CHAPTER 19 A SLAP FOR THE MAJOR The columns of Colonel Henry in Major Webb, as said the Chief, had united, and here were two men who could be counted on to poise the pursuit, for all they were worth. Either two acting in open country, and free from encumbrance the Indians had been hard to reach. Now they were being driven into their fastness among the mountains, towards the distant shelter with their few wounded had been conveyed, and where the old men, the women, and children were hiding. Now it meant that unless the troops could be confronted and thrown back. Another transfer of T.Ps. introvoised ponies and dogs, wounded and aged, would have to be made. Lame Wolf had thought his people safe behind the walls of the bighorn, in this shifting screen of warriors along the foothills. But the blue skirmish lines pushed steadily on into the fringing pines, driving the feathered braves from ridge to ridge. And Lame Wolf had sensed enough to see that here were leaders that meant business and would not be held. Henry had ten veteran troops at his back when he united with Webb, who led his own and Beecher Squadron, making eighteen companies of troops of horse with their pack mules all out at the front, while the wagon train and ambulances were thoroughly guarded by a big battalion of sturdy infantry, nearly all of them good marksmen, against whose spiteful Springfields the warriors only made one essay in force, and that was more than enough. The blue coats emptied many an Indian saddle, and strewed the prairie with ponies, and sent Whistling Elk and his people to the right about in Swordess May. And then it dawned on Lame Wolf that he must now either mislead the cavalry leader, throw him off the track as it were, or move the villages, wounded prisoners and all, across the Bighorn River, where Hereditary Fulman, Shoshone, and Absoraka would surely welcome them, red-handed. It was at this stage of the game he had his final split with Stabber. Stabber was shrewd and saw unerringly that with the other columns, up with Custer on the Lower Horn, and Washankee on the Wind River, with reinforcements coming from north and south, the surrounding of the Sioux in arms would be but a matter of time. He had done much to get Lame Wolf into this grape, and now was urging hateful measures as, unless they were prepared for further and heavier losses, the one way out and that way was, surrender. Now this is almost the last thing the Indian will do, not from fear of consequences at the hands of his captors, for he well knows that physically he is infinitely better off when being coddled by Uncle Sam than when fighting in the field. It is simply the loss of prestige among his fellow red men that he hates and dreads. Therefore nothing short of starvation or probable annihilation prompts him as a rule to yield himself as a prisoner. Stabber urged rather than risked for the battle and for the loss, but Stabber had long been jealous of the younger chief, envied him his much larger following, his record as a fighter and stabber, presumably would be only too glad to see him fallen from his high estate. They could then enjoy the hospitality of a generous nation, of people of born fools, said the unreasoning and ungenerate red men, all winter and when next they felt sufficiently slighted to warrant another issue on the warpath. They could take the field on equal terms. Lame Wolf, therefore, swore he'd fight to the bitter end. Stabber swore he'd gather all his villagers, now herding with those of wool and having segregated his sheep from the more numerous goats, would personally lead them, whether the white man could not follow. At all events he made this quarrel a pretext for his withdrawal from the full five-score fighting men. And Lame Wolf cursed him, roundly as the wretch, deserved and all shorthanded now, with hardly five hundred braves to back him, bent his energy to checking Henry's column in the heart of the wild hill country. And this was the situation when the general's first dispatches were sent in to frayne. This the last news to reach the garrison from the distant front for five long days, and then one morning, when the snow was sifting softly down, there came tidings that thrilled the little community, heart and soul, tidings that were heard with mingled tears and prayers and rejoicings. And that led to many a visit of congratulation to Mrs. Hay, who, poor woman, dare not say at the moment that she had known it all as much as twenty-four hours earlier, despite the fact that P. D. N. Crapaud were banished from the roll of her auxiliaries. Even as the new couriers came speeding through the veil of falling flakes, riding jubilantly over the wide rolling prairie, with their news of victory in battle, the first commander at Fort Frayne was puzzling over a missive that had come to him. He knew not how mysterious as the anarchist warnings said to find their way to the very bedside of the guarded Romanoff's. Century number four had picked it up on his post an hour before the dawn. A letter addressed in bold hand to Major Stanley Flint, commanding Fort Frayne. And presuming the Major himself had dropped it, he turned it over to the corporal of his relief. And so it found its way towards Reveley, into the hands of old McGann, wheezing about his work of building fires. And Michael laid it on the Major's table and thought no more about it, until two hours later when the Major roused in red. And then the row began, that ended only with the other worries of his incumbency at Frayne. Secretly Flint was still doing his best to discover the bearer when came the bold riders from the north with their thrilling news. Secretly he had been over at the Garnhouse interviewing as best he could by the aid of an unwilling clerk who spoke a little sue, a young Indian girl whom Krabs, convalescent squad, foreign number, had most unexpectedly run down when sent scouting five miles up the plat and brought screaming, scratching, and protesting back to Frayne. Her pony had been killed in the dash to escape, and the two Indians with her seemed to be young lads not well schooled as warriors, for they rode away, a mile over the prairie, leaving the girl to the mercy of the soldiers. Flint believed her to be connected in some way with the coming of the disturbing note, which was why he compelled her detention at the Garnhouse under Webb's regime. She would have been questioned by Haye, or some one of his household, under Flint. No one of Haye's family or retainers could be allowed to see her. He regarded it as most significant, that her shrillest screams and fiercest resistance should have been reserved until just as her guardians were bearing her past the trader's house. She had a little light prison room to herself, all that would remorning, and there, disdainful of bunk or chair, enveloped in her blanket, she squatted disconsolate, greeting all questioners with defiant and fearless shruggings, and, in articulate protest, not a syllable of explanation, not a shred of news could their best endeavours ring from her. Yet her glittering eyes were surely in search of some one, for she looked up eagerly every time the door was opened, and Flint was just beginning to think he would have to send for Mrs. Haye when the couriers came with their stirring news and he had to drop other affairs in order to forward this important matter to headquarters. Once again it seems Trooper Kennedy had been entrusted with distinguished duty, for it was he who came trotting almost up the road, waving the dispatch on high. A comrade from Blake's troop following through the Ford had turned to the left and let his horse up the steep to the quarters nearest the Flagstaff. This time there was no big-hearted post-commander to bid the Irishman refresh himself at Lybium. Flint was alone at his office at the moment and knew not this strange Trooper and looked the scants at his hetero-docs garb and war-worn guise. Such laxity, said he to himself, was not permitted where he had hitherto served, which was never on Indian campaign. Kennedy having delivered his dispatches stood mutely, expecting, of question, and struggling with an Irishman's enthusiastic eagerness to tell the details of heady flight. But Flint had but one method of getting at fax, the official reports. And Kennedy stood unnoticed until impatient at last he curried, Big Martin, sir, but may we put up our horses? Who's we? asked the Major Bluntly. And where are the others? Triggs, sir, Captain Blake's troop. He went to the captain's quarters with a package. He should have reported himself to the post-commander, said the Major, who deemed it advisable to make prompt impression on these savage hunters of savage game. Them wasn't his order, sir, said Kennedy, with zealous but misguided loyalty to his comrades and his regiment. No one has a right, sir, to give orders that are contrary in spirit to the regulations and customs of the service, answered the commander with proper austerity. Mr. Wilkins, he continued as the burly quartermaster came bursting in. Have the other troopers sent to report at once to me, and let this man wait outside till I'm ready to see him? As it happened that a dozen members of the garrison gathered from the lips of a participant, stirring particulars of a spirited chase and fight, that set soldiers to cheering and women and children to extravagant scenes of rejoicing before the official head of the garrison, was fairly ready to give out the news. Kennedy had taken satisfaction for the commander's slights by telling the tidings broadcast to the crowd that quickly gathered and in three minutes the word was flying from lip to lip that the troops had run down Lame Wolf's main village after an all-day, all-night rush to head them off, and that with very small loss they had been able to capture many of the families and to scatter the warriors among the hills. In brief, while Henry with the main body had followed the trail of the fighting band, Webb had been detached and with two squadrons had ridden hard after a Shoshone guide who led them by a shortcut through the range and enabled them to pounce on the village where were most of Lame Wolf's non-combatants, guarded only by a small party of warriors. While captains Billings and Ray with their troops remained in charge of these capties, Webb with Blake and the others had pushed on in pursuit of certain braves who had scampered into the thick of the hills carrying a few of the wounded and prisoners with them. Among those captured or recaptured were Mr. Hay and Cropod. Among those who had been spirited away was Nanette Flower. This seemed strange and uncomfortable. And yet Blake had found time to write to his winsome wife to send her an important missive and most important bit of news. It was with these she came running to Mrs. Ray before the latter had time to half-read the long letter received from her soldier husband and we take the facts in the order of the revelation. Think of it, Maddie. She cried, Think of it. Gerald's first words almost aren't. Take good care of that pouch and contents. And now pouch and contents are gone, whoever dreamed that they would be of such consequence. He says the newspaper will