"Do!" said Boynton, indignantly. "Do your duty, and I'll back you up. I'll testify to the truth."

And then the agent smiled sadly, but scornfully, and said another truism. "What good would that do? From Sheridan down, what army officer's statement has any weight whatever with the Indian Bureau,—when it isn't what it wants?"

"Well," said Boynton, "it's a damned shame, and I mean to make a formal report to department headquarters at once."

And the agent said he wished he would, and Boynton did, but before that document could reach Omaha there were other and more serious troubles. Two Lance was the name given the chief of the little band that had stood fast with Spotted Tail, and Two Lance had begged that he and his people might be allowed to go back to where most of the Brules lived, at the old home on the White River. "This is no place for us," said he. "We are poor, hungry, ragged, almost naked. We are jeered at. Even our maidens are insulted by these our own people because we were taught to remain true to the Great Father and take no part in the war. Now, behold, they who killed his soldiers, murdered his settlers, and ravished his women are fat and strong and rich. Their ponies are as the herds of buffalo in our fathers' day, and we who served the great White Chief and protected his children, we are a shame and a scorn. Let us go to him who never broke a promise or told a lie and he will right us. Let us go back to Sintogaliska—to Spotted Tail." But the agent said he had no authority. It would be another moon before he could get it, and it might not come then. If they pulled up stakes and went anyhow he would have to send the white chief Boynton with his soldiers to fetch them back; and when Red Dog and Kills Asleep heard of this they rode to the village of Two Lance and jeered him anew and called him "White Heart" and "No Lance," and some of Red Dog's young men said worse things to some of the Brule girls who stood shrouded in their ragged blankets, bidding them follow and be the mothers of men and braves and warriors and not remain in the lodges of faint hearted curs. There were Brules there, young braves who longed for battle then and there, and who leaped to their gaunt ponies and shouted challenge and defiance, but Two Lance interposed. There must be no fratricidal warring, said he. They would lay the matter before the council fire of Sintogaliska,—he who had ruled the Brules since first the white tents of the soldiers gleamed along the Platte—Sintogaliska who never lied. And this too was jeered and flouted. Sintogaliska, indeed! Sintogaliska was a traitor, an old woman whom the white father had bought with beads and candy. The warriors of the Sioux, the only men fit to lead, were such as Red Dog and Kills Asleep. But still Two Lance kept his temper and the public peace, and again he rode to the agent and told his story, and Boynton fired up and said in common decency the agent must do something to put a stop to Red Dog's insolence, and the agent sent for Red Dog and bade him report himself at the agency forthwith, and Red Dog replied that he would when he got ready, and if the agent wanted him sooner, why, to come and get him, and Elk-at-Bay, who brought his defiance, lunged in and laughed when he gave the message, and helped himself to the cigars remaining in the agent's box and swaggered out with them.

That evening in sudden brawl and in plain view of Mr. McPhail, the agent, one of Red Dog's braves stabbed to the heart the lover of a Brule girl whom he had affronted.

"Arrest him!" ordered McPhail, who then turned and ran in-doors,—after his pistol, as he said, possibly forgetting that it was already on his hip. Boynton and his men were at the picket-line grooming horses, three hundred yards away at the moment, and the young brave mounted his pony and dared any one to take him, and rode singing defiantly down the snow-covered valley. Only the previous day the mail rider had gone on his weekly trip, and now a special messenger was needed to convey the agent's despatch to the railway, for the flimsy single wire to the reservation was down and useless. The Indian who attempted to carry the letter was pulled off his pony by frolicsome friends of the murderer and treated to a cold bath in the Niobrara. Not until Sunday night did he get back, half frozen, and tell his story. Meantime there was more defiance, so another attempt was made. Sergeant Lutz said he'd take it this time, and he rode through to Braska on a single horse,—seventy-three miles in thirty hours. The Interior Department asked immediate assistance of the War Department to make arrests, and the general commanding at Omaha was instructed by wire to place a sufficient force with the agent to enable him to overpower two or three turbulent Indians. This sent Davies and twenty troopers to reinforce Boynton, and the very day they started ushered in the coldest wave of the winter and further tragedy at Ogallalla.

Drunk and defiant, the exulting murderer with two or three reckless friends had ridden up to the agency, renewed their boasts and jeers and yells, while Boynton and his men, as instructed by the agent, were over at the village of Two Lance, a long mile away, rounding up their pony herd to prevent the warriors making an assault on Red Dog's more distant township. A shot rang out from somewhere among the agency buildings, and the days of the boaster were numbered. Back, bearing the body, scurried the trio of friends, and in less than an hour, in fury and transport and grief and rage, the women were tearing their hair and prodding themselves with knives, while the warriors, singing the death-song, were painting themselves for battle. In vain the agent despatched messengers to say he and his men were innocent of blood and would bring the murderer of the murderer, some prowling Brule, to vengeance. Swift return couriers bade him beware,—Red Dog and all his band were coming to avenge the deed. Boynton was summoned in hot haste. He and his party came sweeping in on the foremost wave of the wind, and between the two a vengeful band of two hundred seasoned warriors, veterans of many a foray, were held at bay from Wednesday night. It was too cold even for fighting.

And Friday morning, after hardship and suffering there was no time to tell, Lieutenant Davies with his party reached the threatened agency, and was greeted with ringing cheers. That evening the grasp of the Ice King was loosened by the soft touch of the south wind, and Red Dog rode in state to the adjoining camp to claim the alliance of his brother chiefs in his attempt to wrest from the agent the perpetrator of the murder of his tribesman. That the dead Indian was himself a murderer had no bearing on the matter, said Red Dog. He had simply knifed in self-defence a beggarly Brule who quarrelled with him over a girl. The blood of Lone Wolf cried aloud for vengeance, and the agent should not be permitted to harbor or conceal his slayer. "You've got no time to lose," said Boynton, who had kept his scouts on the alert. "You should arrest that old villain at once or he'll stir the whole reservation into mutiny." The agent thought he could accomplish more by seeing him and having a talk. "Indians are always ready for a talk," said he. "I'll take Mr. Davies and a couple of men just for appearance's sake and ride right over to the village. He's at Kills Asleep's now."

Boynton argued, but the agent was afraid to adopt the only course an Indian respects,—prompt and forceful measures. "Talk" means to him delay, compromise, confession of weakness. "Well, if you must palaver," said Boynton, finally, "take me along. I've had more to do with those beggars than Davies, and," he added to himself, "I'll make it possible to nab that fellow."

A most impressive scene was that which met the eyes of the little party as they rode to the village across the frozen stream. The moon was shining almost at full in a clear and cloudless sky. The neighboring slopes, the distant ridge, the broad level of the valley, all blanketed in glistening snow. Half a mile away down-stream in one dark cluster of jagged-topped cones lay the village of Red Dog's people. Away up-stream a long mile, black against the westward slope, the corral and storehouses, the school and office and quarters of the agency, the watch-lights twinkling like the stars above. Close at hand, loosely huddled along the bank, the grimy, smoke-stained lodges of Kills Asleep's sullen band, and in their midst, surrounded at respectful distance by a squatted semicircle of old men and braves, all muffled in their blankets, and by an outer rim of hags and crones and young squaws and children and snarling dogs and shaggy ponies, there with trailing war-bonnet and decked with paint and barbaric finery, his robe cast aside,—there like an orator of old stood the Indian chief in the heat of his impassioned appeal. All eyes were upon him, all ears drinking in his words. Guttural grunts of approval rewarded each resounding period. "You're too late," muttered Boynton. "He's been getting in his work to good effect. You should have arrested him an hour ago."

The agent reined in his panting horse and looked and listened. "He won't talk to me now, I suppose. It would be an affront to his dignity to interrupt. Best let him finish what he's begun. What shall we do meantime?"

"What you'd best do is to give me orders to nab the old sinner in my own way and go back to the agency as quick as you can. Your life won't be worth a pin in that crowd when he's done speaking. Go while there's yet time and tell Mr. Davies to send me Sergeant Lutz and six men mounted. Keep the rest under arms in the corral. I'll land Red Dog inside the walls within an hour if you'll only say the word. Damn it, man! you've got to, or your influence is gone."

