 CHAPTER XIII WUNDED BODY AND SOUL To say the Sioux were furious that the failure of their second attempt would be putting it far too mildly. The fierce charge from the northward side, made under cover of the blinding smoke sent drifting by the gale across the level flats, had been pushed so close to the grove that two red braves and half a dozen ponies had met their death within sixty paces of the rifle pits. There lay the bodies now, and the Indians dare not attempt to reach them. The dread, wind-driven flame of the prairie fire, planned by the Sioux to burn out the defense to serve as their ally had been turned to their grave detriment. Ray and his devoted men had stopped the sweep of so much of the conflagration as threatened their little stronghold. But raging unhampered elsewhere, the seething wall rolled on towards the east spreading gradually towards its flanks, and so not only consuming vast acres of bunch grass but checking the attack that should have been made from the entire southern half of the Indian Circle. Later, leaping the sandy stream-bed a little to the west of the Cotton Woods, it spread in wild career over a huge tract along the left bank, and now reuniting with the southern wing, some distance down the valley was roaring away to the bluffs of the mini-posa, leaving death and desolation in its track. Miles to the east, the war parties from the reservation riding to join Lame Wolf sighted the black curtain of smoke, swift sailing over the prairie, and changed their course accordingly. Not so many miles away to the south, web skirmishers, driving before them three or four Sioux scouts from the northward slope of the moccasin ridge, set spurs to their horses, and took the gallop. The main body following on with their eyelids blistered by heat and smoke, raised silent, determined little band, could see nothing of the coming force, yet new relief was nigh. For close at hand, both east and west, large bodies of enemy, could be seen swift riding away to the north, they had hoped, as Fox had planned and promised, to burn out and overwhelm the little troop at the grove before the column from frame could possibly reach the spot. They had even anticipated the probable effort of the command to check the flames, and had told off some fifty braves to open concentric fire on any party that could rush into the open. With that object in view, they had thought to send in such a storm of lead, even from long range, that it should daunt and drive back those who dared to attempt. They had stormed indeed, but could neither daunt nor drive back. Raised men had braved death itself in the desperate essay, and even in dying had won the day. But their losses had been cruel. Three killed outright, three dying, and eight, more or less severely wounded, had reduced their fighting strength to nearly thirty. The guards of the Sorals heard it in the stream-bed had all they could do to control the poor, frightened creatures. Many of them hit, several of them felled by the plunging fire from the far hillsides. Even though driven back, the Sioux never meant to give up the battle. On every side, leaving their ponies at safe distance, by dozens the warriors crawled forward, snake-like, to the edge of the burned and blackened surface, and from there, poured in a rapid and most harassing fire, compelling the defense to line flat or burl further and wounding many horses. The half-hour that followed the repulse of their grand assault had been sorely trying to the troop, for the wounded needed aid. More men were hit, and there was no chance whatever to hit back. Moving from point to point, Ray carried cheer and courage on every side, yet was so constantly exposed as to cause his men fresh anxiety. Even as he was bending over field, a bullet had nipped the right shoulder strap, and later another had torn through the crown of his campaign hat. In all the years of their frontier fighting they had never known a hotter fire, but Ray's voice rang out through the drifting vapor with the same old cheer and confidence. They can't charge again till the ground cools off, he cried. By that time they'll have their hands full, see how they're scuttling away at the southward even now. Just keep covered and you're all right. And barring a growl or two from favored old hands who sought to make the captain take his own medicine and himself keep covered, the answer was full of cheer. And so they waited through the hot smoke and sunshine of the autumn afternoon, and even while comforting the wounded with assurance of coming relief kept vigilant watch on every hostile move, and at last, toward three o'clock, the sharp fire about them slackened away. The smoldering roots of the bunch grass had burned themselves out. The smoke drifted away from the prairie, and as the landscape cleared to the south and west, a cheer of delight went up from the cotton woods. For the slopes three miles away were dotted here and there, and everywhere, with circling, scurrying war ponies. They and their wild riders steadily following back before a long rank of disciplined horsemen, the extended skirmish line of web squadron packed by supports at regular intervals and all heading straight on for the broad lowlands of the Elk. Since six of your men over to the south front, Sergeant, were raised orders to Windsor, as he hurried over to join Clayton again, they may try one final charge from that side and give us a chance to empty a few more saddles. Creeping and crouching through the timber the chosen men obeyed, and were assigned to stations under Clayton's eye. The precaution was wise indeed, for just as the captain foresaw, a rally in force began far out over those southward slopes. The Indians gathering in great numbers about some chieftain midway between the coming force and the still beleaguered defenders of the Grove, then brandishing lance and shield and rifle, as before they began spreading out across the prairie, hitting now for the cotton woods while others still faced and fired on the far blue skirmish line. The fierce wind sweeping across the direction of the attack didn't all sound of hoof or war chant, but there was no mistaking the signs, no doubt of the intent, when in a little moment more of the earth began to tremble beneath the dancing pony feet telling almost within the swiftness of sight that the grand advance had again begun, but other eyes were watching too. Other soldiers, keen campaigners, as those at the Elk, were there afield, and almost at the moment the wild barbaric horde burst yelling into their eager gallop and before the dust cloud hid the distant slopes beyond. The exuberant shout went up from the captain's lips as he threw down his glass and grabbed his carbine. It's all right, men, the major is coming. At thir heels, now let him have it. In former days there had been scenes of wild rejoicing, sometimes of deep emotion, when relief came to some Indian besieged detachment of the old regiment. Once, far to the south in the wild, romantic park country of Colorado, a strong detachment had been corraled for days by an overwhelming force of utes, their commander a dozen of their best men, all the horses killed and many troopers sorely wounded. They had been rescued at last by their skilled and gallant colonel, after long and most scientific march by both night and day. Another time still further in their past, but still within a dozen years, a way down the broad valley of the very stream of which this little elk was a tributary, the Cheyennes had hammed in and sorely hammered two depleted troops that owed their ultimate rescue to the daring of the very officer who so coolly, confidently, headed the defense this day, to a night ride through the Indian lines that nearly cost him his brave young life. But that brought Captain Trusket with a fresh and powerful troop, sweeping in to the sucker with the dawn. Then there had been men who strained other men to their hearts and who shed tears like women for gallant comrades had bitten the dust in a desperate fighting of the day before and hope itself had almost gone, with the ammunition of the Breedligard command. Now with heavier losses than had befallen Wayne in 76, Ray's command beheld with almost tranquil hearts the coming of the fierce array in final charge, behind him, not two miles, to be sure rode in swift, well-ordered pursuit the long line of comrade troopers. But there had been intervening years of campaign experiences that dulled to a degree the earlier enthusiasms of the soldier and taught at least the assumption of professional composure that was the secret wonder of the suckering trooper. And that became his chief ambition to acquire. It is one thing to charge home at a hard fighting command when friends and comrades back the effort and cheer to the charging line. It is another to charge home, conscious that other chargers are coming at one's heels. Magnificent as a spectacle, therefore, this closing dash of lame wolf warriors was but a meek reminder of their earlier attack. Long before they came within four hundred yards of the leafy stronghold, the moment indeed, the brown spring fields began their spiteful bark. To right and left the warriors veered, far out on either flank, screeching and yelling as was their savage way. They tore madly by, flattened out against their pony's necks, and those who could use their arms at all, pumping wild shots that whistled harmless over the heads of the defenders, and bit the blackened prairie many a rod beyond. Only jeers rewarded the stirring spectacle, jeers, and a few low aimed, sputtering bollies that brought other luckless ponies to their knees and sprawled a few red riders, but less than five minutes from the warning cry that hailed their coming. Lame Wolf and his host were lining Elk Toothridge, and watching with burning hate and vengeful eyes the swift, steady advance of Webb's long blue fighting line and the utter unconcern of the defense, even before the revealing squadron was within carving range. Certain of Ray's men had scrambled out upon the Northward Bank and pushing forward upon the prairie, were possessing themselves of the arms and ornaments of the two dead warriors whom the Sioux had strived in vain to reach and bear within their lines. Ray and Clayton at the moment were strolling placidly forth upon the Southward bench. To receive and welcome the little knot of comrades sent galloping in advance to greet them. There was perhaps just a suspicion of exaggerated nonchalance about their gait and bearing, a regimental weakness, possibly and no other officer save Lieutenant Field, happened to be within airshot when Windsor's voice on the other front was heard in horse command, come back here, you fellows, back are your goners. The sight had proved too much for some of the Sioux. Down again at furious speed came a scattered cloud of young braves, following the lead of the tall, magnificent chief, who had been the hero of the earlier attack. Down into the low ground, never swerving or checking pace, straight for the Grove. The three or four inquisitive blue coats in the meantime scurrying for shelter, and the yell that went up at sight of the Indian Dash and the quick reopening of the sputtering fire brought Ray, running once again to the northward edge of the timber, wondering what could be amiss. Field was lying on his blanket, just under the bank as the captain darted by, and grinned his gratification as he heard the brief assuring words, webs here, all hands with him, an instant later a bullet whizzed through the roots of the old cottonwood above his head, and far from out of field, deadened by the rush of the wind, a dull cackle of shots, told that something had recalled the Sioux to the attack, and for three minutes there was a lively full side, all along the northward side, then it slowly died away, and other voices close at hand, someone speaking his name, called the lads attention. He was weak from loss of blood, and just a little days and flighty. He had met three hours ago on that when he next encountered his post commander, his manner should plainly show that, senior, that even a second lieutenant had rights a major was bound to respect, but only mistily. Now he saw bending over him the keen soldierly features, the kind, when some gray eyes filled with such a world of concern and sympathy, and heard the deep earnest tones of the voice he knew so well, calling again his name in mingling cordial praise and anxious inquiry, and all the rancors seemed to float away with the smoke of the last carving shots. He could only faintly return the pressure of that firm muscular hand, only feebly smile his thanks and reassurance, and then, he too, seemed floating away somewhere into space, and he could not manage to connect what Webb had been saying with the next words that fastened on his trot senses. It must have been hours later too, for darkness had settled on the valley. A little fire was burning under the shelter of the bank. A little group of soldiers were chatting in low tone, close at hand. Among them his arm and sling stood a stocky little chap whose face, seen in the flickering