explain. And eventually the two bony heads were bent over the big sheets of a dingy, grimy copy of a Philadelphia Daily. And there, on an inner page, heavily marked, appeared a strange item. And this Quaker City Journal had been picked up in an Ogallala camp. The item read as follows. An Untamed Sioux. The authorities of the Carlisle School and the police of Harrisburg are hunting high and low for a young Indian, known to the records of the academy as Ralph Meru. But born on the payrolls of Buffalo Bill's wide-west aggregation as Eagle Wing, a youth who is credited with having given the renowned scout showman more trouble than all his braves, broncos, and busters thereof combined, being of subverb, physique, and a daring horseman. Meru had been forgiven, many a peccadello, and had followed the fortunes of the show two consecutive summers until Cody finally had to get rid of him as an intolerable nuisance. It seems that when a lad of 18 Eagle Wing had been sent to Carlisle, where he ran the garment of scrapes of every conceivable kind, he spoke English, picked up about the agencies, had influential friends, and in some clandestine way, received occasional supplies of money that enabled him to take French leave when he felt like it. He was sent back from Carlisle to Dakota as irreclaimable, and after a year or two on his native heath, reappeared among the haunts of civilization as one of Buffalo Bill's warriors. Bill discharged him at Cincinnati and at the insistence of the Indian Bureau, he was again placed at Carlisle, only to repeat on a larger scale his earlier exploits and secure a second transfer to the plains, where his opportunities for devalement were limited. Then Cody was induced to take him on again, by profuse promises of good behavior, which were kept until Pennsylvania soil was reached two weeks ago, when he broke loose again, was seen in store clothes around West Philadelphia for a few days, tundra-police supplied with money, and next he turned up in the streets of Carlisle, where he assaulted an Achache of the school whose life was barely saved by the prompt efforts of other Indian students. Monroe escaped to Harrisburg, which he proceeded to paint his favorite color that very night, and wound up the entertainment by galloping away on the horse of a prominent official who had essayed to escort him back to Carlisle. It is believed that he is now in hiding somewhere about the suburbs, and that an innate propensity for devalement will speedily betray him to the clutches of the law. A few moments after reading this oddly interesting story, the two friends were in consultation with Mrs. Dade, who in turn called in Dr. Waller, just returning from the hospital and a not too satisfactory visit to Mr. Field. There had been a slight change for the better in the condition of General Field that had enabled Dr. Lauren of Fort Russell and a local physician to arrange for his speedy transfer to Cheyenne. This had in a measure relieved the anxiety of Waller's patient, but never yet had the veteran practitioner permitted him to know that he was practically a prisoner as well as a patient. Waller feared the result on so high strung at temperament and had made young Field believe that, when strong and well enough to attempt the journey, he should be sent to Rock Springs. Indeed, Dr. Waller had no intention of submitting to Major Flint's decision as final. He had written personally to the medical director of the department, acquainting him with the facts, and, meanwhile, had withdrawn himself as far as possible, officially and socially, from the limited circle in which moved his perturbed commanding officer. He was at a distant point of the garrison, therefore, and listening to the excited and vehement comments of the younger of the three women upon this strange newspaper story, and its possible connection with matters at frame, at the moment when a dramatic scene was being enacted over beyond the guardhouse. Kennedy was still at the center of a little group of eager listeners, when pink marble factum of the trader's store came hurrying forth from the adjutant's office, speedily followed by Major Flint. You may tell, Mrs. Hay, that, while I cannot permit her to visit the prisoner, he called after the clerk, I will send the girl over under suitable guard. To this, Mr. Marble merely shrugged his shoulders and went on. He fancied Flint no more than did the relics of the original garrison. A little later, Flint personally gave an order to the sergeant of the guard, and then came commotion. First, there were stifled sounds of scuffle from the interior of the guardhouse, then shrill wrathful screams, then a woman's voice uplifted and wild, upgradings in an unknown tongue, at sound of which Trooper Kennedy dropped his reign and his jaw, stood staring one minute, then with the exclamation, Mother of God, but I know that woman, burst his way through the crowd and ran toward the old log-blockhouse at the gate, the temporary post of the guard. Just as he turned the corner of the building, almost stumbling against the post commander, there came bursting forth from the dark interior a young woman of the Sioux, daring, furious, raging and breaking loose from the grasp of the two luckless soldiers who had her by the arms. A way she darted down the road, still screaming like some inferior-eared child, and rushed straight for the open gateway of the Hayes. Of course the guard hastened in pursuit. The major shouting, Stop her! Catch her! And the men striving to appear to obey, yet shirking the feet of seizing the fleeing woman. Fancy, then, the amaze of the swiftly following spectators when the trader's front door was thrown wide open and Mrs. Hayes herself sprang forth. Another instant and the two women had met at the gate. Another instant still and with one motherly arm twining around the quavering, panting, pleading girl and straining her to the motherly heart, Mrs. Hayes' right hand and arm flew up in the suburb gesture known the wide frontier over as the Indian signal Halt. And Halt they did. Every mother's son, save Kennedy, who sprang to the side of the girl and faced the men in blue, and then another woman's voice, rich, deep, ringing powerful, fell on the ears of the amazed, swift gathering throng with the marvellous order.  She's a chief's daughter. She's my own kin. And I'll answer for her to the general himself. As for you? She added turning low and glaring straight at the astounded flint. All the pent-up scents of wrath, indignity, shame, and wrong, over-mastering any thought of prudence or of the divinity that doth hedge. The commanding officer, as for you, she cried, I pity you when our own get back again. God help you, Stanley Flint.  And now the words rang louder and clearer as she addressed the throng. I do, and so do officers and gentlemen who'd be shamed to have to shake hands with such as he. He's got my husband's note about him now, and what my husband wrote was this. I charge myself with every dollar you charge to field, and with the further obligation of thrashing you on sight, and mark you, he'll do it. CHAPTER 20 The Sioux Surrounded In the hush of the wintery night, under a leaden sky with snowflakes falling thick and fast, and mantling the hills in fleecy white, Webb's column had halted among the thirty pines, the men exchanging muttered low tone query and comment. The horses standing without heads, occasionally pawing the soft coverlet, and sniffing curiously at this filmy barrier to the bunch-grass they sought in vain. They had feasted together. These comrade troopers and chargers here the sun went down. The men, on abundant rations of agency bacon, flour and brown sugar, bound with black-tailed deer, and mountain sheep in abundance, in the captured village, and eked out by supplies from the pack-drain. The horses, on big blankets of oats, set before them by sympathetic friends and masters. Then, when the skies were fairly dark, Webb had ordered. Little fires lighted all along the bank of the stream, leaving the men of rays and billings-troops to keep them blazing through the long night-watches, to create the impression among this lurking Sioux, that the whole force was still there. Starting the big village it had captured in the early afternoon, and then in silence the troopers had saddled and jogged away into the heart of the hills, close on the heels of their guides. There had been little time to look over the captures. The main interest of both officers and men, of course, centered on Mr. Hay, who was found in one of the tepees, prostate from illness and half frantic from fever and strong mental excitement. He had later tidings from Frane, it seems, then had his rescuers. He could assure them of the health and safety of their wives and little ones, but would not tell them what was amiss in his own household. One significant question he asked. Did any of them know of this new major Flint? No, well, God help Flint, if ever he, hey, got hold of him. He's delirious, whispered web, and rode away in that conviction, leaving him to ray and billings. Three miles out on the torturous trail of the soot, the column halted and dismounted among the pines. Then there was brief conference, and the word mount was whispered along the Beecher Scoundron, while Blake's men stood fast. With a parting clasp of the hand, web, and legs, had returned to the head of the respective commands. Legs and his fellows to follow steadily. The Indian trail threw the twisting ravines of the foothills. Web to make an all-night forced march in wide detour and determined effort. To head off the escaping warriors before they could reach the rocky, fastness-back of Bear Cliff, web's chief scout, Bat, chosen by General Crook himself, had been a captive among the Sioux, through long years of his boyhood, and knew the big horn range as Web did, the banks of the Wabash. They can stand off a thousand soldiers, said the guide, if once they get into the rocks. They'd have gone there first off, only there was no water. Now there's plenty snow. So Blake's instructions were to follow them without pushing, to let them feel they were being pursued, yet by no means to hasten them. And if the General's favorite scout proved to be all he promised as guide and pathfinder, Web might reasonably hope, by dint of hard night riding, to be first at the triest at break of day. Then they would have the retreating Sioux hampered by their few wounded and certain prisoners, whom they prized, hemmed between rocky heights on every side, and sturdy horsemen front and rear. It was eight by the watch at the parting of the ways. It was eight-thirty when Blake retook the trail, with Sergeant Schreiber and Windsor. The latter borrowed from Ray, far in the van. Even had the ground been hard and stony, these keen-eyed soldier scouts would have followed the signs almost as unerringly as the Indians, for each had long years of experience all over the West. But despite the steadily falling snow, the traces of hoofs and, for a time, of trevoy poles could be readily seen and followed in the dim gray light of the blacketed skies. Somewhere loft above the film of cloud the silvery moon was shining. And that was illumination