"He's got more influence now than I ever had, and the whole Indiana delegation backed me for the place," wailed McPhail. "What in heaven I thought to gain by coming out here and taking such a job is more than I can guess now. Every one said there was money in it; no one thought of the danger. If my wife and kids were only safe at home I wouldn't care so much. It's that that I'm thinking of. Can't we do this somehow without bringing on a row?"

"The row's here now and growing worse every minute. His own bucks are ready for battle. He'll have every son of a squaw in this camp painting himself chrome-yellow inside an hour, and he'll never rest till he's harangued every village in the valley twixt this and morning. Our one chance is to nab him midway when he rides from here to Little Big Man's roost up-stream. Tell Lutz to meet me at the willows, and for God's sake go!"

And still the agent hesitated. Barely six months had he served in his new and unaccustomed sphere. Old-world nations, either monarchies that take no thought for the morrow's vote of the masses, or republics that have outlived their illusions, suit their servants to the work in hand. Uncle Sam, having hosts of importunate sons demanding recognition irrespective of merit, and being as yet barely a centenarian, is at the mercy of his clamorous and inconsiderate millions. Each salaried office in his gift calls with each new administration for a new incumbent, whose demanded qualifications are not "what can he do to improve the service?" but "what has he done to benefit the party?" In this way do we manufacture consuls who know next to nothing of the manners, customs, language, and business abroad, and agents who know even less of the Indians at home.

But the problem in hand was settled for the sorely troubled official in a most unlooked-for way. Sharp-eyed squaws spied the little squad of horsemen at the outskirts of the village, the agent in his wolf-skin overcoat, the troopers in the army blue, with the collars of their overcoats up about their ears, and some one ran to Red Dog with the news. With all "the majesty of buried Denmark" he paused in his speech, faced the intruders, then came striding slowly towards them, warriors, women, squaws, and children opening out and making a lane for his royal progress.

"Whatever you do, no words with him here," whispered Boynton to the agent, now trembling with excitement and nervous apprehension. "Stand to your terms. He can talk with you only at your office,—the agency."

With the stately war-bonnet of eagle feathers trailing down his back and dragging along the ground, the chief came stalking on, never hastening, never slackening his stride, and after him flocked the warriors and women of the tribe, the men eager and defiant, the women trembling in fearsome dread.

"Shall we turn and ride away?" asked the agent, his blue lips twitching.

"No. Face him now,—cool as you can. Look him straight in the eye. Make no answer,—I'll do that. Ride slowly away when I say 'now' and not before. Advance carbine there, men! Fetch 'em up slowly."

Ten feet away from them Red Dog halted and stood erect, drawn up to his full height. Slowly he folded his arms, and sternly he bent his gaze upon the four white men. Silently his followers ranged up in big circle, almost enveloping the stolid troopers. For a moment nothing was heard but the shuffling of moccasined feet, the quick breathing or murmured words of the squaws, the feeble wail of some Indian baby left to its own devices in the parental lodge. Sniffing the tainted air the horses shrank a bit, rallying under the prompt touch of the spur and standing with erect, quivering ear and starting eyeball, staring at the coming throng and uttering low snorts of fear. And then at last in the Dakota tongue Red Dog hailed his visitors just as down the valley the monotonous throb of the Indian drum began.

"Why are these soldiers here?"

To the agent it was, of course, unintelligible: he had been among the tribe too short a time. Boynton understood, and in low tone muttered, "Pay no attention to him whatever. Look around as though you were in search of somebody you knew and wanted to see." Then aloud he called, authoritively, "Come, step out there, some one of you who can speak soldier English. Where's Elk? He'll do if you want to ask questions." And presently Elk-at-Bay, he who bore the chieftain's message and confiscated the agent's cigars, edged his way to the front, but with far less truculence of mien than when the agent stood unsupported by soldiers.

"Red Dog asks why soldiers here," said he.

"Tell him we're here to enjoy the scenery, if you know how to do it, and minding our own business," was Boynton's reply.

"Red Dog not speak to soldiers. He asks the man the Great Father sends him."

"Well, you tell him the agent of the Great Father will talk with him there, at his office, and nowhere else," said Boynton, "and that to-night's his last chance to hear what the Great Father has to say to him."

Unfolding his arms, the chief took a splendid stride forward. He understood Boynton, as Boynton well knew, and now was preparing for an outburst of oratory. The instant he opened his mouth to speak Boynton turned to the agent and whispered, "Now," and coolly and indifferently as he knew how, that official reined his broncho around and headed him for the twinkling lights of the distant buildings. Red Dog began in sonorous Dakota, with magnificent sweep of his bare, silver-banded arm, and Boynton touched up his charger impatiently and rode a length closer, his two troopers sitting like statues with the butts of their carbines resting on the thigh, the muzzles well forward.

"Red Dog wastes time and wind talking here. If he wants to be heard let him go there," said Boynton, pointing to the distant agency. "Unless," he added, with sarcastic emphasis,—"unless Red Dog's afraid." And then he, too, reined deliberately about and signalled to his men to follow. For a moment there was silence as Elk stumblingly put into Sioux the lieutenant's ultimatum. Then came an outburst of wrath and invective. Red Dog afraid, indeed! Loudly he called for his horse, and the crowd gave way as a boy came running leading the chief's pet piebald. In an instant, Indian fashion, he had thrust his heavily-beaded moccasin far into the off-side stirrup and thrown his leggined left leg over the high silver-tipped cantle, and the trained war pony began to bound and curvet. Swinging over his head his beautiful new Winchester, Red Dog rode furiously to and fro, haranguing the excited tribesmen, and speedily more Indians were sitting hunched up in saddle, but darting skilfully hither and yon, yelping shrill alarm. Others dashed away to the distant village to rouse Red Dog's own people and summon the warriors that remained. In fifteen minutes, at the head of three hundred mounted braves, Red Dog was riding straight for the agency, his escort gaining numbers with every rod. Red Dog afraid, indeed!

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

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

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

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

"Well, it's the only way to put an end to the row," said the soldier. "The only thing in God's world those fellows respect is force and pluck. You've temporized too long. Arrest him and tell his fellows to disperse to their tepees in two minutes or we open fire."

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

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

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

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

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

"Well, by God, McPhail! you may let them ride over you and yours, but they can't ride over me and mine without a fight," said Boynton, now wild with wrath. "That whole force will be swarming through the premises in five minutes. Quick, Davies!" he cried. "Forward as skirmishers! Cover that front! Ten men will do." And without further command, scorning prescribed order of formation, but with the quick intuition of the American soldier,—the finest skirmisher in the world,—a little party of troopers watching at the corral gate, sprang forth into the moonlight and, opening out like a fan, carbines at trail or on the shoulder, forward at full run they dashed, spreading as rapidly as they possibly could to irregular intervals of something like ten yards from man to man, and presently there interposed between the coming host and the black group of buildings at their back this thin line of dismounted men, halted in silence to await the orders of the tall, slender subaltern officer, who, afoot like themselves, now stood some thirty paces in rear of their centre, calmly confronting the advancing Indians. Up to Davies's side rode Boynton, bent and whispered a word, then spurred forward to the line, and there, reining in, raised to the full length of his arm a gauntleted hand, palm to the front, and gave the universal signal known by every Indian and frontiersman from Hudson's Bay to the Gulf of California,—"Halt!"

"Red Dog comes to talk with the Great Father's agent, not with you," shouted Elk, lashing forward for a parley.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But when the agent was told the terms of the parley he refused. "Why, he'd knife or pistol me just as the Modocs did the Peace Commissioners," said he. "I won't step off the agency porch. We've got seven armed men here. Let him bring seven, and you have your soldiers ready inside the corral. Then if he wants to talk business he can see me here."

