Under Fire

by Charles King

  CHAPTER XX.

  When Sanders, with solemn face, turned to meet the general and reporthis discovery, the difference between the young and the old campaignerwas told in their own words.

  "I'm afraid we're too late to save 'em, sir. Everything's wiped out butthe stockade."

  "If the stockade's left, they've saved themselves," was the answer, andthe Gray Fox was right. Long before the column reached the lowlands ofthe valley horsemen could be seen spurring eagerly forward to meet it,and the first-comer was Trooper O'Brien, who saluted the general withall soldierly grace and the rest of the array with a sociable grin.

  "We're all right, general,--leastwise most of us is. Two of the boys iskilled, and Loot'n't Boynton's wounded,--and four others,--but thewomen's all safe, and the agent--bad scran to him! Is there a doctoralong?" A doctor was along,--Burroughs,--riding with the senior captaincommanding the battalion, and Burroughs was hurried forward with Sandersand a squad of men, while O'Brien, proud of his prominence, rode by thegeneral's side and told the story of the sharp and sudden fight.

  "They came down on us like a crowd of grasshoppers so soon as it waslight enough to see anything, but they couldn't get near us without ourbowling over bucks and ponies. The prairie's dotted with the corpses ofthe poor beggars, sir,--the ponies, that is; they never left an Indian.We stood 'em off first rate. Loot'nant Boynton and Loot'nant Davies waseverywhere at once, and after trying two dashes the Indians gave it upand kept at long range. They was a thousand strong at least, and Elkcame in with a white flag for a parley, and Mr. Boynton ordered himback, but McPhail let him in. He said we must give up Red Dog or they'dburn the agency over our heads and massacre every man, and McPhail wasfor letting him go then, but Mr. Boynton and he had words over it, andthey kept him. That night was cloudy and the moon was hid, and sureenough at ten o'clock they crawled in on the storehouse side and heapedup timber under them flimsy pine boards, and no one could see them onthat side until everything was in a broad blaze. It was when trying tobucket out the fire the lieut'nant was shot, and it was a roaringconflagration in five minutes, and from that it spread to the agency andthe other shebangs, and it was all we could do to get the women andchildren out of the cellars and into the corral, and them bucks firingfrom every sage brush for a mile around. The whole thing was down bymidnight, but it didn't do them no good: we was really better off withless to take care of and more men to do it with, and we had wather inthe well and rations for all hands, and the agent and his non-combatantsunder cover in one corner of the stockade, and Red Dog tied up inanother. All Sunday they kept up a long-range fire, and five or sixtimes made as though they was going to charge, but Loot'nant Davies wason all four sides of that square from dawn till dark, sir, and theynever got within four hundred yards that we didn't drop them. Sure itwas just pie, general. The only trouble was, could they set fire to thestockade at night? The loot'nant had buckets of water all around inside,and every little while a patrol ran round on the outside, and half thefellows kept watch at the loop-holes while the others slept, and Mr.Davies had the office side of the stockade battened up with old wagonsand boxes and things to fill the gap. Faith, sir, he never seemed toclose an eye night or day until this blessed morning, when the valleywas clear of Indians and we knew it meant that the general was coming."And as O'Brien told his tale to attentive ears, others of the littlegarrison, lately beleaguered, joined the battalion, still steadily inmarch, and found eager auditors everywhere along the jogging column.Every one sorrowed at hearing of Boynton's serious wound, for he was asoldierly, faithful fellow, albeit a trifle blunt and unsociable, but asman after man spoke in lavish praise of Davies, of his plucky grapplewith the most redoubtable chief in the rebellious tribes, of his calm,cool vigilance and skill in the conduct of the defence after the commanddevolved upon him, Cranston's eyes sparkled, and Hay and Truman joinedin the chorus of congratulation.

  When at last the battalion unsaddled at the stream and the officerspressed into the stockade to shake hands with the defenders, they foundBoynton and the wounded feebly rejoicing in Burroughs's hands andDavies tucked away in a corner under an old wagon, rolled in agencyblankets, sleeping the dreamless sleep of a tired child.