more than enough for men of their years on the trail. For over an hour Blake followed the windings of a ravine that grew closer and steeper as it burrowed into the hills. Old game trails are as good as turnpikes in the eyes of the plainsmen. It was when the ravine began to split into branches that the problem might have puzzled them, had not the white fleece lain two inches deep on the level when Lowe made his dash to escape. Now the rough edges of the original impression were merely rounded over by the newly fallen snow. The hollows and ruts and depressions led on from one deep cleft into another. And by midnight Blake felt sure the quarry could be but a few miles ahead. And Bear Cliff barely five hours marched away. So noiselessly the signal halt went rearward down the long dark sinuous column of twos, and every man slipped out of saddle. Some of them stamping a so numb were their feet. With every mile the air had grown keener and colder. They were glad when the next word whispered was, lead on, instead of mount. By this time they were far up among the pine-fringed heights, with the broad valley of the bighorn lying outspread to the west, invisible as the stars above, and neither by ringing shot nor winged arrow, had the leaders known the faintest check. It seemed as though the Indians, in their desperate effort to carry off the most important or valued of their charges, were bending all their energies to expediting the retreat. Time enough to turn on the pursuers when once the rocks had closed about them, when the wounded were safe in the fastness, and the pursuers far from supports. But at the foot of a steep ascent the two leading scouts, rival sergeants of rival troops, but devoted friends for nearly twenty years, were seen by the next column, a single corporal following them at thirty yards distance, to halt and begin poking at some dark object by the wayside. Then they pushed on again a dead pony, under a quarter inch coverlet of snow, was what met the eyes of the silently trudging command as it followed. The high-peaked wooden saddle-tree was still cinched to the stiffening carcass. Either the Indians were pushed for time or overstocked with saddle-roy. Presently there came a little whistle from the military middlemen, between the scouts and a little advance guard. Run ahead, growled the sergeant, commanding to his boy, trumpeter. Give me your reins. And leaving his horse, the youngster stumbled along the winding trail, got his message and waited. Give this to the captain, was the word sent back by Shriver, and this was a mitten of Indian tanned buckskin, soft and warm, if unsightly. A mitten too small for a warrior's hand, if ever warrior-dicken to wear one. A mitten, the captain examined curiously. As he plowed ahead of his main body and then returned to his sublatern with a grin on his face, beauty draws us with a single hair, said he, and can't shake us even when she gives us the mitten. Ross, he added, after a moment's thought. Remember this? With this gang there are two or three sub-chiefs that we should get alive or dead. But the chief end of man, so far as Kay Troop is concerned, is to capture that girl unharmed. And just a dawn so gray and wan and pallid it could hardly be told from the pale moonlight of the earlier hours the dark, snake-light column was halted again nine miles further in among the wooded heights, with bare cliff still out of range and sight. Something had stopped the scouts, and Blake was needed at the front. He found Shriver crouching at the foot of a tree gazing rarely forward along a southward-sloping face of the mountain that was sparsely covered with tall, straight pines, and that faded into mist a few hundred yards away. The trail, the main trail, that is, seemed to go straight away eastward and for a short distance downward through a hollow or a depression. While up the mountain side to the left, the north following the spur or shoulder, there were signs as of hoof-traffques, half sheeted by the new fallen snow. And through this fresh, fleecy mantlet plowed the trooper-boots in rude, insistent pursuit. The sergeant's horses were held by a third soldier a few yards back behind the spur, for Windsor was side-scouting up the heights. The snowfall had ceased for a time, the light was growing broader every moment, and presently a soft whistle sounded somewhere up the steep end. Shriver answered, he wants a sir, was all he said, and in five minutes they had found him, sprawled on his stomach on a projecting ledge and pointing southeastwards, where, bodily outlined against the gray of the morning sky, a black and beatling precipice, towered from the mist-wreathe pines at its base, barecliff, beyond a doubt. How far, Sergeant, asked the captain, never too reliant on his powers of judging distance. Five miles, sir, at least.  That's probably the best lookout this side of the cliff itself, he continued an explanation as he saw the puzzled look on the captain's face. From there, likely they can see the trail over the divide. The one little bat is leading the major, and if they've made any time at all, the squadron should be at barecliff now. They were crawling to him by this time, Blake and Shriver, among the stunted cedars that grew thickly along the rocky ledge. Windsor flat again on his stomach, sprawled like a squirrel close to the brink. Every moment as the skies grew brighter, the panorama before them became more extensive. A glorious sweep of highland scenery, of boldly tossing ridges east and south and west, the slopes all mantled, the trees all tipped, with nature's ermine, and studded now with marred gyms taking fire at the first touch of the day, God's messenger, as the mighty king himself burst his halo of circling cloud and came peering over the low curtain far at the eastward horizon, chill in darkness and shrouding, vapor vanished all in a breath as he rose, dominant over countless leagues of wild unbroken, yet magnificent mountain landscape. Worth every hour of watch and mile of climb, muttered Blake, but its engine's not seen where you're after. What are we here for, Windsor? And narrowly he eyed Ray's famous right bower. If the Major got there first, sir, and I believe he did, they have to send the prisoners and wounded back this way. Then we've got him, broke-hand shredder, low-toned but exultant. Look, sir, he had it as he pointed along the ridge. They are signaling now. From the wooded height ten hundred yards away, curious little puffs of smoke, one following another, were sailing straight for the zenith, and Blake, screwing his field-glasses to the focus, swept them with the mountainside towards the five-mile distant cliff, and presently the muscles about his mouth began to twitch, sure sign with Blake of gathering excitement. He writes, Sargent, he presently spoke, repressing the desire to shout and striving, least Windsor should be moved to invidious comparisons, to seem as nonchalant as Billy Ray himself. They're coming back already. Then down the mountainside he dove to plan and prepare appropriate welcome, leaving Windsor and the glasses to keep double-powered watch on the situation. Six-fifty of a glorious, keen November morning, the sixty troopers of the old regiment were distributed along the spur that crossed almost at right angles, the Lion of the Indian Trail. Sixty fur-capped, rough-coated fellows, with their short brown carvings in hand, crouching behind rocks and pollen trees, caping close to cover and warned to utter silence. Behind them, two hundred yards away, their horses were huddled under charge of their disgusted guards, envious of their fellows at the front, and cursing hard their luck in counting off as number four. Shriver had just come sliding stumbling down from Windsor's perch to say they could hear faint sound of sharp following far out to the eastward, where the warriors evidently were trying to stand off, web skirmish-line until the trevoys, with the wounded and the escort of the possible prisoners, could succeed in getting back out of harm's way, and taking sure in higher trail into the thick of the wilderness, back to Bear Cliff. Some of them must come in sight here in a minute, Sir Panted, the veteran sergeant. We could see them plainly up there, a mule litter and four trevoy. And there must be a dozen in saddle. A dozen there were, for along the Lion of Crouching Men went sudden thrill of excitement, shoulders began to heave, nervous thumbs bored down on heavy carving-hammers, and there was sound of irrepressible stirrer and murmur. Out among the pines, five hundred yards away, two mounted Indians popped suddenly into view, two others speedily following their well-nigh exhausted ponies, feebly shaking their shaggy, protesting heads. As the riders plied their stringing quirk or jabbed with cruel lance, only in painful jog trot could they zig-zag through the trees, then came two warriors leading the pony of a crippled comrade. Don't fire, don't harm them, fall back from the trail. There and let them in. They'll halt the moment they see our tracks, get them alive, if possible, with Blake's rapid orders. For his eyes were eagerly fixed on other objects beyond these dejected leaders, upon stumbling mules lashed four-and-aft between long spliced saplings and bearing thus a rude litter. Hayes, pet-wheelers, turned to hospital use, an Indian boy mounted. Led the foremost mule, another watched the second, while on each side of the occupant of his Sue Planniquin jogged a blacketed rider on jaded pony. Here was a personage of consequence, luckier much than those others following, dragged along on travoys whose trailing poles came jolting over stone or hammock along the rugged path. It was on these that Blake's glittering eyes were fastened. Pounce on the leaders. You that are nearest, he ordered, in low telling tones. The men at his left then turned to Shriver, crouching close beside him, the fringe of his buckskin hunting shirt quivering over his bounding heart. There's the prize I want, he muttered low. Whatever you do, let no shot reach that litter. Charge with me the moment the leaders yell. You mend the right he added, slightly raising his voice. Be ready to jump with me. Don't shoot anybody that doesn't shall fight. Nab everything in sight. Woo-whoop! In a second the mountain woke, the welcome rang, to a yell of warning from the lips of the leading Sue. All in a second they whirled their ponies about and darted back. All in that second Blake, and his near most sprang to their feet, flung themselves forward straight for this startled convoy, in vain. The few warriors bravely rallied about their foremost wounded. The unwilly letter could not turn about, the frantic mules crazed by the instant pandemonium as shouts and shots. The onward rush of charging men, the awful screams of a brace of squaws, broke from their leading reins, crashed with the litter against the trees, hurling the luckless occupant to worth. Back drove the unhit warriors before the dash of the cheering line. Down went one first pony, then a second, in his bloody tracks, one after another littered convoy wounded in prisoner, was clutched and seized by stalwart hands, and Blake panting not a little, found himself bending, staring over the prostate form, flung from the splintered wreck of the litter, a form writhing in pain that forced no sound whatever between grimy, clenching teeth. Yet that baffled effort, almost superb, to rise and battle still, a form magnificent in its proportions yet helpless through wounds and weakness. Not the form Blake thought to see of shrinking, delicate, deity woman, but that of a furious warrior who thrice had dared him on the open field, the red-brave well known to him by sight and deed within the moon now waning, but only within the day gone by. Revealed to him as the renegade, Ralph Morue, eagle wing of the Olga Lala Sioux. Where then was Nanette? Look out for this man, corporal, he called to a shouting young trooper. See that no harm comes to him. Then quickly he ran on to the hurdle of Trevoy. Something assured him she could not be far away. The first drag litter held another young warrior, sullen and speechless, like the foremost.  