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

Quickly the troopers scurried back to their positions along the stockade. Originally it had been intended to enclose all the buildings within this defensive work, but the returning tourists were prompt to express their disapprobation. Having just shaken hands with the Great Father at Washington, they were suspicious of such an exhibition of lack of confidence on the part of his agent. That the store-rooms should have iron-barred windows was another ground for remark and remonstrance. The red children refused to enter a stockade whose gates might be closed behind them, or a room whose windows were barred. An inspector came out and held a powwow and shook hands with everybody, and told the agent the red children were lambs who would never harm him and he mustn't show distrust. It hurt their sensitive natures. So the stockade only enclosed the shed and stables, but it abutted, luckily, upon the agent's house and office. Re-entering the house from the rear, after a few words of instruction to Sergeant Lutz and his men, Davies pushed through hurriedly to the front piazza. Red Dog in grand state, with an interpreter at his left rear and seven stalwart braves aligned like a general's staff six yards behind him, came riding with majestic dignity, straight to the dark portico. Red Dog afraid, indeed! Turning his horse over to an orderly and sending him within the stockade, Boynton ordered the gate closed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You dare demand the arrest of Red Dog, do you?" he thundered in his native tongue, leaving hardly an instant for the interpreter. "Now hear Red Dog's reply. The blood of one of our young men calls aloud for vengeance. His slayer is here and you know him. Red Dog, backed by the braves of every tribe at the reservation, comes to demand his surrender. Give him up to us and your lives are safe. Refuse, and you, your wives and children, are at the mercy of my young men. Red Dog dares and defies the soldiers of the Great Father."

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

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



CHAPTER XIX.

The blizzard that swept down on the broad valley of the Platte the night of the hop,—the night Davies marched away,—though severe, had been of short duration. A warm wind and a strong wind from the Arkansas met and overthrew it, and pursued its decisive victory to the Dakota line. The snow was "slumping," said the little Leonards, when Messrs. Burtis and Willett drove out from Braska Friday afternoon and took Mrs. Davies and Mrs. Darling sleighing up the valley. It was freezing, of course, again by sundown, but judging from Mira's glowing cheeks the drive in the exhilarating air had done her a deal of good, and she sat with Willett, while Mrs. Darling faced the breeze at the side of his accomplished associate. Many women watched the start and some saw the finish, and none with more interest than Mrs. Flight, who had never before been left on such occasions, nor with more distress than Mrs. Cranston, who knew not what to say. The party dined at the Darlings' quarters that evening, and later some of the boys came to Leonard and asked if it wouldn't be possible to have a few of the band in the hop-room. They wanted to dance and Darling's house was too small. Leonard said they knew the colonel's decision,—the bandsmen were expected to play once a week as late as any one cared to dance in consideration of certain small extra pay. If they played at any other time, they had a right to expect compensation. He would not order them out. Messrs. Sanders and Dot and Jervis could go and see the leader and arrange with him as to terms and men, if they chose, and have their dance. It wasn't what the boys expected; moreover, it was late, but they were young, energetic, and enthusiastic. Three musicians were found and a dozen couples, and long after midnight the lights and laughter and merry strains of music told that the younger element of Scott was enjoying itself irrespective of anything that might be going on at the almost forgotten agency. The chaplain and his wife, going earlier in the evening to call and cheer Almira, were met by Katty at the door and the information that "the misthress was dinin' at Mrs. Darlin's." Katty was short with her visitors for two reasons. She didn't approve of the dominie, as he was not of the faith of her Irish fathers, and she did approve of Corporal Lenihan, who had come to spend the evening. When, therefore, the worthy couple announced that they would return later after making other calls in order to see if there were not something they could do for Mrs. Davies, who must be dreadfully sad, Katty replied, "'Deed and they needn't worry, for it's more'n she did." The stern discipline of the post took Lenihan off to his troop at tattoo, but Katty lacked not for company. "It wasn't becoming," said her mother, "that she should be left to herself at the dead of night with no one but that lout Barnickel to look after her." So she came up from Sudsville at taps to discuss Mrs. Davies's tea and preserves and, incidentally, her character with her blooming daughter, and Barnickel was sociably disposed, and the kitchen congress was in animated session when at 11.30 P.M. there came a sharp ring at the bell.

"Bless us! I didn't suppose they'd be home till long after midnight," said Katty, as she scurried away. It wasn't the misthress, however; only Mrs. Darling's maid, to say that Mrs. Davies would not come home; she would spend the night at Mrs. Darling's, and Letty had come for her things. This necessitated Mrs. Maloney's remaining all night to further look after Katty, and what more natural than that they should light Mrs. Davies's lamp and spend a blissful hour in her simply furnished but pretty room, looking over the new gowns and garments and jimcracks, and so absorbed were they in this occupation that they took no heed of time; and so it happened that the good old chaplain, coming shortly after midnight over from the hospital, whither he had been summoned to the bedside of a sorely-stricken trooper, rejoiced to see that Mrs. Davies, at least, had not gone to the dance, but was keeping wifely vigil in the sanctity of her own room, praying, probably, for the safety of the loved young husband now on perilous duty eighty miles away. At the corner, at the end of the long row of quarters, a solitary figure was standing. The chaplain recognized the beaver overcoat in the soft moonlight and the soldierly face under the forage-cap.

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

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

"Very low, poor fellow! Typhoid has him in tight grip. He's flighty to-night. He thinks he's back on the summer campaign again, and his talk is all of the Antelope Springs affair. Odd! this makes the third man to come back from Boynton's party, two with typhoid fever and one with the mail-carrier and a bottle,—Brannan I mean,—and they all talk about that. From what I have gathered it would seem that Devers blamed Mr. Davies for the whole tragedy, but the men, when their tongues are loosened by fever or rum, lay loads of blame elsewhere."

"Yes?" said Cranston, with deep interest, yet reluctant to talk of regimental scandal with an outsider. "I should like to know what they say."

"Well, they say McGrath could tell a tale if he were alive, and that Lutz and the men at the agency believe they were shoved up there because they had said things which First Sergeant Haney overheard and reported to the captain. It seemed queer, even to me, so many men going from Devers's troop under command of somebody else's lieutenant, and now Davies himself has gone, and suppose he should hear of this talk?"

"He will know what to do, chaplain. Davies has earnest friends who will not see him further wronged, but just now, as you probably understand, nothing can be done. Now excuse me a moment. I may have been mistaken, but I thought I saw a man's figure hanging about the back gate of Number Twelve as I came up the bluff from the wood-yard. I thought he went through Davies's yard and that I'd see him crossing the parade when I got to the corner, but not a soul was in sight and it is almost as light as the day. If he didn't go through he must be in the shadows there of the wood-shed. There's been some prowling, and though this isn't the sort of night for that sort of thing, it's still possible. Will you kindly wait here and watch the front and this side while I beat up the rear?"

Wonderingly the chaplain assented, and, with his sabre clanking at his side, Cranston strode away northward along the line of white picket-fence until he came to the high rear barrier of the row, one of black unplaned boards, and around behind that he disappeared. Across the intervening yard and through the open gate-way at the back the chaplain could see a patch of the snow-clad valley, and watched for the appearance of Cranston's sturdy form in that silvery gap.

But another eye had also been alert. The very instant the figure of the officer-of-the-day disappeared from view behind the high back fence, out from the shadows of the shed there sprang a lithe, slender form, clad in soldier overcoat, and, in less time than it takes to tell it, around it darted behind the shed, was one instant poised at the top of the fence that separated the yard of Davies's quarters from that of their next-door neighbor, then noiselessly dropped out of sight on the other side. The next minute Cranston appeared in the gap.

Instead of shouting, fearful of disturbing the inmates, the chaplain quit his post, hastened along the front to Davies's gate and around the house to the rear, where he found Cranston searching.

"There was a man. I saw him. He leaped the fence into the next yard. A tall, slender fellow."

But search in there and in its fellows revealed nothing. The prowler had had time to skip from yard to yard, and nothing short of the services of the entire guard would be apt to result in his capture.

"I wish you had shouted to me. I could have grabbed him in Hay's yard," said Cranston.

"Well, I didn't like to for fear of startling Mrs. Davies," said the chaplain, simply, and Cranston glanced quickly and queerly up at him from under the visor of the little cavalry cap.

"Why, she——" he began, then checked himself abruptly.

"Could you give no description of him? Did he leave no trace?" asked Captain Devers at the office next morning when the old officer-of-the-day made his report.

"No, sir, but the chaplain might. He saw him plainly,—said he was tall and slender."

And Captain Devers replied,—

"Very good, sir. You're relieved," and then turned to the new incumbent, Captain Rogers, of the infantry: "I wish especial attention given to this matter, Captain Rogers, and probably I shall take a turn with you to-night after twelve."

