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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Starlight Ranch, by Charles King
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Starlight Ranch
+       and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier
+
+Author: Charles King
+
+Release Date: July 27, 2008 [EBook #26137]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STARLIGHT RANCH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Carla Foust and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note
+
+
+Some of the spellings and hyphenations in the original are unusual; they
+have not been changed. Minor punctuation errors have been corrected
+without notice. A few obvious typographical errors have been corrected,
+and they are listed at the end of this book.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+STARLIGHT RANCH
+
+AND
+
+OTHER STORIES OF ARMY
+LIFE ON THE FRONTIER.
+
+BY
+
+CAPTAIN CHARLES KING, U.S.A.,
+
+AUTHOR OF
+"MARION'S FAITH," "THE COLONEL'S DAUGHTER," ETC.
+
+PHILADELPHIA:
+J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
+1891.
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1890, by J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                                      PAGE
+STARLIGHT RANCH                                          7
+
+WELL WON; OR, FROM THE PLAINS TO "THE POINT"            40
+
+FROM "THE POINT" TO THE PLAINS                         116
+
+THE WORST MAN IN THE TROOP                             201
+
+VAN                                                    234
+
+
+
+
+STARLIGHT RANCH.
+
+
+We were crouching round the bivouac fire, for the night was chill, and
+we were yet high up along the summit of the great range. We had been
+scouting through the mountains for ten days, steadily working southward,
+and, though far from our own station, our supplies were abundant, and it
+was our leader's purpose to make a clean sweep of the line from old
+Sandy to the Salado, and fully settle the question as to whether the
+renegade Apaches had betaken themselves, as was possible, to the heights
+of the Matitzal, or had made a break for their old haunts in the Tonto
+Basin or along the foot-hills of the Black Mesa to the east. Strong
+scouting-parties had gone thitherward, too, for "the Chief" was bound to
+bring these Tontos to terms; but our orders were explicit: "Thoroughly
+scout the east face of the Matitzal." We had capital Indian allies with
+us. Their eyes were keen, their legs tireless, and there had been bad
+blood between them and the tribe now broken away from the reservation.
+They asked nothing better than a chance to shoot and kill them; so we
+could feel well assured that if "Tonto sign" appeared anywhere along our
+path it would instantly be reported. But now we were south of the
+confluence of Tonto Creek and the Wild Rye, and our scouts declared that
+beyond that point was the territory of the White Mountain Apaches,
+where we would not be likely to find the renegades.
+
+East of us, as we lay there in the sheltered nook whence the glare of
+our fire could not be seen, lay the deep valley of the Tonto brawling
+along its rocky bed on the way to join the Salado, a few short marches
+farther south. Beyond it, though we could not see them now, the peaks
+and "buttes" of the Sierra Ancha rolled up as massive foot-hills to the
+Mogollon. All through there our scouting-parties had hitherto been able
+to find Indians whenever they really wanted to. There were some officers
+who couldn't find the Creek itself if they thought Apaches lurked along
+its bank, and of such, some of us thought, was our leader.
+
+In the dim twilight only a while before I had heard our chief packer
+exchanging confidences with one of the sergeants,--
+
+"I tell you, Harry, if the old man were trying to steer clear of all
+possibility of finding these Tontos, he couldn't have followed a better
+track than ours has been. And he made it, too; did you notice? Every
+time the scouts tried to work out to the left he would herd them all
+back--up-hill."
+
+"We never did think the lieutenant had any too much sand," answered the
+sergeant, grimly; "but any man with half an eye can see that orders to
+thoroughly scout the east face of a range does not mean keep on top of
+it as we've been doing. Why, in two more marches we'll be beyond their
+stamping-ground entirely, and then it's only a slide down the west face
+to bring us to those ranches in the Sandy Valley. Ever seen them?"
+
+"No. I've never been this far down; but what do you want to bet that
+_that's_ what the lieutenant is aiming at? He wants to get a look at
+that pretty girl all the fellows at Fort Phoenix are talking about."
+
+"Dam'd old gray-haired rip! It would be just like him. With a wife and
+kids up at Sandy too."
+
+There were officers in the party, junior in years of life and years of
+service to the gray-headed subaltern whom some odd fate had assigned to
+the command of this detachment, nearly two complete "troops" of cavalry
+with a pack-train of sturdy little mules to match. We all knew that, as
+organized, one of our favorite captains had been assigned the command,
+and that between "the Chief," as we called our general, and him a
+perfect understanding existed as to just how thorough and searching this
+scout should be. The general himself came down to Sandy to superintend
+the start of the various commands, and rode away after a long interview
+with our good old colonel, and after seeing the two parties destined for
+the Black Mesa and the Tonto Basin well on their way. We were to move at
+nightfall the following day, and within an hour of the time of starting
+a courier rode in from Prescott with despatches (it was before our
+military telegraph line was built), and the commander of the
+division--the superior of our Arizona chief--ordered Captain Tanner to
+repair at once to San Francisco as witness before an important
+court-martial. A groan went up from more than one of us when we heard
+the news, for it meant nothing less than that the command of the most
+important expedition of all would now devolve upon the senior first
+lieutenant, Gleason; and so much did it worry Mr. Blake, his junior by
+several files, that he went at once to Colonel Pelham, and begged to be
+relieved from duty with that column and ordered to overtake one of the
+others. The colonel, of course, would listen to nothing of the kind, and
+to Gleason's immense and evident gratification we were marched forth
+under his command. There had been no friction, however. Despite his gray
+beard, Gleason was not an old man, and he really strove to be courteous
+and conciliatory to his officers,--he was always considerate towards his
+men; but by the time we had been out ten days, having accomplished
+nothing, most of us were thoroughly disgusted. Some few ventured to
+remonstrate. Angry words passed between the commander and Mr. Blake, and
+on the night on which our story begins there was throughout the command
+a feeling that we were simply being trifled with.
+
+The chat between our chief packer and Sergeant Merrick ceased instantly
+as I came forward and passed them on the way to look over the herd guard
+of the little battalion, but it set me to thinking. This was not the
+first that the officers of the Sandy garrison had heard of those two new
+"ranches" established within the year down in the hot but fertile
+valley, and not more than four hours' easy gallop from Fort Phoenix,
+where a couple of troops of "Ours" were stationed. The people who had so
+confidently planted themselves there were evidently well to do, and they
+brought with them a good-sized retinue of ranch- and herdsmen,--mainly
+Mexicans,--plenty of "stock," and a complete "camp outfit," which served
+them well until they could raise the adobe walls and finish their
+homesteads. Curiosity led occasional parties of officers or enlisted
+men to spend a day in saddle and thus to visit these enterprising
+neighbors. Such parties were always civilly received, invited to
+dismount, and soon to take a bite of luncheon with the proprietors,
+while their horses were promptly led away, unsaddled, rubbed down, and
+at the proper time fed and watered. The officers, of course, had
+introduced themselves and proffered the hospitality and assistance of
+the fort. The proprietors had expressed all proper appreciation, and
+declared that if anything should happen to be needed they would be sure
+to call; but they were too busy, they explained, to make social visits.
+They were hard at work, as the gentlemen could see, getting up their
+houses and their corrals, for, as one of them expressed it, "We've come
+to stay." There were three of these pioneers; two of them, brothers
+evidently, gave the name of Crocker. The third, a tall, swarthy,
+all-over-frontiersman, was introduced by the others as Mr. Burnham.
+Subsequent investigations led to the fact that Burnham was first cousin
+to the Crockers. "Been long in Arizona?" had been asked, and the elder
+Crocker promptly replied, "No, only a year,--mostly prospecting."
+
+The Crockers were building down towards the stream; but Burnham, from
+some freak which he did not explain, had driven his stakes and was
+slowly getting up his walls half a mile south of the other homestead,
+and high up on a spur of foot-hill that stood at least three hundred
+feet above the general level of the valley. From his "coigne of vantage"
+the whitewashed walls and the bright colors of the flag of the fort
+could be dimly made out,--twenty odd miles down stream.
+
+"Every now and then," said Captain Wayne, who happened up our way on a
+general court, "a bull-train--a small one--went past the fort on its way
+up to the ranches, carrying lumber and all manner of supplies, but they
+never stopped and camped near the post either going or coming, as other
+trains were sure to do. They never seemed to want anything, even at the
+sutler's store, though the Lord knows there wasn't much there they
+_could_ want except tanglefoot and tobacco. The bull-train made perhaps
+six trips in as many months, and by that time the glasses at the fort
+could make out that Burnham's place was all finished, but never once had
+either of the three proprietors put in an appearance, as invited, which
+was considered not only extraordinary but unneighborly, and everybody
+quit riding out there."
+
+"But the funniest thing," said Wayne, "happened one night when I was
+officer of the day. The road up-stream ran within a hundred yards of the
+post of the sentry on No. 3, which post was back of the officer's
+quarters, and a quarter of a mile above the stables, corrals, etc. I was
+making the rounds about one o'clock in the morning. The night was bright
+and clear, though the moon was low, and I came upon Dexter, one of the
+sharpest men in my troop, as the sentry on No. 3. After I had given him
+the countersign and was about going on,--for there was no use in asking
+_him_ if he knew his orders,--he stopped me to ask if I had authorized
+the stable-sergeant to let out one of the ambulances within the hour.
+Of course I was amazed and said no. 'Well,' said he, 'not ten minutes
+ago a four-mule ambulance drove up the road yonder going full tilt, and
+I thought something was wrong, but it was far beyond my challenge
+limit.' You can understand that I went to the stables on the jump, ready
+to scalp the sentry there, the sergeant of the guard, and everybody
+else. I sailed into the sentry first and he was utterly astonished; he
+swore that every horse, mule, and wagon was in its proper place. I
+routed out the old stable-sergeant and we went through everything with
+his lantern. There wasn't a spoke or a hoof missing. Then I went back to
+Dexter and asked him what he'd been drinking, and he seemed much hurt. I
+told him every wheel at the fort was in its proper rut and that nothing
+could have gone out. Neither could there have been a four-mule ambulance
+from elsewhere. There wasn't a civilized corral within fifty miles
+except those new ranches up the valley, and _they_ had no such rig. All
+the same, Dexter stuck to his story, and it ended in our getting a
+lantern and going down to the road. By Gad! he was right. There, in the
+moist, yielding sand, were the fresh tracks of a four-mule team and a
+Concord wagon or something of the same sort. So much for _that_ night!
+
+"Next evening as a lot of us were sitting out on the major's piazza,
+and young Briggs of the infantry was holding forth on the
+constellations,--you know he's a good deal of an astronomer,--Mrs.
+Powell suddenly turned to him with 'But you haven't told us the name of
+that bright planet low down there in the northern sky,' and we all
+turned and looked where she pointed. Briggs looked too. It was only a
+little lower than some stars of the second and third magnitude that he
+had been telling about only five minutes before, only it shone with a
+redder or yellower glare,--orange I suppose was the real color,--and was
+clear and strong as the light of Jupiter.
+
+"'That?' says Briggs. 'Why, that must be----Well, I own up. I declare I
+never knew there was so big a star in that part of the firmament!'
+
+"'Don't worry about it, Briggs, old boy,' drawled the major, who had
+been squinting at it through a powerful glass he owns. 'That's terra
+firmament. That planet's at the new ranch up on the spur of the
+Matitzal.'
+
+"But that wasn't all. Two days after, Baker came in from a scout. He had
+been over across the range and had stopped at Burnham's on his way down.
+He didn't see Burnham; he wasn't invited in, but he was full of his
+subject. 'By _Jove!_ fellows. Have any of you been to the ranches
+lately? No? Well, then, I want to get some of the ladies to go up there
+and call. In all my life I never saw so pretty a girl as was sitting
+there on the piazza when I rode around the corner of the house.
+_Pretty!_ She's lovely. Not Mexican. No, indeed! A real American
+girl,--a young lady, by Gad!'" That, then, explained the new light.
+
+"And did that give the ranch the name by which it is known to you?" we
+asked Wayne.
+
+"Yes. The ladies called it 'Starlight Ranch' from that night on. But not
+one of them has seen the girl. Mrs. Frazer and Mrs. Jennings actually
+took the long drive and asked for the ladies, and were civilly told
+that there were none at home. It was a Chinese servant who received
+them. They inquired for Mr. Burnham and he was away too. They asked how
+many ladies there were, and the Chinaman shook his head--'No sabe.' 'Had
+Mr. Burnham's wife and daughter come?' 'No sabe.' 'Were Mr. Burnham and
+the ladies over at the other ranch?' 'No sabe,' still affably grinning,
+and evidently personally pleased to see the strange ladies; but that
+Chinaman was no fool; he had his instructions and was carrying them out;
+and Mrs. Frazer, whose eyes are very keen, was confident that she saw
+the curtains in an upper window gathered just so as to admit a pair of
+eyes to peep down at the fort wagon with its fair occupants. But the
+face of which she caught a glimpse was not that of a young woman. They
+gave the Chinaman their cards, which he curiously inspected and was
+evidently at a loss what to do with, and after telling him to give them
+to the ladies when they came home they drove over to the Crocker Ranch.
+Here only Mexicans were visible about the premises, and, though Mrs.
+Frazer's Spanish was equal to the task of asking them for water for
+herself and friend, she could not get an intelligible reply from the
+swarthy Ganymede who brought them the brimming glasses as to the
+ladies--_Las señoras_--at the other ranch. They asked for the Crockers,
+and the Mexican only vaguely pointed up the valley. It was in defeat and
+humiliation that the ladies with their escort, Mr. Baker, returned to
+the fort, but Baker rode up again and took a comrade with him, and they
+both saw the girl with the lovely face and form this time, and had
+almost accosted her when a sharp, stern voice called her within. A
+fortnight more and a dozen men, officers or soldiers, had rounded that
+ranch and had seen two women,--one middle-aged, the other a girl of
+about eighteen who was fair and bewitchingly pretty. Baker had bowed to
+her and she had smiled sweetly on him, even while being drawn within
+doors. One or two men had cornered Burnham and began to ask questions.
+'Gentlemen,' said he, 'I'm a poor hand at talk. I've no education. I've
+lived on the frontier all my life. I mean no offence, but I cannot
+answer your questions and I cannot ask you into my house. For
+explanation, I refer you to Mr. Crocker.' Then Baker and a chum of his
+rode over and called on the elder Crocker, and asked for the
+explanation. That only added to the strangeness of the thing.
+
+"'It is true, gentlemen, that Mr. Burnham's wife and child are now with
+him; but, partially because of her, his wife's, infirm health, and
+partially because of a most distressing and unfortunate experience in
+his past, our kinsman begs that no one will attempt to call at the
+ranch. He appreciates all the courtesy the gentlemen and ladies at the
+fort would show, and have shown, but he feels compelled to decline all
+intercourse. We are beholden, in a measure, to Mr. Burnham, and have to
+be guided by his wishes. We are young men compared to him, and it was
+through him that we came to seek our fortune here, but he is virtually
+the head of both establishments.' Well. There was nothing more to be
+said, and the boys came away. One thing more transpired. Burnham gave it
+out that he had lived in Texas before the war, and had fought all the
+way through in the Confederate service. He thought the officers ought
+to know this. It was the major himself to whom he told it, and when the
+major replied that he considered the war over and that that made no
+difference, Burnham, with a clouded face replied, 'Well, mebbe it
+don't--to you.' Whereupon the major fired up and told him that if he
+chose to be an unreconstructed reb, when Union officers and gentlemen
+were only striving to be civil to him, he might 'go ahead and be d--d,'
+and came away in high dudgeon." And so matters stood up to the last we
+had heard from Fort Phoenix, except for one letter which Mrs. Frazer
+wrote to Mrs. Turner at Sandy, perhaps purely out of feminine mischief,
+because a year or so previous Baker, as a junior second lieutenant, was
+doing the devoted to Mrs. Turner, a species of mildly amatory
+apprenticeship which most of the young officers seemed impelled to serve
+on first joining. "We are having such a romance here at Phoenix. You
+have doubtless heard of the beautiful girl at 'Starlight Ranch,' as we
+call the Burnham place, up the valley. Everybody who called has been
+rebuffed; but, after catching a few glimpses of her, Mr. Baker became
+completely infatuated and rode up that way three or four times a week.
+Of late he has ceased going in the daytime, but it is known that he
+rides out towards dusk and gets back long after midnight, sometimes not
+till morning. Of course it takes four hours, nearly, to come from there
+full-speed, but though Major Tracy will admit nothing, it must be that
+Mr. Baker has his permission to be away at night. We all believe that it
+is another case of love laughing at locksmiths and that in some way they
+contrive to meet. One thing is certain,--Mr. Baker is desperately in
+love and will permit no trifling with him on the subject." Ordinarily, I
+suppose, such a letter would have been gall and wormwood to Mrs. Turner,
+but as young Hunter, a new appointment, was now a devotee, and as it was
+a piece of romantic news which interested all Camp Sandy, she read the
+letter to one lady after another, and so it became public property. Old
+Catnip, as we called the colonel, was disposed to be a little worried on
+the subject. Baker was a youngster in whom he had some interest as being
+a distant connection of his wife's, but Mrs. Pelham had not come to
+Arizona with us, and the good old fellow was living _en garçon_ with the
+Mess, where, of course, the matter was discussed in all its bearings.
+
+All these things recurred to me as I pottered around through the herds
+examining side-lines, etc., and looking up the guards. Ordinarily our
+scouting parties were so small that we had no such thing as an
+officer-of-the-day,--nor had we now when Gleason could have been excused
+for ordering one, but he evidently desired to do nothing that might
+annoy his officers. He _might_ want them to stand by him when it came to
+reporting the route and result of the scout. All the same, he expected
+that the troop officers would give personal supervision to their
+command, and especially to look after their "herds," and it was this
+duty that took me away from the group chatting about the bivouac fire
+preparatory to "turning in" for the night.
+
+When I got back, a tall, gray-haired trooper was "standing attention" in
+front of the commanding officer, and had evidently just made some
+report, for Mr. Gleason nodded his head appreciatively and then said,
+kindly,--
+
+"You did perfectly right, corporal. Instruct your men to keep a lookout
+for it, and if seen again to-night to call me at once. I'll bring my
+field-glass and we'll see what it is."
+
+The trooper raised his left hand to the "carried" carbine in salute and
+turned away. When he was out of earshot, Gleason spoke to the silent
+group,--
+
+"Now, there's a case in point. If I had command of a troop and could get
+old Potts into it I could make something of him, and I know it."
+
+Gleason had consummate faith in his "system" with the rank and file, and
+no respect for that of any of the captains. Nobody said anything. Blake
+hated him and puffed unconcernedly at his pipe, with a display of
+absolute indifference to his superior's views that the latter did not
+fail to note. The others knew what a trial "old Potts" had been to his
+troop commander, and did not believe that Gleason could "reform" him at
+will. The silence was embarrassing, so I inquired,--
+
+"What had he to report?"
+
+"Oh, nothing of any consequence. He and one of the sentries saw what
+they took to be an Indian signal-fire up Tonto Creek. It soon smouldered
+away,--but I always make it a point to show respect to these old
+soldiers."
+
+"You show d--d little respect for their reports all the same," said
+Blake, suddenly shooting up on a pair of legs that looked like stilts.
+"An Indian signal-fire is a matter of a heap of consequence in my
+opinion;" and he wrathfully stalked away.
+
+For some reason Gleason saw fit to take no notice of this piece of
+insubordination. Placidly he resumed his chat,--
+
+"Now, you gentlemen seem skeptical about Potts. Do any of you know his
+history?"
+
+"Well, I know he's about the oldest soldier in the regiment; that he
+served in the First Dragoons when they were in Arizona twenty years ago,
+and that he gets drunk as a boiled owl every pay-day," was an immediate
+answer.
+
+"Very good as far as it goes," replied Gleason, with a superior smile;
+"but I'll just tell you a chapter in his life he never speaks of and I
+never dreamed of until the last time I was in San Francisco. There I met
+old General Starr at the 'Occidental,' and almost the first thing he did
+was to inquire for Potts, and then he told me about him. He was one of
+the finest sergeants in Starr's troop in '53,--a dashing, handsome
+fellow,--and while in at Fort Leavenworth he had fallen in love with,
+won, and married as pretty a young girl as ever came into the regiment.
+She came out to New Mexico with the detachment with which he served, and
+was the belle of all the '_bailes_' given either by the 'greasers' or
+the enlisted men. He was proud of her as he could be, and old Starr
+swore that the few ladies of the regiment who were with them at old Fort
+Fillmore or Stanton were really jealous of her. Even some of the young
+officers got to saying sweet things to her, and Potts came to the
+captain about it, and he had it stopped; but the girl's head was turned.
+There was a handsome young fellow in the sutler's store who kept making
+her presents on the sly, and when at last Potts found it out he nearly
+hammered the life out of him. Then came that campaign against the
+Jicarilla Apaches, and Potts had to go with his troop and leave her at
+the cantonment, where, to be sure, there were ladies and plenty of
+people to look after her; and in the fight at Cieneguilla poor Potts was
+badly wounded, and it was some months before they got back; and meantime
+the sutler fellow had got in his work, and when the command finally came
+in with its wounded they had skipped, no one knew where. If Potts hadn't
+been taken down with brain fever on top of his wound he would have
+followed their trail, desertion or no desertion, but he was a broken man
+when he got out of hospital. The last thing old Starr said to me was,
+'Now, Gleason, I want you to be kind to my old sergeant; he served all
+through the war, and I've never forgiven them in the First for going
+back on him and refusing to re-enlist him; but the captains, one and
+all, said it was no use; he had sunk lower and lower; was perfectly
+unreliable; spent nine-tenths of his time in the guard-house and all his
+money in whiskey; and one after another they refused to take him.'"
+
+"How'd we happen to get him, then?" queried one of our party.
+
+"He showed up at San Francisco, neat as a new pin; exhibited several
+fine discharges, but said nothing of the last two, and was taken into
+the regiment as we were going through. Of course, its pretty much as
+they said in the First when we're in garrison, but, once out scouting,
+days away from a drop of 'tanglefoot,' and he does first rate. That's
+how he got his corporal's chevrons."
+
+"He'll lose 'em again before we're back at Sandy forty-eight hours,"
+growled Blake, strolling up to the party again.
+
+But he did not. Prophecies failed this time, and old Potts wore those
+chevrons to the last.
+
+He was a good prophet and a keen judge of human nature as exemplified in
+Gleason, who said that "the old man" was planning for a visit to the new
+ranches above Fort Phoenix. A day or two farther we plodded along down
+the range, our Indian scouts looking reproachfully--even sullenly--at
+the commander at every halt, and then came the order to turn back. Two
+marches more, and the little command went into bivouac close under the
+eaves of Fort Phoenix and we were exchanging jovial greetings with our
+brother officers at the post. Turning over the command to Lieutenant
+Blake, Mr. Gleason went up into the garrison with his own particular
+pack-mule; billeted himself on the infantry commanding officer--the
+major--and in a short time appeared freshly-shaved and in the neatest
+possible undress uniform, ready to call upon the few ladies at the post,
+and of course to make frequent reference to "my battalion," or "my
+command," down beyond the dusty, dismal corrals. The rest of us, having
+come out for business, had no uniforms, nothing but the rough field,
+scouting rig we wore on such duty, and every man's chin was bristling
+with a two-weeks'-old beard.
+
+"I'm going to report Gleason for this thing," swore Blake; "you see if I
+don't, the moment we get back."
+
+The rest of us were "hopping mad," too, but held our tongues so long as
+we were around Phoenix. We did not want them there to believe there
+was dissension and almost mutiny impending. Some of us got permission
+from Blake to go up to the post with its hospitable officers, and I was
+one who strolled up to "the store" after dark. There we found the major,
+and Captain Frazer, and Captain Jennings, and most of the youngsters,
+but Baker was absent. Of course the talk soon drifted to and settled on
+"Starlight Ranch," and by tattoo most of the garrison crowd were talking
+like so many Prussians, all at top-voice and all at once. Every man
+seemed to have some theory of his own with regard to the peculiar
+conduct of Mr. Burnham, but no one dissented from the quiet remark of
+Captain Frazer:
+
+"As for Baker's relations with the daughter, he is simply desperately in
+love and means to marry her. He tells my wife that she is educated and
+far more refined than her surroundings would indicate, but that he is
+refused audience by both Burnham and his wife, and it is only at extreme
+risk that he is able to meet his lady-love at all. Some nights she is
+entirely prevented from slipping out to see him."
+
+Presently in came Gleason, beaming and triumphant from his round of
+calls among the fair sex, and ready now for the game he loved above all
+things on earth,--poker. For reasons which need not be elaborated here
+no officer in our command would play with him, and an ugly rumor was
+going the rounds at Sandy, just before we came away, that, in a game at
+Olsen's ranch on the Aqua Fria about three weeks before, he had had his
+face slapped by Lieutenant Ray of our own regiment. But Ray had gone to
+his lonely post at Camp Cameron, and there was no one by whom we could
+verify it except some ranchmen, who declared that Gleason had cheated at
+cards, and Ray "had been a little too full," as they put it, to detect
+the fraud until it seemed to flash upon him all of a sudden. A game
+began, however, with three local officers as participants, so presently
+Carroll and I withdrew and went back to bivouac.
+
+"Have you seen anything of Corporal Potts?" was the first question asked
+by Mr. Blake.
+
+"Not a thing. Why? Is he missing?"
+
+"Been missing for an hour. He was talking with some of these garrison
+soldiers here just after the men had come in from the herd, and what I'm
+afraid of is that he'll go up into the post and get bilin' full there.
+I've sent other non-commissioned officers after him, but they cannot
+find him. He hasn't even looked in at the store, so the bar-tender
+swears."
+
+"The sly old rascal!" said Carroll. "He knows perfectly well how to get
+all the liquor he wants without exposing himself in the least. No doubt
+if the bar-tender were asked if he had not filled some flasks this
+evening he would say yes, and Potts is probably stretched out
+comfortably in the forage-loft of one of the stables, with a canteen of
+water and his flask of bug-juice, prepared to make a night of it."
+
+Blake moodily gazed into the embers of the bivouac-fire. Never had we
+seen him so utterly unlike himself as on this burlesque of a scout, and
+now that we were virtually homeward-bound, and empty-handed too, he was
+completely weighed down by the consciousness of our lost opportunities.
+If something could only have happened to Gleason before the start, so
+that the command might have devolved on Blake, we all felt that a very
+different account could have been rendered; for with all his rattling,
+ranting fun around the garrison, he was a gallant and dutiful soldier in
+the field. It was now after ten o'clock; most of the men, rolled in
+their blankets, were sleeping on the scant turf that could be found at
+intervals in the half-sandy soil below the corrals and stables. The
+herds of the two troops and the pack-mules were all cropping peacefully
+at the hay that had been liberally distributed among them because there
+was hardly grass enough for a "burro." We were all ready to turn in, but
+there stood our temporary commander, his long legs a-straddle, his hands
+clasped behind him, and the flickering light of the fire betraying in
+his face both profound dejection and disgust.
+
+"I wouldn't care so much," said he at last, "but it will give Gleason a
+chance to say that things always go wrong when he's away. Did you see
+him up at the post?" he suddenly asked. "What was he doing, Carroll?"
+
+"Poker," was the sententious reply.
+
+"What?" shouted Blake. "Poker? 'I thank thee, good Tubal,--good
+news,--good news!'" he ranted, with almost joyous relapse into his old
+manner. "'O Lady Fortune, stand you auspicious', for those fellows at
+Phoenix, I mean, and may they scoop our worthy chieftain of his last
+ducat. See what it means, fellows. Win or lose, he'll play all night,
+he'll drink much if it go agin' him, and I pray it may. He'll be too
+sick, when morning comes, to join us, and, by my faith, we'll leave his
+horse and orderly and march away without him. As for Potts,--an he
+appear not,--we'll let him play hide-and-seek with his would-be
+reformer. Hullo! What's that?"
+
+There was a sound of alternate shout and challenge towards where the
+horses were herded on the level stretch below us. The sergeant of the
+guard was running rapidly thither as Carroll and I reached the corner of
+the corral. Half a minute's brisk spurt brought us to the scene.
+
+"What's the trouble, sentry?" panted the sergeant.
+
+"One of our fellows trying to take a horse. I was down on this side of
+the herd when I seen him at the other end trying to loose a side-line.
+It was just light enough by the moon to let me see the figure, but I
+couldn't make out who 'twas. I challenged and ran and yelled for the
+corporal, too, but he got away through the horses somehow. Murphy, who's
+on the other side of the herds, seen him and challenged too."
+
+"Did he answer?"
+
+"Not a word, sir."
+
+"Count your horses, sergeant, and see if all are here," was ordered.
+Then we hurried over to Murphy's post.
+
+"Who was the man? Could you make him out?"
+
+"Not plainly, sir; but I think it was one of our own command," and poor
+Murphy hesitated and stammered. He hated to "give away," as he expressed
+it, one of his own troop. But his questioners were inexorable.
+
+"What man did this one most look like, so far as you could judge?"
+
+"Well, sir, I hate to suspicion anybody, but 'twas more like Corporal
+Potts he looked. Sure, if 'twas him, he must ha' been drinkin', for the
+corporal's not the man to try and run off a horse when he's in his sober
+sinses."
+
+The waning moon gave hardly enough light for effective search, but we
+did our best. Blake came out and joined us, looking very grave when he
+heard the news. Eleven o'clock came, and we gave it up. Not a sign of
+the marauder could we find. Potts was still absent from the bivouac when
+we got back, but Blake determined to make no further effort to find him.
+Long before midnight we were all soundly sleeping, and the next thing I
+knew my orderly was shaking me by the arm and announcing breakfast.
+Reveille was just being sounded up at the garrison. The sun had not yet
+climbed high enough to peep over the Matitzal, but it was broad
+daylight. In ten minutes Carroll and I were enjoying our coffee and
+_frijoles_; Blake had ridden up into the garrison. Potts was still
+absent; and so, as we expected, was Mr. Gleason.
+
+Half an hour more, and in long column of twos, and followed by our
+pack-train, the command was filing out along the road whereon "No. 3"
+had seen the ambulance darting by in the darkness. Blake had come back
+from the post with a flush of anger on his face and with lips
+compressed. He did not even dismount. "Saddle up at once" was all he
+said until he gave the commands to mount and march. Opposite the
+quarters of the commanding officer we were riding at ease, and there he
+shook his gauntleted fist at the whitewashed walls, and had recourse to
+his usual safety-valve,--
+
+     "'Take heed, my lords, the welfare of us all
+       Hangs on the cutting short that fraudful man,'
+
+and may the devil fly away with him! What d'ye think he told me when I
+went to hunt him up?"
+
+There was no suitable conjecture.
+
+"He said to march ahead, leaving his horse, Potts's, and his orderly's,
+also the pack-mule: he would follow at his leisure. He had given Potts
+authority to wait and go with him, but did not consider it necessary to
+notify me."
+
+"Where was he?"
+
+"Still at the store, playing with the trader and some understrappers.
+Didn't seem to be drunk, either."
+
+And that was the last we heard of our commander until late in the
+evening. We were then in bivouac on the west bank of the Sandy within
+short rifle-range of the buildings of Crocker's Ranch on the other side.
+There the lights burned brightly, and some of our people who had gone
+across had been courteously received, despite a certain constraint and
+nervousness displayed by the two brothers. At "Starlight," however,
+nearly a mile away from us, all was silence and darkness. We had studied
+it curiously as we marched up along the west shore, and some of the men
+had asked permission to fall out and ride over there, "just to see it,"
+but Blake had refused. The Sandy was easily fordable on horseback
+anywhere, and the Crockers, for the convenience of their ranch people,
+had placed a lot of bowlders and heaps of stones in such position that
+they served as a foot-path opposite their corrals. But Blake said he
+would rather none of his people intruded at "Starlight," and so it
+happened that we were around the fire when Gleason rode in about nine
+o'clock, and with him Lieutenant Baker, also the recreant Potts.
+
+"You may retain command, Mr. Blake," said the former, thickly. "I have
+an engagement this evening."
+
+In an instant Baker was at my side. We had not met before since he was
+wearing the gray at the Point.
+
+"For God's sake, don't let him follow me,--but _you_,--come if you
+possibly can. I'll slip off into the willows up-stream as soon as I can
+do so without his seeing."
+
+I signalled Blake to join us, and presently he sauntered over our way,
+Gleason meantime admonishing his camp cook that he expected to have the
+very best hot supper for himself and his friend, Lieutenant Baker, ready
+in twenty minutes,--twenty minutes, for they had an important
+engagement, an _affaire de coor_, by Jove!
+
+"You fellows know something of this matter," said Baker, hurriedly; "but
+I cannot begin to tell you how troubled I am. Something is wrong with
+_her_. She has not met me once this week, and the house is still as a
+grave. I must see her. She is either ill or imprisoned by her people, or
+carried away. God only knows why that hound Burnham forbids me the
+house. I cannot see him. I've never seen his wife. The door is barred
+against me and I cannot force an entrance. For a while she was able to
+slip out late in the evening and meet me down the hill-side, but they
+must have detected her in some way. I do not even know that she is
+there, but to-night I _mean_ to know. If she is within those walls--and
+alive--she will answer my signal. But for heaven's sake keep that
+drunken wretch from going over there. He's bent on it. The major gave
+me leave again for to-night, provided I would see Gleason safely to your
+camp, and he has been maundering all the way out about how _he_ knew
+more'n I did,--he and Potts, who's half-drunk too,--and how he meant to
+see me through in this matter."
+
+"Well, here," said Blake, "there's only one thing to be done. You two
+slip away at once; get your horses, and ford the Sandy well below camp.
+I'll try and keep him occupied."
+
+In three minutes we were off, leading our steeds until a hundred yards
+or so away from the fires, then mounting and moving at rapid walk.
+Following Baker's lead, I rode along, wondering what manner of adventure
+this was apt to be. I expected him to make an early crossing of the
+stream, but he did not. "The only fords I know," said he, "are down
+below Starlight," and so it happened that we made a wide _détour_; but
+during that dark ride he told me frankly how matters stood. Zoe Burnham
+had promised to be his wife, and had fully returned his love, but she
+was deeply attached to her poor mother, whose health was utterly broken,
+and who seemed to stand in dread of her father. The girl could not bear
+to leave her mother, though he had implored her to do so and be married
+at once. "She told me the last time I saw her that old Burnham had sworn
+to kill me if he caught me around the place, so I have to come armed,
+you see;" and he exhibited his heavy revolver. "There's something shady
+about the old man, but I don't know what it is."
+
+At last we crossed the stream, and soon reached a point where we
+dismounted and fastened our horses among the willows; then slowly and
+cautiously began the ascent to the ranch. The slope here was long and
+gradual, and before we had gone fifty yards Baker laid his hand on my
+arm.
+
+"Wait. Hush!" he said.
+
+Listening, we could distinctly hear the crunching of horses' hoofs, but
+in the darkness (for the old moon was not yet showing over the range to
+the east) we could distinguish nothing. One thing was certain: those
+hoofs were going towards the ranch.
+
+"Heavens!" said Baker. "Do you suppose that Gleason has got the start of
+us after all? There's no telling what mischief he may do. He swore he
+would stand inside those walls to-night, for there was no Chinaman on
+earth whom he could not bribe."
+
+We pushed ahead at the run now, but within a minute I plunged into some
+unseen hollow; my Mexican spurs tangled, and down I went heavily upon
+the ground. The shock was severe, and for an instant I lay there
+half-stunned. Baker was by my side in the twinkling of an eye full of
+anxiety and sympathy. I was not injured in the slightest, but the breath
+was knocked out of me, and it was some minutes before I could forge
+ahead again. We reached the foot of the steep slope; we clambered
+painfully--at least I did--to the crest, and there stood the black
+outline of Starlight Ranch, with only a glimmer of light shining through
+the windows here and there where the shades did not completely cover the
+space. In front were three horses held by a cavalry trooper.
+
+"Whose horses are these?" panted Baker.
+
+"Lieutenant Gleason's, sir. Him and Corporal Potts has gone round
+behind the ranch with a Chinaman they found takin' in water."
+
+And then, just at that instant, so piercing, so agonized, so fearful
+that even the three horses started back snorting and terrified, there
+rang out on the still night air the most awful shriek I ever heard, the
+wail of a woman in horror and dismay. Then dull, heavy blows; oaths,
+curses, stifled exclamations; a fall that shook the windows; Gleason's
+voice commanding, entreating; a shrill Chinese jabber; a rush through
+the hall; more blows; gasps; curses; more unavailing orders in Gleason's
+well-known voice; then a sudden pistol shot, a scream of "Oh, my God!"
+then moans, and then silence. The casement on the second floor was
+thrown open, and a fair young face and form were outlined upon the
+bright light within; a girlish voice called, imploringly,--
+
+"Harry! Harry! Oh, help, if you are there! They are killing father!"
+
+But at the first sound Harry Baker had sprung from my side and
+disappeared in the darkness.
+
+"We are friends," I shouted to her,--"Harry Baker's friends. He has gone
+round to the rear entrance." Then I made a dash for the front door,
+shaking, kicking, and hammering with all my might. I had no idea how to
+find the rear entrance in the darkness. Presently it was opened by the
+still chattering, jabbering Chinaman, his face pasty with terror and
+excitement, and the sight that met my eyes was one not soon to be
+forgotten.
+
+A broad hall opened straight before me, with a stairway leading to the
+second floor. A lamp with burnished reflector was burning brightly
+midway down its length. Another just like it fully lighted a big room to
+my left,--the dining-room, evidently,--on the floor of which, surrounded
+by overturned chairs, was lying a woman in a deathlike swoon. Indeed, I
+thought at first she was dead. In the room to my right, only dimly
+lighted, a tall man in shirt-sleeves was slowly crawling to a sofa,
+unsteadily assisted by Gleason; and as I stepped inside, Corporal Potts,
+who was leaning against the wall at the other end of the room pressing
+his hand to his side and with ashen face, sank suddenly to the floor,
+doubled up in a pool of his own blood. In the dining-room, in the hall,
+everywhere that I could see, were the marks of a fearful struggle. The
+man on the sofa gasped faintly, "Water," and I ran into the dining-room
+and hastened back with a brimming goblet.
+
+"What does it all mean?" I demanded of Gleason.
+
+Big drops of sweat were pouring down his pallid face. The fearful scene
+had entirely sobered him.
+
+"Potts has found the man who robbed him of his wife. That's she on the
+floor yonder. Go and help her."
+
+But she was already coming to and beginning to stare wildly about her. A
+glass of water helped to revive her. She staggered across the hall, and
+then, with a moan of misery and horror at the sight, threw herself upon
+her knees, not beside the sofa where Burnham lay gasping, but on the
+floor where lay our poor old corporal. In an instant she had his head in
+her lap and was crooning over the senseless clay, swaying her body to
+and fro as she piteously called to him,--
+
+"Frank, Frank! Oh, for the love of Jesus, speak to me! Frank, dear
+Frank, my husband, my own! Oh, for God's sake, open your eyes and look
+at me! I wasn't as wicked as they made me out, Frank, God knows I
+wasn't. I tried to get back to you, but Pierce there swore you were
+dead,--swore you were killed at Cieneguilla. Oh, Frank, Frank, open your
+eyes! _Do_ hear me, husband. O God, don't let him die! Oh, for pity's
+sake, gentlemen, can't you do something? Can't you bring him to? He must
+hear me! He must know how I've been lied to all these years!"
+
+"Quick! Take this and see if you can bring him round," said Gleason,
+tossing me his flask. I knelt and poured the burning spirit into his
+open mouth. There were a few gurgles, half-conscious efforts to swallow,
+and then--success. He opened his glazing eyes and looked up into the
+face of his wife. His lips moved and he called her by name. She raised
+him higher in her arms, pillowing his head upon her bosom, and covered
+his face with frantic kisses. The sight seemed too much for "Burnham."
+His face worked and twisted with rage; he ground out curses and
+blasphemy between his clinched teeth; he even strove to rise from the
+sofa, but Gleason forced him back. Meantime, the poor woman's wild
+remorse and lamentations were poured into the ears of the dying man.
+
+"Tell me you believe me, Frank. Tell me you forgive me. O God! you don't
+know what my life has been with him. When I found out that it was all a
+lie about your being killed at Cieneguilla, he beat me like a slave. He
+had to go and fight in the war. They made him; they conscripted him; and
+when he got back he brought me papers to show you were killed in one of
+the Virginia battles. I gave up hope then for good and all."
+
+Just then who should come springing down the stairs but Baker, who had
+evidently been calming and soothing his lady-love aloft. He stepped
+quickly into the parlor.
+
+"Have you sent for a surgeon?" he asked.
+
+The sound of his voice seemed to rouse "Burnham" to renewed life and
+raging hate.
+
+"Surgeons be damned!" he gasped. "I'm past all surgery; but thank God
+I've given that ruffian what'll send him to hell before I get there! And
+you--_you_"--and here he made a frantic grab for the revolver that lay
+upon the floor, but Gleason kicked it away--"you, young hound, I meant
+to have wound you up before I got through. But I can jeer at
+you--God-forsaken idiot--I can triumph over you;" and he stretched forth
+a quivering, menacing arm and hand. "You _would_ have your way--damn
+you!--so take it. You've given your love to a bastard,--that's what Zoe
+is."
+
+Baker stood like one turned suddenly into stone. But from the other end
+of the room came prompt, wrathful, and with the ring of truth in her
+earnest protest, the mother's loud defence of her child.
+
+"It's a lie,--a fiendish and malignant lie,--and he knows it. Here lies
+her father, my own husband, murdered by that scoundrel there. Her
+baptismal certificate is in my room. I've kept it all these years where
+he never could get it. No, Frank, she's your own, your own baby, whom
+you never saw. Go--go and bring her. He _must_ see his baby-girl. Oh,
+my darling, don't--don't go until you see her." And again she covered
+the ashen face with her kisses. I knelt and put the flask to his lips
+and he eagerly swallowed a few drops. Baker had turned and darted
+up-stairs. "Burnham's" late effort had proved too much for him. He had
+fainted away, and the blood was welling afresh from several wounds.
+
+A moment more and Baker reappeared, leading his betrothed. With her
+long, golden hair rippling down her back, her face white as death, and
+her eyes wild with dread, she was yet one of the loveliest pictures I
+ever dreamed of. Obedient to her mother's signal, she knelt close beside
+them, saying no word.
+
+"Zoe, darling, this is your own father; the one I told you of last
+winter."
+
+Old Potts seemed struggling to rise; an inexpressible tenderness shone
+over his rugged, bearded face; his eyes fastened themselves on the
+lovely girl before him with a look almost as of wonderment; his lips
+seemed striving to whisper her name. His wife raised him still higher,
+and Baker reverently knelt and supported the shoulder of the dying man.
+There was the silence of the grave in the dimly-lighted room. Slowly,
+tremulously the arm in the old blue blouse was raised and extended
+towards the kneeling girl. Lowly she bent, clasping her hands and with
+the tears now welling from her eyes. One moment more and the withered
+old hand that for quarter of a century had grasped the sabre-hilt in the
+service of our common country slowly fell until it rested on that
+beautiful, golden head,--one little second or two, in which the lips
+seemed to murmur a prayer and the fast glazing eyes were fixed in
+infinite tenderness upon his only child. Then suddenly they sought the
+face of his sobbing wife,--a quick, faint smile, a sigh, and the hand
+dropped to the floor. The old trooper's life had gone out in
+benediction.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+Of course there was trouble all around before that wretched affair was
+explained. Gleason came within an ace of court-martial, but escaped it
+by saying that he knew of "Burnham's" threats against the life of
+Lieutenant Baker, and that he went to the ranch in search of the latter
+and to get him out of danger. They met the Chinaman outside drawing
+water, and he ushered them in the back way because it was the nearest.
+Potts asked to go with him that he might see if this was his long-lost
+wife,--so said Gleason,--and the instant she caught sight of him she
+shrieked and fainted, and the two men sprang at each other like tigers.
+Knives were drawn in a minute. Then Burnham fled through the hall,
+snatched a revolver from its rack, and fired the fatal shot. The surgeon
+from Fort Phoenix reached them early the next morning, a messenger
+having been despatched from Crocker's ranch before eleven at night, but
+all his skill could not save "Burnham," now known to be Pierce, the
+ex-sutler clerk of the early Fifties. He had prospered and made money
+ever since the close of the war, and Zoe had been thoroughly well
+educated in the East before the poor child was summoned to share her
+mother's exile. His mania seemed to be to avoid all possibility of
+contact with the troops, but the Crockers had given such glowing
+accounts of the land near Fort Phoenix, and they were so positively
+assured that there need be no intercourse whatever with that post, that
+he determined to risk it. But, go where he would, his sin had found him
+out.
+
+The long hot summer followed, but it often happened that before many
+weeks there were interchanges of visits between the fort and the ranch.
+The ladies insisted that the widow should come thither for change and
+cheer, and Zoe's appearance at Phoenix was the sensation of the year.
+Baker was in the seventh heaven. "Burnham," it was found, had a certain
+sense of justice, for his will had been made long before, and everything
+he possessed was left unreservedly to the woman whom he had betrayed
+and, in his tigerish way, doubtless loved, for he had married her in
+'65, the instant he succeeded in convincing her that Potts was really
+dead.
+
+So far from combating the will, both the Crockers were cordial in their
+support. Indeed, it was the elder brother who told the widow of its
+existence. They had known her and her story many a year, and were ready
+to devote themselves to her service now. The junior moved up to the
+"Burnham" place to take general charge and look after matters, for the
+property was every day increasing in value. And so matters went until
+the fall, and then, one lovely evening, in the little wooden chapel at
+the old fort, there was a gathering such as its walls had never known
+before; and the loveliest bride that Arizona ever saw, blushing,
+smiling, and radiantly happy, received the congratulations of the entire
+garrison and of delegations from almost every post in the department.
+
+A few years ago, to the sorrow of everybody in the regiment, Mr. and
+Mrs. Harry Baker bade it good-by forever. The fond old mother who had so
+long watched over the growing property for "her children," as she called
+them, had no longer the strength the duties required. Crocker had taken
+unto himself a helpmate and was needed at his own place, and our gallant
+and genial comrade with his sweet wife left us only when it became
+evident to all at Phoenix that a new master was needed at Starlight
+Ranch.
+
+
+
+
+WELL WON;
+
+OR,
+
+FROM THE PLAINS TO "THE POINT."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+RALPH MCCREA.
+
+
+The sun was going down, and a little girl with big, dark eyes who was
+sitting in the waiting-room of the railway station was beginning to look
+very tired. Ever since the train came in at one o'clock she had been
+perched there between the iron arms of the seat, and now it was after
+six o'clock of the long June day, and high time that some one came for
+her.
+
+A bonny little mite she was, with a wealth of brown hair tumbling down
+her shoulders and overhanging her heavy eyebrows. She was prettily
+dressed, and her tiny feet, cased in stout little buttoned boots, stuck
+straight out before her most of the time, as she sat well back on the
+broad bench.
+
+She was a silent little body, and for over two hours had hardly opened
+her lips to any one,--even to the doll that now lay neglected on the
+seat beside her. Earlier in the afternoon she had been much engrossed
+with that blue-eyed, flaxen-haired, and overdressed beauty; but, little
+by little, her interest flagged, and when a six-year-old girlie loses
+interest in a brand-new doll something serious must be the matter.
+
+Something decidedly serious was the matter now. The train that came up
+from Denver had brought this little maiden and her father,--a handsome,
+sturdy-looking ranchman of about thirty years of age,--and they had been
+welcomed with jubilant cordiality by two or three stalwart men in
+broad-brimmed slouch hats and frontier garb. They had picked her up in
+their brawny arms and carried her to the waiting-room, and seated her
+there in state and fed her with fruit and dainties, and made much of
+her. Then her father had come in and placed in her arms this wonderful
+new doll, and while she was still hugging it in her delight, he laid a
+heavy satchel on the seat beside her and said,--
+
+"And now, baby, papa has to go up-town a ways. He has lots of things to
+get to take home with us, and some new horses to try. He may be gone a
+whole hour, but will you stay right here--you and dolly--and take good
+care of the satchel?"
+
+She looked up a little wistfully. She did not quite like to be left
+behind, but she felt sure papa could not well take her,--he was always
+so loving and kind,--and then, there was dolly; and there were other
+children with their mothers in the room. So she nodded, and put up her
+little face for his kiss. He took her in his arms a minute and hugged
+her tight.
+
+"That's my own little Jessie!" he said. "She's as brave as her mother
+was, fellows, and it's saying a heap."
+
+With that he set her down upon the bench, and they put dolly in her
+arms again and a package of apples within her reach; and then the jolly
+party started off.
+
+They waved their hands to her through the window and she smiled shyly at
+them, and one of them called to a baggage-man and told him to have an
+eye on little Jessie in there. "She is Farron's kid."
+
+For a while matters did not go so very badly. Other children, who came
+to look at that marvellous doll and to make timid advances, kept her
+interested. But presently the east-bound train was signalled and they
+were all whisked away.
+
+Then came a space of over an hour, during which little Jessie sat there
+all alone in the big, bare room, playing contentedly with her new toy
+and chattering in low-toned, murmurous "baby talk" to her, and pointing
+out the wonderful sunbeams that came slanting in through the dust of the
+western windows. She had had plenty to eat and a big glass of milk
+before papa went away, and was neither hungry nor thirsty; but all the
+same, it seemed as if that hour were getting very, very long; and every
+time the tramp of footsteps was heard on the platform outside she looked
+up eagerly.
+
+Then other people began to come in to wait for a train, and whenever the
+door opened, the big, dark eyes glanced quickly up with such a hopeful,
+wistful gaze, and as each new-comer proved to be a total stranger the
+little maiden's disappointment was so evident that some kind-hearted
+women came over to speak to her and see if all was right.
+
+But she was as shy as she was lonely, poor little mite, and hung her
+head and hugged her doll, and shrank away when they tried to take her in
+their arms. All they could get her to say was that she was waiting for
+papa and that her name was Jessie Farron.
+
+At last their train came and they had to go, and a new set appeared; and
+there were people to meet and welcome them with joyous greetings and
+much homely, homelike chatter, and everybody but one little girl seemed
+to have friends. It all made Jessie feel more and more lonely, and to
+wonder what could have happened to keep papa so very long.
+
+Still she was so loyal, so sturdy a little sentinel at her post. The
+kind-hearted baggage-man came in and strove to get her to go with him to
+his cottage "a ways up the road," where his wife and little ones were
+waiting tea for him; but she shook her head and shrank back even from
+him.
+
+Papa had told her to stay there and she would not budge. Papa had placed
+his satchel in her charge, and so she kept guard over it and watched
+every one who approached.
+
+The sun was getting low and shining broadly in through those western
+windows and making a glare that hurt her eyes, and she longed to change
+her seat. Between the sun glare and the loneliness her eyes began to
+fill with big tears, and when once they came it was so hard to force
+them back; so it happened that poor little Jessie found herself crying
+despite all her determination to be "papa's own brave daughter."
+
+The windows behind her opened out to the north, and by turning around
+she could see a wide, level space between the platform and the hotel,
+where wagons and an omnibus or two, and a four-mule ambulance had been
+coming and going.
+
+Again and again her eyes had wandered towards this space in hopeful
+search for father's coming, only to meet with disappointment. At last,
+just as she had turned and was kneeling on the seat and gazing through
+the tears that trickled down her pretty face, she saw a sight that made
+her sore little heart bound high with hope.
+
+First there trotted into the enclosure a span of handsome bay horses
+with a low phaeton in which were seated two ladies; and directly after
+them, at full gallop, came two riders on spirited, mettlesome sorrels.
+
+Little Jessie knew the horsemen at a glance. One was a tall, bronzed,
+dark-moustached trooper in the fatigue uniform of a cavalry sergeant;
+the other was a blue-eyed, faired-haired young fellow of sixteen years,
+who raised his cap and bowed to the ladies in the carriage, as he reined
+his horse up close to the station platform.
+
+He was just about to speak to them when he heard a childish voice
+calling, "Ralph! Ralph!" and, turning quickly around, he caught sight of
+a little girl stretching out her arms to him through the window, and
+crying as if her baby heart would break.
+
+In less time than it takes me to write five words he sprang from his
+horse, bounded up the platform into the waiting-room, and gathered the
+child to his heart, anxiously bidding her tell him what was the trouble.
+
+For a few minutes she could only sob in her relief and joy at seeing
+him, and snuggle close to his face. The ladies wondered to see Ralph
+McCrea coming towards them with a strange child in his arms, but they
+were all sympathy and loving-kindness in a moment, so attractive was her
+sweet face.
+
+"Mrs. Henry, this is Jessie Farron. You know her father; he owns a ranch
+up on the Chugwater, right near the Laramie road. The station-master
+says she has been here all alone since he went off at one o'clock with
+some friends to buy things for the ranch and try some horses. It must
+have been his party Sergeant Wells and I saw way out by the fort."
+
+He paused a moment to address a cheering word to the little girl in his
+arms, and then went on: "Their team had run away over the prairie--a man
+told us--and they were leading them in to the quartermaster's corral as
+we rode from the stables. I did not recognize Farron at the distance,
+but Sergeant Wells will gallop out and tell him Jessie is all right.
+_Would_ you mind taking care of her a few minutes? Poor little girl!" he
+added, in lower and almost beseeching tones, "she hasn't any mother."
+
+"_Would_ I mind!" exclaimed Mrs. Henry, warmly. "Give her to me, Ralph.
+Come right here, little daughter, and tell me all about it," and the
+loving woman stood up in the carriage and held forth her arms, to which
+little Jessie was glad enough to be taken, and there she sobbed, and was
+soothed and petted and kissed as she had not been since her mother died.
+
+Ralph and the station-master brought to the carriage the wonderful
+doll--at sight of whose toilet Mrs. Henry could not repress a
+significant glance at her lady friend, and a suggestive exclamation of
+"Horrors!"--and the heavy satchel. These were placed where Jessie could
+see them and feel that they were safe, and then she was able to answer a
+few questions and to look up trustfully into the gentle face that was
+nestled every little while to hers, and to sip the cup of milk that
+Ralph fetched from the hotel. She had certainly fallen into the hands of
+persons who had very loving hearts.
+
+"Poor little thing! What a shame to leave her all alone! How long has
+her mother been dead, Ralph?" asked the other lady, rather indignantly.
+
+"About two years, Mrs. Wayne. Father and his officers knew them very
+well. Our troop was camped up there two whole summers near them,--last
+summer and the one before,--but Farron took her to Denver to visit her
+mother's people last April, and has just gone for her. Sergeant Wells
+said he stopped at the ranch on the way down from Laramie, and Farron
+told him, then, he couldn't live another month without his little girl,
+and was going to Denver for her at once."
+
+"I remember them well, now," said Mrs. Henry, "and we saw him sometimes
+when our troop was at Laramie. What was the last news from your father,
+Ralph, and when do you go?"
+
+"No news since the letter that met me here. You know he has been
+scouting ever since General Crook went on up to the Powder River
+country. Our troop and the Grays are all that are left to guard that
+whole neighborhood, and the Indians seem to know it. They are 'jumping'
+from the reservation all the time."
+
+"But the Fifth Cavalry are here now, and they will soon be up there to
+help you, and put a stop to all that,--won't they?"
+
+"I don't know. The Fifth say that they expect orders to go to the Black
+Hills, so as to get between the reservations and Sitting Bull's people.
+Only six troops--half the regiment--have come. Papa's letter said I was
+to start for Laramie with them, but they have been kept waiting four
+days already."
+
+"They will start now, though," said the lady. "General Merritt has just
+got back from Red Cloud, where he went to look into the situation, and
+he has been in the telegraph office much of the afternoon wiring to
+Chicago, where General Sheridan is. Colonel Mason told us, as we drove
+past camp, that they would probably march at daybreak."
+
+"That means that Sergeant Wells and I go at the same time, then," said
+Ralph, with glistening eyes. "Doesn't it seem odd, after I've been
+galloping all over this country from here to the Chug for the last three
+years, that now father won't let me go it alone. I never yet set eyes on
+a war party of Indians, or heard of one south of the Platte."
+
+"All the same they came, Ralph, and it was simply to protect those
+settlers that your father's company was there so much. This year they
+are worse than ever, and there has been no cavalry to spare. If you were
+my boy, I should be worried half to death at the idea of your riding
+alone from here to Laramie. What does your mother think of it?"
+
+"It was mother, probably, who made father issue the order. She writes
+that, eager as she is to see me, she wouldn't think of letting me come
+alone with Sergeant Wells. Pshaw! He and I would be safer than the old
+stage-coach any day. That is never 'jumped' south of Laramie, though it
+is chased now and then above there. Of course the country's full of
+Indians between the Platte and the Black Hills, but we shouldn't be
+likely to come across any."
+
+There was a moment's silence. Nestled in Mrs. Henry's arms the weary
+little girl was dropping off into placid slumber, and forgetting all her
+troubles. Both the ladies were wives of officers of the army, and were
+living at Fort Russell, three miles out from Cheyenne, while their
+husbands were far to the north with their companies on the Indian
+campaign, which was just then opening.
+
+It was an anxious time. Since February all of the cavalry and much of
+the infantry stationed in Nebraska and Wyoming had been out in the wild
+country above the North Platte River, between the Big Horn Mountains and
+the Black Hills. For two years previous great numbers of the young
+warriors had been slipping away from the Sioux reservations and joining
+the forces of such vicious and intractable chiefs as Sitting Bull, Gall,
+and Rain-in-the-face, it could scarcely be doubted, with hostile intent.
+
+Several thousands of the Indians were known to be at large, and
+committing depredations and murders in every direction among the
+settlers. Now, all pacific means having failed, the matter had been
+turned over to General Crook, who had recently brought the savage
+Apaches of Arizona under subjection, to employ such means as he found
+necessary to defeat their designs.
+
+General Crook found the Sioux and their allies armed with the best
+modern breech-loaders, well supplied with ammunition and countless herds
+of war ponies, and far too numerous and powerful to be handled by the
+small force at his command.
+
+One or two sharp and savage fights occurred in March, while the mercury
+was still thirty degrees below zero, and then the government decided on
+a great summer campaign. Generals Terry and Gibbon were to hem the
+Indians from the north along the Yellowstone, while at the same time
+General Crook was to march up and attack them from the south.
+
+When June came, four regiments of cavalry and half a dozen infantry
+regiments were represented among the forces that scouted to and fro in
+the wild and beautiful uplands of Wyoming, Dakota, and Eastern Montana,
+searching for the Sioux.
+
+The families of the officers and soldiers remained at the barracks from
+which the men were sent, and even at the exposed stations of Forts
+Laramie, Robinson, and Fetterman, many ladies and children remained
+under the protection of small garrisons of infantry. Among the ladies at
+Laramie was Mrs. McCrea, Ralph's mother, who waited for the return of
+her boy from a long absence at school.
+
+A manly, sturdy fellow was Ralph, full of health and vigor, due in great
+part to the open-air life he had led in his early boyhood. He had
+"backed" an Indian pony before he was seven, and could sit one like a
+Comanche by the time he was ten. He had accompanied his father on many a
+long march and scout, and had ridden every mile of the way from the Gila
+River in Arizona, across New Mexico, and so on up into Nebraska.
+
+He had caught brook trout in the Cache la Poudre, and shot antelope
+along the Loup Fork of the Platte. With his father and his father's men
+to watch and keep him from harm, he had even charged his first buffalo
+herd and had been fortunate enough to shoot a bull. The skin had been
+made into a robe, which he carefully kept.
+
+Now, all eager to spend his vacation among his favorite haunts,--in the
+saddle and among the mountain streams,--Ralph McCrea was going back to
+his army home, when, as ill-luck would have it, the great Sioux war
+broke out in the early summer of our Centennial Year, and promised to
+greatly interfere with, if it did not wholly spoil, many of his
+cherished plans.
+
+Fort Laramie lay about one hundred miles north of Cheyenne, and Sergeant
+Wells had come down with the paymaster's escort a few days before,
+bringing Ralph's pet, his beautiful little Kentucky sorrel "Buford," and
+now the boy and his faithful friend, the sergeant, were visiting at Fort
+Russell, and waiting for a safe opportunity to start for home.
+
+Presently, as they chatted in low tones so as not to disturb the little
+sleeper, there came the sound of rapid hoof-beats, and Sergeant Wells
+cantered into the enclosure and, riding up to the carriage, said to
+Ralph,--
+
+"I found him, sir, all safe; but their wagon was being patched up, and
+he could not leave. He is so thankful to Mrs. Henry for her kindness,
+and begs to know if she would mind bringing Jessie out to the fort. The
+men are trying very hard to persuade him not to start for the Chug in
+the morning."
+
+"Why not, sergeant?"
+
+"Because the telegraph despatches from Laramie say there must be a
+thousand Indians gone out from the reservation in the last two days.
+They've cut the wires up to Red Cloud, and no more news can reach us."
+
+Ralph's face grew very pale.
+
+"Father is right in the midst of them, with only fifty men!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+CAVALRY ON THE MARCH.
+
+
+It was a lovely June morning when the Fifth Cavalry started on its
+march. Camp was struck at daybreak, and soon after five o'clock, while
+the sun was still low in the east and the dew-drops were sparkling on
+the buffalo grass, the long column was winding up the bare, rolling
+"divide" which lay between the valleys of Crow and Lodge Pole Creeks. In
+plain view, only thirty miles away to the west, were the summits of the
+Rocky Mountains, but such is the altitude of this upland prairie,
+sloping away eastward between the two forks of the Platte River, that
+these summits appear to be nothing more than a low range of hills
+shutting off the western horizon.
+
+Looking southward from the Laramie road, all the year round one can see
+the great peaks of the range--Long's and Hahn's and Pike's--glistening
+in their mantles of snow, and down there near them, in Colorado, the
+mountains slope abruptly into the Valley of the South Platte.
+
+Up here in Wyoming the Rockies go rolling and billowing far out to the
+east, and the entire stretch of country, from what are called the "Black
+Hills of Wyoming," in contradistinction to the Black Hills of Dakota,
+far east as the junction of the forks of the Platte, is one vast
+inclined plane.
+
+The Union Pacific Railway winds over these Black Hills at Sherman,--the
+lowest point the engineers could find,--and Sherman is over eight
+thousand feet above the sea.
+
+From Sherman, eastward, in less than an hour's run the cars go sliding
+down with smoking brakes to Cheyenne, a fall of two thousand feet. But
+the wagon-road from Cheyenne to Fort Laramie twists and winds among the
+ravines and over the divides of this lofty prairie; so that Ralph and
+his soldier friends, while riding jauntily over the hard-beaten track
+this clear, crisp, sunshiny, breezy morning, were twice as high above
+the sea as they would have been at the tiptop of the Catskills and
+higher even than had they been at the very summit of Mount Washington.
+
+The air at this height, though rare, is keen and exhilarating, and one
+needs no second look at the troopers to see how bright are their eyes
+and how nimble and elastic is the pace of their steeds.
+
+The commanding officer, with his adjutant and orderlies and a little
+group of staff sergeants, had halted at the crest of one of these ridges
+and was looking back at the advancing column. Beside the winding road
+was strung a line of wires,--the military telegraph to the border
+forts,--and with the exception of those bare poles not a stick of timber
+was anywhere in sight.
+
+The whole surface is destitute of bush or tree, but the thick little
+bunches of gray-green grass that cover it everywhere are rich with juice
+and nutriment. This is the buffalo grass of the Western prairies, and
+the moment the horses' heads are released down go their nozzles, and
+they are cropping eagerly and gratefully.
+
+Far as the eye can see to the north and east it roams over a rolling,
+tumbling surface that seems to have become suddenly petrified. Far to
+the south are the snow-shimmering peaks; near at hand, to the west, are
+the gloomy gorges and ravines and wide wastes of upland of the Black
+Hills of Wyoming; and so clear is the air that they seem but a short
+hour's gallop away.
+
+There is something strangely deceptive about the distances in an
+atmosphere so rare and clear as this.
+
+A young surgeon was taking his first ride with a cavalry column in the
+wide West, and, as he looked back into the valley through which they had
+been marching for over half an hour, his face was clouded with an
+expression of odd perplexity.
+
+"What's the matter, doctor?" asked the adjutant, with a grin on his
+face. "Are you wondering whether those fellows really are United States
+regulars?" and the young officer nodded towards the long column of
+horsemen in broad-brimmed slouch hats and flannel shirts or fanciful
+garb of Indian tanned buckskin. Even among the officers there was hardly
+a sign of the uniform or trappings which distinguish the soldiers in
+garrison.
+
+"No, it isn't _that_. I knew that you fellows who had served so long in
+Arizona had got out of the way of wearing uniform in the field against
+Indians. What I can't understand is that ridge over there. I thought we
+had been down in a hollow for the last half-hour, yet look at it; we
+must have come over that when I was thinking of something else."
+
+"Not a bit of it, doctor," laughed the colonel. "That's where we
+dismounted and took a short rest and gave the horses a chance to pick a
+bit."
+
+"Why, but, colonel! that must have been two miles back,--full half an
+hour ago: you don't mean that ridge is two miles away? I could almost
+hit that man riding down the road towards us."
+
+"It would be a wonderful shot, doctor. That man is one of the teamsters
+who went back after a dropped pistol. He is a mile and a half away."
+
+The doctor's eyes were wide open with wonder.
+
+"Of course you must know, colonel, but it is incomprehensible to me."
+
+"It is easily proved, doctor. Take these two telegraph poles nearest us
+and tell me how far they are apart."
+
+The doctor looked carefully from one pole to another. Only a single wire
+was strung along the line, and the poles were stout and strong. After a
+moment's study he said, "Well, they are just about seventy-five yards
+apart."
+
+"More than that, doctor. They are a good hundred yards. But even at your
+estimate, just count the poles back to that ridge--of course they are
+equidistant, or nearly so, all along--and tell me how far you make it."
+
+The doctor's eyes began to dilate again as he silently took account of
+the number.
+
+"I declare, there are over twenty to the rear of the wagon-train and
+nearly forty across the ridge! I give it up."
+
+"And now look here," said the colonel, pointing out to the eastward
+where some lithe-limbed hounds were coursing over the prairie with Ralph
+on his fleet sorrel racing in pursuit. "Look at young McCrea out there
+where there are no telegraph poles to help you judge the distance. If he
+were an Indian whom you wanted to bring down what would you set your
+sights at, providing you had time to set them at all?" and the veteran
+Indian fighter smiled grimly.
+
+The doctor shook his head.
+
+"It is too big a puzzle for me," he answered. "Five minutes ago I would
+have said three hundred at the utmost, but I don't know now."
+
+"How about that, Nihil?" asked the colonel, turning to a soldier riding
+with the head-quarters party.
+
+Nihil's brown hand goes up to the brim of his scouting hat in salute,
+but he shook his head.
+
+"The bullet would kick up a dust this side of him, sir," was the answer.
+
+"People sometimes wonder why it is we manage to hit so few of these
+Cheyennes or Sioux in our battles with them," said the colonel. "Now you
+can get an idea of one of the difficulties. They rarely come within six
+hundred yards of us when they are attacking a train or an infantry
+escort, and are always riding full tilt, just as you saw Ralph just now.
+It is next to impossible to hit them."
+
+"I understand," said the doctor. "How splendidly that boy rides!"
+
+"Ralph? Yes. He's a genuine trooper. Now, there's a boy whose whole
+ambition is to go to West Point. He's a manly, truthful, dutiful young
+fellow, born and raised in the army, knows the plains by heart, and just
+the one to make a brilliant and valuable cavalry officer, but there
+isn't a ghost of a chance for him."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Why not? Why! how is he to get an appointment? If he had a home
+somewhere in the East, and his father had influence with the Congressman
+of the district, it might be done; but the sons of army officers have
+really very little chance. The President used to have ten appointments a
+year, but Congress took them away from him. They thought there were too
+many cadets at the Point; but while they were virtuously willing to
+reduce somebody else's prerogatives in that line, it did not occur to
+them that they might trim a little on their own. Now the President is
+allowed only ten 'all told,' and can appoint no boy until some of his
+ten are graduated or otherwise disposed of. It really gives him only two
+or three appointments a year, and he has probably a thousand applicants
+for every one. What chance has an army boy in Wyoming against the son of
+some fellow with Senators and Representatives at his back in Washington?
+If the army could name an occasional candidate, a boy like Ralph would
+be sure to go, and we would have more soldiers and fewer scientists in
+the cavalry."
+
+By this time the head of the compact column was well up, and the captain
+of the leading troop, riding with his first lieutenant in front of his
+sets of fours, looked inquiringly at the colonel, as though half
+expectant of a signal to halt or change the gait. Receiving none, and
+seeing that the colonel had probably stopped to look over his command,
+the senior troop leader pushed steadily on.
+
+Behind him, four abreast, came the dragoons,--a stalwart, sunburned,
+soldierly-looking lot. Not a particle of show or glitter in their attire
+or equipment. Utterly unlike the dazzling hussars of England or the
+European continent, when the troopers of the United States are out on
+the broad prairies of the West "for business," as they put it, hardly a
+brass button, even, is to be seen.
+
+The colonel notes with satisfaction the nimble, active pace of the
+horses as they go by at rapid walk, and the easy seat of the men in
+their saddles.
+
+First the bays of "K" Troop trip quickly past; then the beautiful, sleek
+grays of "B," Captain Montgomery's company; then more bays in "I" and
+"A" and "D," and then some sixty-five blacks, "C" Troop's color.
+
+There are two sorrel troops in the regiment and more bays, and later in
+the year, when new horses were obtained, the Fifth had a roan and a
+dark-brown troop; but in June, when they were marching up to take their
+part in the great campaign that followed, only two of their companies
+were not mounted on bright bay horses, and one and all they were in the
+pink of condition and eager for a burst "'cross country."
+
+It was, however, their colonel's desire to take them to their
+destination in good trim, and he permitted no "larking."
+
+They had several hundred miles of weary marching before them. Much of
+the country beyond the Platte was "Bad Lands," where the grass is scant
+and poor, the soil ashen and spongy, and the water densely alkaline. All
+this would tell very sensibly upon the condition of horses that all
+winter long had been comfortably stabled, regularly groomed and
+grain-fed, and watered only in pure running streams flushed by springs
+or melting snow.
+
+It was all very well for young Ralph to be coursing about on his fleet,
+elastic sorrel, radiant with delight as the boy was at being again "out
+on the plains" and in the saddle; but the cavalry commander's first care
+must be to bring his horses to the scene of action in the most effective
+state of health and soundness. The first few days' marching, therefore,
+had to be watched with the utmost care.
+
+As the noon hour approached, the doctor noted how the hills off to the
+west seemed to be growing higher, and that there were broader vistas of
+wide ranges of barren slopes to the east and north.
+
+The colonel was riding some distance ahead of the battalion, his little
+escort close beside, and Ralph was giving Buford a resting spell, and
+placidly ambling alongside the doctor.
+
+Sergeant Wells was riding somewhere in the column with some chum of old
+days. He belonged to another regiment, but knew the Fifth of old. The
+hounds had tired of chasing over a waterless country, and with lolling
+tongues were trotting behind their masters' horses.
+
+The doctor was vastly interested in what he had heard of Ralph, and
+engaged him in talk. Just as they came in sight of the broad, open
+valley in which runs the sparkling Lodge Pole, a two-horse wagon rumbled
+up alongside, and there on the front seat was Farron, the ranchman, with
+bright-eyed, bonny-faced little Jessie smiling beside him.
+
+"We've caught you, Ralph," he laughed, "though we left Russell an hour
+or more behind you. I s'pose you'll all camp at Lodge Pole for the
+night. We're going on to the Chug."
+
+"Hadn't you better see the colonel about that?" asked Ralph, anxiously.
+
+"Oh, it's all right! I got telegrams from Laramie and the Chug, both,
+just before we left Russell. Not an Indian's been heard of this side of
+the Platte, and your father's troop has just got in to Laramie."
+
+"Has he?" exclaimed Ralph, with delight. "Then he knows I've started,
+and perhaps he'll come on to the Chug or Eagle's Nest and meet me."
+
+"More'n likely," answered Farron. "You and the sergeant had better come
+ahead and spend the night with me at the ranch."
+
+"I've no doubt the colonel will let us go ahead with you," answered
+Ralph, "but the ranch is too far off the road. We would have to stay at
+Phillips's for the night. What say you, sergeant?" he asked, as Wells
+came loping up alongside.
+
+"The very plan, I think. Somebody will surely come ahead to meet us, and
+we can make Laramie two days before the Fifth."
+
+"Then, good-by, doctor; I must ask the colonel first, but we'll see you
+at Laramie."
+
+"Good-by, Ralph, and good luck to you in getting that cadetship."
+
+"Oh, well! I _must_ trust to luck for that. Father says it all depends
+on my getting General Sheridan to back me. If _he_ would only ask for
+me, or if I could only do something to make him glad to ask; but what
+chance is there?"
+
+What chance, indeed? Ralph McCrea little dreamed that at that very
+moment General Sheridan--far away in Chicago--was reading despatches
+that determined him to go at once, himself, to Red Cloud Agency; that in
+four days more the general would be there, at Laramie, and that in two
+wonderful days, meantime--but who was there who dreamed what would
+happen meantime?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+DANGER IN THE AIR.
+
+
+When the head of the cavalry column reached the bridge over Lodge Pole
+Creek a march of about twenty-five miles had been made, which is an
+average day's journey for cavalry troops when nothing urgent hastens
+their movements.
+
+Filing to the right, the horsemen moved down the north bank of the
+rapidly-running stream, and as soon as the rearmost troop was clear of
+the road and beyond reach of its dust, the trumpets sounded "halt" and
+"dismount," and in five minutes the horses, unsaddled, were rolling on
+the springy turf, and then were driven out in herds, each company's by
+itself, to graze during the afternoon along the slopes. Each herd was
+watched and guarded by half a dozen armed troopers, and such horses as
+were notorious "stampeders" were securely "side-lined" or hobbled.
+
+Along the stream little white tents were pitched as the wagons rolled in
+and were unloaded; and then the braying mules, rolling and kicking in
+their enjoyment of freedom from harness, were driven out and disposed
+upon the slopes at a safe distance from the horses. The smokes of little
+fires began to float into the air, and the jingle of spoon and
+coffee-pot and "spider" and skillet told that the cooks were busy
+getting dinner for the hungry campaigners.
+
+Such appetites as those long-day marches give! Such delight in life and
+motion one feels as he drinks in that rare, keen mountain air! Some of
+the soldiers--old plainsmen--are already prone upon the turf, their
+heads pillowed on their saddles, their slouch hats pulled down over
+their eyes, snatching half an hour's dreamless sleep before the cooks
+shall summon them to dinner.
+
+One officer from each company is still in saddle, riding around the
+horses of his own troop to see that the grass is well chosen and that
+his guards are properly posted and on the alert. Over at the road there
+stands a sort of frontier tavern and stage station, at which is a
+telegraph office, and the colonel has been sending despatches to
+Department Head-Quarters to announce the safe arrival of his command at
+Lodge Pole _en route_ for Fort Laramie. Now he is talking with Ralph.
+
+"It isn't that, my boy. I do not suppose there is an Indian anywhere
+near the Chugwater; but if your father thought it best that you should
+wait and start with us, I think it was his desire that you should keep
+in the protection of the column all the way. Don't you?"
+
+"Yes, sir, I do. The only question now is, will he not come or send
+forward to the Chug to meet me, and could I not be with mother two days
+earlier that way? Besides, Farron is determined to go ahead as soon as
+he has had dinner, and--I don't like to think of little Jessie being up
+there at the Chug just now. Would you mind my telegraphing to father at
+Laramie and asking him?"
+
+"No, indeed, Ralph. Do so."
+
+And so a despatch was sent to Laramie, and in the course of an hour,
+just as they had enjoyed a comfortable dinner, there came the reply,--
+
+"All right. Come ahead to Phillips's Ranch. Party will meet you there at
+eight in the morning. They stop at Eagle's Nest to-night."
+
+Ralph's eyes danced as he showed this to the colonel who read it gravely
+and replied,--
+
+"It is all safe, I fancy, or your father would not say so. They have
+patrols all along the bank of the Platte to the southeast, and no
+Indians can cross without its being discovered in a few hours. I suppose
+they never come across between Laramie and Fetterman, do they, Ralph?"
+
+"Certainly not of late years, colonel. It is so far off their line to
+the reservations where they have to run for safety after their
+depredations."
+
+"I know that; but now that all but two troops of cavalry have gone up
+with General Crook they might be emboldened to try a wider sweep. That's
+all I'm afraid of."
+
+"Even if the Indians came, colonel, they've got those ranch buildings so
+loop-holed and fortified at Phillips's that we could stand them off a
+week if need be, and you would reach there by noon at latest."
+
+"Yes. We make an early start to-morrow morning, and 'twill be just
+another twenty-five miles to our camp on the Chug. If all is well you
+will be nearly to Eagle's Nest by the time we get to Phillips's, and you
+will be at Laramie before the sunset-gun to-morrow. Well, give my
+regards to your father, Ralph, and keep your eye open for the main
+chance. We cavalry people want you for our representative at West Point,
+you know."
+
+"Thank you for that, colonel," answered Ralph, with sparkling eyes. "I
+sha'n't forget it in many a day."
+
+So it happened that late that afternoon, with Farron driving his load of
+household goods; with brown-haired little Jessie lying sound asleep with
+her head on his lap; with Sergeant Wells cantering easily alongside and
+Ralph and Buford scouting a little distance ahead, the two-horse wagon
+rolled over the crest of the last divide and came just at sunset in
+sight of the beautiful valley with the odd name of Chugwater.
+
+Farther up the stream towards its sources among the pine-crested Black
+Hills, there were many places where the busy beavers had dammed its
+flow. The Indians, bent on trapping these wary creatures, had listened
+in the stillness of the solitudes to the battering of those wonderful
+tails upon the mud walls of their dams and forts, and had named the
+little river after its most marked characteristic, the constant "_chug,
+chug_" of those cricket-bat caudals.
+
+On the west of the winding stream, in the smiling valley with tiny
+patches of verdure, lay the ranch with its out-buildings, corrals, and
+the peacefully browsing stock around it, and little Jessie woke at her
+father's joyous shout and pointed out her home to Ralph.
+
+There where the trail wound away from the main road the wagon and
+horsemen must separate, and Ralph reined close alongside and took Jessie
+in his arms and was hugged tight as he kissed her bonny face. Then he
+and the sergeant shook hands heartily with Farron, set spurs to their
+horses, and went loping down northeastward to the broader reaches of the
+valley.
+
+On their right, across the lowlands, ran the long ridge ending in an
+abrupt precipice, that was the scene of the great buffalo-killing by the
+Indians many a long year ago. Straight ahead were the stage station, the
+forage sheds, and the half dozen buildings of Phillips's. All was as
+placid and peaceful in the soft evening light as if no hostile Indian
+had ever existed.
+
+Yet there were to be seen signs of preparation for Indian attack. The
+herder whom the travellers met two miles south of the station was
+heavily armed and his mate was only short rifle-shot away. The men waved
+their hats to Ralph and his soldier comrade, and one of them called out,
+"Whar'd ye leave the cavalry?" and seemed disappointed to hear they were
+as far back as Lodge Pole.
+
+At the station, they found the ranchmen prepared for their coming and
+glad to see them. Captain McCrea had telegraphed twice during the
+afternoon and seemed anxious to know of their arrival.
+
+"He's in the office at Laramie now," said the telegraph agent, with a
+smile, "and I wired him the moment we sighted you coming down the hill.
+Come in and send him a few words. It will please him more than anything
+I can say."
+
+So Ralph stepped into the little room with its solitary instrument and
+lonely operator. In those days there was little use for the line except
+for the conducting of purely military business, and the agents or
+operators were all soldiers detailed for the purpose. Here at "The Chug"
+the instrument rested on a little table by the loop-hole of a window in
+the side of the log hut. Opposite it was the soldier's narrow camp-bed
+with its brown army blankets and with his heavy overcoat thrown over the
+foot. Close at hand stood his Springfield rifle, with the belt of
+cartridges, and over the table hung two Colt's revolvers.
+
+All through the rooms of the station the same war-like preparations were
+visible, for several times during the spring and early summer war
+parties of Indians had come prowling up the valley, driving the herders
+before them; but, having secured all the beef cattle they could handle,
+they had hurried back to the fords of the Platte and, except on one or
+two occasions, had committed no murders.
+
+Well knowing the pluck of the little community at Phillips's, the
+Indians had not come within long rifle range of the ranch, but on the
+last two visits the warriors seemed to have grown bolder. While most of
+the Indians were rounding up cattle and scurrying about in the valley,
+two miles below the ranch, it was noted that two warriors, on their
+nimble ponies, had climbed the high ridge on the east that overlooked
+the ranches in the valley beyond and above Phillips's, and were
+evidently taking deliberate note of the entire situation.
+
+One of the Indians was seen to point a long, bare arm, on which silver
+wristlets and bands flashed in the sun, at Farron's lonely ranch four
+miles up-stream.
+
+That was more than the soldier telegrapher could bear patiently. He took
+his Springfield rifle out into the fields, and opened a long range fire
+on these adventurous redskins.
+
+The Indians were a good mile away, but that honest "Long Tom" sent its
+leaden missiles whistling about their ears, and kicking up the dust
+around their ponies' heels, until, after a few defiant shouts and such
+insulting and contemptuous gestures as they could think of, the two had
+ducked suddenly out of sight behind the bluffs.
+
+All this the ranch people told Ralph and the sergeant, as they were
+enjoying a hot supper after the fifty-mile ride of the day. Afterwards
+the two travellers went out into the corral to see that their horses
+were secure for the night.
+
+Buford looked up with eager whinny at Ralph's footstep, pricked his
+pretty ears, and looked as full of life and spirit as if he had never
+had a hard day's gallop in his life. Sergeant Wells had given him a
+careful rubbing down while Ralph was at the telegraph office, and
+later, when the horses were thoroughly cool, they were watered at the
+running stream and given a hearty feed of oats.
+
+Phillips came out to lock up his stable while they were petting Buford,
+and stood there a moment admiring the pretty fellow.
+
+"With your weight I think he could make a race against any horse in the
+cavalry, couldn't he, Mr. Ralph?" he asked.
+
+"I'm not quite sure, Phillips; the colonel of the Fifth Cavalry has a
+horse that I might not care to race. He was being led along behind the
+head-quarters escort to-day. Barring that horse Van, I would ride Buford
+against any horse I've ever seen in the service for any distance from a
+quarter of a mile to a day's march."
+
+"But those Indian ponies, Mr. Ralph, couldn't they beat him?"
+
+"Over rough ground--up hill and down dale--I suppose some of them could.
+I saw their races up at Red Cloud last year, and old Spotted Tail
+brought over a couple of ponies from Camp Sheridan that ran like a
+streak, and there was a Minneconjou chief there who had a very fast
+pony. Some of the young Ogallallas had quick, active beasts, but, take
+them on a straight-away run, I wouldn't be afraid to try my luck with
+Buford against the best of them."
+
+"Well, I hope you'll never have to ride for your life on him. He's
+pretty and sound and fast, but those Indians have such wind and bottom;
+they never seem to give out."
+
+A little later--at about half after eight o'clock--Sergeant Wells, the
+telegraph operator, and one or two of the ranchmen sat tilted back in
+their rough chairs on the front porch of the station enjoying their
+pipes. Ralph had begun to feel a little sleepy, and was ready to turn in
+when he was attracted by the conversation between the two soldiers; the
+operator was speaking, and the seriousness of his tone caused the boy to
+listen.
+
+"It isn't that we have any particular cause to worry just here. With our
+six or seven men we could easily stand off the Indians until help came,
+but it's Farron and little Jessie I'm thinking of. He and his two men
+would have no show whatever in case of a sudden and determined attack.
+They have not been harmed so far, because the Indians always crossed
+below Laramie and came up to the Chug, and so there was timely warning.
+Now, they have seen Farron's place up there all by itself. They can
+easily find out, by hanging around the traders at Red Cloud, who lives
+there, how many men he has, and about Jessie. Next to surprising and
+killing a white man in cold blood, those fellows like nothing better
+than carrying off a white child and concealing it among them. The
+gypsies have the same trait. Now, they know that so long as they cross
+below Laramie the scouts are almost sure to discover it in an hour or
+two, and as soon as they strike the Chug Valley some herders come
+tumbling in here and give the alarm. They have come over regularly every
+moon, since General Crook went up in February, _until now_."
+
+The operator went on impressively:
+
+"The moon's almost on the wane, and they haven't shown up yet. Now, what
+worries me is just this. Suppose they _should_ push out westward from
+the reservation, cross the Platte somewhere about Bull Bend or even
+nearer Laramie, and come down the Chug from the north. Who is to give
+Farron warning?"
+
+"They're bound to hear it at Laramie and telegraph you at once,"
+suggested one of the ranchmen.
+
+"Not necessarily. The river isn't picketed between Fetterman and
+Laramie, simply because the Indians have always tried the lower
+crossings. The stages go through three times a week, and there are
+frequent couriers and trains, but they don't keep a lookout for pony
+tracks. The chances are that their crossing would not be discovered for
+twenty-four hours or so, and as to the news being wired to us here,
+those reds would never give us a chance. The first news we got of their
+deviltry would be that they had cut the line ten or twelve miles this
+side of Laramie as they came sweeping down.
+
+"I tell you, boys," continued the operator, half rising from his chair
+in his earnestness, "I hate to think of little Jessie up there to-night.
+I go in every few minutes and call up Laramie or Fetterman just to feel
+that all is safe, and stir up Lodge Pole, behind us, to realize that
+we've got the Fifth Cavalry only twenty-five miles away; but the Indians
+haven't missed a moon yet, and there's only one more night of this."
+
+Even as his hearers sat in silence, thinking over the soldier's words,
+there came from the little cabin the sharp and sudden clicking of the
+telegraph. "It's my call," exclaimed the operator, as he sprang to his
+feet and ran to his desk.
+
+Ralph and Sergeant Wells were close at his heels; he had clicked his
+answering signal, seized a pencil, and was rapidly taking down a
+message. They saw his eyes dilate and his lips quiver with suppressed
+excitement. Once, indeed, he made an impulsive reach with his hand, as
+if to touch the key and shut off the message and interpose some idea of
+his own, but discipline prevailed.
+
+"It's for you," he said, briefly, nodding up to Ralph, while he went on
+to copy the message.
+
+It was a time of anxious suspense in the little office. The sergeant
+paced silently to and fro with unusual erectness of bearing and a
+firmly-compressed lip. His appearance and attitude were that of the
+soldier who has divined approaching danger and who awaits the order for
+action. Ralph, who could hardly control his impatience, stood watching
+the rapid fingers of the operator as they traced out a message which was
+evidently of deep moment.
+
+At last the transcript was finished, and the operator handed it to the
+boy. Ralph's hand was trembling with excitement as he took the paper and
+carried it close to the light. It read as follows:
+
+     "RALPH MCCREA, Chugwater Station:
+
+     "Black Hills stage reports having crossed trail of large war party
+     going west, this side of Rawhide Butte. My troop ordered at once in
+     pursuit. Wait for Fifth Cavalry.
+
+                                                    "GORDON MCCREA."
+
+"Going west, this side of Rawhide Butte," said Ralph, as calmly as he
+could. "That means that they are twenty miles north of Laramie, and on
+the other side of the Platte."
+
+"It means that they knew what they were doing when they crossed just
+behind the last stage so as to give no warning, and that their trail was
+nearly two days old when seen by the down stage this afternoon. It means
+that they crossed the stage road, Ralph, but how long ago was that, do
+you think, and where are they now? It is my belief that they crossed the
+Platte above Laramie last night or early this morning, and will be down
+on us to-night."
+
+"Wire that to Laramie, then, at once," said Ralph. "It may not be too
+late to turn the troop this way."
+
+"I can only say what I think to my fellow-operator there, and can't even
+do that now; the commanding officer is sending despatches to Omaha, and
+asking that the Fifth Cavalry be ordered to send forward a troop or two
+to guard the Chug. But there's no one at the head-quarters this time o'
+night. Besides, if we volunteer any suggestions, they will say we were
+stampeded down here by a band of Indians that didn't come within
+seventy-five miles of us."
+
+"Well, father won't misunderstand me," said Ralph, "and I'm not afraid
+to ask him to think of what you say; wire it to him in my name."
+
+There was a long interval, twenty minutes or so, before the operator
+could "get the line." When at last he succeeded in sending his despatch,
+he stopped short in the midst of it.
+
+"It's no use, Ralph. Your father's troop was three miles away before his
+message was sent. There were reports from Red Cloud that made the
+commanding officer believe there were some Cheyennes going up to attack
+couriers or trains between Fetterman and the Big Horn. He is away north
+of the Platte."
+
+Another few minutes of thoughtful silence, then Ralph turned to his
+soldier friend,--
+
+"Sergeant, I have to obey father's orders and stay here, but it's my
+belief that Farron should be put on his guard at once. What say you?"
+
+"If you agree, sir, I'll ride up and spend the night with him."
+
+"Then go by all means. I know father would approve it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+CUT OFF.
+
+
+It was after ten o'clock when the waning moon came peering over the
+barrier ridge at the east. Over an hour had passed since Sergeant Wells,
+on his big sorrel, had ridden away up the stream on the trail to
+Farron's.
+
+Phillips had pressed upon him a Henry repeating rifle, which he had
+gratefully accepted. It could not shoot so hard or carry so far as the
+sergeant's Springfield carbine, the cavalry arm; but to repel a sudden
+onset of yelling savages at close quarters it was just the thing, as it
+could discharge sixteen shots without reloading. His carbine and the
+belt of copper cartridges the sergeant left with Ralph.
+
+Just before riding away he took the operator and Ralph to the back of
+the corral, whence, far up the valley, they could see the twinkling
+light at Farron's ranch.
+
+"We ought to have some way of signalling," he had said as they went out
+of doors. "If you get news during the night that the Indians are surely
+this side of the Platte, of course we want to know at once; if, on the
+other hand, you hear they are nowhere within striking distance, it will
+be a weight off my mind and we can all get a good night's rest up there.
+Now, how shall we fix it?"
+
+After some discussion, it was arranged that Wells should remain on the
+low porch in front of Farron's ranch until midnight. The light was to be
+extinguished there as soon as he arrived, as an assurance that all was
+well, and it should not again appear during the night unless as a
+momentary answer to signals they might make.
+
+If information were received at Phillips's that the Indians were south
+of the Platte, Ralph should fire three shots from his carbine at
+intervals of five seconds; and if they heard that all was safe, he
+should fire one shot to call attention and then start a small blaze out
+on the bank of the stream, where it could be plainly seen from Farron's.
+
+Wells was to show his light half a minute when he recognized the signal.
+Having arrived at this understanding, the sergeant shook the hand of
+Ralph and the operator and rode towards Farron's.
+
+"What I wish," said the operator, "is that Wells could induce Farron to
+let him bring Jessie here for the night; but Farron is a bull-headed
+fellow and thinks no number of Indians could ever get the better of him
+and his two men. He knows very little of them and is hardly alive to the
+danger of his position. I think he will be safe with Wells, but, all
+the same, I wish that a troop of the Fifth Cavalry had been sent forward
+to-night."
+
+After they had gone back to the office the operator "called up" Laramie.
+"All quiet," was the reply, and nobody there seemed to think the Indians
+had come towards the Platte.
+
+Then the operator signalled to his associate at Lodge Pole, who wired
+back that nobody there had heard anything from Laramie or elsewhere
+about the Indians; that the colonel and one or two of his officers had
+been in the station a while during the evening and had sent messages to
+Cheyenne and Omaha and received one or two, but that they had all gone
+out to camp. Everything was quiet; "taps" had just sounded and they were
+all going to bed.
+
+"Lodge Pole" announced for himself that some old friends of his were on
+the guard that night, and he was going over to smoke a pipe and have a
+chat with them.
+
+To this "Chug" responded that he wished he wouldn't leave the office.
+There was no telling what might turn up or how soon he'd be wanted.
+
+But "Lodge Pole" said the operators were not required to stay at the
+board after nine at night; he would have the keeper of the station
+listen for his call, and would run over to camp for an hour; would be
+back at half-past ten and sleep by his instrument. Meantime, if needed,
+he could be called in a minute,--the guard tents were only three hundred
+yards away,--and so he went.
+
+Ralph almost wished that he had sent a message to the colonel to tell
+him of their suspicions and anxiety. He knew well that every officer
+and every private in that sleeping battalion would turn out eagerly and
+welcome the twenty-five-mile trot forward to the Chug on the report that
+the Sioux were out "on the war-path" and might be coming that way.
+
+Yet, army boy that he was, he hated to give what might be called a false
+alarm. He knew the Fifth only by reputation, and while he would not have
+hesitated to send such a message to his father had he been camped at
+Lodge Pole, or to his father's comrades in their own regiment, he did
+not relish the idea of sending a despatch that would rout the colonel
+out of his warm blankets, and which might be totally unnecessary.
+
+So the telegraph operator at Lodge Pole was permitted to go about his
+own devices, and once again Ralph and his new friend went out into the
+night to look over their surroundings and the situation.
+
+The light still burned at Farron's, and Phillips, coming out with a
+bundle of kindling-wood for the little beacon fire, chuckled when he saw
+it,--
+
+"Wells must be there by this time, but I'll just bet Farron is giving
+the boys a little supper, or something, to welcome Jessie home, and now
+he's got obstinate and won't let them douse the glim."
+
+"It's a case that Wells will be apt to decide for himself," answered
+Ralph. "He won't stand fooling, and will declare martial law.--There!
+What did I tell you?"
+
+The light went suddenly out in the midst of his words. They carried the
+kindling and made a little heap of dry sticks out near the bank of the
+stream; then stood a while and listened. In the valley, faintly lighted
+by the moon, all was silence and peace; not even the distant yelp of
+coyote disturbed the stillness of the night. Not a breath of air was
+stirring. A light film of cloud hung about the horizon and settled in a
+cumulus about the turrets of old Laramie Peak, but overhead the
+brilliant stars sparkled and the planets shone like little globes of
+molten gold.
+
+Hearing voices, Buford, lonely now without his friend, the sergeant's
+horse, set up a low whinny, and Ralph went in and spoke to him, patting
+his glossy neck and shoulder. When he came out he found that a third man
+had joined the party and was talking eagerly with Phillips.
+
+Ralph recognized the man as an old trapper who spent most of his time in
+the hills or farther up in the neighborhood of Laramie Peak. He had
+often been at the fort to sell peltries or buy provisions, and was a
+mountaineer and plainsman who knew every nook and cranny in Wyoming.
+
+Cropping the scant herbage on the flat behind the trapper was a lank,
+long-limbed horse from which he had just dismounted, and which looked
+travel-stained and weary like his master. The news the man brought was
+worthy of consideration, and Ralph listened with rapt attention and with
+a heart that beat hard and quick, though he said no word and gave no
+sign.
+
+"Then you haven't seen or heard a thing?" asked the new-comer. "It's
+mighty strange. I've scoured these hills--man and boy--nigh onto thirty
+years and ought to know Indian smokes when I see 'em. I don't think I
+can be mistaken about this. I was way up the range about four o'clock
+this afternoon and could see clear across towards Rawhide Butte, and
+three smokes went up over there, sure. What startled me," the trapper
+continued, "was the answer. Not ten miles above where I was there went
+up a signal smoke from the foot-hills of the range,--just in here to the
+northwest of us, perhaps twenty miles west of Eagle's Nest. It's the
+first time I've seen Indian smokes in there since the month they killed
+Lieutenant Robinson up by the peak. You bet I came down. _Sure_ they
+haven't seen anything at Laramie?"
+
+"Nothing. They sent Captain McCrea with his troop up towards Rawhide
+just after dark, but they declare nothing has been seen or heard of
+Indians this side of the Platte. I've been talking with Laramie most of
+the evening. The Black Hills stage coming down reported trail of a big
+war party out, going west just this side of the Butte, and some of them
+may have sent up the smokes you saw in that direction. I was saying to
+Ralph, here, that if that trail was forty-eight hours old, they would
+have had time to cross the Platte at Bull Bend, and be down here
+to-night."
+
+"They wouldn't come here first. They know this ranch too well. They'd go
+in to Eagle's Nest to try and get the stage horses and a scalp or two
+there. You're too strong for 'em here."
+
+"Ay; but there's Farron and his little kid up there four miles above
+us."
+
+"You don't tell me! Thought he'd taken her down to Denver."
+
+"So he did, and fetched her back to-day. Sergeant Wells has gone up
+there to keep watch with them, and we are to signal if we get important
+news. All you tell me only adds to what we suspected. How I wish we had
+known it an hour ago! Now, will you stay here with us or go up to
+Farron's and tell Wells what you've seen?"
+
+"I'll stay here. My horse can't make another mile, and you may believe I
+don't want any prowling round outside of a stockade this night. No, if
+you can signal to him go ahead and do it."
+
+"What say you, Ralph?"
+
+Ralph thought a moment in silence. If he fired his three shots, it meant
+that the danger was imminent, and that they had certain information that
+the Indians were near at hand. He remembered to have heard his father
+and other officers tell of sensational stories this same old trapper had
+inflicted on the garrison. Sergeant Wells himself used to laugh at
+"Baker's yarns." More than once the cavalry had been sent out to where
+Baker asserted he had certainly seen a hundred Indians the day before,
+only to find that not even the vestige of a pony track remained on the
+yielding sod. If he fired the signal shots it meant a night of vigil for
+everybody at Farron's and then how Wells would laugh at him in the
+morning, and how disgusted he would be when he found that it was
+entirely on Baker's assurances that he had acted!
+
+It was a responsible position for the boy. He would much have preferred
+to mount Buford and ride off over the four miles of moonlit prairie to
+tell the sergeant of Baker's report and let him be the judge of its
+authenticity. It was lucky he had that level-headed soldier operator to
+advise him. Already he had begun to fancy him greatly, and to respect
+his judgment and intelligence.
+
+"Suppose we go in and stir up Laramie, and tell them what Mr. Baker
+says," he suggested; and, leaving the trapper to stable his jaded horse
+under Phillips's guidance, Ralph and his friend once more returned to
+the station.
+
+"If the Indians are south of the Platte," said the operator, "I shall no
+longer hesitate about sending a despatch direct to the troops at Lodge
+Pole. The colonel ought to know. He can send one or two companies right
+along to-night. There is no operator at Eagle's Nest, or I'd have him up
+and ask if all was well there. That's what worries me, Ralph. It was
+back of Eagle's Nest old Baker says he saw their smokes, and it is
+somewhere about Eagle's Nest that I should expect the rascals to slip in
+and cut our wire. I'll bet they're all asleep at Laramie by this time.
+What o'clock is it?"
+
+The boy stopped at the window of the little telegraph room where the
+light from the kerosene lamp would fall upon his watch-dial. The soldier
+passed on around to the door. Glancing at his watch, Ralph followed on
+his track and got to the door-way just as his friend stretched forth his
+hand to touch the key.
+
+"It's just ten-fifty now."
+
+"Ten-fifty, did you say?" asked the soldier, glancing over his shoulder.
+"Ralph!" he cried, excitedly, "_the wire's cut!_"
+
+"Where?" gasped Ralph. "Can you tell?"
+
+"No, somewhere up above us,--near the Nest, probably,--though who can
+tell? It may be just round the bend of the road, for all we know. No
+doubt about there being Indians now, Ralph, give 'em your signal. Hullo!
+Hoofs!"
+
+Leaping out from the little tenement, the two listened intently. An
+instant before the thunder of horse's feet upon wooden planking had been
+plainly audible in the distance, and now the coming clatter could be
+heard on the roadway.
+
+Phillips and Baker, who had heard the sounds, joined them at the
+instant. Nearer and nearer came a panting horse; a shadowy rider loomed
+into sight up the road, and in another moment a young ranchman galloped
+up to the very doors.
+
+"All safe, fellows? Thank goodness for that! I've had a ride for it, and
+we're dead beat. _Indians?_ Why, the whole country's alive with 'em
+between here and Hunton's. I promised I'd go over to Farron's if they
+ever came around that way, but they may beat me there yet. How many men
+have you here?"
+
+"Seven now, counting Baker and Ralph; but I'll wire right back to Lodge
+Pole and let the Fifth Cavalry know. Quick, Ralph, give 'em your signal
+now!"
+
+Ralph seized his carbine and ran out on the prairie behind the corral,
+the others eagerly following him to note the effect. Bang! went the gun
+with a resounding roar that echoed from the cliffs at the east and came
+thundering back to them just in time to "fall in" behind two other
+ringing reports at short, five-second intervals.
+
+Three times the flash lighted up the faces of the little party; set and
+stern and full of pluck they were. Then all eyes were turned to the
+dark, shadowy, low-lying objects far up the stream, the roofs of
+Farron's threatened ranch.
+
+Full half a minute they watched, hearts beating high, breath coming
+thick and fast, hands clinching in the intensity of their anxiety.
+
+Then, hurrah! Faint and flickering at first, then shining a few seconds
+in clear, steady beam, the sergeant's answering signal streamed out upon
+the night, a calm, steadfast, unwavering response, resolute as the
+spirit of its soldier sender, and then suddenly disappeared.
+
+"He's all right!" said Ralph, joyously, as the young ranchman put spurs
+to his panting horse and rode off to the west. "Now, what about Lodge
+Pole?"
+
+Just as they turned away there came a sound far out on the prairie that
+made them pause and look wonderingly a moment in one another's eyes. The
+horseman had disappeared from view. They had watched him until he had
+passed out of sight in the dim distance. The hoof-beats of his horse had
+died away before they turned to go.
+
+Yet now there came the distant thunder of an hundred hoofs bounding over
+the sod.
+
+Out from behind a jutting spur of a bluff a horde of shadows sweep forth
+upon the open prairie towards the trail on which the solitary rider has
+disappeared. Here and there among them swift gleams, like silver
+streaks, are plainly seen, as the moonbeams glint on armlet or bracelet,
+or the nickel plating on their gaudy trappings.
+
+Then see! a ruddy flash! another! another! the muffled bang of
+fire-arms, and the vengeful yell and whoops of savage foeman float down
+to the breathless listeners at the station on the Chug. The Sioux are
+here in full force, and a score of them have swept down on that brave,
+hapless, helpless fellow riding through the darkness alone.
+
+Phillips groaned. "Oh, why did we let him go? Quick, now! Every man to
+the ranch, and you get word to Lodge Pole, will you?"
+
+"Ay, ay, and fetch the whole Fifth Cavalry here at a gallop!"
+
+But when Ralph ran into the telegraph station a moment later, he found
+the operator with his head bowed upon his arms and his face hidden from
+view.
+
+"What's the matter,--quick?" demanded Ralph.
+
+It was a ghastly face that was raised to the boy, as the operator
+answered,--
+
+"It--it's all my fault. I've waited too long. _They've cut the line
+behind us!_"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+AT FARRON'S RANCH.
+
+
+When Sergeant Wells reached Farron's ranch that evening little Jessie
+was peacefully sleeping in the room that had been her mother's. The
+child was tired after the long, fifty-mile drive from Russell, and had
+been easily persuaded to go to bed.
+
+Farron himself, with the two men who worked for him, was having a
+sociable smoke and chat, and the three were not a little surprised at
+Wells's coming and the unwelcome news he bore. The ranchman was one of
+the best-hearted fellows in the world, but he had a few infirmities of
+disposition and one or two little conceits that sometimes marred his
+better judgment. Having lived in the Chug Valley a year or two before
+the regiment came there, he had conceived it to be his prerogative to
+adopt a somewhat patronizing tone to its men, and believed that he knew
+much more about the manners and customs of the Sioux than they could
+possibly have learned.
+
+The Fifth Cavalry had been stationed not far from the Chug Valley when
+he first came to the country, and afterwards were sent out to Arizona
+for a five-years' exile. It was all right for the Fifth to claim
+acquaintance with the ways of the Sioux, Farron admitted, but as for
+these fellows of the --th,--that was another thing. It did not seem to
+occur to him that the guarding of the neighboring reservations for about
+five years had given the new regiment opportunities to study and observe
+these Indians that had not been accorded to him.
+
+Another element which he totally overlooked in comparing the relative
+advantages of the two regiments was a very important one that radically
+altered the whole situation. When the Fifth was on duty watching the
+Sioux, it was just after breech-loading rifles had been introduced into
+the army, and before they had been introduced among the Sioux.
+
+Through the mistaken policy of the Indian Bureau at Washington this
+state of affairs was now changed and, for close fighting, the savages
+were better armed than the troops. Nearly every warrior had either a
+magazine rifle or a breech-loader, and many of them had two revolvers
+besides. Thus armed, the Sioux were about ten times as formidable as
+they had been before, and the task of restraining them was far more
+dangerous and difficult than it had been when the Fifth guarded them.
+
+The situation demanded greater vigilance and closer study than in the
+old days, and Farron ought to have had sense enough to see it. But he
+did not. He had lived near the Sioux so many years; these soldiers had
+been near them so many years less; therefore they must necessarily know
+less about them than he did. He did not take into account that it was
+the soldiers' business to keep eyes and ears open to everything relating
+to the Indians, while the information which he had gained came to him
+simply as diversion, or to satisfy his curiosity.
+
+So it happened that when Wells came in that night and told Farron what
+was feared at Phillips's, the ranchman treated his warning with
+good-humored but rather contemptuous disregard.
+
+"Phillips gets stampeded too easy," was the way he expressed himself,
+"and when you fellows of the Mustangs have been here as long as I have
+you'll get to know these Indians better. Even if they did come, Pete and
+Jake here, and I, with our Henry rifles, could stand off fifty of 'em.
+Why, we've done it many a time."
+
+"How long ago?" asked the sergeant, quietly.
+
+"Oh, I don't know. It was before you fellows came. Why, you don't begin
+to know anything about these Indians! You never see 'em here nowadays,
+but when I first came here to the Chug there wasn't a week they didn't
+raid us. They haven't shown up in three years, except just this spring
+they've run off a little stock. But you never see 'em."
+
+"_You_ may never see them, Farron, but we do,--see them day in and day
+out as we scout around the reservation; and while I may not know what
+they were ten years ago, I know what they are _now_, and that's more to
+the purpose. You and Pete might have stood off a dozen or so when they
+hadn't 'Henrys' and 'Winchesters' as they have now, but you couldn't do
+it to-day, and it's all nonsense for you to talk of it. Of course, so
+long as you keep inside here you may pick them off, but look out of this
+window! What's to prevent their getting into your corral out there, and
+then holding you here! They can set fire to your roof over your head,
+man, and you can't get out to extinguish it."
+
+"What makes you think they've spotted me, anyhow?" asked Farron.
+
+"They looked you over the last time they came up the valley, and you
+know it. Now, if you and the men want to stay here and make a fight for
+it, all right,--I'd rather do that myself, only we ought to have two or
+three men to put in the corral,--but here's little Jessie. Let me take
+her down to Phillips's; she's safe there. He has everything ready for a
+siege and you haven't."
+
+"Why, she's only just gone to sleep, Wells; I don't want to wake her up
+out of a warm bed and send her off four miles a chilly night like
+this,--all for a scare, too. The boys down there would laugh at
+me,--just after bringing her here from Denver, too."
+
+"They're not laughing down there _this_ night, Farron, and they're not
+the kind that get stampeded either. Keep Jessie, if you say so, and I'll
+stay through the night; but I've fixed some signals with them down at
+the road and you've got to abide by them. They can see your light plain
+as a beacon, and it's got to go out in fifteen minutes."
+
+Farron had begun by pooh-poohing the sergeant's views, but he already
+felt that they deserved serious consideration. He was more than half
+disposed to adopt Wells's plan and let him take Jessie down to the safer
+station at Phillips's, but she looked so peaceful and bonny, sleeping
+there in her little bed, that he could not bear to disturb her. He was
+ashamed, too, of the appearance of yielding.
+
+So he told the sergeant that while he would not run counter to any
+arrangement he had made as to signals, and was willing to back him up in
+any project for the common defence, he thought they could protect Jessie
+and the ranch against any marauders that might come along. He didn't
+think it was necessary that they should all sit up. One man could watch
+while the others slept.
+
+As a first measure Farron and the sergeant took a turn around the ranch.
+The house itself was about thirty yards from the nearest side of the
+corral, or enclosure, in which Farron's horses were confined. In the
+corral were a little stable, a wagon-shed, and a poultry-house. The back
+windows of the stable were on the side towards the house, and should
+Indians get possession of the stable they could send fire-arrows, if
+they chose, to the roof of the house, and with their rifles shoot down
+any persons who might attempt to escape from the burning building.
+
+This fault of construction had long since been pointed out to Farron,
+but the man who called his attention to it, unluckily, was an officer of
+the new regiment, and the ranchman had merely replied, with a
+self-satisfied smile, that he guessed he'd lived long enough in that
+country to know a thing or two about the Indians.
+
+Sergeant Wells shook his head as he looked at the stable, but Farron
+said that it was one of his safe-guards.
+
+"I've got two mules in there that can smell an Indian five miles off,
+and they'd begin to bray the minute they did. That would wake me up, you
+see, because their heads are right towards me. Now, if they were way
+across the corral I mightn't hear 'em at all. Then it's close to the
+house, and convenient for feeding in winter. Will you put your horse in
+to-night?"
+
+Sergeant Wells declined. He might need him, he said, and would keep him
+in front of the house where he was going to take his station to watch
+the valley and look out for signals. He led the horse to the stream and
+gave him a drink, and asked Farron to lay out a hatful of oats. "They
+might come in handy if I have to make an early start."
+
+However lightly Farron might estimate the danger, his men regarded it as
+a serious matter. Having heard the particulars from Sergeant Wells,
+their first care was to look over their rifles and see that they were in
+perfect order and in readiness for use. When at last Farron had
+completed a leisurely inspection of his corral and returned to the
+house, he found Wells and Pete in quiet talk at the front, and the
+sergeant's horse saddled close at hand.
+
+"Oh, well!" he said, "if you're as much in earnest as all that, I'll
+bring my pipe out here with you, and if any signal should come, it'll be
+time enough then to wake Jessie, wrap her in a blanket, and you gallop
+off to Phillips's with her."
+
+And so the watchers went on duty. The light in the ranch was
+extinguished, and all about the place was as quiet as the broad, rolling
+prairie itself. Farron remained wakeful a little while, then said he was
+sleepy and should go in and lie down without undressing. Pete, too,
+speedily grew drowsy and sat down on the porch, where Wells soon caught
+sight of his nodding head just as the moon came peeping up over the
+distant crest of the "Buffalo Hill."
+
+How long Farron slept he had no time to ask, for the next thing he knew
+was that a rude hand was shaking his shoulder, and Pete's voice said,--
+
+"Up with you, Farron! The signal's fired at Phillips's. Up quick!"
+
+As Farron sprang to the floor, Pete struck a light, and the next minute
+the kerosene lamp, flickering and sputtering at first, was shining in
+the eastward window. Outside the door the ranchman found Wells
+tightening his saddle-girths, while his horse, snorting with excitement,
+pricked up his ears and gazed down the valley.
+
+"Who fired?" asked Farron, barely awake.
+
+"I don't know; Ralph probably. Better get Jessie for me at once. The
+Indians are this side of the Platte sure, and they may be near at hand.
+I don't like the way Spot's behaving,--see how excited he is. I don't
+like to leave you short-handed if there's to be trouble. If there's time
+I'll come back from Phillips's. Come, man! Wake Jessie."
+
+"All right. There's plenty of time, though. They must be miles down the
+valley yet. If they'd come from the north, the telegraph would have
+given warning long ago. And Dick Warner--my brother-in-law, Jessie's
+uncle--always promised he'd be down to tell me first thing, if they came
+any way that he could hear of it. You bet he'll be with us before
+morning, unless they're between him and us now."
+
+With that he turned into the house, and in a moment reappeared with the
+wondering, sleepy-eyed, half-wakened little maid in his strong arms.
+Wells was already in saddle, and Spot was snorting and prancing about in
+evident excitement.
+
+"I'll leave the 'Henry' with Pete. I can't carry it and Jessie, too.
+Hand her up to me and snuggle her well in the blanket."
+
+Farron hugged his child tight in his arms one moment. She put her little
+arms around his neck and clung to him, looking piteously into his face,
+yet shedding no tears. Something told her there was danger; something
+whispered "Indians!" to the childish heart; but she stifled her words of
+fear and obeyed her father's wish.
+
+"You are going down to Phillips's where Ralph is, Jessie, darling.
+Sergeant Wells is going to carry you. Be good and perfectly quiet. Don't
+cry, don't make a particle of noise, pet. Whatever you do, don't make
+any noise. Promise papa."
+
+As bravely as she had done when she waited that day at the station at
+Cheyenne, the little woman choked back the rising sob. She nodded
+obedience, and then put up her bonny face for her father's kiss. Who can
+tell of the dread, the emotion he felt as he clung to the trusting
+little one for that short moment?
+
+"God guard you, my baby," he muttered, as he carefully lifted her up to
+Wells, who circled her in his strong right arm, and seated her on the
+overcoat that was rolled at his pommel.
+
+Farron carefully wrapped the blanket about her tiny feet and legs, and
+with a prayer on his lips and a clasp of the sergeant's bridle hand he
+bade him go. Another moment, and Wells and little Jessie were loping
+away on Spot, and were rapidly disappearing from view along the dim,
+moonlit trail.
+
+For a moment the three ranchmen stood watching them. Far to the
+northeast a faint light could be seen at Phillips's, and the roofs and
+walls were dimly visible in the rays of the moon. The hoof-beats of old
+Spot soon died away in the distance, and all seemed as still as the
+grave. Anxious as he was, Farron took heart. They stood there silent a
+few moments after the horseman, with his precious charge, had faded from
+view, and then Farron spoke,--
+
+"They'll make it all safe. If the Indians were anywhere near us those
+mules of mine would have given warning by this time."
+
+The words were hardly dropped from his lips when from the other side of
+the house--from the stable at the corral--there came, harsh and loud and
+sudden, the discordant bray of mules. The three men started as if
+stung.
+
+"Quick! Pete. Fetch me any one of the horses. I'll gallop after him.
+Hear those mules? That means the Indians are close at hand!" And he
+sprang into the house for his revolvers, while Pete flew round to the
+stable.
+
+It was not ten seconds before Farron reappeared at the front door. Pete
+came running out from the stable, leading an astonished horse by the
+snaffle. There was not even a blanket on the animal's back, or time to
+put one there.
+
+Farron was up and astride the horse in an instant, but before he could
+give a word of instruction to his men, there fell upon their ears a
+sound that appalled them,--the distant thunder of hundreds of bounding
+hoofs; the shrill, vengeful yells of a swarm of savage Indians; the
+crack! crack! of rifles; and, far down the trail along which Wells had
+ridden but a few moments before, they could see the flash of fire-arms.
+
+"O God! save my little one!" was Farron's agonized cry as he struck his
+heels to his horse's ribs and went tearing down the valley in mad and
+desperate ride to the rescue.
+
+Poor little Jessie! What hope to save her now?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+A NIGHT OF PERIL.
+
+
+For one moment the telegraph operator was stunned and inert. Then his
+native pluck and the never-say-die spirit of the young American came to
+his aid. He rose to his feet, seized his rifle, and ran out to join
+Phillips and the few men who were busily at work barricading the corral
+and throwing open the loop-holes in the log walls.
+
+Ralph had disappeared, and no one knew whither he had gone until, just
+as the men were about to shut the heavy door of the stable, they heard
+his young voice ring cheerily out through the darkness,--
+
+"Hold on there! Wait till Buford and I get out!"
+
+"Where on earth are you going?" gasped Phillips, in great astonishment,
+as the boy appeared in the door-way, leading his pet, which was bridled
+and saddled.
+
+"Going? Back to Lodge Pole, quick as I can, to bring up the cavalry."
+
+"Ralph," said the soldier, "it will never do. Now that Wells is gone I
+feel responsible for you, and your father would never forgive me if
+anything befell you. We can't let you go?"
+
+Ralph's eyes were snapping with excitement and his cheeks were flushed.
+It was a daring, it was a gallant, thought,--the idea of riding back all
+alone through a country that might be infested by savage foes; but it
+was the one chance.
+
+Farron and Wells and the men might be able to hold out a few hours at
+the ranch up the valley, and keep the Indians far enough away to prevent
+their burning them out. Of course the ranch could not stand a long siege
+against Indian ingenuity, but six hours, or eight at the utmost, would
+be sufficient time in which to bring rescue to the inmates. By that time
+he could have an overwhelming force of cavalry in the valley, and all
+would be safe.
+
+If word were not sent to them it would be noon to-morrow before the
+advance of the Fifth would reach the Chug. By that time all would be
+over with Farron.
+
+Ralph's brave young heart almost stopped beating as he thought of the
+hideous fate that awaited the occupants of the ranch unless help came to
+them. He felt that nothing but a light rider and a fast horse could
+carry the news in time. He knew that he was the lightest rider in the
+valley; that Buford was the fastest horse; that no man at the station
+knew all the "breaks" and ravines, the ridges and "swales" of the
+country better than he did.
+
+Farron's lay to the southwest, and thither probably all the Indians were
+now riding. He could gallop off to the southeast, make a long _détour_,
+and so reach Lodge Pole unseen. If he could get there in two hours and a
+half, the cavalry could be up and away in fifteen minutes more, and in
+that case might reach the Chug at daybreak or soon afterwards.
+
+One thing was certain, that to succeed he must go instantly, before the
+Indians could come down and put a watch around Phillips's.
+
+Of course it was a plan full of fearful risk. He took his life in his
+hands. Death by the cruelest of tortures awaited him if captured, and it
+was a prospect before which any boy and many a man might shrink in
+dismay.
+
+But he had thought of little Jessie; the plan and the estimation of the
+difficulties and dangers attending its execution had flashed through his
+mind in less than five seconds, and his resolution was instantly made.
+He was a soldier's son, was Ralph, and saying no word to any one he had
+run to the stable, saddled and bridled Buford, and with his revolver at
+his hip was ready for his ride.
+
+"It's no use of talking; I'm going," was all he said. "I know how to
+dodge them just as well as any man here, and, as for father, he'd be
+ashamed of me if I didn't go."
+
+Waiting for no reply,--before they could fully realize what he
+meant,--the boy had chirruped to his pawing horse and away they darted
+round the corner of the station, across the moonlit road, and then
+eastward down the valley.
+
+"Phillips," exclaimed the soldier, "I never should have let him go. I
+ought to have gone myself; but he's away before a man can stop him."
+
+"You're too heavy to ride that horse, and there's none other here to
+match him. That boy's got the sense of a plainsman any day, I tell you,
+and he'll make it all right. The Indians are all up the valley and we'll
+hear 'em presently at Farron's. He's keeping off so as to get round east
+of the bluffs, and then he'll strike across country southward and not
+try for the road until he's eight or ten miles away. Good for Ralph!
+It's a big thing he's doing, and his father will be proud of him for
+it."
+
+But the telegraph operator was heavy-hearted. The men were all anxious,
+and clustered again at the rear of the station. All this had taken place
+in the space of three minutes, and they were eagerly watching for the
+next demonstration from the marauders.
+
+Of the fate of poor Warner there could be little doubt. It was evident
+that the Indians had overwhelmed and killed him. There was a short
+struggle and the rapidly concentrating fire of rifles and revolvers for
+a minute or two; then the yells had changed to triumphant whoops, and
+then came silence.
+
+"They've got his scalp, poor fellow, and no man could lend a hand to
+help him. God grant they're all safe inside up there at Farron's," said
+one of the party; it was the only comment made on the tragedy that had
+been enacted before them.
+
+"Hullo! What's that?"
+
+"It's the flash of rifles again. They've sighted Ralph!" cried the
+soldier.
+
+"Not a bit of it. Ralph's off here to the eastward. They're firing and
+chasing up the valley. Perhaps Warner got away after all. _Look_ at 'em!
+See! The flashes are getting farther south all the time! They've headed
+him off from Farron's, whoever it is, and he's making for the road. The
+cowardly hounds! There's a hundred of 'em, I reckon, on one poor hunted
+white man, and here we are with our hands tied!"
+
+For a few minutes more the sound of shots and yells and thundering
+hoofs came vividly through the still night air. All the time it was
+drifting away southward, and gradually approached the road. One of the
+ranchmen begged Phillips to let him have a horse and go out in the
+direction of the firing to reconnoitre and see what had happened, but it
+would have been madness to make the attempt, and the request was met
+with a prompt refusal.
+
+"We shall need every man here soon enough at the rate things are going,"
+was the answer. "That may have been Warner escaping, or it may have been
+one of Farron's men trying to get through to us or else riding off
+southward to find the cavalry. Perhaps it was Sergeant Wells. Whoever it
+was, they've had a two- or three-mile chase and have probably got him by
+this time. The firing in that direction is all over. Now the fun will
+begin up at the ranch. Then they'll come for us."
+
+"It's my fault!" groaned the operator. "What a night,--and all my fault!
+I ought to have told them at Lodge Pole when I could."
+
+"Tell them what?" said Phillips. "You didn't know a thing about their
+movements until Warner got here! What could you have said if you'd had
+the chance? The cavalry can't move on mere rumors or ideas that any
+chance man has who comes to the station in a panic. It has just come all
+of a sudden, in a way we couldn't foresee.
+
+"All I'm worrying about now is little Jessie, up there at Farron's. I'm
+afraid Warner's gone, and possibly some one else; but if Farron can only
+hold out against these fellows until daylight I think he and his little
+one will be safe. Watch here, two of you, now, while I go back to the
+house a moment."
+
+And so, arms at hand and in breathless silence, the little group watched
+and waited. All was quiet at the upper ranch. Farron's light had been
+extinguished soon after it had replied to the signal from below, but his
+roofs and walls were dimly visible in the moonlight. The distance was
+too great for the besiegers to be discerned if any were investing his
+place.
+
+The quiet lasted only a few moments. Then suddenly there came from up
+the valley and close around those distant roofs the faint sound of rapid
+firing. Paled by the moonlight into tiny, ruddy flashes, the flame of
+each report could be seen by the sharper eyes among the few watchers at
+Phillips's. The attack had indeed begun at Farron's.
+
+One of the men ran in to tell the news to Phillips, who presently came
+out and joined the party. No sign of Indians had yet been seen around
+them, but as they crouched there by the corral, eagerly watching the
+flashes that told of the distant struggle, and listening to the sounds
+of combat, there rose upon the air, over to the northward and apparently
+just at the base of the line of bluffs, the yelps and prolonged bark of
+the coyote. It died away, and then, far on to the southward, somewhere
+about the slopes where the road climbed the divide, there came an
+answering yelp, shrill, querulous, and prolonged.
+
+"Know what that is, boys?" queried Phillips.
+
+"Coyotes, I s'pose," answered one of the men,--a comparatively new hand.
+
+"Coyotes are scarce in this neighborhood nowadays. Those are Sioux
+signals, and we are surrounded. No man in this crowd could get out now.
+Ralph ain't out a moment too soon. God speed him! If Farron don't owe
+his life and little Jessie's to that boy's bravery, it'll be because
+nobody could get to them in time to save them. Why _didn't_ he send her
+here?"
+
+Bad as was the outlook, anxious as were all their hearts, what was their
+distress to what it would have been had they known the truth,--that
+Warner lay only a mile up the trail, stripped, scalped, gashed, and
+mutilated! Still warm, yet stone dead! And that all alone, with little
+Jessie in his arms, Sergeant Wells had ridden down that trail into the
+very midst of the thronging foe! Let us follow him, for he is a soldier
+who deserves the faith that Farron placed in him.
+
+For a few moments after leaving the ranch the sergeant rides along at
+rapid lope, glancing keenly over the broad, open valley for any sign
+that might reveal the presence of hostile Indians, and then hopefully at
+the distant light at the station. He holds little Jessie in firm but
+gentle clasp, and speaks in fond encouragement every moment or two. She
+is bundled like a pappoose in the blanket, but her big, dark eyes look
+up trustfully into his, and once or twice she faintly smiles. All seems
+so quiet; all so secure in the soldier's strong clasp.
+
+"That's my brave little girl!" says the sergeant. "Papa was right when
+he told us down at Russell that he had the pluckiest little daughter in
+all Wyoming. It isn't every baby that would take a night ride with an
+old dragoon so quietly."
+
+He bends down and softly kisses the thick, curling hair that hangs over
+her forehead. Then his keen eye again sweeps over the valley, and he
+touches his charger's flank with the spur.
+
+"_Looks_ all clear," he mutters, "but I've seen a hundred Indians spring
+up out of a flatter plain than that. They'll skulk behind the smallest
+kind of a ridge, and not show a feather until one runs right in among
+them. There might be dozens of them off there beyond the Chug at this
+moment, and I not be able to see hair or hide of 'em."
+
+Almost half way to Phillips's, and still all is quiet. Then he notes
+that far ahead the low ridge, a few hundred yards to his left, sweeps
+round nearly to the trail, and dips into the general level of the
+prairie within short pistol-shot of the path along which he is riding.
+He is yet fully three-quarters of a mile from the place where the ridge
+so nearly meets the trail, but it is plainly visible now in the silvery
+moonlight.
+
+"If they should have come down, and should be all ranged behind that
+ridge now, 'twould be a fearful scrape for this poor little mite," he
+thinks, and then, soldier-like, sets himself to considering what his
+course should be if the enemy were suddenly to burst upon him from
+behind that very curtain.
+
+"Turn and run for it, of course!" he mutters. "Unless they should cut me
+off, which they couldn't do unless some of 'em were far back along
+behind the ridge. Hullo! A shadow on the trail! Coming this way. A
+horseman. That's good! They've sent out a man to meet me."
+
+The sound of iron-shod hoofs that came faintly across the wide distance
+from the galloping shadow carried to the sergeant's practised ear the
+assurance that the advancing horseman was not an Indian. After the
+suspense of that lonely and silent ride, in the midst of unknown
+dangers, Wells felt a deep sense of relief.
+
+"The road is clear between here and Phillips's, that's certain," he
+thought. "I'll take Jessie on to the station, and then go back to
+Farron's. I wonder what news that horseman brings, that he rides so
+hard."
+
+Still on came the horseman. All was quiet, and it seemed that in five
+minutes more he would have the news the stranger was bringing,--of
+safety, he hoped. Jessie, at any rate, should not be frightened unless
+danger came actually upon them. He quickened his horse's gait, and
+looked smilingly down into Jessie's face.
+
+"It's all right, little one! Somebody is coming up the trail from
+Phillips's, so everything must be safe," he told her.
+
+Then came a cruel awakening. Quick, sudden, thrilling, there burst upon
+the night a mad chorus of shouts and shots and the accompaniment of
+thundering hoofs. Out from the sheltering ridge by dozens, gleaming,
+flashing through the moonlight, he saw the warriors sweep down upon the
+hapless stranger far in front.
+
+He reined instantly his snorting and affrighted horse, and little
+Jessie, with one low cry of terror, tried to release her arms from the
+circling blanket and throw them about his neck; but he held her tight.
+He grasped the reins more firmly, gave one quick glance to his left and
+rear, and, to his dismay, discovered that he, too, was well-nigh hemmed
+in; that, swift and ruthless as the flight of hawks, a dozen warriors
+were bounding over the prairie towards him, to cut off his escape.
+
+He had not an instant to lose. He whirled his practised troop horse to
+the right about, and sent him leaping madly through the night back for
+Farron's ranch.
+
+Even as he sped along, he bent low over his charger's neck, and, holding
+the terror-stricken child to his breast, managed to speak a word to keep
+up her courage.
+
+"We'll beat them yet, my bonny bird!" he muttered, though at that
+instant he heard the triumphant whoops that told him a scalp was taken
+on the trail behind him, though at that very instant he saw that
+warriors, dashing from that teeming ridge, had headed him; that he must
+veer from the trail as he neared the ranch, and trust to Farron and his
+men to drive off his pursuers.
+
+Already the yells of his pursuers thrilled upon the ear. They had opened
+fire, and their wide-aimed bullets went whizzing harmlessly into space.
+His wary eye could see that the Indians on his right front were making a
+wide circle, so as to meet him when close to the goal, and he was
+burdened with that helpless child, and could not make fight even for his
+own life.
+
+Drop her and save himself? He would not entertain the thought. No,
+though it be his only chance to escape!
+
+His horse panted heavily, and still there lay a mile of open prairie
+between him and shelter; still those bounding ponies, with their
+yelping, screeching riders, were fast closing upon him, when suddenly
+through the dim and ghostly light there loomed another shadow, wild and
+daring,--a rider who came towards him at full speed.
+
+Because of the daring of the feat to ride thus alone into the teeth of a
+dozen foemen, the sergeant was sure, before he could see the man, that
+the approaching horseman was Farron, rushing to the rescue of his child.
+
+Wells shouted a trooper's loud hurrah, and then, "Rein up, Farron! Halt
+where you are, and open fire! That'll keep 'em off!"
+
+Though racing towards him at thundering speed, Farron heard and
+understood his words, for in another moment his "Henry" was barking its
+challenge at the foe, and sending bullet after bullet whistling out
+across the prairie.
+
+The flashing, feather-streaming shadows swerved to right and left, and
+swept away in big circles. Then Farron stretched out his arms,--no time
+for word of any kind,--and Wells laid in them the sobbing child, and
+seized in turn the brown and precious rifle.
+
+"Off with you, Farron! Straight for home now. I'll keep 'em back." And
+the sergeant in turn reined his horse, fronted the foe, and opened rapid
+fire, though with little hope of hitting horse or man.
+
+Disregarding the bullets that sang past his ears, he sent shot after
+shot at the shadowy riders, checked now, and circling far out on the
+prairie, until once more he could look about him, and see that Farron
+had reached the ranch, and had thrown himself from his horse.
+
+Then slowly he turned back, fronting now and then to answer the shots
+that came singing by him, and to hurrah with delight when, as the
+Indians came within range of the ranch, its inmates opened fire on them,
+and a pony sent a yelping rider flying over his head, as he stumbled and
+plunged to earth, shot through the body.
+
+Then Wells turned in earnest and made a final dash for the corral. Then
+his own good steed, that had borne them both so bravely, suddenly
+wavered and tottered under him. He knew too well that the gallant horse
+had received his death-blow even before he went heavily to ground within
+fifty yards of the ranch.
+
+Wells was up in an instant, unharmed, and made a rush, stooping low.
+
+Another moment, and he was drawn within the door-way, panting and
+exhausted, but safe. He listened with amazement to the outward sounds of
+shots and hoofs and yells dying away into the distance southward.
+
+"What on earth is that?" he asked.
+
+"It's that scoundrel, Pete. He's taken my horse and deserted!" was
+Farron's breathless answer. "I hope they'll catch and kill him! I
+despise a coward!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE RESCUE.
+
+
+All the time, travelling at rapid lope, but at the same time saving
+Buford's strength for sudden emergency, Ralph McCrea rode warily through
+the night. He kept far to east of the high ridge of the "Buffalo
+Hill,"--Who knew what Indian eyes might be watching there?--and mile
+after mile he wound among the ravines and swales which he had learned so
+well in by-gone days when he little dreamed of the value that his
+"plainscraft" might be to him.
+
+For a while his heart beat like a trip-hammer; every echo of his
+courser's footfall seemed to him to be the rush of coming warriors, and
+time and again he glanced nervously over his shoulder, dreading pursuit.
+But he never wavered in his gallant purpose.
+
+The long ridge was soon left to his right rear, and now he began to edge
+over towards the west, intending in this way to reach the road at a
+point where there would lie before him a fifteen-mile stretch of good
+"going ground." Over that he meant to send Buford at full speed.
+
+Since starting he had heard no sound of the fray; the ridge and the
+distance had swallowed up the clamor; but he knew full well that the
+raiding Indians would do their utmost this night to burn the Farron
+ranch and kill or capture its inmates. Every recurring thought of the
+peril of his beleaguered friends prompted him to spur his faithful
+steed, but he had been reared in the cavalry and taught never to drive a
+willing horse to death.
+
+The long, sweeping, elastic strides with which Buford bore him over the
+rolling prairie served their needs far better than a mad race of a mile
+or two, ending in a complete break-down, would have done.
+
+At last, gleaming in the moonlight, he sighted the hard-beaten road as
+it twisted and wound over the slopes, and in a few moments more rode
+beneath the single wire of the telegraph line, and then gave Buford a
+gentle touch of the steel. He had made a circuit of ten miles or more to
+reach this point, and was now, he judged, about seven miles below the
+station and five miles from Farron's ranch.
