At a late hour in the evening, or rather at an early hour in the morning of the day that preceded the battle of Fort Phil Kearney, all was silent and still in Red Cloud's camp, which was located a few miles from the stockade. The Indians had kept up their dancing and shouting until almost ready to drop with fatigue, pluming themselves on victories won in bygone days, and panting for new scalps to be added to those already gained, by the utter annihilation of the soldiers of the Fort. At last they went into their tepees to dream of the triumph which Red Cloud promised them should be theirs before many suns had passed away. The wiping away of the Fort and the utter cleaning out of all the power of the whites, was looked upon as a certain thing by the Sioux, and all they waited for was an opportunity to use the power which they were thought to possess. And why should not the whites be cleaned out? They had come into that country without an invitation, were spreading themselves all through it, and now they proposed to build a road through their best hunting ground, which meant the thinning out of the buffalo—their only means of subsistence. All they asked of the whites was to go away and let them alone; but it seemed that the more land the whites had, the more they wanted. No place was safe for the Indian. His limits were growing smaller and smaller every day, and very soon he would find that he had no land he could call his own. Something must be done if they thought to lay their bones among their fathers', and the only way to do it was to declare battle and go upon the warpath. This was what the Sioux tribe and some of the Cheyennes had proposed to do.
When Indians are settled in their winter camp, and so far away from enemies of every description that there is no danger of being assaulted by them, it is the noisiest place that can be found on earth. Their days are passed in loitering around the fire, but the evenings are given over to pleasure. It is then that the dancers and story-tellers are in their element, and the noise of the tom-tom drowns all other sounds, except the whooping and yelling. It had been so in this camp until the day that the renegade chiefs, as Red Cloud called them, had signed a lease for that road; but the moment that happened, the winter camp had been changed into a war camp, and all the men in it were bent upon obtaining scalps and plunder. Then the social dancers and story-tellers were out of place, and no performance of any kind was indulged in except the scalp dance. The scalps were old, they had done duty over and over again, but that did not hinder them from being brought out whenever a warrior deemed it necessary. It happened so on this night, and the braves, having grown weary of telling what they meant to do when the soldiers came out to fight them, had passed into their lodges and gone to sleep.
The only two who did not care for slumber were a couple of youthful braves who sat on the ground outside of a tepee, talking over events which might occur at any moment; and what seemed strange, these Indians talked in whispers and in the English language and seemed to understand one another very readily. They had been so long unused to the Sioux language that they conversed in a foreign tongue as eagerly as white boys. It will be enough to say that one of them was Winged Arrow, and the other was a classmate of his, who had been to Carlisle with him. It was plain that, although they were Indians born and bred, they did not at all like the way that things were going. Obeying their fathers, they promptly left school and came home to join in the Indian outbreak, which they were assured was to be the final struggle to retain their lands and game as their fathers bequeathed it to them; and now that they were here to help "clean out" the whites and restore everything to the Indians as it was years ago, the only thing they saw toward accomplishing that object was the destruction of a little Fort, garrisoned by three hundred men, which alone stood in their way. Of course it was easy enough to capture the Fort, but what should be the next move on their part? Indians don't like to be killed any better than white men, and that something would happen before that Fort was taken was easy enough to be seen.
It will be observed too, that in their brief conversation which took place before they went to their tepees, the Indians did not address each other by the names that the tribes had given them. One was John Turner and the other was Reuben Robinson—the names by which they had been known at Carlisle. One was named after the janitor, as we have said, and the other was called after the gardener, a white man who thought the Indians were just about perfect. The boys called each other Jack and Rube, and to have heard them talk, any one who could not see them would have thought they were white boys sure enough.
"Say, Rube, you know that this thing don't look right to me," said John Turner (Winged Arrow), who sat with his elbows resting on his knees and his eyes fastened on the ground, "Here we have come all these miles to help the Indians in a hopeless war. I don't care a cent whether I come out of it or not."
"That is just the way I think, Jack," replied Rube. "We have lived among the white people for almost eight years, and yet we must turn around and kill them. I tell you I shall think of the old gardener every time I pull on them. That Lieutenant of yours is all right, because you gave him that letter. I wish I could find somebody to assist in the same way."
"I had to take my chances. I was roaming around just to see what the soldiers were doing, and I ran onto this fellow when I least expected it. He is a brave boy too, and I hope he will stay in the Fort."
So it seemed that Reuben had some "medicine" which he wanted to give to a soldier, under the impression that it would save the soldier's life should he chance to be wounded and fall into the hands of the Sioux. The boys had made this up between them while they were on the cars coming to their home. Each one had the letter their fathers had sent them, and they resolved that those letters should be their "medicine"—that if either of them were found upon a dead soldier he would be safe from mutilation; and if upon a wounded man, he should be taken and treated in their rude way until he was well, and then be released and free to return to his friends. It was as little as they could do to pay the white men for all the kindness they had received at their hands while attending school. This was proposed to John Turner's father, then a prominent Medicine Man in the tribe, and after some hesitation he agreed to it.
"You are bound to whip the whites anyway," said John, in arguing the case with him.
"Oh, yes, we are bound to whip them," said the Medicine Man.
"Well, then, what difference will it make by saving one or two lives? Let the letters save two lives, one a civilian and the other a soldier, and when that is done we will turn upon the whites and stay by you as long as one of them is left alive."
The Medicine Man finally agreed to this and it was so published in the village; and although some of the warriors looked daggers at them and said that any white man who fell into their hands should be punished to the full extent of Indian law, we have seen that Winged Arrow's letter once served its purpose.
"Those people must have wood pretty soon or they will freeze and starve to death," said Reuben. "Are you going out when the time comes?"
"I must. I must make the Indians believe that I am with them heart and soul. But there is one thing about it, Rube: I shall think that every soldier has some medicine about him, and not any of them will fall by my bullets."
"That is the way I shall do also. I really wish that this matter could be settled without a war. But every time we get a reservation fixed out to suit us, you will see some white man that wants some of it. Why can't they go away and let us alone?"
"That is not the white man's way of doing business. He wants to raise cattle, or he wants to dig for gold, or he wants some place to put his family, and the first thing we know he has the whole country. If Red Cloud should fail in his movement, and it looks to me now as though he were going to, it will be all up with us. You and I belong to a doomed race. The Indian will not survive the buffalo, and when he goes it is good-by to us."
