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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of To The Front, by Charles King
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: To The Front
+       A Sequel to Cadet Days
+
+Author: Charles King
+
+Release Date: November 28, 2006 [EBook #19952]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TO THE FRONT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jeannie Howse, and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+    | Transcriber's Note:                                       |
+    |                                                           |
+    | Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has     |
+    | been preserved.                                           |
+    |                                                           |
+    | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected in this  |
+    | text. For a complete list, please see the end of this     |
+    | document.                                                 |
+    |                                                           |
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+    [Illustration: [See p. 252]
+    THE OPENING OF THE BATTLE AT WOUNDED KNEE]
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+               TO THE FRONT
+
+               A SEQUEL TO
+                CADET DAYS
+
+                    BY
+           GENERAL CHARLES KING
+
+
+               ILLUSTRATED
+
+
+
+           NEW YORK AND LONDON
+       HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
+                 MCMVIII
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+  Copyright, 1908, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
+
+          _All rights reserved._
+
+          Published March, 1908.
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+                    TO
+       THREE BOYS, CADETS YET TO BE
+         TO "COPE" AND THE MAJOR
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAP.                                      PAGE
+
+       PRELUDE                                             1
+
+    I. FROM THE GRAY TO THE BLUE                          11
+
+   II. THE FIRST CALL                                     30
+
+  III. AWAY TO THE WEST                                   39
+
+   IV. "I'M READY NOW"                                    49
+
+    V. FIRST NIGHT ON THE RANGE                           61
+
+   VI. FIRST AID TO THE WOUNDED                           76
+
+  VII. A BALKED ARREST                                    89
+
+ VIII. A RACE TO THE FORT                                102
+
+   IX. BAD NEWS FROM THE MINES                           114
+
+    X. FIRST SHOTS OF THE SUMMER                         128
+
+   XI. A NIGHT ON GUARD                                  142
+
+  XII. THE MAN OF THE SIEGE                              156
+
+ XIII. AWAY ON THE WARPATH                               168
+
+  XIV. A SCOUT FOR THE SIOUX                             180
+
+   XV. FIRST SIGHT OF THE FOE                            198
+
+  XVI. PROOF POSITIVE OF GUILT                           213
+
+ XVII. THE WAR-DANCE AND THE CHARGE                      224
+
+XVIII. BATTLE AND VICTORY                                239
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+THE OPENING OF THE BATTLE AT WOUNDED KNEE     _Frontispiece_
+
+CADETS AT DRILL, WEST POINT                   _Facing p._ 14
+
+"BIG BEN WAS BUSY WITH HIS OIL-CAN"                "      84
+
+"NOT A WHIFF OF THE DRAUGHT COULD BE WASTED"       "     102
+
+SILVER SHIELD                                      "     128
+
+"'STRAIGHT THROUGH THE HERD, MEN. CH-A-A-A-RGE!'"  "     236
+
+UNITED STATES CAVALRY IN WINTER RIG                "     242
+
+"UP WENT TWO LITTLE PUFFS OF EARTH"                "     248
+
+
+
+
+TO THE FRONT
+
+
+
+
+TO THE FRONT
+
+
+
+
+PRELUDE
+
+
+It was graduation day at West Point, and there had been a remarkable
+scene at the morning ceremonies. In the presence of the Board of
+Visitors, the full-uniformed officers of the academic and military
+staff, the august professors and their many assistants, scores of
+daintily dressed women and dozens of sober-garbed civilians, the
+assembled Corps of Cadets, in their gray and white, had risen as one
+man and cheered to the echo a soldierly young fellow, their "first
+captain," as he received his diploma and then turned to rejoin them. It
+was an unusual incident. Every man preceding had been applauded, some
+of them vehemently. Every man after him, and they were many, received
+his meed of greeting and congratulation, but the portion accorded Cadet
+Captain "Geordie" Graham, like that of Little Benjamin, exceeded all
+others, and a prominent banker and business man, visiting the Point for
+the first time, was moved to inquire why.
+
+"I think," said the officer addressed, a man of his own age, though his
+spare form and smooth-shaven cheek and chin made him look ten years
+younger--"I think it is that Graham has been tried in all manner of
+ways and has proved equal to every occasion. They say he's sheer grit."