+
+He glanced over his right shoulder and anxiously searched the sky and
+horizon. Intervening "divides" shut him off from a view of the valley,
+but he saw that as yet no glare of flames proceeded from it.
+
+"Thus far the defence has held its own," he said, hopefully, to himself.
+"Now, if Buford and I can only reach Lodge Pole unmolested there may yet
+be time."
+
+Ascending a gentle slope he reined Buford down to a walk, so that his
+pet might have a little breathing spell. As he arrived at the crest he
+cast an eager glance over the next "reach" of prairie landscape, and
+then--his heart seemed to leap to his throat and a chill wave to rush
+through his veins.
+
+Surely he saw a horseman dart behind the low mound off to the west. This
+convinced him that the Indians had discovered and pursued him. After
+the Indian fashion they had not come squarely along his trail and thus
+driven him ahead at increased speed, but with the savage science of
+their warfare, they were working past him, far to his right, intending
+to head him off.
+
+To his left front the country was clear, and he could see over it for a
+considerable distance. The road, after winding through some intermediate
+ravines ahead, swept around to the left. He had almost determined to
+leave the trail and make a bee-line across country, and so to outrun the
+foeman to his right, when, twice or thrice, he caught the gleam of steel
+or silver or nickel-plate beyond the low ground in the very direction in
+which he had thought to flee.
+
+His heart sank low now, for the sight conveyed to his mind but one
+idea,--that the gleams were the flashing of moonbeams on the barbaric
+ornaments of Indians, as he had seen them flash an hour ago when the
+warriors raced forth into the valley of the Chug. Were the Indians ahead
+of him then, and on both sides of the road?
+
+One thing he had to do, and to do instantly: ride into the first hollow
+he could find, dismount, crawl to the ridge and peer around him,--study
+which way to ride if he should have to make a race for his own life
+now,--and give Buford time to gather himself for the effort.
+
+The boy's brave spirit was wrought well-nigh to the limit. His eyes
+clouded as he thought of his father and the faithful troop, miles and
+miles away and all unconscious of his deadly peril; of his anxious and
+loving mother, wakeful and watching at Laramie, doubtless informed of
+the Indian raid by this time; powerless to help him, but praying God to
+watch over her boy.
+
+He looked aloft at the starry heavens and lifted his heart in one brief
+prayer: "God guard and guide me. I've tried to do my duty as a soldier's
+son." And somehow he felt nerved and strengthened.
+
+He grasped the handle of his cavalry revolver as he guided Buford down
+to the right where there seemed to be a hollow among the slopes. Just as
+he came trotting briskly round a little shoulder of the nearest ridge
+there was a rush and patter of hoofs on the other side of it, an
+exclamation, half-terror, half-menace, a flash and a shot that whizzed
+far over his head. A dark, shadowy horseman went scurrying off into
+space as fast as a spurred and startled horse could carry him; a
+broad-brimmed slouch hat was blown back to him as a parting _souvenir_,
+and Ralph McCrea shouted with relief and merriment as he realized that
+some man--a ranchman doubtless--had taken him for an Indian and had
+"stampeded," scared out of his wits.
+
+Ralph dismounted, picked up the hat, swung himself again into saddle,
+and with rejoicing heart sped away again on his mission. There were
+still those suspicious flashes off to the east that he must dodge, and
+to avoid them he shaped his course well to the west.
+
+Let us turn for a moment to the camp of the cavalry down in Lodge Pole
+Valley. We have not heard from them since early evening when the
+operator announced his intention of going over to have a smoke and a
+chat with some of his friends on guard.
+
+"Taps," the signal to extinguish lights and go to bed, had sounded early
+and, so far as the operator at Lodge Pole knew when he closed his
+instrument, the battalion had gladly obeyed the summons.
+
+It happened, however, that the colonel had been talking with one of his
+most trusted captains as they left the office a short time before, and
+the result of that brief talk was that the latter walked briskly away
+towards the bivouac fires of his troop and called "Sergeant Stauffer!"
+
+A tall, dark-eyed, bronzed trooper quickly arose, dropped his pipe, and
+strode over to where his captain stood in the flickering light, and,
+saluting, "stood attention" and waited.
+
+"Sergeant, let the quartermaster-sergeant and six men stay here to load
+our baggage in the morning. Mount the rest of the troop at once, without
+any noise,--fully equipped."
+
+The sergeant was too old a soldier even to look surprised. In fifteen
+minutes, with hardly a sound of unusual preparation, fifty horsemen had
+"led into line," had mounted, and were riding silently off northward.
+The colonel said to the captain, as he gave him a word of good-by,--
+
+"I don't know that you'll find anything out of the way at all, but, with
+such indications, I believe it best to throw forward a small force to
+look after the Chug Valley until we come up. We'll be with you by
+dinner-time."
+
+Two hours later, when the telegraph operator, breathless and excited,
+rushed into the colonel's tent and woke him with the news that his wire
+was cut up towards the Chug, the colonel was devoutly thankful for the
+inspiration that prompted him to send "K" Troop forward through the
+darkness. He bade his adjutant, the light-weight of the officers then on
+duty, take his own favorite racer, Van, and speed away on the trail of
+"K" Troop, tell them that the line was cut,--that there was trouble
+ahead; to push on lively with what force they had, and that two more
+companies would be hurried to their support.
+
+At midnight "K" Troop, riding easily along in the moonlight, had
+travelled a little over half the distance to Phillips's ranch. The
+lieutenant, who with two or three troopers was scouting far in advance,
+halted at the crest of a high ridge over which the road climbs, and
+dismounted his little party for a brief rest while he went up ahead to
+reconnoitre.
+
+Cavalrymen in the Indian country never ride into full view on top of a
+"divide" until after some one of their number has carefully looked over
+the ground beyond.
+
+There was nothing in sight that gave cause for long inspection, or that
+warranted the officer's taking out his field-glasses. He could see the
+line of hills back of the Chugwater Valley, and all was calm and placid.
+The valley itself lay some hundreds of feet below his point of
+observation, and beginning far off to his left ran northeastward until
+one of its branches crossed the trail along which the troop was riding.
+
+Returning to his party, the lieutenant's eye was attracted, for the
+fifth or sixth time since they had left Lodge Pole, by little gleams and
+flashes of light off in the distance, and he muttered, in a somewhat
+disparaging manner, to some of the members of his own troop,--
+
+"Now, what the dickens can those men be carrying to make such a streak
+as that? One would suppose that Arizona would have taken all the
+nonsense out of 'em, but that glimmer must come from bright bits or
+buckles, or something of the kind, for we haven't a sabre with us. What
+makes those little flashes, sergeant?" he asked, impatiently.
+
+"It's some of the tin canteens, sir. The cloth is all worn off a dozen
+of 'em, and when the moonlight strikes 'em it makes a flash almost like
+a mirror."
+
+"Indeed it does, and would betray our coming miles away of a moonlit
+night. We'll drop all those things at Laramie. Hullo! Mount, men,
+lively!"
+
+The young officer and his party suddenly sprang to saddle. A clatter of
+distant hoofs was heard rapidly approaching along the hard-beaten road.
+Nearer, nearer they came at tearing gallop. The lieutenant rode
+cautiously forward to where he could peer over the crest.
+
+"Somebody riding like mad!" he muttered. "Hatless and demoralized. Who
+comes _there_?" he shouted aloud. "Halt, whoever you are!"
+
+Pulling up a panting horse, pale, wide-eyed, almost exhausted, a young
+ranchman rode into the midst of the group. It was half a minute before
+he could speak. When at last he recovered breath, it was a marvellous
+tale that he told.
+
+"The Chug's crammed with Indians. They've killed all down at Phillips's,
+and got all around Farron's,--hundreds of 'em. Sergeant Wells tried to
+run away with Jessie, but they cut him off, and he'd have been killed
+and Jessie captured but for me and Farron. We charged through 'em, and
+got 'em back to the ranch. Then the Indians attacked us there, and there
+was only four of us, and some one had to cut his way out. Wells said you
+fellows were down at Lodge Pole, but he da'sn't try it. I had to." Here
+"Pete" looked important, and gave his pistol-belt a hitch.
+
+"I must 'a' killed six of 'em," he continued. "Both my revolvers empty,
+and I dropped one of 'em on the trail. My hat was shot clean off my
+head, but they missed me, and I got through. They chased me every inch
+of the way up to a mile back over yonder. I shot the last one there. But
+how many men you got?"
+
+"About fifty," answered the lieutenant. "We'll push ahead at once. You
+guide us."
+
+"I ain't going ahead with no fifty. I tell you there's a thousand
+Indians there. Where's the rest of the regiment?"
+
+"Back at Lodge Pole. Go on, if you like, and tell them your story.
+Here's the captain now."
+
+With new and imposing additions, Pete told the story a second time.
+Barely waiting to hear it through, the captain's voice rang along the
+eager column,--
+
+"Forward, trot, _march_!"
+
+Away went the troop full tilt for the Chug, while the ranchman rode
+rearward until he met the supporting squadron two hours behind. Ten
+minutes after parting with their informant, the officers of "K" Troop,
+well out in front of their men, caught sight of a daring horseman
+sweeping at full gallop down from some high bluffs to their left and
+front.
+
+"Rides like an Indian," said the captain; "but no Sioux would come down
+at us like that, waving a hat, too. By Jupiter! It's Ralph McCrea! How
+are you, boy? What's wrong at the Chug?"
+
+"Farron's surrounded, and I believe Warner's killed!" said Ralph,
+breathless. "Thank God, you're here so far ahead of where I expected to
+find you! We'll get there in time now;" and he turned his panting horse
+and rode eagerly along by the captain's side.
+
+"And you've not been chased? You've seen nobody?" was the lieutenant's
+question.
+
+"Nobody but a white man, worse scared than I was, who left his hat
+behind when I ran upon him a mile back here."
+
+Even in the excitement and urgent haste of the moment, there went up a
+shout of laughter at the expense of Pete; but as they reached the next
+divide, and got another look well to the front, the laughter gave place
+to the grinding of teeth and muttered malediction. A broad glare was in
+the northern sky, and smoke and flame were rolling up from the still
+distant valley of the Chug, and now the word was "Gallop!"
+
+Fifteen minutes of hard, breathless riding followed. Horses snorted and
+plunged in eager race with their fellows; officers warned even as they
+galloped, "Steady, there! Keep back! Keep your places, men!" Bearded,
+bright-eyed troopers, with teeth set hard together and straining
+muscles, grasped their ready carbines, and thrust home the grim copper
+cartridges. On and on, as the flaring beacon grew redder and fiercer
+ahead; on and on, until they were almost at the valley's edge, and then
+young Ralph, out at the front with the veteran captain, panted to him,
+in wild excitement that he strove manfully to control,--
+
+"Now keep well over to the left, captain! I know the ground well. It's
+all open. We can sweep down from behind that ridge, and they'll never
+look for us or think of us till we're right among them. Hear them yell!"
+
+"Ay, ay, Ralph! Lead the way. Ready now, men!" He turned in his saddle.
+"Not a word till I order 'Charge!' Then yell all you want to."
+
+Down into the ravine they thunder; round the moonlit slope they sweep;
+swift they gallop through the shadows of the eastward bluffs; nearer and
+nearer they come, manes and tails streaming in the night wind; horses
+panting hard, but never flagging.
+
+Listen! Hear those shots and yells and war-whoops! Listen to the hideous
+crackling of the flames! Mark the vengeful triumph in those savage
+howls! Already the fire has leaped from the sheds to the rough
+shingling. The last hope of the sore-besieged is gone.
+
+Then, with sudden blare of trumpet, with ringing cheer, with thundering
+hoof and streaming pennon and thrilling rattle of carbine and pistol;
+with one magnificent, triumphant burst of speed the troop comes whirling
+out from the covert of the bluff and sweeps all before it down the
+valley.
+
+Away go Sioux and Cheyenne; away, yelling shrill warning, go warrior and
+chief; away, down stream, past the stiffening form of the brave fellow
+they killed; away past the station where the loop-holes blaze with
+rifle-shots and ring with exultant cheers; away across the road and down
+the winding valley, and so far to the north and the sheltering arms of
+the reservation,--and one more Indian raid is over.
+
+But at the ranch, while willing hands were dashing water on the flames,
+Ralph and the lieutenant sprang inside the door-way just as Farron
+lifted from a deep, cellar-like aperture in the middle of the floor a
+sobbing yet wonderfully happy little maiden. She clung to him
+hysterically, as he shook hands with one after another of the few
+rescuers who had time to hurry in.
+
+Wells, with bandaged head and arm, was sitting at his post, his "Henry"
+still between his knees, and he looked volumes of pride and delight into
+his young friend's sparkling eyes. Pete, of course, was nowhere to be
+seen. Jake, with a rifle-bullet through his shoulder, was grinning pale
+gratification at the troopers who came in, and then there was a moment's
+silence as the captain entered.
+
+Farron stepped forward and held forth his hand. Tears were starting from
+his eyes.
+
+"You've saved me and my little girl, captain. I never can thank you
+enough."
+
+"Bosh! Never mind us. Where's Ralph McCrea? There's the boy you can
+thank for it all. _He_ led us!"
+
+And though hot blushes sprang to the youngster's cheeks, and he, too,
+would have disclaimed any credit for the rescue, the soldiers would not
+have it so. 'Twas Ralph who dared that night-ride to bring the direful
+news; 'twas Ralph who guided them by the shortest, quickest route, and
+was with the foremost in the charge. And so, a minute after, when Farron
+unclasped little Jessie's arms from about his own neck, he whispered in
+her ear,--
+
+"'Twas Ralph who saved us, baby. You must thank him for me, too."
+
+And so, just as the sun was coming up, the little girl with big, dark
+eyes whom we saw sitting in the railway station at Cheyenne, waiting
+wearily and patiently for her father's coming, and sobbing her relief
+and joy when she finally caught sight of Ralph, was once more nestling a
+tear-wet face to his and clasping him in her little arms, and thanking
+him with all her loyal, loving heart for the gallant rescue that had
+come to them just in time.
+
+Four days later there was a gathering at Laramie. The general had come;
+the Fifth were there in camp, and a group of officers had assembled on
+the parade after the brief review of the command. The general turned
+from his staff, and singled out a captain of cavalry who stood close at
+hand.
+
+"McCrea, I want to see that boy of yours. Where is he?"
+
+An orderly sped away to the group of spectators and returned with a
+silent and embarrassed youth, who raised his hat respectfully, but said
+no word. The general stepped forward and held out both his hands.
+
+"I'm proud to shake hands with you, young gentleman. I've heard all
+about you from the Fifth. You ought to go to West Point and be a cavalry
+officer."
+
+"There's nothing I so much wish, general," stammered Ralph, with beaming
+eyes and burning cheeks.
+
+"Then we'll telegraph his name to Washington this very day, gentlemen. I
+was asked to designate some young man for West Point who thoroughly
+deserved it, and is not this appointment well won?"
+
+
+
+
+FROM "THE POINT" TO THE PLAINS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+A CADET'S SISTER.
+
+
+She was standing at the very end of the forward deck, and, with flushing
+cheeks and sparkling eyes, gazing eagerly upon the scene before her.
+Swiftly, smoothly rounding the rugged promontory on the right, the
+steamer was just turning into the highland "reach" at Fort Montgomery
+and heading straight away for the landings on the sunset shore. It was
+only mid-May, but the winter had been mild, the spring early, and now
+the heights on either side were clothed in raiment of the freshest,
+coolest green; the vines were climbing in luxuriant leaf all over the
+face of the rocky scarp that hemmed the swirling tide of the Hudson; the
+radiance of the evening sunshine bathed all the eastern shores in mellow
+light and left the dark slopes and deep gorges of the opposite range all
+the deeper and darker by contrast. A lively breeze had driven most of
+the passengers within doors as they sped through the broad waters of the
+Tappan Zee, but, once within the sheltering traverses of Dunderberg and
+the heights beyond, many of their number reappeared upon the promenade
+deck, and first among them was the bonnie little maid now clinging to
+the guard-rail at the very prow, and, heedless of fluttering skirt or
+fly-away curl, watching with all her soul in her bright blue eyes for
+the first glimpse of the haven where she would be. No eyes on earth look
+so eagerly for the grim, gray _façade_ of the riding-hall or the domes
+and turrets of the library building as those of a girl who has spent the
+previous summer at West Point.
+
+Utterly absorbed in her watch, she gave no heed to other passengers who
+presently took their station close at hand. One was a tall, dark-eyed,
+dark-haired young lady in simple and substantial travelling-dress. With
+her were two men in tweeds and Derby hats, and to these companions she
+constantly turned with questions as to prominent objects in the rich and
+varied landscape. It was evident that she was seeing for the first time
+sights that had been described to her time and again, for she was
+familiar with every name. One of the party was a man of over fifty
+years,--bronzed of face and gray of hair, but with erect carriage and
+piercing black eyes that spoke of vigor, energy, and probably of a life
+in the open air. It needed not the tri-colored button of the Loyal
+Legion in the lapel of his coat to tell that he was a soldier. Any one
+who chose to look--and there were not a few--could speedily have seen,
+too, that these were father and daughter.
+
+The other man was still taller than the dark, wiry, slim-built soldier,
+but in years he was not more than twenty-eight or nine. His eyes, brows,
+hair, and the heavy moustache that drooped over his mouth were all of a
+dark, soft brown. His complexion was clear and ruddy; his frame powerful
+and athletic. Most of the time he stood a silent but attentive listener
+to the eager talk between the young lady and her father, but his kindly
+eyes rarely left her face; he was ready to respond when she turned to
+question him, and when he spoke it was with the unmistakable intonation
+of the South.
+
+The deep, mellow tones of the bell were booming out their landing signal
+as the steamer shot into the shadow of a high, rocky cliff. Far aloft on
+the overhanging piazzas of a big hotel, fluttering handkerchiefs greeted
+the passengers on the decks below. Many eyes were turned thither in
+recognition of the salute, but not those of the young girl at the bow.
+One might, indeed, have declared her resentful of this intermediate
+stop. The instant the gray walls of the riding-school had come into view
+she had signalled, eagerly, with a wave of her hand, to a gentleman and
+lady seated in quiet conversation under the shelter of the deck.
+Presently the former, a burly, broad-shouldered man of forty or
+thereabouts, came sauntering forward and stood close behind her.
+
+"Well, Nan! Most there, I see. Think you can hold on five minutes
+longer, or shall I toss you over and let you swim for it?"
+
+For answer Miss Nan clasps a wooden pillar in her gray-gloved hands, and
+tilts excitedly on the toes of her tiny boots, never once relaxing her
+gaze on the dock a mile or more away up-stream.
+
+"Just think of being so near Willy--and all of them--and not seeing one
+to speak to until after parade," she finally says.
+
+"Simply inhuman!" answers her companion with commendable gravity, but
+with humorous twinkle about his eyes. "Is it worth all the long
+journey, and all the excitement in which your mother tells me you've
+been plunged for the past month?"
+
+"Worth it, Uncle Jack?" and the blue eyes flash upon him indignantly.
+"Worth it? You wouldn't ask if you knew it all, as I do."
+
+"Possibly not," says Uncle Jack, whimsically. "I haven't the advantage
+of being a girl with a brother and a baker's dozen of beaux in bell
+buttons and gray. I'm only an old fossil of a 'cit,' with a scamp of a
+nephew and that limited conception of the delights of West Point which
+one can derive from running up there every time that versatile youngster
+gets into a new scrape. You'll admit my opportunities have been
+frequent."
+
+"It isn't Willy's fault, and you know it, Uncle Jack, though we all know
+how good you've been; but he's had more bad luck and--and--injustice
+than any cadet in the corps. Lots of his classmates told me so."
+
+"Yes," says Uncle Jack, musingly. "That is what your blessed mother,
+yonder, wrote me when I went up last winter, the time Billy submitted
+that explanation to the commandant with its pleasing reference to the
+fox that had lost its tail--you doubtless recall the incident--and came
+within an ace of dismissal in consequence."
+
+"I don't care!" interrupts Miss Nan, with flashing eyes. "Will had
+provocation enough to say much worse things; Jimmy Frazer wrote me so,
+and said the whole class was sticking up for him."
+
+"I do not remember having had the honor of meeting Jimmy Frazer,"
+remarks Uncle Jack, with an aggravating drawl that is peculiar to him.
+"Possibly he was one of the young gentlemen who didn't call, owing to
+some temporary impediment in the way of light prison----"
+
+"Yes; and all because he took Will's part, as I believe," is the
+impetuous reply. "Oh! I'll be so thankful when they're out of it all."
+
+"So will they, no doubt. 'Sticking up'--wasn't that Mr. Frazer's
+expression?--for Bill seems to have been an expensive luxury all round.
+Wonder if sticking up is something they continue when they get to their
+regiments? Billy has two or three weeks yet in which to ruin his chances
+of ever reaching one, and he has exhibited astonishing aptitude for
+tripping himself up thus far."
+
+"Uncle Jack! How can you speak so of Willy, when he is so devoted to
+you? When he gets to his regiment there won't be any Lieutenant Lee to
+nag and worry him night and day. _He's_ the cause of all the trouble."
+
+"That so?" drawls Uncle Jack. "I didn't happen to meet Mr. Lee,
+either,--he was away on leave; but as Bill and your mother had some such
+views, I looked into things a bit. It appears to be a matter of record
+that my enterprising nephew had more demerit before the advent of Mr.
+Lee than since. As for 'extras' and confinements, his stock was always
+big enough to bear the market down to bottom prices."
+
+The boat is once more under way, and a lull in the chat close at hand
+induces Uncle Jack to look about him. The younger of the two men lately
+standing with the dark-eyed girl has quietly withdrawn, and is now
+shouldering his way to a point out of ear-shot. There he calmly turns
+and waits; his glance again resting upon her whose side he has so
+suddenly quitted. She has followed him with her eyes until he stops;
+then with heightened color resumes a low-toned chat with her father.
+Uncle Jack is a keen observer, and his next words are inaudible except
+to his niece.
+
+"Nan, my child, I apprehend that remarks upon the characteristics of the
+officers at the Point had best be confined to the bosom of the family.
+We may be in their very midst."
+
+She turns, flushing, and for the first time her blue eyes meet the dark
+ones of the older girl. Her cheeks redden still more, and she whirls
+about again.
+
+"I can't help it, Uncle Jack," she murmurs. "I'd just like to tell them
+all what I think of Will's troubles."
+
+"Oh! Candor is to be admired of all things," says Uncle Jack, airily.
+"Still it is just as well to observe the old adage, 'Be sure you're
+right,' etc. Now _I_ own to being rather fond of Bill, despite all the
+worry he has given your mother, and all the bother he has been to
+me----"
+
+"All the worry that others have given _him_, you ought to say, Uncle
+Jack."
+
+"W-e-ll, har-d-ly. It didn't seem to me that the corps, as a rule,
+thought Billy the victim of persecution."
+
+"They all tell _me_ so, at least," is the indignant outburst.
+
+"Do they, Nan? Well, of course, that settles it. Still, there were a few
+who reluctantly admitted having other views when I pressed them
+closely."
+
+"Then they were no friends of Willy's, or mine either!"
+
+"Now, do you know, I thought just the other way? I thought one of them,
+especially, a very stanch friend of Billy's and yours, too, Nan, but
+Billy seems to consider advisers in the light of adversaries."
+
+A moment's pause. Then, with cheeks still red, and plucking at the rope
+netting with nervous fingers, Miss Nan essays a tentative. Her eyes are
+downcast as she asks,--
+
+"I suppose you mean Mr. Stanley?"
+
+"The very man, Nanette; very much of a man to my thinking."
+
+The bronzed soldier standing near cannot but have heard the name and the
+words. His face takes on a glow and the black eyes kindle.
+
+"Mr. Stanley would not say to _me_ that Willy is to blame," pouts the
+maiden, and her little foot is beating impatiently tattoo on the deck.
+
+"Neither would I--just now--if I were Mr. Stanley; but all the same, he
+decidedly opposed the view that Mr. Lee was 'down on Billy,' as your
+mother seems to think."
+
+"That's because Mr. Lee is tactical officer commanding the company, and
+Mr. Stanley is cadet captain. Oh! I will take him to task if he has
+been--been----"
+
+But she does not finish. She has turned quickly in speaking, her hand
+clutching a little knot of bell buttons hanging by a chain at the front
+of her dress. She has turned just in time to catch a warning glance in
+Uncle Jack's twinkling eyes, and to see a grim smile lurking under the
+gray moustache of the gentleman with the Loyal Legion button who is
+leading away the tall young lady with the dark hair. In another moment
+they have rejoined the third member of their party,--he who first
+withdrew,--and it is evident that something has happened which gives
+them all much amusement. They are chatting eagerly together, laughing
+not a little, although the laughter, like their words, is entirely
+inaudible to Miss Nan. But she feels a twinge of indignation when the
+tall girl turns and looks directly at her. There is nothing unkindly in
+the glance. There even is merriment in the dark, handsome eyes and
+lurking among the dimples around that beautiful mouth. Why did those
+eyes--so heavily fringed, so thickly shaded--seem to her familiar as old
+friends? Nan could have vowed she had somewhere met that girl before,
+and now that girl was laughing at her. Not rudely, not aggressively, to
+be sure,--she had turned away again the instant she saw that the little
+maiden's eyes were upon her,--but all the same, said Nan to herself, she
+_was_ laughing. They were all laughing, and it must have been because of
+her outspoken defence of Brother Will and equally outspoken defiance of
+his persecutors. What made it worse was that Uncle Jack was laughing
+too.
+
+"Do you know who they are?" she demands, indignantly.
+
+"Not I, Nan," responds Uncle Jack. "Never saw them before in my life,
+but I warrant we see them again, and at the Point, too. Come, child.
+There's our bell, and we must start for the gangway. Your mother is
+hailing us now. Never mind this time, little woman," he continues,
+kindly, as he notes the cloud on her brow. "I don't think any harm has
+been done, but it is just as well not to be impetuous in public speech.
+Ah! I thought so. They are to get off here with us."
+
+Three minutes more and a little stream of passengers flows out upon the
+broad government dock, and, as luck would have it, Uncle Jack and his
+charges are just behind the trio in which, by this time, Miss Nan is
+deeply, if not painfully, interested. A soldier in the undress uniform
+of a corporal of artillery hastens forward and, saluting, stretches
+forth his hand to take the satchel carried by the tall man with the
+brown moustache.
+
+"The lieutenant's carriage is at the gate," he says, whereat Uncle Jack,
+who is conducting her mother just in front, looks back over his shoulder
+and nods compassionately at Nan.
+
+"Has any despatch been sent down to meet Colonel Stanley?" she hears the
+tall man inquire, and this time Uncle Jack's backward glance is a
+combination of mischief and concern.
+
+"Nothing, sir, and the adjutant's orderly is here now. This is all he
+brought down," and the corporal hands to the inquirer a note, the
+superscription of which the young officer quickly scans; then turns and,
+while his soft brown eyes light with kindly interest and he bares his
+shapely head, accosts the lady on Uncle Jack's arm,--
+
+"Pardon me, madam. This note must be for you. Mrs. McKay, is it not?"
+
+And as her mother smiles her thanks and the others turn away, Nan's
+eager eyes catch sight of Will's well-known writing. Mrs. McKay rapidly
+reads it as Uncle Jack is bestowing bags and bundles in the omnibus and
+feeing the acceptive porter, who now rushes back to the boat in the nick
+of time.
+
+     "Awful sorry I can't get up to the hotel to see you," says the
+     note, dolorously, but by no means unexpectedly. "I'm in confinement
+     and can't get a permit. Come to the officer-in-charge's office
+     right after supper, and he'll let me see you there awhile.
+     Stanley's officer of the day, and he'll be there to show the way.
+     In haste,
+                                                        WILL."
+
+"Now _isn't_ that poor Willy's luck every time!" exclaims Miss Nan, her
+blue eyes threatening to fill with tears. "I _do_ think they might let
+him off the day we get here."
+
+"Unquestionably," answers Uncle Jack, with great gravity, as he assists
+the ladies into the yellow omnibus. "You duly notified the
+superintendent of your impending arrival, I suppose?"
+
+Mrs. McKay smiles quietly. Hers is a sweet and gentle face, lined with
+many a trace of care and anxiety. Her brother's whimsical ways are old
+acquaintances, and she knows how to treat them; but Nan is young,
+impulsive, and easily teased. She flares up instantly.
+
+"Of course we _didn't_, Uncle Jack; how utterly absurd it would sound!
+But Willy knew we were coming, and _he_ must have told him when he asked
+for his permit, and it does seem too hard that he was refused."
+
+"Heartless in the last degree," says Uncle Jack, sympathetically, but
+with the same suggestive drawl. "Yonder go the father and sister of the
+young gentleman whom you announced your intention to castigate because
+he didn't agree that Billy was being abused, Nan. You will have a chance
+this very evening, won't you? He's officer of the day, according to
+Billy's note, and can't escape. You'll have wound up the whole family by
+tattoo. Quite a good day's work. Billy's opposers will do well to take
+warning and keep out of the way hereafter," he continues, teasingly.
+"Oh--ah--_corporal_!" he calls, "who was the young officer who just
+drove off in the carriage with the lady and gentleman?"
+
+"That was Lieutenant Lee, sir."
+
+Uncle Jack turns and contemplates his niece with an expression of the
+liveliest admiration. "'Pon my word, Miss Nan, you are a most
+comprehensive young person. You've indeed let no guilty man escape."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+A CADET SCAPEGRACE.
+
+
+The evening that opened so clear and sunshiny has clouded rapidly over.
+Even as the four gray companies come "trotting" in from parade, and,
+with the ease of long habit, quickly forming line in the barrack area,
+some heavy rain-drops begin to fall; the drum-major has hurried his band
+away; the crowd of spectators, unusually large for so early in the
+season, scatters for shelter; umbrellas pop up here and there under the
+beautiful trees along the western roadway; the adjutant rushes through
+"delinquency list" in a style distinguishable only to his stolid, silent
+audience standing immovably before him,--a long perspective of gray
+uniforms and glistening white belts. The fateful book is closed with a
+snap, and the echoing walls ring to the quick commands of the first
+sergeants, at which the bayonets are struck from the rifle-barrels, and
+the long line bursts into a living torrent sweeping into the hall-ways
+to escape the coming shower.
+
+When the battalion reappears, a few moments later, every man is in his
+overcoat, and here and there little knots of upper classmen gather, and
+there is eager and excited talk.
+
+A soldierly, dark-eyed young fellow, with the red sash of the officer of
+the day over his shoulder, comes briskly out of the hall of the fourth
+division. The chevrons of a cadet captain are glistening on his arm, and
+he alone has not donned the gray overcoat, although he has discarded the
+plumed shako in deference to the coming storm; yet he hardly seems to
+notice the downpour of the rain; his face is grave and his lips set and
+compressed as he rapidly makes his way through the groups awaiting the
+signal to "fall in" for supper.
+
+"Stanley! O Stanley!" is the hail from a knot of classmates, and he
+halts and looks about as two or three of the party hasten after him.
+
+"What does Billy say about it?" is the eager inquiry.
+
+"Nothing--new."
+
+"Well, that report as good as finds him on demerit, doesn't it?"
+
+"The next thing to it; though he has been as close to the brink before."
+
+"But--great Scott! He has two weeks yet to run; and Billy McKay can no
+more live two weeks without demerit than Patsy, here, without
+'spooning.'"
+
+Mr. Stanley's eyes look tired as he glances up from under the visor of
+his forage cap. He is not as tall by half a head as the young soldiers
+by whom he is surrounded.
+
+"We were talking of his chances at dinner-time," he says, gravely.
+"Billy never mentioned this break of his yesterday, and was surprised to
+hear the report read out to-night. I believe he had forgotten the whole
+thing."
+
+"Who 'skinned' him?--Lee? He was there."
+
+"I don't know; McKay says so, but there were several officers over there
+at the time. It is a report he cannot get off, and it comes at a most
+unlucky moment."
+
+With this remark Mr. Stanley turns away and goes striding through the
+crowded area towards the guard-house. Another moment and there is sudden
+drum-beat; the gray overcoats leap into ranks; the subject of the recent
+discussion--a jaunty young fellow with laughing blue eyes--comes tearing
+out of the fourth division just in time to avoid a "late," and the
+clamor of tenscore voices gives place to silence broken only by the
+rapid calling of the rolls and the prompt "here"--"here," in response.
+
+If ever there was a pet in the corps of cadets he lived in the person of
+Billy McKay. Bright as one of his own buttons; jovial, generous,
+impulsive; he had only one enemy in the battalion,--and that one, as he
+had been frequently told, was himself. This, however, was a matter which
+he could not at all be induced to believe. Of the Academic Board in
+general, of his instructors in large measure, but of the four or five
+ill-starred soldiers known as "tactical officers" in particular, Mr.
+McKay entertained very decided and most unflattering opinions. He had
+won his cadetship through rigid competitive examination against all
+comers; he was a natural mathematician of whom a professor had said that
+he "_could_ stand in the fives and _wouldn't_ stand in the forties;"
+years of his boyhood spent in France had made him master of the
+colloquial forms of the court language of Europe, yet a dozen classmates
+who had never seen a French verb before their admission stood above him
+at the end of the first term. He had gone to the first section like a
+rocket and settled to the bottom of it like a stick. No subject in the
+course was really hard to him, his natural aptitude enabling him to
+triumph over the toughest problems. Yet he hated work, and would often
+face about with an empty black-board and take a zero and a report for
+neglect of studies that half an hour's application would have rendered
+impossible. Classmates who saw impending danger would frequently make
+stolen visits to his room towards the close of the term and profess to
+be baffled by the lesson for the morrow, and Billy would promptly knock
+the ashes out of the pipe he was smoking contrary to regulations and lay
+aside the guitar on which he had been softly strumming--also contrary to
+regulations; would pick up the neglected calculus or mechanics; get
+interested in the work of explanation, and end by having learned the
+lesson in spite of himself. This was too good a joke to be kept a
+secret, and by the time the last year came Billy had found it all out
+and refused to be longer hoodwinked.
+
+There was never the faintest danger of his being found deficient in
+studies, but there was ever the glaring prospect of his being discharged
+"on demerit." Mr. McKay and the regulations of the United States
+Military Academy had been at loggerheads from the start.
+
+And yet, frank, jolly, and generous as he was in all intercourse with
+his comrades, there was never a time when this young gentleman could be
+brought to see that in such matters he was the arbiter of his own
+destiny. Like the Irishman whose first announcement on setting foot on
+American soil was that he was "agin the government," Billy McKay
+believed that regulations were made only to oppress; that the men who
+drafted such a code were idiots, and that those whose duty it became to
+enforce it were simply spies and tyrants, resistance to whom was innate
+virtue. He was forever ignoring or violating some written or unwritten
+law of the Academy; was frequently being caught in the act, and was
+invariably ready to attribute the resultant report to ill luck which
+pursued no one else, or to a deliberate persecution which followed him
+forever. Every six months he had been on the verge of dismissal, and
+now, a fortnight from the final examination, with a margin of only six
+demerit to run on, Mr. Billy McKay had just been read out in the daily
+list of culprits or victims as "Shouting from window of barracks to
+cadets in area during study hours,--three forty-five and four P.M."
+
+There was absolutely no excuse for this performance. The regulations
+enjoined silence and order in barracks during "call to quarters." It had
+been raining a little, and he was in hopes there would be no battalion
+drill, in which event he would venture on throwing off his uniform and
+spreading himself out on his bed with a pipe and a novel,--two things he
+dearly loved. Ten minutes would have decided the question legitimately
+for him, but, being of impatient temperament, he could not wait, and,
+catching sight of the adjutant and the senior captain coming from the
+guard-house, Mr. McKay sung out in tones familiar to every man within
+ear-shot,--
+
+"Hi, Jim! Is it battalion drill?"
+
+The adjutant glanced quickly up,--a warning glance as he could have
+seen,--merely shook his head, and went rapidly on, while his comrade,
+the cadet first captain, clinched his fist at the window and growled
+between his set teeth, "Be quiet, you idiot!"
+
+But poor Billy persisted. Louder yet he called,--
+
+"Well--say--Jimmy! Come up here after four o'clock. I'll be in
+confinement, and can't come out. Want to see you."
+
+And the windows over at the office of the commandant being wide open,
+and that official being seated there in consultation with three or four
+of his assistants, and as Mr. McKay's voice was as well known to them as
+to the corps, there was no alternative. The colonel himself "confounded"
+the young scamp for his recklessness, and directed a report to be
+entered against him.
+
+And now, as Mr. Stanley is betaking himself to his post at the
+guard-house, his heart is heavy within him because of this new load on
+his comrade's shoulders.
+
+"How on earth could you have been so careless, Billy?" he had asked him
+as McKay, fuming and indignant, was throwing off his accoutrements in
+his room on the second floor.
+
+"How'd I know anybody was over there?" was the boyish reply. "It's just
+a skin on suspicion anyhow. Lee couldn't have seen me, nor could anybody
+else. I stood way back by the clothes-press."
+
+"There's no suspicion about it, Billy. There isn't a man that walks the
+area that doesn't know your voice as well as he does Jim Pennock's.
+Confound it! You'll get over the limit yet, man, and break your--your
+mother's heart."
+
+"Oh, come now, Stan! You've been nagging me ever since last camp. Why'n
+thunder can't you see I'm doing my best? Other men don't row me as you
+do, or stand up for the 'tacks.' I tell you that fellow Lee never loses
+a chance of skinning me: he _takes_ chances, by gad, and I'll make his
+eyes pop out of his head when he reads what I've got to say about it."
+
+"You're too hot for reason now, McKay," said Stanley, sadly. "Step out
+or you'll get a late for supper. I'll see you after awhile. I gave that
+note to the orderly, by the way, and he said he'd take it down to the
+dock himself."
+
+"Mother and Nan will probably come to the guard-house right after
+supper. Look out for them for me, will you, Stan, until old Snipes gets
+there and sends for me?"
+
+And as Mr. Stanley shut the door instantly and went clattering down the
+iron stairs, Mr. McKay caught no sign on his face of the sudden flutter
+beneath that snugly-buttoned coat.
+
+It was noticed by more than one of the little coterie at his own table
+that the officer of the day hurried through his supper and left the
+mess-hall long before the command for the first company to rise. It was
+a matter well known to every member of the graduating class that, almost
+from the day of her arrival during the encampment of the previous
+summer, Phil Stanley had been a devoted admirer of Miss Nannie McKay. It
+was not at all to be wondered at.
+
+Without being what is called an ideal beauty, there was a fascination
+about this winsome little maid which few could resist. She had all her
+brother's impulsiveness, all his enthusiasm, and, it may be safely
+asserted, all his abiding faith in the sacred and unimpeachable
+character of cadet friendships. If she possessed a little streak of
+romance that was not discernible in him, she managed to keep it well in
+the background; and though she had her favorites in the corps, she was
+so frank and cordial and joyous in her manner to all that it was
+impossible to say which one, if any, she regarded in the light of a
+lover. Whatever comfort her gentle mother may have derived from this
+state of affairs, it was "hard lines on Stanley," as his classmates put
+it, for there could be little doubt that the captain of the color
+company was a sorely-smitten man.
+
+He was not what is commonly called a "popular man" in the corps. The son
+of a cavalry officer, reared on the wide frontier and educated only
+imperfectly, he had not been able to enter the Academy until nearly
+twenty years of age, and nothing but indomitable will and diligence had
+carried him through the difficulties of the first half of the course. It
+was not until the middle of the third year that the chevrons of a
+sergeant were awarded him, and even then the battalion was taken by
+surprise. There was no surprise a few months later, however, when he was
+promoted over a score of classmates and made captain of his company. It
+was an open secret that the commandant had said that if he had it all to
+do over again, Mr. Stanley would be made "first captain,"--a rumor that
+big John Burton, the actual incumbent of that office, did not at all
+fancy. Stanley was "square" and impartial. His company was in admirable
+discipline, though many of his classmates growled and wished he were not
+"so confoundedly military." The second classmen, always the most
+critical judges of the qualifications of their seniors, conceded that he
+was more soldierly than any man of his year, but were unanimous in the
+opinion that he should show more deference to men of their standing in
+the corps. The "yearlings" swore by him in any discussion as to the
+relative merits of the four captains; but with equal energy swore at him
+when contemplating that fateful volume known as "the skin book." The
+fourth classmen--the "plebes"--simply worshipped the ground he trod on,
+and as between General Sherman and Philip Stanley, it is safe to say
+these youngsters would have determined on the latter as the more
+suitable candidate for the office of general-in-chief. Of course they
+admired the adjutant,--the plebes always do that,--and not infrequently
+to the exclusion of the other cadet officers; but there was something
+grand, to them, about this dark-eyed, dark-faced, dignified captain who
+never stooped to trifle with them; was always so precise and courteous,
+and yet so immeasurably distant. They were ten times more afraid of him
+than they had been of Lieutenant Rolfe, who was their "tack" during
+camp, or of the great, handsome, kindly-voiced dragoon who succeeded
+him, Lieutenant Lee, of the --th Cavalry. They approved of this latter
+gentleman because he belonged to the regiment of which Mr. Stanley's
+father was lieutenant-colonel, and to which it was understood Mr.
+Stanley was to be assigned on his graduation. What they could not at all
+understand was that, once graduated, Mr. Stanley could step down from
+his high position in the battalion of cadets and become a mere
+file-closer. Yes. Stanley was too strict and soldierly to command that
+decidedly ephemeral tribute known as "popularity," but no man in the
+corps of cadets was more thoroughly respected. If there were flaws in
+the armor of his personal character they were not such as to be
+vigorously prodded by his comrades. He had firm friends,--devoted
+friends, who grew to honor and trust him more with every year; but,
+strong though they knew him to be, he had found his conqueror. There was
+a story in the first class that in Stanley's old leather writing-case
+was a sort of secret compartment, and in this compartment was treasured
+"a knot of ribbon blue" that had been worn last summer close under the
+dimpled white chin of pretty Nannie McKay.
+
+And now on this moist May evening as he hastens back to barracks, Mr.
+Stanley spies a little group standing in front of the guard-house.
+Lieutenant Lee is there,--in his uniform now,--and with him are the tall
+girl in the simple travelling-dress, and the trim, wiry, gray-moustached
+soldier whom we saw on the boat. The rain is falling steadily, which
+accounts for and possibly excuses Mr. Lee's retention of the young
+lady's arm in his as he holds the umbrella over both; but the colonel no
+sooner catches sight of the officer of the day than his own umbrella is
+cast aside, and with light, eager, buoyant steps, father and son hasten
+to meet each other. In an instant their hands are clasped,--both
+hands,--and through moistening eyes the veteran of years of service and
+the boy in whom his hopes are centred gaze into each other's faces.
+
+"Phil,--my son!"
+
+"Father!"
+
+No other words. It is the first meeting in two long years. The area is
+deserted save by the smiling pair watching from under the dripping
+umbrella with eyes nearly as moist as the skies. There is no one to
+comment or to scoff. In the father's heart, mingling with the deep joy
+at this reunion with his son, there wells up sudden, irrepressible
+sorrow. "Ah, God!" he thinks. "Could his mother but have lived to see
+him now!" Perhaps Philip reads it all in the strong yet tremulous clasp
+of those sinewy brown hands, but for the moment neither speaks again.
+There are some joys so deep, some heart longings so overpowering, that
+many a man is forced to silence, or to a levity of manner which is
+utterly repugnant to him, in the effort to conceal from the world the
+tumult of emotion that so nearly makes him weep. Who that has read that
+inimitable page will ever forget the meeting of that genial sire and
+gallant son in the grimy old railway car filled with the wounded from
+Antietam, in Doctor Holmes's "My Search for the Captain?"
+
+When Phil Stanley, still clinging to his father's hand, turns to greet
+his sister and her handsome escort, he is suddenly aware of another
+group that has entered the area. Two ladies, marshalled by his
+classmate, Mr. Pennock, are almost at his side, and one of them is the
+blue-eyed girl he loves.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+"AMANTIUM IRÆ."
+
+
+Lovely as is West Point in May, it is hardly the best time for a visit
+there if one's object be to see the cadets. From early morn until late
+at night every hour is taken up with duties, academic or military.
+Mothers, sisters, and sweethearts, whose eyes so eagerly follow the
+evolutions of the gray ranks, can only hope for a few words between
+drill and dress parade, or else in the shortest half-hour in all the
+world,--that which intervenes 'twixt supper and evening "call to
+quarters." That Miss Nannie McKay should make frequent and unfavorable
+comment on this state of affairs goes without saying; yet, had she been
+enabled to see her beloved brother but once a month and her cadet
+friends at intervals almost as rare, that incomprehensible young damsel
+would have preferred the Point to any other place in the world.
+
+It was now ten days since her arrival, and she had had perhaps three
+chats with Willy, who, luckily for him, though he could not realize it,
+was spending most of his time "confined to quarters," and consequently
+out of much of the temptation he would otherwise have been in. Mrs.
+McKay had been able to see very little more of the young man, but she
+had the prayerful consolation that if he could only be kept out of
+mischief a few days longer he would then be through with it all, out of
+danger of dismissal, actually graduated, and once more her own boy to
+monopolize as she chose.
+
+It takes most mothers a long, long time to become reconciled to the
+complete usurpation of all their former rights by this new parent whom
+their boys are bound to serve,--this anything but _Alma_ Mater,--the war
+school of the nation. As for Miss Nan, though she made it a point to
+declaim vigorously at the fates that prevented her seeing more of her
+brother, it was wonderful how well she looked and in what blithe spirits
+she spent her days. Regularly as the sun came around, before guard-mount
+in the morning and right after supper in the evening, she was sure to be
+on the south piazza of the old hotel, and when presently the cadet
+uniforms began to appear at the hedge, she, and others, would go
+tripping lightly down the path to meet the wearers, and then would
+follow the half-hour's walk and chat in which she found such infinite
+delight. So, too, could Mr. Stanley, had he been able to appear as her
+escort on all occasions; but despite his strong personal inclination and
+effort, this was by no means the case. The little lady was singularly
+impartial in the distribution of her time, and only by being first
+applicant had he secured to himself the one long afternoon that had yet
+been vouchsafed them,--the cadet half-holiday of Saturday.
+
+But if Miss Nan found time hanging heavily on her hands at other hours
+of the day, there was one young lady at the hotel who did not,--a young
+lady whom, by this time, she regarded with constantly deepening
+interest,--Miriam Stanley.
+
+Other girls, younger girls, who had found their ideals in the cadet
+gray, were compelled to spend hours of the twenty-four in waiting for
+the too brief _half_-hour in which it was possible to meet them; but
+Miss Stanley was very differently situated. It was her first visit to
+the Point. She met, and was glad to meet, all Philip's friends and
+comrades; but it was plainly to be seen, said all the girls at Craney's,
+that between her and the tall cavalry officer whom they best knew
+through cadet descriptions, there existed what they termed an
+"understanding," if not an engagement. Every day, when not prevented by
+duties, Mr. Lee would come stalking up from barracks, and presently away
+they would stroll together,--a singularly handsome pair, as every one
+admitted. One morning soon after the Stanleys' arrival he appeared in
+saddle on his stylish bay, accompanied by an orderly leading another
+horse, side-saddled; and then, as by common impulse, all the girls
+promenading the piazzas, as was their wont, with arms entwining each
+other's waists, came flocking about the south steps. When Miss Stanley
+appeared in her riding-habit and was quickly swung up into saddle by her
+cavalier, and then, with a bright nod and smile for the entire group,
+she gathered the reins in her practised hand and rode briskly away, the
+sentiments of the fair spectators were best expressed, perhaps, in the
+remark of Miss McKay,--
+
+"What a shame it is that the cadets can't ride! I mean can't
+ride--_that_ way," she explained, with suggestive nod of her curly head
+towards the pair just trotting out upon the road around the Plain. "They
+ride--lots of them--better than most of the officers."
+
+"Mr. Stanley for instance," suggests a mischievous little minx with
+hazel eyes and laughter-loving mouth.
+
+"Yes, Mr. Stanley, or Mr. Pennock, or Mr. Burton, or a dozen others I
+could name, not excepting my brother," answers Miss Nan, stoutly,
+although those readily flushing cheeks of hers promptly throw out their
+signals of perturbation. "Fancy Mr. Lee vaulting over his horse at the
+gallop as they do."
+
+"And yet Mr. Lee has taught them so much more than other instructors.
+Several cadets have told me so. He always does, first, everything he
+requires them to do; so he must be able to make that vault."
+
+"Will doesn't say so by any means," retorts Nannie, with something very
+like a pout; and as Will is a prime favorite with the entire party and
+the centre of a wide circle of interest, sympathy, and anxiety in those
+girlish hearts, their loyalty is proof against opinions that may not
+coincide with his. "Miss Mischief" reads temporary defeat in the circle
+of bright faces and is stung to new effort,--
+
+"Well! there are cadets whose opinions you value quite as much as you do
+your brother's, Nannie, and they have told me."
+
+"Who?" challenges Miss Nan, yet with averted face. Thrice of late she
+has disagreed with Mr. Stanley about Willy's troubles; has said things
+to him which she wishes she had left unsaid; and for two days now he has
+not sought her side as heretofore, though she knows he has been at the
+hotel to see his sister, and a little bird has told her he had a long
+talk with this same hazel-eyed girl. She wants to know more about
+it,--yet does not want to ask.
+
+"Phil Stanley, for one," is the not unexpected answer.
+
+Somebody who appears to know all about it has written that when a girl
+is beginning to feel deep interest in a man she will say things
+decidedly detrimental to his character solely for the purpose of having
+them denied and for the pleasure of hearing him defended. Is it this
+that prompts Miss McKay to retort?--
+
+"Mr. Stanley cares too little what his classmates think, and too much of
+what Mr. Lee may say or do."
+
+"Mr. Stanley isn't the only one who thinks a deal of Lieutenant Lee," is
+the spirited answer. "Mr. Burton says he is the most popular tactical
+officer here, and many a cadet--good friends of your brother's,
+Nannie--has said the same thing. You don't like him because Will
+doesn't."
+
+"I wouldn't like or respect any officer who reports cadets on
+suspicion," is the stout reply. "If he did that to any one else I would
+despise it as much as I do because Willy is the victim."
+
+The discussion is waxing hot. "Miss Mischief's" blood is up. She likes
+Phil Stanley; she likes Mr. Lee; she has hosts of friends in the corps,
+and she is just as loyal and quite as pronounced in her views as her
+little adversary. They are fond of each other, too, and were great chums
+all through the previous summer; but there is danger of a quarrel
+to-day.
+
+"I don't think you are just in that matter at all, Nannie. I have heard
+cadets say that if they had been in Mr. Lee's place or on
+officer-of-the-day duty they would have had to give Will that report you
+take so much to heart. Everybody knows his voice. Half the corps heard
+him call out to Mr. Pennock."
+
+"I don't believe a single cadet who's a friend of Will's would say such
+a thing," bursts in Miss Nan, her eyes blazing.
+
+"He is a friend, and a warm friend, too."
+
+"You said there were several, Kitty, and I don't believe it possible."
+
+"Well. There were two or three. If you don't believe it, you can ask Mr.
+Stanley. _He_ said it, and the others agreed."
+
+Fancy the mood in which she meets him this particular evening, when his
+card was brought to her door. Twice has "Miss Mischief" essayed to enter
+the room and "make up." Conscience has been telling her savagely that in
+the impulse and sting of the moment she has given an unfair coloring to
+the whole matter. Mr. Stanley had volunteered no such remark as that she
+so vehemently quoted. Asked point blank whether he considered as given
+"on suspicion" the report which Mrs. McKay and Nannie so resented, he
+replied that he did not; and, when further pressed, he said that Will
+alone was blamable in the matter: Mr. Lee had no alternative, if it was
+Mr. Lee who gave the report, and any other officer would have been
+compelled to do the same. All this "Miss Mischief" would gladly have
+explained to Nannie could she have gained admission, but the latter "had
+a splitting headache," and begged to be excused.
+
+It has been such a lovely afternoon. The halls were filled with cadets
+"on permit," when she came out from the dining-room, but nothing but
+ill-luck seemed to attend her. The young gentleman who had invited her
+to walk to Fort Putnam, most provokingly twisted an ankle at cavalry
+drill that very morning, and was sent to hospital. _Now_, if Mr. Stanley
+were all devotion, he would promptly tender his services as substitute.
+Then she could take him to task and punish him for his disloyalty to
+Will. But Mr. Stanley was not to be seen: "Gone off with another girl,"
+was the announcement made to her by Mr. Werrick, a youth who dearly
+loved a joke, and who saw no need of explaining that the other girl was
+his own sister. Sorely disappointed, yet hardly knowing why, she
+accepted her mother's invitation to go with her to the barracks where
+Will was promenading the area on what Mr. Werrick called "one of his
+perennial punishment tours." She went, of course; but the distant sight
+of poor Will, duly equipped as a sentry, dismally tramping up and down
+the asphalt, added fuel to the inward fire that consumed her. The
+mother's heart, too, yearned over her boy,--a victim to cruel
+regulations and crueler task-masters. "What was the use of the
+government's enticing young men away from their comfortable homes," Mrs.
+McKay had once indignantly written, "unless it could make them happy?"
+It was a question the "tactical department" could not answer, but it
+thought volumes.
+
+But now evening had come, and with it Mr. Stanley's card. Nan's heart
+gave a bound, but she went down-stairs with due deliberation. She had
+his card in her hand as she reached the hall, and was twisting it in her
+fingers. Yes. There he stood on the north piazza, Pennock with him, and
+one or two others of the graduating class. They were chatting laughingly
+with Miss Stanley, "Miss Mischief," a bevy of girls, and a matron or
+two, but she knew well his eyes would be on watch for her. They were. He
+saw her instantly; bowed, smiled, but, to her surprise, continued his
+conversation with a lady seated near the door. What could it mean?
+Irresolute she stood there a moment, waiting for him to come forward;
+but though she saw that twice his eyes sought hers, he was still bending
+courteously and listening to the voluble words of the somewhat elderly
+dame who claimed his attention. Nan began to rebel against that woman
+from the bottom of her heart. What was she to do? Here was his card. In
+response she had come down to receive him. She meant to be very cool
+from the first moment; to provoke him to inquiry as to the cause of such
+unusual conduct, and then to upbraid him for his disloyalty to her
+brother. She certainly meant that he should feel the weight of her
+displeasure; but then--then--after he had been made to suffer, if he was
+properly contrite, and said so, and looked it, and begged to be
+forgiven, why then, perhaps she might be brought to condone it in a
+measure and be good friends again. It was clearly his duty, however, to
+come and greet her, not hers to go to the laughing group. The old lady
+was the only one among them whom she did not know,--a new arrival. Just
+then Miss Stanley looked round, saw her, and signalled smilingly to her
+to come and join them. Slowly she walked towards the little party, still
+twirling the card in her taper fingers.
+
+"Looking for anybody, Nan?" blithely hails "Miss Mischief." "Who is it?
+I see you have his card."
+
+For once Nannie's voice fails her, and she knows not what to say. Before
+she can frame an answer there is a rustle of skirts and a light
+foot-fall behind her, and she hears the voice of a girl whom she never
+has liked one bit.
+
+"Oh! You're here, are you, Mr. Stanley! Why, I've been waiting at least
+a quarter of an hour. Did you send up your card?"
+
+"I did; full ten minutes ago. Was it not brought to your room?"
+
+"No, indeed! I've been sitting there writing, and only came down because
+I had promised Mr. Fearn that he should have ten minutes, and it is
+nearly his time now. Where do you suppose they could have sent it?"
+
+Poor little Nan! It has been a hard day for her, but this is just too
+much. She turns quickly, and, hardly knowing whither she goes, dodges
+past the party of cadets and girls now blocking the stairway and
+preventing flight to her room, hurries out the south door and around to
+the west piazza, and there, leaning against a pillar, is striving to
+hide her blazing cheeks,--all in less than a minute.
+
+Stanley sees through the entire situation with the quick intuition of a
+lover. She has not treated him kindly of late. She has been capricious
+and unjust on several occasions, but there is no time to think of that
+now. She is in distress, and that is more than enough for him.
+
+"Here comes Mr. Fearn himself to claim his walk, so I will go and find
+out about the card," he says, and blesses that little rat of a bell-boy
+as he hastens away.
+
+Out on the piazza he finds her alone, yet with half a dozen people
+hovering nigh. The hush of twilight is over the beautiful old Point. The
+moist breath of the coming night, cool and sweet, floats down upon them
+from the deep gorges on the rugged flank of Cro' Nest, and rises from
+the thickly lacing branches of the cedars on the river-bank below. A
+flawless mirror in its grand and reflected framework of cliff and crag
+and beetling precipice, the Hudson stretches away northward unruffled by
+the faintest cat's-paw of a breeze. Far beyond the huge black
+battlements of Storm King and the purpled scaur of Breakneck the night
+lights of the distant city are twinkling through the gathering darkness,
+and tiny dots of silvery flame down in the cool depths beneath them
+reflect the faint glimmer from the cloudless heaven where--
+
+     "The sentinel stars set their watch in the sky."
+
+The hush of the sacred hour has fallen on every lip save those of the
+merry party in the hall, where laugh and chatter and flaring gas-light
+bid defiance to influences such as hold their sway over souls brought
+face to face with Nature in this, her loveliest haunt on earth.
+
+Phil Stanley's heart is throbbing as he steps quickly to her side. Well,
+indeed, she knows his foot-fall; knows he is coming; almost knows _why_
+he comes. She is burning with a sense of humiliation, wounded pride,
+maidenly wrath, and displeasure. All day long everything has gone agley.
+Could she but flee to her room and hide her flaming cheeks and cry her
+heart out, it would be relief inexpressible, but her retreat is cut off.
+She cannot escape. She cannot face those keen-eyed watchers in the
+hall-ways. Oh! it is almost maddening that she should have been so--so
+fooled! Every one must know she came down to meet Phil Stanley when his
+card was meant for another girl,--that girl of all others! All aflame
+with indignation as she is, she yet means to freeze him if she can only
+control herself.
+
+"Miss Nannie," he murmurs, quick and low, "I see that a blunder has been
+made, but I don't believe the others saw it. Give me just a few minutes.
+Come down the walk with me. I cannot talk with you here--now, and there
+is so much I want to say." He bends over her pleadingly, but her eyes
+are fixed far away up the dark wooded valley beyond the white shafts of
+the cemetery, gleaming in the first beams of the rising moon. She makes
+no reply for a moment. She does not withdraw them when finally she
+answers, impressively,--
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Stanley, but I must be excused from interfering with
+your engagements."
+
+"There is no engagement now," he promptly replies; "and I greatly want
+to speak with you. Have you been quite kind to me of late? Have I not a
+right to know what has brought about the change?"
+
+"You do not seem to have sought opportunity to inquire,"--very cool and
+dignified now.
+
+"Pardon me. Three times this week I have asked for a walk, and you have
+had previous engagements."
+
+She has torn to bits and thrown away the card that was in her hand. Now
+she is tugging at the bunch of bell buttons, each graven with the
+monogram of some cadet friend, that hangs as usual by its tiny golden
+chain. She wants to say that he has found speedy consolation in the
+society of "that other girl" of whom Mr. Werrick spoke, but not for the
+world would she seem jealous.
+
+"You could have seen me this afternoon, had there been any matters you
+wished explained," she says. "I presume you were more agreeably
+occupied."
+
+"I find no delight in formal visits," he answers, quietly; "but my
+sister wished to return calls and asked me to show her about the post."
+
+Then it was his sister. Not "that other girl!" Still she must not let
+him see it makes her glad. She needs a pretext for her wrath. She must
+make him feel it in some way. This is not at all in accordance with the
+mental private rehearsals she has been having. There is still that
+direful matter of Will's report for "shouting from window of barracks,"
+and "Miss Mischief's" equally direful report of Mr. Stanley's remarks
+thereon.
+
+"I thought you were a loyal friend of Willy's," she says, turning
+suddenly upon him.
+
+"I was--and am," he answers simply.
+
+"And yet I'm told you said it was all his own fault, and that you
+yourself would have given him the report that so nearly 'found him on
+demerit.' A report on suspicion, too," she adds, with scorn in her tone.
+
+Mr. Stanley is silent a moment.
+
+"You have heard a very unfair account of my words," he says at last. "I
+have volunteered no opinions on the subject. In answer to direct
+question I have said that it was not justifiable to call that a report
+on suspicion."
+
+"But you said you would have given it yourself."
+
+"I said that, as officer of the day, I would have been compelled to do
+so. I could not have signed my certificate otherwise."
+
+She turns away in speechless indignation. What makes it all well-nigh
+intolerable is that he is by no means on the defensive. He is patient,
+gentle, but decidedly superior. Not at all what she wanted. Not at all
+eager to explain, argue, or implore. Not at all the tearful penitent she
+has pictured in her plans. She must bring him to a realizing sense of
+the enormity of his conduct. Disloyalty to Will is treason to her.
+
+"And yet--you say you have kept, and that you value, that knot of blue
+ribbon that I gave you--or that you took--last summer. I did not suppose
+that you would so soon prove to be--no friend to Willy, or----"
+
+"Or what, Miss Nannie?" he asks. His face is growing white, but he
+controls the tremor in his voice. She does not see. Her eyes are
+downcast and her face averted now, but she goes on desperately.
+
+"Well, never mind _that_ now; but it seems to me that such friendship
+is--simply worthless."
+
+She has taken the plunge and said her say, but the last words are spoken
+with sinking inflection, followed instantly by a sinking heart. He makes
+no answer whatever. She dares not look up into his face to see the
+effect of her stab. He stands there silent only an instant; then raises
+his cap, turns, and leaves her.
+
+Sunday comes and goes without a sight of him except in the line of
+officers at parade. That night she goes early to her room, and on the
+bureau finds a little box securely tied, sealed, and addressed to her in
+his well-known hand. It contains a note and some soft object carefully
+wrapped in tissue-paper. The note is brief enough:
+
+"It is not easy to part with this, for it is all I have that was yours
+to give, but even this must be returned to you after what you said last
+night.
+
+"Miss Nannie, you may some time think more highly of my friendship for
+your brother than you do now, and then, perhaps, will realize that you
+were very unjust. Should that time come I shall be glad to have this
+again."
+
+It was hardly necessary to open the little packet as she did. She knew
+well enough it could contain only that
+
+     "Knot of ribbon blue."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+"THE WOMAN TEMPTED ME."
+
+
+June is here. The examinations are in full blast. The Point is thronged
+with visitors and every hostelrie in the neighborhood has opened wide
+its doors to accommodate the swarms of people interested in the
+graduating exercises and eager for the graduating ball. Pretty girls
+there are in force, and at Craney's they are living three and four in a
+room; the joy of being really there on the Point, near the cadets,
+aroused by the morning gun and shrill piping of the reveille, saluted
+hourly by the notes of the bugle, enabled to see the gray uniforms half
+a dozen times a day and to actually speak or walk with the wearers half
+an hour out of twenty-four whole ones, being apparent compensation for
+any crowding or discomfort. Indeed, crowded as they are, the girls at
+Craney's are objects of boundless envy to those whom the Fates have
+consigned to the resorts down around the picturesque but distant
+"Falls." There is a little coterie at "Hawkshurst" that is fiercely
+jealous of the sisterhood in the favored nook at the north edge of the
+Plain, and one of their number, who is believed to have completely
+subjugated that universal favorite, Cadet McKay, has been heard to say
+that she thought it an outrage that they had to come home so early in
+the evening and mope away the time without a single cadet, when up there
+at Craney's the halls and piazzas were full of gray-coats and bell
+buttons every night until tattoo.
+
+A very brilliant and pretty girl she is, too, and neither Mrs. McKay nor
+Nannie can wonder at it that Will's few leisure moments are monopolized.
+"You are going to have me all to yourself next week, little mother," he
+laughingly explains; "and goodness knows when I'm going to see Miss
+Waring again." And though neither mother nor sister is at all satisfied
+with the state of affairs, both are too unselfish to interpose. How many
+an hour have mothers and, sometimes, sisters waited in loneliness at the
+old hotel for boys whom some other fellow's sister was holding in silken
+fetters somewhere down in shady "Flirtation!"
+
+It was with relief inexpressible that Mrs. McKay and Uncle Jack had
+hailed the coming of the 1st of June. With a margin of only two demerits
+Will had safely weathered the reefs and was practically safe,--safe at
+last. He had passed brilliantly in engineering; had been saved by his
+prompt and ready answers the consequences of a "fess" with clean
+black-board in ordnance and gunnery; had won a ringing, though
+involuntary, round of applause from the crowded galleries of the
+riding-hall by daring horsemanship, and he was now within seven days of
+the prized diploma and his commission. "For heaven's sake, Billy,"
+pleaded big Burton, the first captain, "don't do any thing to ruin your
+chances now! I've just been talking with your mother and Miss Nannie,
+and I declare I never saw that little sister of yours looking so white
+and worried."
+
+McKay laughs, yet his laugh is not light-hearted. He wonders if Burton
+has the faintest intuition that at this moment he is planning an
+escapade that means nothing short of dismissal if detected. Down in the
+bottom of his soul he knows he is a fool to have made the rash and
+boastful pledge to which he now stands committed. Yet he has never
+"backed out" before, and now--he would dare a dozen dismissals rather
+than that she should have a chance to say, "I knew you would not come."
+
+That very afternoon, just after the ride in the hall before the Board of
+Visitors, Miss Waring had been pathetically lamenting that with another
+week they were to part, and that she had seen next to nothing of him
+since her arrival.
+
+"If you only _could_ get down to Hawkshurst!" she cried. "I'm sure when
+my cousin Frank was in the corps he used to 'run it' down to Cozzens's
+to see Cousin Kate,--and that was what made her Cousin Kate to me," she
+adds, with sudden dropping of the eyelids that is wondrously effective.
+
+"Easily done!" recklessly answers McKay, whose boyish heart is set to
+hammer-like beating by the closing sentence. "I didn't know you sat up
+so late there, or I would have come before. Of course I _have_ to be
+here at 'taps.' No one can escape that."
+
+"Oh,--but really, Mr. McKay, I did not mean it! I would not have you run
+such a risk for worlds! I meant--some other way." And so she protests,
+although her eyes dance with excitement and delight. What a feather this
+in her cap of coquetry! What a triumph over the other girls,--especially
+that hateful set at Craney's! What a delicious confidence to impart to
+all the little coterie at Hawkshurst! How they must envy her the
+romance, the danger, the daring, the devotion of such an adventure--for
+her sake! Of late years such tales had been rare. Girls worth the
+winning simply would not permit so rash a project, and their example
+carried weight. But here at "Hawkshurst" was a lively young brood,
+chaperoned by a matron as wild as her charges and but little older, and
+eager one and all for any glory or distinction that could pique the
+pride or stir the envy of "that Craney set." It was too much for a girl
+of Sallie Waring's type. Her eyes have a dangerous gleam, her cheeks a
+witching glow; she clings tighter to his arm as she looks up in his
+face.
+
+"And yet--wouldn't it be lovely?--To think of seeing you there!--are you
+sure there'd be no danger?"
+
+"Be on the north piazza about quarter of eleven," is the prompt reply.
+"I'll wear a dark suit, eye-glass, brown moustache, etc. Call me Mr.
+Freeman while strangers are around. There goes the parade drum. _Au
+revoir!_" and he darts away. Cadet Captain Stanley, inspecting his
+company a few moments later, stops in front and gravely rebukes him,--
+
+"You are not properly shaved, McKay."
+
+"I shaved this morning," is the somewhat sullen reply, while an angry
+flush shoots up towards the blue eyes.
+
+"No razor has touched your upper lip, however, and I expect the class to
+observe regulations in this company, demerit or no demerit," is the
+firm, quiet answer, and the young captain passes on to the next man.
+McKay grits his teeth.
+
+"Only a week more of it, thank God!" he mutters, when sure that Stanley
+is beyond ear-shot.
+
+Three hours more and "taps" is sounded. All along the brilliant _façade_
+of barracks there is sudden and simultaneous "dousing of the glim" and a
+rush of the cadets to their narrow nests. There is a minute of banging
+doors and hurrying footsteps, and gruff queries of "All in?" as the
+cadet officers flit from room to room in each division to see that
+lights are out and every man in bed. Then forth they come from every
+hall-way; tripping lightly down the stone steps and converging on the
+guard-house, where stand at the door-way the dark forms of the officer
+in charge and the cadet officer of the day. Each in turn halts, salutes,
+and makes his precise report; and when the last subdivision is reported,
+the executive officer is assured that the battalion of cadets is present
+in barracks, and at the moment of inspection at least, in bed.
+Presumably, they remain so.
+
+Two minutes after inspection, however, Mr. McKay is out of bed again and
+fumbling about in his alcove. His room-mate sleepily inquires from
+beyond the partition what he wants in the dark, but is too long
+accustomed to his vagaries to expect definite information. When Mr.
+McKay slips softly out into the hall, after careful _reconnaissance_ of
+the guard-house windows, his chum is soundly asleep and dreaming of no
+worse freak on Billy's part than a raid around barracks.
+
+It is so near graduation that the rules are relaxed, and in every first
+classman's room the tailor's handiwork is hanging among the gray
+uniforms. It is a dark suit of this civilian dress that Billy dons as
+he emerges from the blankets. A natty Derby is perched upon his curly
+pate, and a _monocle_ hangs by its string. But he cannot light his gas
+and arrange the soft brown moustache with which he proposes to decorate
+his upper lip. He must run into Stanley's,--the "tower" room, at the
+north end of his hall.
+
+Phil looks up from the copy of "Military Law" which he is diligently
+studying. As "inspector of subdivision," his light is burned until
+eleven.
+
+"You _do_ make an uncommonly swell young cit, Billy," he says,
+pleasantly. "Doesn't he, Mack?" he continues, appealing to his
+room-mate, who, lying flat on his back with his head towards the light
+and a pair of muscular legs in white trousers displayed on top of a pile
+of blankets, is striving to make out the vacancies in a recent Army
+Register. "Mack" rolls over and lazily expresses his approval.
+
+"I'd do pretty well if I had my moustache out; I meant to get the start
+of you fellows, but you're so meanly jealous, you blocked the game,
+Stan."
+
+All the rancor is gone now. He well knows that Stanley was right.
+
+"Sorry to have had to 'row' you about that, Billy," says the captain,
+gently. "You know I can't let one man go and not a dozen others."
+
+"Oh, hang it all! What's the difference when time's so nearly up?"
+responds McKay, as he goes over to the little wood-framed mirror that
+stands on the iron mantel. "Here's a substitute, though! How's this for
+a moustache?" he asks, as he turns and faces them. Then he starts for
+the door. Almost in an instant Stanley is up and after him. Just at the
+head of the iron stairs he hails and halts him.
+
+"Billy! You are not going out of barracks?"
+
+Unwillingly McKay yields to the pressure of the firm hand laid on his
+shoulder, and turns.
+
+"Suppose I were, Stanley. What danger is there? Lee inspected last
+night, and even he wouldn't make such a plan to trip me. Who ever heard
+of a 'tack's' inspecting after taps two successive nights?"
+
+"There's no reason why it should not be done, and several reasons why it
+should," is the uncompromising reply. "Don't risk your commission now,
+Billy, in any mad scheme. Come back and take those things off. Come!"
+
+"Blatherskite! Don't hang on to me like a pick-pocket, Stan. Let me go,"
+says McKay, half vexed, half laughing. "I've _got_ to go, man," he says,
+more seriously. "I've promised."
+
+A sudden light seems to come to Stanley. Even in the feeble gleam from
+the gas-jet in the lower hall McKay can see the look of consternation
+that shoots across his face.
+
+"You don't mean--you're not going down to Hawkshurst, Billy?"
+
+"Why not to Hawkshurst, if anywhere at all?" is the sullen reply.
+
+"Why? Because you are risking your whole future,--your profession, your
+good name, McKay. You're risking your mother's heart for the sport of a
+girl who is simply toying with you----"
+
+"Take care, Stanley. Say what you like to me about myself, but not a
+word about her."
+
+"This is no time for sentiment, McKay. I have known Miss Waring three
+years; you, perhaps three weeks. I tell you solemnly that if she has
+tempted you to 'run it' down there to see her it is simply to boast of a
+new triumph to the silly pack by whom she is surrounded. I tell you
+she----"
+
+"You tell me nothing! I don't allow any man to speak in that way of a
+woman who is my friend," says Billy, with much majesty of mien. "Take
+your hand off, Stanley," he adds, coldly. "I might have had some respect
+for your counsel if you had had the least--for my feelings." And
+wrenching his shoulder away, McKay speeds quickly down the stairs,
+leaving his comrade speechless and sorrowing in the darkness above.
+
+In the lower hall he stops and peers cautiously over towards the
+guard-house. The lights are burning brilliantly up in the room of the
+officer in charge, and the red sash of the officer of the day shows
+through the open door-way beneath. Now is his time, for there is no one
+looking. One quick leap through the dim stream of light from the lantern
+at his back and he will be in the dark area, and can pick his noiseless
+way to the shadows beyond. It is an easy thing to gain the foot-path
+beyond the old retaining wall back of the guard-house, scud away under
+the trees along the winding ascent towards Fort Putnam, until he meets
+the back-road half-way up the heights; then turn southward through the
+rocky cuts and forest aisles until he reaches the main highway; then
+follow on through the beautiful groves, through the quiet village,
+across the bridge that spans the stream above the falls, and then, only
+a few hundred yards beyond, there lies Hawkshurst and its bevy of
+excited, whispering, applauding, delighted girls. If he meet officers,
+all he has to do is put on a bold face and trust to his disguise. He
+means to have a glorious time and be back, tingling with satisfaction on
+his exploit, by a little after midnight. In five minutes his quarrel
+with Stanley is forgotten, and, all alert and eager, he is half-way up
+the heights and out of sight or hearing of the barracks.
+
+The roads are well-nigh deserted. He meets one or two squads of soldiers
+coming back from "pass" at the Falls, but no one else. The omnibuses and
+carriages bearing home those visitors who have spent the evening
+listening to the band at the Point are all by this time out of the way,
+and it is early for officers to be returning from evening calls at the
+lower hotel. The chances are two to one that he will pass the village
+without obstacle of any kind. Billy's spirits rise with the occasion,
+and he concludes that a cigarette is the one thing needful to complete
+his disguise and add to the general nonchalance of his appearance.
+Having no matches he waits until he reaches the northern outskirts of
+the Falls, and then steps boldly into the first bar he sees and helps
+himself.
+
+Coming forth again he throws wide open the swinging screen doors, and a
+broad belt of light is flashed across the dusty highway just in front of
+a rapidly-driven carriage coming north. The mettlesome horses swerve and
+shy. The occupants are suddenly whirled from their reposeful attitudes,
+though, fortunately, not from their seats. A "top hat" goes spinning out
+into the roadway, and a fan flies through the midst of the glare. The
+driver promptly checks his team and backs them just as Billy, all
+impulsive courtesy, leaps out into the street; picks up the hat with one
+hand, the fan with the other, and restores them with a bow to their
+owners. Only in the nick of time does he recollect himself and crush
+down the jovial impulse to hail by name Colonel Stanley and his daughter
+Miriam. The sight of a cavalry uniform and Lieutenant Lee's tall figure
+on the forward seat has, however, its restraining influence, and he
+turns quickly away--unrecognized.
+
+But alas for Billy! Only two days before had the distribution been made,
+and every man in the graduating class was already wearing the beautiful
+token of their brotherhood. The civilian garb, the Derby hat, the
+_monocle_, the stick, the cigarette, and the false moustache were all
+very well in their way, but in the beam of light from the windows of
+that ill-starred saloon there flashed upon his hand a gem that two pairs
+of quick, though reluctant eyes could not and did not fail to see,--the
+_class ring_ of 187-.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+A MIDNIGHT INSPECTION.
+
+
+There was a sense of constraint among the occupants of Colonel Stanley's
+carriage as they were driven back to the Point. They had been calling on
+old friends of his among the pretty villas below the Falls; had been
+chatting joyously until that sudden swerve that pitched the colonel's
+hat and Miriam's fan into the dust, and the veteran cavalryman could not
+account for the lull that followed. Miriam had instantly grasped the
+situation. All her father's stories of cadet days had enabled her to
+understand at once that here was a cadet--a classmate of
+Philip's--"running it" in disguise. Mr. Lee, of course, needed no
+information on the subject. What she hoped was, that he had not seen;
+but the cloud on his frank, handsome face still hovered there, and she
+knew him too well not to see that he understood everything. And now what
+was his duty? Something told her that an inspection of barracks would be
+made immediately upon his return to the Point, and in that way the name
+of the absentee be discovered. She knew the regulation every cadet was
+expected to obey and every officer on honor to enforce. She knew that
+every cadet found absent from his quarters after taps was called upon by
+the commandant for prompt account of his whereabouts, and if unable to
+say that he was on cadet limits during the period of his absence,
+dismissal stared him in the face.
+
+The colonel did most of the talking on the way back to the south gate.
+Once within the portals he called to the driver to stop at the Mess.
+"I'm thirsty," said the jovial warrior, "and I want a julep and a fresh
+cigar. You, too, might have a claret punch, Mimi; you are drooping a
+little to-night. What is it, daughter,--tired?"
+
+"Yes, tired and a little headachy." Then sudden thought occurs to her.
+"If you don't mind I think I will go right on to the hotel. Then you and
+Mr. Lee can enjoy your cigars at leisure." She knows well that Romney
+Lee is just the last man to let her drive on unescorted. She can hold
+him ten or fifteen minutes, at least, and by that time if the reckless
+boy down the road has taken warning and scurried back he can reach the
+barracks before inspection is made.
+
+"Indeed, Miss Miriam, I'm not to be disposed of so summarily," he
+promptly answers. "I'll see you safely to the hotel. You'll excuse me,
+colonel?"
+
+"Certainly, certainly, Lee. I suppose I'll see you later," responds the
+veteran. They leave him at the Mess and resume their way, and Lee takes
+the vacated seat by her side. There is something he longs to say to
+her,--something that has been quivering on his lips and throbbing at his
+heart for many a long day. She is a queenly woman,--this dark-eyed,
+stately army girl. It is only two years since, her school-days finished,
+she has returned to her father's roof on the far frontier and resumed
+the gay garrison life that so charmed her when a child. _Then_ a loving
+mother had been her guide, but during her long sojourn at school the
+blow had fallen that so wrenched her father's heart and left her
+motherless. Since her graduation she alone has been the joy of the old
+soldier's home, and sunshine and beauty have again gladdened his life.
+She would be less than woman did she not know that here now was another
+soldier, brave, courteous, and gentle, who longed to win her from that
+home to his own,--to call her by the sacred name of wife. She knew how
+her father trusted and Phil looked up to him. She knew that down in her
+own heart of hearts there was pleading for him even now, but as yet no
+word has been spoken. She is not the girl to signal, "speak, and the
+prize is yours." He has looked in vain for a symptom that bids him hope
+for more than loyal friendship.
+
+But to-night as they reach the brightly-lighted piazza at Craney's it is
+she who bids him stay.
+
+"Don't go just yet," she falters.
+
+"I feared you were tired and wished to go to your room," he answers,
+gently.
+
+"Would you mind asking if there are letters for me?" she says. It is
+anything to gain time, and he goes at her behest, but--oh, luckless
+fate!--'tis a false move.
+
+She sees him stride away through the groups on the piazza; sees the
+commandant meet him with one of his assistants; sees that there is
+earnest consultation in low tone, and that then the others hasten down
+the steps and disappear in the darkness. She hears him say, "I'll follow
+in a moment, sir," and something tells her that what she dreads has come
+to pass. Presently he returns to her with the information that there are
+no letters; then raises his cap, and, in the old Southern and cadet
+fashion, extends his hand.
+
+"You are not going, Mr. Lee?" again she falters.
+
+"I have to, Miss Stanley."
+
+Slowly she puts forth her hand and lays it in his.
+
+"I--I wish you did not have to go. _Tell_ me," she says, impulsively,
+imploringly, "are you going to inspect?"
+
+He bows his head.
+
+"It is already ordered, Miss Miriam," he says; "I must go at once.
+Good-night."
+
+Dazed and distressed she turns at once, and is confronted by a pallid
+little maid with wild, blue eyes.
+
+"Oh, Miss Stanley!" is the wail that greets her. "I could not help
+hearing, and--if it should be Willy!"
+
+"Come with me, Nannie," she whispers, as her arm enfolds her. "Come to
+my room."
+
+Meantime, there has been a breeze at the barracks. A batch of yearlings,
+by way of celebrating their release from plebedom, have hit on a
+time-honored scheme. Just about the same moment that disclosed to the
+eyes of Lieutenant Lee the class ring gleaming on the finger of that
+nattily-dressed young civilian, his comrade, the dozing officer in
+charge, was started to his feet by a thunder-clap, a vivid flash that
+lighted up the whole area of barracks, and an explosion that rattled the
+plaster in the guard-house chimneys. One thing the commandant wouldn't
+stand was disorder after "taps," and, in accordance with strict
+instructions, Lieutenant Lawrence sent a drummer-boy at once to find the
+colonel and tell him what had taken place, while he himself stirred up
+the cadet officer of the day and began an investigation. Half the corps
+by this time were up and chuckling with glee at their darkened windows;
+and as these subdued but still audible demonstrations of sympathy and
+satisfaction did not cease on his arrival, the colonel promptly sent for
+his entire force of assistants to conduct the inspection already
+ordered. Already one or two "bull's-eyes" were flitting out from the
+officers' angle.
+
+But the piece of boyish mischief that brings such keen delight to the
+youngsters in the battalion strikes terror to the heart of Philip
+Stanley. He knows all too well that an immediate inspection will be the
+result, and then, what is to become of McKay? With keen anxiety, he
+goes to the hall window overlooking the area, and watches the course of
+events. A peep into McKay's room shows that he is still absent and that
+his room-mate, if disturbed at all by the "yearling fireworks," has gone
+to sleep again. Stanley sees the commandant stride under the gas-lamp in
+the area; sees the gathering of the "bull's-eyes," and his heart
+well-nigh fails him. Still he watches until there can be no doubt that
+the inspection is already begun. Then, half credulous, all delighted, he
+notes that it is not Mr. Lee, but young Mr. Lawrence, the officer in
+charge, who is coming straight towards "B" Company, lantern in hand. Not
+waiting for the coming of the former, the colonel has directed another
+officer--not a company commander--to inspect for him.
+
+There is but one way to save Billy now.
+
+In less than half a minute Stanley has darted into McKay's room; has
+slung his chevroned coat under the bed; has slipped beneath the sheet
+and coverlet, and now, breathlessly, he listens. He hears the inspector
+moving from room to room on the ground floor; hears him spring up the
+iron stair; hears him enter his own,--the tower room at the north end of
+the hall,--and there he stops, surprised, evidently, to find Cadet
+Captain Stanley absent from his quarters. Then his steps are heard
+again. He enters the opposite room at the north end. That is all right!
+and now he's coming here. "Now for it!" says Stanley to himself, as he
+throws his white-sleeved arm over his head just as he has so often seen
+Billy do, and turning his face to the wall, burrows deep in the pillow
+and pulls the sheet well up to his chin. The door softly opens; the
+"bull's-eye" flashes its gleam first on one bed, then on the other. "All
+right here," is the inspector's mental verdict as he pops out again
+suddenly as he entered. Billy McKay, the scapegrace, is safe and Stanley
+has time to think over the situation.
+
+At the very worst, as he will be able to say he was "visiting in
+barracks" when found absent, his own punishment will not be serious. But
+this is not what troubles him. Demerit for the graduating class ceases
+to count after the 1st of June, and the individual sense of honor and
+duty is about the only restraint against lapses of discipline. Stanley
+hates to think that others may now believe him deaf to this obligation.
+He would far rather have had this happen when demerit and "confinements"
+in due proportion had been his award, but there is no use repining. It
+is a sacrifice to save--her brother.
+
+When half an hour later his classmate, the officer of the day, enters
+the tower room in search of him, Stanley is there and calmly says, "I
+was visiting in barracks," in answer to his question; and finally, when
+morning comes, Mr. Billy McKay nearly sleeps through reveille as a
+consequence of his night-prowling; but his absence, despite the
+simultaneous inspection of every company in barracks, has not been
+detected. With one exception every bed has had its apparently soundly
+sleeping occupant. The young scamps who caused all the trouble have
+escaped scot-free, and the corps can hardly believe their own ears, and
+Billy McKay is stunned and perplexed when it is noised abroad that the
+only man "hived absent" was the captain of Company "B."
+
+It so happens that both times he goes to find Stanley that day he misses
+him. "The commandant sent for him an hour ago," says Mr. McFarland, his
+room-mate, "and I'm blessed if I know what keeps him. Something about
+last night's doings, I'm afraid."
+
+This, in itself, is enough to make him worry, but the next thing he
+hears is worse. Just at evening call to quarters, Jim Burton comes to
+his room.
+
+"Have you heard anything about this report of Stanley's last night?" he
+asks, and McKay, ordinarily so frank, is guarded now in his reply. For
+half an hour he has been pacing his room alone. McFarland's revelations
+have set him to thinking. It is evident that the colonel's suspicions
+are aroused. It is probable that it is known that some cadet was
+"running it" the night before. From the simple fact that he is not
+already in arrest he knows that Mr. Lee did not recognize him, yet the
+secret has leaked out in some way, and an effort is being made to
+discover the culprit. Already he has begun to wonder if the game was
+really worth the candle. He saw her, 'tis true, and had half an hour's
+whispered chat with her, interrupted not infrequently by giggling and
+impetuous rushes from the other girls. They had sworn melodramatically
+never to reveal that it was he who came, but Billy begins to have his
+doubts. "It ends my career if I'm found out," he reflects, "whereas they
+can't do much to Stan for visiting." And thus communing with himself, he
+has decided to guard his secret against all comers,--at least for the
+present. And so he is non-committal in his reply to Burton.
+
+"What about it?" he asks.
+
+"Why, it's simply this, Billy: Little Magee, the fifer, is on orderly
+duty to-day, and he heard much of the talk, and I got it out of him.
+Somebody was running it last night, and was seen down by Cozzens's gate.
+Stanley was the only absentee, hence Stanley would naturally be the man
+suspected, but he says he wasn't out of the barracks. The conclusion is
+inevitable that he was filling the other fellow's place, and the colonel
+is hopping mad. It looks as though there were collusion between them.
+Now, Billy, all I've got to say is that the man he's shielding ought to
+step forward and relieve him at once. There comes the sentry and I must
+go."
+
+Relieve him? Yes; but what means that for me? thinks poor McKay.
+Dismissal; a heart break for mother. No! It is too much to face; he must
+think it over. He never goes near Stanley all that night. He fears to
+meet him, or the morrow. His heart misgives him when he is told that
+there has been a long conference in the office. He turns white with
+apprehension when they fall in for parade, and he notes that it is
+Phillips, their first lieutenant, who draws sword and takes command of
+the company; but a few moments later his heart gives one wild bound,
+then seems to sink into the ground beneath his feet, when the adjutant
+drops the point of his sword, lets it dangle by the gold knot at his
+wrist, whips a folded paper from his sash, and far over the plain his
+clear young voice proclaims the stern order:
+
+"Cadet Captain Stanley is hereby placed in arrest and confined to his
+quarters. Charge--conniving at concealing the absence of a cadet from
+inspection after 'taps,' eleven--eleven-fifteen P.M., on the 7th
+instant.
+
+"By order of Lieutenant-Colonel Putnam."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE LAST DANCE.
+
+
+The blithest day of all the year has come. The graduating ball takes
+place to-night. The Point is thronged with joyous visitors, and yet over
+all there hovers a shadow. In the midst of all this gayety and
+congratulation there hides a core of sorrow. Voices lower and soft eyes
+turn in sympathy when certain sad faces are seen. There is one subject
+on which the cadets simply refuse to talk, and there are two of the
+graduating class who do not appear at the hotel at all. One is Mr.
+McKay, whose absence is alleged to be because of confinements he has to
+serve; the other is Philip Stanley, still in close arrest, and the
+latter has cancelled his engagements for the ball.
+
+There had been a few days in which Miss McKay, forgetting or having
+obtained absolution for her unguarded remarks on the promenade deck of
+the steamer, had begun to be seen a great deal with Miss Stanley. She
+had even blushingly shaken hands with big Lieutenant Lee, whose kind
+brown eyes were full of fun and playfulness whenever he greeted her. But
+it was noticed that something, all of a sudden, had occurred to mar the
+growing intimacy; then that the once blithe little lady was looking
+white and sorrowful; that she avoided Miss Stanley for two whole days,
+and that her blue eyes watched wistfully for some one who did not
+come,--"Mr. Stanley, no doubt," was the diagnosis of the case by "Miss
+Mischief" and others.
+
+Then, like a thunder-clap, came the order for Phil Stanley's arrest, and
+then there were other sad faces. Miriam Stanley's dark eyes were not
+only troubled, but down in their depths was a gleam of suppressed
+indignation that people knew not how to explain. Colonel Stanley, to
+whom every one had been drawn from the first, now appeared very stern
+and grave; the joy had vanished from his face. Mrs. McKay was flitting
+about the parlors tearfully thankful that "it wasn't her boy." Nannie
+had grown whiter still, and very "absent" and silent. Mr. Lee did not
+come at all.
+
+Then there was startling news! An outbreak, long smouldering, had just
+occurred at the great reservation of the Spirit Wolf; the agent and
+several of his men had been massacred, their women carried away into a
+captivity whose horrors beggar all description, and two troops--hardly
+sixscore men--of Colonel Stanley's regiment were already in pursuit.
+Leaving his daughter to the care of an old friend at Craney's, and after
+a brief interview with his boy at barracks, the old soldier who had come
+eastward with such glad anticipation turned promptly back to the field
+of duty. He had taken the first train and was already beyond the
+Missouri. Almost immediately after the colonel's departure, Mr. Lee had
+come to the hotel and was seen to have a brief but earnest talk with
+Miss Stanley on the north piazza,--a talk from which she had gone
+direct to her room and did not reappear for hours, while he, who
+usually had a genial, kindly word for every one, had turned abruptly
+down the north steps as though to avoid the crowded halls and piazzas,
+and so returned to the barracks.
+
+But now, this lovely June morning the news from the far West is still
+more direful. Hundreds of savages have taken the war-path, and murder is
+the burden of every tale from around their reservation, but--this is the
+day of "last parade" and the graduating ball, and people cannot afford
+time to think of such grewsome matter. All the same, they note that Mr.
+Lee comes no more to the hotel, and a rumor is in circulation that he
+has begged to be relieved from duty at the Point and ordered to join his
+troop now in the field against hostile Indians.
+
+Nannie McKay is looking like a pathetic shadow of her former self as she
+comes down-stairs to fulfil an engagement with a cadet admirer. She
+neglects no duty of the kind towards Willy's friends and hers, but she
+is drooping and listless. Uncle Jack is worried about her; so, too, is
+mamma, though the latter is so wrapped up in the graduation of her boy
+that she has little time to think of pallid cheeks and mournful eyes. It
+is all arranged that they are to sail for Europe the 1st of July, and
+the sea air, the voyage across, the new sights and associations on the
+other side, will "bring her round again," says that observant
+"avuncular" hopefully. He is compelled to be at his office in the city
+much of the time, but comes up this day as a matter of course, and has a
+brief chat with his graceless nephew at the guard-house. Billy's utter
+lack of spirits sets Uncle Jack to thinking. The boy says he can "tell
+him nothing just now," and Uncle Jack feels well assured that he has a
+good deal to tell. He goes in search of Lieutenant Lee, for whom he has
+conceived a great fancy, but the big lieutenant has gone to the city on
+business. In the crowded hall at the hotel he meets Miriam Stanley, and
+her face gives him another pound of trouble to carry.
+
+"You are going to the ball, though?" he hears a lady say to her, and
+Miriam shakes her head.
+
+Ball, indeed!--or last parade, either! She knows she cannot bear to see
+the class march to the front, and her brother not there. She cannot bear
+the thought of even looking on at the ball, if Philip is to be debarred
+from attending. Her thoughts have been very bitter for a few days past.
+Her father's intense but silent distress and regret; Philip's certain
+detention after the graduation of his class; his probable court-martial
+and loss of rank; the knowledge that he had incurred it all to save
+McKay (and everybody by this time felt that it _must_ be Billy McKay,
+though no one could prove it), all have conspired to make her very
+unhappy and very unjust to Mr. Lee. Philip has told her that Mr. Lee had
+no alternative in reporting to the commandant his discovery "down the
+road," but she had believed herself of sufficient value in that
+officer's brown eyes to induce him to at least postpone any mention of
+that piece of accidental knowledge; and though, in her heart of hearts,
+she knows she respects him the more because she could not prevail
+against his sense of duty, she is stung to the quick, and, womanlike,
+has made him feel it.
+
+It must be in sympathy with her sorrows that, late this afternoon, the
+heavens open and pour their floods upon the plain. Hundreds of people
+are bemoaning the fact that now there can be no graduating parade. Down
+in barracks the members of the class are busily packing trunks, trying
+on civilian garb, and rushing about in much excitement. In more senses
+than one Phil Stanley's room is a centre of gravity. The commandant at
+ten o'clock had sent for him and given him final opportunity to state
+whose place he occupied during the inspection of that now memorable
+night, and he had respectfully but firmly declined. There was then no
+alternative but the withdrawal of his diploma and his detention at the
+Point to await the action of the Secretary of War upon the charges
+preferred against him. "The Class," of course, knew by this time that
+McKay was the man whom he had saved, for after one day of torment and
+indecision that hapless youth had called in half a dozen of his comrades
+and made a clean breast of it. It was then his deliberate intention to
+go to the commandant and beg for Stanley's release, and to offer himself
+as the culprit. But Stanley had thought the problem out and gravely
+interposed. It could really do no practical good to him and would only
+result in disaster to McKay. No one could have anticipated the luckless
+chain of circumstances that had led to his own arrest, but now he must
+face the consequences. After long consultation the young counsellors had
+decided on the plan. "There is only one thing for us to do: keep the
+matter quiet. There is only one thing for Billy to do: keep a stiff
+upper lip; graduate with the class, then go to Washington with 'Uncle
+Jack,' and bestir their friends in Congress,"--not just then assembled,
+but always available. There was never yet a time when a genuine "pull"
+from Senate and House did not triumph over the principles of military
+discipline.
+
+A miserable man is Billy! For a week he has moped in barracks, forbidden
+by Stanley and his advisers to admit anything, yet universally suspected
+of being the cause of all the trouble. He, too, wishes to cancel his
+engagements for the graduating ball, and thinks something ought to be
+done to those young idiots of yearlings who set off the torpedo.
+"Nothing could have gone wrong but for them," says he; but the wise
+heads of the class promptly snub him into silence. "You've simply got to
+do as we say in this matter, Billy. You've done enough mischief
+already." And so it results that the message he sends by Uncle Jack is:
+"Tell mother and Nan I'll meet them at the 'hop.' My confinements end at
+eight o'clock, but there's no use in my going to the hotel and tramping
+through the mud." The truth is, he cannot bear to meet Miriam Stanley,
+and 'twould be just his luck.
+
+One year ago no happier, bonnier, brighter face could have been seen at
+the Point than that of Nannie McKay. To-night, in all the throng of fair
+women and lovely girls, gathered with their soldier escort in the great
+mess-hall, there is none so sad. She tries hard to be chatty and
+smiling, but is too frank and honest a little soul to have much success.
+The dances that Phil Stanley had engaged months and months ago are
+accredited now to other names, and blissful young fellows in gray and
+gold come successively to claim them. But deep down in her heart she
+remembers the number of each. It was he who was to have been her escort.
+It was he who made out her card and gave it to her only a day or two
+before that fatal interview. It was he who was to have had the last
+waltz--the very last--that he would dance in the old cadet gray; and
+though new names have been substituted for his in other cases, this
+waltz she meant to keep. Well knowing that there would be many to beg
+for it, she has written Willy's name for "Stanley," and duly warned him
+of the fact. Then, when it comes, she means to escape to the
+dressing-room, for she is promptly told that her brother is engaged to
+Miss Waring for that very waltz. Light as are her feet, she never yet
+has danced with so heavy a heart. The rain still pours, driving
+everybody within doors. The heat is intense. The hall is crowded, and it
+frequently happens that partners cannot find her until near the end of
+their number on that dainty card. But every one has something to say
+about Phil Stanley and the universal regret at his absence. It is
+getting to be more than she can bear,--this prolonged striving to
+respond with proper appreciation and sympathy, yet not say too
+much,--not betray the secret that is now burning, throbbing in her
+girlish heart. He does not dream it, but there, hidden beneath the soft
+lace upon her snowy neck, lies that "knot of ribbon blue" which she so
+laughingly had given him, at his urging, the last day of her visit the
+previous year; the knot which he had so loyally treasured and then so
+sadly returned. A trifling, senseless thing to make such an ado about,
+but these hearts are young and ardent, and this romance of his has many
+a counterpart, the memory of which may bring to war-worn, grizzled
+heads to-day a blush almost of shame, and would surely bring to many an
+old and sometimes aching heart a sigh. Hoping against hope, poor Nannie
+has thought it just possible that at the last moment the authorities
+would relent and he be allowed to attend. If so,--if so, angry and
+justly angered though he might be, cut to the heart though he expressed
+himself, has she not here the means to call him back?--to bid him come
+and know how contrite she is? Hour after hour she glances at the broad
+archway at the east, yearning to see his dark, handsome face among the
+new-comers,--all in vain. Time and again she encounters Sallie Waring,
+brilliant, bewitching, in the most ravishing of toilets, and always with
+half a dozen men about her. Twice she notices Will among them with a
+face gloomy and rebellious, and, hardly knowing why, she almost hates
+her.
+
+At last comes the waltz that was to have been Philip's,--the waltz she
+has saved for his sake though he cannot claim it. Mr. Pennock, who has
+danced the previous galop with her, sees the leader raising his baton,
+bethinks him of his next partner, and leaves her at the open window
+close to the dressing-room door. There she can have a breath of fresh
+air, and, hiding behind the broad backs of several bulky officers and
+civilians, listen undisturbed to the music she longed to enjoy with him.
+Here, to her surprise, Will suddenly joins her.
+
+"I thought you were engaged to Miss Waring for this," she says.
+
+"I was," he answers, savagely; "but I'm well out of it. I resigned in
+favor of a big 'cit' who's worth only twenty thousand a year, Nan, and
+she has been engaged to him all this time and never let me know until
+to-night."
+
+"_Willy!_" she gasps. "Oh! I'm so glad--sorry, I mean! I never _did_
+like her."
+
+"_I_ did, Nan, more's the pity. I'm not the first she's made a fool of;"
+and he turns away, hiding the chagrin in his young face. They are
+practically alone in this sheltered nook. Crowds are around them, but
+looking the other way. The rain is dripping from the trees without and
+pattering on the stone flags. McKay leans out into the night, and the
+sister's loving heart yearns over him in his trouble.
+
+"Willy," she says, laying the little white-gloved hand on his arm, "it's
+hard to bear, but she isn't worthy _any_ man's love. Twice I've heard in
+the last two days that she makes a boast of it that 'twas to see her
+that some one risked his commission and so--kept Mr. Stanley from being
+here to-night. Willy, _do_ you know who it was? _Don't_ you think he
+ought to have come forward like a gentleman, days ago, and told the
+truth? _Will!_ What is it? _Don't_ look so! Speak to me, Willy,--your
+little Nan. Was there ever a time, dear, when my whole heart wasn't open
+to you in love and sympathy?"
+
+And now, just at this minute, the music begins again. Soft, sweet, yet
+with such a strain of pathos and of sadness running through every chord;
+it is the loveliest of all the waltzes played in his "First Class
+Camp,"--the one of all others he most loved to hear. Her heart almost
+bursts now to think of him in his lonely room, beyond hearing of the
+melody that is so dear to him, that is now so passionately dear to
+her,--"Love's Sigh." Doubtless, Philip had asked the leader days ago to
+play it here and at no other time. It is more than enough to start the
+tears long welling in her eyes. For an instant it turns her from thought
+of Willy's own heartache.
+
+"Will!" she whispers, desperately. "This was to have been Philip
+Stanley's waltz--and I want you to take--something to him for me."
+
+He turns back to her again, his hands clinched, his teeth set, still
+thinking only of his own bitter humiliation,--of how that girl has
+fooled and jilted him,--of how for her sake he had brought all this
+trouble on his stanchest friend.
+
+"Phil Stanley!" he exclaims. "By heaven! it makes me nearly mad to think
+of it!--and all for her sake,--all through me. Oh, Nan! Nan! I _must_
+tell you! It was for me,--to save me that----"
+
+"_Willy!_" and there is almost horror in her wide blue eyes.
+"_Willy!_" she gasps--"oh, _don't_--don't tell me _that_!
+Oh, it isn't _true_? Not you--not you, Willy. Not my brother! Oh,
+quick! Tell me."
+
+Startled, alarmed, he seizes her hand.
+
+"Little sister! What--what has happened--what is----"
+
+But there is no time for more words. The week of misery; the piteous
+strain of the long evening; the sweet, sad, wailing melody,--his
+favorite waltz; the sudden, stunning revelation that it was for Willy's
+sake that he--her hero--was now to suffer, he whose heart she had
+trampled on and crushed! It is all more than mortal girl can bear. With
+the beautiful strains moaning, whirling, ringing, surging through her
+brain, she is borne dizzily away into darkness and oblivion.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+There follows a week in which sadder faces yet are seen about the old
+hotel. The routine of the Academy goes on undisturbed. The graduating
+class has taken its farewell of the gray walls and gone upon its way.
+New faces, new voices are those in the line of officers at parade. The
+corps has pitched its white tents under the trees beyond the grassy
+parapet of Fort Clinton, and, with the graduates and furlough-men gone,
+its ranks look pitifully thinned. The throng of visitors has vanished.
+The halls and piazzas at Craney's are well-nigh deserted, but among the
+few who linger there is not one who has not loving inquiry for the young
+life that for a brief while has fluttered so near the grave. "Brain
+fever," said the doctors to Uncle Jack, and a new anxiety was lined in
+his kindly face as he and Will McKay sped on their mission to the
+Capitol. They had to go, though little Nan lay sore stricken at the
+Point.
+
+But youth and elasticity triumph. The danger is passed. She lies now,
+very white and still, listening to the sweet strains of the band
+trooping down the line this soft June evening. Her mother, worn with
+watching, is resting on the lounge. It is Miriam Stanley who hovers at
+the bedside. Presently the bugles peal the retreat; the sunset gun booms
+across the plain; the ringing voice of the young adjutant comes floating
+on the southerly breeze, and, as she listens, Nannie follows every
+detail of the well-known ceremony, wondering how it _could_ go on day
+after day with no Mr. Pennock to read the orders; with no "big Burton"
+to thunder his commands to the first company; with no Philip Stanley to
+march the colors to their place on the line. "Where is _he_?" is the
+question in the sweet blue eyes that so wistfully seek his sister's
+face; but she answers not. One by one the first sergeants made their
+reports; and now--that ringing voice again, reading the orders of the
+day. How clear it sounds! How hushed and still the listening Point!
+
+"Head-quarters of the Army," she hears. "Washington, June 15, 187-.
+Special orders, Number--.
+
+"_First._ Upon his own application, First Lieutenant George Romney Lee,
+--th Cavalry, is hereby relieved from duty at the U. S. Military
+Academy, and will join his troop now in the field against hostile
+Indians.
+
+"_Second._ Upon the recommendation of the Superintendent U. S. Military
+Academy, the charges preferred against Cadet Captain Philip S. Stanley
+are withdrawn. Cadet Stanley will be considered as graduated with his
+class on the 12th instant, will be released from arrest, and authorized
+to avail himself of the leave of absence granted his class."
+
+Nannie starts from her pillow, clasping in her thin white fingers the
+soft hand that would have restrained her.
+
+"Miriam!" she cries. "Then--will he go?"
+
+The dark, proud face bends down to her; clasping arms encircle the
+little white form, and Miriam Stanley's very heart wails forth in
+answer,--
+
+"Oh, Nannie! He is almost there by this time,--both of them. They left
+to join the regiment three days ago; their orders came by telegraph."
+
+Another week, and Uncle Jack is again with them. The doctors agree that
+the ocean voyage is now not only advisable, but necessary. They are to
+move their little patient to the city and board their steamer in a day
+or two. Will has come to them, full of disgust that he has been assigned
+to the artillery, and filling his mother's heart with dismay because he
+is begging for a transfer to the cavalry, to the --th Regiment,--of all
+others,--now plunged in the whirl of an Indian war. Every day the papers
+come freighted with rumors of fiercer fighting; but little that is
+reliable can be heard from "Sabre Stanley" and his column. They are far
+beyond telegraphic communication, hemmed in by "hostiles" on every side.
+
+Uncle Jack is an early riser. Going down for his paper before breakfast,
+he is met at the foot of the stairs by a friend who points to the
+head-lines of the _Herald_, with the simple remark, "Isn't this hard?"
+
+It is brief enough, God knows.
+
+"A courier just in from Colonel Stanley's camp brings the startling news
+that Lieutenant Philip Stanley, --th Cavalry, with two scouts and a
+small escort, who left here Sunday, hoping to push through to the Spirit
+Wolf, were ambushed by the Indians in Black Cañon. Their bodies, scalped
+and mutilated, were found Wednesday night."
+
+Where, then, was Romney Lee?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+BLACK CAÑON.
+
+
+The red sun is going down behind the line of distant buttes, throwing
+long shadows out across the grassy upland. Every crest and billow of the
+prairie is bathed in crimson and gold, while the "breaks" and ravines
+trending southward grow black and forbidding in their contrasted gloom.
+Far over to the southeast, in dazzling radiance, two lofty peaks, still
+snow-clad, gleam against the summer sky, and at their feet dark waves of
+forest-covered foot-hills drink in the last rays of the waning sunshine
+as though hoarding its treasured warmth against the chill of coming
+night. Already the evening air, rare and exhilarating at this great
+altitude, loses the sun-god's touch and strikes upon the cheek keen as
+the ether of the limitless heavens. A while ago, only in the distant
+valley winding to the south could foliage be seen. Now, all in those
+depths is merged in sombre shade, and not a leaf or tree breaks for
+miles the grand monotony. Close at hand a host of tiny mounds, each
+tipped with reddish gold, and some few further ornamented by miniature
+sentry, alert and keen-eyed, tell of a prairie township already laid out
+and thickly populated; and at this moment every sentry is chipping his
+pert, querulous challenge until the disturbers of the peace are close
+upon him, then diving headlong into the bowels of the earth.
+
+A dun cloud of dust rolls skyward along a well-worn cavalry trail, and
+is whirled into space by the hoofs of sixty panting chargers trotting
+steadily south. Sixty sunburned, dust-covered troopers ride grimly on,
+following the lead of a tall soldier whose kind brown eyes peer
+anxiously from under his scouting-hat. It is just as they pass the
+village of the prairie dogs that he points to the low valley down to the
+front and questions the "plainsman" who lopes along by his side,--
+
+"That Black Cañon down yonder?"
+
+"That's it, lieutenant: I didn't think you could make it to-night."
+
+"We _had_ to," is the simple reply as again the spur touches the jaded
+flank and evokes only a groan in response.
+
+"How far from here to--the Springs?" he presently asks again.
+
+"Box Elder?--where they found the bodies?--'bout five mile, sir."
+
+"Where away was that signal smoke we saw at the divide?"
+
+"Must have been from those bluffs--east of the Springs, sir."
+
+Lieutenant Lee whips out his watch and peers at the dial through the
+twilight. The cloud deepens on his haggard, handsome face. Eight
+o'clock, and they have been in saddle almost incessantly since yesterday
+afternoon, weighed down with the tidings of the fell disaster that has
+robbed them of their comrades, and straining every nerve to reach the
+scene.
+
+Only five days before, as he stepped from the railway car at the supply
+station, a wagon-train had come in from the front escorted by Mr. Lee's
+own troop; his captain with it, wounded. Just as soon as it could reload
+with rations and ammunition the train was to start on its eight days'
+journey to the Spirit Wolf, where Colonel Stanley and the --th were
+bivouacked and scouring the neighboring mountains. Already a battalion
+of infantry was at the station, another was on its way, and supplies
+were being hurried forward. Captain Gregg brought the first reliable
+news. The Indians had apparently withdrawn from the road. The
+wagon-train had come through unmolested, and Colonel Stanley was
+expecting to push forward into their fastnesses farther south the moment
+he could obtain authority from head-quarters. With these necessary
+orders two couriers had started just twelve hours before. The captain
+was rejoiced to see his favorite lieutenant and to welcome Philip
+Stanley to the regiment. "Everybody seemed to feel that you too would be
+coming right along," he said; "but, Phil, my boy, I'm afraid you're too
+late for the fun. You cannot catch the command before it starts from
+Spirit Wolf."
+
+And yet this was just what Phil had tried to do. Lee knew nothing of his
+plan until everything had been arranged between the young officer and
+the major commanding the temporary camp at the station. Then it was too
+late to protest. While it was Mr. Lee's duty to remain and escort the
+train, Philip Stanley, with two scouts and half a dozen troopers, had
+pushed out to overtake the regiment two hundred miles away. Forty-eight
+hours later, as the wagon-train with its guard was slowly crawling
+southward, it was met by a courier with ghastly face. He was one of
+three who had started from the ruined agency together. They met no
+Indians, but at Box Elder Springs had come upon the bodies of a little
+party of soldiers stripped, scalped, gashed, and mutilated,--nine in
+all. There could be little doubt that they were those of poor Philip and
+his new-found comrades. The courier had recognized two of the bodies as
+those of Forbes and Whiting,--the scouts who had gone with the party;
+the others he did not know at all.
+
+Parking his train then and there, sending back to the railway for an
+infantry company to hasten forward and take charge of it, Mr. Lee never
+hesitated as to his own course. He and his troop pushed on at once. And
+now, worn, weary, but determined, the little command is just in sight of
+the deep ravine known to frontiersmen for years as Black Cañon. It was
+through here that Stanley and his battalion had marched a fortnight
+since. It was along this very trail that Phil and his party, pressing
+eagerly on to join the regiment, rode down into its dark depths and were
+ambushed at the Springs. From all indications, said the courier, they
+must have unsaddled for a brief rest, probably just at nightfall; but
+the Indians had left little to aid them in forming an opinion. Utterly
+unnerved by the sight, his two associates had turned back to rejoin
+Stanley's column, while he, the third, had decided to make for the
+railway. Unless those men, too, had been cut off, the regiment by this
+time knew of the tragic fate of some of their comrades, but the colonel
+was mercifully spared all dread that one of the victims was his only
+son.
+
+Nine were in the party when they started. Nine bodies were lying there
+when the couriers reached the Springs, and now nine are lying here
+to-night when, just after moonrise, Romney Lee dismounts and bends sadly
+over them, one after another. The prairie wolves have been here first,
+adding mutilation to the butchery of their human prototypes. There is
+little chance, in this pallid light and with these poor remnants, to
+make identification a possibility. All vestiges of uniform, arms, and
+equipment have been carried away, and such underclothing as remains has
+been torn to shreds by the herd of snarling, snapping brutes which is
+driven off only by the rush of the foremost troopers, and is now
+dispersed all over the cañon and far up the heights beyond the outposts,
+yelping indignant protest.
+
+There can be no doubt as to the number slain. All the nine are here, and
+Mr. Lee solemnly pencils the despatch that is to go back to the railway
+so soon as a messenger and his horse can get a few hours' needed rest.
+Before daybreak the man is away, meeting on his lonely ride other
+comrades hurrying to the front, to whom he briefly gives confirmation of
+the first report. Before the setting of the second sun he has reached
+his journey's end, and the telegraph is flashing the mournful details to
+the distant East, and so, when the "Servia" slowly glides from her
+moorings and turns her prow towards the sparkling sea, Nannie McKay is
+sobbing her heart out alone in her little white state-room, crushing
+with her kisses, bathing with her tears, the love-knot she had given her
+soldier boy less than a year before.
+
+Another night comes around. Tiny fires are glowing down in the dark
+depths of Black Cañon, showing red through the frosty gleam of the
+moonlight. Under the silvery rays nine new-made graves are ranked along
+the turf, guarded by troopers whose steeds are browsing close at hand.
+Silence and sadness reign in the little bivouac where Lee and his
+comrades await the coming of the train they had left three days before.
+It will be here on the morrow, early, and then they must push ahead and
+bear their heavy tidings to the regiment. He has written one sorrowing
+letter--and what a letter to have to write to the woman he loves!--to
+tell Miriam that he has been unable to identify any one of the bodies as
+that of her gallant young brother, yet is compelled to believe him to
+lie there, one of the stricken nine. And now he must face the father
+with this bitter news! Romney Lee's sore heart fails him at the
+prospect, and he cannot sleep. Good heaven! _Can_ it be that three weeks
+only have passed away since the night of that lovely yet ill-fated
+carriage-ride down through Highland Falls, down beyond picturesque
+Hawkshurst?
+
+Out on the bluffs, though he cannot see them, and up and down the cañon,
+vigilant sentries guard this solemn bivouac. No sign of Indian has been
+seen except the hoof-prints of a score of ponies and the bloody relics
+of their direful visit. No repetition of the signal-smokes has greeted
+their watchful eyes. It looks as though this outlying band of warriors
+had noted his coming, had sent up their warning to others of their
+tribe, and then scattered for the mountains at the south. All the same,
+as he rode the bluff lines at nightfall, Mr. Lee had charged the
+sentries to be alert with eye and ear, and to allow none to approach
+unchallenged.
+
+The weary night wears on. The young moon has ridden down in the west and
+sunk behind that distant bluff line. All is silent as the graves around
+which his men are slumbering, and at last, worn with sorrow and vigil,
+Lee rolls himself in his blanket and, still booted and spurred,
+stretches his feet towards the little watch-fire, and pillows his head
+upon the saddle. Down the stream the horses are already beginning to tug
+at their lariats and struggle to their feet, that they may crop the
+dew-moistened bunch grass. Far out upon the chill night air the yelping
+challenge of the coyotes is heard, but the sentries give no sign.
+Despite grief and care, Nature asserts her sway and is fast lulling Lee
+to sleep, when, away up on the heights to the northwest, there leaps out
+a sudden lurid flash and, a second after, the loud ring of the cavalry
+carbine comes echoing down the cañon. Lee springs to his feet and seizes
+his rifle. The first shot is quickly followed by a second; the men are
+tumbling up from their blankets and, with the instinct of old
+campaigners, thrusting cartridges into the opened chambers.
+
+"Keep your men together here, sergeant," is the brief order, and in a
+moment more Lee is spurring upward along an old game trail. Just under
+the crest he overtakes a sergeant hurrying northward.
+
+"What is it? Who fired?" he asks.
+
+"Morris fired, sir: I don't know why. He is the farthest post up the
+bluffs."
+
+Together they reach a young trooper, crouching in the pallid dawn behind
+a jagged parapet of rock, and eagerly demanded the cause of the alarm.
+The sentry is quivering with excitement.
+
+"An Indian, sir! Not a hundred yards out there! I seen him plain enough
+to swear to it. He rose up from behind that point yonder and started out
+over the prairie, and I up and fired."
+
+"Did you challenge?"
+
+"No, sir," answers the young soldier, simply. "He was going away. He
+couldn't understand me if I had,--leastwise I couldn't 'a understood
+him. He ran like a deer the moment I fired, and was out of sight almost
+before I could send another shot."
+
+Lee and the sergeant push out along the crest, their arms at "ready,"
+their keen eyes searching every dip in the surface. Close to the edge of
+the cañon, perhaps a hundred yards away, they come upon a little ledge,
+behind which, under the bluff, it is possible for an Indian to steal
+unnoticed towards their sentries and to peer into the depths below. Some
+one has been here within a few minutes, watching, stretched prone upon
+the turf, for Lee finds it dry and almost warm, while all around the
+bunch grass is heavy with dew. Little by little as the light grows
+warmer in the east and aids them in their search, they can almost trace
+the outline of a recumbent human form. Presently the west wind begins to
+blow with greater strength, and they note the mass of clouds, gray and
+frowning, that is banked against the sky. Out on the prairie not a
+moving object can be seen, though the eye can reach a good rifle-shot
+away. Down in the darkness of the cañon the watch-fires still smoulder
+and the men still wait. There comes no further order from the heights.
+Lee, with the sergeant, is now bending over faint footprints just
+discernible in the pallid light.
+
+Suddenly up he starts and gazes eagerly out to the west. The sergeant,
+too, at the same instant, leaps towards his commander. Distant, but
+distinct, two quick shots have been fired far over among those tumbling
+buttes and ridges lying there against the horizon. Before either man
+could speak or question, there comes another, then another, then two or
+three in quick succession, the sound of firing thick and fast.
+
+"It's a fight, sir, sure!" cries the sergeant, eagerly.
+
+"To horse, then,--quick!" is the answer, as the two soldiers bound back
+to the trail.
+
+"Saddle up, men!" rings the order, shouted down the rocky flanks of the
+ravine. There is instant response in the neigh of excited horses, the
+clatter of iron-shod hoofs. Through the dim light the men go rushing,
+saddles and bridles in hand, each to where he has driven his own picket
+pin. Promptly the steeds are girthed and bitted. Promptly the men come
+running back to the bivouac, seizing and slinging carbines, then leading
+into line. A brief word of command, another of caution, and then the
+whole troop is mounted and, following its leader, rides ghost-like up a
+winding ravine that enters the cañon from the west and goes spurring to
+the high plateau beyond. Once there the eager horses have ample room;
+the springing turf invites their speed. "Front into line" they sweep at
+rapid gallop, and then, with Lee well out before them, with carbines
+advanced, with hearts beating high, with keen eyes flashing, and every
+ear strained for sound of the fray, away they bound. There's a fight
+ahead! Some one needs their aid, and there's not a man in all old "B"
+troop who does not mean to avenge those new-made graves. Up a little
+slope they ride, all eyes fixed on Lee. They see him reach the ridge,
+sweep gallantly over, then, with ringing cheer, turn in saddle, wave his
+revolver high in air, clap spur to his horse's flank and go darting down
+the other side.
+
+"Come _on_, lads!"
+
+Ay, on it is! One wild race for the crest, one headland charge down the
+slope beyond, and they are rolling over a band of yelling, scurrying,
+savage horsemen, whirling them away over the opposite ridge, driving
+them helter-skelter over the westward prairie, until all who escape the
+shock of the onset or the swift bullet in the raging chase finally
+vanish from their sight; and then, obedient to the ringing "recall" of
+the trumpet, slowly they return, gathering again in the little ravine;
+and there, wondering, rejoicing, jubilant, they cluster at the entrance
+of a deep cleft in the rocks, where, bleeding from a bullet-wound in the
+arm, but with a world of thankfulness and joy in his handsome face,
+their leader stands, clasping Philip Stanley, pallid, faint, well-nigh
+starved, but--God be praised!--safe and unscathed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+CAPTURED.
+
+
+How the tidings of that timely rescue thrill through every heart at old
+Fort Warrener! There are gathered the wives and children of the
+regiment. There is the colonel's home, silent and darkened for that one
+long week, then ringing with joy and congratulation, with gladness and
+thanksgiving. Miriam again is there, suddenly lifted from the depths of
+sorrow to a wealth of bliss she had no words to express. Day and night
+the little army coterie flocked about her to hear again and again the
+story of Philip's peril and his final rescue, and then to exclaim over
+Romney Lee's gallantry and devotion. It was all so bewildering. For a
+week they had mourned their colonel's only son as dead and buried. The
+wondrous tale of his discovery sounded simply fabulous, and yet was
+simply true. Hurrying forward from the railway, the little party had
+been joined by two young frontiersmen eager to obtain employment with
+the scouts of Stanley's column. Halting just at sunset for brief rest at
+Box Elder Springs, the lieutenant with Sergeant Harris had climbed the
+bluffs to search for Indian signal fires. It was nearly dark when on
+their return they were amazed to hear the sound of fire-arms in the
+cañon, and were themselves suddenly attacked and completely cut off from
+their comrades. Stanley's horse was shot; but Sergeant Harris, though
+himself wounded, helped his young officer to mount behind him, and
+galloped back into the darkness, where they evaded their pursuers by
+turning loose their horse and groping in among the rocks. Here they hid
+all night and all next day in the deep cleft where Lee had found them,
+listening to the shouts and signals of a swarm of savage foes. At last
+the sounds seemed to die away, the Indians to disappear, and then
+hunger, thirst, and the feverish delirium of the sergeant, who was
+tortured for want of water, drove Stanley forth in hopes of reaching
+the cañon. Fired at, as he supposed, by Indians, he was speedily back in
+his lair again, but was there almost as speedily tracked and besieged.
+For a while he was able to keep the foe at bay, but Lee had come just in
+the nick of time; only two cartridges were left, and poor Harris was
+nearly gone.
+
+A few weeks later, while the --th is still on duty rounding up the
+Indians in the mountains, the wounded are brought home to Warrener.
+There are not many, for only the first detachment of two small troops
+had had any serious engagement; but the surgeons say that Mr. Lee's arm
+is so badly crippled that he can do no field work for several months,
+and he had best go in to the railway. And now he is at Warrener; and
+here, one lovely moonlit summer's evening, he is leaning on the gate in
+front of the colonel's quarters, utterly regardless of certain
+injunctions as to avoiding exposure to the night air. Good Mrs. Wilton,
+the major's wife,--who, army fashion, is helping Miriam keep house in
+her father's absence,--has gone in before "to light up," she says,
+though it is too late for callers; and they have been spending a long
+evening at Captain Gregg's, "down the row." It is Miriam who keeps the
+tall lieutenant at the gate. She has said good-night, yet lingers. He
+has been there several days, his arm still in its sling, and not once
+has she had a word with him alone till now. Some one has told her that
+he has asked for leave of absence to go East and settle some business
+affairs he had to leave abruptly when hurrying to take part in the
+campaign. If this be true is it not time to be making her peace?
+
+The moonlight throws a brilliant sheen on all surrounding objects, yet
+she stands in the shade, bowered in a little archway of vines that
+overhangs the gate. He has been strangely silent during the brief walk
+homeward, and now, so far from following into the shadows as she half
+hoped he might do, he stands without, the flood of moonlight falling
+full upon his stalwart figure. Two months ago he would not thus have
+held aloof, yet now he is half extending his hand as though in adieu.
+She cannot fathom this strange silence on the part of him who so long
+has been devoted as a lover. She knows well it cannot be because of her
+injustice to him at the Point that he is unrelenting now. Her eyes have
+told him how earnestly she repents: and does he not always read her
+eyes? Only in faltering words, in the presence of others all too
+interested, has she been able to speak her thanks for Philip's rescue.
+She cannot see now that what he fears from her change of mood is that
+gratitude for her brother's safety, not a woman's response to the
+passionate love in his deep heart, is the impulse of this sweet,
+half-shy, half-entreating manner. He cannot sue for love from a girl
+weighted with a sense of obligation. He knows that lingering here is
+dangerous, yet he cannot go. When friends are silent 'tis time for chats
+to close: but there is a silence that at such a time as this only bids a
+man to speak, and speak boldly. Yet Lee is dumb.
+
+Once--over a year ago--he had come to the colonel's quarters to seek
+permission to visit the neighboring town on some sudden errand. She had
+met him at the door with the tidings that her father had been feeling
+far from well during the morning, and was now taking a nap.
+
+"Won't I do for commanding officer this time?" she had laughingly
+inquired.
+
+"I would ask no better fate--for all time," was his prompt reply, and he
+spoke too soon. Though neither ever forgot the circumstance, she would
+never again permit allusion to it. But to-night it is uppermost in her
+mind. She _must_ know if it be true that he is going.
+
+"Tell me," she suddenly asks, "have you applied for leave of absence?"
+
+"Yes," he answers, simply.
+
+"And you are going--soon?"
+
+"I am going to-morrow," is the utterly unlooked-for reply.
+
+"To-morrow! Why--Mr. Lee!"
+
+There can be no mistaking the shock it gives her, and still he stands
+and makes no sign. It is cruel of him! What has she said or done to
+deserve penance like this? He is still holding out his hand as though in
+adieu, and she lays hers, fluttering, in the broad palm.
+
+"I--I thought all applications had to be made to--your commanding
+officer," she says at last, falteringly, yet archly.
+
+"Major Wilton forwarded mine on Monday. I asked him to say nothing about
+it. The answer came by wire to-day."
+
+"Major Wilton is _post_ commander; but--did you not--a year----?"
+
+"Did I not?" he speaks in eager joy. "Do you mean you have not
+forgotten _that_? Do you mean that now--for all time--my first
+allegiance shall be to you, Miriam?"
+
+No answer for a minute; but her hand is still firmly clasped in his. At
+last,--
+
+"Don't you think you ought to have asked me, before applying for leave
+to go?"
+
+Mr. Lee is suddenly swallowed up in the gloom of that shaded bower under
+the trellis-work, though a radiance as of mid-day is shining through his
+heart.
+
+But soon he has to go. Mrs. Wilton is on the veranda, urging them to
+come in out of the chill night air. Those papers on his desk must be
+completed and filed this very night. He told her this.
+
+"To-morrow, early, I will be here," he murmurs. "And now, good-night, my
+own."
+
+But she does not seek to draw her hand away. Slowly he moves back into
+the bright moonbeams and she follows part way. One quick glance she
+gives as her hand is released and he raises his forage cap. It is _such_
+a disadvantage to have but one arm at such a time! She sees that Mrs.
+Wilton is at the other end of the veranda.
+
+"Good-night," she whispers. "I--know you _must_ go."
+
+"I must. There is so much to be done."
+
+"I--thought"--another quick glance at the piazza--"that a soldier, on
+leaving, should--salute his commanding officer?"
+
+And Romney Lee is again in shadow and--in sunshine.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+Late that autumn, in one of his infrequent letters to his devoted
+mother, Mr. McKay finds time to allude to the news of Lieutenant Lee's
+approaching marriage to Miss Stanley.
+
+"Phil is, of course, immensely pleased," he writes, "and from all I hear
+I suppose Mr. Lee is a very different fellow from what we thought six
+months ago. Pennock says I always had a wrong idea of him; but Pennock
+thinks all my ideas about the officers appointed over me are absurd. He
+likes old Pelican, our battery commander, who is just the crankiest,
+crabbedest, sore-headedest captain in all the artillery, and that is
+saying a good deal. I wish I'd got into the cavalry at the start; but
+there's no use in trying now. The --th is the only regiment I wanted;
+but they have to go to reveille and stables before breakfast, which
+wouldn't suit me at all.
+
+"Hope Nan's better. A winter in the Riviera will set her up again.
+Stanley asks after her when he writes, but he has rather dropped me of
+late. I suppose it's because I was too busy to answer, though he ought
+to know that in New York harbor a fellow has no time for scribbling,
+whereas, out on the plains they have nothing else to do. He sent me his
+picture a while ago, and I tell you he has improved wonderfully. Such a
+swell moustache! I meant to have sent it over for you and Nan to see,
+but I've mislaid it somewhere."
+
+Poor little Nan! She would give many of her treasures for one peep at
+the coveted picture that Will holds so lightly. There had been temporary
+improvement in her health at the time Uncle Jack came with the joyous
+tidings that Stanley was safe after all; but even the Riviera fails to
+restore her wonted spirits. She droops visibly during the long winter.
+"She grows so much older away from Willy," says the fond mamma, to whom
+proximity to that vivacious youth is the acme of earthly bliss. Uncle
+Jack grins and says nothing. It is dawning upon him that something is
+needed besides the air and sunshine of the Riviera to bring back the
+dancing light in those sweet blue eyes and joy to the wistful little
+face.
+
+"The time to see the Yosemite and 'the glorious climate of California'
+is April, not October," he suddenly declares, one balmy morning by the
+Mediterranean; "and the sooner we get back to Yankeedom the better
+'twill suit me."
+
+And so it happens that, early in the month of meteorological smiles and
+tears, the trio are speeding westward far across the rolling prairies:
+Mrs. McKay deeply scandalized at the heartless conduct of the War
+Department in refusing Willy a two-months' leave to go with them; Uncle
+Jack quizzically disposed to look upon that calamity as a not utterly
+irretrievable ill; and Nan, fluttering with hope, fear, joy, and dread,
+all intermingled; for is not _he_ stationed at Cheyenne? All these long
+months has she cherished that little knot of senseless ribbon. If she
+had sent it to him within the week of his graduation, perhaps it would
+not have seemed amiss; but after that, after all he had been through in
+the campaign,--the long months of silence,--he might have changed, and,
+for very shame, she cannot bring herself to give a signal he would
+perhaps no longer wish to obey. Every hour her excitement and
+nervousness increase; but when the conductor of the Pullman comes to
+say that Cheyenne is really in sight, and the long whistle tells that
+they are nearing the dinner station of those days, Nan simply loses
+herself entirely. There will be half an hour, and Philip actually there
+to see, to hear, to answer. She hardly knows whether she is of this
+mortal earth when Uncle Jack comes bustling in with the gray-haired
+colonel, when she feels Miriam's kiss upon her cheek, when Mr. Lee,
+handsomer and kindlier than ever, bends down to take her hand; but she
+looks beyond them all for the face she longs for,--and it is not there.
+The car seems whirling around when, from over her shoulder, she hears,
+in the old, well-remembered tones, a voice that redoubles the throb of
+her little heart.
+
+"Miss Nannie!"
+
+And there--bending over her, his face aglow, and looking marvellously
+well in his cavalry uniform--is Philip Stanley. She knows not what she
+says. She has prepared something proper and conventional, but it has all
+fled. She looks one instant up into his shining eyes, and there is no
+need to speak at all. Every one else is so busy that no one sees, no one
+knows, that he is firmly clinging to her hand, and that she shamelessly
+and passively submits.
+
+A little later--just as the train is about to start--they are standing
+at the rear door of the sleeper. The band of the --th is playing some
+distance up the platform,--a thoughtful device of Mr. Lee's to draw the
+crowd that way,--and they are actually alone. An exquisite happiness is
+in her eyes as she peers up into the love-light in his strong, steadfast
+face. _Something_ must have been said; for he draws her close to his
+side and bends over her as though all the world were wrapped up in this
+dainty little morsel of womanhood. Suddenly the great train begins
+slowly to move. Part they must now, though it be only for a time. He
+folds her quickly, unresisting, to his breast. The sweet blue eyes begin
+to fill.
+
+"My darling,--my little Nannie," he whispers, as his lips kiss away the
+gathering tears. "There is just an instant. What is it you tell me you
+have kept for me?"
+
+"This," she answers, shyly placing in his hand a little packet wrapped
+in tissue-paper. "Don't look at it yet! Wait!--But--I wanted to send
+it--the very next day, Philip."
+
+Slowly he turns her blushing face until he can look into her eyes. The
+glory in his proud, joyous gaze is a delight to see. "My own little
+girl," he whispers, as his lips meet hers. "I know it is my love-knot."
+
+
+
+
+THE WORST MAN IN THE TROOP.
+
+
+Just why that young Irishman should have been so balefully branded was
+more than the first lieutenant of the troop could understand. To be
+sure, the lieutenant's opportunities for observation had been limited.
+He had spent some years on detached service in the East, and had joined
+his comrades in Arizona but a fortnight ago, and here he was already
+becoming rapidly initiated in the science of scouting through
+mountain-wilds against the wariest and most treacherous of foemen,--the
+Apaches of our Southwestern territory.
+
+Coming, as he had done, direct from a station and duties where
+full-dress uniform, lavish expenditure for kid gloves, bouquets, and
+Lubin's extracts were matters of daily fact, it must be admitted that
+the sensations he experienced on seeing his detachment equipped for the
+scout were those of mild consternation. That much latitude as to
+individual dress and equipment was permitted he had previously been
+informed; that "full dress," and white shirts, collars, and the like
+would be left at home, he had sense enough to know; but that every
+officer and man in the command would be allowed to discard any and all
+portions of the regulation uniform and appear rigged out in just such
+motley guise as his poetic or practical fancy might suggest, had never
+been pointed out to him; and that he, commanding his troop while a
+captain commanded the little battalion, could by any military
+possibility take his place in front of his men without his sabre, had
+never for an instant occurred to him. As a consequence, when he bolted
+into the mess-room shortly after daybreak on a bright June morning with
+that imposing but at most times useless item of cavalry equipment
+clanking at his heels, the lieutenant gazed with some astonishment upon
+the attire of his brother-officers there assembled, but found himself
+the butt of much good-natured and not over-witty "chaff," directed
+partially at the extreme newness and neatness of his dark-blue flannel
+scouting-shirt and high-top boots, but more especially at the glittering
+sabre swinging from his waist-belt.
