Margaret, the cook, had a room to herself on the ground floor adjoining her kitchen. Belle, the maid, had been given the second floor back, in order to be near to her young mistress. Bitzer, the Blakes"
man-of-all-work,--like McGann, a discharged soldier,--slept in the bas.e.m.e.nt at the back of the house, and there was he found, blinking, bewildered and only with difficulty aroused from stupor by a wrathful sergeant. The cook"s story, in brief, was that she was awakened by Mrs.
Blake"s voice at her door and, thinking Belle was sick, she jumped up and found Mrs. Blake in her wrapper, asking was she, Margaret, up stairs a moment before. Then Mrs. Blake, with her candle, went into the dining room, and out jumped a man in his stocking feet from the captain"s den across the hall, and knocked over Mrs. Blake and the light, and made for her, the cook; whereat she screamed and slammed her door in his face, and that was really all she knew about it.
But Mrs. Blake knew more. Awakened by some strange consciousness of stealthy movement about the house, she called Belle by name, thinking possibly the girl might be ill and seeking medicine. There was sound of more movement, but no reply. Mrs. Blake"s girlhood had been spent on the frontier. She was a stranger to fear. She arose; struck a light and, seeing no one in her room or the guest chamber and hallway, hastened to the third room, and was surprised to find Belle apparently quietly sleeping. Then she decided to look about the house and, first, went down and roused the cook. As she was coming out of the dining room, a man leaped past her in the hall, hurling her to one side and dashing out the light. Her back was toward him, for he came from Gerald"s own premises known as the den. In that den, directly opposite, was one of her revolvers, loaded. She found it, even in the darkness and, hurrying forth again, intending to chase the intruder and alarm the sentry at the rear, encountered either the same or a second man close to the back door, a man who sprang past her like a panther and darted down the steps at the back of the house, followed by two shots from her Smith & Wesson. One of these men wore a soldier"s overcoat, for the cape, ripped from the collar seam, was left in her hands. Another soldier"s overcoat was later found at the rear fence, but no boots, shoes or tracks thereof, yet both these men, judging from the sound, had been in stocking feet, or possibly rubbers, or perhaps--but that last suspicion she kept to herself, for Mrs. Hay, too, was now among the arrivals in the house, full of sympathy and genuine distress. The alarm, then, had gone beyond the guard-house, and the creators thereof beyond the ken of the guard, for not a sentry had seen or heard anything suspicious until after the shots; then Number 8, Flint"s latest addition, declared that from his post at Hay"s corral he had distinctly heard the swift hoofbeats of a brace of ponies darting up the level bench to the westward. Number 5 had turned up safely, and declared that at the moment the scream was heard he was round by the flagstaff, listening to the night chorus of a pack of yelping coyotes, afar out to the northwest, and then he thought he heard scrambling and running down at the foot of the bluff just as the shots were fired. Investigation on his part was what took him out of sight for the moment, and later investigation showed that one marauder, at least, had gone that way, for a capeless greatcoat was found close down by the sh.o.r.e, where some fugitive had tossed it in his flight. This overcoat bore, half erased from the soiled lining, the name of Culligan, Troop "K;" but Culligan had served out his time and taken his discharge a year before. The other overcoat was even older, an infantry coat, with shorter cape, bearing a company number "47," but no name. Both garments savored strongly of the stable.
Then, before quiet was restored, certain search was made about the quarters. It was found the intruders had obtained admission through the bas.e.m.e.nt door at the back, which was never locked, for the sentry on Number 5 had orders to call Bitzer at 5:30 A. M., to start the fires, milk the cow, etc.,--Hogan, Ray"s factotum, being roused about the same time. The marauders had gone up the narrow stairway into the kitchen, first lashing one end of a leather halter-strap about the k.n.o.b of Bitzer"s door and the other to the base of the big refrigerator,--a needless precaution, as it took sustained and determined effort, as many a sentry on Number 5 could testify, to rouse Bitzer from even a nap.
It was no trick for the prowlers to softly raise the trap door leading to the kitchen, and, once there, the rest of the house was practically open. Such a thing as burglary or sneak thieving about the officers"
quarters had been unheard of at Frayne for many a year. One precaution the visitors had taken, that of unbolting the back door, so that retreat might not be barred in case they were discovered. Then they had gone swiftly and noiselessly about their work.
But what had they taken? The silver was upstairs, intact, under Mrs.