+
+A keen and close observer was the banker--"a student of men," he called
+himself. He had been tried in many a way and proved equal to every
+occasion. He had risen from the ranks to the summit. He, too, they said
+in Chicago, was "sheer grit." Moreover, they did not say he had "made
+his pile out of others' losings"; but, like most men who have had to
+work hard to win it, until it began to come so fast that it made
+itself, John Bonner judged men very much by their power to earn money.
+Money was his standard, his measure of success.
+
+And this, perhaps, was why John Bonner could never understand his
+brother-in-law, the colonel, a most distinguished soldier, a modest and
+most enviable man.
+
+Twenty-five years had Bonner known that now gray-haired, gray-mustached
+veteran. Twenty-five years had he liked him, admired him, and much of
+late had he sought to know him, but Hazzard was a man he could not
+fathom.
+
+"Fifteen years ago," said he to a fellow-magnate, "I told that man if
+he'd quit soldiering, and bring Carrie and the children to Chicago, I'd
+guarantee him an income ten times the regular pay he's getting; and he
+smiled, thanked me, and said he was quite content--content, sir, on two
+thousand a year, and so, too, was Sis. Now, think of that!"
+
+And Bonner was bubbling over with the same idea to-day, yet beginning
+to see light. Two prominent senators, men of world-wide renown, held
+Hazzard long in close conference, and were merely civil to him, the
+magnate, who, as he said, "could buy the three of 'em three times
+over." A general whose name was but second to that of Grant seized his
+brother-in-law by both hands, and seemed delighted to greet him, yet
+had barely a word for "his millions," him to whom the Board of Trade
+bowed humbly at home. A great war secretary, whom they had recently
+dined at the Grand Pacific and whose dictum as to the purchase of
+supplies meant much to Chicago, but vaguely remembered and absently
+greeted the man of wealth, yet beamed with pleasure at sight of his
+small-salaried soldier companion. The secretary drew Hazzard off to one
+side, in fact, and left the man of stocks and the stock-yards standing.
+
+That evening, after the simple home dinner, with Carrie and the young
+people and the colonel smiling about the board, Bonner's vexation of
+spirit found vent. Duties drew the soldier away, and the banker was
+left with his sister.
+
+"What is your pay _now_, Carrie?" he abruptly asked.
+
+"A row of threes, John--$333.33 a month," was the amused answer.
+
+"And Hazzard's been through two wars, Heaven knows how many campaigns
+and vicissitudes, and been serving the United States, night and day,
+some thirty years, and that's all he has to show for it, every cent of
+which has to go for living expenses--rearing, feeding, clothing, and
+educating these youngsters."
+
+"Pretty nearly. We've a little laid by for Jack's college, and the
+President gives Lou his cadetship, you know, but"--and here the
+blithe-faced little woman looked archly at "Uncle John," though her
+look was one that said, "I mean every word of this"--"we don't think
+that's all there is to it, by any manner of means. Think of his war
+record! Isn't that a proud thing to leave to our boys? See how he is
+regarded by the best men in our country, from the President down! He is
+not yet an old man, but he has 'all that should accompany old
+age--love, honor, obedience, troops of friends'--and, honestly, John,
+with health and competence and _us_, what more _should_ he want?"
+
+"Well," said Bonner, tenaciously, "I could have put him where he would
+have been worth three hundred thousand by this time."
+
+"And it wouldn't have tempted him; and I'd rather see him as he is."
+
+"Well, I'm blessed if I can understand it," said Bonner. Then callers
+put a stop to the chat. Then the colonel himself came home to his cosey
+quarters, and silence had settled down over the beautiful plain. The
+lights were dimmed in the barracks; the sentries paced their measured
+rounds; from the verandas of the hotel came the ripple of murmured
+words and soft laughter, and a tinkle of banjo and guitar. At the gate
+the colonel exchanged good-night greetings with a happy-faced, motherly
+looking woman whom Bonner had noticed overwhelmed with pride and
+emotion during the ceremonies in the morning. He did not at first
+recognize the tall, erect young fellow on whose arm she proudly leaned
+as she walked home through the shifting moonlight.
