Trooper Ross and Vignal Butte

Front matter

Oh, murther, murther, Roddie boy, what villain let you across the river?" [Page 41.] TROOPER ROSS AND SIGNAL BUTTE BY CAPTAIN CHARLES KING U.S. A. ILLUSTRATED BY Charles H. Stephens LONDON J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 10 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN Copyright, 1895. BY J. Ii. Lippincott Company. Electrotyped and Printed by J B. Lippincott Company. Philadelphia, U S.A. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE "Oh, murther, murther. Eoddie boy, what villain let you across the river?" Frontispiece. The next thing he knew he had shot over the cracking edge . . 107 Collaring both, a muscular hand to each, he half pushed, half dragged them out of the way 150 The two riders wave rejoicingly their fur caps in answer to the frantic cheers from the hither shore 177 From the dark sow ground to the west came the lithe, swarthy young courier himself 216 The trail clambered to a projecting point, commanding a view of the cafion for two miles 272 1 A a

Chapter I

There was a scene of wild excitement one summer's night at old Fort Frayne. With the exception of one company of infantry, the entire garrison was in the field. The families of some of the officers had been sent East for the time being, because every one realized that a long and arduous, probably dangerous, campaign was in the wind, and no post in all the wide North-west was in so exposed a position. It lay in the very heart of what had been the Sioux country. The Indians loved the mountains that loomed up to the southward of the old stockade, and resented it that they were forced by treaty stipulations to keep on the north side of the river that swept in grand semicircle around the bold bluff whereon stood the fort. Ever since the grass began to peep had they been swarming to join the hostile camps hidden far up among the fastnesses of the Big Horn Mountains and in the deep valleys of the Rosebud and the Deje Agie ; and even while by thousands the young warriors gathered about the war chiefs of their tribes and covered the whole country beyond Crazy Woman's Fork and rode like red scarecrows all over the miles and miles of broad trails that led from the reservations in North-western Nebraska, smaller bands, swift, agile, daring, kept twinkling into view of the sentries at Frayne, Fetterman, and Laramie, sometimes fording or swimming the stream and raiding far down to the settlements and ranches on the Chug, killing and scalping the men, bearing away women and children, running off herds of cattle, and later, daring even to creep close to the stockades themselves at night and shout chal lenge and defiance in stentorian tones to the sol diery of the depleted garrisons.

But there were many of the officers' families that were far too poor to afford the costly journey to the East, and there were others that would not have gone even could they have afforded it, and of these latter were the wife and child of Captain Ross. A " first-class soldier" was the captain, a soldier educated at West Point, and the son of a soldier who had died at the head of his company charging the Mexican line within sight of the walls of the capital. He loved his profession, gloried in the efficiency and reputation of the troop he commanded, was proud of his regiment, and had no hope or ambition that was not centred in them and in the little family dependent upon him. Mrs. Ross was, at times, a brave and cheery little woman, almost as brave as lived in all our little army, and as proud of her soldier husband as he was of his troop, but during his enforced absence in the field and in the midst of all the dangers which surrounded him her heart some times failed her.

As she expressed it herself, she was apt to " lose her nerve" and to become to the full as timid and hysterical as some of the younger matrons of the garrison. But the hearts of both herself and her husband were bound up in their one remaining child, their only son, a sturdy, healthful, hearty little scamp, barely nine years old at the outbreak of this eventful summer, the boy who became the central figure of the wild excitement at Frayne this summer's night, and from that time forth the hero of many a story told at many an army fireside, and of these stories none were so long as this which you are now invited to read, for it includes many of the others. They had taken to calling him " Buster" wdien he was a four-year-old, and the name clung to him, and he rather liked it. His own name, that which was given him in honor of his distinguished 1* grandsire, was rather too high-flown for garrison use.

It was the name that now, however, his father much desired to have him called by. The playful pet name of his baby days, though still appropriate in the opinion of Fort Frayne, con veyed too little of the dignity that should hedge an officer's son, and the men of " B" Troop had already learned that they could easily find the soft side of their energetic commander by referring to the little boy as Master Roderick. Oddly enough, or perhaps characteristically enough, he being a boy with views of his own, the main obstacle to reformation in this respect lay with Rod himself, who stoutly maintained that Buster was the name he had first got to know himself by, the one he was accustomed to, and if they didn't want him called that, said he, why on earth did they ever give it to him ? especially when he was a baby and knew no better.