+
+"Billings," said Captain Buxton, with much solemnity, "while you have
+probably learned through the columns of a horror-stricken Eastern press
+that we scalp, alive or dead, all unfortunates who fall into our
+clutches, I assure you that even for that purpose the cavalry sabre has,
+in Arizona at least, outlived its usefulness. It is too long and clumsy,
+you see. What you really want for the purpose is something like
+this,"--and he whipped out of its sheath a rusty but keen-bladed Mexican
+_cuchillo_,--"something you can wield with a deft turn of the wrist, you
+know. The sabre is apt to tear and mutilate the flesh, especially when
+you use both hands." And Captain Buxton winked at the other subaltern
+and felt that he had said a good thing.
+
+But Mr. Billings was a man of considerable good nature and ready
+adaptability to the society or circumstances by which he might be
+surrounded. "Chaff" was a very cheap order of wit, and the serenity of
+his disposition enabled him to shake off its effect as readily as water
+is scattered from the plumage of the duck.
+
+"So you don't wear the sabre on a scout? So much the better. I have my
+revolvers and a Sharp's carbine, but am destitute of anything in the
+knife line." And with that Mr. Billings betook himself to the duty of
+despatching the breakfast that was already spread before him in an array
+tempting enough to a frontier appetite, but little designed to attract a
+_bon vivant_ of civilization. Bacon, _frijoles_, and creamless coffee
+speedily become ambrosia and nectar under the influence of mountain-air
+and mountain-exercise; but Mr. Billings had as yet done no climbing. A
+"buck-board" ride had been his means of transportation to the
+garrison,--a lonely four-company post in a far-away valley in
+Northeastern Arizona,--and in the three or four days of intense heat
+that had succeeded his arrival exercise of any kind had been out of the
+question. It was with no especial regret, therefore, that he heard the
+summons of the captain, "Hurry up, man; we must be off in ten minutes."
+And in less than ten minutes the lieutenant was on his horse and
+superintending the formation of his troop.
+
+If Mr. Billings was astonished at the garb of his brother-officers at
+breakfast, he was simply aghast when he glanced along the line of
+Company "A" (as his command was at that time officially designated) and
+the first sergeant rode out to report his men present or accounted for.
+The first sergeant himself was got up in an old gray-flannel shirt, open
+at and disclosing a broad, brown throat and neck; his head was crowned
+with what had once been a white felt _sombrero_, now tanned by desert
+sun, wind, and dirt into a dingy mud-color; his powerful legs were
+encased in worn deer-skin breeches tucked into low-topped, broad-soled,
+well-greased boots; his waist was girt with a rude "thimble-belt," in
+the loops of which were thrust scores of copper cartridges for carbine
+and pistol; his carbine, and those of all the command, swung in a
+leather loop athwart the pommel of the saddle; revolvers in all manner
+of cases hung at the hip, the regulation holster, in most instances,
+being conspicuous by its absence. Indeed, throughout the entire command
+the remarkable fact was to be noted that a company of regular cavalry,
+taking the field against hostile Indians, had discarded pretty much
+every item of dress or equipment prescribed or furnished by the
+authorities of the United States, and had supplied themselves with an
+outfit utterly ununiform, unpicturesque, undeniably slouchy, but not
+less undeniably appropriate and serviceable. Not a forage-cap was to be
+seen, not a "campaign-hat" of the style then prescribed by a board of
+officers that might have known something of hats, but never could have
+had an idea on the subject of campaigns. Fancy that black enormity of
+weighty felt, with flapping brim well-nigh a foot in width, absorbing
+the fiery heat of an Arizona sun, and concentrating the burning rays
+upon the cranium of its unhappy wearer! No such head-gear would our
+troopers suffer in the days when General Crook led them through the
+cañons and deserts of that inhospitable Territory. Regardless of
+appearances or style himself, seeking only comfort in his dress, the
+chief speedily found means to indicate that, in Apache-campaigning at
+least, it was to be a case of "_inter arma silent leges_" in dead
+earnest; for, freely translated, the old saw read, "No red-tape when
+Indian-fighting."
+
+Of much of this Lieutenant Billings was only partially informed, and so,
+as has been said, he was aghast when he marked the utter absence of
+uniform and the decidedly variegated appearance of his troop. Deerskin,
+buckskin, canvas, and flannels, leggings, moccasins, and the like,
+constituted the bill of dress, and old soft felt hats, originally white,
+the head-gear. If spurs were worn at all, they were of the Mexican
+variety, easy to kick off, but sure to stay on when wanted. Only two men
+wore carbine sling-belts, and Mr. Billings was almost ready to hunt up
+his captain and inquire if by any possibility the men could be
+attempting to "put up a joke on him," when the captain himself appeared,
+looking little if any more like the ideal soldier than his men, and the
+perfectly satisfied expression on his face as he rode easily around,
+examining closely the horses of the command, paying especial attention
+to their feet and the shoes thereof, convinced the lieutenant that all
+was as it was expected to be, if not as it should be, and he swallowed
+his surprise and held his peace. Another moment, and Captain Wayne's
+troop came filing past in column of twos, looking, if anything, rougher
+than his own.
+
+"You follow right after Wayne," said Captain Buxton; and with no further
+formality Mr. Billings, in a perfunctory sort of way, wheeled his men to
+the right by fours, broke into column of twos, and closed up on the
+leading troop.
+
+Buxton was in high glee on this particular morning in June. He had done
+very little Indian scouting, had been but moderately successful in what
+he had undertaken, and now, as luck would have it, the necessity arose
+for sending something more formidable than a mere detachment down into
+the Tonto Basin, in search of a powerful band of Apaches who had broken
+loose from the reservation and were taking refuge in the foot-hills of
+the Black Mesa or among the wilds of the Sierra Ancha. As senior captain
+of the two, Buxton became commander of the entire force,--two
+well-filled troops of regular cavalry, some thirty Indian allies as
+scouts, and a goodly-sized train of pack-mules, with its full complement
+of packers, _cargadors_, and blacksmiths. He fully anticipated a lively
+fight, possibly a series of them, and a triumphant return to his post,
+where hereafter he would be looked up to and quoted as an expert and
+authority on Apache-fighting. He knew just where the hostiles lay, and
+was going straight to the point to flatten them out forthwith; and so
+the little command moved off under admirable auspices and in the best of
+spirits.
+
+It was a four-days' hard march to the locality where Captain Buxton
+counted on finding his victims; and when on the fourth day, rather tired
+and not particularly enthusiastic, the command bivouacked along the
+banks of a mountain-torrent, a safe distance from the supposed location
+of the Indian stronghold, he sent forward his Apache Mojave allies to
+make a stealthy reconnoissance, feeling confident that soon after
+nightfall they would return with the intelligence that the enemy were
+lazily resting in their "rancheria," all unsuspicious of his approach,
+and that at daybreak he would pounce upon and annihilate them.
+
+Soon after nightfall the scouts did return, but their intelligence was
+not so gratifying: a small--a _very_ small--band of renegades had been
+encamped in that vicinity some weeks before, but not a "hostile" or sign
+of a hostile was to be found. Captain Buxton hardly slept that night,
+from disappointment and mortification, and when he went the following
+day to investigate for himself he found that he had been on a false
+scent from the start, and this made him crabbed. A week's hunt through
+the mountains resulted in no better luck, and now, having had only
+fifteen days' rations at the outset, he was most reluctantly and
+savagely marching homeward to report his failure.
+
+But Mr. Billings had enjoyed the entire trip. Sleeping in the open air
+without other shelter than their blankets afforded, scouting by day in
+single file over miles of mere game-trails, up hill and down dale
+through the wildest and most dolefully-picturesque scenery he "at least"
+had ever beheld, under frowning cliffs and beetling crags, through dense
+forests of pine and juniper, through mountain-torrents swollen with the
+melting snows of the crests so far above them, through cañons, deep,
+dark, and gloomy, searching ever for traces of the foe they were ordered
+to find and fight forthwith, Mr. Billings and his men, having no
+responsibility upon their shoulders, were happy and healthy as possible,
+and consequently in small sympathy with their irate leader.
+
+Every afternoon when they halted beside some one of the hundreds of
+mountain-brooks that came tumbling down from the gorges of the Black
+Mesa, the men were required to look carefully at the horses' backs and
+feet, for mountain Arizona is terrible on shoes, equine or human. This
+had to be done before the herds were turned out to graze with their
+guard around them; and often some of the men would get a wisp of straw
+or a suitable wipe of some kind, and thoroughly rub down their steeds.
+Strolling about among them, as he always did at this time, our
+lieutenant had noticed a slim but trimly-built young Irishman whose care
+of and devotion to his horse it did him good to see. No matter how long
+the march, how severe the fatigue, that horse was always looked after,
+his grazing-ground pre-empted by a deftly-thrown picket-pin and lariat
+which secured to him all the real estate that could be surveyed within
+the circle of which the pin was the centre and the lariat the
+radius-vector.
+
+Between horse and master the closest comradeship seemed to exist; the
+trooper had a way of softly singing or talking to his friend as he
+rubbed him down, and Mr. Billings was struck with the expression and
+taste with which the little soldier--for he was only five feet
+five--would render "Molly Bawn" and "Kitty Tyrrell." Except when thus
+singing or exchanging confidences with his steed, he was strangely
+silent and reserved; he ate his rations among the other men, yet rarely
+spoke with them, and he would ride all day through country marvellous
+for wild beauty and be the only man in the command who did not allow
+himself to give vent to some expression of astonishment or delight.
+
+"What is that man's name?" asked Mr. Billings of the first sergeant one
+evening.
+
+"O'Grady, sir," replied the sergeant, with his soldierly salute; and a
+little later, as Captain Buxton was fretfully complaining to his
+subaltern of the ill fortune that seemed to overshadow his best efforts,
+the latter, thinking to cheer him and to divert his attention from his
+trouble, referred to the troop:
+
+"Why, captain, I don't think I ever saw a finer set of men than you
+have--anywhere. Now, _there's_ a little fellow who strikes me as being a
+perfect light-cavalry soldier." And the lieutenant indicated his young
+Irishman.
+
+"You don't mean O'Grady?" asked the captain in surprise.
+
+"Yes, sir,--the very one."
+
+"Why, he's the worst man in the troop."
+
+For a moment Mr. Billings knew not what to say. His captain had spoken
+with absolute harshness and dislike in his tone of the one soldier of
+all others who seemed to be the most quiet, attentive, and alert of the
+troop. He had noticed, too, that the sergeants and the men generally, in
+speaking to O'Grady, were wont to fall into a kindlier tone than usual,
+and, though they sometimes squabbled among themselves over the choice of
+patches of grass for their horses, O'Grady's claim was never questioned,
+much less "jumped." Respect for his superior's rank would not permit the
+lieutenant to argue the matter; but, desiring to know more about the
+case, he spoke again:
+
+"I am very sorry to hear it. His care of his horse and his quiet ways
+impressed me so favorably."
+
+"Oh, yes, d--n him!" broke in Captain Buxton. "Horses and whiskey are
+the only things on earth he cares for. As to quiet ways, there isn't a
+worse devil at large than O'Grady with a few drinks in him. When I came
+back from two years' recruiting detail he was a sergeant in the troop. I
+never knew him before, but I soon found he was addicted to drink, and
+after a while had to 'break' him; and one night when he was raising hell
+in the quarters, and I ordered him into the dark cell, he turned on me
+like a tiger. By Jove! if it hadn't been for some of the men he would
+have killed me,--or I him. He was tried by court-martial, but most of
+the detail was made up of infantrymen and staff-officers from Crook's
+head-quarters, and, by ----! they didn't seem to think it any sin for a
+soldier to threaten to cut his captain's heart out, and Crook himself
+gave me a sort of a rap in his remarks on the case, and--well, they just
+let O'Grady off scot-free between them, gave him some little fine, and
+did more harm than good. He's just as surly and insolent now when I
+speak to him as he was that night when drunk. Here, I'll show you." And
+with that Captain Buxton started off towards the herd, Mr. Billings
+obediently following, but feeling vaguely ill at ease. He had never met
+Captain Buxton before, but letters from his comrades had prepared him
+for experiences not altogether pleasant. A good soldier in some
+respects, Captain Buxton bore the reputation of having an almost
+ungovernable temper, of being at times brutally violent in his language
+and conduct towards his men, and, worse yet, of bearing ill-concealed
+malice, and "nursing his wrath to keep it warm" against such of his
+enlisted men as had ever ventured to appeal for justice. The captain
+stopped on reaching the outskirts of the quietly-grazing herd.
+
+"Corporal," said he to the non-commissioned officer in charge, "isn't
+that O'Grady's horse off there to the left?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Go and tell O'Grady to come here."
+
+The corporal saluted and went off on his errand.
+
+"Now, Mr. Billings," said the captain, "I have repeatedly given orders
+that my horses must be side-lined when we are in the hostiles' country.
+Just come here to the left." And he walked over towards a handsome,
+sturdy little California horse of a bright bay color. "Here, you see, is
+O'Grady's horse, and not a side-line: that's his way of obeying orders.
+More than that, he is never content to have his horse in among the
+others, but must always get away outside, just where he is most apt to
+be run off by any Indian sharp and quick enough to dare it. Now, here
+comes O'Grady. Watch him, if you want to see him in his true light."
+
+Standing beside his superior, Mr. Billings looked towards the
+approaching trooper, who, with a quick, springy step, advanced to within
+a few yards of them, then stopped short and, erect and in silence,
+raised his hand in salute, and with perfectly respectful demeanor looked
+straight at his captain.
+
+In a voice at once harsh and distinctly audible over the entire bivouac,
+with frowning brow and angry eyes, Buxton demanded,--
+
+"O'Grady, where are your side-lines?"
+
+"Over with my blankets, sir."
+
+"Over with your blankets, are they? Why in ----, sir, are they not here
+on your horse, where they ought to be?" And the captain's voice waxed
+harsher and louder, and his manner more threatening.
+
+"I understood the captain's orders to be that they need not go on till
+sunset," replied the soldier, calmly and respectfully, "and I don't like
+to put them on that sore place, sir, until the last moment."
+
+"Don't like to? No sir, I know d--d well you don't like to obey this or
+any other order I ever gave, and wherever you find a loop-hole through
+which to crawl, and you think you can sneak off unpunished, by ----,
+sir, I suppose you will go on disobeying orders. Shut up, sir! not a
+d--d word!" for tears of mortification were starting to O'Grady's eyes,
+and with flushing face and trembling lip the soldier stood helplessly
+before his troop-commander, and was striving to say a word in further
+explanation.
+
+"Go and get your side-lines at once and bring them here; go at once,
+sir," shouted the captain; and with a lump in his throat the trooper
+saluted, faced about, and walked away.
+
+"He's milder-mannered than usual, d--n him!" said the captain, turning
+towards his subaltern, who had stood a silent and pained witness of the
+scene. "He knows he is in the wrong and has no excuse; but he'll break
+out yet. Come! step out, you O'Grady!" he yelled after the
+rapidly-walking soldier. "Double time, sir. I can't wait here all
+night." And Mr. Billings noted that silence had fallen on the bivouac so
+full of soldier-chaff and laughter but a moment before, and that the men
+of both troops were intently watching the scene already so painful to
+him.
+
+Obediently O'Grady took up the "dog-trot" required of him, got his
+side-lines, and, running back, knelt beside his horse, and with
+trembling hands adjusted them, during which performance Captain Buxton
+stood over him, and, in a tone that grew more and more that of a bully
+as he lashed himself up into a rage, continued his lecture to the man.
+
+The latter finally rose, and, with huge beads of perspiration starting
+out on his forehead, faced his captain.
+
+"May I say a word, sir?" he asked.
+
+"You may now; but be d--d careful how you say it," was the reply, with a
+sneer that would have stung an abject slave into a longing for revenge,
+and that grated on Mr. Billings's nerves in a way that made him clinch
+his fists and involuntarily grit his teeth. Could it be that O'Grady
+detected it? One quick, wistful, half-appealing glance flashed from the
+Irishman's eyes towards the subaltern, and then, with evident effort at
+composure, but with a voice that trembled with the pent-up sense of
+wrong and injustice, O'Grady spoke:
+
+"Indeed, sir, I had no thought of neglecting orders. I always care for
+my horse; but it wasn't sunset when the captain came out----"
+
+"Not sunset!" broke in Buxton, with an outburst of profanity. "Not
+sunset! why, it's well-nigh dark now, sir, and every man in the troop
+had side-lined his horse half an hour ago. D--n your insolence, sir!
+your excuse is worse than your conduct. Mr. Billings, see to it, sir,
+that this man walks and leads his horse in rear of the troop all the way
+back to the post. I'll see, by ----! whether he can be taught to obey
+orders." And with that the captain turned and strode away.
+
+The lieutenant stood for an instant stunned,--simply stunned.
+Involuntarily he made a step towards O'Grady; their eyes met; but the
+restraint of discipline was upon both. In that brief meeting of their
+glances, however, the trooper read a message that was unmistakable.
+
+"Lieutenant----" he said, but stopped abruptly, pointed aloft over the
+trees to the eastward with his right hand, dashed it across his eyes,
+and then, with hurried salute and a choking sort of gurgle in his
+throat, he turned and went back to his comrades.
+
+Mr. Billings gazed after the retreating form until it disappeared among
+the trees by the brook-side; then he turned to see what was the meaning
+of the soldier's pointing over towards the _mesa_ to the east.
+
+Down in the deep valley in which the little command had halted for the
+night the pall of darkness had indeed begun to settle; the bivouac-fires
+in the timber threw a lurid glare upon the groups gathering around them
+for supper, and towards the west the rugged upheavals of the Mazatzal
+range stood like a black barrier against the glorious hues of a bank of
+summer cloud. All in the valley spoke of twilight and darkness: the
+birds were still, the voices of the men subdued. So far as local
+indications were concerned, it _was_--as Captain Buxton had
+insisted--almost dark. But square over the gilded tree-tops to the east,
+stretching for miles and miles to their right and left, blazed a
+vertical wall of rock crested with scrub-oak and pine, every boulder,
+every tree, glittering in the radiant light of the invisibly setting
+sun. O'Grady had _not_ disobeyed his orders.
+
+Noting this, Mr. Billings proceeded to take a leisurely stroll through
+the peaceful herd, carefully inspecting each horse as he passed. As a
+result of his scrutiny, he found that, while most of the horses were
+already encumbered with their annoying hobble, in "A" Troop alone there
+were at least a dozen still unfettered, notably the mounts of the
+non-commissioned officers and the older soldiers. Like O'Grady, they did
+not wish to inflict the side-line upon their steeds until the last
+moment. Unlike O'Grady, they had not been called to account for it.
+
+When Mr. Billings was summoned to supper, and he rejoined his
+brother-officers, it was remarked that he was more taciturn than usual.
+After that repast had been appreciatively disposed of, and the little
+group with lighted pipes prepared to spend an hour in chat and
+contentment, it was observed that Mr. Billings did not take part in the
+general talk, but that he soon rose, and, out of ear-shot of the
+officers' camp-fire, paced restlessly up and down, with his head bent
+forward, evidently plunged in thought.
+
+By and by the half-dozen broke up and sought their blankets. Captain
+Buxton, somewhat mollified by a good supper, was about rolling into his
+"Navajo," when Mr. Billings stepped up:
+
+"Captain, may I ask for information as to the side-line order? After you
+left this evening, I found that there must be some misunderstanding
+about it."
+
+"How so?" said Buxton, shortly.
+
+"In this, captain;" and Mr. Billings spoke very calmly and distinctly.
+"The first sergeant, several other non-commissioned officers and
+men,--more than a dozen, I should say,--did not side-line their horses
+until half an hour after you spoke to O'Grady, and the first sergeant
+assured me, when I called him to account for it, that your orders were
+that it should be done at sunset."
+
+"Well, by ----! it was after sunset--at least it was getting mighty
+dark--when I sent for that black-guard O'Grady," said Buxton,
+impetuously, "and there is no excuse for the rest of them."
+
+"It was beginning to grow dark down in this deep valley, I know, sir;
+but the tree-tops were in a broad glare of sunlight while we were at the
+herd, and those cliffs for half an hour longer."
+
+"Well, Mr. Billings, I don't propose to have any hair-splitting in the
+management of my troop," said the captain, manifestly nettled. "It was
+practically sunset to us when the light began to grow dim, and my men
+know it well enough." And with that he rolled over and turned his back
+to his subaltern.
+
+Disregarding the broad hint to leave, Mr. Billings again spoke:
+
+"Is it your wish, sir, that any punishment should be imposed on the men
+who were equally in fault with O'Grady?"
+
+Buxton muttered something unintelligible from under his blankets.
+
+"I did not understand you, sir," said the lieutenant, very civilly.
+
+Buxton savagely propped himself up on one elbow, and blurted out,--
+
+"No, Mr. Billings! no! When I want a man punished I'll give the order
+myself, sir."
+
+"And is it still your wish, sir, that I make O'Grady walk the rest of
+the way?"
+
+For a moment Buxton hesitated; his better nature struggled to assert
+itself and induce him to undo the injustice of his order; but the "cad"
+in his disposition, the weakness of his character, prevailed. It would
+never do to let his lieutenant get the upper hand of him, he argued, and
+so the reply came, and came angrily.
+
+"Yes, of course; he deserves it anyhow, by ----! and it'll do him good."
+
+Without another word Mr. Billings turned on his heel and left him.
+
+The command returned to garrison, shaved its stubbly beard of two weeks'
+growth, and resumed its uniform and the routine duties of the post.
+Three days only had it been back when Mr. Billings, marching on as
+officer of the day, and receiving the prisoners from his predecessor,
+was startled to hear the list of names wound up with "O'Grady," and when
+that name was called there was no response.
+
+The old officer of the day looked up inquiringly: "Where is O'Grady,
+sergeant?"
+
+"In the cell, sir, unable to come out."
+
+"O'Grady was confined by Captain Buxton's order late last night," said
+Captain Wayne, "and I fancy the poor fellow has been drinking heavily
+this time."
+
+A few minutes after, the reliefs being told off, the prisoners sent out
+to work, and the officers of the day, new and old, having made their
+reports to the commanding officer, Mr. Billings returned to the
+guard-house, and, directing his sergeant to accompany him, proceeded to
+make a deliberate inspection of the premises. The guard-room itself was
+neat, clean, and dry; the garrison prison-room was well ventilated, and
+tidy as such rooms ever can be made; the Indian prison-room, despite the
+fact that it was empty and every shutter was thrown wide open to the
+breeze, had that indefinable, suffocating odor which continued
+aboriginal occupancy will give to any apartment; but it was the cells
+Mr. Billings desired to see, and the sergeant led him to a row of
+heavily-barred doors of rough unplaned timber, with a little grating in
+each, and from one of these gratings there peered forth a pair of
+feverishly-glittering eyes, and a face, not bloated and flushed, as with
+recent and heavy potations, but white, haggard, twitching, and a husky
+voice in piteous appeal addressed the sergeant:
+
+"Oh, for God's sake, Billy, get me something, or it'll kill me!"
+
+"Hush, O'Grady," said the sergeant: "here's the officer of the day."
+
+Mr. Billings took one look at the wan face only dimly visible in that
+prison-light, for the poor little man shrank back as he recognized the
+form of his lieutenant:
+
+"Open that door, sergeant."
+
+With alacrity the order was obeyed, and the heavy door swung back upon
+its hinges.
+
+"O'Grady," said the officer of the day, in a tone gentle as that he
+would have employed in speaking to a woman, "come out here to me. I'm
+afraid you are sick."
+
+Shaking, trembling, twitching in every limb, with wild, dilated eyes and
+almost palsied step, O'Grady came out.
+
+"Look to him a moment, sergeant," said Mr. Billings, and, bending low,
+he stepped into the cell. The atmosphere was stifling, and in another
+instant he backed out into the hall-way. "Sergeant, was it by the
+commanding officer's order that O'Grady was put in there?"
+
+"No, sir; Captain Buxton's."
+
+"See that he is not returned there during my tour, unless the orders
+come from Major Stannard. Bring O'Grady into the prison-room."
+
+Here in the purer air and brighter light he looked carefully over the
+poor fellow, as the latter stood before him quivering from head to foot
+and hiding his face in his shaking hands. Then the lieutenant took him
+gently by the arm and led him to a bunk:
+
+"O'Grady, man, lie down here. I'm going to get something that will help
+you. Tell me one thing: how long had you been drinking before you were
+confined?"
+
+"About forty-eight hours, sir, off and on."
+
+"How long since you ate anything?"
+
+"I don't know, sir; not for two days, I think."
+
+"Well, try and lie still. I'm coming back to you in a very few minutes."
+
+And with that Mr. Billings strode from the room, leaving O'Grady, dazed,
+wonder-stricken, gazing stupidly after him.
+
+The lieutenant went straight to his quarters, took a goodly-sized goblet
+from the painted pine sideboard, and with practised hand proceeded to
+mix therein a beverage in which granulated sugar, Angostura bitters, and
+a few drops of lime-juice entered as minor ingredients, and the coldest
+of spring-water and a brimming measure of whiskey as constituents of
+greater quality and quantity. Filling with this mixture a small
+leather-covered flask, and stowing it away within the breast-pocket of
+his blouse, he returned to the guard-house, musing as he went, "'If this
+be treason,' said Patrick Henry, 'make the most of it.' If this be
+conduct prejudicial, etc., say I, do your d--dest. That man would be in
+the horrors of jim-jams in half an hour more if it were not for this."
+And so saying to himself, he entered the prison-room, called to the
+sergeant to bring him some cold water, and then approached O'Grady, who
+rose unsteadily and strove to stand attention, but the effort was too
+much, and again he covered his face with his arms, and threw himself in
+utter misery at the foot of the bunk.
+
+Mr. Billings drew the flask from his pocket, and, touching O'Grady's
+shoulder, caused him to raise his head:
+
+"Drink this, my lad. I would not give it to you at another time, but you
+need it now."
+
+Eagerly it was seized, eagerly drained, and then, after he had swallowed
+a long draught of the water, O'Grady slowly rose to his feet, looking,
+with eyes rapidly softening and losing their wild glare, upon the young
+officer who stood before him. Once or twice he passed his hands across
+his forehead, as though to sweep away the cobwebs that pressed upon his
+brain, but for a moment he did not essay a word. Little by little the
+color crept back to his cheek; and, noting this, Mr. Billings smiled
+very quietly, and said, "Now, O'Grady, lie down; you will be able to
+sleep now until the men come in at noon; then you shall have another
+drink, and you'll be able to eat what I send you. If you cannot sleep,
+call the sergeant of the guard; or if you want anything, I'll come to
+you."
+
+Then, with tears starting to his eyes, the soldier found words: "I thank
+the lieutenant. If I live a thousand years, sir, this will never be
+forgotten,--never, sir! I'd have gone crazy without your help, sir."
+
+Mr. Billings held out his hand, and, taking that of his prisoner, gave
+it a cordial grip: "That's all right, O'Grady. Try to sleep now, and
+we'll pull you through. Good-by, for the present." And, with a heart
+lighter, somehow, than it had been of late, the lieutenant left.
+
+At noon that day, when the prisoners came in from labor and the
+officer's of the day inspected their general condition before permitting
+them to go to their dinner, the sergeant of the guard informed him that
+O'Grady had slept quietly almost all the morning, but was then awake and
+feeling very much better, though still weak and nervous.
+
+"Do you think he can walk over to my quarters?" asked Mr. Billings.
+
+"He will try it, sir, or anything the lieutenant wants him to try."
+
+"Then send him over in about ten minutes."
+
+Home once more, Mr. Billings started a tiny blaze in his oil-stove, and
+soon had a kettle of water boiling merrily. Sharp to time a member of
+the guard tapped at the door, and, on being bidden "Come in," entered,
+ushering in O'Grady; but meantime, by the aid of a little pot of
+meat-juice and some cayenne pepper, a glass of hot soup or beef-tea had
+been prepared, and, with some dainty slices of potted chicken and the
+accompaniments of a cup of fragrant tea and some ship-biscuit, was in
+readiness on a little table in the back room.
+
+Telling the sentinel to remain in the shade on the piazza, the
+lieutenant proceeded first to make O'Grady sit down in a big wicker
+arm-chair, for the man in his broken condition was well-nigh exhausted
+by his walk across the glaring parade in the heat of an Arizona noonday
+sun. Then he mixed and administered the counterpart of the beverage he
+had given his prisoner-patient in the morning, only in point of potency
+it was an evident falling off, but sufficient for the purpose, and in a
+few minutes O'Grady was able to swallow his breakfast with evident
+relish, meekly and unhesitatingly obeying every suggestion of his
+superior.
+
+His breakfast finished, O'Grady was then conducted into a cool, darkened
+apartment, a back room in the lieutenant's quarters.
+
+"Now, pull off your boots and outer clothing, man, spread yourself on
+that bed, and go to sleep, if you can. If you can't, and you want to
+read, there are books and papers on that shelf; pin up the blanket on
+the window, and you'll have light enough. You shall not be disturbed,
+and I know you won't attempt to leave."
+
+"Indeed, sir, I won't," began O'Grady, eagerly; but the lieutenant had
+vanished, closing the door after him, and a minute later the soldier had
+thrown himself upon the cool, white bed, and was crying like a tired
+child.
+
+Three or four weeks after this incident, to the small regret of his
+troop and the politely-veiled indifference of the commissioned element
+of the garrison, Captain Buxton concluded to avail himself of a
+long-deferred "leave," and turned over his company property to Mr.
+Billings in a condition that rendered it necessary for him to do a thing
+that "ground" him, so to speak: he had to ask several favors of his
+lieutenant, between whom and himself there had been no cordiality since
+the episode of the bivouac, and an open rupture since Mr. Billings's
+somewhat eventful tour as officer of the day, which has just been
+described.
+
+It appeared that O'Grady had been absent from no duty (there were no
+drills in that scorching June weather), but that, yielding to the advice
+of his comrades, who knew that he had eaten nothing for two days and was
+drinking steadily into a condition that would speedily bring punishment
+upon him, he had asked permission to be sent to the hospital, where,
+while he could get no liquor, there would be no danger attendant upon
+his sudden stop of all stimulant. The first sergeant carried his request
+with the sick-book to Captain Buxton, O'Grady meantime managing to take
+two or three more pulls at the bottle, and Buxton, instead of sending
+him to the hospital, sent for him, inspected him, and did what he had no
+earthly authority to do, directed the sergeant of the guard to confine
+him at once in the dark cell.
+
+"It will be no punishment as he is now," said Buxton to himself, "but it
+will be hell when he wakes."
+
+And so it had been; and far worse it probably would have been but for
+Mr. Billings's merciful interference.
+
+Expecting to find his victim in a condition bordering upon the abject
+and ready to beg for mercy at any sacrifice of pluck or pride, Buxton
+had gone to the guard-house soon after retreat and told the sergeant
+that he desired to see O'Grady, if the man was fit to come out.
+
+What was his surprise when the soldier stepped forth in his trimmest
+undress uniform, erect and steady, and stood unflinchingly before
+him!--a day's rest and quiet, a warm bath, wholesome and palatable food,
+careful nursing, and the kind treatment he had received having brought
+him round with a sudden turn that he himself could hardly understand.
+
+"How is this?" thundered Buxton. "I ordered you kept in the dark cell."
+
+"The officer of the day ordered him released, sir," said the sergeant of
+the guard.
+
+And Buxton, choking with rage, stormed into the mess-room, where the
+younger officers were at dinner, and, regardless of the time, place, or
+surroundings, opened at once upon his subaltern:
+
+"Mr. Billings, by whose authority did you release O'Grady from the dark
+cell?"
+
+Mr. Billings calmly applied his napkin to his moustache, and then as
+calmly replied, "By my own, Captain Buxton."
+
+"By ----! sir, you exceeded your authority."
+
+"Not at all, captain; on the contrary, you exceeded yours."
+
+At this Buxton flew into a rage that seemed to deprive him of all
+control over his language. Oaths and imprecations poured from his lips;
+he raved at Billings, despite the efforts of the officers to quiet him,
+despite the adjutant's threat to report his language at once to the
+commanding officer.
+
+Mr. Billings paid no attention whatever to his accusations, but went on
+eating his dinner with an appearance of serenity that only added fuel to
+his captain's fire. Two or three officers rose and left the table in
+disgust, and just how far the thing might have gone cannot be accurately
+told, for in less than three minutes there came a quick, bounding step
+on the piazza, the clank and rattle of a sabre, and the adjutant fairly
+sprang back into the room:
+
+"Captain Buxton, you will go at once to your quarters in close arrest,
+by order of Major Stannard."
+
+Buxton knew his colonel and that little fire-eater of an adjutant too
+well to hesitate an instant. Muttering imprecations on everybody, he
+went.
+
+The next morning, O'Grady was released and returned to duty. Two days
+later, after a long and private interview with his commanding officer,
+Captain Buxton appeared with him at the officers' mess at dinner-time,
+made a formal and complete apology to Lieutenant Billings for his
+offensive language, and to the mess generally for his misconduct; and so
+the affair blew over; and, soon after, Buxton left, and Mr. Billings
+became commander of Troop "A."
+
+And now, whatever might have been his reputation as to sobriety before,
+Private O'Grady became a marked man for every soldierly virtue. Week
+after week he was to be seen every fourth or fifth day, when his guard
+tour came, reporting to the commanding officer for duty as "orderly,"
+the nattiest, trimmest soldier on the detail.
+
+"I always said," remarked Captain Wayne, "that Buxton alone was
+responsible for that man's downfall; and this proves it. O'Grady has all
+the instincts of a gentleman about him, and now that he has a gentleman
+over him he is himself again."
+
+One night, after retreat-parade, there was cheering and jubilee in the
+quarters of Troop "A." Corporal Quinn had been discharged by expiration
+of term of service, and Private O'Grady was decorated with his chevrons.
+When October came, the company muster-roll showed that he had won back
+his old grade; and the garrison knew no better soldier, no more
+intelligent, temperate, trustworthy non-commissioned officer, than
+Sergeant O'Grady. In some way or other the story of the treatment
+resorted to by his amateur medical officer had leaked out. Whether
+faulty in theory or not, it was crowned with the verdict of success in
+practice; and, with the strong sense of humor which pervades all
+organizations wherein the Celt is represented as a component part, Mr.
+Billings had been lovingly dubbed "Doctor" by his men, and there was one
+of their number who would have gone through fire and water for him.
+
+One night some herdsmen from up the valley galloped wildly into the
+post. The Apaches had swooped down, run off their cattle, killed one of
+the cowboys, and scared off the rest. At daybreak the next morning
+Lieutenant Billings, with Troop "A" and about a dozen Indian scouts, was
+on the trail, with orders to pursue, recapture the cattle, and punish
+the marauders.
+
+To his disgust, Mr. Billings found that his allies were not of the
+tribes who had served with him in previous expeditions. All the trusty
+Apache Mojaves and Hualpais were off with other commands in distant
+parts of the Territory. He had to take just what the agent could give
+him at the reservation,--some Apache Yumas, who were total strangers to
+him. Within forty-eight hours four had deserted and gone back; the
+others proved worthless as trailers, doubtless intentionally, and had it
+not been for the keen eye of Sergeant O'Grady it would have been
+impossible to keep up the pursuit by night; but keep it up they did, and
+just at sunset, one sharp autumn evening, away up in the mountains, the
+advance caught sight of the cattle grazing along the shores of a placid
+little lake, and, in less time than it takes to write it, Mr. Billings
+and his command tore down upon the quarry, and, leaving a few men to
+"round up" the herd, were soon engaged in a lively running fight with
+the fleeing Apaches which lasted until dark, when the trumpet sounded
+the recall, and, with horses somewhat blown, but no casualties of
+importance, the command reassembled and marched back to the
+grazing-ground by the lake. Here a hearty supper was served out, the
+horses were rested, then given a good "feed" of barley, and at ten
+o'clock Mr. Billings with his second lieutenant and some twenty men
+pushed ahead in the direction taken by the Indians, leaving the rest of
+the men under experienced non-commissioned officers to drive the cattle
+back to the valley.
+
+That night the conduct of the Apache Yuma scouts was incomprehensible.
+Nothing would induce them to go ahead or out on the flanks; they cowered
+about the rear of column, yet declared that the enemy could not be
+hereabouts. At two in the morning Mr. Billings found himself well
+through a pass in the mountains, high peaks rising to his right and
+left, and a broad valley in front. Here he gave the order to unsaddle
+and camp for the night.
+
+At daybreak all were again on the alert: the search for the trail was
+resumed. Again the Indians refused to go out without the troops; but the
+men themselves found the tracks of Tonto moccasins along the bed of a
+little stream purling through the cañon, and presently indications that
+they had made the ascent of the mountain to the south. Leaving a guard
+with his horses and pack-mules, the lieutenant ordered up his men, and
+soon the little command was silently picking its way through rock and
+boulder, scrub-oak and tangled juniper and pine. Rougher and steeper
+grew the ascent; more and more the Indians cowered, huddling together in
+rear of the soldiers. Twice Mr. Billings signalled a halt, and, with his
+sergeants, fairly drove the scouts up to the front and ordered them to
+hunt for signs. In vain they protested, "No sign,--no Tonto here," their
+very looks belied them, and the young commander ordered the search to be
+continued. In their eagerness the men soon leaped ahead of the wretched
+allies, and the latter fell back in the same huddled group as before.
+
+After half an hour of this sort of work, the party came suddenly upon a
+point whence it was possible to see much of the face of the mountain
+they were scaling. Cautioning his men to keep within the concealment
+afforded by the thick timber, Mr. Billings and his comrade-lieutenant
+crept forward and made a brief reconnoissance. It was evident at a
+glance that the farther they went the steeper grew the ascent and the
+more tangled the low shrubbery, for it was little better, until, near
+the summit, trees and underbrush, and herbage of every description,
+seemed to cease entirely, and a vertical cliff of jagged rocks stood
+sentinel at the crest, and stretched east and west the entire length of
+the face of the mountain.
+
+"By Jove, Billings! if they are on top of that it will be a nasty place
+to rout them out of," observed the junior.
+
+"I'm going to find out where they are, anyhow," replied the other. "Now
+those infernal Yumas have _got_ to scout, whether they want to or not.
+You stay here with the men, ready to come the instant I send or signal."
+
+In vain the junior officer protested against being left behind; he was
+directed to send a small party to see if there were an easier way up the
+hill-side farther to the west, but to keep the main body there in
+readiness to move whichever way they might be required. Then, with
+Sergeant O'Grady and the reluctant Indians, Mr. Billings pushed up to
+the left front, and was soon out of sight of his command. For fifteen
+minutes he drove his scouts, dispersed in skirmish order, ahead of him,
+but incessantly they sneaked behind rocks and trees out of his sight;
+twice he caught them trying to drop back, and at last, losing all
+patience, he sprang forward, saying, "Then _come_ on, you whelps, if you
+cannot lead," and he and the sergeant hurried ahead. Then the Yumas
+huddled together again and slowly followed.
+
+Fifteen minutes more, and Mr. Billings found himself standing on the
+edge of a broad shelf of the mountain,--a shelf covered with huge
+boulders of rock tumbled there by storm and tempest, riven by
+lightning-stroke or the slow disintegration of nature from the bare,
+glaring, precipitous ledge he had marked from below. East and west it
+seemed to stretch, forbidding and inaccessible. Turning to the sergeant,
+Mr. Billings directed him to make his way off to the right and see if
+there were any possibility of finding a path to the summit; then looking
+back down the side, and marking his Indians cowering under the trees
+some fifty yards away, he signalled "come up," and was about moving
+farther to his left to explore the shelf, when something went whizzing
+past his head, and, embedding itself in a stunted oak behind him, shook
+and quivered with the shock,--a Tonto arrow. Only an instant did he see
+it, photographed as by electricity upon the retina, when with a sharp
+stinging pang and whirring "whist" and thud a second arrow, better
+aimed, tore through the flesh and muscles just at the outer corner of
+his left eye, and glanced away down the hill. With one spring he gained
+the edge of the shelf, and shouted to the scouts to come on. Even as he
+did so, bang! bang! went the reports of two rifles among the rocks, and,
+as with one accord, the Apache Yumas turned tail and rushed back down
+the hill, leaving him alone in the midst of hidden foes. Stung by the
+arrow, bleeding, but not seriously hurt, he crouched behind a rock, with
+carbine at ready, eagerly looking for the first sign of an enemy. The
+whiz of another arrow from the left drew his eyes thither, and quick as
+a flash his weapon leaped to his shoulder, the rocks rang with its
+report, and one of the two swarthy forms he saw among the boulders
+tumbled over out of sight; but even as he threw back his piece to
+reload, a rattling volley greeted him, the carbine dropped to the
+ground, a strange, numbed sensation had seized his shoulder, and his
+right arm, shattered by a rifle-bullet, hung dangling by the flesh,
+while the blood gushed forth in a torrent.
+
+Defenceless, he sprang back to the edge; there was nothing for it now
+but to run until he could meet his men. Well he knew they would be
+tearing up the mountain to the rescue. Could he hold out till then?
+Behind him with shout and yells came the Apaches, arrow and bullet
+whistling over his head; before him lay the steep descent,--jagged
+rocks, thick, tangled bushes: it was a desperate chance; but he tried
+it, leaping from rock to rock, holding his helpless arm in his left
+hand; then his foot slipped: he plunged heavily forward; quickly the
+nerves threw out their signal for support to the muscles of the
+shattered member, but its work was done, its usefulness destroyed.
+Missing its support, he plunged heavily forward, and went crashing down
+among the rocks eight or ten feet below, cutting a jagged gash in his
+forehead, while the blood rained down into his eyes and blinded him; but
+he struggled up and on a few yards more; then another fall, and,
+well-nigh senseless, utterly exhausted, he lay groping for his
+revolver,--it had fallen from its case. Then--all was over.
+
+Not yet; not yet. His ear catches the sound of a voice he knows well,--a
+rich, ringing, Hibernian voice it is: "Lieutenant, _lieutenant_!
+_Where_ are ye?" and he has strength enough to call, "This way,
+sergeant, this way," and in another moment O'Grady, with blended anguish
+and gratitude in his face, is bending over him. "Oh, thank God you're not
+kilt, sir!" (for when excited O'Grady _would_ relapse into the brogue);
+"but are ye much hurt?"
+
+"Badly, sergeant, since I can't fight another round."
+
+"Then put your arm round my neck, sir," and in a second the little
+Patlander has him on his brawny back. But with only one arm by which to
+steady himself, the other hanging loose, the torture is inexpressible,
+for O'Grady is now bounding down the hill, leaping like a goat from rock
+to rock, while the Apaches with savage yells come tearing after them.
+Twice, pausing, O'Grady lays his lieutenant down in the shelter of some
+large boulder, and, facing about, sends shot after shot up the hill,
+checking the pursuit and driving the cowardly footpads to cover. Once he
+gives vent to a genuine Kilkenny "hurroo" as a tall Apache drops his
+rifle and plunges head foremost among the rocks with his hands
+convulsively clasped to his breast. Then the sergeant once more picks up
+his wounded comrade, despite pleas, orders, or imprecations, and rushes
+on.
+
+"I cannot stand it, O'Grady. Go and save yourself. You _must_ do it. I
+_order_ you to do it." Every instant the shots and arrows whiz closer,
+but the sergeant never winces, and at last, panting, breathless, having
+carried his chief full three hundred yards down the rugged slope, he
+gives out entirely, but with a gasp of delight points down among the
+trees:
+
+"Here come the boys, sir."
+
+Another moment, and the soldiers are rushing up the rocks beside them,
+their carbines ringing like merry music through the frosty air, and the
+Apaches are scattering in every direction.
+
+"Old man, are you much hurt?" is the whispered inquiry his
+brother-officer can barely gasp for want of breath, and, reassured by
+the faint grin on Mr. Billings's face, and a barely audible "Arm
+busted,--that's all; pitch in and use them up," he pushes on with his
+men.
+
+In ten minutes the affair is ended. The Indians have been swept away
+like chaff; the field and the wounded they have abandoned are in the
+hands of the troopers; the young commander's life is saved; and then,
+and for long after, the hero of the day is Buxton's _bête noire_, "the
+worst man in the troop."
+
+
+
+
+VAN.
+
+
+He was the evolution of a military horse-trade,--one of those periodical
+swappings required of his dragoons by Uncle Sam on those rare occasions
+when a regiment that has been dry-rotting half a decade in Arizona is at
+last relieved by one from the Plains. How it happened that we of the
+Fifth should have kept him from the clutches of those sharp
+horse-fanciers of the Sixth is more than I know. Regimental tradition
+had it that we got him from the Third Cavalry when it came our turn to
+go into exile in 1871. He was the victim of some temporary malady at the
+time,--one of those multitudinous ills to which horse-flesh is heir,--or
+he never would have come to us. It was simply impossible that anybody
+who knew anything about horses should trade off such a promising young
+racer so long as there remained an unpledged pay-account in the
+officers' mess. Possibly the arid climate of Arizona had disagreed with
+him and he had gone amiss, as would the mechanism of some of the best
+watches in the regiment, unable to stand the strain of anything so hot
+and high and dry. Possibly the Third was so overjoyed at getting out of
+Arizona on any terms that they would gladly have left their eye-teeth in
+pawn. Whatever may have been the cause, the transfer was an accomplished
+fact, and Van was one of some seven hundred quadrupeds, of greater or
+less value, which became the property of the Fifth Regiment of Cavalry,
+U.S.A., in lawful exchange for a like number of chargers left in the
+stables along the recently-built Union Pacific to await the coming of
+their new riders from the distant West.
+
+We had never met in those days, Van and I. "Compadres" and chums as we
+were destined to become, we were utterly unknown and indifferent to each
+other; but in point of regimental reputation at the time, Van had
+decidedly the best of it. He was a celebrity at head-quarters, I a
+subaltern at an isolated post. He had apparently become acclimated, and
+was rapidly winning respect for himself and dollars for his backers; I
+was winning neither for anybody, and doubtless losing both,--they go
+together, somehow. Van was living on metaphorical clover down near
+Tucson; I was roughing it out on the rocks of the Mogollon. Each after
+his own fashion served out his time in the grim old Territory, and at
+last "came marching home again;" and early in the summer of the
+Centennial year, and just in the midst of the great Sioux war of 1876,
+Van and I made each other's acquaintance.
+
+What I liked about him was the air of thoroughbred ease with which he
+adapted himself to his surroundings. He was in swell society on the
+occasion of our first meeting, being bestridden by the colonel of the
+regiment. He was dressed and caparisoned in the height of martial
+fashion; his clear eyes, glistening coat, and joyous bearing spoke of
+the perfection of health; his every glance and movement told of elastic
+vigor and dauntless spirit. He was a horse with a pedigree,--let alone
+any self-made reputation,--and he knew it; more than that, he knew that
+I was charmed at the first greeting; probably he liked it, possibly he
+liked me. What he saw in me I never discovered. Van, though
+demonstrative eventually, was reticent and little given to verbal
+flattery. It was long indeed before any degree of intimacy was
+established between us: perhaps it might never have come but for the
+strange and eventful campaign on which we were so speedily launched.
+Probably we might have continued on our original status of dignified and
+distant acquaintance. As a member of the colonel's household he could
+have nothing in common with me or mine, and his acknowledgment of the
+introduction of my own charger--the cavalryman's better half--was of
+that airy yet perfunctory politeness which is of the club clubby.
+Forager, my gray, had sought acquaintance in his impulsive frontier
+fashion when summoned to the presence of the regimental commander, and,
+ranging alongside to permit the shake of the hand with which the colonel
+had honored his rider, he himself had with equine confidence addressed
+Van, and Van had simply continued his dreamy stare over the springy
+prairie and taken no earthly notice of him. Forager and I had just
+joined regimental head-quarters for the first time, as was evident, and
+we were both "fresh." It was not until the colonel good-naturedly
+stroked the glossy brown neck of his pet and said, "Van, old boy, this
+is Forager, of 'K' Troop," that Van considered it the proper thing to
+admit my fellow to the outer edge of his circle of acquaintance. My gray
+thought him a supercilious snob, no doubt, and hated him. He hated him
+more before the day was half over, for the colonel decided to gallop
+down the valley to look at some new horses that had just come, and
+invited me to go. Colonels' invitations are commands, and we went,
+Forager and I, though it was weariness and vexation of spirit to both.
+Van and his rider flew easily along, bounding over the springy
+turf with long, elastic stride, horse and rider taking the rapid
+motion as an every-day matter, in a cool, imperturbable,
+this-is-the-way-we-always-do-it style; while my poor old troop-horse, in
+answer to pressing knee and pricking spur, strove with panting breath
+and jealously bursting heart to keep alongside. The foam flew from his
+fevered jaws and flecked the smooth flank of his apparently unconscious
+rival; and when at last we returned to camp, while Van, without a turned
+hair or an abnormal heave, coolly nodded off to his stable, poor
+Forager, blown, sweating, and utterly used up, gazed revengefully after
+him an instant and then reproachfully at me. He had done his best, and
+all to no purpose. That confounded clean-cut, supercilious beast had
+worn him out and never tried a spurt.
+
+It was then that I began to make inquiries about that airy fellow Van,
+and I soon found he had a history. Like other histories, it may have
+been a mere codification of lies; but the men of the Fifth were ready to
+answer for its authenticity, and Van fully looked the character they
+gave him. He was now in his prime. He had passed the age of tell-tale
+teeth and was going on between eight and nine, said the knowing ones,
+but he looked younger and felt younger. He was at heart as full of fun
+and frolic as any colt, but the responsibilities of his position
+weighed upon him at times and lent to his elastic step the grave dignity
+that should mark the movements of the first horse of the regiment.
+
+And then Van was a born aristocrat. He was not impressive in point of
+size; he was rather small, in fact; but there was that in his bearing
+and demeanor that attracted instant attention. He was beautifully
+built,--lithe, sinewy, muscular, with powerful shoulders and solid
+haunches; his legs were what Oscar Wilde might have called poems, and
+with better reason than when he applied the epithet to those of Henry
+Irving: they were straight, slender, and destitute of those heterodox
+developments at the joints that render equine legs as hideous
+deformities as knee-sprung trousers of the present mode. His feet and
+pasterns were shapely and dainty as those of the _señoritas_ (only for
+pastern read ankle) who so admired him on _festa_ days at Tucson, and
+who won such stores of _dulces_ from the scowling gallants who had with
+genuine Mexican pluck backed the Sonora horses at the races. His color
+was a deep, dark chocolate-brown; a most unusual tint, but Van was proud
+of its oddity, and his long, lean head, his pretty little pointed ears,
+his bright, flashing eye and sensitive nostril, one and all spoke of
+spirit and intelligence. A glance at that horse would tell the veriest
+greenhorn that speed, bottom, and pluck were all to be found right
+there; and he had not been in the regiment a month before the knowing
+ones were hanging about the Mexican sports and looking out for a chance
+for a match; and Mexicans, like Indians, are consummate horse-racers.
+
+Not with the "greasers" alone had tact and diplomacy to be brought into
+play. Van, though invoiced as a troop-horse sick, had attracted the
+attention of the colonel from the very start, and the colonel had
+speedily caused him to be transferred to his own stable, where,
+carefully tended, fed, groomed, and regularly exercised, he speedily
+gave evidence of the good there was in him. The colonel rarely rode in
+those days, and cavalry-duties in garrison were few. The regiment was in
+the mountains most of the time, hunting Apaches, but Van had to be
+exercised every day; and exercised he was. "Jeff," the colonel's
+orderly, would lead him sedately forth from his paddock every morning
+about nine, and ride demurely off towards the quartermaster's stables in
+rear of the garrison. Keen eyes used to note that Van had a way of
+sidling along at such times as though his heels were too impatient to
+keep at their appropriate distance behind the head, and "Jeff's" hand on
+the bit was very firm, light as it was.
+
+"Bet you what you like those 'L' Company fellows are getting Van in
+training for a race," said the quartermaster to the adjutant one bright
+morning, and the chuckle with which the latter received the remark was
+an indication that the news was no news to him.
+
+"If old Coach don't find it out too soon, some of these swaggering
+_caballeros_ around here are going to lose their last winnings," was his
+answer. And, true to their cavalry instincts, neither of the
+staff-officers saw fit to follow Van and his rider beyond the gate to
+the _corrals_.
+
+Once there, however, Jeff would bound off quick as a cat, Van would be
+speedily taken in charge by a squad of old dragoon sergeants, his
+cavalry bridle and saddle exchanged for a light racing-rig, and Master
+Mickey Lanigan, son and heir of the regimental saddle-sergeant, would be
+hoisted into his throne, and then Van would be led off, all plunging
+impatience now, to an improvised race-track across the _arroyo_, where
+he would run against his previous record, and where old horses from the
+troop-stables would be spurred into occasional spurts with the champion,
+while all the time vigilant "non-coms" would be thrown out as pickets
+far and near, to warn off prying Mexican eyes and give notice of the
+coming of officers. The colonel was always busy in his office at that
+hour, and interruptions never came. But the race did, and more than one
+race, too, occurring on Sundays, as Mexican races will, and well-nigh
+wrecking the hopes of the garrison on one occasion because of the
+colonel's sudden freak of holding a long mounted inspection on that day.
+Had he ridden Van for two hours under his heavy weight and housings that
+morning, all would have been lost. There was terror at Tucson when the
+cavalry trumpets blew the call for mounted inspection, full dress, that
+placid Sunday morning, and the sporting sergeants were well-nigh crazed.
+Not an instant was to be lost. Jeff rushed to the stable, and in five
+minutes had Van's near fore foot enveloped in a huge poultice, much to
+Van's amaze and disgust, and when the colonel came down,
+
+     Booted and spurred and prepared for a ride,
+
+there stood Jeff in martial solemnity, holding the colonel's other
+horse, and looking, as did the horse, the picture of dejection.
+
+"What'd you bring me that infernal old hearse-horse for?" said the
+colonel. "Where's Van?"
+
+"In the stable, dead lame, general," said Jeff, with face of woe, but
+with diplomatic use of the brevet. "Can't put his nigh fore foot to the
+ground, sir. I've got it poulticed, sir, and he'll be all right in a day
+or two----"
+
+"Sure it ain't a nail?" broke in the colonel, to whom nails in the foot
+were sources of perennial dread.
+
+"Perfectly sure, general," gasped Jeff. "D--d sure!" he added, in a tone
+of infinite relief, as the colonel rode out on the broad parade.
+"'Twould 'a' been nails in the coffins of half the Fifth Cavalry if it
+_had_ been."
+
+But that afternoon, while the colonel was taking his siesta, half the
+populace of the good old Spanish town of Tucson was making the air blue
+with _carambas_ when Van came galloping under the string an easy winner
+over half a score of Mexican steeds. The "dark horse" became a
+notoriety, and for once in its history head-quarters of the Fifth
+Cavalry felt the forthcoming visit of the paymaster to be an object of
+indifference.
+
+Van won other races in Arizona. No more betting could be got against him
+around Tucson; but the colonel went off on leave, and he was borrowed
+down at Camp Bowie awhile, and then transferred to Crittenden,--only
+temporarily, of course, for no one at head-quarters would part with him
+for good. Then, when the regiment made its homeward march across the
+continent in 1875, Van somehow turned up at the _festa_ races at
+Albuquerque and Santa Fé, though the latter was off the line of march by
+many miles. Then he distinguished himself at Pueblo by winning a
+handicap sweepstakes where the odds were heavy against him. And so it
+was that when I met Van at Fort Hays in May, 1876, he was a celebrity.
+Even then they were talking of getting him down to Dodge City to run
+against some horses on the Arkansaw; but other and graver matters turned
+up. Van had run his last race.
+
+Early that spring, or rather late in the winter, a powerful expedition
+had been sent to the north of Fort Fetterman in search of the hostile
+bands led by that dare-devil Sioux chieftain Crazy Horse. On "Patrick's
+Day in the morning," with the thermometer indicating 30° below, and in
+the face of a biting wind from the north and a blazing glare from the
+sheen of the untrodden snow, the cavalry came in sight of the Indian
+encampment down in the valley of Powder River. The fight came off then
+and there, and, all things considered, Crazy Horse got the best of it.
+He and his people drew away farther north to join other roving bands.
+The troops fell back to Fetterman to get a fresh start; and when spring
+fairly opened, old "Gray Fox," as the Indians called General Crook,
+marched a strong command up to the Big Horn Mountains, determined to
+have it out with Crazy Horse and settle the question of supremacy before
+the end of the season. Then all the unoccupied Indians in the North
+decided to take a hand. All or most of them were bound by treaty
+obligations to keep the peace with the government that for years past
+had fed, clothed, and protected them. Nine-tenths of those who rushed to
+the rescue of Crazy Horse and his people had not the faintest excuse
+for their breach of faith; but it requires neither eloquence nor excuse
+to persuade the average Indian to take the war-path. The reservations
+were beset by vehement old strifemongers preaching a crusade against the
+whites, and by early June there must have been five thousand eager young
+warriors, under such leaders as Crazy Horse, Gall, Little Big Man, and
+all manner of Wolves, Bears, and Bulls, and prominent among
+the later that head-devil, scheming, lying, wire-pulling,
+big-talker-but-no-fighter, Sitting Bull,--"Tatanka-e-Yotanka",--five
+thousand fierce and eager Indians, young and old, swarming through the
+glorious upland between the Big Horn and the Yellowstone, and more
+a-coming.
+
+Crook had reached the head-waters of Tongue River with perhaps twelve
+hundred cavalry and infantry, and found that something must be done to
+shut off the rush of reinforcements from the southeast. Then it was that
+we of the Fifth, far away in Kansas, were hurried by rail through Denver
+to Cheyenne, marched thence to the Black Hills to cut the trails from
+the great reservations of Red Cloud and Spotted Tail to the disputed
+ground of the Northwest; and here we had our own little personal tussle
+with the Cheyennes, and induced them to postpone their further progress
+towards Sitting Bull and to lead us back to the reservation. It was
+here, too, we heard how Crazy Horse had pounced on Crook's columns on
+the bluffs of the Rosebud that sultry morning of the 17th of June and
+showed the Gray Fox that he and his people were too weak in numbers to
+cope with them. It was here, too, worse luck, we got the tidings of the
+dread disaster of the Sunday one week later, and listened in awed
+silence to the story of Custer's mad attack on ten times his weight in
+foes--and the natural result. Then came our orders to hasten to the
+support of Crook, and so it happened that July found us marching for the
+storied range of the Big Horn, and the first week in August landed us,
+blistered and burned with sun-glare and stifling alkali-dust, in the
+welcoming camp of Crook.
+
+Then followed the memorable campaign of 1876. I do not mean to tell its
+story here. We set out with ten days' rations on a chase that lasted ten
+weeks. We roamed some eighteen hundred miles over range and prairie,
+over "bad lands" and worse waters. We wore out some Indians, a good many
+soldiers, and a great many horses. We sometimes caught the Indians, and
+sometimes they caught us. It was hot, dry summer weather when we left
+our wagons, tents, and extra clothing; it was sharp and freezing before
+we saw them again; and meantime, without a rag of canvas or any covering
+to our backs except what summer-clothing we had when we started, we had
+tramped through the valleys of the Rosebud, Tongue, and Powder Rivers,
+had loosened the teeth of some men with scurvy before we struck the
+Yellowstone, had weeded out the wounded and ineffective there and sent
+them to the East by river, had taken a fresh start and gone rapidly on
+in pursuit of the scattering bands, had forded the Little Missouri near
+where the Northern Pacific now spans the stream, run out of rations
+entirely at the head of Heart River, and still stuck to the trail and
+the chase, headed southward over rolling, treeless prairies, and for
+eleven days and nights of pelting, pitiless rain dragged our way
+through the bad-lands, meeting and fighting the Sioux two lively days
+among the rocks of Slim Buttes, subsisting meantime partly on what game
+we could pick up, but mainly upon our poor, famished, worn-out,
+staggering horses. It is hard truth for cavalryman to tell, but the
+choice lay between them and our boots and most of us had no boots left
+by the time we sighted the Black Hills. Once there, we found provisions
+and plenty; but never, I venture to say, never was civilized army in
+such a plight as was the command of General George Crook when his
+brigade of regulars halted on the north bank of the Belle Fourche in
+September, 1876. Officers and men were ragged, haggard, half starved,
+worn down to mere skin and bone; and the horses,--ah, well, only half of
+them were left: hundreds had dropped starved and exhausted on the line
+of march, and dozens had been killed and eaten. We had set out blithe
+and merry, riding jauntily down the wild valley of the Tongue. We
+straggled in towards the Hills, towing our tottering horses behind us:
+they had long since grown too weak to carry a rider.
+
+Then came a leisurely saunter through the Hills. Crook bought up all the
+provisions to be had in Deadwood and other little mining towns, turned
+over the command to General Merritt, and hastened to the forts to
+organize a new force, leaving to his successor instructions to come in
+slowly, giving horses and men time to build up. Men began "building up"
+fast enough; we did nothing but eat, sleep, and hunt grass for our
+horses for whole weeks at a time; but our horses,--ah, that was
+different. There was no grain to be had for them. They had been starving
+for a month, for the Indians had burned the grass before us wherever we
+went, and here in the pine-covered hills what grass could be found was
+scant and wiry,--not the rich, juicy, strength-giving bunch grass of the
+open country. Of my two horses, neither was in condition to do military
+duty when we got to Whitewood. I was adjutant of the regiment, and had
+to be bustling around a good deal; and so it happened that one day the
+colonel said to me, "Well, here's Van. He can't carry my weight any
+longer. Suppose you take him and see if he won't pick up." And that
+beautiful October day found the racer of the regiment, though the ghost
+of his former self, transferred to my keeping.
+
+All through the campaign we had been getting better acquainted, Van and
+I. The colonel seldom rode him, but had him led along with the
+head-quarters party in the endeavor to save his strength. A big,
+raw-boned colt, whom he had named "Chunka Witko," in honor of the Sioux
+"Crazy Horse," the hero of the summer, had the honor of transporting the
+colonel over most of those weary miles, and Van spent the long days on
+the muddy trail in wondering when and where the next race was to come
+off, and whether at this rate he would be fit for a finish. One day on
+the Yellowstone I had come suddenly upon a quartermaster who had a peck
+of oats on his boat. Oats were worth their weight in greenbacks, but so
+was plug tobacco. He gave me half a peck for all the tobacco in my
+saddle-bags, and, filling my old campaign hat with the precious grain, I
+sat me down on a big log by the flowing Yellowstone and told poor old
+"Donnybrook" to pitch in. "Donnybrook" was a "spare horse" when we
+started on the campaign, and had been handed over to me after the fight
+on the War Bonnet, where Merritt turned their own tactics on the
+Cheyennes. He was sparer still by this time; and later, when we got to
+the muddy banks of the "Heecha Wapka," there was nothing to spare of
+him. The head-quarters party had dined on him the previous day, and only
+groaned when that Mark Tapley of a surgeon remarked that if this was
+Donnybrook Fare it was tougher than all the stories ever told of it.
+Poor old Donnybrook! He had recked not of the coming woe that blissful
+hour by the side of the rippling Yellowstone. His head was deep in my
+lap, his muzzle buried in oats; he took no thought for the morrow,--he
+would eat, drink, and be merry, and ask no questions as to what was to
+happen; and so absorbed were we in our occupation--he in his happiness,
+I in the contemplation thereof--that neither of us noticed the rapid
+approach of a third party until a whinny of astonishment sounded close
+beside us, and Van, trailing his lariat and picket-pin after him, came
+trotting up, took in the situation at a glance, and, unhesitatingly
+ranging alongside his comrade of coarser mould and thrusting his velvet
+muzzle into my lap, looked wistfully into my face with his great soft
+brown eyes and pleaded for his share. Another minute, and, despite the
+churlish snappings and threatening heels of Donnybrook, Van was supplied
+with a portion as big as little Benjamin's, and, stretching myself
+beside him on the sandy shore, I lay and watched his enjoyment. From
+that hour he seemed to take me into his confidence, and his was a
+friendship worth having. Time and again on the march to the Little
+Missouri and southward to the Hills he indulged me with some slight but
+unmistakable proof that he held me in esteem and grateful remembrance.
+It may have been only a bid for more oats, but he kept it up long after
+he knew there was not an oat in Dakota,--that part of it, at least. But
+Van was awfully pulled down by the time we reached the pine-barrens up
+near Deadwood. The scanty supply of forage there obtained (at starvation
+price) would not begin to give each surviving horse in the three
+regiments a mouthful. And so by short stages we plodded along through
+the picturesque beauty of the wild Black Hills, and halted at last in
+the deep valley of French Creek. Here there was grass for the horses and
+rest for the men.
+
+For a week now Van had been my undivided property, and was the object of
+tender solicitude on the part of my German orderly, "Preuss," and
+myself. The colonel had chosen for his house the foot of a big pine-tree
+up a little ravine, and I was billeted alongside a fallen ditto a few
+yards away. Down the ravine, in a little clump of trees, the
+head-quarters stables were established, and here were gathered at
+nightfall the chargers of the colonel and his staff. Custer City, an
+almost deserted village, lay but a few miles off to the west, and
+thither I had gone the moment I could get leave, and my mission was
+oats. Three stores were still open, and, now that the troops had come
+swarming down, were doing a thriving business. Whiskey, tobacco, bottled
+beer, canned lobster, canned anything, could be had in profusion, but
+not a grain of oats, barley, or corn. I went over to a miner's
+wagon-train and offered ten dollars for a sack of oats. The boss
+teamster said he would not sell oats for a cent apiece if he had them,
+and so sent me back down the valley sore at heart, for I knew Van's
+eyes, those great soft brown eyes, would be pleading the moment I came
+in sight; and I knew more,--that somewhere the colonel had "made a
+raise," that he _had_ one sack, for Preuss had seen it, and Chunka Witko
+had had a peck of oats the night before and another that very morning.
+Sure enough, Van was waiting, and the moment he saw me coming up the
+ravine he quit his munching at the scanty herbage, and, with ears erect
+and eager eyes, came quickly towards me, whinnying welcome and inquiry
+at the same instant. Sugar and hard-tack, delicacies he often fancied in
+prosperous times, he took from my hand even now; he was too truly a
+gentleman at heart to refuse them when he saw they were all I had to
+give; but he could not understand why the big colt should have his oats
+and he, Van, the racer and the hero of two months ago, should starve,
+and I could not explain it.
+
+That night Preuss came up and stood attention before my fire, where I
+sat jotting down some memoranda in a note-book:
+
+"Lieutenant, I kent shtaendt ut no longer yet. Dot scheneral's horse he
+git oats ag'in diesen abent, unt Ven, he git noddings, unt he look, unt
+look. He ot dot golt unt den ot me look, unt I _couldn't_ shtaendt ut,
+lieutenant----"
+
+And Preuss stopped short and winked hard and drew his ragged
+shirt-sleeve across his eyes.
+
+Neither could I "shtaendt ut." I jumped up and went to the colonel and
+begged a hatful of his precious oats, not for my sake, but for Van's.
+"Self-preservation is the first law of nature," and your own horse
+before that of all the world is the cavalryman's creed. It was a heap to
+ask, but Van's claim prevailed, and down the dark ravine "in the
+gloaming" Preuss and I hastened with eager steps and two hats full of
+oats; and that rascal Van heard us laugh, and answered with impatient
+neigh. He knew we had not come empty-handed this time.
+
+Next morning, when every sprig and leaf was glistening in the brilliant
+sunshine with its frosty dew, Preuss led Van away up the ravine to
+picket him on a little patch of grass he had discovered the day before
+and as he passed the colonel's fire a keen-eyed old veteran of the
+cavalry service, who had stopped to have a chat with our chief, dropped
+the stick on which he was whittling and stared hard at our attenuated
+racer.
+
+"Whose horse is that, orderly?" he asked.
+
+"De _etschudant's_, colonel," said Preuss, in his labored dialect.
+
+"The adjutant's! Where did he get him? Why, that horse is a runner!"
+said "Black Bill," appreciatively.
+
+And pretty soon Preuss came back to me, chuckling. He had not smiled for
+six weeks.
+
+"Ven--he veels pully dis morning," he explained. "Dot Colonel Royle he
+shpeak mit him unt pet him, unt Ven, he laeff unt gick up mit his hint
+lecks. He git vell bretty gwick yet."
+
+Two days afterwards we broke up our bivouac on French Creek, for every
+blade of grass was eaten off, and pushed over the hills to its near
+neighbor, Amphibious Creek, an eccentric stream whose habit of diving
+into the bowels of the earth at unexpected turns and disappearing from
+sight entirely, only to come up surging and boiling some miles farther
+down the valley, had suggested its singular name. "It was half land,
+half water," explained the topographer of the first expedition that had
+located and named the streams in these jealously-guarded haunts of the
+red men. Over on Amphibious Creek we were joined by a motley gang of
+recruits just enlisted in the distant cities of the East and sent out to
+help us fight Indians. One out of ten might know how to load a gun, but
+as frontier soldiers not one in fifty was worth having. But they brought
+with them capital horses, strong, fat, grain-fed, and these we
+campaigners levied on at once. Merritt led the old soldiers and the new
+horses down into the valley of the Cheyenne on a chase after some
+scattering Indian bands, while "Black Bill" was left to hammer the
+recruits into shape and teach them how to care for invalid horses. Two
+handsome young sorrels had come to me as my share of the plunder, and
+with these for alternate mounts I rode the Cheyenne raid, leaving Van to
+the fostering care of the gallant old cavalryman who had been so struck
+with his points the week previous.
+
+One week more, and the reunited forces of the expedition, Van and all,
+trotted in to "round up" the semi-belligerent warriors at the Red Cloud
+agency on White River, and, as the war-ponies and rifles of the scowling
+braves were distributed among the loyal scouts, and dethroned
+Machpealota (old Red Cloud) turned over the government of the great
+Sioux nation, Ogallallas and all, to his more reliable rival,
+Sintegaliska,--Spotted Tail,--Van surveyed the ceremony of abdication
+from between my legs, and had the honor of receiving an especial pat and
+an admiring "_Washtay_" from the new chieftain and lord of the loyal
+Sioux. His highness Spotted Tail was pleased to say that he wouldn't
+mind swapping four of his ponies for Van, and made some further remarks
+which my limited knowledge of the Brulé Dakota tongue did not enable me
+to appreciate as they deserved. The fact that the venerable chieftain
+had hinted that he might be induced to throw in a spare squaw "to boot"
+was therefore lost, and Van was saved. Early November found us, after an
+all-summer march of some three thousand miles, once more within sight
+and sound of civilization. Van and I had taken station at Fort D. A.
+Russell, and the bustling prairie city of Cheyenne lay only three miles
+away. Here it was that Van became my pet and pride. Here he lived his
+life of ease and triumph, and here, gallant fellow, he met his knightly
+fate.
+
+Once settled at Russell, all the officers of the regiment who were
+blessed with wives and children were speedily occupied in getting their
+quarters ready for their reception; and late in November my own little
+household arrived and were presented to Van. He was then domesticated in
+a rude but comfortable stable in rear of my little army-house, and there
+he slept, was groomed and fed, but never confined. He had the run of our
+yard, and, after critical inspection of the wood-shed, the coal-hole,
+and the kitchen, Van seemed to decide upon the last-named as his
+favorite resort. He looked with curious and speculative eyes upon our
+darky cook on the arrival of that domestic functionary, and seemed for
+once in his life to be a trifle taken aback by the sight of her woolly
+pate and Ethiopian complexion. Hannah, however, was duly instructed by
+her mistress to treat Van on all occasions with great consideration, and
+this to Hannah's darkened intellect meant unlimited loaf-sugar. The
+adjutant could not fail to note that Van was almost always to be seen
+standing at the kitchen door, and on those rare occasions when he
+himself was permitted to invade those premises he was never surprised to
+find Van's shapely head peering in at the window, or head, neck, and
+shoulders bulging in at the wood-shed beyond.
+
+Yet the ex-champion and racer did not live an idle existence. He had his
+hours of duty, and keenly relished them. Office-work over at
+orderly-call, at high noon it was the adjutant's custom to return to his
+quarters and speedily to appear in riding-dress on the front piazza. At
+about the same moment Van, duly caparisoned, would be led forth from his
+paddock, and in another moment he and his rider would be flying off
+across the breezy level of the prairie. Cheyenne, as has been said, lay
+just three miles away, and thither Van would speed with long, elastic
+strides, as though glorying in his powers. It was at once his exercise
+and his enjoyment, and to his rider it was the best hour of the day. He
+rode alone, for no horse at Russell could keep alongside. He rode at
+full speed, for in all the twenty-four that hour from twelve to one was
+the only one he could call his own for recreation and for healthful
+exercise. He rode to Cheyenne that he might be present at the event of
+the day,--the arrival of the trans-continental train from the East. He
+sometimes rode beyond, that he might meet the train when it was belated
+and race it back to town; and this--_this_ was Van's glory. The rolling
+prairie lay open and free on each side of the iron track, and Van soon
+learned to take his post upon a little mound whence the coming of the
+"express" could be marked, and, as it flared into sight from the
+darkness of the distant snow-shed, Van, all a-tremble with excitement,
+would begin to leap and plunge and tug at the bit and beg for the word
+to go. Another moment, and, carefully held until just as the puffing
+engine came well alongside, Van would leap like arrow from the string,
+and away we would speed, skimming along the springy turf. Sometimes the
+engineer would curb his iron horse and hold him back against the
+"down-grade" impetus of the heavy Pullmans far in rear; sometimes he
+would open his throttle and give her full head, and the long train would
+seem to leap into space, whirling clouds of dust from under the whirling
+wheels, and then Van would almost tear his heart out to keep alongside.
+
+Month after month through the sharp mountain winter, so long as the snow
+was not whirling through the air in clouds too dense to penetrate, Van
+and his master had their joyous gallops. Then came the spring, slow,
+shy, and reluctant as the springtide sets in on that high plateau in
+mid-continent, and Van had become even more thoroughly domesticated. He
+now looked upon himself as one of the family, and he knew the
+dining-room window, and there, thrice each day and sometimes at odd
+hours between, he would take his station while the household was at
+table and plead with those great soft brown eyes for sugar.
+Commissary-bills ran high that winter, and cut loaf-sugar was an item of
+untold expenditure. He had found a new ally and friend,--a little girl
+with eyes as deep and dark as and browner than his own, a winsome little
+maid of three, whose golden, sunshiny hair floated about her bonny head
+and sweet serious face like a halo of light from another world. Van
+"took to her" from the very first. He courted the caress of her little
+hand, and won her love and trust by the discretion of his movements when
+she was near. As soon as the days grew warm enough, she was always out
+on the front piazza when Van and I came home from our daily gallop, and
+then she would trot out to meet us and be lifted to her perch on the
+pommel; and then, with mincing gait, like lady's palfrey, stepping as
+though he might tread on eggs and yet not crush them, Van would take the
+little one on her own share of the ride. And so it was that the loyal
+friendship grew and strengthened. The one trick he had was never
+ventured upon when she was on his back, even after she became accustomed
+to riding at rapid gait and enjoying the springy canter over the prairie
+before Van went back to his stable. It was a strange trick: it proved a
+fatal one.
+
+No other horse I ever rode had one just like it. Running at full speed,
+his hoofs fairly flashing through the air and never seeming to touch the
+ground, he would suddenly, as it were, "change step" and gallop
+"disunited," as we cavalrymen would say. At first I thought it must be
+that he struck some rolling stone, but soon I found that when bounding
+over the soft turf it was just the same; and the men who knew him in
+the days of his prime in Arizona had noted it there. Of course there was
+nothing to do for it but make him change back as quick as possible on
+the run, for Van was deaf to remonstrance and proof against the rebuke
+of spur. Perhaps he could not control the fault; at all events he did
+not, and the effect was not pleasant. The rider felt a sudden jar, as
+though the horse had come down stiff-legged from a hurdle-leap; and
+sometimes it would be so sharp as to shake loose the forage-cap upon his
+rider's head. He sometimes did it when going at easy lope, but never
+when his little girl-friend was on his back; then he went on springs of
+air.
+
+One bright May morning all the different "troops," as the
+cavalry-companies are termed, were out at drill on the broad prairie.
+The colonel was away, the officer of the day was out drilling his own
+company, the adjutant was seated in his office hard at work over
+regimental papers, when in came the sergeant of the guard, breathless
+and excited.
+
+"Lieutenant," he cried, "six general prisoners have escaped from the
+guard-house. They have got away down the creek towards town."
+
+In hurried question and answer the facts were speedily brought out. Six
+hard customers, awaiting sentence after trial for larceny, burglary,
+assault with intent to kill, and finally desertion, had been cooped up
+together in an inner room of the ramshackle old wooden building that
+served for a prison, had sawed their way through to open air, and,
+timing their essay by the sound of the trumpets that told them the whole
+garrison would be out at morning drill, had slipped through the gap at
+the right moment, slid down the hill into the creek-bottom, and then
+scurried off townward. A sentinel down near the stables had caught sight
+of them, but they were out of view long before his shouts had summoned
+the corporal of the guard.
+
+No time was to be lost. They were malefactors and vagabonds of the worst
+character. Two of their number had escaped before and had made it their
+boast that they could break away from the Russell guard at any time.
+Directing the sergeant to return to his guard, and hurriedly scribbling
+a note to the officer of the day, who had his whole troop with him in
+the saddle out on the prairie, and sending it by the hand of the
+sergeant-major, the adjutant hurried to his own quarters and called for
+Van. The news had reached there already. News of any kind travels like
+wildfire in a garrison, and Van was saddled and bridled before the
+adjutant reached the gate.
+
+"Bring me my revolver and belt,--quick," he said to the servant, as he
+swung into saddle. The man darted into the house and came back with the
+belt and holster.
+
+"I was cleaning your 'Colt,' sir," he said, "but here's the Smith &
+Wesson," handing up the burnished nickel-plated weapon then in use
+experimentally on the frontier. Looking only to see that fresh
+cartridges were in each chamber and that the hammer was on the
+safety-notch, the adjutant thrust it into the holster, and in an instant
+he and Van flew through the east gate in rapid pursuit.
+
+Oh, how gloriously Van ran that day! Out on the prairie the gay guidons
+of the troops were fluttering in the brilliant sunshine; here, there,
+everywhere, the skirmish-lines and reserves were dotting the plain; the
+air was ringing with the merry trumpet-calls and the stirring words of
+command. Yet men forgot their drill and reined up on the line to watch
+Van as he flashed by, wondering, too, what could take the adjutant off
+at such an hour and at such a pace.
+
+"What's the row?" shouted the commanding officer of one company.
+
+"Prisoners loose," was the answer shouted back, but only indistinctly
+heard. On went Van like one inspired, and as we cleared the drill-ground
+and got well out on the open plain in long sweeping curve, we changed
+our course, aiming more to the right, so as to strike the valley west of
+the town. It was possible to get there first and head them off. Then
+suddenly I became aware of something jolting up and down behind me. My
+hand went back in search: there was no time to look: the prairie just
+here was cut up with little gopher-holes and criss-crossed by tiny
+canals from the main _acequia_, or irrigating ditch. It was that
+wretched Smith & Wesson bobbing up and down in the holster. The Colt
+revolver of the day was a trifle longer, and my man in changing pistols
+had not thought to change holsters. This one, made for the Colt, was too
+long and loose by half an inch, and the pistol was pounding up and down
+with every stride. Just ahead of us came the flash of the sparkling
+water in one of the little ditches. Van cleared it in his stride with no
+effort whatever. Then, just beyond,--oh, fatal trick!--seemingly when in
+mid-air he changed step, striking the ground with a sudden shock that
+jarred us both and flung the downward-pointed pistol up against the
+closely-buttoned holster-flap. There was a sharp report, and my heart
+stood still an instant. I knew--oh, well I knew it was the death-note of
+my gallant pet. On he went, never swaying, never swerving, never
+slackening his racing speed; but, turning in the saddle and glancing
+back, I saw, just back of the cantle, just to the right of the spine in
+the glossy brown back, that one tiny, grimy, powder-stained hole. I knew
+the deadly bullet had ranged downward through his very vitals. I knew
+that Van had run his last race, was even now rushing towards a goal he
+would never reach. Fast as he might fly, he could not leave Death
+behind.
+
+The chase was over. Looking back, I could see the troopers already
+hastening in pursuit, but we were out of the race. Gently, firmly I drew
+the rein. Both hands were needed, for Van had never stopped here, and
+some strange power urged him on now. Full three hundred yards he ran
+before he would consent to halt. Then I sprang from the saddle and ran
+to his head. His eyes met mine. Soft and brown, and larger than ever,
+they gazed imploringly. Pain and bewilderment, strange, wistful
+pleading, but all the old love and trust, were there as I threw my arms
+about his neck and bowed his head upon my breast. I could not bear to
+meet his eyes. I could not look into them and read there the deadly pain
+and faintness that were rapidly robbing them of their lustre, but that
+could not shake their faith in his friend and master. No wonder mine
+grew sightless as his own through swimming tears. I who had killed him
+could not face his last conscious gaze.
+
+One moment more, and, swaying, tottering first from side to side, poor
+Van fell with heavy thud upon the turf. Kneeling, I took his head in my
+arms and strove to call back one sign of recognition; but all that was
+gone. Van's spirit was ebbing away in some fierce, wild dream: his
+glazing eyes were fixed on vacancy; his breath came in quick, convulsive
+gasps; great tremors shook his frame, growing every instant more
+violent. Suddenly a fiery light shot into his dying eyes. The old high
+mettle leaped to vivid life, and then, as though the flag had dropped,
+the starting-drum had tapped, Van's fleeting spirit whirled into his
+dying race. Lying on his side, his hoofs flew through the air, his
+powerful limbs worked back and forth swifter than ever in their swiftest
+gallop, his eyes were aflame, his nostrils wide distended, his chest
+heaving, and his magnificent machinery running like lightning. Only for
+a minute, though,--only for one short, painful minute. It was only a
+half-mile dash,--poor old fellow!--only a hopeless struggle against a
+rival that never knew defeat. Suddenly all ceased as suddenly as all
+began. One stiffening quiver, one long sigh, and my pet and pride was
+gone. Old friends were near him even then. "I was with him when he won
+his first race at Tucson," said old Sergeant Donnelly, who had ridden to
+our aid, "and I knowed then he would die racing."
+
+
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note
+
+
+Some of the spellings and hyphenations in the original are unusual;
+they have not been changed. Minor punctuation errors have been corrected
+without notice.  A few obvious typographical errors have been
+corrected and are listed below.
+
+Page 107: "would he hurried to their support" changed to "would be
+hurried to their support".
+
+Page 160: "See knew how her father trusted" changed to "She knew how her
+father trusted".
+
+Page 197: "The car-seems whirling" changed to "The car seems whirling".
+
+Page 227: "jagged rocks stook" changed to "jagged rocks stood".
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Starlight Ranch, by Charles King
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STARLIGHT RANCH ***
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+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Starlight Ranch and Other Stories of
+Army Life on the Frontier, by Charles King.
+    </title>
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Starlight Ranch, by Charles King
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Starlight Ranch
+       and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier
+
+Author: Charles King
+
+Release Date: July 27, 2008 [EBook #26137]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STARLIGHT RANCH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Carla Foust and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<div class="transnote">
+<h3>Transcriber's note</h3>
+<p> Some of the spellings and hyphenations in the original are unusual;
+    they have not been changed. Minor punctuation errors have been corrected
+    without notice.  A few obvious typographical errors have
+    been corrected, and they are indicated with
+    a <a class="correction" title="like this" href="#tnotes">mouse-hover</a>
+    and listed at the
+    <a href="#tnotes">end of this book</a>.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h2>
+<span class="smcap"><big>Starlight Ranch</big></span><br />
+<br /></h2>
+<h2>AND<br /><br /></h2>
+<h2>OTHER STORIES OF ARMY<br /></h2>
+<h2>LIFE ON THE FRONTIER.<br /><br /></h2>
+<h2>BY<br /><br /></h2>
+<h2>CAPTAIN CHARLES KING, U.S.A.<br /></h2>
+
+<h3>AUTHOR OF<br /></h3>
+<h3>"MARION'S FAITH," "THE COLONEL'S DAUGHTER," ETC.
+<br /><br /></h3>
+<h3>PHILADELPHIA:<br /></h3>
+<h2>J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.<br /></h2>
+<h2>1891.<br /></h2>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Copyright_1890_by_J_B_Lippincott_Company" id="Copyright_1890_by_J_B_Lippincott_Company"></a>Copyright, 1890, by <span class="smcap">J. B. Lippincott Company</span>.</h2>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+
+<div class='centered'>
+   <table border="0" cellpadding="2" width="60%" cellspacing="0" summary="CONTENTS">
+<tr><td class="toleft"><a href="#Page_5"><span class="smcap">Starlight Ranch</span></a></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;7</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="toleft"><a href="#Page_38"><span class="smcap">Well Won; or From the Plains to "the Point"</span></a></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;40</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="toleft"><a href="#Page_114"><span class="smcap">From "the Point" to the Plains</span></a></td><td>116</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="toleft"><a href="#Page_199"><span class="smcap">The Worst Man in the Troop</span></a></td><td>201</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="toleft"><a href="#Page_232"><span class="smcap">Van</span></a></td><td>234</td></tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="STARLIGHT_RANCH" id="STARLIGHT_RANCH"></a>STARLIGHT RANCH.</h2>
+
+
+<p>We were crouching round the bivouac fire, for the night was chill, and
+we were yet high up along the summit of the great range. We had been
+scouting through the mountains for ten days, steadily working southward,
+and, though far from our own station, our supplies were abundant, and it
+was our leader's purpose to make a clean sweep of the line from old
+Sandy to the Salado, and fully settle the question as to whether the
+renegade Apaches had betaken themselves, as was possible, to the heights
+of the Matitzal, or had made a break for their old haunts in the Tonto
+Basin or along the foot-hills of the Black Mesa to the east. Strong
+scouting-parties had gone thitherward, too, for "the Chief" was bound to
+bring these Tontos to terms; but our orders were explicit: "Thoroughly
+scout the east face of the Matitzal." We had capital Indian allies with
+us. Their eyes were keen, their legs tireless, and there had been bad
+blood between them and the tribe now broken away from the reservation.
+They asked nothing better than a chance to shoot and kill them; so we
+could feel well assured that if "Tonto sign" appeared anywhere along our
+path it would instantly be reported. But now we were south of the
+confluence of Tonto Creek and the Wild Rye, and our scouts declared that
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>beyond that point was the territory of the White Mountain Apaches,
+where we would not be likely to find the renegades.</p>
+
+<p>East of us, as we lay there in the sheltered nook whence the glare of
+our fire could not be seen, lay the deep valley of the Tonto brawling
+along its rocky bed on the way to join the Salado, a few short marches
+farther south. Beyond it, though we could not see them now, the peaks
+and "buttes" of the Sierra Ancha rolled up as massive foot-hills to the
+Mogollon. All through there our scouting-parties had hitherto been able
+to find Indians whenever they really wanted to. There were some officers
+who couldn't find the Creek itself if they thought Apaches lurked along
+its bank, and of such, some of us thought, was our leader.</p>
+
+<p>In the dim twilight only a while before I had heard our chief packer
+exchanging confidences with one of the sergeants,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you, Harry, if the old man were trying to steer clear of all
+possibility of finding these Tontos, he couldn't have followed a better
+track than ours has been. And he made it, too; did you notice? Every
+time the scouts tried to work out to the left he would herd them all
+back&mdash;up-hill."</p>
+
+<p>"We never did think the lieutenant had any too much sand," answered the
+sergeant, grimly; "but any man with half an eye can see that orders to
+thoroughly scout the east face of a range does not mean keep on top of
+it as we've been doing. Why, in two more marches we'll be beyond their
+stamping-ground entirely, and then it's only a slide down the west face
+to bring us to those ranches in the Sandy Valley. Ever seen them?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No. I've never been this far down; but what do you want to bet that
+<i>that's</i> what the lieutenant is aiming at? He wants to get a look at
+that pretty girl all the fellows at Fort Phoenix are talking about."</p>
+
+<p>"Dam'd old gray-haired rip! It would be just like him. With a wife and
+kids up at Sandy too."</p>
+
+<p>There were officers in the party, junior in years of life and years of
+service to the gray-headed subaltern whom some odd fate had assigned to
+the command of this detachment, nearly two complete "troops" of cavalry
+with a pack-train of sturdy little mules to match. We all knew that, as
+organized, one of our favorite captains had been assigned the command,
+and that between "the Chief," as we called our general, and him a
+perfect understanding existed as to just how thorough and searching this
+scout should be. The general himself came down to Sandy to superintend
+the start of the various commands, and rode away after a long interview
+with our good old colonel, and after seeing the two parties destined for
+the Black Mesa and the Tonto Basin well on their way. We were to move at
+nightfall the following day, and within an hour of the time of starting
+a courier rode in from Prescott with despatches (it was before our
+military telegraph line was built), and the commander of the
+division&mdash;the superior of our Arizona chief&mdash;ordered Captain Tanner to
+repair at once to San Francisco as witness before an important
+court-martial. A groan went up from more than one of us when we heard
+the news, for it meant nothing less than that the command of the most
+important expedition of all would now devolve upon the senior first
+lieutenant, Gleason; and so much did it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> worry Mr. Blake, his junior by
+several files, that he went at once to Colonel Pelham, and begged to be
+relieved from duty with that column and ordered to overtake one of the
+others. The colonel, of course, would listen to nothing of the kind, and
+to Gleason's immense and evident gratification we were marched forth
+under his command. There had been no friction, however. Despite his gray
+beard, Gleason was not an old man, and he really strove to be courteous
+and conciliatory to his officers,&mdash;he was always considerate towards his
+men; but by the time we had been out ten days, having accomplished
+nothing, most of us were thoroughly disgusted. Some few ventured to
+remonstrate. Angry words passed between the commander and Mr. Blake, and
+on the night on which our story begins there was throughout the command
+a feeling that we were simply being trifled with.</p>
+
+<p>The chat between our chief packer and Sergeant Merrick ceased instantly
+as I came forward and passed them on the way to look over the herd guard
+of the little battalion, but it set me to thinking. This was not the
+first that the officers of the Sandy garrison had heard of those two new
+"ranches" established within the year down in the hot but fertile
+valley, and not more than four hours' easy gallop from Fort Phoenix,
+where a couple of troops of "Ours" were stationed. The people who had so
+confidently planted themselves there were evidently well to do, and they
+brought with them a good-sized retinue of ranch- and herdsmen,&mdash;mainly
+Mexicans,&mdash;plenty of "stock," and a complete "camp outfit," which served
+them well until they could raise the adobe walls and finish their
+homesteads.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> Curiosity led occasional parties of officers or enlisted
+men to spend a day in saddle and thus to visit these enterprising
+neighbors. Such parties were always civilly received, invited to
+dismount, and soon to take a bite of luncheon with the proprietors,
+while their horses were promptly led away, unsaddled, rubbed down, and
+at the proper time fed and watered. The officers, of course, had
+introduced themselves and proffered the hospitality and assistance of
+the fort. The proprietors had expressed all proper appreciation, and
+declared that if anything should happen to be needed they would be sure
+to call; but they were too busy, they explained, to make social visits.
+They were hard at work, as the gentlemen could see, getting up their
+houses and their corrals, for, as one of them expressed it, "We've come
+to stay." There were three of these pioneers; two of them, brothers
+evidently, gave the name of Crocker. The third, a tall, swarthy,
+all-over-frontiersman, was introduced by the others as Mr. Burnham.
+Subsequent investigations led to the fact that Burnham was first cousin
+to the Crockers. "Been long in Arizona?" had been asked, and the elder
+Crocker promptly replied, "No, only a year,&mdash;mostly prospecting."</p>
+
+<p>The Crockers were building down towards the stream; but Burnham, from
+some freak which he did not explain, had driven his stakes and was
+slowly getting up his walls half a mile south of the other homestead,
+and high up on a spur of foot-hill that stood at least three hundred
+feet above the general level of the valley. From his "coigne of vantage"
+the whitewashed walls and the bright colors of the flag of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> the fort
+could be dimly made out,&mdash;twenty odd miles down stream.</p>
+
+<p>"Every now and then," said Captain Wayne, who happened up our way on a
+general court, "a bull-train&mdash;a small one&mdash;went past the fort on its way
+up to the ranches, carrying lumber and all manner of supplies, but they
+never stopped and camped near the post either going or coming, as other
+trains were sure to do. They never seemed to want anything, even at the
+sutler's store, though the Lord knows there wasn't much there they
+<i>could</i> want except tanglefoot and tobacco. The bull-train made perhaps
+six trips in as many months, and by that time the glasses at the fort
+could make out that Burnham's place was all finished, but never once had
+either of the three proprietors put in an appearance, as invited, which
+was considered not only extraordinary but unneighborly, and everybody
+quit riding out there."</p>
+
+<p>"But the funniest thing," said Wayne, "happened one night when I was
+officer of the day. The road up-stream ran within a hundred yards of the
+post of the sentry on No. 3, which post was back of the officer's
+quarters, and a quarter of a mile above the stables, corrals, etc. I was
+making the rounds about one o'clock in the morning. The night was bright
+and clear, though the moon was low, and I came upon Dexter, one of the
+sharpest men in my troop, as the sentry on No. 3. After I had given him
+the countersign and was about going on,&mdash;for there was no use in asking
+<i>him</i> if he knew his orders,&mdash;he stopped me to ask if I had authorized
+the stable-sergeant to let out one of the ambulances within the hour.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>
+Of course I was amazed and said no. 'Well,' said he, 'not ten minutes
+ago a four-mule ambulance drove up the road yonder going full tilt, and
+I thought something was wrong, but it was far beyond my challenge
+limit.' You can understand that I went to the stables on the jump, ready
+to scalp the sentry there, the sergeant of the guard, and everybody
+else. I sailed into the sentry first and he was utterly astonished; he
+swore that every horse, mule, and wagon was in its proper place. I
+routed out the old stable-sergeant and we went through everything with
+his lantern. There wasn't a spoke or a hoof missing. Then I went back to
+Dexter and asked him what he'd been drinking, and he seemed much hurt. I
+told him every wheel at the fort was in its proper rut and that nothing
+could have gone out. Neither could there have been a four-mule ambulance
+from elsewhere. There wasn't a civilized corral within fifty miles
+except those new ranches up the valley, and <i>they</i> had no such rig. All
+the same, Dexter stuck to his story, and it ended in our getting a
+lantern and going down to the road. By Gad! he was right. There, in the
+moist, yielding sand, were the fresh tracks of a four-mule team and a
+Concord wagon or something of the same sort. So much for <i>that</i> night!</p>
+
+<p>"Next evening as a lot of us were sitting out on the major's piazza, and
+young Briggs of the infantry was holding forth on the
+constellations,&mdash;you know he's a good deal of an astronomer,&mdash;Mrs.
+Powell suddenly turned to him with 'But you haven't told us the name of
+that bright planet low down there in the northern sky,' and we all
+turned and looked where she pointed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> Briggs looked too. It was only a
+little lower than some stars of the second and third magnitude that he
+had been telling about only five minutes before, only it shone with a
+redder or yellower glare,&mdash;orange I suppose was the real color,&mdash;and was
+clear and strong as the light of Jupiter.</p>
+
+<p>"'That?' says Briggs. 'Why, that must be&mdash;&mdash;Well, I own up. I declare I
+never knew there was so big a star in that part of the firmament!'</p>
+
+<p>"'Don't worry about it, Briggs, old boy,' drawled the major, who had
+been squinting at it through a powerful glass he owns. 'That's terra
+firmament. That planet's at the new ranch up on the spur of the
+Matitzal.'</p>
+
+<p>"But that wasn't all. Two days after, Baker came in from a scout. He had
+been over across the range and had stopped at Burnham's on his way down.
+He didn't see Burnham; he wasn't invited in, but he was full of his
+subject. 'By <i>Jove!</i> fellows. Have any of you been to the ranches
+lately? No? Well, then, I want to get some of the ladies to go up there
+and call. In all my life I never saw so pretty a girl as was sitting
+there on the piazza when I rode around the corner of the house.
+<i>Pretty!</i> She's lovely. Not Mexican. No, indeed! A real American
+girl,&mdash;a young lady, by Gad!'" That, then, explained the new light.</p>
+
+<p>"And did that give the ranch the name by which it is known to you?" we
+asked Wayne.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. The ladies called it 'Starlight Ranch' from that night on. But not
+one of them has seen the girl. Mrs. Frazer and Mrs. Jennings actually
+took the long drive and asked for the ladies, and were civilly told<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>
+that there were none at home. It was a Chinese servant who received
+them. They inquired for Mr. Burnham and he was away too. They asked how
+many ladies there were, and the Chinaman shook his head&mdash;'No sabe.' 'Had
+Mr. Burnham's wife and daughter come?' 'No sabe.' 'Were Mr. Burnham and
+the ladies over at the other ranch?' 'No sabe,' still affably grinning,
+and evidently personally pleased to see the strange ladies; but that
+Chinaman was no fool; he had his instructions and was carrying them out;
+and Mrs. Frazer, whose eyes are very keen, was confident that she saw
+the curtains in an upper window gathered just so as to admit a pair of
+eyes to peep down at the fort wagon with its fair occupants. But the
+face of which she caught a glimpse was not that of a young woman. They
+gave the Chinaman their cards, which he curiously inspected and was
+evidently at a loss what to do with, and after telling him to give them
+to the ladies when they came home they drove over to the Crocker Ranch.
+Here only Mexicans were visible about the premises, and, though Mrs.
+Frazer's Spanish was equal to the task of asking them for water for
+herself and friend, she could not get an intelligible reply from the
+swarthy Ganymede who brought them the brimming glasses as to the
+ladies&mdash;<i>Las se&ntilde;oras</i>&mdash;at the other ranch. They asked for the Crockers,
+and the Mexican only vaguely pointed up the valley. It was in defeat and
+humiliation that the ladies with their escort, Mr. Baker, returned to
+the fort, but Baker rode up again and took a comrade with him, and they
+both saw the girl with the lovely face and form this time, and had
+almost accosted her when a sharp, stern voice<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> called her within. A
+fortnight more and a dozen men, officers or soldiers, had rounded that
+ranch and had seen two women,&mdash;one middle-aged, the other a girl of
+about eighteen who was fair and bewitchingly pretty. Baker had bowed to
+her and she had smiled sweetly on him, even while being drawn within
+doors. One or two men had cornered Burnham and began to ask questions.
+'Gentlemen,' said he, 'I'm a poor hand at talk. I've no education. I've
+lived on the frontier all my life. I mean no offence, but I cannot
+answer your questions and I cannot ask you into my house. For
+explanation, I refer you to Mr. Crocker.' Then Baker and a chum of his
+rode over and called on the elder Crocker, and asked for the
+explanation. That only added to the strangeness of the thing.</p>
+
+<p>"'It is true, gentlemen, that Mr. Burnham's wife and child are now with
+him; but, partially because of her, his wife's, infirm health, and
+partially because of a most distressing and unfortunate experience in
+his past, our kinsman begs that no one will attempt to call at the
+ranch. He appreciates all the courtesy the gentlemen and ladies at the
+fort would show, and have shown, but he feels compelled to decline all
+intercourse. We are beholden, in a measure, to Mr. Burnham, and have to
+be guided by his wishes. We are young men compared to him, and it was
+through him that we came to seek our fortune here, but he is virtually
+the head of both establishments.' Well. There was nothing more to be
+said, and the boys came away. One thing more transpired. Burnham gave it
+out that he had lived in Texas before the war, and had fought all the
+way through in the Confederate service. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> thought the officers ought
+to know this. It was the major himself to whom he told it, and when the
+major replied that he considered the war over and that that made no
+difference, Burnham, with a clouded face replied, 'Well, mebbe it
+don't&mdash;to you.' Whereupon the major fired up and told him that if he
+chose to be an unreconstructed reb, when Union officers and gentlemen
+were only striving to be civil to him, he might 'go ahead and be d&mdash;d,'
+and came away in high dudgeon." And so matters stood up to the last we
+had heard from Fort Phoenix, except for one letter which Mrs. Frazer
+wrote to Mrs. Turner at Sandy, perhaps purely out of feminine mischief,
+because a year or so previous Baker, as a junior second lieutenant, was
+doing the devoted to Mrs. Turner, a species of mildly amatory
+apprenticeship which most of the young officers seemed impelled to serve
+on first joining. "We are having such a romance here at Phoenix. You
+have doubtless heard of the beautiful girl at 'Starlight Ranch,' as we
+call the Burnham place, up the valley. Everybody who called has been
+rebuffed; but, after catching a few glimpses of her, Mr. Baker became
+completely infatuated and rode up that way three or four times a week.
+Of late he has ceased going in the daytime, but it is known that he
+rides out towards dusk and gets back long after midnight, sometimes not
+till morning. Of course it takes four hours, nearly, to come from there
+full-speed, but though Major Tracy will admit nothing, it must be that
+Mr. Baker has his permission to be away at night. We all believe that it
+is another case of love laughing at locksmiths and that in some way they
+contrive to meet. One thing is cer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>tain,&mdash;Mr. Baker is desperately in
+love and will permit no trifling with him on the subject." Ordinarily, I
+suppose, such a letter would have been gall and wormwood to Mrs. Turner,
+but as young Hunter, a new appointment, was now a devotee, and as it was
+a piece of romantic news which interested all Camp Sandy, she read the
+letter to one lady after another, and so it became public property. Old
+Catnip, as we called the colonel, was disposed to be a little worried on
+the subject. Baker was a youngster in whom he had some interest as being
+a distant connection of his wife's, but Mrs. Pelham had not come to
+Arizona with us, and the good old fellow was living <i>en gar&ccedil;on</i> with the
+Mess, where, of course, the matter was discussed in all its bearings.</p>
+
+<p>All these things recurred to me as I pottered around through the herds
+examining side-lines, etc., and looking up the guards. Ordinarily our
+scouting parties were so small that we had no such thing as an
+officer-of-the-day,&mdash;nor had we now when Gleason could have been excused
+for ordering one, but he evidently desired to do nothing that might
+annoy his officers. He <i>might</i> want them to stand by him when it came to
+reporting the route and result of the scout. All the same, he expected
+that the troop officers would give personal supervision to their
+command, and especially to look after their "herds," and it was this
+duty that took me away from the group chatting about the bivouac fire
+preparatory to "turning in" for the night.</p>
+
+<p>When I got back, a tall, gray-haired trooper was "standing attention" in
+front of the commanding officer, and had evidently just made some
+report, for Mr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> Gleason nodded his head appreciatively and then said,
+kindly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You did perfectly right, corporal. Instruct your men to keep a lookout
+for it, and if seen again to-night to call me at once. I'll bring my
+field-glass and we'll see what it is."</p>
+
+<p>The trooper raised his left hand to the "carried" carbine in salute and
+turned away. When he was out of earshot, Gleason spoke to the silent
+group,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Now, there's a case in point. If I had command of a troop and could get
+old Potts into it I could make something of him, and I know it."</p>
+
+<p>Gleason had consummate faith in his "system" with the rank and file, and
+no respect for that of any of the captains. Nobody said anything. Blake
+hated him and puffed unconcernedly at his pipe, with a display of
+absolute indifference to his superior's views that the latter did not
+fail to note. The others knew what a trial "old Potts" had been to his
+troop commander, and did not believe that Gleason could "reform" him at
+will. The silence was embarrassing, so I inquired,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What had he to report?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, nothing of any consequence. He and one of the sentries saw what
+they took to be an Indian signal-fire up Tonto Creek. It soon smouldered
+away,&mdash;but I always make it a point to show respect to these old
+soldiers."</p>
+
+<p>"You show d&mdash;d little respect for their reports all the same," said
+Blake, suddenly shooting up on a pair of legs that looked like stilts.
+"An Indian signal-fire is a matter of a heap of consequence in my
+opinion;" and he wrathfully stalked away.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>For some reason Gleason saw fit to take no notice of this piece of
+insubordination. Placidly he resumed his chat,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Now, you gentlemen seem skeptical about Potts. Do any of you know his
+history?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I know he's about the oldest soldier in the regiment; that he
+served in the First Dragoons when they were in Arizona twenty years ago,
+and that he gets drunk as a boiled owl every pay-day," was an immediate
+answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Very good as far as it goes," replied Gleason, with a superior smile;
+"but I'll just tell you a chapter in his life he never speaks of and I
+never dreamed of until the last time I was in San Francisco. There I met
+old General Starr at the 'Occidental,' and almost the first thing he did
+was to inquire for Potts, and then he told me about him. He was one of
+the finest sergeants in Starr's troop in '53,&mdash;a dashing, handsome
+fellow,&mdash;and while in at Fort Leavenworth he had fallen in love with,
+won, and married as pretty a young girl as ever came into the regiment.
+She came out to New Mexico with the detachment with which he served, and
+was the belle of all the '<i>bailes</i>' given either by the 'greasers' or
+the enlisted men. He was proud of her as he could be, and old Starr
+swore that the few ladies of the regiment who were with them at old Fort
+Fillmore or Stanton were really jealous of her. Even some of the young
+officers got to saying sweet things to her, and Potts came to the
+captain about it, and he had it stopped; but the girl's head was turned.
+There was a handsome young fellow in the sutler's store who kept making
+her presents on the sly, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> when at last Potts found it out he nearly
+hammered the life out of him. Then came that campaign against the
+Jicarilla Apaches, and Potts had to go with his troop and leave her at
+the cantonment, where, to be sure, there were ladies and plenty of
+people to look after her; and in the fight at Cieneguilla poor Potts was
+badly wounded, and it was some months before they got back; and meantime
+the sutler fellow had got in his work, and when the command finally came
+in with its wounded they had skipped, no one knew where. If Potts hadn't
+been taken down with brain fever on top of his wound he would have
+followed their trail, desertion or no desertion, but he was a broken man
+when he got out of hospital. The last thing old Starr said to me was,
+'Now, Gleason, I want you to be kind to my old sergeant; he served all
+through the war, and I've never forgiven them in the First for going
+back on him and refusing to re-enlist him; but the captains, one and
+all, said it was no use; he had sunk lower and lower; was perfectly
+unreliable; spent nine-tenths of his time in the guard-house and all his
+money in whiskey; and one after another they refused to take him.'"</p>
+
+<p>"How'd we happen to get him, then?" queried one of our party.</p>
+
+<p>"He showed up at San Francisco, neat as a new pin; exhibited several
+fine discharges, but said nothing of the last two, and was taken into
+the regiment as we were going through. Of course, its pretty much as
+they said in the First when we're in garrison, but, once out scouting,
+days away from a drop of 'tanglefoot,' and he does first rate. That's
+how he got his corporal's chevrons."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"He'll lose 'em again before we're back at Sandy forty-eight hours,"
+growled Blake, strolling up to the party again.</p>
+
+<p>But he did not. Prophecies failed this time, and old Potts wore those
+chevrons to the last.</p>
+
+<p>He was a good prophet and a keen judge of human nature as exemplified in
+Gleason, who said that "the old man" was planning for a visit to the new
+ranches above Fort Phoenix. A day or two farther we plodded along down
+the range, our Indian scouts looking reproachfully&mdash;even sullenly&mdash;at
+the commander at every halt, and then came the order to turn back. Two
+marches more, and the little command went into bivouac close under the
+eaves of Fort Phoenix and we were exchanging jovial greetings with our
+brother officers at the post. Turning over the command to Lieutenant
+Blake, Mr. Gleason went up into the garrison with his own particular
+pack-mule; billeted himself on the infantry commanding officer&mdash;the
+major&mdash;and in a short time appeared freshly-shaved and in the neatest
+possible undress uniform, ready to call upon the few ladies at the post,
+and of course to make frequent reference to "my battalion," or "my
+command," down beyond the dusty, dismal corrals. The rest of us, having
+come out for business, had no uniforms, nothing but the rough field,
+scouting rig we wore on such duty, and every man's chin was bristling
+with a two-weeks'-old beard.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to report Gleason for this thing," swore Blake; "you see if I
+don't, the moment we get back."</p>
+
+<p>The rest of us were "hopping mad," too, but held our tongues so long as
+we were around Phoenix. We<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> did not want them there to believe there
+was dissension and almost mutiny impending. Some of us got permission
+from Blake to go up to the post with its hospitable officers, and I was
+one who strolled up to "the store" after dark. There we found the major,
+and Captain Frazer, and Captain Jennings, and most of the youngsters,
+but Baker was absent. Of course the talk soon drifted to and settled on
+"Starlight Ranch," and by tattoo most of the garrison crowd were talking
+like so many Prussians, all at top-voice and all at once. Every man
+seemed to have some theory of his own with regard to the peculiar
+conduct of Mr. Burnham, but no one dissented from the quiet remark of
+Captain Frazer:</p>
+
+<p>"As for Baker's relations with the daughter, he is simply desperately in
+love and means to marry her. He tells my wife that she is educated and
+far more refined than her surroundings would indicate, but that he is
+refused audience by both Burnham and his wife, and it is only at extreme
+risk that he is able to meet his lady-love at all. Some nights she is
+entirely prevented from slipping out to see him."</p>
+
+<p>Presently in came Gleason, beaming and triumphant from his round of
+calls among the fair sex, and ready now for the game he loved above all
+things on earth,&mdash;poker. For reasons which need not be elaborated here
+no officer in our command would play with him, and an ugly rumor was
+going the rounds at Sandy, just before we came away, that, in a game at
+Olsen's ranch on the Aqua Fria about three weeks before, he had had his
+face slapped by Lieutenant Ray of our own regiment. But Ray had gone to
+his lonely post at Camp Cameron,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> and there was no one by whom we could
+verify it except some ranchmen, who declared that Gleason had cheated at
+cards, and Ray "had been a little too full," as they put it, to detect
+the fraud until it seemed to flash upon him all of a sudden. A game
+began, however, with three local officers as participants, so presently
+Carroll and I withdrew and went back to bivouac.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you seen anything of Corporal Potts?" was the first question asked
+by Mr. Blake.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a thing. Why? Is he missing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Been missing for an hour. He was talking with some of these garrison
+soldiers here just after the men had come in from the herd, and what I'm
+afraid of is that he'll go up into the post and get bilin' full there.
+I've sent other non-commissioned officers after him, but they cannot
+find him. He hasn't even looked in at the store, so the bar-tender
+swears."</p>
+
+<p>"The sly old rascal!" said Carroll. "He knows perfectly well how to get
+all the liquor he wants without exposing himself in the least. No doubt
+if the bar-tender were asked if he had not filled some flasks this
+evening he would say yes, and Potts is probably stretched out
+comfortably in the forage-loft of one of the stables, with a canteen of
+water and his flask of bug-juice, prepared to make a night of it."</p>
+
+<p>Blake moodily gazed into the embers of the bivouac-fire. Never had we
+seen him so utterly unlike himself as on this burlesque of a scout, and
+now that we were virtually homeward-bound, and empty-handed too, he was
+completely weighed down by the consciousness of our lost opportunities.
+If something could only have happened to Gleason before the start, so
+that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> the command might have devolved on Blake, we all felt that a very
+different account could have been rendered; for with all his rattling,
+ranting fun around the garrison, he was a gallant and dutiful soldier in
+the field. It was now after ten o'clock; most of the men, rolled in
+their blankets, were sleeping on the scant turf that could be found at
+intervals in the half-sandy soil below the corrals and stables. The
+herds of the two troops and the pack-mules were all cropping peacefully
+at the hay that had been liberally distributed among them because there
+was hardly grass enough for a "burro." We were all ready to turn in, but
+there stood our temporary commander, his long legs a-straddle, his hands
+clasped behind him, and the flickering light of the fire betraying in
+his face both profound dejection and disgust.</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't care so much," said he at last, "but it will give Gleason a
+chance to say that things always go wrong when he's away. Did you see
+him up at the post?" he suddenly asked. "What was he doing, Carroll?"</p>
+
+<p>"Poker," was the sententious reply.</p>
+
+<p>"What?" shouted Blake. "Poker? 'I thank thee, good Tubal,&mdash;good
+news,&mdash;good news!'" he ranted, with almost joyous relapse into his old
+manner. "'O Lady Fortune, stand you auspicious', for those fellows at
+Phoenix, I mean, and may they scoop our worthy chieftain of his last
+ducat. See what it means, fellows. Win or lose, he'll play all night,
+he'll drink much if it go agin' him, and I pray it may. He'll be too
+sick, when morning comes, to join us, and, by my faith, we'll leave his
+horse and orderly and march away without<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> him. As for Potts,&mdash;an he
+appear not,&mdash;we'll let him play hide-and-seek with his would-be
+reformer. Hullo! What's that?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a sound of alternate shout and challenge towards where the
+horses were herded on the level stretch below us. The sergeant of the
+guard was running rapidly thither as Carroll and I reached the corner of
+the corral. Half a minute's brisk spurt brought us to the scene.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the trouble, sentry?" panted the sergeant.</p>
+
+<p>"One of our fellows trying to take a horse. I was down on this side of
+the herd when I seen him at the other end trying to loose a side-line.
+It was just light enough by the moon to let me see the figure, but I
+couldn't make out who 'twas. I challenged and ran and yelled for the
+corporal, too, but he got away through the horses somehow. Murphy, who's
+on the other side of the herds, seen him and challenged too."</p>
+
+<p>"Did he answer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a word, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Count your horses, sergeant, and see if all are here," was ordered.
+Then we hurried over to Murphy's post.</p>
+
+<p>"Who was the man? Could you make him out?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not plainly, sir; but I think it was one of our own command," and poor
+Murphy hesitated and stammered. He hated to "give away," as he expressed
+it, one of his own troop. But his questioners were inexorable.</p>
+
+<p>"What man did this one most look like, so far as you could judge?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir, I hate to suspicion anybody, but 'twas more like Corporal
+Potts he looked. Sure, if 'twas him, he must ha' been drinkin', for the
+corporal's not the man to try and run off a horse when he's in his sober
+sinses."</p>
+
+<p>The waning moon gave hardly enough light for effective search, but we
+did our best. Blake came out and joined us, looking very grave when he
+heard the news. Eleven o'clock came, and we gave it up. Not a sign of
+the marauder could we find. Potts was still absent from the bivouac when
+we got back, but Blake determined to make no further effort to find him.
+Long before midnight we were all soundly sleeping, and the next thing I
+knew my orderly was shaking me by the arm and announcing breakfast.
+Reveille was just being sounded up at the garrison. The sun had not yet
+climbed high enough to peep over the Matitzal, but it was broad
+daylight. In ten minutes Carroll and I were enjoying our coffee and
+<i>frijoles</i>; Blake had ridden up into the garrison. Potts was still
+absent; and so, as we expected, was Mr. Gleason.</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour more, and in long column of twos, and followed by our
+pack-train, the command was filing out along the road whereon "No. 3"
+had seen the ambulance darting by in the darkness. Blake had come back
+from the post with a flush of anger on his face and with lips
+compressed. He did not even dismount. "Saddle up at once" was all he
+said until he gave the commands to mount and march. Opposite the
+quarters of the commanding officer we were riding at ease, and there he
+shook his gauntleted fist at the whitewashed walls, and had recourse to
+his usual safety-valve,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"'Take heed, my lords, the welfare of us all</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Hangs on the cutting short that fraudful man,'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>and may the devil fly away with him! What d'ye think he told me when I
+went to hunt him up?"</p>
+
+<p>There was no suitable conjecture.</p>
+
+<p>"He said to march ahead, leaving his horse, Potts's, and his orderly's,
+also the pack-mule: he would follow at his leisure. He had given Potts
+authority to wait and go with him, but did not consider it necessary to
+notify me."</p>
+
+<p>"Where was he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Still at the store, playing with the trader and some understrappers.
+Didn't seem to be drunk, either."</p>
+
+<p>And that was the last we heard of our commander until late in the
+evening. We were then in bivouac on the west bank of the Sandy within
+short rifle-range of the buildings of Crocker's Ranch on the other side.
+There the lights burned brightly, and some of our people who had gone
+across had been courteously received, despite a certain constraint and
+nervousness displayed by the two brothers. At "Starlight," however,
+nearly a mile away from us, all was silence and darkness. We had studied
+it curiously as we marched up along the west shore, and some of the men
+had asked permission to fall out and ride over there, "just to see it,"
+but Blake had refused. The Sandy was easily fordable on horseback
+anywhere, and the Crockers, for the convenience of their ranch people,
+had placed a lot of bowlders and heaps of stones in such position that
+they served as a foot-path opposite their corrals. But Blake said he
+would rather none of his people intruded at "Starlight," and so it
+happened that we were around<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> the fire when Gleason rode in about nine
+o'clock, and with him Lieutenant Baker, also the recreant Potts.</p>
+
+<p>"You may retain command, Mr. Blake," said the former, thickly. "I have
+an engagement this evening."</p>
+
+<p>In an instant Baker was at my side. We had not met before since he was
+wearing the gray at the Point.</p>
+
+<p>"For God's sake, don't let him follow me,&mdash;but <i>you</i>,&mdash;come if you
+possibly can. I'll slip off into the willows up-stream as soon as I can
+do so without his seeing."</p>
+
+<p>I signalled Blake to join us, and presently he sauntered over our way,
+Gleason meantime admonishing his camp cook that he expected to have the
+very best hot supper for himself and his friend, Lieutenant Baker, ready
+in twenty minutes,&mdash;twenty minutes, for they had an important
+engagement, an <i>affaire de coor</i>, by Jove!</p>
+
+<p>"You fellows know something of this matter," said Baker, hurriedly; "but
+I cannot begin to tell you how troubled I am. Something is wrong with
+<i>her</i>. She has not met me once this week, and the house is still as a
+grave. I must see her. She is either ill or imprisoned by her people, or
+carried away. God only knows why that hound Burnham forbids me the
+house. I cannot see him. I've never seen his wife. The door is barred
+against me and I cannot force an entrance. For a while she was able to
+slip out late in the evening and meet me down the hill-side, but they
+must have detected her in some way. I do not even know that she is
+there, but to-night I <i>mean</i> to know. If she is within those walls&mdash;and
+alive&mdash;she will answer my signal. But for heaven's sake keep that
+drunken wretch from going<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> over there. He's bent on it. The major gave
+me leave again for to-night, provided I would see Gleason safely to your
+camp, and he has been maundering all the way out about how <i>he</i> knew
+more'n I did,&mdash;he and Potts, who's half-drunk too,&mdash;and how he meant to
+see me through in this matter."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, here," said Blake, "there's only one thing to be done. You two
+slip away at once; get your horses, and ford the Sandy well below camp.
+I'll try and keep him occupied."</p>
+
+<p>In three minutes we were off, leading our steeds until a hundred yards
+or so away from the fires, then mounting and moving at rapid walk.
+Following Baker's lead, I rode along, wondering what manner of adventure
+this was apt to be. I expected him to make an early crossing of the
+stream, but he did not. "The only fords I know," said he, "are down
+below Starlight," and so it happened that we made a wide <i>d&eacute;tour</i>; but
+during that dark ride he told me frankly how matters stood. Zoe Burnham
+had promised to be his wife, and had fully returned his love, but she
+was deeply attached to her poor mother, whose health was utterly broken,
+and who seemed to stand in dread of her father. The girl could not bear
+to leave her mother, though he had implored her to do so and be married
+at once. "She told me the last time I saw her that old Burnham had sworn
+to kill me if he caught me around the place, so I have to come armed,
+you see;" and he exhibited his heavy revolver. "There's something shady
+about the old man, but I don't know what it is."</p>
+
+<p>At last we crossed the stream, and soon reached a point where we
+dismounted and fastened our horses<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> among the willows; then slowly and
+cautiously began the ascent to the ranch. The slope here was long and
+gradual, and before we had gone fifty yards Baker laid his hand on my
+arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait. Hush!" he said.</p>
+
+<p>Listening, we could distinctly hear the crunching of horses' hoofs, but
+in the darkness (for the old moon was not yet showing over the range to
+the east) we could distinguish nothing. One thing was certain: those
+hoofs were going towards the ranch.</p>
+
+<p>"Heavens!" said Baker. "Do you suppose that Gleason has got the start of
+us after all? There's no telling what mischief he may do. He swore he
+would stand inside those walls to-night, for there was no Chinaman on
+earth whom he could not bribe."</p>
+
+<p>We pushed ahead at the run now, but within a minute I plunged into some
+unseen hollow; my Mexican spurs tangled, and down I went heavily upon
+the ground. The shock was severe, and for an instant I lay there
+half-stunned. Baker was by my side in the twinkling of an eye full of
+anxiety and sympathy. I was not injured in the slightest, but the breath
+was knocked out of me, and it was some minutes before I could forge
+ahead again. We reached the foot of the steep slope; we clambered
+painfully&mdash;at least I did&mdash;to the crest, and there stood the black
+outline of Starlight Ranch, with only a glimmer of light shining through
+the windows here and there where the shades did not completely cover the
+space. In front were three horses held by a cavalry trooper.</p>
+
+<p>"Whose horses are these?" panted Baker.</p>
+
+<p>"Lieutenant Gleason's, sir. Him and Corporal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> Potts has gone round
+behind the ranch with a Chinaman they found takin' in water."</p>
+
+<p>And then, just at that instant, so piercing, so agonized, so fearful
+that even the three horses started back snorting and terrified, there
+rang out on the still night air the most awful shriek I ever heard, the
+wail of a woman in horror and dismay. Then dull, heavy blows; oaths,
+curses, stifled exclamations; a fall that shook the windows; Gleason's
+voice commanding, entreating; a shrill Chinese jabber; a rush through
+the hall; more blows; gasps; curses; more unavailing orders in Gleason's
+well-known voice; then a sudden pistol shot, a scream of "Oh, my God!"
+then moans, and then silence. The casement on the second floor was
+thrown open, and a fair young face and form were outlined upon the
+bright light within; a girlish voice called, imploringly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Harry! Harry! Oh, help, if you are there! They are killing father!"</p>
+
+<p>But at the first sound Harry Baker had sprung from my side and
+disappeared in the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>"We are friends," I shouted to her,&mdash;"Harry Baker's friends. He has gone
+round to the rear entrance." Then I made a dash for the front door,
+shaking, kicking, and hammering with all my might. I had no idea how to
+find the rear entrance in the darkness. Presently it was opened by the
+still chattering, jabbering Chinaman, his face pasty with terror and
+excitement, and the sight that met my eyes was one not soon to be
+forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>A broad hall opened straight before me, with a stairway leading to the
+second floor. A lamp with bur<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>nished reflector was burning brightly
+midway down its length. Another just like it fully lighted a big room to
+my left,&mdash;the dining-room, evidently,&mdash;on the floor of which, surrounded
+by overturned chairs, was lying a woman in a deathlike swoon. Indeed, I
+thought at first she was dead. In the room to my right, only dimly
+lighted, a tall man in shirt-sleeves was slowly crawling to a sofa,
+unsteadily assisted by Gleason; and as I stepped inside, Corporal Potts,
+who was leaning against the wall at the other end of the room pressing
+his hand to his side and with ashen face, sank suddenly to the floor,
+doubled up in a pool of his own blood. In the dining-room, in the hall,
+everywhere that I could see, were the marks of a fearful struggle. The
+man on the sofa gasped faintly, "Water," and I ran into the dining-room
+and hastened back with a brimming goblet.</p>
+
+<p>"What does it all mean?" I demanded of Gleason.</p>
+
+<p>Big drops of sweat were pouring down his pallid face. The fearful scene
+had entirely sobered him.</p>
+
+<p>"Potts has found the man who robbed him of his wife. That's she on the
+floor yonder. Go and help her."</p>
+
+<p>But she was already coming to and beginning to stare wildly about her. A
+glass of water helped to revive her. She staggered across the hall, and
+then, with a moan of misery and horror at the sight, threw herself upon
+her knees, not beside the sofa where Burnham lay gasping, but on the
+floor where lay our poor old corporal. In an instant she had his head in
+her lap and was crooning over the senseless clay, swaying her body to
+and fro as she piteously called to him,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Frank, Frank! Oh, for the love of Jesus, speak to me! Frank, dear
+Frank, my husband, my own! Oh, for God's sake, open your eyes and look
+at me! I wasn't as wicked as they made me out, Frank, God knows I
+wasn't. I tried to get back to you, but Pierce there swore you were
+dead,&mdash;swore you were killed at Cieneguilla. Oh, Frank, Frank, open your
+eyes! <i>Do</i> hear me, husband. O God, don't let him die! Oh, for pity's
+sake, gentlemen, can't you do something? Can't you bring him to? He must
+hear me! He must know how I've been lied to all these years!"</p>
+
+<p>"Quick! Take this and see if you can bring him round," said Gleason,
+tossing me his flask. I knelt and poured the burning spirit into his
+open mouth. There were a few gurgles, half-conscious efforts to swallow,
+and then&mdash;success. He opened his glazing eyes and looked up into the
+face of his wife. His lips moved and he called her by name. She raised
+him higher in her arms, pillowing his head upon her bosom, and covered
+his face with frantic kisses. The sight seemed too much for "Burnham."
+His face worked and twisted with rage; he ground out curses and
+blasphemy between his clinched teeth; he even strove to rise from the
+sofa, but Gleason forced him back. Meantime, the poor woman's wild
+remorse and lamentations were poured into the ears of the dying man.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me you believe me, Frank. Tell me you forgive me. O God! you don't
+know what my life has been with him. When I found out that it was all a
+lie about your being killed at Cieneguilla, he beat me like a slave. He
+had to go and fight in the war. They made him; they conscripted him; and
+when he got<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> back he brought me papers to show you were killed in one of
+the Virginia battles. I gave up hope then for good and all."</p>
+
+<p>Just then who should come springing down the stairs but Baker, who had
+evidently been calming and soothing his lady-love aloft. He stepped
+quickly into the parlor.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you sent for a surgeon?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>The sound of his voice seemed to rouse "Burnham" to renewed life and
+raging hate.</p>
+
+<p>"Surgeons be damned!" he gasped. "I'm past all surgery; but thank God
+I've given that ruffian what'll send him to hell before I get there! And
+you&mdash;<i>you</i>"&mdash;and here he made a frantic grab for the revolver that lay
+upon the floor, but Gleason kicked it away&mdash;"you, young hound, I meant
+to have wound you up before I got through. But I can jeer at
+you&mdash;God-forsaken idiot&mdash;I can triumph over you;" and he stretched forth
+a quivering, menacing arm and hand. "You <i>would</i> have your way&mdash;damn
+you!&mdash;so take it. You've given your love to a bastard,&mdash;that's what Zoe
+is."</p>
+
+<p>Baker stood like one turned suddenly into stone. But from the other end
+of the room came prompt, wrathful, and with the ring of truth in her
+earnest protest, the mother's loud defence of her child.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a lie,&mdash;a fiendish and malignant lie,&mdash;and he knows it. Here lies
+her father, my own husband, murdered by that scoundrel there. Her
+baptismal certificate is in my room. I've kept it all these years where
+he never could get it. No, Frank, she's your own, your own baby, whom
+you never saw. Go&mdash;go and bring her. He <i>must</i> see his baby-girl. Oh,
+my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> darling, don't&mdash;don't go until you see her." And again she covered
+the ashen face with her kisses. I knelt and put the flask to his lips
+and he eagerly swallowed a few drops. Baker had turned and darted
+up-stairs. "Burnham's" late effort had proved too much for him. He had
+fainted away, and the blood was welling afresh from several wounds.</p>
+
+<p>A moment more and Baker reappeared, leading his betrothed. With her
+long, golden hair rippling down her back, her face white as death, and
+her eyes wild with dread, she was yet one of the loveliest pictures I
+ever dreamed of. Obedient to her mother's signal, she knelt close beside
+them, saying no word.</p>
+
+<p>"Zoe, darling, this is your own father; the one I told you of last
+winter."</p>
+
+<p>Old Potts seemed struggling to rise; an inexpressible tenderness shone
+over his rugged, bearded face; his eyes fastened themselves on the
+lovely girl before him with a look almost as of wonderment; his lips
+seemed striving to whisper her name. His wife raised him still higher,
+and Baker reverently knelt and supported the shoulder of the dying man.
+There was the silence of the grave in the dimly-lighted room. Slowly,
+tremulously the arm in the old blue blouse was raised and extended
+towards the kneeling girl. Lowly she bent, clasping her hands and with
+the tears now welling from her eyes. One moment more and the withered
+old hand that for quarter of a century had grasped the sabre-hilt in the
+service of our common country slowly fell until it rested on that
+beautiful, golden head,&mdash;one little second or two, in which the lips
+seemed to murmur a prayer and the fast glazing eyes were fixed in
+infinite<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> tenderness upon his only child. Then suddenly they sought the
+face of his sobbing wife,&mdash;a quick, faint smile, a sigh, and the hand
+dropped to the floor. The old trooper's life had gone out in
+benediction.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Of course there was trouble all around before that wretched affair was
+explained. Gleason came within an ace of court-martial, but escaped it
+by saying that he knew of "Burnham's" threats against the life of
+Lieutenant Baker, and that he went to the ranch in search of the latter
+and to get him out of danger. They met the Chinaman outside drawing
+water, and he ushered them in the back way because it was the nearest.
+Potts asked to go with him that he might see if this was his long-lost
+wife,&mdash;so said Gleason,&mdash;and the instant she caught sight of him she
+shrieked and fainted, and the two men sprang at each other like tigers.
+Knives were drawn in a minute. Then Burnham fled through the hall,
+snatched a revolver from its rack, and fired the fatal shot. The surgeon
+from Fort Phoenix reached them early the next morning, a messenger
+having been despatched from Crocker's ranch before eleven at night, but
+all his skill could not save "Burnham," now known to be Pierce, the
+ex-sutler clerk of the early Fifties. He had prospered and made money
+ever since the close of the war, and Zoe had been thoroughly well
+educated in the East before the poor child was summoned to share her
+mother's exile. His mania seemed to be to avoid all possibility of
+contact with the troops, but the Crockers had given such glowing
+accounts of the land near Fort Phoenix, and they were so positively
+assured that there need be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> no intercourse whatever with that post, that
+he determined to risk it. But, go where he would, his sin had found him
+out.</p>
+
+<p>The long hot summer followed, but it often happened that before many
+weeks there were interchanges of visits between the fort and the ranch.
+The ladies insisted that the widow should come thither for change and
+cheer, and Zoe's appearance at Phoenix was the sensation of the year.