"I am afraid that is so," said Reuben, getting upon his feet, "and I cannot find it in my heart to fight those white people either. All we have we owe to them. I remember what hard work I had to write a composition in English. Do you remember it?"
"I believe I do, and with what labor I tried to put my words in English, so that some one would not laugh at me. I shall always remember John Turner for that. He stood by me and helped me whenever I failed, and that is one thing that makes me as good an English scholar as I am to-day."
Reuben had evidently no more to say on the subject. Following an Indian's way, he turned and left John without uttering another word and went into his tepee, while John sat there on the ground occupied with his own thoughts. The hours flew by and yet he sat there without moving, and when at last the streaks of dawn appeared in the East he saw three Indians silently leave their lodges and take their way out over the prairie. These were the lookouts who had been appointed the night before to go and watch the soldiers and see that none of them left the Fort. On the summit of the nearest swell one of them sat down, drew his blanket over his head and the other two kept on out of sight.
"Those poor fellows do not know that every move they make is known here in camp," said Winged Arrow, slowly rising to an upright position. "As long as they stay there inside their stockade, they are all right; but the moment they organize a train to come out and get wood, that will be the last of some of them."
Winged Arrow, as we shall continue to call him, did not forget one practice he had learned among the whites, and that was to wash his hands and face. He always felt better for that, and he could not imagine why the Indians neglected it. This done, a pocket comb which he drew from some receptacle about him was brought into play, and before the Medicine Man appeared at his door, Winged Arrow was ready for anything that was to be done.
One who had seen the Medicine Man as he appeared before Winged Arrow at that moment would have wondered at his claiming that man for his father. Winged Arrow was an ideal Indian. His frank and open face, always destitute of paint, was one which could not be seen without a desire to take two looks at it, and he was tall and as athletic as if he had been to a training school all his life; but the man who opened the door of his tepee and stepped out was exactly his reverse in these respects. He was tall, as the majority of Indians were, but he was bent almost half over, as if he were suffering from that Indian complaint, rheumatism, and his face, that had been daubed with paint the night before, was fearful to look upon. But for all that, he seemed to think a good deal of Winged Arrow, and his commands went far and were studiously obeyed by all the members of the tribe. Giving Winged Arrow his letter as medicine was proof of his popularity with the tribe. A grunt by way of greeting was all that passed between them. The Medicine Man kept on his way, and Winged Arrow went into the tepee to get his breakfast.
The Indians are very different from white men in regard to their meals, each one breaking his fast whenever he feels the craving of his appetite. A pot, generally filled with meat and water, is placed on one side of the tepee, accompanied, if the man of the house be tolerably well off in the world, by a package of parfleche, which contains the Indian bread. If the bread is not there, the meat will do as well. A pile of ashes in the middle of the lodge tells where the meat is put to boil, and whenever an Indian is hungry he rakes together the buffalo chips, starts a blaze and puts on the pot; and when he gets too hungry to stand it any longer, he attacks the meat and eats until he is satisfied. Winged Arrow had all this to do himself, for it was too early for the women to be astir. As he sat waiting for his breakfast to be cooked, his thoughts wandered away to the school at Carlisle, and he wondered how many teachers there would have been willing to join him in his repast.
"There is not one," soliloquized the young savage. "Every one of them would turn up his nose at such a breakfast as this. And yet I am here to fight just for keeping my people in this position. Oh, why did not the whites stay in their own country?"
The smoke of the fire began to penetrate the tepee, until it was so thick as to be unbearable to any but an Indian. Winged Arrow waited until the meat was done and then, drawing his knife, proceeded to make as good a breakfast as he could out of boiled beef.
Winged Arrow had not been at his breakfast long before he was startled by a noise and confusion in the camp outside. Any little bustle is enough to excite a feeling of alarm in an Indian, and coming as it did upon the quiet that reigned among the lodges, Winged Arrow was on his feet and out of his tepee in an instant. He turned toward the man on the highest point of the swell who had sat there with his blanket around him, and saw that he was on his feet and waving that blanket furiously aloft to attract the attention of the people in the village. He was repeating the signals that the other Indians had made to him—that there was something going on in the Fort. There could be but one explanation of his signals: The soldiers were starting a wagon train and were coming out to get wood. As he was about to turn into his tepee again, he met Reuben hurrying up.
"Do you see that?" said he.
"Yes, I see it," replied Winged Arrow. "Now remember that every soldier in that squad has some medicine with him that our bullets cannot penetrate. When you come back, you don't want to say to yourself: 'There is one fellow that I have wiped out.'"
The boys went into their tepee only to re-appear again almost immediately. A spectator would have had to look more than once before recognizing them. They were stripped from the waist up, had bonnets on their heads, and nothing in their hands but their rifles. Neither of them carried a knife, for they did not believe in mutilating bodies that fell into their hands. Each carried a belt of cartridges which was slung around his waist. While they were going to get their horses, they heard a whoop at the lower end of the village, and the next moment Red Cloud dashed by, mounted on a snow-white pony, stripped to the waist, as all his men were, and hideously painted, "making the picture the very incarnation of exultant war."
"Come, come," he cried in his native tongue, "Come to the ambush and then to victory."
Red Cloud was right in his element now. He was war all over. He slung his rifle, his only weapon, around his head with frantic gestures and yelled so loudly that he drowned every other shout that was sent up by his triumphant warriors; for the Sioux looked upon their victory as certain. He was a man who would have been picked out of all that throng as a leader. He was not an hereditary chieftain, as we have explained, but his chance had come for raising the war cry over those chiefs who had signed the lease for that road. It just suited the turbulent element of his tribe, and those who did not believe in his way could just step aside and leave them the glory. But that did not suit the old chiefs who were anxious to retain their authority, and they soon found that they must acknowledge Red Cloud as their master, or be left alone with nobody to obey their orders. And thus it happened that some chiefs, some even who were friendly to the whites, joined his standard and were as fierce for battle as Red Cloud.
It did not take Red Cloud's yells long to raise the fighting men of his tribe, and when he saw so many men at his disposal, he turned and led the way across the open prairie toward the Fort. There were a thousand of them all armed to the teeth. All were silent and not a shout was uttered, however much they might have felt inclined to let the soldiers know that they were coming. Some were engaged in tying feathers and ribbons in their horses' manes and tails; others put on their bonnets; and still others were busy in anointing themselves with oil and grease to make them more agile in their movements. The women gathered upon the outskirts of the village and sent up wails over the prospective death of husbands and lovers, who were going forth to battle.