light, was familiar to him. So was the eager brogue in which that little chap was speaking. A steward was remonstrating and only vaguely at first field grasped the meaning of his words. The captain said you were not to try to follow, Kennedy. At least not until Dr. Waller saw you. Which will he get here? He can't be three miles back now. To hell with you! Was the vehement answer? Do you think I'd be mahundered around with the whole command gone after them bloody sue? I've made my mark on one of them, and he's a buck I'm after. He's made his mark on you, Kennedy. Broke in a soldier voice. You mad fool trying to tackle a chief like that, even if he was hit, for he had his whole gang behind him. Sure, he dared me out, and what's this he called me a dud, whiskey, theft, me the never. Oh, shut up, Kennedy. Laughed a brother Irishman. You were full as a go-to-K troop stables. Where'd you get the whiskey? You thought, I'll lay you landing in when I get two hands again, though I might about want would do it. It's me horse I want now, and have to go on with the cabin. Ready now, sir? He added with sudden change of tone and manner, for a tall slender form came striding into the firelight and field new Blake at the instant, and would have called but for the first word from the captain's lips. Your heart's safe, Kennedy. I wish your head was. Your past master and Vlaff's me out there won't eat it, at all events. Did you get him, sir? After all, I didn't. His English spoiled my aim. It was winter-shotting. Now, you're to stay here, you and Kallermine. The doctor may bring dispatches, and you follow us with the first to come. An orderly had led forth a saddled horse, and Blake's foot was already in the stirrup. They say it was Red Fox himself, Kennedy, he added. Where on earth did you meet him before? Sure, I never knew him, sir! Was the quick reply, as Blake's long, lean legs swung over the big chargers back and the riders settled in the saddle. But he knew you perfectly well. He dared you by name when we closed on them. You and Mr. Field. And when an hour later the veteran surgeon came and knelt by the side of the young officer, reported seriously wounded, and took his hand and felt his pulse. There was something in the situation that seemed to call for immediate action. We'll get you back to Frane tomorrow, Field, said Waller, with kind intent. Don't worry now. Don't do that, doctor. Feebly, surprisingly moaned the fevered lad. Don't take me back to Frane. CHAPTER XIV A VANISHED HEROMAN Within forty-eight hours of the coming of Cooper Kennedy with his rushed dispatches to Fort Frane, the actors in our little drama had become widely separated. Webb and his dirty squadron, including Ray and such of his troops, as still had mounts and no serious wounds, were marching straight on for the dry fork of the powder. They were two hundred fighting men, and although the Sioux had now three times that many, they had learned too much of the shooting powers of these seasoned troopers, and deemed wise to avoid close contact, the Indian fights well man for man when fairly cornered. But at other times he is no true sportsman. He asks for odds of ten to one, as when he wiped out Custer on the greasy grass, or Fetterman at Fort Phil Kearney, as when he tackled the Grey Fox, General Crook, on the Rosebud and Sibley's little party among the pines of the Bighorn. Ray's plucky followers had shot viciously, and emptied far too many saddles for Indian equanimity. It might be well in any event to let Webb squadron through and wait for further sessions from the agencies at the southeast, or the big turbulent bands of Uncapapas and Miniconjos at Standing Rock or the Cheyennes along the Yellowstone. So back went Lame Wolf and his braves, bearing sabre with them, flitting northward again for the glorious country beyond the Chikadee, and on what Webb, with Blake, Greg, Ray, and their juniors with Tracy to take care of such as might be wounded on the way, and later still the old post-surgeon reached the Elk with guards and hospital attendants, and on the moral row began his homeward march with the dead and wounded, a sad and solemn little procession. Only twenty miles had he to go, but it took long hours, so few were the ambulances so rough the crossings of the bravines, and not until near nightfall was the last of the wounded, Lieutenant Field, born in the arms of pitying soldiers into the old post-hospital, too far gone with fever, exhaustion, and some strong mental excitement, to know or care that his strange plea had been, per France, disregarded, to know or care later that the general himself, the commander they loved and trusted, was bending over him at dawn the following day, ordering forward all available troops from the line of the railway. The chief had stopped at Laramie only long enough for brief conference with the post- commander. Then, bidding him come on with his cavalry, he pushed ahead for frame. It couldn't be a long campaign, perhaps, with winter close at hand, but it would be a lively one. Of all that, the chief felt well assured. Now there was something uncanny about this outbreak on the part of the Sioux, and the general was puzzled. Up to September the Indians had been busy with the annual hunt. They were fat, well-fed, prosperous, had got from the government pretty much everything that they could ask, with any show of reason, and, so they said, had been promised more. The rouse between the limited view of their young men and some bullies among the rustlers had been no more frequent there or serious than on previous summers, when matters had been settled without resort to arms. But this year the very devil seemed to have got into the situation. Something, or probably somebody, said to general, had been stirring the Indians up, exciting, exhorting possibly, and almost the first thing the general did as he climbed stiffly out of his stout conquered wagon in the paling starlight of the early morning was to turn to Dade, now commanding the post and say, he should like as soon as possible to see Bill Hay. Main time he wished to go in and look at the wounded. It was not yet five o'clock, but Dr. Waller was up and devoting himself to the needs of his patients, and Dade had coffee ready for the general and his single aid to camp. But not a sip would the general take until he had seen the stricken troopers. He knew Field by reputation, well and favorably. He had intimately known Field's father in the old days, in the old army, when they served together on the then wild Pacific shores, where rolls the Oregon. The great civil war had divided them. For Field had cast his soldier fortune with the seceding state, but all that was a thing of the past. Here was the son a loyal soldier of the flag the father had again sworn allegiance to when he took his seat in the house of representatives. The general thought highly of Field, and was so troubled at his serious condition. He knew the dispatches would be coming from the far south when the telegraph line began the busy clicking of the morning. He was troubled to find the lad in high fever and to hear that he had been out of his head. He was more than troubled at the concern in something like confusion in the old doctor's face. You don't think him dangerously wounded, do you, he asked? Not dangerously general, was the reply. It's well, he seems to have something on his mind. And more than this the doctor would not say. It was not for him to tell the chief what Web had confided here. He left the post. That most of the currency for which Field was accountable was so much waste paper. Field lay muttering and tossing in restless misery, unconscious most of the time, and sleeping only when under the influence of a strong narcotic. Dade with sadness and constraint, apparent in his manner hung back and did not enter the bare hospital room where with only a steward in attendance the young soldier lay. The doctor had gone with the general to the bedside but the captain remained out of earshot at the door. First call to Reveley was just sounding on the infantry bugle as the trio came forth. I've sent for hay already, general, Dade was saying, as they stood on the wooden veranda overlooking the valley of the murmuring river. But will you not come now and have coffee? He can join us over at my quarters. Already, however, the orderly was hurrying back. They met him when not halfway over to the line of officer's quarters. The few men for duty in the two companies of infantry left to guard the post, were gathering in little groups in front of their barracks awaiting the sounding of the assembly. They knew the chief at a glance and were curiously watching him as he went thoughtfully, pacing across the parade by the side of the temporary commander. They saw the orderly coming almost at a run from the direction of the guard house. Saw him halt and salute. Evidently making some report. But they could not guess what made him so suddenly start and run at speed toward the southward bluff, the direction of the trader's corral and stables. While Captain Dade whirled about and signaled Sergeant Crabb of the cavalry left behind in charge of the few custodians of the troop barracks, Crabb too threw dignity to the winds and ran at the beck of his superior officer. Have you two men who can ride hard a dozen miles or so and carry out their orders? Was the captain sharp demand? Certainly sir, answered Crabb professionally, resentful that such questions should be asked of men of the cavalry. Send two to report to me at once, mounted. Never mind breakfast. And by this time apparently the chief, the post commander and possibly even the aide to camp had forgotten about the waiting coffee. They still stood where they had halted in the center of the parade. The doctor coming from hospital was signaled to and speedily joined them. The bugle sounded, the men mechanically formed ranks and answered to their names, all the while watching from the corner of their eyes the group of officers now increased by two infantry sublaterns, lieutenants Bruce and Duncan, who raised their caps to the preoccupied general, such salutation being then a fashion, not a regulation of the service, and stood silently awaiting instructions, for something of consequence was surely at hand. Then the orderly again appeared, returning from his mission out of breath and speaking with difficulty. Crap, I mean the Frenchman, sir, says it was after four, perhaps half-past, when they started, Pete Driven, he didn't see who was in it, it was the covered buckboard they took, sir, the best one. And then little by little it transpired that, hey, the post-traitor whom the general had need to see had taken his departure by way of the Rollins Road, and without so much of a whisper of his purpose to any one. I knew he had thought of going, he told Major Webso said Dave presently, but that was before the outbreak assumed proportions. He had given up all ideas of it yesterday, and so told me. Has anything happened to start him since then demanded the bearded general, after a moment's thought? Dave and the doctor looked into each other's eyes and the latter turned away. It was not his affair. Well, something has happened, general, was Dave's slow constrained reply. If you will step this way, I'll see you later, gentlemen. This to his sublaterns. I'll explain as far as I can. And while Dr. Waller fell back and walked beside the Ada camp, gladly leaving to the post-commander the burden of a trying explanation, the general slowly pacing by the captain's side gave ear to his story. Hey, cleaned up quite a lot of money. Began the veteran, and had intended starting it to Cheyenne when this Indian trouble be broke out. The courier reached us during the night, as you know, and the Major ordered Ray to start at dawn and Field to go with him. Well, I thought Field was post-aggent, interposed the general. He was, but, well, I beg you to let Major Web give you his own reasons, General Falter Dave, sorely embarrassed. He decided that Field should go. He asked to go. I suppose it runs in the blood, said the general quickly, with a keen look from his blue-gray eyes. I think not, sir. But you will see Web within a few days, and he will tell you all about it. What I know is this, that Field was ordered to go and that he gave the Major an order on hay for two packages containing the money for which he was accountable. Field and Wilkins had had a falling-out, and instead of putting the cash in the quartermaster's safe, Field kept it at Hayes. At guard mounting, Haye brought the package to the Major, who opened both in presence of the officers of the day. Each package was supposed to contain three or four hundred dollars. Neither contained twenty. Some paper slips inserted between five-dollar bills made up the packages. Field was then far to the north and past conferring with. Haye was amazed and distressed. Said that someone must have duplicate keys of his safe as well as his stables. Why the stables asked the Chief, pausing at the gate and studying the troubled face of the honored soldier. He well knew and so fully trusted. He was