But that night long after twelve the whole post took a turn. It was towards four A.M. when the telegraph operator, who slept always beside his instrument, came banging at the door of "A" Troop's office. It was opened by an indignant Irish sergeant. "Go rout out the captain at once. You know how to rouse him and I don't. There's hell to pay and the whole crowd wanted." And Haney, who would have damned his impudence another time, donned his clothes without an instant's delay, and together they ran across the parade and brought up with a bang at Devers's storm-door.

Agatha Loomis was probably a light sleeper. It was her tap at the Cranstons' room that first roused them.

"What is it?" cried Margaret, up in an instant and filled with no other apprehension than that of more sore throat or cough in the nursery.

"There's some excitement and running about the post. The office is lighted and people are hurrying over there."

Cranston looked at his watch,—4.15. Peering out of the dormer-window at the front, he could see dark forms scurrying across the parade and lights beginning to pop up here and there and everywhere along the row of barracks. Hurriedly donning his stable dress and furs, he went down to the hall-way, Margaret, pale and silent now, following. A man was knocking at the door of the adjoining quarters, and Cranston recognized the form of Lieutenant Jervis. "What's up?" he queried.

"Big row at the agency," came the murmured reply. "Reckon most everybody will have to go." And though he spoke in low, guarded tone, Margaret heard, and then clung to her husband's arm.

"Again! so soon?" she cried. "Oh, God! Are we never to know one-half year of peace?"

Cranston led her into the warm little parlor and took her in his arms. "I must go to head-quarters at once," he whispered. "Doubtless I should have been there before; but don't borrow trouble, Meg, dear, wait until I know what's to be done." Then he left her with Agatha and went his way.

The office was crowded. Devers sat in the colonel's chair pencilling despatches to be sent to department head-quarters. Around him, sitting or standing, were most of the officers of the garrison, either silently regarding him or chatting in low tone. All that was known was that Sam Poole, one of the best and most daring scouts employed at the agency, had ridden into Braska about three o'clock, his horse nearly spent, with the news that the whole gang of Sioux had risen in revolt and attacked the agent. He left at 8.15 Friday night with McPhail's plea for instant help and all they could send of it, but so deep were the drifts in places and so exhausted was his horse that it had taken him all that time to reach the railway. The wire was still down and he bore the latest news. There could be no mistake: the attack had fairly begun before he was out of hearing. The volleying and yelling beat anything he'd heard since the battle at Slim Buttes in September. The quartermaster in charge of the depot at Braska had despatches wired at once to Omaha and another out to the fort. Devers was up in a few minutes and had sent his orderly for certain of the officers, and the noise of ringing or knocking along the row had roused others. Cranston and Hay were not of those sent for, but Devers explained that he took it for granted they were prepared to take the field with their troops at a moment's notice, and did not care to disturb them until he knew what they would be required to do. It would be several hours before orders could reach them from Omaha, he reasoned, and he had no idea what the orders would be. The whole command might be sent, or none of it. Meantime vigorous preparations were going on in the store-rooms and kitchens along the barrack row, "A" Troop's activity being conspicuous. But without waiting for orders from their captains, the veteran first sergeants of the other troops were getting everything in readiness, and when Hay and Cranston walked over to the barracks to see how far preparations were advanced, each had an approving word for his faithful aide.

But Omaha was wider awake than Devers supposed. The Gray Fox was in possession of the news almost as soon as the post commanders, and he and his adjutant-general were at the telegraph-office within half an hour. "I will go by first train," said he. "Meantime we must start a big force."

And so before the reveille bugles were singing through the wintry morning along the slopes of the Rockies, the telegraph had roused the officers at all the posts along the railway for five hundred miles. Russell, Sanders, and Sidney were up and astir with preparation. Special trains were ordered to meet and convey their detachments of horse, foot, and pack-trains, so that a big command might concentrate at once at Sidney and march thence, 'cross country, to the Ogallalla Agency, Colonel Winthrop at their head. The commanding officer of Fort Scott was directed to start three troops of cavalry and two companies of infantry at once, with instructions to join Colonel Winthrop's column at the Niobrara crossing, and, his own troop being now the smallest at the post, owing to these details at the agency, Devers very properly decided on sending everybody else's. Truman, Hay, and Cranston of the Eleventh and Pollock and Muncey of the Fortieth were the captains ordered to march forthwith. Before eight o'clock on Sunday morning the little column had swung sturdily away over the prairies, and Captain Devers, with his own attenuated troop and two companies of "doughboys," remained to guard the post and its supplies, and take care of the invalid colonel and the wives and children of the soldiers so summarily ordered into the field.

And now Almira could not lack sympathizers, for both Mrs. Flight and Mrs. Darling had been called upon to say adieu to their respective lords, who marched with their sturdy comrades in the wake of the cavalry, guarding the few wagons which had to be taken; but these gentlemen belonged to a famous regiment that had known no other history since the day of its organization than that of constant active service. The Fortieth was forever in the field,—its wives "perennially grass-widowed," said the garrison wits,—its children so seldom blessed with the sight of the paternal face as to be preternaturally wise in picking out their own fathers. The Fortieth went as a matter of course. The two companies remaining behind looked upon that as a mere accident that time would surely rectify. The two that went made the customary appeal to the post commander for the release of certain untried and unpunished of their weaker members who happened to be at the moment languishing in the guard-house, and the plea prevailed. Hearing this, the chaplain, backed by Dr. Burroughs, came to the office with another plea. There was the young man Brannan confined in the guard-house since Wednesday morning last, he knew not on what charges and begged to be released from durance so utterly vile and permitted to go with the command to the rescue of his comrades at the agency,—what there might be left of them.

But Devers replied that Brannan's troop was not going. Furthermore, he intended to have Brannan brought before a garrison court on the morrow. This was the sorrowful message the chaplain carried, and Brannan wrung his hands. "I have violated no regulation, missed no roll-call, been drunk on no duty. I did drink when half frozen on that hard ride from the agency to the post. I drank after I got here, but drank no more and behaved no worse than half a dozen others of the troop who were with me at the store, and some of whom drank more, got drunk and were allowed to sleep it off in quarters and nothing said about it. Why am I singled out for punishment? Why is Paine—who went to town and had to be brought back by a patrol—why is he released and allowed to go as wagoner, while I am forbidden to go at all? There's surely something behind all this, chaplain."

And the dominie didn't say so to the man, but thought so to himself. He was still talking with the prisoner when the sergeant of the guard came and said he was sorry, but orders had just come for Brannan to be sent to the quartermaster's corral at once to help load wagons, and the young fellow, with tears in his eyes, was led mutely away. Cranston happened to ride by the corral ten minutes later and caught sight of the pale, fine-featured face, whose-eyes looked up at him wistfully, imploringly.

"Why, Brannan," said he, "I had hoped to hear of your release by this time. We march in less than an hour, and I fear nothing I can say to Captain Devers will be apt to help you, but try to keep up good heart. Say nothing about this confinement to your mother when you write, and I'll ask Mr. Leonard to look out for you. He'll see that no great harm comes."

"It seems as if everything had gone against me, sir," said the boy, with quivering lips. "I don't know why I can't get justice in this troop. If Captain Devers thinks me so bad a soldier, why don't he let me transfer? I've asked twice, and he refuses. It's my belief he's trying to drive me to desert so as to get me out of the way—or destroy my character."

"Hush, Brannan. You know that you ought not to talk to me in that way. There's no time for words. I'll ask Mr. Hay to keep special lookout for you. I know the general will overtake us to-morrow, and quick as possible I'll have a word with him. Now, good-by, lad. Stand to your guns a little longer and you're all right."

"I'll try, sir, if you'll give my—give my respects to Mr. Davies, and say to Miss Loomis—God bless her." And with a choke in his voice the young soldier turned suddenly away, dashing his sleeve over his eyes.

"Get to work there, you, Brannan," growled Sergeant Haney before Cranston was out of hearing. "No more palavering with officers out of your own troop this day unless you want double trouble in it,—and be damned to you," he added, in low and cautious tone, his eyes furtively following the captain, now twenty yards away. And Cranston was riding home to don his winter field rig and to a parting that he dreaded beyond all description, for now, more than for many a long year, had Margaret need of all her husband's love and encouragement and devotion.