About these cowards shivering and whimpering, two or three terror-stricken squaws, one of them with a round-eyed papu staring at her back, a pony lace-druggling in the snow close by. Half a dozen rough-soldier hands were dragging a stricken rider from underneath. Half a dozen more were striving to control the wild plungings of another meddlesome little beast whose rider, sitting firmly astride, lashed first at his quivering flank and then at the fur-gantleded hands, even at the laughing bearded faces. Sure sign of another squaw and a game one. Far out to the front a cackle of carbine and rifle told that Webb was driving the scattered braves before him, that the Comrade Squadron was coming their way that Bear Cliff had been sought by the Sioux and Vain, that Indian Wiles and Strategy, Indian Pluck, and staying power had more than met their match. Whatever the fate of lame wolves fighting force, now pressed by Henry's column far in the southward hills, here in sight of broad Bighorn Valley, the White Chief, had struck a vital blow. Village, villagers, wounded and prisoners, were all the spoil of the hated soldiery.  Look at that hand herfellers, it's wider than mine. That's all right, Lannigan answered the jovial voice of the leader. They loved and laughed with. Hold that pony steady. Now, by your ladyship's leave, and two long sinewy arms when circling about the shrinking rider's waist in a struggling form was lifted straight away out of the saddle and deposited, not too gracefully, on its moccasin feet. We will remove this one impediment to your speech, continued Blake. We're at the muffling, worst that was swiftly unwound, and then we will listen to our mead of thanks. Ah, no wonder you did not need a side saddle that night at Frane. You ride admirably, a califranton. My compliments, mademoiselle of Fleur. Or should I say mademauroux? For all answer, Blake received one quick stinging slap in the face from that mittenless little right hand. CHAPTER XXI Thanksgiving Day at Frane Much of the garrison was still afield, bringing back to their lines and, let us hope, to their senses, the remnant of Stabber's band, chased far into the sweet-water hills before they would stop, while Henry's column kept lame wolf in such active movement, the misnamed chieftain richly won his latter subrequiet, the skipper. The general had come whirling back from Beecher in his conquered wagon to meet Mr. Haye as they bore that emblazoned home from the big horn. Between the fever-weakened trader and the famous frontier soldier there had been brief conference. All that the doctors felt they could allow, and then the former had been put to bed under the care of his devoted wife while the latter, without so much as sight of a pillow, had set forth again out sweet-water way to wind up the campaign. This time he went in saddle, sending his own team over the range of the medicine-bow to carry a convalescent sublaterne to the side of a stricken father, the sender ignorant possibly of the post-commander's prohibition, ignoring it if, as probable it was known to him, the good old doctor himself had bundled the grateful lad and sent a special hospital attendant with him. Mrs. Dade and her devoted allies up the row had filled with goodies a wonderful luncheon basket, while Mrs. Haye had sent stores of wine for the use of both invalids and had come down herself to see the start, for without a word Indic gave a reproop. The general had bitten Flint, removed the blockade, simply saying he would assume all responsibility, both for Mrs. Haye and the young Indian girl, given refuge under the trader's roof until the coming of her own people, still out with Stabber's band. Flint could not fathom it. He could only obey. And now, with the general gone and Beverly field away, with Haye home and secluded by order, from all questioning or other extraneous worry, with the wounded soldiers safely trundled into hospital, garrison interest seemed to send her for the time mainly in that little ogle-made Flint's soul-sue captive, who was housed, said the much interrogated domestic in Mrs. Haye's own room instead of Miss Flowers, while the lady of the house when she slept at all occupied a sofa near her husband's bedside. Then came the tidings that Blake, with the prisoners from Nowood Creek and Bear Cliff, was close at hand, and everybody looked with eager eyes for the coming across the snowy prairie of that homeward-bound convoy, that big village of the Sioux, with its distinguished captives wounded and unwounded, one of the former, the young sub-chief, Eagle Wing, alias Maru, one of the latter, a self-constituted martyr, since she was under no official restraint, Nanette Flower, hovering ever about the litter, bearing that sullen and still defiant brave whose side she refused to leave. Not until they reached Fort Wayne, not until the surgeon, after careful examination, declared there was no need of taking Maru into hospital. No reason why he should not be confined in the prison-room of the guard-house. Were they able to induce the silent, almost desperate girl to return to her aunt? Not until Nanette realized that her warrior was to be housed within wood walls whence she would be excluded. Could Mrs. Haye, devoted to the last, persuade the girl to re-occupy her old room and to resume the dress of civilization? Barring the worsted hood, she was habitated like a chieftain's daughter, and gaily beaded and embroidered garments when captured by Blake's command. Once within the trader's door she had shut herself in her old room, the second floor front, refusing to see anybody from outside the house unless she could be permitted to receive visits from the captive Sioux, and this the major flinterly forbade. It was nightfall when the litter-bearers reached the post, haze rejoicing mules, braying unmalodious ecstasy at sight of their old stable. It was dark when the wounded chief was born into the guard-house, uttering not a sound, and Nanette was led within the trader's door. Yet someone had managed to see her face, for the story went all over the wandering post that very night, women flitting with it from door to door, that every vestige of her beauty was gone. She looked at least a dozen years older. Blake, when questioned after the first rapture of the homecoming, had subsided, would neither affirm nor deny. She would neither speak to me nor hearken, said he whimsically. The only thing she showed was teeth and temper. Then presently they sent a lot of the Sioux, Stabbers Village and Lame Wolves combined, by easy stages down the plant to Laramie, and then around by Rahide and the Naropa to the old Red Cloud Agency, there to be fed and coddled and cared for. Wounded warriors and all, except a certain few, including this accomplished orator and chieftain, con-blessing under guard at Frane. About his case there hung details and complications far too many and intricate to be settled short of a commission. Already had the tidings of this most important capture reached the distant east, already both Indian Bureau and peace societies, had begun to wire the general in the field and work, the President and the Press, at home. Forgotten was the fact that he had been an intolerable nuisance to Buffalo Bill and others who had undertaken to educate and civilize him. The Wild West show was now amazing European capitals and therefore beyond consulting distance. Forgotten were escapades at Harrisburg, Carlisle, and Philadelphia. Suppressed were circumstances connecting him with graver charges than those of repeated roistering and aggravated assault. Ignored, or as yet unheard, were the details of his reappearance on the frontier in time to stir up most of the war spirit developed that September, and to take a leading part in the fierce campaign that followed. He was a pupil of the nation, said the good people of the Indian friend societies, a youth of exceptional intelligence and promise, a son of the Sioux whose influence would be of priceless value could he be induced to complete his education and accept the views and projects of his eastern admirers. It would never do to let his case be settled by soldiers. Settlers and cowboys, said philanthropy. They would hang him, starve him, break his spirit at the very least. They were treating him particularly well just now, as he had sense enough to see. There must be a deputation, a committee to go out at once to the west, with proper credentials, per diem mileage and clerks, to seek to it that these unfortunate children of the mountain and prairie were accorded fair treatment and restored to their rights, especially this brilliant young man, Maru. The general was beyond reach and reasoning with, but there was Flint, eminent for his piety and untrammeled in command, Flint, with aspirations of his own, the very man to welcome such influences theirs, and, correspondingly, to give ear to their propositions. Two days after the safe lodgement of Eagle Wing behind the bars, the telegrams were coming by dozens, and one week after that deserved incarceration, Fort Frane heard with mild bewilderment the major's order from Maru's transfer to the hospital. By that time letters, too, were beginning to come, and two nights after his removal, to the little room but lately occupied by Lieutenant Field, this very thanksgiving night, in fact, the single sentry at the door stood attention to the commanding officer, who in person ushered in a womanly form, enveloped in hooded cloak, and, with bowed head, nanette flower, passed within the guarded portal, which then closed behind her, and left her alone with her wounded brave. Blake and Billings had been sent on to Red Cloud guarding the presumably repentant Ogallalas, Web Ray, Greg and Ross were still afield in Chase of Stabber. Dade, with four companies of infantry, was in the big horn guarding Henry's wagon train. There was no one now at Frane in position to ask the new commander questions, for Dr. Waller had avoided him in every possible way, but Waller had nobly done the work of his noble profession. Maru or Eagle Wing was mending so very fast there was no reason whatever why the doctor should object to his receiving visitors. It was Flint alone who would be held responsible