On reaching the ravine out of sight of the Fort, the very place where Colonel Carrington was afraid that an ambush might be formed for his troops, the most of the warriors rushed into it, while the others were sent off to annoy the cutters who were by this time at work upon the wood pile. The rest stayed in the ravine, out of sight, to be ready to assault the re-enforcements when they came up. This was the time when Guy Preston sent his first signal to the Fort and it resulted in Colonel Fetterman and his hundred men coming out to help the wood cutters. We may say before we go further, that Colonel Carrington did not believe that there was so large a village as his scouts had reported to him. Red Cloud had been so sly about his movements, making his attacks with smaller bodies of men on purpose to draw the soldiers out, and the Colonel thought that with a hundred men, all experienced Indian fighters, he would be able to hold his own with them; and that was just where he made his mistake.
When the braves drew up in the ravine, Winged Arrow and Reuben were with them. They clutched their rifles with a firm hold, as if they were impatient to be in action, and all the while Winged Arrow was wondering if that fellow to whom he gave his letter were there as an escort to the wood cutters, or had he taken the young savage's advice and remained in the Fort.
Red Cloud's orders to the warriors who went to attack the wood cutters were not to make a good fight, but to hang around and worry the cutters so that they could not do their work. Winged Arrow heard them yelling as they galloped up and down in obedience to these orders, and he knew, too, when the troops charged them, and when they were retreating. It kept on in this way for half an hour; then the Indian who had been sent to maintain a close watch on the Fort and tell them when to look for the re-enforcements, came down the hill in great haste, swinging his blanket around his head as he came. The re-enforcements had come, a whole cloud of them were flocking out of the Fort, and soon they would be close onto them. Now all was excitement in the ravine, and the braves leaned forward and grasped their weapons, but not a yell was uttered. Colonel Fetterman and his troops came on; the savages heard their charging shout, and the body of warriors who for the last half hour had kept up a bogus attack on the wood cutters, evidently surprised at so large a force coming out, retreated into the ambuscade. That was what the Sioux were waiting for.
"Come to victory!" shouted Red Cloud.
What happened next Winged Arrow could not have told; it was the first fight he had ever been in, and it was his resolve that he would never be in another. The Sioux divided right and left as they went out; he heard the rattle of firearms and saw the smoke fill the air, and all the while he was circling around close at the heels of a big warrior who was shouting as if he were going wild, and his rifle spoke as often as he could push in the cartridges. He did not know where the bullets went and he did not care. He aimed high, and was certain that he did not hit anybody.
At the end of half an hour it was all over. A succession of whoops and yells from one section of the battlefield told him that the fighting was done, and he drew rein upon his wearied horse and waited until the smoke had cleared away, so he could see what the warriors had done. Of the men who came out with Colonel Fetterman, not one remained. The field, as far as he could see it from the smoke that settled over it, was covered with men in blue uniforms and horses which were killed while doing their utmost to take their riders to a place of safety. Winged Arrow took no part in searching for plunder which commenced immediately. He rode over the field, taking care that his horse did not step upon any of the dead men, looking in vain for Guy Preston, for of course he did not know that Guy, securely sheltered by the picket tower, had seen almost as much of the fight as he had himself.
At last the wood cutters train came up the hill bound for the Fort. Red Cloud was entirely satisfied with what he had done, or the braves did not want to face the leaden bullets in the soldiers' rifles, for they did not make any serious attempt to capture the wagons. He lost a few men in charges he made upon it, and then allowed it to go on in peace. Winged Arrow saw before he had surveyed the whole battlefield that the Sioux had not escaped unharmed. Although the braves moved at a headlong gallop, trusting to their speed to escape any balls that might be sent after them, some of them went into that fight for the last time. Here and there, scattered about among the blue coats, was a Sioux warrior, with all his war paint yet upon him, whose medicine had not been strong enough to keep off some soldier's bullets, and he was taken up and carried to the village, in order to save the scalp upon his head. If that were removed, his relatives would not go to the trouble of burying him.
"Do you find that fellow here?" asked Reuben, riding up at this moment.
"No; he is in the Fort," said Winged Arrow. "I think that letter did him some good."
The two friends stayed by each other while the plundering was going on, and their hearts grew sick when they saw the mutilations which some of the warriors practiced upon the dead bodies of the soldiers. At length the lookout (for the Indians always have them when they are engaged in a massacre), told them that still another squad of re-enforcements was leaving the Fort, a large squad it was too, fully equal to the one they had whipped, and in an instant all was confusion again. The Indians were getting ready to retreat, and as soon as Major Powell's troops appeared above the summit of the swell upon which stood the picket tower, they took a few shots at him by way of farewell, and speedily went out of sight. Not a single prisoner had been taken by the Indians. To quote from one of the chiefs, who afterward told the story to one of our soldiers, "the Sioux were too mad." They killed every one they came to, hoping that the whites would get weary of trying to open the road and that they would abandon the Fort in disgust.
And this was the way that John Turner and Reuben Robinson behaved in every fight in which they were engaged. They always made two of the attacking party, and whooped and yelled as loud as anybody, and always took their chances of death with the others; but every bullet they fired went wild, and they never had to say when they returned to camp, "There was one fellow that I wiped out." They could not forget the kindness and favors they had experienced at the hands of the whites.
While the troops under Major Powell had passed the picket tower and were hesitating whether or not to go down to the battlefield and run the risk of bringing off the dead, Guy and Amos were seated on the steps, while the latter's arm was thrown around him protectingly, and Amos was relating the story of the massacre.
"You have seen more of it than I did, for you were up here where you had a good view," said Amos. "But the Colonel thought I had better come and tell you that the Fort was keeping watch over you."
"I am grateful to know that," said Guy between his sobs. "I did the best I could."
"Of course you did, and the Colonel appreciates it; but the only thing you are sorry for is that you asked for help when nobody told you to. Don't let that worry you. The Colonel will not say a word to you about it."
"If you please, sir," said the soldier, who had been left on the top of the tower to watch Major Powell's movements, "The Major has left the ridge."