thinking, too, how this was not the first occasion that the laws of public money had been hidden for the time in just that way slips inserted between good currency. Because it transpires that some of his horses were out of that very night, without his consent or can. No one for a moment, to my knowledge, has connected Field with the laws of the money. Haye thought, however, it threw suspicion on him and was mightily upset. Then his sudden departure at this time, without a word to anybody looks on, said the General thoughtfully. But he had no need of money. He's one of the wealthiest men in Wyoming. And she, his wife, needs nothing. He gives her all she can possibly want. By this time they were at the door. A lamp still burned dimly in the hallway and Dade blew it out. As he ushered the General into the cosily-lighted dining-room. You'll excuse Mrs. Dade and Esther, I hope, sir. They are not yet up, quite overcome by anxiety and excitement. There's been a lot about frame these last two days. Take this, Chair General. Coffee will be served at once. No, sir, as you say. The Hayes have no need of money. He and his wife, that is. But you suspect whom, asked the General the blue-gray eye's intent on the troubled face before him, for Dade's very hesitancy told of some untold theory. The doctor and the aide had taken seats at the other end of the table and dutifully engaged in low-toned conversation. That is a hard question for me to answer, General, was the answer. I have no right to suspect anybody. We had no time to complete the investigation. There are many hangers on, you know, about Hayes' door and indeed his house. Then, his household too has been increased, as perhaps you did not know. Mrs. Hayes' niece, a very brilliant young woman, is visiting them and she in field rode quite frequently together. The General's face was a study. The keen eyes were reading Dade as a skilled physician would interpret the symptoms of a complicated case. How old and, uh, what is she like, Dade, he asked. The women can answer that better than I sir. They say she must be twenty-four. Mrs. Hayes says, nineteen. She is very dark and very handsome, at times. Most of our young men seem to think so at least. She certainly rides and dances admirably and Mr. Fields was constantly her partner. The General began to see light. Field was constantly with her. Was he? Riding by themselves or with others when they went out, he asked. By themselves, sir, I doubt if any other of our—a questionnaires would care to ride at her pace. She rather outstrips them all. The Major told me they seemed to go well every time he saw them, at least up to Stabber's Village. And that was something he disapproved of. Though I daresay she was simply curious to see an Indian village as an Eastern girl might be. Possibly, said the General. And what did you tell me she is Mrs. Hayes' niece? I don't remember his having any niece when they were at Laramie in sixty-six, though I knew something of Mrs. Haye, who was then but a short time married. She spoke Sioux and Patios French better than English in those days. What is the young lady's name? Ms. Flower, sir, Nanette Flower. The Chief dropped his head on his hand and reflected. It's a good twenty years and I've been knocking about all over the West since then. But I'd like to see Mrs. Haye and that young woman date, whether we overhaul Bill or not. I must go on to Beecher at once. You will wait for the cavalry from Laramie, will you not, sir? Asked the Captain anxiously. I can't. I'll get a bath and breakfast and forty winks later. Then see Mrs. Haye and to Bill, if he is back. They ought to catch him before he reaches Sage Creek. There are your couriers now. He added at the sound of spurred heels on the front piazza. The Captain stepped forth into the hallway. A trooper stood at the front door, his hand lifted in salute. Another in saddle and holding the reins of his comrade's horse was at the gate. A rustle of feminine drapery swept downward from the upper floor and dade glanced up, half dreading to see Esther's face. But it was his wife who peered over the Baloust rate. I shall be down in ten minutes, she said in a low tone, Esther sleeping at last. How did he seem this morning? Sleeping too, but only fitfully. Dr. Waller is here, and then dade would have ended the talk. He did not wish to speak further of field or his condition. But she called again, low toned, yet dominant, as is many a wife, in and out of the army. Surely you're not letting that general start with only two men. No, he goes by and by. And again, dade would have escaped to the piazza, but once again she held him. Then where are you sending these? After Mr. Haye, he made an early start not knowing perhaps the general was coming. Start, she cried. All excitement now. Start! Start for where? At the dressing-saclay, an aspen-like agitations came in full view at the head of the stairs. Rollins, I suppose, I don't know what it means. But I do, exclaimed his better half in emotion uncontrollable. I do! It means that she has made him, that she is gone too. I mean, Neneth Flower. CHAPTER XV A WOMAN'S PLOT Women's intuition often far outstrips the slower mental process of the other sex. The mother, who has to see a beloved daughter silent suffering, well-knowing another girl to be, however indirectly the cause of it, sees all manner of other inequities in that other girl. Kind, charitable, and gentle was Mrs. Dade, a wise mother, too, as well as most loving, but she could look with neither kindness nor charity on Miss Flower. She had held her peace, allowed no word of censure or criticism to escape her when the women were discussing that young lady. But all the morphia meant was her distrust because thus pent up and repressed. With the swiftness of feminine thought, for no man had yet suspected, she fathomed the secret of the traitor's sudden going, and carried away by the excitement of the moment and the belief that none but her husband could hear, she had made that startling announcement, and her intuition was unearing. Nanette Flower was indeed gone. Yet for nearly an hour she stood alone in her conviction. Her husband quickly cautioned silence, and, going forth, gave instructions to the couriers that sent them speeding for the Rollins Road. But at seven o'clock Mrs. Hay herself appeared and asked to see the general, who was taking at the moment his accustomed bracer, tonic and stimulant, the only kind he was ever known to use, a cold bath. So it was to Mrs. Dade, in all apparent frankness and sincerity the traitor's wife began her tale. Everyone at Frayne well knew that her anxiety as to the outcome of the battle on the ilk had well nigh equal that of the wives and sweethearts within the garrison. While her niece, after the first day's excitement, kept to her room, the aunt went flittingly from house to house, full of sympathy and suggestion, but obviously more deeply concerned than they had ever seen her. Now she seemed worried beyond words at thought of her husband's having to go out at just this time. It was mainly on Nanette's account, she said. Only last night, with the mail from Laramie, had come a letter posted in San Francisco the week before, telling Miss Flower that her dearest friend and roommate for four years at school, who had been on an extended bridal tour, would pass through Rollins, eastward bound, on Friday's train, and begging Nanette to meet her and go as far at least as Cheyenne. Her husband, it seems, had been hurriedly recalled to New York, and there was no help for it. Nanette had expected to join her and go all the way east in late October or early November, had given her promise, in fact, for she was vastly excited by the news, and despite headache and lassitude that had oppressed her for two days past, she declared she must go and Uncle Will must take her. So, with only a small trunk hastily packed of her belongings and an iron-bound chest of the traders, the two had started before dawn in Uncle Bill's stout buckboard behind his famous four-mule team, with Pete to drive and two sturdy ranchmen as outriders, hoping to reach the medicine-bowl by late afternoon and rest at Brenner's Ranch. Confidentially, Mrs. Hay told Mrs. Dade that her husband was glad of the excuse to take the route up the Platte, instead of the old, rough trail southeastward over the mountains to Rock Creek, for he had a large sum in currency to get to the bank, and there were desperadoes along the mountain route, who well knew he would have to send that money in, and were surely on lookout to wailay him, or it. Ever since Payday two or three rough characters had been hanging about the store, and Hay suspected they were watching his movements, with the intention of getting word to their comrades in crime the moment he started, and it was almost as much to steal a march on them as to oblige Nanette he so willingly left before it was light. The Rollins Road followed the Platte Valley all the way to Brenner's, and once there he would feel safe, whereas the Rock Creek trail wound through Gulch, Ravine, and Forest most of the distance, affording many a chance for ambuscade. Of course, said Mrs. Hay, if her husband had for a moment supposed the general would wish to see him, he would not have gone, adding with just a little touch of proper wife-like spirit, that on the general's previous visits he had never seemed to care whether he saw Mr. Hay or not. All this did Mrs. Dade accept with courteous yet guarded interest. They were seated in the little army parlor, talking in low tone, for with unfailing tact Mrs. Hay had asked for ester, and expressing her sympathy on hearing of her being unnerved by the excitement through which they had passed. Well, she knew that Phil's serious condition had not a little to do with poor ester's frustration, but that was knowledge never to be hinted at. Dade himself she did not wish to meet just now. He was too direct a questioner, and had said and looked things about Nanette that made her dread him. She knew that however austere and commanding he might be when acting under his own convictions, he was abnormally susceptible to yuxorial views, and the way to win the captain's sympathies or avert his censure was to secure the kindly interest of his wife. Mrs. Hay knew that he had sent couriers off by the Rollins Road, a significant thing in itself, and that couriers had come in from the north with further news from Webb. She knew he had gone to the office, and would probably remain there until summoned for breakfast, and now was her time, for there was something further to be spoken of, and while gentle and civil, Mrs. Dade had not been receptive. It was evident to the traitor's wife that her lord and master had made a mistake in leaving when he did. He knew the general was on the way. He knew there was that money business to be cleared up, yet she knew there were reasons why she wanted him away, reasons hardest of all to possibly explain. There were reasons indeed why she was glad Nanette was gone. All Fort Frayne was devoted to Esther Dade, and however unjustly most of Fort Frayne, men, women, and children attributed Phil's defection, as they chose to call it, to Nanette—Nanette who had set at naught her aunt's most ardent wishes in even noticing field at all. Money, education, everything she could give had been lavished on that girl, and now, instead of casting her net for that well-to-do and distinguished bachelor the major, thereby assuring for herself the proud position of First Lady of Fort Frayne, the wife of the commanding officer, Nanette had been deliberately throwing herself away at a beardless, moneyless second lieutenant, because he danced and rode well. Mrs. Hay did not blame Mrs. Dade at that moment for hating the girl, if hate she did. She could have shaken her hard and well herself, yet was utterly nonplus to find that Nanette cared next to nothing how badly field was wounded. What she seemed to care to know was about the casualties among the Sioux, and now that stabbers village the last living trace of it, old men, squaws, children, papooses, ponies, and puppies, and other living creatures, had between two days been whisked away to the hills, there were no more Indians close at hand to whisper information. She was glad Nanette was gone, because field, wounded at present, would have advantages over possible suitors absent on campaign, because all the women and a few of the men were now against her, and because from some vague intangible symptoms Mrs. Hay had satisfied herself that there was something in the wind Nanette was hiding even from her, her benefactress, her best friend, and it seemed like cold-blooded treachery. Hay had for two days been disturbed, nervous, and unhappy, yet would not tell her why. He had been cross-questioning Pete, Crapod, and other employees, and searching about the premises in a way that excited curiosity and even resentment, for the explanation he gave was utterly inadequate. To satisfy her, if possible, he had confided, as he said, the fact certain money for which Lieutenant Field was accountable had been stolen. The cash had been carefully