Under Fire Part 18

"Red Dog wastes time and wind talking here. If he wants to be heard let him go there," said Boynton, pointing to the distant agency. "Unless,"

he added, with sarcastic emphasis,--"unless Red Dog's afraid." And then he, too, reined deliberately about and signalled to his men to follow.

For a moment there was silence as Elk stumblingly put into Sioux the lieutenant's ultimatum. Then came an outburst of wrath and invective.

Red Dog afraid, indeed! Loudly he called for his horse, and the crowd gave way as a boy came running leading the chief's pet piebald. In an instant, Indian fashion, he had thrust his heavily-beaded moccasin far into the off-side stirrup and thrown his leggined left leg over the high silver-tipped cantle, and the trained war pony began to bound and curvet. Swinging over his head his beautiful new Winchester, Red Dog rode furiously to and fro, haranguing the excited tribesmen, and speedily more Indians were sitting hunched up in saddle, but darting skilfully hither and yon, yelping shrill alarm. Others dashed away to the distant village to rouse Red Dog's own people and summon the warriors that remained. In fifteen minutes, at the head of three hundred mounted braves, Red Dog was riding straight for the agency, his escort gaining numbers with every rod. Red Dog afraid, indeed!

Over the moonlit sweep of snow the watchers at the corral saw the coming throng, a moving ma.s.s, black and ominous as the storm-cloud. Within the buildings all hands were hastily barricading doors and windows and bustling a few women and children, trembling and terrified, into the cellars. Out in the corral in disciplined silence the troopers were promptly mustering and forming line. Six or eight of the party that arrived with Davies that morning having badly frozen fingers and toes were told off to act as horse-holders. "We've simply to fight on the defensive," said Boynton to his silent second in command, "and we'll fight afoot. Thirty men can defend the corral and out-houses and the front of the agency. The rest we'll put in the building. That's all we've got."

Away from the excited group at the office door a horseman turned and spurred full speed for the hills far to the southwest. "Tell 'em we're attacked by overpowering numbers," said McPhail, "and want instant help,--all they can send us." There was no time to write despatches; the shouts and taunts and shrill defiance of the coming troop already rang in their ears.

"Now then, McPhail," said Boynton, lunging up through the snow-drifts, carbine in hand, "I've got my men at every loop and knot-hole, and those beggars can't take this shop to-night. What I want is authority to arrest that head devil the moment he gets here."

"It will only infuriate them and make matters worse," pleaded the representative of the Indian bureau.

"Well, it's the only way to put an end to the row," said the soldier.

"The only thing in G.o.d's world those fellows respect is force and pluck.

You've temporized too long. Arrest him and tell his fellows to disperse to their tepees in two minutes or we open fire."

"How can you arrest him in front of all that array?" was the tremulous question. "Do you suppose they'll permit it?"

"That's my business," was Boynton's answer. "I don't mean to let that gang come within three hundred yards, and you're a worse fool than I thought if you overrule me. I'm going to ride out there now to halt them at the creek. Then you order Red Dog forward with his interpreter and bring him in here a prisoner. You've not an instant to lose," he finished as a trooper came up at the run, Boynton's big bay trotting at his heels. The lieutenant was in saddle in a second. "Are you agreed?"

he asked.

"Why, they'll say we began it, lieutenant. They'll swear they were only coming to talk. They've always been accustomed to come here whenever they wanted to. We have only a handful of men; they've got a thousand fighting braves within a day's call. My G.o.d! I can't risk my family!"

"You've done that already with your confounded temporizing. Look there, man. It's too late now. There's where I would have held them, along the creek bank. Now they're swarming across."

Singing, shouting, brandishing lance and rifle, their barbaric ornaments gleaming in the frosty moonlight, some of the younger men darting to and fro on their swift ponies, mad with excitement, on came the surging crowd, led by the majestic figure of the big chief, jogging straight on at the slow, characteristic amble of the Indian pony, his war-bonnet trailing to the ground. From far and near, up and down the valley, dim, ghostly, shadowy hors.e.m.e.n came darting to join the array. Close behind Red Dog some rabid warrior began a wild war chant, and others took it up. Somewhere along the throng a tom-tom began its rapid, monotonous thump, and here, there, and everywhere the rattles played their weird, stirring accompaniment.