Guy and Amos jumped to their feet and went up to the top, and a signal to that effect was at once sent to the Fort. No answer came in response to it, and the young officers became aware that it was all right. For two hours they turned their glasses first toward the swells to see that the Sioux did not come back to assault them, and then toward the soldiers who were tenderly gathering up the dead, but nothing occurred that was worthy of note. All the soldiers obtained were a hundred dead bodies, but not a single thing in the way of arms or ammunition. Everything had gone with the retreating Sioux. They came along on their way to the Fort after a while, and seeing that Guy was watching them with interest, Major Powell sent an officer to communicate with him.
"All are gone," said he, returning Guy's salute. "Did you see it?"
"I saw some of it," said Guy with a shudder. "I don't want to speak of it. I suppose I am the only officer left in our Company."
"It looks that way to me. You don't want to go to sleep at all to-night, for the Sioux may be down on you."
When the officer moved away, Amos decided that he would go back to the Fort also, and thus Guy was left alone with his three soldiers for company. He sat down on his block with his head resting on his hands, and in that way he remained almost all night.
The night that followed the massacre was passed by those who took part in it in a very different manner. The dead had all been brought in and were laid out in three several rooms until the time of their burial, covered by all the flags that the Fort could raise, and sentries were keeping guard over them. Colonel Carrington had been in once to see them, but the sight was almost too much for him. He left hastily bathed in tears, and everybody who had business with him that night took note of the fact that he was a very different man from what he had seemed to be before he ordered out the re-enforcements. He continually said to Major Powell, who stayed with him almost all night:—
"I don't care one cent what the authorities say to me. If some of them had been here, they would have done just the same as I did. But sending out all these men who have obeyed my every order for so long a time is what grieves me. I wish I had been out there with them."
In the Sioux camp there was a big pow-wow held by those who had been in the massacre, if we except Winged Arrow and his friend. They sat a little apart from the others and watched the scalp dance, but took no part in it. Their feelings went out to the mourners who were gathered in their lodges and were sending up loud wails of grief over the sons and brothers whose medicine had not been strong enough to protect them from the bullets of the doomed soldiers. Winged Arrow and Reuben said not a word to each other, and when they grew tired of watching the scalp dance, they went to bed; but slumber was something that would not come at call. All night long the yells and whoops of the triumphant Indians rang in their ears, but they were not thinking of them.
"All this amounts to nothing," was what Winged Arrow kept saying to himself. "They are making a big noise over the death of one hundred soldiers, but they do not take into consideration the thirty-six millions that are to come after them. Where they kill one now, ten will spring up to take their place. As soon as this gets to Washington, the enemy will send re-enforcements here that the Sioux never dreamed of. We are doomed; I can see that plainly enough."
To go back to the Fort again—there was Cyrus, the scout, lying on his bunk, sadly shaken up by this day's work. He glanced at the empty cracker boxes on which Tony and Mike had sat the evening before. They were laid out with the others, and to-morrow would see them covered by the earth over which they had often trod full of health and strength. How long would it be before such would be his fate? But Cyrus did not stop to think of that. His companions had fallen by the Sioux, and there was nothing for him to do but to avenge them. From that day Cyrus resolved that no Sioux should cross his trail and live to tell of it. No matter what treaties the government entered into with them, there would be always one who did not sign it.
"Cyrus, the Colonel wants to see you," said an Orderly, breaking in on his meditations.
"That's me," said Cyrus, getting up and putting on his moccasins, which he had thrown off on lying down. "If anybody asks you to-morrow where Cyrus is, tell him that you don't know. I will either get those dispatches through, or I will be in the same boat with Tony and Mike."
"Are you going to try them again?" asked the Orderly.
"Yes, sir. And I am going through with them. Do you understand?"
Cyrus followed the Orderly, who led the way to the Colonel's quarters and found him in his shirt sleeves pacing up and down his narrow room. He could not be easy unless he was in motion, and even then he would stop occasionally, take his hands from his pockets and rumple up his hair as though he did not know what he was doing with himself. Major Powell was there, seated on a camp chair, with his head resting on his hands. The Major could not get over the massacre. Every time he tried to talk about it, he was obliged to stop, for his sobs broke his utterance.
"Sit down, Cyrus," said the Colonel in a husky voice. "Are you all ready to start now?"
"As ready as I ever shall be, Kurn," replied Cyrus. "But I don't want to sit down."
"Then there are your dispatches. I don't need to tell you——"
"You don't need to tell me anything, Kurn. I know just what you want to say. Those dispatches shall go through, or you will never see Cyrus again. Tony and Mike are killed, and I don't see that there is anything left for me."
"Be careful that you don't get yourself into trouble, while you are avenging them," said the Major, lifting his head for a moment from his hands. "We cannot afford to spare you."
"I shall take good care of myself, Major. Whenever you hear that I am gone, you may know that two Indians have gone with me."
Cyrus took the papers that the Colonel handed him and proceeded to look them over. The first one he came to was Winged Arrow's letter. This one he laid on the table. The next one was the "bogus dispatch," and this one he placed by the side of the first. The third was the dispatch which the Colonel was so anxious to have go through, and that he put into his pocket.
"Cyrus, you mean to see the commanding officer of Fort Robinson before you see us again, don't you?" said the Colonel, who had watched the scout's movements. "You don't mean to fall into the hands of the Sioux again."
"No, sir, I don't. I will leave that first paper here and I will trouble you to place it in the hands of the owner when he comes. This war is not yet over."
The post commander seated himself in the nearest chair, while the Major raised his head and looked hard at Cyrus.
"Do you think we are going to have another massacre?" was the question that arose to the lips of both of them.
"I don't know about that; but you know that the Sioux won't be satisfied with one killing. If Guy happens to fall into their hands, he will need something to bring him out. Good-by, I may not see you again, but you may bet your bottom dollar that I will get through, if I am alive."
The scout seized the Colonel's hand, and the length of time he held fast to it was all the evidence that anybody needed to show him the consideration in which he held him. The Colonel told him that he was his only hope, but Cyrus shook his head and did not say anything in reply. The Major could not say anything. He arose and shook him hastily by the hand, and then seated himself on his chair as before, and rested his head on his extended palms. Another moment and the scout was gone.
"This will kill me and I know it," said the Colonel, resuming his walk about the room. "I don't wish any harm to befall those superior in power to myself, but I wish that General could be down here for about five minutes and feel the responsibility that rests upon me. He would send some help without any asking."