placed in his old-fashioned safe. The missing money, therefore, had been taken while still virtually in his charge. They might even suspect me, he said, which she knew would not be the case. They forbade my speaking of it to anybody, but I simply had to tell you. She felt sure there was something he was concealing, something he would not tell her, something concerning Nanette, therefore, because she so loved Nanette he shrank from revealing what might wound her. Indeed, it was best that Nanette should go for the time, at least, but Mrs. Hay little dreamt that others would be saying, even this kindly gentle woman before her, that Nanette should have stayed until certain strange things were thoroughly and satisfactorily explained. But the moment she began, faltering not a little, to speak of matters at the post, as a means of leading up to Nanette, matters concerning Lieutenant Field and his financial affairs, to her surprise Mrs. Dade quietly uplifted her hand and voice. I am going to ask you not to tell me, Mrs. Hay, said she. Captain Dade has given me to understand there was something to be investigated, but preferred that I should not ask about it. Now, the general will be down in fifteen or twenty minutes. I suggest that we walk over to the hospital and see how Mr. Field is getting on. We can talk, you know, as we go. Then you will breakfast with us. Indeed, may I not give you a cup of coffee now, Mrs. Hay? But Mrs. Hay said no. She had had coffee before coming. She would go and see if there was anything they could do for Field, and would try again to induce Mrs. Dade to listen to certain of her explanations. But Mrs. Dade was silent and preoccupied. She was thinking of that story of Nanette's going, and wondering whether it could be true. She was wondering if Mrs. Hay knew the couriers had gone to recall Hay, and that if he and Nanette failed to return, it might mean trouble for both. She could accord to Mrs. Hay no confidences of her own, and had been compelled to decline to listen to those with which Mrs. Hay would have favoured her. She was thinking of something still more perplexing. The general, as her husband finally told her, had asked First Thing to see Hay, and later declared that he wished to talk with Mrs. Hay and see Nanette. Was it possible he knew anything of what she knew, that between Hay's household and Stabber's village there had been communication of some kind, that the First Thing found in the Indian pouch brought home by Captain Blake was a letter addressed in Nanette Flower's hand, and with it three card photographs, two of them of unmistakable Indians and civilized garb, and two letters addressed, like hers, to Mr. Ralph Moreau, one care of the Reverend Jasper Strong, Valentine Nebraska, the other to the General Delivery, Omaha. Yes, that pouch brought in by Captain Blake had contained matter too weighty for one woman, wise as she was, to keep to herself. Mrs. Blake, with her husband's full consent, had summoned Mrs. Ray soon after his departure on the trail of Web, and told her of the strange discovery. They promptly decided there was only one thing to do with the letter, hand or send it unopened to Miss Flower. Then, as Blake had no time to examine further, they decided to search the pouch. There might be more letters in the same superscription. But there were not. They found tobacco, beeswax, an empty flask that had contained whiskey, Vaseline, ponds extract, salve, pigments, a few sheets of note paper, envelopes and pencil, odd things to find in the possession of a sue, a burning glass, matches, some quinine pills, cigars, odds and ends of little consequence, and those letters addressed to R. Moreau. The first one they had already decided should go to Miss Flower. The others, they thought, should be handed unopened to the commanding officer. They might contain important information, now that the sue were at war, and that R. Moreau had turned out, probably, to be a real personage. But first they would consult Mrs. Dade. They had done so the very evening of Blake's departure, even as he, long miles away, was telling Kennedy his Irish heart was safe from the designs of one bloodthirsty sue. And Mrs. Dade had agreed with them that Nanette's letter should be sent to her forthwith, and that, as Captain Blake had brought it in, the duty of returning the letter devolved upon his wife. And so, after much thought and consultation, a little note was written, saying nothing about the other contents or about the pouch itself. Dear Miss Flower, it read, the enclosed was found by Captain Blake some time this morning. He had no time to deliver it in person. Yours, sincerely, N. B. Blake. She would enter into no explanation, and would say nothing of the consultation. She could not bring herself to sign her name, as usually she signed it. Nanny Brian Blake. She had, as any man or woman would have had, a consuming desire to know what Miss Flower could be writing to a Mr. Moreau, whose correspondence turned up in this remarkable way, in the pouch of a painted sue. But she and they deemed it entirely needless to assure Miss Flower no alien eye had appeared into the mysterious pages. It might have resulted in marvellous developments if Miss Flower thought they had. Note an enclosure where sent first thing next morning by the trusty hand of Master Sanford Ray himself, and by him delivered in person to Miss Flower, who met him at the trader's gate. She took it, he said, and smiled, and thanked him charmingly before she opened it. She was coming out for her customary walk at the hour of guard-mounting, but the next thing he knew she had scooted indoors again, and from that moment Miss Flower had not been seen. All this was Mrs. Dade revolving in mind as she walked pityingly by the sight of the troubled woman, only vaguely listening to her flow of words. They had thought to be admitted to the little room in which the wounded officer lay, but as they tiptoed into the wide, airy hall, and looked over the long vista of pink-striped coverlets in the big ward beyond, the doctor himself appeared at the entrance and barred the way. "'Is there nothing we can do?' asked Mrs. Dade with tears in her voice. "'Is he so much worse?' "'Nothing can be done just now,' answered Waller gravely. He has had a high fever during the night, has been wakeful and flighty again. I should rather know when entered just now.' And then they noted that even the steward who had been with Fourfield was now hovering about the door of the dispensary, and that only Dr. Waller remained within the room. "'I am hoping to get him to sleep again presently,' said he, and when he is mending there will be a host of things for you both to do.' But that mending seemed many a day off, and Mrs. Hay, poor woman, had graver cares of her own before the setting sun. Avoiding the possibility of meeting the general just now, and finding Mrs. Dade both silent and constrained at mention of her niece's name, the traitor's wife went straight away homeward from the hospital, and did not even see the post-commander hurrying from his office with an open despatch in his hand. But by this time the chief and his faithful aide were out on the veranda, surrounded by anxious wives and daughters, many of whom had been earnestly bothering the doctor at the hospital before going to breakfast. Dade much wished them away, though the news brought in by night-writers was both stirring and cheery. The Indians had flitted away from Webb's front, and he counted on reaching and rescuing dry-fork party within six hours from the time the courier started. They might expect the good news during the afternoon of Thursday. Scouts and flankers reported finding Traois and Ponytracks leading westward from the scene of Ray's fierce battle, indicating that the Indians had carried their dead and wounded into the fastnesses of the southern slopes of the big horn, and that their punishment had been heavy. Among the chiefs killed or seriously wounded was this new vehement leader whom Captains Blake and Ray thought might be Red Fox, who was so truculent at the Black Hills Conference the previous year. Certain of the men, however, who had seen Red Fox at that time, expressed doubts. Lieutenant Field, said Webb, had seen him and could probably say. Over this despatch the general pondered gravely. From what I know of Red Fox, said he, I should think him a leader of the sitting bull type. A shrew intriguing mischief making fellow, a sort of Sue walking delegate, not a battle leader. But according to Blake and Ray, this new man is a fighter. Then Mrs. Dade came out and bore the general off to breakfast, and during breakfast the chief was much preoccupied. Mrs. Dade and the aide to camp chatted on social matters. The general exchanged an occasional word with his host and hostess, and finally surprised neither of them, when breakfast was over and he had consumed the last of his glass of hot water by saying to his staff officer, I should like to see Mrs. Hay a few minutes, if possible. We'll walk round there first. Then let the team be ready at ten o'clock. But the team, although ready, did not start northward at ten, and the general, though he saw Mrs. Hay, had no speech with her upon the important matters uppermost in his mind during the earlier hours of the day. He found that good lady in a state of wild excitement and alarm. One of the two outriders who had started with her husband and niece at dawn was mounted on a done-colored cowpony with white face and feet. One of the two troopers sent by Dade to overtake and bring them back was turning a blown and exhausted horse over to the care of Hay's stableman, as he briefly told his story to the wild-eyed, well-nigh distracted woman. Six miles upstream, he said, they had come suddenly upon a done-colored cowpony dead in his tracks with white feet in air and white muzzle bathed in blood, bridal, saddle, and rider gone, signs of struggle in places, but no signs of the party, the team, and wagon, anywhere. And no cavalry to send out after them, said Dade when he reached the spot. Old Crab was called at once, and mustered four semi-enmolidate troopers. The infantry supplied half a dozen stout riders with a mixed escort. The general, accompanied by Dade and the aide de Kemp, drove swiftly to the scene. Six miles away they found the dead pony. Seven miles away they encountered the second trooper coming back. He had followed the four-mule team as far as Yonder Point, said he, and there was met by half a dozen shots from unseen foe, and so rode back out of range. But Dade threw his men forward as skirmishers, found no living soul either at the point or on the banks of the rocky ford beyond, but in the shallows close to the shore lay the body of the second outrider, shot and scalped. In a clump of willows lay another body, that of a pinto pony, hardly cold, while the soft sandy shores were cut by dozens of hoof tracks, shoeless. The tracks of the mules and wagon lay straight away across the stream-bed, up the opposite bank, and out on the northward squeaking bench beyond. Haste famous foe and well-known wagon, contents and all, therefore, had been spirited away, not toward the haunts of the road-agents in the mountains of the medicine bow, but to those of the sovereign sue in the fastnesses of the storied big horn. CHAPTER XVI NIGHT Prowling at Frayne In the full of the September moon, the war-bands of the sue, defied agents and peace-chiefs, commissioners and soldiers, and started their wild campaign in northern Wyoming. In the full of the October moon, the big chief of the whites had swept the last vestige of their warriors from the plains, and followed their bloody trails into the heart of the mountains, all his cavalry and much of his foot-force being needed for the work in hand. Not until November, therefore, when the ice-bridge spanned the still-reaches of the Platte, and the snow lay deep in the breaks and coollies, did the foremost of the homeward bound commands come in view of old Fort Frayne. And, meantime, very remarkable things had occurred, and it was to a very different, if only temporary, post-commander that Sandy Ray reported them as cited. Even brave old Dade had been summoned to the front with all his men, and in their place had come from distant posts in Kansas other troops to occupy the vacant quarters and strive to feel at home in strange surroundings. A man of austere mold was the new major, one of the old Covenanter type, who would march to battle shouting hymn-tunes, and to Christmas and Thanksgiving chanting doleful laze. He hailed indeed from old Puritan stock, had been a pillar in the village church in days before the Great War, and emulated Stonewall Jackson in his piety, if he did not in martial prowess. Backed by local and by no means secular influences, he had risen in the course of the Four Years' War from a junior lieutenancy to the grade of second in command of his Far Eastern Regiment, had rendered faithful services in command of convalescent camps and the like, but developed none of that vain ambition which prompts the seeking of the bubble reputation at the cannon's mouth. All