Under Fire Part 27

"Not to you," was the determined answer. "I will surrender to soldiers when they demand, and to them only, and I'll await justice as their prisoner and not as yours."

"My G.o.d! Mr. Davies, you've _got_ to do something!" wailed the agent, shrinking still farther back now, as Red Dog's line unmistakably quickened the pace and the earth began to quiver and tremble.

"Take the men and fall back towards the agency, sir," said Davies, quickly, sternly, and then without an instant's hesitation spurred forward. As he rode he whipped off his right gauntlet, and then halting within a horse-length of the silent warrior, held out his bare hand.

"Thunder Hawk, this is the hand of a friend. Will you ride with me and turn Red Dog back?"

"I will go with you wherever you say."

Over among the lodges of Thunder Hawk's people the signs of intense excitement were on the increase. Women and young girls had taken up the weird war-song of the advancing array. Young men springing to their ponies and no longer able to restrain their desire to act in his behalf, all forgetful of his injunction, came galloping forth to join the band of Red Dog riding to the rescue. Over at the agency, far to the rear, there was mad flurry and consternation. Women and children of the few employes, now that there was a military post within range, were gathering up such valuables as they could carry and scurrying away along the cantonment road. Conscious of his own impotence, McPhail had lost the last vestige of his truculent manner and, eagerly availing himself of Davies's advice, turned nervously to the senior corporal of the little squad of troopers and said, "Fall back! We've got to fall back to the reserve." The corporal glanced first at him, irresolutely, then back at the coming reserve now spurring forward with Lutz at their head, then around at the whirl and turmoil and trouble in the villages, at Red Dog's now "magnificently stern array," and finally at the two figures, calmly, slowly riding straight at the very centre of the advancing line, straight at the heart of Red Dog's chanting battalion; and then, when McPhail nervously repeated his instructions, and, adding example to precept, turned and strove to lead the party in retreat, briefly addressed first his fellows and then the agent.

"Stand fast, men!--You--go to h.e.l.l!"

A moment later and far out at the front now the two figures had halted, a strange contrast. The man on the right, tall, slender, of athletic and graceful build, clad in trim simple undress uniform of the cavalry, sitting his horse as straight as a young pine; the other, bent, blanket-robed, hunched up on his pony in the peculiarly ungraceful pose of the Indian rider when at rest, but resolute and immovable; both sublimely devoted in the duty now before them. When by the sweeping advance of the Indian line these two, the young officer, the old sub-chief, were brought nearly midway between the little party of blue-coats and the great rank of red warriors, both men as by common impulse threw upward the right hand, signalling "Stand where you are!"

to the coming line.

And recognizing their challengers, little by little, gradually reining in, the Indians obeyed. Only Red Dog, followed closely by Elk, sullenly, angrily continued the advance; his fierce eyes, avoiding Davies's calm face, were bent glowering upon his fellow-tribesman.

"Why is Thunder Hawk here?" was his demand in the Ogallalla tongue. "Is he ally or prisoner of the soldiers?"

"Thunder Hawk is their friend and the friend of his people. The white chief came as his friend and brother to protect him from indignity. Now as friends and brothers we stand between Red Dog and the wrong he would do. Only over our bodies shall Red Dog move another lance-length against the Great Father's people."

Davies could not comprehend this talk, but there was no mistaking its import or its effect on the rabid chief. Furiously Red Dog pressed forward, his rifle still clutched in his sinewy hand.

"Thunder Hawk is a traitor and a liar! He has sold himself to the whites! He is their prisoner, and when they have used him they will iron and brand and starve him. Even a sub-chief of the Dakotas shall not live to be their tool. Thunder Hawk rides back with us at once or dies here and now." And around came the ready weapon, muzzle to the front, with Red Dog's hand at the guard.

"Ride back to your men, lieutenant," muttered the old Indian. "You have my word that I will join you as soon as I can, but this man is crazed.

He means to force a fight."

"If that be so my place is here with you," was the answer. "What does he demand?" "No parlying with your soldier friends," shouted Red Dog, again in the Sioux tongue. Then, as though losing all control of himself in his hatred of his captor, he dashed furiously at Davies. "Back!" he shouted. "Back!" And he pointed with grand dramatic action up the valley. "Back to your own people! This is Indian land." Then seeing that his words fell on heedless ears and that Davies never relaxed his cool, steadfast gaze into the raging red face, he fell into such English as he knew. "Run or I kill."