" Roderick sounds stuck-up," he added, with a pout, " and I like Buster best any how." And this lovely June evening Buster had the blues. It was nearly nine o'clock and still faintly light. He had been out hunting gophers down the bluff all the summer morning, had been required by his devoted mother to take an after noon nap, had slept through an important event, the arrival of a courier from the field column with a bagful of letters and a hatful of holes, and now this gallant fellow, Downey by name, was lying in hospital faint with loss of blood, for one bullet had missed the hat and hit his shoulder, and still he had managed to outstrip his foes and ride to safety, though his gallant horse would never race again. What was of even greater con sequence, however, Corporal Billy O'Toole, Bus ter's own particular friend and confidant, who had been sent in from the Crazy Horse fight in March with a fractured arm, and had been looking for a chance to get back to the command ever since his discharge from hospital, had volunteered to make the attempt to ride through the Indian scouting parties and carry despatches to the field column long two hundred miles away.

It wasn't that Corporal Billy should be going on this desperate mission that made Buster miserable : it was that Billy couldn't and wouldn't take him too. Like most army boys of those days, Buster had his Indian pony, and like not a few of their num ber, his own theories of Indian warfare and Indian character. These theories were not in all cases reliable, but they were no more absurd than those of many older and more influential citizens who lived farther from the Indians and nearer the powers at Washington. Buster believed his pony could best any Indian's pony, and he himself could lick any Indian except Crazy Horse. He drew the line at Chunka Wiltko, because Chunk had outwitted a colonel and lots of cavalrymen that bitter cold day of the 17th of March, and was a splendid, daring, fighting warrior, who, per haps, could get away with his weight in white men. '"Course," said Buster, "I don't mean I could fight a whole lot of Indians, but any one of them that got within reach of my gun would be dead before he could wink," and "my gun" was a diminutive target rifle which fired a pellet of lead the size of a quinine pill with remarkable accuracy for a distance of nearly fifty yards, and Buster shot straight, too, for a boy of nine.

He had a famous imagination, had Buster, and not infre quently had come galloping into the post panting as hard as his pony, and frightening the little girls and boys in the neighboring quarters with tremendous tales of Indian war-parties swimming the Platte two miles up-stream or of signal smokes in the Medicine Bow, whose meaning he professed to read as readily as other boys could their primers. Yes, it must be admitted that when Buster was a little boy he told the biggest kind of sensational stories, but he believed them, or most of them, and he believed thoroughly in himself. Once when some Arapahoe Indians were camped on the flats down by the river, Billy O'Toole rode down with Buster and challenged some of the little Indian boys to shoot at a mark, and they did, and were badly beaten, for Buster had a wonderfully keen eye and a steady hand, and both with bow and arrow and his little target rifle could shoot admirably.

This exploit made him famous at the fort, for you may be sure that Corporal Billy lost no opportunity of dilating upon it in the presence of his protege's devoted mother or in the hearing of his proud papa. Neither, for that matter, did Buster fall far behind when it came to telling of this archery contest, and other little boys were not a little envious, and other little boys' mothers wondered, you may be sure, how Captain and Mrs. Ross could let their only child spend so much time with uneducated, irresponsible persons like Corporal O'Toole, and in visiting Indian villages where everything was so dirty and disreputable. But Captain Ross did what few other fathers in old Fort Frayne did. Regularly every day, when he was not absent on duty, he took his little son for an hour's ride. Even in severe and stormy weather the big trooper on his pet Kentucky horse and the ruddy little son on his Indian pony would go trotting oat of the garrison and come back glowing and healthful, and it was only when papa was away that Buster spent so much time with O'Toole.

Besides, Corporal Billy wras very proud of his charge, very careful of the boy — and his own lan guage — when thus intrusted with his care. He taught him many things, too : how to ride bareback Indian-fashion, how to make the pony lie down, how to make him stand near by while Buster dismounted to shoot at sage-hens or occasional antelope (not that he ever got near enough to these latter to reach them with his tiny Bal lard), how to make him swim the Platte or go up hill or down like a mountain goat. That pony, said Buster, knew more than any two horses at Fort Frayne, and a good deal more than any other boy's. O'Toole would have backed Buster to ride a race against any of the Indian urchins, but this Mrs. Ross forbade. She drew the line at further contests between Buster and the little breech-clouted heathen in the frowsy tepees down on the flats, and so the Arapahoes went away without getting a bet out of Billy in something they could do better than shoot, and that was ride.