+Baker was in the seventh heaven. "Burnham," it was found, had a certain
+sense of justice, for his will had been made long before, and everything
+he possessed was left unreservedly to the woman whom he had betrayed
+and, in his tigerish way, doubtless loved, for he had married her in
+'65, the instant he succeeded in convincing her that Potts was really
+dead.</p>
+
+<p>So far from combating the will, both the Crockers were cordial in their
+support. Indeed, it was the elder brother who told the widow of its
+existence. They had known her and her story many a year, and were ready
+to devote themselves to her service now. The junior moved up to the
+"Burnham" place to take general charge and look after matters, for the
+property was every day increasing in value. And so matters went until
+the fall, and then, one lovely evening, in the little wooden chapel at
+the old fort, there was a gathering such as its walls had never known
+before; and the loveliest bride that Arizona ever saw, blushing,
+smiling, and radiantly happy, received the congratulations of the entire
+garrison and of delegations from almost every post in the department.</p>
+
+<p>A few years ago, to the sorrow of everybody in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> regiment, Mr. and
+Mrs. Harry Baker bade it good-by forever. The fond old mother who had so
+long watched over the growing property for "her children," as she called
+them, had no longer the strength the duties required. Crocker had taken
+unto himself a helpmate and was needed at his own place, and our gallant
+and genial comrade with his sweet wife left us only when it became
+evident to all at Phoenix that a new master was needed at Starlight
+Ranch.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="WELL_WON" id="WELL_WON"></a>WELL WON;</h2>
+<h2><a name="OR" id="OR"></a>OR</h2>
+<h2><a name="FROM_THE_PLAINS_TO_THE_POINT" id="FROM_THE_PLAINS_TO_THE_POINT"></a>FROM THE PLAINS TO "THE POINT".</h2>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+<h2><a name="RALPH_MCCREA" id="RALPH_MCCREA"></a>RALPH MCCREA.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The sun was going down, and a little girl with big, dark eyes who was
+sitting in the waiting-room of the railway station was beginning to look
+very tired. Ever since the train came in at one o'clock she had been
+perched there between the iron arms of the seat, and now it was after
+six o'clock of the long June day, and high time that some one came for
+her.</p>
+
+<p>A bonny little mite she was, with a wealth of brown hair tumbling down
+her shoulders and overhanging her heavy eyebrows. She was prettily
+dressed, and her tiny feet, cased in stout little buttoned boots, stuck
+straight out before her most of the time, as she sat well back on the
+broad bench.</p>
+
+<p>She was a silent little body, and for over two hours had hardly opened
+her lips to any one,&mdash;even to the doll that now lay neglected on the
+seat beside her. Earlier in the afternoon she had been much engrossed
+with that blue-eyed, flaxen-haired, and overdressed beauty; but, little
+by little, her interest flagged, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> when a six-year-old girlie loses
+interest in a brand-new doll something serious must be the matter.</p>
+
+<p>Something decidedly serious was the matter now. The train that came up
+from Denver had brought this little maiden and her father,&mdash;a handsome,
+sturdy-looking ranchman of about thirty years of age,&mdash;and they had been
+welcomed with jubilant cordiality by two or three stalwart men in
+broad-brimmed slouch hats and frontier garb. They had picked her up in
+their brawny arms and carried her to the waiting-room, and seated her
+there in state and fed her with fruit and dainties, and made much of
+her. Then her father had come in and placed in her arms this wonderful
+new doll, and while she was still hugging it in her delight, he laid a
+heavy satchel on the seat beside her and said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And now, baby, papa has to go up-town a ways. He has lots of things to
+get to take home with us, and some new horses to try. He may be gone a
+whole hour, but will you stay right here&mdash;you and dolly&mdash;and take good
+care of the satchel?"</p>
+
+<p>She looked up a little wistfully. She did not quite like to be left
+behind, but she felt sure papa could not well take her,&mdash;he was always
+so loving and kind,&mdash;and then, there was dolly; and there were other
+children with their mothers in the room. So she nodded, and put up her
+little face for his kiss. He took her in his arms a minute and hugged
+her tight.</p>
+
+<p>"That's my own little Jessie!" he said. "She's as brave as her mother
+was, fellows, and it's saying a heap."</p>
+
+<p>With that he set her down upon the bench, and they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> put dolly in her
+arms again and a package of apples within her reach; and then the jolly
+party started off.</p>
+
+<p>They waved their hands to her through the window and she smiled shyly at
+them, and one of them called to a baggage-man and told him to have an
+eye on little Jessie in there. "She is Farron's kid."</p>
+
+<p>For a while matters did not go so very badly. Other children, who came
+to look at that marvellous doll and to make timid advances, kept her
+interested. But presently the east-bound train was signalled and they
+were all whisked away.</p>
+
+<p>Then came a space of over an hour, during which little Jessie sat there
+all alone in the big, bare room, playing contentedly with her new toy
+and chattering in low-toned, murmurous "baby talk" to her, and pointing
+out the wonderful sunbeams that came slanting in through the dust of the
+western windows. She had had plenty to eat and a big glass of milk
+before papa went away, and was neither hungry nor thirsty; but all the
+same, it seemed as if that hour were getting very, very long; and every
+time the tramp of footsteps was heard on the platform outside she looked
+up eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>Then other people began to come in to wait for a train, and whenever the
+door opened, the big, dark eyes glanced quickly up with such a hopeful,
+wistful gaze, and as each new-comer proved to be a total stranger the
+little maiden's disappointment was so evident that some kind-hearted
+women came over to speak to her and see if all was right.</p>
+
+<p>But she was as shy as she was lonely, poor little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> mite, and hung her
+head and hugged her doll, and shrank away when they tried to take her in
+their arms. All they could get her to say was that she was waiting for
+papa and that her name was Jessie Farron.</p>
+
+<p>At last their train came and they had to go, and a new set appeared; and
+there were people to meet and welcome them with joyous greetings and
+much homely, homelike chatter, and everybody but one little girl seemed
+to have friends. It all made Jessie feel more and more lonely, and to
+wonder what could have happened to keep papa so very long.</p>
+
+<p>Still she was so loyal, so sturdy a little sentinel at her post. The
+kind-hearted baggage-man came in and strove to get her to go with him to
+his cottage "a ways up the road," where his wife and little ones were
+waiting tea for him; but she shook her head and shrank back even from
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Papa had told her to stay there and she would not budge. Papa had placed
+his satchel in her charge, and so she kept guard over it and watched
+every one who approached.</p>
+
+<p>The sun was getting low and shining broadly in through those western
+windows and making a glare that hurt her eyes, and she longed to change
+her seat. Between the sun glare and the loneliness her eyes began to
+fill with big tears, and when once they came it was so hard to force
+them back; so it happened that poor little Jessie found herself crying
+despite all her determination to be "papa's own brave daughter."</p>
+
+<p>The windows behind her opened out to the north, and by turning around
+she could see a wide, level space between the platform and the hotel,
+where wagons and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> an omnibus or two, and a four-mule ambulance had been
+coming and going.</p>
+
+<p>Again and again her eyes had wandered towards this space in hopeful
+search for father's coming, only to meet with disappointment. At last,
+just as she had turned and was kneeling on the seat and gazing through
+the tears that trickled down her pretty face, she saw a sight that made
+her sore little heart bound high with hope.</p>
+
+<p>First there trotted into the enclosure a span of handsome bay horses
+with a low phaeton in which were seated two ladies; and directly after
+them, at full gallop, came two riders on spirited, mettlesome sorrels.</p>
+
+<p>Little Jessie knew the horsemen at a glance. One was a tall, bronzed,
+dark-moustached trooper in the fatigue uniform of a cavalry sergeant;
+the other was a blue-eyed, faired-haired young fellow of sixteen years,
+who raised his cap and bowed to the ladies in the carriage, as he reined
+his horse up close to the station platform.</p>
+
+<p>He was just about to speak to them when he heard a childish voice
+calling, "Ralph! Ralph!" and, turning quickly around, he caught sight of
+a little girl stretching out her arms to him through the window, and
+crying as if her baby heart would break.</p>
+
+<p>In less time than it takes me to write five words he sprang from his
+horse, bounded up the platform into the waiting-room, and gathered the
+child to his heart, anxiously bidding her tell him what was the trouble.</p>
+
+<p>For a few minutes she could only sob in her relief and joy at seeing
+him, and snuggle close to his face.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> The ladies wondered to see Ralph
+McCrea coming towards them with a strange child in his arms, but they
+were all sympathy and loving-kindness in a moment, so attractive was her
+sweet face.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Henry, this is Jessie Farron. You know her father; he owns a ranch
+up on the Chugwater, right near the Laramie road. The station-master
+says she has been here all alone since he went off at one o'clock with
+some friends to buy things for the ranch and try some horses. It must
+have been his party Sergeant Wells and I saw way out by the fort."</p>
+
+<p>He paused a moment to address a cheering word to the little girl in his
+arms, and then went on: "Their team had run away over the prairie&mdash;a man
+told us&mdash;and they were leading them in to the quartermaster's corral as
+we rode from the stables. I did not recognize Farron at the distance,
+but Sergeant Wells will gallop out and tell him Jessie is all right.
+<i>Would</i> you mind taking care of her a few minutes? Poor little girl!" he
+added, in lower and almost beseeching tones, "she hasn't any mother."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Would</i> I mind!" exclaimed Mrs. Henry, warmly. "Give her to me, Ralph.
+Come right here, little daughter, and tell me all about it," and the
+loving woman stood up in the carriage and held forth her arms, to which
+little Jessie was glad enough to be taken, and there she sobbed, and was
+soothed and petted and kissed as she had not been since her mother died.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph and the station-master brought to the carriage the wonderful
+doll&mdash;at sight of whose toilet Mrs. Henry could not repress a
+significant glance at her lady friend, and a suggestive exclamation of
+"Horrors!"&mdash;and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> heavy satchel. These were placed where Jessie could
+see them and feel that they were safe, and then she was able to answer a
+few questions and to look up trustfully into the gentle face that was
+nestled every little while to hers, and to sip the cup of milk that
+Ralph fetched from the hotel. She had certainly fallen into the hands of
+persons who had very loving hearts.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor little thing! What a shame to leave her all alone! How long has
+her mother been dead, Ralph?" asked the other lady, rather indignantly.</p>
+
+<p>"About two years, Mrs. Wayne. Father and his officers knew them very
+well. Our troop was camped up there two whole summers near them,&mdash;last
+summer and the one before,&mdash;but Farron took her to Denver to visit her
+mother's people last April, and has just gone for her. Sergeant Wells
+said he stopped at the ranch on the way down from Laramie, and Farron
+told him, then, he couldn't live another month without his little girl,
+and was going to Denver for her at once."</p>
+
+<p>"I remember them well, now," said Mrs. Henry, "and we saw him sometimes
+when our troop was at Laramie. What was the last news from your father,
+Ralph, and when do you go?"</p>
+
+<p>"No news since the letter that met me here. You know he has been
+scouting ever since General Crook went on up to the Powder River
+country. Our troop and the Grays are all that are left to guard that
+whole neighborhood, and the Indians seem to know it. They are 'jumping'
+from the reservation all the time."</p>
+
+<p>"But the Fifth Cavalry are here now, and they will soon be up there to
+help you, and put a stop to all that,&mdash;won't they?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. The Fifth say that they expect orders to go to the Black
+Hills, so as to get between the reservations and Sitting Bull's people.
+Only six troops&mdash;half the regiment&mdash;have come. Papa's letter said I was
+to start for Laramie with them, but they have been kept waiting four
+days already."</p>
+
+<p>"They will start now, though," said the lady. "General Merritt has just
+got back from Red Cloud, where he went to look into the situation, and
+he has been in the telegraph office much of the afternoon wiring to
+Chicago, where General Sheridan is. Colonel Mason told us, as we drove
+past camp, that they would probably march at daybreak."</p>
+
+<p>"That means that Sergeant Wells and I go at the same time, then," said
+Ralph, with glistening eyes. "Doesn't it seem odd, after I've been
+galloping all over this country from here to the Chug for the last three
+years, that now father won't let me go it alone. I never yet set eyes on
+a war party of Indians, or heard of one south of the Platte."</p>
+
+<p>"All the same they came, Ralph, and it was simply to protect those
+settlers that your father's company was there so much. This year they
+are worse than ever, and there has been no cavalry to spare. If you were
+my boy, I should be worried half to death at the idea of your riding
+alone from here to Laramie. What does your mother think of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It was mother, probably, who made father issue the order. She writes
+that, eager as she is to see me, she wouldn't think of letting me come
+alone with Sergeant Wells. Pshaw! He and I would be safer than the old
+stage-coach any day. That is never 'jumped' south<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> of Laramie, though it
+is chased now and then above there. Of course the country's full of
+Indians between the Platte and the Black Hills, but we shouldn't be
+likely to come across any."</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment's silence. Nestled in Mrs. Henry's arms the weary
+little girl was dropping off into placid slumber, and forgetting all her
+troubles. Both the ladies were wives of officers of the army, and were
+living at Fort Russell, three miles out from Cheyenne, while their
+husbands were far to the north with their companies on the Indian
+campaign, which was just then opening.</p>
+
+<p>It was an anxious time. Since February all of the cavalry and much of
+the infantry stationed in Nebraska and Wyoming had been out in the wild
+country above the North Platte River, between the Big Horn Mountains and
+the Black Hills. For two years previous great numbers of the young
+warriors had been slipping away from the Sioux reservations and joining
+the forces of such vicious and intractable chiefs as Sitting Bull, Gall,
+and Rain-in-the-face, it could scarcely be doubted, with hostile intent.</p>
+
+<p>Several thousands of the Indians were known to be at large, and
+committing depredations and murders in every direction among the
+settlers. Now, all pacific means having failed, the matter had been
+turned over to General Crook, who had recently brought the savage
+Apaches of Arizona under subjection, to employ such means as he found
+necessary to defeat their designs.</p>
+
+<p>General Crook found the Sioux and their allies armed with the best
+modern breech-loaders, well supplied with ammunition and countless herds
+of war<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> ponies, and far too numerous and powerful to be handled by the
+small force at his command.</p>
+
+<p>One or two sharp and savage fights occurred in March, while the mercury
+was still thirty degrees below zero, and then the government decided on
+a great summer campaign. Generals Terry and Gibbon were to hem the
+Indians from the north along the Yellowstone, while at the same time
+General Crook was to march up and attack them from the south.</p>
+
+<p>When June came, four regiments of cavalry and half a dozen infantry
+regiments were represented among the forces that scouted to and fro in
+the wild and beautiful uplands of Wyoming, Dakota, and Eastern Montana,
+searching for the Sioux.</p>
+
+<p>The families of the officers and soldiers remained at the barracks from
+which the men were sent, and even at the exposed stations of Forts
+Laramie, Robinson, and Fetterman, many ladies and children remained
+under the protection of small garrisons of infantry. Among the ladies at
+Laramie was Mrs. McCrea, Ralph's mother, who waited for the return of
+her boy from a long absence at school.</p>
+
+<p>A manly, sturdy fellow was Ralph, full of health and vigor, due in great
+part to the open-air life he had led in his early boyhood. He had
+"backed" an Indian pony before he was seven, and could sit one like a
+Comanche by the time he was ten. He had accompanied his father on many a
+long march and scout, and had ridden every mile of the way from the Gila
+River in Arizona, across New Mexico, and so on up into Nebraska.</p>
+
+<p>He had caught brook trout in the Cache la Poudre,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> and shot antelope
+along the Loup Fork of the Platte. With his father and his father's men
+to watch and keep him from harm, he had even charged his first buffalo
+herd and had been fortunate enough to shoot a bull. The skin had been
+made into a robe, which he carefully kept.</p>
+
+<p>Now, all eager to spend his vacation among his favorite haunts,&mdash;in the
+saddle and among the mountain streams,&mdash;Ralph McCrea was going back to
+his army home, when, as ill-luck would have it, the great Sioux war
+broke out in the early summer of our Centennial Year, and promised to
+greatly interfere with, if it did not wholly spoil, many of his
+cherished plans.</p>
+
+<p>Fort Laramie lay about one hundred miles north of Cheyenne, and Sergeant
+Wells had come down with the paymaster's escort a few days before,
+bringing Ralph's pet, his beautiful little Kentucky sorrel "Buford," and
+now the boy and his faithful friend, the sergeant, were visiting at Fort
+Russell, and waiting for a safe opportunity to start for home.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, as they chatted in low tones so as not to disturb the little
+sleeper, there came the sound of rapid hoof-beats, and Sergeant Wells
+cantered into the enclosure and, riding up to the carriage, said to
+Ralph,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I found him, sir, all safe; but their wagon was being patched up, and
+he could not leave. He is so thankful to Mrs. Henry for her kindness,
+and begs to know if she would mind bringing Jessie out to the fort. The
+men are trying very hard to persuade him not to start for the Chug in
+the morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not, sergeant?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because the telegraph despatches from Laramie say<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> there must be a
+thousand Indians gone out from the reservation in the last two days.
+They've cut the wires up to Red Cloud, and no more news can reach us."</p>
+
+<p>Ralph's face grew very pale.</p>
+
+<p>"Father is right in the midst of them, with only fifty men!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+<h2><a name="CAVALRY_ON_THE_MARCH" id="CAVALRY_ON_THE_MARCH"></a>CAVALRY ON THE MARCH.</h2>
+
+<p>It was a lovely June morning when the Fifth Cavalry started on its
+march. Camp was struck at daybreak, and soon after five o'clock, while
+the sun was still low in the east and the dew-drops were sparkling on
+the buffalo grass, the long column was winding up the bare, rolling
+"divide" which lay between the valleys of Crow and Lodge Pole Creeks. In
+plain view, only thirty miles away to the west, were the summits of the
+Rocky Mountains, but such is the altitude of this upland prairie,
+sloping away eastward between the two forks of the Platte River, that
+these summits appear to be nothing more than a low range of hills
+shutting off the western horizon.</p>
+
+<p>Looking southward from the Laramie road, all the year round one can see
+the great peaks of the range&mdash;Long's and Hahn's and Pike's&mdash;glistening
+in their mantles of snow, and down there near them, in Colorado, the
+mountains slope abruptly into the Valley of the South Platte.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Up here in Wyoming the Rockies go rolling and billowing far out to the
+east, and the entire stretch of country, from what are called the "Black
+Hills of Wyoming," in contradistinction to the Black Hills of Dakota,
+far east as the junction of the forks of the Platte, is one vast
+inclined plane.</p>
+
+<p>The Union Pacific Railway winds over these Black Hills at Sherman,&mdash;the
+lowest point the engineers could find,&mdash;and Sherman is over eight
+thousand feet above the sea.</p>
+
+<p>From Sherman, eastward, in less than an hour's run the cars go sliding
+down with smoking brakes to Cheyenne, a fall of two thousand feet. But
+the wagon-road from Cheyenne to Fort Laramie twists and winds among the
+ravines and over the divides of this lofty prairie; so that Ralph and
+his soldier friends, while riding jauntily over the hard-beaten track
+this clear, crisp, sunshiny, breezy morning, were twice as high above
+the sea as they would have been at the tiptop of the Catskills and
+higher even than had they been at the very summit of Mount Washington.</p>
+
+<p>The air at this height, though rare, is keen and exhilarating, and one
+needs no second look at the troopers to see how bright are their eyes
+and how nimble and elastic is the pace of their steeds.</p>
+
+<p>The commanding officer, with his adjutant and orderlies and a little
+group of staff sergeants, had halted at the crest of one of these ridges
+and was looking back at the advancing column. Beside the winding road
+was strung a line of wires,&mdash;the military telegraph to the border
+forts,&mdash;and with the exception of those bare poles not a stick of timber
+was anywhere in sight.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The whole surface is destitute of bush or tree, but the thick little
+bunches of gray-green grass that cover it everywhere are rich with juice
+and nutriment. This is the buffalo grass of the Western prairies, and
+the moment the horses' heads are released down go their nozzles, and
+they are cropping eagerly and gratefully.</p>
+
+<p>Far as the eye can see to the north and east it roams over a rolling,
+tumbling surface that seems to have become suddenly petrified. Far to
+the south are the snow-shimmering peaks; near at hand, to the west, are
+the gloomy gorges and ravines and wide wastes of upland of the Black
+Hills of Wyoming; and so clear is the air that they seem but a short
+hour's gallop away.</p>
+
+<p>There is something strangely deceptive about the distances in an
+atmosphere so rare and clear as this.</p>
+
+<p>A young surgeon was taking his first ride with a cavalry column in the
+wide West, and, as he looked back into the valley through which they had
+been marching for over half an hour, his face was clouded with an
+expression of odd perplexity.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter, doctor?" asked the adjutant, with a grin on his
+face. "Are you wondering whether those fellows really are United States
+regulars?" and the young officer nodded towards the long column of
+horsemen in broad-brimmed slouch hats and flannel shirts or fanciful
+garb of Indian tanned buckskin. Even among the officers there was hardly
+a sign of the uniform or trappings which distinguish the soldiers in
+garrison.</p>
+
+<p>"No, it isn't <i>that</i>. I knew that you fellows who had served so long in
+Arizona had got out of the way of wearing uniform in the field against
+Indians. What<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> I can't understand is that ridge over there. I thought we
+had been down in a hollow for the last half-hour, yet look at it; we
+must have come over that when I was thinking of something else."</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit of it, doctor," laughed the colonel. "That's where we
+dismounted and took a short rest and gave the horses a chance to pick a
+bit."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, but, colonel! that must have been two miles back,&mdash;full half an
+hour ago: you don't mean that ridge is two miles away? I could almost
+hit that man riding down the road towards us."</p>
+
+<p>"It would be a wonderful shot, doctor. That man is one of the teamsters
+who went back after a dropped pistol. He is a mile and a half away."</p>
+
+<p>The doctor's eyes were wide open with wonder.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you must know, colonel, but it is incomprehensible to me."</p>
+
+<p>"It is easily proved, doctor. Take these two telegraph poles nearest us
+and tell me how far they are apart."</p>
+
+<p>The doctor looked carefully from one pole to another. Only a single wire
+was strung along the line, and the poles were stout and strong. After a
+moment's study he said, "Well, they are just about seventy-five yards
+apart."</p>
+
+<p>"More than that, doctor. They are a good hundred yards. But even at your
+estimate, just count the poles back to that ridge&mdash;of course they are
+equidistant, or nearly so, all along&mdash;and tell me how far you make it."</p>
+
+<p>The doctor's eyes began to dilate again as he silently took account of
+the number.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I declare, there are over twenty to the rear of the wagon-train and
+nearly forty across the ridge! I give it up."</p>
+
+<p>"And now look here," said the colonel, pointing out to the eastward
+where some lithe-limbed hounds were coursing over the prairie with Ralph
+on his fleet sorrel racing in pursuit. "Look at young McCrea out there
+where there are no telegraph poles to help you judge the distance. If he
+were an Indian whom you wanted to bring down what would you set your
+sights at, providing you had time to set them at all?" and the veteran
+Indian fighter smiled grimly.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"It is too big a puzzle for me," he answered. "Five minutes ago I would
+have said three hundred at the utmost, but I don't know now."</p>
+
+<p>"How about that, Nihil?" asked the colonel, turning to a soldier riding
+with the head-quarters party.</p>
+
+<p>Nihil's brown hand goes up to the brim of his scouting hat in salute,
+but he shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"The bullet would kick up a dust this side of him, sir," was the answer.</p>
+
+<p>"People sometimes wonder why it is we manage to hit so few of these
+Cheyennes or Sioux in our battles with them," said the colonel. "Now you
+can get an idea of one of the difficulties. They rarely come within six
+hundred yards of us when they are attacking a train or an infantry
+escort, and are always riding full tilt, just as you saw Ralph just now.
+It is next to impossible to hit them."</p>
+
+<p>"I understand," said the doctor. "How splendidly that boy rides!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Ralph? Yes. He's a genuine trooper. Now, there's a boy whose whole
+ambition is to go to West Point. He's a manly, truthful, dutiful young
+fellow, born and raised in the army, knows the plains by heart, and just
+the one to make a brilliant and valuable cavalry officer, but there
+isn't a ghost of a chance for him."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why not? Why! how is he to get an appointment? If he had a home
+somewhere in the East, and his father had influence with the Congressman
+of the district, it might be done; but the sons of army officers have
+really very little chance. The President used to have ten appointments a
+year, but Congress took them away from him. They thought there were too
+many cadets at the Point; but while they were virtuously willing to
+reduce somebody else's prerogatives in that line, it did not occur to
+them that they might trim a little on their own. Now the President is
+allowed only ten 'all told,' and can appoint no boy until some of his
+ten are graduated or otherwise disposed of. It really gives him only two
+or three appointments a year, and he has probably a thousand applicants
+for every one. What chance has an army boy in Wyoming against the son of
+some fellow with Senators and Representatives at his back in Washington?
+If the army could name an occasional candidate, a boy like Ralph would
+be sure to go, and we would have more soldiers and fewer scientists in
+the cavalry."</p>
+
+<p>By this time the head of the compact column was well up, and the captain
+of the leading troop, riding with his first lieutenant in front of his
+sets of fours,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> looked inquiringly at the colonel, as though half
+expectant of a signal to halt or change the gait. Receiving none, and
+seeing that the colonel had probably stopped to look over his command,
+the senior troop leader pushed steadily on.</p>
+
+<p>Behind him, four abreast, came the dragoons,&mdash;a stalwart, sunburned,
+soldierly-looking lot. Not a particle of show or glitter in their attire
+or equipment. Utterly unlike the dazzling hussars of England or the
+European continent, when the troopers of the United States are out on
+the broad prairies of the West "for business," as they put it, hardly a
+brass button, even, is to be seen.</p>
+
+<p>The colonel notes with satisfaction the nimble, active pace of the
+horses as they go by at rapid walk, and the easy seat of the men in
+their saddles.</p>
+
+<p>First the bays of "K" Troop trip quickly past; then the beautiful, sleek
+grays of "B," Captain Montgomery's company; then more bays in "I" and
+"A" and "D," and then some sixty-five blacks, "C" Troop's color.</p>
+
+<p>There are two sorrel troops in the regiment and more bays, and later in
+the year, when new horses were obtained, the Fifth had a roan and a
+dark-brown troop; but in June, when they were marching up to take their
+part in the great campaign that followed, only two of their companies
+were not mounted on bright bay horses, and one and all they were in the
+pink of condition and eager for a burst "'cross country."</p>
+
+<p>It was, however, their colonel's desire to take them to their
+destination in good trim, and he permitted no "larking."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>They had several hundred miles of weary marching before them. Much of
+the country beyond the Platte was "Bad Lands," where the grass is scant
+and poor, the soil ashen and spongy, and the water densely alkaline. All
+this would tell very sensibly upon the condition of horses that all
+winter long had been comfortably stabled, regularly groomed and
+grain-fed, and watered only in pure running streams flushed by springs
+or melting snow.</p>
+
+<p>It was all very well for young Ralph to be coursing about on his fleet,
+elastic sorrel, radiant with delight as the boy was at being again "out
+on the plains" and in the saddle; but the cavalry commander's first care
+must be to bring his horses to the scene of action in the most effective
+state of health and soundness. The first few days' marching, therefore,
+had to be watched with the utmost care.</p>
+
+<p>As the noon hour approached, the doctor noted how the hills off to the
+west seemed to be growing higher, and that there were broader vistas of
+wide ranges of barren slopes to the east and north.</p>
+
+<p>The colonel was riding some distance ahead of the battalion, his little
+escort close beside, and Ralph was giving Buford a resting spell, and
+placidly ambling alongside the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>Sergeant Wells was riding somewhere in the column with some chum of old
+days. He belonged to another regiment, but knew the Fifth of old. The
+hounds had tired of chasing over a waterless country, and with lolling
+tongues were trotting behind their masters' horses.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor was vastly interested in what he had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> heard of Ralph, and
+engaged him in talk. Just as they came in sight of the broad, open
+valley in which runs the sparkling Lodge Pole, a two-horse wagon rumbled
+up alongside, and there on the front seat was Farron, the ranchman, with
+bright-eyed, bonny-faced little Jessie smiling beside him.</p>
+
+<p>"We've caught you, Ralph," he laughed, "though we left Russell an hour
+or more behind you. I s'pose you'll all camp at Lodge Pole for the
+night. We're going on to the Chug."</p>
+
+<p>"Hadn't you better see the colonel about that?" asked Ralph, anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it's all right! I got telegrams from Laramie and the Chug, both,
+just before we left Russell. Not an Indian's been heard of this side of
+the Platte, and your father's troop has just got in to Laramie."</p>
+
+<p>"Has he?" exclaimed Ralph, with delight. "Then he knows I've started,
+and perhaps he'll come on to the Chug or Eagle's Nest and meet me."</p>
+
+<p>"More'n likely," answered Farron. "You and the sergeant had better come
+ahead and spend the night with me at the ranch."</p>
+
+<p>"I've no doubt the colonel will let us go ahead with you," answered
+Ralph, "but the ranch is too far off the road. We would have to stay at
+Phillips's for the night. What say you, sergeant?" he asked, as Wells
+came loping up alongside.</p>
+
+<p>"The very plan, I think. Somebody will surely come ahead to meet us, and
+we can make Laramie two days before the Fifth."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, good-by, doctor; I must ask the colonel first, but we'll see you
+at Laramie."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Good-by, Ralph, and good luck to you in getting that cadetship."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well! I <i>must</i> trust to luck for that. Father says it all depends
+on my getting General Sheridan to back me. If <i>he</i> would only ask for
+me, or if I could only do something to make him glad to ask; but what
+chance is there?"</p>
+
+<p>What chance, indeed? Ralph McCrea little dreamed that at that very
+moment General Sheridan&mdash;far away in Chicago&mdash;was reading despatches
+that determined him to go at once, himself, to Red Cloud Agency; that in
+four days more the general would be there, at Laramie, and that in two
+wonderful days, meantime&mdash;but who was there who dreamed what would
+happen meantime?</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+<h2><a name="DANGER_IN_THE_AIR" id="DANGER_IN_THE_AIR"></a>DANGER IN THE AIR.</h2>
+
+<p>When the head of the cavalry column reached the bridge over Lodge Pole
+Creek a march of about twenty-five miles had been made, which is an
+average day's journey for cavalry troops when nothing urgent hastens
+their movements.</p>
+
+<p>Filing to the right, the horsemen moved down the north bank of the
+rapidly-running stream, and as soon as the rearmost troop was clear of
+the road and beyond reach of its dust, the trumpets sounded "halt" and
+"dismount," and in five minutes the horses, unsaddled, were rolling on
+the springy turf, and then were driven<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> out in herds, each company's by
+itself, to graze during the afternoon along the slopes. Each herd was
+watched and guarded by half a dozen armed troopers, and such horses as
+were notorious "stampeders" were securely "side-lined" or hobbled.</p>
+
+<p>Along the stream little white tents were pitched as the wagons rolled in
+and were unloaded; and then the braying mules, rolling and kicking in
+their enjoyment of freedom from harness, were driven out and disposed
+upon the slopes at a safe distance from the horses. The smokes of little
+fires began to float into the air, and the jingle of spoon and
+coffee-pot and "spider" and skillet told that the cooks were busy
+getting dinner for the hungry campaigners.</p>
+
+<p>Such appetites as those long-day marches give! Such delight in life and
+motion one feels as he drinks in that rare, keen mountain air! Some of
+the soldiers&mdash;old plainsmen&mdash;are already prone upon the turf, their
+heads pillowed on their saddles, their slouch hats pulled down over
+their eyes, snatching half an hour's dreamless sleep before the cooks
+shall summon them to dinner.</p>
+
+<p>One officer from each company is still in saddle, riding around the
+horses of his own troop to see that the grass is well chosen and that
+his guards are properly posted and on the alert. Over at the road there
+stands a sort of frontier tavern and stage station, at which is a
+telegraph office, and the colonel has been sending despatches to
+Department Head-Quarters to announce the safe arrival of his command at
+Lodge Pole <i>en route</i> for Fort Laramie. Now he is talking with Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't that, my boy. I do not suppose there is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> an Indian anywhere
+near the Chugwater; but if your father thought it best that you should
+wait and start with us, I think it was his desire that you should keep
+in the protection of the column all the way. Don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir, I do. The only question now is, will he not come or send
+forward to the Chug to meet me, and could I not be with mother two days
+earlier that way? Besides, Farron is determined to go ahead as soon as
+he has had dinner, and&mdash;I don't like to think of little Jessie being up
+there at the Chug just now. Would you mind my telegraphing to father at
+Laramie and asking him?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, indeed, Ralph. Do so."</p>
+
+<p>And so a despatch was sent to Laramie, and in the course of an hour,
+just as they had enjoyed a comfortable dinner, there came the reply,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"All right. Come ahead to Phillips's Ranch. Party will meet you there at
+eight in the morning. They stop at Eagle's Nest to-night."</p>
+
+<p>Ralph's eyes danced as he showed this to the colonel who read it gravely
+and replied,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It is all safe, I fancy, or your father would not say so. They have
+patrols all along the bank of the Platte to the southeast, and no
+Indians can cross without its being discovered in a few hours. I suppose
+they never come across between Laramie and Fetterman, do they, Ralph?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not of late years, colonel. It is so far off their line to
+the reservations where they have to run for safety after their
+depredations."</p>
+
+<p>"I know that; but now that all but two troops of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> cavalry have gone up
+with General Crook they might be emboldened to try a wider sweep. That's
+all I'm afraid of."</p>
+
+<p>"Even if the Indians came, colonel, they've got those ranch buildings so
+loop-holed and fortified at Phillips's that we could stand them off a
+week if need be, and you would reach there by noon at latest."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. We make an early start to-morrow morning, and 'twill be just
+another twenty-five miles to our camp on the Chug. If all is well you
+will be nearly to Eagle's Nest by the time we get to Phillips's, and you
+will be at Laramie before the sunset-gun to-morrow. Well, give my
+regards to your father, Ralph, and keep your eye open for the main
+chance. We cavalry people want you for our representative at West Point,
+you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you for that, colonel," answered Ralph, with sparkling eyes. "I
+sha'n't forget it in many a day."</p>
+
+<p>So it happened that late that afternoon, with Farron driving his load of
+household goods; with brown-haired little Jessie lying sound asleep with
+her head on his lap; with Sergeant Wells cantering easily alongside and
+Ralph and Buford scouting a little distance ahead, the two-horse wagon
+rolled over the crest of the last divide and came just at sunset in
+sight of the beautiful valley with the odd name of Chugwater.</p>
+
+<p>Farther up the stream towards its sources among the pine-crested Black
+Hills, there were many places where the busy beavers had dammed its
+flow. The Indians, bent on trapping these wary creatures, had listened
+in the stillness of the solitudes to the battering of those wonderful
+tails upon the mud walls of their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> dams and forts, and had named the
+little river after its most marked characteristic, the constant "<i>chug,
+chug</i>" of those cricket-bat caudals.</p>
+
+<p>On the west of the winding stream, in the smiling valley with tiny
+patches of verdure, lay the ranch with its out-buildings, corrals, and
+the peacefully browsing stock around it, and little Jessie woke at her
+father's joyous shout and pointed out her home to Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>There where the trail wound away from the main road the wagon and
+horsemen must separate, and Ralph reined close alongside and took Jessie
+in his arms and was hugged tight as he kissed her bonny face. Then he
+and the sergeant shook hands heartily with Farron, set spurs to their
+horses, and went loping down northeastward to the broader reaches of the
+valley.</p>
+
+<p>On their right, across the lowlands, ran the long ridge ending in an
+abrupt precipice, that was the scene of the great buffalo-killing by the
+Indians many a long year ago. Straight ahead were the stage station, the
+forage sheds, and the half dozen buildings of Phillips's. All was as
+placid and peaceful in the soft evening light as if no hostile Indian
+had ever existed.</p>
+
+<p>Yet there were to be seen signs of preparation for Indian attack. The
+herder whom the travellers met two miles south of the station was
+heavily armed and his mate was only short rifle-shot away. The men waved
+their hats to Ralph and his soldier comrade, and one of them called out,
+"Whar'd ye leave the cavalry?" and seemed disappointed to hear they were
+as far back as Lodge Pole.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>At the station, they found the ranchmen prepared for their coming and
+glad to see them. Captain McCrea had telegraphed twice during the
+afternoon and seemed anxious to know of their arrival.</p>
+
+<p>"He's in the office at Laramie now," said the telegraph agent, with a
+smile, "and I wired him the moment we sighted you coming down the hill.
+Come in and send him a few words. It will please him more than anything
+I can say."</p>
+
+<p>So Ralph stepped into the little room with its solitary instrument and
+lonely operator. In those days there was little use for the line except
+for the conducting of purely military business, and the agents or
+operators were all soldiers detailed for the purpose. Here at "The Chug"
+the instrument rested on a little table by the loop-hole of a window in
+the side of the log hut. Opposite it was the soldier's narrow camp-bed
+with its brown army blankets and with his heavy overcoat thrown over the
+foot. Close at hand stood his Springfield rifle, with the belt of
+cartridges, and over the table hung two Colt's revolvers.</p>
+
+<p>All through the rooms of the station the same war-like preparations were
+visible, for several times during the spring and early summer war
+parties of Indians had come prowling up the valley, driving the herders
+before them; but, having secured all the beef cattle they could handle,
+they had hurried back to the fords of the Platte and, except on one or
+two occasions, had committed no murders.</p>
+
+<p>Well knowing the pluck of the little community at Phillips's, the
+Indians had not come within long rifle range of the ranch, but on the
+last two visits the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> warriors seemed to have grown bolder. While most of
+the Indians were rounding up cattle and scurrying about in the valley,
+two miles below the ranch, it was noted that two warriors, on their
+nimble ponies, had climbed the high ridge on the east that overlooked
+the ranches in the valley beyond and above Phillips's, and were
+evidently taking deliberate note of the entire situation.</p>
+
+<p>One of the Indians was seen to point a long, bare arm, on which silver
+wristlets and bands flashed in the sun, at Farron's lonely ranch four
+miles up-stream.</p>
+
+<p>That was more than the soldier telegrapher could bear patiently. He took
+his Springfield rifle out into the fields, and opened a long range fire
+on these adventurous redskins.</p>
+
+<p>The Indians were a good mile away, but that honest "Long Tom" sent its
+leaden missiles whistling about their ears, and kicking up the dust
+around their ponies' heels, until, after a few defiant shouts and such
+insulting and contemptuous gestures as they could think of, the two had
+ducked suddenly out of sight behind the bluffs.</p>
+
+<p>All this the ranch people told Ralph and the sergeant, as they were
+enjoying a hot supper after the fifty-mile ride of the day. Afterwards
+the two travellers went out into the corral to see that their horses
+were secure for the night.</p>
+
+<p>Buford looked up with eager whinny at Ralph's footstep, pricked his
+pretty ears, and looked as full of life and spirit as if he had never
+had a hard day's gallop in his life. Sergeant Wells had given him a
+careful rubbing down while Ralph was at the telegraph office, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>
+later, when the horses were thoroughly cool, they were watered at the
+running stream and given a hearty feed of oats.</p>
+
+<p>Phillips came out to lock up his stable while they were petting Buford,
+and stood there a moment admiring the pretty fellow.</p>
+
+<p>"With your weight I think he could make a race against any horse in the
+cavalry, couldn't he, Mr. Ralph?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not quite sure, Phillips; the colonel of the Fifth Cavalry has a
+horse that I might not care to race. He was being led along behind the
+head-quarters escort to-day. Barring that horse Van, I would ride Buford
+against any horse I've ever seen in the service for any distance from a
+quarter of a mile to a day's march."</p>
+
+<p>"But those Indian ponies, Mr. Ralph, couldn't they beat him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Over rough ground&mdash;up hill and down dale&mdash;I suppose some of them could.
+I saw their races up at Red Cloud last year, and old Spotted Tail
+brought over a couple of ponies from Camp Sheridan that ran like a
+streak, and there was a Minneconjou chief there who had a very fast
+pony. Some of the young Ogallallas had quick, active beasts, but, take
+them on a straight-away run, I wouldn't be afraid to try my luck with
+Buford against the best of them."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I hope you'll never have to ride for your life on him. He's
+pretty and sound and fast, but those Indians have such wind and bottom;
+they never seem to give out."</p>
+
+<p>A little later&mdash;at about half after eight o'clock&mdash;Sergeant Wells, the
+telegraph operator, and one or two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> of the ranchmen sat tilted back in
+their rough chairs on the front porch of the station enjoying their
+pipes. Ralph had begun to feel a little sleepy, and was ready to turn in
+when he was attracted by the conversation between the two soldiers; the
+operator was speaking, and the seriousness of his tone caused the boy to
+listen.</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't that we have any particular cause to worry just here. With our
+six or seven men we could easily stand off the Indians until help came,
+but it's Farron and little Jessie I'm thinking of. He and his two men
+would have no show whatever in case of a sudden and determined attack.
+They have not been harmed so far, because the Indians always crossed
+below Laramie and came up to the Chug, and so there was timely warning.
+Now, they have seen Farron's place up there all by itself. They can
+easily find out, by hanging around the traders at Red Cloud, who lives
+there, how many men he has, and about Jessie. Next to surprising and
+killing a white man in cold blood, those fellows like nothing better
+than carrying off a white child and concealing it among them. The
+gypsies have the same trait. Now, they know that so long as they cross
+below Laramie the scouts are almost sure to discover it in an hour or
+two, and as soon as they strike the Chug Valley some herders come
+tumbling in here and give the alarm. They have come over regularly every
+moon, since General Crook went up in February, <i>until now</i>."</p>
+
+<p>The operator went on impressively:</p>
+
+<p>"The moon's almost on the wane, and they haven't shown up yet. Now, what
+worries me is just this. Suppose they <i>should</i> push out westward from
+the reser<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>vation, cross the Platte somewhere about Bull Bend or even
+nearer Laramie, and come down the Chug from the north. Who is to give
+Farron warning?"</p>
+
+<p>"They're bound to hear it at Laramie and telegraph you at once,"
+suggested one of the ranchmen.</p>
+
+<p>"Not necessarily. The river isn't picketed between Fetterman and
+Laramie, simply because the Indians have always tried the lower
+crossings. The stages go through three times a week, and there are
+frequent couriers and trains, but they don't keep a lookout for pony
+tracks. The chances are that their crossing would not be discovered for
+twenty-four hours or so, and as to the news being wired to us here,
+those reds would never give us a chance. The first news we got of their
+deviltry would be that they had cut the line ten or twelve miles this
+side of Laramie as they came sweeping down.</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you, boys," continued the operator, half rising from his chair
+in his earnestness, "I hate to think of little Jessie up there to-night.
+I go in every few minutes and call up Laramie or Fetterman just to feel
+that all is safe, and stir up Lodge Pole, behind us, to realize that
+we've got the Fifth Cavalry only twenty-five miles away; but the Indians
+haven't missed a moon yet, and there's only one more night of this."</p>
+
+<p>Even as his hearers sat in silence, thinking over the soldier's words,
+there came from the little cabin the sharp and sudden clicking of the
+telegraph. "It's my call," exclaimed the operator, as he sprang to his
+feet and ran to his desk.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph and Sergeant Wells were close at his heels; he had clicked his
+answering signal, seized a pencil, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> was rapidly taking down a
+message. They saw his eyes dilate and his lips quiver with suppressed
+excitement. Once, indeed, he made an impulsive reach with his hand, as
+if to touch the key and shut off the message and interpose some idea of
+his own, but discipline prevailed.</p>
+
+<p>"It's for you," he said, briefly, nodding up to Ralph, while he went on
+to copy the message.</p>
+
+<p>It was a time of anxious suspense in the little office. The sergeant
+paced silently to and fro with unusual erectness of bearing and a
+firmly-compressed lip. His appearance and attitude were that of the
+soldier who has divined approaching danger and who awaits the order for
+action. Ralph, who could hardly control his impatience, stood watching
+the rapid fingers of the operator as they traced out a message which was
+evidently of deep moment.</p>
+
+<p>At last the transcript was finished, and the operator handed it to the
+boy. Ralph's hand was trembling with excitement as he took the paper and
+carried it close to the light. It read as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Ralph McCrea</span>, Chugwater Station:</p>
+
+<p>"Black Hills stage reports having crossed trail of large war party
+going west, this side of Rawhide Butte. My troop ordered at once in
+pursuit. Wait for Fifth Cavalry.</p>
+
+<p class="author">
+"<span class="smcap">Gordon McCrea.</span>"<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<p>"Going west, this side of Rawhide Butte," said Ralph, as calmly as he
+could. "That means that they are twenty miles north of Laramie, and on
+the other side of the Platte."</p>
+
+<p>"It means that they knew what they were doing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> when they crossed just
+behind the last stage so as to give no warning, and that their trail was
+nearly two days old when seen by the down stage this afternoon. It means
+that they crossed the stage road, Ralph, but how long ago was that, do
+you think, and where are they now? It is my belief that they crossed the
+Platte above Laramie last night or early this morning, and will be down
+on us to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"Wire that to Laramie, then, at once," said Ralph. "It may not be too
+late to turn the troop this way."</p>
+
+<p>"I can only say what I think to my fellow-operator there, and can't even
+do that now; the commanding officer is sending despatches to Omaha, and
+asking that the Fifth Cavalry be ordered to send forward a troop or two
+to guard the Chug. But there's no one at the head-quarters this time o'
+night. Besides, if we volunteer any suggestions, they will say we were
+stampeded down here by a band of Indians that didn't come within
+seventy-five miles of us."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, father won't misunderstand me," said Ralph, "and I'm not afraid
+to ask him to think of what you say; wire it to him in my name."</p>
+
+<p>There was a long interval, twenty minutes or so, before the operator
+could "get the line." When at last he succeeded in sending his despatch,
+he stopped short in the midst of it.</p>
+
+<p>"It's no use, Ralph. Your father's troop was three miles away before his
+message was sent. There were reports from Red Cloud that made the
+commanding officer believe there were some Cheyennes going up to attack
+couriers or trains between Fetterman and the Big Horn. He is away north
+of the Platte."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Another few minutes of thoughtful silence, then Ralph turned to his
+soldier friend,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Sergeant, I have to obey father's orders and stay here, but it's my
+belief that Farron should be put on his guard at once. What say you?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you agree, sir, I'll ride up and spend the night with him."</p>
+
+<p>"Then go by all means. I know father would approve it."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+<h2><a name="CUT_OFF" id="CUT_OFF"></a>CUT OFF.</h2>
+
+
+<p>It was after ten o'clock when the waning moon came peering over the
+barrier ridge at the east. Over an hour had passed since Sergeant Wells,
+on his big sorrel, had ridden away up the stream on the trail to
+Farron's.</p>
+
+<p>Phillips had pressed upon him a Henry repeating rifle, which he had
+gratefully accepted. It could not shoot so hard or carry so far as the
+sergeant's Springfield carbine, the cavalry arm; but to repel a sudden
+onset of yelling savages at close quarters it was just the thing, as it
+could discharge sixteen shots without reloading. His carbine and the
+belt of copper cartridges the sergeant left with Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>Just before riding away he took the operator and Ralph to the back of
+the corral, whence, far up the valley, they could see the twinkling
+light at Farron's ranch.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"We ought to have some way of signalling," he had said as they went out
+of doors. "If you get news during the night that the Indians are surely
+this side of the Platte, of course we want to know at once; if, on the
+other hand, you hear they are nowhere within striking distance, it will
+be a weight off my mind and we can all get a good night's rest up there.
+Now, how shall we fix it?"</p>
+
+<p>After some discussion, it was arranged that Wells should remain on the
+low porch in front of Farron's ranch until midnight. The light was to be
+extinguished there as soon as he arrived, as an assurance that all was
+well, and it should not again appear during the night unless as a
+momentary answer to signals they might make.</p>
+
+<p>If information were received at Phillips's that the Indians were south
+of the Platte, Ralph should fire three shots from his carbine at
+intervals of five seconds; and if they heard that all was safe, he
+should fire one shot to call attention and then start a small blaze out
+on the bank of the stream, where it could be plainly seen from Farron's.</p>
+
+<p>Wells was to show his light half a minute when he recognized the signal.
+Having arrived at this understanding, the sergeant shook the hand of
+Ralph and the operator and rode towards Farron's.</p>
+
+<p>"What I wish," said the operator, "is that Wells could induce Farron to
+let him bring Jessie here for the night; but Farron is a bull-headed
+fellow and thinks no number of Indians could ever get the better of him
+and his two men. He knows very little of them and is hardly alive to the
+danger of his position.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> I think he will be safe with Wells, but, all
+the same, I wish that a troop of the Fifth Cavalry had been sent forward
+to-night."</p>
+
+<p>After they had gone back to the office the operator "called up" Laramie.
+"All quiet," was the reply, and nobody there seemed to think the Indians
+had come towards the Platte.</p>
+
+<p>Then the operator signalled to his associate at Lodge Pole, who wired
+back that nobody there had heard anything from Laramie or elsewhere
+about the Indians; that the colonel and one or two of his officers had
+been in the station a while during the evening and had sent messages to
+Cheyenne and Omaha and received one or two, but that they had all gone
+out to camp. Everything was quiet; "taps" had just sounded and they were
+all going to bed.</p>
+
+<p>"Lodge Pole" announced for himself that some old friends of his were on
+the guard that night, and he was going over to smoke a pipe and have a
+chat with them.</p>
+
+<p>To this "Chug" responded that he wished he wouldn't leave the office.
+There was no telling what might turn up or how soon he'd be wanted.</p>
+
+<p>But "Lodge Pole" said the operators were not required to stay at the
+board after nine at night; he would have the keeper of the station
+listen for his call, and would run over to camp for an hour; would be
+back at half-past ten and sleep by his instrument. Meantime, if needed,
+he could be called in a minute,&mdash;the guard tents were only three hundred
+yards away,&mdash;and so he went.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph almost wished that he had sent a message to the colonel to tell
+him of their suspicions and anxiety.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> He knew well that every officer
+and every private in that sleeping battalion would turn out eagerly and
+welcome the twenty-five-mile trot forward to the Chug on the report that
+the Sioux were out "on the war-path" and might be coming that way.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, army boy that he was, he hated to give what might be called a false
+alarm. He knew the Fifth only by reputation, and while he would not have
+hesitated to send such a message to his father had he been camped at
+Lodge Pole, or to his father's comrades in their own regiment, he did
+not relish the idea of sending a despatch that would rout the colonel
+out of his warm blankets, and which might be totally unnecessary.</p>
+
+<p>So the telegraph operator at Lodge Pole was permitted to go about his
+own devices, and once again Ralph and his new friend went out into the
+night to look over their surroundings and the situation.</p>
+
+<p>The light still burned at Farron's, and Phillips, coming out with a
+bundle of kindling-wood for the little beacon fire, chuckled when he saw
+it,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Wells must be there by this time, but I'll just bet Farron is giving
+the boys a little supper, or something, to welcome Jessie home, and now
+he's got obstinate and won't let them douse the glim."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a case that Wells will be apt to decide for himself," answered
+Ralph. "He won't stand fooling, and will declare martial law.&mdash;There!
+What did I tell you?"</p>
+
+<p>The light went suddenly out in the midst of his words. They carried the
+kindling and made a little heap of dry sticks out near the bank of the
+stream;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> then stood a while and listened. In the valley, faintly lighted
+by the moon, all was silence and peace; not even the distant yelp of
+coyote disturbed the stillness of the night. Not a breath of air was
+stirring. A light film of cloud hung about the horizon and settled in a
+cumulus about the turrets of old Laramie Peak, but overhead the
+brilliant stars sparkled and the planets shone like little globes of
+molten gold.</p>
+
+<p>Hearing voices, Buford, lonely now without his friend, the sergeant's
+horse, set up a low whinny, and Ralph went in and spoke to him, patting
+his glossy neck and shoulder. When he came out he found that a third man
+had joined the party and was talking eagerly with Phillips.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph recognized the man as an old trapper who spent most of his time in
+the hills or farther up in the neighborhood of Laramie Peak. He had
+often been at the fort to sell peltries or buy provisions, and was a
+mountaineer and plainsman who knew every nook and cranny in Wyoming.</p>
+
+<p>Cropping the scant herbage on the flat behind the trapper was a lank,
+long-limbed horse from which he had just dismounted, and which looked
+travel-stained and weary like his master. The news the man brought was
+worthy of consideration, and Ralph listened with rapt attention and with
+a heart that beat hard and quick, though he said no word and gave no
+sign.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you haven't seen or heard a thing?" asked the new-comer. "It's
+mighty strange. I've scoured these hills&mdash;man and boy&mdash;nigh onto thirty
+years and ought to know Indian smokes when I see 'em. I don't think I
+can be mistaken about this. I was way up the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> range about four o'clock
+this afternoon and could see clear across towards Rawhide Butte, and
+three smokes went up over there, sure. What startled me," the trapper
+continued, "was the answer. Not ten miles above where I was there went
+up a signal smoke from the foot-hills of the range,&mdash;just in here to the
+northwest of us, perhaps twenty miles west of Eagle's Nest. It's the
+first time I've seen Indian smokes in there since the month they killed
+Lieutenant Robinson up by the peak. You bet I came down. <i>Sure</i> they
+haven't seen anything at Laramie?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing. They sent Captain McCrea with his troop up towards Rawhide
+just after dark, but they declare nothing has been seen or heard of
+Indians this side of the Platte. I've been talking with Laramie most of
+the evening. The Black Hills stage coming down reported trail of a big
+war party out, going west just this side of the Butte, and some of them
+may have sent up the smokes you saw in that direction. I was saying to
+Ralph, here, that if that trail was forty-eight hours old, they would
+have had time to cross the Platte at Bull Bend, and be down here
+to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"They wouldn't come here first. They know this ranch too well. They'd go
+in to Eagle's Nest to try and get the stage horses and a scalp or two
+there. You're too strong for 'em here."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay; but there's Farron and his little kid up there four miles above
+us."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't tell me! Thought he'd taken her down to Denver."</p>
+
+<p>"So he did, and fetched her back to-day. Sergeant Wells has gone up
+there to keep watch with them, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> we are to signal if we get important
+news. All you tell me only adds to what we suspected. How I wish we had
+known it an hour ago! Now, will you stay here with us or go up to
+Farron's and tell Wells what you've seen?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll stay here. My horse can't make another mile, and you may believe I
+don't want any prowling round outside of a stockade this night. No, if
+you can signal to him go ahead and do it."</p>
+
+<p>"What say you, Ralph?"</p>
+
+<p>Ralph thought a moment in silence. If he fired his three shots, it meant
+that the danger was imminent, and that they had certain information that
+the Indians were near at hand. He remembered to have heard his father
+and other officers tell of sensational stories this same old trapper had
+inflicted on the garrison. Sergeant Wells himself used to laugh at
+"Baker's yarns." More than once the cavalry had been sent out to where
+Baker asserted he had certainly seen a hundred Indians the day before,
+only to find that not even the vestige of a pony track remained on the
+yielding sod. If he fired the signal shots it meant a night of vigil for
+everybody at Farron's and then how Wells would laugh at him in the
+morning, and how disgusted he would be when he found that it was
+entirely on Baker's assurances that he had acted!</p>
+
+<p>It was a responsible position for the boy. He would much have preferred
+to mount Buford and ride off over the four miles of moonlit prairie to
+tell the sergeant of Baker's report and let him be the judge of its
+authenticity. It was lucky he had that level-headed soldier operator to
+advise him. Already he had begun to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> fancy him greatly, and to respect
+his judgment and intelligence.</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose we go in and stir up Laramie, and tell them what Mr. Baker
+says," he suggested; and, leaving the trapper to stable his jaded horse
+under Phillips's guidance, Ralph and his friend once more returned to
+the station.</p>
+
+<p>"If the Indians are south of the Platte," said the operator, "I shall no
+longer hesitate about sending a despatch direct to the troops at Lodge
+Pole. The colonel ought to know. He can send one or two companies right
+along to-night. There is no operator at Eagle's Nest, or I'd have him up
+and ask if all was well there. That's what worries me, Ralph. It was
+back of Eagle's Nest old Baker says he saw their smokes, and it is
+somewhere about Eagle's Nest that I should expect the rascals to slip in
+and cut our wire. I'll bet they're all asleep at Laramie by this time.
+What o'clock is it?"</p>
+
+<p>The boy stopped at the window of the little telegraph room where the
+light from the kerosene lamp would fall upon his watch-dial. The soldier
+passed on around to the door. Glancing at his watch, Ralph followed on
+his track and got to the door-way just as his friend stretched forth his
+hand to touch the key.</p>
+
+<p>"It's just ten-fifty now."</p>
+
+<p>"Ten-fifty, did you say?" asked the soldier, glancing over his shoulder.
+"Ralph!" he cried, excitedly, "<i>the wire's cut!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Where?" gasped Ralph. "Can you tell?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, somewhere up above us,&mdash;near the Nest, probably,&mdash;though who can
+tell? It may be just round the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> bend of the road, for all we know. No
+doubt about there being Indians now, Ralph, give 'em your signal. Hullo!
+Hoofs!"</p>
+
+<p>Leaping out from the little tenement, the two listened intently. An
+instant before the thunder of horse's feet upon wooden planking had been
+plainly audible in the distance, and now the coming clatter could be
+heard on the roadway.</p>
+
+<p>Phillips and Baker, who had heard the sounds, joined them at the
+instant. Nearer and nearer came a panting horse; a shadowy rider loomed
+into sight up the road, and in another moment a young ranchman galloped
+up to the very doors.</p>
+
+<p>"All safe, fellows? Thank goodness for that! I've had a ride for it, and
+we're dead beat. <i>Indians?</i> Why, the whole country's alive with 'em
+between here and Hunton's. I promised I'd go over to Farron's if they
+ever came around that way, but they may beat me there yet. How many men
+have you here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Seven now, counting Baker and Ralph; but I'll wire right back to Lodge
+Pole and let the Fifth Cavalry know. Quick, Ralph, give 'em your signal
+now!"</p>
+
+<p>Ralph seized his carbine and ran out on the prairie behind the corral,
+the others eagerly following him to note the effect. Bang! went the gun
+with a resounding roar that echoed from the cliffs at the east and came
+thundering back to them just in time to "fall in" behind two other
+ringing reports at short, five-second intervals.</p>
+
+<p>Three times the flash lighted up the faces of the little party; set and
+stern and full of pluck they were. Then all eyes were turned to the
+dark, shadowy, low-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>lying objects far up the stream, the roofs of
+Farron's threatened ranch.</p>
+
+<p>Full half a minute they watched, hearts beating high, breath coming
+thick and fast, hands clinching in the intensity of their anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>Then, hurrah! Faint and flickering at first, then shining a few seconds
+in clear, steady beam, the sergeant's answering signal streamed out upon
+the night, a calm, steadfast, unwavering response, resolute as the
+spirit of its soldier sender, and then suddenly disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>"He's all right!" said Ralph, joyously, as the young ranchman put spurs
+to his panting horse and rode off to the west. "Now, what about Lodge
+Pole?"</p>
+
+<p>Just as they turned away there came a sound far out on the prairie that
+made them pause and look wonderingly a moment in one another's eyes. The
+horseman had disappeared from view. They had watched him until he had
+passed out of sight in the dim distance. The hoof-beats of his horse had
+died away before they turned to go.</p>
+
+<p>Yet now there came the distant thunder of an hundred hoofs bounding over
+the sod.</p>
+
+<p>Out from behind a jutting spur of a bluff a horde of shadows sweep forth
+upon the open prairie towards the trail on which the solitary rider has
+disappeared. Here and there among them swift gleams, like silver
+streaks, are plainly seen, as the moonbeams glint on armlet or bracelet,
+or the nickel plating on their gaudy trappings.</p>
+
+<p>Then see! a ruddy flash! another! another! the muffled bang of
+fire-arms, and the vengeful yell and whoops of savage foeman float down
+to the breathless<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> listeners at the station on the Chug. The Sioux are
+here in full force, and a score of them have swept down on that brave,
+hapless, helpless fellow riding through the darkness alone.</p>
+
+<p>Phillips groaned. "Oh, why did we let him go? Quick, now! Every man to
+the ranch, and you get word to Lodge Pole, will you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, ay, and fetch the whole Fifth Cavalry here at a gallop!"</p>
+
+<p>But when Ralph ran into the telegraph station a moment later, he found
+the operator with his head bowed upon his arms and his face hidden from
+view.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter,&mdash;quick?" demanded Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>It was a ghastly face that was raised to the boy, as the operator
+answered,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It&mdash;it's all my fault. I've waited too long. <i>They've cut the line
+behind us!</i>"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+<h2><a name="AT_FARRONS_RANCH" id="AT_FARRONS_RANCH"></a>AT FARRON'S RANCH.</h2>
+
+<p>When Sergeant Wells reached Farron's ranch that evening little Jessie
+was peacefully sleeping in the room that had been her mother's. The
+child was tired after the long, fifty-mile drive from Russell, and had
+been easily persuaded to go to bed.</p>
+
+<p>Farron himself, with the two men who worked for him, was having a
+sociable smoke and chat, and the three were not a little surprised at
+Wells's coming and the unwelcome news he bore. The ranchman was one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> of
+the best-hearted fellows in the world, but he had a few infirmities of
+disposition and one or two little conceits that sometimes marred his
+better judgment. Having lived in the Chug Valley a year or two before
+the regiment came there, he had conceived it to be his prerogative to
+adopt a somewhat patronizing tone to its men, and believed that he knew
+much more about the manners and customs of the Sioux than they could
+possibly have learned.</p>
+
+<p>The Fifth Cavalry had been stationed not far from the Chug Valley when
+he first came to the country, and afterwards were sent out to Arizona
+for a five-years' exile. It was all right for the Fifth to claim
+acquaintance with the ways of the Sioux, Farron admitted, but as for
+these fellows of the &mdash;th,&mdash;that was another thing. It did not seem to
+occur to him that the guarding of the neighboring reservations for about
+five years had given the new regiment opportunities to study and observe
+these Indians that had not been accorded to him.</p>
+
+<p>Another element which he totally overlooked in comparing the relative
+advantages of the two regiments was a very important one that radically
+altered the whole situation. When the Fifth was on duty watching the
+Sioux, it was just after breech-loading rifles had been introduced into
+the army, and before they had been introduced among the Sioux.</p>
+
+<p>Through the mistaken policy of the Indian Bureau at Washington this
+state of affairs was now changed and, for close fighting, the savages
+were better armed than the troops. Nearly every warrior had either a
+magazine rifle or a breech-loader, and many of them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> had two revolvers
+besides. Thus armed, the Sioux were about ten times as formidable as
+they had been before, and the task of restraining them was far more
+dangerous and difficult than it had been when the Fifth guarded them.</p>
+
+<p>The situation demanded greater vigilance and closer study than in the
+old days, and Farron ought to have had sense enough to see it. But he
+did not. He had lived near the Sioux so many years; these soldiers had
+been near them so many years less; therefore they must necessarily know
+less about them than he did. He did not take into account that it was
+the soldiers' business to keep eyes and ears open to everything relating
+to the Indians, while the information which he had gained came to him
+simply as diversion, or to satisfy his curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>So it happened that when Wells came in that night and told Farron what
+was feared at Phillips's, the ranchman treated his warning with
+good-humored but rather contemptuous disregard.</p>
+
+<p>"Phillips gets stampeded too easy," was the way he expressed himself,
+"and when you fellows of the Mustangs have been here as long as I have
+you'll get to know these Indians better. Even if they did come, Pete and
+Jake here, and I, with our Henry rifles, could stand off fifty of 'em.
+Why, we've done it many a time."</p>
+
+<p>"How long ago?" asked the sergeant, quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't know. It was before you fellows came. Why, you don't begin
+to know anything about these Indians! You never see 'em here nowadays,
+but when I first came here to the Chug there wasn't a week<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> they didn't
+raid us. They haven't shown up in three years, except just this spring
+they've run off a little stock. But you never see 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You</i> may never see them, Farron, but we do,&mdash;see them day in and day
+out as we scout around the reservation; and while I may not know what
+they were ten years ago, I know what they are <i>now</i>, and that's more to
+the purpose. You and Pete might have stood off a dozen or so when they
+hadn't 'Henrys' and 'Winchesters' as they have now, but you couldn't do
+it to-day, and it's all nonsense for you to talk of it. Of course, so
+long as you keep inside here you may pick them off, but look out of this
+window! What's to prevent their getting into your corral out there, and
+then holding you here! They can set fire to your roof over your head,
+man, and you can't get out to extinguish it."</p>
+
+<p>"What makes you think they've spotted me, anyhow?" asked Farron.</p>
+
+<p>"They looked you over the last time they came up the valley, and you
+know it. Now, if you and the men want to stay here and make a fight for
+it, all right,&mdash;I'd rather do that myself, only we ought to have two or
+three men to put in the corral,&mdash;but here's little Jessie. Let me take
+her down to Phillips's; she's safe there. He has everything ready for a
+siege and you haven't."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, she's only just gone to sleep, Wells; I don't want to wake her up
+out of a warm bed and send her off four miles a chilly night like
+this,&mdash;all for a scare, too. The boys down there would laugh at
+me,&mdash;just after bringing her here from Denver, too."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"They're not laughing down there <i>this</i> night, Farron, and they're not
+the kind that get stampeded either. Keep Jessie, if you say so, and I'll
+stay through the night; but I've fixed some signals with them down at
+the road and you've got to abide by them. They can see your light plain
+as a beacon, and it's got to go out in fifteen minutes."</p>
+
+<p>Farron had begun by pooh-poohing the sergeant's views, but he already
+felt that they deserved serious consideration. He was more than half
+disposed to adopt Wells's plan and let him take Jessie down to the safer
+station at Phillips's, but she looked so peaceful and bonny, sleeping
+there in her little bed, that he could not bear to disturb her. He was
+ashamed, too, of the appearance of yielding.</p>
+
+<p>So he told the sergeant that while he would not run counter to any
+arrangement he had made as to signals, and was willing to back him up in
+any project for the common defence, he thought they could protect Jessie
+and the ranch against any marauders that might come along. He didn't
+think it was necessary that they should all sit up. One man could watch
+while the others slept.</p>
+
+<p>As a first measure Farron and the sergeant took a turn around the ranch.
+The house itself was about thirty yards from the nearest side of the
+corral, or enclosure, in which Farron's horses were confined. In the
+corral were a little stable, a wagon-shed, and a poultry-house. The back
+windows of the stable were on the side towards the house, and should
+Indians get possession of the stable they could send fire-arrows, if
+they chose, to the roof of the house, and with their rifles<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> shoot down
+any persons who might attempt to escape from the burning building.</p>
+
+<p>This fault of construction had long since been pointed out to Farron,
+but the man who called his attention to it, unluckily, was an officer of
+the new regiment, and the ranchman had merely replied, with a
+self-satisfied smile, that he guessed he'd lived long enough in that
+country to know a thing or two about the Indians.</p>
+
+<p>Sergeant Wells shook his head as he looked at the stable, but Farron
+said that it was one of his safe-guards.</p>
+
+<p>"I've got two mules in there that can smell an Indian five miles off,
+and they'd begin to bray the minute they did. That would wake me up, you
+see, because their heads are right towards me. Now, if they were way
+across the corral I mightn't hear 'em at all. Then it's close to the
+house, and convenient for feeding in winter. Will you put your horse in
+to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>Sergeant Wells declined. He might need him, he said, and would keep him
+in front of the house where he was going to take his station to watch
+the valley and look out for signals. He led the horse to the stream and
+gave him a drink, and asked Farron to lay out a hatful of oats. "They
+might come in handy if I have to make an early start."</p>
+
+<p>However lightly Farron might estimate the danger, his men regarded it as
+a serious matter. Having heard the particulars from Sergeant Wells,
+their first care was to look over their rifles and see that they were in
+perfect order and in readiness for use. When at last Farron had
+completed a leisurely inspection of his corral and returned to the
+house, he found Wells and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> Pete in quiet talk at the front, and the
+sergeant's horse saddled close at hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well!" he said, "if you're as much in earnest as all that, I'll
+bring my pipe out here with you, and if any signal should come, it'll be
+time enough then to wake Jessie, wrap her in a blanket, and you gallop
+off to Phillips's with her."</p>
+
+<p>And so the watchers went on duty. The light in the ranch was
+extinguished, and all about the place was as quiet as the broad, rolling
+prairie itself. Farron remained wakeful a little while, then said he was
+sleepy and should go in and lie down without undressing. Pete, too,
+speedily grew drowsy and sat down on the porch, where Wells soon caught
+sight of his nodding head just as the moon came peeping up over the
+distant crest of the "Buffalo Hill."</p>
+
+<p>How long Farron slept he had no time to ask, for the next thing he knew
+was that a rude hand was shaking his shoulder, and Pete's voice said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Up with you, Farron! The signal's fired at Phillips's. Up quick!"</p>
+
+<p>As Farron sprang to the floor, Pete struck a light, and the next minute
+the kerosene lamp, flickering and sputtering at first, was shining in
+the eastward window. Outside the door the ranchman found Wells
+tightening his saddle-girths, while his horse, snorting with excitement,
+pricked up his ears and gazed down the valley.</p>
+
+<p>"Who fired?" asked Farron, barely awake.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know; Ralph probably. Better get Jessie for me at once. The
+Indians are this side of the Platte sure, and they may be near at hand.
+I don't like the way Spot's behaving,&mdash;see how excited he is. I don't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>
+like to leave you short-handed if there's to be trouble. If there's time
+I'll come back from Phillips's. Come, man! Wake Jessie."</p>
+
+<p>"All right. There's plenty of time, though. They must be miles down the
+valley yet. If they'd come from the north, the telegraph would have
+given warning long ago. And Dick Warner&mdash;my brother-in-law, Jessie's
+uncle&mdash;always promised he'd be down to tell me first thing, if they came
+any way that he could hear of it. You bet he'll be with us before
+morning, unless they're between him and us now."</p>
+
+<p>With that he turned into the house, and in a moment reappeared with the
+wondering, sleepy-eyed, half-wakened little maid in his strong arms.
+Wells was already in saddle, and Spot was snorting and prancing about in
+evident excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll leave the 'Henry' with Pete. I can't carry it and Jessie, too.
+Hand her up to me and snuggle her well in the blanket."</p>
+
+<p>Farron hugged his child tight in his arms one moment. She put her little
+arms around his neck and clung to him, looking piteously into his face,
+yet shedding no tears. Something told her there was danger; something
+whispered "Indians!" to the childish heart; but she stifled her words of
+fear and obeyed her father's wish.</p>
+
+<p>"You are going down to Phillips's where Ralph is, Jessie, darling.
+Sergeant Wells is going to carry you. Be good and perfectly quiet. Don't
+cry, don't make a particle of noise, pet. Whatever you do, don't make
+any noise. Promise papa."</p>
+
+<p>As bravely as she had done when she waited that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> day at the station at
+Cheyenne, the little woman choked back the rising sob. She nodded
+obedience, and then put up her bonny face for her father's kiss. Who can
+tell of the dread, the emotion he felt as he clung to the trusting
+little one for that short moment?</p>
+
+<p>"God guard you, my baby," he muttered, as he carefully lifted her up to
+Wells, who circled her in his strong right arm, and seated her on the
+overcoat that was rolled at his pommel.</p>
+
+<p>Farron carefully wrapped the blanket about her tiny feet and legs, and
+with a prayer on his lips and a clasp of the sergeant's bridle hand he
+bade him go. Another moment, and Wells and little Jessie were loping
+away on Spot, and were rapidly disappearing from view along the dim,
+moonlit trail.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment the three ranchmen stood watching them. Far to the
+northeast a faint light could be seen at Phillips's, and the roofs and
+walls were dimly visible in the rays of the moon. The hoof-beats of old
+Spot soon died away in the distance, and all seemed as still as the
+grave. Anxious as he was, Farron took heart. They stood there silent a
+few moments after the horseman, with his precious charge, had faded from
+view, and then Farron spoke,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"They'll make it all safe. If the Indians were anywhere near us those
+mules of mine would have given warning by this time."</p>
+
+<p>The words were hardly dropped from his lips when from the other side of
+the house&mdash;from the stable at the corral&mdash;there came, harsh and loud and
+sudden, the discordant bray of mules. The three men started as if
+stung.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Quick! Pete. Fetch me any one of the horses. I'll gallop after him.
+Hear those mules? That means the Indians are close at hand!" And he
+sprang into the house for his revolvers, while Pete flew round to the
+stable.</p>
+
+<p>It was not ten seconds before Farron reappeared at the front door. Pete
+came running out from the stable, leading an astonished horse by the
+snaffle. There was not even a blanket on the animal's back, or time to
+put one there.</p>
+
+<p>Farron was up and astride the horse in an instant, but before he could
+give a word of instruction to his men, there fell upon their ears a
+sound that appalled them,&mdash;the distant thunder of hundreds of bounding
+hoofs; the shrill, vengeful yells of a swarm of savage Indians; the
+crack! crack! of rifles; and, far down the trail along which Wells had
+ridden but a few moments before, they could see the flash of fire-arms.</p>
+
+<p>"O God! save my little one!" was Farron's agonized cry as he struck his
+heels to his horse's ribs and went tearing down the valley in mad and
+desperate ride to the rescue.</p>
+
+<p>Poor little Jessie! What hope to save her now?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+<h2><a name="A_NIGHT_OF_PERIL" id="A_NIGHT_OF_PERIL"></a>A NIGHT OF PERIL.</h2>
+
+<p>For one moment the telegraph operator was stunned and inert. Then his
+native pluck and the never-say-die spirit of the young American came to
+his aid. He rose to his feet, seized his rifle, and ran out to join
+Phillips and the few men who were busily at work barricading the corral
+and throwing open the loop-holes in the log walls.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph had disappeared, and no one knew whither he had gone until, just
+as the men were about to shut the heavy door of the stable, they heard
+his young voice ring cheerily out through the darkness,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Hold on there! Wait till Buford and I get out!"</p>
+
+<p>"Where on earth are you going?" gasped Phillips, in great astonishment,
+as the boy appeared in the door-way, leading his pet, which was bridled
+and saddled.</p>
+
+<p>"Going? Back to Lodge Pole, quick as I can, to bring up the cavalry."</p>
+
+<p>"Ralph," said the soldier, "it will never do. Now that Wells is gone I
+feel responsible for you, and your father would never forgive me if
+anything befell you. We can't let you go?"</p>
+
+<p>Ralph's eyes were snapping with excitement and his cheeks were flushed.
+It was a daring, it was a gallant, thought,&mdash;the idea of riding back all
+alone through a country that might be infested by savage foes; but it
+was the one chance.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Farron and Wells and the men might be able to hold out a few hours at
+the ranch up the valley, and keep the Indians far enough away to prevent
+their burning them out. Of course the ranch could not stand a long siege
+against Indian ingenuity, but six hours, or eight at the utmost, would
+be sufficient time in which to bring rescue to the inmates. By that time
+he could have an overwhelming force of cavalry in the valley, and all
+would be safe.</p>
+
+<p>If word were not sent to them it would be noon to-morrow before the
+advance of the Fifth would reach the Chug. By that time all would be
+over with Farron.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph's brave young heart almost stopped beating as he thought of the
+hideous fate that awaited the occupants of the ranch unless help came to
+them. He felt that nothing but a light rider and a fast horse could
+carry the news in time. He knew that he was the lightest rider in the
+valley; that Buford was the fastest horse; that no man at the station
+knew all the "breaks" and ravines, the ridges and "swales" of the
+country better than he did.</p>
+
+<p>Farron's lay to the southwest, and thither probably all the Indians were
+now riding. He could gallop off to the southeast, make a long <i>d&eacute;tour</i>,
+and so reach Lodge Pole unseen. If he could get there in two hours and a
+half, the cavalry could be up and away in fifteen minutes more, and in
+that case might reach the Chug at daybreak or soon afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>One thing was certain, that to succeed he must go instantly, before the
+Indians could come down and put a watch around Phillips's.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Of course it was a plan full of fearful risk. He took his life in his
+hands. Death by the cruelest of tortures awaited him if captured, and it
+was a prospect before which any boy and many a man might shrink in
+dismay.</p>
+
+<p>But he had thought of little Jessie; the plan and the estimation of the
+difficulties and dangers attending its execution had flashed through his
+mind in less than five seconds, and his resolution was instantly made.
+He was a soldier's son, was Ralph, and saying no word to any one he had
+run to the stable, saddled and bridled Buford, and with his revolver at
+his hip was ready for his ride.</p>
+
+<p>"It's no use of talking; I'm going," was all he said. "I know how to
+dodge them just as well as any man here, and, as for father, he'd be
+ashamed of me if I didn't go."</p>
+
+<p>Waiting for no reply,&mdash;before they could fully realize what he
+meant,&mdash;the boy had chirruped to his pawing horse and away they darted
+round the corner of the station, across the moonlit road, and then
+eastward down the valley.</p>
+
+<p>"Phillips," exclaimed the soldier, "I never should have let him go. I
+ought to have gone myself; but he's away before a man can stop him."</p>
+
+<p>"You're too heavy to ride that horse, and there's none other here to
+match him. That boy's got the sense of a plainsman any day, I tell you,
+and he'll make it all right. The Indians are all up the valley and we'll
+hear 'em presently at Farron's. He's keeping off so as to get round east
+of the bluffs, and then he'll strike across country southward and not
+try for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> the road until he's eight or ten miles away. Good for Ralph!
+It's a big thing he's doing, and his father will be proud of him for
+it."</p>
+
+<p>But the telegraph operator was heavy-hearted. The men were all anxious,
+and clustered again at the rear of the station. All this had taken place
+in the space of three minutes, and they were eagerly watching for the
+next demonstration from the marauders.</p>
+
+<p>Of the fate of poor Warner there could be little doubt. It was evident
+that the Indians had overwhelmed and killed him. There was a short
+struggle and the rapidly concentrating fire of rifles and revolvers for
+a minute or two; then the yells had changed to triumphant whoops, and
+then came silence.</p>
+
+<p>"They've got his scalp, poor fellow, and no man could lend a hand to
+help him. God grant they're all safe inside up there at Farron's," said
+one of the party; it was the only comment made on the tragedy that had
+been enacted before them.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo! What's that?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's the flash of rifles again. They've sighted Ralph!" cried the
+soldier.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit of it. Ralph's off here to the eastward. They're firing and
+chasing up the valley. Perhaps Warner got away after all. <i>Look</i> at 'em!
+See! The flashes are getting farther south all the time! They've headed
+him off from Farron's, whoever it is, and he's making for the road. The
+cowardly hounds! There's a hundred of 'em, I reckon, on one poor hunted
+white man, and here we are with our hands tied!"</p>
+
+<p>For a few minutes more the sound of shots and yells<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> and thundering
+hoofs came vividly through the still night air. All the time it was
+drifting away southward, and gradually approached the road. One of the
+ranchmen begged Phillips to let him have a horse and go out in the
+direction of the firing to reconnoitre and see what had happened, but it
+would have been madness to make the attempt, and the request was met
+with a prompt refusal.</p>
+
+<p>"We shall need every man here soon enough at the rate things are going,"
+was the answer. "That may have been Warner escaping, or it may have been
+one of Farron's men trying to get through to us or else riding off
+southward to find the cavalry. Perhaps it was Sergeant Wells. Whoever it
+was, they've had a two- or three-mile chase and have probably got him by
+this time. The firing in that direction is all over. Now the fun will
+begin up at the ranch. Then they'll come for us."</p>
+
+<p>"It's my fault!" groaned the operator. "What a night,&mdash;and all my fault!
+I ought to have told them at Lodge Pole when I could."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell them what?" said Phillips. "You didn't know a thing about their
+movements until Warner got here! What could you have said if you'd had
+the chance? The cavalry can't move on mere rumors or ideas that any
+chance man has who comes to the station in a panic. It has just come all
+of a sudden, in a way we couldn't foresee.</p>
+
+<p>"All I'm worrying about now is little Jessie, up there at Farron's. I'm
+afraid Warner's gone, and possibly some one else; but if Farron can only
+hold out against these fellows until daylight I think he and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> his little
+one will be safe. Watch here, two of you, now, while I go back to the
+house a moment."</p>
+
+<p>And so, arms at hand and in breathless silence, the little group watched
+and waited. All was quiet at the upper ranch. Farron's light had been
+extinguished soon after it had replied to the signal from below, but his
+roofs and walls were dimly visible in the moonlight. The distance was
+too great for the besiegers to be discerned if any were investing his
+place.</p>
+
+<p>The quiet lasted only a few moments. Then suddenly there came from up
+the valley and close around those distant roofs the faint sound of rapid
+firing. Paled by the moonlight into tiny, ruddy flashes, the flame of
+each report could be seen by the sharper eyes among the few watchers at
+Phillips's. The attack had indeed begun at Farron's.</p>
+
+<p>One of the men ran in to tell the news to Phillips, who presently came
+out and joined the party. No sign of Indians had yet been seen around
+them, but as they crouched there by the corral, eagerly watching the
+flashes that told of the distant struggle, and listening to the sounds
+of combat, there rose upon the air, over to the northward and apparently
+just at the base of the line of bluffs, the yelps and prolonged bark of
+the coyote. It died away, and then, far on to the southward, somewhere
+about the slopes where the road climbed the divide, there came an
+answering yelp, shrill, querulous, and prolonged.</p>
+
+<p>"Know what that is, boys?" queried Phillips.</p>
+
+<p>"Coyotes, I s'pose," answered one of the men,&mdash;a comparatively new hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Coyotes are scarce in this neighborhood nowadays.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> Those are Sioux
+signals, and we are surrounded. No man in this crowd could get out now.
+Ralph ain't out a moment too soon. God speed him! If Farron don't owe
+his life and little Jessie's to that boy's bravery, it'll be because
+nobody could get to them in time to save them. Why <i>didn't</i> he send her
+here?"</p>
+
+<p>Bad as was the outlook, anxious as were all their hearts, what was their
+distress to what it would have been had they known the truth,&mdash;that
+Warner lay only a mile up the trail, stripped, scalped, gashed, and
+mutilated! Still warm, yet stone dead! And that all alone, with little
+Jessie in his arms, Sergeant Wells had ridden down that trail into the
+very midst of the thronging foe! Let us follow him, for he is a soldier
+who deserves the faith that Farron placed in him.</p>
+
+<p>For a few moments after leaving the ranch the sergeant rides along at
+rapid lope, glancing keenly over the broad, open valley for any sign
+that might reveal the presence of hostile Indians, and then hopefully at
+the distant light at the station. He holds little Jessie in firm but
+gentle clasp, and speaks in fond encouragement every moment or two. She
+is bundled like a pappoose in the blanket, but her big, dark eyes look
+up trustfully into his, and once or twice she faintly smiles. All seems
+so quiet; all so secure in the soldier's strong clasp.</p>
+
+<p>"That's my brave little girl!" says the sergeant. "Papa was right when
+he told us down at Russell that he had the pluckiest little daughter in
+all Wyoming. It isn't every baby that would take a night ride with an
+old dragoon so quietly."</p>
+
+<p>He bends down and softly kisses the thick, curling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> hair that hangs over
+her forehead. Then his keen eye again sweeps over the valley, and he
+touches his charger's flank with the spur.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Looks</i> all clear," he mutters, "but I've seen a hundred Indians spring
+up out of a flatter plain than that. They'll skulk behind the smallest
+kind of a ridge, and not show a feather until one runs right in among
+them. There might be dozens of them off there beyond the Chug at this
+moment, and I not be able to see hair or hide of 'em."</p>
+
+<p>Almost half way to Phillips's, and still all is quiet. Then he notes
+that far ahead the low ridge, a few hundred yards to his left, sweeps
+round nearly to the trail, and dips into the general level of the
+prairie within short pistol-shot of the path along which he is riding.
+He is yet fully three-quarters of a mile from the place where the ridge
+so nearly meets the trail, but it is plainly visible now in the silvery
+moonlight.</p>
+
+<p>"If they should have come down, and should be all ranged behind that
+ridge now, 'twould be a fearful scrape for this poor little mite," he
+thinks, and then, soldier-like, sets himself to considering what his
+course should be if the enemy were suddenly to burst upon him from
+behind that very curtain.</p>
+
+<p>"Turn and run for it, of course!" he mutters. "Unless they should cut me
+off, which they couldn't do unless some of 'em were far back along
+behind the ridge. Hullo! A shadow on the trail! Coming this way. A
+horseman. That's good! They've sent out a man to meet me."</p>
+
+<p>The sound of iron-shod hoofs that came faintly across the wide distance
+from the galloping shadow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> carried to the sergeant's practised ear the
+assurance that the advancing horseman was not an Indian. After the
+suspense of that lonely and silent ride, in the midst of unknown
+dangers, Wells felt a deep sense of relief.</p>
+
+<p>"The road is clear between here and Phillips's, that's certain," he
+thought. "I'll take Jessie on to the station, and then go back to
+Farron's. I wonder what news that horseman brings, that he rides so
+hard."</p>
+
+<p>Still on came the horseman. All was quiet, and it seemed that in five
+minutes more he would have the news the stranger was bringing,&mdash;of
+safety, he hoped. Jessie, at any rate, should not be frightened unless
+danger came actually upon them. He quickened his horse's gait, and
+looked smilingly down into Jessie's face.</p>
+
+<p>"It's all right, little one! Somebody is coming up the trail from
+Phillips's, so everything must be safe," he told her.</p>
+
+<p>Then came a cruel awakening. Quick, sudden, thrilling, there burst upon
+the night a mad chorus of shouts and shots and the accompaniment of
+thundering hoofs. Out from the sheltering ridge by dozens, gleaming,
+flashing through the moonlight, he saw the warriors sweep down upon the
+hapless stranger far in front.</p>
+
+<p>He reined instantly his snorting and affrighted horse, and little
+Jessie, with one low cry of terror, tried to release her arms from the
+circling blanket and throw them about his neck; but he held her tight.
+He grasped the reins more firmly, gave one quick glance to his left and
+rear, and, to his dismay, discovered that he, too, was well-nigh hemmed
+in; that,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> swift and ruthless as the flight of hawks, a dozen warriors
+were bounding over the prairie towards him, to cut off his escape.</p>
+
+<p>He had not an instant to lose. He whirled his practised troop horse to
+the right about, and sent him leaping madly through the night back for
+Farron's ranch.</p>
+
+<p>Even as he sped along, he bent low over his charger's neck, and, holding
+the terror-stricken child to his breast, managed to speak a word to keep
+up her courage.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll beat them yet, my bonny bird!" he muttered, though at that
+instant he heard the triumphant whoops that told him a scalp was taken
+on the trail behind him, though at that very instant he saw that
+warriors, dashing from that teeming ridge, had headed him; that he must
+veer from the trail as he neared the ranch, and trust to Farron and his
+men to drive off his pursuers.</p>
+
+<p>Already the yells of his pursuers thrilled upon the ear. They had opened
+fire, and their wide-aimed bullets went whizzing harmlessly into space.
+His wary eye could see that the Indians on his right front were making a
+wide circle, so as to meet him when close to the goal, and he was
+burdened with that helpless child, and could not make fight even for his
+own life.</p>
+
+<p>Drop her and save himself? He would not entertain the thought. No,
+though it be his only chance to escape!</p>
+
+<p>His horse panted heavily, and still there lay a mile of open prairie
+between him and shelter; still those bounding ponies, with their
+yelping, screeching riders,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> were fast closing upon him, when suddenly
+through the dim and ghostly light there loomed another shadow, wild and
+daring,&mdash;a rider who came towards him at full speed.</p>
+
+<p>Because of the daring of the feat to ride thus alone into the teeth of a
+dozen foemen, the sergeant was sure, before he could see the man, that
+the approaching horseman was Farron, rushing to the rescue of his child.</p>
+
+<p>Wells shouted a trooper's loud hurrah, and then, "Rein up, Farron! Halt
+where you are, and open fire! That'll keep 'em off!"</p>
+
+<p>Though racing towards him at thundering speed, Farron heard and
+understood his words, for in another moment his "Henry" was barking its
+challenge at the foe, and sending bullet after bullet whistling out
+across the prairie.</p>
+
+<p>The flashing, feather-streaming shadows swerved to right and left, and
+swept away in big circles. Then Farron stretched out his arms,&mdash;no time
+for word of any kind,&mdash;and Wells laid in them the sobbing child, and
+seized in turn the brown and precious rifle.</p>
+
+<p>"Off with you, Farron! Straight for home now. I'll keep 'em back." And
+the sergeant in turn reined his horse, fronted the foe, and opened rapid
+fire, though with little hope of hitting horse or man.</p>
+
+<p>Disregarding the bullets that sang past his ears, he sent shot after
+shot at the shadowy riders, checked now, and circling far out on the
+prairie, until once more he could look about him, and see that Farron
+had reached the ranch, and had thrown himself from his horse.</p>
+
+<p>Then slowly he turned back, fronting now and then<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> to answer the shots
+that came singing by him, and to hurrah with delight when, as the
+Indians came within range of the ranch, its inmates opened fire on them,
+and a pony sent a yelping rider flying over his head, as he stumbled and
+plunged to earth, shot through the body.</p>
+
+<p>Then Wells turned in earnest and made a final dash for the corral. Then
+his own good steed, that had borne them both so bravely, suddenly
+wavered and tottered under him. He knew too well that the gallant horse
+had received his death-blow even before he went heavily to ground within
+fifty yards of the ranch.</p>
+
+<p>Wells was up in an instant, unharmed, and made a rush, stooping low.</p>
+
+<p>Another moment, and he was drawn within the door-way, panting and
+exhausted, but safe. He listened with amazement to the outward sounds of
+shots and hoofs and yells dying away into the distance southward.</p>
+
+<p>"What on earth is that?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"It's that scoundrel, Pete. He's taken my horse and deserted!" was
+Farron's breathless answer. "I hope they'll catch and kill him! I
+despise a coward!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+<h2><a name="THE_RESCUE" id="THE_RESCUE"></a>THE RESCUE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>All the time, travelling at rapid lope, but at the same time saving
+Buford's strength for sudden emergency, Ralph McCrea rode warily through
+the night. He kept far to east of the high ridge of the "Buffalo
+Hill,"&mdash;Who knew what Indian eyes might be watching there?&mdash;and mile
+after mile he wound among the ravines and swales which he had learned so
+well in by-gone days when he little dreamed of the value that his
+"plainscraft" might be to him.</p>
+
+<p>For a while his heart beat like a trip-hammer; every echo of his
+courser's footfall seemed to him to be the rush of coming warriors, and
+time and again he glanced nervously over his shoulder, dreading pursuit.
+But he never wavered in his gallant purpose.</p>
+
+<p>The long ridge was soon left to his right rear, and now he began to edge
+over towards the west, intending in this way to reach the road at a
+point where there would lie before him a fifteen-mile stretch of good
+"going ground." Over that he meant to send Buford at full speed.</p>
+
+<p>Since starting he had heard no sound of the fray; the ridge and the
+distance had swallowed up the clamor; but he knew full well that the
+raiding Indians would do their utmost this night to burn the Farron
+ranch and kill or capture its inmates. Every recurring thought of the
+peril of his beleaguered friends prompted him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> to spur his faithful
+steed, but he had been reared in the cavalry and taught never to drive a
+willing horse to death.</p>
+
+<p>The long, sweeping, elastic strides with which Buford bore him over the
+rolling prairie served their needs far better than a mad race of a mile
+or two, ending in a complete break-down, would have done.</p>
+
+<p>At last, gleaming in the moonlight, he sighted the hard-beaten road as
+it twisted and wound over the slopes, and in a few moments more rode
+beneath the single wire of the telegraph line, and then gave Buford a
+gentle touch of the steel. He had made a circuit of ten miles or more to
+reach this point, and was now, he judged, about seven miles below the
+station and five miles from Farron's ranch.</p>
+
+<p>He glanced over his right shoulder and anxiously searched the sky and
+horizon. Intervening "divides" shut him off from a view of the valley,
+but he saw that as yet no glare of flames proceeded from it.</p>
+
+<p>"Thus far the defence has held its own," he said, hopefully, to himself.
+"Now, if Buford and I can only reach Lodge Pole unmolested there may yet
+be time."</p>
+
+<p>Ascending a gentle slope he reined Buford down to a walk, so that his
+pet might have a little breathing spell. As he arrived at the crest he
+cast an eager glance over the next "reach" of prairie landscape, and
+then&mdash;his heart seemed to leap to his throat and a chill wave to rush
+through his veins.</p>
+
+<p>Surely he saw a horseman dart behind the low mound off to the west. This
+convinced him that the Indians had discovered and pursued him. After
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> Indian fashion they had not come squarely along his trail and thus
+driven him ahead at increased speed, but with the savage science of
+their warfare, they were working past him, far to his right, intending
+to head him off.</p>
+
+<p>To his left front the country was clear, and he could see over it for a
+considerable distance. The road, after winding through some intermediate
+ravines ahead, swept around to the left. He had almost determined to
+leave the trail and make a bee-line across country, and so to outrun the
+foeman to his right, when, twice or thrice, he caught the gleam of steel
+or silver or nickel-plate beyond the low ground in the very direction in
+which he had thought to flee.</p>
+
+<p>His heart sank low now, for the sight conveyed to his mind but one
+idea,&mdash;that the gleams were the flashing of moonbeams on the barbaric
+ornaments of Indians, as he had seen them flash an hour ago when the
+warriors raced forth into the valley of the Chug. Were the Indians ahead
+of him then, and on both sides of the road?</p>
+
+<p>One thing he had to do, and to do instantly: ride into the first hollow
+he could find, dismount, crawl to the ridge and peer around him,&mdash;study
+which way to ride if he should have to make a race for his own life
+now,&mdash;and give Buford time to gather himself for the effort.</p>
+
+<p>The boy's brave spirit was wrought well-nigh to the limit. His eyes
+clouded as he thought of his father and the faithful troop, miles and
+miles away and all unconscious of his deadly peril; of his anxious and
+loving mother, wakeful and watching at Laramie,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> doubtless informed of
+the Indian raid by this time; powerless to help him, but praying God to
+watch over her boy.</p>
+
+<p>He looked aloft at the starry heavens and lifted his heart in one brief
+prayer: "God guard and guide me. I've tried to do my duty as a soldier's
+son." And somehow he felt nerved and strengthened.</p>
+
+<p>He grasped the handle of his cavalry revolver as he guided Buford down
+to the right where there seemed to be a hollow among the slopes. Just as
+he came trotting briskly round a little shoulder of the nearest ridge
+there was a rush and patter of hoofs on the other side of it, an
+exclamation, half-terror, half-menace, a flash and a shot that whizzed
+far over his head. A dark, shadowy horseman went scurrying off into
+space as fast as a spurred and startled horse could carry him; a
+broad-brimmed slouch hat was blown back to him as a parting <i>souvenir</i>,
+and Ralph McCrea shouted with relief and merriment as he realized that
+some man&mdash;a ranchman doubtless&mdash;had taken him for an Indian and had
+"stampeded," scared out of his wits.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph dismounted, picked up the hat, swung himself again into saddle,
+and with rejoicing heart sped away again on his mission. There were
+still those suspicious flashes off to the east that he must dodge, and
+to avoid them he shaped his course well to the west.</p>
+
+<p>Let us turn for a moment to the camp of the cavalry down in Lodge Pole
+Valley. We have not heard from them since early evening when the
+operator announced his intention of going over to have a smoke and a
+chat with some of his friends on guard.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Taps," the signal to extinguish lights and go to bed, had sounded early
+and, so far as the operator at Lodge Pole knew when he closed his
+instrument, the battalion had gladly obeyed the summons.</p>
+
+<p>It happened, however, that the colonel had been talking with one of his
+most trusted captains as they left the office a short time before, and
+the result of that brief talk was that the latter walked briskly away
+towards the bivouac fires of his troop and called "Sergeant Stauffer!"</p>
+
+<p>A tall, dark-eyed, bronzed trooper quickly arose, dropped his pipe, and
+strode over to where his captain stood in the flickering light, and,
+saluting, "stood attention" and waited.</p>
+
+<p>"Sergeant, let the quartermaster-sergeant and six men stay here to load
+our baggage in the morning. Mount the rest of the troop at once, without
+any noise,&mdash;fully equipped."</p>
+
+<p>The sergeant was too old a soldier even to look surprised. In fifteen
+minutes, with hardly a sound of unusual preparation, fifty horsemen had
+"led into line," had mounted, and were riding silently off northward.
+The colonel said to the captain, as he gave him a word of good-by,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know that you'll find anything out of the way at all, but, with
+such indications, I believe it best to throw forward a small force to
+look after the Chug Valley until we come up. We'll be with you by
+dinner-time."</p>
+
+<p>Two hours later, when the telegraph operator, breathless and excited,
+rushed into the colonel's tent and woke him with the news that his wire
+was cut up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> towards the Chug, the colonel was devoutly thankful for the
+inspiration that prompted him to send "K" Troop forward through the
+darkness. He bade his adjutant, the light-weight of the officers then on
+duty, take his own favorite racer, Van, and speed away on the trail of
+"K" Troop, tell them that the line was cut,&mdash;that there was trouble
+ahead; to push on lively with what force they had, and that two more
+companies would
+<a name="corr1" id="corr1"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn1" title="changed from 'he'">be</a>
+hurried to their support.</p>
+
+<p>At midnight "K" Troop, riding easily along in the moonlight, had
+travelled a little over half the distance to Phillips's ranch. The
+lieutenant, who with two or three troopers was scouting far in advance,
+halted at the crest of a high ridge over which the road climbs, and
+dismounted his little party for a brief rest while he went up ahead to
+reconnoitre.</p>
+
+<p>Cavalrymen in the Indian country never ride into full view on top of a
+"divide" until after some one of their number has carefully looked over
+the ground beyond.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing in sight that gave cause for long inspection, or that
+warranted the officer's taking out his field-glasses. He could see the
+line of hills back of the Chugwater Valley, and all was calm and placid.
+The valley itself lay some hundreds of feet below his point of
+observation, and beginning far off to his left ran northeastward until
+one of its branches crossed the trail along which the troop was riding.</p>
+
+<p>Returning to his party, the lieutenant's eye was attracted, for the
+fifth or sixth time since they had left Lodge Pole, by little gleams and
+flashes of light off in the distance, and he muttered, in a somewhat
+dispar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>aging manner, to some of the members of his own troop,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Now, what the dickens can those men be carrying to make such a streak
+as that? One would suppose that Arizona would have taken all the
+nonsense out of 'em, but that glimmer must come from bright bits or
+buckles, or something of the kind, for we haven't a sabre with us. What
+makes those little flashes, sergeant?" he asked, impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>"It's some of the tin canteens, sir. The cloth is all worn off a dozen
+of 'em, and when the moonlight strikes 'em it makes a flash almost like
+a mirror."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed it does, and would betray our coming miles away of a moonlit
+night. We'll drop all those things at Laramie. Hullo! Mount, men,
+lively!"</p>
+
+<p>The young officer and his party suddenly sprang to saddle. A clatter of
+distant hoofs was heard rapidly approaching along the hard-beaten road.
+Nearer, nearer they came at tearing gallop. The lieutenant rode
+cautiously forward to where he could peer over the crest.</p>
+
+<p>"Somebody riding like mad!" he muttered. "Hatless and demoralized. Who
+comes <i>there</i>?" he shouted aloud. "Halt, whoever you are!"</p>
+
+<p>Pulling up a panting horse, pale, wide-eyed, almost exhausted, a young
+ranchman rode into the midst of the group. It was half a minute before
+he could speak. When at last he recovered breath, it was a marvellous
+tale that he told.</p>
+
+<p>"The Chug's crammed with Indians. They've killed all down at Phillips's,
+and got all around Farron's,&mdash;hundreds of 'em. Sergeant Wells tried to
+run<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> away with Jessie, but they cut him off, and he'd have been killed
+and Jessie captured but for me and Farron. We charged through 'em, and
+got 'em back to the ranch. Then the Indians attacked us there, and there
+was only four of us, and some one had to cut his way out. Wells said you
+fellows were down at Lodge Pole, but he da'sn't try it. I had to." Here
+"Pete" looked important, and gave his pistol-belt a hitch.</p>
+
+<p>"I must 'a' killed six of 'em," he continued. "Both my revolvers empty,
+and I dropped one of 'em on the trail. My hat was shot clean off my
+head, but they missed me, and I got through. They chased me every inch
+of the way up to a mile back over yonder. I shot the last one there. But
+how many men you got?"</p>
+
+<p>"About fifty," answered the lieutenant. "We'll push ahead at once. You
+guide us."</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't going ahead with no fifty. I tell you there's a thousand
+Indians there. Where's the rest of the regiment?"</p>
+
+<p>"Back at Lodge Pole. Go on, if you like, and tell them your story.
+Here's the captain now."</p>
+
+<p>With new and imposing additions, Pete told the story a second time.
+Barely waiting to hear it through, the captain's voice rang along the
+eager column,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Forward, trot, <i>march</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>Away went the troop full tilt for the Chug, while the ranchman rode
+rearward until he met the supporting squadron two hours behind. Ten
+minutes after parting with their informant, the officers of "K" Troop,
+well out in front of their men, caught sight of a daring horseman
+sweeping at full gallop down from some high bluffs to their left and
+front.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Rides like an Indian," said the captain; "but no Sioux would come down
+at us like that, waving a hat, too. By Jupiter! It's Ralph McCrea! How
+are you, boy? What's wrong at the Chug?"</p>
+
+<p>"Farron's surrounded, and I believe Warner's killed!" said Ralph,
+breathless. "Thank God, you're here so far ahead of where I expected to
+find you! We'll get there in time now;" and he turned his panting horse
+and rode eagerly along by the captain's side.</p>
+
+<p>"And you've not been chased? You've seen nobody?" was the lieutenant's
+question.</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody but a white man, worse scared than I was, who left his hat
+behind when I ran upon him a mile back here."</p>
+
+<p>Even in the excitement and urgent haste of the moment, there went up a
+shout of laughter at the expense of Pete; but as they reached the next
+divide, and got another look well to the front, the laughter gave place
+to the grinding of teeth and muttered malediction. A broad glare was in
+the northern sky, and smoke and flame were rolling up from the still
+distant valley of the Chug, and now the word was "Gallop!"</p>
+
+<p>Fifteen minutes of hard, breathless riding followed. Horses snorted and
+plunged in eager race with their fellows; officers warned even as they
+galloped, "Steady, there! Keep back! Keep your places, men!" Bearded,
+bright-eyed troopers, with teeth set hard together and straining
+muscles, grasped their ready carbines, and thrust home the grim copper
+cartridges. On and on, as the flaring beacon grew redder and fiercer
+ahead; on and on, until they were almost at the valley's edge, and then
+young Ralph, out at the front with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> veteran captain, panted to him,
+in wild excitement that he strove manfully to control,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Now keep well over to the left, captain! I know the ground well. It's
+all open. We can sweep down from behind that ridge, and they'll never
+look for us or think of us till we're right among them. Hear them yell!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, ay, Ralph! Lead the way. Ready now, men!" He turned in his saddle.
+"Not a word till I order 'Charge!' Then yell all you want to."</p>
+
+<p>Down into the ravine they thunder; round the moonlit slope they sweep;
+swift they gallop through the shadows of the eastward bluffs; nearer and
+nearer they come, manes and tails streaming in the night wind; horses
+panting hard, but never flagging.</p>
+
+<p>Listen! Hear those shots and yells and war-whoops! Listen to the hideous
+crackling of the flames! Mark the vengeful triumph in those savage
+howls! Already the fire has leaped from the sheds to the rough
+shingling. The last hope of the sore-besieged is gone.</p>
+
+<p>Then, with sudden blare of trumpet, with ringing cheer, with thundering
+hoof and streaming pennon and thrilling rattle of carbine and pistol;
+with one magnificent, triumphant burst of speed the troop comes whirling
+out from the covert of the bluff and sweeps all before it down the
+valley.</p>
+
+<p>Away go Sioux and Cheyenne; away, yelling shrill warning, go warrior and
+chief; away, down stream, past the stiffening form of the brave fellow
+they killed; away past the station where the loop-holes blaze with
+rifle-shots and ring with exultant cheers; away across the road and down
+the winding valley, and so far to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> the north and the sheltering arms of
+the reservation,&mdash;and one more Indian raid is over.</p>
+
+<p>But at the ranch, while willing hands were dashing water on the flames,
+Ralph and the lieutenant sprang inside the door-way just as Farron
+lifted from a deep, cellar-like aperture in the middle of the floor a
+sobbing yet wonderfully happy little maiden. She clung to him
+hysterically, as he shook hands with one after another of the few
+rescuers who had time to hurry in.</p>
+
+<p>Wells, with bandaged head and arm, was sitting at his post, his "Henry"
+still between his knees, and he looked volumes of pride and delight into
+his young friend's sparkling eyes. Pete, of course, was nowhere to be
+seen. Jake, with a rifle-bullet through his shoulder, was grinning pale
+gratification at the troopers who came in, and then there was a moment's
+silence as the captain entered.</p>
+
+<p>Farron stepped forward and held forth his hand. Tears were starting from
+his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"You've saved me and my little girl, captain. I never can thank you
+enough."</p>
+
+<p>"Bosh! Never mind us. Where's Ralph McCrea? There's the boy you can
+thank for it all. <i>He</i> led us!"</p>
+
+<p>And though hot blushes sprang to the youngster's cheeks, and he, too,
+would have disclaimed any credit for the rescue, the soldiers would not
+have it so. 'Twas Ralph who dared that night-ride to bring the direful
+news; 'twas Ralph who guided them by the shortest, quickest route, and
+was with the foremost in the charge. And so, a minute after, when Farron
+unclasped little Jessie's arms from about his own neck, he whispered in
+her ear,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'Twas Ralph who saved us, baby. You must thank him for me, too."</p>
+
+<p>And so, just as the sun was coming up, the little girl with big, dark
+eyes whom we saw sitting in the railway station at Cheyenne, waiting
+wearily and patiently for her father's coming, and sobbing her relief
+and joy when she finally caught sight of Ralph, was once more nestling a
+tear-wet face to his and clasping him in her little arms, and thanking
+him with all her loyal, loving heart for the gallant rescue that had
+come to them just in time.</p>
+
+<p>Four days later there was a gathering at Laramie. The general had come;
+the Fifth were there in camp, and a group of officers had assembled on
+the parade after the brief review of the command. The general turned
+from his staff, and singled out a captain of cavalry who stood close at
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>"McCrea, I want to see that boy of yours. Where is he?"</p>
+
+<p>An orderly sped away to the group of spectators and returned with a
+silent and embarrassed youth, who raised his hat respectfully, but said
+no word. The general stepped forward and held out both his hands.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm proud to shake hands with you, young gentleman. I've heard all
+about you from the Fifth. You ought to go to West Point and be a cavalry
+officer."</p>
+
+<p>"There's nothing I so much wish, general," stammered Ralph, with beaming
+eyes and burning cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>"Then we'll telegraph his name to Washington this very day, gentlemen. I
+was asked to designate some young man for West Point who thoroughly
+deserved it, and is not this appointment well won?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="From_the_Point_to_the_Plains" id="From_the_Point_to_the_Plains"></a><span class="smcap">From "the Point" to the Plains.</span></h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I_B" id="CHAPTER_I_B"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+<h2><a name="A_CADETS_SISTER" id="A_CADETS_SISTER"></a>A CADET'S SISTER.</h2>
+
+
+<p>She was standing at the very end of the forward deck, and, with flushing
+cheeks and sparkling eyes, gazing eagerly upon the scene before her.
+Swiftly, smoothly rounding the rugged promontory on the right, the
+steamer was just turning into the highland "reach" at Fort Montgomery
+and heading straight away for the landings on the sunset shore. It was
+only mid-May, but the winter had been mild, the spring early, and now
+the heights on either side were clothed in raiment of the freshest,
+coolest green; the vines were climbing in luxuriant leaf all over the
+face of the rocky scarp that hemmed the swirling tide of the Hudson; the
+radiance of the evening sunshine bathed all the eastern shores in mellow
+light and left the dark slopes and deep gorges of the opposite range all
+the deeper and darker by contrast. A lively breeze had driven most of
+the passengers within doors as they sped through the broad waters of the
+Tappan Zee, but, once within the sheltering traverses of Dunderberg and
+the heights beyond, many of their number reappeared upon the promenade
+deck, and first among them was the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> bonnie little maid now clinging to
+the guard-rail at the very prow, and, heedless of fluttering skirt or
+fly-away curl, watching with all her soul in her bright blue eyes for
+the first glimpse of the haven where she would be. No eyes on earth look
+so eagerly for the grim, gray <i>fa&ccedil;ade</i> of the riding-hall or the domes
+and turrets of the library building as those of a girl who has spent the
+previous summer at West Point.</p>
+
+<p>Utterly absorbed in her watch, she gave no heed to other passengers who
+presently took their station close at hand. One was a tall, dark-eyed,
+dark-haired young lady in simple and substantial travelling-dress. With
+her were two men in tweeds and Derby hats, and to these companions she
+constantly turned with questions as to prominent objects in the rich and
+varied landscape. It was evident that she was seeing for the first time
+sights that had been described to her time and again, for she was
+familiar with every name. One of the party was a man of over fifty
+years,&mdash;bronzed of face and gray of hair, but with erect carriage and
+piercing black eyes that spoke of vigor, energy, and probably of a life
+in the open air. It needed not the tri-colored button of the Loyal
+Legion in the lapel of his coat to tell that he was a soldier. Any one
+who chose to look&mdash;and there were not a few&mdash;could speedily have seen,
+too, that these were father and daughter.</p>
+
+<p>The other man was still taller than the dark, wiry, slim-built soldier,
+but in years he was not more than twenty-eight or nine. His eyes, brows,
+hair, and the heavy moustache that drooped over his mouth were all of a
+dark, soft brown. His complexion was clear and ruddy; his frame powerful
+and athletic. Most of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> time he stood a silent but attentive listener
+to the eager talk between the young lady and her father, but his kindly
+eyes rarely left her face; he was ready to respond when she turned to
+question him, and when he spoke it was with the unmistakable intonation
+of the South.</p>
+
+<p>The deep, mellow tones of the bell were booming out their landing signal
+as the steamer shot into the shadow of a high, rocky cliff. Far aloft on
+the overhanging piazzas of a big hotel, fluttering handkerchiefs greeted
+the passengers on the decks below. Many eyes were turned thither in
+recognition of the salute, but not those of the young girl at the bow.
+One might, indeed, have declared her resentful of this intermediate
+stop. The instant the gray walls of the riding-school had come into view
+she had signalled, eagerly, with a wave of her hand, to a gentleman and
+lady seated in quiet conversation under the shelter of the deck.
+Presently the former, a burly, broad-shouldered man of forty or
+thereabouts, came sauntering forward and stood close behind her.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Nan! Most there, I see. Think you can hold on five minutes
+longer, or shall I toss you over and let you swim for it?"</p>
+
+<p>For answer Miss Nan clasps a wooden pillar in her gray-gloved hands, and
+tilts excitedly on the toes of her tiny boots, never once relaxing her
+gaze on the dock a mile or more away up-stream.</p>
+
+<p>"Just think of being so near Willy&mdash;and all of them&mdash;and not seeing one
+to speak to until after parade," she finally says.</p>
+
+<p>"Simply inhuman!" answers her companion with commendable gravity, but
+with humorous twinkle about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> his eyes. "Is it worth all the long
+journey, and all the excitement in which your mother tells me you've
+been plunged for the past month?"</p>
+
+<p>"Worth it, Uncle Jack?" and the blue eyes flash upon him indignantly.
+"Worth it? You wouldn't ask if you knew it all, as I do."</p>
+
+<p>"Possibly not," says Uncle Jack, whimsically. "I haven't the advantage
+of being a girl with a brother and a baker's dozen of beaux in bell
+buttons and gray. I'm only an old fossil of a 'cit,' with a scamp of a
+nephew and that limited conception of the delights of West Point which
+one can derive from running up there every time that versatile youngster
+gets into a new scrape. You'll admit my opportunities have been
+frequent."</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't Willy's fault, and you know it, Uncle Jack, though we all know
+how good you've been; but he's had more bad luck and&mdash;and&mdash;injustice
+than any cadet in the corps. Lots of his classmates told me so."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," says Uncle Jack, musingly. "That is what your blessed mother,
+yonder, wrote me when I went up last winter, the time Billy submitted
+that explanation to the commandant with its pleasing reference to the
+fox that had lost its tail&mdash;you doubtless recall the incident&mdash;and came
+within an ace of dismissal in consequence."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care!" interrupts Miss Nan, with flashing eyes. "Will had
+provocation enough to say much worse things; Jimmy Frazer wrote me so,
+and said the whole class was sticking up for him."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not remember having had the honor of meeting Jimmy Frazer,"
+remarks Uncle Jack, with an aggravating drawl that is peculiar to him.
+"Possibly he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> was one of the young gentlemen who didn't call, owing to
+some temporary impediment in the way of light prison&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; and all because he took Will's part, as I believe," is the
+impetuous reply. "Oh! I'll be so thankful when they're out of it all."</p>
+
+<p>"So will they, no doubt. 'Sticking up'&mdash;wasn't that Mr. Frazer's
+expression?&mdash;for Bill seems to have been an expensive luxury all round.
+Wonder if sticking up is something they continue when they get to their
+regiments? Billy has two or three weeks yet in which to ruin his chances
+of ever reaching one, and he has exhibited astonishing aptitude for
+tripping himself up thus far."</p>
+
+<p>"Uncle Jack! How can you speak so of Willy, when he is so devoted to
+you? When he gets to his regiment there won't be any Lieutenant Lee to
+nag and worry him night and day. <i>He's</i> the cause of all the trouble."</p>
+
+<p>"That so?" drawls Uncle Jack. "I didn't happen to meet Mr. Lee,
+either,&mdash;he was away on leave; but as Bill and your mother had some such
+views, I looked into things a bit. It appears to be a matter of record
+that my enterprising nephew had more demerit before the advent of Mr.
+Lee than since. As for 'extras' and confinements, his stock was always
+big enough to bear the market down to bottom prices."</p>
+
+<p>The boat is once more under way, and a lull in the chat close at hand
+induces Uncle Jack to look about him. The younger of the two men lately
+standing with the dark-eyed girl has quietly withdrawn, and is now
+shouldering his way to a point out of ear-shot.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> There he calmly turns
+and waits; his glance again resting upon her whose side he has so
+suddenly quitted. She has followed him with her eyes until he stops;
+then with heightened color resumes a low-toned chat with her father.
+Uncle Jack is a keen observer, and his next words are inaudible except
+to his niece.</p>
+
+<p>"Nan, my child, I apprehend that remarks upon the characteristics of the
+officers at the Point had best be confined to the bosom of the family.
+We may be in their very midst."</p>
+
+<p>She turns, flushing, and for the first time her blue eyes meet the dark
+ones of the older girl. Her cheeks redden still more, and she whirls
+about again.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't help it, Uncle Jack," she murmurs. "I'd just like to tell them
+all what I think of Will's troubles."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Candor is to be admired of all things," says Uncle Jack, airily.
+"Still it is just as well to observe the old adage, 'Be sure you're
+right,' etc. Now <i>I</i> own to being rather fond of Bill, despite all the
+worry he has given your mother, and all the bother he has been to
+me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"All the worry that others have given <i>him</i>, you ought to say, Uncle
+Jack."</p>
+
+<p>"W-e-ll, har-d-ly. It didn't seem to me that the corps, as a rule,
+thought Billy the victim of persecution."</p>
+
+<p>"They all tell <i>me</i> so, at least," is the indignant outburst.</p>
+
+<p>"Do they, Nan? Well, of course, that settles it. Still, there were a few
+who reluctantly admitted having other views when I pressed them
+closely."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Then they were no friends of Willy's, or mine either!"</p>
+
+<p>"Now, do you know, I thought just the other way? I thought one of them,
+especially, a very stanch friend of Billy's and yours, too, Nan, but
+Billy seems to consider advisers in the light of adversaries."</p>
+
+<p>A moment's pause. Then, with cheeks still red, and plucking at the rope
+netting with nervous fingers, Miss Nan essays a tentative. Her eyes are
+downcast as she asks,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you mean Mr. Stanley?"</p>
+
+<p>"The very man, Nanette; very much of a man to my thinking."</p>
+
+<p>The bronzed soldier standing near cannot but have heard the name and the
+words. His face takes on a glow and the black eyes kindle.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Stanley would not say to <i>me</i> that Willy is to blame," pouts the
+maiden, and her little foot is beating impatiently tattoo on the deck.</p>
+
+<p>"Neither would I&mdash;just now&mdash;if I were Mr. Stanley; but all the same, he
+decidedly opposed the view that Mr. Lee was 'down on Billy,' as your
+mother seems to think."</p>
+
+<p>"That's because Mr. Lee is tactical officer commanding the company, and
+Mr. Stanley is cadet captain. Oh! I will take him to task if he has
+been&mdash;been&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But she does not finish. She has turned quickly in speaking, her hand
+clutching a little knot of bell buttons hanging by a chain at the front
+of her dress. She has turned just in time to catch a warning glance in
+Uncle Jack's twinkling eyes, and to see a grim<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> smile lurking under the
+gray moustache of the gentleman with the Loyal Legion button who is
+leading away the tall young lady with the dark hair. In another moment
+they have rejoined the third member of their party,&mdash;he who first
+withdrew,&mdash;and it is evident that something has happened which gives
+them all much amusement. They are chatting eagerly together, laughing
+not a little, although the laughter, like their words, is entirely
+inaudible to Miss Nan. But she feels a twinge of indignation when the
+tall girl turns and looks directly at her. There is nothing unkindly in
+the glance. There even is merriment in the dark, handsome eyes and
+lurking among the dimples around that beautiful mouth. Why did those
+eyes&mdash;so heavily fringed, so thickly shaded&mdash;seem to her familiar as old
+friends? Nan could have vowed she had somewhere met that girl before,
+and now that girl was laughing at her. Not rudely, not aggressively, to
+be sure,&mdash;she had turned away again the instant she saw that the little
+maiden's eyes were upon her,&mdash;but all the same, said Nan to herself, she
+<i>was</i> laughing. They were all laughing, and it must have been because of
+her outspoken defence of Brother Will and equally outspoken defiance of
+his persecutors. What made it worse was that Uncle Jack was laughing
+too.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know who they are?" she demands, indignantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Not I, Nan," responds Uncle Jack. "Never saw them before in my life,
+but I warrant we see them again, and at the Point, too. Come, child.
+There's our bell, and we must start for the gangway. Your mother is
+hailing us now. Never mind this time, little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> woman," he continues,
+kindly, as he notes the cloud on her brow. "I don't think any harm has
+been done, but it is just as well not to be impetuous in public speech.
+Ah! I thought so. They are to get off here with us."</p>
+
+<p>Three minutes more and a little stream of passengers flows out upon the
+broad government dock, and, as luck would have it, Uncle Jack and his
+charges are just behind the trio in which, by this time, Miss Nan is
+deeply, if not painfully, interested. A soldier in the undress uniform
+of a corporal of artillery hastens forward and, saluting, stretches
+forth his hand to take the satchel carried by the tall man with the
+brown moustache.</p>
+
+<p>"The lieutenant's carriage is at the gate," he says, whereat Uncle Jack,
+who is conducting her mother just in front, looks back over his shoulder
+and nods compassionately at Nan.</p>
+
+<p>"Has any despatch been sent down to meet Colonel Stanley?" she hears the
+tall man inquire, and this time Uncle Jack's backward glance is a
+combination of mischief and concern.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing, sir, and the adjutant's orderly is here now. This is all he
+brought down," and the corporal hands to the inquirer a note, the
+superscription of which the young officer quickly scans; then turns and,
+while his soft brown eyes light with kindly interest and he bares his
+shapely head, accosts the lady on Uncle Jack's arm,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me, madam. This note must be for you. Mrs. McKay, is it not?"</p>
+
+<p>And as her mother smiles her thanks and the others<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> turn away, Nan's
+eager eyes catch sight of Will's well-known writing. Mrs. McKay rapidly
+reads it as Uncle Jack is bestowing bags and bundles in the omnibus and
+feeing the acceptive porter, who now rushes back to the boat in the nick
+of time.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Awful sorry I can't get up to the hotel to see you," says the
+note, dolorously, but by no means unexpectedly. "I'm in confinement
+and can't get a permit. Come to the officer-in-charge's office
+right after supper, and he'll let me see you there awhile.
+Stanley's officer of the day, and he'll be there to show the way.
+In haste,</p>
+
+<p class="author">
+<span class="smcap">Will.</span>"<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<p>"Now <i>isn't</i> that poor Willy's luck every time!" exclaims Miss Nan, her
+blue eyes threatening to fill with tears. "I <i>do</i> think they might let
+him off the day we get here."</p>
+
+<p>"Unquestionably," answers Uncle Jack, with great gravity, as he assists
+the ladies into the yellow omnibus. "You duly notified the
+superintendent of your impending arrival, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. McKay smiles quietly. Hers is a sweet and gentle face, lined with
+many a trace of care and anxiety. Her brother's whimsical ways are old
+acquaintances, and she knows how to treat them; but Nan is young,
+impulsive, and easily teased. She flares up instantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course we <i>didn't</i>, Uncle Jack; how utterly absurd it would sound!
+But Willy knew we were coming, and <i>he</i> must have told him when he asked
+for his permit, and it does seem too hard that he was refused."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Heartless in the last degree," says Uncle Jack, sympathetically, but
+with the same suggestive drawl. "Yonder go the father and sister of the
+young gentleman whom you announced your intention to castigate because
+he didn't agree that Billy was being abused, Nan. You will have a chance
+this very evening, won't you? He's officer of the day, according to
+Billy's note, and can't escape. You'll have wound up the whole family by
+tattoo. Quite a good day's work. Billy's opposers will do well to take
+warning and keep out of the way hereafter," he continues, teasingly.
+"Oh&mdash;ah&mdash;<i>corporal</i>!" he calls, "who was the young officer who just
+drove off in the carriage with the lady and gentleman?"</p>
+
+<p>"That was Lieutenant Lee, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Jack turns and contemplates his niece with an expression of the
+liveliest admiration. "'Pon my word, Miss Nan, you are a most
+comprehensive young person. You've indeed let no guilty man escape."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II_B" id="CHAPTER_II_B"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+<h2><a name="A_CADET_SCAPEGRACE" id="A_CADET_SCAPEGRACE"></a>A CADET SCAPEGRACE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The evening that opened so clear and sunshiny has clouded rapidly over.
+Even as the four gray companies come "trotting" in from parade, and,
+with the ease of long habit, quickly forming line in the barrack area,
+some heavy rain-drops begin to fall; the drum-major has hurried his band
+away; the crowd of spectators, unusually large for so early in the
+season, scatters<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> for shelter; umbrellas pop up here and there under the
+beautiful trees along the western roadway; the adjutant rushes through
+"delinquency list" in a style distinguishable only to his stolid, silent
+audience standing immovably before him,&mdash;a long perspective of gray
+uniforms and glistening white belts. The fateful book is closed with a
+snap, and the echoing walls ring to the quick commands of the first
+sergeants, at which the bayonets are struck from the rifle-barrels, and
+the long line bursts into a living torrent sweeping into the hall-ways
+to escape the coming shower.</p>
+
+<p>When the battalion reappears, a few moments later, every man is in his
+overcoat, and here and there little knots of upper classmen gather, and
+there is eager and excited talk.</p>
+
+<p>A soldierly, dark-eyed young fellow, with the red sash of the officer of
+the day over his shoulder, comes briskly out of the hall of the fourth
+division. The chevrons of a cadet captain are glistening on his arm, and
+he alone has not donned the gray overcoat, although he has discarded the
+plumed shako in deference to the coming storm; yet he hardly seems to
+notice the downpour of the rain; his face is grave and his lips set and
+compressed as he rapidly makes his way through the groups awaiting the
+signal to "fall in" for supper.</p>
+
+<p>"Stanley! O Stanley!" is the hail from a knot of classmates, and he
+halts and looks about as two or three of the party hasten after him.</p>
+
+<p>"What does Billy say about it?" is the eager inquiry.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing&mdash;new."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that report as good as finds him on demerit, doesn't it?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The next thing to it; though he has been as close to the brink before."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;great Scott! He has two weeks yet to run; and Billy McKay can no
+more live two weeks without demerit than Patsy, here, without
+'spooning.'"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Stanley's eyes look tired as he glances up from under the visor of
+his forage cap. He is not as tall by half a head as the young soldiers
+by whom he is surrounded.</p>
+
+<p>"We were talking of his chances at dinner-time," he says, gravely.
+"Billy never mentioned this break of his yesterday, and was surprised to
+hear the report read out to-night. I believe he had forgotten the whole
+thing."</p>
+
+<p>"Who 'skinned' him?&mdash;Lee? He was there."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know; McKay says so, but there were several officers over there
+at the time. It is a report he cannot get off, and it comes at a most
+unlucky moment."</p>
+
+<p>With this remark Mr. Stanley turns away and goes striding through the
+crowded area towards the guard-house. Another moment and there is sudden
+drum-beat; the gray overcoats leap into ranks; the subject of the recent
+discussion&mdash;a jaunty young fellow with laughing blue eyes&mdash;comes tearing
+out of the fourth division just in time to avoid a "late," and the
+clamor of tenscore voices gives place to silence broken only by the
+rapid calling of the rolls and the prompt "here"&mdash;"here," in response.</p>
+
+<p>If ever there was a pet in the corps of cadets he lived in the person of
+Billy McKay. Bright as one of his own buttons; jovial, generous,
+impulsive; he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> had only one enemy in the battalion,&mdash;and that one, as he
+had been frequently told, was himself. This, however, was a matter which
+he could not at all be induced to believe. Of the Academic Board in
+general, of his instructors in large measure, but of the four or five
+ill-starred soldiers known as "tactical officers" in particular, Mr.
+McKay entertained very decided and most unflattering opinions. He had
+won his cadetship through rigid competitive examination against all
+comers; he was a natural mathematician of whom a professor had said that
+he "<i>could</i> stand in the fives and <i>wouldn't</i> stand in the forties;"
+years of his boyhood spent in France had made him master of the
+colloquial forms of the court language of Europe, yet a dozen classmates
+who had never seen a French verb before their admission stood above him
+at the end of the first term. He had gone to the first section like a
+rocket and settled to the bottom of it like a stick. No subject in the
+course was really hard to him, his natural aptitude enabling him to
+triumph over the toughest problems. Yet he hated work, and would often
+face about with an empty black-board and take a zero and a report for
+neglect of studies that half an hour's application would have rendered
+impossible. Classmates who saw impending danger would frequently make
+stolen visits to his room towards the close of the term and profess to
+be baffled by the lesson for the morrow, and Billy would promptly knock
+the ashes out of the pipe he was smoking contrary to regulations and lay
+aside the guitar on which he had been softly strumming&mdash;also contrary to
+regulations; would pick up the neglected calculus or mechanics; get
+interested<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> in the work of explanation, and end by having learned the
+lesson in spite of himself. This was too good a joke to be kept a
+secret, and by the time the last year came Billy had found it all out
+and refused to be longer hoodwinked.</p>
+
+<p>There was never the faintest danger of his being found deficient in
+studies, but there was ever the glaring prospect of his being discharged
+"on demerit." Mr. McKay and the regulations of the United States
+Military Academy had been at loggerheads from the start.</p>
+
+<p>And yet, frank, jolly, and generous as he was in all intercourse with
+his comrades, there was never a time when this young gentleman could be
+brought to see that in such matters he was the arbiter of his own
+destiny. Like the Irishman whose first announcement on setting foot on
+American soil was that he was "agin the government," Billy McKay
+believed that regulations were made only to oppress; that the men who
+drafted such a code were idiots, and that those whose duty it became to
+enforce it were simply spies and tyrants, resistance to whom was innate
+virtue. He was forever ignoring or violating some written or unwritten
+law of the Academy; was frequently being caught in the act, and was
+invariably ready to attribute the resultant report to ill luck which
+pursued no one else, or to a deliberate persecution which followed him
+forever. Every six months he had been on the verge of dismissal, and
+now, a fortnight from the final examination, with a margin of only six
+demerit to run on, Mr. Billy McKay had just been read out in the daily
+list of culprits or victims as "Shouting from window<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> of barracks to
+cadets in area during study hours,&mdash;three forty-five and four <span class="smcap">P.M.</span>"</p>
+
+<p>There was absolutely no excuse for this performance. The regulations
+enjoined silence and order in barracks during "call to quarters." It had
+been raining a little, and he was in hopes there would be no battalion
+drill, in which event he would venture on throwing off his uniform and
+spreading himself out on his bed with a pipe and a novel,&mdash;two things he
+dearly loved. Ten minutes would have decided the question legitimately
+for him, but, being of impatient temperament, he could not wait, and,
+catching sight of the adjutant and the senior captain coming from the
+guard-house, Mr. McKay sung out in tones familiar to every man within
+ear-shot,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Hi, Jim! Is it battalion drill?"</p>
+
+<p>The adjutant glanced quickly up,&mdash;a warning glance as he could have
+seen,&mdash;merely shook his head, and went rapidly on, while his comrade,
+the cadet first captain, clinched his fist at the window and growled
+between his set teeth, "Be quiet, you idiot!"</p>
+
+<p>But poor Billy persisted. Louder yet he called,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;say&mdash;Jimmy! Come up here after four o'clock. I'll be in
+confinement, and can't come out. Want to see you."</p>
+
+<p>And the windows over at the office of the commandant being wide open,
+and that official being seated there in consultation with three or four
+of his assistants, and as Mr. McKay's voice was as well known to them as
+to the corps, there was no alternative. The colonel himself "confounded"
+the young scamp for his recklessness, and directed a report to be
+entered against him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And now, as Mr. Stanley is betaking himself to his post at the
+guard-house, his heart is heavy within him because of this new load on
+his comrade's shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"How on earth could you have been so careless, Billy?" he had asked him
+as McKay, fuming and indignant, was throwing off his accoutrements in
+his room on the second floor.</p>
+
+<p>"How'd I know anybody was over there?" was the boyish reply. "It's just
+a skin on suspicion anyhow. Lee couldn't have seen me, nor could anybody
+else. I stood way back by the clothes-press."</p>
+
+<p>"There's no suspicion about it, Billy. There isn't a man that walks the
+area that doesn't know your voice as well as he does Jim Pennock's.
+Confound it! You'll get over the limit yet, man, and break your&mdash;your
+mother's heart."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come now, Stan! You've been nagging me ever since last camp. Why'n
+thunder can't you see I'm doing my best? Other men don't row me as you
+do, or stand up for the 'tacks.' I tell you that fellow Lee never loses
+a chance of skinning me: he <i>takes</i> chances, by gad, and I'll make his
+eyes pop out of his head when he reads what I've got to say about it."</p>
+
+<p>"You're too hot for reason now, McKay," said Stanley, sadly. "Step out
+or you'll get a late for supper. I'll see you after awhile. I gave that
+note to the orderly, by the way, and he said he'd take it down to the
+dock himself."</p>
+
+<p>"Mother and Nan will probably come to the guard-house right after
+supper. Look out for them for me, will you, Stan, until old Snipes gets
+there and sends for me?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And as Mr. Stanley shut the door instantly and went clattering down the
+iron stairs, Mr. McKay caught no sign on his face of the sudden flutter
+beneath that snugly-buttoned coat.</p>
+
+<p>It was noticed by more than one of the little coterie at his own table
+that the officer of the day hurried through his supper and left the
+mess-hall long before the command for the first company to rise. It was
+a matter well known to every member of the graduating class that, almost
+from the day of her arrival during the encampment of the previous
+summer, Phil Stanley had been a devoted admirer of Miss Nannie McKay. It
+was not at all to be wondered at.</p>
+
+<p>Without being what is called an ideal beauty, there was a fascination
+about this winsome little maid which few could resist. She had all her
+brother's impulsiveness, all his enthusiasm, and, it may be safely
+asserted, all his abiding faith in the sacred and unimpeachable
+character of cadet friendships. If she possessed a little streak of
+romance that was not discernible in him, she managed to keep it well in
+the background; and though she had her favorites in the corps, she was
+so frank and cordial and joyous in her manner to all that it was
+impossible to say which one, if any, she regarded in the light of a
+lover. Whatever comfort her gentle mother may have derived from this
+state of affairs, it was "hard lines on Stanley," as his classmates put
+it, for there could be little doubt that the captain of the color
+company was a sorely-smitten man.</p>
+
+<p>He was not what is commonly called a "popular man" in the corps. The son
+of a cavalry officer, reared on the wide frontier and educated only
+imperfectly, he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> had not been able to enter the Academy until nearly
+twenty years of age, and nothing but indomitable will and diligence had
+carried him through the difficulties of the first half of the course. It
+was not until the middle of the third year that the chevrons of a
+sergeant were awarded him, and even then the battalion was taken by
+surprise. There was no surprise a few months later, however, when he was
+promoted over a score of classmates and made captain of his company. It
+was an open secret that the commandant had said that if he had it all to
+do over again, Mr. Stanley would be made "first captain,"&mdash;a rumor that
+big John Burton, the actual incumbent of that office, did not at all
+fancy. Stanley was "square" and impartial. His company was in admirable
+discipline, though many of his classmates growled and wished he were not
+"so confoundedly military." The second classmen, always the most
+critical judges of the qualifications of their seniors, conceded that he
+was more soldierly than any man of his year, but were unanimous in the
+opinion that he should show more deference to men of their standing in
+the corps. The "yearlings" swore by him in any discussion as to the
+relative merits of the four captains; but with equal energy swore at him
+when contemplating that fateful volume known as "the skin book." The
+fourth classmen&mdash;the "plebes"&mdash;simply worshipped the ground he trod on,
+and as between General Sherman and Philip Stanley, it is safe to say
+these youngsters would have determined on the latter as the more
+suitable candidate for the office of general-in-chief. Of course they
+admired the adjutant,&mdash;the plebes always do that,&mdash;and not infrequently
+to the exclusion of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> other cadet officers; but there was something
+grand, to them, about this dark-eyed, dark-faced, dignified captain who
+never stooped to trifle with them; was always so precise and courteous,
+and yet so immeasurably distant. They were ten times more afraid of him
+than they had been of Lieutenant Rolfe, who was their "tack" during
+camp, or of the great, handsome, kindly-voiced dragoon who succeeded
+him, Lieutenant Lee, of the &mdash;th Cavalry. They approved of this latter
+gentleman because he belonged to the regiment of which Mr. Stanley's
+father was lieutenant-colonel, and to which it was understood Mr.