"Well, by G.o.d, McPhail! you may let them ride over you and yours, but they can't ride over me and mine without a fight," said Boynton, now wild with wrath. "That whole force will be swarming through the premises in five minutes. Quick, Davies!" he cried. "Forward as skirmishers!

Cover that front! Ten men will do." And without further command, scorning prescribed order of formation, but with the quick intuition of the American soldier,--the finest skirmisher in the world,--a little party of troopers watching at the corral gate, sprang forth into the moonlight and, opening out like a fan, carbines at trail or on the shoulder, forward at full run they dashed, spreading as rapidly as they possibly could to irregular intervals of something like ten yards from man to man, and presently there interposed between the coming host and the black group of buildings at their back this thin line of dismounted men, halted in silence to await the orders of the tall, slender subaltern officer, who, afoot like themselves, now stood some thirty paces in rear of their centre, calmly confronting the advancing Indians.

Up to Davies's side rode Boynton, bent and whispered a word, then spurred forward to the line, and there, reining in, raised to the full length of his arm a gauntleted hand, palm to the front, and gave the universal signal known by every Indian and frontiersman from Hudson's Bay to the Gulf of California,--"Halt!"

"Red Dog comes to talk with the Great Father's agent, not with you,"

shouted Elk, lashing forward for a parley.

"All right. Come on, you and Red Dog, but order your gang to stay where they are. The agent will talk with Red Dog, but no one else."

Without audible orders of any kind, the Indians had suddenly ceased their clamor, and now, apparently, were quickly ranging up into long, irregular line in rear of their chief. Presently, as Red Dog and Elk conferred, there stretched across the snow-streaked prairie some three hundred motley braves, mounted on their war ponies, the flanks of the line receiving constant additions from the direction of the distant lodges. Then Elk again came forward, Red Dog sitting in statuesque dignity in front of his tribesmen.

"The white chief has his soldiers. The agent of the Great Father has his men. Red Dog demands the right to bring an equal retinue," was doubtless what the Indian wished to say and what in the homely metaphor of the plains he made at once understood. "You got soldiers. Agent got heap.

Red Dog he say he bring heap same," was the way Elk put it, and Boynton expected it.

"Tell Red Dog the soldiers will fall back and the agent come half-way out afoot. Red Dog and you dismount and come forward half-way. If your people advance a step we fire. That's all."

Another low-toned parley between the chief and his henchmen. Two minutes of silent fidgeting along the line of mounted Indians. Like so many blue statues the skirmishers stood or knelt, carbines advanced, every hammer at full c.o.c.k. Back in the shadows of the agency hearts were thumping hard and all eyes were strained upon the scene at the east. The moon, riding higher every moment, looked coldly down upon the valley. Elk came forward again, and Red Dog's war-bonnet wagged first to right and then to left. He was saying something in low tone to the braves at his back and they were pa.s.sing it along to the outer flanks of the line.

"Red Dog says soldiers go back and agent come out and talk," said he.

"All right so far, but does Red Dog agree to dismount? Does he agree to hold his people where they are? Does he understand that if they advance we fire? Here, Red Dog," said Boynton, riding forward half a dozen yards, "you understand me well enough. If your crowd moves a pony length forward we fire, and, mark you, any trick or treachery and down you go, first man."

To this Red Dog deigned no other response than a scowl.

"Back up slowly, men, face to the front," said Boynton to his silent line. "Hold 'em, Davies. I'll go back to McPhail."

But when the agent was told the terms of the parley he refused. "Why, he'd knife or pistol me just as the Modocs did the Peace Commissioners,"

said he. "I won't step off the agency porch. We've got seven armed men here. Let him bring seven, and you have your soldiers ready inside the corral. Then if he wants to talk business he can see me here."

By this time, slowly retiring and gradually closing toward the centre, Davies and his skirmishers had come back within twenty yards of the building. Boynton swore a round oath. "There's no help for it, Parson, we've got to do as this chump decides. There's one chance yet. Get your men back to their loop-holes and join me here. No man to fire, remember, except as ordered."

Quickly the troopers scurried back to their positions along the stockade. Originally it had been intended to enclose all the buildings within this defensive work, but the returning tourists were prompt to express their disapprobation. Having just shaken hands with the Great Father at Washington, they were suspicious of such an exhibition of lack of confidence on the part of his agent. That the store-rooms should have iron-barred windows was another ground for remark and remonstrance.