  "Don't disturb him for anything," said the general, with moistened eyes."They tell me he hasn't had an hour's rest since Friday. He's behavedlike a trump."

  That night our old friend Tintop came trotting in at the head of eightstrong troops of horse, some of his own, others of the --th Cavalry.Behind them, with the wagons, came the infantry, supplementing thelittle detachment of the Fortieth already on the ground,--the sturdytrampers from Fort Scott. Next day the agent and his household, with theother women and children, were bustled off to Braska until new quartersshould be built for them, and his red wards be rounded up, run down, andreturned to the arms of Uncle Sam by their natural oppressors, thecavalry. Sending Red Dog in irons and Boynton and the wounded back toScott by easy stages, leaving four companies of the Fortieth to buildcantonments for themselves and their comrades, the Gray Fox took thefield with the residue of his force and set forth upon a winter campaignin search of the now scattered and despondent Indians. The oratory ofRed Dog had borne its fruit. Four truculent bands had joined in theoutbreak at the agency and lost their leader, half a score ofmad-brained young warriors, scores of their best war ponies, but, whatwas of most consequence, had burned up the whole store of agencyprovisions and, with their squaws and children, were now lurking amongthe trackless Bad Lands to the north, outcasts upon the face of thefrozen earth.

  The only Indians whose condition was not made materially worse as aresult of this ebullition were the Brule band of Two Lance, who hadtaken advantage of the general confusion to slip away to their old headchief Sintogaliska. He might not be able to feed or clothe them, and theagent at Sheridan might say he had no authority to help, but they wouldat least be getting as much comfort as was accorded them at Ogallalla,and less abuse.

  And then, while the soldiers were stalking the renegades, thecommissioner of Indian affairs sent out to stalk the soldiers.Investigation as to the cause of this inexplicable outbreak wasdemanded. Those very chiefs had left the capital in unbounded good humornot two months before, and who was responsible for this sudden andbaleful change of heart? It was a matter soon and easily settled. In theabsence of military testimony to the contrary and the presence of sounanimous a party as the agent and his assistants, the fault was laid onthe broad shoulders of the troopers. Devers rode over from Scott toBraska to hear the evidence, Boynton being still in surgical bandage andbondage, and without committing himself to anything absolutelyderogatory to Messrs. Boynton and Davies, was certainly understood toraise no dissenting voice to the often expressed theory that but for theimpetuosity and interference of those two officers the whole troublecould have been amicably settled by the authorities of the Indianbureau. And with this most satisfactory conclusion the commissionerreturned to Washington. Red Dog was ordered released and restored to thebosom of his family, and when the general had finally succeeded inbringing in the scattered starvelings and the cavalry reappeared at thesite of the agency, the first thing whispered to Davies was, "Be on yourguard every moment. Look out for Red Dog!"