Sunday noon the detachment from Scott was across the railway and first on march to the beleaguered agency. Sunday night they camped in the breaks of the big divide, some fifteen miles north of Braska, and still no tidings came from beyond the Niobrara. Restoring the telegraph line as they went, digging it out from under the snow, the infantry trudged along all day Monday, following the trail of their mounted comrades who left them at dawn, and early Monday morning an ambulance drawn by six spanking big brown mules whipped by them along the road, and the kindly twinkling eyes of their old friend and fellow-campaigner, the general, peered out at them. Away he went to overtake the foremost riders, with just brief word or two and cordial grasp of the hand to the few officers who hastened alongside. Without guard or escort, with only a single aide-de-camp, with his life in his hands as usual, the Gray Fox was heading straight for the scene of danger. "Heard anything at all?" he asked.

"Not a thing." Who could tell whether man or woman was left to forward word of any kind?

Monday night the cavalry reached the snow-covered banks of the Niobrara, and went into bivouac on the northern shore to await the coming of the black speck that, just before dusk, could be seen far in their wake picking a way through the drifts in its descent from the crest of the divide. "It's the general, of course," said everybody, and the general it was.

"Anybody come ahead yet from Winthrop?" was his first question. No! The Sidney road was covered in places by drifts that had lain unbroken ever since the storm. "Any news from the agency?"

Not a word, and it lay now barely a dozen miles away. Tuesday morning, too impatient to wait for coming reinforcements, and confident he could hold his own with the little force at hand, the Gray Fox pushed ahead. All were up and off at the break of the wintry day, and at eight o'clock had neared the top of the divide between the shallow, placid Niobrara and the swift Chasing Water beyond. Little Sanders, trotting far in the advance with three or four light riders, threw himself from his horse, unslung his field-glass, and peered long and anxiously into the northward valley. All seemed desolate and deserted. A smoke was drifting lazily upward from the site of the distant agency; not from peaceful chimney, but rising from a mass of smouldering ruins. The villages of Red Dog, Kills Asleep, Little Big Man, even of Two Lance, had disappeared, and of the Ogallalla Agency not another vestige could be seen but the grim outlines of the stockade.



CHAPTER XX.

When Sanders, with solemn face, turned to meet the general and report his discovery, the difference between the young and the old campaigner was told in their own words.

"I'm afraid we're too late to save 'em, sir. Everything's wiped out but the stockade."

"If the stockade's left, they've saved themselves," was the answer, and the Gray Fox was right. Long before the column reached the lowlands of the valley horsemen could be seen spurring eagerly forward to meet it, and the first-comer was Trooper O'Brien, who saluted the general with all soldierly grace and the rest of the array with a sociable grin.

"We're all right, general,—leastwise most of us is. Two of the boys is killed, and Loot'n't Boynton's wounded,—and four others,—but the women's all safe, and the agent—bad scran to him! Is there a doctor along?" A doctor was along,—Burroughs,—riding with the senior captain commanding the battalion, and Burroughs was hurried forward with Sanders and a squad of men, while O'Brien, proud of his prominence, rode by the general's side and told the story of the sharp and sudden fight.

"They came down on us like a crowd of grasshoppers so soon as it was light enough to see anything, but they couldn't get near us without our bowling over bucks and ponies. The prairie's dotted with the corpses of the poor beggars, sir,—the ponies, that is; they never left an Indian. We stood 'em off first rate. Loot'nant Boynton and Loot'nant Davies was everywhere at once, and after trying two dashes the Indians gave it up and kept at long range. They was a thousand strong at least, and Elk came in with a white flag for a parley, and Mr. Boynton ordered him back, but McPhail let him in. He said we must give up Red Dog or they'd burn the agency over our heads and massacre every man, and McPhail was for letting him go then, but Mr. Boynton and he had words over it, and they kept him. That night was cloudy and the moon was hid, and sure enough at ten o'clock they crawled in on the storehouse side and heaped up timber under them flimsy pine boards, and no one could see them on that side until everything was in a broad blaze. It was when trying to bucket out the fire the lieut'nant was shot, and it was a roaring conflagration in five minutes, and from that it spread to the agency and the other shebangs, and it was all we could do to get the women and children out of the cellars and into the corral, and them bucks firing from every sage brush for a mile around. The whole thing was down by midnight, but it didn't do them no good: we was really better off with less to take care of and more men to do it with, and we had wather in the well and rations for all hands, and the agent and his non-combatants under cover in one corner of the stockade, and Red Dog tied up in another. All Sunday they kept up a long-range fire, and five or six times made as though they was going to charge, but Loot'nant Davies was on all four sides of that square from dawn till dark, sir, and they never got within four hundred yards that we didn't drop them. Sure it was just pie, general. The only trouble was, could they set fire to the stockade at night? The loot'nant had buckets of water all around inside, and every little while a patrol ran round on the outside, and half the fellows kept watch at the loop-holes while the others slept, and Mr. Davies had the office side of the stockade battened up with old wagons and boxes and things to fill the gap. Faith, sir, he never seemed to close an eye night or day until this blessed morning, when the valley was clear of Indians and we knew it meant that the general was coming." And as O'Brien told his tale to attentive ears, others of the little garrison, lately beleaguered, joined the battalion, still steadily in march, and found eager auditors everywhere along the jogging column. Every one sorrowed at hearing of Boynton's serious wound, for he was a soldierly, faithful fellow, albeit a trifle blunt and unsociable, but as man after man spoke in lavish praise of Davies, of his plucky grapple with the most redoubtable chief in the rebellious tribes, of his calm, cool vigilance and skill in the conduct of the defence after the command devolved upon him, Cranston's eyes sparkled, and Hay and Truman joined in the chorus of congratulation.

When at last the battalion unsaddled at the stream and the officers pressed into the stockade to shake hands with the defenders, they found Boynton and the wounded feebly rejoicing in Burroughs's hands and Davies tucked away in a corner under an old wagon, rolled in agency blankets, sleeping the dreamless sleep of a tired child.

"Don't disturb him for anything," said the general, with moistened eyes. "They tell me he hasn't had an hour's rest since Friday. He's behaved like a trump."

That night our old friend Tintop came trotting in at the head of eight strong troops of horse, some of his own, others of the —th Cavalry. Behind them, with the wagons, came the infantry, supplementing the little detachment of the Fortieth already on the ground,—the sturdy trampers from Fort Scott. Next day the agent and his household, with the other women and children, were bustled off to Braska until new quarters should be built for them, and his red wards be rounded up, run down, and returned to the arms of Uncle Sam by their natural oppressors, the cavalry. Sending Red Dog in irons and Boynton and the wounded back to Scott by easy stages, leaving four companies of the Fortieth to build cantonments for themselves and their comrades, the Gray Fox took the field with the residue of his force and set forth upon a winter campaign in search of the now scattered and despondent Indians. The oratory of Red Dog had borne its fruit. Four truculent bands had joined in the outbreak at the agency and lost their leader, half a score of mad-brained young warriors, scores of their best war ponies, but, what was of most consequence, had burned up the whole store of agency provisions and, with their squaws and children, were now lurking among the trackless Bad Lands to the north, outcasts upon the face of the frozen earth.

The only Indians whose condition was not made materially worse as a result of this ebullition were the Brule band of Two Lance, who had taken advantage of the general confusion to slip away to their old head chief Sintogaliska. He might not be able to feed or clothe them, and the agent at Sheridan might say he had no authority to help, but they would at least be getting as much comfort as was accorded them at Ogallalla, and less abuse.

And then, while the soldiers were stalking the renegades, the commissioner of Indian affairs sent out to stalk the soldiers. Investigation as to the cause of this inexplicable outbreak was demanded. Those very chiefs had left the capital in unbounded good humor not two months before, and who was responsible for this sudden and baleful change of heart? It was a matter soon and easily settled. In the absence of military testimony to the contrary and the presence of so unanimous a party as the agent and his assistants, the fault was laid on the broad shoulders of the troopers. Devers rode over from Scott to Braska to hear the evidence, Boynton being still in surgical bandage and bondage, and without committing himself to anything absolutely derogatory to Messrs. Boynton and Davies, was certainly understood to raise no dissenting voice to the often expressed theory that but for the impetuosity and interference of those two officers the whole trouble could have been amicably settled by the authorities of the Indian bureau. And with this most satisfactory conclusion the commissioner returned to Washington. Red Dog was ordered released and restored to the bosom of his family, and when the general had finally succeeded in bringing in the scattered starvelings and the cavalry reappeared at the site of the agency, the first thing whispered to Davies was, "Be on your guard every moment. Look out for Red Dog!"