That was a long night to the two officers commanding the Fort, for neither of them thought of going to bed. The Colonel paced the room, and the Major sat with his head resting on his hands. It was longer still to the lonely watcher on the picket tower, who kept close view of the prairie surrounding him, lest the Sioux should slip up and try to add to the number of victims by taking a sly shot at him or his men when they did not think there was any one around. He had appealed to his men time and time again to know if he did his full duty when posted there to pass the signals, but their assurance that his conduct could not be blamed and that any other officer placed in the same position would do the same, did not fully satisfy him. He had been up there while a hundred men were massacred almost within reach of him, and had not done a thing to prevent it. The two young officers, for whom he cherished an affection of which some brothers might have been proud were gone and why should he be left?
"Why did not one of them change places with me?" he kept constantly repeating to himself. "I would have gone readily, and now I would have been beyond the reach of the Colonel's reprimand or his frown. But there are the folks at home. What would they have said about it?"
Daylight came at last, and once more Guy leveled his binoculars on the prairie, but no signs of the Sioux could be seen. Then he looked at the Fort, and saw preparations for guard mount going on, and that a Company was ready to keep guard over them while his relief was coming out to the tower. It came at last and a sorry-looking lot of men they were. They had seen the bodies laid out in the store rooms, and they could not get over it. In reply to Guy's hurried questioning, the Lieutenant said:—
"You would have thought, if you could have seen the smiles that were on Perkins's and Brigham's faces, that they had furloughs to go home and see the friends from whom they have been so long separated. They didn't act scared a bit. But I tell you, it is just awful. Captain Brown and a few old timers must have killed themselves, for they were not mutilated in the least. The other officers were all scalped."
"Did the Colonel have anything to say about my signaling?" asked Guy. It was all he could do to ask this question, but he managed to get it out at last.
"Not a word. You did the best you could, and that is all anybody can do. You have nothing to do but to look out for the Sioux, I suppose?"
"And keep a watch on the Fort for signals," added Guy. "I hope your stay up here will be more pleasant than mine has been. Fall in, men, and we will go down to the Fort."
The Adjutant and the officer of the day met him when he came in and reported, and after saying "Very good, sir," continued in a solemn tone:—
"You saw more of that fight than we did. It is awful, is it not? The Colonel wants to see you."
"He wants to know why I made some signals, I suppose," said Guy.
"What signals?"
"Why, I told him that Fetterman needed help, when that signal was not made to me at all."
"Oh, that is all right. The Colonel will not say anything about that. You saw what a fix he was in."
Guy found the Colonel as we have seen him before, and the Major still sitting in his camp chair. They had been out to breakfast to drink a cup of coffee, and that was all.
"Sit down, Preston," said the Colonel, waving his hand toward a chair. "You saw it all, did you not?"
"The smoke would not let me see a great deal of it, sir," said Guy. "I want to say that I have got back and that I repeated every one of your signals that I saw."
"And some you did not see," put in the Colonel. "However, that was all right. I am not going to find any fault with you for that. Sit down. Now begin at the beginning and tell me all that you saw."
It did not take Guy long to do that, for, as he dwelt upon it, the scenes of the massacre came so vividly to his mind that he did not want to speak of them at all. The officers listened, the Colonel now and then making some marks on a piece of paper which he drew toward him. He took Guy's recital down as a part of the report he was going to make out for his superior officer. When Guy was through they asked him some questions in regard to the massacre which he did not see on account of the smoke, and then told him that he could go. Guy went, feeling a great deal better than he did while he was making those signals from the tower. He went in alone to view the officers and men who had fallen in the massacre of the day before, and what he saw there is beyond our power to describe. Perkins and Brigham were not scalped, and the smiles he saw on their faces reminded him of the one Arthur wore when he told Guy that he was not to ask the Colonel for anything on his part,—he was bound to go with his Company and take part in the fight, and the first fight he got into was the last. Guy did not look any further. Tears blinded his eyes and he came out and went into the mess room. But he could not stay there long either. The vacant chairs called to mind those who were gone, and he finally turned into his own room, where he tumbled into bed with his face toward the wall.
"They are all gone, and there's no telling how soon I may be in their place," he moaned.
Filled with such thoughts as these he soon fell asleep.
For a week after the massacre, Guy Preston and all the other officers and men of the Fort acted as if they were in a dream. The orders were given in a low tone of voice, the men responded to them with a silent touch of their caps, for every one seemed to think that it would not be long before they would be laid out awaiting burial, or be doomed to a worse fate in the Sioux camp. Guy was there during the burial of the men—he was one of twenty soldiers who fired the shots over their graves—and then he braced up, dashed the tears from his eyes, and tried to do his duty as he did before. He had ten men who had been detailed for various other duties when the Company was ordered out, and he was the sole officer in command of them.
Guy was not long in missing his old friend Cyrus, whose fate no one knew. Did he get through in safety with his dispatches, or was he captured by the Sioux who had taken revenge upon him for the braves they had lost during the massacre? One morning, just after Guy had come off duty during the night, the Colonel sent for him, but it was not to reprimand him. He saw that as soon as he got into his room. The Colonel had a paper in his hand which he handed to Guy.
"There is your medicine," said he. "Cyrus wanted me to give it to you under the impression that you might some day fall into the power of those thievish rascals outside."
"Why—why did not Cyrus take it with him, sir?" stammered Guy.
"No; he said the war was not yet over, and you might some day need it. You do not intend to be a prisoner in the hands of those fellows, do you?"
"No, sir," said Guy hastily. "They kill everybody who falls a captive to them. And what is the reason Cyrus would not take it with him, sir? I am afraid he——"
"Well, go on," said the Colonel, after waiting a moment or two for Guy to say what he was afraid of, "Do you think he has been captured?"
"I think he would have been safer, if he had taken this letter with him, sir," replied the young officer.
"Yes; but you know it has saved one civilian and the next must be a soldier."
"That is so, sir. I will put it right there among the little money I have left, and I hope it may do me some good, if I chance to fall into their power. Don't you think it is about time to hear from Cyrus, sir?"
"I do; but if he has met with the usual luck that some of our scouts do, it may be another week before we get news of him."
The Colonel picked up some papers which were lying near him on the desk, thus intimating that their interview was at an end; but there was one more question that Guy wanted to have answered before he left.