And then Lutz and his reserve, just reaching their comrades under Corporal Clanton, saw a sudden flash of sunshine from the silver mountings of the Indian's beautiful Winchester as it was whirled to the brawny shoulder, saw sudden rear and plunge of Davies's spirited horse, a grapple as though in mid-air, and with a mad cry of "My G.o.d! They'll murder him!" young trooper Brannan dashed forward from the ranks just as the shot from Red Dog's rifle whirled harmless into s.p.a.ce, and horse and man, the pride of the Ogallalla hostiles, were rolling in the dust, overthrown by the officers heavier charger, while the b.u.t.t of the polished weapon, wrested from the warrior's grasp and wielded by muscular hand, came down with resounding whack on the head of the struggling chief, and for the second time, in the very face of his astonished braves, Red Dog, the redoubtable, went sprawling to earth, downed by the white chief whom he affected to despise.

In the fierce mellay that followed the advantage lay with the first to move. Lutz and his party had not really checked their gait, and so leaped into the charge with a flying start. Sixteen ready troopers had darted forward to the support of their beloved young officer. Thunder Hawk had lashed his pony so as to interpose between him and the rush of the Indian band, but even as those red-skins nearest the centre, where the drums and rattles were keeping up their low, threatening din, with one impulse dashed forward to rescue the chief, those on the flanks, far-seeing, held wisely back, even while around the prostrate chief there raged for a brief, hot, furious moment a wild babel of threat and execration, a mad whirl of brandishing knives and pistols and naked red limbs and brawny arms in dusty blue, Hawk and two other stalwart Sioux had thrown themselves between avenging blows and the young white chief, standing afoot now with pale, set face, over his writhing victim. Lutz and his men, lunging in among the lighter ponies, bore them back by sheer force of weight. 'Only one or two shots were heard; even in that frantic turmoil friend and foe alike seemed to realize that a battle must be avoided so long as each side held possession of its own. And then from the outskirts came loud yells of warning. By fives and tens the mounted warriors melted hurriedly away, and presently all the broad prairie to the eastward, back toward the lodges from which they came, was alive with circling, darting, screaming red-skins, keeping up their shrill appeal to brethren still hot-handed in the struggle for out from behind the curtain of the agency corral swept the long column of galloping horse under its curtaining cloud of dust, and down at full speed came the whole squadron, far more than Red Dog's band dare tackle in heady fight. Out from beneath his struggling pony they dragged him, bleeding and bedaubed with sweat and paint and blood, and when presently as the long skirmish line of Cranston's troop swept over the spot and drove before it all the mounted warriors, only two or three of the faithful remained to share the fortunes of their fallen chief, for like Thunder Hawk, Red Dog was the prisoner, not of the Great Father's agent, who was somewhere far to the rear, but of the soldier chief of the cantonments, who came galloping up in the wake of the cavalry, wrathful, if anything, that the whole thing was over without a fight.

And then, and not until nearly ten minutes after he had downed his man, was it noticed that Mr. Davies had not recovered color, that he was too faint to remount his horse.

"What is it, lad?" murmured Cranston, with keen anxiety in his eyes.

"I'm stabbed, captain. I--think you'd better not let Mrs. Davies know."

But Davies need not have worried on that score. When a little later they bore him, faint, unconscious from loss of blood, to his own roof at the agency, there was lack of woman's nursing, there was dearth of woman's tears,--Mira had fled with the McPhails with the first alarm, and was in hiding somewhere up at the cantonment.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