+Stanley was to be assigned on his graduation. What they could not at all
+understand was that, once graduated, Mr. Stanley could step down from
+his high position in the battalion of cadets and become a mere
+file-closer. Yes. Stanley was too strict and soldierly to command that
+decidedly ephemeral tribute known as "popularity," but no man in the
+corps of cadets was more thoroughly respected. If there were flaws in
+the armor of his personal character they were not such as to be
+vigorously prodded by his comrades. He had firm friends,&mdash;devoted
+friends, who grew to honor and trust him more with every year; but,
+strong though they knew him to be, he had found his conqueror. There was
+a story in the first class that in Stanley's old leather writing-case
+was a sort of secret compartment, and in this compartment was treasured
+"a knot of ribbon blue" that had been worn last summer close under the
+dimpled white chin of pretty Nannie McKay.</p>
+
+<p>And now on this moist May evening as he hastens back to barracks, Mr.
+Stanley spies a little group stand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>ing in front of the guard-house.
+Lieutenant Lee is there,&mdash;in his uniform now,&mdash;and with him are the tall
+girl in the simple travelling-dress, and the trim, wiry, gray-moustached
+soldier whom we saw on the boat. The rain is falling steadily, which
+accounts for and possibly excuses Mr. Lee's retention of the young
+lady's arm in his as he holds the umbrella over both; but the colonel no
+sooner catches sight of the officer of the day than his own umbrella is
+cast aside, and with light, eager, buoyant steps, father and son hasten
+to meet each other. In an instant their hands are clasped,&mdash;both
+hands,&mdash;and through moistening eyes the veteran of years of service and
+the boy in whom his hopes are centred gaze into each other's faces.</p>
+
+<p>"Phil,&mdash;my son!"</p>
+
+<p>"Father!"</p>
+
+<p>No other words. It is the first meeting in two long years. The area is
+deserted save by the smiling pair watching from under the dripping
+umbrella with eyes nearly as moist as the skies. There is no one to
+comment or to scoff. In the father's heart, mingling with the deep joy
+at this reunion with his son, there wells up sudden, irrepressible
+sorrow. "Ah, God!" he thinks. "Could his mother but have lived to see
+him now!" Perhaps Philip reads it all in the strong yet tremulous clasp
+of those sinewy brown hands, but for the moment neither speaks again.
+There are some joys so deep, some heart longings so overpowering, that
+many a man is forced to silence, or to a levity of manner which is
+utterly repugnant to him, in the effort to conceal from the world the
+tumult of emotion that so nearly makes him weep. Who that has read that
+inimitable page will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> ever forget the meeting of that genial sire and
+gallant son in the grimy old railway car filled with the wounded from
+Antietam, in Doctor Holmes's "My Search for the Captain?"</p>
+
+<p>When Phil Stanley, still clinging to his father's hand, turns to greet
+his sister and her handsome escort, he is suddenly aware of another
+group that has entered the area. Two ladies, marshalled by his
+classmate, Mr. Pennock, are almost at his side, and one of them is the
+blue-eyed girl he loves.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III_B" id="CHAPTER_III_B"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+<h2><a name="AMANTIUM_IRAE" id="AMANTIUM_IRAE"></a>AMANTIUM IR&AElig;.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Lovely as is West Point in May, it is hardly the best time for a visit
+there if one's object be to see the cadets. From early morn until late
+at night every hour is taken up with duties, academic or military.
+Mothers, sisters, and sweethearts, whose eyes so eagerly follow the
+evolutions of the gray ranks, can only hope for a few words between
+drill and dress parade, or else in the shortest half-hour in all the
+world,&mdash;that which intervenes 'twixt supper and evening "call to
+quarters." That Miss Nannie McKay should make frequent and unfavorable
+comment on this state of affairs goes without saying; yet, had she been
+enabled to see her beloved brother but once a month and her cadet
+friends at intervals almost as rare, that incomprehensible young damsel
+would have preferred the Point to any other place in the world.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was now ten days since her arrival, and she had had perhaps three
+chats with Willy, who, luckily for him, though he could not realize it,
+was spending most of his time "confined to quarters," and consequently
+out of much of the temptation he would otherwise have been in. Mrs.
+McKay had been able to see very little more of the young man, but she
+had the prayerful consolation that if he could only be kept out of
+mischief a few days longer he would then be through with it all, out of
+danger of dismissal, actually graduated, and once more her own boy to
+monopolize as she chose.</p>
+
+<p>It takes most mothers a long, long time to become reconciled to the
+complete usurpation of all their former rights by this new parent whom
+their boys are bound to serve,&mdash;this anything but <i>Alma</i> Mater,&mdash;the war
+school of the nation. As for Miss Nan, though she made it a point to
+declaim vigorously at the fates that prevented her seeing more of her
+brother, it was wonderful how well she looked and in what blithe spirits
+she spent her days. Regularly as the sun came around, before guard-mount
+in the morning and right after supper in the evening, she was sure to be
+on the south piazza of the old hotel, and when presently the cadet
+uniforms began to appear at the hedge, she, and others, would go
+tripping lightly down the path to meet the wearers, and then would
+follow the half-hour's walk and chat in which she found such infinite
+delight. So, too, could Mr. Stanley, had he been able to appear as her
+escort on all occasions; but despite his strong personal inclination and
+effort, this was by no means the case. The little lady was singularly
+impartial in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> distribution of her time, and only by being first
+applicant had he secured to himself the one long afternoon that had yet
+been vouchsafed them,&mdash;the cadet half-holiday of Saturday.</p>
+
+<p>But if Miss Nan found time hanging heavily on her hands at other hours
+of the day, there was one young lady at the hotel who did not,&mdash;a young
+lady whom, by this time, she regarded with constantly deepening
+interest,&mdash;Miriam Stanley.</p>
+
+<p>Other girls, younger girls, who had found their ideals in the cadet
+gray, were compelled to spend hours of the twenty-four in waiting for
+the too brief <i>half</i>-hour in which it was possible to meet them; but
+Miss Stanley was very differently situated. It was her first visit to
+the Point. She met, and was glad to meet, all Philip's friends and
+comrades; but it was plainly to be seen, said all the girls at Craney's,
+that between her and the tall cavalry officer whom they best knew
+through cadet descriptions, there existed what they termed an
+"understanding," if not an engagement. Every day, when not prevented by
+duties, Mr. Lee would come stalking up from barracks, and presently away
+they would stroll together,&mdash;a singularly handsome pair, as every one
+admitted. One morning soon after the Stanleys' arrival he appeared in
+saddle on his stylish bay, accompanied by an orderly leading another
+horse, side-saddled; and then, as by common impulse, all the girls
+promenading the piazzas, as was their wont, with arms entwining each
+other's waists, came flocking about the south steps. When Miss Stanley
+appeared in her riding-habit and was quickly swung up into saddle by her
+cavalier, and then, with a bright nod and smile for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> the entire group,
+she gathered the reins in her practised hand and rode briskly away, the
+sentiments of the fair spectators were best expressed, perhaps, in the
+remark of Miss McKay,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What a shame it is that the cadets can't ride! I mean can't
+ride&mdash;<i>that</i> way," she explained, with suggestive nod of her curly head
+towards the pair just trotting out upon the road around the Plain. "They
+ride&mdash;lots of them&mdash;better than most of the officers."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Stanley for instance," suggests a mischievous little minx with
+hazel eyes and laughter-loving mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Mr. Stanley, or Mr. Pennock, or Mr. Burton, or a dozen others I
+could name, not excepting my brother," answers Miss Nan, stoutly,
+although those readily flushing cheeks of hers promptly throw out their
+signals of perturbation. "Fancy Mr. Lee vaulting over his horse at the
+gallop as they do."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet Mr. Lee has taught them so much more than other instructors.
+Several cadets have told me so. He always does, first, everything he
+requires them to do; so he must be able to make that vault."</p>
+
+<p>"Will doesn't say so by any means," retorts Nannie, with something very
+like a pout; and as Will is a prime favorite with the entire party and
+the centre of a wide circle of interest, sympathy, and anxiety in those
+girlish hearts, their loyalty is proof against opinions that may not
+coincide with his. "Miss Mischief" reads temporary defeat in the circle
+of bright faces and is stung to new effort,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well! there are cadets whose opinions you value quite as much as you do
+your brother's, Nannie, and they have told me."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Who?" challenges Miss Nan, yet with averted face. Thrice of late she
+has disagreed with Mr. Stanley about Willy's troubles; has said things
+to him which she wishes she had left unsaid; and for two days now he has
+not sought her side as heretofore, though she knows he has been at the
+hotel to see his sister, and a little bird has told her he had a long
+talk with this same hazel-eyed girl. She wants to know more about
+it,&mdash;yet does not want to ask.</p>
+
+<p>"Phil Stanley, for one," is the not unexpected answer.</p>
+
+<p>Somebody who appears to know all about it has written that when a girl
+is beginning to feel deep interest in a man she will say things
+decidedly detrimental to his character solely for the purpose of having
+them denied and for the pleasure of hearing him defended. Is it this
+that prompts Miss McKay to retort?&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Stanley cares too little what his classmates think, and too much of
+what Mr. Lee may say or do."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Stanley isn't the only one who thinks a deal of Lieutenant Lee," is
+the spirited answer. "Mr. Burton says he is the most popular tactical
+officer here, and many a cadet&mdash;good friends of your brother's,
+Nannie&mdash;has said the same thing. You don't like him because Will
+doesn't."</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't like or respect any officer who reports cadets on
+suspicion," is the stout reply. "If he did that to any one else I would
+despise it as much as I do because Willy is the victim."</p>
+
+<p>The discussion is waxing hot. "Miss Mischief's" blood is up. She likes
+Phil Stanley; she likes Mr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> Lee; she has hosts of friends in the corps,
+and she is just as loyal and quite as pronounced in her views as her
+little adversary. They are fond of each other, too, and were great chums
+all through the previous summer; but there is danger of a quarrel
+to-day.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think you are just in that matter at all, Nannie. I have heard
+cadets say that if they had been in Mr. Lee's place or on
+officer-of-the-day duty they would have had to give Will that report you
+take so much to heart. Everybody knows his voice. Half the corps heard
+him call out to Mr. Pennock."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe a single cadet who's a friend of Will's would say such
+a thing," bursts in Miss Nan, her eyes blazing.</p>
+
+<p>"He is a friend, and a warm friend, too."</p>
+
+<p>"You said there were several, Kitty, and I don't believe it possible."</p>
+
+<p>"Well. There were two or three. If you don't believe it, you can ask Mr.
+Stanley. <i>He</i> said it, and the others agreed."</p>
+
+<p>Fancy the mood in which she meets him this particular evening, when his
+card was brought to her door. Twice has "Miss Mischief" essayed to enter
+the room and "make up." Conscience has been telling her savagely that in
+the impulse and sting of the moment she has given an unfair coloring to
+the whole matter. Mr. Stanley had volunteered no such remark as that she
+so vehemently quoted. Asked point blank whether he considered as given
+"on suspicion" the report which Mrs. McKay and Nannie so resented, he
+replied that he did not; and, when further pressed, he said that Will
+alone was blamable in the matter: Mr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> Lee had no alternative, if it was
+Mr. Lee who gave the report, and any other officer would have been
+compelled to do the same. All this "Miss Mischief" would gladly have
+explained to Nannie could she have gained admission, but the latter "had
+a splitting headache," and begged to be excused.</p>
+
+<p>It has been such a lovely afternoon. The halls were filled with cadets
+"on permit," when she came out from the dining-room, but nothing but
+ill-luck seemed to attend her. The young gentleman who had invited her
+to walk to Fort Putnam, most provokingly twisted an ankle at cavalry
+drill that very morning, and was sent to hospital. <i>Now</i>, if Mr. Stanley
+were all devotion, he would promptly tender his services as substitute.
+Then she could take him to task and punish him for his disloyalty to
+Will. But Mr. Stanley was not to be seen: "Gone off with another girl,"
+was the announcement made to her by Mr. Werrick, a youth who dearly
+loved a joke, and who saw no need of explaining that the other girl was
+his own sister. Sorely disappointed, yet hardly knowing why, she
+accepted her mother's invitation to go with her to the barracks where
+Will was promenading the area on what Mr. Werrick called "one of his
+perennial punishment tours." She went, of course; but the distant sight
+of poor Will, duly equipped as a sentry, dismally tramping up and down
+the asphalt, added fuel to the inward fire that consumed her. The
+mother's heart, too, yearned over her boy,&mdash;a victim to cruel
+regulations and crueler task-masters. "What was the use of the
+government's enticing young men away from their comfortable homes," Mrs.
+McKay had once in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>dignantly written, "unless it could make them happy?"
+It was a question the "tactical department" could not answer, but it
+thought volumes.</p>
+
+<p>But now evening had come, and with it Mr. Stanley's card. Nan's heart
+gave a bound, but she went down-stairs with due deliberation. She had
+his card in her hand as she reached the hall, and was twisting it in her
+fingers. Yes. There he stood on the north piazza, Pennock with him, and
+one or two others of the graduating class. They were chatting laughingly
+with Miss Stanley, "Miss Mischief," a bevy of girls, and a matron or
+two, but she knew well his eyes would be on watch for her. They were. He
+saw her instantly; bowed, smiled, but, to her surprise, continued his
+conversation with a lady seated near the door. What could it mean?
+Irresolute she stood there a moment, waiting for him to come forward;
+but though she saw that twice his eyes sought hers, he was still bending
+courteously and listening to the voluble words of the somewhat elderly
+dame who claimed his attention. Nan began to rebel against that woman
+from the bottom of her heart. What was she to do? Here was his card. In
+response she had come down to receive him. She meant to be very cool
+from the first moment; to provoke him to inquiry as to the cause of such
+unusual conduct, and then to upbraid him for his disloyalty to her
+brother. She certainly meant that he should feel the weight of her
+displeasure; but then&mdash;then&mdash;after he had been made to suffer, if he was
+properly contrite, and said so, and looked it, and begged to be
+forgiven, why then, perhaps she might be brought to condone it in a
+measure and be good friends again. It was clearly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> his duty, however, to
+come and greet her, not hers to go to the laughing group. The old lady
+was the only one among them whom she did not know,&mdash;a new arrival. Just
+then Miss Stanley looked round, saw her, and signalled smilingly to her
+to come and join them. Slowly she walked towards the little party, still
+twirling the card in her taper fingers.</p>
+
+<p>"Looking for anybody, Nan?" blithely hails "Miss Mischief." "Who is it?
+I see you have his card."</p>
+
+<p>For once Nannie's voice fails her, and she knows not what to say. Before
+she can frame an answer there is a rustle of skirts and a light
+foot-fall behind her, and she hears the voice of a girl whom she never
+has liked one bit.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! You're here, are you, Mr. Stanley! Why, I've been waiting at least
+a quarter of an hour. Did you send up your card?"</p>
+
+<p>"I did; full ten minutes ago. Was it not brought to your room?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, indeed! I've been sitting there writing, and only came down because
+I had promised Mr. Fearn that he should have ten minutes, and it is
+nearly his time now. Where do you suppose they could have sent it?"</p>
+
+<p>Poor little Nan! It has been a hard day for her, but this is just too
+much. She turns quickly, and, hardly knowing whither she goes, dodges
+past the party of cadets and girls now blocking the stairway and
+preventing flight to her room, hurries out the south door and around to
+the west piazza, and there, leaning against a pillar, is striving to
+hide her blazing cheeks,&mdash;all in less than a minute.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Stanley sees through the entire situation with the quick intuition of a
+lover. She has not treated him kindly of late. She has been capricious
+and unjust on several occasions, but there is no time to think of that
+now. She is in distress, and that is more than enough for him.</p>
+
+<p>"Here comes Mr. Fearn himself to claim his walk, so I will go and find
+out about the card," he says, and blesses that little rat of a bell-boy
+as he hastens away.</p>
+
+<p>Out on the piazza he finds her alone, yet with half a dozen people
+hovering nigh. The hush of twilight is over the beautiful old Point. The
+moist breath of the coming night, cool and sweet, floats down upon them
+from the deep gorges on the rugged flank of Cro' Nest, and rises from
+the thickly lacing branches of the cedars on the river-bank below. A
+flawless mirror in its grand and reflected framework of cliff and crag
+and beetling precipice, the Hudson stretches away northward unruffled by
+the faintest cat's-paw of a breeze. Far beyond the huge black
+battlements of Storm King and the purpled scaur of Breakneck the night
+lights of the distant city are twinkling through the gathering darkness,
+and tiny dots of silvery flame down in the cool depths beneath them
+reflect the faint glimmer from the cloudless heaven where&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"The sentinel stars set their watch in the sky."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>The hush of the sacred hour has fallen on every lip save those of the
+merry party in the hall, where laugh and chatter and flaring gas-light
+bid defiance to influences such as hold their sway over souls brought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>
+face to face with Nature in this, her loveliest haunt on earth.</p>
+
+<p>Phil Stanley's heart is throbbing as he steps quickly to her side. Well,
+indeed, she knows his foot-fall; knows he is coming; almost knows <i>why</i>
+he comes. She is burning with a sense of humiliation, wounded pride,
+maidenly wrath, and displeasure. All day long everything has gone agley.
+Could she but flee to her room and hide her flaming cheeks and cry her
+heart out, it would be relief inexpressible, but her retreat is cut off.
+She cannot escape. She cannot face those keen-eyed watchers in the
+hall-ways. Oh! it is almost maddening that she should have been so&mdash;so
+fooled! Every one must know she came down to meet Phil Stanley when his
+card was meant for another girl,&mdash;that girl of all others! All aflame
+with indignation as she is, she yet means to freeze him if she can only
+control herself.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Nannie," he murmurs, quick and low, "I see that a blunder has been
+made, but I don't believe the others saw it. Give me just a few minutes.
+Come down the walk with me. I cannot talk with you here&mdash;now, and there
+is so much I want to say." He bends over her pleadingly, but her eyes
+are fixed far away up the dark wooded valley beyond the white shafts of
+the cemetery, gleaming in the first beams of the rising moon. She makes
+no reply for a moment. She does not withdraw them when finally she
+answers, impressively,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, Mr. Stanley, but I must be excused from interfering with
+your engagements."</p>
+
+<p>"There is no engagement now," he promptly replies;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> "and I greatly want
+to speak with you. Have you been quite kind to me of late? Have I not a
+right to know what has brought about the change?"</p>
+
+<p>"You do not seem to have sought opportunity to inquire,"&mdash;very cool and
+dignified now.</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me. Three times this week I have asked for a walk, and you have
+had previous engagements."</p>
+
+<p>She has torn to bits and thrown away the card that was in her hand. Now
+she is tugging at the bunch of bell buttons, each graven with the
+monogram of some cadet friend, that hangs as usual by its tiny golden
+chain. She wants to say that he has found speedy consolation in the
+society of "that other girl" of whom Mr. Werrick spoke, but not for the
+world would she seem jealous.</p>
+
+<p>"You could have seen me this afternoon, had there been any matters you
+wished explained," she says. "I presume you were more agreeably
+occupied."</p>
+
+<p>"I find no delight in formal visits," he answers, quietly; "but my
+sister wished to return calls and asked me to show her about the post."</p>
+
+<p>Then it was his sister. Not "that other girl!" Still she must not let
+him see it makes her glad. She needs a pretext for her wrath. She must
+make him feel it in some way. This is not at all in accordance with the
+mental private rehearsals she has been having. There is still that
+direful matter of Will's report for "shouting from window of barracks,"
+and "Miss Mischief's" equally direful report of Mr. Stanley's remarks
+thereon.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you were a loyal friend of Willy's," she says, turning
+suddenly upon him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I was&mdash;and am," he answers simply.</p>
+
+<p>"And yet I'm told you said it was all his own fault, and that you
+yourself would have given him the report that so nearly 'found him on
+demerit.' A report on suspicion, too," she adds, with scorn in her tone.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Stanley is silent a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"You have heard a very unfair account of my words," he says at last. "I
+have volunteered no opinions on the subject. In answer to direct
+question I have said that it was not justifiable to call that a report
+on suspicion."</p>
+
+<p>"But you said you would have given it yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"I said that, as officer of the day, I would have been compelled to do
+so. I could not have signed my certificate otherwise."</p>
+
+<p>She turns away in speechless indignation. What makes it all well-nigh
+intolerable is that he is by no means on the defensive. He is patient,
+gentle, but decidedly superior. Not at all what she wanted. Not at all
+eager to explain, argue, or implore. Not at all the tearful penitent she
+has pictured in her plans. She must bring him to a realizing sense of
+the enormity of his conduct. Disloyalty to Will is treason to her.</p>
+
+<p>"And yet&mdash;you say you have kept, and that you value, that knot of blue
+ribbon that I gave you&mdash;or that you took&mdash;last summer. I did not suppose
+that you would so soon prove to be&mdash;no friend to Willy, or&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Or what, Miss Nannie?" he asks. His face is growing white, but he
+controls the tremor in his voice. She does not see. Her eyes are
+downcast and her face averted now, but she goes on desperately.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well, never mind <i>that</i> now; but it seems to me that such friendship
+is&mdash;simply worthless."</p>
+
+<p>She has taken the plunge and said her say, but the last words are spoken
+with sinking inflection, followed instantly by a sinking heart. He makes
+no answer whatever. She dares not look up into his face to see the
+effect of her stab. He stands there silent only an instant; then raises
+his cap, turns, and leaves her.</p>
+
+<p>Sunday comes and goes without a sight of him except in the line of
+officers at parade. That night she goes early to her room, and on the
+bureau finds a little box securely tied, sealed, and addressed to her in
+his well-known hand. It contains a note and some soft object carefully
+wrapped in tissue-paper. The note is brief enough:</p>
+
+<p>"It is not easy to part with this, for it is all I have that was yours
+to give, but even this must be returned to you after what you said last
+night.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Nannie, you may some time think more highly of my friendship for
+your brother than you do now, and then, perhaps, will realize that you
+were very unjust. Should that time come I shall be glad to have this
+again."</p>
+
+<p>It was hardly necessary to open the little packet as she did. She knew
+well enough it could contain only that</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"Knot of ribbon blue."</span><br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV_B" id="CHAPTER_IV_B"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+<h2><a name="THE_WOMAN_TEMPTED_ME" id="THE_WOMAN_TEMPTED_ME"></a>THE WOMAN TEMPTED ME.</h2>
+
+
+<p>June is here. The examinations are in full blast. The Point is thronged
+with visitors and every hostelrie in the neighborhood has opened wide
+its doors to accommodate the swarms of people interested in the
+graduating exercises and eager for the graduating ball. Pretty girls
+there are in force, and at Craney's they are living three and four in a
+room; the joy of being really there on the Point, near the cadets,
+aroused by the morning gun and shrill piping of the reveille, saluted
+hourly by the notes of the bugle, enabled to see the gray uniforms half
+a dozen times a day and to actually speak or walk with the wearers half
+an hour out of twenty-four whole ones, being apparent compensation for
+any crowding or discomfort. Indeed, crowded as they are, the girls at
+Craney's are objects of boundless envy to those whom the Fates have
+consigned to the resorts down around the picturesque but distant
+"Falls." There is a little coterie at "Hawkshurst" that is fiercely
+jealous of the sisterhood in the favored nook at the north edge of the
+Plain, and one of their number, who is believed to have completely
+subjugated that universal favorite, Cadet McKay, has been heard to say
+that she thought it an outrage that they had to come home so early in
+the evening and mope away the time without a single cadet, when up there
+at Craney's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> the halls and piazzas were full of gray-coats and bell
+buttons every night until tattoo.</p>
+
+<p>A very brilliant and pretty girl she is, too, and neither Mrs. McKay nor
+Nannie can wonder at it that Will's few leisure moments are monopolized.
+"You are going to have me all to yourself next week, little mother," he
+laughingly explains; "and goodness knows when I'm going to see Miss
+Waring again." And though neither mother nor sister is at all satisfied
+with the state of affairs, both are too unselfish to interpose. How many
+an hour have mothers and, sometimes, sisters waited in loneliness at the
+old hotel for boys whom some other fellow's sister was holding in silken
+fetters somewhere down in shady "Flirtation!"</p>
+
+<p>It was with relief inexpressible that Mrs. McKay and Uncle Jack had
+hailed the coming of the 1st of June. With a margin of only two demerits
+Will had safely weathered the reefs and was practically safe,&mdash;safe at
+last. He had passed brilliantly in engineering; had been saved by his
+prompt and ready answers the consequences of a "fess" with clean
+black-board in ordnance and gunnery; had won a ringing, though
+involuntary, round of applause from the crowded galleries of the
+riding-hall by daring horsemanship, and he was now within seven days of
+the prized diploma and his commission. "For heaven's sake, Billy,"
+pleaded big Burton, the first captain, "don't do any thing to ruin your
+chances now! I've just been talking with your mother and Miss Nannie,
+and I declare I never saw that little sister of yours looking so white
+and worried."</p>
+
+<p>McKay laughs, yet his laugh is not light-hearted.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> He wonders if Burton
+has the faintest intuition that at this moment he is planning an
+escapade that means nothing short of dismissal if detected. Down in the
+bottom of his soul he knows he is a fool to have made the rash and
+boastful pledge to which he now stands committed. Yet he has never
+"backed out" before, and now&mdash;he would dare a dozen dismissals rather
+than that she should have a chance to say, "I knew you would not come."</p>
+
+<p>That very afternoon, just after the ride in the hall before the Board of
+Visitors, Miss Waring had been pathetically lamenting that with another
+week they were to part, and that she had seen next to nothing of him
+since her arrival.</p>
+
+<p>"If you only <i>could</i> get down to Hawkshurst!" she cried. "I'm sure when
+my cousin Frank was in the corps he used to 'run it' down to Cozzens's
+to see Cousin Kate,&mdash;and that was what made her Cousin Kate to me," she
+adds, with sudden dropping of the eyelids that is wondrously effective.</p>
+
+<p>"Easily done!" recklessly answers McKay, whose boyish heart is set to
+hammer-like beating by the closing sentence. "I didn't know you sat up
+so late there, or I would have come before. Of course I <i>have</i> to be
+here at 'taps.' No one can escape that."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh,&mdash;but really, Mr. McKay, I did not mean it! I would not have you run
+such a risk for worlds! I meant&mdash;some other way." And so she protests,
+although her eyes dance with excitement and delight. What a feather this
+in her cap of coquetry! What a triumph over the other girls,&mdash;especially
+that hateful set at Craney's! What a delicious confidence to impart<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> to
+all the little coterie at Hawkshurst! How they must envy her the
+romance, the danger, the daring, the devotion of such an adventure&mdash;for
+her sake! Of late years such tales had been rare. Girls worth the
+winning simply would not permit so rash a project, and their example
+carried weight. But here at "Hawkshurst" was a lively young brood,
+chaperoned by a matron as wild as her charges and but little older, and
+eager one and all for any glory or distinction that could pique the
+pride or stir the envy of "that Craney set." It was too much for a girl
+of Sallie Waring's type. Her eyes have a dangerous gleam, her cheeks a
+witching glow; she clings tighter to his arm as she looks up in his
+face.</p>
+
+<p>"And yet&mdash;wouldn't it be lovely?&mdash;To think of seeing you there!&mdash;are you
+sure there'd be no danger?"</p>
+
+<p>"Be on the north piazza about quarter of eleven," is the prompt reply.
+"I'll wear a dark suit, eye-glass, brown moustache, etc. Call me Mr.
+Freeman while strangers are around. There goes the parade drum. <i>Au
+revoir!</i>" and he darts away. Cadet Captain Stanley, inspecting his
+company a few moments later, stops in front and gravely rebukes him,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You are not properly shaved, McKay."</p>
+
+<p>"I shaved this morning," is the somewhat sullen reply, while an angry
+flush shoots up towards the blue eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"No razor has touched your upper lip, however, and I expect the class to
+observe regulations in this company, demerit or no demerit," is the
+firm, quiet answer, and the young captain passes on to the next man.
+McKay grits his teeth.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Only a week more of it, thank God!" he mutters, when sure that Stanley
+is beyond ear-shot.</p>
+
+<p>Three hours more and "taps" is sounded. All along the brilliant <i>fa&ccedil;ade</i>
+of barracks there is sudden and simultaneous "dousing of the glim" and a
+rush of the cadets to their narrow nests. There is a minute of banging
+doors and hurrying footsteps, and gruff queries of "All in?" as the
+cadet officers flit from room to room in each division to see that
+lights are out and every man in bed. Then forth they come from every
+hall-way; tripping lightly down the stone steps and converging on the
+guard-house, where stand at the door-way the dark forms of the officer
+in charge and the cadet officer of the day. Each in turn halts, salutes,
+and makes his precise report; and when the last subdivision is reported,
+the executive officer is assured that the battalion of cadets is present
+in barracks, and at the moment of inspection at least, in bed.
+Presumably, they remain so.</p>
+
+<p>Two minutes after inspection, however, Mr. McKay is out of bed again and
+fumbling about in his alcove. His room-mate sleepily inquires from
+beyond the partition what he wants in the dark, but is too long
+accustomed to his vagaries to expect definite information. When Mr.
+McKay slips softly out into the hall, after careful <i>reconnaissance</i> of
+the guard-house windows, his chum is soundly asleep and dreaming of no
+worse freak on Billy's part than a raid around barracks.</p>
+
+<p>It is so near graduation that the rules are relaxed, and in every first
+classman's room the tailor's handiwork is hanging among the gray
+uniforms. It is a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> dark suit of this civilian dress that Billy dons as
+he emerges from the blankets. A natty Derby is perched upon his curly
+pate, and a <i>monocle</i> hangs by its string. But he cannot light his gas
+and arrange the soft brown moustache with which he proposes to decorate
+his upper lip. He must run into Stanley's,&mdash;the "tower" room, at the
+north end of his hall.</p>
+
+<p>Phil looks up from the copy of "Military Law" which he is diligently
+studying. As "inspector of subdivision," his light is burned until
+eleven.</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>do</i> make an uncommonly swell young cit, Billy," he says,
+pleasantly. "Doesn't he, Mack?" he continues, appealing to his
+room-mate, who, lying flat on his back with his head towards the light
+and a pair of muscular legs in white trousers displayed on top of a pile
+of blankets, is striving to make out the vacancies in a recent Army
+Register. "Mack" rolls over and lazily expresses his approval.</p>
+
+<p>"I'd do pretty well if I had my moustache out; I meant to get the start
+of you fellows, but you're so meanly jealous, you blocked the game,
+Stan."</p>
+
+<p>All the rancor is gone now. He well knows that Stanley was right.</p>
+
+<p>"Sorry to have had to 'row' you about that, Billy," says the captain,
+gently. "You know I can't let one man go and not a dozen others."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, hang it all! What's the difference when time's so nearly up?"
+responds McKay, as he goes over to the little wood-framed mirror that
+stands on the iron mantel. "Here's a substitute, though! How's this for
+a moustache?" he asks, as he turns and faces them. Then he starts for
+the door. Almost in an in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>stant Stanley is up and after him. Just at the
+head of the iron stairs he hails and halts him.</p>
+
+<p>"Billy! You are not going out of barracks?"</p>
+
+<p>Unwillingly McKay yields to the pressure of the firm hand laid on his
+shoulder, and turns.</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose I were, Stanley. What danger is there? Lee inspected last
+night, and even he wouldn't make such a plan to trip me. Who ever heard
+of a 'tack's' inspecting after taps two successive nights?"</p>
+
+<p>"There's no reason why it should not be done, and several reasons why it
+should," is the uncompromising reply. "Don't risk your commission now,
+Billy, in any mad scheme. Come back and take those things off. Come!"</p>
+
+<p>"Blatherskite! Don't hang on to me like a pick-pocket, Stan. Let me go,"
+says McKay, half vexed, half laughing. "I've <i>got</i> to go, man," he says,
+more seriously. "I've promised."</p>
+
+<p>A sudden light seems to come to Stanley. Even in the feeble gleam from
+the gas-jet in the lower hall McKay can see the look of consternation
+that shoots across his face.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mean&mdash;you're not going down to Hawkshurst, Billy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why not to Hawkshurst, if anywhere at all?" is the sullen reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Why? Because you are risking your whole future,&mdash;your profession, your
+good name, McKay. You're risking your mother's heart for the sport of a
+girl who is simply toying with you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Take care, Stanley. Say what you like to me about myself, but not a
+word about her."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"This is no time for sentiment, McKay. I have known Miss Waring three
+years; you, perhaps three weeks. I tell you solemnly that if she has
+tempted you to 'run it' down there to see her it is simply to boast of a
+new triumph to the silly pack by whom she is surrounded. I tell you
+she&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You tell me nothing! I don't allow any man to speak in that way of a
+woman who is my friend," says Billy, with much majesty of mien. "Take
+your hand off, Stanley," he adds, coldly. "I might have had some respect
+for your counsel if you had had the least&mdash;for my feelings." And
+wrenching his shoulder away, McKay speeds quickly down the stairs,
+leaving his comrade speechless and sorrowing in the darkness above.</p>
+
+<p>In the lower hall he stops and peers cautiously over towards the
+guard-house. The lights are burning brilliantly up in the room of the
+officer in charge, and the red sash of the officer of the day shows
+through the open door-way beneath. Now is his time, for there is no one
+looking. One quick leap through the dim stream of light from the lantern
+at his back and he will be in the dark area, and can pick his noiseless
+way to the shadows beyond. It is an easy thing to gain the foot-path
+beyond the old retaining wall back of the guard-house, scud away under
+the trees along the winding ascent towards Fort Putnam, until he meets
+the back-road half-way up the heights; then turn southward through the
+rocky cuts and forest aisles until he reaches the main highway; then
+follow on through the beautiful groves, through the quiet village,
+across the bridge that spans the stream above the falls, and then,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> only
+a few hundred yards beyond, there lies Hawkshurst and its bevy of
+excited, whispering, applauding, delighted girls. If he meet officers,
+all he has to do is put on a bold face and trust to his disguise. He
+means to have a glorious time and be back, tingling with satisfaction on
+his exploit, by a little after midnight. In five minutes his quarrel
+with Stanley is forgotten, and, all alert and eager, he is half-way up
+the heights and out of sight or hearing of the barracks.</p>
+
+<p>The roads are well-nigh deserted. He meets one or two squads of soldiers
+coming back from "pass" at the Falls, but no one else. The omnibuses and
+carriages bearing home those visitors who have spent the evening
+listening to the band at the Point are all by this time out of the way,
+and it is early for officers to be returning from evening calls at the
+lower hotel. The chances are two to one that he will pass the village
+without obstacle of any kind. Billy's spirits rise with the occasion,
+and he concludes that a cigarette is the one thing needful to complete
+his disguise and add to the general nonchalance of his appearance.
+Having no matches he waits until he reaches the northern outskirts of
+the Falls, and then steps boldly into the first bar he sees and helps
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>Coming forth again he throws wide open the swinging screen doors, and a
+broad belt of light is flashed across the dusty highway just in front of
+a rapidly-driven carriage coming north. The mettlesome horses swerve and
+shy. The occupants are suddenly whirled from their reposeful attitudes,
+though, fortunately, not from their seats. A "top hat" goes spinning out
+into the roadway, and a fan flies through the midst of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> glare. The
+driver promptly checks his team and backs them just as Billy, all
+impulsive courtesy, leaps out into the street; picks up the hat with one
+hand, the fan with the other, and restores them with a bow to their
+owners. Only in the nick of time does he recollect himself and crush
+down the jovial impulse to hail by name Colonel Stanley and his daughter
+Miriam. The sight of a cavalry uniform and Lieutenant Lee's tall figure
+on the forward seat has, however, its restraining influence, and he
+turns quickly away&mdash;unrecognized.</p>
+
+<p>But alas for Billy! Only two days before had the distribution been made,
+and every man in the graduating class was already wearing the beautiful
+token of their brotherhood. The civilian garb, the Derby hat, the
+<i>monocle</i>, the stick, the cigarette, and the false moustache were all
+very well in their way, but in the beam of light from the windows of
+that ill-starred saloon there flashed upon his hand a gem that two pairs
+of quick, though reluctant eyes could not and did not fail to see,&mdash;the
+<i>class ring</i> of 187-.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V_B" id="CHAPTER_V_B"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+<h2><a name="A_MIDNIGHT_INSPECTION" id="A_MIDNIGHT_INSPECTION"></a>A MIDNIGHT INSPECTION.</h2>
+
+
+<p>There was a sense of constraint among the occupants of Colonel Stanley's
+carriage as they were driven back to the Point. They had been calling on
+old friends of his among the pretty villas below the Falls; had been
+chatting joyously until that sudden swerve<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> that pitched the colonel's
+hat and Miriam's fan into the dust, and the veteran cavalryman could not
+account for the lull that followed. Miriam had instantly grasped the
+situation. All her father's stories of cadet days had enabled her to
+understand at once that here was a cadet&mdash;a classmate of
+Philip's&mdash;"running it" in disguise. Mr. Lee, of course, needed no
+information on the subject. What she hoped was, that he had not seen;
+but the cloud on his frank, handsome face still hovered there, and she
+knew him too well not to see that he understood everything. And now what
+was his duty? Something told her that an inspection of barracks would be
+made immediately upon his return to the Point, and in that way the name
+of the absentee be discovered. She knew the regulation every cadet was
+expected to obey and every officer on honor to enforce. She knew that
+every cadet found absent from his quarters after taps was called upon by
+the commandant for prompt account of his whereabouts, and if unable to
+say that he was on cadet limits during the period of his absence,
+dismissal stared him in the face.</p>
+
+<p>The colonel did most of the talking on the way back to the south gate.
+Once within the portals he called to the driver to stop at the Mess.
+"I'm thirsty," said the jovial warrior, "and I want a julep and a fresh
+cigar. You, too, might have a claret punch, Mimi; you are drooping a
+little to-night. What is it, daughter,&mdash;tired?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, tired and a little headachy." Then sudden thought occurs to her.
+"If you don't mind I think I will go right on to the hotel. Then you and
+Mr. Lee can enjoy your cigars at leisure." She knows well<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> that Romney
+Lee is just the last man to let her drive on unescorted. She can hold
+him ten or fifteen minutes, at least, and by that time if the reckless
+boy down the road has taken warning and scurried back he can reach the
+barracks before inspection is made.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, Miss Miriam, I'm not to be disposed of so summarily," he
+promptly answers. "I'll see you safely to the hotel. You'll excuse me,
+colonel?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, certainly, Lee. I suppose I'll see you later," responds the
+veteran. They leave him at the Mess and resume their way, and Lee takes
+the vacated seat by her side. There is something he longs to say to
+her,&mdash;something that has been quivering on his lips and throbbing at his
+heart for many a long day. She is a queenly woman,&mdash;this dark-eyed,
+stately army girl. It is only two years since, her school-days finished,
+she has returned to her father's roof on the far frontier and resumed
+the gay garrison life that so charmed her when a child. <i>Then</i> a loving
+mother had been her guide, but during her long sojourn at school the
+blow had fallen that so wrenched her father's heart and left her
+motherless. Since her graduation she alone has been the joy of the old
+soldier's home, and sunshine and beauty have again gladdened his life.
+She would be less than woman did she not know that here now was another
+soldier, brave, courteous, and gentle, who longed to win her from that
+home to his own,&mdash;to call her by the sacred name of wife.
+<a name="corr2" id="corr2"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn2" title="changed from 'See'">She</a>
+knew how
+her father trusted and Phil looked up to him. She knew that down in her
+own heart of hearts there was pleading for him even now, but as yet no
+word has been spoken. She is not the girl to signal, "speak, and the
+prize is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> yours." He has looked in vain for a symptom that bids him hope
+for more than loyal friendship.</p>
+
+<p>But to-night as they reach the brightly-lighted piazza at Craney's it is
+she who bids him stay.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't go just yet," she falters.</p>
+
+<p>"I feared you were tired and wished to go to your room," he answers,
+gently.</p>
+
+<p>"Would you mind asking if there are letters for me?" she says. It is
+anything to gain time, and he goes at her behest, but&mdash;oh, luckless
+fate!&mdash;'tis a false move.</p>
+
+<p>She sees him stride away through the groups on the piazza; sees the
+commandant meet him with one of his assistants; sees that there is
+earnest consultation in low tone, and that then the others hasten down
+the steps and disappear in the darkness. She hears him say, "I'll follow
+in a moment, sir," and something tells her that what she dreads has come
+to pass. Presently he returns to her with the information that there are
+no letters; then raises his cap, and, in the old Southern and cadet
+fashion, extends his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"You are not going, Mr. Lee?" again she falters.</p>
+
+<p>"I have to, Miss Stanley."</p>
+
+<p>Slowly she puts forth her hand and lays it in his.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I wish you did not have to go. <i>Tell</i> me," she says, impulsively,
+imploringly, "are you going to inspect?"</p>
+
+<p>He bows his head.</p>
+
+<p>"It is already ordered, Miss Miriam," he says; "I must go at once.
+Good-night."</p>
+
+<p>Dazed and distressed she turns at once, and is confronted by a pallid
+little maid with wild, blue eyes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Miss Stanley!" is the wail that greets her. "I could not help
+hearing, and&mdash;if it should be Willy!"</p>
+
+<p>"Come with me, Nannie," she whispers, as her arm enfolds her. "Come to
+my room."</p>
+
+<p>Meantime, there has been a breeze at the barracks. A batch of yearlings,
+by way of celebrating their release from plebedom, have hit on a
+time-honored scheme. Just about the same moment that disclosed to the
+eyes of Lieutenant Lee the class ring gleaming on the finger of that
+nattily-dressed young civilian, his comrade, the dozing officer in
+charge, was started to his feet by a thunder-clap, a vivid flash that
+lighted up the whole area of barracks, and an explosion that rattled the
+plaster in the guard-house chimneys. One thing the commandant wouldn't
+stand was disorder after "taps," and, in accordance with strict
+instructions, Lieutenant Lawrence sent a drummer-boy at once to find the
+colonel and tell him what had taken place, while he himself stirred up
+the cadet officer of the day and began an investigation. Half the corps
+by this time were up and chuckling with glee at their darkened windows;
+and as these subdued but still audible demonstrations of sympathy and
+satisfaction did not cease on his arrival, the colonel promptly sent for
+his entire force of assistants to conduct the inspection already
+ordered. Already one or two "bull's-eyes" were flitting out from the
+officers' angle.</p>
+
+<p>But the piece of boyish mischief that brings such keen delight to the
+youngsters in the battalion strikes terror to the heart of Philip
+Stanley. He knows all too well that an immediate inspection will be the
+result, and then, what is to become of McKay? With keen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> anxiety, he
+goes to the hall window overlooking the area, and watches the course of
+events. A peep into McKay's room shows that he is still absent and that
+his room-mate, if disturbed at all by the "yearling fireworks," has gone
+to sleep again. Stanley sees the commandant stride under the gas-lamp in
+the area; sees the gathering of the "bull's-eyes," and his heart
+well-nigh fails him. Still he watches until there can be no doubt that
+the inspection is already begun. Then, half credulous, all delighted, he
+notes that it is not Mr. Lee, but young Mr. Lawrence, the officer in
+charge, who is coming straight towards "B" Company, lantern in hand. Not
+waiting for the coming of the former, the colonel has directed another
+officer&mdash;not a company commander&mdash;to inspect for him.</p>
+
+<p>There is but one way to save Billy now.</p>
+
+<p>In less than half a minute Stanley has darted into McKay's room; has
+slung his chevroned coat under the bed; has slipped beneath the sheet
+and coverlet, and now, breathlessly, he listens. He hears the inspector
+moving from room to room on the ground floor; hears him spring up the
+iron stair; hears him enter his own,&mdash;the tower room at the north end of
+the hall,&mdash;and there he stops, surprised, evidently, to find Cadet
+Captain Stanley absent from his quarters. Then his steps are heard
+again. He enters the opposite room at the north end. That is all right!
+and now he's coming here. "Now for it!" says Stanley to himself, as he
+throws his white-sleeved arm over his head just as he has so often seen
+Billy do, and turning his face to the wall, burrows deep in the pillow
+and pulls the sheet well up to his chin. The door softly opens; the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>
+"bull's-eye" flashes its gleam first on one bed, then on the other. "All
+right here," is the inspector's mental verdict as he pops out again
+suddenly as he entered. Billy McKay, the scapegrace, is safe and Stanley
+has time to think over the situation.</p>
+
+<p>At the very worst, as he will be able to say he was "visiting in
+barracks" when found absent, his own punishment will not be serious. But
+this is not what troubles him. Demerit for the graduating class ceases
+to count after the 1st of June, and the individual sense of honor and
+duty is about the only restraint against lapses of discipline. Stanley
+hates to think that others may now believe him deaf to this obligation.
+He would far rather have had this happen when demerit and "confinements"
+in due proportion had been his award, but there is no use repining. It
+is a sacrifice to save&mdash;her brother.</p>
+
+<p>When half an hour later his classmate, the officer of the day, enters
+the tower room in search of him, Stanley is there and calmly says, "I
+was visiting in barracks," in answer to his question; and finally, when
+morning comes, Mr. Billy McKay nearly sleeps through reveille as a
+consequence of his night-prowling; but his absence, despite the
+simultaneous inspection of every company in barracks, has not been
+detected. With one exception every bed has had its apparently soundly
+sleeping occupant. The young scamps who caused all the trouble have
+escaped scot-free, and the corps can hardly believe their own ears, and
+Billy McKay is stunned and perplexed when it is noised abroad that the
+only man "hived absent" was the captain of Company "B."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It so happens that both times he goes to find Stanley that day he misses
+him. "The commandant sent for him an hour ago," says Mr. McFarland, his
+room-mate, "and I'm blessed if I know what keeps him. Something about
+last night's doings, I'm afraid."</p>
+
+<p>This, in itself, is enough to make him worry, but the next thing he
+hears is worse. Just at evening call to quarters, Jim Burton comes to
+his room.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you heard anything about this report of Stanley's last night?" he
+asks, and McKay, ordinarily so frank, is guarded now in his reply. For
+half an hour he has been pacing his room alone. McFarland's revelations
+have set him to thinking. It is evident that the colonel's suspicions
+are aroused. It is probable that it is known that some cadet was
+"running it" the night before. From the simple fact that he is not
+already in arrest he knows that Mr. Lee did not recognize him, yet the
+secret has leaked out in some way, and an effort is being made to
+discover the culprit. Already he has begun to wonder if the game was
+really worth the candle. He saw her, 'tis true, and had half an hour's
+whispered chat with her, interrupted not infrequently by giggling and
+impetuous rushes from the other girls. They had sworn melodramatically
+never to reveal that it was he who came, but Billy begins to have his
+doubts. "It ends my career if I'm found out," he reflects, "whereas they
+can't do much to Stan for visiting." And thus communing with himself, he
+has decided to guard his secret against all comers,&mdash;at least for the
+present. And so he is non-committal in his reply to Burton.</p>
+
+<p>"What about it?" he asks.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Why, it's simply this, Billy: Little Magee, the fifer, is on orderly
+duty to-day, and he heard much of the talk, and I got it out of him.
+Somebody was running it last night, and was seen down by Cozzens's gate.
+Stanley was the only absentee, hence Stanley would naturally be the man
+suspected, but he says he wasn't out of the barracks. The conclusion is
+inevitable that he was filling the other fellow's place, and the colonel
+is hopping mad. It looks as though there were collusion between them.
+Now, Billy, all I've got to say is that the man he's shielding ought to
+step forward and relieve him at once. There comes the sentry and I must
+go."</p>
+
+<p>Relieve him? Yes; but what means that for me? thinks poor McKay.
+Dismissal; a heart break for mother. No! It is too much to face; he must
+think it over. He never goes near Stanley all that night. He fears to
+meet him, or the morrow. His heart misgives him when he is told that
+there has been a long conference in the office. He turns white with
+apprehension when they fall in for parade, and he notes that it is
+Phillips, their first lieutenant, who draws sword and takes command of
+the company; but a few moments later his heart gives one wild bound,
+then seems to sink into the ground beneath his feet, when the adjutant
+drops the point of his sword, lets it dangle by the gold knot at his
+wrist, whips a folded paper from his sash, and far over the plain his
+clear young voice proclaims the stern order:</p>
+
+<p>"Cadet Captain Stanley is hereby placed in arrest and confined to his
+quarters. Charge&mdash;conniving at concealing the absence of a cadet from
+inspection after<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> 'taps,' eleven&mdash;eleven-fifteen <span class="smcap">P.M.</span>, on the 7th
+instant.</p>
+
+<p>"By order of Lieutenant-Colonel Putnam."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI_B" id="CHAPTER_VI_B"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+<h2><a name="THE_LAST_DANCE" id="THE_LAST_DANCE"></a>THE LAST DANCE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The blithest day of all the year has come. The graduating ball takes
+place to-night. The Point is thronged with joyous visitors, and yet over
+all there hovers a shadow. In the midst of all this gayety and
+congratulation there hides a core of sorrow. Voices lower and soft eyes
+turn in sympathy when certain sad faces are seen. There is one subject
+on which the cadets simply refuse to talk, and there are two of the
+graduating class who do not appear at the hotel at all. One is Mr.
+McKay, whose absence is alleged to be because of confinements he has to
+serve; the other is Philip Stanley, still in close arrest, and the
+latter has cancelled his engagements for the ball.</p>
+
+<p>There had been a few days in which Miss McKay, forgetting or having
+obtained absolution for her unguarded remarks on the promenade deck of
+the steamer, had begun to be seen a great deal with Miss Stanley. She
+had even blushingly shaken hands with big Lieutenant Lee, whose kind
+brown eyes were full of fun and playfulness whenever he greeted her. But
+it was noticed that something, all of a sudden, had occurred to mar the
+growing intimacy; then that the once blithe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> little lady was looking
+white and sorrowful; that she avoided Miss Stanley for two whole days,
+and that her blue eyes watched wistfully for some one who did not
+come,&mdash;"Mr. Stanley, no doubt," was the diagnosis of the case by "Miss
+Mischief" and others.</p>
+
+<p>Then, like a thunder-clap, came the order for Phil Stanley's arrest, and
+then there were other sad faces. Miriam Stanley's dark eyes were not
+only troubled, but down in their depths was a gleam of suppressed
+indignation that people knew not how to explain. Colonel Stanley, to
+whom every one had been drawn from the first, now appeared very stern
+and grave; the joy had vanished from his face. Mrs. McKay was flitting
+about the parlors tearfully thankful that "it wasn't her boy." Nannie
+had grown whiter still, and very "absent" and silent. Mr. Lee did not
+come at all.</p>
+
+<p>Then there was startling news! An outbreak, long smouldering, had just
+occurred at the great reservation of the Spirit Wolf; the agent and
+several of his men had been massacred, their women carried away into a
+captivity whose horrors beggar all description, and two troops&mdash;hardly
+sixscore men&mdash;of Colonel Stanley's regiment were already in pursuit.
+Leaving his daughter to the care of an old friend at Craney's, and after
+a brief interview with his boy at barracks, the old soldier who had come
+eastward with such glad anticipation turned promptly back to the field
+of duty. He had taken the first train and was already beyond the
+Missouri. Almost immediately after the colonel's departure, Mr. Lee had
+come to the hotel and was seen to have a brief but earnest talk with
+Miss Stanley on the north piazza,&mdash;a talk from which she had gone
+direct<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> to her room and did not reappear for hours, while he, who
+usually had a genial, kindly word for every one, had turned abruptly
+down the north steps as though to avoid the crowded halls and piazzas,
+and so returned to the barracks.</p>
+
+<p>But now, this lovely June morning the news from the far West is still
+more direful. Hundreds of savages have taken the war-path, and murder is
+the burden of every tale from around their reservation, but&mdash;this is the
+day of "last parade" and the graduating ball, and people cannot afford
+time to think of such grewsome matter. All the same, they note that Mr.
+Lee comes no more to the hotel, and a rumor is in circulation that he
+has begged to be relieved from duty at the Point and ordered to join his
+troop now in the field against hostile Indians.</p>
+
+<p>Nannie McKay is looking like a pathetic shadow of her former self as she
+comes down-stairs to fulfil an engagement with a cadet admirer. She
+neglects no duty of the kind towards Willy's friends and hers, but she
+is drooping and listless. Uncle Jack is worried about her; so, too, is
+mamma, though the latter is so wrapped up in the graduation of her boy
+that she has little time to think of pallid cheeks and mournful eyes. It
+is all arranged that they are to sail for Europe the 1st of July, and
+the sea air, the voyage across, the new sights and associations on the
+other side, will "bring her round again," says that observant
+"avuncular" hopefully. He is compelled to be at his office in the city
+much of the time, but comes up this day as a matter of course, and has a
+brief chat with his graceless nephew at the guard-house. Billy's utter
+lack of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> spirits sets Uncle Jack to thinking. The boy says he can "tell
+him nothing just now," and Uncle Jack feels well assured that he has a
+good deal to tell. He goes in search of Lieutenant Lee, for whom he has
+conceived a great fancy, but the big lieutenant has gone to the city on
+business. In the crowded hall at the hotel he meets Miriam Stanley, and
+her face gives him another pound of trouble to carry.</p>
+
+<p>"You are going to the ball, though?" he hears a lady say to her, and
+Miriam shakes her head.</p>
+
+<p>Ball, indeed!&mdash;or last parade, either! She knows she cannot bear to see
+the class march to the front, and her brother not there. She cannot bear
+the thought of even looking on at the ball, if Philip is to be debarred
+from attending. Her thoughts have been very bitter for a few days past.
+Her father's intense but silent distress and regret; Philip's certain
+detention after the graduation of his class; his probable court-martial
+and loss of rank; the knowledge that he had incurred it all to save
+McKay (and everybody by this time felt that it <i>must</i> be Billy McKay,
+though no one could prove it), all have conspired to make her very
+unhappy and very unjust to Mr. Lee. Philip has told her that Mr. Lee had
+no alternative in reporting to the commandant his discovery "down the
+road," but she had believed herself of sufficient value in that
+officer's brown eyes to induce him to at least postpone any mention of
+that piece of accidental knowledge; and though, in her heart of hearts,
+she knows she respects him the more because she could not prevail
+against his sense of duty, she is stung to the quick, and, womanlike,
+has made him feel it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It must be in sympathy with her sorrows that, late this afternoon, the
+heavens open and pour their floods upon the plain. Hundreds of people
+are bemoaning the fact that now there can be no graduating parade. Down
+in barracks the members of the class are busily packing trunks, trying
+on civilian garb, and rushing about in much excitement. In more senses
+than one Phil Stanley's room is a centre of gravity. The commandant at
+ten o'clock had sent for him and given him final opportunity to state
+whose place he occupied during the inspection of that now memorable
+night, and he had respectfully but firmly declined. There was then no
+alternative but the withdrawal of his diploma and his detention at the
+Point to await the action of the Secretary of War upon the charges
+preferred against him. "The Class," of course, knew by this time that
+McKay was the man whom he had saved, for after one day of torment and
+indecision that hapless youth had called in half a dozen of his comrades
+and made a clean breast of it. It was then his deliberate intention to
+go to the commandant and beg for Stanley's release, and to offer himself
+as the culprit. But Stanley had thought the problem out and gravely
+interposed. It could really do no practical good to him and would only
+result in disaster to McKay. No one could have anticipated the luckless
+chain of circumstances that had led to his own arrest, but now he must
+face the consequences. After long consultation the young counsellors had
+decided on the plan. "There is only one thing for us to do: keep the
+matter quiet. There is only one thing for Billy to do: keep a stiff
+upper lip; graduate with the class, then go to Wash<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>ington with 'Uncle
+Jack,' and bestir their friends in Congress,"&mdash;not just then assembled,
+but always available. There was never yet a time when a genuine "pull"
+from Senate and House did not triumph over the principles of military
+discipline.</p>
+
+<p>A miserable man is Billy! For a week he has moped in barracks, forbidden
+by Stanley and his advisers to admit anything, yet universally suspected
+of being the cause of all the trouble. He, too, wishes to cancel his
+engagements for the graduating ball, and thinks something ought to be
+done to those young idiots of yearlings who set off the torpedo.
+"Nothing could have gone wrong but for them," says he; but the wise
+heads of the class promptly snub him into silence. "You've simply got to
+do as we say in this matter, Billy. You've done enough mischief
+already." And so it results that the message he sends by Uncle Jack is:
+"Tell mother and Nan I'll meet them at the 'hop.' My confinements end at
+eight o'clock, but there's no use in my going to the hotel and tramping
+through the mud." The truth is, he cannot bear to meet Miriam Stanley,
+and 'twould be just his luck.</p>
+
+<p>One year ago no happier, bonnier, brighter face could have been seen at
+the Point than that of Nannie McKay. To-night, in all the throng of fair
+women and lovely girls, gathered with their soldier escort in the great
+mess-hall, there is none so sad. She tries hard to be chatty and
+smiling, but is too frank and honest a little soul to have much success.
+The dances that Phil Stanley had engaged months and months ago are
+accredited now to other names, and blissful young fellows in gray and
+gold come successively to claim them. But deep down in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> her heart she
+remembers the number of each. It was he who was to have been her escort.
+It was he who made out her card and gave it to her only a day or two
+before that fatal interview. It was he who was to have had the last
+waltz&mdash;the very last&mdash;that he would dance in the old cadet gray; and
+though new names have been substituted for his in other cases, this
+waltz she meant to keep. Well knowing that there would be many to beg
+for it, she has written Willy's name for "Stanley," and duly warned him
+of the fact. Then, when it comes, she means to escape to the
+dressing-room, for she is promptly told that her brother is engaged to
+Miss Waring for that very waltz. Light as are her feet, she never yet
+has danced with so heavy a heart. The rain still pours, driving
+everybody within doors. The heat is intense. The hall is crowded, and it
+frequently happens that partners cannot find her until near the end of
+their number on that dainty card. But every one has something to say
+about Phil Stanley and the universal regret at his absence. It is
+getting to be more than she can bear,&mdash;this prolonged striving to
+respond with proper appreciation and sympathy, yet not say too
+much,&mdash;not betray the secret that is now burning, throbbing in her
+girlish heart. He does not dream it, but there, hidden beneath the soft
+lace upon her snowy neck, lies that "knot of ribbon blue" which she so
+laughingly had given him, at his urging, the last day of her visit the
+previous year; the knot which he had so loyally treasured and then so
+sadly returned. A trifling, senseless thing to make such an ado about,
+but these hearts are young and ardent, and this romance of his has many
+a counterpart, the memory of which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> may bring to war-worn, grizzled
+heads to-day a blush almost of shame, and would surely bring to many an
+old and sometimes aching heart a sigh. Hoping against hope, poor Nannie
+has thought it just possible that at the last moment the authorities
+would relent and he be allowed to attend. If so,&mdash;if so, angry and
+justly angered though he might be, cut to the heart though he expressed
+himself, has she not here the means to call him back?&mdash;to bid him come
+and know how contrite she is? Hour after hour she glances at the broad
+archway at the east, yearning to see his dark, handsome face among the
+new-comers,&mdash;all in vain. Time and again she encounters Sallie Waring,
+brilliant, bewitching, in the most ravishing of toilets, and always with
+half a dozen men about her. Twice she notices Will among them with a
+face gloomy and rebellious, and, hardly knowing why, she almost hates
+her.</p>
+
+<p>At last comes the waltz that was to have been Philip's,&mdash;the waltz she
+has saved for his sake though he cannot claim it. Mr. Pennock, who has
+danced the previous galop with her, sees the leader raising his baton,
+bethinks him of his next partner, and leaves her at the open window
+close to the dressing-room door. There she can have a breath of fresh
+air, and, hiding behind the broad backs of several bulky officers and
+civilians, listen undisturbed to the music she longed to enjoy with him.
+Here, to her surprise, Will suddenly joins her.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you were engaged to Miss Waring for this," she says.</p>
+
+<p>"I was," he answers, savagely; "but I'm well out of it. I resigned in
+favor of a big 'cit' who's worth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> only twenty thousand a year, Nan, and
+she has been engaged to him all this time and never let me know until
+to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Willy!</i>" she gasps. "Oh! I'm so glad&mdash;sorry, I mean! I never <i>did</i>
+like her."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>I</i> did, Nan, more's the pity. I'm not the first she's made a fool of;"
+and he turns away, hiding the chagrin in his young face. They are
+practically alone in this sheltered nook. Crowds are around them, but
+looking the other way. The rain is dripping from the trees without and
+pattering on the stone flags. McKay leans out into the night, and the
+sister's loving heart yearns over him in his trouble.</p>
+
+<p>"Willy," she says, laying the little white-gloved hand on his arm, "it's
+hard to bear, but she isn't worthy <i>any</i> man's love. Twice I've heard in
+the last two days that she makes a boast of it that 'twas to see her
+that some one risked his commission and so&mdash;kept Mr. Stanley from being
+here to-night. Willy, <i>do</i> you know who it was? <i>Don't</i> you think he
+ought to have come forward like a gentleman, days ago, and told the
+truth? <i>Will!</i> What is it? <i>Don't</i> look so! Speak to me, Willy,&mdash;your
+little Nan. Was there ever a time, dear, when my whole heart wasn't open
+to you in love and sympathy?"</p>
+
+<p>And now, just at this minute, the music begins again. Soft, sweet, yet
+with such a strain of pathos and of sadness running through every chord;
+it is the loveliest of all the waltzes played in his "First Class
+Camp,"&mdash;the one of all others he most loved to hear. Her heart almost
+bursts now to think of him in his lonely room, beyond hearing of the
+melody that is so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> dear to him, that is now so passionately dear to
+her,&mdash;"Love's Sigh." Doubtless, Philip had asked the leader days ago to
+play it here and at no other time. It is more than enough to start the
+tears long welling in her eyes. For an instant it turns her from thought
+of Willy's own heartache.</p>
+
+<p>"Will!" she whispers, desperately. "This was to have been Philip
+Stanley's waltz&mdash;and I want you to take&mdash;something to him for me."</p>
+
+<p>He turns back to her again, his hands clinched, his teeth set, still
+thinking only of his own bitter humiliation,&mdash;of how that girl has
+fooled and jilted him,&mdash;of how for her sake he had brought all this
+trouble on his stanchest friend.</p>
+
+<p>"Phil Stanley!" he exclaims. "By heaven! it makes me nearly mad to think
+of it!&mdash;and all for her sake,&mdash;all through me. Oh, Nan! Nan! I <i>must</i>
+tell you! It was for me,&mdash;to save me that&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Willy!</i>" and there is almost horror in her wide blue eyes.
+"<i>Willy!</i> "she gasps&mdash;"oh, <i>don't</i>&mdash;don't tell me <i>that</i>!
+Oh, it isn't <i>true</i>? Not you&mdash;not you, Willy. Not my brother! Oh,
+quick! Tell me."</p>
+
+<p>Startled, alarmed, he seizes her hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Little sister! What&mdash;what has happened&mdash;what is&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But there is no time for more words. The week of misery; the piteous
+strain of the long evening; the sweet, sad, wailing melody,&mdash;his
+favorite waltz; the sudden, stunning revelation that it was for Willy's
+sake that he&mdash;her hero&mdash;was now to suffer, he whose heart she had
+trampled on and crushed! It is all more than mortal girl can bear. With
+the beautiful strains moan<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>ing, whirling, ringing, surging through her
+brain, she is borne dizzily away into darkness and oblivion.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>There follows a week in which sadder faces yet are seen about the old
+hotel. The routine of the Academy goes on undisturbed. The graduating
+class has taken its farewell of the gray walls and gone upon its way.
+New faces, new voices are those in the line of officers at parade. The
+corps has pitched its white tents under the trees beyond the grassy
+parapet of Fort Clinton, and, with the graduates and furlough-men gone,
+its ranks look pitifully thinned. The throng of visitors has vanished.
+The halls and piazzas at Craney's are well-nigh deserted, but among the
+few who linger there is not one who has not loving inquiry for the young
+life that for a brief while has fluttered so near the grave. "Brain
+fever," said the doctors to Uncle Jack, and a new anxiety was lined in
+his kindly face as he and Will McKay sped on their mission to the
+Capitol. They had to go, though little Nan lay sore stricken at the
+Point.</p>
+
+<p>But youth and elasticity triumph. The danger is passed. She lies now,
+very white and still, listening to the sweet strains of the band
+trooping down the line this soft June evening. Her mother, worn with
+watching, is resting on the lounge. It is Miriam Stanley who hovers at
+the bedside. Presently the bugles peal the retreat; the sunset gun booms
+across the plain; the ringing voice of the young adjutant comes floating
+on the southerly breeze, and, as she listens, Nannie follows every
+detail of the well-known ceremony, wondering how it <i>could</i> go on day
+after day with no Mr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> Pennock to read the orders; with no "big Burton"
+to thunder his commands to the first company; with no Philip Stanley to
+march the colors to their place on the line. "Where is <i>he</i>?" is the
+question in the sweet blue eyes that so wistfully seek his sister's
+face; but she answers not. One by one the first sergeants made their
+reports; and now&mdash;that ringing voice again, reading the orders of the
+day. How clear it sounds! How hushed and still the listening Point!</p>
+
+<p>"Head-quarters of the Army," she hears. "Washington, June 15, 187-.
+Special orders, Number&mdash;.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>First.</i> Upon his own application, First Lieutenant George Romney Lee,
+&mdash;th Cavalry, is hereby relieved from duty at the U. S. Military
+Academy, and will join his troop now in the field against hostile
+Indians.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Second.</i> Upon the recommendation of the Superintendent U. S. Military
+Academy, the charges preferred against Cadet Captain Philip S. Stanley
+are withdrawn. Cadet Stanley will be considered as graduated with his
+class on the 12th instant, will be released from arrest, and authorized
+to avail himself of the leave of absence granted his class."</p>
+
+<p>Nannie starts from her pillow, clasping in her thin white fingers the
+soft hand that would have restrained her.</p>
+
+<p>"Miriam!" she cries. "Then&mdash;will he go?"</p>
+
+<p>The dark, proud face bends down to her; clasping arms encircle the
+little white form, and Miriam Stanley's very heart wails forth in
+answer,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Nannie! He is almost there by this time,&mdash;both of them. They left
+to join the regiment three days ago; their orders came by telegraph."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Another week, and Uncle Jack is again with them. The doctors agree that
+the ocean voyage is now not only advisable, but necessary. They are to
+move their little patient to the city and board their steamer in a day
+or two. Will has come to them, full of disgust that he has been assigned
+to the artillery, and filling his mother's heart with dismay because he
+is begging for a transfer to the cavalry, to the &mdash;th Regiment,&mdash;of all
+others,&mdash;now plunged in the whirl of an Indian war. Every day the papers
+come freighted with rumors of fiercer fighting; but little that is
+reliable can be heard from "Sabre Stanley" and his column. They are far
+beyond telegraphic communication, hemmed in by "hostiles" on every side.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Jack is an early riser. Going down for his paper before breakfast,
+he is met at the foot of the stairs by a friend who points to the
+head-lines of the <i>Herald</i>, with the simple remark, "Isn't this hard?"</p>
+
+<p>It is brief enough, God knows.</p>
+
+<p>"A courier just in from Colonel Stanley's camp brings the startling news
+that Lieutenant Philip Stanley, &mdash;th Cavalry, with two scouts and a
+small escort, who left here Sunday, hoping to push through to the Spirit
+Wolf, were ambushed by the Indians in Black Ca&ntilde;on. Their bodies, scalped
+and mutilated, were found Wednesday night."</p>
+
+<p>Where, then, was Romney Lee?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII_B" id="CHAPTER_VII_B"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+<h2><a name="BLACK_CANON" id="BLACK_CANON"></a>BLACK CA&Ntilde;ON.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The red sun is going down behind the line of distant buttes, throwing
+long shadows out across the grassy upland. Every crest and billow of the
+prairie is bathed in crimson and gold, while the "breaks" and ravines
+trending southward grow black and forbidding in their contrasted gloom.
+Far over to the southeast, in dazzling radiance, two lofty peaks, still
+snow-clad, gleam against the summer sky, and at their feet dark waves of
+forest-covered foot-hills drink in the last rays of the waning sunshine
+as though hoarding its treasured warmth against the chill of coming
+night. Already the evening air, rare and exhilarating at this great
+altitude, loses the sun-god's touch and strikes upon the cheek keen as
+the ether of the limitless heavens. A while ago, only in the distant
+valley winding to the south could foliage be seen. Now, all in those
+depths is merged in sombre shade, and not a leaf or tree breaks for
+miles the grand monotony. Close at hand a host of tiny mounds, each
+tipped with reddish gold, and some few further ornamented by miniature
+sentry, alert and keen-eyed, tell of a prairie township already laid out
+and thickly populated; and at this moment every sentry is chipping his
+pert, querulous challenge until the disturbers of the peace are close
+upon him, then diving headlong into the bowels of the earth.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A dun cloud of dust rolls skyward along a well-worn cavalry trail, and
+is whirled into space by the hoofs of sixty panting chargers trotting
+steadily south. Sixty sunburned, dust-covered troopers ride grimly on,
+following the lead of a tall soldier whose kind brown eyes peer
+anxiously from under his scouting-hat. It is just as they pass the
+village of the prairie dogs that he points to the low valley down to the
+front and questions the "plainsman" who lopes along by his side,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"That Black Ca&ntilde;on down yonder?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's it, lieutenant: I didn't think you could make it to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"We <i>had</i> to," is the simple reply as again the spur touches the jaded
+flank and evokes only a groan in response.</p>
+
+<p>"How far from here to&mdash;the Springs?" he presently asks again.</p>
+
+<p>"Box Elder?&mdash;where they found the bodies?&mdash;'bout five mile, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Where away was that signal smoke we saw at the divide?"</p>
+
+<p>"Must have been from those bluffs&mdash;east of the Springs, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Lieutenant Lee whips out his watch and peers at the dial through the
+twilight. The cloud deepens on his haggard, handsome face. Eight
+o'clock, and they have been in saddle almost incessantly since yesterday
+afternoon, weighed down with the tidings of the fell disaster that has
+robbed them of their comrades, and straining every nerve to reach the
+scene.</p>
+
+<p>Only five days before, as he stepped from the railway car at the supply
+station, a wagon-train had come<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> in from the front escorted by Mr. Lee's
+own troop; his captain with it, wounded. Just as soon as it could reload
+with rations and ammunition the train was to start on its eight days'
+journey to the Spirit Wolf, where Colonel Stanley and the &mdash;th were
+bivouacked and scouring the neighboring mountains. Already a battalion
+of infantry was at the station, another was on its way, and supplies
+were being hurried forward. Captain Gregg brought the first reliable
+news. The Indians had apparently withdrawn from the road. The
+wagon-train had come through unmolested, and Colonel Stanley was
+expecting to push forward into their fastnesses farther south the moment
+he could obtain authority from head-quarters. With these necessary
+orders two couriers had started just twelve hours before. The captain
+was rejoiced to see his favorite lieutenant and to welcome Philip
+Stanley to the regiment. "Everybody seemed to feel that you too would be
+coming right along," he said; "but, Phil, my boy, I'm afraid you're too
+late for the fun. You cannot catch the command before it starts from
+Spirit Wolf."</p>
+
+<p>And yet this was just what Phil had tried to do. Lee knew nothing of his
+plan until everything had been arranged between the young officer and
+the major commanding the temporary camp at the station. Then it was too
+late to protest. While it was Mr. Lee's duty to remain and escort the
+train, Philip Stanley, with two scouts and half a dozen troopers, had
+pushed out to overtake the regiment two hundred miles away. Forty-eight
+hours later, as the wagon-train with its guard was slowly crawling
+southward, it was met by a courier with ghastly face. He was one of
+three who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> had started from the ruined agency together. They met no
+Indians, but at Box Elder Springs had come upon the bodies of a little
+party of soldiers stripped, scalped, gashed, and mutilated,&mdash;nine in
+all. There could be little doubt that they were those of poor Philip and
+his new-found comrades. The courier had recognized two of the bodies as
+those of Forbes and Whiting,&mdash;the scouts who had gone with the party;
+the others he did not know at all.</p>
+
+<p>Parking his train then and there, sending back to the railway for an
+infantry company to hasten forward and take charge of it, Mr. Lee never
+hesitated as to his own course. He and his troop pushed on at once. And
+now, worn, weary, but determined, the little command is just in sight of
+the deep ravine known to frontiersmen for years as Black Ca&ntilde;on. It was
+through here that Stanley and his battalion had marched a fortnight
+since. It was along this very trail that Phil and his party, pressing
+eagerly on to join the regiment, rode down into its dark depths and were
+ambushed at the Springs. From all indications, said the courier, they
+must have unsaddled for a brief rest, probably just at nightfall; but
+the Indians had left little to aid them in forming an opinion. Utterly
+unnerved by the sight, his two associates had turned back to rejoin
+Stanley's column, while he, the third, had decided to make for the
+railway. Unless those men, too, had been cut off, the regiment by this
+time knew of the tragic fate of some of their comrades, but the colonel
+was mercifully spared all dread that one of the victims was his only
+son.</p>
+
+<p>Nine were in the party when they started. Nine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> bodies were lying there
+when the couriers reached the Springs, and now nine are lying here
+to-night when, just after moonrise, Romney Lee dismounts and bends sadly
+over them, one after another. The prairie wolves have been here first,
+adding mutilation to the butchery of their human prototypes. There is
+little chance, in this pallid light and with these poor remnants, to
+make identification a possibility. All vestiges of uniform, arms, and
+equipment have been carried away, and such underclothing as remains has
+been torn to shreds by the herd of snarling, snapping brutes which is
+driven off only by the rush of the foremost troopers, and is now
+dispersed all over the ca&ntilde;on and far up the heights beyond the outposts,
+yelping indignant protest.</p>
+
+<p>There can be no doubt as to the number slain. All the nine are here, and
+Mr. Lee solemnly pencils the despatch that is to go back to the railway
+so soon as a messenger and his horse can get a few hours' needed rest.
+Before daybreak the man is away, meeting on his lonely ride other
+comrades hurrying to the front, to whom he briefly gives confirmation of
+the first report. Before the setting of the second sun he has reached
+his journey's end, and the telegraph is flashing the mournful details to
+the distant East, and so, when the "Servia" slowly glides from her
+moorings and turns her prow towards the sparkling sea, Nannie McKay is
+sobbing her heart out alone in her little white state-room, crushing
+with her kisses, bathing with her tears, the love-knot she had given her
+soldier boy less than a year before.</p>
+
+<p>Another night comes around. Tiny fires are glowing down in the dark
+depths of Black Ca&ntilde;on, showing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> red through the frosty gleam of the
+moonlight. Under the silvery rays nine new-made graves are ranked along
+the turf, guarded by troopers whose steeds are browsing close at hand.
+Silence and sadness reign in the little bivouac where Lee and his
+comrades await the coming of the train they had left three days before.
+It will be here on the morrow, early, and then they must push ahead and
+bear their heavy tidings to the regiment. He has written one sorrowing
+letter&mdash;and what a letter to have to write to the woman he loves!&mdash;to
+tell Miriam that he has been unable to identify any one of the bodies as
+that of her gallant young brother, yet is compelled to believe him to
+lie there, one of the stricken nine. And now he must face the father
+with this bitter news! Romney Lee's sore heart fails him at the
+prospect, and he cannot sleep. Good heaven! <i>Can</i> it be that three weeks
+only have passed away since the night of that lovely yet ill-fated
+carriage-ride down through Highland Falls, down beyond picturesque
+Hawkshurst?</p>
+
+<p>Out on the bluffs, though he cannot see them, and up and down the ca&ntilde;on,
+vigilant sentries guard this solemn bivouac. No sign of Indian has been
+seen except the hoof-prints of a score of ponies and the bloody relics
+of their direful visit. No repetition of the signal-smokes has greeted
+their watchful eyes. It looks as though this outlying band of warriors
+had noted his coming, had sent up their warning to others of their
+tribe, and then scattered for the mountains at the south. All the same,
+as he rode the bluff lines at nightfall, Mr. Lee had charged the
+sentries to be alert with eye and ear, and to allow none to approach
+unchallenged.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The weary night wears on. The young moon has ridden down in the west and
+sunk behind that distant bluff line. All is silent as the graves around
+which his men are slumbering, and at last, worn with sorrow and vigil,
+Lee rolls himself in his blanket and, still booted and spurred,
+stretches his feet towards the little watch-fire, and pillows his head
+upon the saddle. Down the stream the horses are already beginning to tug
+at their lariats and struggle to their feet, that they may crop the
+dew-moistened bunch grass. Far out upon the chill night air the yelping
+challenge of the coyotes is heard, but the sentries give no sign.
+Despite grief and care, Nature asserts her sway and is fast lulling Lee
+to sleep, when, away up on the heights to the northwest, there leaps out
+a sudden lurid flash and, a second after, the loud ring of the cavalry
+carbine comes echoing down the ca&ntilde;on. Lee springs to his feet and seizes
+his rifle. The first shot is quickly followed by a second; the men are
+tumbling up from their blankets and, with the instinct of old
+campaigners, thrusting cartridges into the opened chambers.</p>
+
+<p>"Keep your men together here, sergeant," is the brief order, and in a
+moment more Lee is spurring upward along an old game trail. Just under
+the crest he overtakes a sergeant hurrying northward.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it? Who fired?" he asks.</p>
+
+<p>"Morris fired, sir: I don't know why. He is the farthest post up the
+bluffs."</p>
+
+<p>Together they reach a young trooper, crouching in the pallid dawn behind
+a jagged parapet of rock, and eagerly demanded the cause of the alarm.
+The sentry is quivering with excitement.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"An Indian, sir! Not a hundred yards out there! I seen him plain enough
+to swear to it. He rose up from behind that point yonder and started out
+over the prairie, and I up and fired."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you challenge?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir," answers the young soldier, simply. "He was going away. He
+couldn't understand me if I had,&mdash;leastwise I couldn't 'a understood
+him. He ran like a deer the moment I fired, and was out of sight almost
+before I could send another shot."</p>
+
+<p>Lee and the sergeant push out along the crest, their arms at "ready,"
+their keen eyes searching every dip in the surface. Close to the edge of
+the ca&ntilde;on, perhaps a hundred yards away, they come upon a little ledge,
+behind which, under the bluff, it is possible for an Indian to steal
+unnoticed towards their sentries and to peer into the depths below. Some
+one has been here within a few minutes, watching, stretched prone upon
+the turf, for Lee finds it dry and almost warm, while all around the
+bunch grass is heavy with dew. Little by little as the light grows
+warmer in the east and aids them in their search, they can almost trace
+the outline of a recumbent human form. Presently the west wind begins to
+blow with greater strength, and they note the mass of clouds, gray and
+frowning, that is banked against the sky. Out on the prairie not a
+moving object can be seen, though the eye can reach a good rifle-shot
+away. Down in the darkness of the ca&ntilde;on the watch-fires still smoulder
+and the men still wait. There comes no further order from the heights.
+Lee, with the sergeant, is now bending over faint footprints just
+discernible in the pallid light.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Suddenly up he starts and gazes eagerly out to the west. The sergeant,
+too, at the same instant, leaps towards his commander. Distant, but
+distinct, two quick shots have been fired far over among those tumbling
+buttes and ridges lying there against the horizon. Before either man
+could speak or question, there comes another, then another, then two or
+three in quick succession, the sound of firing thick and fast.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a fight, sir, sure!" cries the sergeant, eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"To horse, then,&mdash;quick!" is the answer, as the two soldiers bound back
+to the trail.</p>
+
+<p>"Saddle up, men!" rings the order, shouted down the rocky flanks of the
+ravine. There is instant response in the neigh of excited horses, the
+clatter of iron-shod hoofs. Through the dim light the men go rushing,
+saddles and bridles in hand, each to where he has driven his own picket
+pin. Promptly the steeds are girthed and bitted. Promptly the men come
+running back to the bivouac, seizing and slinging carbines, then leading
+into line. A brief word of command, another of caution, and then the
+whole troop is mounted and, following its leader, rides ghost-like up a
+winding ravine that enters the ca&ntilde;on from the west and goes spurring to
+the high plateau beyond. Once there the eager horses have ample room;
+the springing turf invites their speed. "Front into line" they sweep at
+rapid gallop, and then, with Lee well out before them, with carbines
+advanced, with hearts beating high, with keen eyes flashing, and every
+ear strained for sound of the fray, away they bound. There's a fight
+ahead! Some one needs their aid, and there's not a man in all old "B"
+troop who does not mean<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> to avenge those new-made graves. Up a little
+slope they ride, all eyes fixed on Lee. They see him reach the ridge,
+sweep gallantly over, then, with ringing cheer, turn in saddle, wave his
+revolver high in air, clap spur to his horse's flank and go darting down
+the other side.</p>
+
+<p>"Come <i>on</i>, lads!"</p>
+
+<p>Ay, on it is! One wild race for the crest, one headland charge down the
+slope beyond, and they are rolling over a band of yelling, scurrying,
+savage horsemen, whirling them away over the opposite ridge, driving
+them helter-skelter over the westward prairie, until all who escape the
+shock of the onset or the swift bullet in the raging chase finally
+vanish from their sight; and then, obedient to the ringing "recall" of
+the trumpet, slowly they return, gathering again in the little ravine;
+and there, wondering, rejoicing, jubilant, they cluster at the entrance
+of a deep cleft in the rocks, where, bleeding from a bullet-wound in the
+arm, but with a world of thankfulness and joy in his handsome face,
+their leader stands, clasping Philip Stanley, pallid, faint, well-nigh
+starved, but&mdash;God be praised!&mdash;safe and unscathed.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+<h2><a name="CAPTURED" id="CAPTURED"></a>CAPTURED.</h2>
+
+
+<p>How the tidings of that timely rescue thrill through every heart at old
+Fort Warrener! There are gathered the wives and children of the
+regiment. There is the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> colonel's home, silent and darkened for that one
+long week, then ringing with joy and congratulation, with gladness and
+thanksgiving. Miriam again is there, suddenly lifted from the depths of
+sorrow to a wealth of bliss she had no words to express. Day and night
+the little army coterie flocked about her to hear again and again the
+story of Philip's peril and his final rescue, and then to exclaim over
+Romney Lee's gallantry and devotion. It was all so bewildering. For a
+week they had mourned their colonel's only son as dead and buried. The
+wondrous tale of his discovery sounded simply fabulous, and yet was
+simply true. Hurrying forward from the railway, the little party had
+been joined by two young frontiersmen eager to obtain employment with
+the scouts of Stanley's column. Halting just at sunset for brief rest at
+Box Elder Springs, the lieutenant with Sergeant Harris had climbed the
+bluffs to search for Indian signal fires. It was nearly dark when on
+their return they were amazed to hear the sound of fire-arms in the
+ca&ntilde;on, and were themselves suddenly attacked and completely cut off from
+their comrades. Stanley's horse was shot; but Sergeant Harris, though
+himself wounded, helped his young officer to mount behind him, and
+galloped back into the darkness, where they evaded their pursuers by
+turning loose their horse and groping in among the rocks. Here they hid
+all night and all next day in the deep cleft where Lee had found them,
+listening to the shouts and signals of a swarm of savage foes. At last
+the sounds seemed to die away, the Indians to disappear, and then
+hunger, thirst, and the feverish delirium of the sergeant, who was
+tortured for want of water,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> drove Stanley forth in hopes of reaching
+the ca&ntilde;on. Fired at, as he supposed, by Indians, he was speedily back in
+his lair again, but was there almost as speedily tracked and besieged.
+For a while he was able to keep the foe at bay, but Lee had come just in
+the nick of time; only two cartridges were left, and poor Harris was
+nearly gone.</p>
+
+<p>A few weeks later, while the &mdash;th is still on duty rounding up the
+Indians in the mountains, the wounded are brought home to Warrener.
+There are not many, for only the first detachment of two small troops
+had had any serious engagement; but the surgeons say that Mr. Lee's arm
+is so badly crippled that he can do no field work for several months,
+and he had best go in to the railway. And now he is at Warrener; and
+here, one lovely moonlit summer's evening, he is leaning on the gate in
+front of the colonel's quarters, utterly regardless of certain
+injunctions as to avoiding exposure to the night air. Good Mrs. Wilton,
+the major's wife,&mdash;who, army fashion, is helping Miriam keep house in
+her father's absence,&mdash;has gone in before "to light up," she says,
+though it is too late for callers; and they have been spending a long
+evening at Captain Gregg's, "down the row." It is Miriam who keeps the
+tall lieutenant at the gate. She has said good-night, yet lingers. He
+has been there several days, his arm still in its sling, and not once
+has she had a word with him alone till now. Some one has told her that
+he has asked for leave of absence to go East and settle some business
+affairs he had to leave abruptly when hurrying to take part in the
+campaign. If this be true is it not time to be making her peace?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The moonlight throws a brilliant sheen on all surrounding objects, yet
+she stands in the shade, bowered in a little archway of vines that
+overhangs the gate. He has been strangely silent during the brief walk
+homeward, and now, so far from following into the shadows as she half
+hoped he might do, he stands without, the flood of moonlight falling
+full upon his stalwart figure. Two months ago he would not thus have
+held aloof, yet now he is half extending his hand as though in adieu.
+She cannot fathom this strange silence on the part of him who so long
+has been devoted as a lover. She knows well it cannot be because of her
+injustice to him at the Point that he is unrelenting now. Her eyes have
+told him how earnestly she repents: and does he not always read her
+eyes? Only in faltering words, in the presence of others all too
+interested, has she been able to speak her thanks for Philip's rescue.
+She cannot see now that what he fears from her change of mood is that
+gratitude for her brother's safety, not a woman's response to the
+passionate love in his deep heart, is the impulse of this sweet,
+half-shy, half-entreating manner. He cannot sue for love from a girl
+weighted with a sense of obligation. He knows that lingering here is
+dangerous, yet he cannot go. When friends are silent 'tis time for chats
+to close: but there is a silence that at such a time as this only bids a
+man to speak, and speak boldly. Yet Lee is dumb.</p>
+
+<p>Once&mdash;over a year ago&mdash;he had come to the colonel's quarters to seek
+permission to visit the neighboring town on some sudden errand. She had
+met him at the door with the tidings that her father had been feeling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>
+far from well during the morning, and was now taking a nap.</p>
+
+<p>"Won't I do for commanding officer this time?" she had laughingly
+inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"I would ask no better fate&mdash;for all time," was his prompt reply, and he
+spoke too soon. Though neither ever forgot the circumstance, she would
+never again permit allusion to it. But to-night it is uppermost in her
+mind. She <i>must</i> know if it be true that he is going.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me," she suddenly asks, "have you applied for leave of absence?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he answers, simply.</p>
+
+<p>"And you are going&mdash;soon?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am going to-morrow," is the utterly unlooked-for reply.</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow! Why&mdash;Mr. Lee!"</p>
+
+<p>There can be no mistaking the shock it gives her, and still he stands
+and makes no sign. It is cruel of him! What has she said or done to
+deserve penance like this? He is still holding out his hand as though in
+adieu, and she lays hers, fluttering, in the broad palm.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I thought all applications had to be made to&mdash;your commanding
+officer," she says at last, falteringly, yet archly.</p>
+
+<p>"Major Wilton forwarded mine on Monday. I asked him to say nothing about
+it. The answer came by wire to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"Major Wilton is <i>post</i> commander; but&mdash;did you not&mdash;a year&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Did I not?" he speaks in eager joy. "Do you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> mean you have not
+forgotten <i>that</i>? Do you mean that now&mdash;for all time&mdash;my first
+allegiance shall be to you, Miriam?"</p>
+
+<p>No answer for a minute; but her hand is still firmly clasped in his. At
+last,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you think you ought to have asked me, before applying for leave
+to go?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Lee is suddenly swallowed up in the gloom of that shaded bower under
+the trellis-work, though a radiance as of mid-day is shining through his
+heart.</p>
+
+<p>But soon he has to go. Mrs. Wilton is on the veranda, urging them to
+come in out of the chill night air. Those papers on his desk must be
+completed and filed this very night. He told her this.</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow, early, I will be here," he murmurs. "And now, good-night, my
+own."</p>
+
+<p>But she does not seek to draw her hand away. Slowly he moves back into
+the bright moonbeams and she follows part way. One quick glance she
+gives as her hand is released and he raises his forage cap. It is <i>such</i>
+a disadvantage to have but one arm at such a time! She sees that Mrs.
+Wilton is at the other end of the veranda.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night," she whispers. "I&mdash;know you <i>must</i> go."</p>
+
+<p>"I must. There is so much to be done."</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;thought"&mdash;another quick glance at the piazza&mdash;"that a soldier, on
+leaving, should&mdash;salute his commanding officer?"</p>
+
+<p>And Romney Lee is again in shadow and&mdash;in sunshine.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span></p><hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Late that autumn, in one of his infrequent letters to his devoted
+mother, Mr. McKay finds time to allude to the news of Lieutenant Lee's
+approaching marriage to Miss Stanley.</p>
+
+<p>"Phil is, of course, immensely pleased," he writes, "and from all I hear
+I suppose Mr. Lee is a very different fellow from what we thought six
+months ago. Pennock says I always had a wrong idea of him; but Pennock
+thinks all my ideas about the officers appointed over me are absurd. He
+likes old Pelican, our battery commander, who is just the crankiest,
+crabbedest, sore-headedest captain in all the artillery, and that is
+saying a good deal. I wish I'd got into the cavalry at the start; but
+there's no use in trying now. The &mdash;th is the only regiment I wanted;
+but they have to go to reveille and stables before breakfast, which
+wouldn't suit me at all.</p>
+
+<p>"Hope Nan's better. A winter in the Riviera will set her up again.
+Stanley asks after her when he writes, but he has rather dropped me of
+late. I suppose it's because I was too busy to answer, though he ought
+to know that in New York harbor a fellow has no time for scribbling,
+whereas, out on the plains they have nothing else to do. He sent me his
+picture a while ago, and I tell you he has improved wonderfully. Such a
+swell moustache! I meant to have sent it over for you and Nan to see,
+but I've mislaid it somewhere."</p>
+
+<p>Poor little Nan! She would give many of her treasures for one peep at
+the coveted picture that Will holds so lightly. There had been temporary
+improvement in her health at the time Uncle Jack came with the joyous
+tidings that Stanley was safe after all; but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> even the Riviera fails to
+restore her wonted spirits. She droops visibly during the long winter.
+"She grows so much older away from Willy," says the fond mamma, to whom
+proximity to that vivacious youth is the acme of earthly bliss. Uncle
+Jack grins and says nothing. It is dawning upon him that something is
+needed besides the air and sunshine of the Riviera to bring back the
+dancing light in those sweet blue eyes and joy to the wistful little
+face.</p>
+
+<p>"The time to see the Yosemite and 'the glorious climate of California'
+is April, not October," he suddenly declares, one balmy morning by the
+Mediterranean; "and the sooner we get back to Yankeedom the better
+'twill suit me."</p>
+
+<p>And so it happens that, early in the month of meteorological smiles and
+tears, the trio are speeding westward far across the rolling prairies:
+Mrs. McKay deeply scandalized at the heartless conduct of the War
+Department in refusing Willy a two-months' leave to go with them; Uncle
+Jack quizzically disposed to look upon that calamity as a not utterly
+irretrievable ill; and Nan, fluttering with hope, fear, joy, and dread,
+all intermingled; for is not <i>he</i> stationed at Cheyenne? All these long
+months has she cherished that little knot of senseless ribbon. If she
+had sent it to him within the week of his graduation, perhaps it would
+not have seemed amiss; but after that, after all he had been through in
+the campaign,&mdash;the long months of silence,&mdash;he might have changed, and,
+for very shame, she cannot bring herself to give a signal he would
+perhaps no longer wish to obey. Every hour her excitement and
+nervousness increase; but when the conductor of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> Pullman comes to
+say that Cheyenne is really in sight, and the long whistle tells that
+they are nearing the dinner station of those days, Nan simply loses
+herself entirely. There will be half an hour, and Philip actually there
+to see, to hear, to answer. She hardly knows whether she is of this
+mortal earth when Uncle Jack comes bustling in with the gray-haired
+colonel, when she feels Miriam's kiss upon her cheek, when Mr. Lee,
+handsomer and kindlier than ever, bends down to take her hand; but she
+looks beyond them all for the face she longs for,&mdash;and it is not there.
+The
+<a name="corr3" id="corr3"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn3" title="changed from 'car-seems'">car seems</a>
+whirling around when, from over her shoulder, she hears,
+in the old, well-remembered tones, a voice that redoubles the throb of
+her little heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Nannie!"</p>
+
+<p>And there&mdash;bending over her, his face aglow, and looking marvellously
+well in his cavalry uniform&mdash;is Philip Stanley. She knows not what she
+says. She has prepared something proper and conventional, but it has all
+fled. She looks one instant up into his shining eyes, and there is no
+need to speak at all. Every one else is so busy that no one sees, no one
+knows, that he is firmly clinging to her hand, and that she shamelessly
+and passively submits.</p>
+
+<p>A little later&mdash;just as the train is about to start&mdash;they are standing
+at the rear door of the sleeper. The band of the &mdash;th is playing some
+distance up the platform,&mdash;a thoughtful device of Mr. Lee's to draw the
+crowd that way,&mdash;and they are actually alone. An exquisite happiness is
+in her eyes as she peers up into the love-light in his strong, steadfast
+face. <i>Something</i> must have been said; for he draws her close to his
+side and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> bends over her as though all the world were wrapped up in this
+dainty little morsel of womanhood. Suddenly the great train begins
+slowly to move. Part they must now, though it be only for a time. He
+folds her quickly, unresisting, to his breast. The sweet blue eyes begin
+to fill.</p>
+
+<p>"My darling,&mdash;my little Nannie," he whispers, as his lips kiss away the
+gathering tears. "There is just an instant. What is it you tell me you
+have kept for me?"</p>
+
+<p>"This," she answers, shyly placing in his hand a little packet wrapped
+in tissue-paper. "Don't look at it yet! Wait!&mdash;But&mdash;I wanted to send
+it&mdash;the very next day, Philip."</p>
+
+<p>Slowly he turns her blushing face until he can look into her eyes. The
+glory in his proud, joyous gaze is a delight to see. "My own little
+girl," he whispers, as his lips meet hers. "I know it is my love-knot."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="The_Worst_Man_in_the_Troop" id="The_Worst_Man_in_the_Troop"></a><span class="smcap">The Worst Man in the Troop.</span></h2>
+
+
+<p>Just why that young Irishman should have been so balefully branded was
+more than the first lieutenant of the troop could understand. To be
+sure, the lieutenant's opportunities for observation had been limited.
+He had spent some years on detached service in the East, and had joined
+his comrades in Arizona but a fortnight ago, and here he was already
+becoming rapidly initiated in the science of scouting through
+mountain-wilds against the wariest and most treacherous of foemen,&mdash;the
+Apaches of our Southwestern territory.</p>
+
+<p>Coming, as he had done, direct from a station and duties where
+full-dress uniform, lavish expenditure for kid gloves, bouquets, and
+Lubin's extracts were matters of daily fact, it must be admitted that
+the sensations he experienced on seeing his detachment equipped for the
+scout were those of mild consternation. That much latitude as to
+individual dress and equipment was permitted he had previously been
+informed; that "full dress," and white shirts, collars, and the like
+would be left at home, he had sense enough to know; but that every
+officer and man in the command would be allowed to discard any and all
+portions of the regulation uniform and appear rigged out in just such
+motley guise as his poetic or practical fancy might suggest, had never
+been pointed out to him; and that he, commanding his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> troop while a
+captain commanded the little battalion, could by any military
+possibility take his place in front of his men without his sabre, had
+never for an instant occurred to him. As a consequence, when he bolted
+into the mess-room shortly after daybreak on a bright June morning with
+that imposing but at most times useless item of cavalry equipment
+clanking at his heels, the lieutenant gazed with some astonishment upon
+the attire of his brother-officers there assembled, but found himself
+the butt of much good-natured and not over-witty "chaff," directed
+partially at the extreme newness and neatness of his dark-blue flannel
+scouting-shirt and high-top boots, but more especially at the glittering
+sabre swinging from his waist-belt.</p>
+
+<p>"Billings," said Captain Buxton, with much solemnity, "while you have
+probably learned through the columns of a horror-stricken Eastern press
+that we scalp, alive or dead, all unfortunates who fall into our
+clutches, I assure you that even for that purpose the cavalry sabre has,
+in Arizona at least, outlived its usefulness. It is too long and clumsy,
+you see. What you really want for the purpose is something like
+this,"&mdash;and he whipped out of its sheath a rusty but keen-bladed Mexican
+<i>cuchillo</i>,&mdash;"something you can wield with a deft turn of the wrist, you
+know. The sabre is apt to tear and mutilate the flesh, especially when
+you use both hands." And Captain Buxton winked at the other subaltern
+and felt that he had said a good thing.</p>
+
+<p>But Mr. Billings was a man of considerable good nature and ready
+adaptability to the society or circumstances by which he might be
+surrounded. "Chaff"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> was a very cheap order of wit, and the serenity of
+his disposition enabled him to shake off its effect as readily as water
+is scattered from the plumage of the duck.</p>
+
+<p>"So you don't wear the sabre on a scout? So much the better. I have my
+revolvers and a Sharp's carbine, but am destitute of anything in the
+knife line." And with that Mr. Billings betook himself to the duty of
+despatching the breakfast that was already spread before him in an array
+tempting enough to a frontier appetite, but little designed to attract a
+<i>bon vivant</i> of civilization. Bacon, <i>frijoles</i>, and creamless coffee
+speedily become ambrosia and nectar under the influence of mountain-air
+and mountain-exercise; but Mr. Billings had as yet done no climbing. A
+"buck-board" ride had been his means of transportation to the
+garrison,&mdash;a lonely four-company post in a far-away valley in
+Northeastern Arizona,&mdash;and in the three or four days of intense heat
+that had succeeded his arrival exercise of any kind had been out of the
+question. It was with no especial regret, therefore, that he heard the
+summons of the captain, "Hurry up, man; we must be off in ten minutes."
+And in less than ten minutes the lieutenant was on his horse and
+superintending the formation of his troop.</p>
+
+<p>If Mr. Billings was astonished at the garb of his brother-officers at
+breakfast, he was simply aghast when he glanced along the line of
+Company "A" (as his command was at that time officially designated) and
+the first sergeant rode out to report his men present or accounted for.
+The first sergeant himself was got up in an old gray-flannel shirt, open
+at and disclosing a broad, brown throat and neck; his head was crowned
+with what had once been a white felt <i>sombrero</i>, now tanned by desert<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>
+sun, wind, and dirt into a dingy mud-color; his powerful legs were
+encased in worn deer-skin breeches tucked into low-topped, broad-soled,
+well-greased boots; his waist was girt with a rude "thimble-belt," in
+the loops of which were thrust scores of copper cartridges for carbine
+and pistol; his carbine, and those of all the command, swung in a
+leather loop athwart the pommel of the saddle; revolvers in all manner
+of cases hung at the hip, the regulation holster, in most instances,
+being conspicuous by its absence. Indeed, throughout the entire command
+the remarkable fact was to be noted that a company of regular cavalry,
+taking the field against hostile Indians, had discarded pretty much
+every item of dress or equipment prescribed or furnished by the
+authorities of the United States, and had supplied themselves with an
+outfit utterly ununiform, unpicturesque, undeniably slouchy, but not
+less undeniably appropriate and serviceable. Not a forage-cap was to be
+seen, not a "campaign-hat" of the style then prescribed by a board of
+officers that might have known something of hats, but never could have
+had an idea on the subject of campaigns. Fancy that black enormity of
+weighty felt, with flapping brim well-nigh a foot in width, absorbing
+the fiery heat of an Arizona sun, and concentrating the burning rays
+upon the cranium of its unhappy wearer! No such head-gear would our
+troopers suffer in the days when General Crook led them through the
+ca&ntilde;ons and deserts of that inhospitable Territory. Regardless of
+appearances or style himself, seeking only comfort in his dress, the
+chief speedily found means to indicate that, in Apache-campaigning at
+least, it was to be a case of "<i>inter arma silent leges</i>"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> in dead
+earnest; for, freely translated, the old saw read, "No red-tape when
+Indian-fighting."</p>
+
+<p>Of much of this Lieutenant Billings was only partially informed, and so,
+as has been said, he was aghast when he marked the utter absence of
+uniform and the decidedly variegated appearance of his troop. Deerskin,
+buckskin, canvas, and flannels, leggings, moccasins, and the like,
+constituted the bill of dress, and old soft felt hats, originally white,
+the head-gear. If spurs were worn at all, they were of the Mexican
+variety, easy to kick off, but sure to stay on when wanted. Only two men
+wore carbine sling-belts, and Mr. Billings was almost ready to hunt up
+his captain and inquire if by any possibility the men could be
+attempting to "put up a joke on him," when the captain himself appeared,
+looking little if any more like the ideal soldier than his men, and the
+perfectly satisfied expression on his face as he rode easily around,
+examining closely the horses of the command, paying especial attention
+to their feet and the shoes thereof, convinced the lieutenant that all
+was as it was expected to be, if not as it should be, and he swallowed
+his surprise and held his peace. Another moment, and Captain Wayne's
+troop came filing past in column of twos, looking, if anything, rougher
+than his own.</p>
+
+<p>"You follow right after Wayne," said Captain Buxton; and with no further
+formality Mr. Billings, in a perfunctory sort of way, wheeled his men to
+the right by fours, broke into column of twos, and closed up on the
+leading troop.</p>
+
+<p>Buxton was in high glee on this particular morning in June. He had done
+very little Indian scouting, had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> been but moderately successful in what
+he had undertaken, and now, as luck would have it, the necessity arose
+for sending something more formidable than a mere detachment down into
+the Tonto Basin, in search of a powerful band of Apaches who had broken
+loose from the reservation and were taking refuge in the foot-hills of
+the Black Mesa or among the wilds of the Sierra Ancha. As senior captain
+of the two, Buxton became commander of the entire force,&mdash;two
+well-filled troops of regular cavalry, some thirty Indian allies as
+scouts, and a goodly-sized train of pack-mules, with its full complement
+of packers, <i>cargadors</i>, and blacksmiths. He fully anticipated a lively
+fight, possibly a series of them, and a triumphant return to his post,
+where hereafter he would be looked up to and quoted as an expert and
+authority on Apache-fighting. He knew just where the hostiles lay, and
+was going straight to the point to flatten them out forthwith; and so
+the little command moved off under admirable auspices and in the best of
+spirits.</p>
+
+<p>It was a four-days' hard march to the locality where Captain Buxton
+counted on finding his victims; and when on the fourth day, rather tired
+and not particularly enthusiastic, the command bivouacked along the
+banks of a mountain-torrent, a safe distance from the supposed location
+of the Indian stronghold, he sent forward his Apache Mojave allies to
+make a stealthy reconnoissance, feeling confident that soon after
+nightfall they would return with the intelligence that the enemy were
+lazily resting in their "rancheria," all unsuspicious of his approach,
+and that at daybreak he would pounce upon and annihilate them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Soon after nightfall the scouts did return, but their intelligence was
+not so gratifying: a small&mdash;a <i>very</i> small&mdash;band of renegades had been
+encamped in that vicinity some weeks before, but not a "hostile" or sign
+of a hostile was to be found. Captain Buxton hardly slept that night,
+from disappointment and mortification, and when he went the following
+day to investigate for himself he found that he had been on a false
+scent from the start, and this made him crabbed. A week's hunt through
+the mountains resulted in no better luck, and now, having had only
+fifteen days' rations at the outset, he was most reluctantly and
+savagely marching homeward to report his failure.</p>
+
+<p>But Mr. Billings had enjoyed the entire trip. Sleeping in the open air
+without other shelter than their blankets afforded, scouting by day in
+single file over miles of mere game-trails, up hill and down dale
+through the wildest and most dolefully-picturesque scenery he "at least"
+had ever beheld, under frowning cliffs and beetling crags, through dense
+forests of pine and juniper, through mountain-torrents swollen with the
+melting snows of the crests so far above them, through ca&ntilde;ons, deep,
+dark, and gloomy, searching ever for traces of the foe they were ordered
+to find and fight forthwith, Mr. Billings and his men, having no
+responsibility upon their shoulders, were happy and healthy as possible,
+and consequently in small sympathy with their irate leader.</p>
+
+<p>Every afternoon when they halted beside some one of the hundreds of
+mountain-brooks that came tumbling down from the gorges of the Black
+Mesa, the men were required to look carefully at the horses' backs<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> and
+feet, for mountain Arizona is terrible on shoes, equine or human. This
+had to be done before the herds were turned out to graze with their
+guard around them; and often some of the men would get a wisp of straw
+or a suitable wipe of some kind, and thoroughly rub down their steeds.
+Strolling about among them, as he always did at this time, our
+lieutenant had noticed a slim but trimly-built young Irishman whose care
+of and devotion to his horse it did him good to see. No matter how long
+the march, how severe the fatigue, that horse was always looked after,
+his grazing-ground pre-empted by a deftly-thrown picket-pin and lariat
+which secured to him all the real estate that could be surveyed within
+the circle of which the pin was the centre and the lariat the
+radius-vector.</p>
+
+<p>Between horse and master the closest comradeship seemed to exist; the
+trooper had a way of softly singing or talking to his friend as he
+rubbed him down, and Mr. Billings was struck with the expression and
+taste with which the little soldier&mdash;for he was only five feet
+five&mdash;would render "Molly Bawn" and "Kitty Tyrrell." Except when thus
+singing or exchanging confidences with his steed, he was strangely
+silent and reserved; he ate his rations among the other men, yet rarely
+spoke with them, and he would ride all day through country marvellous
+for wild beauty and be the only man in the command who did not allow
+himself to give vent to some expression of astonishment or delight.</p>
+
+<p>"What is that man's name?" asked Mr. Billings of the first sergeant one
+evening.</p>
+
+<p>"O'Grady, sir," replied the sergeant, with his sol<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>dierly salute; and a
+little later, as Captain Buxton was fretfully complaining to his
+subaltern of the ill fortune that seemed to overshadow his best efforts,
+the latter, thinking to cheer him and to divert his attention from his
+trouble, referred to the troop:</p>
+
+<p>"Why, captain, I don't think I ever saw a finer set of men than you
+have&mdash;anywhere. Now, <i>there's</i> a little fellow who strikes me as being a
+perfect light-cavalry soldier." And the lieutenant indicated his young
+Irishman.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mean O'Grady?" asked the captain in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir,&mdash;the very one."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, he's the worst man in the troop."</p>
+
+<p>For a moment Mr. Billings knew not what to say. His captain had spoken
+with absolute harshness and dislike in his tone of the one soldier of
+all others who seemed to be the most quiet, attentive, and alert of the
+troop. He had noticed, too, that the sergeants and the men generally, in
+speaking to O'Grady, were wont to fall into a kindlier tone than usual,
+and, though they sometimes squabbled among themselves over the choice of
+patches of grass for their horses, O'Grady's claim was never questioned,
+much less "jumped." Respect for his superior's rank would not permit the
+lieutenant to argue the matter; but, desiring to know more about the
+case, he spoke again:</p>
+
+<p>"I am very sorry to hear it. His care of his horse and his quiet ways
+impressed me so favorably."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, d&mdash;n him!" broke in Captain Buxton. "Horses and whiskey are
+the only things on earth he cares for. As to quiet ways, there isn't a
+worse devil<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> at large than O'Grady with a few drinks in him. When I came
+back from two years' recruiting detail he was a sergeant in the troop. I
+never knew him before, but I soon found he was addicted to drink, and
+after a while had to 'break' him; and one night when he was raising hell
+in the quarters, and I ordered him into the dark cell, he turned on me
+like a tiger. By Jove! if it hadn't been for some of the men he would
+have killed me,&mdash;or I him. He was tried by court-martial, but most of
+the detail was made up of infantrymen and staff-officers from Crook's
+head-quarters, and, by &mdash;&mdash;! they didn't seem to think it any sin for a
+soldier to threaten to cut his captain's heart out, and Crook himself
+gave me a sort of a rap in his remarks on the case, and&mdash;well, they just
+let O'Grady off scot-free between them, gave him some little fine, and
+did more harm than good. He's just as surly and insolent now when I
+speak to him as he was that night when drunk. Here, I'll show you." And
+with that Captain Buxton started off towards the herd, Mr. Billings
+obediently following, but feeling vaguely ill at ease. He had never met
+Captain Buxton before, but letters from his comrades had prepared him
+for experiences not altogether pleasant. A good soldier in some
+respects, Captain Buxton bore the reputation of having an almost
+ungovernable temper, of being at times brutally violent in his language
+and conduct towards his men, and, worse yet, of bearing ill-concealed
+malice, and "nursing his wrath to keep it warm" against such of his
+enlisted men as had ever ventured to appeal for justice. The captain
+stopped on reaching the outskirts of the quietly-grazing herd.</p>
+
+<p>"Corporal," said he to the non-commissioned officer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> in charge, "isn't
+that O'Grady's horse off there to the left?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Go and tell O'Grady to come here."</p>
+
+<p>The corporal saluted and went off on his errand.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Mr. Billings," said the captain, "I have repeatedly given orders
+that my horses must be side-lined when we are in the hostiles' country.
+Just come here to the left." And he walked over towards a handsome,
+sturdy little California horse of a bright bay color. "Here, you see, is
+O'Grady's horse, and not a side-line: that's his way of obeying orders.
+More than that, he is never content to have his horse in among the
+others, but must always get away outside, just where he is most apt to
+be run off by any Indian sharp and quick enough to dare it. Now, here
+comes O'Grady. Watch him, if you want to see him in his true light."</p>
+
+<p>Standing beside his superior, Mr. Billings looked towards the
+approaching trooper, who, with a quick, springy step, advanced to within
+a few yards of them, then stopped short and, erect and in silence,
+raised his hand in salute, and with perfectly respectful demeanor looked
+straight at his captain.</p>
+
+<p>In a voice at once harsh and distinctly audible over the entire bivouac,
+with frowning brow and angry eyes, Buxton demanded,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"O'Grady, where are your side-lines?"</p>
+
+<p>"Over with my blankets, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Over with your blankets, are they? Why in &mdash;&mdash;, sir, are they not here
+on your horse, where they ought to be?" And the captain's voice waxed
+harsher and louder, and his manner more threatening.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I understood the captain's orders to be that they need not go on till
+sunset," replied the soldier, calmly and respectfully, "and I don't like
+to put them on that sore place, sir, until the last moment."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't like to? No sir, I know d&mdash;d well you don't like to obey this or
+any other order I ever gave, and wherever you find a loop-hole through
+which to crawl, and you think you can sneak off unpunished, by &mdash;&mdash;,
+sir, I suppose you will go on disobeying orders. Shut up, sir! not a
+d&mdash;d word!" for tears of mortification were starting to O'Grady's eyes,
+and with flushing face and trembling lip the soldier stood helplessly
+before his troop-commander, and was striving to say a word in further
+explanation.</p>
+
+<p>"Go and get your side-lines at once and bring them here; go at once,
+sir," shouted the captain; and with a lump in his throat the trooper
+saluted, faced about, and walked away.</p>
+
+<p>"He's milder-mannered than usual, d&mdash;n him!" said the captain, turning
+towards his subaltern, who had stood a silent and pained witness of the
+scene. "He knows he is in the wrong and has no excuse; but he'll break
+out yet. Come! step out, you O'Grady!" he yelled after the
+rapidly-walking soldier. "Double time, sir. I can't wait here all
+night." And Mr. Billings noted that silence had fallen on the bivouac so
+full of soldier-chaff and laughter but a moment before, and that the men
+of both troops were intently watching the scene already so painful to
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Obediently O'Grady took up the "dog-trot" required of him, got his
+side-lines, and, running back, knelt beside his horse, and with
+trembling hands adjusted them,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> during which performance Captain Buxton
+stood over him, and, in a tone that grew more and more that of a bully
+as he lashed himself up into a rage, continued his lecture to the man.</p>
+
+<p>The latter finally rose, and, with huge beads of perspiration starting
+out on his forehead, faced his captain.</p>
+
+<p>"May I say a word, sir?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"You may now; but be d&mdash;d careful how you say it," was the reply, with a
+sneer that would have stung an abject slave into a longing for revenge,
+and that grated on Mr. Billings's nerves in a way that made him clinch
+his fists and involuntarily grit his teeth. Could it be that O'Grady
+detected it? One quick, wistful, half-appealing glance flashed from the
+Irishman's eyes towards the subaltern, and then, with evident effort at
+composure, but with a voice that trembled with the pent-up sense of
+wrong and injustice, O'Grady spoke:</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, sir, I had no thought of neglecting orders. I always care for
+my horse; but it wasn't sunset when the captain came out&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Not sunset!" broke in Buxton, with an outburst of profanity. "Not
+sunset! why, it's well-nigh dark now, sir, and every man in the troop
+had side-lined his horse half an hour ago. D&mdash;n your insolence, sir!
+your excuse is worse than your conduct. Mr. Billings, see to it, sir,
+that this man walks and leads his horse in rear of the troop all the way
+back to the post. I'll see, by &mdash;&mdash;! whether he can be taught to obey
+orders." And with that the captain turned and strode away.</p>
+
+<p>The lieutenant stood for an instant stunned,&mdash;simply stunned.
+Involuntarily he made a step towards O'Grady; their eyes met; but the
+restraint of discipline<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> was upon both. In that brief meeting of their
+glances, however, the trooper read a message that was unmistakable.</p>
+
+<p>"Lieutenant&mdash;&mdash;" he said, but stopped abruptly, pointed aloft over the
+trees to the eastward with his right hand, dashed it across his eyes,
+and then, with hurried salute and a choking sort of gurgle in his
+throat, he turned and went back to his comrades.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Billings gazed after the retreating form until it disappeared among
+the trees by the brook-side; then he turned to see what was the meaning
+of the soldier's pointing over towards the <i>mesa</i> to the east.</p>
+
+<p>Down in the deep valley in which the little command had halted for the
+night the pall of darkness had indeed begun to settle; the bivouac-fires
+in the timber threw a lurid glare upon the groups gathering around them
+for supper, and towards the west the rugged upheavals of the Mazatzal
+range stood like a black barrier against the glorious hues of a bank of
+summer cloud. All in the valley spoke of twilight and darkness: the
+birds were still, the voices of the men subdued. So far as local
+indications were concerned, it <i>was</i>&mdash;as Captain Buxton had
+insisted&mdash;almost dark. But square over the gilded tree-tops to the east,
+stretching for miles and miles to their right and left, blazed a
+vertical wall of rock crested with scrub-oak and pine, every boulder,
+every tree, glittering in the radiant light of the invisibly setting
+sun. O'Grady had <i>not</i> disobeyed his orders.</p>
+
+<p>Noting this, Mr. Billings proceeded to take a leisurely stroll through
+the peaceful herd, carefully inspecting each horse as he passed. As a
+result of his scrutiny,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> he found that, while most of the horses were
+already encumbered with their annoying hobble, in "A" Troop alone there
+were at least a dozen still unfettered, notably the mounts of the
+non-commissioned officers and the older soldiers. Like O'Grady, they did
+not wish to inflict the side-line upon their steeds until the last
+moment. Unlike O'Grady, they had not been called to account for it.</p>
+
+<p>When Mr. Billings was summoned to supper, and he rejoined his
+brother-officers, it was remarked that he was more taciturn than usual.
+After that repast had been appreciatively disposed of, and the little
+group with lighted pipes prepared to spend an hour in chat and
+contentment, it was observed that Mr. Billings did not take part in the
+general talk, but that he soon rose, and, out of ear-shot of the
+officers' camp-fire, paced restlessly up and down, with his head bent
+forward, evidently plunged in thought.</p>
+
+<p>By and by the half-dozen broke up and sought their blankets. Captain
+Buxton, somewhat mollified by a good supper, was about rolling into his
+"Navajo," when Mr. Billings stepped up:</p>
+
+<p>"Captain, may I ask for information as to the side-line order? After you
+left this evening, I found that there must be some misunderstanding
+about it."</p>
+
+<p>"How so?" said Buxton, shortly.</p>
+
+<p>"In this, captain;" and Mr. Billings spoke very calmly and distinctly.
+"The first sergeant, several other non-commissioned officers and
+men,&mdash;more than a dozen, I should say,&mdash;did not side-line their horses
+until half an hour after you spoke to O'Grady, and the first sergeant
+assured me, when I called him to account<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> for it, that your orders were
+that it should be done at sunset."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, by &mdash;&mdash;! it was after sunset&mdash;at least it was getting mighty
+dark&mdash;when I sent for that black-guard O'Grady," said Buxton,
+impetuously, "and there is no excuse for the rest of them."</p>
+
+<p>"It was beginning to grow dark down in this deep valley, I know, sir;
+but the tree-tops were in a broad glare of sunlight while we were at the
+herd, and those cliffs for half an hour longer."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Mr. Billings, I don't propose to have any hair-splitting in the
+management of my troop," said the captain, manifestly nettled. "It was
+practically sunset to us when the light began to grow dim, and my men
+know it well enough." And with that he rolled over and turned his back
+to his subaltern.</p>
+
+<p>Disregarding the broad hint to leave, Mr. Billings again spoke:</p>
+
+<p>"Is it your wish, sir, that any punishment should be imposed on the men
+who were equally in fault with O'Grady?"</p>
+
+<p>Buxton muttered something unintelligible from under his blankets.</p>
+
+<p>"I did not understand you, sir," said the lieutenant, very civilly.</p>
+
+<p>Buxton savagely propped himself up on one elbow, and blurted out,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"No, Mr. Billings! no! When I want a man punished I'll give the order
+myself, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"And is it still your wish, sir, that I make O'Grady walk the rest of
+the way?"</p>
+
+<p>For a moment Buxton hesitated; his better nature<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> struggled to assert
+itself and induce him to undo the injustice of his order; but the "cad"
+in his disposition, the weakness of his character, prevailed. It would
+never do to let his lieutenant get the upper hand of him, he argued, and
+so the reply came, and came angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, of course; he deserves it anyhow, by &mdash;&mdash;! and it'll do him good."</p>
+
+<p>Without another word Mr. Billings turned on his heel and left him.</p>
+
+<p>The command returned to garrison, shaved its stubbly beard of two weeks'
+growth, and resumed its uniform and the routine duties of the post.
+Three days only had it been back when Mr. Billings, marching on as
+officer of the day, and receiving the prisoners from his predecessor,
+was startled to hear the list of names wound up with "O'Grady," and when
+that name was called there was no response.</p>
+
+<p>The old officer of the day looked up inquiringly: "Where is O'Grady,
+sergeant?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the cell, sir, unable to come out."</p>
+
+<p>"O'Grady was confined by Captain Buxton's order late last night," said
+Captain Wayne, "and I fancy the poor fellow has been drinking heavily
+this time."</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes after, the reliefs being told off, the prisoners sent out
+to work, and the officers of the day, new and old, having made their
+reports to the commanding officer, Mr. Billings returned to the
+guard-house, and, directing his sergeant to accompany him, proceeded to
+make a deliberate inspection of the premises. The guard-room itself was
+neat, clean, and dry; the garrison prison-room was well ventilated,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> and
+tidy as such rooms ever can be made; the Indian prison-room, despite the
+fact that it was empty and every shutter was thrown wide open to the
+breeze, had that indefinable, suffocating odor which continued
+aboriginal occupancy will give to any apartment; but it was the cells
+Mr. Billings desired to see, and the sergeant led him to a row of
+heavily-barred doors of rough unplaned timber, with a little grating in
+each, and from one of these gratings there peered forth a pair of
+feverishly-glittering eyes, and a face, not bloated and flushed, as with
+recent and heavy potations, but white, haggard, twitching, and a husky
+voice in piteous appeal addressed the sergeant:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, for God's sake, Billy, get me something, or it'll kill me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hush, O'Grady," said the sergeant: "here's the officer of the day."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Billings took one look at the wan face only dimly visible in that
+prison-light, for the poor little man shrank back as he recognized the
+form of his lieutenant:</p>
+
+<p>"Open that door, sergeant."</p>
+
+<p>With alacrity the order was obeyed, and the heavy door swung back upon
+its hinges.</p>
+
+<p>"O'Grady," said the officer of the day, in a tone gentle as that he
+would have employed in speaking to a woman, "come out here to me. I'm
+afraid you are sick."</p>
+
+<p>Shaking, trembling, twitching in every limb, with wild, dilated eyes and
+almost palsied step, O'Grady came out.</p>
+
+<p>"Look to him a moment, sergeant," said Mr. Bil<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>lings, and, bending low,
+he stepped into the cell. The atmosphere was stifling, and in another
+instant he backed out into the hall-way. "Sergeant, was it by the
+commanding officer's order that O'Grady was put in there?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir; Captain Buxton's."</p>
+
+<p>"See that he is not returned there during my tour, unless the orders
+come from Major Stannard. Bring O'Grady into the prison-room."</p>
+
+<p>Here in the purer air and brighter light he looked carefully over the
+poor fellow, as the latter stood before him quivering from head to foot
+and hiding his face in his shaking hands. Then the lieutenant took him
+gently by the arm and led him to a bunk:</p>
+
+<p>"O'Grady, man, lie down here. I'm going to get something that will help
+you. Tell me one thing: how long had you been drinking before you were
+confined?"</p>
+
+<p>"About forty-eight hours, sir, off and on."</p>
+
+<p>"How long since you ate anything?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know, sir; not for two days, I think."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, try and lie still. I'm coming back to you in a very few minutes."</p>
+
+<p>And with that Mr. Billings strode from the room, leaving O'Grady, dazed,
+wonder-stricken, gazing stupidly after him.</p>
+
+<p>The lieutenant went straight to his quarters, took a goodly-sized goblet
+from the painted pine sideboard, and with practised hand proceeded to
+mix therein a beverage in which granulated sugar, Angostura bitters, and
+a few drops of lime-juice entered as minor ingredients, and the coldest
+of spring-water and a brimming<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> measure of whiskey as constituents of
+greater quality and quantity. Filling with this mixture a small
+leather-covered flask, and stowing it away within the breast-pocket of
+his blouse, he returned to the guard-house, musing as he went, "'If this
+be treason,' said Patrick Henry, 'make the most of it.' If this be
+conduct prejudicial, etc., say I, do your d&mdash;dest. That man would be in
+the horrors of jim-jams in half an hour more if it were not for this."
+And so saying to himself, he entered the prison-room, called to the
+sergeant to bring him some cold water, and then approached O'Grady, who
+rose unsteadily and strove to stand attention, but the effort was too
+much, and again he covered his face with his arms, and threw himself in
+utter misery at the foot of the bunk.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Billings drew the flask from his pocket, and, touching O'Grady's
+shoulder, caused him to raise his head:</p>
+
+<p>"Drink this, my lad. I would not give it to you at another time, but you
+need it now."</p>
+
+<p>Eagerly it was seized, eagerly drained, and then, after he had swallowed
+a long draught of the water, O'Grady slowly rose to his feet, looking,
+with eyes rapidly softening and losing their wild glare, upon the young
+officer who stood before him. Once or twice he passed his hands across
+his forehead, as though to sweep away the cobwebs that pressed upon his
+brain, but for a moment he did not essay a word. Little by little the
+color crept back to his cheek; and, noting this, Mr. Billings smiled
+very quietly, and said, "Now, O'Grady, lie down; you will be able to
+sleep now until the men come in at noon; then you shall have another
+drink, and you'll be able<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> to eat what I send you. If you cannot sleep,
+call the sergeant of the guard; or if you want anything, I'll come to
+you."</p>
+
+<p>Then, with tears starting to his eyes, the soldier found words: "I thank
+the lieutenant. If I live a thousand years, sir, this will never be
+forgotten,&mdash;never, sir! I'd have gone crazy without your help, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Billings held out his hand, and, taking that of his prisoner, gave
+it a cordial grip: "That's all right, O'Grady. Try to sleep now, and
+we'll pull you through. Good-by, for the present." And, with a heart
+lighter, somehow, than it had been of late, the lieutenant left.</p>
+
+<p>At noon that day, when the prisoners came in from labor and the
+officer's of the day inspected their general condition before permitting
+them to go to their dinner, the sergeant of the guard informed him that
+O'Grady had slept quietly almost all the morning, but was then awake and
+feeling very much better, though still weak and nervous.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think he can walk over to my quarters?" asked Mr. Billings.</p>
+
+<p>"He will try it, sir, or anything the lieutenant wants him to try."</p>
+
+<p>"Then send him over in about ten minutes."</p>
+
+<p>Home once more, Mr. Billings started a tiny blaze in his oil-stove, and
+soon had a kettle of water boiling merrily. Sharp to time a member of
+the guard tapped at the door, and, on being bidden "Come in," entered,
+ushering in O'Grady; but meantime, by the aid of a little pot of
+meat-juice and some cayenne pepper, a glass of hot soup or beef-tea had
+been prepared, and, with some dainty slices of potted chicken and the
+accompani<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>ments of a cup of fragrant tea and some ship-biscuit, was in
+readiness on a little table in the back room.</p>
+
+<p>Telling the sentinel to remain in the shade on the piazza, the
+lieutenant proceeded first to make O'Grady sit down in a big wicker
+arm-chair, for the man in his broken condition was well-nigh exhausted
+by his walk across the glaring parade in the heat of an Arizona noonday
+sun. Then he mixed and administered the counterpart of the beverage he
+had given his prisoner-patient in the morning, only in point of potency
+it was an evident falling off, but sufficient for the purpose, and in a
+few minutes O'Grady was able to swallow his breakfast with evident
+relish, meekly and unhesitatingly obeying every suggestion of his
+superior.</p>
+
+<p>His breakfast finished, O'Grady was then conducted into a cool, darkened
+apartment, a back room in the lieutenant's quarters.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, pull off your boots and outer clothing, man, spread yourself on
+that bed, and go to sleep, if you can. If you can't, and you want to
+read, there are books and papers on that shelf; pin up the blanket on
+the window, and you'll have light enough. You shall not be disturbed,
+and I know you won't attempt to leave."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, sir, I won't," began O'Grady, eagerly; but the lieutenant had
+vanished, closing the door after him, and a minute later the soldier had
+thrown himself upon the cool, white bed, and was crying like a tired
+child.</p>
+
+<p>Three or four weeks after this incident, to the small regret of his
+troop and the politely-veiled indifference of the commissioned element
+of the garrison, Captain Buxton concluded to avail himself of a
+long-deferred "leave," and turned over his company property to Mr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>
+Billings in a condition that rendered it necessary for him to do a thing
+that "ground" him, so to speak: he had to ask several favors of his
+lieutenant, between whom and himself there had been no cordiality since
+the episode of the bivouac, and an open rupture since Mr. Billings's
+somewhat eventful tour as officer of the day, which has just been
+described.</p>
+
+<p>It appeared that O'Grady had been absent from no duty (there were no
+drills in that scorching June weather), but that, yielding to the advice
+of his comrades, who knew that he had eaten nothing for two days and was
+drinking steadily into a condition that would speedily bring punishment
+upon him, he had asked permission to be sent to the hospital, where,
+while he could get no liquor, there would be no danger attendant upon
+his sudden stop of all stimulant. The first sergeant carried his request
+with the sick-book to Captain Buxton, O'Grady meantime managing to take
+two or three more pulls at the bottle, and Buxton, instead of sending
+him to the hospital, sent for him, inspected him, and did what he had no
+earthly authority to do, directed the sergeant of the guard to confine
+him at once in the dark cell.</p>
+
+<p>"It will be no punishment as he is now," said Buxton to himself, "but it
+will be hell when he wakes."</p>
+
+<p>And so it had been; and far worse it probably would have been but for
+Mr. Billings's merciful interference.</p>
+
+<p>Expecting to find his victim in a condition bordering upon the abject
+and ready to beg for mercy at any sacrifice of pluck or pride, Buxton
+had gone to the guard-house soon after retreat and told the sergeant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>
+that he desired to see O'Grady, if the man was fit to come out.</p>
+
+<p>What was his surprise when the soldier stepped forth in his trimmest
+undress uniform, erect and steady, and stood unflinchingly before
+him!&mdash;a day's rest and quiet, a warm bath, wholesome and palatable food,
+careful nursing, and the kind treatment he had received having brought
+him round with a sudden turn that he himself could hardly understand.</p>
+
+<p>"How is this?" thundered Buxton. "I ordered you kept in the dark cell."</p>
+
+<p>"The officer of the day ordered him released, sir," said the sergeant of
+the guard.</p>
+
+<p>And Buxton, choking with rage, stormed into the mess-room, where the
+younger officers were at dinner, and, regardless of the time, place, or
+surroundings, opened at once upon his subaltern:</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Billings, by whose authority did you release O'Grady from the dark
+cell?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Billings calmly applied his napkin to his moustache, and then as
+calmly replied, "By my own, Captain Buxton."</p>
+
+<p>"By &mdash;&mdash;! sir, you exceeded your authority."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all, captain; on the contrary, you exceeded yours."</p>
+
+<p>At this Buxton flew into a rage that seemed to deprive him of all
+control over his language. Oaths and imprecations poured from his lips;
+he raved at Billings, despite the efforts of the officers to quiet him,
+despite the adjutant's threat to report his language at once to the
+commanding officer.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Billings paid no attention whatever to his accu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>sations, but went on
+eating his dinner with an appearance of serenity that only added fuel to
+his captain's fire. Two or three officers rose and left the table in
+disgust, and just how far the thing might have gone cannot be accurately
+told, for in less than three minutes there came a quick, bounding step
+on the piazza, the clank and rattle of a sabre, and the adjutant fairly
+sprang back into the room:</p>
+
+<p>"Captain Buxton, you will go at once to your quarters in close arrest,
+by order of Major Stannard."</p>
+
+<p>Buxton knew his colonel and that little fire-eater of an adjutant too
+well to hesitate an instant. Muttering imprecations on everybody, he
+went.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning, O'Grady was released and returned to duty. Two days
+later, after a long and private interview with his commanding officer,
+Captain Buxton appeared with him at the officers' mess at dinner-time,
+made a formal and complete apology to Lieutenant Billings for his
+offensive language, and to the mess generally for his misconduct; and so
+the affair blew over; and, soon after, Buxton left, and Mr. Billings
+became commander of Troop "A."</p>
+
+<p>And now, whatever might have been his reputation as to sobriety before,
+Private O'Grady became a marked man for every soldierly virtue. Week
+after week he was to be seen every fourth or fifth day, when his guard
+tour came, reporting to the commanding officer for duty as "orderly,"
+the nattiest, trimmest soldier on the detail.</p>
+
+<p>"I always said," remarked Captain Wayne, "that Buxton alone was
+responsible for that man's downfall; and this proves it. O'Grady has all
+the instincts of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> gentleman about him, and now that he has a gentleman
+over him he is himself again."</p>
+
+<p>One night, after retreat-parade, there was cheering and jubilee in the
+quarters of Troop "A." Corporal Quinn had been discharged by expiration
+of term of service, and Private O'Grady was decorated with his chevrons.
+When October came, the company muster-roll showed that he had won back
+his old grade; and the garrison knew no better soldier, no more
+intelligent, temperate, trustworthy non-commissioned officer, than
+Sergeant O'Grady. In some way or other the story of the treatment
+resorted to by his amateur medical officer had leaked out. Whether
+faulty in theory or not, it was crowned with the verdict of success in
+practice; and, with the strong sense of humor which pervades all
+organizations wherein the Celt is represented as a component part, Mr.
+Billings had been lovingly dubbed "Doctor" by his men, and there was one
+of their number who would have gone through fire and water for him.</p>
+
+<p>One night some herdsmen from up the valley galloped wildly into the
+post. The Apaches had swooped down, run off their cattle, killed one of
+the cowboys, and scared off the rest. At daybreak the next morning
+Lieutenant Billings, with Troop "A" and about a dozen Indian scouts, was
+on the trail, with orders to pursue, recapture the cattle, and punish
+the marauders.</p>
+
+<p>To his disgust, Mr. Billings found that his allies were not of the
+tribes who had served with him in previous expeditions. All the trusty
+Apache Mojaves and Hualpais were off with other commands in distant
+parts of the Territory. He had to take just what the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> agent could give
+him at the reservation,&mdash;some Apache Yumas, who were total strangers to
+him. Within forty-eight hours four had deserted and gone back; the
+others proved worthless as trailers, doubtless intentionally, and had it
+not been for the keen eye of Sergeant O'Grady it would have been
+impossible to keep up the pursuit by night; but keep it up they did, and
+just at sunset, one sharp autumn evening, away up in the mountains, the
+advance caught sight of the cattle grazing along the shores of a placid
+little lake, and, in less time than it takes to write it, Mr. Billings
+and his command tore down upon the quarry, and, leaving a few men to
+"round up" the herd, were soon engaged in a lively running fight with
+the fleeing Apaches which lasted until dark, when the trumpet sounded
+the recall, and, with horses somewhat blown, but no casualties of
+importance, the command reassembled and marched back to the
+grazing-ground by the lake. Here a hearty supper was served out, the
+horses were rested, then given a good "feed" of barley, and at ten
+o'clock Mr. Billings with his second lieutenant and some twenty men
+pushed ahead in the direction taken by the Indians, leaving the rest of
+the men under experienced non-commissioned officers to drive the cattle
+back to the valley.</p>
+
+<p>That night the conduct of the Apache Yuma scouts was incomprehensible.
