Warrior Gap - Charles King

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knew no wrong of Dean, for that young soldier, as has been said, had spent all but a few mid-winter months at hard, vigorous work in the field, had been to Gate City and Fort Emory only twice, and then under orders that called for prompt return to Frayne. Any man with an eye for human nature could see at a glance, as Dean saw, that both the aid and his big friend, the quartermaster, had been exchanging comments at the boy's expense. He had shouted a cheery salutation to the engineer in answer to his friendly nod, then turned in saddle and looked squarely at the two on the back seat, and the constraint in their manner, the almost sullen look in their faces, told the story without words.

      It nettled Dean—frank, outspoken, straightforward as he had always been. He hated any species of backbiting, and he had heard of Burleigh as an adept in the art, and a man to be feared. Signaling to his sergeant to keep the column opened out, as the prairie was almost level now on every side, he rode swiftly on, revolving in his mind how to meet and checkmate Burleigh's insidious moves, for instinctively he felt he was already at work. The general in command in those days was not a field soldier by any means. His office was far away at the banks of the Missouri, and all he knew of what was actually going on in his department he derived from official written reports; much that was neither official nor reliable he learned from officers of Burleigh's stamp, and Dean had never yet set eyes on him. In the engineer he felt he had a friend on whom he could rely, and he determined to seek his counsel at the campfire that very night, meantime to hold his peace.

      They were trotting through a shallow depression at the moment, the two spring-wagons guarded and escorted by some thirty dusty, hardy-looking troopers. In the second, the yellow ambulance, Brooks was stretched at length, taking it easy, an attendant jogging alongside. Behind them came a third, a big quartermaster's wagon, drawn by six mules and loaded with tentage and rations. Out some three hundred yards to the right and left rode little squads as flankers. Out beyond them, further still, often cut off from view by low waves of prairie, were individual troopers riding as lookouts, while far to the front, full six hundred yards, three or four others, spreading over the front on each side of the twisting trail, moved rapidly from crest to crest, always carefully scanning the country ahead before riding up to the summit. And now, as Dean's eyes turned from his charges to look along the sky line to the east, he saw sudden sign of excitement and commotion at the front. A sergeant, riding with two troopers midway between him and those foremost scouts, was eagerly signaling to him with his broad-brimmed hat. Three of the black dots along the gently rising slope far ahead had leaped from their mounts and were slowly crawling forward, while one of them, his horse turned adrift and contentedly nibbling at the buffalo grass, was surely signaling that there was mischief ahead.

      In an instant the lieutenant was galloping out to the front, cautioning the driver to come on slowly. Presently he overhauled the sergeant and bade him follow, and together the four men darted on up the gradual incline until within ten yards of where the leaders' horses were placidly grazing. There they threw themselves from saddle; one of the men took the reins of the four horses while Dean and the other two, unslinging carbine and crouching low, went hurriedly on up the slope until they came within a few yards of the nearest scout.

      "Indians!" he called to them as soon as they were within earshot. "But they don't seem to be on lookout for us at all. They're fooling with some buffalo over here."

      Crawling to the crest, leaving his hat behind, Dean peered over into the swale beyond and this was what he saw.

      Half a mile away to the east the low, concave sweep of the prairie was cut by the jagged banks and curves of a watercourse which drained the melting snows in earlier spring. Along the further bank a dozen buffalo were placidly grazing, unconscious of the fact that in the shallow, dry ravine itself half a dozen young Indians—Sioux, apparently—were lurking, awaiting the nearer coming of the herd, whose leaders, at least, were gradually approaching the edge. Away down to the northeast, toward the distant Powder River, the shallow stream bed trended, and, following the pointing finger of the scout who crawled to his side, Dean gazed and saw a confused mass of slowly moving objects, betrayed for miles by the light cloud of dust that hovered over them, covering many an acre of the prairie, stretching far away down the vale. Even before he could unsling his field glass and gaze, his plains-craft told him what was slowly, steadily approaching, as though to cross his front—an Indian village, a big one, on the move to the mountains, bound perhaps for the famous racecourse of the Sioux, a grand amphitheater in the southern hills.

      And even as they gazed, two tiny jets of flame and smoke shot from the ravine edge there below them, and before the dull reports could reach their ears the foremost bison dropped on his knees and then rolled over on the sod; and then came the order, at sound of which, back among the halted troopers, every carbine leaped from its socket.

       Table of Contents

      Down along the building railway in the valley or the Platte there had been two years of frequent encounter with small bands of Indians. Down along the Smoky Hill, in Kansas, the Cheyennes were ever giving trouble. Even around Laramie and Frayne, on the North Platte, settlers and soldiers had been murdered, as well as one or two officers, caught alone out hunting, and the Indians were, of course, the perpetrators. Nevertheless, it had been the policy of the leaders of the Northern Sioux to avoid any meeting in force and to deny the complicity of their people in the crimes committed. Supply trains to Reno, Kearney and C. F. Smith, the Big Horn posts of the Bozeman Trail went to and fro with guards of only moderate size. Officers had taken their wives and children to these far-away stations. The stockades were filled with soldiers' families. Big bands of Indians roamed the lovely valleys of the Piney, the Tongue, and Rosebud, near at hand, and rode into full view of the wary sentries at the stockades, yet made no hostile demonstration. Officers and men went far up the rocky cañons of the hills in search of fish or game, and came back unmolested. Escorts reported that they sometimes marched all day long side by side with hunting bands of Sioux, a mile away; and often little parties, squaws and boys and young men, would ride confidently over and beg for sugar, coffee, hardtack—anything, and ride off with their plunder in the best of spirits and with all apparent good feeling. And yet the great war-chief of the Brulés—Sintogaliska—Spotted Tail, the white man's friend, gave solemn warning not to trust the Ogallallas. "Red Cloud's heart is bad," he said. "He and his people are moving from the reservations to the mountains. They mean trouble." Old traders like Folsom heard and heeded, and Folsom himself hastened to Fort Frayne the very week that Burleigh and his escort left for Warrior Gap. Visiting at the ranch of his son in a beautiful nook behind the Medicine Bow Mountains, the veteran trader heard tidings from an Indian brave that filled him with apprehension, and he hurried to the fort.

      "Is it true," he asked, "that the government means to establish a post at Warrior Gap? Is it true that Major Burleigh has gone thither?" And when told that it was and that only Captain Brooks's troop had gone as escort, Folsom's agitation was extreme. "Colonel," said he, to the post commander, "solemnly I have tried to warn the general of the danger of that move. I have told him that all the northern tribes are leaguing now, that they have determined to keep to themselves the Big Horn country and the valleys to the north. It will take five thousand men to hold those three posts against the Sioux, and you've barely got five hundred. I warn you that any attempt to start another post up there will bring Red Cloud and all his people to the spot. Their scouts are watching like hawks even now. Iron Spear came to me at my son's ranch last night and told me not ten warriors were left at the reservation. They are all gone, and the war dances are on in every valley from the Black Hills to the Powder. For heaven's sake send half your garrison up to Reno after Brooks. You are safe here. They won't molest you south of the Platte, at least not now. All they ask is that you build no more forts in the Big Horn."

      But the colonel could not act without authority. Telegraph there was none then. What Folsom said was of sufficient importance to warrant his hurrying off a courier to Laramie, fully one hundred miles southeast, and ordering a troop to scout across the wild wastes to the north, while Folsom himself, unable to master his anxiety, decided to accompany the command sent out toward Cantonment Reno. He long had had influence with the Ogallallas. Even now Red Cloud might listen if he could but

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