if anything went wrong. Yet Fort Frane, to a woman, took fire at the major's action, two days previous he might have commanded the support of Mrs. Wilkins, but nanette herself had spoiled all chance of that. It seemed the lady had been to call at Mrs. Hayes the previous day, that Mrs. Haye had begged to be excused. That Mrs. Wilkins had then persisted, possibly as a result of recent conference with Flint, and had bidden the servants say she'd wait until Miss Flower could come down, and so sailed into the parlor, intent on seeing all she could of both the house and its inmates. But not a soul appeared. Mrs. Haye was watching over her sleeping husband, whose slow recovery Flint was noting, with an impatient eye. Voice's low yet eager could be heard locked in nanette's room. The servant, when she came down, had returned without a word to the inner regions about the kitchen, and Mrs. Wilkins' weight became a long one. At last the domestic came rustling through the lower floor again. And Mrs. Wilkins hailed. Both were Irish, but one was the wife of an officer and long a power, if not indeed a terror in the regiment. The other feared the quartermaster's wife as little as Mrs. Wilkins feared the colonels. And when ordered to stand and say why she brought no answer from Miss Flower, declined to stand, but decidedly said she brought none because there was none. Did you tell her I'd wait? Said Mrs. Wilkins. I did. Said Miss McGrath. And she said, letter, and so I did. Then in came Mrs. Haye imploring Hush, and with rage in her Iberian heart the consort of the quartermaster came away. There was not one woman in all Fort Wayne, therefore, to approve the major's action in permitting this wild girl to visit the wilder Indian patient. Mrs. Haye knew nothing of it because nanette well understood that there would be lodged objection that she'd dare not disregard or uncle's will. One other girl there was, that night at Frane, who marked her going and sought to follow and was recalled, restrained, at the very threshold by the sound of a beloved voice softly in the Siu Tong calling her name. One other girl there was who knew not of her going, who shrank from thought of meeting her at any time, in any place, and yet was destined to an encounter fateful in its results in every way. Just as Tattoo was sounding on the Infantry Bugle, Esther Dade sat reading fairy stories at the children's bedside in the quarters of Sergeant Foster, of her father's company. There had been thanksgiving dinner with Mrs. Raye and Amazonian Feast, since all their lords were still away on service, and Sandy Raye and Billy Jr. were perhaps too young to count. Dinner was all over by eight o'clock, and despite some merry games, the youngsters' eyes were showing symptoms of the Sand-Man's coming. When that privileged character, Hogan, Raye's long-tried tupper now turned Major Domo, appeared at the doorway of the little army parlor, he had been bearer of a lot of goodies to the children's among the quarters of the married soldiers, and, now, would Mrs. Dade please speak with Mrs. Foster, who had come over with him, and Mrs. Dade departed for the kitchen forthwith. Presently she returned. I'm going back a while with Mrs. Foster, said she. She's sitting up to-night with poor Mrs. Wing, who... But there was no need of explanation. They all knew. They had laid so recently the wreaths of evergreen on the grave of the gallant soldier who fell fighting at the elk, and now another helpless little soul had come to bear the buried name. And all that were left for mother and babe was woman's boundless charity. It was thanksgiving night. And while the wail of the bereaved and stricken went up from more than one of those humble tenements below the eastward blub, there were scores of glad and grateful hearts that lifted praise and thanksgiving to the throne on high, even though they knew not at the moment, but they too might even then be robbed of all that stood between them in desolation. Once it happened in the story of our hard-fighting, hard-used little army that a bevy of fair young wives, nearly half a score in number, in all the bravery of their summer toilets sat in the shadow of the flag, all smiles and gladness and applause joining in the garrison's festivities on the nation's natal day, never dreaming of the awful news that should fell them ere the coming of another son, that one and all they had been widowed more than a week, that the men they loved, whose names they bore, lay hacked and mutilated, beyond recognition within sight of those very heroes, were now the men from Frane were facing the same old foe. In the midst of army life we are indeed in death, and the thanksgiving of loving ones about the fireside, for mercy thus far shown, is mingled ever with the dread of what the moral may unfold. Let me go too, Mama. Was Esther's prompt appeal, as she heard her mother's words, I can put the children to bed while you and Mrs. Foster are over there. And so with Hogan-Landren bearing, mother and daughter had followed the sergeant's wives across the broad snow-covered parade, and passed without comment, though each was thinking of the new inmate, the brightly lighted hospital building on the edge of the plateau, and descended the winding pathway to the humble quarters of the married soldiers, nestling in the sheltered flats between the garrison proper and the bold bluffs that again close bordered the rushing stream, and here at Sergeant Foster's doorway, Esther parted from the elders, and was welcomed by shrieks of joy from three sturdy little cherubs, the sergeant's olive branches in here, as the last note of tattoo went echoing away under the vast and spangled sky, one by one her charges closed her drooping lids and dropped asleep, and left her gentle friend and reader to her own reflections. There was a soldier dance at night in one of the vacant mess rooms. Flint's two companies were making the best of their isolation, and found, as is not utterly uncommon, quite a few maids and matrons among the households of the absent soldierly quite willing to be consoled and comforted. There were bright lights, therefore, further along the edge of the steep, beyond those of the hospital, and the squeak of fiddle and drone of siarro, mingled with the plaintive piping of the flute, were heard at intervals through the silence of the wintery night. No tramp of sentry broke the hush about the little rift between the heights, the major holding that none was necessary, where there were so many dogs. Most of the soldier's families had gone to the dance, all the younger children were asleep, even the dogs were still, and so, when at ten o'clock Esther tiptoed from the children's bedside and stood under the starlight, the murmur of the plant was the only sound that reached her ears until away over the southwest gate. The night-guards began the long-drawn heralding of the hour. Ten o'clock, and all's well. It went from post to post along the west and northward front, but when number six at the quartermaster storehouse near the southeast corner, should have taken up the cry where it was dropped by number five of a far over near the Flagstaff, there was an unaccountable silence. Six did not utter a sound. Looking up from the level of Sudstown, as it had earlier been named, Esther could see the black bulk of the storehouse close to the edge of the plateau. Between its westward gable and the porch of the hospital lay some fifty yards of open space, and through this gap now gleamed a spangled section of the western heavens. Along the bluff just under the crest ran a pathway that circled the southward corner and led away to the trader's store, south of the post. Tradition had it that the track was worn by night-raders, bearing contraband fluids from store to barracks, in the days before such traffic was killed by that common sense promoter of temperance, soberness and chastity, the post exchange. Along that bluff line, from the storehouse toward the hospital, invisible doubtless from either building or the bluff itself, but thrown in sharp relief against the rectangular inlet of starry sky, two black figures crouching and burying some long, flat object between them, swift and noiseless, were speeding towards the hospital. The next instant they were lost in the black background of that building. Then as suddenly, and a moment later, one of them reappeared, just for a moment, against the brightly lighted window. The southernmost window on the eastward side, the window of the room that had been Beverly Fields, the window of the room now given over to Eagle Wing, the Sioux, the captive for Hussape Keaving, a special sentry within the building and this strangely silent number six without, were jointly responsible. Then that silhouetted figure was blotted from her sight in general darkness, for the lights within, as suddenly went out. And at that very moment a sound smote upon her ear, unaccountable at that hour and that side of the Harrison, hoofbeats swiftly coming down into the hollow from the eastward plump hoofbeats and low excited voices. Foster's little house was southernmost of the settlement, the ground was open between it and the heights, and despite the low cautious tones, Esther heard the foremost writer's muttered angry words. Damn, fool, crazy, heap, crazy, too much hurry! I'll try to let him call off first. Then an answer in guttural Sioux. And then in an instant it dawned upon the girl that here was new crime, new bloodshed perhaps, and a plot to free a villainous captive. Her first thought was to scream for aid. But what aid could she summon? Not a man was within hail except these, the merciless haters of her race and name. To scream would be to invite their beddy knives to her heart, to the heart of any woman who might brush to her sucker. The cry died in her throat and trembling with dread and excitement. She clung to the doorpost and crouched and listened. Pristifled mutterings could be heard, a curse or two in vigorous English, a stamping of impatient ponies, a warning in a woman's tone. Then, thank God, up at the storehouse corner light came dancing into view, and on a soldier tone boomed out the gray. What's the matter, Sioux? And then followed by a scurry of hoofs, a mad lashing of quartz, a scramble and rush of frightened steeds, and a cursing of furious tongues, her own brave young voice ran out on the night. This way, Sergeant, help, quick. Black forms of mounts and riders sped desperately away, and then, with the wiry, sinewy strength of her life and slender form, Esther hurled herself upon another slender figure, speeding after those afoot, desperately she clung to it in spite of savage blows and strainings. And so they found her, as forth they came, a rush of shrieking, startled, candle-bearing women, of bewildered and unconsciously blasphemous men of the guard. Her arms locked firmly about a girl in semi-savage garb. The villain of the drama had been whisked away, leaving the woman who sought to save him to the mercy of the foe. The guard came rushing through the night, corporal Shannon stumbling over a prostate form. The sentry on number six gagged and bound. The steward shouted from the hospital