Blake"s bed; so was the little safe in which was kept her jewelry and their valuable papers. Books, bric-a-brac,--everything down stairs--seemed unmolested. No item was missing from its accustomed place. Mrs. Blake thought perhaps the intruders had not entered her room at all. In Gerald"s den were "stacks," as he said, of relics, souvenirs, trophies of chase and war, but no one thing of the intrinsic value of fifty dollars. What could have been the object of their midnight search?
was the question all Fort Frayne was asking as people dispersed and went home,--the doctor intimating it was high time that Mrs. Blake was permitted to seek repose. Not until he had practically cleared the house of all but her most intimate friends, Mrs. Dade and Mrs. Ray, would Waller permit himself to ask a question that had been uppermost in his mind ever since he heard her story.
"Mrs. Blake, someone has been ransacking Mr. Field"s quarters for letters or papers. Now,--was there anything of that kind left by the captain that--someone may have needed?"
Nannie Blake"s head was uplifted instantly from Marion"s shoulder. She had been beginning to feel the reaction. For one moment the three women looked intently into each other"s faces. Then up they started and trooped away into Gerald"s den. The doctor followed. The upper drawer of a big, flat-topped desk stood wide open, and pretty Mrs. Blake opened her eyes and mouth in emulation as she briefly exclaimed--
"It"s gone!"
Then Waller went forthwith to the quarters of the commander and caught him still in conference with his quartermaster and the guard, four or five of the latter being grouped without. The major retired to his front room, where, with Wilkins, he received the doctor.
"Major Flint," said Waller, "those overcoats belong to Mr. Hay"s stablemen,--Pete and c.r.a.paud. Will you order their immediate arrest?"
"I would, doctor," was the answer, "but they are not at the corral. We know how to account for the hoofbeats in the valley. Those scoundrels have got nearly an hour"s start, and we"ve n.o.body to send in chase."
Then it presently appeared that the post commander desired to continue conference with his staff officer, for he failed to invite the post surgeon to be seated. Indeed, he looked up into the doctor"s kindling eyes with odd mixture of impatience and embarra.s.sment in his own, and the veteran pract.i.tioner felt the slight, flushed instantly, and, with much _hauteur_ of manner, took prompt but ceremonious leave.
And when morning came and Fort Frayne awoke to another busy day, as if the excitements of the night gone by had not been enough for it, a new story went buzzing, with the first call for guard mount, about the garrison; and, bigger even than yesterday, the two details, in soldier silence, began to gather in front of the infantry quarters. Major Flint had ordered sentries posted at the trader"s home, with directions that Mrs. Hay was not to be allowed outside her gate, and no one, man or woman, permitted to approach her from without except by express permission of the post commander. "General Harney" and "Dan," the two best horses of the trader"s stable, despite the presence of the sentry at the front, had been abstracted sometime during the earlier hours of the night, and later traced to the ford at Stabber"s old camp, and with Pete and c.r.a.paud, doubtless, were gone.
That day the major wired to Omaha that he should be reinforced at once.
One half his little force, he said, was now mounted each day for guard, and the men couldn"t stand it. The general, of course, was in the field, but his chief of staff remained at headquarters and was empowered to order troops from post to post within the limits of the department.
Flint hoped two more companies could come at once, and he did not care what post was denuded in his favor. His, he said, was close to the Indian lands,--separated from them, in fact, only by a narrow and fordable river. The Indians were all on the warpath and, aware of his puny numbers, might be tempted at any moment to quit the mountains and concentrate on him. Moreover, he was satisfied there had been frequent communication between their leaders and the household of the post trader at Fort Frayne. He was sure Mrs. Hay had been giving them valuable information, and he expected soon to be able to prove very serious charges against her. Meantime, he had placed her under surveillance.
(_That_ she had been ever since his coming, although she never realized it.) Fancy the sensation created at Omaha, where the Hays were well known, when this news was received! Flint did not say "under arrest,"
guarded day and night by a brace of sentries who were sorely disgusted with their duty. He had no doubt his appeals for more troops would be honored, in view of his strenuous representations, but the day pa.s.sed without a.s.surance to that effect and without a wired word to say his action regarding Mrs. Hay had been approved. It began to worry him. At 3 P. M. Mrs. Hay sent and begged him to call upon her that she might a.s.sure and convince him of her innocence. But this the major found means to refuse, promising, however a meeting in the near future, after he had received tidings from the front, which he was awaiting and expecting every moment. He had reluctantly given permission to visit her to Mrs.
Dade, Mrs. Ray and two or three other women whose hearts were filled with sympathy and sorrow, and their heads with bewilderment, over the amazing order. Indeed, it was due to Mrs. Dade"s advice that she so far triumphed over pride and wrath as to ask to see the major and explain.