The general never swore. He was in this respect the mate of Grant, his old-time friend and regimental comrade, but he could "look swear words by the gallon," said the adjutant of the Eleventh, whose own chief was in no wise tongue-tied. It fell to the lot of Mr. Gray, sent forward from the Bad Lands to announce the coming of the field column with all its humbled captives, to be the first on returning to announce to the Gray Fox that Red Dog had been released from durance at Fort Scott, equipped anew by McPhail at Braska, and had ridden to the cantonment to harangue such Indians as were already reassembling there, and to thunder furious threats at the officers of the Fortieth. Three bitter weeks had the Gray Fox and his faithful men been scoring the wild, wintry fastnesses along the Wakpa-Schicha, and, just as the Indians obtained through the bureau the vast supplies of ammunition with which to battle the soldiers through the summer past, so now, while the War Department was running down the renegades in the field, the Interior Department was running down the soldiery at home. The troops came in with the conviction that they had been seeing some hard and trying service, many of them with frosted fingers, toes, or ears, and thinking they deserved rather well of their country for having finally rounded up a thousand warriors with all their families, ponies, and unsavory impedimenta, and the general so informed them, and leaving a command of eight companies, equally divided among the horse and foot, to occupy the cantonments on the Chasing Water and thereafter keep the Indians in check, he hastened away to attend to important business in another lively section of his big department. The agency buildings were being rapidly restored, which was much more than could be said of its influence for good among the red men, and presently McPhail and his family reappeared on the scene, shook hands all around with the warriors who burned him out several weeks before, slapped Elk at Bay on the back and called him a bully boy, and promptly requested of the commanding officer of the new cantonment, which was a mile away up stream, a guard of a lieutenant and twenty-five men to be stationed at the agency itself. The major demurred, and the agent wired to Washington with the usual result. Whatsoever slur upon his actions McPhail had seen fit to cast at the expense of Mr. Davies during the investigation recently referred to, he had heard enough to convince him that the Indians spoke of that officer with awe and reverence and as "heap brave," so the man he urgently asked for to command his guard was the very one whom he had maligned. The adjutant-general of the department could only transmit the order that came from superior head-quarters within the week, and Lieutenant Davies, just as he was expecting brief leave of absence to visit his wife at Fort Scott, was detailed to the command of the permanent agency guard. The Ides of March had come.

And how had it fared with Mira and her sympathetic friends at Scott during all these weeks of toil and march and scout? Two at a time the officers had been allowed to run in thither for a few days as soon as their men and horses were made fairly comfortable at the cantonments. Cranston and Hay went first, then Truman and Jervis, then came the turn to which Sanders and the patient Parson had been looking forward, and Sanders went alone. Already some of those fearless frontierswomen, the amazons of the Fortieth, had come ahead with bag, baggage and babies and moved into the log huts of their lords as contentedly as they would have taken quarters at the Grand Central in Omaha, but Mesdames Flight and Darling were not of the number. Indeed, there was no reason why they should be, as it was settled that their companies were those designated presently to return to Scott; so was Hay's troop, so presumably would be the detached members of Devers's Troop, "A," as soon as he wrote and called attention to the fact that nearly one-half his men were detained eighty miles away where there was now an abundance of other soldiery, and the truly remarkable thing was that he, always hitherto so quick to find fault with or criticise the actions of his superiors, was keeping utter silence, and so long as he made no protest no one else could. Colonel Stone, still weak and dazed, was just beginning to hobble about the post, and for six wonderful weeks had Devers succeeded in retaining the command.

"Your husband will be home any day," said Mrs. Darling to Mira, when they got the news of the triumphant return of the command to the cantonments. "He belongs here with his troop, so he's sure to come, and then," she added, archly, "what will poor Willett do?"

That was a question occurring to many another mind and falling from many another tongue. The rapture of Cranston's home-coming one sharp evening in late February was dashed only by the sight of a blooming face at Willett's side behind that stylish Eastern team. In the windings of the road among the willow islands in the Platte he had come suddenly upon them, he riding at rapid gallop, they dawdling with loosened reins. Willett was bending eagerly toward her, talking earnestly. She sat with downcast eyes that never saw the swift rider until he had almost passed them by. Mrs. Darling, chatting with Mr. Burtis on the rear seat, was the first to announce his coming, and with rare presence of mind to turn and send sweetest smiles and beaming glances and the welcome of a waving hand after the grim, bearded face that had no smile for their civilian escorts and only grave courtesy for the ladies themselves. He would not mar the joy of his home-coming by the faintest reference to what he had seen, but Margaret read his honest eyes as she read her boys', and knew that he must have met them on the way. For weeks she had seen the rapid growth of the new intimacy and deplored it, and had no one to confer with about it except Agatha, but Agatha flatly refused to open her lips upon the subject. It was a mercy that Wilbur at last came home and unloosed her tongue. As she pathetically said, "I simply could not contain myself any longer."

But if Mrs. Cranston had held her tongue, there was no lack of others who had not, and foremost of these was Mrs. Flight, who spoke by the card. For a fortnight or so the devotion of these two ladies, Mrs. Flight and Mira, to one another had been of that seething and tireless character that rendered them incapable of spending an hour apart, and then came the little tiffs and coolnesses that betokened that this, too, was inevitably going the way of all such feminine intimacies. Up to the day of Mira's coming Mrs. Flight and Mrs. Darling had been inseparable for as much as a week at a time. Both were young, pretty, and empty-headed; neither was burdened with children nor ideas. Both were healthy, one was wealthy, neither was wise. Mrs. Darling had the advantage over Mrs. Flight in that she was able to entertain lavishly, whereas Mrs. Flight could only entertain by personal charm and sprightly chat. They were the reigning belles at Scott, and not only the young officers at the post, but the young civilians in town, found great pleasure in their society. There was capital sleighing for several weeks, and Willett and Burtis came as often as every other day to take the ladies an airing. At first it had been Mesdames Flight and Darling, then the bride had to be invited because she was the bride, then because she was a beauty, and finally because Willett would have no one else. Then as it was generally at Darlings' they lunched, dined, danced, supped, were wined and warmed and welcomed, it transpired that Mrs. Flight found herself very frequently dropped from the sleigh-rides,—only invited semi-occasionally, perhaps once in ten days, when Burtis pointed out to Willett that they really must, you know, to which the now infatuated Willett merely responded, "All right. You ask her, then, and let her sit with you." No one but Mrs. Davies shared the sleigh man's seat.

During the fortnight that followed the departure of Lieutenant Davies, Mrs. Flight had been devotion itself to her dear, bereaved friend, and, having wept with her, slept with her, sleighed with her, bared her innermost soul to her, and made herself, as she supposed, indispensable, it was to be expected that Mrs. Flight could not look with equanimity upon the discovery that she was not so indispensable after all. She had started Mira on the road to conquest, never dreaming that she herself would be the first overtaken and supplanted. She had thought hitherto no possible harm could come of their taking an occasional drive with their friends, especially as Mr. Flight expressed himself so grateful for the attention shown his wife, and as she and Mrs. Darling seemed chosen rather to the exclusion of the other women, but when Mira and not herself became the invariable occupant of the seat by the swell civilian's side, the indiscretion, not to say the impropriety of the affair, became glaringly apparent. It is rarely from the contemplation of our own, but rather from the errors of our neighbors, that our moral lessons are drawn, and now that in all its nakedness the scandalous nature of Mira's conduct was forced upon her attention, Mrs. Flight reasoned, most logically, that she could be no true friend if she failed to remonstrate and, if need be, admonish and reprove. She did so, and Almira pouted and was grievously vexed. She didn't think so at all, neither had Mrs. Flight until—until she began to be counted out. This led to war, and from pointing the moral Mrs. Flight now turned to adorning the tale with what "everybody was saying." Mira challenged her authorities. "I know who you mean,—Mrs. Cranston and Miss Loomis. They hate me and would say anything mean of me." Now, it was not Mrs. Cranston and Miss Loomis at all. They had no more intimacy with Mrs. Flight than they had with Mira, nor as much. They looked upon Mrs. Flight as responsible in great measure for Almira's wrong start. They under no circumstances would confide to Mrs. Flight what they thought of Mrs. Davies, and Mrs. Flight knew it, still she was not unwilling to let Mira suppose that she was now enjoying their confidences even while she referred to other authorities by the dozen as condemning or deploring Mira's conduct, and a stormy scene followed, ending in tears and reproaches,—much heat, followed by chilling cold.