porch that eagle-wing, the prisoner-patient, had escaped through the rear window, despite its height above the sloping ground. A little ladder borrowed from the quartermaster's corral was found a moment later. An Indian pony saddled Sioux fashion was caught riding rider-less towards the trader's back gate. His horse-hair bridle torn halfway from his shaggy head. Sergeant Crabb, waiting for no orders from Major, no sooner heard that Moreau was gone than he rushed his stable guard to the saddle-room, and in fifteen minutes had, not only his own squad, but half a dozen casual troopers circling the post in search of the trail. And in less than half an hour was hot in chase of two fleeing horsemen, dimly seen ahead through the starlight across the snowy wastes. That snowfall was the Susan doing. Without it the trail would have been invisible at night. With it the pursuit were well nigh hopeless from the start. Precious time had been lost in circling far out south of the post, before making for the ford. Wither Crabb's instinct set him at once to the end that he and two of his fellows plowed through the foaming waters, barely five hundred yards behind the chase, and as they rode vehemently onward through the starlight, straining every nerve, they heard nothing of the happenings about the fosters doorway, whereby this time post-commander, post-surgeon, post-quartermaster, and acting post-agitant, post-ordinates, quartermaster, and commissary sergeants, many of the postguard and most of the postlaunderers had gathered. Some silent, anxious, and bewildered, some excitingly babbling. While, within the sergeant's docile, Esther Dade, very pale and somewhat out of breath, was trying with quiet self-possession to answer the mirrored questions ported her. While Dr. Waller was ministering to the dazed and moaning sentry, and in an adjoining tenement, a little group had gathered about an unconscious form. Somewhat had sent for Mrs. Hay, who was silently, tearfully chapping the lip, an almost lifeless hand of a girl in Indian garb. The cloak and skirts of civilization had been found beneath the window of the deserted room, and were exhibited as a means of bringing to his senses a much bewildered major. First words on entering the hut gave rise to wonderment in the eyes of most of his hearers, and to an impulsive reply from the lips of Mrs. Hay. I warned the general this girl would play a some Indian trick, but he ordered her release. Said Flint, and with a wrathful emphasis came the answer. The general warned you? This girl would play a trick, and thanks to no one but you she's done it. Then rising and stepping aside, the long-suffering woman revealed a pallid, senseless face, none of the little Indian maid, her shrinking charge and guest, but of the niece she loved, and had lived and lied for many and trying years. Nanette LeFleur, a long-lost sister's only child. So Blake knew he was talking about that keen November morning among the pines at Bear Cliff. He had undereth an almost forgotten legend of old Ford Laramie. But the amaze and discomforture of the temporary post-commander turned this night of thanksgiving so far as he was concerned into something purgatorial. Sight of his sentry bound and gagged and bleeding, the discovery of the latter, and of the escape of the prisoner for whom he was accountable, had filled him with dismay, yet for the moment failed to stagger his indomitable self-esteem. There had been a plot, of course, and the instant impulse of his soul was to fix the blame on others and to free himself. An Indian trick, of course, and who but the little Indian maid with the trader's gates could be the instrument. Through her, of course, the conspirators about the post had been enabled to act. She was the general's protege, not his, and the general must shoulder the blame. Even when flints on the net self-convicted through her very garb and her presence at the scene of the final struggle, even when assured it was she and not the little Agala girl who had been caught in the act, that the latter, in fact, had never left the trader's house. His disproportioned mind refused to grasp the situation. The net, he declared, with pallid face, must have been made a victim. Nothing could have been farther from her thoughts than complicity in the escape of Eagle Wing. She had every reason to desire his restoration to health, strength, and to the fostering care of the good and charitable body of the Christian people interested in his behalf. All this would be endangered by his attempt to rejoin the warriors on the warpath. The major ordered the instant arrest of the sentry stationed at the door of the hospital room, shot out by the major's own act from all possibility of seeing what was going on within. He ordered under arrest the corporal of the relief on post for presumable complicity, and, mindful of a famous case of Ethiopian skill, then knew in the public mind, demanded of Dr. Waller that he say in so many words that the gag and wrist thongs on the prostate sentry had not been self-applied. Waller impassionately pointed to the huge lump at the base of the sufferer's skull. Gag and bounds he might have so placed after much sitious practice, said he, but no man living could hit himself such a blow at the back of the head. Who could have done it, then, has Flint. It was inconceivable to Waller's mind that any one of the soldiery could have been tempted to such perfidity for an Indian's sake. There was not at the moment an Indian scout or soldier at the post or an Indian warrior, not a prisoner unaccounted for. There had been half-breeds hanging around the store prior to the final escapade of Pete and Crapod, but these had realized their unpopularity after the battle on the Elk, and had departed for other climes. Crapod was still under guard. Pete was still at large, per chance with Straber's braves. There was not another man about the traitor's place whom Flint or others could suspect, yet the sergeant of the guard, searching cautiously with his lannard about post of number six, had come upon some suggestive signs. The snow was trampled and bloody about the place where the soldier fell, and there were here and there the tracks of moccasin feet. Those of a young woman or child going at speed toward the hospital, running probably, and followed close by a moccasin man. Then those of the man alone were sprinting down the bluff southeastward over the flat some distance south of the fosters doorway, and up the opposite bluff, to a point where four ponies, shoeless, had been huddled for as much, perhaps as a half an hour. Then all four had come scampering down close together in the space below the hospital, not fifty yards from where the century fell, and the moccasin feet of a man and woman had scurried down the bluff from the hospital window to meet them west of fosters shanty. Then there had been confusion, trouble of some kind. One pony, pursued a short distance, had broken away. The others had gone pounding out southeastward up the slope, and out over the uplands. Then down again, in a wide sweep, through the valley of the little rouvelette, and along the low bench southwest of the fort, crossing the Rock Springs Road, and striking further on, diagonally, the Rollins Trail, where Crabbon, his fellows, had found it and followed. But all this took hours of time, and meanwhile only half revived, Nanette had been gently, pittingly, born away to a souring woman's home, for at last it was found, through the thick and lustrious hair, that she, too, had been struck a harsh and cruel blow. That one reason, probably, why she had been able to oppose no stouter resistance to so slender a girl as Esther did, was that she was already half dazed. Through the stroke of some blunt, heavy weapon, wielded probably by him, she was risking all to save. Meantime, the Major had been pursuing his investigations. Schmidt, the soldier sentry, in front of Moreau's door, a simple-hearted two-ton of, in a reproachable character, tearfully protested against his incarceration. He had obeyed his orders to the letter. The Major himself had brought the lady to the hospital and showed her in. The door that had been open, permitting the sentry constant sight of his prisoner, had been closed by the commanding officer himself. Therefore it was not for him, a private soldier, to presume to reopen it. The Major said to the lady he would return for her soon after ten, and the lady smilingly. Schmidt did not say how smilingly, how bewitchingly smilingly, but the Major needed no reminder, thanked him, and said, by that time, she would be ready. In a few minutes she came out, saying, doubtless with the same bewitching smile, she would have to run over home for something, and she was gone nearly half an hour, and all that time the door was open. The prisoner on the bed in his blankets, the lamp brightly burning. It was near Tattoo, when she returned, with some things under her cloak, and she was breathing quick and seemed hurried and shut the door after thanking him, and he saw no more of her for fifteen minutes. When the door opened and out she came, the same cloak around her, yet she looked different, somehow, and must have tiptoed, for he didn't hear her heels as he had before. She didn't seem quite so tall, either, and that was all, for he never knew anything more about it till the steward came running to tell of the escape. So Schmidt could throw but little light on the situation, save to Flint himself, who did not then see fit to say to any one that at no time it was communicated that Miss Flower should be allowed to go and come unattended. In doing so, she had diluted some beside the sentry. It was late in the night when Number Six regained his senses and could tell his tale, which was even more damaging. Quite early in the evening, so he sat. As early as nine o'clock he was under the hospital corner, listening to the music further up along the bluff. A lady came from the south of the building as though she were going down to Sudstown. Miss Foster had gone down not long before, and Hogan with a lantern and two officers' ladies. But this one came all alone and spoke to him pleasant like, and said she was so sorry he couldn't be at the dance. She had been seeing the sick and wounded in the hospital, she said, and was going to bring some wine and jellies. If he didn't mind, she'd take the path around the quartermaster's storehouse outside, as she was going to Mr. Hayes and didn't care to go through by the guardhouse. So Six let her go, as he had no orders again it, even though it dawned on him that this must be the young lady that had been carried off by the Sioux.  