  The general never swore. He was in this respect the mate of Grant, hisold-time friend and regimental comrade, but he could "look swear wordsby the gallon," said the adjutant of the Eleventh, whose own chief wasin no wise tongue-tied. It fell to the lot of Mr. Gray, sent forwardfrom the Bad Lands to announce the coming of the field column with allits humbled captives, to be the first on returning to announce to theGray Fox that Red Dog had been released from durance at Fort Scott,equipped anew by McPhail at Braska, and had ridden to the cantonment toharangue such Indians as were already reassembling there, and to thunderfurious threats at the officers of the Fortieth. Three bitter weeks hadthe Gray Fox and his faithful men been scoring the wild, wintryfastnesses along the Wakpa-Schicha, and, just as the Indians obtainedthrough the bureau the vast supplies of ammunition wit
h which to battlethe soldiers through the summer past, so now, while the War Departmentwas running down the renegades in the field, the Interior Department wasrunning down the soldiery at home. The troops came in with theconviction that they had been seeing some hard and trying service, manyof them with frosted fingers, toes, or ears, and thinking they deservedrather well of their country for having finally rounded up a thousandwarriors with all their families, ponies, and unsavory impedimenta, andthe general so informed them, and leaving a command of eight companies,equally divided among the horse and foot, to occupy the cantonments onthe Chasing Water and thereafter keep the Indians in check, he hastenedaway to attend to important business in another lively section of hisbig department. The agency buildings were being rapidly restored, whichwas much more than could be said of its influence for good among the redmen, and presently McPhail and his family reappeared on the scene, shookhands all around with the warriors who burned him out several weeksbefore, slapped Elk at Bay on the back and called him a bully boy, andpromptly requested of the commanding officer of the new cantonment,which was a mile away up stream, a guard of a lieutenant and twenty-fivemen to be stationed at the agency itself. The major demurred, and theagent wired to Washington with the usual result. Whatsoever slur uponhis actions McPhail had seen fit to cast at the expense of Mr. Daviesduring the investigation recently referred to, he had heard enough toconvince him that the Indians spoke of that officer with awe andreverence and as "heap brave," so the man he urgently asked for tocommand his guard was the very one whom he had maligned. Theadjutant-general of the department could only transmit the order thatcame from superior head-quarters within the week, and Lieutenant Davies,just as he was expecting brief leave of absence to visit his wife atFort Scott, was detailed to the command of the permanent agency guard.The Ides of March had come.

  And how had it fared with Mira and her sympathetic friends at Scottduring all these weeks of toil and march and scout? Two at a time theofficers had been allowed to run in thither for a few days as soon astheir men and horses were made fairly comfortable at the cantonments.Cranston and Hay went first, then Truman and Jervis, then came the turnto which Sanders and the patient Parson had been looking forward, andSanders went alone. Already some of those fearless frontierswomen, theamazons of the Fortieth, had come ahead with bag, baggage and babies andmoved into the log huts of their lords as contentedly as they would havetaken quarters at the Grand Central in Omaha, but Mesdames Flight andDarling were not of the number. Indeed, there was no reason why theyshould be, as it was settled that their companies were those designatedpresently to return to Scott; so was Hay's troop, so presumably would bethe detached members of Devers's Troop, "A," as soon as he wrote andcalled attention to the fact that nearly one-half his men were detainedeighty miles away where there was now an abundance of other soldiery,and the truly remarkable thing was that he, always hitherto so quick tofind fault with or criticise the actions of his superiors, was keepingutter silence, and so long as he made no protest no one else could.Colonel Stone, still weak and dazed, was just beginning to hobble aboutthe post, and for six wonderful weeks had Devers succeeded in retainingthe command.

  "Your husband will be home any day," said Mrs. Darling to Mira, whenthey got the news of the triumphant return of the command to thecantonments. "He belongs here with his troop, so he's sure to come, andthen," she added, archly, "what will poor Willett do?"

  That was a question occurring to many another mind and falling from manyanother tongue. The rapture of Cranston's home-coming one sharp eveningin late February was dashed only by the sight of a blooming face atWillett's side behind that stylish Eastern team. In the windings of theroad among the willow islands in the Platte he had come suddenly uponthem, he riding at rapid gallop, they dawdling with loosened reins.Willett was bending eagerly toward her, talking earnestly. She sat withdowncast eyes that never saw the swift rider until he had almost passedthem by. Mrs. Darling, chatting with Mr. Burtis on the rear seat, wasthe first to announce his coming, and with rare presence of mind to turnand send sweetest smiles and beaming glances and the welcome of a wavinghand after the grim, bearded face that had no smile for their civilianescorts and only grave courtesy for the ladies themselves. He would notmar the joy of his home-coming by the faintest reference to what he hadseen, but Margaret read his honest eyes as she read her boys', and knewthat he must have met them on the way. For weeks she had seen the rapidgrowth of the new intimacy and deplored it, and had no one to conferwith about it except Agatha, but Agatha flatly refused to open her lipsupon the subject. It was a mercy that Wilbur at last came home andunloosed her tongue. As she pathetically said, "I simply could notcontain myself any longer."