he ever knew of southern men in antebellum days was what he heard from the lips of inspired orators, or read from the pens of very earnest anti-slavery editors. Through lack of opportunity he had met no southerner before the war, and carried his stanch Calvinistic prejudices to such extent that he seemed to shrink from closer contact even then. The war was holy. The hand of the Lord would surely smite the slave-holding arch-rebel, which was perhaps why the Covenanter thought at work of super-erogation to raise his own. He finished, as he began the war, in an unalterable conviction that the southern president, his cabinet, and all his leading officers should be hung, and their lands confiscated to the state or its representatives. He had been given a commission in the army when such things were not hard to get at the reorganization in sixty-six, had been stationed in a Ku Klux district all one winter and in a sanitarium most of the year that followed. He thought the nation on the high road to hell when it failed to impeach the president of high crimes and misdemeanors, and sent Hancock to harmonize matters in Louisiana. He was sure of it when the son of a southerner who had openly flouted him was sent to West Point. He retained these radical views even unto the twentieth anniversary of the Great Surrender, and while devoutly praying for forgiveness of his own sins, could never seem to forgive those whose lot had been cast with the south. He was utterly nonplussed when told that the young officer languishing in hospital on his arrival was the son of a distinguished major general of the Confederate army, and he planned for the father a most frigid greeting until reminded that the former major general was now a member of Congress and of the Committee on Military Affairs. Then it became his duty to overlook the past. He had not entered Field's little room even when inspecting hospital. Flint was forever inspecting something or other. The doctors assurance that, though feeble, his patient was doing quite well, was all sufficient. He had thought to greet the former Confederate, a sorely anxious father, with grave and distant civility as an avowed and doubtless unregenerate enemy of that sacred flag. But, as has been said, that was before it was pointed out to him that this was the honorable emcee from the Pelican State, now prominent as a member of the House Committee on Military Affairs. Motherless and sisterless was the wounded boy, yet gentle and almost caressing hands had blessed his pillow, and helped to drive fever and delirium to the winds. It was twelve days after they brought him back to Frayne, before the father could hope to reach him, coming post-Hace, too. But by that time the lad was propped on his pillows, weak, sorrowing, and sorely troubled, none the less so because there was no one now to whom he could say why. The men whom he knew and trusted were all away on campaign. All saved the veteran post-surgeon, whom he the two he had felt he hardly knew at all. The women whom he had best known and trusted were still present at the post. Mrs. Ray and Mrs. Blake had been his friends, Frank, Cordell, and Sincere, up to the week of his return from Laramie, and his sudden and overwhelming infatuation for Nanette Flower. Then they had seemed to hold aloof, to greet him only with courtesy, and to eye him with unspoken reproach. The woman at Fort Frayne, to whom he most looked up, was Mrs. Dade, and now Mrs. Dade seemed alienated utterly. She had been to inquire for him frequently, said his attendant, when he was so wracked with fever. So had others, and they sent him now jellies and similar delicacies, but came no more in person, just yet at least, but he did not know the doctor so desired. Field knew that his father, after the long, long journey from the distant south, was now close at hand, would be with him within a few hours, and even with Ray's warm words of praise still ringing in his ears, the young soldier was looking to that father's coming almost with distress. It was through God's mercy and the wisdom of the old surgeon that no word as yet had been whispered to him of the discovery made when the money packages were opened, of the tragic fate that had possibly befallen Bill Haye and Miss Flower, that a large sum of money was missing, and that Field was the accountable officer, was already whispered about the garrison. The fact that four officers and Mr. Haye were aware of it in the first place, and the latter had told it to his wife, was fatal to entire secrecy, but in the horror and excitement that prevailed, when the details of the later tragedy were noised about the post, this minor incident had been almost forgotten. The disappearance of Haye and his brilliant beautiful niece, however, was not to be forgotten for a moment, day or night, despite the fact that Mrs. Haye, who had been almost crazed with dread and terror when first informed there had been a hold-up, rallied almost immediately, and took heart and hope when it became apparent that Indians, not white men, were the captors. The Sioux would never harm a hair of his head, she proudly declared. He has been their friend for half a century. Nor had she fears for Nanette, the Sioux would harm nobody her husband sought to protect. When it was pointed out to her that they had harmed the guards, that one of them was found shot dead and scalped at the shores of the Platte, and the other, poor fellow, had crawled off among the rocks and bled to death within gun-shot of the scene, Mrs. Haye said they must have first shown fight and shot some of the Sioux, for all the Indians knew Mr. Haye's wagon. Then why, asked Fort Frayne, had they molested him and his? The general had had to leave for the front without seeing Mrs. Haye. More than ever was it necessary that he should be afield, for this exploit showed that some of the Sioux, at least, had cut loose from the main body, and had circled back toward the Platte, stabbers people in all probability. So, sending Crab and his little squad across the river to follow a few miles, at least, the trail of the wagon and its captors, and, as a tain, if possible, whether it had gone, he hurried back to Frayne, sent messengers by the Laramie Road to speed the cavalry and orders to the Colonel to send two troops at once to rescue Haye and his niece, sent wires calling for a few reinforcements, and was off on the way to Beecher, guarded by a handful of sturdy dough-boys in ambulances, before ever the body of the second victim was found. And then, little by little, it transpired that this mysterious war-party, venturing to the south bank of the Platte, did not exceed half a dozen braves. Crab got back in thirty-six hours with five exhausted men. They had followed the wheel-tracks over the open prairie and into the foothills far to the northwest, emboldened by the evidence of their being but few ponies in the original bandit escort. But, by four in the afternoon, they got among the brakes and ravines, and first thing they knew among the Indians, for zip came the bullets and down went two horses, and they had to dismount and fight to stand off possible swarms. And though owning they had seen no Indians, they had proof of having felt them and were warranted and pushing no further. After dark they began their slow retreat, and here they were. And for seven days that was the last heard, by the garrison at least, of these most recent captives of the Sioux. Gentle and sympathetic women, however, who called on Mrs. Hay, were prompt to note that though unnerved, unstrung, distressed, she declared again and again her faith that the Indians would never really harm her husband. They might hold him and Nanette as hostages for ransom. They might take for their own purposes his wagon, his mules, and that store of money, but his life was safe, yes, and Nanette's too. Of this she was so confident that people began to wonder whether she had not received some assurance to that effect. And when Pete, the stable-boy driver, turned up at the end of the first week with the cock-and-bull story about having stolen an Indian pony and shot his way from the midst of the Sioux, a way up on No Wood Creek on the west side of the hills, and having ridden by night and hidden by day until he got back to the Platte and Frayne, people felt sure of it. Pete could talk Sioux better than he could jab English. He declared the Indians were in the hills by thousands, and were going to take Hay and the young lady away off somewhere to be held for safekeeping. He said the two troops that never even halting at Frayne had pushed out on the trail would only get into trouble if they tried to enter the hills from the south, and that they would never get the captives wherein Pete was for a way out among the spurs and gorges of the range, fifty miles from Frayne, the pursuers came upon the wreck of the wagon at the foot of an eclivity, up which a force of Sioux had gone in single file. Many warriors, it would seem, however, must have joined the party on the way, and from here, where, with the wagon, was found, haste stout box bereft of its contents, in four different directions the pony tracks of little parties crossed or climbed the spurs, and which way the captives had been taken, Captain Billings, the commander, could not determine. What the Sioux hoped he might do was divide his force into four detachments, and send one on each trail. Then they could fall upon them one by one, and slay them at their leisure. Billings saw the game, however, and was not to be caught. He knew Bill Hay, his past and his popularity among the red men. He knew that if they meant to kill him at all, they would not have taken the trouble to cart him fifty miles beforehand. He dropped the stern chase then and there, and on the following day skirted the foot hills away to the east, and circling round to the breaks of the powder, as he reached the open country, struck and hard hit a scouting band of Sioux, and joined the general three days later when most he was needed, near the log palisades of Old Fort Beecher. Then there had been more or less of mysterious coming and going among the half-breed hangers on about the trader's store, and these were things the new post-commander knew not how to interpret, even when informed of them. He saw Mrs. Hay but once or twice. He moved into the quarters of Major Webb, possessing himself until his own should arrive of such of the major's belongings as the vigilance of Mistress McGann would suffer. He stationed big guards from his two small companies about the post, and started more hard swearing among his own men for getting only two nights in bed than had been heard at Frayne in long months of less pious post-commandership. He strove to make himself agreeable to the ladies, left lamenting for their lords, but as luck would have it, fell foremost into the clutches of the quartermaster's wife, the dominant and unterrified Wilkins. Just what prompted that energetic and in many ways estimable woman to take the new major into close communion and tell him not only what she knew but what she thought about all manner of matters at the post, can never be justly determined. But within the first few days of his coming, and on the eve of the arrival of General Field, Major Flint was in possession of the story of how devoted Young Field had been to Esther Dade, and how cruelly he had jilted her for the brilliant Miss Flower, her that was gone with the Sue. The differences between her stout veteran liege and the smooth-faced stripling had given her text to start with. The story of the money lost had filtered from her lips, and finally that of the other Piccadillos attributable to the young post-aggent, whom, as she said, the major had to reduce and sin to the front all long of his doings in garrison. Dade was gone. There was no man, say, Wilkins, to whom Major Flint felt he could appeal for confirmation or denial of these stories. Dr. Waller was his senior in the service by ten years at least, and a type of the old-time officer and gentleman of whom such as Flint stood ever in awe. He preferred, therefore, as he thought, to keep the doctor at a distance, to make him feel the immensity of his, the post-commander, station, and so, as Wilkins dared not disavow the sayings of his wife, even had he been so minded, the story stood. Flint was thinking of them this very evening when Dr. Waller, happening to meet him on his way from hospital, briefly said, that General Field should be with them on the morrow. He leaves Rock Creek tonight, having hired transportation there. I had hoped our lad might be in better spirits by this time. The Major answered vaguely, how could a lad with all these sins upon his soul be in anything but low spirits? Here was a brand to be snatched from the burning, a youth whom prompt stern measures might redeem and restore, one who should be taught the error of his ways forthwith. Only the coming of the member of the military committee of the House of Representatives might make the process embarrassing. There were other ways, therefore, and however, in which this valuable information in the