"Do you think he has got through in safety, sir?" said he.
"That is hard to tell," replied the Colonel slowly. "Cyrus is a brave man, and if he fails I don't know what we shall do. That's all, Guy."
"Cyrus has failed," said Guy to himself, as he put on his cap and left the room, "I could see that by the way the Colonel looked. By George! I wonder what will be the next move the Sioux will make? Well, if worse comes to worst I will have to go. I wish I could see my mother once before my time comes."
Guy stopped after he passed the Orderly and dashed some tears from his eyes. He was the commander of a Company now, and it would look very unseemly for him to be found that way by any of his men. He took his way to his room, that room which he occupied all by himself now, and then the tears came forth afresh, until Guy began to be ashamed of his conduct. He rolled over and tried to catch the slumber he so much needed, but when the Orderly came to call him to dinner he was wide awake.
But the Colonel was wrong in his predictions. Three days passed and then a horseman was seen rapidly approaching the Fort. The sentry called the corporal of the guard, and that officer did not stay beside him for more than a moment when he shouted:—
"There comes Cyrus!"
Guy was off duty then, and he lost no time in climbing up beside the sentry. The horseman was still so far away that they could not see his face, but the way he waved his hat around his head and used it to urge his horse to greater speed proclaimed who the newcomer was. The Colonel was out by that time, and Guy turned to him with a face that was beaming over with pleasure.
"It is Cyrus, sure enough, sir!" he exclaimed, "Re-enforcements are not far off."
In a quarter of an hour the horseman, mounted on a nag that was almost tired out, dashed through all the men assembled at the gate, and presently was shaking hands with everybody that could get around him. It was the scout sure enough, and judging by the grin that was on his face he was glad to get back.
"Halloo, Guy," he shouted. "I haven't time to speak to you all now, only to grasp your hands and say that I am overjoyed to see you all above ground. Help is coming. Where's the Colonel?"
So Cyrus got through, after all. The story he told after he had reported to the Colonel did not amount to much in passing through his hands. He had not seen a hostile Indian from the time he left Fort Phil Kearney until his journey was safely accomplished. The pow-wow the Sioux held on the night of the massacre "threw them all crazy," as Cyrus had predicted, and there was not one to dispute his attempt to reach Fort Robinson.
"The General was awful uneasy about us, because he did not hear anything," said the scout, in conclusion, "and he was on the point of sending three hundred men to see about it; and I tell you he packed them off in a hurry as soon as I got there."
"Bully for the three hundred men," said Guy. "Are they coming now behind you?"
"Yes, sir. They are coming as fast as they can. We have got men enough now to get that village out of there and make them take to the hills where they belong. Well, Guy, the Sioux have not scalped you yet. Have you been out after any more sage hens?"
"No, sir, and I don't think I shall go any more until we get the Sioux out of there. Cyrus, you must have had a terrible time of it."
"Oh, nothing to speak of. I went out on purpose to get to Fort Robinson, and I went. I wonder if you have anything to eat in the house? We have been in such haste to get here that we did not stop to cook any breakfast."
Guy took Cyrus under his charge and conducted him into the mess room, intending to hear more of his story when he got him by himself; but before he could ask him to go on with it, a cheering arose out by the gate and Cyrus was left to finish his breakfast alone. There they were, three hundred infantrymen, who were moving with weary steps as if it was all they could do to drag one foot after the other—for they had made a forced march since they left Fort Robinson—but the way the garrison greeted them showed them that their trouble was over. Colonel Smith was there, vigorously shaking hands with Colonel Carrington, and when the two were through welcoming each other, they went into the commander's headquarters. The troops assembled on the parade ground, and when they had broken ranks, Guy speedily hunted up the Second Lieutenants, one of whom he found to his astonishment to be an old schoolmate of his. They had been at West Point together, had graduated at the same time, one being ordered to the Cavalry and the other to the Infantry. It took some little time for Guy to recognize Fred Bolton in this muddy, travel-stained boy, but when he saw the smile that beamed upon his face, and his extended hand, the old schoolboy came back to him, and catching Fred around the waist he fairly raised him from the ground.
"Fred, old boy, how are you?" he exclaimed, as he swung him around once or twice before he put him on the ground again.
"Say," replied Fred, gently untangling himself from Guy's detaining hands. "Have you an apple about you?"
"An apple?" echoed Guy, not understanding the question.
"Or peanuts; anything that will do to eat. I am so hungry that I can smell the bacon in the storehouse clear out here."
"Why, come in," said Guy. "The Sioux have kept us on pretty short rations, but I guess I can give you bacon enough to satisfy you."
Guy was introduced to the other Second Lieutenants as they were going to the mess room, and the first thing the boys asked him about was the massacre.
"Did they whoop and yell as the storybooks tell about?" said one of the newcomers. "Tell us all about it, please. We have never seen an Indian fight and we want to know what is in store for us."
"Don't ask me about it," said Guy.
"But you must have seen some of it, and we should like to know how it looked," insisted Fred. "What is the reason you were not in it? Was not your Company ordered out?"
Guy saw that there was no chance for him to plead ignorance, and while the boys were waiting for their bacon and hard-tack he went into the particulars of the fight, getting through with them as soon as he possibly could. The Second Lieutenants must have seen how badly he felt about it, and did not ask him any more questions; but when he came to tell of Winged Arrow's medicine, they looked incredulous. They were too polite to interrupt him, but exchanged significant glances with one another as if to ask what their companions thought about it.
"I don't ask you to believe my word, but here is the evidence," said Guy, producing his pocketbook. "That letter has saved the life of one scout, and if I fall into their hands while I have that letter about me, I shall expect that it will save my own."
Of course there was much to talk about and a good deal of time taken to tell it, for the supports were not expected to go on duty that day. They were given time to rest after their long, fatiguing march, and they made the most of it. At dress parade the men appeared in fine order, and then they received notice of what they were to do on the following day. Their force was strong enough now to assume the offensive, and to-morrow morning a battalion of three hundred men would start out to break up that Sioux village and, as Cyrus had said, "drive them into the hills where they belonged." Colonel Smith was to be in charge of the troops, with Major Powell second in command. There was one thing that made Guy grow an inch taller when the order was read: his small company of men were not to be left out after all. There were a hundred cavalry to go with the troops, to serve as eyes for them, and Guy and his company were to make part of them.