  But if Mrs. Cranston had held her tongue, there was no lack of otherswho had not, and foremost of these was Mrs. Flight, who spoke by thecard. For a fortnight or so the devotion of these two ladies, Mrs.Flight and Mira, to one another had been of that seething and tirelesscharacter that rendered them incapable of spending an hour apart, andthen came the little tiffs and coolnesses that betokened that this, too,was inevitably going the way of all such feminine intimacies. Up to theday of Mira's coming Mrs. Flight and Mrs. Darling had been inseparablefor as much as a week at a time. Both were young, pretty, andempty-headed; neither was burdened with children nor ideas. Both werehealthy, one was wealthy, neither was wise. Mrs. Darling had theadvantage over Mrs. Flight in that she was able to entertain lavishly,whereas Mrs. Flight could only entertain by personal charm and sprightlychat. They were the reigning belles at Scott, and not only the youngofficers at the post, but the young civilians in town, found greatpleasure in their society. There was capital sleighing for severalweeks, and Willett and Burtis came as often as every other day to takethe ladies an airing. At first it had been Mesdames Flight and Darling,then the bride had to be invited because she was the bride, then becauseshe was a beauty, and finally because Willett would have no one else.Then as it was generally at Darlings' they lunched, dined, danced,supped, were wined and warmed and welcomed, it transpired thatMrs. Flight found herself very frequently dropped from thesleigh-rides,--only invited semi-occasionally, perhaps once in ten days,when Burtis pointed out to Willett that they really must, you know, towhich the now infatuated Willett merely responded, "All right. You askher, then, and let her sit with you." No one but Mrs. Davies shared thesleigh man's seat.

  During the fortnight that followed the departure of Lieutenant Davies,Mrs. Flight had been devotion itself to her dear, bereaved friend, and,having wept with her, slept with her, sleighed with her, bared herinnermost soul to her, and made herself, as she supposed, indispensable,it was to be expected that Mrs. Flight could not look with equanimityupon the discovery that she was not so indispensable after all. She hadstarted Mira on the road to conquest, never dreaming that she herselfwould be the first overtaken and supplanted. She had thought hitherto nopossible harm could come of their taking an occasional drive with theirfriends, especially as Mr. Flight expressed himself so grateful for theattention shown his wife, and as she and Mrs. Darling seemed chosenrather to the exclusion of the other women, but when Mira and notherself became the invariable occupant of the seat by the swellcivilian's side, the indiscretion, not to say the impropriety of theaffair, became glaringly apparent. It is rarely from the contemplationof our own, but rather from the errors of our neighbors, that our morallessons are drawn, and now that in all its nakedness the scandalousnature of Mira's conduct was forced upon her attention, Mrs. Flightreasoned, most logically, that she could be no true friend if she failedto remonstrate and, if need be, admonish and reprove. She did so, andAlmira pouted and was grievously vexed. She didn't think so at all,neither had Mrs. Flight until--until she began to be counted out. Thisled to war, and from pointing the moral Mrs. Flight now turned toadorning the tale with what "everybody was saying." Mira challenged herauthorities. "I know who you mean,--Mrs. Cranston and Miss Loomis. Theyhate me and would say anything mean of me." Now, it was not Mrs.Cranston and Miss Loomis at all. They had no
more intimacy with Mrs.Flight than they had with Mira, nor as much. They looked upon Mrs.Flight as responsible in great measure for Almira's wrong start. Theyunder no circumstances would confide to Mrs. Flight what they thought ofMrs. Davies, and Mrs. Flight knew it, still she was not unwilling to letMira suppose that she was now enjoying their confidences even while shereferred to other authorities by the dozen as condemning or deploringMira's conduct, and a stormy scene followed, ending in tears andreproaches,--much heat, followed by chilling cold.