Major's possession might be put to use. And of these was the Major thinking, more than of the condition of the wounded lad, physical or spiritual, as homeward through the gloaming he wended his way. Might it not be well to wait until this important and influential personage had reached the post before proceeding further? Might it not be well, confidentially and gradually, as it were, to permit the honorable emcee to know that grave irregularities had occurred, that up to this moment the complete knowledge thereof was locked in the breast of the present post-commander, that the suppression or presentation of the facts depended solely upon that post-commander? And then, if the member of the House committee on military affairs proved receptive, appreciative, in fact, responsive, might not the ends of justice better be subserved by leaving to the parent the duty of personally and privately correcting the son, and in consideration of the post-commander's wisdom and continence pledging the influence of the military committee to certain delectable ends in the Major's behalf? Long had Flint had his eye on a certain desirable birth in the distant East, at the National Capitol, in fact, but never yet had he found statesmen or soldier inclined to further his desire. That night the Major Bade, Mr. and Mrs. Wilkins, hold their peace as to feel fecadillos until further leave was given them to speak. That night the Major, calling at Captain Dades, was concerned to hear that Mrs. Dade was not at home. Gone over to the hospital with Mrs. Blake and the Doctor was the explanation, and these gentle-hearted women, it seems, were striving to do something to rouse the lad from the sly of despond which had engulfed him. That night Pink Marble, Hays faithful bookkeeper and clerk for many a year, a one-armed veteran of the Civil War, calling, as was his invariable custom when the trader was absent, to leave the keys of the safe and desks with Mrs. Hay, was surprised to find her in a flood of tears for which she declined all explanation. Yet the sight of Pete, the half-breed, slouching away toward the stables, as Marble closed the gate, more than suggested cause, for Pink had long disapproved of that young man. That night Cropod, the other stableman, had scandalized Jerry Sullivan the barkeeper and old McGann, Webb's hibernian Major Domo, by interrupting their game of old sledge with a demand for a court of whiskey on top of all that he had obviously and surreptitiously been drinking, and by further indulging in furious threats in a sputtering mixture of Dakota French and French Dakota when summarily kicked out. That night, late as twelve o'clock, Mrs. Ray, aroused by the infantile demands of the Fourth of the Olive branches, and further disturbed by the suspicious growlings and challenge of Old Tonto, Blake's veteran Mastiff, peeped from the second-story window and plainly saw two forms in soldier overcoats at the back fence, and wondered what the centuries found about Blake's quarters to require so much attention. Then she became aware of a third form, rifle-bearing and slowly pacing the curving line of the bluff, the sentry beyond doubt. Who then were these others who had now totally disappeared? She thought to speak of it to Nanny in the morning, and then thought not. There were reasons why nervous alarm of any kind were best averted then from Mrs. Blake. But there came reason speedily why Mrs. Ray could not forget it. And that night, later still, along toward four o'clock, the persistent clicking of the telegraph instrument at the adjutant's office caught the ear of the sentry, who in time stirred up the operator, and a rush message was later thrust into the hand of Major Flint, demolishing a day-old castle in the air. From Rock Creek, Wyoming, October 23, 1880, Blank, 9.15 p.m., commanding officer Fort Frane, via Fort Laramie. Stage capsized Crook Cannon, General Field seriously injured, have wired Omaha. Signed, Warner, commanding camp. End of Chapter 16. Section 17 of A Daughter of the Sioux. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, auto-volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Christine Blashford. A Daughter of the Sioux by General Charles King. Chapter 17. A Rifled Desk Events moved swiftly in the week that followed. Particulars of the accident to General Field, however, were slow in reaching Fort Frane, and to the feverish unrest and mental trouble of the sun, was now added a feverish anxiety on the father's account that so complicated the situation as to give Dr. Waller grave cause for alarm. Then it was that ignoring every possible thought of misbehavior on the part of the young officer toward the gentle girl so dear to them, not only Mrs. Blake and Mrs. Ray, but Mrs. Dade herself, insisted on being made of use, insisted on being permitted to go to his bedside, and there to minister, as only women can, to the suffering and distressed. Waller thought it over and succumbed. The lad was no longer delirious, at least, and if he revealed anything of what was uppermost in his mind it would be a conscious and voluntary revelation. There were some things he had said and that Waller alone had heard, the good old doctor wished were known to certain others of the garrison, and to no one more than Mrs. Dade, and so the prohibition against their visiting the wounded lad was withdrawn, and not only these, but other women, sympathetically attracted, were given the necessary authority. There was other reason for this, from the commanding officer of the supply-camp at Rock Springs had come finally a letter that was full of foreboding. General Field it said was sorely injured and might not survive. If the department commander had only been at Omaha or Cheyenne, as the anxious father hastened to reach his son, the mishap would never have occurred. The general would gladly have seen to it that suitable transportation from the railway to Frayne was afforded his old-time comrade, but in his absence Field shrank from appealing to any one else, and through the train conductor wired ahead to Rock Creek for a stout four-mule team and wagon with a capable driver. The conductor assured him that such things were to be had for money, and that everything would be in readiness on his arrival. Team, wagon, and driver certainly were on hand, but the team looked rickety, so did the wagon, so did the driver, who had obviously been priming for the occasion. It was this rig or nothing, however, and in spite of a courteous remonstrance from the two officers at the supply-camp who saw and condemned the outfit, General Field started on time and returned on an improvised trestle three hours later. The outfit had been tumbled over a ledge into a rocky creek bottom and with disastrous results to all concerned except the one who deserved it most, the driver. The ways of Providence are indeed inscrutable. A surgeon had been sent from Fort Russell, and his report was such that Waller would not let it go in full to his patient. They had carried the old soldier back to camp, and such aid as could be given by the rude hands of untought men was all he had for nearly twenty-four hours, and his suffering had been great. Internal injuries it was feared had been sustained, and at his advanced age that was something almost fatal. No wonder Waller was worried. Then Flint took alarm at other troubles closer at hand. Up to this year he had been mercifully spared all personal contact with our Indian wards, and when he was told by his sentries that twice in succession night-riders had been heard on the westward bench, and pony-tracks in abundance had been found at the upper-forward, the site of Stabba's village, and that others still were to be seen in the soft ground not far from Hayes Corral. The major was more than startled. At this stage of the proceedings, Sergeant Crabb of the Cavalry was the most experienced Indian fighter left at the post. Crabb was sent for and unflinchingly gave his views. The Sioux had probably scattered before the squadrons sent after them from the north, had fled into the hills, and, in small bands probably, were now raiding down toward the Platte, while knowing there were few soldiers left to defend Fort Frayne, and no Cavalry were there to chase them. What brings them here? What do they hope to get, or gain? asked Flint. I don't know, sir, answered Crabb, but this I do know. They are after something, and expect to get it. If I might make so bold, sir, I think the major ought to keep an eye on them blasted half-breeds at Hayes. It set Flint to serious thinking. Pete and Crabb howl, paid henchmen of the trader, had been taking advantage of their employer's absence and celebrating after the manner of their kind. One of his officers, new like himself to the neighborhood and to the Indians, had had encounter with the two that rubbed his commissioned fur the wrong way. A sentry, in discharge of his duty, had warned them one evening away from the rear gate of a bachelor den along Officer's Row, and had been told to go to Sheol, or words to that effect. They had more business there than he had, said they, and under the potent sway of inspiring bold John Barleycorn, had not even abated their position when the officer of the day happened along. They virtually damned and defied him, too. The officer of the day reported to the commanding officer, and that officer called on Mrs. Hay to tell her he should order the culprits off the reservation if they were not better behaved. Mrs. Hay, so said the servant, was feeling far from well and had to ask to be excused, when who should appear but that ministering angel Mrs. Dade herself, and Mrs. Dade undertook to tell Mrs. Hay of the misconduct of the men, even when assuring major flints she feared it was a matter in which Mrs. Hay was powerless. They were afraid of Hay, but not of her. Hearing of Mrs. Hay's illness, Mrs. Dade and other women had come to visit and console her, but there were very few whom she would now consent to see. Even though confident no bodily harm would befall her husband or her niece, Mrs. Hay was evidently sore-disturbed about something. Bailing to see her, a major flint sent for the bartender and clerk, and bade them say where these truculent, semi-savage bacchanals got their whiskey, and both men promptly and confidently declared it wasn't at the store. Neither of them would give or sell to either half-breed a drop, and old Wilkins stood sponsor for the integrity of the affiance, both of whom he had known for years, and both of whom intimated that the two specimens had no need to be begging, buying, or stealing whiskey, when Bill Hay's private cellar held more than enough to fill the whole Sioux nation. Moreover, said Pink Marble, they've got the run of the stables now the old man's away, and there isn't a night some of those horses ain't out. When flint said that was something Mrs. Hay ought to know, Pink Marble replied that was something Mrs. Hay did know, unless she refused to believe the evidence of her own senses as well as his, and Pink thought at high time our fellows in the field had recaptured Hay and fetched him home. If it wasn't done mighty soon, he, Pink, wouldn't be answerable for what might happen at the post. All the more anxious did this make flint. He decided that the exigencies of the case warranted his putting a sentry over Hay's stable, with orders to permit no horse to be taken out except by an order from him, and Crabb took him and showed him two days later the tracks of two horses going and coming in the soft earth in front of a narrow side door that led to the coral. Flint had this door padlocked at once, and Wilkins took the key, and that night was surprised by a note from Mrs. Hay. The stablemen complained that the sentries will not let them take the horses out even for water and exercise which has never been the case before, and Mrs. Hay begged that the restriction might be removed. Indeed, if Major Flint would remove the sentry, she would assume all responsibility for loss or damage. The men had been with Mr. Hay, she said, for six years, and never had been interfered with before, and they were sensitive and hurt and would quit work, they said, if further molested. Then there would be nobody to take their place, and the stock would suffer. In point of fact, Mrs. Hay was pleading for the very men against whom the other employees claimed to have warned her, these two half-breeds who had defied his sentries, and Flint's anxieties materially increased. It taxed all his stock of personal piety, and strengthened the belief he was beginning to harbour, that Mrs. Hay had some use for the horses at night, some sojourners in the neighbourhood with whom she must communicate, and who could they be but Sue. Then Mistress McGann, sound sleeper that she used to be, declared to the temporary post-commander, as he was, and temporary lodger, as she considered him, that things was going on about the post she'd never heard the likes of before, and that the media would never put up with a minute. When Mrs. McGann said the media, she meant not Flint, but his predecessor. There was but one major in her