Sure, I didn't know how to refuse a lady until she poured me out a big tumbler of wine. Wine, she said, she was taking it to Sergeant Briggs and Corporal Turner that was shot at the Elk, and she couldn't bear to see me all alone out there in the cold. But Six said he doesn't take the wine. He got six months blind once for a similar solstice and mindful of the major's warning, this was diplomatic. Six swore he had sworn off and had to refuse the repeated requests of the lady. He suspicioned her, he said, because she was so persistent. Then she laughed and said good night and went on to the hospital. What became of the wine she had poured out? This, from the grim and hitherto silent doctors seated by the bedside. She must have tossed it out or drunk it herself, perhaps. Six didn't know. Certainly no trace of it could be found in the snow. Then nothing happened for as much as twenty minutes or so, and he was over toward the south end of his post, but facing towards the hospital when she came again down the steps, and this time handed him some cake and told him he was a good soldier not to drink even wine, and asked him what were the lights away across the plat, and he couldn't see any, and was following or pointing finger and staring. And then, all of a sudden he saw a million lights dancing and stars and bombs, and that was all he knew till they began talking to him here in the hospital. Something had hit him from behind, but he couldn't tell what. Flint's nerve was failing him. For here was confirmation of the general's theory, but there was worse to come, and more of it. Ms. McGrath, domestic at the traitors, had told a tale that had reached the ears of Mistress McGann, and was the latter that bade the major summon the girl and demanded of her what it was that she had seen and heard concerning Crapo, and the lady occupant on the second floor front at the traitors' home. Then it was that the major heard what others had earlier conjectured, that there had been clandestine meetings, whispered conferences, and the like, within the first week of the lovely nieces coming to Fort Frane. That note had been fetched and carried by Crapo, as well as Pete, that Ms. Flower was either a son of bullist, or a good imitation of one, as on two occasions the maid had peaked, and seen her downstairs at the back door in the dead hours of the night, or the very early morning that was when she first came. Then, since the recapture, Ms. McGrath felt confident that though never again detected downstairs, Ms. Flower had been out at night, as Ms. McGrath believed her to have been the night when was it. When little Kennedy had his scrab with the sews, the boys do be all talking about the night, in fact, that Straber's band slipped away from the plant, Ray's troupe followed at dawn. Question is how it was possible for Ms. Flower to get out without coming downstairs. Ms. McGrath said she wasn't good at Monkey Shines herself, but women that could ride straddle-wise were capable of climbs more difficult than that which the vine trellis afforded from the porch floor to the porch roof. Ms. McGrath hadn't been spying, of course, because her room was at the back of the house, beyond the kitchen. But how did the little heel tracks get on the veranda roof, the road dust on the matting under the window? The vine twigs in that quare made skirt never worn by day. That Ms. Flower could and did ride a straddle and ride admirably when found with the sew at Bear Cliff. Everybody at Frane, well, knew by this time that she had so ridden at Fort Frane, was known to no officer lady of the garrison then present, but believed by Ms. McGrath because of certain inexpressibles of the same material with the quay made skirt, both found dusty and somewhat bedraggled. The morning Captain Blake was having his chase after the Indians, and Ms. Flowers was so wild excited like all this and more did Ms. McGrath reveal before being permitted to return to the sanctity of her chamber, and Flint felt the ground sinking beneath his feet. It might even be alleged of him now that he had kind of aid at the escape of this most dangerous and desperate character, this Indian leader of whom example prompt and sharp would certainly have been made. Unless a general, at the ends of justice, were defeated. But what stung the major most of all was that he had been fairly victimized. Hood-winked, cajoled, weedled, flattered into this wretched predicament, all through the wiles and graces of a woman. No one knew it, whatever might be suspected, but Nanette had bewitched him quite as much as Ms. Aviv's from the east had persuaded and misled. And so it was with a hardened and resentful heart that the major sought her on the morrow. The general and the commanders afield would soon be coming home. Such Indians, as they had not rounded up and captured, were scattered far and wide. Campaign was over. Now for the disposition of the prisoners. It was to tell Ms. Hayward Nanette, especially Nanette, why the centuries were re-established about their home, and that, though he would not place a traitor's niece within a garrison cell, he should hold her prisoner beneath a traitor's roof to await the action of superior authority on the grievous charges lodged at her door. She was able to be up, said Ms. McGrath. Not only up, but down. Down in the breakfast room. Looking blighter and more like herself than she had been since she was brought home. Say the major Flint desires to see her and Ms. Hay, said Flint, with majesty of mean, as followed by two of his officers. He was shown into the traitor's parlor. And presently they came. Ms. Hay, pale and souring. Ms. Flower, pale, perhaps but triumphly defiant. The one sat and covered her face with her hands and listened to the major's few words, cold, stern, and accusing. The other looked squarely at him, with fearless glittering eyes. You may order what you like as far as I am concerned, was the utterly reckless answer of the girl. I don't care what you do now that I know he's safe, free, and that you will never lay hands on him again. That's where you're in error, Ms. Flower, was the major's calm, cold-blooded, yet rejoiceful reply. It was for this indeed that he had come. Ralph Merrill was run down by my men soon after midnight, and he's now behind bars. End of Chapter 22 Recorded by Ken Campbell For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recorded by Jim Fish on the Texas Frontier. A Daughter of the Sioux by General Charles King Chapter 23 A Soldier Entangled December in bitter cold. The river frozen stiff. The prairie sheeted in unbroken snow. Great log fires roaring in every open fireplace. Great throngs of soldiery about the red-hot barric stoves. For all the columns were again in winter columns, and Flint's two companies had got the route for home. They were to march on the morrow, escorting as far as Laramie the intracable of Stadler's Band. Some few of the Indians to go in irons, among them Ralph Merrill, or Eagle Wing, now a notorious character. The general was there at frame with old Black Bill, erstwhile Chief Inspector of the Department, once a subaltern in days long gone by when Laramie was ultimately of the plane's force. The general had heard Flint's halting explanation of his laxity in morrow's case, saying almost as little in reply as his old friend Grant went interviewed by those of whom he disapproved. Black Bill it was who waxed explosive when once he opened on the major and showed that a maize New England or something of the contents of morrow's Indian kit, including the now famous hunting pouch, all found with Stadler's Village. A precious scoundrel, as it turned out, was this same morrow, with more sins to answer for than many a convicted jailbird, and with not one follower left to do him reverence except perhaps that lonely girl, self-secluded at the Hayes.  Dade, Blake, and Ray were all once more housed in Garrison. Truscott and Billings, with their hearty troopers, had taken temporary station at the post until the general had decided upon the disposition of the array of surrendered Indians. Nearly three hundred in number, now confined under strong guard in the quartermaster's corral at the flats, with six head devils, including Eaglewing in the Garrison prison. All officers with two exceptions were again for duty at Frane. Webb, laid by the hills at Beecher, his feet severely frozen, and Beverly Phil, who recall from a brief and solemn visit to a far southern home, had reached the post at nightfall of the tent. There had hardly been allowed him time to uplift a single prayer, to receive a word of consolation from the lips of friends and kindred who loved the honored father, born to his last resting place. Come as soon as possible, read the message wired him by Ray, and though the campaign was over, it was evident that something was amiss, and with all his sorrow fresh upon him, the lad, sore in body and soul, had hastened to obey. And it was Ray who received and welcomed him, and took him straightway to his own cozy quarters, that Mrs. Ray, and then the blakes, might add their sympathetic and cordial greeting. Eret came to telling why it was that these, his friends, despite that trouble that could not be talked of, were now so earnest in their sympathy, before telling him that his good name had become involved, that there were allegations concerning him which the chief had ordered pigeon-holed, until he should come to face them. A pity it is that Bill Hay could not have been there too, but his fever had left him far too weak to leave his room. Only Ray and Blake were present, and it was an interview not soon, if ever, to be forgotten. I'm no hand at breaking things gently, Field, said Ray, when finally the three were closeted together in the captain's den. It used to worry Webb that you were seen so often riding with Miss Flower up to Stabber's Village, and in the light of what has since happened, you will admit that he had reasons. Hear me, though, he continued, as Field, setting bolt up right in his easy chair, essay to speak. Neither Captain Blake nor I believe one word to your dishonor in the matter, but it looks as though you had been made a tool of, and you are by no means the first man. It was to see this fellow morrow eagle-wing whom you recognized as the elk. She was there so frequently, was it not? Into Field's pale face there came a look of infinite distress, for a moment he hesitated, and little beads began to start out on his forehead. Captain Ray, he finally said, they tell me, I heard it from the driver on the way up from Rock Springs, that Miss Flower is virtually a prisoner, that she has been in league with the Sioux, and yet, until I can see her, can secure my release from a promise, I have to answer you as I answered you before, I cannot say. Blake started impatiently and heaved up from his lounging chair, his long legs taking him in three strides to the frost-covered window at the front. Ray sadly shook his dark curly head. You are to see her field, the general, bless him for a trump, wouldn't listen to a word against you in your absence. But that girl has involved everybody. You, her aunt, who has been devotion itself to her, her uncle, who is almost her slave, she deliberately betrayed him into the hands of the Sioux. In fact, this red robber and villain morrow is the only creature she hasn't tried to work, and he abandoned her after she had lied, sneaked, and stolen for him. Captain Ray, the cry came from pouted lips, and the young soldier started to his feet, appalled at such accusation. Every word of it is true, said Ray. She joined him after his wounds. She shared his escape from the village at our approach. She was with him when Blake nabbed him at Bearcliff. She was going with him from here. What manner of girl was that field for you to be mixed up with? He is her half-brother, protested Phil with kindling eyes.  