  For the following fortnight Almira's intimacy was transferred to Mrs.Darling, and from going to spend the night with Mira, Mrs. Flight tookto revolving in mind her singular observations while she was there.There had been a thrilling, a delicious, a mysterious and romanticoccurrence. Somebody twice came and whistled a strange, soft melodyunder the window and tapped as with a cane, gently, stealthily, a signalthat sounded like Rattat _tat_, rattat _tat_, just once repeated, andMrs. Davies trembled all over and grew icily cold, and begged Mrs.Flight to go to the window and say, "Go away, or I'll call the guard,"and when pressed for explanation Mira moaned hysterically and said, butMrs. Flight must never, never tell, that there was once a young man whomshe had known long before who had got desperate on her account, for shecouldn't return his love, and he had run away from home and enlisted,and she feared that he was there now, though she had never seen him andnever wanted to see him, and it became Mrs. Flight's belief that it wasno one less than that handsome young fellow, Brannan, who Captain Deverssaid was drinking himself to death. And now that Mira had withdrawn fromher the confidences of the month gone by and was recklessly driving theroad to ruin, flouting her admonitions, what more natural than that Mrs.Flight should forget her own vows of secrecy and conclude it time toseek other advice? Mrs. Darling would have been her first confidante inthis revelation, but they, too, had once been devotedly intimate and hadnow drifted apart. They were no longer on anything more than merelyfrigidly friendly terms, smiling and kissing in public and hidingwomanfully their wounds, yet confiding to friends how much they had beendisappointed in the other's character, if not actually deceived. Mrs.Flight found a confidante in the chaplain's wife, a woman simply swampedunder an overload of best intentions. It was Bulwer who declared that"It is difficult to say who do the most harm, enemies with the worstintentions or friends with the best," but Bulwer, who had reason to knowwhat he was talking about, never lived at Scott in the Centennial timesor at old Camp Sandy in the Arizona "days of the empire," for then hewould have known no such difficulty in deciding. Just as the stanch oldchaplain was just such another God-fearing, God-serving, devil-downingman as Davies's father, so was the chaplain's wife a counterpart ofDavies's mother, filled with the milk of human kindness still unturned,and overflowing with best intentions uncontrollably effervescent. Hadshe told her husband all might have been stopped right there, but, asthe demon of ill luck would have it, he had gone to a distantconvention. So she sallied forth, brimming with eagerness to snatch thislovely brand from the burning, to turn this fair, motherless, guideless,possibly guileless girl to the contemplation of her dangers, to theknowledge of her peril, to banish Willett from the dove-cote,--wily hawkthat he was,--and settle forthwith the fate of that young scamp Brannan.She did not find Almira until after dark, but meantime told herthrilling tale to Mrs. Stone (now full panoplied for further socialtriumphs, the colonel being on the mend, and herself so young as not tohave looked unmoved on those famous sleigh-rides, nor without envy onAlmira's blooming cheek), and from her side sped the chaplain's wife tohunt up Captain Devers. In him she found a listener indeed in whom therewas no end of guile.

  This was just before Cranston's return. The ball to be given by thetownsfolk had been indefinitely postponed in deference to ColonelStone's condition and the absence of so many dancing men in the field,but the weekly hops, although with thinned attendance, went regularlyon. Now there were several households who did not attend at all, amongthem Cranston's, Leonard's, and Hay's. More civilians came out fromtown, whom Devers welcomed affably and Hastings and the resident"doughboys" entertained as best they could. No need to troublethemselves: the visitors came to "dance with the grass widows at thefort," and had no embarrassment other than richness. There were alwayswall-flowers, but never in the person of pretty Mrs. Davies, to whom"Phaeton" Willett's devotion was now the talk of all.