world, the one she treated like a minor. Being a soldier's wife, however, she knew the deference due to the commanding officer, even though she did not choose to show it, and when bidden to say her say and tell what things was going on, Mistress McGann asseverated, with the asperity of a woman who has had to put her husband to bed two nights running, that the time had never been before that he was so drunk he didn't know his way home, and so got into the back of the bachelor quarters instead of his own. And to think of his being propped up at his own gate by a lousy, froggy, tin-half Frenchman, half savage. Yet when investigated, this proved to be the case, and the further question arose, where did McGann get his whiskey? A faithful, loyal, devoted old servitor was McGann, yet Webb, as we have seen, had ever to watch his whiskey carefully, lest the Irishman should see it, and seeing taste and tasting fall. The store had orders from Mrs. McGann, counter-signed by Webb, to the effect that her husband was never to have a drop. Flint was a teetotaller himself, and noted without a shadow of disapprobation, that the decanters on the sideboard were both empty the very day he took possession, also that the cupboard was securely locked. Mrs. McGann was sure her leech got no liquor there, nor at the store, and his confused statement that it was given him by fellers at the stables was treated with scorn. McGann then was still under marital surveillance and official displeasure the day after Mrs. McGann's revelations, with unexplained iniquities to answer for when his head cleared and his legs resumed their functions. But by that time other matters were brought to light that laid still further accusation at his door, with the consent of Dr. Waller, Lieutenant Field had been allowed to send an attendant for his desk. There were letters, he said, he greatly wished to see an answer, and Mrs. Ray had been so kind as to offer to act as his immenuensis. The attendant went with the key and came back with a scared face, somebody, he said, had been there before him. They did not tell Field this at the time. The doctor went at once with the messenger, and in five minutes had taken in the situation. Field's rooms had been entered and probably robbed. There was only one other occupant of the desolate set that so recently had rung to the music of so many glad young voices. Of the garrison proper, had framed all the cavalry officers, except Wilkins, were away at the front. All the infantry officers, five in number, were also up along the big horn. The four who had come with Flint were strangers to the post, but Heron, who had been a classmate of Ross at the point, moved into his room and took the responsibility of introducing the contract doctor, who came with them, into the quarters at the front of the house on the second floor. These rooms had been left open and unlocked. There was nothing, said the lawful occupant, worth stealing, which was probably true, but Field had bolted inside the door of his sleeping-room, locked the hall-door of his living-room, and taken the key with him when he rode with Ray. The doctor looked over the rooms a moment, then sent for Wilkins the post-quarter master, who came in a huff at being disturbed at lunch. Field had been rather particular about his belongings. His uniforms always hung on certain pegs in the plain wooden wardrobe. The draws of his bureau were generally arranged like the clothes press of cadet days, as though for inspection. But now coats, blouses, dressing-sack, and smoking-jacket hung with pockets turned inside out or flung about the bed and floor. Trousers had been treated with like contempt. The bureau looked like what sailors used to call a hara's nest, and a writing desk, brass-bound and of solid make, that stood on a table by a front window, had been forcibly wrenched open, and its contents were tossed about the floor. A larger desk, a wooden field desk, stood upon a trestle across the room, and this too had been ransacked. Just what was missing, only one man could tell—just how they entered was patent to all, through a glazed window between the bedroom and the now unused dining-room beyond. Just who were the house-breakers no man present could say, but Mistress McGann that afternoon communicated her suspicion to her sore-headed spouse, and did it boldly and with the aid of a broomstick. It's all along, she said, avios stoopin' to drink with them low-lived savages at Hayes. Now, what do you know about this? But McGann saw piously he knew nothing, barring that Pete and Crapow had some good liquor one night, dear knows when it was, and I helped him drink your health, and when it was gone, and more was wanted, sure Pete said he'd take a demi-gen to the lieutenants with Mr. Hayes' compliments, the day before he left for the front, and sure he couldn't have drunk all of it, and if the back door was open, Pete would inquire anyhow. That was all Michael remembered, or felt warranted, in revealing, for stoutly he declared his and their innocence of having burglariously entered any premises, let alone the lieutenants. Sure, they'd bite their own noses off for him, said Mike, which impossible feat attested the full measure of half-breed devotion. Mistress McGann decided to make further investigation before saying anything to anybody, but before the dawn of another day matters took such shape that fear of sorrowful consequences involving even Michael set a ban on her impulse to speak. Field, it seems, had been at last induced to sleep some hours that evening, and it was nearly twelve when he awoke and saw his desk on a table near the window. The attendant was nodding in an easy chair, and just as the young officer determined to rouse him, Mrs. Dade, with the doctor, appeared on tiptoe at the doorway. For a few minutes they kept him interested in letters and reports concerning his father's condition, the gravity of which, however, was still withheld from him. Then there were reports from Tong River, brought in by Courier, that had to be told him. But after a while he would be no longer denied, he demanded to see his desk and his letters. At a sign from the doctor, the attendant raised it from the table and bore it to the bed. I found things in some confusion in your quarters field, said Waller, by way of preparation, and I probably haven't arranged the letters as you would if you had had time. They were lying about loosely. But he got no further. Field had started up and was leaning on one elbow. The other arm was outstretched. What do you mean, he cried? The desk hasn't been opened. Too evidently, however, it had been, and in an instant Field had pulled a brass pin that held in place a little draw. It popped partway out and with trembling hands he drew it forth, empty. Before he could speak Mrs. Dade suddenly held up her hand in signal for silence, her face paling at the instant. There was a rush of slippered feet through the corridor, a hum of excited voices, and both Dr. Waller and the attendant darted for the door. Outside, in the faint starlight, sound of commotion came from the direction of the guard-house, of swift footfalls from far across the parade, of the vitrious jar of windows hastily raised. Two or three lights popped suddenly into view along the dark line of officers' quarters, and Waller's voice, with a ring of authority unusual to him, halted a running corporal of the guard. What is it, demanded he? I don't know, sir, was the soldier's answer. There was an awful scream from the end-quarters kept in raise, sir. Then on he went again. And then came the crack-crack of a pistol. CHAPTER XVIII. BURGLARY AT BLAKES The doctor started at the heels of the corporal, but was distanced long before he reached the scene. The sergeant of the guard was hammering on the front door of Blake's quarters, but before the summons was answered from within, Mrs. Ray, in long loose wrapper, came hurrying forth from her own, the adjoining hallway. Her face was white with dread. It is I, nanny, let us in, she cried, and the door was opened by a terrified servant, as the doctor came panting up the steps. Together he and Mrs. Ray hurried in. Robbers gasped the servant girl, gone the back way, and collapsed on the stairs. Sargent and corporal both tore round to the west side and out of the rear gate, not a sign of fugitives could they see, and what was worse, not a sign of sentry. Number five of the third relief should at that moment have been pacing the edge of the bluff in rear of the northernmost quarters, and yet might be around toward the flagstaff. Fine number five were the sergeant's orders, and back he hurried to the house, not knowing what to expect. By that time others of the guard had got there, and the officer of the day was coming, the clink of his sword could be heard down the road, and more windows were uplifted, and more voices were begging for information, and then came Mrs. Dade, breathless but calm. Within doors she found the doctor ministering to a stout female who seemed to have gone off in an improvised swoon, Mrs. Blake's imported cook. Up the stairs, to her own room again, Mrs. Blake was being led by Marion Ray's encircling arm. Three women were speedily closeted there, for Mrs. Dade was like an elder sister to these two sworn friends, and not until Mrs. Dade and they were ready did that lady descend the stairs and communicate the facts to the excited gathering in the parlour, and they interned to those on the porch in front. By this time Flint himself, with the poet quartermaster, was on hand, and all Fort Frane seemed to rouse, and Mrs. Gregg had come with Mrs. Wilkins, and these two had relieved the doctor of the care of the cook, now talking voluably, and partly through her revelations, but mainly through the more coherent statements of Mrs. Dade where the facts made public. Margaret, the cook, had her roomed herself on the ground floor adjoining her kitchen. Belle, the maid, had been given the second floor back in order to be near to her young mistress. Bitzer, the Blake's man of all work, like McGann, a discharged soldier, slept in the basement at the back of the house, and there was he found blinking, bewildered, and only with difficulty aroused from stupor by a wrathful sergeant. The cook's story, in brief, was that she was awakened by Mrs. Blake's voice at her door, and thinking Belle was sick, she jumped up and found Mrs. Blake in her wrapper, asking was she, Margaret, upstairs a moment before. Then Mrs. Blake, with her candle, went into the dining room, and out jumped a man in his stocking feet, from the captain's den across the hall, and knocked over Mrs. Blake in the light, and made for her, the cook, whereat she screamed and slammed her door in his face, and that was really all she knew about it. But Mrs. Blake knew more. Awakened by some strange consciousness of stealthy movement about the house, she called Belle by name, thinking possibly the girl might be ill and seeking medicine. There was sound of more movement, but no reply. Mrs. Blake's girlhood had been spent on the frontier. She was a stranger to fear. She arose, struck a light, and seeing no one in her room or the guest chamber and hallway, hastened to the third room, and was surprised to find Belle apparently quietly sleeping. Then she decided to look about the house, and first went down and roused the cook. As she was coming out of the dining room, a man leapt past her in the hall, hurling her to one side and dashing out the light. Her back was toward him, for he came from Gerald's own premises known as the den. In that den directly opposite was one of her revolvers loaded. She found it, even in the darkness, and hurrying forth again, intending to chase the intruder and alarm the sentry at the rear, encountered either the same or a second man close to the back door, a man who sprang past her like a panther, and darted down the steps at the back of the house, followed by two shots from her smith and wesson. One of these men wore a soldier's overcoat, for the cape ripped from the coliseum was left in her hands. Another soldier's overcoat was later found at the rear fence, but no boots, shoes, or tracks thereof, yet both these men, judging from the sound, had been in stocking feet, or possibly rubbers, or perhaps, but that last suspicion she kept to herself, for Mrs. Haye, too, was now among the arrivals in the house, full of sympathy and genuine distress. The alarm then had gone beyond the guard house, and the creators thereof beyond the ken of the guard, for not a sentry had seen or heard anything suspicious until after the shots. Then number eight, Flint's latest addition, declared that from his post at Hayes Corral, he had distinctly heard the swift hoofbeats of a brace of ponies darting up the level bench to the westward. Number five had turned up safely, and declared that at the moment the scream was heard, he was round by the flagstaff, listening to the night chorus of a pack of yelping coyotes, a far out to the north west, and then he thought he had scrambling and running down at the foot of the bluff just as the shots were fired. Investigation on