"I hope the Colonel will lead us across that battlefield," said Fred, as they returned to their quarters.
"Oh, he will," said Guy. "But we will not see anything—nothing but the spot where brave men offered up their lives to try and 'pacify' those Sioux. We will see the signal tower too. I hope that when you go there to take charge of it, you will see a better time than I did."
"Well, wait until a history of this thing gets to Washington, and we will see help coming out here enough to annihilate those Sioux. The General was sorely put out about it, and he sent a dispatch that will make those fellows open their eyes."
Morning came at length, and with it came the men who were to compose the expedition, forming on the parade ground in view of all the officers. There was one thing about it that Guy always disliked to see, and that was their ammunition and provision train. Before the troops could go into a fight with the Indians, they would be obliged to take care of that train, because when that was lost, everything they had was lost. The hostiles would make an attack upon that train first, paying no attention to the other men, and if they could stampede that, their-success was assured. The Indians did not believe in taking any train with them. All the ammunition and food they needed during their raids were carried on their horses, and if they were worsted in the fight they got out of the way with wonderful celerity and their ammunition and food went with them.
Fred and the other newcomers who had arrived with the re-enforcements the day before gazed with interest at the picket tower, saw that the soldiers who had come to relieve them took the place of the men who had stayed there all night, and then went on to the battlefield. As Guy had said they found nothing there, not even a bayonet with which the soldiers had endeavored to defend themselves, for the Sioux had searched the field thoroughly and everything had disappeared.
"Here's where Captain Brown and three others defended themselves," said Major Powell, drawing Colonel Smith's attention to a place in the rocks where the grass was all trampled down and empty cartridge shells were scattered all about. "They must have made sure play for some of those fiends who came at them. Captain Brown killed himself right here."
It was a gloomy place, the battlefield that but a short time before had resounded with the war cry of the fierce Sioux and the rattle of carbines from the soldiers, and Guy was glad when they left it behind. Something kept telling him that he was going to see trouble before he came back, but he banished all such thoughts and had no place for them. His work lay in the expedition before him, and to that he gave the whole of his attention. In a short time the memory of the scene through which he had passed left him, and he was ready to join in with what the others had to propose, so long as it did not attract the attention of their commanding officer, Major Powell. So it is with soldiers the world over. A disastrous battle, during which so many of their old friends, perhaps their own tentmates, have gone to their long home, will depress their spirits for a time, and they welcome anything, no matter how trivial it is, that will draw their thoughts away to other matters and make them soldiers as they were before.
In due time they reached the site whereon the Sioux village had stood while they were engaged in the massacre, and where everything denoted that they had abandoned it with the utmost haste. Plunder of every sort which goes to make up the wealth of the Indian was scattered about, and beside the lodge poles, for the tents were gone, were the remains of half a dozen Indian ponies that had been sacrificed to go with their owners to the Happy Hunting Grounds.
"I don't understand the meaning of that," said Fred Bolton. "Did they kill their ponies on purpose?"
"Certainly," said Guy. "The Indian ponies have spirits as well as their masters; and when one is killed and his scalp not removed——"
"Do their scalps have anything to do with it?"
"Of course they do. If you scalp an Indian, his body becomes so much carrion which is not worthy of a burial; but if his friends can save the Indian without letting him fall into our hands, he is given all the rites that an Indian can think of. These ponies will go with him to the spirit land, and if we had time to hunt up the places where the owners are buried, we would find there their rifles, matches, scalping knives, and every other thing they need to go right to work."
Guy had many things to tell the newcomers, and during the two weeks that the expedition was out he had plenty of time around his camp fire at night to tell them all he knew about the hostile Indians. What he did not know the guides took up, and if the new men did not learn something about the Sioux before they got through, it was their own fault. They generally told some funny stories, but a wink from Guy told how much of them they had better believe.
"So this is scouting for Indians, is it?" exclaimed Fred, when the bugle blew one morning and Guy began buckling on his sword. "We have been out two weeks, and during that time we have not seen one single Indian, nor the sign of one. I thought they would be all around us. That is the way they act in storybooks."
"We are not dealing with storybooks now, but with solid flesh-and-blood Sioux," said Guy, who was making all haste to answer the bugle call. "We have seen signs enough, even if we have not seen Indians. We have followed their trail for a week, and that is as much as I want to see."
"But why don't we follow them up and whip them? All we have to do is to go back there in the 'bad lands,' and there we would find them."
Before we go any further we should like to inquire if you have any idea of how these "bad lands" look. We have often heard that hostile Indians find refuge there when badly pressed by the troops, but how do they appear and in what shape are they? You have often seen a clay field after a long and hot drought in summer, how it is seamed over with innumerable cracks, perfectly perpendicular, leaving miniature chasms between. This, magnified by a thousand, are the "bad lands" of the Northwest. They are immense patches of clay soil, baked by the long and intense drought of that climate into chasms four or five feet wide and perhaps twenty feet deep, absolutely impassable for wagons, quagmires in the early spring, and a labyrinth of deep gullies in summer. The hostiles know every one of these ravines, where it leads to and the springs of water that are to be found on the banks of it, and the troops that are sent after them do not. Once fairly inside the "bad lands," the Indians disappear and leave no trace behind.
"We do not want to be whipped badly enough to go into those 'bad lands,'" said Guy, with a laugh. "The moment Colonel Smith saw where the trail led to, he said that we were not strong enough to go in there after them, and when he said that, he hit me right on top of the head. I don't want to go in there either. I am perfectly willing to go back to the Fort, without seeing any of them. You don't know how an ambush looks. I have seen one of them from a distance, and I don't want to see another."
"Well, good-by, if you call that going," said Fred, as Guy swung himself upon his horse. "Keep your eyes open, and don't let any Sioux come down on us."
Guy fell in beside his Company, waved his hand as a farewell signal to Fred, and rode out with the cavalrymen to act as eyes for the infantry, who were guarding the train. These marched along pretty nearly as they pleased, giving no thought to danger, for they knew that the cavalry, who skirted their flanks at a distance of three or four miles, would see the Sioux long before they could and easily warn them, so that they could get into line of battle. Presently the bugle sounded again, and that was a call for Fred. In a few minutes the entire expedition was under way, bound for the Fort, without having seen a warrior since they had been out.