+
+"That was young Graham, in whom you were so interested this morning,"
+said Hazzard, briefly.
+
+"_Was_ it? Oh, I thought he'd gone with the graduates."
+
+"Only down to the city to say good-bye. He came back to his mother by
+late train. I fancy she's more to him than a lot of fun with the boys."
+
+"See here, Hazzard," observed Bonner, solemnly, "I've been looking into
+things here nigh onto a week. It's fine! It's all right for a soldier
+school! But, now take that young chap for a sample. What on earth does
+he know outside of drill and mathematics and what you call discipline?
+What could he do in case we cut off all this--this foolishness--and
+came down to business? I'd be willing to bet a sweet sum that, take him
+out of the army, turn him loose in the streets, and he'd starve, by
+gad! before he could ever earn enough to pay for a quick lunch."
+
+"I think you'd lose," was the quiet answer.
+
+"Well, I'd just like to try it. Pit him and his kind against our
+keen-witted, sharp, aggressive young _bus_iness men--men with
+_bus_iness heads, _bus_iness experience"--Bonner's emphasis on the
+first syllable was reinforced by a bang of the fist on the arm of his
+chair--"and, and, by gad! they'd be skinned alive--skinned out of their
+last cent, sir."
+
+"That," said the colonel, dryly, "is not improbable. They are trained
+as soldiers, not as sharpers. But, all the same, in spite, if you
+please, of their soldier training, I fancy most of these lads that quit
+us to-day, if brought face to face with sudden emergency,
+responsibility, something calling for courage, coolness,
+judgment--above all, for action--would hold their own, and I'd back
+them even in competition with your aggressive young friends in business
+life."
+
+"Why, they're taught to deal only with soldiers--with machines--not
+men," argued Bonner.
+
+"Well, such as they have handled men not soldiers more than once, in
+your own city, Bonner, and to your vast benefit. They'll come to it
+again some day. As for that young man, I picked him a year ago from his
+whole class for the place that calls for the most judgment, tact, quiet
+force, capacity to command--the 'first captaincy'--and never did I see
+it better filled."
+
+"Oh, granted as to that! But strip off the uniform, sword, and
+authority; set him among the men _we_ have to deal with--what could he
+do with a railway strike? How could he handle maddened mill operatives,
+laborers, switchmen, miners? Think of that, Hazzard! That isn't
+fighting Indians, with a regiment at your back. You mark what I say!"
+
+"Well, mobs, miners, or Indians, our young officers have had to meet
+all kinds at times," said the colonel; "and if ever Graham is up
+against them, Bonner, I'm thinking you'll hear of it."
+
+And, oddly enough, before he was one month older, sitting in his office
+in Chicago, Bonner was hearing it with a vengeance. There was the
+mischief to pay in at least one of his mines. Oddly enough, before he
+was one year older, George Montrose Graham, graduated cadet, was "up
+against them," all three--mobs, miners, and Indians. How he met them
+and how he merited the colonel's confidence let them judge who read.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+FROM THE GRAY TO THE BLUE
+
+
+It was just after sunset of one of the longest days of the loveliest of
+our summer months. The roar of the evening gun had gone re-echoing
+through the Highlands of the Hudson. The great garrison flag was still
+slowly fluttering earthward, veiled partially from the view of the
+throng of spectators by the snowy cloud of sulphur smoke drifting
+lazily away upon the wing of the breeze. Afar over beyond the barren
+level of the cavalry plain the gilded hands of the tower-clock on "the
+old Academic" were blended into one in proclaiming to all whom it might
+concern that it was five minutes past the half-hour 'twixt seven and
+eight, and there were girls in every group, and many a young fellow in
+the rigid line of gray and white before them, resentful of the fact
+that dress parade was wofully late and long, with tattoo and taps only
+two hours or so away. The season for the regular summer "hops" had not
+yet begun, for this was away back in the eighties, when many another
+old West Point fashion still prevailed; but there was to be an informal
+dance in the dining-room of the hotel, and it couldn't come off until
+after supper, and supper had to be served to some people who were
+"pokey" enough to care to come by late boat, or later train, and were
+more eager to see the cadets on parade than to seek Mine Host Craney's
+once bountiful table.