One soft spring morning, some two weeks later, a little knot of officers had gathered about the Cranstons' quarters at the cantonment. Under an awning of tent flies they were conning the papers that had just reached them and eagerly discussing their contents. Mrs. Cranston, a shade of anxiety on her winsome, sunburned face, was glancing quickly from one speaker to another. Through the open door-way in the cool interior Miss Loomis could be seen bending over the boys as they fidgeted at their books. Neither felt like studying this day of days, for absorbing news, and lots of it, had come. To begin with, a general court-martial had been ordered to meet at Omaha for the trial of Captain Devers, Eleventh Cavalry, and officers of high rank and distinction were to be his judges. With Atherton as president of the court there could be no "monkey business," said Mr. Sanders, by which that young gentleman was understood to mean that there would be no trifling with the subject. It was noticeable that neither Riggs nor Winthrop was of the detail, an omission readily understood, as Devers would unquestionably object, as was his privilege, to either or both on the ground of bias, prejudice, or malice, which, whether sustained or not, would lead to their asking to be excused from serving and so reducing the array. The court had been ordered from division head-quarters by the lieutenant-general himself, and its members, as a rule, were summoned from distant posts and commands, so as to preclude the possibility of the accused captain saying it was "packed" from the ranks of his enemies. In other words, except Atherton, the court was made up entirely of officers who had taken no part in the campaign of the previous summer. It was understood that the charges were grave and numerous; rumors of misconduct in the face of the enemy, disobedience of orders, misrepresentation of facts, etc., being among the items mentioned. Major Warren had been summoned from abroad a month earlier than he had planned to come. Colonel Peleg Stone and Mr. Leonard had both been notified that they would be required as witnesses, so had Captains Cranston, Truman and Hay, Lieutenants Boynton, Hastings and Davies. The court could not meet before mid-May because several of the members came from the department of Dakota, far up the Missouri, but that it was to be a "clinch" at last was the generally expressed sentiment. Devers had run to the end of his tether, said Boynton, unfeelingly. "I could add a charge or two myself if I didn't know he was loaded with them so deep that he can't stagger."

Boynton, limping still, had come back to resume command of the agency guard, for Davies's wound had proved deep and serious. He had been stabbed by Red Dog after that warrior was raised to his feet, after Cranston's skirmishers had swept the field, after Davies thought the struggle at an end, and was unprepared for the stealthy blow. Nothing but Brannan's vigilance, and the warning cry which caused the lieutenant to turn in the nick of time, had saved his life. Red Dog in irons lay in the log guard-house. Thunder Hawk, on parole,--for White had dared the wrath of the bureau and refused to let McPhail have him,--walked the garrison at will. Mr. Davies, still weak and languid, lay in the big hospital tent, really the most comfortable dwelling at the station, now that the weather was growing warm, and there, attended by Burroughs and ministered to by a pathetically pretty wife (who had somewhat recovered from her panic, now that she was within the stockade of a military post with lots of men around to watch her and be fascinated), was on the road to speedy convalescence. He was being allowed occasional visitors, and while his own comrades vied in their attentions, nothing could exceed the anxiety of old White, the major commanding. Twice did he have Thunder Hawk recount to him the details of Davies's calm courage in this second daring capture, red-handed, of the rebellious chief, and White went to Cranston like the blunt, outspoken campaigner that he was.

"It begins to look to me," said he, "as if this young fellow had been most d.a.m.nably backbitten. You can haul Devers before a court, but what can we do with these women?"

"You have never told me, major, what these women had to say against him."

"And I'm not going to," said White. "When a man's ashamed of having believed a mean story, the sooner he buries it the better. Men like him don't go round abusing their own wife or insulting anybody else's. It's my belief that the swarm that buzzes around the throne there at Mrs.

Pegleg's ought to be muzzled, and if the old man hadn't lost his grip in this seizure he's had, I'd tell him so."

But this seizure of Pegleg's had indeed proved a serious matter. So far from recovering his accustomed spirits, the old colonel seemed to grow feebler and less inclined to move about with every day. One morning he sent word to Captain Devers that he would not leave his bed, as he felt too weak, and that night it was that Leonard got back from Chicago. When told by Pollock, who met him at the railway station, that Devers was again in command, Leonard stepped into the telegraph-office and wrote a message which he showed to n.o.body. Within thirty-six hours Lieutenant Archer of the department staff reached Fort Scott with orders from the general commanding. Captain Pollock was placed in command of the post and Devers in close arrest. The next day Mr. Langston came out from Braska and was closeted an hour with Leonard at the adjutant's office, and then, taking advantage of a returning escort and ambulance, the civilian lawyer left for the agency. Even while the group of officers at Cranston's was eagerly discussing the news, he had made his bow to a deeply blushing Mira over at the hospital tent, and was seated by Davies's side. "Business first, pleasure afterwards," hummed Cranston to himself when he heard of the arrival, and noted how Meg's bright eyes dilated.

"Business, indeed!" thought she. "I know the business that brings him here, despite Agatha's a.s.sumption of sublime indifference."