+Nothing would induce them to go ahead or out on the flanks; they cowered
+about the rear of column, yet declared that the enemy could not be
+hereabouts. At two in the morning Mr. Billings found himself well
+through a pass in the mountains, high peaks rising to his right and
+left, and a broad<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> valley in front. Here he gave the order to unsaddle
+and camp for the night.</p>
+
+<p>At daybreak all were again on the alert: the search for the trail was
+resumed. Again the Indians refused to go out without the troops; but the
+men themselves found the tracks of Tonto moccasins along the bed of a
+little stream purling through the ca&ntilde;on, and presently indications that
+they had made the ascent of the mountain to the south. Leaving a guard
+with his horses and pack-mules, the lieutenant ordered up his men, and
+soon the little command was silently picking its way through rock and
+boulder, scrub-oak and tangled juniper and pine. Rougher and steeper
+grew the ascent; more and more the Indians cowered, huddling together in
+rear of the soldiers. Twice Mr. Billings signalled a halt, and, with his
+sergeants, fairly drove the scouts up to the front and ordered them to
+hunt for signs. In vain they protested, "No sign,&mdash;no Tonto here," their
+very looks belied them, and the young commander ordered the search to be
+continued. In their eagerness the men soon leaped ahead of the wretched
+allies, and the latter fell back in the same huddled group as before.</p>
+
+<p>After half an hour of this sort of work, the party came suddenly upon a
+point whence it was possible to see much of the face of the mountain
+they were scaling. Cautioning his men to keep within the concealment
+afforded by the thick timber, Mr. Billings and his comrade-lieutenant
+crept forward and made a brief reconnoissance. It was evident at a
+glance that the farther they went the steeper grew the ascent and the
+more tangled the low shrubbery, for it was little better, until,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> near
+the summit, trees and underbrush, and herbage of every description,
+seemed to cease entirely, and a vertical cliff of jagged rocks
+<a name="corr4" id="corr4"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn4" title="changed from 'stook'">stood</a>
+sentinel at the crest, and stretched east and west the entire length of
+the face of the mountain.</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove, Billings! if they are on top of that it will be a nasty place
+to rout them out of," observed the junior.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to find out where they are, anyhow," replied the other. "Now
+those infernal Yumas have <i>got</i> to scout, whether they want to or not.
+You stay here with the men, ready to come the instant I send or signal."</p>
+
+<p>In vain the junior officer protested against being left behind; he was
+directed to send a small party to see if there were an easier way up the
+hill-side farther to the west, but to keep the main body there in
+readiness to move whichever way they might be required. Then, with
+Sergeant O'Grady and the reluctant Indians, Mr. Billings pushed up to
+the left front, and was soon out of sight of his command. For fifteen
+minutes he drove his scouts, dispersed in skirmish order, ahead of him,
+but incessantly they sneaked behind rocks and trees out of his sight;
+twice he caught them trying to drop back, and at last, losing all
+patience, he sprang forward, saying, "Then <i>come</i> on, you whelps, if you
+cannot lead," and he and the sergeant hurried ahead. Then the Yumas
+huddled together again and slowly followed.</p>
+
+<p>Fifteen minutes more, and Mr. Billings found himself standing on the
+edge of a broad shelf of the mountain,&mdash;a shelf covered with huge
+boulders of rock<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> tumbled there by storm and tempest, riven by
+lightning-stroke or the slow disintegration of nature from the bare,
+glaring, precipitous ledge he had marked from below. East and west it
+seemed to stretch, forbidding and inaccessible. Turning to the sergeant,
+Mr. Billings directed him to make his way off to the right and see if
+there were any possibility of finding a path to the summit; then looking
+back down the side, and marking his Indians cowering under the trees
+some fifty yards away, he signalled "come up," and was about moving
+farther to his left to explore the shelf, when something went whizzing
+past his head, and, embedding itself in a stunted oak behind him, shook
+and quivered with the shock,&mdash;a Tonto arrow. Only an instant did he see
+it, photographed as by electricity upon the retina, when with a sharp
+stinging pang and whirring "whist" and thud a second arrow, better
+aimed, tore through the flesh and muscles just at the outer corner of
+his left eye, and glanced away down the hill. With one spring he gained
+the edge of the shelf, and shouted to the scouts to come on. Even as he
+did so, bang! bang! went the reports of two rifles among the rocks, and,
+as with one accord, the Apache Yumas turned tail and rushed back down
+the hill, leaving him alone in the midst of hidden foes. Stung by the
+arrow, bleeding, but not seriously hurt, he crouched behind a rock, with
+carbine at ready, eagerly looking for the first sign of an enemy. The
+whiz of another arrow from the left drew his eyes thither, and quick as
+a flash his weapon leaped to his shoulder, the rocks rang with its
+report, and one of the two swarthy forms he saw among the boulders
+tumbled over out of sight; but even as he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> threw back his piece to
+reload, a rattling volley greeted him, the carbine dropped to the
+ground, a strange, numbed sensation had seized his shoulder, and his
+right arm, shattered by a rifle-bullet, hung dangling by the flesh,
+while the blood gushed forth in a torrent.</p>
+
+<p>Defenceless, he sprang back to the edge; there was nothing for it now
+but to run until he could meet his men. Well he knew they would be
+tearing up the mountain to the rescue. Could he hold out till then?
+Behind him with shout and yells came the Apaches, arrow and bullet
+whistling over his head; before him lay the steep descent,&mdash;jagged
+rocks, thick, tangled bushes: it was a desperate chance; but he tried
+it, leaping from rock to rock, holding his helpless arm in his left
+hand; then his foot slipped: he plunged heavily forward; quickly the
+nerves threw out their signal for support to the muscles of the
+shattered member, but its work was done, its usefulness destroyed.
+Missing its support, he plunged heavily forward, and went crashing down
+among the rocks eight or ten feet below, cutting a jagged gash in his
+forehead, while the blood rained down into his eyes and blinded him; but
+he struggled up and on a few yards more; then another fall, and,
+well-nigh senseless, utterly exhausted, he lay groping for his
+revolver,&mdash;it had fallen from its case. Then&mdash;all was over.</p>
+
+<p>Not yet; not yet. His ear catches the sound of a voice he knows well,&mdash;a
+rich, ringing, Hibernian voice it is: "Lieutenant, <i>lieutenant</i>!
+<i>Where</i> are ye?" and he has strength enough to call, "This way,
+sergeant, this way," and in another moment O'Grady, with blended anguish
+and gratitude in his face, is bending<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> over him. "Oh, thank God you're not
+kilt, sir!" (for when excited O'Grady <i>would</i> relapse into the brogue);
+"but are ye much hurt?"</p>
+
+<p>"Badly, sergeant, since I can't fight another round."</p>
+
+<p>"Then put your arm round my neck, sir," and in a second the little
+Patlander has him on his brawny back. But with only one arm by which to
+steady himself, the other hanging loose, the torture is inexpressible,
+for O'Grady is now bounding down the hill, leaping like a goat from rock
+to rock, while the Apaches with savage yells come tearing after them.
+Twice, pausing, O'Grady lays his lieutenant down in the shelter of some
+large boulder, and, facing about, sends shot after shot up the hill,
+checking the pursuit and driving the cowardly footpads to cover. Once he
+gives vent to a genuine Kilkenny "hurroo" as a tall Apache drops his
+rifle and plunges head foremost among the rocks with his hands
+convulsively clasped to his breast. Then the sergeant once more picks up
+his wounded comrade, despite pleas, orders, or imprecations, and rushes
+on.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot stand it, O'Grady. Go and save yourself. You <i>must</i> do it. I
+<i>order</i> you to do it." Every instant the shots and arrows whiz closer,
+but the sergeant never winces, and at last, panting, breathless, having
+carried his chief full three hundred yards down the rugged slope, he
+gives out entirely, but with a gasp of delight points down among the
+trees:</p>
+
+<p>"Here come the boys, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Another moment, and the soldiers are rushing up the rocks beside them,
+their carbines ringing like merry music through the frosty air, and the
+Apaches are scattering in every direction.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Old man, are you much hurt?" is the whispered inquiry his
+brother-officer can barely gasp for want of breath, and, reassured by
+the faint grin on Mr. Billings's face, and a barely audible "Arm
+busted,&mdash;that's all; pitch in and use them up," he pushes on with his
+men.</p>
+
+<p>In ten minutes the affair is ended. The Indians have been swept away
+like chaff; the field and the wounded they have abandoned are in the
+hands of the troopers; the young commander's life is saved; and then,
+and for long after, the hero of the day is Buxton's <i>b&ecirc;te noire</i>, "the
+worst man in the troop."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="VAN" id="VAN"></a>VAN.</h2>
+
+
+<p>He was the evolution of a military horse-trade,&mdash;one of those periodical
+swappings required of his dragoons by Uncle Sam on those rare occasions
+when a regiment that has been dry-rotting half a decade in Arizona is at
+last relieved by one from the Plains. How it happened that we of the
+Fifth should have kept him from the clutches of those sharp
+horse-fanciers of the Sixth is more than I know. Regimental tradition
+had it that we got him from the Third Cavalry when it came our turn to
+go into exile in 1871. He was the victim of some temporary malady at the
+time,&mdash;one of those multitudinous ills to which horse-flesh is heir,&mdash;or
+he never would have come to us. It was simply impossible that anybody
+who knew anything about horses should trade off such a promising young
+racer so long as there remained an unpledged pay-account in the
+officers' mess. Possibly the arid climate of Arizona had disagreed with
+him and he had gone amiss, as would the mechanism of some of the best
+watches in the regiment, unable to stand the strain of anything so hot
+and high and dry. Possibly the Third was so overjoyed at getting out of
+Arizona on any terms that they would gladly have left their eye-teeth in
+pawn. Whatever may have been the cause, the transfer was an accomplished
+fact, and Van was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> one of some seven hundred quadrupeds, of greater or
+less value, which became the property of the Fifth Regiment of Cavalry,
+U.S.A., in lawful exchange for a like number of chargers left in the
+stables along the recently-built Union Pacific to await the coming of
+their new riders from the distant West.</p>
+
+<p>We had never met in those days, Van and I. "Compadres" and chums as we
+were destined to become, we were utterly unknown and indifferent to each
+other; but in point of regimental reputation at the time, Van had
+decidedly the best of it. He was a celebrity at head-quarters, I a
+subaltern at an isolated post. He had apparently become acclimated, and
+was rapidly winning respect for himself and dollars for his backers; I
+was winning neither for anybody, and doubtless losing both,&mdash;they go
+together, somehow. Van was living on metaphorical clover down near
+Tucson; I was roughing it out on the rocks of the Mogollon. Each after
+his own fashion served out his time in the grim old Territory, and at
+last "came marching home again;" and early in the summer of the
+Centennial year, and just in the midst of the great Sioux war of 1876,
+Van and I made each other's acquaintance.</p>
+
+<p>What I liked about him was the air of thoroughbred ease with which he
+adapted himself to his surroundings. He was in swell society on the
+occasion of our first meeting, being bestridden by the colonel of the
+regiment. He was dressed and caparisoned in the height of martial
+fashion; his clear eyes, glistening coat, and joyous bearing spoke of
+the perfection of health; his every glance and movement told of elastic
+vigor and dauntless spirit. He was a horse with a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> pedigree,&mdash;let alone
+any self-made reputation,&mdash;and he knew it; more than that, he knew that
+I was charmed at the first greeting; probably he liked it, possibly he
+liked me. What he saw in me I never discovered. Van, though
+demonstrative eventually, was reticent and little given to verbal
+flattery. It was long indeed before any degree of intimacy was
+established between us: perhaps it might never have come but for the
+strange and eventful campaign on which we were so speedily launched.
+Probably we might have continued on our original status of dignified and
+distant acquaintance. As a member of the colonel's household he could
+have nothing in common with me or mine, and his acknowledgment of the
+introduction of my own charger&mdash;the cavalryman's better half&mdash;was of
+that airy yet perfunctory politeness which is of the club clubby.
+Forager, my gray, had sought acquaintance in his impulsive frontier
+fashion when summoned to the presence of the regimental commander, and,
+ranging alongside to permit the shake of the hand with which the colonel
+had honored his rider, he himself had with equine confidence addressed
+Van, and Van had simply continued his dreamy stare over the springy
+prairie and taken no earthly notice of him. Forager and I had just
+joined regimental head-quarters for the first time, as was evident, and
+we were both "fresh." It was not until the colonel good-naturedly
+stroked the glossy brown neck of his pet and said, "Van, old boy, this
+is Forager, of 'K' Troop," that Van considered it the proper thing to
+admit my fellow to the outer edge of his circle of acquaintance. My gray
+thought him a supercilious snob, no doubt, and hated him. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> hated him
+more before the day was half over, for the colonel decided to gallop
+down the valley to look at some new horses that had just come, and
+invited me to go. Colonels' invitations are commands, and we went,
+Forager and I, though it was weariness and vexation of spirit to both.
+Van and his rider flew easily along, bounding over the springy turf with
+long, elastic stride, horse and rider taking the rapid motion as an
+every-day matter, in a cool, imperturbable,
+this-is-the-way-we-always-do-it style; while my poor old troop-horse, in
+answer to pressing knee and pricking spur, strove with panting breath
+and jealously bursting heart to keep alongside. The foam flew from his
+fevered jaws and flecked the smooth flank of his apparently unconscious
+rival; and when at last we returned to camp, while Van, without a turned
+hair or an abnormal heave, coolly nodded off to his stable, poor
+Forager, blown, sweating, and utterly used up, gazed revengefully after
+him an instant and then reproachfully at me. He had done his best, and
+all to no purpose. That confounded clean-cut, supercilious beast had
+worn him out and never tried a spurt.</p>
+
+<p>It was then that I began to make inquiries about that airy fellow Van,
+and I soon found he had a history. Like other histories, it may have
+been a mere codification of lies; but the men of the Fifth were ready to
+answer for its authenticity, and Van fully looked the character they
+gave him. He was now in his prime. He had passed the age of tell-tale
+teeth and was going on between eight and nine, said the knowing ones,
+but he looked younger and felt younger. He was at heart as full of fun
+and frolic as any colt,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> but the responsibilities of his position
+weighed upon him at times and lent to his elastic step the grave dignity
+that should mark the movements of the first horse of the regiment.</p>
+
+<p>And then Van was a born aristocrat. He was not impressive in point of
+size; he was rather small, in fact; but there was that in his bearing
+and demeanor that attracted instant attention. He was beautifully
+built,&mdash;lithe, sinewy, muscular, with powerful shoulders and solid
+haunches; his legs were what Oscar Wilde might have called poems, and
+with better reason than when he applied the epithet to those of Henry
+Irving: they were straight, slender, and destitute of those heterodox
+developments at the joints that render equine legs as hideous
+deformities as knee-sprung trousers of the present mode. His feet and
+pasterns were shapely and dainty as those of the <i>se&ntilde;oritas</i> (only for
+pastern read ankle) who so admired him on <i>festa</i> days at Tucson, and
+who won such stores of <i>dulces</i> from the scowling gallants who had with
+genuine Mexican pluck backed the Sonora horses at the races. His color
+was a deep, dark chocolate-brown; a most unusual tint, but Van was proud
+of its oddity, and his long, lean head, his pretty little pointed ears,
+his bright, flashing eye and sensitive nostril, one and all spoke of
+spirit and intelligence. A glance at that horse would tell the veriest
+greenhorn that speed, bottom, and pluck were all to be found right
+there; and he had not been in the regiment a month before the knowing
+ones were hanging about the Mexican sports and looking out for a chance
+for a match; and Mexicans, like Indians, are consummate horse-racers.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Not with the "greasers" alone had tact and diplomacy to be brought into
+play. Van, though invoiced as a troop-horse sick, had attracted the
+attention of the colonel from the very start, and the colonel had
+speedily caused him to be transferred to his own stable, where,
+carefully tended, fed, groomed, and regularly exercised, he speedily
+gave evidence of the good there was in him. The colonel rarely rode in
+those days, and cavalry-duties in garrison were few. The regiment was in
+the mountains most of the time, hunting Apaches, but Van had to be
+exercised every day; and exercised he was. "Jeff," the colonel's
+orderly, would lead him sedately forth from his paddock every morning
+about nine, and ride demurely off towards the quartermaster's stables in
+rear of the garrison. Keen eyes used to note that Van had a way of
+sidling along at such times as though his heels were too impatient to
+keep at their appropriate distance behind the head, and "Jeff's" hand on
+the bit was very firm, light as it was.</p>
+
+<p>"Bet you what you like those 'L' Company fellows are getting Van in
+training for a race," said the quartermaster to the adjutant one bright
+morning, and the chuckle with which the latter received the remark was
+an indication that the news was no news to him.</p>
+
+<p>"If old Coach don't find it out too soon, some of these swaggering
+<i>caballeros</i> around here are going to lose their last winnings," was his
+answer. And, true to their cavalry instincts, neither of the
+staff-officers saw fit to follow Van and his rider beyond the gate to
+the <i>corrals</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Once there, however, Jeff would bound off quick as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> a cat, Van would be
+speedily taken in charge by a squad of old dragoon sergeants, his
+cavalry bridle and saddle exchanged for a light racing-rig, and Master
+Mickey Lanigan, son and heir of the regimental saddle-sergeant, would be
+hoisted into his throne, and then Van would be led off, all plunging
+impatience now, to an improvised race-track across the <i>arroyo</i>, where
+he would run against his previous record, and where old horses from the
+troop-stables would be spurred into occasional spurts with the champion,
+while all the time vigilant "non-coms" would be thrown out as pickets
+far and near, to warn off prying Mexican eyes and give notice of the
+coming of officers. The colonel was always busy in his office at that
+hour, and interruptions never came. But the race did, and more than one
+race, too, occurring on Sundays, as Mexican races will, and well-nigh
+wrecking the hopes of the garrison on one occasion because of the
+colonel's sudden freak of holding a long mounted inspection on that day.
+Had he ridden Van for two hours under his heavy weight and housings that
+morning, all would have been lost. There was terror at Tucson when the
+cavalry trumpets blew the call for mounted inspection, full dress, that
+placid Sunday morning, and the sporting sergeants were well-nigh crazed.
+Not an instant was to be lost. Jeff rushed to the stable, and in five
+minutes had Van's near fore foot enveloped in a huge poultice, much to
+Van's amaze and disgust, and when the colonel came down,</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Booted and spurred and prepared for a ride,</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>there stood Jeff in martial solemnity, holding the colo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>nel's other
+horse, and looking, as did the horse, the picture of dejection.</p>
+
+<p>"What'd you bring me that infernal old hearse-horse for?" said the
+colonel. "Where's Van?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the stable, dead lame, general," said Jeff, with face of woe, but
+with diplomatic use of the brevet. "Can't put his nigh fore foot to the
+ground, sir. I've got it poulticed, sir, and he'll be all right in a day
+or two&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure it ain't a nail?" broke in the colonel, to whom nails in the foot
+were sources of perennial dread.</p>
+
+<p>"Perfectly sure, general," gasped Jeff. "D&mdash;d sure!" he added, in a tone
+of infinite relief, as the colonel rode out on the broad parade.
+"'Twould 'a' been nails in the coffins of half the Fifth Cavalry if it
+<i>had</i> been."</p>
+
+<p>But that afternoon, while the colonel was taking his siesta, half the
+populace of the good old Spanish town of Tucson was making the air blue
+with <i>carambas</i> when Van came galloping under the string an easy winner
+over half a score of Mexican steeds. The "dark horse" became a
+notoriety, and for once in its history head-quarters of the Fifth
+Cavalry felt the forthcoming visit of the paymaster to be an object of
+indifference.</p>
+
+<p>Van won other races in Arizona. No more betting could be got against him
+around Tucson; but the colonel went off on leave, and he was borrowed
+down at Camp Bowie awhile, and then transferred to Crittenden,&mdash;only
+temporarily, of course, for no one at head-quarters would part with him
+for good. Then, when the regiment made its homeward march across the
+continent in 1875, Van somehow turned up at the <i>festa</i> races at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>
+Albuquerque and Santa F&eacute;, though the latter was off the line of march by
+many miles. Then he distinguished himself at Pueblo by winning a
+handicap sweepstakes where the odds were heavy against him. And so it
+was that when I met Van at Fort Hays in May, 1876, he was a celebrity.
+Even then they were talking of getting him down to Dodge City to run
+against some horses on the Arkansaw; but other and graver matters turned
+up. Van had run his last race.</p>
+
+<p>Early that spring, or rather late in the winter, a powerful expedition
+had been sent to the north of Fort Fetterman in search of the hostile
+bands led by that dare-devil Sioux chieftain Crazy Horse. On "Patrick's
+Day in the morning," with the thermometer indicating 30&deg; below, and in
+the face of a biting wind from the north and a blazing glare from the
+sheen of the untrodden snow, the cavalry came in sight of the Indian
+encampment down in the valley of Powder River. The fight came off then
+and there, and, all things considered, Crazy Horse got the best of it.
+He and his people drew away farther north to join other roving bands.
+The troops fell back to Fetterman to get a fresh start; and when spring
+fairly opened, old "Gray Fox," as the Indians called General Crook,
+marched a strong command up to the Big Horn Mountains, determined to
+have it out with Crazy Horse and settle the question of supremacy before
+the end of the season. Then all the unoccupied Indians in the North
+decided to take a hand. All or most of them were bound by treaty
+obligations to keep the peace with the government that for years past
+had fed, clothed, and protected them. Nine-tenths of those who rushed to
+the rescue of Crazy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> Horse and his people had not the faintest excuse
+for their breach of faith; but it requires neither eloquence nor excuse
+to persuade the average Indian to take the war-path. The reservations
+were beset by vehement old strifemongers preaching a crusade against the
+whites, and by early June there must have been five thousand eager young
+warriors, under such leaders as Crazy Horse, Gall, Little Big Man, and
+all manner of Wolves, Bears, and Bulls, and prominent among the latter
+that head-devil, scheming, lying, wire-pulling,
+big-talker-but-no-fighter, Sitting Bull,&mdash;"Tatanka-e-Yotanka",&mdash;five
+thousand fierce and eager Indians, young and old, swarming through the
+glorious upland between the Big Horn and the Yellowstone, and more
+a-coming.</p>
+
+<p>Crook had reached the head-waters of Tongue River with perhaps twelve
+hundred cavalry and infantry, and found that something must be done to
+shut off the rush of reinforcements from the southeast. Then it was that
+we of the Fifth, far away in Kansas, were hurried by rail through Denver
+to Cheyenne, marched thence to the Black Hills to cut the trails from
+the great reservations of Red Cloud and Spotted Tail to the disputed
+ground of the Northwest; and here we had our own little personal tussle
+with the Cheyennes, and induced them to postpone their further progress
+towards Sitting Bull and to lead us back to the reservation. It was
+here, too, we heard how Crazy Horse had pounced on Crook's columns on
+the bluffs of the Rosebud that sultry morning of the 17th of June and
+showed the Gray Fox that he and his people were too weak in numbers to
+cope with them. It was here, too, worse luck, we got the tidings of the
+dread disaster of the Sunday one week<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> later, and listened in awed
+silence to the story of Custer's mad attack on ten times his weight in
+foes&mdash;and the natural result. Then came our orders to hasten to the
+support of Crook, and so it happened that July found us marching for the
+storied range of the Big Horn, and the first week in August landed us,
+blistered and burned with sun-glare and stifling alkali-dust, in the
+welcoming camp of Crook.</p>
+
+<p>Then followed the memorable campaign of 1876. I do not mean to tell its
+story here. We set out with ten days' rations on a chase that lasted ten
+weeks. We roamed some eighteen hundred miles over range and prairie,
+over "bad lands" and worse waters. We wore out some Indians, a good many
+soldiers, and a great many horses. We sometimes caught the Indians, and
+sometimes they caught us. It was hot, dry summer weather when we left
+our wagons, tents, and extra clothing; it was sharp and freezing before
+we saw them again; and meantime, without a rag of canvas or any covering
+to our backs except what summer-clothing we had when we started, we had
+tramped through the valleys of the Rosebud, Tongue, and Powder Rivers,
+had loosened the teeth of some men with scurvy before we struck the
+Yellowstone, had weeded out the wounded and ineffective there and sent
+them to the East by river, had taken a fresh start and gone rapidly on
+in pursuit of the scattering bands, had forded the Little Missouri near
+where the Northern Pacific now spans the stream, run out of rations
+entirely at the head of Heart River, and still stuck to the trail and
+the chase, headed southward over rolling, treeless prairies, and for
+eleven days and nights of pelting, pitiless rain dragged our way<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>
+through the bad-lands, meeting and fighting the Sioux two lively days
+among the rocks of Slim Buttes, subsisting meantime partly on what game
+we could pick up, but mainly upon our poor, famished, worn-out,
+staggering horses. It is hard truth for cavalryman to tell, but the
+choice lay between them and our boots and most of us had no boots left
+by the time we sighted the Black Hills. Once there, we found provisions
+and plenty; but never, I venture to say, never was civilized army in
+such a plight as was the command of General George Crook when his
+brigade of regulars halted on the north bank of the Belle Fourche in
+September, 1876. Officers and men were ragged, haggard, half starved,
+worn down to mere skin and bone; and the horses,&mdash;ah, well, only half of
+them were left: hundreds had dropped starved and exhausted on the line
+of march, and dozens had been killed and eaten. We had set out blithe
+and merry, riding jauntily down the wild valley of the Tongue. We
+straggled in towards the Hills, towing our tottering horses behind us:
+they had long since grown too weak to carry a rider.</p>
+
+<p>Then came a leisurely saunter through the Hills. Crook bought up all the
+provisions to be had in Deadwood and other little mining towns, turned
+over the command to General Merritt, and hastened to the forts to
+organize a new force, leaving to his successor instructions to come in
+slowly, giving horses and men time to build up. Men began "building up"
+fast enough; we did nothing but eat, sleep, and hunt grass for our
+horses for whole weeks at a time; but our horses,&mdash;ah, that was
+different. There was no grain to be had for them. They had been starving
+for a month, for the Indians<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> had burned the grass before us wherever we
+went, and here in the pine-covered hills what grass could be found was
+scant and wiry,&mdash;not the rich, juicy, strength-giving bunch grass of the
+open country. Of my two horses, neither was in condition to do military
+duty when we got to Whitewood. I was adjutant of the regiment, and had
+to be bustling around a good deal; and so it happened that one day the
+colonel said to me, "Well, here's Van. He can't carry my weight any
+longer. Suppose you take him and see if he won't pick up." And that
+beautiful October day found the racer of the regiment, though the ghost
+of his former self, transferred to my keeping.</p>
+
+<p>All through the campaign we had been getting better acquainted, Van and
+I. The colonel seldom rode him, but had him led along with the
+head-quarters party in the endeavor to save his strength. A big,
+raw-boned colt, whom he had named "Chunka Witko," in honor of the Sioux
+"Crazy Horse," the hero of the summer, had the honor of transporting the
+colonel over most of those weary miles, and Van spent the long days on
+the muddy trail in wondering when and where the next race was to come
+off, and whether at this rate he would be fit for a finish. One day on
+the Yellowstone I had come suddenly upon a quartermaster who had a peck
+of oats on his boat. Oats were worth their weight in greenbacks, but so
+was plug tobacco. He gave me half a peck for all the tobacco in my
+saddle-bags, and, filling my old campaign hat with the precious grain, I
+sat me down on a big log by the flowing Yellowstone and told poor old
+"Donnybrook" to pitch in. "Donnybrook" was a "spare horse" when we
+started<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> on the campaign, and had been handed over to me after the fight
+on the War Bonnet, where Merritt turned their own tactics on the
+Cheyennes. He was sparer still by this time; and later, when we got to
+the muddy banks of the "Heecha Wapka," there was nothing to spare of
+him. The head-quarters party had dined on him the previous day, and only
+groaned when that Mark Tapley of a surgeon remarked that if this was
+Donnybrook Fare it was tougher than all the stories ever told of it.
+Poor old Donnybrook! He had recked not of the coming woe that blissful
+hour by the side of the rippling Yellowstone. His head was deep in my
+lap, his muzzle buried in oats; he took no thought for the morrow,&mdash;he
+would eat, drink, and be merry, and ask no questions as to what was to
+happen; and so absorbed were we in our occupation&mdash;he in his happiness,
+I in the contemplation thereof&mdash;that neither of us noticed the rapid
+approach of a third party until a whinny of astonishment sounded close
+beside us, and Van, trailing his lariat and picket-pin after him, came
+trotting up, took in the situation at a glance, and, unhesitatingly
+ranging alongside his comrade of coarser mould and thrusting his velvet
+muzzle into my lap, looked wistfully into my face with his great soft
+brown eyes and pleaded for his share. Another minute, and, despite the
+churlish snappings and threatening heels of Donnybrook, Van was supplied
+with a portion as big as little Benjamin's, and, stretching myself
+beside him on the sandy shore, I lay and watched his enjoyment. From
+that hour he seemed to take me into his confidence, and his was a
+friendship worth having. Time and again on the march to the Little
+Missouri and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> southward to the Hills he indulged me with some slight but
+unmistakable proof that he held me in esteem and grateful remembrance.
+It may have been only a bid for more oats, but he kept it up long after
+he knew there was not an oat in Dakota,&mdash;that part of it, at least. But
+Van was awfully pulled down by the time we reached the pine-barrens up
+near Deadwood. The scanty supply of forage there obtained (at starvation
+price) would not begin to give each surviving horse in the three
+regiments a mouthful. And so by short stages we plodded along through
+the picturesque beauty of the wild Black Hills, and halted at last in
+the deep valley of French Creek. Here there was grass for the horses and
+rest for the men.</p>
+
+<p>For a week now Van had been my undivided property, and was the object of
+tender solicitude on the part of my German orderly, "Preuss," and
+myself. The colonel had chosen for his house the foot of a big pine-tree
+up a little ravine, and I was billeted alongside a fallen ditto a few
+yards away. Down the ravine, in a little clump of trees, the
+head-quarters stables were established, and here were gathered at
+nightfall the chargers of the colonel and his staff. Custer City, an
+almost deserted village, lay but a few miles off to the west, and
+thither I had gone the moment I could get leave, and my mission was
+oats. Three stores were still open, and, now that the troops had come
+swarming down, were doing a thriving business. Whiskey, tobacco, bottled
+beer, canned lobster, canned anything, could be had in profusion, but
+not a grain of oats, barley, or corn. I went over to a miner's
+wagon-train and offered ten dollars for a sack of oats.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> The boss
+teamster said he would not sell oats for a cent apiece if he had them,
+and so sent me back down the valley sore at heart, for I knew Van's
+eyes, those great soft brown eyes, would be pleading the moment I came
+in sight; and I knew more,&mdash;that somewhere the colonel had "made a
+raise," that he <i>had</i> one sack, for Preuss had seen it, and Chunka Witko
+had had a peck of oats the night before and another that very morning.
+Sure enough, Van was waiting, and the moment he saw me coming up the
+ravine he quit his munching at the scanty herbage, and, with ears erect
+and eager eyes, came quickly towards me, whinnying welcome and inquiry
+at the same instant. Sugar and hard-tack, delicacies he often fancied in
+prosperous times, he took from my hand even now; he was too truly a
+gentleman at heart to refuse them when he saw they were all I had to
+give; but he could not understand why the big colt should have his oats
+and he, Van, the racer and the hero of two months ago, should starve,
+and I could not explain it.</p>
+
+<p>That night Preuss came up and stood attention before my fire, where I
+sat jotting down some memoranda in a note-book:</p>
+
+<p>"Lieutenant, I kent shtaendt ut no longer yet. Dot scheneral's horse he
+git oats ag'in diesen abent, unt Ven, he git noddings, unt he look, unt
+look. He ot dot golt unt den ot me look, unt I <i>couldn't</i> shtaendt ut,
+lieutenant&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>And Preuss stopped short and winked hard and drew his ragged
+shirt-sleeve across his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Neither could I "shtaendt ut." I jumped up and went to the colonel and
+begged a hatful of his precious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> oats, not for my sake, but for Van's.
+"Self-preservation is the first law of nature," and your own horse
+before that of all the world is the cavalryman's creed. It was a heap to
+ask, but Van's claim prevailed, and down the dark ravine "in the
+gloaming" Preuss and I hastened with eager steps and two hats full of
+oats; and that rascal Van heard us laugh, and answered with impatient
+neigh. He knew we had not come empty-handed this time.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning, when every sprig and leaf was glistening in the brilliant
+sunshine with its frosty dew, Preuss led Van away up the ravine to
+picket him on a little patch of grass he had discovered the day before
+and as he passed the colonel's fire a keen-eyed old veteran of the
+cavalry service, who had stopped to have a chat with our chief, dropped
+the stick on which he was whittling and stared hard at our attenuated
+racer.</p>
+
+<p>"Whose horse is that, orderly?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"De <i>etschudant's</i>, colonel," said Preuss, in his labored dialect.</p>
+
+<p>"The adjutant's! Where did he get him? Why, that horse is a runner!"
+said "Black Bill," appreciatively.</p>
+
+<p>And pretty soon Preuss came back to me, chuckling. He had not smiled for
+six weeks.</p>
+
+<p>"Ven&mdash;he veels pully dis morning," he explained. "Dot Colonel Royle he
+shpeak mit him unt pet him, unt Ven, he laeff unt gick up mit his hint
+lecks. He git vell bretty gwick yet."</p>
+
+<p>Two days afterwards we broke up our bivouac on French Creek, for every
+blade of grass was eaten off, and pushed over the hills to its near
+neighbor, Amphib<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>ious Creek, an eccentric stream whose habit of diving
+into the bowels of the earth at unexpected turns and disappearing from
+sight entirely, only to come up surging and boiling some miles farther
+down the valley, had suggested its singular name. "It was half land,
+half water," explained the topographer of the first expedition that had
+located and named the streams in these jealously-guarded haunts of the
+red men. Over on Amphibious Creek we were joined by a motley gang of
+recruits just enlisted in the distant cities of the East and sent out to
+help us fight Indians. One out of ten might know how to load a gun, but
+as frontier soldiers not one in fifty was worth having. But they brought
+with them capital horses, strong, fat, grain-fed, and these we
+campaigners levied on at once. Merritt led the old soldiers and the new
+horses down into the valley of the Cheyenne on a chase after some
+scattering Indian bands, while "Black Bill" was left to hammer the
+recruits into shape and teach them how to care for invalid horses. Two
+handsome young sorrels had come to me as my share of the plunder, and
+with these for alternate mounts I rode the Cheyenne raid, leaving Van to
+the fostering care of the gallant old cavalryman who had been so struck
+with his points the week previous.</p>
+
+<p>One week more, and the reunited forces of the expedition, Van and all,
+trotted in to "round up" the semi-belligerent warriors at the Red Cloud
+agency on White River, and, as the war-ponies and rifles of the scowling
+braves were distributed among the loyal scouts, and dethroned
+Machpealota (old Red Cloud) turned over the government of the great
+Sioux nation, Ogallallas and all, to his more reliable rival,
+Sintegaliska,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>&mdash;Spotted Tail,&mdash;Van surveyed the ceremony of abdication
+from between my legs, and had the honor of receiving an especial pat and
+an admiring "<i>Washtay</i>" from the new chieftain and lord of the loyal
+Sioux. His highness Spotted Tail was pleased to say that he wouldn't
+mind swapping four of his ponies for Van, and made some further remarks
+which my limited knowledge of the Brul&eacute; Dakota tongue did not enable me
+to appreciate as they deserved. The fact that the venerable chieftain
+had hinted that he might be induced to throw in a spare squaw "to boot"
+was therefore lost, and Van was saved. Early November found us, after an
+all-summer march of some three thousand miles, once more within sight
+and sound of civilization. Van and I had taken station at Fort D. A.
+Russell, and the bustling prairie city of Cheyenne lay only three miles
+away. Here it was that Van became my pet and pride. Here he lived his
+life of ease and triumph, and here, gallant fellow, he met his knightly
+fate.</p>
+
+<p>Once settled at Russell, all the officers of the regiment who were
+blessed with wives and children were speedily occupied in getting their
+quarters ready for their reception; and late in November my own little
+household arrived and were presented to Van. He was then domesticated in
+a rude but comfortable stable in rear of my little army-house, and there
+he slept, was groomed and fed, but never confined. He had the run of our
+yard, and, after critical inspection of the wood-shed, the coal-hole,
+and the kitchen, Van seemed to decide upon the last-named as his
+favorite resort. He looked with curious and speculative eyes upon our
+darky cook on the arrival of that domestic functionary,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> and seemed for
+once in his life to be a trifle taken aback by the sight of her woolly
+pate and Ethiopian complexion. Hannah, however, was duly instructed by
+her mistress to treat Van on all occasions with great consideration, and
+this to Hannah's darkened intellect meant unlimited loaf-sugar. The
+adjutant could not fail to note that Van was almost always to be seen
+standing at the kitchen door, and on those rare occasions when he
+himself was permitted to invade those premises he was never surprised to
+find Van's shapely head peering in at the window, or head, neck, and
+shoulders bulging in at the wood-shed beyond.</p>
+
+<p>Yet the ex-champion and racer did not live an idle existence. He had his
+hours of duty, and keenly relished them. Office-work over at
+orderly-call, at high noon it was the adjutant's custom to return to his
+quarters and speedily to appear in riding-dress on the front piazza. At
+about the same moment Van, duly caparisoned, would be led forth from his
+paddock, and in another moment he and his rider would be flying off
+across the breezy level of the prairie. Cheyenne, as has been said, lay
+just three miles away, and thither Van would speed with long, elastic
+strides, as though glorying in his powers. It was at once his exercise
+and his enjoyment, and to his rider it was the best hour of the day. He
+rode alone, for no horse at Russell could keep alongside. He rode at
+full speed, for in all the twenty-four that hour from twelve to one was
+the only one he could call his own for recreation and for healthful
+exercise. He rode to Cheyenne that he might be present at the event of
+the day,&mdash;the arrival of the trans-continental train from the East.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> He
+sometimes rode beyond, that he might meet the train when it was belated
+and race it back to town; and this&mdash;<i>this</i> was Van's glory. The rolling
+prairie lay open and free on each side of the iron track, and Van soon
+learned to take his post upon a little mound whence the coming of the
+"express" could be marked, and, as it flared into sight from the
+darkness of the distant snow-shed, Van, all a-tremble with excitement,
+would begin to leap and plunge and tug at the bit and beg for the word
+to go. Another moment, and, carefully held until just as the puffing
+engine came well alongside, Van would leap like arrow from the string,
+and away we would speed, skimming along the springy turf. Sometimes the
+engineer would curb his iron horse and hold him back against the
+"down-grade" impetus of the heavy Pullmans far in rear; sometimes he
+would open his throttle and give her full head, and the long train would
+seem to leap into space, whirling clouds of dust from under the whirling
+wheels, and then Van would almost tear his heart out to keep alongside.</p>
+
+<p>Month after month through the sharp mountain winter, so long as the snow
+was not whirling through the air in clouds too dense to penetrate, Van
+and his master had their joyous gallops. Then came the spring, slow,
+shy, and reluctant as the springtide sets in on that high plateau in
+mid-continent, and Van had become even more thoroughly domesticated. He
+now looked upon himself as one of the family, and he knew the
+dining-room window, and there, thrice each day and sometimes at odd
+hours between, he would take his station while the household was at
+table and plead<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> with those great soft brown eyes for sugar.
+Commissary-bills ran high that winter, and cut loaf-sugar was an item of
+untold expenditure. He had found a new ally and friend,&mdash;a little girl
+with eyes as deep and dark as and browner than his own, a winsome little
+maid of three, whose golden, sunshiny hair floated about her bonny head
+and sweet serious face like a halo of light from another world. Van
+"took to her" from the very first. He courted the caress of her little
+hand, and won her love and trust by the discretion of his movements when
+she was near. As soon as the days grew warm enough, she was always out
+on the front piazza when Van and I came home from our daily gallop, and
+then she would trot out to meet us and be lifted to her perch on the
+pommel; and then, with mincing gait, like lady's palfrey, stepping as
+though he might tread on eggs and yet not crush them, Van would take the
+little one on her own share of the ride. And so it was that the loyal
+friendship grew and strengthened. The one trick he had was never
+ventured upon when she was on his back, even after she became accustomed
+to riding at rapid gait and enjoying the springy canter over the prairie
+before Van went back to his stable. It was a strange trick: it proved a
+fatal one.</p>
+
+<p>No other horse I ever rode had one just like it. Running at full speed,
+his hoofs fairly flashing through the air and never seeming to touch the
+ground, he would suddenly, as it were, "change step" and gallop
+"disunited," as we cavalrymen would say. At first I thought it must be
+that he struck some rolling stone, but soon I found that when bounding
+over the soft<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> turf it was just the same; and the men who knew him in
+the days of his prime in Arizona had noted it there. Of course there was
+nothing to do for it but make him change back as quick as possible on
+the run, for Van was deaf to remonstrance and proof against the rebuke
+of spur. Perhaps he could not control the fault; at all events he did
+not, and the effect was not pleasant. The rider felt a sudden jar, as
+though the horse had come down stiff-legged from a hurdle-leap; and
+sometimes it would be so sharp as to shake loose the forage-cap upon his
+rider's head. He sometimes did it when going at easy lope, but never
+when his little girl-friend was on his back; then he went on springs of
+air.</p>
+
+<p>One bright May morning all the different "troops," as the
+cavalry-companies are termed, were out at drill on the broad prairie.
+The colonel was away, the officer of the day was out drilling his own
+company, the adjutant was seated in his office hard at work over
+regimental papers, when in came the sergeant of the guard, breathless
+and excited.</p>
+
+<p>"Lieutenant," he cried, "six general prisoners have escaped from the
+guard-house. They have got away down the creek towards town."</p>
+
+<p>In hurried question and answer the facts were speedily brought out. Six
+hard customers, awaiting sentence after trial for larceny, burglary,
+assault with intent to kill, and finally desertion, had been cooped up
+together in an inner room of the ramshackle old wooden building that
+served for a prison, had sawed their way through to open air, and,
+timing their essay by the sound of the trumpets that told them the whole
+garrison would be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> out at morning drill, had slipped through the gap at
+the right moment, slid down the hill into the creek-bottom, and then
+scurried off townward. A sentinel down near the stables had caught sight
+of them, but they were out of view long before his shouts had summoned
+the corporal of the guard.</p>
+
+<p>No time was to be lost. They were malefactors and vagabonds of the worst
+character. Two of their number had escaped before and had made it their
+boast that they could break away from the Russell guard at any time.
+Directing the sergeant to return to his guard, and hurriedly scribbling
+a note to the officer of the day, who had his whole troop with him in
+the saddle out on the prairie, and sending it by the hand of the
+sergeant-major, the adjutant hurried to his own quarters and called for
+Van. The news had reached there already. News of any kind travels like
+wildfire in a garrison, and Van was saddled and bridled before the
+adjutant reached the gate.</p>
+
+<p>"Bring me my revolver and belt,&mdash;quick," he said to the servant, as he
+swung into saddle. The man darted into the house and came back with the
+belt and holster.</p>
+
+<p>"I was cleaning your 'Colt,' sir," he said, "but here's the Smith &amp;
+Wesson," handing up the burnished nickel-plated weapon then in use
+experimentally on the frontier. Looking only to see that fresh
+cartridges were in each chamber and that the hammer was on the
+safety-notch, the adjutant thrust it into the holster, and in an instant
+he and Van flew through the east gate in rapid pursuit.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, how gloriously Van ran that day! Out on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> prairie the gay guidons
+of the troops were fluttering in the brilliant sunshine; here, there,
+everywhere, the skirmish-lines and reserves were dotting the plain; the
+air was ringing with the merry trumpet-calls and the stirring words of
+command. Yet men forgot their drill and reined up on the line to watch
+Van as he flashed by, wondering, too, what could take the adjutant off
+at such an hour and at such a pace.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the row?" shouted the commanding officer of one company.</p>
+
+<p>"Prisoners loose," was the answer shouted back, but only indistinctly
+heard. On went Van like one inspired, and as we cleared the drill-ground
+and got well out on the open plain in long sweeping curve, we changed
+our course, aiming more to the right, so as to strike the valley west of
+the town. It was possible to get there first and head them off. Then
+suddenly I became aware of something jolting up and down behind me. My
+hand went back in search: there was no time to look: the prairie just
+here was cut up with little gopher-holes and criss-crossed by tiny
+canals from the main <i>acequia</i>, or irrigating ditch. It was that
+wretched Smith &amp; Wesson bobbing up and down in the holster. The Colt
+revolver of the day was a trifle longer, and my man in changing pistols
+had not thought to change holsters. This one, made for the Colt, was too
+long and loose by half an inch, and the pistol was pounding up and down
+with every stride. Just ahead of us came the flash of the sparkling
+water in one of the little ditches. Van cleared it in his stride with no
+effort whatever. Then, just beyond,&mdash;oh, fatal trick!&mdash;seemingly when in
+mid-air he changed step, striking the ground with a sudden<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> shock that
+jarred us both and flung the downward-pointed pistol up against the
+closely-buttoned holster-flap. There was a sharp report, and my heart
+stood still an instant. I knew&mdash;oh, well I knew it was the death-note of
+my gallant pet. On he went, never swaying, never swerving, never
+slackening his racing speed; but, turning in the saddle and glancing
+back, I saw, just back of the cantle, just to the right of the spine in
+the glossy brown back, that one tiny, grimy, powder-stained hole. I knew
+the deadly bullet had ranged downward through his very vitals. I knew
+that Van had run his last race, was even now rushing towards a goal he
+would never reach. Fast as he might fly, he could not leave Death
+behind.</p>
+
+<p>The chase was over. Looking back, I could see the troopers already
+hastening in pursuit, but we were out of the race. Gently, firmly I drew
+the rein. Both hands were needed, for Van had never stopped here, and
+some strange power urged him on now. Full three hundred yards he ran
+before he would consent to halt. Then I sprang from the saddle and ran
+to his head. His eyes met mine. Soft and brown, and larger than ever,
+they gazed imploringly. Pain and bewilderment, strange, wistful
+pleading, but all the old love and trust, were there as I threw my arms
+about his neck and bowed his head upon my breast. I could not bear to
+meet his eyes. I could not look into them and read there the deadly pain
+and faintness that were rapidly robbing them of their lustre, but that
+could not shake their faith in his friend and master. No wonder mine
+grew sightless as his own through swimming tears. I who had killed him
+could not face his last conscious gaze.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>One moment more, and, swaying, tottering first from side to side, poor
+Van fell with heavy thud upon the turf. Kneeling, I took his head in my
+arms and strove to call back one sign of recognition; but all that was
+gone. Van's spirit was ebbing away in some fierce, wild dream: his
+glazing eyes were fixed on vacancy; his breath came in quick, convulsive
+gasps; great tremors shook his frame, growing every instant more
+violent. Suddenly a fiery light shot into his dying eyes. The old high
+mettle leaped to vivid life, and then, as though the flag had dropped,
+the starting-drum had tapped, Van's fleeting spirit whirled into his
+dying race. Lying on his side, his hoofs flew through the air, his
+powerful limbs worked back and forth swifter than ever in their swiftest
+gallop, his eyes were aflame, his nostrils wide distended, his chest
+heaving, and his magnificent machinery running like lightning. Only for
+a minute, though,&mdash;only for one short, painful minute. It was only a
+half-mile dash,&mdash;poor old fellow!&mdash;only a hopeless struggle against a
+rival that never knew defeat. Suddenly all ceased as suddenly as all
+began. One stiffening quiver, one long sigh, and my pet and pride was
+gone. Old friends were near him even then. "I was with him when he won
+his first race at Tucson," said old Sergeant Donnelly, who had ridden to
+our aid, "and I knowed then he would die racing."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_END" id="THE_END"></a>THE END.</h2>
+
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia.</span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<div class="transnote">
+<h3><a name="tnotes" id="tnotes"></a>
+Transcriber's note</h3>
+<p>Some of the spellings and hyphenations in the original are unusual;
+    they have not been changed. Minor punctuation errors have been corrected
+    without notice. A few obvious typographical errors have been corrected;
+they are listed below.</p>
+
+<p>Page 107: "would he hurried to their support" changed to "would
+<a name="cn1" id="cn1"></a><a href="#corr1">be</a>
+hurried to their support".</p>
+
+<p>Page 160: "See knew how her father trusted" changed to
+"<a name="cn2" id="cn2"></a><a href="#corr2">She</a>
+knew how her father trusted".</p>
+
+<p>Page 197: "The car-seems whirling" changed to
+"The <a name="cn3" id="cn3"></a><a href="#corr3">car seems</a> whirling".</p>
+
+<p>Page 227: "jagged rocks stook" changed to "jagged rocks
+<a name="cn4" id="cn4"></a><a href="#corr4">stood</a>".</p>
+
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Starlight Ranch, by Charles King
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+</body>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Starlight Ranch, by Charles King
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Starlight Ranch
+       and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier
+
+Author: Charles King
+
+Release Date: July 27, 2008 [EBook #26137]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STARLIGHT RANCH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Carla Foust and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note
+
+
+Some of the spellings and hyphenations in the original are unusual; they
+have not been changed. Minor punctuation errors have been corrected
+without notice. A few obvious typographical errors have been corrected,
+and they are listed at the end of this book.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+STARLIGHT RANCH
+
+AND
+
+OTHER STORIES OF ARMY
+LIFE ON THE FRONTIER.
+
+BY
+
+CAPTAIN CHARLES KING, U.S.A.,
+
+AUTHOR OF
+"MARION'S FAITH," "THE COLONEL'S DAUGHTER," ETC.
+
+PHILADELPHIA:
+J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
+1891.
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1890, by J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                                      PAGE
+STARLIGHT RANCH                                          7
+
+WELL WON; OR, FROM THE PLAINS TO "THE POINT"            40
+
+FROM "THE POINT" TO THE PLAINS                         116
+
+THE WORST MAN IN THE TROOP                             201
+
+VAN                                                    234
+
+
+
+
+STARLIGHT RANCH.
+
+
+We were crouching round the bivouac fire, for the night was chill, and
+we were yet high up along the summit of the great range. We had been
+scouting through the mountains for ten days, steadily working southward,
+and, though far from our own station, our supplies were abundant, and it
+was our leader's purpose to make a clean sweep of the line from old
+Sandy to the Salado, and fully settle the question as to whether the
+renegade Apaches had betaken themselves, as was possible, to the heights
+of the Matitzal, or had made a break for their old haunts in the Tonto
+Basin or along the foot-hills of the Black Mesa to the east. Strong
+scouting-parties had gone thitherward, too, for "the Chief" was bound to
+bring these Tontos to terms; but our orders were explicit: "Thoroughly
+scout the east face of the Matitzal." We had capital Indian allies with
+us. Their eyes were keen, their legs tireless, and there had been bad
+blood between them and the tribe now broken away from the reservation.
+They asked nothing better than a chance to shoot and kill them; so we
+could feel well assured that if "Tonto sign" appeared anywhere along our
+path it would instantly be reported. But now we were south of the
+confluence of Tonto Creek and the Wild Rye, and our scouts declared that
+beyond that point was the territory of the White Mountain Apaches,
+where we would not be likely to find the renegades.
+
+East of us, as we lay there in the sheltered nook whence the glare of
+our fire could not be seen, lay the deep valley of the Tonto brawling
+along its rocky bed on the way to join the Salado, a few short marches
+farther south. Beyond it, though we could not see them now, the peaks
+and "buttes" of the Sierra Ancha rolled up as massive foot-hills to the
+Mogollon. All through there our scouting-parties had hitherto been able
+to find Indians whenever they really wanted to. There were some officers
+who couldn't find the Creek itself if they thought Apaches lurked along
+its bank, and of such, some of us thought, was our leader.
+
+In the dim twilight only a while before I had heard our chief packer
+exchanging confidences with one of the sergeants,--
+
+"I tell you, Harry, if the old man were trying to steer clear of all
+possibility of finding these Tontos, he couldn't have followed a better
+track than ours has been. And he made it, too; did you notice? Every
+time the scouts tried to work out to the left he would herd them all
+back--up-hill."
+
+"We never did think the lieutenant had any too much sand," answered the
+sergeant, grimly; "but any man with half an eye can see that orders to
+thoroughly scout the east face of a range does not mean keep on top of
+it as we've been doing. Why, in two more marches we'll be beyond their
+stamping-ground entirely, and then it's only a slide down the west face
+to bring us to those ranches in the Sandy Valley. Ever seen them?"
+
+"No. I've never been this far down; but what do you want to bet that
+_that's_ what the lieutenant is aiming at? He wants to get a look at
+that pretty girl all the fellows at Fort Phoenix are talking about."
+
+"Dam'd old gray-haired rip! It would be just like him. With a wife and
+kids up at Sandy too."
+
+There were officers in the party, junior in years of life and years of
+service to the gray-headed subaltern whom some odd fate had assigned to
+the command of this detachment, nearly two complete "troops" of cavalry
+with a pack-train of sturdy little mules to match. We all knew that, as
+organized, one of our favorite captains had been assigned the command,
+and that between "the Chief," as we called our general, and him a
+perfect understanding existed as to just how thorough and searching this
+scout should be. The general himself came down to Sandy to superintend
+the start of the various commands, and rode away after a long interview
+with our good old colonel, and after seeing the two parties destined for
+the Black Mesa and the Tonto Basin well on their way. We were to move at
+nightfall the following day, and within an hour of the time of starting
+a courier rode in from Prescott with despatches (it was before our
+military telegraph line was built), and the commander of the
+division--the superior of our Arizona chief--ordered Captain Tanner to
+repair at once to San Francisco as witness before an important
+court-martial. A groan went up from more than one of us when we heard
+the news, for it meant nothing less than that the command of the most
+important expedition of all would now devolve upon the senior first
+lieutenant, Gleason; and so much did it worry Mr. Blake, his junior by
+several files, that he went at once to Colonel Pelham, and begged to be
+relieved from duty with that column and ordered to overtake one of the
+others. The colonel, of course, would listen to nothing of the kind, and
+to Gleason's immense and evident gratification we were marched forth
+under his command. There had been no friction, however. Despite his gray
+beard, Gleason was not an old man, and he really strove to be courteous
+and conciliatory to his officers,--he was always considerate towards his
+men; but by the time we had been out ten days, having accomplished
+nothing, most of us were thoroughly disgusted. Some few ventured to
+remonstrate. Angry words passed between the commander and Mr. Blake, and
+on the night on which our story begins there was throughout the command
+a feeling that we were simply being trifled with.
+
+The chat between our chief packer and Sergeant Merrick ceased instantly
+as I came forward and passed them on the way to look over the herd guard
+of the little battalion, but it set me to thinking. This was not the
+first that the officers of the Sandy garrison had heard of those two new
+"ranches" established within the year down in the hot but fertile
+valley, and not more than four hours' easy gallop from Fort Phoenix,
+where a couple of troops of "Ours" were stationed. The people who had so
+confidently planted themselves there were evidently well to do, and they
+brought with them a good-sized retinue of ranch- and herdsmen,--mainly
+Mexicans,--plenty of "stock," and a complete "camp outfit," which served
+them well until they could raise the adobe walls and finish their
+homesteads. Curiosity led occasional parties of officers or enlisted
+men to spend a day in saddle and thus to visit these enterprising
+neighbors. Such parties were always civilly received, invited to
+dismount, and soon to take a bite of luncheon with the proprietors,
+while their horses were promptly led away, unsaddled, rubbed down, and
+at the proper time fed and watered. The officers, of course, had
+introduced themselves and proffered the hospitality and assistance of
+the fort. The proprietors had expressed all proper appreciation, and
+declared that if anything should happen to be needed they would be sure
+to call; but they were too busy, they explained, to make social visits.
+They were hard at work, as the gentlemen could see, getting up their
+houses and their corrals, for, as one of them expressed it, "We've come
+to stay." There were three of these pioneers; two of them, brothers
+evidently, gave the name of Crocker. The third, a tall, swarthy,
+all-over-frontiersman, was introduced by the others as Mr. Burnham.
+Subsequent investigations led to the fact that Burnham was first cousin
+to the Crockers. "Been long in Arizona?" had been asked, and the elder
+Crocker promptly replied, "No, only a year,--mostly prospecting."
+
+The Crockers were building down towards the stream; but Burnham, from
+some freak which he did not explain, had driven his stakes and was
+slowly getting up his walls half a mile south of the other homestead,
+and high up on a spur of foot-hill that stood at least three hundred
+feet above the general level of the valley. From his "coigne of vantage"
+the whitewashed walls and the bright colors of the flag of the fort
+could be dimly made out,--twenty odd miles down stream.
+
+"Every now and then," said Captain Wayne, who happened up our way on a
+general court, "a bull-train--a small one--went past the fort on its way
+up to the ranches, carrying lumber and all manner of supplies, but they
+never stopped and camped near the post either going or coming, as other
+trains were sure to do. They never seemed to want anything, even at the
+sutler's store, though the Lord knows there wasn't much there they
+_could_ want except tanglefoot and tobacco. The bull-train made perhaps
+six trips in as many months, and by that time the glasses at the fort
+could make out that Burnham's place was all finished, but never once had
+either of the three proprietors put in an appearance, as invited, which
+was considered not only extraordinary but unneighborly, and everybody
+quit riding out there."
+
+"But the funniest thing," said Wayne, "happened one night when I was
+officer of the day. The road up-stream ran within a hundred yards of the
+post of the sentry on No. 3, which post was back of the officer's
+quarters, and a quarter of a mile above the stables, corrals, etc. I was
+making the rounds about one o'clock in the morning. The night was bright
+and clear, though the moon was low, and I came upon Dexter, one of the
+sharpest men in my troop, as the sentry on No. 3. After I had given him
+the countersign and was about going on,--for there was no use in asking
+_him_ if he knew his orders,--he stopped me to ask if I had authorized
+the stable-sergeant to let out one of the ambulances within the hour.
+Of course I was amazed and said no. 'Well,' said he, 'not ten minutes
+ago a four-mule ambulance drove up the road yonder going full tilt, and
+I thought something was wrong, but it was far beyond my challenge
+limit.' You can understand that I went to the stables on the jump, ready
+to scalp the sentry there, the sergeant of the guard, and everybody
+else. I sailed into the sentry first and he was utterly astonished; he
+swore that every horse, mule, and wagon was in its proper place. I
+routed out the old stable-sergeant and we went through everything with
+his lantern. There wasn't a spoke or a hoof missing. Then I went back to
+Dexter and asked him what he'd been drinking, and he seemed much hurt. I
+told him every wheel at the fort was in its proper rut and that nothing
+could have gone out. Neither could there have been a four-mule ambulance
+from elsewhere. There wasn't a civilized corral within fifty miles
+except those new ranches up the valley, and _they_ had no such rig. All
+the same, Dexter stuck to his story, and it ended in our getting a
+lantern and going down to the road. By Gad! he was right. There, in the
+moist, yielding sand, were the fresh tracks of a four-mule team and a
+Concord wagon or something of the same sort. So much for _that_ night!
+
+"Next evening as a lot of us were sitting out on the major's piazza,
+and young Briggs of the infantry was holding forth on the
+constellations,--you know he's a good deal of an astronomer,--Mrs.
+Powell suddenly turned to him with 'But you haven't told us the name of
+that bright planet low down there in the northern sky,' and we all
+turned and looked where she pointed. Briggs looked too. It was only a
+little lower than some stars of the second and third magnitude that he
+had been telling about only five minutes before, only it shone with a
+redder or yellower glare,--orange I suppose was the real color,--and was
+clear and strong as the light of Jupiter.
+
+"'That?' says Briggs. 'Why, that must be----Well, I own up. I declare I
+never knew there was so big a star in that part of the firmament!'
+
+"'Don't worry about it, Briggs, old boy,' drawled the major, who had
+been squinting at it through a powerful glass he owns. 'That's terra
+firmament. That planet's at the new ranch up on the spur of the
+Matitzal.'
+
+"But that wasn't all. Two days after, Baker came in from a scout. He had
+been over across the range and had stopped at Burnham's on his way down.
+He didn't see Burnham; he wasn't invited in, but he was full of his
+subject. 'By _Jove!_ fellows. Have any of you been to the ranches
+lately? No? Well, then, I want to get some of the ladies to go up there
+and call. In all my life I never saw so pretty a girl as was sitting
+there on the piazza when I rode around the corner of the house.
+_Pretty!_ She's lovely. Not Mexican. No, indeed! A real American
+girl,--a young lady, by Gad!'" That, then, explained the new light.
+
+"And did that give the ranch the name by which it is known to you?" we
+asked Wayne.
+
+"Yes. The ladies called it 'Starlight Ranch' from that night on. But not
+one of them has seen the girl. Mrs. Frazer and Mrs. Jennings actually
+took the long drive and asked for the ladies, and were civilly told
+that there were none at home. It was a Chinese servant who received
+them. They inquired for Mr. Burnham and he was away too. They asked how
+many ladies there were, and the Chinaman shook his head--'No sabe.' 'Had
+Mr. Burnham's wife and daughter come?' 'No sabe.' 'Were Mr. Burnham and
+the ladies over at the other ranch?' 'No sabe,' still affably grinning,
+and evidently personally pleased to see the strange ladies; but that
+Chinaman was no fool; he had his instructions and was carrying them out;
+and Mrs. Frazer, whose eyes are very keen, was confident that she saw
+the curtains in an upper window gathered just so as to admit a pair of
+eyes to peep down at the fort wagon with its fair occupants. But the
+face of which she caught a glimpse was not that of a young woman. They
+gave the Chinaman their cards, which he curiously inspected and was
+evidently at a loss what to do with, and after telling him to give them
+to the ladies when they came home they drove over to the Crocker Ranch.
+Here only Mexicans were visible about the premises, and, though Mrs.
+Frazer's Spanish was equal to the task of asking them for water for
+herself and friend, she could not get an intelligible reply from the
+swarthy Ganymede who brought them the brimming glasses as to the
+ladies--_Las senoras_--at the other ranch. They asked for the Crockers,
+and the Mexican only vaguely pointed up the valley. It was in defeat and
+humiliation that the ladies with their escort, Mr. Baker, returned to
+the fort, but Baker rode up again and took a comrade with him, and they
+both saw the girl with the lovely face and form this time, and had
+almost accosted her when a sharp, stern voice called her within. A
+fortnight more and a dozen men, officers or soldiers, had rounded that
+ranch and had seen two women,--one middle-aged, the other a girl of
+about eighteen who was fair and bewitchingly pretty. Baker had bowed to
+her and she had smiled sweetly on him, even while being drawn within
+doors. One or two men had cornered Burnham and began to ask questions.
+'Gentlemen,' said he, 'I'm a poor hand at talk. I've no education. I've
+lived on the frontier all my life. I mean no offence, but I cannot
+answer your questions and I cannot ask you into my house. For
+explanation, I refer you to Mr. Crocker.' Then Baker and a chum of his
+rode over and called on the elder Crocker, and asked for the
+explanation. That only added to the strangeness of the thing.
+
+"'It is true, gentlemen, that Mr. Burnham's wife and child are now with
+him; but, partially because of her, his wife's, infirm health, and
+partially because of a most distressing and unfortunate experience in
+his past, our kinsman begs that no one will attempt to call at the
+ranch. He appreciates all the courtesy the gentlemen and ladies at the
+fort would show, and have shown, but he feels compelled to decline all
+intercourse. We are beholden, in a measure, to Mr. Burnham, and have to
+be guided by his wishes. We are young men compared to him, and it was
+through him that we came to seek our fortune here, but he is virtually
+the head of both establishments.' Well. There was nothing more to be
+said, and the boys came away. One thing more transpired. Burnham gave it
+out that he had lived in Texas before the war, and had fought all the
+way through in the Confederate service. He thought the officers ought
+to know this. It was the major himself to whom he told it, and when the
+major replied that he considered the war over and that that made no
+difference, Burnham, with a clouded face replied, 'Well, mebbe it
+don't--to you.' Whereupon the major fired up and told him that if he
+chose to be an unreconstructed reb, when Union officers and gentlemen
+were only striving to be civil to him, he might 'go ahead and be d--d,'
+and came away in high dudgeon." And so matters stood up to the last we
+had heard from Fort Phoenix, except for one letter which Mrs. Frazer
+wrote to Mrs. Turner at Sandy, perhaps purely out of feminine mischief,
+because a year or so previous Baker, as a junior second lieutenant, was
+doing the devoted to Mrs. Turner, a species of mildly amatory
+apprenticeship which most of the young officers seemed impelled to serve
+on first joining. "We are having such a romance here at Phoenix. You
+have doubtless heard of the beautiful girl at 'Starlight Ranch,' as we
+call the Burnham place, up the valley. Everybody who called has been
+rebuffed; but, after catching a few glimpses of her, Mr. Baker became
+completely infatuated and rode up that way three or four times a week.
+Of late he has ceased going in the daytime, but it is known that he
+rides out towards dusk and gets back long after midnight, sometimes not
+till morning. Of course it takes four hours, nearly, to come from there
+full-speed, but though Major Tracy will admit nothing, it must be that
+Mr. Baker has his permission to be away at night. We all believe that it
+is another case of love laughing at locksmiths and that in some way they
+contrive to meet. One thing is certain,--Mr. Baker is desperately in
+love and will permit no trifling with him on the subject." Ordinarily, I
+suppose, such a letter would have been gall and wormwood to Mrs. Turner,
+but as young Hunter, a new appointment, was now a devotee, and as it was
+a piece of romantic news which interested all Camp Sandy, she read the
+letter to one lady after another, and so it became public property. Old
+Catnip, as we called the colonel, was disposed to be a little worried on
+the subject. Baker was a youngster in whom he had some interest as being
+a distant connection of his wife's, but Mrs. Pelham had not come to
+Arizona with us, and the good old fellow was living _en garcon_ with the
+Mess, where, of course, the matter was discussed in all its bearings.
+
+All these things recurred to me as I pottered around through the herds
+examining side-lines, etc., and looking up the guards. Ordinarily our
+scouting parties were so small that we had no such thing as an
+officer-of-the-day,--nor had we now when Gleason could have been excused
+for ordering one, but he evidently desired to do nothing that might
+annoy his officers. He _might_ want them to stand by him when it came to
+reporting the route and result of the scout. All the same, he expected
+that the troop officers would give personal supervision to their
+command, and especially to look after their "herds," and it was this
+duty that took me away from the group chatting about the bivouac fire
+preparatory to "turning in" for the night.
+
+When I got back, a tall, gray-haired trooper was "standing attention" in
+front of the commanding officer, and had evidently just made some
+report, for Mr. Gleason nodded his head appreciatively and then said,
+kindly,--
+
+"You did perfectly right, corporal. Instruct your men to keep a lookout
+for it, and if seen again to-night to call me at once. I'll bring my
+field-glass and we'll see what it is."
+
+The trooper raised his left hand to the "carried" carbine in salute and
+turned away. When he was out of earshot, Gleason spoke to the silent
+group,--
+
+"Now, there's a case in point. If I had command of a troop and could get
+old Potts into it I could make something of him, and I know it."
+
+Gleason had consummate faith in his "system" with the rank and file, and
+no respect for that of any of the captains. Nobody said anything. Blake
+hated him and puffed unconcernedly at his pipe, with a display of
+absolute indifference to his superior's views that the latter did not
+fail to note. The others knew what a trial "old Potts" had been to his
+troop commander, and did not believe that Gleason could "reform" him at
+will. The silence was embarrassing, so I inquired,--
+
+"What had he to report?"
+
+"Oh, nothing of any consequence. He and one of the sentries saw what
+they took to be an Indian signal-fire up Tonto Creek. It soon smouldered
+away,--but I always make it a point to show respect to these old
+soldiers."
+
+"You show d--d little respect for their reports all the same," said
+Blake, suddenly shooting up on a pair of legs that looked like stilts.
+"An Indian signal-fire is a matter of a heap of consequence in my
+opinion;" and he wrathfully stalked away.
+
+For some reason Gleason saw fit to take no notice of this piece of
+insubordination. Placidly he resumed his chat,--
+
+"Now, you gentlemen seem skeptical about Potts. Do any of you know his
+history?"
+
+"Well, I know he's about the oldest soldier in the regiment; that he
+served in the First Dragoons when they were in Arizona twenty years ago,
+and that he gets drunk as a boiled owl every pay-day," was an immediate
+answer.
+
+"Very good as far as it goes," replied Gleason, with a superior smile;
+"but I'll just tell you a chapter in his life he never speaks of and I
+never dreamed of until the last time I was in San Francisco. There I met
+old General Starr at the 'Occidental,' and almost the first thing he did
+was to inquire for Potts, and then he told me about him. He was one of
+the finest sergeants in Starr's troop in '53,--a dashing, handsome
+fellow,--and while in at Fort Leavenworth he had fallen in love with,
+won, and married as pretty a young girl as ever came into the regiment.
+She came out to New Mexico with the detachment with which he served, and
+was the belle of all the '_bailes_' given either by the 'greasers' or
+the enlisted men. He was proud of her as he could be, and old Starr
+swore that the few ladies of the regiment who were with them at old Fort
+Fillmore or Stanton were really jealous of her. Even some of the young
+officers got to saying sweet things to her, and Potts came to the
+captain about it, and he had it stopped; but the girl's head was turned.
+There was a handsome young fellow in the sutler's store who kept making
+her presents on the sly, and when at last Potts found it out he nearly
+hammered the life out of him. Then came that campaign against the
+Jicarilla Apaches, and Potts had to go with his troop and leave her at
+the cantonment, where, to be sure, there were ladies and plenty of
+people to look after her; and in the fight at Cieneguilla poor Potts was
+badly wounded, and it was some months before they got back; and meantime
+the sutler fellow had got in his work, and when the command finally came
+in with its wounded they had skipped, no one knew where. If Potts hadn't
+been taken down with brain fever on top of his wound he would have
+followed their trail, desertion or no desertion, but he was a broken man
+when he got out of hospital. The last thing old Starr said to me was,
+'Now, Gleason, I want you to be kind to my old sergeant; he served all
+through the war, and I've never forgiven them in the First for going
+back on him and refusing to re-enlist him; but the captains, one and
+all, said it was no use; he had sunk lower and lower; was perfectly
+unreliable; spent nine-tenths of his time in the guard-house and all his
+money in whiskey; and one after another they refused to take him.'"
+
+"How'd we happen to get him, then?" queried one of our party.
+
+"He showed up at San Francisco, neat as a new pin; exhibited several
+fine discharges, but said nothing of the last two, and was taken into
+the regiment as we were going through. Of course, its pretty much as
+they said in the First when we're in garrison, but, once out scouting,
+days away from a drop of 'tanglefoot,' and he does first rate. That's
+how he got his corporal's chevrons."
+
+"He'll lose 'em again before we're back at Sandy forty-eight hours,"
+growled Blake, strolling up to the party again.
+
+But he did not. Prophecies failed this time, and old Potts wore those
+chevrons to the last.
+
+He was a good prophet and a keen judge of human nature as exemplified in
+Gleason, who said that "the old man" was planning for a visit to the new
+ranches above Fort Phoenix. A day or two farther we plodded along down
+the range, our Indian scouts looking reproachfully--even sullenly--at
+the commander at every halt, and then came the order to turn back. Two
+marches more, and the little command went into bivouac close under the
+eaves of Fort Phoenix and we were exchanging jovial greetings with our
+brother officers at the post. Turning over the command to Lieutenant
+Blake, Mr. Gleason went up into the garrison with his own particular
+pack-mule; billeted himself on the infantry commanding officer--the
+major--and in a short time appeared freshly-shaved and in the neatest
+possible undress uniform, ready to call upon the few ladies at the post,
+and of course to make frequent reference to "my battalion," or "my
+command," down beyond the dusty, dismal corrals. The rest of us, having
+come out for business, had no uniforms, nothing but the rough field,
+scouting rig we wore on such duty, and every man's chin was bristling
+with a two-weeks'-old beard.
+
+"I'm going to report Gleason for this thing," swore Blake; "you see if I
+don't, the moment we get back."
+
+The rest of us were "hopping mad," too, but held our tongues so long as
+we were around Phoenix. We did not want them there to believe there
+was dissension and almost mutiny impending. Some of us got permission
+from Blake to go up to the post with its hospitable officers, and I was
+one who strolled up to "the store" after dark. There we found the major,
+and Captain Frazer, and Captain Jennings, and most of the youngsters,
+but Baker was absent. Of course the talk soon drifted to and settled on
+"Starlight Ranch," and by tattoo most of the garrison crowd were talking
+like so many Prussians, all at top-voice and all at once. Every man
+seemed to have some theory of his own with regard to the peculiar
+conduct of Mr. Burnham, but no one dissented from the quiet remark of
+Captain Frazer:
+
+"As for Baker's relations with the daughter, he is simply desperately in
+love and means to marry her. He tells my wife that she is educated and
+far more refined than her surroundings would indicate, but that he is
+refused audience by both Burnham and his wife, and it is only at extreme
+risk that he is able to meet his lady-love at all. Some nights she is
+entirely prevented from slipping out to see him."
+
+Presently in came Gleason, beaming and triumphant from his round of
+calls among the fair sex, and ready now for the game he loved above all
+things on earth,--poker. For reasons which need not be elaborated here
+no officer in our command would play with him, and an ugly rumor was
+going the rounds at Sandy, just before we came away, that, in a game at
+Olsen's ranch on the Aqua Fria about three weeks before, he had had his
+face slapped by Lieutenant Ray of our own regiment. But Ray had gone to
+his lonely post at Camp Cameron, and there was no one by whom we could
+verify it except some ranchmen, who declared that Gleason had cheated at
+cards, and Ray "had been a little too full," as they put it, to detect
+the fraud until it seemed to flash upon him all of a sudden. A game
+began, however, with three local officers as participants, so presently
+Carroll and I withdrew and went back to bivouac.
+
+"Have you seen anything of Corporal Potts?" was the first question asked
+by Mr. Blake.
+
+"Not a thing. Why? Is he missing?"
+
+"Been missing for an hour. He was talking with some of these garrison
+soldiers here just after the men had come in from the herd, and what I'm
+afraid of is that he'll go up into the post and get bilin' full there.
+I've sent other non-commissioned officers after him, but they cannot
+find him. He hasn't even looked in at the store, so the bar-tender
+swears."
+
+"The sly old rascal!" said Carroll. "He knows perfectly well how to get
+all the liquor he wants without exposing himself in the least. No doubt
+if the bar-tender were asked if he had not filled some flasks this
+evening he would say yes, and Potts is probably stretched out
+comfortably in the forage-loft of one of the stables, with a canteen of
+water and his flask of bug-juice, prepared to make a night of it."
+
+Blake moodily gazed into the embers of the bivouac-fire. Never had we
+seen him so utterly unlike himself as on this burlesque of a scout, and
+now that we were virtually homeward-bound, and empty-handed too, he was
+completely weighed down by the consciousness of our lost opportunities.
+If something could only have happened to Gleason before the start, so
+that the command might have devolved on Blake, we all felt that a very
+different account could have been rendered; for with all his rattling,
+ranting fun around the garrison, he was a gallant and dutiful soldier in
+the field. It was now after ten o'clock; most of the men, rolled in
+their blankets, were sleeping on the scant turf that could be found at
+intervals in the half-sandy soil below the corrals and stables. The
+herds of the two troops and the pack-mules were all cropping peacefully
+at the hay that had been liberally distributed among them because there
+was hardly grass enough for a "burro." We were all ready to turn in, but
+there stood our temporary commander, his long legs a-straddle, his hands
+clasped behind him, and the flickering light of the fire betraying in
+his face both profound dejection and disgust.
+
+"I wouldn't care so much," said he at last, "but it will give Gleason a
+chance to say that things always go wrong when he's away. Did you see
+him up at the post?" he suddenly asked. "What was he doing, Carroll?"
+
+"Poker," was the sententious reply.
+
+"What?" shouted Blake. "Poker? 'I thank thee, good Tubal,--good
+news,--good news!'" he ranted, with almost joyous relapse into his old
+manner. "'O Lady Fortune, stand you auspicious', for those fellows at
+Phoenix, I mean, and may they scoop our worthy chieftain of his last
+ducat. See what it means, fellows. Win or lose, he'll play all night,
+he'll drink much if it go agin' him, and I pray it may. He'll be too
+sick, when morning comes, to join us, and, by my faith, we'll leave his
+horse and orderly and march away without him. As for Potts,--an he
+appear not,--we'll let him play hide-and-seek with his would-be
+reformer. Hullo! What's that?"
+
+There was a sound of alternate shout and challenge towards where the
+horses were herded on the level stretch below us. The sergeant of the
+guard was running rapidly thither as Carroll and I reached the corner of
+the corral. Half a minute's brisk spurt brought us to the scene.
+
+"What's the trouble, sentry?" panted the sergeant.
+
+"One of our fellows trying to take a horse. I was down on this side of
+the herd when I seen him at the other end trying to loose a side-line.
+It was just light enough by the moon to let me see the figure, but I
+couldn't make out who 'twas. I challenged and ran and yelled for the
+corporal, too, but he got away through the horses somehow. Murphy, who's
+on the other side of the herds, seen him and challenged too."
+
+"Did he answer?"
+
+"Not a word, sir."
+
+"Count your horses, sergeant, and see if all are here," was ordered.
+Then we hurried over to Murphy's post.
+
+"Who was the man? Could you make him out?"
+
+"Not plainly, sir; but I think it was one of our own command," and poor
+Murphy hesitated and stammered. He hated to "give away," as he expressed
+it, one of his own troop. But his questioners were inexorable.
+
+"What man did this one most look like, so far as you could judge?"
+
+"Well, sir, I hate to suspicion anybody, but 'twas more like Corporal
+Potts he looked. Sure, if 'twas him, he must ha' been drinkin', for the
+corporal's not the man to try and run off a horse when he's in his sober
+sinses."
+
+The waning moon gave hardly enough light for effective search, but we
+did our best. Blake came out and joined us, looking very grave when he
+heard the news. Eleven o'clock came, and we gave it up. Not a sign of
+the marauder could we find. Potts was still absent from the bivouac when
+we got back, but Blake determined to make no further effort to find him.
+Long before midnight we were all soundly sleeping, and the next thing I
+knew my orderly was shaking me by the arm and announcing breakfast.
+Reveille was just being sounded up at the garrison. The sun had not yet
+climbed high enough to peep over the Matitzal, but it was broad
+daylight. In ten minutes Carroll and I were enjoying our coffee and
+_frijoles_; Blake had ridden up into the garrison. Potts was still
+absent; and so, as we expected, was Mr. Gleason.
+
+Half an hour more, and in long column of twos, and followed by our
+pack-train, the command was filing out along the road whereon "No. 3"
+had seen the ambulance darting by in the darkness. Blake had come back
+from the post with a flush of anger on his face and with lips
+compressed. He did not even dismount. "Saddle up at once" was all he
+said until he gave the commands to mount and march. Opposite the
+quarters of the commanding officer we were riding at ease, and there he
+shook his gauntleted fist at the whitewashed walls, and had recourse to
+his usual safety-valve,--
+
+     "'Take heed, my lords, the welfare of us all
+       Hangs on the cutting short that fraudful man,'
+
+and may the devil fly away with him! What d'ye think he told me when I
+went to hunt him up?"
+
+There was no suitable conjecture.
+
+"He said to march ahead, leaving his horse, Potts's, and his orderly's,
+also the pack-mule: he would follow at his leisure. He had given Potts
+authority to wait and go with him, but did not consider it necessary to
+notify me."
+
+"Where was he?"
+
+"Still at the store, playing with the trader and some understrappers.
+Didn't seem to be drunk, either."
+
+And that was the last we heard of our commander until late in the
+evening. We were then in bivouac on the west bank of the Sandy within
+short rifle-range of the buildings of Crocker's Ranch on the other side.
+There the lights burned brightly, and some of our people who had gone
+across had been courteously received, despite a certain constraint and
+nervousness displayed by the two brothers. At "Starlight," however,
+nearly a mile away from us, all was silence and darkness. We had studied
+it curiously as we marched up along the west shore, and some of the men
+had asked permission to fall out and ride over there, "just to see it,"
+but Blake had refused. The Sandy was easily fordable on horseback
+anywhere, and the Crockers, for the convenience of their ranch people,
+had placed a lot of bowlders and heaps of stones in such position that
+they served as a foot-path opposite their corrals. But Blake said he
+would rather none of his people intruded at "Starlight," and so it
+happened that we were around the fire when Gleason rode in about nine
+o'clock, and with him Lieutenant Baker, also the recreant Potts.
+
+"You may retain command, Mr. Blake," said the former, thickly. "I have
+an engagement this evening."
+
+In an instant Baker was at my side. We had not met before since he was
+wearing the gray at the Point.
+
+"For God's sake, don't let him follow me,--but _you_,--come if you
+possibly can. I'll slip off into the willows up-stream as soon as I can
+do so without his seeing."
+
+I signalled Blake to join us, and presently he sauntered over our way,
+Gleason meantime admonishing his camp cook that he expected to have the
+very best hot supper for himself and his friend, Lieutenant Baker, ready
+in twenty minutes,--twenty minutes, for they had an important
+engagement, an _affaire de coor_, by Jove!
+
+"You fellows know something of this matter," said Baker, hurriedly; "but
+I cannot begin to tell you how troubled I am. Something is wrong with
+_her_. She has not met me once this week, and the house is still as a
+grave. I must see her. She is either ill or imprisoned by her people, or
+carried away. God only knows why that hound Burnham forbids me the
+house. I cannot see him. I've never seen his wife. The door is barred
+against me and I cannot force an entrance. For a while she was able to
+slip out late in the evening and meet me down the hill-side, but they
+must have detected her in some way. I do not even know that she is
+there, but to-night I _mean_ to know. If she is within those walls--and
+alive--she will answer my signal. But for heaven's sake keep that
+drunken wretch from going over there. He's bent on it. The major gave
+me leave again for to-night, provided I would see Gleason safely to your
+camp, and he has been maundering all the way out about how _he_ knew
+more'n I did,--he and Potts, who's half-drunk too,--and how he meant to
+see me through in this matter."
+
+"Well, here," said Blake, "there's only one thing to be done. You two
+slip away at once; get your horses, and ford the Sandy well below camp.
+I'll try and keep him occupied."
+
+In three minutes we were off, leading our steeds until a hundred yards
+or so away from the fires, then mounting and moving at rapid walk.
+Following Baker's lead, I rode along, wondering what manner of adventure
+this was apt to be. I expected him to make an early crossing of the
+stream, but he did not. "The only fords I know," said he, "are down
+below Starlight," and so it happened that we made a wide _detour_; but
+during that dark ride he told me frankly how matters stood. Zoe Burnham
+had promised to be his wife, and had fully returned his love, but she
+was deeply attached to her poor mother, whose health was utterly broken,
+and who seemed to stand in dread of her father. The girl could not bear
+to leave her mother, though he had implored her to do so and be married
+at once. "She told me the last time I saw her that old Burnham had sworn
+to kill me if he caught me around the place, so I have to come armed,
+you see;" and he exhibited his heavy revolver. "There's something shady
+about the old man, but I don't know what it is."
+
+At last we crossed the stream, and soon reached a point where we
+dismounted and fastened our horses among the willows; then slowly and
+cautiously began the ascent to the ranch. The slope here was long and
+gradual, and before we had gone fifty yards Baker laid his hand on my
+arm.
+
+"Wait. Hush!" he said.
+
+Listening, we could distinctly hear the crunching of horses' hoofs, but
+in the darkness (for the old moon was not yet showing over the range to
+the east) we could distinguish nothing. One thing was certain: those
+hoofs were going towards the ranch.
+
+"Heavens!" said Baker. "Do you suppose that Gleason has got the start of
+us after all? There's no telling what mischief he may do. He swore he
+would stand inside those walls to-night, for there was no Chinaman on
+earth whom he could not bribe."
+
+We pushed ahead at the run now, but within a minute I plunged into some
+unseen hollow; my Mexican spurs tangled, and down I went heavily upon
+the ground. The shock was severe, and for an instant I lay there
+half-stunned. Baker was by my side in the twinkling of an eye full of
+anxiety and sympathy. I was not injured in the slightest, but the breath
+was knocked out of me, and it was some minutes before I could forge
+ahead again. We reached the foot of the steep slope; we clambered
+painfully--at least I did--to the crest, and there stood the black
+outline of Starlight Ranch, with only a glimmer of light shining through
+the windows here and there where the shades did not completely cover the
+space. In front were three horses held by a cavalry trooper.
+
+"Whose horses are these?" panted Baker.
+
+"Lieutenant Gleason's, sir. Him and Corporal Potts has gone round
+behind the ranch with a Chinaman they found takin' in water."
+
+And then, just at that instant, so piercing, so agonized, so fearful
+that even the three horses started back snorting and terrified, there
+rang out on the still night air the most awful shriek I ever heard, the
+wail of a woman in horror and dismay. Then dull, heavy blows; oaths,
+curses, stifled exclamations; a fall that shook the windows; Gleason's
+voice commanding, entreating; a shrill Chinese jabber; a rush through
+the hall; more blows; gasps; curses; more unavailing orders in Gleason's
+well-known voice; then a sudden pistol shot, a scream of "Oh, my God!"
+then moans, and then silence. The casement on the second floor was
+thrown open, and a fair young face and form were outlined upon the
+bright light within; a girlish voice called, imploringly,--
+
+"Harry! Harry! Oh, help, if you are there! They are killing father!"
+
+But at the first sound Harry Baker had sprung from my side and
+disappeared in the darkness.
+
+"We are friends," I shouted to her,--"Harry Baker's friends. He has gone
+round to the rear entrance." Then I made a dash for the front door,
+shaking, kicking, and hammering with all my might. I had no idea how to
+find the rear entrance in the darkness. Presently it was opened by the
+still chattering, jabbering Chinaman, his face pasty with terror and
+excitement, and the sight that met my eyes was one not soon to be
+forgotten.
+
+A broad hall opened straight before me, with a stairway leading to the
+second floor. A lamp with burnished reflector was burning brightly
+midway down its length. Another just like it fully lighted a big room to
+my left,--the dining-room, evidently,--on the floor of which, surrounded
+by overturned chairs, was lying a woman in a deathlike swoon. Indeed, I
+thought at first she was dead. In the room to my right, only dimly
+lighted, a tall man in shirt-sleeves was slowly crawling to a sofa,
+unsteadily assisted by Gleason; and as I stepped inside, Corporal Potts,
+who was leaning against the wall at the other end of the room pressing
+his hand to his side and with ashen face, sank suddenly to the floor,
+doubled up in a pool of his own blood. In the dining-room, in the hall,
+everywhere that I could see, were the marks of a fearful struggle. The
+man on the sofa gasped faintly, "Water," and I ran into the dining-room
+and hastened back with a brimming goblet.
+
+"What does it all mean?" I demanded of Gleason.
+
+Big drops of sweat were pouring down his pallid face. The fearful scene
+had entirely sobered him.
+
+"Potts has found the man who robbed him of his wife. That's she on the
+floor yonder. Go and help her."
+
+But she was already coming to and beginning to stare wildly about her. A
+glass of water helped to revive her. She staggered across the hall, and
+then, with a moan of misery and horror at the sight, threw herself upon
+her knees, not beside the sofa where Burnham lay gasping, but on the
+floor where lay our poor old corporal. In an instant she had his head in
+her lap and was crooning over the senseless clay, swaying her body to
+and fro as she piteously called to him,--
+
+"Frank, Frank! Oh, for the love of Jesus, speak to me! Frank, dear
+Frank, my husband, my own! Oh, for God's sake, open your eyes and look
+at me! I wasn't as wicked as they made me out, Frank, God knows I
+wasn't. I tried to get back to you, but Pierce there swore you were
+dead,--swore you were killed at Cieneguilla. Oh, Frank, Frank, open your
+eyes! _Do_ hear me, husband. O God, don't let him die! Oh, for pity's
+sake, gentlemen, can't you do something? Can't you bring him to? He must
+hear me! He must know how I've been lied to all these years!"
+
+"Quick! Take this and see if you can bring him round," said Gleason,
+tossing me his flask. I knelt and poured the burning spirit into his
+open mouth. There were a few gurgles, half-conscious efforts to swallow,
+and then--success. He opened his glazing eyes and looked up into the
+face of his wife. His lips moved and he called her by name. She raised
+him higher in her arms, pillowing his head upon her bosom, and covered
+his face with frantic kisses. The sight seemed too much for "Burnham."
+His face worked and twisted with rage; he ground out curses and
+blasphemy between his clinched teeth; he even strove to rise from the
+sofa, but Gleason forced him back. Meantime, the poor woman's wild
+remorse and lamentations were poured into the ears of the dying man.
+
+"Tell me you believe me, Frank. Tell me you forgive me. O God! you don't
+know what my life has been with him. When I found out that it was all a
+lie about your being killed at Cieneguilla, he beat me like a slave. He
+had to go and fight in the war. They made him; they conscripted him; and
+when he got back he brought me papers to show you were killed in one of
+the Virginia battles. I gave up hope then for good and all."
+
+Just then who should come springing down the stairs but Baker, who had
+evidently been calming and soothing his lady-love aloft. He stepped
+quickly into the parlor.
+
+"Have you sent for a surgeon?" he asked.
+
+The sound of his voice seemed to rouse "Burnham" to renewed life and
+raging hate.
+
+"Surgeons be damned!" he gasped. "I'm past all surgery; but thank God
+I've given that ruffian what'll send him to hell before I get there! And
+you--_you_"--and here he made a frantic grab for the revolver that lay
+upon the floor, but Gleason kicked it away--"you, young hound, I meant
+to have wound you up before I got through. But I can jeer at
+you--God-forsaken idiot--I can triumph over you;" and he stretched forth
+a quivering, menacing arm and hand. "You _would_ have your way--damn
+you!--so take it. You've given your love to a bastard,--that's what Zoe
+is."
+
+Baker stood like one turned suddenly into stone. But from the other end
+of the room came prompt, wrathful, and with the ring of truth in her
+earnest protest, the mother's loud defence of her child.
+
+"It's a lie,--a fiendish and malignant lie,--and he knows it. Here lies
+her father, my own husband, murdered by that scoundrel there. Her
+baptismal certificate is in my room. I've kept it all these years where
+he never could get it. No, Frank, she's your own, your own baby, whom
+you never saw. Go--go and bring her. He _must_ see his baby-girl. Oh,
+my darling, don't--don't go until you see her." And again she covered
+the ashen face with her kisses. I knelt and put the flask to his lips
+and he eagerly swallowed a few drops. Baker had turned and darted
+up-stairs. "Burnham's" late effort had proved too much for him. He had
+fainted away, and the blood was welling afresh from several wounds.
+
+A moment more and Baker reappeared, leading his betrothed. With her
+long, golden hair rippling down her back, her face white as death, and
+her eyes wild with dread, she was yet one of the loveliest pictures I
+ever dreamed of. Obedient to her mother's signal, she knelt close beside
+them, saying no word.
+
+"Zoe, darling, this is your own father; the one I told you of last
+winter."
+
+Old Potts seemed struggling to rise; an inexpressible tenderness shone
+over his rugged, bearded face; his eyes fastened themselves on the
+lovely girl before him with a look almost as of wonderment; his lips
+seemed striving to whisper her name. His wife raised him still higher,
+and Baker reverently knelt and supported the shoulder of the dying man.
+There was the silence of the grave in the dimly-lighted room. Slowly,
+tremulously the arm in the old blue blouse was raised and extended
+towards the kneeling girl. Lowly she bent, clasping her hands and with
+the tears now welling from her eyes. One moment more and the withered
+old hand that for quarter of a century had grasped the sabre-hilt in the
+service of our common country slowly fell until it rested on that
+beautiful, golden head,--one little second or two, in which the lips
+seemed to murmur a prayer and the fast glazing eyes were fixed in
+infinite tenderness upon his only child. Then suddenly they sought the
+face of his sobbing wife,--a quick, faint smile, a sigh, and the hand
+dropped to the floor. The old trooper's life had gone out in
+benediction.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+Of course there was trouble all around before that wretched affair was
+explained. Gleason came within an ace of court-martial, but escaped it
+by saying that he knew of "Burnham's" threats against the life of
+Lieutenant Baker, and that he went to the ranch in search of the latter
+and to get him out of danger. They met the Chinaman outside drawing
+water, and he ushered them in the back way because it was the nearest.
+Potts asked to go with him that he might see if this was his long-lost
+wife,--so said Gleason,--and the instant she caught sight of him she
+shrieked and fainted, and the two men sprang at each other like tigers.
+Knives were drawn in a minute. Then Burnham fled through the hall,
+snatched a revolver from its rack, and fired the fatal shot. The surgeon
+from Fort Phoenix reached them early the next morning, a messenger
+having been despatched from Crocker's ranch before eleven at night, but
+all his skill could not save "Burnham," now known to be Pierce, the
+ex-sutler clerk of the early Fifties. He had prospered and made money
+ever since the close of the war, and Zoe had been thoroughly well
+educated in the East before the poor child was summoned to share her
+mother's exile. His mania seemed to be to avoid all possibility of
+contact with the troops, but the Crockers had given such glowing
+accounts of the land near Fort Phoenix, and they were so positively
+assured that there need be no intercourse whatever with that post, that
+he determined to risk it. But, go where he would, his sin had found him
+out.
+
+The long hot summer followed, but it often happened that before many
+weeks there were interchanges of visits between the fort and the ranch.
+The ladies insisted that the widow should come thither for change and
+cheer, and Zoe's appearance at Phoenix was the sensation of the year.
+Baker was in the seventh heaven. "Burnham," it was found, had a certain
+sense of justice, for his will had been made long before, and everything
+he possessed was left unreservedly to the woman whom he had betrayed
+and, in his tigerish way, doubtless loved, for he had married her in
+'65, the instant he succeeded in convincing her that Potts was really
+dead.
+
+So far from combating the will, both the Crockers were cordial in their
+support. Indeed, it was the elder brother who told the widow of its
+existence. They had known her and her story many a year, and were ready
+to devote themselves to her service now. The junior moved up to the
+"Burnham" place to take general charge and look after matters, for the
+property was every day increasing in value. And so matters went until
+the fall, and then, one lovely evening, in the little wooden chapel at
+the old fort, there was a gathering such as its walls had never known
+before; and the loveliest bride that Arizona ever saw, blushing,
+smiling, and radiantly happy, received the congratulations of the entire
+garrison and of delegations from almost every post in the department.
+
+A few years ago, to the sorrow of everybody in the regiment, Mr. and
+Mrs. Harry Baker bade it good-by forever. The fond old mother who had so
+long watched over the growing property for "her children," as she called
+them, had no longer the strength the duties required. Crocker had taken
+unto himself a helpmate and was needed at his own place, and our gallant
+and genial comrade with his sweet wife left us only when it became
+evident to all at Phoenix that a new master was needed at Starlight
+Ranch.
+
+
+
+
+WELL WON;
+
+OR,
+
+FROM THE PLAINS TO "THE POINT."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+RALPH MCCREA.
+
+
+The sun was going down, and a little girl with big, dark eyes who was
+sitting in the waiting-room of the railway station was beginning to look
+very tired. Ever since the train came in at one o'clock she had been
+perched there between the iron arms of the seat, and now it was after
+six o'clock of the long June day, and high time that some one came for
+her.
+
+A bonny little mite she was, with a wealth of brown hair tumbling down
+her shoulders and overhanging her heavy eyebrows. She was prettily
+dressed, and her tiny feet, cased in stout little buttoned boots, stuck
+straight out before her most of the time, as she sat well back on the
+broad bench.
+
+She was a silent little body, and for over two hours had hardly opened
+her lips to any one,--even to the doll that now lay neglected on the
+seat beside her. Earlier in the afternoon she had been much engrossed
+with that blue-eyed, flaxen-haired, and overdressed beauty; but, little
+by little, her interest flagged, and when a six-year-old girlie loses
+interest in a brand-new doll something serious must be the matter.
+
+Something decidedly serious was the matter now. The train that came up
+from Denver had brought this little maiden and her father,--a handsome,
+sturdy-looking ranchman of about thirty years of age,--and they had been
+welcomed with jubilant cordiality by two or three stalwart men in
+broad-brimmed slouch hats and frontier garb. They had picked her up in
+their brawny arms and carried her to the waiting-room, and seated her
+there in state and fed her with fruit and dainties, and made much of
+her. Then her father had come in and placed in her arms this wonderful
+new doll, and while she was still hugging it in her delight, he laid a
+heavy satchel on the seat beside her and said,--
+
+"And now, baby, papa has to go up-town a ways. He has lots of things to
+get to take home with us, and some new horses to try. He may be gone a
+whole hour, but will you stay right here--you and dolly--and take good
+care of the satchel?"
+
+She looked up a little wistfully. She did not quite like to be left
+behind, but she felt sure papa could not well take her,--he was always
+so loving and kind,--and then, there was dolly; and there were other
+children with their mothers in the room. So she nodded, and put up her
+little face for his kiss. He took her in his arms a minute and hugged
+her tight.
+
+"That's my own little Jessie!" he said. "She's as brave as her mother
+was, fellows, and it's saying a heap."
+
+With that he set her down upon the bench, and they put dolly in her
+arms again and a package of apples within her reach; and then the jolly
+party started off.
+
+They waved their hands to her through the window and she smiled shyly at
+them, and one of them called to a baggage-man and told him to have an
+eye on little Jessie in there. "She is Farron's kid."
+
+For a while matters did not go so very badly. Other children, who came
+to look at that marvellous doll and to make timid advances, kept her
+interested. But presently the east-bound train was signalled and they
+were all whisked away.
+
+Then came a space of over an hour, during which little Jessie sat there
+all alone in the big, bare room, playing contentedly with her new toy
+and chattering in low-toned, murmurous "baby talk" to her, and pointing
+out the wonderful sunbeams that came slanting in through the dust of the
+western windows. She had had plenty to eat and a big glass of milk
+before papa went away, and was neither hungry nor thirsty; but all the
+same, it seemed as if that hour were getting very, very long; and every
+time the tramp of footsteps was heard on the platform outside she looked
+up eagerly.
+
+Then other people began to come in to wait for a train, and whenever the
+door opened, the big, dark eyes glanced quickly up with such a hopeful,
+wistful gaze, and as each new-comer proved to be a total stranger the
+little maiden's disappointment was so evident that some kind-hearted
+women came over to speak to her and see if all was right.
+
+But she was as shy as she was lonely, poor little mite, and hung her
+head and hugged her doll, and shrank away when they tried to take her in
+their arms. All they could get her to say was that she was waiting for
+papa and that her name was Jessie Farron.
+
+At last their train came and they had to go, and a new set appeared; and
+there were people to meet and welcome them with joyous greetings and
+much homely, homelike chatter, and everybody but one little girl seemed
+to have friends. It all made Jessie feel more and more lonely, and to
+wonder what could have happened to keep papa so very long.
+
+Still she was so loyal, so sturdy a little sentinel at her post. The
+kind-hearted baggage-man came in and strove to get her to go with him to
+his cottage "a ways up the road," where his wife and little ones were
+waiting tea for him; but she shook her head and shrank back even from
+him.
+
+Papa had told her to stay there and she would not budge. Papa had placed
+his satchel in her charge, and so she kept guard over it and watched
+every one who approached.
+
+The sun was getting low and shining broadly in through those western
+windows and making a glare that hurt her eyes, and she longed to change
+her seat. Between the sun glare and the loneliness her eyes began to
+fill with big tears, and when once they came it was so hard to force
+them back; so it happened that poor little Jessie found herself crying
+despite all her determination to be "papa's own brave daughter."
+
+The windows behind her opened out to the north, and by turning around
+she could see a wide, level space between the platform and the hotel,
+where wagons and an omnibus or two, and a four-mule ambulance had been
+coming and going.
+
+Again and again her eyes had wandered towards this space in hopeful
+search for father's coming, only to meet with disappointment. At last,
+just as she had turned and was kneeling on the seat and gazing through
+the tears that trickled down her pretty face, she saw a sight that made
+her sore little heart bound high with hope.
+
+First there trotted into the enclosure a span of handsome bay horses
+with a low phaeton in which were seated two ladies; and directly after
+them, at full gallop, came two riders on spirited, mettlesome sorrels.
+
+Little Jessie knew the horsemen at a glance. One was a tall, bronzed,
+dark-moustached trooper in the fatigue uniform of a cavalry sergeant;
+the other was a blue-eyed, faired-haired young fellow of sixteen years,
+who raised his cap and bowed to the ladies in the carriage, as he reined
+his horse up close to the station platform.
+
+He was just about to speak to them when he heard a childish voice
+calling, "Ralph! Ralph!" and, turning quickly around, he caught sight of
+a little girl stretching out her arms to him through the window, and
+crying as if her baby heart would break.
+
+In less time than it takes me to write five words he sprang from his
+horse, bounded up the platform into the waiting-room, and gathered the
+child to his heart, anxiously bidding her tell him what was the trouble.
+
+For a few minutes she could only sob in her relief and joy at seeing
+him, and snuggle close to his face. The ladies wondered to see Ralph
+McCrea coming towards them with a strange child in his arms, but they
+were all sympathy and loving-kindness in a moment, so attractive was her
+sweet face.
+
+"Mrs. Henry, this is Jessie Farron. You know her father; he owns a ranch
+up on the Chugwater, right near the Laramie road. The station-master
+says she has been here all alone since he went off at one o'clock with
+some friends to buy things for the ranch and try some horses. It must
+have been his party Sergeant Wells and I saw way out by the fort."
+
+He paused a moment to address a cheering word to the little girl in his
+arms, and then went on: "Their team had run away over the prairie--a man
+told us--and they were leading them in to the quartermaster's corral as
+we rode from the stables. I did not recognize Farron at the distance,
+but Sergeant Wells will gallop out and tell him Jessie is all right.
+_Would_ you mind taking care of her a few minutes? Poor little girl!" he
+added, in lower and almost beseeching tones, "she hasn't any mother."
+
+"_Would_ I mind!" exclaimed Mrs. Henry, warmly. "Give her to me, Ralph.
+Come right here, little daughter, and tell me all about it," and the
+loving woman stood up in the carriage and held forth her arms, to which
+little Jessie was glad enough to be taken, and there she sobbed, and was
+soothed and petted and kissed as she had not been since her mother died.
+
+Ralph and the station-master brought to the carriage the wonderful
+doll--at sight of whose toilet Mrs. Henry could not repress a
+significant glance at her lady friend, and a suggestive exclamation of
+"Horrors!"--and the heavy satchel. These were placed where Jessie could
+see them and feel that they were safe, and then she was able to answer a
+few questions and to look up trustfully into the gentle face that was
+nestled every little while to hers, and to sip the cup of milk that
+Ralph fetched from the hotel. She had certainly fallen into the hands of
+persons who had very loving hearts.
+
+"Poor little thing! What a shame to leave her all alone! How long has
+her mother been dead, Ralph?" asked the other lady, rather indignantly.
+
+"About two years, Mrs. Wayne. Father and his officers knew them very
+well. Our troop was camped up there two whole summers near them,--last
+summer and the one before,--but Farron took her to Denver to visit her
+mother's people last April, and has just gone for her. Sergeant Wells
+said he stopped at the ranch on the way down from Laramie, and Farron
+told him, then, he couldn't live another month without his little girl,
+and was going to Denver for her at once."
+
+"I remember them well, now," said Mrs. Henry, "and we saw him sometimes
+when our troop was at Laramie. What was the last news from your father,
+Ralph, and when do you go?"
+
+"No news since the letter that met me here. You know he has been
+scouting ever since General Crook went on up to the Powder River
+country. Our troop and the Grays are all that are left to guard that
+whole neighborhood, and the Indians seem to know it. They are 'jumping'
+from the reservation all the time."
+
+"But the Fifth Cavalry are here now, and they will soon be up there to
+help you, and put a stop to all that,--won't they?"
+
+"I don't know. The Fifth say that they expect orders to go to the Black
+Hills, so as to get between the reservations and Sitting Bull's people.
+Only six troops--half the regiment--have come. Papa's letter said I was
+to start for Laramie with them, but they have been kept waiting four
+days already."
+
+"They will start now, though," said the lady. "General Merritt has just
+got back from Red Cloud, where he went to look into the situation, and
+he has been in the telegraph office much of the afternoon wiring to
+Chicago, where General Sheridan is. Colonel Mason told us, as we drove
+past camp, that they would probably march at daybreak."
+
+"That means that Sergeant Wells and I go at the same time, then," said
+Ralph, with glistening eyes. "Doesn't it seem odd, after I've been
+galloping all over this country from here to the Chug for the last three
+years, that now father won't let me go it alone. I never yet set eyes on
+a war party of Indians, or heard of one south of the Platte."
+
+"All the same they came, Ralph, and it was simply to protect those
+settlers that your father's company was there so much. This year they
+are worse than ever, and there has been no cavalry to spare. If you were
+my boy, I should be worried half to death at the idea of your riding
+alone from here to Laramie. What does your mother think of it?"
+
+"It was mother, probably, who made father issue the order. She writes
+that, eager as she is to see me, she wouldn't think of letting me come
+alone with Sergeant Wells. Pshaw! He and I would be safer than the old
+stage-coach any day. That is never 'jumped' south of Laramie, though it
+is chased now and then above there. Of course the country's full of
+Indians between the Platte and the Black Hills, but we shouldn't be
+likely to come across any."
+
+There was a moment's silence. Nestled in Mrs. Henry's arms the weary
+little girl was dropping off into placid slumber, and forgetting all her
+troubles. Both the ladies were wives of officers of the army, and were
+living at Fort Russell, three miles out from Cheyenne, while their
+husbands were far to the north with their companies on the Indian
+campaign, which was just then opening.
+
+It was an anxious time. Since February all of the cavalry and much of
+the infantry stationed in Nebraska and Wyoming had been out in the wild
+country above the North Platte River, between the Big Horn Mountains and
+the Black Hills. For two years previous great numbers of the young
+warriors had been slipping away from the Sioux reservations and joining
+the forces of such vicious and intractable chiefs as Sitting Bull, Gall,
+and Rain-in-the-face, it could scarcely be doubted, with hostile intent.
+
+Several thousands of the Indians were known to be at large, and
+committing depredations and murders in every direction among the
+settlers. Now, all pacific means having failed, the matter had been
+turned over to General Crook, who had recently brought the savage
+Apaches of Arizona under subjection, to employ such means as he found
+necessary to defeat their designs.
+
+General Crook found the Sioux and their allies armed with the best
+modern breech-loaders, well supplied with ammunition and countless herds
+of war ponies, and far too numerous and powerful to be handled by the
+small force at his command.
+
+One or two sharp and savage fights occurred in March, while the mercury
+was still thirty degrees below zero, and then the government decided on
+a great summer campaign. Generals Terry and Gibbon were to hem the
+Indians from the north along the Yellowstone, while at the same time
+General Crook was to march up and attack them from the south.
+
+When June came, four regiments of cavalry and half a dozen infantry
+regiments were represented among the forces that scouted to and fro in
+the wild and beautiful uplands of Wyoming, Dakota, and Eastern Montana,
+searching for the Sioux.
+
+The families of the officers and soldiers remained at the barracks from
+which the men were sent, and even at the exposed stations of Forts
+Laramie, Robinson, and Fetterman, many ladies and children remained
+under the protection of small garrisons of infantry. Among the ladies at
+Laramie was Mrs. McCrea, Ralph's mother, who waited for the return of
+her boy from a long absence at school.
+
+A manly, sturdy fellow was Ralph, full of health and vigor, due in great
+part to the open-air life he had led in his early boyhood. He had
+"backed" an Indian pony before he was seven, and could sit one like a
+Comanche by the time he was ten. He had accompanied his father on many a
+long march and scout, and had ridden every mile of the way from the Gila
+River in Arizona, across New Mexico, and so on up into Nebraska.
+
+He had caught brook trout in the Cache la Poudre, and shot antelope
+along the Loup Fork of the Platte. With his father and his father's men
+to watch and keep him from harm, he had even charged his first buffalo
+herd and had been fortunate enough to shoot a bull. The skin had been
+made into a robe, which he carefully kept.
+
+Now, all eager to spend his vacation among his favorite haunts,--in the
+saddle and among the mountain streams,--Ralph McCrea was going back to
+his army home, when, as ill-luck would have it, the great Sioux war
+broke out in the early summer of our Centennial Year, and promised to
+greatly interfere with, if it did not wholly spoil, many of his
+cherished plans.
+
+Fort Laramie lay about one hundred miles north of Cheyenne, and Sergeant
+Wells had come down with the paymaster's escort a few days before,
+bringing Ralph's pet, his beautiful little Kentucky sorrel "Buford," and
+now the boy and his faithful friend, the sergeant, were visiting at Fort
+Russell, and waiting for a safe opportunity to start for home.
+
+Presently, as they chatted in low tones so as not to disturb the little
+sleeper, there came the sound of rapid hoof-beats, and Sergeant Wells
+cantered into the enclosure and, riding up to the carriage, said to
+Ralph,--
+
+"I found him, sir, all safe; but their wagon was being patched up, and
+he could not leave. He is so thankful to Mrs. Henry for her kindness,
+and begs to know if she would mind bringing Jessie out to the fort. The
+men are trying very hard to persuade him not to start for the Chug in
+the morning."
+
+"Why not, sergeant?"
+
+"Because the telegraph despatches from Laramie say there must be a
+thousand Indians gone out from the reservation in the last two days.
+They've cut the wires up to Red Cloud, and no more news can reach us."
+
+Ralph's face grew very pale.
+
+"Father is right in the midst of them, with only fifty men!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+CAVALRY ON THE MARCH.
+
+
+It was a lovely June morning when the Fifth Cavalry started on its
+march. Camp was struck at daybreak, and soon after five o'clock, while
+the sun was still low in the east and the dew-drops were sparkling on
+the buffalo grass, the long column was winding up the bare, rolling
+"divide" which lay between the valleys of Crow and Lodge Pole Creeks. In
+plain view, only thirty miles away to the west, were the summits of the
+Rocky Mountains, but such is the altitude of this upland prairie,
+sloping away eastward between the two forks of the Platte River, that
+these summits appear to be nothing more than a low range of hills
+shutting off the western horizon.
+
+Looking southward from the Laramie road, all the year round one can see
+the great peaks of the range--Long's and Hahn's and Pike's--glistening
+in their mantles of snow, and down there near them, in Colorado, the
+mountains slope abruptly into the Valley of the South Platte.
+
+Up here in Wyoming the Rockies go rolling and billowing far out to the
+east, and the entire stretch of country, from what are called the "Black
+Hills of Wyoming," in contradistinction to the Black Hills of Dakota,
+far east as the junction of the forks of the Platte, is one vast
+inclined plane.
+
+The Union Pacific Railway winds over these Black Hills at Sherman,--the
+lowest point the engineers could find,--and Sherman is over eight
+thousand feet above the sea.
+
+From Sherman, eastward, in less than an hour's run the cars go sliding
+down with smoking brakes to Cheyenne, a fall of two thousand feet. But
+the wagon-road from Cheyenne to Fort Laramie twists and winds among the
+ravines and over the divides of this lofty prairie; so that Ralph and
+his soldier friends, while riding jauntily over the hard-beaten track
+this clear, crisp, sunshiny, breezy morning, were twice as high above
+the sea as they would have been at the tiptop of the Catskills and
+higher even than had they been at the very summit of Mount Washington.
+
+The air at this height, though rare, is keen and exhilarating, and one
+needs no second look at the troopers to see how bright are their eyes
+and how nimble and elastic is the pace of their steeds.
+
+The commanding officer, with his adjutant and orderlies and a little
+group of staff sergeants, had halted at the crest of one of these ridges
+and was looking back at the advancing column. Beside the winding road
+was strung a line of wires,--the military telegraph to the border
+forts,--and with the exception of those bare poles not a stick of timber
+was anywhere in sight.
+
+The whole surface is destitute of bush or tree, but the thick little
+bunches of gray-green grass that cover it everywhere are rich with juice
+and nutriment. This is the buffalo grass of the Western prairies, and
+the moment the horses' heads are released down go their nozzles, and
+they are cropping eagerly and gratefully.
+
+Far as the eye can see to the north and east it roams over a rolling,
+tumbling surface that seems to have become suddenly petrified. Far to
+the south are the snow-shimmering peaks; near at hand, to the west, are
+the gloomy gorges and ravines and wide wastes of upland of the Black
+Hills of Wyoming; and so clear is the air that they seem but a short
+hour's gallop away.
+
+There is something strangely deceptive about the distances in an
+atmosphere so rare and clear as this.
+
+A young surgeon was taking his first ride with a cavalry column in the
+wide West, and, as he looked back into the valley through which they had
+been marching for over half an hour, his face was clouded with an
+expression of odd perplexity.
+
+"What's the matter, doctor?" asked the adjutant, with a grin on his
+face. "Are you wondering whether those fellows really are United States
+regulars?" and the young officer nodded towards the long column of
+horsemen in broad-brimmed slouch hats and flannel shirts or fanciful
+garb of Indian tanned buckskin. Even among the officers there was hardly
+a sign of the uniform or trappings which distinguish the soldiers in
+garrison.
+
+"No, it isn't _that_. I knew that you fellows who had served so long in
+Arizona had got out of the way of wearing uniform in the field against
+Indians. What I can't understand is that ridge over there. I thought we
+had been down in a hollow for the last half-hour, yet look at it; we
+must have come over that when I was thinking of something else."
+
+"Not a bit of it, doctor," laughed the colonel. "That's where we
+dismounted and took a short rest and gave the horses a chance to pick a
+bit."
+
+"Why, but, colonel! that must have been two miles back,--full half an
+hour ago: you don't mean that ridge is two miles away? I could almost
+hit that man riding down the road towards us."
+
+"It would be a wonderful shot, doctor. That man is one of the teamsters
+who went back after a dropped pistol. He is a mile and a half away."
+
+The doctor's eyes were wide open with wonder.
+
+"Of course you must know, colonel, but it is incomprehensible to me."
+
+"It is easily proved, doctor. Take these two telegraph poles nearest us
+and tell me how far they are apart."
+
+The doctor looked carefully from one pole to another. Only a single wire
+was strung along the line, and the poles were stout and strong. After a
+moment's study he said, "Well, they are just about seventy-five yards
+apart."
+
+"More than that, doctor. They are a good hundred yards. But even at your
+estimate, just count the poles back to that ridge--of course they are
+equidistant, or nearly so, all along--and tell me how far you make it."
+
+The doctor's eyes began to dilate again as he silently took account of
+the number.
+
+"I declare, there are over twenty to the rear of the wagon-train and
+nearly forty across the ridge! I give it up."
+
+"And now look here," said the colonel, pointing out to the eastward
+where some lithe-limbed hounds were coursing over the prairie with Ralph
+on his fleet sorrel racing in pursuit. "Look at young McCrea out there
+where there are no telegraph poles to help you judge the distance. If he
+were an Indian whom you wanted to bring down what would you set your
+sights at, providing you had time to set them at all?" and the veteran
+Indian fighter smiled grimly.
+
+The doctor shook his head.
+
+"It is too big a puzzle for me," he answered. "Five minutes ago I would
+have said three hundred at the utmost, but I don't know now."
+
+"How about that, Nihil?" asked the colonel, turning to a soldier riding
+with the head-quarters party.
+
+Nihil's brown hand goes up to the brim of his scouting hat in salute,
+but he shook his head.
+
+"The bullet would kick up a dust this side of him, sir," was the answer.
+
+"People sometimes wonder why it is we manage to hit so few of these
+Cheyennes or Sioux in our battles with them," said the colonel. "Now you
+can get an idea of one of the difficulties. They rarely come within six
+hundred yards of us when they are attacking a train or an infantry
+escort, and are always riding full tilt, just as you saw Ralph just now.
+It is next to impossible to hit them."
+
+"I understand," said the doctor. "How splendidly that boy rides!"
+
+"Ralph? Yes. He's a genuine trooper. Now, there's a boy whose whole
+ambition is to go to West Point. He's a manly, truthful, dutiful young
+fellow, born and raised in the army, knows the plains by heart, and just
+the one to make a brilliant and valuable cavalry officer, but there
+isn't a ghost of a chance for him."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Why not? Why! how is he to get an appointment? If he had a home
+somewhere in the East, and his father had influence with the Congressman
+of the district, it might be done; but the sons of army officers have
+really very little chance. The President used to have ten appointments a
+year, but Congress took them away from him. They thought there were too
+many cadets at the Point; but while they were virtuously willing to
+reduce somebody else's prerogatives in that line, it did not occur to
+them that they might trim a little on their own. Now the President is
+allowed only ten 'all told,' and can appoint no boy until some of his
+ten are graduated or otherwise disposed of. It really gives him only two
+or three appointments a year, and he has probably a thousand applicants
+for every one. What chance has an army boy in Wyoming against the son of
+some fellow with Senators and Representatives at his back in Washington?
+If the army could name an occasional candidate, a boy like Ralph would
+be sure to go, and we would have more soldiers and fewer scientists in
+the cavalry."
+
+By this time the head of the compact column was well up, and the captain
+of the leading troop, riding with his first lieutenant in front of his
+sets of fours, looked inquiringly at the colonel, as though half
+expectant of a signal to halt or change the gait. Receiving none, and
+seeing that the colonel had probably stopped to look over his command,
+the senior troop leader pushed steadily on.
+
+Behind him, four abreast, came the dragoons,--a stalwart, sunburned,
+soldierly-looking lot. Not a particle of show or glitter in their attire
+or equipment. Utterly unlike the dazzling hussars of England or the
+European continent, when the troopers of the United States are out on
+the broad prairies of the West "for business," as they put it, hardly a
+brass button, even, is to be seen.
+
+The colonel notes with satisfaction the nimble, active pace of the
+horses as they go by at rapid walk, and the easy seat of the men in
+their saddles.
+
+First the bays of "K" Troop trip quickly past; then the beautiful, sleek
+grays of "B," Captain Montgomery's company; then more bays in "I" and
+"A" and "D," and then some sixty-five blacks, "C" Troop's color.
+
+There are two sorrel troops in the regiment and more bays, and later in
+the year, when new horses were obtained, the Fifth had a roan and a
+dark-brown troop; but in June, when they were marching up to take their
+part in the great campaign that followed, only two of their companies
+were not mounted on bright bay horses, and one and all they were in the
+pink of condition and eager for a burst "'cross country."
+
+It was, however, their colonel's desire to take them to their
+destination in good trim, and he permitted no "larking."
+
+They had several hundred miles of weary marching before them. Much of
+the country beyond the Platte was "Bad Lands," where the grass is scant
+and poor, the soil ashen and spongy, and the water densely alkaline. All
+this would tell very sensibly upon the condition of horses that all
+winter long had been comfortably stabled, regularly groomed and
+grain-fed, and watered only in pure running streams flushed by springs
+or melting snow.
+
+It was all very well for young Ralph to be coursing about on his fleet,
+elastic sorrel, radiant with delight as the boy was at being again "out
+on the plains" and in the saddle; but the cavalry commander's first care
+must be to bring his horses to the scene of action in the most effective
+state of health and soundness. The first few days' marching, therefore,
+had to be watched with the utmost care.
+
+As the noon hour approached, the doctor noted how the hills off to the
+west seemed to be growing higher, and that there were broader vistas of
+wide ranges of barren slopes to the east and north.
+
+The colonel was riding some distance ahead of the battalion, his little
+escort close beside, and Ralph was giving Buford a resting spell, and
+placidly ambling alongside the doctor.
+
+Sergeant Wells was riding somewhere in the column with some chum of old
+days. He belonged to another regiment, but knew the Fifth of old. The
+hounds had tired of chasing over a waterless country, and with lolling
+tongues were trotting behind their masters' horses.
+
+The doctor was vastly interested in what he had heard of Ralph, and
+engaged him in talk. Just as they came in sight of the broad, open
+valley in which runs the sparkling Lodge Pole, a two-horse wagon rumbled
+up alongside, and there on the front seat was Farron, the ranchman, with
+bright-eyed, bonny-faced little Jessie smiling beside him.
+
+"We've caught you, Ralph," he laughed, "though we left Russell an hour
+or more behind you. I s'pose you'll all camp at Lodge Pole for the
+night. We're going on to the Chug."
+
+"Hadn't you better see the colonel about that?" asked Ralph, anxiously.
+
+"Oh, it's all right! I got telegrams from Laramie and the Chug, both,
+just before we left Russell. Not an Indian's been heard of this side of
+the Platte, and your father's troop has just got in to Laramie."
+
+"Has he?" exclaimed Ralph, with delight. "Then he knows I've started,
+and perhaps he'll come on to the Chug or Eagle's Nest and meet me."
+
+"More'n likely," answered Farron. "You and the sergeant had better come
+ahead and spend the night with me at the ranch."
+
+"I've no doubt the colonel will let us go ahead with you," answered
+Ralph, "but the ranch is too far off the road. We would have to stay at
+Phillips's for the night. What say you, sergeant?" he asked, as Wells
+came loping up alongside.
+
+"The very plan, I think. Somebody will surely come ahead to meet us, and
+we can make Laramie two days before the Fifth."
+
+"Then, good-by, doctor; I must ask the colonel first, but we'll see you
+at Laramie."
+
+"Good-by, Ralph, and good luck to you in getting that cadetship."
+
+"Oh, well! I _must_ trust to luck for that. Father says it all depends
+on my getting General Sheridan to back me. If _he_ would only ask for
+me, or if I could only do something to make him glad to ask; but what
+chance is there?"
+
+What chance, indeed? Ralph McCrea little dreamed that at that very
+moment General Sheridan--far away in Chicago--was reading despatches
+that determined him to go at once, himself, to Red Cloud Agency; that in
+four days more the general would be there, at Laramie, and that in two
+wonderful days, meantime--but who was there who dreamed what would
+happen meantime?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+DANGER IN THE AIR.
+
+
+When the head of the cavalry column reached the bridge over Lodge Pole
+Creek a march of about twenty-five miles had been made, which is an
+average day's journey for cavalry troops when nothing urgent hastens
+their movements.
+
+Filing to the right, the horsemen moved down the north bank of the
+rapidly-running stream, and as soon as the rearmost troop was clear of
+the road and beyond reach of its dust, the trumpets sounded "halt" and
+"dismount," and in five minutes the horses, unsaddled, were rolling on
+the springy turf, and then were driven out in herds, each company's by
+itself, to graze during the afternoon along the slopes. Each herd was
+watched and guarded by half a dozen armed troopers, and such horses as
+were notorious "stampeders" were securely "side-lined" or hobbled.
+
+Along the stream little white tents were pitched as the wagons rolled in
+and were unloaded; and then the braying mules, rolling and kicking in
+their enjoyment of freedom from harness, were driven out and disposed
+upon the slopes at a safe distance from the horses. The smokes of little
+fires began to float into the air, and the jingle of spoon and
+coffee-pot and "spider" and skillet told that the cooks were busy
+getting dinner for the hungry campaigners.
+
+Such appetites as those long-day marches give! Such delight in life and
+motion one feels as he drinks in that rare, keen mountain air! Some of
+the soldiers--old plainsmen--are already prone upon the turf, their
+heads pillowed on their saddles, their slouch hats pulled down over
+their eyes, snatching half an hour's dreamless sleep before the cooks
+shall summon them to dinner.
+
+One officer from each company is still in saddle, riding around the
+horses of his own troop to see that the grass is well chosen and that
+his guards are properly posted and on the alert. Over at the road there
+stands a sort of frontier tavern and stage station, at which is a
+telegraph office, and the colonel has been sending despatches to
+Department Head-Quarters to announce the safe arrival of his command at
+Lodge Pole _en route_ for Fort Laramie. Now he is talking with Ralph.
+
+"It isn't that, my boy. I do not suppose there is an Indian anywhere
+near the Chugwater; but if your father thought it best that you should
+wait and start with us, I think it was his desire that you should keep
+in the protection of the column all the way. Don't you?"
+
+"Yes, sir, I do. The only question now is, will he not come or send
+forward to the Chug to meet me, and could I not be with mother two days
+earlier that way? Besides, Farron is determined to go ahead as soon as
+he has had dinner, and--I don't like to think of little Jessie being up
+there at the Chug just now. Would you mind my telegraphing to father at
+Laramie and asking him?"
+
+"No, indeed, Ralph. Do so."
+
+And so a despatch was sent to Laramie, and in the course of an hour,
+just as they had enjoyed a comfortable dinner, there came the reply,--
+
+"All right. Come ahead to Phillips's Ranch. Party will meet you there at
+eight in the morning. They stop at Eagle's Nest to-night."
+
+Ralph's eyes danced as he showed this to the colonel who read it gravely
+and replied,--
+
+"It is all safe, I fancy, or your father would not say so. They have
+patrols all along the bank of the Platte to the southeast, and no
+Indians can cross without its being discovered in a few hours. I suppose
+they never come across between Laramie and Fetterman, do they, Ralph?"
+
+"Certainly not of late years, colonel. It is so far off their line to
+the reservations where they have to run for safety after their
+depredations."
+
+"I know that; but now that all but two troops of cavalry have gone up
+with General Crook they might be emboldened to try a wider sweep. That's
+all I'm afraid of."
+
+"Even if the Indians came, colonel, they've got those ranch buildings so
+loop-holed and fortified at Phillips's that we could stand them off a
+week if need be, and you would reach there by noon at latest."
+
+"Yes. We make an early start to-morrow morning, and 'twill be just
+another twenty-five miles to our camp on the Chug. If all is well you
+will be nearly to Eagle's Nest by the time we get to Phillips's, and you
+will be at Laramie before the sunset-gun to-morrow. Well, give my
+regards to your father, Ralph, and keep your eye open for the main
+chance. We cavalry people want you for our representative at West Point,
+you know."
+
+"Thank you for that, colonel," answered Ralph, with sparkling eyes. "I
+sha'n't forget it in many a day."
+
+So it happened that late that afternoon, with Farron driving his load of
+household goods; with brown-haired little Jessie lying sound asleep with
+her head on his lap; with Sergeant Wells cantering easily alongside and
+Ralph and Buford scouting a little distance ahead, the two-horse wagon
+rolled over the crest of the last divide and came just at sunset in
+sight of the beautiful valley with the odd name of Chugwater.
+
+Farther up the stream towards its sources among the pine-crested Black
+Hills, there were many places where the busy beavers had dammed its
+flow. The Indians, bent on trapping these wary creatures, had listened
+in the stillness of the solitudes to the battering of those wonderful
+tails upon the mud walls of their dams and forts, and had named the
+little river after its most marked characteristic, the constant "_chug,
+chug_" of those cricket-bat caudals.
+
+On the west of the winding stream, in the smiling valley with tiny
+patches of verdure, lay the ranch with its out-buildings, corrals, and
+the peacefully browsing stock around it, and little Jessie woke at her
+father's joyous shout and pointed out her home to Ralph.
+
+There where the trail wound away from the main road the wagon and
+horsemen must separate, and Ralph reined close alongside and took Jessie
+in his arms and was hugged tight as he kissed her bonny face. Then he
+and the sergeant shook hands heartily with Farron, set spurs to their
+horses, and went loping down northeastward to the broader reaches of the
+valley.
+
+On their right, across the lowlands, ran the long ridge ending in an
+abrupt precipice, that was the scene of the great buffalo-killing by the
+Indians many a long year ago. Straight ahead were the stage station, the
+forage sheds, and the half dozen buildings of Phillips's. All was as
+placid and peaceful in the soft evening light as if no hostile Indian
+had ever existed.
+
+Yet there were to be seen signs of preparation for Indian attack. The
+herder whom the travellers met two miles south of the station was
+heavily armed and his mate was only short rifle-shot away. The men waved
+their hats to Ralph and his soldier comrade, and one of them called out,
+"Whar'd ye leave the cavalry?" and seemed disappointed to hear they were
+as far back as Lodge Pole.
+
+At the station, they found the ranchmen prepared for their coming and
+glad to see them. Captain McCrea had telegraphed twice during the
+afternoon and seemed anxious to know of their arrival.
+
+"He's in the office at Laramie now," said the telegraph agent, with a
+smile, "and I wired him the moment we sighted you coming down the hill.
+Come in and send him a few words. It will please him more than anything
+I can say."
+
+So Ralph stepped into the little room with its solitary instrument and
+lonely operator. In those days there was little use for the line except
+for the conducting of purely military business, and the agents or
+operators were all soldiers detailed for the purpose. Here at "The Chug"
+the instrument rested on a little table by the loop-hole of a window in
+the side of the log hut. Opposite it was the soldier's narrow camp-bed
+with its brown army blankets and with his heavy overcoat thrown over the
+foot. Close at hand stood his Springfield rifle, with the belt of
+cartridges, and over the table hung two Colt's revolvers.
+
+All through the rooms of the station the same war-like preparations were
+visible, for several times during the spring and early summer war
+parties of Indians had come prowling up the valley, driving the herders
+before them; but, having secured all the beef cattle they could handle,
+they had hurried back to the fords of the Platte and, except on one or
+two occasions, had committed no murders.
+
+Well knowing the pluck of the little community at Phillips's, the
+Indians had not come within long rifle range of the ranch, but on the
+last two visits the warriors seemed to have grown bolder. While most of
+the Indians were rounding up cattle and scurrying about in the valley,
+two miles below the ranch, it was noted that two warriors, on their
+nimble ponies, had climbed the high ridge on the east that overlooked
+the ranches in the valley beyond and above Phillips's, and were
+evidently taking deliberate note of the entire situation.
+
+One of the Indians was seen to point a long, bare arm, on which silver
+wristlets and bands flashed in the sun, at Farron's lonely ranch four
+miles up-stream.
+
+That was more than the soldier telegrapher could bear patiently. He took
+his Springfield rifle out into the fields, and opened a long range fire
+on these adventurous redskins.
+
+The Indians were a good mile away, but that honest "Long Tom" sent its
+leaden missiles whistling about their ears, and kicking up the dust
+around their ponies' heels, until, after a few defiant shouts and such
+insulting and contemptuous gestures as they could think of, the two had
+ducked suddenly out of sight behind the bluffs.
+
+All this the ranch people told Ralph and the sergeant, as they were
+enjoying a hot supper after the fifty-mile ride of the day. Afterwards
+the two travellers went out into the corral to see that their horses
+were secure for the night.
+
+Buford looked up with eager whinny at Ralph's footstep, pricked his
+pretty ears, and looked as full of life and spirit as if he had never
+had a hard day's gallop in his life. Sergeant Wells had given him a
+careful rubbing down while Ralph was at the telegraph office, and
+later, when the horses were thoroughly cool, they were watered at the
+running stream and given a hearty feed of oats.
+
+Phillips came out to lock up his stable while they were petting Buford,
+and stood there a moment admiring the pretty fellow.
+
+"With your weight I think he could make a race against any horse in the
+cavalry, couldn't he, Mr. Ralph?" he asked.
+
+"I'm not quite sure, Phillips; the colonel of the Fifth Cavalry has a
+horse that I might not care to race. He was being led along behind the
+head-quarters escort to-day. Barring that horse Van, I would ride Buford
+against any horse I've ever seen in the service for any distance from a
+quarter of a mile to a day's march."
+
+"But those Indian ponies, Mr. Ralph, couldn't they beat him?"
+
+"Over rough ground--up hill and down dale--I suppose some of them could.
+I saw their races up at Red Cloud last year, and old Spotted Tail
+brought over a couple of ponies from Camp Sheridan that ran like a
+streak, and there was a Minneconjou chief there who had a very fast
+pony. Some of the young Ogallallas had quick, active beasts, but, take
+them on a straight-away run, I wouldn't be afraid to try my luck with
+Buford against the best of them."