"They are all in the 'bad lands,'" said Colonel Smith, who felt somewhat crestfallen over his bad luck. "I really wish that I had about four times as many men as I have with me. I would follow them into their retreats and drive them out."
That was the way that more than one man felt in regard to the disappearing Sioux, and many a soldier clutched his piece with a firmer grip and cast his eyes toward the hills on which he had last seen the cavalry, in the hope that they would come over the swells in haste with the report that the Sioux were not far behind them. That would give him a chance to knock over one or two to pay them for the number they had killed during the massacre at the Fort. That was something the soldiers could not get out of their minds. They had already made it up among them that "Remember Fort Phil Kearney" should be their battle cry the next time they went into action. And the opportunity came for them much sooner than they had expected. They had marched until pretty near twelve o'clock and the commanders were holding a consultation about what they had better do for dinner, whether to halt the column at the top of the nearest swell and have dinner there, or go on until four o'clock and then have dinner and supper together, when suddenly, and without the least warning, they heard the rattle of carbines behind the nearest hill on the right. A squad of cavalry, numbering perhaps twenty men or more, had discovered the Sioux. They had seen the squad more than half an hour before, and they were going along as if everything were all right.
"Indians! Indians!" burst from a score of throats.
"Remember Fort Phil Kearney!" chimed in some others.
"That is Guy's squad, as sure as you live," exclaimed Fred, and his face turned a little pale as he drew his sword from its scabbard. "I guess Guy knows how it is to see an ambush close by."
"Major Powell, take two hundred men and hurry to help that cavalry," shouted Colonel Smith. "The others are to guard the wagons. Lieutenant Bowen, we will keep right ahead at the rate we were going. Close up, everybody."
These orders were obeyed almost as soon as they were issued. By the time the one hundred men had closed up about the wagons, Major Powell had brought his men together, and moving at double quick they ran toward the hill which separated them from the view of the hostiles. Fred's company was with Major Powell, and although the color had not come back to his face, he did his duty as though they were going out for drill. "Close up, men. Don't lag behind," was the way in which he urged them to keep up their formation, although before he was half way to the swell he was "winded," and would have been glad to sit down for a rest.
There were other things besides the rattle of carbines to which the men had to listen. Before they had gone many steps a whole chorus of loud and fiendish yells came plainly to their ears, and caused the hearts of some of the soldiers to beat a trifle faster. A moment afterward the remnant of the squad of cavalry they had come out to help suddenly appeared at the top of the hill. Fred took one look at it and the fears which he had before experienced came back to him with redoubled force.
"Only six men left," said he to himself. "They numbered twenty at first. What has become of the balance?"
A few steps more and the whole matter was revealed to him. Of course there were orders to be obeyed, such as "Aim! Right oblique, fire!" and their bullets whistled over fifteen or more Sioux who, lying flat upon their horses' backs, were rapidly leaving the field; but in spite of them all, Fred had time to look about him and to see, if he could, what had become of his friend, Guy Preston.
"By gracious!" exclaimed one man. "They have some prisoners with them."
"Where, where?" stammered Fred.
"Don't you see those feet hanging out over the side of that horse that is just going over the hill?" replied the soldier. "There's another and another. My fingers are all thumbs, and I don't see why I cannot load my gun. Shoot those men. They are taking some captives away with them."
The soldiers were keenly alive to the fate of their prisoners, and more than one bullet was aimed for the warriors who had them on their horses; but they all flew wild, and before the men could load their guns again the last of the Sioux had disappeared. It was merely a bold dash. The Sioux had intended to wipe out a squad of cavalry and had succeeded. The other squads of cavalry were sent off as fast as they came, until there were nearly a hundred in pursuit of the Sioux; but all to no avail. They got a few shots at them, and that was all.
Meanwhile the infantry had broken ranks and spread themselves over this new battlefield of the Sioux—to succor the wounded, if there were any, and to bury the dead. The first proved unnecessary because there was not a wounded man on the field; the Indians had made sure work of them. Fred was hunting for Guy. He was not among those who retreated to the top of the swell, so he must be among the dead or else—
"It is awful to think of," murmured Fred, who was almost afraid to go any further, for fear that his prediction might come out true. "I declare, there is his horse. Shot through the head. But where is Guy?"
Tom, the horse which Guy had told the Colonel could beat any Indian pony that ever lived, had met his end at last, but his rider was gone. His saddlebags were there, but everything in the way of weapons had disappeared. Guy had been carried away by the Sioux, when they retreated. While Fred stood wondering what was to be his fate, one of the soldiers who had been at the Fort at the time of the massacre stepped up and touched his cap to him.
"Did you know Cyrus, sir?" said he.
"Cyrus?" repeated Fred. "What was his other name?"
"He hasn't any that I know of, sir," replied the soldier. "I just wanted to tell you that he is among the dead."
Fred accompanied the soldier to the spot where Cyrus lay, but he took one look at him before he turned away. He did not want to see any more of a battlefield, and he would have been glad, if he had never seen it at all. Cyrus lay as he had fallen from his horse, with a scowl of hatred upon his features, and the mark upon his shirt just above his heart told how he had given up his life.
"Why don't we fall in and go away from here?" said Fred impatiently. "I wish I were back at the Fort."
"This isn't anything to what the old battlefield was, sir. With Mr. Preston gone and Cyrus done up for good, it seems as though we have lost everything worth living for."
And where was Guy Preston during all this time? He fell in with his men in response to the call and rode away on the right to keep watch for the Sioux. Their squad of twenty men was led by a First Lieutenant, a bold fighter, but rather inexperienced, so far as Indian tactics were concerned. But Cyrus was with him, and if the Lieutenant followed his advice, it was likely that he would keep out of trouble. Until twelve o'clock they saw nothing but the prairie on each side of them; they thought that they were alone, but Cyrus thought he knew a little better than that.
"You can't always tell about these thievish rascals that we are after," said he, as he rode forward with the officer. "Now there is a place that is the best kind for an ambush. When you come to a deep gully like that, you want to do one of two things: either keep out of the way of it entirely, or go a mile or two above the opening and cross there."
"Why, if there were any Sioux in there, they would get out," said the Lieutenant.
"Of course, and that is what you want. If the Indians were in there, they would be right in the mouth of the gully; and they are too sharp to let you get behind them. They would dig out."