The red children refused to enter a stockade whose gates might be closed behind them, or a room whose windows were barred. An inspector came out and held a powwow and shook hands with everybody, and told the agent the red children were lambs who would never harm him and he mustn't show distrust. It hurt their sensitive natures. So the stockade only enclosed the shed and stables, but it ab.u.t.ted, luckily, upon the agent's house and office. Re-entering the house from the rear, after a few words of instruction to Sergeant Lutz and his men, Davies pushed through hurriedly to the front piazza. Red Dog in grand state, with an interpreter at his left rear and seven stalwart braves aligned like a general's staff six yards behind him, came riding with majestic dignity, straight to the dark portico. Red Dog afraid, indeed! Turning his horse over to an orderly and sending him within the stockade, Boynton ordered the gate closed.

"We'll have a breeze here in a minute," he whispered to Davies. "That sinner means mischief. You watch him and the agent. I'll keep my eye on the main body."

Fifteen yards away, Red Dog halted and silently studied the shadowy group on the agency porch. There stood the bureau's "ablegate," the official interpreter by his side. In the door-way, dimly outlined, were two of his a.s.sistants, men who had known the Sioux for years, but knew not influential relatives in the East. Boynton ranged up close alongside in hopes of prompting the official. "He's beginning to look knee-sprung already," whispered he to Davies, "but I'll brace him if I can." Just behind the agent stood one of his police, and this was before the days of an Indian police that, properly handled, proved valuable as auxiliaries. Then Red Dog in slow, sonorous speech began to declaim.

"Choke him off! Make him dismount and report at your office. He'll only insult you where he is," whispered Boynton.

"Red Dog says, as the agent didn't dare come and get him, he concluded to come in and see whether the agent would dare take him," began the interpreter, in trembling tones, the moment the Indian paused.

"Too late, by G.o.d!" hissed Boynton between his set teeth. "He means to blackguard the whole party right here and then ride off rejoicing."

And Red Dog reined closer and began anew. Throwing back his quill-embroidered robe, he lifted a muscular arm to heaven, and with clinching fist and flashing eyes seemed to hurl invective straight in the agent's face.

"You dare demand the arrest of Red Dog, do you?" he thundered in his native tongue, leaving hardly an instant for the interpreter. "Now hear Red Dog's reply. The blood of one of our young men calls aloud for vengeance. His slayer is here and you know him. Red Dog, backed by the braves of every tribe at the reservation, comes to demand his surrender.

Give him up to us and your lives are safe. Refuse, and you, your wives and children, are at the mercy of my young men. Red Dog dares and defies the soldiers of the Great Father."

Consciously or unconsciously, in the magnificence of his wrath, the chief had ridden almost to the very edge of the porch and there shook his clinched fist in the ghastly face of McPhail. The agent started back amazed, terrified, for as though to emphasize his defiance Red Dog's gleaming revolver was whipped suddenly from its sheath and flashed aloft over his feathered head.

And then there came sudden fury of excitement. A bound from the edge of the porch, a fierce yell, an outburst of Indian war-cries, a surging forward of the escort at the chieftain's back, a rush and scurry in the offices, the slamming of doors, the flash and report of a dozen revolvers, a distant roar and thunder of a thousand hoofs and chorus of thrilling yells, a scream from the women and children in the cellars below, a ringing cheer from the stockade, followed by the resonant bang, bang of the cavalry carbine, and all in an instant a mad, whirling maelstrom of struggle right at the steps, braves and ponies, soldiers and scouts, all crashing together in a rage of battle, and then, bending low to avoid the storm of well-aimed bullets from practised hands at the stockade, some few warriors managed to dash, bleeding, away, just as a determined little band of blue-coats, half a dozen in number, leaped through the door-way and down the steps, blazing into the ruck as they charged, and within another minute were coolly kneeling and firing at the swarming, yelling, veering warriors, already checked in their wild clash to the rescue, and within the little semicircle two furiously straining forms, locked in each other's arms, were rolling over and over on the trampled snow,--Red Dog, panting, raging, biting, cursing, but firmly, desperately held in the clasp of an athletic soldier, for without a word Percy Davies had leaped from the porch and borne the Sioux chieftain struggling to the ground. Red Dog,--redder than ever before, even on the b.l.o.o.d.y day of the Little Horn,--bound hand and feet with cavalry lariats, spent that long winter's night a prisoner in the hands of Boynton's men, while the prairie without was dotted with braves and ponies, dropped by their cool, relentless aim. Red Dog at last had had his day.