+
+"Well, I hope you'll never have to ride for your life on him. He's
+pretty and sound and fast, but those Indians have such wind and bottom;
+they never seem to give out."
+
+A little later--at about half after eight o'clock--Sergeant Wells, the
+telegraph operator, and one or two of the ranchmen sat tilted back in
+their rough chairs on the front porch of the station enjoying their
+pipes. Ralph had begun to feel a little sleepy, and was ready to turn in
+when he was attracted by the conversation between the two soldiers; the
+operator was speaking, and the seriousness of his tone caused the boy to
+listen.
+
+"It isn't that we have any particular cause to worry just here. With our
+six or seven men we could easily stand off the Indians until help came,
+but it's Farron and little Jessie I'm thinking of. He and his two men
+would have no show whatever in case of a sudden and determined attack.
+They have not been harmed so far, because the Indians always crossed
+below Laramie and came up to the Chug, and so there was timely warning.
+Now, they have seen Farron's place up there all by itself. They can
+easily find out, by hanging around the traders at Red Cloud, who lives
+there, how many men he has, and about Jessie. Next to surprising and
+killing a white man in cold blood, those fellows like nothing better
+than carrying off a white child and concealing it among them. The
+gypsies have the same trait. Now, they know that so long as they cross
+below Laramie the scouts are almost sure to discover it in an hour or
+two, and as soon as they strike the Chug Valley some herders come
+tumbling in here and give the alarm. They have come over regularly every
+moon, since General Crook went up in February, _until now_."
+
+The operator went on impressively:
+
+"The moon's almost on the wane, and they haven't shown up yet. Now, what
+worries me is just this. Suppose they _should_ push out westward from
+the reservation, cross the Platte somewhere about Bull Bend or even
+nearer Laramie, and come down the Chug from the north. Who is to give
+Farron warning?"
+
+"They're bound to hear it at Laramie and telegraph you at once,"
+suggested one of the ranchmen.
+
+"Not necessarily. The river isn't picketed between Fetterman and
+Laramie, simply because the Indians have always tried the lower
+crossings. The stages go through three times a week, and there are
+frequent couriers and trains, but they don't keep a lookout for pony
+tracks. The chances are that their crossing would not be discovered for
+twenty-four hours or so, and as to the news being wired to us here,
+those reds would never give us a chance. The first news we got of their
+deviltry would be that they had cut the line ten or twelve miles this
+side of Laramie as they came sweeping down.
+
+"I tell you, boys," continued the operator, half rising from his chair
+in his earnestness, "I hate to think of little Jessie up there to-night.
+I go in every few minutes and call up Laramie or Fetterman just to feel
+that all is safe, and stir up Lodge Pole, behind us, to realize that
+we've got the Fifth Cavalry only twenty-five miles away; but the Indians
+haven't missed a moon yet, and there's only one more night of this."
+
+Even as his hearers sat in silence, thinking over the soldier's words,
+there came from the little cabin the sharp and sudden clicking of the
+telegraph. "It's my call," exclaimed the operator, as he sprang to his
+feet and ran to his desk.
+
+Ralph and Sergeant Wells were close at his heels; he had clicked his
+answering signal, seized a pencil, and was rapidly taking down a
+message. They saw his eyes dilate and his lips quiver with suppressed
+excitement. Once, indeed, he made an impulsive reach with his hand, as
+if to touch the key and shut off the message and interpose some idea of
+his own, but discipline prevailed.
+
+"It's for you," he said, briefly, nodding up to Ralph, while he went on
+to copy the message.
+
+It was a time of anxious suspense in the little office. The sergeant
+paced silently to and fro with unusual erectness of bearing and a
+firmly-compressed lip. His appearance and attitude were that of the
+soldier who has divined approaching danger and who awaits the order for
+action. Ralph, who could hardly control his impatience, stood watching
+the rapid fingers of the operator as they traced out a message which was
+evidently of deep moment.
+
+At last the transcript was finished, and the operator handed it to the
+boy. Ralph's hand was trembling with excitement as he took the paper and
+carried it close to the light. It read as follows:
+
+     "RALPH MCCREA, Chugwater Station:
+
+     "Black Hills stage reports having crossed trail of large war party
+     going west, this side of Rawhide Butte. My troop ordered at once in
+     pursuit. Wait for Fifth Cavalry.
+
+                                                    "GORDON MCCREA."
+
+"Going west, this side of Rawhide Butte," said Ralph, as calmly as he
+could. "That means that they are twenty miles north of Laramie, and on
+the other side of the Platte."
+
+"It means that they knew what they were doing when they crossed just
+behind the last stage so as to give no warning, and that their trail was
+nearly two days old when seen by the down stage this afternoon. It means
+that they crossed the stage road, Ralph, but how long ago was that, do
+you think, and where are they now? It is my belief that they crossed the
+Platte above Laramie last night or early this morning, and will be down
+on us to-night."
+
+"Wire that to Laramie, then, at once," said Ralph. "It may not be too
+late to turn the troop this way."
+
+"I can only say what I think to my fellow-operator there, and can't even
+do that now; the commanding officer is sending despatches to Omaha, and
+asking that the Fifth Cavalry be ordered to send forward a troop or two
+to guard the Chug. But there's no one at the head-quarters this time o'
+night. Besides, if we volunteer any suggestions, they will say we were
+stampeded down here by a band of Indians that didn't come within
+seventy-five miles of us."
+
+"Well, father won't misunderstand me," said Ralph, "and I'm not afraid
+to ask him to think of what you say; wire it to him in my name."
+
+There was a long interval, twenty minutes or so, before the operator
+could "get the line." When at last he succeeded in sending his despatch,
+he stopped short in the midst of it.
+
+"It's no use, Ralph. Your father's troop was three miles away before his
+message was sent. There were reports from Red Cloud that made the
+commanding officer believe there were some Cheyennes going up to attack
+couriers or trains between Fetterman and the Big Horn. He is away north
+of the Platte."
+
+Another few minutes of thoughtful silence, then Ralph turned to his
+soldier friend,--
+
+"Sergeant, I have to obey father's orders and stay here, but it's my
+belief that Farron should be put on his guard at once. What say you?"
+
+"If you agree, sir, I'll ride up and spend the night with him."
+
+"Then go by all means. I know father would approve it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+CUT OFF.
+
+
+It was after ten o'clock when the waning moon came peering over the
+barrier ridge at the east. Over an hour had passed since Sergeant Wells,
+on his big sorrel, had ridden away up the stream on the trail to
+Farron's.
+
+Phillips had pressed upon him a Henry repeating rifle, which he had
+gratefully accepted. It could not shoot so hard or carry so far as the
+sergeant's Springfield carbine, the cavalry arm; but to repel a sudden
+onset of yelling savages at close quarters it was just the thing, as it
+could discharge sixteen shots without reloading. His carbine and the
+belt of copper cartridges the sergeant left with Ralph.
+
+Just before riding away he took the operator and Ralph to the back of
+the corral, whence, far up the valley, they could see the twinkling
+light at Farron's ranch.
+
+"We ought to have some way of signalling," he had said as they went out
+of doors. "If you get news during the night that the Indians are surely
+this side of the Platte, of course we want to know at once; if, on the
+other hand, you hear they are nowhere within striking distance, it will
+be a weight off my mind and we can all get a good night's rest up there.
+Now, how shall we fix it?"
+
+After some discussion, it was arranged that Wells should remain on the
+low porch in front of Farron's ranch until midnight. The light was to be
+extinguished there as soon as he arrived, as an assurance that all was
+well, and it should not again appear during the night unless as a
+momentary answer to signals they might make.
+
+If information were received at Phillips's that the Indians were south
+of the Platte, Ralph should fire three shots from his carbine at
+intervals of five seconds; and if they heard that all was safe, he
+should fire one shot to call attention and then start a small blaze out
+on the bank of the stream, where it could be plainly seen from Farron's.
+
+Wells was to show his light half a minute when he recognized the signal.
+Having arrived at this understanding, the sergeant shook the hand of
+Ralph and the operator and rode towards Farron's.
+
+"What I wish," said the operator, "is that Wells could induce Farron to
+let him bring Jessie here for the night; but Farron is a bull-headed
+fellow and thinks no number of Indians could ever get the better of him
+and his two men. He knows very little of them and is hardly alive to the
+danger of his position. I think he will be safe with Wells, but, all
+the same, I wish that a troop of the Fifth Cavalry had been sent forward
+to-night."
+
+After they had gone back to the office the operator "called up" Laramie.
+"All quiet," was the reply, and nobody there seemed to think the Indians
+had come towards the Platte.
+
+Then the operator signalled to his associate at Lodge Pole, who wired
+back that nobody there had heard anything from Laramie or elsewhere
+about the Indians; that the colonel and one or two of his officers had
+been in the station a while during the evening and had sent messages to
+Cheyenne and Omaha and received one or two, but that they had all gone
+out to camp. Everything was quiet; "taps" had just sounded and they were
+all going to bed.
+
+"Lodge Pole" announced for himself that some old friends of his were on
+the guard that night, and he was going over to smoke a pipe and have a
+chat with them.
+
+To this "Chug" responded that he wished he wouldn't leave the office.
+There was no telling what might turn up or how soon he'd be wanted.
+
+But "Lodge Pole" said the operators were not required to stay at the
+board after nine at night; he would have the keeper of the station
+listen for his call, and would run over to camp for an hour; would be
+back at half-past ten and sleep by his instrument. Meantime, if needed,
+he could be called in a minute,--the guard tents were only three hundred
+yards away,--and so he went.
+
+Ralph almost wished that he had sent a message to the colonel to tell
+him of their suspicions and anxiety. He knew well that every officer
+and every private in that sleeping battalion would turn out eagerly and
+welcome the twenty-five-mile trot forward to the Chug on the report that
+the Sioux were out "on the war-path" and might be coming that way.
+
+Yet, army boy that he was, he hated to give what might be called a false
+alarm. He knew the Fifth only by reputation, and while he would not have
+hesitated to send such a message to his father had he been camped at
+Lodge Pole, or to his father's comrades in their own regiment, he did
+not relish the idea of sending a despatch that would rout the colonel
+out of his warm blankets, and which might be totally unnecessary.
+
+So the telegraph operator at Lodge Pole was permitted to go about his
+own devices, and once again Ralph and his new friend went out into the
+night to look over their surroundings and the situation.
+
+The light still burned at Farron's, and Phillips, coming out with a
+bundle of kindling-wood for the little beacon fire, chuckled when he saw
+it,--
+
+"Wells must be there by this time, but I'll just bet Farron is giving
+the boys a little supper, or something, to welcome Jessie home, and now
+he's got obstinate and won't let them douse the glim."
+
+"It's a case that Wells will be apt to decide for himself," answered
+Ralph. "He won't stand fooling, and will declare martial law.--There!
+What did I tell you?"
+
+The light went suddenly out in the midst of his words. They carried the
+kindling and made a little heap of dry sticks out near the bank of the
+stream; then stood a while and listened. In the valley, faintly lighted
+by the moon, all was silence and peace; not even the distant yelp of
+coyote disturbed the stillness of the night. Not a breath of air was
+stirring. A light film of cloud hung about the horizon and settled in a
+cumulus about the turrets of old Laramie Peak, but overhead the
+brilliant stars sparkled and the planets shone like little globes of
+molten gold.
+
+Hearing voices, Buford, lonely now without his friend, the sergeant's
+horse, set up a low whinny, and Ralph went in and spoke to him, patting
+his glossy neck and shoulder. When he came out he found that a third man
+had joined the party and was talking eagerly with Phillips.
+
+Ralph recognized the man as an old trapper who spent most of his time in
+the hills or farther up in the neighborhood of Laramie Peak. He had
+often been at the fort to sell peltries or buy provisions, and was a
+mountaineer and plainsman who knew every nook and cranny in Wyoming.
+
+Cropping the scant herbage on the flat behind the trapper was a lank,
+long-limbed horse from which he had just dismounted, and which looked
+travel-stained and weary like his master. The news the man brought was
+worthy of consideration, and Ralph listened with rapt attention and with
+a heart that beat hard and quick, though he said no word and gave no
+sign.
+
+"Then you haven't seen or heard a thing?" asked the new-comer. "It's
+mighty strange. I've scoured these hills--man and boy--nigh onto thirty
+years and ought to know Indian smokes when I see 'em. I don't think I
+can be mistaken about this. I was way up the range about four o'clock
+this afternoon and could see clear across towards Rawhide Butte, and
+three smokes went up over there, sure. What startled me," the trapper
+continued, "was the answer. Not ten miles above where I was there went
+up a signal smoke from the foot-hills of the range,--just in here to the
+northwest of us, perhaps twenty miles west of Eagle's Nest. It's the
+first time I've seen Indian smokes in there since the month they killed
+Lieutenant Robinson up by the peak. You bet I came down. _Sure_ they
+haven't seen anything at Laramie?"
+
+"Nothing. They sent Captain McCrea with his troop up towards Rawhide
+just after dark, but they declare nothing has been seen or heard of
+Indians this side of the Platte. I've been talking with Laramie most of
+the evening. The Black Hills stage coming down reported trail of a big
+war party out, going west just this side of the Butte, and some of them
+may have sent up the smokes you saw in that direction. I was saying to
+Ralph, here, that if that trail was forty-eight hours old, they would
+have had time to cross the Platte at Bull Bend, and be down here
+to-night."
+
+"They wouldn't come here first. They know this ranch too well. They'd go
+in to Eagle's Nest to try and get the stage horses and a scalp or two
+there. You're too strong for 'em here."
+
+"Ay; but there's Farron and his little kid up there four miles above
+us."
+
+"You don't tell me! Thought he'd taken her down to Denver."
+
+"So he did, and fetched her back to-day. Sergeant Wells has gone up
+there to keep watch with them, and we are to signal if we get important
+news. All you tell me only adds to what we suspected. How I wish we had
+known it an hour ago! Now, will you stay here with us or go up to
+Farron's and tell Wells what you've seen?"
+
+"I'll stay here. My horse can't make another mile, and you may believe I
+don't want any prowling round outside of a stockade this night. No, if
+you can signal to him go ahead and do it."
+
+"What say you, Ralph?"
+
+Ralph thought a moment in silence. If he fired his three shots, it meant
+that the danger was imminent, and that they had certain information that
+the Indians were near at hand. He remembered to have heard his father
+and other officers tell of sensational stories this same old trapper had
+inflicted on the garrison. Sergeant Wells himself used to laugh at
+"Baker's yarns." More than once the cavalry had been sent out to where
+Baker asserted he had certainly seen a hundred Indians the day before,
+only to find that not even the vestige of a pony track remained on the
+yielding sod. If he fired the signal shots it meant a night of vigil for
+everybody at Farron's and then how Wells would laugh at him in the
+morning, and how disgusted he would be when he found that it was
+entirely on Baker's assurances that he had acted!
+
+It was a responsible position for the boy. He would much have preferred
+to mount Buford and ride off over the four miles of moonlit prairie to
+tell the sergeant of Baker's report and let him be the judge of its
+authenticity. It was lucky he had that level-headed soldier operator to
+advise him. Already he had begun to fancy him greatly, and to respect
+his judgment and intelligence.
+
+"Suppose we go in and stir up Laramie, and tell them what Mr. Baker
+says," he suggested; and, leaving the trapper to stable his jaded horse
+under Phillips's guidance, Ralph and his friend once more returned to
+the station.
+
+"If the Indians are south of the Platte," said the operator, "I shall no
+longer hesitate about sending a despatch direct to the troops at Lodge
+Pole. The colonel ought to know. He can send one or two companies right
+along to-night. There is no operator at Eagle's Nest, or I'd have him up
+and ask if all was well there. That's what worries me, Ralph. It was
+back of Eagle's Nest old Baker says he saw their smokes, and it is
+somewhere about Eagle's Nest that I should expect the rascals to slip in
+and cut our wire. I'll bet they're all asleep at Laramie by this time.
+What o'clock is it?"
+
+The boy stopped at the window of the little telegraph room where the
+light from the kerosene lamp would fall upon his watch-dial. The soldier
+passed on around to the door. Glancing at his watch, Ralph followed on
+his track and got to the door-way just as his friend stretched forth his
+hand to touch the key.
+
+"It's just ten-fifty now."
+
+"Ten-fifty, did you say?" asked the soldier, glancing over his shoulder.
+"Ralph!" he cried, excitedly, "_the wire's cut!_"
+
+"Where?" gasped Ralph. "Can you tell?"
+
+"No, somewhere up above us,--near the Nest, probably,--though who can
+tell? It may be just round the bend of the road, for all we know. No
+doubt about there being Indians now, Ralph, give 'em your signal. Hullo!
+Hoofs!"
+
+Leaping out from the little tenement, the two listened intently. An
+instant before the thunder of horse's feet upon wooden planking had been
+plainly audible in the distance, and now the coming clatter could be
+heard on the roadway.
+
+Phillips and Baker, who had heard the sounds, joined them at the
+instant. Nearer and nearer came a panting horse; a shadowy rider loomed
+into sight up the road, and in another moment a young ranchman galloped
+up to the very doors.
+
+"All safe, fellows? Thank goodness for that! I've had a ride for it, and
+we're dead beat. _Indians?_ Why, the whole country's alive with 'em
+between here and Hunton's. I promised I'd go over to Farron's if they
+ever came around that way, but they may beat me there yet. How many men
+have you here?"
+
+"Seven now, counting Baker and Ralph; but I'll wire right back to Lodge
+Pole and let the Fifth Cavalry know. Quick, Ralph, give 'em your signal
+now!"
+
+Ralph seized his carbine and ran out on the prairie behind the corral,
+the others eagerly following him to note the effect. Bang! went the gun
+with a resounding roar that echoed from the cliffs at the east and came
+thundering back to them just in time to "fall in" behind two other
+ringing reports at short, five-second intervals.
+
+Three times the flash lighted up the faces of the little party; set and
+stern and full of pluck they were. Then all eyes were turned to the
+dark, shadowy, low-lying objects far up the stream, the roofs of
+Farron's threatened ranch.
+
+Full half a minute they watched, hearts beating high, breath coming
+thick and fast, hands clinching in the intensity of their anxiety.
+
+Then, hurrah! Faint and flickering at first, then shining a few seconds
+in clear, steady beam, the sergeant's answering signal streamed out upon
+the night, a calm, steadfast, unwavering response, resolute as the
+spirit of its soldier sender, and then suddenly disappeared.
+
+"He's all right!" said Ralph, joyously, as the young ranchman put spurs
+to his panting horse and rode off to the west. "Now, what about Lodge
+Pole?"
+
+Just as they turned away there came a sound far out on the prairie that
+made them pause and look wonderingly a moment in one another's eyes. The
+horseman had disappeared from view. They had watched him until he had
+passed out of sight in the dim distance. The hoof-beats of his horse had
+died away before they turned to go.
+
+Yet now there came the distant thunder of an hundred hoofs bounding over
+the sod.
+
+Out from behind a jutting spur of a bluff a horde of shadows sweep forth
+upon the open prairie towards the trail on which the solitary rider has
+disappeared. Here and there among them swift gleams, like silver
+streaks, are plainly seen, as the moonbeams glint on armlet or bracelet,
+or the nickel plating on their gaudy trappings.
+
+Then see! a ruddy flash! another! another! the muffled bang of
+fire-arms, and the vengeful yell and whoops of savage foeman float down
+to the breathless listeners at the station on the Chug. The Sioux are
+here in full force, and a score of them have swept down on that brave,
+hapless, helpless fellow riding through the darkness alone.
+
+Phillips groaned. "Oh, why did we let him go? Quick, now! Every man to
+the ranch, and you get word to Lodge Pole, will you?"
+
+"Ay, ay, and fetch the whole Fifth Cavalry here at a gallop!"
+
+But when Ralph ran into the telegraph station a moment later, he found
+the operator with his head bowed upon his arms and his face hidden from
+view.
+
+"What's the matter,--quick?" demanded Ralph.
+
+It was a ghastly face that was raised to the boy, as the operator
+answered,--
+
+"It--it's all my fault. I've waited too long. _They've cut the line
+behind us!_"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+AT FARRON'S RANCH.
+
+
+When Sergeant Wells reached Farron's ranch that evening little Jessie
+was peacefully sleeping in the room that had been her mother's. The
+child was tired after the long, fifty-mile drive from Russell, and had
+been easily persuaded to go to bed.
+
+Farron himself, with the two men who worked for him, was having a
+sociable smoke and chat, and the three were not a little surprised at
+Wells's coming and the unwelcome news he bore. The ranchman was one of
+the best-hearted fellows in the world, but he had a few infirmities of
+disposition and one or two little conceits that sometimes marred his
+better judgment. Having lived in the Chug Valley a year or two before
+the regiment came there, he had conceived it to be his prerogative to
+adopt a somewhat patronizing tone to its men, and believed that he knew
+much more about the manners and customs of the Sioux than they could
+possibly have learned.
+
+The Fifth Cavalry had been stationed not far from the Chug Valley when
+he first came to the country, and afterwards were sent out to Arizona
+for a five-years' exile. It was all right for the Fifth to claim
+acquaintance with the ways of the Sioux, Farron admitted, but as for
+these fellows of the --th,--that was another thing. It did not seem to
+occur to him that the guarding of the neighboring reservations for about
+five years had given the new regiment opportunities to study and observe
+these Indians that had not been accorded to him.
+
+Another element which he totally overlooked in comparing the relative
+advantages of the two regiments was a very important one that radically
+altered the whole situation. When the Fifth was on duty watching the
+Sioux, it was just after breech-loading rifles had been introduced into
+the army, and before they had been introduced among the Sioux.
+
+Through the mistaken policy of the Indian Bureau at Washington this
+state of affairs was now changed and, for close fighting, the savages
+were better armed than the troops. Nearly every warrior had either a
+magazine rifle or a breech-loader, and many of them had two revolvers
+besides. Thus armed, the Sioux were about ten times as formidable as
+they had been before, and the task of restraining them was far more
+dangerous and difficult than it had been when the Fifth guarded them.
+
+The situation demanded greater vigilance and closer study than in the
+old days, and Farron ought to have had sense enough to see it. But he
+did not. He had lived near the Sioux so many years; these soldiers had
+been near them so many years less; therefore they must necessarily know
+less about them than he did. He did not take into account that it was
+the soldiers' business to keep eyes and ears open to everything relating
+to the Indians, while the information which he had gained came to him
+simply as diversion, or to satisfy his curiosity.
+
+So it happened that when Wells came in that night and told Farron what
+was feared at Phillips's, the ranchman treated his warning with
+good-humored but rather contemptuous disregard.
+
+"Phillips gets stampeded too easy," was the way he expressed himself,
+"and when you fellows of the Mustangs have been here as long as I have
+you'll get to know these Indians better. Even if they did come, Pete and
+Jake here, and I, with our Henry rifles, could stand off fifty of 'em.
+Why, we've done it many a time."
+
+"How long ago?" asked the sergeant, quietly.
+
+"Oh, I don't know. It was before you fellows came. Why, you don't begin
+to know anything about these Indians! You never see 'em here nowadays,
+but when I first came here to the Chug there wasn't a week they didn't
+raid us. They haven't shown up in three years, except just this spring
+they've run off a little stock. But you never see 'em."
+
+"_You_ may never see them, Farron, but we do,--see them day in and day
+out as we scout around the reservation; and while I may not know what
+they were ten years ago, I know what they are _now_, and that's more to
+the purpose. You and Pete might have stood off a dozen or so when they
+hadn't 'Henrys' and 'Winchesters' as they have now, but you couldn't do
+it to-day, and it's all nonsense for you to talk of it. Of course, so
+long as you keep inside here you may pick them off, but look out of this
+window! What's to prevent their getting into your corral out there, and
+then holding you here! They can set fire to your roof over your head,
+man, and you can't get out to extinguish it."
+
+"What makes you think they've spotted me, anyhow?" asked Farron.
+
+"They looked you over the last time they came up the valley, and you
+know it. Now, if you and the men want to stay here and make a fight for
+it, all right,--I'd rather do that myself, only we ought to have two or
+three men to put in the corral,--but here's little Jessie. Let me take
+her down to Phillips's; she's safe there. He has everything ready for a
+siege and you haven't."
+
+"Why, she's only just gone to sleep, Wells; I don't want to wake her up
+out of a warm bed and send her off four miles a chilly night like
+this,--all for a scare, too. The boys down there would laugh at
+me,--just after bringing her here from Denver, too."
+
+"They're not laughing down there _this_ night, Farron, and they're not
+the kind that get stampeded either. Keep Jessie, if you say so, and I'll
+stay through the night; but I've fixed some signals with them down at
+the road and you've got to abide by them. They can see your light plain
+as a beacon, and it's got to go out in fifteen minutes."
+
+Farron had begun by pooh-poohing the sergeant's views, but he already
+felt that they deserved serious consideration. He was more than half
+disposed to adopt Wells's plan and let him take Jessie down to the safer
+station at Phillips's, but she looked so peaceful and bonny, sleeping
+there in her little bed, that he could not bear to disturb her. He was
+ashamed, too, of the appearance of yielding.
+
+So he told the sergeant that while he would not run counter to any
+arrangement he had made as to signals, and was willing to back him up in
+any project for the common defence, he thought they could protect Jessie
+and the ranch against any marauders that might come along. He didn't
+think it was necessary that they should all sit up. One man could watch
+while the others slept.
+
+As a first measure Farron and the sergeant took a turn around the ranch.
+The house itself was about thirty yards from the nearest side of the
+corral, or enclosure, in which Farron's horses were confined. In the
+corral were a little stable, a wagon-shed, and a poultry-house. The back
+windows of the stable were on the side towards the house, and should
+Indians get possession of the stable they could send fire-arrows, if
+they chose, to the roof of the house, and with their rifles shoot down
+any persons who might attempt to escape from the burning building.
+
+This fault of construction had long since been pointed out to Farron,
+but the man who called his attention to it, unluckily, was an officer of
+the new regiment, and the ranchman had merely replied, with a
+self-satisfied smile, that he guessed he'd lived long enough in that
+country to know a thing or two about the Indians.
+
+Sergeant Wells shook his head as he looked at the stable, but Farron
+said that it was one of his safe-guards.
+
+"I've got two mules in there that can smell an Indian five miles off,
+and they'd begin to bray the minute they did. That would wake me up, you
+see, because their heads are right towards me. Now, if they were way
+across the corral I mightn't hear 'em at all. Then it's close to the
+house, and convenient for feeding in winter. Will you put your horse in
+to-night?"
+
+Sergeant Wells declined. He might need him, he said, and would keep him
+in front of the house where he was going to take his station to watch
+the valley and look out for signals. He led the horse to the stream and
+gave him a drink, and asked Farron to lay out a hatful of oats. "They
+might come in handy if I have to make an early start."
+
+However lightly Farron might estimate the danger, his men regarded it as
+a serious matter. Having heard the particulars from Sergeant Wells,
+their first care was to look over their rifles and see that they were in
+perfect order and in readiness for use. When at last Farron had
+completed a leisurely inspection of his corral and returned to the
+house, he found Wells and Pete in quiet talk at the front, and the
+sergeant's horse saddled close at hand.
+
+"Oh, well!" he said, "if you're as much in earnest as all that, I'll
+bring my pipe out here with you, and if any signal should come, it'll be
+time enough then to wake Jessie, wrap her in a blanket, and you gallop
+off to Phillips's with her."
+
+And so the watchers went on duty. The light in the ranch was
+extinguished, and all about the place was as quiet as the broad, rolling
+prairie itself. Farron remained wakeful a little while, then said he was
+sleepy and should go in and lie down without undressing. Pete, too,
+speedily grew drowsy and sat down on the porch, where Wells soon caught
+sight of his nodding head just as the moon came peeping up over the
+distant crest of the "Buffalo Hill."
+
+How long Farron slept he had no time to ask, for the next thing he knew
+was that a rude hand was shaking his shoulder, and Pete's voice said,--
+
+"Up with you, Farron! The signal's fired at Phillips's. Up quick!"
+
+As Farron sprang to the floor, Pete struck a light, and the next minute
+the kerosene lamp, flickering and sputtering at first, was shining in
+the eastward window. Outside the door the ranchman found Wells
+tightening his saddle-girths, while his horse, snorting with excitement,
+pricked up his ears and gazed down the valley.
+
+"Who fired?" asked Farron, barely awake.
+
+"I don't know; Ralph probably. Better get Jessie for me at once. The
+Indians are this side of the Platte sure, and they may be near at hand.
+I don't like the way Spot's behaving,--see how excited he is. I don't
+like to leave you short-handed if there's to be trouble. If there's time
+I'll come back from Phillips's. Come, man! Wake Jessie."
+
+"All right. There's plenty of time, though. They must be miles down the
+valley yet. If they'd come from the north, the telegraph would have
+given warning long ago. And Dick Warner--my brother-in-law, Jessie's
+uncle--always promised he'd be down to tell me first thing, if they came
+any way that he could hear of it. You bet he'll be with us before
+morning, unless they're between him and us now."
+
+With that he turned into the house, and in a moment reappeared with the
+wondering, sleepy-eyed, half-wakened little maid in his strong arms.
+Wells was already in saddle, and Spot was snorting and prancing about in
+evident excitement.
+
+"I'll leave the 'Henry' with Pete. I can't carry it and Jessie, too.
+Hand her up to me and snuggle her well in the blanket."
+
+Farron hugged his child tight in his arms one moment. She put her little
+arms around his neck and clung to him, looking piteously into his face,
+yet shedding no tears. Something told her there was danger; something
+whispered "Indians!" to the childish heart; but she stifled her words of
+fear and obeyed her father's wish.
+
+"You are going down to Phillips's where Ralph is, Jessie, darling.
+Sergeant Wells is going to carry you. Be good and perfectly quiet. Don't
+cry, don't make a particle of noise, pet. Whatever you do, don't make
+any noise. Promise papa."
+
+As bravely as she had done when she waited that day at the station at
+Cheyenne, the little woman choked back the rising sob. She nodded
+obedience, and then put up her bonny face for her father's kiss. Who can
+tell of the dread, the emotion he felt as he clung to the trusting
+little one for that short moment?
+
+"God guard you, my baby," he muttered, as he carefully lifted her up to
+Wells, who circled her in his strong right arm, and seated her on the
+overcoat that was rolled at his pommel.
+
+Farron carefully wrapped the blanket about her tiny feet and legs, and
+with a prayer on his lips and a clasp of the sergeant's bridle hand he
+bade him go. Another moment, and Wells and little Jessie were loping
+away on Spot, and were rapidly disappearing from view along the dim,
+moonlit trail.
+
+For a moment the three ranchmen stood watching them. Far to the
+northeast a faint light could be seen at Phillips's, and the roofs and
+walls were dimly visible in the rays of the moon. The hoof-beats of old
+Spot soon died away in the distance, and all seemed as still as the
+grave. Anxious as he was, Farron took heart. They stood there silent a
+few moments after the horseman, with his precious charge, had faded from
+view, and then Farron spoke,--
+
+"They'll make it all safe. If the Indians were anywhere near us those
+mules of mine would have given warning by this time."
+
+The words were hardly dropped from his lips when from the other side of
+the house--from the stable at the corral--there came, harsh and loud and
+sudden, the discordant bray of mules. The three men started as if
+stung.
+
+"Quick! Pete. Fetch me any one of the horses. I'll gallop after him.
+Hear those mules? That means the Indians are close at hand!" And he
+sprang into the house for his revolvers, while Pete flew round to the
+stable.
+
+It was not ten seconds before Farron reappeared at the front door. Pete
+came running out from the stable, leading an astonished horse by the
+snaffle. There was not even a blanket on the animal's back, or time to
+put one there.
+
+Farron was up and astride the horse in an instant, but before he could
+give a word of instruction to his men, there fell upon their ears a
+sound that appalled them,--the distant thunder of hundreds of bounding
+hoofs; the shrill, vengeful yells of a swarm of savage Indians; the
+crack! crack! of rifles; and, far down the trail along which Wells had
+ridden but a few moments before, they could see the flash of fire-arms.
+
+"O God! save my little one!" was Farron's agonized cry as he struck his
+heels to his horse's ribs and went tearing down the valley in mad and
+desperate ride to the rescue.
+
+Poor little Jessie! What hope to save her now?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+A NIGHT OF PERIL.
+
+
+For one moment the telegraph operator was stunned and inert. Then his
+native pluck and the never-say-die spirit of the young American came to
+his aid. He rose to his feet, seized his rifle, and ran out to join
+Phillips and the few men who were busily at work barricading the corral
+and throwing open the loop-holes in the log walls.
+
+Ralph had disappeared, and no one knew whither he had gone until, just
+as the men were about to shut the heavy door of the stable, they heard
+his young voice ring cheerily out through the darkness,--
+
+"Hold on there! Wait till Buford and I get out!"
+
+"Where on earth are you going?" gasped Phillips, in great astonishment,
+as the boy appeared in the door-way, leading his pet, which was bridled
+and saddled.
+
+"Going? Back to Lodge Pole, quick as I can, to bring up the cavalry."
+
+"Ralph," said the soldier, "it will never do. Now that Wells is gone I
+feel responsible for you, and your father would never forgive me if
+anything befell you. We can't let you go?"
+
+Ralph's eyes were snapping with excitement and his cheeks were flushed.
+It was a daring, it was a gallant, thought,--the idea of riding back all
+alone through a country that might be infested by savage foes; but it
+was the one chance.
+
+Farron and Wells and the men might be able to hold out a few hours at
+the ranch up the valley, and keep the Indians far enough away to prevent
+their burning them out. Of course the ranch could not stand a long siege
+against Indian ingenuity, but six hours, or eight at the utmost, would
+be sufficient time in which to bring rescue to the inmates. By that time
+he could have an overwhelming force of cavalry in the valley, and all
+would be safe.
+
+If word were not sent to them it would be noon to-morrow before the
+advance of the Fifth would reach the Chug. By that time all would be
+over with Farron.
+
+Ralph's brave young heart almost stopped beating as he thought of the
+hideous fate that awaited the occupants of the ranch unless help came to
+them. He felt that nothing but a light rider and a fast horse could
+carry the news in time. He knew that he was the lightest rider in the
+valley; that Buford was the fastest horse; that no man at the station
+knew all the "breaks" and ravines, the ridges and "swales" of the
+country better than he did.
+
+Farron's lay to the southwest, and thither probably all the Indians were
+now riding. He could gallop off to the southeast, make a long _detour_,
+and so reach Lodge Pole unseen. If he could get there in two hours and a
+half, the cavalry could be up and away in fifteen minutes more, and in
+that case might reach the Chug at daybreak or soon afterwards.
+
+One thing was certain, that to succeed he must go instantly, before the
+Indians could come down and put a watch around Phillips's.
+
+Of course it was a plan full of fearful risk. He took his life in his
+hands. Death by the cruelest of tortures awaited him if captured, and it
+was a prospect before which any boy and many a man might shrink in
+dismay.
+
+But he had thought of little Jessie; the plan and the estimation of the
+difficulties and dangers attending its execution had flashed through his
+mind in less than five seconds, and his resolution was instantly made.
+He was a soldier's son, was Ralph, and saying no word to any one he had
+run to the stable, saddled and bridled Buford, and with his revolver at
+his hip was ready for his ride.
+
+"It's no use of talking; I'm going," was all he said. "I know how to
+dodge them just as well as any man here, and, as for father, he'd be
+ashamed of me if I didn't go."
+
+Waiting for no reply,--before they could fully realize what he
+meant,--the boy had chirruped to his pawing horse and away they darted
+round the corner of the station, across the moonlit road, and then
+eastward down the valley.
+
+"Phillips," exclaimed the soldier, "I never should have let him go. I
+ought to have gone myself; but he's away before a man can stop him."
+
+"You're too heavy to ride that horse, and there's none other here to
+match him. That boy's got the sense of a plainsman any day, I tell you,
+and he'll make it all right. The Indians are all up the valley and we'll
+hear 'em presently at Farron's. He's keeping off so as to get round east
+of the bluffs, and then he'll strike across country southward and not
+try for the road until he's eight or ten miles away. Good for Ralph!
+It's a big thing he's doing, and his father will be proud of him for
+it."
+
+But the telegraph operator was heavy-hearted. The men were all anxious,
+and clustered again at the rear of the station. All this had taken place
+in the space of three minutes, and they were eagerly watching for the
+next demonstration from the marauders.
+
+Of the fate of poor Warner there could be little doubt. It was evident
+that the Indians had overwhelmed and killed him. There was a short
+struggle and the rapidly concentrating fire of rifles and revolvers for
+a minute or two; then the yells had changed to triumphant whoops, and
+then came silence.
+
+"They've got his scalp, poor fellow, and no man could lend a hand to
+help him. God grant they're all safe inside up there at Farron's," said
+one of the party; it was the only comment made on the tragedy that had
+been enacted before them.
+
+"Hullo! What's that?"
+
+"It's the flash of rifles again. They've sighted Ralph!" cried the
+soldier.
+
+"Not a bit of it. Ralph's off here to the eastward. They're firing and
+chasing up the valley. Perhaps Warner got away after all. _Look_ at 'em!
+See! The flashes are getting farther south all the time! They've headed
+him off from Farron's, whoever it is, and he's making for the road. The
+cowardly hounds! There's a hundred of 'em, I reckon, on one poor hunted
+white man, and here we are with our hands tied!"
+
+For a few minutes more the sound of shots and yells and thundering
+hoofs came vividly through the still night air. All the time it was
+drifting away southward, and gradually approached the road. One of the
+ranchmen begged Phillips to let him have a horse and go out in the
+direction of the firing to reconnoitre and see what had happened, but it
+would have been madness to make the attempt, and the request was met
+with a prompt refusal.
+
+"We shall need every man here soon enough at the rate things are going,"
+was the answer. "That may have been Warner escaping, or it may have been
+one of Farron's men trying to get through to us or else riding off
+southward to find the cavalry. Perhaps it was Sergeant Wells. Whoever it
+was, they've had a two- or three-mile chase and have probably got him by
+this time. The firing in that direction is all over. Now the fun will
+begin up at the ranch. Then they'll come for us."
+
+"It's my fault!" groaned the operator. "What a night,--and all my fault!
+I ought to have told them at Lodge Pole when I could."
+
+"Tell them what?" said Phillips. "You didn't know a thing about their
+movements until Warner got here! What could you have said if you'd had
+the chance? The cavalry can't move on mere rumors or ideas that any
+chance man has who comes to the station in a panic. It has just come all
+of a sudden, in a way we couldn't foresee.
+
+"All I'm worrying about now is little Jessie, up there at Farron's. I'm
+afraid Warner's gone, and possibly some one else; but if Farron can only
+hold out against these fellows until daylight I think he and his little
+one will be safe. Watch here, two of you, now, while I go back to the
+house a moment."
+
+And so, arms at hand and in breathless silence, the little group watched
+and waited. All was quiet at the upper ranch. Farron's light had been
+extinguished soon after it had replied to the signal from below, but his
+roofs and walls were dimly visible in the moonlight. The distance was
+too great for the besiegers to be discerned if any were investing his
+place.
+
+The quiet lasted only a few moments. Then suddenly there came from up
+the valley and close around those distant roofs the faint sound of rapid
+firing. Paled by the moonlight into tiny, ruddy flashes, the flame of
+each report could be seen by the sharper eyes among the few watchers at
+Phillips's. The attack had indeed begun at Farron's.
+
+One of the men ran in to tell the news to Phillips, who presently came
+out and joined the party. No sign of Indians had yet been seen around
+them, but as they crouched there by the corral, eagerly watching the
+flashes that told of the distant struggle, and listening to the sounds
+of combat, there rose upon the air, over to the northward and apparently
+just at the base of the line of bluffs, the yelps and prolonged bark of
+the coyote. It died away, and then, far on to the southward, somewhere
+about the slopes where the road climbed the divide, there came an
+answering yelp, shrill, querulous, and prolonged.
+
+"Know what that is, boys?" queried Phillips.
+
+"Coyotes, I s'pose," answered one of the men,--a comparatively new hand.
+
+"Coyotes are scarce in this neighborhood nowadays. Those are Sioux
+signals, and we are surrounded. No man in this crowd could get out now.
+Ralph ain't out a moment too soon. God speed him! If Farron don't owe
+his life and little Jessie's to that boy's bravery, it'll be because
+nobody could get to them in time to save them. Why _didn't_ he send her
+here?"
+
+Bad as was the outlook, anxious as were all their hearts, what was their
+distress to what it would have been had they known the truth,--that
+Warner lay only a mile up the trail, stripped, scalped, gashed, and
+mutilated! Still warm, yet stone dead! And that all alone, with little
+Jessie in his arms, Sergeant Wells had ridden down that trail into the
+very midst of the thronging foe! Let us follow him, for he is a soldier
+who deserves the faith that Farron placed in him.
+
+For a few moments after leaving the ranch the sergeant rides along at
+rapid lope, glancing keenly over the broad, open valley for any sign
+that might reveal the presence of hostile Indians, and then hopefully at
+the distant light at the station. He holds little Jessie in firm but
+gentle clasp, and speaks in fond encouragement every moment or two. She
+is bundled like a pappoose in the blanket, but her big, dark eyes look
+up trustfully into his, and once or twice she faintly smiles. All seems
+so quiet; all so secure in the soldier's strong clasp.
+
+"That's my brave little girl!" says the sergeant. "Papa was right when
+he told us down at Russell that he had the pluckiest little daughter in
+all Wyoming. It isn't every baby that would take a night ride with an
+old dragoon so quietly."
+
+He bends down and softly kisses the thick, curling hair that hangs over
+her forehead. Then his keen eye again sweeps over the valley, and he
+touches his charger's flank with the spur.
+
+"_Looks_ all clear," he mutters, "but I've seen a hundred Indians spring
+up out of a flatter plain than that. They'll skulk behind the smallest
+kind of a ridge, and not show a feather until one runs right in among
+them. There might be dozens of them off there beyond the Chug at this
+moment, and I not be able to see hair or hide of 'em."
+
+Almost half way to Phillips's, and still all is quiet. Then he notes
+that far ahead the low ridge, a few hundred yards to his left, sweeps
+round nearly to the trail, and dips into the general level of the
+prairie within short pistol-shot of the path along which he is riding.
+He is yet fully three-quarters of a mile from the place where the ridge
+so nearly meets the trail, but it is plainly visible now in the silvery
+moonlight.
+
+"If they should have come down, and should be all ranged behind that
+ridge now, 'twould be a fearful scrape for this poor little mite," he
+thinks, and then, soldier-like, sets himself to considering what his
+course should be if the enemy were suddenly to burst upon him from
+behind that very curtain.
+
+"Turn and run for it, of course!" he mutters. "Unless they should cut me
+off, which they couldn't do unless some of 'em were far back along
+behind the ridge. Hullo! A shadow on the trail! Coming this way. A
+horseman. That's good! They've sent out a man to meet me."
+
+The sound of iron-shod hoofs that came faintly across the wide distance
+from the galloping shadow carried to the sergeant's practised ear the
+assurance that the advancing horseman was not an Indian. After the
+suspense of that lonely and silent ride, in the midst of unknown
+dangers, Wells felt a deep sense of relief.
+
+"The road is clear between here and Phillips's, that's certain," he
+thought. "I'll take Jessie on to the station, and then go back to
+Farron's. I wonder what news that horseman brings, that he rides so
+hard."
+
+Still on came the horseman. All was quiet, and it seemed that in five
+minutes more he would have the news the stranger was bringing,--of
+safety, he hoped. Jessie, at any rate, should not be frightened unless
+danger came actually upon them. He quickened his horse's gait, and
+looked smilingly down into Jessie's face.
+
+"It's all right, little one! Somebody is coming up the trail from
+Phillips's, so everything must be safe," he told her.
+
+Then came a cruel awakening. Quick, sudden, thrilling, there burst upon
+the night a mad chorus of shouts and shots and the accompaniment of
+thundering hoofs. Out from the sheltering ridge by dozens, gleaming,
+flashing through the moonlight, he saw the warriors sweep down upon the
+hapless stranger far in front.
+
+He reined instantly his snorting and affrighted horse, and little
+Jessie, with one low cry of terror, tried to release her arms from the
+circling blanket and throw them about his neck; but he held her tight.
+He grasped the reins more firmly, gave one quick glance to his left and
+rear, and, to his dismay, discovered that he, too, was well-nigh hemmed
+in; that, swift and ruthless as the flight of hawks, a dozen warriors
+were bounding over the prairie towards him, to cut off his escape.
+
+He had not an instant to lose. He whirled his practised troop horse to
+the right about, and sent him leaping madly through the night back for
+Farron's ranch.
+
+Even as he sped along, he bent low over his charger's neck, and, holding
+the terror-stricken child to his breast, managed to speak a word to keep
+up her courage.
+
+"We'll beat them yet, my bonny bird!" he muttered, though at that
+instant he heard the triumphant whoops that told him a scalp was taken
+on the trail behind him, though at that very instant he saw that
+warriors, dashing from that teeming ridge, had headed him; that he must
+veer from the trail as he neared the ranch, and trust to Farron and his
+men to drive off his pursuers.
+
+Already the yells of his pursuers thrilled upon the ear. They had opened
+fire, and their wide-aimed bullets went whizzing harmlessly into space.
+His wary eye could see that the Indians on his right front were making a
+wide circle, so as to meet him when close to the goal, and he was
+burdened with that helpless child, and could not make fight even for his
+own life.
+
+Drop her and save himself? He would not entertain the thought. No,
+though it be his only chance to escape!
+
+His horse panted heavily, and still there lay a mile of open prairie
+between him and shelter; still those bounding ponies, with their
+yelping, screeching riders, were fast closing upon him, when suddenly
+through the dim and ghostly light there loomed another shadow, wild and
+daring,--a rider who came towards him at full speed.
+
+Because of the daring of the feat to ride thus alone into the teeth of a
+dozen foemen, the sergeant was sure, before he could see the man, that
+the approaching horseman was Farron, rushing to the rescue of his child.
+
+Wells shouted a trooper's loud hurrah, and then, "Rein up, Farron! Halt
+where you are, and open fire! That'll keep 'em off!"
+
+Though racing towards him at thundering speed, Farron heard and
+understood his words, for in another moment his "Henry" was barking its
+challenge at the foe, and sending bullet after bullet whistling out
+across the prairie.
+
+The flashing, feather-streaming shadows swerved to right and left, and
+swept away in big circles. Then Farron stretched out his arms,--no time
+for word of any kind,--and Wells laid in them the sobbing child, and
+seized in turn the brown and precious rifle.
+
+"Off with you, Farron! Straight for home now. I'll keep 'em back." And
+the sergeant in turn reined his horse, fronted the foe, and opened rapid
+fire, though with little hope of hitting horse or man.
+
+Disregarding the bullets that sang past his ears, he sent shot after
+shot at the shadowy riders, checked now, and circling far out on the
+prairie, until once more he could look about him, and see that Farron
+had reached the ranch, and had thrown himself from his horse.
+
+Then slowly he turned back, fronting now and then to answer the shots
+that came singing by him, and to hurrah with delight when, as the
+Indians came within range of the ranch, its inmates opened fire on them,
+and a pony sent a yelping rider flying over his head, as he stumbled and
+plunged to earth, shot through the body.
+
+Then Wells turned in earnest and made a final dash for the corral. Then
+his own good steed, that had borne them both so bravely, suddenly
+wavered and tottered under him. He knew too well that the gallant horse
+had received his death-blow even before he went heavily to ground within
+fifty yards of the ranch.
+
+Wells was up in an instant, unharmed, and made a rush, stooping low.
+
+Another moment, and he was drawn within the door-way, panting and
+exhausted, but safe. He listened with amazement to the outward sounds of
+shots and hoofs and yells dying away into the distance southward.
+
+"What on earth is that?" he asked.
+
+"It's that scoundrel, Pete. He's taken my horse and deserted!" was
+Farron's breathless answer. "I hope they'll catch and kill him! I
+despise a coward!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE RESCUE.
+
+
+All the time, travelling at rapid lope, but at the same time saving
+Buford's strength for sudden emergency, Ralph McCrea rode warily through
+the night. He kept far to east of the high ridge of the "Buffalo
+Hill,"--Who knew what Indian eyes might be watching there?--and mile
+after mile he wound among the ravines and swales which he had learned so
+well in by-gone days when he little dreamed of the value that his
+"plainscraft" might be to him.
+
+For a while his heart beat like a trip-hammer; every echo of his
+courser's footfall seemed to him to be the rush of coming warriors, and
+time and again he glanced nervously over his shoulder, dreading pursuit.
+But he never wavered in his gallant purpose.
+
+The long ridge was soon left to his right rear, and now he began to edge
+over towards the west, intending in this way to reach the road at a
+point where there would lie before him a fifteen-mile stretch of good
+"going ground." Over that he meant to send Buford at full speed.
+
+Since starting he had heard no sound of the fray; the ridge and the
+distance had swallowed up the clamor; but he knew full well that the
+raiding Indians would do their utmost this night to burn the Farron
+ranch and kill or capture its inmates. Every recurring thought of the
+peril of his beleaguered friends prompted him to spur his faithful
+steed, but he had been reared in the cavalry and taught never to drive a
+willing horse to death.
+
+The long, sweeping, elastic strides with which Buford bore him over the
+rolling prairie served their needs far better than a mad race of a mile
+or two, ending in a complete break-down, would have done.
+
+At last, gleaming in the moonlight, he sighted the hard-beaten road as
+it twisted and wound over the slopes, and in a few moments more rode
+beneath the single wire of the telegraph line, and then gave Buford a
+gentle touch of the steel. He had made a circuit of ten miles or more to
+reach this point, and was now, he judged, about seven miles below the
+station and five miles from Farron's ranch.
+
+He glanced over his right shoulder and anxiously searched the sky and
+horizon. Intervening "divides" shut him off from a view of the valley,
+but he saw that as yet no glare of flames proceeded from it.
+
+"Thus far the defence has held its own," he said, hopefully, to himself.
+"Now, if Buford and I can only reach Lodge Pole unmolested there may yet
+be time."
+
+Ascending a gentle slope he reined Buford down to a walk, so that his
+pet might have a little breathing spell. As he arrived at the crest he
+cast an eager glance over the next "reach" of prairie landscape, and
+then--his heart seemed to leap to his throat and a chill wave to rush
+through his veins.
+
+Surely he saw a horseman dart behind the low mound off to the west. This
+convinced him that the Indians had discovered and pursued him. After
+the Indian fashion they had not come squarely along his trail and thus
+driven him ahead at increased speed, but with the savage science of
+their warfare, they were working past him, far to his right, intending
+to head him off.
+
+To his left front the country was clear, and he could see over it for a
+considerable distance. The road, after winding through some intermediate
+ravines ahead, swept around to the left. He had almost determined to
+leave the trail and make a bee-line across country, and so to outrun the
+foeman to his right, when, twice or thrice, he caught the gleam of steel
+or silver or nickel-plate beyond the low ground in the very direction in
+which he had thought to flee.
+
+His heart sank low now, for the sight conveyed to his mind but one
+idea,--that the gleams were the flashing of moonbeams on the barbaric
+ornaments of Indians, as he had seen them flash an hour ago when the
+warriors raced forth into the valley of the Chug. Were the Indians ahead
+of him then, and on both sides of the road?
+
+One thing he had to do, and to do instantly: ride into the first hollow
+he could find, dismount, crawl to the ridge and peer around him,--study
+which way to ride if he should have to make a race for his own life
+now,--and give Buford time to gather himself for the effort.
+
+The boy's brave spirit was wrought well-nigh to the limit. His eyes
+clouded as he thought of his father and the faithful troop, miles and
+miles away and all unconscious of his deadly peril; of his anxious and
+loving mother, wakeful and watching at Laramie, doubtless informed of
+the Indian raid by this time; powerless to help him, but praying God to
+watch over her boy.
+
+He looked aloft at the starry heavens and lifted his heart in one brief
+prayer: "God guard and guide me. I've tried to do my duty as a soldier's
+son." And somehow he felt nerved and strengthened.
+
+He grasped the handle of his cavalry revolver as he guided Buford down
+to the right where there seemed to be a hollow among the slopes. Just as
+he came trotting briskly round a little shoulder of the nearest ridge
+there was a rush and patter of hoofs on the other side of it, an
+exclamation, half-terror, half-menace, a flash and a shot that whizzed
+far over his head. A dark, shadowy horseman went scurrying off into
+space as fast as a spurred and startled horse could carry him; a
+broad-brimmed slouch hat was blown back to him as a parting _souvenir_,
+and Ralph McCrea shouted with relief and merriment as he realized that
+some man--a ranchman doubtless--had taken him for an Indian and had
+"stampeded," scared out of his wits.
+
+Ralph dismounted, picked up the hat, swung himself again into saddle,
+and with rejoicing heart sped away again on his mission. There were
+still those suspicious flashes off to the east that he must dodge, and
+to avoid them he shaped his course well to the west.
+
+Let us turn for a moment to the camp of the cavalry down in Lodge Pole
+Valley. We have not heard from them since early evening when the
+operator announced his intention of going over to have a smoke and a
+chat with some of his friends on guard.
+
+"Taps," the signal to extinguish lights and go to bed, had sounded early
+and, so far as the operator at Lodge Pole knew when he closed his
+instrument, the battalion had gladly obeyed the summons.
+
+It happened, however, that the colonel had been talking with one of his
+most trusted captains as they left the office a short time before, and
+the result of that brief talk was that the latter walked briskly away
+towards the bivouac fires of his troop and called "Sergeant Stauffer!"
+
+A tall, dark-eyed, bronzed trooper quickly arose, dropped his pipe, and
+strode over to where his captain stood in the flickering light, and,
+saluting, "stood attention" and waited.
+
+"Sergeant, let the quartermaster-sergeant and six men stay here to load
+our baggage in the morning. Mount the rest of the troop at once, without
+any noise,--fully equipped."
+
+The sergeant was too old a soldier even to look surprised. In fifteen
+minutes, with hardly a sound of unusual preparation, fifty horsemen had
+"led into line," had mounted, and were riding silently off northward.
+The colonel said to the captain, as he gave him a word of good-by,--
+
+"I don't know that you'll find anything out of the way at all, but, with
+such indications, I believe it best to throw forward a small force to
+look after the Chug Valley until we come up. We'll be with you by
+dinner-time."
+
+Two hours later, when the telegraph operator, breathless and excited,
+rushed into the colonel's tent and woke him with the news that his wire
+was cut up towards the Chug, the colonel was devoutly thankful for the
+inspiration that prompted him to send "K" Troop forward through the
+darkness. He bade his adjutant, the light-weight of the officers then on
+duty, take his own favorite racer, Van, and speed away on the trail of
+"K" Troop, tell them that the line was cut,--that there was trouble
+ahead; to push on lively with what force they had, and that two more
+companies would be hurried to their support.
+
+At midnight "K" Troop, riding easily along in the moonlight, had
+travelled a little over half the distance to Phillips's ranch. The
+lieutenant, who with two or three troopers was scouting far in advance,
+halted at the crest of a high ridge over which the road climbs, and
+dismounted his little party for a brief rest while he went up ahead to
+reconnoitre.
+
+Cavalrymen in the Indian country never ride into full view on top of a
+"divide" until after some one of their number has carefully looked over
+the ground beyond.
+
+There was nothing in sight that gave cause for long inspection, or that
+warranted the officer's taking out his field-glasses. He could see the
+line of hills back of the Chugwater Valley, and all was calm and placid.
+The valley itself lay some hundreds of feet below his point of
+observation, and beginning far off to his left ran northeastward until
+one of its branches crossed the trail along which the troop was riding.
+
+Returning to his party, the lieutenant's eye was attracted, for the
+fifth or sixth time since they had left Lodge Pole, by little gleams and
+flashes of light off in the distance, and he muttered, in a somewhat
+disparaging manner, to some of the members of his own troop,--
+
+"Now, what the dickens can those men be carrying to make such a streak
+as that? One would suppose that Arizona would have taken all the
+nonsense out of 'em, but that glimmer must come from bright bits or
+buckles, or something of the kind, for we haven't a sabre with us. What
+makes those little flashes, sergeant?" he asked, impatiently.
+
+"It's some of the tin canteens, sir. The cloth is all worn off a dozen
+of 'em, and when the moonlight strikes 'em it makes a flash almost like
+a mirror."
+
+"Indeed it does, and would betray our coming miles away of a moonlit
+night. We'll drop all those things at Laramie. Hullo! Mount, men,
+lively!"
+
+The young officer and his party suddenly sprang to saddle. A clatter of
+distant hoofs was heard rapidly approaching along the hard-beaten road.
+Nearer, nearer they came at tearing gallop. The lieutenant rode
+cautiously forward to where he could peer over the crest.
+
+"Somebody riding like mad!" he muttered. "Hatless and demoralized. Who
+comes _there_?" he shouted aloud. "Halt, whoever you are!"
+
+Pulling up a panting horse, pale, wide-eyed, almost exhausted, a young
+ranchman rode into the midst of the group. It was half a minute before
+he could speak. When at last he recovered breath, it was a marvellous
+tale that he told.
+
+"The Chug's crammed with Indians. They've killed all down at Phillips's,
+and got all around Farron's,--hundreds of 'em. Sergeant Wells tried to
+run away with Jessie, but they cut him off, and he'd have been killed
+and Jessie captured but for me and Farron. We charged through 'em, and
+got 'em back to the ranch. Then the Indians attacked us there, and there
+was only four of us, and some one had to cut his way out. Wells said you
+fellows were down at Lodge Pole, but he da'sn't try it. I had to." Here
+"Pete" looked important, and gave his pistol-belt a hitch.
+
+"I must 'a' killed six of 'em," he continued. "Both my revolvers empty,
+and I dropped one of 'em on the trail. My hat was shot clean off my
+head, but they missed me, and I got through. They chased me every inch
+of the way up to a mile back over yonder. I shot the last one there. But
+how many men you got?"
+
+"About fifty," answered the lieutenant. "We'll push ahead at once. You
+guide us."
+
+"I ain't going ahead with no fifty. I tell you there's a thousand
+Indians there. Where's the rest of the regiment?"
+
+"Back at Lodge Pole. Go on, if you like, and tell them your story.
+Here's the captain now."
+
+With new and imposing additions, Pete told the story a second time.
+Barely waiting to hear it through, the captain's voice rang along the
+eager column,--
+
+"Forward, trot, _march_!"
+
+Away went the troop full tilt for the Chug, while the ranchman rode
+rearward until he met the supporting squadron two hours behind. Ten
+minutes after parting with their informant, the officers of "K" Troop,
+well out in front of their men, caught sight of a daring horseman
+sweeping at full gallop down from some high bluffs to their left and
+front.
+
+"Rides like an Indian," said the captain; "but no Sioux would come down
+at us like that, waving a hat, too. By Jupiter! It's Ralph McCrea! How
+are you, boy? What's wrong at the Chug?"
+
+"Farron's surrounded, and I believe Warner's killed!" said Ralph,
+breathless. "Thank God, you're here so far ahead of where I expected to
+find you! We'll get there in time now;" and he turned his panting horse
+and rode eagerly along by the captain's side.
+
+"And you've not been chased? You've seen nobody?" was the lieutenant's
+question.
+
+"Nobody but a white man, worse scared than I was, who left his hat
+behind when I ran upon him a mile back here."
+
+Even in the excitement and urgent haste of the moment, there went up a
+shout of laughter at the expense of Pete; but as they reached the next
+divide, and got another look well to the front, the laughter gave place
+to the grinding of teeth and muttered malediction. A broad glare was in
+the northern sky, and smoke and flame were rolling up from the still
+distant valley of the Chug, and now the word was "Gallop!"
+
+Fifteen minutes of hard, breathless riding followed. Horses snorted and
+plunged in eager race with their fellows; officers warned even as they
+galloped, "Steady, there! Keep back! Keep your places, men!" Bearded,
+bright-eyed troopers, with teeth set hard together and straining
+muscles, grasped their ready carbines, and thrust home the grim copper
+cartridges. On and on, as the flaring beacon grew redder and fiercer
+ahead; on and on, until they were almost at the valley's edge, and then
+young Ralph, out at the front with the veteran captain, panted to him,
+in wild excitement that he strove manfully to control,--
+
+"Now keep well over to the left, captain! I know the ground well. It's
+all open. We can sweep down from behind that ridge, and they'll never
+look for us or think of us till we're right among them. Hear them yell!"
+
+"Ay, ay, Ralph! Lead the way. Ready now, men!" He turned in his saddle.
+"Not a word till I order 'Charge!' Then yell all you want to."
+
+Down into the ravine they thunder; round the moonlit slope they sweep;
+swift they gallop through the shadows of the eastward bluffs; nearer and
+nearer they come, manes and tails streaming in the night wind; horses
+panting hard, but never flagging.
+
+Listen! Hear those shots and yells and war-whoops! Listen to the hideous
+crackling of the flames! Mark the vengeful triumph in those savage
+howls! Already the fire has leaped from the sheds to the rough
+shingling. The last hope of the sore-besieged is gone.
+
+Then, with sudden blare of trumpet, with ringing cheer, with thundering
+hoof and streaming pennon and thrilling rattle of carbine and pistol;
+with one magnificent, triumphant burst of speed the troop comes whirling
+out from the covert of the bluff and sweeps all before it down the
+valley.
+
+Away go Sioux and Cheyenne; away, yelling shrill warning, go warrior and
+chief; away, down stream, past the stiffening form of the brave fellow
+they killed; away past the station where the loop-holes blaze with
+rifle-shots and ring with exultant cheers; away across the road and down
+the winding valley, and so far to the north and the sheltering arms of
+the reservation,--and one more Indian raid is over.
+
+But at the ranch, while willing hands were dashing water on the flames,
+Ralph and the lieutenant sprang inside the door-way just as Farron
+lifted from a deep, cellar-like aperture in the middle of the floor a
+sobbing yet wonderfully happy little maiden. She clung to him
+hysterically, as he shook hands with one after another of the few
+rescuers who had time to hurry in.
+
+Wells, with bandaged head and arm, was sitting at his post, his "Henry"
+still between his knees, and he looked volumes of pride and delight into
+his young friend's sparkling eyes. Pete, of course, was nowhere to be
+seen. Jake, with a rifle-bullet through his shoulder, was grinning pale
+gratification at the troopers who came in, and then there was a moment's
+silence as the captain entered.
+
+Farron stepped forward and held forth his hand. Tears were starting from
+his eyes.
+
+"You've saved me and my little girl, captain. I never can thank you
+enough."
+
+"Bosh! Never mind us. Where's Ralph McCrea? There's the boy you can
+thank for it all. _He_ led us!"
+
+And though hot blushes sprang to the youngster's cheeks, and he, too,
+would have disclaimed any credit for the rescue, the soldiers would not
+have it so. 'Twas Ralph who dared that night-ride to bring the direful
+news; 'twas Ralph who guided them by the shortest, quickest route, and
+was with the foremost in the charge. And so, a minute after, when Farron
+unclasped little Jessie's arms from about his own neck, he whispered in
+her ear,--
+
+"'Twas Ralph who saved us, baby. You must thank him for me, too."
+
+And so, just as the sun was coming up, the little girl with big, dark
+eyes whom we saw sitting in the railway station at Cheyenne, waiting
+wearily and patiently for her father's coming, and sobbing her relief
+and joy when she finally caught sight of Ralph, was once more nestling a
+tear-wet face to his and clasping him in her little arms, and thanking
+him with all her loyal, loving heart for the gallant rescue that had
+come to them just in time.
+
+Four days later there was a gathering at Laramie. The general had come;
+the Fifth were there in camp, and a group of officers had assembled on
+the parade after the brief review of the command. The general turned
+from his staff, and singled out a captain of cavalry who stood close at
+hand.
+
+"McCrea, I want to see that boy of yours. Where is he?"
+
+An orderly sped away to the group of spectators and returned with a
+silent and embarrassed youth, who raised his hat respectfully, but said
+no word. The general stepped forward and held out both his hands.
+
+"I'm proud to shake hands with you, young gentleman. I've heard all
+about you from the Fifth. You ought to go to West Point and be a cavalry
+officer."
+
+"There's nothing I so much wish, general," stammered Ralph, with beaming
+eyes and burning cheeks.
+
+"Then we'll telegraph his name to Washington this very day, gentlemen. I
+was asked to designate some young man for West Point who thoroughly
+deserved it, and is not this appointment well won?"
+
+
+
+
+FROM "THE POINT" TO THE PLAINS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+A CADET'S SISTER.
+
+
+She was standing at the very end of the forward deck, and, with flushing
+cheeks and sparkling eyes, gazing eagerly upon the scene before her.
+Swiftly, smoothly rounding the rugged promontory on the right, the
+steamer was just turning into the highland "reach" at Fort Montgomery
+and heading straight away for the landings on the sunset shore. It was
+only mid-May, but the winter had been mild, the spring early, and now
+the heights on either side were clothed in raiment of the freshest,
+coolest green; the vines were climbing in luxuriant leaf all over the
+face of the rocky scarp that hemmed the swirling tide of the Hudson; the
+radiance of the evening sunshine bathed all the eastern shores in mellow
+light and left the dark slopes and deep gorges of the opposite range all
+the deeper and darker by contrast. A lively breeze had driven most of
+the passengers within doors as they sped through the broad waters of the
+Tappan Zee, but, once within the sheltering traverses of Dunderberg and
+the heights beyond, many of their number reappeared upon the promenade
+deck, and first among them was the bonnie little maid now clinging to
+the guard-rail at the very prow, and, heedless of fluttering skirt or
+fly-away curl, watching with all her soul in her bright blue eyes for
+the first glimpse of the haven where she would be. No eyes on earth look
+so eagerly for the grim, gray _facade_ of the riding-hall or the domes
+and turrets of the library building as those of a girl who has spent the
+previous summer at West Point.
+
+Utterly absorbed in her watch, she gave no heed to other passengers who
+presently took their station close at hand. One was a tall, dark-eyed,
+dark-haired young lady in simple and substantial travelling-dress. With
+her were two men in tweeds and Derby hats, and to these companions she
+constantly turned with questions as to prominent objects in the rich and
+varied landscape. It was evident that she was seeing for the first time
+sights that had been described to her time and again, for she was
+familiar with every name. One of the party was a man of over fifty
+years,--bronzed of face and gray of hair, but with erect carriage and
+piercing black eyes that spoke of vigor, energy, and probably of a life
+in the open air. It needed not the tri-colored button of the Loyal
+Legion in the lapel of his coat to tell that he was a soldier. Any one
+who chose to look--and there were not a few--could speedily have seen,
+too, that these were father and daughter.
+
+The other man was still taller than the dark, wiry, slim-built soldier,
+but in years he was not more than twenty-eight or nine. His eyes, brows,
+hair, and the heavy moustache that drooped over his mouth were all of a
+dark, soft brown. His complexion was clear and ruddy; his frame powerful
+and athletic. Most of the time he stood a silent but attentive listener
+to the eager talk between the young lady and her father, but his kindly
+eyes rarely left her face; he was ready to respond when she turned to
+question him, and when he spoke it was with the unmistakable intonation
+of the South.
+
+The deep, mellow tones of the bell were booming out their landing signal
+as the steamer shot into the shadow of a high, rocky cliff. Far aloft on
+the overhanging piazzas of a big hotel, fluttering handkerchiefs greeted
+the passengers on the decks below. Many eyes were turned thither in
+recognition of the salute, but not those of the young girl at the bow.
+One might, indeed, have declared her resentful of this intermediate
+stop. The instant the gray walls of the riding-school had come into view
+she had signalled, eagerly, with a wave of her hand, to a gentleman and
+lady seated in quiet conversation under the shelter of the deck.
+Presently the former, a burly, broad-shouldered man of forty or
+thereabouts, came sauntering forward and stood close behind her.
+
+"Well, Nan! Most there, I see. Think you can hold on five minutes
+longer, or shall I toss you over and let you swim for it?"
+
+For answer Miss Nan clasps a wooden pillar in her gray-gloved hands, and
+tilts excitedly on the toes of her tiny boots, never once relaxing her
+gaze on the dock a mile or more away up-stream.
+
+"Just think of being so near Willy--and all of them--and not seeing one
+to speak to until after parade," she finally says.
+
+"Simply inhuman!" answers her companion with commendable gravity, but
+with humorous twinkle about his eyes. "Is it worth all the long
+journey, and all the excitement in which your mother tells me you've
+been plunged for the past month?"
+
+"Worth it, Uncle Jack?" and the blue eyes flash upon him indignantly.
+"Worth it? You wouldn't ask if you knew it all, as I do."
+
+"Possibly not," says Uncle Jack, whimsically. "I haven't the advantage
+of being a girl with a brother and a baker's dozen of beaux in bell
+buttons and gray. I'm only an old fossil of a 'cit,' with a scamp of a
+nephew and that limited conception of the delights of West Point which
+one can derive from running up there every time that versatile youngster
+gets into a new scrape. You'll admit my opportunities have been
+frequent."
+
+"It isn't Willy's fault, and you know it, Uncle Jack, though we all know
+how good you've been; but he's had more bad luck and--and--injustice
+than any cadet in the corps. Lots of his classmates told me so."
+
+"Yes," says Uncle Jack, musingly. "That is what your blessed mother,
+yonder, wrote me when I went up last winter, the time Billy submitted
+that explanation to the commandant with its pleasing reference to the
+fox that had lost its tail--you doubtless recall the incident--and came
+within an ace of dismissal in consequence."
+
+"I don't care!" interrupts Miss Nan, with flashing eyes. "Will had
+provocation enough to say much worse things; Jimmy Frazer wrote me so,
+and said the whole class was sticking up for him."
+
+"I do not remember having had the honor of meeting Jimmy Frazer,"
+remarks Uncle Jack, with an aggravating drawl that is peculiar to him.
+"Possibly he was one of the young gentlemen who didn't call, owing to
+some temporary impediment in the way of light prison----"
+
+"Yes; and all because he took Will's part, as I believe," is the
+impetuous reply. "Oh! I'll be so thankful when they're out of it all."
+
+"So will they, no doubt. 'Sticking up'--wasn't that Mr. Frazer's
+expression?--for Bill seems to have been an expensive luxury all round.
+Wonder if sticking up is something they continue when they get to their
+regiments? Billy has two or three weeks yet in which to ruin his chances
+of ever reaching one, and he has exhibited astonishing aptitude for
+tripping himself up thus far."
+
+"Uncle Jack! How can you speak so of Willy, when he is so devoted to
+you? When he gets to his regiment there won't be any Lieutenant Lee to
+nag and worry him night and day. _He's_ the cause of all the trouble."
+
+"That so?" drawls Uncle Jack. "I didn't happen to meet Mr. Lee,
+either,--he was away on leave; but as Bill and your mother had some such
+views, I looked into things a bit. It appears to be a matter of record
+that my enterprising nephew had more demerit before the advent of Mr.
+Lee than since. As for 'extras' and confinements, his stock was always
+big enough to bear the market down to bottom prices."
+
+The boat is once more under way, and a lull in the chat close at hand
+induces Uncle Jack to look about him. The younger of the two men lately
+standing with the dark-eyed girl has quietly withdrawn, and is now
+shouldering his way to a point out of ear-shot. There he calmly turns
+and waits; his glance again resting upon her whose side he has so
+suddenly quitted. She has followed him with her eyes until he stops;
+then with heightened color resumes a low-toned chat with her father.
+Uncle Jack is a keen observer, and his next words are inaudible except
+to his niece.
+
+"Nan, my child, I apprehend that remarks upon the characteristics of the
+officers at the Point had best be confined to the bosom of the family.
+We may be in their very midst."
+
+She turns, flushing, and for the first time her blue eyes meet the dark
+ones of the older girl. Her cheeks redden still more, and she whirls
+about again.
+
+"I can't help it, Uncle Jack," she murmurs. "I'd just like to tell them
+all what I think of Will's troubles."
+
+"Oh! Candor is to be admired of all things," says Uncle Jack, airily.
+"Still it is just as well to observe the old adage, 'Be sure you're
+right,' etc. Now _I_ own to being rather fond of Bill, despite all the
+worry he has given your mother, and all the bother he has been to
+me----"
+
+"All the worry that others have given _him_, you ought to say, Uncle
+Jack."
+
+"W-e-ll, har-d-ly. It didn't seem to me that the corps, as a rule,
+thought Billy the victim of persecution."
+
+"They all tell _me_ so, at least," is the indignant outburst.
+
+"Do they, Nan? Well, of course, that settles it. Still, there were a few
+who reluctantly admitted having other views when I pressed them
+closely."
+
+"Then they were no friends of Willy's, or mine either!"
+
+"Now, do you know, I thought just the other way? I thought one of them,
+especially, a very stanch friend of Billy's and yours, too, Nan, but
+Billy seems to consider advisers in the light of adversaries."
+
+A moment's pause. Then, with cheeks still red, and plucking at the rope
+netting with nervous fingers, Miss Nan essays a tentative. Her eyes are
+downcast as she asks,--
+
+"I suppose you mean Mr. Stanley?"
+
+"The very man, Nanette; very much of a man to my thinking."
+
+The bronzed soldier standing near cannot but have heard the name and the
+words. His face takes on a glow and the black eyes kindle.
+
+"Mr. Stanley would not say to _me_ that Willy is to blame," pouts the
+maiden, and her little foot is beating impatiently tattoo on the deck.
+
+"Neither would I--just now--if I were Mr. Stanley; but all the same, he
+decidedly opposed the view that Mr. Lee was 'down on Billy,' as your
+mother seems to think."
+
+"That's because Mr. Lee is tactical officer commanding the company, and
+Mr. Stanley is cadet captain. Oh! I will take him to task if he has
+been--been----"
+
+But she does not finish. She has turned quickly in speaking, her hand
+clutching a little knot of bell buttons hanging by a chain at the front
+of her dress. She has turned just in time to catch a warning glance in
+Uncle Jack's twinkling eyes, and to see a grim smile lurking under the
+gray moustache of the gentleman with the Loyal Legion button who is
+leading away the tall young lady with the dark hair. In another moment
+they have rejoined the third member of their party,--he who first
+withdrew,--and it is evident that something has happened which gives
+them all much amusement. They are chatting eagerly together, laughing
+not a little, although the laughter, like their words, is entirely
+inaudible to Miss Nan. But she feels a twinge of indignation when the
+tall girl turns and looks directly at her. There is nothing unkindly in
+the glance. There even is merriment in the dark, handsome eyes and
+lurking among the dimples around that beautiful mouth. Why did those
+eyes--so heavily fringed, so thickly shaded--seem to her familiar as old
+friends? Nan could have vowed she had somewhere met that girl before,
+and now that girl was laughing at her. Not rudely, not aggressively, to
+be sure,--she had turned away again the instant she saw that the little
+maiden's eyes were upon her,--but all the same, said Nan to herself, she
+_was_ laughing. They were all laughing, and it must have been because of
+her outspoken defence of Brother Will and equally outspoken defiance of
+his persecutors. What made it worse was that Uncle Jack was laughing
+too.
+
+"Do you know who they are?" she demands, indignantly.
+
+"Not I, Nan," responds Uncle Jack. "Never saw them before in my life,
+but I warrant we see them again, and at the Point, too. Come, child.
+There's our bell, and we must start for the gangway. Your mother is
+hailing us now. Never mind this time, little woman," he continues,
+kindly, as he notes the cloud on her brow. "I don't think any harm has
+been done, but it is just as well not to be impetuous in public speech.
+Ah! I thought so. They are to get off here with us."
+
+Three minutes more and a little stream of passengers flows out upon the
+broad government dock, and, as luck would have it, Uncle Jack and his
+charges are just behind the trio in which, by this time, Miss Nan is
+deeply, if not painfully, interested. A soldier in the undress uniform
+of a corporal of artillery hastens forward and, saluting, stretches
+forth his hand to take the satchel carried by the tall man with the
+brown moustache.
+
+"The lieutenant's carriage is at the gate," he says, whereat Uncle Jack,
+who is conducting her mother just in front, looks back over his shoulder
+and nods compassionately at Nan.
+
+"Has any despatch been sent down to meet Colonel Stanley?" she hears the
+tall man inquire, and this time Uncle Jack's backward glance is a
+combination of mischief and concern.
+
+"Nothing, sir, and the adjutant's orderly is here now. This is all he
+brought down," and the corporal hands to the inquirer a note, the
+superscription of which the young officer quickly scans; then turns and,
+while his soft brown eyes light with kindly interest and he bares his
+shapely head, accosts the lady on Uncle Jack's arm,--
+
+"Pardon me, madam. This note must be for you. Mrs. McKay, is it not?"
+
+And as her mother smiles her thanks and the others turn away, Nan's
+eager eyes catch sight of Will's well-known writing. Mrs. McKay rapidly
+reads it as Uncle Jack is bestowing bags and bundles in the omnibus and
+feeing the acceptive porter, who now rushes back to the boat in the nick
+of time.
+
+     "Awful sorry I can't get up to the hotel to see you," says the
+     note, dolorously, but by no means unexpectedly. "I'm in confinement
+     and can't get a permit. Come to the officer-in-charge's office
+     right after supper, and he'll let me see you there awhile.
+     Stanley's officer of the day, and he'll be there to show the way.
+     In haste,
+                                                        WILL."
+
+"Now _isn't_ that poor Willy's luck every time!" exclaims Miss Nan, her
+blue eyes threatening to fill with tears. "I _do_ think they might let
+him off the day we get here."
+
+"Unquestionably," answers Uncle Jack, with great gravity, as he assists
+the ladies into the yellow omnibus. "You duly notified the
+superintendent of your impending arrival, I suppose?"
+
+Mrs. McKay smiles quietly. Hers is a sweet and gentle face, lined with
+many a trace of care and anxiety. Her brother's whimsical ways are old
+acquaintances, and she knows how to treat them; but Nan is young,
+impulsive, and easily teased. She flares up instantly.
+
+"Of course we _didn't_, Uncle Jack; how utterly absurd it would sound!
+But Willy knew we were coming, and _he_ must have told him when he asked
+for his permit, and it does seem too hard that he was refused."
+
+"Heartless in the last degree," says Uncle Jack, sympathetically, but
+with the same suggestive drawl. "Yonder go the father and sister of the
+young gentleman whom you announced your intention to castigate because
+he didn't agree that Billy was being abused, Nan. You will have a chance
+this very evening, won't you? He's officer of the day, according to
+Billy's note, and can't escape. You'll have wound up the whole family by
+tattoo. Quite a good day's work. Billy's opposers will do well to take
+warning and keep out of the way hereafter," he continues, teasingly.
+"Oh--ah--_corporal_!" he calls, "who was the young officer who just
+drove off in the carriage with the lady and gentleman?"
+
+"That was Lieutenant Lee, sir."
+
+Uncle Jack turns and contemplates his niece with an expression of the
+liveliest admiration. "'Pon my word, Miss Nan, you are a most
+comprehensive young person. You've indeed let no guilty man escape."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+A CADET SCAPEGRACE.
+
+
+The evening that opened so clear and sunshiny has clouded rapidly over.
+Even as the four gray companies come "trotting" in from parade, and,
+with the ease of long habit, quickly forming line in the barrack area,
+some heavy rain-drops begin to fall; the drum-major has hurried his band
+away; the crowd of spectators, unusually large for so early in the
+season, scatters for shelter; umbrellas pop up here and there under the
+beautiful trees along the western roadway; the adjutant rushes through
+"delinquency list" in a style distinguishable only to his stolid, silent
+audience standing immovably before him,--a long perspective of gray
+uniforms and glistening white belts. The fateful book is closed with a
+snap, and the echoing walls ring to the quick commands of the first
+sergeants, at which the bayonets are struck from the rifle-barrels, and
+the long line bursts into a living torrent sweeping into the hall-ways
+to escape the coming shower.
+
+When the battalion reappears, a few moments later, every man is in his
+overcoat, and here and there little knots of upper classmen gather, and
+there is eager and excited talk.
+
+A soldierly, dark-eyed young fellow, with the red sash of the officer of
+the day over his shoulder, comes briskly out of the hall of the fourth
+division. The chevrons of a cadet captain are glistening on his arm, and
+he alone has not donned the gray overcoat, although he has discarded the
+plumed shako in deference to the coming storm; yet he hardly seems to
+notice the downpour of the rain; his face is grave and his lips set and
+compressed as he rapidly makes his way through the groups awaiting the
+signal to "fall in" for supper.
+
+"Stanley! O Stanley!" is the hail from a knot of classmates, and he
+halts and looks about as two or three of the party hasten after him.
+
+"What does Billy say about it?" is the eager inquiry.
+
+"Nothing--new."
+
+"Well, that report as good as finds him on demerit, doesn't it?"
+
+"The next thing to it; though he has been as close to the brink before."
+
+"But--great Scott! He has two weeks yet to run; and Billy McKay can no
+more live two weeks without demerit than Patsy, here, without
+'spooning.'"
+
+Mr. Stanley's eyes look tired as he glances up from under the visor of
+his forage cap. He is not as tall by half a head as the young soldiers
+by whom he is surrounded.
+
+"We were talking of his chances at dinner-time," he says, gravely.
+"Billy never mentioned this break of his yesterday, and was surprised to
+hear the report read out to-night. I believe he had forgotten the whole
+thing."
+
+"Who 'skinned' him?--Lee? He was there."
+
+"I don't know; McKay says so, but there were several officers over there
+at the time. It is a report he cannot get off, and it comes at a most
+unlucky moment."
+
+With this remark Mr. Stanley turns away and goes striding through the
+crowded area towards the guard-house. Another moment and there is sudden
+drum-beat; the gray overcoats leap into ranks; the subject of the recent
+discussion--a jaunty young fellow with laughing blue eyes--comes tearing
+out of the fourth division just in time to avoid a "late," and the
+clamor of tenscore voices gives place to silence broken only by the
+rapid calling of the rolls and the prompt "here"--"here," in response.
+
+If ever there was a pet in the corps of cadets he lived in the person of
+Billy McKay. Bright as one of his own buttons; jovial, generous,
+impulsive; he had only one enemy in the battalion,--and that one, as he
+had been frequently told, was himself. This, however, was a matter which
+he could not at all be induced to believe. Of the Academic Board in
+general, of his instructors in large measure, but of the four or five
+ill-starred soldiers known as "tactical officers" in particular, Mr.
+McKay entertained very decided and most unflattering opinions. He had
+won his cadetship through rigid competitive examination against all
+comers; he was a natural mathematician of whom a professor had said that
+he "_could_ stand in the fives and _wouldn't_ stand in the forties;"
+years of his boyhood spent in France had made him master of the
+colloquial forms of the court language of Europe, yet a dozen classmates
+who had never seen a French verb before their admission stood above him
+at the end of the first term. He had gone to the first section like a
+rocket and settled to the bottom of it like a stick. No subject in the
+course was really hard to him, his natural aptitude enabling him to
+triumph over the toughest problems. Yet he hated work, and would often
+face about with an empty black-board and take a zero and a report for
+neglect of studies that half an hour's application would have rendered
+impossible. Classmates who saw impending danger would frequently make
+stolen visits to his room towards the close of the term and profess to
+be baffled by the lesson for the morrow, and Billy would promptly knock
+the ashes out of the pipe he was smoking contrary to regulations and lay
+aside the guitar on which he had been softly strumming--also contrary to
+regulations; would pick up the neglected calculus or mechanics; get
+interested in the work of explanation, and end by having learned the
+lesson in spite of himself. This was too good a joke to be kept a
+secret, and by the time the last year came Billy had found it all out
+and refused to be longer hoodwinked.
+
+There was never the faintest danger of his being found deficient in
+studies, but there was ever the glaring prospect of his being discharged
+"on demerit." Mr. McKay and the regulations of the United States
+Military Academy had been at loggerheads from the start.
+
+And yet, frank, jolly, and generous as he was in all intercourse with
+his comrades, there was never a time when this young gentleman could be
+brought to see that in such matters he was the arbiter of his own
+destiny. Like the Irishman whose first announcement on setting foot on
+American soil was that he was "agin the government," Billy McKay
+believed that regulations were made only to oppress; that the men who
+drafted such a code were idiots, and that those whose duty it became to
+enforce it were simply spies and tyrants, resistance to whom was innate
+virtue. He was forever ignoring or violating some written or unwritten
+law of the Academy; was frequently being caught in the act, and was
+invariably ready to attribute the resultant report to ill luck which
+pursued no one else, or to a deliberate persecution which followed him
+forever. Every six months he had been on the verge of dismissal, and
+now, a fortnight from the final examination, with a margin of only six
+demerit to run on, Mr. Billy McKay had just been read out in the daily
+list of culprits or victims as "Shouting from window of barracks to
+cadets in area during study hours,--three forty-five and four P.M."
+
+There was absolutely no excuse for this performance. The regulations
+enjoined silence and order in barracks during "call to quarters." It had
+been raining a little, and he was in hopes there would be no battalion
+drill, in which event he would venture on throwing off his uniform and
+spreading himself out on his bed with a pipe and a novel,--two things he
+dearly loved. Ten minutes would have decided the question legitimately
+for him, but, being of impatient temperament, he could not wait, and,
+catching sight of the adjutant and the senior captain coming from the
+guard-house, Mr. McKay sung out in tones familiar to every man within
+ear-shot,--
+
+"Hi, Jim! Is it battalion drill?"
+
+The adjutant glanced quickly up,--a warning glance as he could have
+seen,--merely shook his head, and went rapidly on, while his comrade,
+the cadet first captain, clinched his fist at the window and growled
+between his set teeth, "Be quiet, you idiot!"
+
+But poor Billy persisted. Louder yet he called,--
+
+"Well--say--Jimmy! Come up here after four o'clock. I'll be in
+confinement, and can't come out. Want to see you."
+
+And the windows over at the office of the commandant being wide open,
+and that official being seated there in consultation with three or four
+of his assistants, and as Mr. McKay's voice was as well known to them as
+to the corps, there was no alternative. The colonel himself "confounded"
+the young scamp for his recklessness, and directed a report to be
+entered against him.
+
+And now, as Mr. Stanley is betaking himself to his post at the
+guard-house, his heart is heavy within him because of this new load on
+his comrade's shoulders.
+
+"How on earth could you have been so careless, Billy?" he had asked him
+as McKay, fuming and indignant, was throwing off his accoutrements in
+his room on the second floor.
+
+"How'd I know anybody was over there?" was the boyish reply. "It's just
+a skin on suspicion anyhow. Lee couldn't have seen me, nor could anybody
+else. I stood way back by the clothes-press."
+
+"There's no suspicion about it, Billy. There isn't a man that walks the
+area that doesn't know your voice as well as he does Jim Pennock's.
+Confound it! You'll get over the limit yet, man, and break your--your
+mother's heart."
+
+"Oh, come now, Stan! You've been nagging me ever since last camp. Why'n
+thunder can't you see I'm doing my best? Other men don't row me as you
+do, or stand up for the 'tacks.' I tell you that fellow Lee never loses
+a chance of skinning me: he _takes_ chances, by gad, and I'll make his
+eyes pop out of his head when he reads what I've got to say about it."
+
+"You're too hot for reason now, McKay," said Stanley, sadly. "Step out
+or you'll get a late for supper. I'll see you after awhile. I gave that
+note to the orderly, by the way, and he said he'd take it down to the
+dock himself."
+
+"Mother and Nan will probably come to the guard-house right after
+supper. Look out for them for me, will you, Stan, until old Snipes gets
+there and sends for me?"
+
+And as Mr. Stanley shut the door instantly and went clattering down the
+iron stairs, Mr. McKay caught no sign on his face of the sudden flutter
+beneath that snugly-buttoned coat.
+
+It was noticed by more than one of the little coterie at his own table
+that the officer of the day hurried through his supper and left the
+mess-hall long before the command for the first company to rise. It was
+a matter well known to every member of the graduating class that, almost
+from the day of her arrival during the encampment of the previous
+summer, Phil Stanley had been a devoted admirer of Miss Nannie McKay. It
+was not at all to be wondered at.
+
+Without being what is called an ideal beauty, there was a fascination
+about this winsome little maid which few could resist. She had all her
+brother's impulsiveness, all his enthusiasm, and, it may be safely
+asserted, all his abiding faith in the sacred and unimpeachable
+character of cadet friendships. If she possessed a little streak of
+romance that was not discernible in him, she managed to keep it well in
+the background; and though she had her favorites in the corps, she was
+so frank and cordial and joyous in her manner to all that it was
+impossible to say which one, if any, she regarded in the light of a
+lover. Whatever comfort her gentle mother may have derived from this
+state of affairs, it was "hard lines on Stanley," as his classmates put
+it, for there could be little doubt that the captain of the color
+company was a sorely-smitten man.
+
+He was not what is commonly called a "popular man" in the corps. The son
+of a cavalry officer, reared on the wide frontier and educated only
+imperfectly, he had not been able to enter the Academy until nearly
+twenty years of age, and nothing but indomitable will and diligence had
+carried him through the difficulties of the first half of the course. It
+was not until the middle of the third year that the chevrons of a
+sergeant were awarded him, and even then the battalion was taken by
+surprise. There was no surprise a few months later, however, when he was
+promoted over a score of classmates and made captain of his company. It
+was an open secret that the commandant had said that if he had it all to
+do over again, Mr. Stanley would be made "first captain,"--a rumor that
+big John Burton, the actual incumbent of that office, did not at all
+fancy. Stanley was "square" and impartial. His company was in admirable
+discipline, though many of his classmates growled and wished he were not
+"so confoundedly military." The second classmen, always the most
+critical judges of the qualifications of their seniors, conceded that he
+was more soldierly than any man of his year, but were unanimous in the
+opinion that he should show more deference to men of their standing in
+the corps. The "yearlings" swore by him in any discussion as to the
+relative merits of the four captains; but with equal energy swore at him
+when contemplating that fateful volume known as "the skin book." The
+fourth classmen--the "plebes"--simply worshipped the ground he trod on,
+and as between General Sherman and Philip Stanley, it is safe to say
+these youngsters would have determined on the latter as the more
+suitable candidate for the office of general-in-chief. Of course they
+admired the adjutant,--the plebes always do that,--and not infrequently
+to the exclusion of the other cadet officers; but there was something
+grand, to them, about this dark-eyed, dark-faced, dignified captain who
+never stooped to trifle with them; was always so precise and courteous,
+and yet so immeasurably distant. They were ten times more afraid of him
+than they had been of Lieutenant Rolfe, who was their "tack" during
+camp, or of the great, handsome, kindly-voiced dragoon who succeeded
+him, Lieutenant Lee, of the --th Cavalry. They approved of this latter
+gentleman because he belonged to the regiment of which Mr. Stanley's
+father was lieutenant-colonel, and to which it was understood Mr.
+Stanley was to be assigned on his graduation. What they could not at all
+understand was that, once graduated, Mr. Stanley could step down from
+his high position in the battalion of cadets and become a mere
+file-closer. Yes. Stanley was too strict and soldierly to command that
+decidedly ephemeral tribute known as "popularity," but no man in the
+corps of cadets was more thoroughly respected. If there were flaws in
+the armor of his personal character they were not such as to be
+vigorously prodded by his comrades. He had firm friends,--devoted
+friends, who grew to honor and trust him more with every year; but,
+strong though they knew him to be, he had found his conqueror. There was
+a story in the first class that in Stanley's old leather writing-case
+was a sort of secret compartment, and in this compartment was treasured
+"a knot of ribbon blue" that had been worn last summer close under the
+dimpled white chin of pretty Nannie McKay.
+
+And now on this moist May evening as he hastens back to barracks, Mr.
+Stanley spies a little group standing in front of the guard-house.
+Lieutenant Lee is there,--in his uniform now,--and with him are the tall
+girl in the simple travelling-dress, and the trim, wiry, gray-moustached
+soldier whom we saw on the boat. The rain is falling steadily, which
+accounts for and possibly excuses Mr. Lee's retention of the young
+lady's arm in his as he holds the umbrella over both; but the colonel no
+sooner catches sight of the officer of the day than his own umbrella is
+cast aside, and with light, eager, buoyant steps, father and son hasten
+to meet each other. In an instant their hands are clasped,--both
+hands,--and through moistening eyes the veteran of years of service and
+the boy in whom his hopes are centred gaze into each other's faces.
+
+"Phil,--my son!"
+
+"Father!"
+
+No other words. It is the first meeting in two long years. The area is
+deserted save by the smiling pair watching from under the dripping
+umbrella with eyes nearly as moist as the skies. There is no one to
+comment or to scoff. In the father's heart, mingling with the deep joy
+at this reunion with his son, there wells up sudden, irrepressible
+sorrow. "Ah, God!" he thinks. "Could his mother but have lived to see
+him now!" Perhaps Philip reads it all in the strong yet tremulous clasp
+of those sinewy brown hands, but for the moment neither speaks again.
+There are some joys so deep, some heart longings so overpowering, that
+many a man is forced to silence, or to a levity of manner which is
+utterly repugnant to him, in the effort to conceal from the world the
+tumult of emotion that so nearly makes him weep. Who that has read that
+inimitable page will ever forget the meeting of that genial sire and
+gallant son in the grimy old railway car filled with the wounded from
+Antietam, in Doctor Holmes's "My Search for the Captain?"
+
+When Phil Stanley, still clinging to his father's hand, turns to greet
+his sister and her handsome escort, he is suddenly aware of another
+group that has entered the area. Two ladies, marshalled by his
+classmate, Mr. Pennock, are almost at his side, and one of them is the
+blue-eyed girl he loves.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+"AMANTIUM IRAE."
+
+
+Lovely as is West Point in May, it is hardly the best time for a visit
+there if one's object be to see the cadets. From early morn until late
+at night every hour is taken up with duties, academic or military.
+Mothers, sisters, and sweethearts, whose eyes so eagerly follow the
+evolutions of the gray ranks, can only hope for a few words between
+drill and dress parade, or else in the shortest half-hour in all the
+world,--that which intervenes 'twixt supper and evening "call to
+quarters." That Miss Nannie McKay should make frequent and unfavorable
+comment on this state of affairs goes without saying; yet, had she been
+enabled to see her beloved brother but once a month and her cadet
+friends at intervals almost as rare, that incomprehensible young damsel
+would have preferred the Point to any other place in the world.
+
+It was now ten days since her arrival, and she had had perhaps three
+chats with Willy, who, luckily for him, though he could not realize it,
+was spending most of his time "confined to quarters," and consequently
+out of much of the temptation he would otherwise have been in. Mrs.
+McKay had been able to see very little more of the young man, but she
+had the prayerful consolation that if he could only be kept out of
+mischief a few days longer he would then be through with it all, out of
+danger of dismissal, actually graduated, and once more her own boy to
+monopolize as she chose.
+
+It takes most mothers a long, long time to become reconciled to the
+complete usurpation of all their former rights by this new parent whom
+their boys are bound to serve,--this anything but _Alma_ Mater,--the war
+school of the nation. As for Miss Nan, though she made it a point to
+declaim vigorously at the fates that prevented her seeing more of her
+brother, it was wonderful how well she looked and in what blithe spirits
+she spent her days. Regularly as the sun came around, before guard-mount
+in the morning and right after supper in the evening, she was sure to be
+on the south piazza of the old hotel, and when presently the cadet
+uniforms began to appear at the hedge, she, and others, would go
+tripping lightly down the path to meet the wearers, and then would
+follow the half-hour's walk and chat in which she found such infinite
+delight. So, too, could Mr. Stanley, had he been able to appear as her
+escort on all occasions; but despite his strong personal inclination and
+effort, this was by no means the case. The little lady was singularly
+impartial in the distribution of her time, and only by being first
+applicant had he secured to himself the one long afternoon that had yet
+been vouchsafed them,--the cadet half-holiday of Saturday.
+
+But if Miss Nan found time hanging heavily on her hands at other hours
+of the day, there was one young lady at the hotel who did not,--a young
+lady whom, by this time, she regarded with constantly deepening
+interest,--Miriam Stanley.
+
+Other girls, younger girls, who had found their ideals in the cadet
+gray, were compelled to spend hours of the twenty-four in waiting for
+the too brief _half_-hour in which it was possible to meet them; but
+Miss Stanley was very differently situated. It was her first visit to
+the Point. She met, and was glad to meet, all Philip's friends and
+comrades; but it was plainly to be seen, said all the girls at Craney's,
+that between her and the tall cavalry officer whom they best knew
+through cadet descriptions, there existed what they termed an
+"understanding," if not an engagement. Every day, when not prevented by
+duties, Mr. Lee would come stalking up from barracks, and presently away
+they would stroll together,--a singularly handsome pair, as every one
+admitted. One morning soon after the Stanleys' arrival he appeared in
+saddle on his stylish bay, accompanied by an orderly leading another
+horse, side-saddled; and then, as by common impulse, all the girls
+promenading the piazzas, as was their wont, with arms entwining each
+other's waists, came flocking about the south steps. When Miss Stanley
+appeared in her riding-habit and was quickly swung up into saddle by her
+cavalier, and then, with a bright nod and smile for the entire group,
+she gathered the reins in her practised hand and rode briskly away, the
+sentiments of the fair spectators were best expressed, perhaps, in the
+remark of Miss McKay,--
+
+"What a shame it is that the cadets can't ride! I mean can't
+ride--_that_ way," she explained, with suggestive nod of her curly head
+towards the pair just trotting out upon the road around the Plain. "They
+ride--lots of them--better than most of the officers."
+
+"Mr. Stanley for instance," suggests a mischievous little minx with
+hazel eyes and laughter-loving mouth.
+
+"Yes, Mr. Stanley, or Mr. Pennock, or Mr. Burton, or a dozen others I
+could name, not excepting my brother," answers Miss Nan, stoutly,
+although those readily flushing cheeks of hers promptly throw out their
+signals of perturbation. "Fancy Mr. Lee vaulting over his horse at the
+gallop as they do."
+
+"And yet Mr. Lee has taught them so much more than other instructors.
+Several cadets have told me so. He always does, first, everything he
+requires them to do; so he must be able to make that vault."
+
+"Will doesn't say so by any means," retorts Nannie, with something very
+like a pout; and as Will is a prime favorite with the entire party and
+the centre of a wide circle of interest, sympathy, and anxiety in those
+girlish hearts, their loyalty is proof against opinions that may not
+coincide with his. "Miss Mischief" reads temporary defeat in the circle
+of bright faces and is stung to new effort,--
+
+"Well! there are cadets whose opinions you value quite as much as you do
+your brother's, Nannie, and they have told me."
+
+"Who?" challenges Miss Nan, yet with averted face. Thrice of late she
+has disagreed with Mr. Stanley about Willy's troubles; has said things
+to him which she wishes she had left unsaid; and for two days now he has
+not sought her side as heretofore, though she knows he has been at the
+hotel to see his sister, and a little bird has told her he had a long
+talk with this same hazel-eyed girl. She wants to know more about
+it,--yet does not want to ask.
+
+"Phil Stanley, for one," is the not unexpected answer.
+
+Somebody who appears to know all about it has written that when a girl
+is beginning to feel deep interest in a man she will say things
+decidedly detrimental to his character solely for the purpose of having
+them denied and for the pleasure of hearing him defended. Is it this
+that prompts Miss McKay to retort?--
+
+"Mr. Stanley cares too little what his classmates think, and too much of
+what Mr. Lee may say or do."
+
+"Mr. Stanley isn't the only one who thinks a deal of Lieutenant Lee," is
+the spirited answer. "Mr. Burton says he is the most popular tactical
+officer here, and many a cadet--good friends of your brother's,
+Nannie--has said the same thing. You don't like him because Will
+doesn't."
+
+"I wouldn't like or respect any officer who reports cadets on
+suspicion," is the stout reply. "If he did that to any one else I would
+despise it as much as I do because Willy is the victim."
+
+The discussion is waxing hot. "Miss Mischief's" blood is up. She likes
+Phil Stanley; she likes Mr. Lee; she has hosts of friends in the corps,
+and she is just as loyal and quite as pronounced in her views as her
+little adversary. They are fond of each other, too, and were great chums
+all through the previous summer; but there is danger of a quarrel
+to-day.
+
+"I don't think you are just in that matter at all, Nannie. I have heard
+cadets say that if they had been in Mr. Lee's place or on
+officer-of-the-day duty they would have had to give Will that report you
+take so much to heart. Everybody knows his voice. Half the corps heard
+him call out to Mr. Pennock."
+
+"I don't believe a single cadet who's a friend of Will's would say such
+a thing," bursts in Miss Nan, her eyes blazing.
+
+"He is a friend, and a warm friend, too."
+
+"You said there were several, Kitty, and I don't believe it possible."
+
+"Well. There were two or three. If you don't believe it, you can ask Mr.
+Stanley. _He_ said it, and the others agreed."
+
+Fancy the mood in which she meets him this particular evening, when his
+card was brought to her door. Twice has "Miss Mischief" essayed to enter
+the room and "make up." Conscience has been telling her savagely that in
+the impulse and sting of the moment she has given an unfair coloring to
+the whole matter. Mr. Stanley had volunteered no such remark as that she
+so vehemently quoted. Asked point blank whether he considered as given
+"on suspicion" the report which Mrs. McKay and Nannie so resented, he
+replied that he did not; and, when further pressed, he said that Will
+alone was blamable in the matter: Mr. Lee had no alternative, if it was
+Mr. Lee who gave the report, and any other officer would have been
+compelled to do the same. All this "Miss Mischief" would gladly have
+explained to Nannie could she have gained admission, but the latter "had
+a splitting headache," and begged to be excused.
+
+It has been such a lovely afternoon. The halls were filled with cadets
+"on permit," when she came out from the dining-room, but nothing but
+ill-luck seemed to attend her. The young gentleman who had invited her
+to walk to Fort Putnam, most provokingly twisted an ankle at cavalry
+drill that very morning, and was sent to hospital. _Now_, if Mr. Stanley
+were all devotion, he would promptly tender his services as substitute.
+Then she could take him to task and punish him for his disloyalty to
+Will. But Mr. Stanley was not to be seen: "Gone off with another girl,"
+was the announcement made to her by Mr. Werrick, a youth who dearly
+loved a joke, and who saw no need of explaining that the other girl was
+his own sister. Sorely disappointed, yet hardly knowing why, she
+accepted her mother's invitation to go with her to the barracks where
+Will was promenading the area on what Mr. Werrick called "one of his
+perennial punishment tours." She went, of course; but the distant sight
+of poor Will, duly equipped as a sentry, dismally tramping up and down
+the asphalt, added fuel to the inward fire that consumed her. The
+mother's heart, too, yearned over her boy,--a victim to cruel
+regulations and crueler task-masters. "What was the use of the
+government's enticing young men away from their comfortable homes," Mrs.
+McKay had once indignantly written, "unless it could make them happy?"
+It was a question the "tactical department" could not answer, but it
+thought volumes.
+
+But now evening had come, and with it Mr. Stanley's card. Nan's heart
+gave a bound, but she went down-stairs with due deliberation. She had
+his card in her hand as she reached the hall, and was twisting it in her
+fingers. Yes. There he stood on the north piazza, Pennock with him, and
+one or two others of the graduating class. They were chatting laughingly
+with Miss Stanley, "Miss Mischief," a bevy of girls, and a matron or
+two, but she knew well his eyes would be on watch for her. They were. He
+saw her instantly; bowed, smiled, but, to her surprise, continued his
+conversation with a lady seated near the door. What could it mean?
+Irresolute she stood there a moment, waiting for him to come forward;
+but though she saw that twice his eyes sought hers, he was still bending
+courteously and listening to the voluble words of the somewhat elderly
+dame who claimed his attention. Nan began to rebel against that woman
+from the bottom of her heart. What was she to do? Here was his card. In
+response she had come down to receive him. She meant to be very cool
+from the first moment; to provoke him to inquiry as to the cause of such
+unusual conduct, and then to upbraid him for his disloyalty to her
+brother. She certainly meant that he should feel the weight of her
+displeasure; but then--then--after he had been made to suffer, if he was
+properly contrite, and said so, and looked it, and begged to be
+forgiven, why then, perhaps she might be brought to condone it in a
+measure and be good friends again. It was clearly his duty, however, to
+come and greet her, not hers to go to the laughing group. The old lady
+was the only one among them whom she did not know,--a new arrival. Just
+then Miss Stanley looked round, saw her, and signalled smilingly to her
+to come and join them. Slowly she walked towards the little party, still
+twirling the card in her taper fingers.
+
+"Looking for anybody, Nan?" blithely hails "Miss Mischief." "Who is it?
+I see you have his card."
+
+For once Nannie's voice fails her, and she knows not what to say. Before
+she can frame an answer there is a rustle of skirts and a light
+foot-fall behind her, and she hears the voice of a girl whom she never
+has liked one bit.
+
+"Oh! You're here, are you, Mr. Stanley! Why, I've been waiting at least
+a quarter of an hour. Did you send up your card?"
+
+"I did; full ten minutes ago. Was it not brought to your room?"
+
+"No, indeed! I've been sitting there writing, and only came down because
+I had promised Mr. Fearn that he should have ten minutes, and it is
+nearly his time now. Where do you suppose they could have sent it?"
+
+Poor little Nan! It has been a hard day for her, but this is just too
+much. She turns quickly, and, hardly knowing whither she goes, dodges
+past the party of cadets and girls now blocking the stairway and
+preventing flight to her room, hurries out the south door and around to
+the west piazza, and there, leaning against a pillar, is striving to
+hide her blazing cheeks,--all in less than a minute.
+
+Stanley sees through the entire situation with the quick intuition of a
+lover. She has not treated him kindly of late. She has been capricious
+and unjust on several occasions, but there is no time to think of that
+now. She is in distress, and that is more than enough for him.
+
+"Here comes Mr. Fearn himself to claim his walk, so I will go and find
+out about the card," he says, and blesses that little rat of a bell-boy
+as he hastens away.
+
+Out on the piazza he finds her alone, yet with half a dozen people
+hovering nigh. The hush of twilight is over the beautiful old Point. The
+moist breath of the coming night, cool and sweet, floats down upon them
+from the deep gorges on the rugged flank of Cro' Nest, and rises from
+the thickly lacing branches of the cedars on the river-bank below. A
+flawless mirror in its grand and reflected framework of cliff and crag
+and beetling precipice, the Hudson stretches away northward unruffled by
+the faintest cat's-paw of a breeze. Far beyond the huge black
+battlements of Storm King and the purpled scaur of Breakneck the night
+lights of the distant city are twinkling through the gathering darkness,
+and tiny dots of silvery flame down in the cool depths beneath them
+reflect the faint glimmer from the cloudless heaven where--
+
+     "The sentinel stars set their watch in the sky."
+
+The hush of the sacred hour has fallen on every lip save those of the
+merry party in the hall, where laugh and chatter and flaring gas-light
+bid defiance to influences such as hold their sway over souls brought
+face to face with Nature in this, her loveliest haunt on earth.
+
+Phil Stanley's heart is throbbing as he steps quickly to her side. Well,
+indeed, she knows his foot-fall; knows he is coming; almost knows _why_
+he comes. She is burning with a sense of humiliation, wounded pride,
+maidenly wrath, and displeasure. All day long everything has gone agley.
+Could she but flee to her room and hide her flaming cheeks and cry her
+heart out, it would be relief inexpressible, but her retreat is cut off.
+She cannot escape. She cannot face those keen-eyed watchers in the
+hall-ways. Oh! it is almost maddening that she should have been so--so
+fooled! Every one must know she came down to meet Phil Stanley when his
+card was meant for another girl,--that girl of all others! All aflame
+with indignation as she is, she yet means to freeze him if she can only
+control herself.
+
+"Miss Nannie," he murmurs, quick and low, "I see that a blunder has been
+made, but I don't believe the others saw it. Give me just a few minutes.
+Come down the walk with me. I cannot talk with you here--now, and there
+is so much I want to say." He bends over her pleadingly, but her eyes
+are fixed far away up the dark wooded valley beyond the white shafts of
+the cemetery, gleaming in the first beams of the rising moon. She makes
+no reply for a moment. She does not withdraw them when finally she
+answers, impressively,--
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Stanley, but I must be excused from interfering with
+your engagements."
+
+"There is no engagement now," he promptly replies; "and I greatly want
+to speak with you. Have you been quite kind to me of late? Have I not a
+right to know what has brought about the change?"
+
+"You do not seem to have sought opportunity to inquire,"--very cool and
+dignified now.
+
+"Pardon me. Three times this week I have asked for a walk, and you have
+had previous engagements."
+
+She has torn to bits and thrown away the card that was in her hand. Now
+she is tugging at the bunch of bell buttons, each graven with the
+monogram of some cadet friend, that hangs as usual by its tiny golden
+chain. She wants to say that he has found speedy consolation in the
+society of "that other girl" of whom Mr. Werrick spoke, but not for the
+world would she seem jealous.
+
+"You could have seen me this afternoon, had there been any matters you
+wished explained," she says. "I presume you were more agreeably
+occupied."
+
+"I find no delight in formal visits," he answers, quietly; "but my
+sister wished to return calls and asked me to show her about the post."
+
+Then it was his sister. Not "that other girl!" Still she must not let
+him see it makes her glad. She needs a pretext for her wrath. She must
+make him feel it in some way. This is not at all in accordance with the
+mental private rehearsals she has been having. There is still that
+direful matter of Will's report for "shouting from window of barracks,"
+and "Miss Mischief's" equally direful report of Mr. Stanley's remarks
+thereon.
+
+"I thought you were a loyal friend of Willy's," she says, turning
+suddenly upon him.
+
+"I was--and am," he answers simply.
+
+"And yet I'm told you said it was all his own fault, and that you
+yourself would have given him the report that so nearly 'found him on
+demerit.' A report on suspicion, too," she adds, with scorn in her tone.
+
+Mr. Stanley is silent a moment.
+
+"You have heard a very unfair account of my words," he says at last. "I
+have volunteered no opinions on the subject. In answer to direct
+question I have said that it was not justifiable to call that a report
+on suspicion."
+
+"But you said you would have given it yourself."
+
+"I said that, as officer of the day, I would have been compelled to do
+so. I could not have signed my certificate otherwise."
+
+She turns away in speechless indignation. What makes it all well-nigh
+intolerable is that he is by no means on the defensive. He is patient,
+gentle, but decidedly superior. Not at all what she wanted. Not at all
+eager to explain, argue, or implore. Not at all the tearful penitent she
+has pictured in her plans. She must bring him to a realizing sense of
+the enormity of his conduct. Disloyalty to Will is treason to her.
+
+"And yet--you say you have kept, and that you value, that knot of blue
+ribbon that I gave you--or that you took--last summer. I did not suppose
+that you would so soon prove to be--no friend to Willy, or----"
+
+"Or what, Miss Nannie?" he asks. His face is growing white, but he
+controls the tremor in his voice. She does not see. Her eyes are
+downcast and her face averted now, but she goes on desperately.
+
+"Well, never mind _that_ now; but it seems to me that such friendship
+is--simply worthless."
+
+She has taken the plunge and said her say, but the last words are spoken
+with sinking inflection, followed instantly by a sinking heart. He makes
+no answer whatever. She dares not look up into his face to see the
+effect of her stab. He stands there silent only an instant; then raises
+his cap, turns, and leaves her.
+
+Sunday comes and goes without a sight of him except in the line of
+officers at parade. That night she goes early to her room, and on the
+bureau finds a little box securely tied, sealed, and addressed to her in
+his well-known hand. It contains a note and some soft object carefully
+wrapped in tissue-paper. The note is brief enough:
+
+"It is not easy to part with this, for it is all I have that was yours
+to give, but even this must be returned to you after what you said last
+night.
+
+"Miss Nannie, you may some time think more highly of my friendship for
+your brother than you do now, and then, perhaps, will realize that you
+were very unjust. Should that time come I shall be glad to have this
+again."
+
+It was hardly necessary to open the little packet as she did. She knew
+well enough it could contain only that
+
+     "Knot of ribbon blue."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+"THE WOMAN TEMPTED ME."
+
+
+June is here. The examinations are in full blast. The Point is thronged
+with visitors and every hostelrie in the neighborhood has opened wide
+its doors to accommodate the swarms of people interested in the
+graduating exercises and eager for the graduating ball. Pretty girls
+there are in force, and at Craney's they are living three and four in a
+room; the joy of being really there on the Point, near the cadets,
+aroused by the morning gun and shrill piping of the reveille, saluted
+hourly by the notes of the bugle, enabled to see the gray uniforms half
+a dozen times a day and to actually speak or walk with the wearers half
+an hour out of twenty-four whole ones, being apparent compensation for
+any crowding or discomfort. Indeed, crowded as they are, the girls at
+Craney's are objects of boundless envy to those whom the Fates have
+consigned to the resorts down around the picturesque but distant
+"Falls." There is a little coterie at "Hawkshurst" that is fiercely
+jealous of the sisterhood in the favored nook at the north edge of the
+Plain, and one of their number, who is believed to have completely
+subjugated that universal favorite, Cadet McKay, has been heard to say
+that she thought it an outrage that they had to come home so early in
+the evening and mope away the time without a single cadet, when up there
+at Craney's the halls and piazzas were full of gray-coats and bell
+buttons every night until tattoo.
+
+A very brilliant and pretty girl she is, too, and neither Mrs. McKay nor
+Nannie can wonder at it that Will's few leisure moments are monopolized.
+"You are going to have me all to yourself next week, little mother," he
+laughingly explains; "and goodness knows when I'm going to see Miss
+Waring again." And though neither mother nor sister is at all satisfied
+with the state of affairs, both are too unselfish to interpose. How many
+an hour have mothers and, sometimes, sisters waited in loneliness at the
+old hotel for boys whom some other fellow's sister was holding in silken
+fetters somewhere down in shady "Flirtation!"
+
+It was with relief inexpressible that Mrs. McKay and Uncle Jack had
+hailed the coming of the 1st of June. With a margin of only two demerits
+Will had safely weathered the reefs and was practically safe,--safe at
+last. He had passed brilliantly in engineering; had been saved by his
+prompt and ready answers the consequences of a "fess" with clean
+black-board in ordnance and gunnery; had won a ringing, though
+involuntary, round of applause from the crowded galleries of the
+riding-hall by daring horsemanship, and he was now within seven days of
+the prized diploma and his commission. "For heaven's sake, Billy,"
+pleaded big Burton, the first captain, "don't do any thing to ruin your
+chances now! I've just been talking with your mother and Miss Nannie,
+and I declare I never saw that little sister of yours looking so white
+and worried."
+
+McKay laughs, yet his laugh is not light-hearted. He wonders if Burton
+has the faintest intuition that at this moment he is planning an
+escapade that means nothing short of dismissal if detected. Down in the
+bottom of his soul he knows he is a fool to have made the rash and
+boastful pledge to which he now stands committed. Yet he has never
+"backed out" before, and now--he would dare a dozen dismissals rather
+than that she should have a chance to say, "I knew you would not come."
+
+That very afternoon, just after the ride in the hall before the Board of
+Visitors, Miss Waring had been pathetically lamenting that with another
+week they were to part, and that she had seen next to nothing of him
+since her arrival.
+
+"If you only _could_ get down to Hawkshurst!" she cried. "I'm sure when
+my cousin Frank was in the corps he used to 'run it' down to Cozzens's
+to see Cousin Kate,--and that was what made her Cousin Kate to me," she
+adds, with sudden dropping of the eyelids that is wondrously effective.
+
+"Easily done!" recklessly answers McKay, whose boyish heart is set to
+hammer-like beating by the closing sentence. "I didn't know you sat up
+so late there, or I would have come before. Of course I _have_ to be
+here at 'taps.' No one can escape that."
+
+"Oh,--but really, Mr. McKay, I did not mean it! I would not have you run
+such a risk for worlds! I meant--some other way." And so she protests,
+although her eyes dance with excitement and delight. What a feather this
+in her cap of coquetry! What a triumph over the other girls,--especially
+that hateful set at Craney's! What a delicious confidence to impart to
+all the little coterie at Hawkshurst! How they must envy her the
+romance, the danger, the daring, the devotion of such an adventure--for
+her sake! Of late years such tales had been rare. Girls worth the
+winning simply would not permit so rash a project, and their example
+carried weight. But here at "Hawkshurst" was a lively young brood,
+chaperoned by a matron as wild as her charges and but little older, and
+eager one and all for any glory or distinction that could pique the
+pride or stir the envy of "that Craney set." It was too much for a girl
+of Sallie Waring's type. Her eyes have a dangerous gleam, her cheeks a
+witching glow; she clings tighter to his arm as she looks up in his
+face.
+
+"And yet--wouldn't it be lovely?--To think of seeing you there!--are you
+sure there'd be no danger?"
+
+"Be on the north piazza about quarter of eleven," is the prompt reply.
+"I'll wear a dark suit, eye-glass, brown moustache, etc. Call me Mr.
+Freeman while strangers are around. There goes the parade drum. _Au
+revoir!_" and he darts away. Cadet Captain Stanley, inspecting his
+company a few moments later, stops in front and gravely rebukes him,--
+
+"You are not properly shaved, McKay."
+
+"I shaved this morning," is the somewhat sullen reply, while an angry
+flush shoots up towards the blue eyes.
+
+"No razor has touched your upper lip, however, and I expect the class to
+observe regulations in this company, demerit or no demerit," is the
+firm, quiet answer, and the young captain passes on to the next man.
+McKay grits his teeth.
+
+"Only a week more of it, thank God!" he mutters, when sure that Stanley
+is beyond ear-shot.
+
+Three hours more and "taps" is sounded. All along the brilliant _facade_
+of barracks there is sudden and simultaneous "dousing of the glim" and a
+rush of the cadets to their narrow nests. There is a minute of banging
+doors and hurrying footsteps, and gruff queries of "All in?" as the
+cadet officers flit from room to room in each division to see that
+lights are out and every man in bed. Then forth they come from every
+hall-way; tripping lightly down the stone steps and converging on the
+guard-house, where stand at the door-way the dark forms of the officer
+in charge and the cadet officer of the day. Each in turn halts, salutes,
+and makes his precise report; and when the last subdivision is reported,
+the executive officer is assured that the battalion of cadets is present
+in barracks, and at the moment of inspection at least, in bed.
+Presumably, they remain so.
+
+Two minutes after inspection, however, Mr. McKay is out of bed again and
+fumbling about in his alcove. His room-mate sleepily inquires from
+beyond the partition what he wants in the dark, but is too long
+accustomed to his vagaries to expect definite information. When Mr.
+McKay slips softly out into the hall, after careful _reconnaissance_ of
+the guard-house windows, his chum is soundly asleep and dreaming of no
+worse freak on Billy's part than a raid around barracks.
+
+It is so near graduation that the rules are relaxed, and in every first
+classman's room the tailor's handiwork is hanging among the gray
+uniforms. It is a dark suit of this civilian dress that Billy dons as
+he emerges from the blankets. A natty Derby is perched upon his curly
+pate, and a _monocle_ hangs by its string. But he cannot light his gas
+and arrange the soft brown moustache with which he proposes to decorate
+his upper lip. He must run into Stanley's,--the "tower" room, at the
+north end of his hall.
+
+Phil looks up from the copy of "Military Law" which he is diligently
+studying. As "inspector of subdivision," his light is burned until
+eleven.
+
+"You _do_ make an uncommonly swell young cit, Billy," he says,
+pleasantly. "Doesn't he, Mack?" he continues, appealing to his
+room-mate, who, lying flat on his back with his head towards the light
+and a pair of muscular legs in white trousers displayed on top of a pile
+of blankets, is striving to make out the vacancies in a recent Army
+Register. "Mack" rolls over and lazily expresses his approval.
+
+"I'd do pretty well if I had my moustache out; I meant to get the start
+of you fellows, but you're so meanly jealous, you blocked the game,
+Stan."
+
+All the rancor is gone now. He well knows that Stanley was right.
+
+"Sorry to have had to 'row' you about that, Billy," says the captain,
+gently. "You know I can't let one man go and not a dozen others."
+
+"Oh, hang it all! What's the difference when time's so nearly up?"
+responds McKay, as he goes over to the little wood-framed mirror that
+stands on the iron mantel. "Here's a substitute, though! How's this for
+a moustache?" he asks, as he turns and faces them. Then he starts for
+the door. Almost in an instant Stanley is up and after him. Just at the
+head of the iron stairs he hails and halts him.
+
+"Billy! You are not going out of barracks?"
+
+Unwillingly McKay yields to the pressure of the firm hand laid on his
+shoulder, and turns.
+
+"Suppose I were, Stanley. What danger is there? Lee inspected last
+night, and even he wouldn't make such a plan to trip me. Who ever heard
+of a 'tack's' inspecting after taps two successive nights?"
+
+"There's no reason why it should not be done, and several reasons why it
+should," is the uncompromising reply. "Don't risk your commission now,
+Billy, in any mad scheme. Come back and take those things off. Come!"
+
+"Blatherskite! Don't hang on to me like a pick-pocket, Stan. Let me go,"
+says McKay, half vexed, half laughing. "I've _got_ to go, man," he says,
+more seriously. "I've promised."
+
+A sudden light seems to come to Stanley. Even in the feeble gleam from
+the gas-jet in the lower hall McKay can see the look of consternation
+that shoots across his face.
+
+"You don't mean--you're not going down to Hawkshurst, Billy?"
+
+"Why not to Hawkshurst, if anywhere at all?" is the sullen reply.
+
+"Why? Because you are risking your whole future,--your profession, your
+good name, McKay. You're risking your mother's heart for the sport of a
+girl who is simply toying with you----"
+
+"Take care, Stanley. Say what you like to me about myself, but not a
+word about her."
+
+"This is no time for sentiment, McKay. I have known Miss Waring three
+years; you, perhaps three weeks. I tell you solemnly that if she has
+tempted you to 'run it' down there to see her it is simply to boast of a
+new triumph to the silly pack by whom she is surrounded. I tell you
+she----"
+
+"You tell me nothing! I don't allow any man to speak in that way of a
+woman who is my friend," says Billy, with much majesty of mien. "Take
+your hand off, Stanley," he adds, coldly. "I might have had some respect
+for your counsel if you had had the least--for my feelings." And
+wrenching his shoulder away, McKay speeds quickly down the stairs,
+leaving his comrade speechless and sorrowing in the darkness above.
+
+In the lower hall he stops and peers cautiously over towards the
+guard-house. The lights are burning brilliantly up in the room of the
+officer in charge, and the red sash of the officer of the day shows
+through the open door-way beneath. Now is his time, for there is no one
+looking. One quick leap through the dim stream of light from the lantern
+at his back and he will be in the dark area, and can pick his noiseless
+way to the shadows beyond. It is an easy thing to gain the foot-path
+beyond the old retaining wall back of the guard-house, scud away under
+the trees along the winding ascent towards Fort Putnam, until he meets
+the back-road half-way up the heights; then turn southward through the
+rocky cuts and forest aisles until he reaches the main highway; then
+follow on through the beautiful groves, through the quiet village,
+across the bridge that spans the stream above the falls, and then, only
+a few hundred yards beyond, there lies Hawkshurst and its bevy of
+excited, whispering, applauding, delighted girls. If he meet officers,
+all he has to do is put on a bold face and trust to his disguise. He
+means to have a glorious time and be back, tingling with satisfaction on
+his exploit, by a little after midnight. In five minutes his quarrel
+with Stanley is forgotten, and, all alert and eager, he is half-way up
+the heights and out of sight or hearing of the barracks.
+
+The roads are well-nigh deserted. He meets one or two squads of soldiers
+coming back from "pass" at the Falls, but no one else. The omnibuses and
+carriages bearing home those visitors who have spent the evening
+listening to the band at the Point are all by this time out of the way,
+and it is early for officers to be returning from evening calls at the
+lower hotel. The chances are two to one that he will pass the village
+without obstacle of any kind. Billy's spirits rise with the occasion,
+and he concludes that a cigarette is the one thing needful to complete
+his disguise and add to the general nonchalance of his appearance.
+Having no matches he waits until he reaches the northern outskirts of
+the Falls, and then steps boldly into the first bar he sees and helps
+himself.
+
+Coming forth again he throws wide open the swinging screen doors, and a
+broad belt of light is flashed across the dusty highway just in front of
+a rapidly-driven carriage coming north. The mettlesome horses swerve and
+shy. The occupants are suddenly whirled from their reposeful attitudes,
+though, fortunately, not from their seats. A "top hat" goes spinning out
+into the roadway, and a fan flies through the midst of the glare. The
+driver promptly checks his team and backs them just as Billy, all
+impulsive courtesy, leaps out into the street; picks up the hat with one
+hand, the fan with the other, and restores them with a bow to their
+owners. Only in the nick of time does he recollect himself and crush
+down the jovial impulse to hail by name Colonel Stanley and his daughter
+Miriam. The sight of a cavalry uniform and Lieutenant Lee's tall figure
+on the forward seat has, however, its restraining influence, and he
+turns quickly away--unrecognized.
+
+But alas for Billy! Only two days before had the distribution been made,
+and every man in the graduating class was already wearing the beautiful
+token of their brotherhood. The civilian garb, the Derby hat, the
+_monocle_, the stick, the cigarette, and the false moustache were all
+very well in their way, but in the beam of light from the windows of
+that ill-starred saloon there flashed upon his hand a gem that two pairs
+of quick, though reluctant eyes could not and did not fail to see,--the
+_class ring_ of 187-.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+A MIDNIGHT INSPECTION.
+
+
+There was a sense of constraint among the occupants of Colonel Stanley's
+carriage as they were driven back to the Point. They had been calling on
+old friends of his among the pretty villas below the Falls; had been
+chatting joyously until that sudden swerve that pitched the colonel's
+hat and Miriam's fan into the dust, and the veteran cavalryman could not
+account for the lull that followed. Miriam had instantly grasped the
+situation. All her father's stories of cadet days had enabled her to
+understand at once that here was a cadet--a classmate of
+Philip's--"running it" in disguise. Mr. Lee, of course, needed no
+information on the subject. What she hoped was, that he had not seen;
+but the cloud on his frank, handsome face still hovered there, and she
+knew him too well not to see that he understood everything. And now what
+was his duty? Something told her that an inspection of barracks would be
+made immediately upon his return to the Point, and in that way the name
+of the absentee be discovered. She knew the regulation every cadet was
+expected to obey and every officer on honor to enforce. She knew that
+every cadet found absent from his quarters after taps was called upon by
+the commandant for prompt account of his whereabouts, and if unable to
+say that he was on cadet limits during the period of his absence,
+dismissal stared him in the face.
+
+The colonel did most of the talking on the way back to the south gate.
+Once within the portals he called to the driver to stop at the Mess.
+"I'm thirsty," said the jovial warrior, "and I want a julep and a fresh
+cigar. You, too, might have a claret punch, Mimi; you are drooping a
+little to-night. What is it, daughter,--tired?"
+
+"Yes, tired and a little headachy." Then sudden thought occurs to her.
+"If you don't mind I think I will go right on to the hotel. Then you and
+Mr. Lee can enjoy your cigars at leisure." She knows well that Romney
+Lee is just the last man to let her drive on unescorted. She can hold
+him ten or fifteen minutes, at least, and by that time if the reckless
+boy down the road has taken warning and scurried back he can reach the
+barracks before inspection is made.
+
+"Indeed, Miss Miriam, I'm not to be disposed of so summarily," he
+promptly answers. "I'll see you safely to the hotel. You'll excuse me,
+colonel?"
+
+"Certainly, certainly, Lee. I suppose I'll see you later," responds the
+veteran. They leave him at the Mess and resume their way, and Lee takes
+the vacated seat by her side. There is something he longs to say to
+her,--something that has been quivering on his lips and throbbing at his
+heart for many a long day. She is a queenly woman,--this dark-eyed,
+stately army girl. It is only two years since, her school-days finished,
+she has returned to her father's roof on the far frontier and resumed
+the gay garrison life that so charmed her when a child. _Then_ a loving
+mother had been her guide, but during her long sojourn at school the
+blow had fallen that so wrenched her father's heart and left her
+motherless. Since her graduation she alone has been the joy of the old
+soldier's home, and sunshine and beauty have again gladdened his life.
+She would be less than woman did she not know that here now was another
+soldier, brave, courteous, and gentle, who longed to win her from that
+home to his own,--to call her by the sacred name of wife. She knew how
+her father trusted and Phil looked up to him. She knew that down in her
+own heart of hearts there was pleading for him even now, but as yet no
+word has been spoken. She is not the girl to signal, "speak, and the
+prize is yours." He has looked in vain for a symptom that bids him hope
+for more than loyal friendship.
+
+But to-night as they reach the brightly-lighted piazza at Craney's it is
+she who bids him stay.
+
+"Don't go just yet," she falters.
+
+"I feared you were tired and wished to go to your room," he answers,
+gently.
+
+"Would you mind asking if there are letters for me?" she says. It is
+anything to gain time, and he goes at her behest, but--oh, luckless
+fate!--'tis a false move.
+
+She sees him stride away through the groups on the piazza; sees the
+commandant meet him with one of his assistants; sees that there is
+earnest consultation in low tone, and that then the others hasten down
+the steps and disappear in the darkness. She hears him say, "I'll follow
+in a moment, sir," and something tells her that what she dreads has come
+to pass. Presently he returns to her with the information that there are
+no letters; then raises his cap, and, in the old Southern and cadet
+fashion, extends his hand.
+
+"You are not going, Mr. Lee?" again she falters.
+
+"I have to, Miss Stanley."
+
+Slowly she puts forth her hand and lays it in his.
+
+"I--I wish you did not have to go. _Tell_ me," she says, impulsively,
+imploringly, "are you going to inspect?"
+
+He bows his head.
+
+"It is already ordered, Miss Miriam," he says; "I must go at once.
+Good-night."
+
+Dazed and distressed she turns at once, and is confronted by a pallid
+little maid with wild, blue eyes.
+
+"Oh, Miss Stanley!" is the wail that greets her. "I could not help
+hearing, and--if it should be Willy!"
+
+"Come with me, Nannie," she whispers, as her arm enfolds her. "Come to
+my room."
+
+Meantime, there has been a breeze at the barracks. A batch of yearlings,
+by way of celebrating their release from plebedom, have hit on a
+time-honored scheme. Just about the same moment that disclosed to the
+eyes of Lieutenant Lee the class ring gleaming on the finger of that
+nattily-dressed young civilian, his comrade, the dozing officer in
+charge, was started to his feet by a thunder-clap, a vivid flash that
+lighted up the whole area of barracks, and an explosion that rattled the
+plaster in the guard-house chimneys. One thing the commandant wouldn't
+stand was disorder after "taps," and, in accordance with strict
+instructions, Lieutenant Lawrence sent a drummer-boy at once to find the
+colonel and tell him what had taken place, while he himself stirred up
+the cadet officer of the day and began an investigation. Half the corps
+by this time were up and chuckling with glee at their darkened windows;
+and as these subdued but still audible demonstrations of sympathy and
+satisfaction did not cease on his arrival, the colonel promptly sent for
+his entire force of assistants to conduct the inspection already
+ordered. Already one or two "bull's-eyes" were flitting out from the
+officers' angle.
+
+But the piece of boyish mischief that brings such keen delight to the
+youngsters in the battalion strikes terror to the heart of Philip
+Stanley. He knows all too well that an immediate inspection will be the
+result, and then, what is to become of McKay? With keen anxiety, he
+goes to the hall window overlooking the area, and watches the course of
+events. A peep into McKay's room shows that he is still absent and that
+his room-mate, if disturbed at all by the "yearling fireworks," has gone
+to sleep again. Stanley sees the commandant stride under the gas-lamp in
+the area; sees the gathering of the "bull's-eyes," and his heart
+well-nigh fails him. Still he watches until there can be no doubt that
+the inspection is already begun. Then, half credulous, all delighted, he
+notes that it is not Mr. Lee, but young Mr. Lawrence, the officer in
+charge, who is coming straight towards "B" Company, lantern in hand. Not
+waiting for the coming of the former, the colonel has directed another
+officer--not a company commander--to inspect for him.
+
+There is but one way to save Billy now.
+
+In less than half a minute Stanley has darted into McKay's room; has
+slung his chevroned coat under the bed; has slipped beneath the sheet
+and coverlet, and now, breathlessly, he listens. He hears the inspector
+moving from room to room on the ground floor; hears him spring up the
+iron stair; hears him enter his own,--the tower room at the north end of
+the hall,--and there he stops, surprised, evidently, to find Cadet
+Captain Stanley absent from his quarters. Then his steps are heard
+again. He enters the opposite room at the north end. That is all right!