But Buster believed he would have won, and bragged accordingly, and as we shall see not entirely without reason, for the boy was a born horseman if nothing else, and well was it destined to help him in the hour of need. Knowing, therefore, that he could shoot better than the Arapahoe boys, believing their boastful stories (Indians can out-brag any bipeds on earth) that they could out-shoot the Sioux, Buster's con fidence extended still further, as we have seen. He believed he could shoot or ride as well as any of the young men in any of the tribes, and that if it ever came to a fair fight with guns and pistols he could hold his own with the best of the red warriors provided they came singly, and stoutly maintained that he would be glad of a chance to show what he was made of. And this particular night in June he was ready to cry his young heart out because Billy O'Toole was going to leave on this perilous mission and he was forbidden to say another word about going, too ; for, just think of it, no sooner did he hear that the corporal was to go, this little scamp of a nine-year-old flew to his mother and demanded that he be allowed to accompany him and join his father in the field, which, of course, was utterly out of the question.

Nine o'clock had come. The old major com manding the post was saying a few parting words to the brave young Irish trooper who had come to rej)ort for orders before mounting. They were standing at the gate-way of the major's quarters, the adjutant in close attendance, one or two sym pathizing fellows looking wistfully on from the porch of the adjutant's office across the dim, moonlit parade, a dozen army wives and daughters grouped about the neighboring piazzas, seem ing to have no thought but for the husbands and fathers in the field and the courier who had thus offered himself for the perilous attempt to run the gauntlet through the intervening wilds. Their soft voices were hushed, the ripple of their laugh ter, usually so blithe and merry, was stilled to night, and the only sound that seemed to break the stillness of the broad expanse, between the snow-capped pinnacles of Cloud Peak far to the north and the black crests of the Medicine Bow to the southward, was the murmuring rush of the river over its stony bed and the distant yelp of the prairie-wolf, skulking among the sage brush on the other shore.

Gray-haired and yet sturdy and erect, the old soldier, it could be seen, was saying some low toned words, probably of caution, to the trooper who stood respectfully at attention before him. Once or twice the major raised his hand as though to emphasize his words, and once he turned and pointed to where, unseen yet ever constant, the huge shoulders of the Big Horn range lay sleeping under the northern stars. And then from the direction of the cavalry stables a man came leading a saddled horse and stopped before the major's gate. " It's Buford," murmured one of the ladies, standing with Mrs. Ross on the veranda next to the commanding officer's. " He means to trust to speed entirely. See, he hasn't even a great-coat or blanket." "No, and he doesn't carry a carbine," said Buster's mother. " Perhaps he's right.

It would be of little use against the whole band. Buford's heels are his best safety, and the less he has to carry the faster he can run. Why, he's mounting already." True enough, as though wishing to avoid fur ther words or farewells, O'Toole had brought his hand to his battered hat-brim in soldierly salute, faced about the instant the major had finished, and, merely strapping down the flap of his saddle bags after inserting the last packet of letters he had received, threw his leg over Buford and turned to go. But even this little delay had given them time. Down they came, ladies and children, to wish him God-speed and good-by. It was the very thing poor Billy wanted to avoid, yet what could he do but stop, for kindly voices were calling his name and soft tear-dimmed eyes were gazing up at him.

" Now, do be cautious, corporal. Please run into no danger," were the words addressed him by one of the most impractical of all the girls at Frayne, as though she did not know that one could not so much as venture to the north bank of the stream without running imminent risk. At any other time all would have laughed at the incongruity of the words; now all were far too anxious and troubled. " Never fear, ma'am, I'll get through all right," said Billy, trying hard to release the hand to which little Mary Crane, the major's twelve-yearold daughter, was clinging. "Say good-by to Masther B — Roderick, ma'am, please ; an' it's fine accounts I'll be givin' the captain of him four days from now." And then for the first time it occurred to them that Buster was not there to bid his friend good-by. That was, indeed, extraordinary.

" Where can he be?" said Mrs. Ross, in genuine alarm. "I left him on the sofa, in the sulks, not ten minutes ago ; but it isn't possible he hasn't come out to say fare well to O'Toole." Letting go the corporal's hand, Mary Crane and a little friend rushed at top speed into the Rosses' yard and up the steps. Another minute and one of them reappeared on the veranda. "He isn't anywhere here," she cried. " We've hunted every nook and corner." Then mamma ran in and joined them, and presently her voice could be heard loudly crying his name. No answer. Si lence everywhere. "I can't wait. I must go, ma'am," pleaded O'Toole to the lady who still held by the bridle. " I should have been out of sight across the Platte five minutes ago. Good-by now," he added; and then whirled his horse about, and in defiance of cavalry precedent and regulation, went cantering down the slope.