his part was what took him out of sight for the moment, and later investigation showed that one marauder, at least, had gone that way, for a capeless greatcoat was found close down by the shore, where some fugitive had tossed it in his flight. This overcoat bore half erased from the soiled lining, the name of Culligan, Troop K, but Culligan had served out his time and taken his discharge a year before. The other overcoat was even older, an infantry coat, with shorter cape bearing a company number forty-seven, but no name. Both garments savoured strongly of the stable. Then, before quiet was restored, certain search was made about the quarters. It was found the intruders had obtained admission through the basement door at the back, which was never locked, for the sentry on number five had orders to call Bitzer at five thirty a.m., to start the fires, milk the cow, etc. Hogan, Ray's factotum, being roused about the same time. The marauders had gone up the narrow stairway into the kitchen, first lashing one end of a leather halter strap about the knob of Bitzer's door, and the other to the base of the big refrigerator, a needless precaution as it took sustained and determined effort as many a sentry on number five could testify to rouse Bitzer from even a nap. It was no trick for the prowlers to softly raise the trap door leading to the kitchen, and once there the rest of the house was practically open. Such a thing as burglary or sneak-thieving about the office's quarters had been unheard of at Frayn for many a year. One precaution the visitors had taken, that of unbolting the back door, so that retreat might not be barred in case they were discovered. Then they had gone swiftly and noiselessly about their work. But what had they taken? The silver was upstairs intact under Mrs. Blake's bed, so was the little safe in which was kept her jewellery and their valuable papers. Books, brick-and-brack, everything downstairs seemed unmolested. No item was missing from its accustomed place. Mrs. Blake thought perhaps the intruders had not entered her room at all. In Gerald's den were stacks, as he said, of relics, souvenirs, trophies of chase and war, but no one thing of the intrinsic value of fifty dollars. What could have been the object of their midnight search was the question all Frayn was asking as people dispersed and went home, the doctor intimating it was high time that Mrs. Blake was permitted to seek repose. Not until he had practically cleared the house of all but her most intimate friends, Mrs. Dade and Mrs. Ray, would Waller permit himself to ask a question that had been uppermost in his mind ever since he heard her story. Mrs. Blake, someone has been ransacking Mr. Blake to Field's quarters for letters or papers. Now, was there anything of that kind left by the captain that someone may have needed? Nanny Blake's head was uplifted instantly from Marion's shoulders. She had been beginning to feel the reaction. For one moment the three women looked intently into each other's faces. Then up they started and trooped away into Gerald's den. The doctor followed. The upper drawer of a big flat-topped desk stood wide open, and pretty Mrs. Blake opened her eyes and mouth in emulation as she briefly exclaimed, It's gone! Then Waller went forthwith to the quarters of the commander and caught him still in conference with his quartermaster and the guard, four or five of the latter being grouped without. The major retired to his front room where with Wilkins he received the doctor. Major Flint said, Waller, those overcoats belong to Mr. Hayes' stablemen, Pete and Crapow, will you order their immediate arrest? I would, doctor, was the answer, but they are not at the coral. We know how to account for the hoofbeats in the valley. Those scoundrels have got nearly an hour's start and we've nobody to send in chase. Then it presently appeared that the post-commander desired to continue conference with his staff officer, for he failed to invite the post-surgeon to be seated. Indeed he looked up into the doctor's kindling eyes with odd mixture of impatience and embarrassment in his own, and the veteran practitioner felt the slight flushed instantly, and with much auteur of manner took prompt but ceremonious leave. And when morning came and Fort Frayne awoke to another busy day, as if the excitement of the night gone by had not been enough for it, a new story went buzzing with the first call for guard mount about the garrison, and bigger even than yesterday the two details in soldier silence began to gather in front of the infantry quarters. Major Flint had ordered sentries posted at the trader's home, with directions that Mrs. Hay was not to be allowed outside her gate, and no one, man or woman, permitted to approach her from without except by express permission of the post-commander. General Harnie and Dan, the two best horses of the trader's stable, despite the presence of the sentry at the front, had been abstracted sometime during the earlier hours of the night, and later traced to the fort at Stabber's Old Camp, and with Pete and Krapow doubtless were gone. That day the major wired to Omaha that he should be reinforced at once. One half his little force, he said, was now mounted each day for guard, and the men couldn't stand it. The general, of course, was in the field, but his chief of staff remained at headquarters, and was empowered to order troops from post to post within the limits of the department. Flint hoped two more companies would come at once, and he did not care what post was denuded in his favour. His, he said, was close to the Indian lands, separated from them in fact only by a narrow and fordable river. The Indians were all on the war-path, and aware of his puny numbers, might be tempted at any moment to quit the mountains and concentrate on him. Moreover he was satisfied there had been frequent communication between their leaders and the household of the post trader at Fort Frane. He was sure Mrs. Hay had been giving them valuable information, and he expected soon to be able to prove very serious charges against her. Meantime he had placed her under surveillance—that she had been ever since his coming, although she never realised it. Fancy the sensation created at Omaha where the Hayes were well known when this news was received. Flint did not say under arrest, guarded day and night by a brace of sentries who were sorely disgusted with their duty. He had no doubt his appeals for more troops would be honoured in view of his strenuous representations, but the day passed without assurance to that effect, and without a wide word to say his action regarding Mrs. Hay had been approved. It began to worry him. At three p.m. Mrs. Hay sent and begged him to call upon her that she might assure and convince him of her innocence, but this the major found means to refuse, promising, however, a meeting in the near future, after he had received tidings from the front which he was awaiting and expecting every moment. He had reluctantly given permission to visit her to Mrs. Dade, Mrs. Ray, and two or three other women whose hearts were filled with sympathy and sorrow and their heads with bewilderment over the amazing order. Indeed it was due to Mrs. Dade's advice that she so far triumphed over pride and wrath as to ask to see the major and explain. She had received tidings from her husband and Nanette. She was perfectly willing to admit it, to tell all about it, and now that Pete and Krapow had turned out to be such unmitigated rascals, to have them court and castigated, if court they could be. But all this involved no disloyalty. They had always been friendly with the Sue and the Sue with them. Everybody knew it, no one better than General Crook himself, and if he approved, why should a junior disapprove? Indeed, as she asked her friends, what junior who had ever known Mr. Hay and her, or the Indians either, would be apt to disapprove so long as the Indians, when on the war-path, receive no aid or comfort from either her husband or herself. And if they had, said she, further, waxing eloquent over her theme, could we have begun to give them half the aid or comfort, or a thousandth part of the supplies and ammunition they got day after day through the paid agents of the interior department? But these were questions army people could not properly discuss, their mission in life being rather to submit to, than suggest, criticism. And so another restless day went by, and no more news came from either front or rear, from the range to the north or rock springs at the south, and Flint was just formulating another fervid appeal to that impassive functionary, the adjutant general at Omaha. When toward evening word came whistling down the line in the person of Master Sanford Ray, that two couriers were in sight scooting in from Moccasin Ridge, and Flint and fully half the soldier strength of Fort Frayne gathered on the northward bluff, like the Wanburgers of ancient Rome, to watch and speed their coming, who could tell what the day might yet bring forth. It was well nigh dark before the foremost reached the Ford, a scout in worn and tawdry buckskin wearied and impassive. He gave his dispatch to the care of the first officer to accost him, and took the way to the store, briefly saying in reply to questions that he was too dry to speak the truth. So they flocked at respectful distance about the major as he read the hurried lines, the general bade the post-commander wire the entire message to Washington, and to take all precautions for the protection of the few settlers about him. The columns under Colonel Henry and Major Webb had united near the headwaters of the clear fork of the powder, had had a rattling running fight with lame wolf's people, had driven them into the mountains, and were following hot on the trail, but that stabber's band and certain disaffected Sue had cut loose from the main body and gone south. Whistling elk, a young chief of much ambition, had quarrelled with certain of the red cloud element, and joined stabber with his entire band. Look out for them, and watch for signals any day or night from Eagle Butt. Flint read with sinking heart, Indian fighting was something far too scientific for his martial education, and too much for his skeleton command. In the gathering dusk his face looked white and drawn, and old Wilkins breasting his way up the slope, puffed hard as he begged for news. There was still another dispatch, however, which was evidently adding to the Major's perturbation, for it concerned him personally, and for the moment Wilkins went unheard. The general desires that you send the couriers back within 24 hours of their arrival, after you have had time to scout the line of the plat, say 20 miles each way, giving full report of every Indian scene or heard of. He enjoins vigilance and hopes to keep the Sue so busy that they can send no more in your direction. Should they do so, however, he will pursue it once. He trusts that you are doing everything possible to comfort and reassure Mrs. Hay, and that you can send good news of Lieutenant Field. And this when he had just refused to remove the sentries or to visit Mrs. Hay, this when he had just been told by Dr. Waller that Lieutenant Field was distinctly worse. He is simply fretting his heart out here whether the doctors words to him but a short time before, and while unable to mount a horse, he is quite strong enough now to take the trip by ambulance, slowly, that is, to rock springs. I fear his father is failing. I fear Field will fail if not allowed to go. I recommend a seven days leave, with permission to apply to Omaha for 30. He'll probably need it. I can't permit government teams and ambulances to be used for any such purpose, said the major stoutly. It is distinctly against orders. Then, sir, he can go in my spring-wagon, and will hire mules for Mrs. Hay, was the doctor's prompt reply. He can do no good here, Major. He may do much good there." But Flint was full of information and official zeal. The matter of Field's going had been breached before, and when told of it, the Wilkins pair had been prompt with their protests. Of course he'd be wanting to get away, said Wilkins. Would all that money to account for, let alone these other things? The Irishman was hot against the young West pointer who had derided him. He doubtless believed his own words. He never dreamed how sorely the lad now longed to see his father, how deep was his anxiety on that father's account, how filled with apprehension on his own, for that rifle desk had brought him reason for most painful thought. Wilkins and Field had been antagonistic from the start, neither could see good in the other, and egged on by his worthy spouse's exhortations, the quartermaster had seized the opportunity to fill the post-commander's too receptive mind with all his own suspicions, and this at a crucial time. I can't listen to it, Dr. Waller, said the Major sternly. He is a matter of near a thousand dollars that young man has got to answer for the moment he is well enough to stir, and if he can't account for it, you well know what my duty will demand.