+and now he's coming here. "Now for it!" says Stanley to himself, as he
+throws his white-sleeved arm over his head just as he has so often seen
+Billy do, and turning his face to the wall, burrows deep in the pillow
+and pulls the sheet well up to his chin. The door softly opens; the
+"bull's-eye" flashes its gleam first on one bed, then on the other. "All
+right here," is the inspector's mental verdict as he pops out again
+suddenly as he entered. Billy McKay, the scapegrace, is safe and Stanley
+has time to think over the situation.
+
+At the very worst, as he will be able to say he was "visiting in
+barracks" when found absent, his own punishment will not be serious. But
+this is not what troubles him. Demerit for the graduating class ceases
+to count after the 1st of June, and the individual sense of honor and
+duty is about the only restraint against lapses of discipline. Stanley
+hates to think that others may now believe him deaf to this obligation.
+He would far rather have had this happen when demerit and "confinements"
+in due proportion had been his award, but there is no use repining. It
+is a sacrifice to save--her brother.
+
+When half an hour later his classmate, the officer of the day, enters
+the tower room in search of him, Stanley is there and calmly says, "I
+was visiting in barracks," in answer to his question; and finally, when
+morning comes, Mr. Billy McKay nearly sleeps through reveille as a
+consequence of his night-prowling; but his absence, despite the
+simultaneous inspection of every company in barracks, has not been
+detected. With one exception every bed has had its apparently soundly
+sleeping occupant. The young scamps who caused all the trouble have
+escaped scot-free, and the corps can hardly believe their own ears, and
+Billy McKay is stunned and perplexed when it is noised abroad that the
+only man "hived absent" was the captain of Company "B."
+
+It so happens that both times he goes to find Stanley that day he misses
+him. "The commandant sent for him an hour ago," says Mr. McFarland, his
+room-mate, "and I'm blessed if I know what keeps him. Something about
+last night's doings, I'm afraid."
+
+This, in itself, is enough to make him worry, but the next thing he
+hears is worse. Just at evening call to quarters, Jim Burton comes to
+his room.
+
+"Have you heard anything about this report of Stanley's last night?" he
+asks, and McKay, ordinarily so frank, is guarded now in his reply. For
+half an hour he has been pacing his room alone. McFarland's revelations
+have set him to thinking. It is evident that the colonel's suspicions
+are aroused. It is probable that it is known that some cadet was
+"running it" the night before. From the simple fact that he is not
+already in arrest he knows that Mr. Lee did not recognize him, yet the
+secret has leaked out in some way, and an effort is being made to
+discover the culprit. Already he has begun to wonder if the game was
+really worth the candle. He saw her, 'tis true, and had half an hour's
+whispered chat with her, interrupted not infrequently by giggling and
+impetuous rushes from the other girls. They had sworn melodramatically
+never to reveal that it was he who came, but Billy begins to have his
+doubts. "It ends my career if I'm found out," he reflects, "whereas they
+can't do much to Stan for visiting." And thus communing with himself, he
+has decided to guard his secret against all comers,--at least for the
+present. And so he is non-committal in his reply to Burton.
+
+"What about it?" he asks.
+
+"Why, it's simply this, Billy: Little Magee, the fifer, is on orderly
+duty to-day, and he heard much of the talk, and I got it out of him.
+Somebody was running it last night, and was seen down by Cozzens's gate.
+Stanley was the only absentee, hence Stanley would naturally be the man
+suspected, but he says he wasn't out of the barracks. The conclusion is
+inevitable that he was filling the other fellow's place, and the colonel
+is hopping mad. It looks as though there were collusion between them.
+Now, Billy, all I've got to say is that the man he's shielding ought to
+step forward and relieve him at once. There comes the sentry and I must
+go."
+
+Relieve him? Yes; but what means that for me? thinks poor McKay.
+Dismissal; a heart break for mother. No! It is too much to face; he must
+think it over. He never goes near Stanley all that night. He fears to
+meet him, or the morrow. His heart misgives him when he is told that
+there has been a long conference in the office. He turns white with
+apprehension when they fall in for parade, and he notes that it is
+Phillips, their first lieutenant, who draws sword and takes command of
+the company; but a few moments later his heart gives one wild bound,
+then seems to sink into the ground beneath his feet, when the adjutant
+drops the point of his sword, lets it dangle by the gold knot at his
+wrist, whips a folded paper from his sash, and far over the plain his
+clear young voice proclaims the stern order:
+
+"Cadet Captain Stanley is hereby placed in arrest and confined to his
+quarters. Charge--conniving at concealing the absence of a cadet from
+inspection after 'taps,' eleven--eleven-fifteen P.M., on the 7th
+instant.
+
+"By order of Lieutenant-Colonel Putnam."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE LAST DANCE.
+
+
+The blithest day of all the year has come. The graduating ball takes
+place to-night. The Point is thronged with joyous visitors, and yet over
+all there hovers a shadow. In the midst of all this gayety and
+congratulation there hides a core of sorrow. Voices lower and soft eyes
+turn in sympathy when certain sad faces are seen. There is one subject
+on which the cadets simply refuse to talk, and there are two of the
+graduating class who do not appear at the hotel at all. One is Mr.
+McKay, whose absence is alleged to be because of confinements he has to
+serve; the other is Philip Stanley, still in close arrest, and the
+latter has cancelled his engagements for the ball.
+
+There had been a few days in which Miss McKay, forgetting or having
+obtained absolution for her unguarded remarks on the promenade deck of
+the steamer, had begun to be seen a great deal with Miss Stanley. She
+had even blushingly shaken hands with big Lieutenant Lee, whose kind
+brown eyes were full of fun and playfulness whenever he greeted her. But
+it was noticed that something, all of a sudden, had occurred to mar the
+growing intimacy; then that the once blithe little lady was looking
+white and sorrowful; that she avoided Miss Stanley for two whole days,
+and that her blue eyes watched wistfully for some one who did not
+come,--"Mr. Stanley, no doubt," was the diagnosis of the case by "Miss
+Mischief" and others.
+
+Then, like a thunder-clap, came the order for Phil Stanley's arrest, and
+then there were other sad faces. Miriam Stanley's dark eyes were not
+only troubled, but down in their depths was a gleam of suppressed
+indignation that people knew not how to explain. Colonel Stanley, to
+whom every one had been drawn from the first, now appeared very stern
+and grave; the joy had vanished from his face. Mrs. McKay was flitting
+about the parlors tearfully thankful that "it wasn't her boy." Nannie
+had grown whiter still, and very "absent" and silent. Mr. Lee did not
+come at all.
+
+Then there was startling news! An outbreak, long smouldering, had just
+occurred at the great reservation of the Spirit Wolf; the agent and
+several of his men had been massacred, their women carried away into a
+captivity whose horrors beggar all description, and two troops--hardly
+sixscore men--of Colonel Stanley's regiment were already in pursuit.
+Leaving his daughter to the care of an old friend at Craney's, and after
+a brief interview with his boy at barracks, the old soldier who had come
+eastward with such glad anticipation turned promptly back to the field
+of duty. He had taken the first train and was already beyond the
+Missouri. Almost immediately after the colonel's departure, Mr. Lee had
+come to the hotel and was seen to have a brief but earnest talk with
+Miss Stanley on the north piazza,--a talk from which she had gone
+direct to her room and did not reappear for hours, while he, who
+usually had a genial, kindly word for every one, had turned abruptly
+down the north steps as though to avoid the crowded halls and piazzas,
+and so returned to the barracks.
+
+But now, this lovely June morning the news from the far West is still
+more direful. Hundreds of savages have taken the war-path, and murder is
+the burden of every tale from around their reservation, but--this is the
+day of "last parade" and the graduating ball, and people cannot afford
+time to think of such grewsome matter. All the same, they note that Mr.
+Lee comes no more to the hotel, and a rumor is in circulation that he
+has begged to be relieved from duty at the Point and ordered to join his
+troop now in the field against hostile Indians.
+
+Nannie McKay is looking like a pathetic shadow of her former self as she
+comes down-stairs to fulfil an engagement with a cadet admirer. She
+neglects no duty of the kind towards Willy's friends and hers, but she
+is drooping and listless. Uncle Jack is worried about her; so, too, is
+mamma, though the latter is so wrapped up in the graduation of her boy
+that she has little time to think of pallid cheeks and mournful eyes. It
+is all arranged that they are to sail for Europe the 1st of July, and
+the sea air, the voyage across, the new sights and associations on the
+other side, will "bring her round again," says that observant
+"avuncular" hopefully. He is compelled to be at his office in the city
+much of the time, but comes up this day as a matter of course, and has a
+brief chat with his graceless nephew at the guard-house. Billy's utter
+lack of spirits sets Uncle Jack to thinking. The boy says he can "tell
+him nothing just now," and Uncle Jack feels well assured that he has a
+good deal to tell. He goes in search of Lieutenant Lee, for whom he has
+conceived a great fancy, but the big lieutenant has gone to the city on
+business. In the crowded hall at the hotel he meets Miriam Stanley, and
+her face gives him another pound of trouble to carry.
+
+"You are going to the ball, though?" he hears a lady say to her, and
+Miriam shakes her head.
+
+Ball, indeed!--or last parade, either! She knows she cannot bear to see
+the class march to the front, and her brother not there. She cannot bear
+the thought of even looking on at the ball, if Philip is to be debarred
+from attending. Her thoughts have been very bitter for a few days past.
+Her father's intense but silent distress and regret; Philip's certain
+detention after the graduation of his class; his probable court-martial
+and loss of rank; the knowledge that he had incurred it all to save
+McKay (and everybody by this time felt that it _must_ be Billy McKay,
+though no one could prove it), all have conspired to make her very
+unhappy and very unjust to Mr. Lee. Philip has told her that Mr. Lee had
+no alternative in reporting to the commandant his discovery "down the
+road," but she had believed herself of sufficient value in that
+officer's brown eyes to induce him to at least postpone any mention of
+that piece of accidental knowledge; and though, in her heart of hearts,
+she knows she respects him the more because she could not prevail
+against his sense of duty, she is stung to the quick, and, womanlike,
+has made him feel it.
+
+It must be in sympathy with her sorrows that, late this afternoon, the
+heavens open and pour their floods upon the plain. Hundreds of people
+are bemoaning the fact that now there can be no graduating parade. Down
+in barracks the members of the class are busily packing trunks, trying
+on civilian garb, and rushing about in much excitement. In more senses
+than one Phil Stanley's room is a centre of gravity. The commandant at
+ten o'clock had sent for him and given him final opportunity to state
+whose place he occupied during the inspection of that now memorable
+night, and he had respectfully but firmly declined. There was then no
+alternative but the withdrawal of his diploma and his detention at the
+Point to await the action of the Secretary of War upon the charges
+preferred against him. "The Class," of course, knew by this time that
+McKay was the man whom he had saved, for after one day of torment and
+indecision that hapless youth had called in half a dozen of his comrades
+and made a clean breast of it. It was then his deliberate intention to
+go to the commandant and beg for Stanley's release, and to offer himself
+as the culprit. But Stanley had thought the problem out and gravely
+interposed. It could really do no practical good to him and would only
+result in disaster to McKay. No one could have anticipated the luckless
+chain of circumstances that had led to his own arrest, but now he must
+face the consequences. After long consultation the young counsellors had
+decided on the plan. "There is only one thing for us to do: keep the
+matter quiet. There is only one thing for Billy to do: keep a stiff
+upper lip; graduate with the class, then go to Washington with 'Uncle
+Jack,' and bestir their friends in Congress,"--not just then assembled,
+but always available. There was never yet a time when a genuine "pull"
+from Senate and House did not triumph over the principles of military
+discipline.
+
+A miserable man is Billy! For a week he has moped in barracks, forbidden
+by Stanley and his advisers to admit anything, yet universally suspected
+of being the cause of all the trouble. He, too, wishes to cancel his
+engagements for the graduating ball, and thinks something ought to be
+done to those young idiots of yearlings who set off the torpedo.
+"Nothing could have gone wrong but for them," says he; but the wise
+heads of the class promptly snub him into silence. "You've simply got to
+do as we say in this matter, Billy. You've done enough mischief
+already." And so it results that the message he sends by Uncle Jack is:
+"Tell mother and Nan I'll meet them at the 'hop.' My confinements end at
+eight o'clock, but there's no use in my going to the hotel and tramping
+through the mud." The truth is, he cannot bear to meet Miriam Stanley,
+and 'twould be just his luck.
+
+One year ago no happier, bonnier, brighter face could have been seen at
+the Point than that of Nannie McKay. To-night, in all the throng of fair
+women and lovely girls, gathered with their soldier escort in the great
+mess-hall, there is none so sad. She tries hard to be chatty and
+smiling, but is too frank and honest a little soul to have much success.
+The dances that Phil Stanley had engaged months and months ago are
+accredited now to other names, and blissful young fellows in gray and
+gold come successively to claim them. But deep down in her heart she
+remembers the number of each. It was he who was to have been her escort.
+It was he who made out her card and gave it to her only a day or two
+before that fatal interview. It was he who was to have had the last
+waltz--the very last--that he would dance in the old cadet gray; and
+though new names have been substituted for his in other cases, this
+waltz she meant to keep. Well knowing that there would be many to beg
+for it, she has written Willy's name for "Stanley," and duly warned him
+of the fact. Then, when it comes, she means to escape to the
+dressing-room, for she is promptly told that her brother is engaged to
+Miss Waring for that very waltz. Light as are her feet, she never yet
+has danced with so heavy a heart. The rain still pours, driving
+everybody within doors. The heat is intense. The hall is crowded, and it
+frequently happens that partners cannot find her until near the end of
+their number on that dainty card. But every one has something to say
+about Phil Stanley and the universal regret at his absence. It is
+getting to be more than she can bear,--this prolonged striving to
+respond with proper appreciation and sympathy, yet not say too
+much,--not betray the secret that is now burning, throbbing in her
+girlish heart. He does not dream it, but there, hidden beneath the soft
+lace upon her snowy neck, lies that "knot of ribbon blue" which she so
+laughingly had given him, at his urging, the last day of her visit the
+previous year; the knot which he had so loyally treasured and then so
+sadly returned. A trifling, senseless thing to make such an ado about,
+but these hearts are young and ardent, and this romance of his has many
+a counterpart, the memory of which may bring to war-worn, grizzled
+heads to-day a blush almost of shame, and would surely bring to many an
+old and sometimes aching heart a sigh. Hoping against hope, poor Nannie
+has thought it just possible that at the last moment the authorities
+would relent and he be allowed to attend. If so,--if so, angry and
+justly angered though he might be, cut to the heart though he expressed
+himself, has she not here the means to call him back?--to bid him come
+and know how contrite she is? Hour after hour she glances at the broad
+archway at the east, yearning to see his dark, handsome face among the
+new-comers,--all in vain. Time and again she encounters Sallie Waring,
+brilliant, bewitching, in the most ravishing of toilets, and always with
+half a dozen men about her. Twice she notices Will among them with a
+face gloomy and rebellious, and, hardly knowing why, she almost hates
+her.
+
+At last comes the waltz that was to have been Philip's,--the waltz she
+has saved for his sake though he cannot claim it. Mr. Pennock, who has
+danced the previous galop with her, sees the leader raising his baton,
+bethinks him of his next partner, and leaves her at the open window
+close to the dressing-room door. There she can have a breath of fresh
+air, and, hiding behind the broad backs of several bulky officers and
+civilians, listen undisturbed to the music she longed to enjoy with him.
+Here, to her surprise, Will suddenly joins her.
+
+"I thought you were engaged to Miss Waring for this," she says.
+
+"I was," he answers, savagely; "but I'm well out of it. I resigned in
+favor of a big 'cit' who's worth only twenty thousand a year, Nan, and
+she has been engaged to him all this time and never let me know until
+to-night."
+
+"_Willy!_" she gasps. "Oh! I'm so glad--sorry, I mean! I never _did_
+like her."
+
+"_I_ did, Nan, more's the pity. I'm not the first she's made a fool of;"
+and he turns away, hiding the chagrin in his young face. They are
+practically alone in this sheltered nook. Crowds are around them, but
+looking the other way. The rain is dripping from the trees without and
+pattering on the stone flags. McKay leans out into the night, and the
+sister's loving heart yearns over him in his trouble.
+
+"Willy," she says, laying the little white-gloved hand on his arm, "it's
+hard to bear, but she isn't worthy _any_ man's love. Twice I've heard in
+the last two days that she makes a boast of it that 'twas to see her
+that some one risked his commission and so--kept Mr. Stanley from being
+here to-night. Willy, _do_ you know who it was? _Don't_ you think he
+ought to have come forward like a gentleman, days ago, and told the
+truth? _Will!_ What is it? _Don't_ look so! Speak to me, Willy,--your
+little Nan. Was there ever a time, dear, when my whole heart wasn't open
+to you in love and sympathy?"
+
+And now, just at this minute, the music begins again. Soft, sweet, yet
+with such a strain of pathos and of sadness running through every chord;
+it is the loveliest of all the waltzes played in his "First Class
+Camp,"--the one of all others he most loved to hear. Her heart almost
+bursts now to think of him in his lonely room, beyond hearing of the
+melody that is so dear to him, that is now so passionately dear to
+her,--"Love's Sigh." Doubtless, Philip had asked the leader days ago to
+play it here and at no other time. It is more than enough to start the
+tears long welling in her eyes. For an instant it turns her from thought
+of Willy's own heartache.
+
+"Will!" she whispers, desperately. "This was to have been Philip
+Stanley's waltz--and I want you to take--something to him for me."
+
+He turns back to her again, his hands clinched, his teeth set, still
+thinking only of his own bitter humiliation,--of how that girl has
+fooled and jilted him,--of how for her sake he had brought all this
+trouble on his stanchest friend.
+
+"Phil Stanley!" he exclaims. "By heaven! it makes me nearly mad to think
+of it!--and all for her sake,--all through me. Oh, Nan! Nan! I _must_
+tell you! It was for me,--to save me that----"
+
+"_Willy!_" and there is almost horror in her wide blue eyes.
+"_Willy!_" she gasps--"oh, _don't_--don't tell me _that_!
+Oh, it isn't _true_? Not you--not you, Willy. Not my brother! Oh,
+quick! Tell me."
+
+Startled, alarmed, he seizes her hand.
+
+"Little sister! What--what has happened--what is----"
+
+But there is no time for more words. The week of misery; the piteous
+strain of the long evening; the sweet, sad, wailing melody,--his
+favorite waltz; the sudden, stunning revelation that it was for Willy's
+sake that he--her hero--was now to suffer, he whose heart she had
+trampled on and crushed! It is all more than mortal girl can bear. With
+the beautiful strains moaning, whirling, ringing, surging through her
+brain, she is borne dizzily away into darkness and oblivion.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+There follows a week in which sadder faces yet are seen about the old
+hotel. The routine of the Academy goes on undisturbed. The graduating
+class has taken its farewell of the gray walls and gone upon its way.
+New faces, new voices are those in the line of officers at parade. The
+corps has pitched its white tents under the trees beyond the grassy
+parapet of Fort Clinton, and, with the graduates and furlough-men gone,
+its ranks look pitifully thinned. The throng of visitors has vanished.
+The halls and piazzas at Craney's are well-nigh deserted, but among the
+few who linger there is not one who has not loving inquiry for the young
+life that for a brief while has fluttered so near the grave. "Brain
+fever," said the doctors to Uncle Jack, and a new anxiety was lined in
+his kindly face as he and Will McKay sped on their mission to the
+Capitol. They had to go, though little Nan lay sore stricken at the
+Point.
+
+But youth and elasticity triumph. The danger is passed. She lies now,
+very white and still, listening to the sweet strains of the band
+trooping down the line this soft June evening. Her mother, worn with
+watching, is resting on the lounge. It is Miriam Stanley who hovers at
+the bedside. Presently the bugles peal the retreat; the sunset gun booms
+across the plain; the ringing voice of the young adjutant comes floating
+on the southerly breeze, and, as she listens, Nannie follows every
+detail of the well-known ceremony, wondering how it _could_ go on day
+after day with no Mr. Pennock to read the orders; with no "big Burton"
+to thunder his commands to the first company; with no Philip Stanley to
+march the colors to their place on the line. "Where is _he_?" is the
+question in the sweet blue eyes that so wistfully seek his sister's
+face; but she answers not. One by one the first sergeants made their
+reports; and now--that ringing voice again, reading the orders of the
+day. How clear it sounds! How hushed and still the listening Point!
+
+"Head-quarters of the Army," she hears. "Washington, June 15, 187-.
+Special orders, Number--.
+
+"_First._ Upon his own application, First Lieutenant George Romney Lee,
+--th Cavalry, is hereby relieved from duty at the U. S. Military
+Academy, and will join his troop now in the field against hostile
+Indians.
+
+"_Second._ Upon the recommendation of the Superintendent U. S. Military
+Academy, the charges preferred against Cadet Captain Philip S. Stanley
+are withdrawn. Cadet Stanley will be considered as graduated with his
+class on the 12th instant, will be released from arrest, and authorized
+to avail himself of the leave of absence granted his class."
+
+Nannie starts from her pillow, clasping in her thin white fingers the
+soft hand that would have restrained her.
+
+"Miriam!" she cries. "Then--will he go?"
+
+The dark, proud face bends down to her; clasping arms encircle the
+little white form, and Miriam Stanley's very heart wails forth in
+answer,--
+
+"Oh, Nannie! He is almost there by this time,--both of them. They left
+to join the regiment three days ago; their orders came by telegraph."
+
+Another week, and Uncle Jack is again with them. The doctors agree that
+the ocean voyage is now not only advisable, but necessary. They are to
+move their little patient to the city and board their steamer in a day
+or two. Will has come to them, full of disgust that he has been assigned
+to the artillery, and filling his mother's heart with dismay because he
+is begging for a transfer to the cavalry, to the --th Regiment,--of all
+others,--now plunged in the whirl of an Indian war. Every day the papers
+come freighted with rumors of fiercer fighting; but little that is
+reliable can be heard from "Sabre Stanley" and his column. They are far
+beyond telegraphic communication, hemmed in by "hostiles" on every side.
+
+Uncle Jack is an early riser. Going down for his paper before breakfast,
+he is met at the foot of the stairs by a friend who points to the
+head-lines of the _Herald_, with the simple remark, "Isn't this hard?"
+
+It is brief enough, God knows.
+
+"A courier just in from Colonel Stanley's camp brings the startling news
+that Lieutenant Philip Stanley, --th Cavalry, with two scouts and a
+small escort, who left here Sunday, hoping to push through to the Spirit
+Wolf, were ambushed by the Indians in Black Canyon. Their bodies, scalped
+and mutilated, were found Wednesday night."
+
+Where, then, was Romney Lee?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+BLACK CANYON.
+
+
+The red sun is going down behind the line of distant buttes, throwing
+long shadows out across the grassy upland. Every crest and billow of the
+prairie is bathed in crimson and gold, while the "breaks" and ravines
+trending southward grow black and forbidding in their contrasted gloom.
+Far over to the southeast, in dazzling radiance, two lofty peaks, still
+snow-clad, gleam against the summer sky, and at their feet dark waves of
+forest-covered foot-hills drink in the last rays of the waning sunshine
+as though hoarding its treasured warmth against the chill of coming
+night. Already the evening air, rare and exhilarating at this great
+altitude, loses the sun-god's touch and strikes upon the cheek keen as
+the ether of the limitless heavens. A while ago, only in the distant
+valley winding to the south could foliage be seen. Now, all in those
+depths is merged in sombre shade, and not a leaf or tree breaks for
+miles the grand monotony. Close at hand a host of tiny mounds, each
+tipped with reddish gold, and some few further ornamented by miniature
+sentry, alert and keen-eyed, tell of a prairie township already laid out
+and thickly populated; and at this moment every sentry is chipping his
+pert, querulous challenge until the disturbers of the peace are close
+upon him, then diving headlong into the bowels of the earth.
+
+A dun cloud of dust rolls skyward along a well-worn cavalry trail, and
+is whirled into space by the hoofs of sixty panting chargers trotting
+steadily south. Sixty sunburned, dust-covered troopers ride grimly on,
+following the lead of a tall soldier whose kind brown eyes peer
+anxiously from under his scouting-hat. It is just as they pass the
+village of the prairie dogs that he points to the low valley down to the
+front and questions the "plainsman" who lopes along by his side,--
+
+"That Black Canyon down yonder?"
+
+"That's it, lieutenant: I didn't think you could make it to-night."
+
+"We _had_ to," is the simple reply as again the spur touches the jaded
+flank and evokes only a groan in response.
+
+"How far from here to--the Springs?" he presently asks again.
+
+"Box Elder?--where they found the bodies?--'bout five mile, sir."
+
+"Where away was that signal smoke we saw at the divide?"
+
+"Must have been from those bluffs--east of the Springs, sir."
+
+Lieutenant Lee whips out his watch and peers at the dial through the
+twilight. The cloud deepens on his haggard, handsome face. Eight
+o'clock, and they have been in saddle almost incessantly since yesterday
+afternoon, weighed down with the tidings of the fell disaster that has
+robbed them of their comrades, and straining every nerve to reach the
+scene.
+
+Only five days before, as he stepped from the railway car at the supply
+station, a wagon-train had come in from the front escorted by Mr. Lee's
+own troop; his captain with it, wounded. Just as soon as it could reload
+with rations and ammunition the train was to start on its eight days'
+journey to the Spirit Wolf, where Colonel Stanley and the --th were
+bivouacked and scouring the neighboring mountains. Already a battalion
+of infantry was at the station, another was on its way, and supplies
+were being hurried forward. Captain Gregg brought the first reliable
+news. The Indians had apparently withdrawn from the road. The
+wagon-train had come through unmolested, and Colonel Stanley was
+expecting to push forward into their fastnesses farther south the moment
+he could obtain authority from head-quarters. With these necessary
+orders two couriers had started just twelve hours before. The captain
+was rejoiced to see his favorite lieutenant and to welcome Philip
+Stanley to the regiment. "Everybody seemed to feel that you too would be
+coming right along," he said; "but, Phil, my boy, I'm afraid you're too
+late for the fun. You cannot catch the command before it starts from
+Spirit Wolf."
+
+And yet this was just what Phil had tried to do. Lee knew nothing of his
+plan until everything had been arranged between the young officer and
+the major commanding the temporary camp at the station. Then it was too
+late to protest. While it was Mr. Lee's duty to remain and escort the
+train, Philip Stanley, with two scouts and half a dozen troopers, had
+pushed out to overtake the regiment two hundred miles away. Forty-eight
+hours later, as the wagon-train with its guard was slowly crawling
+southward, it was met by a courier with ghastly face. He was one of
+three who had started from the ruined agency together. They met no
+Indians, but at Box Elder Springs had come upon the bodies of a little
+party of soldiers stripped, scalped, gashed, and mutilated,--nine in
+all. There could be little doubt that they were those of poor Philip and
+his new-found comrades. The courier had recognized two of the bodies as
+those of Forbes and Whiting,--the scouts who had gone with the party;
+the others he did not know at all.
+
+Parking his train then and there, sending back to the railway for an
+infantry company to hasten forward and take charge of it, Mr. Lee never
+hesitated as to his own course. He and his troop pushed on at once. And
+now, worn, weary, but determined, the little command is just in sight of
+the deep ravine known to frontiersmen for years as Black Canyon. It was
+through here that Stanley and his battalion had marched a fortnight
+since. It was along this very trail that Phil and his party, pressing
+eagerly on to join the regiment, rode down into its dark depths and were
+ambushed at the Springs. From all indications, said the courier, they
+must have unsaddled for a brief rest, probably just at nightfall; but
+the Indians had left little to aid them in forming an opinion. Utterly
+unnerved by the sight, his two associates had turned back to rejoin
+Stanley's column, while he, the third, had decided to make for the
+railway. Unless those men, too, had been cut off, the regiment by this
+time knew of the tragic fate of some of their comrades, but the colonel
+was mercifully spared all dread that one of the victims was his only
+son.
+
+Nine were in the party when they started. Nine bodies were lying there
+when the couriers reached the Springs, and now nine are lying here
+to-night when, just after moonrise, Romney Lee dismounts and bends sadly
+over them, one after another. The prairie wolves have been here first,
+adding mutilation to the butchery of their human prototypes. There is
+little chance, in this pallid light and with these poor remnants, to
+make identification a possibility. All vestiges of uniform, arms, and
+equipment have been carried away, and such underclothing as remains has
+been torn to shreds by the herd of snarling, snapping brutes which is
+driven off only by the rush of the foremost troopers, and is now
+dispersed all over the canyon and far up the heights beyond the outposts,
+yelping indignant protest.
+
+There can be no doubt as to the number slain. All the nine are here, and
+Mr. Lee solemnly pencils the despatch that is to go back to the railway
+so soon as a messenger and his horse can get a few hours' needed rest.
+Before daybreak the man is away, meeting on his lonely ride other
+comrades hurrying to the front, to whom he briefly gives confirmation of
+the first report. Before the setting of the second sun he has reached
+his journey's end, and the telegraph is flashing the mournful details to
+the distant East, and so, when the "Servia" slowly glides from her
+moorings and turns her prow towards the sparkling sea, Nannie McKay is
+sobbing her heart out alone in her little white state-room, crushing
+with her kisses, bathing with her tears, the love-knot she had given her
+soldier boy less than a year before.
+
+Another night comes around. Tiny fires are glowing down in the dark
+depths of Black Canyon, showing red through the frosty gleam of the
+moonlight. Under the silvery rays nine new-made graves are ranked along
+the turf, guarded by troopers whose steeds are browsing close at hand.
+Silence and sadness reign in the little bivouac where Lee and his
+comrades await the coming of the train they had left three days before.
+It will be here on the morrow, early, and then they must push ahead and
+bear their heavy tidings to the regiment. He has written one sorrowing
+letter--and what a letter to have to write to the woman he loves!--to
+tell Miriam that he has been unable to identify any one of the bodies as
+that of her gallant young brother, yet is compelled to believe him to
+lie there, one of the stricken nine. And now he must face the father
+with this bitter news! Romney Lee's sore heart fails him at the
+prospect, and he cannot sleep. Good heaven! _Can_ it be that three weeks
+only have passed away since the night of that lovely yet ill-fated
+carriage-ride down through Highland Falls, down beyond picturesque
+Hawkshurst?
+
+Out on the bluffs, though he cannot see them, and up and down the canyon,
+vigilant sentries guard this solemn bivouac. No sign of Indian has been
+seen except the hoof-prints of a score of ponies and the bloody relics
+of their direful visit. No repetition of the signal-smokes has greeted
+their watchful eyes. It looks as though this outlying band of warriors
+had noted his coming, had sent up their warning to others of their
+tribe, and then scattered for the mountains at the south. All the same,
+as he rode the bluff lines at nightfall, Mr. Lee had charged the
+sentries to be alert with eye and ear, and to allow none to approach
+unchallenged.
+
+The weary night wears on. The young moon has ridden down in the west and
+sunk behind that distant bluff line. All is silent as the graves around
+which his men are slumbering, and at last, worn with sorrow and vigil,
+Lee rolls himself in his blanket and, still booted and spurred,
+stretches his feet towards the little watch-fire, and pillows his head
+upon the saddle. Down the stream the horses are already beginning to tug
+at their lariats and struggle to their feet, that they may crop the
+dew-moistened bunch grass. Far out upon the chill night air the yelping
+challenge of the coyotes is heard, but the sentries give no sign.
+Despite grief and care, Nature asserts her sway and is fast lulling Lee
+to sleep, when, away up on the heights to the northwest, there leaps out
+a sudden lurid flash and, a second after, the loud ring of the cavalry
+carbine comes echoing down the canyon. Lee springs to his feet and seizes
+his rifle. The first shot is quickly followed by a second; the men are
+tumbling up from their blankets and, with the instinct of old
+campaigners, thrusting cartridges into the opened chambers.
+
+"Keep your men together here, sergeant," is the brief order, and in a
+moment more Lee is spurring upward along an old game trail. Just under
+the crest he overtakes a sergeant hurrying northward.
+
+"What is it? Who fired?" he asks.
+
+"Morris fired, sir: I don't know why. He is the farthest post up the
+bluffs."
+
+Together they reach a young trooper, crouching in the pallid dawn behind
+a jagged parapet of rock, and eagerly demanded the cause of the alarm.
+The sentry is quivering with excitement.
+
+"An Indian, sir! Not a hundred yards out there! I seen him plain enough
+to swear to it. He rose up from behind that point yonder and started out
+over the prairie, and I up and fired."
+
+"Did you challenge?"
+
+"No, sir," answers the young soldier, simply. "He was going away. He
+couldn't understand me if I had,--leastwise I couldn't 'a understood
+him. He ran like a deer the moment I fired, and was out of sight almost
+before I could send another shot."
+
+Lee and the sergeant push out along the crest, their arms at "ready,"
+their keen eyes searching every dip in the surface. Close to the edge of
+the canyon, perhaps a hundred yards away, they come upon a little ledge,
+behind which, under the bluff, it is possible for an Indian to steal
+unnoticed towards their sentries and to peer into the depths below. Some
+one has been here within a few minutes, watching, stretched prone upon
+the turf, for Lee finds it dry and almost warm, while all around the
+bunch grass is heavy with dew. Little by little as the light grows
+warmer in the east and aids them in their search, they can almost trace
+the outline of a recumbent human form. Presently the west wind begins to
+blow with greater strength, and they note the mass of clouds, gray and
+frowning, that is banked against the sky. Out on the prairie not a
+moving object can be seen, though the eye can reach a good rifle-shot
+away. Down in the darkness of the canyon the watch-fires still smoulder
+and the men still wait. There comes no further order from the heights.
+Lee, with the sergeant, is now bending over faint footprints just
+discernible in the pallid light.
+
+Suddenly up he starts and gazes eagerly out to the west. The sergeant,
+too, at the same instant, leaps towards his commander. Distant, but
+distinct, two quick shots have been fired far over among those tumbling
+buttes and ridges lying there against the horizon. Before either man
+could speak or question, there comes another, then another, then two or
+three in quick succession, the sound of firing thick and fast.
+
+"It's a fight, sir, sure!" cries the sergeant, eagerly.
+
+"To horse, then,--quick!" is the answer, as the two soldiers bound back
+to the trail.
+
+"Saddle up, men!" rings the order, shouted down the rocky flanks of the
+ravine. There is instant response in the neigh of excited horses, the
+clatter of iron-shod hoofs. Through the dim light the men go rushing,
+saddles and bridles in hand, each to where he has driven his own picket
+pin. Promptly the steeds are girthed and bitted. Promptly the men come
+running back to the bivouac, seizing and slinging carbines, then leading
+into line. A brief word of command, another of caution, and then the
+whole troop is mounted and, following its leader, rides ghost-like up a
+winding ravine that enters the canyon from the west and goes spurring to
+the high plateau beyond. Once there the eager horses have ample room;
+the springing turf invites their speed. "Front into line" they sweep at
+rapid gallop, and then, with Lee well out before them, with carbines
+advanced, with hearts beating high, with keen eyes flashing, and every
+ear strained for sound of the fray, away they bound. There's a fight
+ahead! Some one needs their aid, and there's not a man in all old "B"
+troop who does not mean to avenge those new-made graves. Up a little
+slope they ride, all eyes fixed on Lee. They see him reach the ridge,
+sweep gallantly over, then, with ringing cheer, turn in saddle, wave his
+revolver high in air, clap spur to his horse's flank and go darting down
+the other side.
+
+"Come _on_, lads!"
+
+Ay, on it is! One wild race for the crest, one headland charge down the
+slope beyond, and they are rolling over a band of yelling, scurrying,
+savage horsemen, whirling them away over the opposite ridge, driving
+them helter-skelter over the westward prairie, until all who escape the
+shock of the onset or the swift bullet in the raging chase finally
+vanish from their sight; and then, obedient to the ringing "recall" of
+the trumpet, slowly they return, gathering again in the little ravine;
+and there, wondering, rejoicing, jubilant, they cluster at the entrance
+of a deep cleft in the rocks, where, bleeding from a bullet-wound in the
+arm, but with a world of thankfulness and joy in his handsome face,
+their leader stands, clasping Philip Stanley, pallid, faint, well-nigh
+starved, but--God be praised!--safe and unscathed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+CAPTURED.
+
+
+How the tidings of that timely rescue thrill through every heart at old
+Fort Warrener! There are gathered the wives and children of the
+regiment. There is the colonel's home, silent and darkened for that one
+long week, then ringing with joy and congratulation, with gladness and
+thanksgiving. Miriam again is there, suddenly lifted from the depths of
+sorrow to a wealth of bliss she had no words to express. Day and night
+the little army coterie flocked about her to hear again and again the
+story of Philip's peril and his final rescue, and then to exclaim over
+Romney Lee's gallantry and devotion. It was all so bewildering. For a
+week they had mourned their colonel's only son as dead and buried. The
+wondrous tale of his discovery sounded simply fabulous, and yet was
+simply true. Hurrying forward from the railway, the little party had
+been joined by two young frontiersmen eager to obtain employment with
+the scouts of Stanley's column. Halting just at sunset for brief rest at
+Box Elder Springs, the lieutenant with Sergeant Harris had climbed the
+bluffs to search for Indian signal fires. It was nearly dark when on
+their return they were amazed to hear the sound of fire-arms in the
+canyon, and were themselves suddenly attacked and completely cut off from
+their comrades. Stanley's horse was shot; but Sergeant Harris, though
+himself wounded, helped his young officer to mount behind him, and
+galloped back into the darkness, where they evaded their pursuers by
+turning loose their horse and groping in among the rocks. Here they hid
+all night and all next day in the deep cleft where Lee had found them,
+listening to the shouts and signals of a swarm of savage foes. At last
+the sounds seemed to die away, the Indians to disappear, and then
+hunger, thirst, and the feverish delirium of the sergeant, who was
+tortured for want of water, drove Stanley forth in hopes of reaching
+the canyon. Fired at, as he supposed, by Indians, he was speedily back in
+his lair again, but was there almost as speedily tracked and besieged.
+For a while he was able to keep the foe at bay, but Lee had come just in
+the nick of time; only two cartridges were left, and poor Harris was
+nearly gone.
+
+A few weeks later, while the --th is still on duty rounding up the
+Indians in the mountains, the wounded are brought home to Warrener.
+There are not many, for only the first detachment of two small troops
+had had any serious engagement; but the surgeons say that Mr. Lee's arm
+is so badly crippled that he can do no field work for several months,
+and he had best go in to the railway. And now he is at Warrener; and
+here, one lovely moonlit summer's evening, he is leaning on the gate in
+front of the colonel's quarters, utterly regardless of certain
+injunctions as to avoiding exposure to the night air. Good Mrs. Wilton,
+the major's wife,--who, army fashion, is helping Miriam keep house in
+her father's absence,--has gone in before "to light up," she says,
+though it is too late for callers; and they have been spending a long
+evening at Captain Gregg's, "down the row." It is Miriam who keeps the
+tall lieutenant at the gate. She has said good-night, yet lingers. He
+has been there several days, his arm still in its sling, and not once
+has she had a word with him alone till now. Some one has told her that
+he has asked for leave of absence to go East and settle some business
+affairs he had to leave abruptly when hurrying to take part in the
+campaign. If this be true is it not time to be making her peace?
+
+The moonlight throws a brilliant sheen on all surrounding objects, yet
+she stands in the shade, bowered in a little archway of vines that
+overhangs the gate. He has been strangely silent during the brief walk
+homeward, and now, so far from following into the shadows as she half
+hoped he might do, he stands without, the flood of moonlight falling
+full upon his stalwart figure. Two months ago he would not thus have
+held aloof, yet now he is half extending his hand as though in adieu.
+She cannot fathom this strange silence on the part of him who so long
+has been devoted as a lover. She knows well it cannot be because of her
+injustice to him at the Point that he is unrelenting now. Her eyes have
+told him how earnestly she repents: and does he not always read her
+eyes? Only in faltering words, in the presence of others all too
+interested, has she been able to speak her thanks for Philip's rescue.
+She cannot see now that what he fears from her change of mood is that
+gratitude for her brother's safety, not a woman's response to the
+passionate love in his deep heart, is the impulse of this sweet,
+half-shy, half-entreating manner. He cannot sue for love from a girl
+weighted with a sense of obligation. He knows that lingering here is
+dangerous, yet he cannot go. When friends are silent 'tis time for chats
+to close: but there is a silence that at such a time as this only bids a
+man to speak, and speak boldly. Yet Lee is dumb.
+
+Once--over a year ago--he had come to the colonel's quarters to seek
+permission to visit the neighboring town on some sudden errand. She had
+met him at the door with the tidings that her father had been feeling
+far from well during the morning, and was now taking a nap.
+
+"Won't I do for commanding officer this time?" she had laughingly
+inquired.
+
+"I would ask no better fate--for all time," was his prompt reply, and he
+spoke too soon. Though neither ever forgot the circumstance, she would
+never again permit allusion to it. But to-night it is uppermost in her
+mind. She _must_ know if it be true that he is going.
+
+"Tell me," she suddenly asks, "have you applied for leave of absence?"
+
+"Yes," he answers, simply.
+
+"And you are going--soon?"
+
+"I am going to-morrow," is the utterly unlooked-for reply.
+
+"To-morrow! Why--Mr. Lee!"
+
+There can be no mistaking the shock it gives her, and still he stands
+and makes no sign. It is cruel of him! What has she said or done to
+deserve penance like this? He is still holding out his hand as though in
+adieu, and she lays hers, fluttering, in the broad palm.
+
+"I--I thought all applications had to be made to--your commanding
+officer," she says at last, falteringly, yet archly.
+
+"Major Wilton forwarded mine on Monday. I asked him to say nothing about
+it. The answer came by wire to-day."
+
+"Major Wilton is _post_ commander; but--did you not--a year----?"
+
+"Did I not?" he speaks in eager joy. "Do you mean you have not
+forgotten _that_? Do you mean that now--for all time--my first
+allegiance shall be to you, Miriam?"
+
+No answer for a minute; but her hand is still firmly clasped in his. At
+last,--
+
+"Don't you think you ought to have asked me, before applying for leave
+to go?"
+
+Mr. Lee is suddenly swallowed up in the gloom of that shaded bower under
+the trellis-work, though a radiance as of mid-day is shining through his
+heart.
+
+But soon he has to go. Mrs. Wilton is on the veranda, urging them to
+come in out of the chill night air. Those papers on his desk must be
+completed and filed this very night. He told her this.
+
+"To-morrow, early, I will be here," he murmurs. "And now, good-night, my
+own."
+
+But she does not seek to draw her hand away. Slowly he moves back into
+the bright moonbeams and she follows part way. One quick glance she
+gives as her hand is released and he raises his forage cap. It is _such_
+a disadvantage to have but one arm at such a time! She sees that Mrs.
+Wilton is at the other end of the veranda.
+
+"Good-night," she whispers. "I--know you _must_ go."
+
+"I must. There is so much to be done."
+
+"I--thought"--another quick glance at the piazza--"that a soldier, on
+leaving, should--salute his commanding officer?"
+
+And Romney Lee is again in shadow and--in sunshine.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+Late that autumn, in one of his infrequent letters to his devoted
+mother, Mr. McKay finds time to allude to the news of Lieutenant Lee's
+approaching marriage to Miss Stanley.
+
+"Phil is, of course, immensely pleased," he writes, "and from all I hear
+I suppose Mr. Lee is a very different fellow from what we thought six
+months ago. Pennock says I always had a wrong idea of him; but Pennock
+thinks all my ideas about the officers appointed over me are absurd. He
+likes old Pelican, our battery commander, who is just the crankiest,
+crabbedest, sore-headedest captain in all the artillery, and that is
+saying a good deal. I wish I'd got into the cavalry at the start; but
+there's no use in trying now. The --th is the only regiment I wanted;
+but they have to go to reveille and stables before breakfast, which
+wouldn't suit me at all.
+
+"Hope Nan's better. A winter in the Riviera will set her up again.
+Stanley asks after her when he writes, but he has rather dropped me of
+late. I suppose it's because I was too busy to answer, though he ought
+to know that in New York harbor a fellow has no time for scribbling,
+whereas, out on the plains they have nothing else to do. He sent me his
+picture a while ago, and I tell you he has improved wonderfully. Such a
+swell moustache! I meant to have sent it over for you and Nan to see,
+but I've mislaid it somewhere."
+
+Poor little Nan! She would give many of her treasures for one peep at
+the coveted picture that Will holds so lightly. There had been temporary
+improvement in her health at the time Uncle Jack came with the joyous
+tidings that Stanley was safe after all; but even the Riviera fails to
+restore her wonted spirits. She droops visibly during the long winter.
+"She grows so much older away from Willy," says the fond mamma, to whom
+proximity to that vivacious youth is the acme of earthly bliss. Uncle
+Jack grins and says nothing. It is dawning upon him that something is
+needed besides the air and sunshine of the Riviera to bring back the
+dancing light in those sweet blue eyes and joy to the wistful little
+face.
+
+"The time to see the Yosemite and 'the glorious climate of California'
+is April, not October," he suddenly declares, one balmy morning by the
+Mediterranean; "and the sooner we get back to Yankeedom the better
+'twill suit me."
+
+And so it happens that, early in the month of meteorological smiles and
+tears, the trio are speeding westward far across the rolling prairies:
+Mrs. McKay deeply scandalized at the heartless conduct of the War
+Department in refusing Willy a two-months' leave to go with them; Uncle
+Jack quizzically disposed to look upon that calamity as a not utterly
+irretrievable ill; and Nan, fluttering with hope, fear, joy, and dread,
+all intermingled; for is not _he_ stationed at Cheyenne? All these long
+months has she cherished that little knot of senseless ribbon. If she
+had sent it to him within the week of his graduation, perhaps it would
+not have seemed amiss; but after that, after all he had been through in
+the campaign,--the long months of silence,--he might have changed, and,
+for very shame, she cannot bring herself to give a signal he would
+perhaps no longer wish to obey. Every hour her excitement and
+nervousness increase; but when the conductor of the Pullman comes to
+say that Cheyenne is really in sight, and the long whistle tells that
+they are nearing the dinner station of those days, Nan simply loses
+herself entirely. There will be half an hour, and Philip actually there
+to see, to hear, to answer. She hardly knows whether she is of this
+mortal earth when Uncle Jack comes bustling in with the gray-haired
+colonel, when she feels Miriam's kiss upon her cheek, when Mr. Lee,
+handsomer and kindlier than ever, bends down to take her hand; but she
+looks beyond them all for the face she longs for,--and it is not there.
+The car seems whirling around when, from over her shoulder, she hears,
+in the old, well-remembered tones, a voice that redoubles the throb of
+her little heart.
+
+"Miss Nannie!"
+
+And there--bending over her, his face aglow, and looking marvellously
+well in his cavalry uniform--is Philip Stanley. She knows not what she
+says. She has prepared something proper and conventional, but it has all
+fled. She looks one instant up into his shining eyes, and there is no
+need to speak at all. Every one else is so busy that no one sees, no one
+knows, that he is firmly clinging to her hand, and that she shamelessly
+and passively submits.
+
+A little later--just as the train is about to start--they are standing
+at the rear door of the sleeper. The band of the --th is playing some
+distance up the platform,--a thoughtful device of Mr. Lee's to draw the
+crowd that way,--and they are actually alone. An exquisite happiness is
+in her eyes as she peers up into the love-light in his strong, steadfast
+face. _Something_ must have been said; for he draws her close to his
+side and bends over her as though all the world were wrapped up in this
+dainty little morsel of womanhood. Suddenly the great train begins
+slowly to move. Part they must now, though it be only for a time. He
+folds her quickly, unresisting, to his breast. The sweet blue eyes begin
+to fill.
+
+"My darling,--my little Nannie," he whispers, as his lips kiss away the
+gathering tears. "There is just an instant. What is it you tell me you
+have kept for me?"
+
+"This," she answers, shyly placing in his hand a little packet wrapped
+in tissue-paper. "Don't look at it yet! Wait!--But--I wanted to send
+it--the very next day, Philip."
+
+Slowly he turns her blushing face until he can look into her eyes. The
+glory in his proud, joyous gaze is a delight to see. "My own little
+girl," he whispers, as his lips meet hers. "I know it is my love-knot."
+
+
+
+
+THE WORST MAN IN THE TROOP.
+
+
+Just why that young Irishman should have been so balefully branded was
+more than the first lieutenant of the troop could understand. To be
+sure, the lieutenant's opportunities for observation had been limited.
+He had spent some years on detached service in the East, and had joined
+his comrades in Arizona but a fortnight ago, and here he was already
+becoming rapidly initiated in the science of scouting through
+mountain-wilds against the wariest and most treacherous of foemen,--the
+Apaches of our Southwestern territory.
+
+Coming, as he had done, direct from a station and duties where
+full-dress uniform, lavish expenditure for kid gloves, bouquets, and
+Lubin's extracts were matters of daily fact, it must be admitted that
+the sensations he experienced on seeing his detachment equipped for the
+scout were those of mild consternation. That much latitude as to
+individual dress and equipment was permitted he had previously been
+informed; that "full dress," and white shirts, collars, and the like
+would be left at home, he had sense enough to know; but that every
+officer and man in the command would be allowed to discard any and all
+portions of the regulation uniform and appear rigged out in just such
+motley guise as his poetic or practical fancy might suggest, had never
+been pointed out to him; and that he, commanding his troop while a
+captain commanded the little battalion, could by any military
+possibility take his place in front of his men without his sabre, had
+never for an instant occurred to him. As a consequence, when he bolted
+into the mess-room shortly after daybreak on a bright June morning with
+that imposing but at most times useless item of cavalry equipment
+clanking at his heels, the lieutenant gazed with some astonishment upon
+the attire of his brother-officers there assembled, but found himself
+the butt of much good-natured and not over-witty "chaff," directed
+partially at the extreme newness and neatness of his dark-blue flannel
+scouting-shirt and high-top boots, but more especially at the glittering
+sabre swinging from his waist-belt.
+
+"Billings," said Captain Buxton, with much solemnity, "while you have
+probably learned through the columns of a horror-stricken Eastern press
+that we scalp, alive or dead, all unfortunates who fall into our
+clutches, I assure you that even for that purpose the cavalry sabre has,
+in Arizona at least, outlived its usefulness. It is too long and clumsy,
+you see. What you really want for the purpose is something like
+this,"--and he whipped out of its sheath a rusty but keen-bladed Mexican
+_cuchillo_,--"something you can wield with a deft turn of the wrist, you
+know. The sabre is apt to tear and mutilate the flesh, especially when
+you use both hands." And Captain Buxton winked at the other subaltern
+and felt that he had said a good thing.
+
+But Mr. Billings was a man of considerable good nature and ready
+adaptability to the society or circumstances by which he might be
+surrounded. "Chaff" was a very cheap order of wit, and the serenity of
+his disposition enabled him to shake off its effect as readily as water
+is scattered from the plumage of the duck.
+
+"So you don't wear the sabre on a scout? So much the better. I have my
+revolvers and a Sharp's carbine, but am destitute of anything in the
+knife line." And with that Mr. Billings betook himself to the duty of
+despatching the breakfast that was already spread before him in an array
+tempting enough to a frontier appetite, but little designed to attract a
+_bon vivant_ of civilization. Bacon, _frijoles_, and creamless coffee
+speedily become ambrosia and nectar under the influence of mountain-air
+and mountain-exercise; but Mr. Billings had as yet done no climbing. A
+"buck-board" ride had been his means of transportation to the
+garrison,--a lonely four-company post in a far-away valley in
+Northeastern Arizona,--and in the three or four days of intense heat
+that had succeeded his arrival exercise of any kind had been out of the
+question. It was with no especial regret, therefore, that he heard the
+summons of the captain, "Hurry up, man; we must be off in ten minutes."
+And in less than ten minutes the lieutenant was on his horse and
+superintending the formation of his troop.
+
+If Mr. Billings was astonished at the garb of his brother-officers at
+breakfast, he was simply aghast when he glanced along the line of
+Company "A" (as his command was at that time officially designated) and
+the first sergeant rode out to report his men present or accounted for.
+The first sergeant himself was got up in an old gray-flannel shirt, open
+at and disclosing a broad, brown throat and neck; his head was crowned
+with what had once been a white felt _sombrero_, now tanned by desert
+sun, wind, and dirt into a dingy mud-color; his powerful legs were
+encased in worn deer-skin breeches tucked into low-topped, broad-soled,
+well-greased boots; his waist was girt with a rude "thimble-belt," in
+the loops of which were thrust scores of copper cartridges for carbine
+and pistol; his carbine, and those of all the command, swung in a
+leather loop athwart the pommel of the saddle; revolvers in all manner
+of cases hung at the hip, the regulation holster, in most instances,
+being conspicuous by its absence. Indeed, throughout the entire command
+the remarkable fact was to be noted that a company of regular cavalry,
+taking the field against hostile Indians, had discarded pretty much
+every item of dress or equipment prescribed or furnished by the
+authorities of the United States, and had supplied themselves with an
+outfit utterly ununiform, unpicturesque, undeniably slouchy, but not
+less undeniably appropriate and serviceable. Not a forage-cap was to be
+seen, not a "campaign-hat" of the style then prescribed by a board of
+officers that might have known something of hats, but never could have
+had an idea on the subject of campaigns. Fancy that black enormity of
+weighty felt, with flapping brim well-nigh a foot in width, absorbing
+the fiery heat of an Arizona sun, and concentrating the burning rays
+upon the cranium of its unhappy wearer! No such head-gear would our
+troopers suffer in the days when General Crook led them through the
+canyons and deserts of that inhospitable Territory. Regardless of
+appearances or style himself, seeking only comfort in his dress, the
+chief speedily found means to indicate that, in Apache-campaigning at
+least, it was to be a case of "_inter arma silent leges_" in dead
+earnest; for, freely translated, the old saw read, "No red-tape when
+Indian-fighting."
+
+Of much of this Lieutenant Billings was only partially informed, and so,
+as has been said, he was aghast when he marked the utter absence of
+uniform and the decidedly variegated appearance of his troop. Deerskin,
+buckskin, canvas, and flannels, leggings, moccasins, and the like,
+constituted the bill of dress, and old soft felt hats, originally white,
+the head-gear. If spurs were worn at all, they were of the Mexican
+variety, easy to kick off, but sure to stay on when wanted. Only two men
+wore carbine sling-belts, and Mr. Billings was almost ready to hunt up
+his captain and inquire if by any possibility the men could be
+attempting to "put up a joke on him," when the captain himself appeared,
+looking little if any more like the ideal soldier than his men, and the
+perfectly satisfied expression on his face as he rode easily around,
+examining closely the horses of the command, paying especial attention
+to their feet and the shoes thereof, convinced the lieutenant that all
+was as it was expected to be, if not as it should be, and he swallowed
+his surprise and held his peace. Another moment, and Captain Wayne's
+troop came filing past in column of twos, looking, if anything, rougher
+than his own.
+
+"You follow right after Wayne," said Captain Buxton; and with no further
+formality Mr. Billings, in a perfunctory sort of way, wheeled his men to
+the right by fours, broke into column of twos, and closed up on the
+leading troop.
+
+Buxton was in high glee on this particular morning in June. He had done
+very little Indian scouting, had been but moderately successful in what
+he had undertaken, and now, as luck would have it, the necessity arose
+for sending something more formidable than a mere detachment down into
+the Tonto Basin, in search of a powerful band of Apaches who had broken
+loose from the reservation and were taking refuge in the foot-hills of
+the Black Mesa or among the wilds of the Sierra Ancha. As senior captain
+of the two, Buxton became commander of the entire force,--two
+well-filled troops of regular cavalry, some thirty Indian allies as
+scouts, and a goodly-sized train of pack-mules, with its full complement
+of packers, _cargadors_, and blacksmiths. He fully anticipated a lively
+fight, possibly a series of them, and a triumphant return to his post,
+where hereafter he would be looked up to and quoted as an expert and
+authority on Apache-fighting. He knew just where the hostiles lay, and
+was going straight to the point to flatten them out forthwith; and so
+the little command moved off under admirable auspices and in the best of
+spirits.
+
+It was a four-days' hard march to the locality where Captain Buxton
+counted on finding his victims; and when on the fourth day, rather tired
+and not particularly enthusiastic, the command bivouacked along the
+banks of a mountain-torrent, a safe distance from the supposed location
+of the Indian stronghold, he sent forward his Apache Mojave allies to
+make a stealthy reconnoissance, feeling confident that soon after
+nightfall they would return with the intelligence that the enemy were
+lazily resting in their "rancheria," all unsuspicious of his approach,
+and that at daybreak he would pounce upon and annihilate them.
+
+Soon after nightfall the scouts did return, but their intelligence was
+not so gratifying: a small--a _very_ small--band of renegades had been
+encamped in that vicinity some weeks before, but not a "hostile" or sign
+of a hostile was to be found. Captain Buxton hardly slept that night,
+from disappointment and mortification, and when he went the following
+day to investigate for himself he found that he had been on a false
+scent from the start, and this made him crabbed. A week's hunt through
+the mountains resulted in no better luck, and now, having had only
+fifteen days' rations at the outset, he was most reluctantly and
+savagely marching homeward to report his failure.
+
+But Mr. Billings had enjoyed the entire trip. Sleeping in the open air
+without other shelter than their blankets afforded, scouting by day in
+single file over miles of mere game-trails, up hill and down dale
+through the wildest and most dolefully-picturesque scenery he "at least"
+had ever beheld, under frowning cliffs and beetling crags, through dense
+forests of pine and juniper, through mountain-torrents swollen with the
+melting snows of the crests so far above them, through canyons, deep,
+dark, and gloomy, searching ever for traces of the foe they were ordered
+to find and fight forthwith, Mr. Billings and his men, having no
+responsibility upon their shoulders, were happy and healthy as possible,
+and consequently in small sympathy with their irate leader.
+
+Every afternoon when they halted beside some one of the hundreds of
+mountain-brooks that came tumbling down from the gorges of the Black
+Mesa, the men were required to look carefully at the horses' backs and
+feet, for mountain Arizona is terrible on shoes, equine or human. This
+had to be done before the herds were turned out to graze with their
+guard around them; and often some of the men would get a wisp of straw
+or a suitable wipe of some kind, and thoroughly rub down their steeds.
+Strolling about among them, as he always did at this time, our
+lieutenant had noticed a slim but trimly-built young Irishman whose care
+of and devotion to his horse it did him good to see. No matter how long
+the march, how severe the fatigue, that horse was always looked after,
+his grazing-ground pre-empted by a deftly-thrown picket-pin and lariat
+which secured to him all the real estate that could be surveyed within
+the circle of which the pin was the centre and the lariat the
+radius-vector.
+
+Between horse and master the closest comradeship seemed to exist; the
+trooper had a way of softly singing or talking to his friend as he
+rubbed him down, and Mr. Billings was struck with the expression and
+taste with which the little soldier--for he was only five feet
+five--would render "Molly Bawn" and "Kitty Tyrrell." Except when thus
+singing or exchanging confidences with his steed, he was strangely
+silent and reserved; he ate his rations among the other men, yet rarely
+spoke with them, and he would ride all day through country marvellous
+for wild beauty and be the only man in the command who did not allow
+himself to give vent to some expression of astonishment or delight.
+
+"What is that man's name?" asked Mr. Billings of the first sergeant one
+evening.
+
+"O'Grady, sir," replied the sergeant, with his soldierly salute; and a
+little later, as Captain Buxton was fretfully complaining to his
+subaltern of the ill fortune that seemed to overshadow his best efforts,
+the latter, thinking to cheer him and to divert his attention from his
+trouble, referred to the troop:
+
+"Why, captain, I don't think I ever saw a finer set of men than you
+have--anywhere. Now, _there's_ a little fellow who strikes me as being a
+perfect light-cavalry soldier." And the lieutenant indicated his young
+Irishman.
+
+"You don't mean O'Grady?" asked the captain in surprise.
+
+"Yes, sir,--the very one."
+
+"Why, he's the worst man in the troop."
+
+For a moment Mr. Billings knew not what to say. His captain had spoken
+with absolute harshness and dislike in his tone of the one soldier of
+all others who seemed to be the most quiet, attentive, and alert of the
+troop. He had noticed, too, that the sergeants and the men generally, in
+speaking to O'Grady, were wont to fall into a kindlier tone than usual,
+and, though they sometimes squabbled among themselves over the choice of
+patches of grass for their horses, O'Grady's claim was never questioned,
+much less "jumped." Respect for his superior's rank would not permit the
+lieutenant to argue the matter; but, desiring to know more about the
+case, he spoke again:
+
+"I am very sorry to hear it. His care of his horse and his quiet ways
+impressed me so favorably."
+
+"Oh, yes, d--n him!" broke in Captain Buxton. "Horses and whiskey are
+the only things on earth he cares for. As to quiet ways, there isn't a
+worse devil at large than O'Grady with a few drinks in him. When I came
+back from two years' recruiting detail he was a sergeant in the troop. I
+never knew him before, but I soon found he was addicted to drink, and
+after a while had to 'break' him; and one night when he was raising hell
+in the quarters, and I ordered him into the dark cell, he turned on me
+like a tiger. By Jove! if it hadn't been for some of the men he would
+have killed me,--or I him. He was tried by court-martial, but most of
+the detail was made up of infantrymen and staff-officers from Crook's
+head-quarters, and, by ----! they didn't seem to think it any sin for a
+soldier to threaten to cut his captain's heart out, and Crook himself
+gave me a sort of a rap in his remarks on the case, and--well, they just
+let O'Grady off scot-free between them, gave him some little fine, and
+did more harm than good. He's just as surly and insolent now when I
+speak to him as he was that night when drunk. Here, I'll show you." And
+with that Captain Buxton started off towards the herd, Mr. Billings
+obediently following, but feeling vaguely ill at ease. He had never met
+Captain Buxton before, but letters from his comrades had prepared him
+for experiences not altogether pleasant. A good soldier in some
+respects, Captain Buxton bore the reputation of having an almost
+ungovernable temper, of being at times brutally violent in his language
+and conduct towards his men, and, worse yet, of bearing ill-concealed
+malice, and "nursing his wrath to keep it warm" against such of his
+enlisted men as had ever ventured to appeal for justice. The captain
+stopped on reaching the outskirts of the quietly-grazing herd.
+
+"Corporal," said he to the non-commissioned officer in charge, "isn't
+that O'Grady's horse off there to the left?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Go and tell O'Grady to come here."
+
+The corporal saluted and went off on his errand.
+
+"Now, Mr. Billings," said the captain, "I have repeatedly given orders
+that my horses must be side-lined when we are in the hostiles' country.
+Just come here to the left." And he walked over towards a handsome,
+sturdy little California horse of a bright bay color. "Here, you see, is
+O'Grady's horse, and not a side-line: that's his way of obeying orders.
+More than that, he is never content to have his horse in among the
+others, but must always get away outside, just where he is most apt to
+be run off by any Indian sharp and quick enough to dare it. Now, here
+comes O'Grady. Watch him, if you want to see him in his true light."
+
+Standing beside his superior, Mr. Billings looked towards the
+approaching trooper, who, with a quick, springy step, advanced to within
+a few yards of them, then stopped short and, erect and in silence,
+raised his hand in salute, and with perfectly respectful demeanor looked
+straight at his captain.
+
+In a voice at once harsh and distinctly audible over the entire bivouac,
+with frowning brow and angry eyes, Buxton demanded,--
+
+"O'Grady, where are your side-lines?"
+
+"Over with my blankets, sir."
+
+"Over with your blankets, are they? Why in ----, sir, are they not here
+on your horse, where they ought to be?" And the captain's voice waxed
+harsher and louder, and his manner more threatening.
+
+"I understood the captain's orders to be that they need not go on till
+sunset," replied the soldier, calmly and respectfully, "and I don't like
+to put them on that sore place, sir, until the last moment."
+
+"Don't like to? No sir, I know d--d well you don't like to obey this or
+any other order I ever gave, and wherever you find a loop-hole through
+which to crawl, and you think you can sneak off unpunished, by ----,
+sir, I suppose you will go on disobeying orders. Shut up, sir! not a
+d--d word!" for tears of mortification were starting to O'Grady's eyes,
+and with flushing face and trembling lip the soldier stood helplessly
+before his troop-commander, and was striving to say a word in further
+explanation.
+
+"Go and get your side-lines at once and bring them here; go at once,
+sir," shouted the captain; and with a lump in his throat the trooper
+saluted, faced about, and walked away.
+
+"He's milder-mannered than usual, d--n him!" said the captain, turning
+towards his subaltern, who had stood a silent and pained witness of the
+scene. "He knows he is in the wrong and has no excuse; but he'll break
+out yet. Come! step out, you O'Grady!" he yelled after the
+rapidly-walking soldier. "Double time, sir. I can't wait here all
+night." And Mr. Billings noted that silence had fallen on the bivouac so
+full of soldier-chaff and laughter but a moment before, and that the men
+of both troops were intently watching the scene already so painful to
+him.
+
+Obediently O'Grady took up the "dog-trot" required of him, got his
+side-lines, and, running back, knelt beside his horse, and with
+trembling hands adjusted them, during which performance Captain Buxton
+stood over him, and, in a tone that grew more and more that of a bully
+as he lashed himself up into a rage, continued his lecture to the man.
+
+The latter finally rose, and, with huge beads of perspiration starting
+out on his forehead, faced his captain.
+
+"May I say a word, sir?" he asked.
+
+"You may now; but be d--d careful how you say it," was the reply, with a
+sneer that would have stung an abject slave into a longing for revenge,
+and that grated on Mr. Billings's nerves in a way that made him clinch
+his fists and involuntarily grit his teeth. Could it be that O'Grady
+detected it? One quick, wistful, half-appealing glance flashed from the
+Irishman's eyes towards the subaltern, and then, with evident effort at
+composure, but with a voice that trembled with the pent-up sense of
+wrong and injustice, O'Grady spoke:
+
+"Indeed, sir, I had no thought of neglecting orders. I always care for
+my horse; but it wasn't sunset when the captain came out----"
+
+"Not sunset!" broke in Buxton, with an outburst of profanity. "Not
+sunset! why, it's well-nigh dark now, sir, and every man in the troop
+had side-lined his horse half an hour ago. D--n your insolence, sir!
+your excuse is worse than your conduct. Mr. Billings, see to it, sir,
+that this man walks and leads his horse in rear of the troop all the way
+back to the post. I'll see, by ----! whether he can be taught to obey
+orders." And with that the captain turned and strode away.
+
+The lieutenant stood for an instant stunned,--simply stunned.
+Involuntarily he made a step towards O'Grady; their eyes met; but the
+restraint of discipline was upon both. In that brief meeting of their
+glances, however, the trooper read a message that was unmistakable.
+
+"Lieutenant----" he said, but stopped abruptly, pointed aloft over the
+trees to the eastward with his right hand, dashed it across his eyes,
+and then, with hurried salute and a choking sort of gurgle in his
+throat, he turned and went back to his comrades.
+
+Mr. Billings gazed after the retreating form until it disappeared among
+the trees by the brook-side; then he turned to see what was the meaning
+of the soldier's pointing over towards the _mesa_ to the east.
+
+Down in the deep valley in which the little command had halted for the
+night the pall of darkness had indeed begun to settle; the bivouac-fires
+in the timber threw a lurid glare upon the groups gathering around them
+for supper, and towards the west the rugged upheavals of the Mazatzal
+range stood like a black barrier against the glorious hues of a bank of
+summer cloud. All in the valley spoke of twilight and darkness: the
+birds were still, the voices of the men subdued. So far as local
+indications were concerned, it _was_--as Captain Buxton had
+insisted--almost dark. But square over the gilded tree-tops to the east,
+stretching for miles and miles to their right and left, blazed a
+vertical wall of rock crested with scrub-oak and pine, every boulder,
+every tree, glittering in the radiant light of the invisibly setting
+sun. O'Grady had _not_ disobeyed his orders.
+
+Noting this, Mr. Billings proceeded to take a leisurely stroll through
+the peaceful herd, carefully inspecting each horse as he passed. As a
+result of his scrutiny, he found that, while most of the horses were
+already encumbered with their annoying hobble, in "A" Troop alone there
+were at least a dozen still unfettered, notably the mounts of the
+non-commissioned officers and the older soldiers. Like O'Grady, they did
+not wish to inflict the side-line upon their steeds until the last
+moment. Unlike O'Grady, they had not been called to account for it.
+
+When Mr. Billings was summoned to supper, and he rejoined his
+brother-officers, it was remarked that he was more taciturn than usual.
+After that repast had been appreciatively disposed of, and the little
+group with lighted pipes prepared to spend an hour in chat and
+contentment, it was observed that Mr. Billings did not take part in the
+general talk, but that he soon rose, and, out of ear-shot of the
+officers' camp-fire, paced restlessly up and down, with his head bent
+forward, evidently plunged in thought.
+
+By and by the half-dozen broke up and sought their blankets. Captain
+Buxton, somewhat mollified by a good supper, was about rolling into his
+"Navajo," when Mr. Billings stepped up:
+
+"Captain, may I ask for information as to the side-line order? After you
+left this evening, I found that there must be some misunderstanding
+about it."
+
+"How so?" said Buxton, shortly.
+
+"In this, captain;" and Mr. Billings spoke very calmly and distinctly.
+"The first sergeant, several other non-commissioned officers and
+men,--more than a dozen, I should say,--did not side-line their horses
+until half an hour after you spoke to O'Grady, and the first sergeant
+assured me, when I called him to account for it, that your orders were
+that it should be done at sunset."
+
+"Well, by ----! it was after sunset--at least it was getting mighty
+dark--when I sent for that black-guard O'Grady," said Buxton,
+impetuously, "and there is no excuse for the rest of them."
+
+"It was beginning to grow dark down in this deep valley, I know, sir;
+but the tree-tops were in a broad glare of sunlight while we were at the
+herd, and those cliffs for half an hour longer."
+
+"Well, Mr. Billings, I don't propose to have any hair-splitting in the
+management of my troop," said the captain, manifestly nettled. "It was
+practically sunset to us when the light began to grow dim, and my men
+know it well enough." And with that he rolled over and turned his back
+to his subaltern.
+
+Disregarding the broad hint to leave, Mr. Billings again spoke:
+
+"Is it your wish, sir, that any punishment should be imposed on the men
+who were equally in fault with O'Grady?"
+
+Buxton muttered something unintelligible from under his blankets.
+
+"I did not understand you, sir," said the lieutenant, very civilly.
+
+Buxton savagely propped himself up on one elbow, and blurted out,--
+
+"No, Mr. Billings! no! When I want a man punished I'll give the order
+myself, sir."
+
+"And is it still your wish, sir, that I make O'Grady walk the rest of
+the way?"
+
+For a moment Buxton hesitated; his better nature struggled to assert
+itself and induce him to undo the injustice of his order; but the "cad"
+in his disposition, the weakness of his character, prevailed. It would
+never do to let his lieutenant get the upper hand of him, he argued, and
+so the reply came, and came angrily.
+
+"Yes, of course; he deserves it anyhow, by ----! and it'll do him good."
+
+Without another word Mr. Billings turned on his heel and left him.
+
+The command returned to garrison, shaved its stubbly beard of two weeks'
+growth, and resumed its uniform and the routine duties of the post.
+Three days only had it been back when Mr. Billings, marching on as
+officer of the day, and receiving the prisoners from his predecessor,
+was startled to hear the list of names wound up with "O'Grady," and when
+that name was called there was no response.
+
+The old officer of the day looked up inquiringly: "Where is O'Grady,
+sergeant?"
+
+"In the cell, sir, unable to come out."
+
+"O'Grady was confined by Captain Buxton's order late last night," said
+Captain Wayne, "and I fancy the poor fellow has been drinking heavily
+this time."
+
+A few minutes after, the reliefs being told off, the prisoners sent out
+to work, and the officers of the day, new and old, having made their
+reports to the commanding officer, Mr. Billings returned to the
+guard-house, and, directing his sergeant to accompany him, proceeded to
+make a deliberate inspection of the premises. The guard-room itself was
+neat, clean, and dry; the garrison prison-room was well ventilated, and
+tidy as such rooms ever can be made; the Indian prison-room, despite the
+fact that it was empty and every shutter was thrown wide open to the
+breeze, had that indefinable, suffocating odor which continued
+aboriginal occupancy will give to any apartment; but it was the cells
+Mr. Billings desired to see, and the sergeant led him to a row of
+heavily-barred doors of rough unplaned timber, with a little grating in
+each, and from one of these gratings there peered forth a pair of
+feverishly-glittering eyes, and a face, not bloated and flushed, as with
+recent and heavy potations, but white, haggard, twitching, and a husky
+voice in piteous appeal addressed the sergeant:
+
+"Oh, for God's sake, Billy, get me something, or it'll kill me!"
+
+"Hush, O'Grady," said the sergeant: "here's the officer of the day."
+
+Mr. Billings took one look at the wan face only dimly visible in that
+prison-light, for the poor little man shrank back as he recognized the
+form of his lieutenant:
+
+"Open that door, sergeant."
+
+With alacrity the order was obeyed, and the heavy door swung back upon
+its hinges.
+
+"O'Grady," said the officer of the day, in a tone gentle as that he
+would have employed in speaking to a woman, "come out here to me. I'm
+afraid you are sick."
+
+Shaking, trembling, twitching in every limb, with wild, dilated eyes and
+almost palsied step, O'Grady came out.
+
+"Look to him a moment, sergeant," said Mr. Billings, and, bending low,
+he stepped into the cell. The atmosphere was stifling, and in another
+instant he backed out into the hall-way. "Sergeant, was it by the
+commanding officer's order that O'Grady was put in there?"
+
+"No, sir; Captain Buxton's."
+
+"See that he is not returned there during my tour, unless the orders
+come from Major Stannard. Bring O'Grady into the prison-room."
+
+Here in the purer air and brighter light he looked carefully over the
+poor fellow, as the latter stood before him quivering from head to foot
+and hiding his face in his shaking hands. Then the lieutenant took him
+gently by the arm and led him to a bunk:
+
+"O'Grady, man, lie down here. I'm going to get something that will help
+you. Tell me one thing: how long had you been drinking before you were
+confined?"
+
+"About forty-eight hours, sir, off and on."
+
+"How long since you ate anything?"
+
+"I don't know, sir; not for two days, I think."
+
+"Well, try and lie still. I'm coming back to you in a very few minutes."
+
+And with that Mr. Billings strode from the room, leaving O'Grady, dazed,
+wonder-stricken, gazing stupidly after him.
+
+The lieutenant went straight to his quarters, took a goodly-sized goblet
+from the painted pine sideboard, and with practised hand proceeded to
+mix therein a beverage in which granulated sugar, Angostura bitters, and
+a few drops of lime-juice entered as minor ingredients, and the coldest
+of spring-water and a brimming measure of whiskey as constituents of
+greater quality and quantity. Filling with this mixture a small
+leather-covered flask, and stowing it away within the breast-pocket of
+his blouse, he returned to the guard-house, musing as he went, "'If this
+be treason,' said Patrick Henry, 'make the most of it.' If this be
+conduct prejudicial, etc., say I, do your d--dest. That man would be in
+the horrors of jim-jams in half an hour more if it were not for this."
+And so saying to himself, he entered the prison-room, called to the
+sergeant to bring him some cold water, and then approached O'Grady, who
+rose unsteadily and strove to stand attention, but the effort was too
+much, and again he covered his face with his arms, and threw himself in
+utter misery at the foot of the bunk.
+
+Mr. Billings drew the flask from his pocket, and, touching O'Grady's
+shoulder, caused him to raise his head:
+
+"Drink this, my lad. I would not give it to you at another time, but you
+need it now."
+
+Eagerly it was seized, eagerly drained, and then, after he had swallowed
+a long draught of the water, O'Grady slowly rose to his feet, looking,
+with eyes rapidly softening and losing their wild glare, upon the young
+officer who stood before him. Once or twice he passed his hands across
+his forehead, as though to sweep away the cobwebs that pressed upon his
+brain, but for a moment he did not essay a word. Little by little the
+color crept back to his cheek; and, noting this, Mr. Billings smiled
+very quietly, and said, "Now, O'Grady, lie down; you will be able to
+sleep now until the men come in at noon; then you shall have another
+drink, and you'll be able to eat what I send you. If you cannot sleep,
+call the sergeant of the guard; or if you want anything, I'll come to
+you."
+
+Then, with tears starting to his eyes, the soldier found words: "I thank
+the lieutenant. If I live a thousand years, sir, this will never be
+forgotten,--never, sir! I'd have gone crazy without your help, sir."
+
+Mr. Billings held out his hand, and, taking that of his prisoner, gave
+it a cordial grip: "That's all right, O'Grady. Try to sleep now, and
+we'll pull you through. Good-by, for the present." And, with a heart
+lighter, somehow, than it had been of late, the lieutenant left.
+
+At noon that day, when the prisoners came in from labor and the
+officer's of the day inspected their general condition before permitting
+them to go to their dinner, the sergeant of the guard informed him that
+O'Grady had slept quietly almost all the morning, but was then awake and
+feeling very much better, though still weak and nervous.
+
+"Do you think he can walk over to my quarters?" asked Mr. Billings.
+
+"He will try it, sir, or anything the lieutenant wants him to try."
+
+"Then send him over in about ten minutes."
+
+Home once more, Mr. Billings started a tiny blaze in his oil-stove, and
+soon had a kettle of water boiling merrily. Sharp to time a member of
+the guard tapped at the door, and, on being bidden "Come in," entered,
+ushering in O'Grady; but meantime, by the aid of a little pot of
+meat-juice and some cayenne pepper, a glass of hot soup or beef-tea had
+been prepared, and, with some dainty slices of potted chicken and the
+accompaniments of a cup of fragrant tea and some ship-biscuit, was in
+readiness on a little table in the back room.
+
+Telling the sentinel to remain in the shade on the piazza, the
+lieutenant proceeded first to make O'Grady sit down in a big wicker
+arm-chair, for the man in his broken condition was well-nigh exhausted
+by his walk across the glaring parade in the heat of an Arizona noonday
+sun. Then he mixed and administered the counterpart of the beverage he
+had given his prisoner-patient in the morning, only in point of potency
+it was an evident falling off, but sufficient for the purpose, and in a
+few minutes O'Grady was able to swallow his breakfast with evident
+relish, meekly and unhesitatingly obeying every suggestion of his
+superior.
+
+His breakfast finished, O'Grady was then conducted into a cool, darkened
+apartment, a back room in the lieutenant's quarters.
+
+"Now, pull off your boots and outer clothing, man, spread yourself on
+that bed, and go to sleep, if you can. If you can't, and you want to
+read, there are books and papers on that shelf; pin up the blanket on
+the window, and you'll have light enough. You shall not be disturbed,
+and I know you won't attempt to leave."
+
+"Indeed, sir, I won't," began O'Grady, eagerly; but the lieutenant had
+vanished, closing the door after him, and a minute later the soldier had
+thrown himself upon the cool, white bed, and was crying like a tired
+child.
+
+Three or four weeks after this incident, to the small regret of his
+troop and the politely-veiled indifference of the commissioned element
+of the garrison, Captain Buxton concluded to avail himself of a
+long-deferred "leave," and turned over his company property to Mr.
+Billings in a condition that rendered it necessary for him to do a thing
+that "ground" him, so to speak: he had to ask several favors of his
+lieutenant, between whom and himself there had been no cordiality since
+the episode of the bivouac, and an open rupture since Mr. Billings's
+somewhat eventful tour as officer of the day, which has just been
+described.
+
+It appeared that O'Grady had been absent from no duty (there were no
+drills in that scorching June weather), but that, yielding to the advice
+of his comrades, who knew that he had eaten nothing for two days and was
+drinking steadily into a condition that would speedily bring punishment
+upon him, he had asked permission to be sent to the hospital, where,
+while he could get no liquor, there would be no danger attendant upon
+his sudden stop of all stimulant. The first sergeant carried his request
+with the sick-book to Captain Buxton, O'Grady meantime managing to take
+two or three more pulls at the bottle, and Buxton, instead of sending
+him to the hospital, sent for him, inspected him, and did what he had no
+earthly authority to do, directed the sergeant of the guard to confine
+him at once in the dark cell.
+
+"It will be no punishment as he is now," said Buxton to himself, "but it
+will be hell when he wakes."
+
+And so it had been; and far worse it probably would have been but for
+Mr. Billings's merciful interference.
+
+Expecting to find his victim in a condition bordering upon the abject
+and ready to beg for mercy at any sacrifice of pluck or pride, Buxton
+had gone to the guard-house soon after retreat and told the sergeant
+that he desired to see O'Grady, if the man was fit to come out.
+
+What was his surprise when the soldier stepped forth in his trimmest
+undress uniform, erect and steady, and stood unflinchingly before
+him!--a day's rest and quiet, a warm bath, wholesome and palatable food,
+careful nursing, and the kind treatment he had received having brought
+him round with a sudden turn that he himself could hardly understand.
+
+"How is this?" thundered Buxton. "I ordered you kept in the dark cell."
+
+"The officer of the day ordered him released, sir," said the sergeant of
+the guard.
+
+And Buxton, choking with rage, stormed into the mess-room, where the
+younger officers were at dinner, and, regardless of the time, place, or
+surroundings, opened at once upon his subaltern:
+
+"Mr. Billings, by whose authority did you release O'Grady from the dark
+cell?"
+
+Mr. Billings calmly applied his napkin to his moustache, and then as
+calmly replied, "By my own, Captain Buxton."
+
+"By ----! sir, you exceeded your authority."
+
+"Not at all, captain; on the contrary, you exceeded yours."
+
+At this Buxton flew into a rage that seemed to deprive him of all
+control over his language. Oaths and imprecations poured from his lips;
+he raved at Billings, despite the efforts of the officers to quiet him,
+despite the adjutant's threat to report his language at once to the
+commanding officer.
+
+Mr. Billings paid no attention whatever to his accusations, but went on
+eating his dinner with an appearance of serenity that only added fuel to
+his captain's fire. Two or three officers rose and left the table in
+disgust, and just how far the thing might have gone cannot be accurately
+told, for in less than three minutes there came a quick, bounding step
+on the piazza, the clank and rattle of a sabre, and the adjutant fairly
+sprang back into the room:
+
+"Captain Buxton, you will go at once to your quarters in close arrest,
+by order of Major Stannard."
+
+Buxton knew his colonel and that little fire-eater of an adjutant too
+well to hesitate an instant. Muttering imprecations on everybody, he
+went.
+
+The next morning, O'Grady was released and returned to duty. Two days
+later, after a long and private interview with his commanding officer,
+Captain Buxton appeared with him at the officers' mess at dinner-time,
+made a formal and complete apology to Lieutenant Billings for his
+offensive language, and to the mess generally for his misconduct; and so
+the affair blew over; and, soon after, Buxton left, and Mr. Billings
+became commander of Troop "A."
+
+And now, whatever might have been his reputation as to sobriety before,
+Private O'Grady became a marked man for every soldierly virtue. Week
+after week he was to be seen every fourth or fifth day, when his guard
+tour came, reporting to the commanding officer for duty as "orderly,"
+the nattiest, trimmest soldier on the detail.
+
+"I always said," remarked Captain Wayne, "that Buxton alone was
+responsible for that man's downfall; and this proves it. O'Grady has all
+the instincts of a gentleman about him, and now that he has a gentleman
+over him he is himself again."
+
+One night, after retreat-parade, there was cheering and jubilee in the
+quarters of Troop "A." Corporal Quinn had been discharged by expiration
+of term of service, and Private O'Grady was decorated with his chevrons.
+When October came, the company muster-roll showed that he had won back
+his old grade; and the garrison knew no better soldier, no more
+intelligent, temperate, trustworthy non-commissioned officer, than
+Sergeant O'Grady. In some way or other the story of the treatment
+resorted to by his amateur medical officer had leaked out. Whether
+faulty in theory or not, it was crowned with the verdict of success in
+practice; and, with the strong sense of humor which pervades all
+organizations wherein the Celt is represented as a component part, Mr.
+Billings had been lovingly dubbed "Doctor" by his men, and there was one
+of their number who would have gone through fire and water for him.
+
+One night some herdsmen from up the valley galloped wildly into the
+post. The Apaches had swooped down, run off their cattle, killed one of
+the cowboys, and scared off the rest. At daybreak the next morning
+Lieutenant Billings, with Troop "A" and about a dozen Indian scouts, was
+on the trail, with orders to pursue, recapture the cattle, and punish
+the marauders.
+
+To his disgust, Mr. Billings found that his allies were not of the
+tribes who had served with him in previous expeditions. All the trusty
+Apache Mojaves and Hualpais were off with other commands in distant
+parts of the Territory. He had to take just what the agent could give
+him at the reservation,--some Apache Yumas, who were total strangers to
+him. Within forty-eight hours four had deserted and gone back; the
+others proved worthless as trailers, doubtless intentionally, and had it
+not been for the keen eye of Sergeant O'Grady it would have been
+impossible to keep up the pursuit by night; but keep it up they did, and
+just at sunset, one sharp autumn evening, away up in the mountains, the
+advance caught sight of the cattle grazing along the shores of a placid
+little lake, and, in less time than it takes to write it, Mr. Billings
+and his command tore down upon the quarry, and, leaving a few men to
+"round up" the herd, were soon engaged in a lively running fight with
+the fleeing Apaches which lasted until dark, when the trumpet sounded
+the recall, and, with horses somewhat blown, but no casualties of
+importance, the command reassembled and marched back to the
+grazing-ground by the lake. Here a hearty supper was served out, the
+horses were rested, then given a good "feed" of barley, and at ten
+o'clock Mr. Billings with his second lieutenant and some twenty men
+pushed ahead in the direction taken by the Indians, leaving the rest of
+the men under experienced non-commissioned officers to drive the cattle
+back to the valley.
+
+That night the conduct of the Apache Yuma scouts was incomprehensible.
+Nothing would induce them to go ahead or out on the flanks; they cowered
+about the rear of column, yet declared that the enemy could not be
+hereabouts. At two in the morning Mr. Billings found himself well
+through a pass in the mountains, high peaks rising to his right and
+left, and a broad valley in front. Here he gave the order to unsaddle
+and camp for the night.
+
+At daybreak all were again on the alert: the search for the trail was
+resumed. Again the Indians refused to go out without the troops; but the
+men themselves found the tracks of Tonto moccasins along the bed of a
+little stream purling through the canyon, and presently indications that
+they had made the ascent of the mountain to the south. Leaving a guard
+with his horses and pack-mules, the lieutenant ordered up his men, and
+soon the little command was silently picking its way through rock and
+boulder, scrub-oak and tangled juniper and pine. Rougher and steeper
+grew the ascent; more and more the Indians cowered, huddling together in
+rear of the soldiers. Twice Mr. Billings signalled a halt, and, with his
+sergeants, fairly drove the scouts up to the front and ordered them to
+hunt for signs. In vain they protested, "No sign,--no Tonto here," their
+very looks belied them, and the young commander ordered the search to be
+continued. In their eagerness the men soon leaped ahead of the wretched
+allies, and the latter fell back in the same huddled group as before.
+
+After half an hour of this sort of work, the party came suddenly upon a
+point whence it was possible to see much of the face of the mountain
+they were scaling. Cautioning his men to keep within the concealment
+afforded by the thick timber, Mr. Billings and his comrade-lieutenant
+crept forward and made a brief reconnoissance. It was evident at a
+glance that the farther they went the steeper grew the ascent and the
+more tangled the low shrubbery, for it was little better, until, near
+the summit, trees and underbrush, and herbage of every description,
+seemed to cease entirely, and a vertical cliff of jagged rocks stood
+sentinel at the crest, and stretched east and west the entire length of
+the face of the mountain.
+
+"By Jove, Billings! if they are on top of that it will be a nasty place
+to rout them out of," observed the junior.
+
+"I'm going to find out where they are, anyhow," replied the other. "Now
+those infernal Yumas have _got_ to scout, whether they want to or not.
+You stay here with the men, ready to come the instant I send or signal."
+
+In vain the junior officer protested against being left behind; he was
+directed to send a small party to see if there were an easier way up the
+hill-side farther to the west, but to keep the main body there in
+readiness to move whichever way they might be required. Then, with
+Sergeant O'Grady and the reluctant Indians, Mr. Billings pushed up to
+the left front, and was soon out of sight of his command. For fifteen
+minutes he drove his scouts, dispersed in skirmish order, ahead of him,
+but incessantly they sneaked behind rocks and trees out of his sight;
+twice he caught them trying to drop back, and at last, losing all
+patience, he sprang forward, saying, "Then _come_ on, you whelps, if you
+cannot lead," and he and the sergeant hurried ahead. Then the Yumas
+huddled together again and slowly followed.
+
+Fifteen minutes more, and Mr. Billings found himself standing on the
+edge of a broad shelf of the mountain,--a shelf covered with huge
+boulders of rock tumbled there by storm and tempest, riven by
+lightning-stroke or the slow disintegration of nature from the bare,
+glaring, precipitous ledge he had marked from below. East and west it
+seemed to stretch, forbidding and inaccessible. Turning to the sergeant,
+Mr. Billings directed him to make his way off to the right and see if
+there were any possibility of finding a path to the summit; then looking
+back down the side, and marking his Indians cowering under the trees
+some fifty yards away, he signalled "come up," and was about moving
+farther to his left to explore the shelf, when something went whizzing
+past his head, and, embedding itself in a stunted oak behind him, shook
+and quivered with the shock,--a Tonto arrow. Only an instant did he see
+it, photographed as by electricity upon the retina, when with a sharp
+stinging pang and whirring "whist" and thud a second arrow, better
+aimed, tore through the flesh and muscles just at the outer corner of
+his left eye, and glanced away down the hill. With one spring he gained
+the edge of the shelf, and shouted to the scouts to come on. Even as he
+did so, bang! bang! went the reports of two rifles among the rocks, and,
+as with one accord, the Apache Yumas turned tail and rushed back down
+the hill, leaving him alone in the midst of hidden foes. Stung by the
+arrow, bleeding, but not seriously hurt, he crouched behind a rock, with
+carbine at ready, eagerly looking for the first sign of an enemy. The
+whiz of another arrow from the left drew his eyes thither, and quick as
+a flash his weapon leaped to his shoulder, the rocks rang with its
+report, and one of the two swarthy forms he saw among the boulders
+tumbled over out of sight; but even as he threw back his piece to
+reload, a rattling volley greeted him, the carbine dropped to the
+ground, a strange, numbed sensation had seized his shoulder, and his
+right arm, shattered by a rifle-bullet, hung dangling by the flesh,
+while the blood gushed forth in a torrent.
+
+Defenceless, he sprang back to the edge; there was nothing for it now
+but to run until he could meet his men. Well he knew they would be
+tearing up the mountain to the rescue. Could he hold out till then?
+Behind him with shout and yells came the Apaches, arrow and bullet
+whistling over his head; before him lay the steep descent,--jagged
+rocks, thick, tangled bushes: it was a desperate chance; but he tried
+it, leaping from rock to rock, holding his helpless arm in his left
+hand; then his foot slipped: he plunged heavily forward; quickly the
+nerves threw out their signal for support to the muscles of the
+shattered member, but its work was done, its usefulness destroyed.
+Missing its support, he plunged heavily forward, and went crashing down
+among the rocks eight or ten feet below, cutting a jagged gash in his
+forehead, while the blood rained down into his eyes and blinded him; but
+he struggled up and on a few yards more; then another fall, and,
+well-nigh senseless, utterly exhausted, he lay groping for his
+revolver,--it had fallen from its case. Then--all was over.
+
+Not yet; not yet. His ear catches the sound of a voice he knows well,--a
+rich, ringing, Hibernian voice it is: "Lieutenant, _lieutenant_!
+_Where_ are ye?" and he has strength enough to call, "This way,
+sergeant, this way," and in another moment O'Grady, with blended anguish
+and gratitude in his face, is bending over him. "Oh, thank God you're not
+kilt, sir!" (for when excited O'Grady _would_ relapse into the brogue);
+"but are ye much hurt?"
+
+"Badly, sergeant, since I can't fight another round."
+
+"Then put your arm round my neck, sir," and in a second the little
+Patlander has him on his brawny back. But with only one arm by which to
+steady himself, the other hanging loose, the torture is inexpressible,
+for O'Grady is now bounding down the hill, leaping like a goat from rock
+to rock, while the Apaches with savage yells come tearing after them.
+Twice, pausing, O'Grady lays his lieutenant down in the shelter of some
+large boulder, and, facing about, sends shot after shot up the hill,
+checking the pursuit and driving the cowardly footpads to cover. Once he
+gives vent to a genuine Kilkenny "hurroo" as a tall Apache drops his
+rifle and plunges head foremost among the rocks with his hands
+convulsively clasped to his breast. Then the sergeant once more picks up
+his wounded comrade, despite pleas, orders, or imprecations, and rushes
+on.
+
+"I cannot stand it, O'Grady. Go and save yourself. You _must_ do it. I
+_order_ you to do it." Every instant the shots and arrows whiz closer,
+but the sergeant never winces, and at last, panting, breathless, having
+carried his chief full three hundred yards down the rugged slope, he
+gives out entirely, but with a gasp of delight points down among the
+trees:
+
+"Here come the boys, sir."
+
+Another moment, and the soldiers are rushing up the rocks beside them,
+their carbines ringing like merry music through the frosty air, and the
+Apaches are scattering in every direction.
+
+"Old man, are you much hurt?" is the whispered inquiry his
+brother-officer can barely gasp for want of breath, and, reassured by
+the faint grin on Mr. Billings's face, and a barely audible "Arm
+busted,--that's all; pitch in and use them up," he pushes on with his
+men.
+
+In ten minutes the affair is ended. The Indians have been swept away
+like chaff; the field and the wounded they have abandoned are in the
+hands of the troopers; the young commander's life is saved; and then,
+and for long after, the hero of the day is Buxton's _bete noire_, "the
+worst man in the troop."
+
+
+
+
+VAN.
+
+
+He was the evolution of a military horse-trade,--one of those periodical
+swappings required of his dragoons by Uncle Sam on those rare occasions
+when a regiment that has been dry-rotting half a decade in Arizona is at
+last relieved by one from the Plains. How it happened that we of the
+Fifth should have kept him from the clutches of those sharp
+horse-fanciers of the Sixth is more than I know. Regimental tradition
+had it that we got him from the Third Cavalry when it came our turn to
+go into exile in 1871. He was the victim of some temporary malady at the
+time,--one of those multitudinous ills to which horse-flesh is heir,--or
+he never would have come to us. It was simply impossible that anybody
+who knew anything about horses should trade off such a promising young
+racer so long as there remained an unpledged pay-account in the
+officers' mess. Possibly the arid climate of Arizona had disagreed with
+him and he had gone amiss, as would the mechanism of some of the best
+watches in the regiment, unable to stand the strain of anything so hot
+and high and dry. Possibly the Third was so overjoyed at getting out of
+Arizona on any terms that they would gladly have left their eye-teeth in
+pawn. Whatever may have been the cause, the transfer was an accomplished
+fact, and Van was one of some seven hundred quadrupeds, of greater or
+less value, which became the property of the Fifth Regiment of Cavalry,
+U.S.A., in lawful exchange for a like number of chargers left in the
+stables along the recently-built Union Pacific to await the coming of
+their new riders from the distant West.
+
+We had never met in those days, Van and I. "Compadres" and chums as we
+were destined to become, we were utterly unknown and indifferent to each
+other; but in point of regimental reputation at the time, Van had
+decidedly the best of it. He was a celebrity at head-quarters, I a
+subaltern at an isolated post. He had apparently become acclimated, and
+was rapidly winning respect for himself and dollars for his backers; I
+was winning neither for anybody, and doubtless losing both,--they go
+together, somehow. Van was living on metaphorical clover down near
+Tucson; I was roughing it out on the rocks of the Mogollon. Each after
+his own fashion served out his time in the grim old Territory, and at
+last "came marching home again;" and early in the summer of the
+Centennial year, and just in the midst of the great Sioux war of 1876,
+Van and I made each other's acquaintance.
+
+What I liked about him was the air of thoroughbred ease with which he
+adapted himself to his surroundings. He was in swell society on the
+occasion of our first meeting, being bestridden by the colonel of the
+regiment. He was dressed and caparisoned in the height of martial
+fashion; his clear eyes, glistening coat, and joyous bearing spoke of
+the perfection of health; his every glance and movement told of elastic
+vigor and dauntless spirit. He was a horse with a pedigree,--let alone
+any self-made reputation,--and he knew it; more than that, he knew that
+I was charmed at the first greeting; probably he liked it, possibly he
+liked me. What he saw in me I never discovered. Van, though
+demonstrative eventually, was reticent and little given to verbal
+flattery. It was long indeed before any degree of intimacy was
+established between us: perhaps it might never have come but for the
+strange and eventful campaign on which we were so speedily launched.
+Probably we might have continued on our original status of dignified and
+distant acquaintance. As a member of the colonel's household he could
+have nothing in common with me or mine, and his acknowledgment of the
+introduction of my own charger--the cavalryman's better half--was of
+that airy yet perfunctory politeness which is of the club clubby.
+Forager, my gray, had sought acquaintance in his impulsive frontier
+fashion when summoned to the presence of the regimental commander, and,
+ranging alongside to permit the shake of the hand with which the colonel
+had honored his rider, he himself had with equine confidence addressed
+Van, and Van had simply continued his dreamy stare over the springy
+prairie and taken no earthly notice of him. Forager and I had just
+joined regimental head-quarters for the first time, as was evident, and
+we were both "fresh." It was not until the colonel good-naturedly
+stroked the glossy brown neck of his pet and said, "Van, old boy, this
+is Forager, of 'K' Troop," that Van considered it the proper thing to
+admit my fellow to the outer edge of his circle of acquaintance. My gray
+thought him a supercilious snob, no doubt, and hated him. He hated him
+more before the day was half over, for the colonel decided to gallop
+down the valley to look at some new horses that had just come, and
+invited me to go. Colonels' invitations are commands, and we went,
+Forager and I, though it was weariness and vexation of spirit to both.
+Van and his rider flew easily along, bounding over the springy
+turf with long, elastic stride, horse and rider taking the rapid
+motion as an every-day matter, in a cool, imperturbable,
+this-is-the-way-we-always-do-it style; while my poor old troop-horse, in
+answer to pressing knee and pricking spur, strove with panting breath
+and jealously bursting heart to keep alongside. The foam flew from his
+fevered jaws and flecked the smooth flank of his apparently unconscious
+rival; and when at last we returned to camp, while Van, without a turned
+hair or an abnormal heave, coolly nodded off to his stable, poor
+Forager, blown, sweating, and utterly used up, gazed revengefully after
+him an instant and then reproachfully at me. He had done his best, and
+all to no purpose. That confounded clean-cut, supercilious beast had
+worn him out and never tried a spurt.
+
+It was then that I began to make inquiries about that airy fellow Van,
+and I soon found he had a history. Like other histories, it may have
+been a mere codification of lies; but the men of the Fifth were ready to
+answer for its authenticity, and Van fully looked the character they
+gave him. He was now in his prime. He had passed the age of tell-tale
+teeth and was going on between eight and nine, said the knowing ones,
+but he looked younger and felt younger. He was at heart as full of fun
+and frolic as any colt, but the responsibilities of his position
+weighed upon him at times and lent to his elastic step the grave dignity
+that should mark the movements of the first horse of the regiment.
+
+And then Van was a born aristocrat. He was not impressive in point of
+size; he was rather small, in fact; but there was that in his bearing
+and demeanor that attracted instant attention. He was beautifully
+built,--lithe, sinewy, muscular, with powerful shoulders and solid
+haunches; his legs were what Oscar Wilde might have called poems, and
+with better reason than when he applied the epithet to those of Henry
+Irving: they were straight, slender, and destitute of those heterodox
+developments at the joints that render equine legs as hideous
+deformities as knee-sprung trousers of the present mode. His feet and
+pasterns were shapely and dainty as those of the _senoritas_ (only for
+pastern read ankle) who so admired him on _festa_ days at Tucson, and
+who won such stores of _dulces_ from the scowling gallants who had with
+genuine Mexican pluck backed the Sonora horses at the races. His color
+was a deep, dark chocolate-brown; a most unusual tint, but Van was proud
+of its oddity, and his long, lean head, his pretty little pointed ears,
+his bright, flashing eye and sensitive nostril, one and all spoke of
+spirit and intelligence. A glance at that horse would tell the veriest
+greenhorn that speed, bottom, and pluck were all to be found right
+there; and he had not been in the regiment a month before the knowing
+ones were hanging about the Mexican sports and looking out for a chance
+for a match; and Mexicans, like Indians, are consummate horse-racers.
+
+Not with the "greasers" alone had tact and diplomacy to be brought into
+play. Van, though invoiced as a troop-horse sick, had attracted the
+attention of the colonel from the very start, and the colonel had
+speedily caused him to be transferred to his own stable, where,
+carefully tended, fed, groomed, and regularly exercised, he speedily
+gave evidence of the good there was in him. The colonel rarely rode in
+those days, and cavalry-duties in garrison were few. The regiment was in
+the mountains most of the time, hunting Apaches, but Van had to be
+exercised every day; and exercised he was. "Jeff," the colonel's
+orderly, would lead him sedately forth from his paddock every morning
+about nine, and ride demurely off towards the quartermaster's stables in
+rear of the garrison. Keen eyes used to note that Van had a way of
+sidling along at such times as though his heels were too impatient to
+keep at their appropriate distance behind the head, and "Jeff's" hand on
+the bit was very firm, light as it was.
+
+"Bet you what you like those 'L' Company fellows are getting Van in
+training for a race," said the quartermaster to the adjutant one bright
+morning, and the chuckle with which the latter received the remark was
+an indication that the news was no news to him.
+
+"If old Coach don't find it out too soon, some of these swaggering
+_caballeros_ around here are going to lose their last winnings," was his
+answer. And, true to their cavalry instincts, neither of the
+staff-officers saw fit to follow Van and his rider beyond the gate to
+the _corrals_.
+
+Once there, however, Jeff would bound off quick as a cat, Van would be
+speedily taken in charge by a squad of old dragoon sergeants, his
+cavalry bridle and saddle exchanged for a light racing-rig, and Master
+Mickey Lanigan, son and heir of the regimental saddle-sergeant, would be
+hoisted into his throne, and then Van would be led off, all plunging
+impatience now, to an improvised race-track across the _arroyo_, where
+he would run against his previous record, and where old horses from the
+troop-stables would be spurred into occasional spurts with the champion,
+while all the time vigilant "non-coms" would be thrown out as pickets
+far and near, to warn off prying Mexican eyes and give notice of the
+coming of officers. The colonel was always busy in his office at that
+hour, and interruptions never came. But the race did, and more than one
+race, too, occurring on Sundays, as Mexican races will, and well-nigh
+wrecking the hopes of the garrison on one occasion because of the
+colonel's sudden freak of holding a long mounted inspection on that day.
+Had he ridden Van for two hours under his heavy weight and housings that
+morning, all would have been lost. There was terror at Tucson when the
+cavalry trumpets blew the call for mounted inspection, full dress, that
+placid Sunday morning, and the sporting sergeants were well-nigh crazed.
+Not an instant was to be lost. Jeff rushed to the stable, and in five
+minutes had Van's near fore foot enveloped in a huge poultice, much to
+Van's amaze and disgust, and when the colonel came down,
+
+     Booted and spurred and prepared for a ride,
+
+there stood Jeff in martial solemnity, holding the colonel's other
+horse, and looking, as did the horse, the picture of dejection.
+
+"What'd you bring me that infernal old hearse-horse for?" said the
+colonel. "Where's Van?"
+
+"In the stable, dead lame, general," said Jeff, with face of woe, but
+with diplomatic use of the brevet. "Can't put his nigh fore foot to the
+ground, sir. I've got it poulticed, sir, and he'll be all right in a day
+or two----"
+
+"Sure it ain't a nail?" broke in the colonel, to whom nails in the foot
+were sources of perennial dread.
+
+"Perfectly sure, general," gasped Jeff. "D--d sure!" he added, in a tone
+of infinite relief, as the colonel rode out on the broad parade.
+"'Twould 'a' been nails in the coffins of half the Fifth Cavalry if it
+_had_ been."
+
+But that afternoon, while the colonel was taking his siesta, half the
+populace of the good old Spanish town of Tucson was making the air blue
+with _carambas_ when Van came galloping under the string an easy winner
+over half a score of Mexican steeds. The "dark horse" became a
+notoriety, and for once in its history head-quarters of the Fifth
+Cavalry felt the forthcoming visit of the paymaster to be an object of
+indifference.
+
+Van won other races in Arizona. No more betting could be got against him
+around Tucson; but the colonel went off on leave, and he was borrowed
+down at Camp Bowie awhile, and then transferred to Crittenden,--only
+temporarily, of course, for no one at head-quarters would part with him
+for good. Then, when the regiment made its homeward march across the
+continent in 1875, Van somehow turned up at the _festa_ races at
+Albuquerque and Santa Fe, though the latter was off the line of march by
+many miles. Then he distinguished himself at Pueblo by winning a
+handicap sweepstakes where the odds were heavy against him. And so it
+was that when I met Van at Fort Hays in May, 1876, he was a celebrity.
+Even then they were talking of getting him down to Dodge City to run
+against some horses on the Arkansaw; but other and graver matters turned
+up. Van had run his last race.
+
+Early that spring, or rather late in the winter, a powerful expedition
+had been sent to the north of Fort Fetterman in search of the hostile
+bands led by that dare-devil Sioux chieftain Crazy Horse. On "Patrick's
+Day in the morning," with the thermometer indicating 30 deg. below, and
+in the face of a biting wind from the north and a blazing glare from the
+sheen of the untrodden snow, the cavalry came in sight of the Indian
+encampment down in the valley of Powder River. The fight came off then
+and there, and, all things considered, Crazy Horse got the best of it.
+He and his people drew away farther north to join other roving bands.
+The troops fell back to Fetterman to get a fresh start; and when spring
+fairly opened, old "Gray Fox," as the Indians called General Crook,
+marched a strong command up to the Big Horn Mountains, determined to
+have it out with Crazy Horse and settle the question of supremacy before
+the end of the season. Then all the unoccupied Indians in the North
+decided to take a hand. All or most of them were bound by treaty
+obligations to keep the peace with the government that for years past
+had fed, clothed, and protected them. Nine-tenths of those who rushed to
+the rescue of Crazy Horse and his people had not the faintest excuse
+for their breach of faith; but it requires neither eloquence nor excuse
+to persuade the average Indian to take the war-path. The reservations
+were beset by vehement old strifemongers preaching a crusade against the
+whites, and by early June there must have been five thousand eager young
+warriors, under such leaders as Crazy Horse, Gall, Little Big Man, and
+all manner of Wolves, Bears, and Bulls, and prominent among
+the later that head-devil, scheming, lying, wire-pulling,
+big-talker-but-no-fighter, Sitting Bull,--"Tatanka-e-Yotanka",--five
+thousand fierce and eager Indians, young and old, swarming through the
+glorious upland between the Big Horn and the Yellowstone, and more
+a-coming.
+
+Crook had reached the head-waters of Tongue River with perhaps twelve
+hundred cavalry and infantry, and found that something must be done to
+shut off the rush of reinforcements from the southeast. Then it was that
+we of the Fifth, far away in Kansas, were hurried by rail through Denver
+to Cheyenne, marched thence to the Black Hills to cut the trails from
+the great reservations of Red Cloud and Spotted Tail to the disputed
+ground of the Northwest; and here we had our own little personal tussle
+with the Cheyennes, and induced them to postpone their further progress
+towards Sitting Bull and to lead us back to the reservation. It was
+here, too, we heard how Crazy Horse had pounced on Crook's columns on
+the bluffs of the Rosebud that sultry morning of the 17th of June and
+showed the Gray Fox that he and his people were too weak in numbers to
+cope with them. It was here, too, worse luck, we got the tidings of the
+dread disaster of the Sunday one week later, and listened in awed
+silence to the story of Custer's mad attack on ten times his weight in
+foes--and the natural result. Then came our orders to hasten to the
+support of Crook, and so it happened that July found us marching for the
+storied range of the Big Horn, and the first week in August landed us,
+blistered and burned with sun-glare and stifling alkali-dust, in the
+welcoming camp of Crook.
+
+Then followed the memorable campaign of 1876. I do not mean to tell its
+story here. We set out with ten days' rations on a chase that lasted ten
+weeks. We roamed some eighteen hundred miles over range and prairie,
+over "bad lands" and worse waters. We wore out some Indians, a good many
+soldiers, and a great many horses. We sometimes caught the Indians, and
+sometimes they caught us. It was hot, dry summer weather when we left
+our wagons, tents, and extra clothing; it was sharp and freezing before
+we saw them again; and meantime, without a rag of canvas or any covering
+to our backs except what summer-clothing we had when we started, we had
+tramped through the valleys of the Rosebud, Tongue, and Powder Rivers,
+had loosened the teeth of some men with scurvy before we struck the
+Yellowstone, had weeded out the wounded and ineffective there and sent
+them to the East by river, had taken a fresh start and gone rapidly on
+in pursuit of the scattering bands, had forded the Little Missouri near
+where the Northern Pacific now spans the stream, run out of rations
+entirely at the head of Heart River, and still stuck to the trail and
+the chase, headed southward over rolling, treeless prairies, and for
+eleven days and nights of pelting, pitiless rain dragged our way
+through the bad-lands, meeting and fighting the Sioux two lively days
+among the rocks of Slim Buttes, subsisting meantime partly on what game
+we could pick up, but mainly upon our poor, famished, worn-out,
+staggering horses. It is hard truth for cavalryman to tell, but the
+choice lay between them and our boots and most of us had no boots left
+by the time we sighted the Black Hills. Once there, we found provisions
+and plenty; but never, I venture to say, never was civilized army in
+such a plight as was the command of General George Crook when his
+brigade of regulars halted on the north bank of the Belle Fourche in
+September, 1876. Officers and men were ragged, haggard, half starved,
+worn down to mere skin and bone; and the horses,--ah, well, only half of
+them were left: hundreds had dropped starved and exhausted on the line
+of march, and dozens had been killed and eaten. We had set out blithe
+and merry, riding jauntily down the wild valley of the Tongue. We
+straggled in towards the Hills, towing our tottering horses behind us:
+they had long since grown too weak to carry a rider.
+
+Then came a leisurely saunter through the Hills. Crook bought up all the
+provisions to be had in Deadwood and other little mining towns, turned
+over the command to General Merritt, and hastened to the forts to
+organize a new force, leaving to his successor instructions to come in
+slowly, giving horses and men time to build up. Men began "building up"
+fast enough; we did nothing but eat, sleep, and hunt grass for our
+horses for whole weeks at a time; but our horses,--ah, that was
+different. There was no grain to be had for them. They had been starving
+for a month, for the Indians had burned the grass before us wherever we
+went, and here in the pine-covered hills what grass could be found was
+scant and wiry,--not the rich, juicy, strength-giving bunch grass of the
+open country. Of my two horses, neither was in condition to do military
+duty when we got to Whitewood. I was adjutant of the regiment, and had
+to be bustling around a good deal; and so it happened that one day the
+colonel said to me, "Well, here's Van. He can't carry my weight any
+longer. Suppose you take him and see if he won't pick up." And that
+beautiful October day found the racer of the regiment, though the ghost
+of his former self, transferred to my keeping.
+
+All through the campaign we had been getting better acquainted, Van and
+I. The colonel seldom rode him, but had him led along with the
+head-quarters party in the endeavor to save his strength. A big,
+raw-boned colt, whom he had named "Chunka Witko," in honor of the Sioux
+"Crazy Horse," the hero of the summer, had the honor of transporting the
+colonel over most of those weary miles, and Van spent the long days on
+the muddy trail in wondering when and where the next race was to come
+off, and whether at this rate he would be fit for a finish. One day on
+the Yellowstone I had come suddenly upon a quartermaster who had a peck
+of oats on his boat. Oats were worth their weight in greenbacks, but so
+was plug tobacco. He gave me half a peck for all the tobacco in my
+saddle-bags, and, filling my old campaign hat with the precious grain, I
+sat me down on a big log by the flowing Yellowstone and told poor old
+"Donnybrook" to pitch in. "Donnybrook" was a "spare horse" when we
+started on the campaign, and had been handed over to me after the fight
+on the War Bonnet, where Merritt turned their own tactics on the
+Cheyennes. He was sparer still by this time; and later, when we got to
+the muddy banks of the "Heecha Wapka," there was nothing to spare of
+him. The head-quarters party had dined on him the previous day, and only
+groaned when that Mark Tapley of a surgeon remarked that if this was
+Donnybrook Fare it was tougher than all the stories ever told of it.
+Poor old Donnybrook! He had recked not of the coming woe that blissful
+hour by the side of the rippling Yellowstone. His head was deep in my
+lap, his muzzle buried in oats; he took no thought for the morrow,--he
+would eat, drink, and be merry, and ask no questions as to what was to
+happen; and so absorbed were we in our occupation--he in his happiness,
+I in the contemplation thereof--that neither of us noticed the rapid
+approach of a third party until a whinny of astonishment sounded close
+beside us, and Van, trailing his lariat and picket-pin after him, came
+trotting up, took in the situation at a glance, and, unhesitatingly
+ranging alongside his comrade of coarser mould and thrusting his velvet
+muzzle into my lap, looked wistfully into my face with his great soft
+brown eyes and pleaded for his share. Another minute, and, despite the
+churlish snappings and threatening heels of Donnybrook, Van was supplied
+with a portion as big as little Benjamin's, and, stretching myself
+beside him on the sandy shore, I lay and watched his enjoyment. From
+that hour he seemed to take me into his confidence, and his was a
+friendship worth having. Time and again on the march to the Little
+Missouri and southward to the Hills he indulged me with some slight but
+unmistakable proof that he held me in esteem and grateful remembrance.
+It may have been only a bid for more oats, but he kept it up long after
+he knew there was not an oat in Dakota,--that part of it, at least. But
+Van was awfully pulled down by the time we reached the pine-barrens up
+near Deadwood. The scanty supply of forage there obtained (at starvation
+price) would not begin to give each surviving horse in the three
+regiments a mouthful. And so by short stages we plodded along through
+the picturesque beauty of the wild Black Hills, and halted at last in
+the deep valley of French Creek. Here there was grass for the horses and
+rest for the men.
+
+For a week now Van had been my undivided property, and was the object of
+tender solicitude on the part of my German orderly, "Preuss," and
+myself. The colonel had chosen for his house the foot of a big pine-tree
+up a little ravine, and I was billeted alongside a fallen ditto a few
+yards away. Down the ravine, in a little clump of trees, the
+head-quarters stables were established, and here were gathered at
+nightfall the chargers of the colonel and his staff. Custer City, an
+almost deserted village, lay but a few miles off to the west, and
+thither I had gone the moment I could get leave, and my mission was
+oats. Three stores were still open, and, now that the troops had come
+swarming down, were doing a thriving business. Whiskey, tobacco, bottled
+beer, canned lobster, canned anything, could be had in profusion, but
+not a grain of oats, barley, or corn. I went over to a miner's
+wagon-train and offered ten dollars for a sack of oats. The boss
+teamster said he would not sell oats for a cent apiece if he had them,
+and so sent me back down the valley sore at heart, for I knew Van's
+eyes, those great soft brown eyes, would be pleading the moment I came
+in sight; and I knew more,--that somewhere the colonel had "made a
+raise," that he _had_ one sack, for Preuss had seen it, and Chunka Witko
+had had a peck of oats the night before and another that very morning.
+Sure enough, Van was waiting, and the moment he saw me coming up the
+ravine he quit his munching at the scanty herbage, and, with ears erect
+and eager eyes, came quickly towards me, whinnying welcome and inquiry
+at the same instant. Sugar and hard-tack, delicacies he often fancied in
+prosperous times, he took from my hand even now; he was too truly a
+gentleman at heart to refuse them when he saw they were all I had to
+give; but he could not understand why the big colt should have his oats
+and he, Van, the racer and the hero of two months ago, should starve,
+and I could not explain it.
+
+That night Preuss came up and stood attention before my fire, where I
+sat jotting down some memoranda in a note-book:
+
+"Lieutenant, I kent shtaendt ut no longer yet. Dot scheneral's horse he
+git oats ag'in diesen abent, unt Ven, he git noddings, unt he look, unt
+look. He ot dot golt unt den ot me look, unt I _couldn't_ shtaendt ut,
+lieutenant----"
+
+And Preuss stopped short and winked hard and drew his ragged
+shirt-sleeve across his eyes.
+
+Neither could I "shtaendt ut." I jumped up and went to the colonel and
+begged a hatful of his precious oats, not for my sake, but for Van's.
+"Self-preservation is the first law of nature," and your own horse
+before that of all the world is the cavalryman's creed. It was a heap to
+ask, but Van's claim prevailed, and down the dark ravine "in the
+gloaming" Preuss and I hastened with eager steps and two hats full of
+oats; and that rascal Van heard us laugh, and answered with impatient
+neigh. He knew we had not come empty-handed this time.
+
+Next morning, when every sprig and leaf was glistening in the brilliant
+sunshine with its frosty dew, Preuss led Van away up the ravine to
+picket him on a little patch of grass he had discovered the day before
+and as he passed the colonel's fire a keen-eyed old veteran of the
+cavalry service, who had stopped to have a chat with our chief, dropped
+the stick on which he was whittling and stared hard at our attenuated
+racer.
+
+"Whose horse is that, orderly?" he asked.
+
+"De _etschudant's_, colonel," said Preuss, in his labored dialect.
+
+"The adjutant's! Where did he get him? Why, that horse is a runner!"
+said "Black Bill," appreciatively.
+
+And pretty soon Preuss came back to me, chuckling. He had not smiled for
+six weeks.
+
+"Ven--he veels pully dis morning," he explained. "Dot Colonel Royle he
+shpeak mit him unt pet him, unt Ven, he laeff unt gick up mit his hint
+lecks. He git vell bretty gwick yet."
+
+Two days afterwards we broke up our bivouac on French Creek, for every
+blade of grass was eaten off, and pushed over the hills to its near
+neighbor, Amphibious Creek, an eccentric stream whose habit of diving
+into the bowels of the earth at unexpected turns and disappearing from
+sight entirely, only to come up surging and boiling some miles farther
+down the valley, had suggested its singular name. "It was half land,
+half water," explained the topographer of the first expedition that had
+located and named the streams in these jealously-guarded haunts of the
+red men. Over on Amphibious Creek we were joined by a motley gang of
+recruits just enlisted in the distant cities of the East and sent out to
+help us fight Indians. One out of ten might know how to load a gun, but
+as frontier soldiers not one in fifty was worth having. But they brought
+with them capital horses, strong, fat, grain-fed, and these we
+campaigners levied on at once. Merritt led the old soldiers and the new
+horses down into the valley of the Cheyenne on a chase after some
+scattering Indian bands, while "Black Bill" was left to hammer the
+recruits into shape and teach them how to care for invalid horses. Two
+handsome young sorrels had come to me as my share of the plunder, and
+with these for alternate mounts I rode the Cheyenne raid, leaving Van to
+the fostering care of the gallant old cavalryman who had been so struck
+with his points the week previous.
+
+One week more, and the reunited forces of the expedition, Van and all,
+trotted in to "round up" the semi-belligerent warriors at the Red Cloud
+agency on White River, and, as the war-ponies and rifles of the scowling
+braves were distributed among the loyal scouts, and dethroned
+Machpealota (old Red Cloud) turned over the government of the great
+Sioux nation, Ogallallas and all, to his more reliable rival,
+Sintegaliska,--Spotted Tail,--Van surveyed the ceremony of abdication
+from between my legs, and had the honor of receiving an especial pat and
+an admiring "_Washtay_" from the new chieftain and lord of the loyal
+Sioux. His highness Spotted Tail was pleased to say that he wouldn't
+mind swapping four of his ponies for Van, and made some further remarks
+which my limited knowledge of the Brule Dakota tongue did not enable me
+to appreciate as they deserved. The fact that the venerable chieftain
+had hinted that he might be induced to throw in a spare squaw "to boot"
+was therefore lost, and Van was saved. Early November found us, after an
+all-summer march of some three thousand miles, once more within sight
+and sound of civilization. Van and I had taken station at Fort D. A.
+Russell, and the bustling prairie city of Cheyenne lay only three miles
+away. Here it was that Van became my pet and pride. Here he lived his
+life of ease and triumph, and here, gallant fellow, he met his knightly
+fate.
+
+Once settled at Russell, all the officers of the regiment who were
+blessed with wives and children were speedily occupied in getting their
+quarters ready for their reception; and late in November my own little
+household arrived and were presented to Van. He was then domesticated in
+a rude but comfortable stable in rear of my little army-house, and there
+he slept, was groomed and fed, but never confined. He had the run of our
+yard, and, after critical inspection of the wood-shed, the coal-hole,
+and the kitchen, Van seemed to decide upon the last-named as his
+favorite resort. He looked with curious and speculative eyes upon our
+darky cook on the arrival of that domestic functionary, and seemed for
+once in his life to be a trifle taken aback by the sight of her woolly
+pate and Ethiopian complexion. Hannah, however, was duly instructed by
+her mistress to treat Van on all occasions with great consideration, and
+this to Hannah's darkened intellect meant unlimited loaf-sugar. The
+adjutant could not fail to note that Van was almost always to be seen
+standing at the kitchen door, and on those rare occasions when he
+himself was permitted to invade those premises he was never surprised to
+find Van's shapely head peering in at the window, or head, neck, and
+shoulders bulging in at the wood-shed beyond.
+
+Yet the ex-champion and racer did not live an idle existence. He had his
+hours of duty, and keenly relished them. Office-work over at
+orderly-call, at high noon it was the adjutant's custom to return to his
+quarters and speedily to appear in riding-dress on the front piazza. At
+about the same moment Van, duly caparisoned, would be led forth from his
+paddock, and in another moment he and his rider would be flying off
+across the breezy level of the prairie. Cheyenne, as has been said, lay
+just three miles away, and thither Van would speed with long, elastic
+strides, as though glorying in his powers. It was at once his exercise
+and his enjoyment, and to his rider it was the best hour of the day. He
+rode alone, for no horse at Russell could keep alongside. He rode at
+full speed, for in all the twenty-four that hour from twelve to one was
+the only one he could call his own for recreation and for healthful
+exercise. He rode to Cheyenne that he might be present at the event of
+the day,--the arrival of the trans-continental train from the East. He
+sometimes rode beyond, that he might meet the train when it was belated
+and race it back to town; and this--_this_ was Van's glory. The rolling
+prairie lay open and free on each side of the iron track, and Van soon
+learned to take his post upon a little mound whence the coming of the
+"express" could be marked, and, as it flared into sight from the
+darkness of the distant snow-shed, Van, all a-tremble with excitement,
+would begin to leap and plunge and tug at the bit and beg for the word
+to go. Another moment, and, carefully held until just as the puffing
+engine came well alongside, Van would leap like arrow from the string,
+and away we would speed, skimming along the springy turf. Sometimes the
+engineer would curb his iron horse and hold him back against the
+"down-grade" impetus of the heavy Pullmans far in rear; sometimes he
+would open his throttle and give her full head, and the long train would
+seem to leap into space, whirling clouds of dust from under the whirling
+wheels, and then Van would almost tear his heart out to keep alongside.
+
+Month after month through the sharp mountain winter, so long as the snow
+was not whirling through the air in clouds too dense to penetrate, Van
+and his master had their joyous gallops. Then came the spring, slow,
+shy, and reluctant as the springtide sets in on that high plateau in
+mid-continent, and Van had become even more thoroughly domesticated. He
+now looked upon himself as one of the family, and he knew the
+dining-room window, and there, thrice each day and sometimes at odd
+hours between, he would take his station while the household was at
+table and plead with those great soft brown eyes for sugar.
+Commissary-bills ran high that winter, and cut loaf-sugar was an item of
+untold expenditure. He had found a new ally and friend,--a little girl
+with eyes as deep and dark as and browner than his own, a winsome little
+maid of three, whose golden, sunshiny hair floated about her bonny head
+and sweet serious face like a halo of light from another world. Van
+"took to her" from the very first. He courted the caress of her little
+hand, and won her love and trust by the discretion of his movements when
+she was near. As soon as the days grew warm enough, she was always out
+on the front piazza when Van and I came home from our daily gallop, and
+then she would trot out to meet us and be lifted to her perch on the
+pommel; and then, with mincing gait, like lady's palfrey, stepping as
+though he might tread on eggs and yet not crush them, Van would take the
+little one on her own share of the ride. And so it was that the loyal
+friendship grew and strengthened. The one trick he had was never
+ventured upon when she was on his back, even after she became accustomed
+to riding at rapid gait and enjoying the springy canter over the prairie
+before Van went back to his stable. It was a strange trick: it proved a
+fatal one.
+
+No other horse I ever rode had one just like it. Running at full speed,
+his hoofs fairly flashing through the air and never seeming to touch the
+ground, he would suddenly, as it were, "change step" and gallop
+"disunited," as we cavalrymen would say. At first I thought it must be
+that he struck some rolling stone, but soon I found that when bounding
+over the soft turf it was just the same; and the men who knew him in
+the days of his prime in Arizona had noted it there. Of course there was
+nothing to do for it but make him change back as quick as possible on
+the run, for Van was deaf to remonstrance and proof against the rebuke
+of spur. Perhaps he could not control the fault; at all events he did
+not, and the effect was not pleasant. The rider felt a sudden jar, as
+though the horse had come down stiff-legged from a hurdle-leap; and
+sometimes it would be so sharp as to shake loose the forage-cap upon his
+rider's head. He sometimes did it when going at easy lope, but never
+when his little girl-friend was on his back; then he went on springs of
+air.
+
+One bright May morning all the different "troops," as the
+cavalry-companies are termed, were out at drill on the broad prairie.
+The colonel was away, the officer of the day was out drilling his own
+company, the adjutant was seated in his office hard at work over
+regimental papers, when in came the sergeant of the guard, breathless
+and excited.
+
+"Lieutenant," he cried, "six general prisoners have escaped from the
+guard-house. They have got away down the creek towards town."
+
+In hurried question and answer the facts were speedily brought out. Six
+hard customers, awaiting sentence after trial for larceny, burglary,
+assault with intent to kill, and finally desertion, had been cooped up
+together in an inner room of the ramshackle old wooden building that
+served for a prison, had sawed their way through to open air, and,
+timing their essay by the sound of the trumpets that told them the whole
+garrison would be out at morning drill, had slipped through the gap at
+the right moment, slid down the hill into the creek-bottom, and then
+scurried off townward. A sentinel down near the stables had caught sight
+of them, but they were out of view long before his shouts had summoned
+the corporal of the guard.
+
+No time was to be lost. They were malefactors and vagabonds of the worst
+character. Two of their number had escaped before and had made it their
+boast that they could break away from the Russell guard at any time.
+Directing the sergeant to return to his guard, and hurriedly scribbling
+a note to the officer of the day, who had his whole troop with him in
+the saddle out on the prairie, and sending it by the hand of the
+sergeant-major, the adjutant hurried to his own quarters and called for
+Van. The news had reached there already. News of any kind travels like
+wildfire in a garrison, and Van was saddled and bridled before the
+adjutant reached the gate.
+
+"Bring me my revolver and belt,--quick," he said to the servant, as he
+swung into saddle. The man darted into the house and came back with the
+belt and holster.
+
+"I was cleaning your 'Colt,' sir," he said, "but here's the Smith &
+Wesson," handing up the burnished nickel-plated weapon then in use
+experimentally on the frontier. Looking only to see that fresh
+cartridges were in each chamber and that the hammer was on the
+safety-notch, the adjutant thrust it into the holster, and in an instant
+he and Van flew through the east gate in rapid pursuit.
+
+Oh, how gloriously Van ran that day! Out on the prairie the gay guidons
+of the troops were fluttering in the brilliant sunshine; here, there,
+everywhere, the skirmish-lines and reserves were dotting the plain; the
+air was ringing with the merry trumpet-calls and the stirring words of
+command. Yet men forgot their drill and reined up on the line to watch
+Van as he flashed by, wondering, too, what could take the adjutant off
+at such an hour and at such a pace.
+
+"What's the row?" shouted the commanding officer of one company.
+
+"Prisoners loose," was the answer shouted back, but only indistinctly
+heard. On went Van like one inspired, and as we cleared the drill-ground
+and got well out on the open plain in long sweeping curve, we changed
+our course, aiming more to the right, so as to strike the valley west of
+the town. It was possible to get there first and head them off. Then
+suddenly I became aware of something jolting up and down behind me. My
+hand went back in search: there was no time to look: the prairie just
+here was cut up with little gopher-holes and criss-crossed by tiny
+canals from the main _acequia_, or irrigating ditch. It was that
+wretched Smith & Wesson bobbing up and down in the holster. The Colt
+revolver of the day was a trifle longer, and my man in changing pistols
+had not thought to change holsters. This one, made for the Colt, was too
+long and loose by half an inch, and the pistol was pounding up and down
+with every stride. Just ahead of us came the flash of the sparkling
+water in one of the little ditches. Van cleared it in his stride with no
+effort whatever. Then, just beyond,--oh, fatal trick!--seemingly when in
+mid-air he changed step, striking the ground with a sudden shock that
+jarred us both and flung the downward-pointed pistol up against the
+closely-buttoned holster-flap. There was a sharp report, and my heart
+stood still an instant. I knew--oh, well I knew it was the death-note of
+my gallant pet. On he went, never swaying, never swerving, never
+slackening his racing speed; but, turning in the saddle and glancing
+back, I saw, just back of the cantle, just to the right of the spine in
+the glossy brown back, that one tiny, grimy, powder-stained hole. I knew
+the deadly bullet had ranged downward through his very vitals. I knew
+that Van had run his last race, was even now rushing towards a goal he
+would never reach. Fast as he might fly, he could not leave Death
+behind.
+
+The chase was over. Looking back, I could see the troopers already
+hastening in pursuit, but we were out of the race. Gently, firmly I drew
+the rein. Both hands were needed, for Van had never stopped here, and
+some strange power urged him on now. Full three hundred yards he ran
+before he would consent to halt. Then I sprang from the saddle and ran
+to his head. His eyes met mine. Soft and brown, and larger than ever,
+they gazed imploringly. Pain and bewilderment, strange, wistful
+pleading, but all the old love and trust, were there as I threw my arms
+about his neck and bowed his head upon my breast. I could not bear to
+meet his eyes. I could not look into them and read there the deadly pain
+and faintness that were rapidly robbing them of their lustre, but that
+could not shake their faith in his friend and master. No wonder mine
+grew sightless as his own through swimming tears. I who had killed him
+could not face his last conscious gaze.
+
+One moment more, and, swaying, tottering first from side to side, poor
+Van fell with heavy thud upon the turf. Kneeling, I took his head in my
+arms and strove to call back one sign of recognition; but all that was
+gone. Van's spirit was ebbing away in some fierce, wild dream: his
+glazing eyes were fixed on vacancy; his breath came in quick, convulsive
+gasps; great tremors shook his frame, growing every instant more
+violent. Suddenly a fiery light shot into his dying eyes. The old high
+mettle leaped to vivid life, and then, as though the flag had dropped,
+the starting-drum had tapped, Van's fleeting spirit whirled into his
+dying race. Lying on his side, his hoofs flew through the air, his
+powerful limbs worked back and forth swifter than ever in their swiftest
+gallop, his eyes were aflame, his nostrils wide distended, his chest
+heaving, and his magnificent machinery running like lightning. Only for
+a minute, though,--only for one short, painful minute. It was only a
+half-mile dash,--poor old fellow!--only a hopeless struggle against a
+rival that never knew defeat. Suddenly all ceased as suddenly as all
+began. One stiffening quiver, one long sigh, and my pet and pride was
+gone. Old friends were near him even then. "I was with him when he won
+his first race at Tucson," said old Sergeant Donnelly, who had ridden to
+our aid, "and I knowed then he would die racing."
+
+
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note
+
+
+Some of the spellings and hyphenations in the original are unusual;
+they have not been changed. Minor punctuation errors have been corrected
+without notice.  A few obvious typographical errors have been
+corrected and are listed below.
+
+Page 107: "would he hurried to their support" changed to "would be
+hurried to their support".
+
+Page 160: "See knew how her father trusted" changed to "She knew how her
+father trusted".
+
+Page 197: "The car-seems whirling" changed to "The car seems whirling".
+
+Page 227: "jagged rocks stook" changed to "jagged rocks stood".
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Starlight Ranch, by Charles King
+
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