He carried neither carbine nor rifle, as has been remarked. He was weighted with no "prairie" belt crammed with heavy copper cartridges. His saddle was a trimmed-down McClellan tree, devoid of straps for coats and blankets, but a pair of light saddle-bags hung from the cantle. A haversack with two days' supply of hard bread, bacon, coffee, salt, and sugar was swung on the left side, and a felt-covered canteen, a smoke-begrimed tin quart mug, and a stout lariat and picket-pin hung on the other. As for the corporal himself, his dress consisted of light shoes, Shoshone leggings, a pair of snugly-fitting cavalry breeches, as was the fashion of the day, dark-blue flannel shirt with rolling collar, and a knotted silk handker chief at the throat, a battered felt scouting hat, a relic of the Apache campaigns, and not another sign of uniform about him.

A light leather belt for pistol cartridges and his revolver holster swung at his waist, but even the gauntlets were discarded. Even the revolver was not so much for the foe in case he was cut off or run down. Terrible experiences had taught the officers and men of his regiment, and many another, that in warfare with our savage tribes the one thing that must never be allowed to happen was capture alive. The revolver was for himself, though its last shot was never meant to be turned heartward until some at least had been sent in face of the foe. The fearful hours of agonizing torture to which prisoners were subjected when captured by the Indians of America no pen could well portray, and no man could read without horror the stories were they really told. It was only a little after nine when the hoof beats died away down the winding road that led to the ferry, where a bulky old scow did duty as ferry-boat, and was pulled to and fro across the Platte without loosing the grasp of her trolleys upon the heavy guy rope.

Listening for a moment to the hearty voices of the garrison soldiers stringing along the roadside to bid adieu to their popular comrade of the cavalry, the anxious group of ladies and children clustered about the major and his young adjutant, while some of their num ber, with bowed head and tearful eyes, walked slowly home. Mrs. Ross had already gone. The moment it was announced that Buster was no longer in the little parlor she had hastened to search for him, and even as O'Toole rode sturdily away upon his perilous mission her voice, clear and ringing, yet plaintive in its evident anxiety, could be heard calling loudly for her boy. " Rod die ! Roddie !" she cried, up and down stairs, out on the rear porch overlooking his own little play ground, the back-yard. Then, candle in hand, she darted to the upper rooms, half praying, half hoping, she might find him, sobbing in wrathful petulance, — spoiled boy that he was, — in his own little bed.

But it was unrumpled. The room was dark and deserted. She ransacked the closet, peered under the furniture, still half believing that Buster might only be in hiding, but not a sign of Buster was there high or low about the house. Meantime, her old cook had joined the search, and was loudly proclaiming her indigna tion over the misconduct of her associate, half nurse, half housemaid, who, poor girl, was sob bing out her own heart down the bluff-side as her straining eyes took the last glimpse she believed they were to have of Billy O'Toole for many a long, long, weary month. Alas ! in the light of her own bereavement, Kathleen had for gotten all about Buster. It was not until the sound of the creaking blocks of the ferry-scow was borne upward on the evening wind, telling her her gal lant Irish lover was well on his way across the Platte, that poor Katty heard the clamor at the fort.

Mrs. Ross, failing to find Roddie anywhere about the premises, had gone wildly weeping to the major, while Katty herself was brought to bay by her usually placid friend and ally, Cook. Then indeed was she frightened. The major's orderly had gone on the wings of the wind down the winding road, asking eagerly of every man had he seen anything of Buster, — all in vain. The adjutant had run, following a clue of his own, post haste to the troop stables, black, grim, and deserted now that their occupants were all absent b 2* in the field, and just beyond had come upon the lone sentry pacing his post at the quartermaster's corral. " Seen anything of Captain Ross's little boy down here, sentry ?" he panted. " Not a sign, sir." " Sure he hasn't taken out his pony and gone — anywhere ?" " Not since I came out, sir. I was posted only at dark, though."

The adjutant hurried on to the big barred gate and shook it violently, shouting for admission, but the word had gone the rounds that Billy O'Toole was to start at nine to try to ride through the Indians to the field column, and every man except the guard had dropped what he was doing and swarmed out on the roadside to see him off. Not until the bugle was sounding the mournful notes of tattoo did the adjutant succeed in getting the key and gaining admission to the corral, and, just as he expected, Buster's pretty Indian pony was gone. Fancy having to take that news to the now terrified mother ! The secret was soon out. Only a few minutes before O'Toole started, and while they were still saddling his horse for him at the corral, Master Roderick had slipped in, and without saying a word to the corporal in charge or his one assistant, had quietly saddled his pony and led bim forth in the gathering dusk.