She had received tidings from her husband and Nanette. She was perfectly willing to admit it,--to tell all about it,--and, now that Pete and c.r.a.paud had turned out to be such unmitigated rascals, to have them caught and castigated, if caught they could be. But all this involved no disloyalty. They had always been friendly with the Sioux and the Sioux with them. Everybody knew it;--no one better than General Crook himself, and if he approved why should a junior disapprove? Indeed, as she asked her friends, what junior who had ever known Mr. Hay and her, or the Indians either, would be apt to disapprove so long as the Indians, when on the warpath, received no aid or comfort from either her husband or herself? "And if they had," said she, further, waxing eloquent over her theme, "could we have _begun_ to give them half the aid or comfort--or a thousandth part of the supplies and ammunition--they got day after day through the paid agents of the Interior Department?"
But these were questions army people could not properly discuss,--their mission in life being rather to submit to, than suggest, criticism.
And so another restless day went by and no more news came from either front or rear--from the range to the north or Rock Springs at the south, and Flint was just formulating another fervid appeal to that impa.s.sive functionary, the adjutant general at Omaha, when toward evening word came whistling down the line in the person of Master Sanford Ray, that two couriers were in sight "scooting" in from Moccasin Ridge, and Flint and fully half the soldier strength of Fort Frayne gathered on the northward bluff like the "wan burghers" of ancient Rome, to watch and speed their coming. Who could tell what the day might yet bring forth?
It was well nigh dark before the foremost reached the ford--a scout in worn and tawdry buckskin, wearied and impa.s.sive. He gave his despatch to the care of the first officer to accost him and took the way to the store, briefly saying in reply to questions, that he was "too dry to speak the truth." So they flocked, at respectful distance, about the major as he read the hurried lines. The general bade the post commander wire the entire message to Washington, and to take all precautions for the protection of the few settlers about him. The columns under Colonel Henry and Major Webb had united near the head waters of the Clear Fork of the Powder; had had a rattling running fight with Lame Wolf"s people; had driven them into the mountains and were following hot on the trail, but that Stabber"s band and certain disaffected Sioux had cut loose from the main body and gone south. Whistling Elk, a young chief of much ambition had quarrelled with certain of the Red Cloud element, and joined Stabber, with his entire band. "Look out for them and watch for signals any day or night from Eagle b.u.t.te."
Flint read with sinking heart. Indian fighting was something far too scientific for his martial education and too much for his skeleton command. In the gathering dusk his face looked white and drawn, and old Wilkins, breasting his way up the slope, puffed hard, as he begged for news. There was still another despatch, however, which was evidently adding to the major"s perturbation, for it concerned him personally and for the moment Wilkins went unheard.
The general desires that you send the couriers back within twenty-four hours of their arrival, after you have had time to scout the line of the Platte say twenty miles each way, giving full report of every Indian seen or heard of. He enjoins vigilance and hopes to keep the Sioux so busy that they can send no more in your direction. Should they do so, however, he will pursue at once. He trusts that you are doing everything possible to comfort and rea.s.sure Mrs. Hay, and that you can send good news of Lieutenant Field.
And this when he had just refused to remove the sentries or to visit Mrs. Hay:--this when he had just been told by Dr. Waller that Lieutenant Field was distinctly worse.
"He is simply fretting his heart out here," were the doctor"s words to him but a short time before, "and, while unable to mount a horse, he is quite strong enough now to take the trip by ambulance, slowly, that is, to Rock Springs. I fear his father is failing. I fear Field will fail if not allowed to go. I recommend a seven days" leave, with permission to apply to Omaha for thirty--he"ll probably need it."
"I can"t permit government teams and ambulances to be used for any such purpose," said the major, stoutly. "It is distinctly against orders."
"Then, sir, he can go in my spring wagon and we"ll hire mules from Mrs.
Hay," was the doctor"s prompt reply. "He can do no good here, major. He may do much good there."
But Flint was full of information and official zeal. The matter of Field"s going had been broached before, and, when told of it, the Wilkins pair had been prompt with their protests. "Of course he"d be wantin" to get away," said Wilkins, "wid all that money to account for, let alone these other things." The Irishman was hot against the young West Pointer who had derided him. He doubtless believed his own words.
He never dreamed how sorely the lad now longed to see his father,--how deep was his anxiety on that father"s account,--how filled with apprehension on his own, for that rifled desk had brought him reason for most painful thought. Wilkins and Field had been antagonistic from the start. Neither could see good in the other and, egged on by his worthy spouse"s exhortations, the quartermaster had seized the opportunity to fill the post commander"s too receptive mind with all his own suspicions--and this at a crucial time.