  It was just at this time, too, that there came to Braska a middle-agedlawyer with all the ear-marks of the soldier about him, including awhite seam along his cheek that told of a close call his intimates knewto have occurred at Spottsylvania. His name was Langston, and his firstvisit to the post was the result of a letter of introduction to CaptainCranston from a classmate in the East. Cranston had driven over toBraska to seek him out on receipt of the letter enclosing Langston'scard, bade him hearty welcome to the West, and was surprised to hearthat his practice brought him frequently to the neighborhood. He askedhim out to dinner two weeks later, Captain and Mrs. Hay, Mrs. Davies,and Mr. Hastings being invited to meet him, for almost his firstquestion had been for that soldierly young officer, the hero of the rioton the train. Mrs. Davies pleaded previous engagement, but Captain andMrs. Cranston took the trouble to call and explain that this Mr.Langston especially admired and asked for her husband, Mr. Davies, andso Almira simply had to go. Hastings called for and escorted her. He wasa blunt fellow, who held that when the husband was away and the lady ofthe house alone, no other man ought to set foot within the threshold,and he waited on the porch. But the lady was not alone. Willett's sleighwas in the trader's stable, and Willett himself biting his nails andswearing in Almira's parlor while Mrs. Darling was putting the finishingtouches to Almira's toilet. Willett had driven out _solus_ this time,thinking to persuade Mrs. Davies to take a drive, with some other damesplaying propriety on the back seat, and, finding she was engaged fordinner and could not go, lost a chance of scoring a point by asking theother women anyhow, for by this time his infatuation had utterlyovercome his senses. Katty again appeared and begged the lieutenant tostep in wid Mr. Willett, and Hastings turned fiery red, scowledmalevolently, said "No," and took himself outside the gate, pacing upand down like the orderly in front of Devers's quarters, a shortpistol-shot away, until Almira came fluttering out, Willett in closeattendance, Mrs. Darling mercifully following. Hastings bade the othersa gruff good-evening, silently tendered Mrs. Davies his arm, and led heraway with the sole remark "Aren't we late?" which gave her a chance totalk the rest of the way.

  And though Langston sat on Mrs. Cranston's right, with the pretty brideon his other side, so that he might descant about the absent Percy tohis heart's content, his eyes ever wandered across the simple table anddwelt on Agatha Loomis's noble face. She had recognized him at once asthe one of the two civilians on the sleeper the previous June who hadnot been suggestively and impertinently intrusive, yet she welcomed himonly formally even now because of that association. Langston had heardthe first mention of a Mrs. Davies with an inexplicable little pang, andthe further description of her with quick reaction, for his instantthought was of Miss Loomis. The dinner dragged, despite every effort,for Almira was distinctly and determinedly unresponsive. Margaret wasglad when it was over, glad when Almira early went home, for mattersbrightened somewhat with her disappearance. Langston paid his dinnercall with surprising promptitude, and then overjoyed "the ladies" with abox of rarest roses expressed from Margaret's own beloved home. "I knowhow many of these are meant for me," she said, with almost fiercerejoicing. "Oh, Wilbur!" she cried that evening, as she nestled in hisarms in front of their cheery fire, "if only he is all they say of him,and she should----"

  "Should what, Meg?" he densely queried.

  "Should--why, you know just as well as I do, and he has such a finepractice, and comes from such an admirable family and all that."

  "Undoubtedly,--but where does Agatha come in?"

  "Wilbur, you are just as provokingly sluggish as our own ChicagoRiver,--what wouldn't I give for a sight of its dirty face sometimeswh
en--when you're away! Now, be honest. Don't you know he never couldhave sent all that way for all those roses--just for me?"

  "_I_ would."

  "Oh, you,--you are----" but the entrance of Miss Loomis herself withsorrow in her face blocked the conference.

  "Captain Cranston," she said, "Brannan has been sent to the guard-houseagain. I know he has not been drinking. What can it possibly mean?"

  It meant, said Captain Devers, when respectfully approached upon thesubject in the morning, that on very strong circumstantial evidence hehad discovered the identity of the night prowler. Brannan certainlyanswered the description given by the chaplain, despite the chaplain'sassurance that he didn't believe it was Brannan, and Brannan, saidDevers, when not in the guard-house or hospital, had frequently been outof his quarters at midnight.