Made you a catchpaw, led you even to taking her by night to see him when she learned the band were to jump for the mountains.  Why, Phil, that brutes her lover, and she's his. It's a lie, you shall not say it, sir, cried Phil beside himself with wrath and amaze as he stood quivering from head to foot, still weak from wounds, fever and distress of mind. But Ray sprang to his side. Hush, Blake. Hush, Phil. Don't speak. What is it, Hogan? And sharply he turned him to the door, never dreaming what had caused the interruption. The general, sir, to see the captain. And there, in the hallway, throwing off his heavy overcoat and artics, there, with that ever-faithful aid in close attendance, was a chief they loved. Dropped in, all unsuspecting, just to say goodbye. I knocked twice, began Hogan, but Ray brushed him aside for, catching sight of the captain's face, the general was already at the door. Another moment, and he had discovered field. And with both hands extended, all kindness and sympathy, he stepped at once across the room to greet him. I was so very sorry to hear the news, said he. I knew your father well in the old days. How's your wound? What brought you back so soon? And then there was one instant of awkward silence, and then Ray spoke. That was my doing, general. I believed it best that he should be here to meet you and every allegation at his expense. Mr. Field, I feel sure, does not begin to know them yet, especially as to the money. It was all recovered, said the general. It was found almost in tact. So was much of that that they took from Hay, even if it hadn't been. Hay assumed all responsibility for the loss. With new bewilderment in his face, the young officer, still white and trembling, was gazing, half stupefied, from one to the other. What money, he demanded. I never heard. Wait, said the general, with significant glance at Ray, who was about to speak. I am to see them, Mrs. Hay and her niece, at nine o'clock. It's near that now. Webb cannot be with us, but I shall want you, Blake. Say nothing until then. Sit down, Mr. Field, and tell me about that leg. Can you walk from here to Hay's, I wonder? Then the ladies, Mrs. Ray and her charming next-door neighbor, appeared, and the general adjourned the conference forthwith, and went with them to the parlor. Say nothing more, Ray found time to whisper. You'll understand it all in twenty minutes. At nine o'clock the little party was on its way to the sharp and wintry night. The general and Captain Blake, side by side ahead, the aid to camp, and Mr. Field close following. Dr. Walter, who had been sent far, met them near the office. The sentries at the guardhouse were being changed as the five tramped by along the snapping and protesting boardwalk. And a sturdy little chap, in fur cap and gauntlets, a huge buffalo overcoat, caught sight of them and, facing outward, slapped his carbine down to the carry. The night signal of soldier recognition of superior rank is practiced at that time. Tables are turned with a vengeance, said the general, with his quiet smile. That's little Kennedy, isn't it? I seem to see him everywhere when we're campaigning.  So he said, Grand Blake, before Windsor's bullet fetched him, pity it hadn't killed him instead of crippling him. He's a bad lot, side the general. Wing won't fly away from Kennedy, I fancy. Not if there's a shot left in his belt, said Blake. And Ray is officer of the day. There'll be no napping on guard this night. At the bar at Apature that served for window on the southward front, a dark face peered forth in malignant hate as the speaker strode by. But it shrank back when the sentry once more tossed his carbine to the shoulder and briskly trudged beneath the bars. Six Indians shared that prison room, four of their number destined to exile in the distant east, two years, perhaps, within the casements of Seaboard Fort, the last place on earth for a son of the warlike Sioux. They know their fate, I understand, said Blake, as the general moved on again. Oh yes, their agent and others have been here with Indian beroirs, permitting them to see and talk with prisoners. Their shackles are to be riveted on tonight. Nearly time now, isn't it? A tattoo served, the whole guard forms then, and the four are to be moved into the main room for the purpose. I'm glad this is the last of it. Yes, we'll start then with Flynn at dawn in the morning. He'll be more than glad to get away, too. He hasn't been over lucky here, either. A strange domestic, the McGrath having been given warning and removed to Sudsville, showed them into the Trader's Roomie Parlor, the largest and most retentious at the post. Hay had lavished money on his home and loved it, and the woman who had so adorned it. She came in almost instantly to greet them, looking pietously into the kindly-bearded face of a general, and civilly yet absently, welcoming the others. She did not seem to realize the field who stood in silence by the sight of Captain Blake had been away. She had no thought, apparently, for anyone but the chief himself, he who held the destinies of her dear ones in the hollow of his hands. His first question was for Fallen Eyes, the little Ogallala maiden whose history he seemed to know. She is well and trying to be content with me, was the reply. She has been helping poor Nanette. She does not seem to understand or realize what is coming to him. Have they ironed him yet? I believe not, said the general. But it has to be done tonight. They start so early in the morning. And you won't let her see him, general. No good can come from it.  And the richly-jewel hands of the unhappy woman were classed almost in supplication. By morning he will be beyond her reach. The escort starts at six. And these gentlemen here? She looked nervously appealing about her. Must they all know? These and the Inspector General. He will be here in a moment. But indeed, Mrs. Hay, it is all known, practically, said the general, with sympathy and sorrow in his tone. Not all. Not all, general. Even I don't know all. She herself has said so. Hush, she's coming. She was there. They had listened for a swish of skirts, or fall of slender feet upon the stairway. But there had not been a sound. They saw the reason as she halted at the entrance, lifting with one little hand the costly Navajo blanket that hung as a portier. In harmony with the glossy folds of richly dyed wool, she was habited in an ink garb from head to foot.  A robe of dark blue stuff, rich with broidery of colored bead and bright-hued plumage hung, close clinging, and her feet were shot in soft moccasins, all slow deftly worked with bead and quill. But it was her face that chained the gaze of all, and that drew from the pallid lips of Lieutenant Field a gasp of mingle consternation and amaze. Without a vestige of color, with black circles under her glittering eyes, with lines of suffering around the rigid mouth and with that strange pinched look about the nostrils that tells of anguish, bodily, and mental, Nanette stood at the doorway, looking straight at the chief. She had no eyes for lesser lights.  Appeal on part of friends' societies, peace in Indian socials had failed. The president had referred the matter in its entirety to the general commanding in the field, and the general had decided. One moment she studied his face, then came slowly forward. No hand extended, no sign of salutation, greeting much less of homage. Ignoring all others' presence, she addressed herself solely to him. Is it true you have ordered him in irons into Fort Rochambeau? She demanded. It is. Simply because he took part with his people when your soldiers made war on them? She asked, her pale lips quivering. You well know how much else there was, answered the general simply, and I have told you he deserves no pity of yours. Oh, you say he came back here a spy she broke forth impeduously? It is not so. He never came near the post, nearer than Stabber's village, and there he had a right to be. You say it was he who led them to the warpath, that he planned the robbery here and took the money? He never knew they were going till they were gone. He never stole a penny. That money was loaned to him honestly and for a purpose, and with the hope and expectation of rich profit thereby. By you, do you mean, as the general calmly is before? By me? No. What money had I? He asked, and it was given him by Lieutenant Field. A gasp that was almost a cry following instantly on this insolent assertion. A sound of stirrer and stard among the officers at whom she had not as yet so much as glanced now caused the girl to turn one swift contemptuous look their way, and in that momentary flash her eyes encountered those of the man she had thus accused. Field stood, like one turned suddenly to stone, gazing at her with wild, incredulous eyes. One instant she seemed to sway as though the sight had staggered her, but the rally was instantaneous. Before the general could interpose a word, she plunged on again. He at least had a heart and conscious. He knew how wrongfully Moreau had been accused. That money was actually needed to establish his claim. It would all have been repaid if your soldiers had not forced this wicked war, and now in her vehemence her eyes were flashing, her hand uplifted, when all of a sudden the portier was raised the second time, and there at the doorway stood the former Inspector General, Blackville. Inside of him the mad flow of words met sudden stop. Down, slowly down, came the clenched, uplifted hand. Her eyes glaring as were filled as a moment ago were fixed in awful fascination on the grizzled face. Then actually she recalled as the veteran officer stepped quietly forward into the room. And what, said he, with placid interest, I haven't heard you rave in many a moon, Annette.  But a wondrous silence had fallen on the group. The girl had turned rigid. For an instant not a move was made, and in the hush of all but throbbing hearts the sound of the trumpets peeling forth the last notes of tattoo came softly through the outer night. Then sudden, close at hand, yet muffled by double door and windows came other sounds, sounds of rush and scurry, excited voices, cries of halt, halt, the ring of a carbine, a yell of warning, another shot, and Blake and the aid to camp sprang through the hallway to the storm door without. Mrs. Hay shuddering with dread, round to the door of her husband's chamber beyond the dining room. She was gone but a moment. When she returned a little ogolala made, trembling in wild-eyed, had come running down from the loft. The general had followed into the lighted hallway. They were all crowding there by this time, and the voice of Captain Roy, with just a tremor of excitement about it, was heard at the storm door on the porch, in explanation to the chief. Morose, her, broke guard and stabbed Kennedy. The second shot dropped him. He wants fallen eyes, his sister. A scream of agony ran through the hall, shrill and piercing. Then the wild cry followed. You shall not hold me, let me go to him. I say, I am his wife.