"I can"t listen to it, Dr. Waller," said the major, sternly. "Here"s a matter of near a thousand dollars that young man has got to answer for the moment he is well enough to stir. And if he can"t account for it--you well know what my duty will demand."
CHAPTER XIX
A SLAP FOR THE MAJOR
The columns of Colonel Henry and Major Webb, as said "the Chief," had united, and here were two men who could be counted on to push the pursuit "for all they were worth." Hitherto, acting in the open country and free from enc.u.mbrance, the Indians had been hard to reach. Now they were being driven into their fastnesses among the mountains toward the distant shelter whither their few wounded had been conveyed, and where the old men, the women and children were in hiding. Now it meant that, unless the troops could be confronted and thrown back, another transfer of tepees and _travois_, ponies and dogs, wounded and aged would have to be made. Lame Wolf had thought his people safe behind the walls of the Big Horn and the shifting screen of warriors along the foothills, but the blue skirmish lines pushed steadily on into the fringing pines, driving the feathered braves from ridge to ridge, and Lame Wolf had sense enough to see that here were leaders that "meant business" and would not be held. Henry had ten veteran troops at his back when he united with Webb, who led his own and the Beecher squadron, making eighteen companies, or troops, of Horse, with their pack mules, all out at the front, while the wagon train and ambulances were thoroughly guarded by a big battalion of st.u.r.dy infantry, nearly all of them good marksmen, against whose spiteful Springfields the warriors made only one essay in force, and that was more than enough. The blue coats emptied many an Indian saddle and strewed the prairie with ponies, and sent Whistling Elk and his people to the right about in sore dismay, and then it dawned on Lame Wolf that he must now either mislead the cavalry leader,--throw him off the track, as it were,--or move the villages, wounded, prisoners and all across the Big Horn river, where hereditary foemen, Shoshone and Absaraka, would surely welcome them red-handed.
It was at this stage of the game he had his final split with Stabber.
Stabber was shrewd, and saw unerringly that with other columns out--from Custer on the Little Horn and Washakie on the Wind River,--with reinforcements coming from north and south, the surrounding of the Sioux in arms would be but a matter of time. He had done much to get Lame Wolf into the sc.r.a.pe and now was urging hateful measures as, unless they were prepared for further and heavier losses, the one way out, and that way was--surrender.
Now, this is almost the last thing the Indian will do. Not from fear of consequences at the hands of his captors, for he well knows that, physically, he is infinitely better off when being coddled by Uncle Sam than when fighting in the field. It is simply the loss of _prestige_ among his fellow red men that he hates and dreads. Therefore, nothing short of starvation or probable annihilation prompts him, as a rule, to yield himself a prisoner. Stabber urged it rather than risk further battle and further loss, but Stabber had long been jealous of the younger chief, envied him his much larger following and his record as a fighter, and Stabber, presumably, would be only too glad to see him fallen from his high estate. They could then enjoy the hospitality of a generous nation (a people of born fools, said the unreasoning and unregenerate red man) all winter, and, when next they felt sufficiently slighted to warrant another issue on the warpath, they could take the field on equal terms. Lame Wolf, therefore, swore he"d fight to the bitter end. Stabber swore he"d gather all his villagers, now herding with those of Wolf; and, having segregated his sheep from the more numerous goats, would personally lead them whither the white man could not follow. At all events he made this quarrel the pretext for his withdrawal with full five score fighting men, and Lame Wolf cursed him roundly as the wretch deserved and, all short-handed now, with hardly five hundred braves to back him, bent his energies to checking Henry"s column in the heart of the wild hill country.
And this was the situation when the general"s first despatches were sent in to Frayne,--this the last news to reach the garrison from the distant front for five long days, and then one morning, when the snow was sifting softly down, there came tidings that thrilled the little community, heart and soul--tidings that were heard with mingled tears and prayers and rejoicings, and that led to many a visit of congratulation to Mrs. Hay, who, poor woman, dare not say at the moment that she had known it all as much as twenty-four hours earlier, despite the fact that Pete and c.r.a.paud were banished from the roll of her auxiliaries.
Even as the new couriers came speeding through the veil of falling flakes, riding jubilantly over the wide-rolling prairie with their news of victory and battle, the post commander at Fort Frayne was puzzling over a missive that had come to him, he knew not how, mysterious as the anarchists" warnings said to find their way to the very bedside of the guarded Romanoffs. Sentry Number 4 had picked it up on his post an hour before the dawn--a letter addressed in bold hand to Major Stanley Flint, commanding Fort Frayne, and, presuming the major himself had dropped it, he turned it over to the corporal of his relief, and so it found its way toward reveille into the hands of old McGann, wheezing about his work of building fires, and Michael laid it on the major"s table and thought no more about it until two hours later, when the major roused and read, and then a row began that ended only with the other worries of his inc.u.mbency at Frayne.