Of course the corporal noticed him when he came in and knew it was later than he had ever been there before, but everybody was excited about the post, he said, and he supposed Buster was too. It never occurred to him to look to see what he was doing. It never occurred to him to go and search the pony's stall. They were gone, boy and pony both, and that was all there was to it. And no one knew where. A rush was made for the ferry, where stout old Pete Driscoll, a veteran of six enlistments, was in charge, and Pete swore solemnly that Buster had never come near there. Long since had Peter received orders never to take Buster across, and the boy knew that with the old soldier orders were orders. No, he had ridden away, and it was so dark by this time that no one as yet had found his trail. Search of the house disclosed that his Ballard was gone and his game-bag, his little haversack and canteen, also that a hole had been made in the supply of commissary crackers, and by this time Mrs. Ross was nearly frantic.

" For goodness' sake, my friend," said the major, soothingly, "don't take on so. You know per fectly well he can't get across the river. The stream is bank full everywhere, and there isn't a ford, up or down, for twenty miles. He'll be coming home tired and hungry inside of an hour, and then all you've got to do is spank him soundly — I'll do it for you gladly — and then put him supperless to bed. Confound the little rascal! What wouldn't his father give him by way of punishment !" "How can you talk of punishment, major!" protested Mrs. Ross, with streaming eyes. "I should be only too thankful to have my precious boy back again in my arms. Oh, the idea of his daring to run away in such a way ! He'll try to make Beppo swim the river, I know he will. He has always declared he was going to make him, and it would be just like him to try it this night."

And then before the major could protest against the utter absurdity of such an idea, the corporal of the guard came running up to the steps. "Major," said he, breathlessly, "Private Con ners, sentry on Number Three, says he heard shots and saw flashes out on the prairie across the river " " Oh, I knew it ! I knew it !" gasped Mrs. Ross. "They've killed my boy." And with that the poor distracted soul fainted helplessly away.

Chapter II

The first thing the major did after seeing Mrs. Ross partially restored and in the hands of sym pathizing lady friends was to hasten out to the post of the sentry on Number Three and closely question him as to the report brought in by the cor poral of the guard. A sturdy young soldier was Private Connors and one who knew his duty well. " There can be no doubt about it, sir," he said, " I assure the major that I saw three flashes about half a mile above the ferry landing and as far to the north of the river. I could faintly hear the reports, too, and they sounded like rifles. Two were close together, — like that, sir," said he, quitting the small of the stock with his right hand as he stood at " port arms" and slapping twice the polished surface of its butt. " The other came perhaps five seconds later and was fainter, both in sound and in flash."

And the major's heart sank to his boots. Only that very afternoon, as has been told, the courier Downey had reached the post wounded, after a desperate ride. The Sioux had "jumped" him, as he said, on the Reno road about twelve miles out, and had never given up the chase until within three miles of the fort. Closer than that by day they dare not venture, for there were traditions among them of a fearful new gun the white sol diers had which could squirt a shower of bullets twice as far as their best rifles could carry, — a gun they didn't have to aim, only turn it in the di rection of the enemy and it would spatter death all over the land and sweep them down like leaves torn from the cottonwoods in an autumn gale by the angry breath of the Great Spirit. But though they came no nearer then, the major knew they were hovering somewhere along that perilous path, probably as near as Trooper Springs, where the men so often filled their canteens when the cavalry were on scout.

Alas ! He had no cavalry now to send out after these fleet marauders — nothing but an infantry guard, and no way of mounting them beyond a dozen mules, ponies, and worn-out troop horses in the quartermaster's corral. The Indians knew this as well as he, and felt entirely safe in camping for the night somewhere among the sheltered nooks in the valley of Trooper Fork, a clear, cold, sparkling stream that came winding down towards the river from the heights to the north-west. " I'll mount under the low bluff across the Platte, sir," O'Toole had said before he rode away, " follow up-stream about half a mile, so as to be well to the west of the road, and then strike out across the prairie for Eagle Butte." And the major had no better plan to suggest. Down-stream and to the east he could have found a country more open, perhaps, but it was a longer way.

It was cut up by numerous deep valleys, all of which led eastward, the direction of the reservations, and therefore likely to be the lurking-places of braves by the dozen, watching for a chance to swoop upon the road, Up the river, therefore, O'Toole had un doubtedly gone, then out across the open prairie, and he had been gone quite long enough to reach the point described by the sentry as that from which came the sound of the shots. The moon was young and feeble, already low in the west, and casting but a faint, pallid light over the broad waste of rolling prairie across the stream ; so little further could be seen. With all his heart the major had hoped to find in the sentry some nervous, sensational fellow, — a grown-up edition of Buster himself, perhaps. He found instead a cool, self-possessed, soldierly man whose words and bearing commanded liis respect, and there was no hesitation whatever in the major's action now.