But grave though some of the older faces grew as the news was read, and eager and excited as were some of the younger, it was not because of the long-prophesied trial of Captain Devers. The papers, letters, and despatches were full of detail of the serious condition of affairs to the northwest. Inspired by the success of the Sioux in their grand uprising of the previous year, and reasoning that they had little to lose and everything to gain by similar methods, a big tribe had cut loose from its reservation and taken the field, one band of it prudently ma.s.sacring all the white men to be found in their neighborhood as necessary preliminary to the move. This was bad to begin with, but worse was to follow. The other agencies were overrun by a number of young Indians of what might be termed the unreconstructed cla.s.s, and these, excited by reports brought in by runners from the openly hostile, were slipping off in scores to join them. Already had the epidemic struck McPhail's "angels." Already had Mac, with long face and longer story, been up to see Major White and beg for cavalry to be sent in pursuit. White said it was preposterous. The renegades had two or three days' start to begin with, and if pursued, all they had to do was to hide in the Bad Lands and pick off their pursuers. Cavalry could only go there in single file. Ten Indians could hold the narrow, tortuous trail against ten hundred troops. Relations were strained between Mac and the military anyhow. Everybody knew by this time that he had lied about Boynton and Davies, and had striven to make it appear, and with no little success, too, so far as Eastern newspapers were concerned, that all the turbulence and rioting at Ogallalla was caused by the arrogance of the army. Then Mac pointed out that if something weren't done to drive those renegades back, all the young braves over at the big reservation beyond the Mini Ska would follow suit. Already the cattlemen were complaining. Already settlers were drifting in to p.a.w.nee station and Minden on the railway to the west, and besieging old Tintop at regimental head-quarters at Fort Ransom, and stirring up "screamers" in the columns of the infantile dailies at b.u.t.te and Braska, alleging apathy on part of the authorities and cowardice on that of the cavalry.

Already letters had pa.s.sed between the officers of the Eleventh at the cantonment and their comrades at Ransom. "If we have to take the field again this summer let us try to get together as a regiment and not be split up in all manner of crowds," was the cry. What Cranston and Truman dreaded, too, was that they might be squadroned with some of the --th under Major Chrome. The --th was all right, but Chrome was so horribly slow that his own comrades chafed under his command, and Atherton really wanted him to retire and get "a live man" in his place. Truman, Hay, and Cranston felt certain that it would not be a fortnight before they were ordered into the field. Tintop and Gray were sure of it. Captain Fenton and others at Ransom were talking of sending their families East, and now the question that agitated Cranston was, what to do with his dear ones? It was all well enough to have them at the cantonment while the cavalry were there, but with all the troops in the field except a single company of infantry, he did not dare leave them. They must go back to Scott.

No wonder then that Mrs. Cranston's bonny face was clouded this sweet spring morning. No wonder the boys could not pin their vagrant thoughts to the books before them while s.n.a.t.c.hes of the low, eager talk came drifting in through the open door. No wonder Miss Loomis went about her work with conscious effort, but when told of the arrival of Robert Langston, the woman in her knew he would not go until he had seen and spoken with her.

The day of Red Dog's capture was still fresh in the minds of Cranston's household, as indeed in that of every household at the cantonment. With field-gla.s.ses they had marked the threatening gathering at the distant village, and the ominous advance in line. Old White had his men in ranks in less than no time, and the cavalry column, masked by the agency buildings, was sent at brisk trot to the eastward, so that McPhail's messenger, spurring at mad gallop for aid, met them midway. Cranston's troop was instantly deployed into long skirmish line at the gallop, and the affair was practically over by the time Major White, leaving the infantry battalion to guard the post, had reached the scene. Meantime the composure of the mothers and children left at the cantonment was in no wise augmented by the panic-stricken guise of the arriving refugees, Mrs. McPhail, with her children, and Mira being the first to appear. It so happened that the Cranstons' bungalow, being near the eastern end of the line, proved the natural refuge of the first wagon-load, and that Mrs. Cranston and Miss Loomis were the angels who thus had to minister to their weaker sisters. Even then, when nearly "dead with terror," as she expressed it, Mira would gladly have gone somewhere else, but as Mrs. McPhail promptly bundled herself and her youngsters out of the wagon and under the shelter of the Cranstons' wing, there was nothing left for Mira but to follow suit. Dr. Burroughs came promptly to see what he could do for her. Both Mrs. Cranston and Miss Loomis mastered their own anxiety in the effort to comfort these weaklings, and as no sounds of battle came from the eastward, and the watchers on the roofs reported Red Dog's people as scattering for their tepees before the advance of the cavalry, comparative composure was gradually being restored when the first messenger came in from the front, a corporal of Cranston's troop, whom the boys hailed with eager acclaim.

