A Daughter of the Sioux by Charles King

Author:Charles King [King, Charles]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: General, Cultural Heritage, Westerns, Fiction
ISBN: 9781406876277
Publisher: Echo Library
Published: 2008-11-12T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XIV. A VANISHED HEROINE

Within forty-eight hours of the coming of Trooper Kennedy with his “rush” despatches to Fort Frayne, the actors in our little drama had become widely separated. Webb and his sturdy squadron, including Ray and such of his troop as still had mounts and no serious wounds, were marching straight on for the Dry Fork of the Powder. They were two hundred fighting men; and, although the Sioux had now three times that many, they had learned too much of the shooting powers of these seasoned troopers, and deemed it wise to avoid close contact. The Indian fights well, man for man, when fairly cornered, but at other times he is no true sportsman. He asks for odds of ten to one, as when he wiped out Custer on the “Greasy Grass,” or Fetteman at Fort Phil Kearny,—as when he tackled the Gray Fox,—General Crook—on the Rosebud, and Sibley's little party among the pines of the Big Horn. Ray's plucky followers had shot viciously and emptied far too many saddles for Indian equanimity. It might be well in any event to let Webb's squadron through and wait for further accessions from the agencies at the southeast, or the big, turbulent bands of Uncapapas and Minneconjous at Standing Rock, or the Cheyennes along the Yellowstone.

So back went Lame Wolf and his braves, bearing Stabber with them, flitting northward again toward the glorious country beyond the “Chakadee,” and on went Webb, with Blake, Gregg, Ray and their juniors, with Tracy to take care of such as might be wounded on the way; and, later still, the old post surgeon reached the Elk with guards and hospital attendants, and on the morrow row began his homeward march with the dead and wounded,—a sad and solemn little procession. Only twenty miles he had to go, but it took long hours, so few were the ambulances, so rough the crossings of the ravines; and, not until near nightfall was the last of the wounded,—Lieutenant Field,—borne in the arms of pitying soldiers into the old post hospital, too far gone with fever, exhaustion and some strong mental excitement to know or care that his strange plea had been, perforce, disregarded;—to know or care later that the general himself, the commander they loved and trusted, was bending over him at dawn the following day. Ordering forward all available troops from the line of the railway, “the Chief” had stopped at Laramie only long enough for brief conference with the post commander; then, bidding him come on with all his cavalry, had pushed ahead for Frayne. It couldn't be a long campaign, perhaps, with winter close at hand, but it would be a lively one. Of that the chief felt well assured.

Now, there was something uncanny about this outbreak on the part of the Sioux, and the general was puzzled. Up to September the Indians had been busy with the annual hunt. They were fat, well-fed, prosperous,—had got from the government pretty much everything that they could ask with any show of reason and, so they said, had been promised more.

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