For the following fortnight Almira's intimacy was transferred to Mrs. Darling, and from going to spend the night with Mira, Mrs. Flight took to revolving in mind her singular observations while she was there. There had been a thrilling, a delicious, a mysterious and romantic occurrence. Somebody twice came and whistled a strange, soft melody under the window and tapped as with a cane, gently, stealthily, a signal that sounded like Rattat tat, rattat tat, just once repeated, and Mrs. Davies trembled all over and grew icily cold, and begged Mrs. Flight to go to the window and say, "Go away, or I'll call the guard," and when pressed for explanation Mira moaned hysterically and said, but Mrs. Flight must never, never tell, that there was once a young man whom she had known long before who had got desperate on her account, for she couldn't return his love, and he had run away from home and enlisted, and she feared that he was there now, though she had never seen him and never wanted to see him, and it became Mrs. Flight's belief that it was no one less than that handsome young fellow, Brannan, who Captain Devers said was drinking himself to death. And now that Mira had withdrawn from her the confidences of the month gone by and was recklessly driving the road to ruin, flouting her admonitions, what more natural than that Mrs. Flight should forget her own vows of secrecy and conclude it time to seek other advice? Mrs. Darling would have been her first confidante in this revelation, but they, too, had once been devotedly intimate and had now drifted apart. They were no longer on anything more than merely frigidly friendly terms, smiling and kissing in public and hiding womanfully their wounds, yet confiding to friends how much they had been disappointed in the other's character, if not actually deceived. Mrs. Flight found a confidante in the chaplain's wife, a woman simply swamped under an overload of best intentions. It was Bulwer who declared that "It is difficult to say who do the most harm, enemies with the worst intentions or friends with the best," but Bulwer, who had reason to know what he was talking about, never lived at Scott in the Centennial times or at old Camp Sandy in the Arizona "days of the empire," for then he would have known no such difficulty in deciding. Just as the stanch old chaplain was just such another God-fearing, God-serving, devil-downing man as Davies's father, so was the chaplain's wife a counterpart of Davies's mother, filled with the milk of human kindness still unturned, and overflowing with best intentions uncontrollably effervescent. Had she told her husband all might have been stopped right there, but, as the demon of ill luck would have it, he had gone to a distant convention. So she sallied forth, brimming with eagerness to snatch this lovely brand from the burning, to turn this fair, motherless, guideless, possibly guileless girl to the contemplation of her dangers, to the knowledge of her peril, to banish Willett from the dove-cote,—wily hawk that he was,—and settle forthwith the fate of that young scamp Brannan. She did not find Almira until after dark, but meantime told her thrilling tale to Mrs. Stone (now full panoplied for further social triumphs, the colonel being on the mend, and herself so young as not to have looked unmoved on those famous sleigh-rides, nor without envy on Almira's blooming cheek), and from her side sped the chaplain's wife to hunt up Captain Devers. In him she found a listener indeed in whom there was no end of guile.

This was just before Cranston's return. The ball to be given by the townsfolk had been indefinitely postponed in deference to Colonel Stone's condition and the absence of so many dancing men in the field, but the weekly hops, although with thinned attendance, went regularly on. Now there were several households who did not attend at all, among them Cranston's, Leonard's, and Hay's. More civilians came out from town, whom Devers welcomed affably and Hastings and the resident "doughboys" entertained as best they could. No need to trouble themselves: the visitors came to "dance with the grass widows at the fort," and had no embarrassment other than richness. There were always wall-flowers, but never in the person of pretty Mrs. Davies, to whom "Phaeton" Willett's devotion was now the talk of all.

It was just at this time, too, that there came to Braska a middle-aged lawyer with all the ear-marks of the soldier about him, including a white seam along his cheek that told of a close call his intimates knew to have occurred at Spottsylvania. His name was Langston, and his first visit to the post was the result of a letter of introduction to Captain Cranston from a classmate in the East. Cranston had driven over to Braska to seek him out on receipt of the letter enclosing Langston's card, bade him hearty welcome to the West, and was surprised to hear that his practice brought him frequently to the neighborhood. He asked him out to dinner two weeks later, Captain and Mrs. Hay, Mrs. Davies, and Mr. Hastings being invited to meet him, for almost his first question had been for that soldierly young officer, the hero of the riot on the train. Mrs. Davies pleaded previous engagement, but Captain and Mrs. Cranston took the trouble to call and explain that this Mr. Langston especially admired and asked for her husband, Mr. Davies, and so Almira simply had to go. Hastings called for and escorted her. He was a blunt fellow, who held that when the husband was away and the lady of the house alone, no other man ought to set foot within the threshold, and he waited on the porch. But the lady was not alone. Willett's sleigh was in the trader's stable, and Willett himself biting his nails and swearing in Almira's parlor while Mrs. Darling was putting the finishing touches to Almira's toilet. Willett had driven out solus this time, thinking to persuade Mrs. Davies to take a drive, with some other dames playing propriety on the back seat, and, finding she was engaged for dinner and could not go, lost a chance of scoring a point by asking the other women anyhow, for by this time his infatuation had utterly overcome his senses. Katty again appeared and begged the lieutenant to step in wid Mr. Willett, and Hastings turned fiery red, scowled malevolently, said "No," and took himself outside the gate, pacing up and down like the orderly in front of Devers's quarters, a short pistol-shot away, until Almira came fluttering out, Willett in close attendance, Mrs. Darling mercifully following. Hastings bade the others a gruff good-evening, silently tendered Mrs. Davies his arm, and led her away with the sole remark "Aren't we late?" which gave her a chance to talk the rest of the way.

And though Langston sat on Mrs. Cranston's right, with the pretty bride on his other side, so that he might descant about the absent Percy to his heart's content, his eyes ever wandered across the simple table and dwelt on Agatha Loomis's noble face. She had recognized him at once as the one of the two civilians on the sleeper the previous June who had not been suggestively and impertinently intrusive, yet she welcomed him only formally even now because of that association. Langston had heard the first mention of a Mrs. Davies with an inexplicable little pang, and the further description of her with quick reaction, for his instant thought was of Miss Loomis. The dinner dragged, despite every effort, for Almira was distinctly and determinedly unresponsive. Margaret was glad when it was over, glad when Almira early went home, for matters brightened somewhat with her disappearance. Langston paid his dinner call with surprising promptitude, and then overjoyed "the ladies" with a box of rarest roses expressed from Margaret's own beloved home. "I know how many of these are meant for me," she said, with almost fierce rejoicing. "Oh, Wilbur!" she cried that evening, as she nestled in his arms in front of their cheery fire, "if only he is all they say of him, and she should——"

"Should what, Meg?" he densely queried.

"Should—why, you know just as well as I do, and he has such a fine practice, and comes from such an admirable family and all that."

"Undoubtedly,—but where does Agatha come in?"

"Wilbur, you are just as provokingly sluggish as our own Chicago River,—what wouldn't I give for a sight of its dirty face sometimes when—when you're away! Now, be honest. Don't you know he never could have sent all that way for all those roses—just for me?"

"I would."

"Oh, you,—you are——" but the entrance of Miss Loomis herself with sorrow in her face blocked the conference.

"Captain Cranston," she said, "Brannan has been sent to the guard-house again. I know he has not been drinking. What can it possibly mean?"

It meant, said Captain Devers, when respectfully approached upon the subject in the morning, that on very strong circumstantial evidence he had discovered the identity of the night prowler. Brannan certainly answered the description given by the chaplain, despite the chaplain's assurance that he didn't believe it was Brannan, and Brannan, said Devers, when not in the guard-house or hospital, had frequently been out of his quarters at midnight.