"Everything's all right, mum," he blithely saluted Mrs. Cranston. "We've got old Red Dog again,--Lieutenant Davies nabbed him," he added, with prompt recognition of Mira's lovely face. "They want Dr. Burroughs to come down to the agency though." And as the doctor mounted the trooper said something more in a low tone, glancing furtively at Mrs. Davies as he did so. Burroughs nodded, but rode rapidly away, the corporal after him. Mrs. McPhail became instantly lachrymose. Dr. Burroughs wanted at the agency? That could mean only one thing,--Mr. McPhail must be wounded, he was always so impetuous. In vain Mrs. Cranston strove to soothe her. She ran out on the roadway in front and hailed the very next party straggling in,--the wife and the cook of the agency clerk, importuning them to say was Mac badly hurt.

"Mac ain't hurt at all," said the new arrivals, hot after a long and needless tramp. "How was he to get hurt? It's Loot'nant Davies that's shot. Red Dog tried to kill him."

And here Mira promptly and appropriately shrieked and fainted.

Nor was she of use when presently restored to a limp and dejected consciousness. Other messengers had come by this time. Dr. Burroughs had examined Mr. Davies's hurts. He was stabbed, not shot. It was serious, not dangerous. He was being made comfortable at home, where Captain Cranston said it was perfectly safe for Mrs. Davies to join him, and the ambulance was speedily ready to take her to the bedside of her wounded hero, but again poor Mira's nerves gave way. She could not go to that dreadful place, so much nearer those frightful savages. Oh, why, why hadn't they brought her Percy here? Even Mrs. McPhail was no such coward as that. She drove back without her, and not for hours after was Mira strong enough to go. By that time he was sleeping placidly when, trembling still and pathetically pale, Mira was escorted to his bedside, and that night Mrs. Cranston had her revenge.

"Agatha Loomis," said she, "you declared all along that he did perfectly right in marrying that--that--in marrying _her_. What do you say now?"

And Miss Loomis said--nothing.

They had been talking of Davies again this very morning before the mails and Langston came. No sooner had he been well enough to move than he asked to be sent up to the garrison. He was no longer commander of the guard, and no longer ent.i.tled to the house. What was more, he must decline to serve McPhail in any such capacity again, and had had a letter written to department head-quarters representing the facts, and one was received from the general promising that another officer should be detailed immediately. Furthermore, Mr. Davies announced that Mrs.

Davies simply could not stand the life at that point. Then Boynton expressed a desire to return to it, as he was now able to stump around a little, and he enjoyed chaffing McPhail, and so the wounded second lieutenant of Devers's troop was shifted to the hospital tent put up for his accommodation at the cantonment, and there Mira was made far more comfortable than many an army wife had been, awaiting the day when they could with safety be started on the road to Scott, now his proper station.

"Langston's paying the Parson a mighty long visit," exclaimed Mr.

Sanders, unslinging his sabre and flopping down into the first camp-chair on his way back from morning drill. "Mrs. Cranston, what do you want to bet y'all go back to Scott inside of a week?"

"I like it very much better here, especially as our going to Scott would mean 'y'all' were to be again in the field," was the laughing reply.

"Well, I like duty here better, but I do hanker for a waltz on that old waxed floor. Think, we haven't had a dance since we came."

"The men had some good music the other evening; why didn't you suggest a waltz on the prairie to Mrs. Davies?"

"Well, I did think of it. She looks bored to death. I saw her just now as I came by. She was yawning in the shade of the tent fly while Langston and the Parson were chatting inside." Why don't you and Miss Loomis go over there and cheer her up sometimes? was the question he checked just as it trembled on his lips. Some brief inspiration of discretion warned him that that was ground too sacred for his blundering intrusion. "She seems downright lonely," he concluded, somewhat lamely and suggestively. "I don't think Mrs. Davies is cut out for this kind of army life. Here comes Langston now." He needn't have made that announcement. Mrs. Cranston was watching, waiting for him, and she glanced quickly to see where Miss Loomis was. That young lady, however, never looked up from the slate whereon Louis's hieroglyphics were in mad arithmetical tangle, even when she heard Langston's courteous greeting to the lady of the house and his inquiries for the captain, and heard them without evidence of any emotion whatsoever.

"The captain is at the stables, Mr. Langston. We are so glad to see you.

I'll send him word in a moment. Do sit down and tell us all the news from Braska," said Mrs. Cranston, hospitably.