imploringly.
"Why, Brannan," said he, "I had hoped to hear of your release by thistime. We march in less than an hour, and I fear nothing I can say toCaptain Devers will be apt to help you, but try to keep up good heart.Say nothing about this confinement to your mother when you write, andI'll as
k Mr. Leonard to look out for you. He'll see that no great harmcomes."
"It seems as if everything had gone against me, sir," said the boy, withquivering lips. "I don't know why I can't get justice in this troop. IfCaptain Devers thinks me so bad a soldier, why don't he let me transfer?I've asked twice, and he refuses. It's my belief he's trying to drive meto desert so as to get me out of the way--or destroy my character."
"Hush, Brannan. You know that you ought not to talk to me in that way.There's no time for words. I'll ask Mr. Hay to keep special lookout foryou. I know the general will overtake us to-morrow, and quick aspossible I'll have a word with him. Now, good-by, lad. Stand to yourguns a little longer and you're all right."
"I'll try, sir, if you'll give my--give my respects to Mr. Davies, andsay to Miss Loomis--God bless her." And with a choke in his voice theyoung soldier turned suddenly away, dashing his sleeve over his eyes.
"Get to work there, you, Brannan," growled Sergeant Haney beforeCranston was out of hearing. "No more palavering with officers out ofyour own troop this day unless you want double trouble in it,--and bedamned to you," he added, in low and cautious tone, his eyes furtivelyfollowing the captain, now twenty yards away. And Cranston was ridinghome to don his winter field rig and to a parting that he dreaded beyondall description, for now, more than for many a long year, had Margaretneed of all her husband's love and encouragement and devotion.
Sunday noon the detachment from Scott was across the railway and firston march to the beleaguered agency. Sunday night they camped in thebreaks of the big divide, some fifteen miles north of Braska, and stillno tidings came from beyond the Niobrara. Restoring the telegraph lineas they went, digging it out from under the snow, the infantry trudgedalong all day Monday, following the trail of their mounted comrades wholeft them at dawn, and early Monday morning an ambulance drawn by sixspanking big brown mules whipped by them along the road, and the kindlytwinkling eyes of their old friend and fellow-campaigner, the general,peered out at them. Away he went to overtake the foremost riders, withjust brief word or two and cordial grasp of the hand to the few officerswho hastened alongside. Without guard or escort, with only a singleaide-de-camp, with his life in his hands as usual, the Gray Fox washeading straight for the scene of danger. "Heard anything at all?" heasked.
"Not a thing." Who could tell whether man or woman was left to forwardword of any kind?
Monday night the cavalry reached the snow-covered banks of the Niobrara,and went into bivouac on the northern shore to await the coming of theblack speck that, just before dusk, could be seen far in their wakepicking a way through the drifts in its descent from the crest of thedivide. "It's the general, of course," said everybody, and the generalit was.
"Anybody come ahead yet from Winthrop?" was his first question. No! TheSidney road was covered in places by drifts that had lain unbroken eversince the storm. "Any news from the agency?"
Not a word, and it lay now barely a dozen miles away. Tuesday morning,too impatient to wait for coming reinforcements, and confident he couldhold his own with the little force at hand, the Gray Fox pushed ahead.All were up and off at the break of the wintry day, and at eight o'clockhad neared the top of the divide between the shallow, placid Niobraraand the swift Chasing Water beyond. Little Sanders, trotting far in theadvance with three or four light riders, threw himself from his horse,unslung his field-glass, and peered long and anxiously into thenorthward valley. All seemed desolate and deserted. A smoke was driftinglazily upward from the site of the distant agency; not from peacefulchimney, but rising from a mass of smouldering ruins. The villages ofRed Dog, Kills Asleep, Little Big Man, even of Two Lance, haddisappeared, and of the Ogallalla Agency not another vestige could beseen but the grim outlines of the stockade.