CHAPTER XXI.

Cranston's six days home-keeping sped all too swiftly away. It was now definitely settled that his troop and Truman's were to remain indefinitely on duty at the agency. The general hated the idea of building cantonments there, and had urged that all the Indians be concentrated at the White River reservation, but without avail,—the Interior Department would have its way. Troops had to be drawn from all the posts along the railroad to make up the new command at the Ogallalla, and out of his own pocket Cranston was adding to the log quarters assigned to him, for Margaret had promptly announced that she would not remain at Scott, that where he dwelt was her dwelling, and they had known far greater isolation and danger in the past. Indeed, there was little danger of their going now, for in the presence of so strong a force the Indians would be meek enough. Two log huts were connected and thrown into one as rapidly as possible, and it was fully decided that by the 25th of March Mrs. Cranston, Agatha Loomis, and the boys were to join him at the cantonment. It was not a very difficult trip for such heroines as lived in those days in the army. Cranston's strong spring wagon, fairly lined with buffalo-robes and blankets, would carry them in perfect comfort from camp to camp. They would have an escort and a baggage-wagon, spend the first night at Dismal River, the next at Niobrara. Hastings would escort them, for he longed to get away from Scott for a while and visit his comrades in the field. There was nothing in the least unusual in it, said Margaret, in her home letters,—for this had she married a soldier. The boys, of course, gloried in the opportunity and bragged about it, or would brag about it when they next got away from their kind in the army to their kind in civil life,—boys who could only vainly long for such opportunities and vaguely loathe those who had enjoyed them. As for Agatha, she accepted the change of station with serene and philosophic silence until cross-questioned as to her own intentions. "Why, certainly I mean to go with Mrs. Cranston," she replied, with clear, wide-open eyes. "She will have more need of me there than here—and I of her." Mr. Langston, who drove out again to spend Sunday at the post, heard of the decision with grave concern in his soldierly face, but in silence equal to her own.

Some others of the ladies whose lords were thus detached to Ogallalla preferred, however, to wait until the snow was gone. There was now abundant room at Scott,—why leave it, with its warmth, its comfort, its society and all, to go to a mud-chinked hovel at that ghastly spot where the Indians danced and coyotes howled the live-long night? Of course if there were quarters in which a woman could live with even reasonable comfort, that would be very different. Then their remaining at Scott would be inexcusable. Mrs. Flight and Mrs. Darling were women who were at variance on very many points of late, but openly in accord on this. Indeed, almost every woman at Scott had all of a sudden been seized by some strange lingual epidemic that manifested itself in the persistent repetition of such expressions as "Of course no woman who could see her way to any kind of a civilized house would be justified in not joining her husband there instead of staying here." It was sure to attack them, too, whenever Almira happened to be within ear-shot, for the news came down one March morning that one officer at least was to have a very comfortable little frame cottage,—the commander of the agency guard. It would be finished in a week or two, and even the stoves, fuel, and much of the furniture would be provided by the Indian bureau. Again did Mrs. Cranston go and call on Mrs. Davies and warmly congratulate her, and say that Captain Cranston's men who were packing up the troop property would gladly box and pack her furniture too and send it out by their wagons, and then she said there were six inside seats in the big Concord wagon and it would afford so much pleasure if Mrs. Davies would go with them. But Almira faltered unresponsively. Mr. Davies had not fully decided. It was such a shock to her,—his being detained there. She had never dreamed of his being away more than a week or ten days, if she had she would have returned home to Urbana, but now it was nearly two months, and really Mr. Davies would have to come down and look after the household affairs and matters that she didn't fully understand.

Davies understood them well enough when he got the commissary and grocer and butcher and baker and other bills that Mira had managed to run up, both at Scott and at Braska. He went with grave face to Cranston. "I'm afraid Mrs. Maloney and Katty have been taking advantage of my wife's inexperience," said he, "and ordering all manner of things in all possible quantities, and possibly, or probably, stocking the Maloney larder at my expense. I simply cannot pay these and my home assessments too."

Cranston was a man of few words. "Davies," said he, after looking over the accounts, "Mrs. Davies has been cheated right and left by those people, but in any event you cannot keep up two establishments. Break up the house at Scott at once, let her come out with my people and leave the Maloneys and Barnickel—and Scott behind. Let my Braska banker be yours for the present. A few mouths here will float you well above water."

And though Davies declined the offer of pecuniary aid, the very night of Mrs. Cranston's visit the agency telegraph flashed to Mira a despatch directing her to get ready to come on with them, whereat Mira fled in tears to Mrs. Darling,—Mira, who, it may be remembered, longed to come and cook and bake and darn and sweep and sew and share the merest hovel with her Percy so long as she thought it just possible that he might yet change his mind and leave his simple village maid no fate but lonely grief and an early grave. Mira's enthusiasm for the bliss of frontier life fled at the contemplation of the utter isolation at the agency,—with wild Indians and animals all around, and without Mrs. Darling, without the lovely, cosey fireside confidences, without the band, the hops, the sleigh-rides, not to mention the glowing devotions of Mr. Willett.

But Mrs. Darling rose to the occasion. From having been first favorite in Scott social circles up to the time of Mira's coming she, with Mrs. Stone and Mrs. Flight, was struggling now for second place. She felt constrained to remind Mira that she was now a soldier's wife, and should share a soldier's lot, especially a lot that included furnished quarters. Other women had gone or were going to live in the log huts, and it would never do to have it said of her, of Almira Davies, that she had shrunk from joining her husband at the agency when everything—everything was provided. Everything wasn't provided, by any means, but in the largeness of her convictions woman sometimes drifts to breadth of statement. The interview with Mrs. Darling proved but cold comfort to poor Mira. She went homewards through the chill gloaming with restless heart. There was a little parcel lying on her table, securely wrapped and sealed. The post ambulance driver brought it out from Braska, said Katty, "an' there was no address, 'twas only to be left for Mrs. Davies," and Katty fain would have followed her mistress into her chamber to see it opened, but Mira closed the door before she cut the string. It contained some exquisite double violets and a tiny note sealed as carefully as was the box.

Before tattoo Mrs. Flight and other ladies hastened in to offer their congratulations. They were desolated at the thought of losing Mrs. Davies, but rejoiced with her that she was so soon to be comfortably housed with her devoted husband at the agency, and Mira's cheeks were flaming, her eyes, full of a feverish excitement, flitted from one to another. She had but very, very little to say. She was glad, oh, yes, so glad, though it was dreadful to leave Fort Scott, where so many people had been so kind to her,—dreadful.

This was about the 20th and the general situation of affairs was somewhat complicated. The bureau, resuming control over the Indians reassembled at the agency, conferred no longer with the general who had gathered them in, and for whose naked word they had more respect than for all the formal treaties of agents or inspectors, but contented itself with sending curt, crisp orders signed, however reluctantly, by his superiors at Washington. The general, leaving matters at Ogallalla where he had no influence, had gone after other malcontent braves in a far corner of Wyoming. Colonel Peleg was beginning to evince a desire to resume command, despite Rooke's knitted brows and reluctant answers. An official from Sheridan's headquarters had just paid informal visit to Scott, had had long talks with Stone, Leonard, and the chaplain, and a very short one with the plausible Devers, and had gone back to Chicago. He arrived at Scott within four days of Cranston's departure for the agency, and within five of the re incarceration of Trooper Brannan on charge of night prowling. He made very brief examination in Leonard's office of Sergeants Haney and Finucane, Corporal Boyd and Trooper Howard, who were witnesses, so Devers said, to the frequent absences of Trooper Brannan from quarters during the dead hours of the night, and their expert testimony seemed to be given with much reluctance and to be received with equal incredulity. He asked of Devers what his reasons were for refusing to forward Brannan's application for transfer to Cranston's troop, and Devers, much disturbed to find that this was known, hesitated in his reply. He said he had not refused, he had merely taken time to consider. The man had given him much trouble. Some officers considered it all right for a captain under such circumstances to shunt a reprobate off on some other company commander, but he differed with them. He wanted to know something of the man's antecedents. "Well," said the aide-de-camp, "Cranston knows all about them and is willing to take him. You might relieve yourself of any feeling of punctilio on that score."