CHAPTER XIX.

The blizzard that swept down on the broad valley of the Platte the night of the hop,--the night Davies marched away,--though severe, had been of short duration. A warm wind and a strong wind from the Arkansas met and overthrew it, and pursued its decisive victory to the Dakota line. The snow was "slumping," said the little Leonards, when Messrs. Burtis and Willett drove out from Braska Friday afternoon and took Mrs. Davies and Mrs. Darling sleighing up the valley. It was freezing, of course, again by sundown, but judging from Mira's glowing cheeks the drive in the exhilarating air had done her a deal of good, and she sat with Willett, while Mrs. Darling faced the breeze at the side of his accomplished a.s.sociate. Many women watched the start and some saw the finish, and none with more interest than Mrs. Flight, who had never before been left on such occasions, nor with more distress than Mrs. Cranston, who knew not what to say. The party dined at the Darlings' quarters that evening, and later some of the boys came to Leonard and asked if it wouldn't be possible to have a few of the band in the hop-room. They wanted to dance and Darling's house was too small. Leonard said they knew the colonel's decision,--the bandsmen were expected to play once a week as late as any one cared to dance in consideration of certain small extra pay. If they played at any other time, they had a right to expect compensation. He would not order them out. Messrs. Sanders and Dot and Jervis could go and see the leader and arrange with him as to terms and men, if they chose, and have their dance. It wasn't what the boys expected; moreover, it was late, but they were young, energetic, and enthusiastic. Three musicians were found and a dozen couples, and long after midnight the lights and laughter and merry strains of music told that the younger element of Scott was enjoying itself irrespective of anything that might be going on at the almost forgotten agency. The chaplain and his wife, going earlier in the evening to call and cheer Almira, were met by Katty at the door and the information that "the misthress was dinin' at Mrs. Darlin's." Katty was short with her visitors for two reasons. She didn't approve of the dominie, as he was not of the faith of her Irish fathers, and she did approve of Corporal Lenihan, who had come to spend the evening. When, therefore, the worthy couple announced that they would return later after making other calls in order to see if there were not something they could do for Mrs.

Davies, who must be dreadfully sad, Katty replied, "'Deed and they needn't worry, for it's more'n _she_ did." The stern discipline of the post took Lenihan off to his troop at tattoo, but Katty lacked not for company. "It wasn't becoming," said her mother, "that she should be left to herself at the dead of night with no one but that lout Barnickel to look after her." So she came up from Sudsville at taps to discuss Mrs.

Davies's tea and preserves and, incidentally, her character with her blooming daughter, and Barnickel was sociably disposed, and the kitchen congress was in animated session when at 11.30 P.M. there came a sharp ring at the bell.

"Bless us! I didn't suppose they'd be home till long after midnight,"

said Katty, as she scurried away. It wasn't the misthress, however; only Mrs. Darling's maid, to say that Mrs. Davies would not come home; she would spend the night at Mrs. Darling's, and Letty had come for her things. This necessitated Mrs. Maloney's remaining all night to further look after Katty, and what more natural than that they should light Mrs.

Davies's lamp and spend a blissful hour in her simply furnished but pretty room, looking over the new gowns and garments and jimcracks, and so absorbed were they in this occupation that they took no heed of time; and so it happened that the good old chaplain, coming shortly after midnight over from the hospital, whither he had been summoned to the bedside of a sorely-stricken trooper, rejoiced to see that Mrs. Davies, at least, had not gone to the dance, but was keeping wifely vigil in the sanct.i.ty of her own room, praying, probably, for the safety of the loved young husband now on perilous duty eighty miles away. At the corner, at the end of the long row of quarters, a solitary figure was standing. The chaplain recognized the beaver overcoat in the soft moonlight and the soldierly face under the forage-cap.

"Ah, Cranston! Officer-of-the-day, I see. Just going the rounds?"

"I was,--yes,--but I saw you coming, so waited. How's Hooker?"

"Very low, poor fellow! Typhoid has him in tight grip. He's flighty to-night. He thinks he's back on the summer campaign again, and his talk is all of the Antelope Springs affair. Odd! this makes the third man to come back from Boynton's party, two with typhoid fever and one with the mail-carrier and a bottle,--Brannan I mean,--and they all talk about that. From what I have gathered it would seem that Devers blamed Mr.