Secretly Flint was still doing his best to discover the bearer when came the bold riders from the north with their thrilling news. Secretly, he had been over at the guard-house interviewing as best he could, by the aid of an unwilling clerk who spoke a little Sioux, a young Indian girl whom Crabb"s convalescent squad, four in number, had most unexpectedly run down when sent scouting five miles up the Platte, and brought, screaming, scratching and protesting back to Frayne. Her pony had been killed in the dash to escape, and the two Indians with her seemed to be young lads not yet well schooled as warriors, for they rode away pellmell over the prairie, leaving the girl to the mercy of the soldiers. Flint believed her to be connected in some way with the coming of the disturbing note, which was why he compelled her detention at the guard-house. Under Webb"s _regime_ she would have been questioned by Hay, or some one of his household. Under Flint, no one of Hay"s family or retainers could be allowed to see her. He regarded it as most significant that her shrillest screams and fiercest resistance should have been reserved until just as her guardians were bearing her past the trader"s house. She had the little light prison room to herself all that wintry morning, and there, disdainful of bunk or chair, enveloped in her blanket, she squatted disconsolate, greeting all questioners with defiant and fearless shruggings and inarticulate protest. Not a syllable of explanation, not a shred of news could their best endeavors wring from her. Yet her glittering eyes were surely in search of some one, for she looked up eagerly every time the door was opened, and Flint was just beginning to think he would have to send for Mrs. Hay when the couriers came with their stirring news and he had to drop other affairs in order to forward this important matter to headquarters.
Once again, it seems, Trooper Kennedy had been entrusted with distinguished duty, for it was he who came trotting foremost up the road, waving his despatch on high. A comrade from Blake"s troop, following through the ford, had turned to the left and led his horse up the steep to the quarters nearest the flagstaff. This time there was no big-hearted post commander to bid the Irishman refresh himself _ad libitum_. Flint was alone at his office at the moment, and knew not this strange trooper, and looked askance at his heterodox garb and war-worn guise. Such laxity, said he to himself, was not permitted where _he_ had hitherto served, which was never on Indian campaign. Kennedy, having delivered his despatches, stood mutely expectant of question and struggling with an Irishman"s enthusiastic eagerness to tell the details of heady fight. But Flint had but one method of getting at facts--the official reports--and Kennedy stood unnoticed until, impatient at last, he queried:--
"Beg pardon, sir, but may we put up our horses?"
"Who"s we?" asked the major, bluntly. "And where are the others?"
"Trigg, sir--Captain Blake"s troop. He went to the captain"s quarters with a package."
"He should have reported himself first to the post commander," said the major, who deemed it advisable to make prompt impression on these savage hunters of savage game.
"Thim wasn"t his ordhers, surr," said Kennedy, with zealous, but misguided loyalty to his comrades and his regiment.
"No one has a right, sir, to give orders that are contrary in spirit to the regulations and customs of the service," answered the commander, with proper austerity. "Mr. Wilkins," he continued, as the burly quartermaster came bustling in, "have the other trooper sent to report at once to me and let this man wait outside till I am ready to see him."
And so it happened that a dozen members of the garrison gathered, from the lips of a partic.i.p.ant, stirring particulars of a spirited chase and fight that set soldiers to cheering and women and children to extravagant scenes of rejoicing before the official head of the garrison was fairly ready to give out the news. Kennedy had taken satisfaction for the commander"s slights by telling the tidings broadcast to the crowd that quickly gathered, and, in three minutes, the word was flying from lip to lip that the troops had run down Lame Wolf"s main village after an all day, all night rush to head them off, and that with very small loss they had been able to capture many of the families and to scatter the warriors among the hills. In brief, while Henry, with the main body, had followed the trail of the fighting band, Webb had been detached and, with two squadrons, had ridden hard after a Shoshone guide who led them by a short cut through the range and enabled them to pounce on the village where were most of Lame Wolf"s noncombatants, guarded only by a small party of warriors, and, while Captains Billings and Ray with their troops remained in charge of these captives, Webb, with Blake and the others had pushed on in pursuit of certain braves who had scampered into the thick of the hills, carrying a few of the wounded and prisoners with them. Among those captured, or recaptured, were Mr. Hay and c.r.a.paud. Among those who had been spirited away was Nanette Flower.
This seemed strange and unaccountable.