+
+What made it more exasperating was that rumors were afloat to the
+effect that the adjutant had long and important orders to publish, and
+this would still further prolong the parade. Cadet Private Frazier,
+First Class, one of the best dancers in the battalion, was heard to
+mutter to his next-door neighbor in the front rank of the color
+company: "It'll be nine o'clock before we get things going at the
+hotel, and we've got to quit at nine-thirty. _Con_found the orders!"
+And yet, peering from under the visor of his shako, Mr. Frazier could
+see without disturbing the requisite pose of his head, "up and straight
+to the front, chin drawn in," that over near the south end of the row
+of gayly attired visitors, seated or standing at the edge of the camp
+parade-ground, there was one group, at least, to whom, as Frazier knew,
+the orders meant much more than the dance. There, switching the short
+grass with his stocky cane, stood their grim senior surgeon, Doctor, or
+Major, Graham. There, close beside him and leaning on the arm of a
+slender but athletic, sun-tanned young fellow in trim civilian dress,
+stood the doctor's devoted wife. With them was a curly-headed youth,
+perhaps seventeen years of age, restless, eager, and impatient for the
+promised news. Making his way eagerly but gently through the dense
+throng of onlookers, a bronze-faced, keen-eyed, powerfully built
+officer in the uniform of the cavalry came up at the moment and joined
+them. "Have you heard anything yet?" he murmured to Mrs. Graham, whose
+kind and gentle eyes seemed to light at sound of his voice.
+
+"Not yet," she answered, with a shake of the head. "All we learned just
+a few minutes ago was that the order was here and would be published on
+parade. The commandant returned only just in time."
+
+"And there's been no telegram--no word from outside?"
+
+"Not a thing, Mr. McCrea. It just so happened."
+
+"Well, if that isn't odd! To begin with, it's most unusual to get out
+the order so early. They must be in a hurry to assign the graduates
+this year. Pops, old boy, if you don't get our regiment, I'll say the
+secretary of war is deaf to the wishes of every officer and most of the
+men. We told him when he came out to look over Fort Reynolds, and
+incidentally look into the mines--but that was last year--Oh, bother,
+Williams," he suddenly broke off, "what do you want to lose precious
+time for, putting 'em through the manual?"
+
+This sudden outbreak was levelled at the unconscious officer
+commanding the parade (the "officer in charge," as he was termed), Mr.
+Williams having replied, "Take your post, sir," to the adjutant's
+stately salute in presenting the statuesque line. Whereupon the
+adjutant "recovered" sword, strode briskly up, passed beyond the plumed
+commander, and took his station to his left and rear. With much
+deliberation of manner, Mr. Williams drew sabre and easily gave the
+various orders for the showy manual of arms, the white-gloved hands
+moving like clockwork in response to his command until, with
+simultaneous thud, the battalion resumed the "order," certain
+spectators with difficulty repressing the impulse to applaud.
+
+    [Illustration: CADETS AT DRILL, WEST POINT]
+
+Then back to the centre stalked the young adjutant, Mrs. Graham
+unconsciously drawing unflattering comparison between the present
+incumbent, soldierly though he seemed, and her own boy's associate and
+friend, Claude Benton, adjutant of the class graduated barely a
+fortnight earlier, "her own boy," perhaps the most honored among them.
+She was clinging to his arm now, her pride and joy through all his
+years of sturdy boyhood and manly youth. She knew well that the hope
+and longing of his heart was to be assigned to the cavalry regiment of
+which Lieutenant McCrea was quartermaster, the regiment once stationed
+at old Fort Reynolds, in the Rockies, when Dr. Graham was there as post
+surgeon and Geordie was preparing for West Point. Indeed, Mr. McCrea
+had "coached" her son in mathematics, and had been most helpful in
+securing the appointment. And now here was the quartermaster on leave
+of absence, the first he had had in years, spending several weeks of
+his three months' rest at the scene of his own soldier school-days.
+
+But it was "Bud," her younger son, who had come rushing down to the
+surgeon's quarters only a few minutes before parade with the
+all-important news. "Mither!--Geordie!" he cried, "Captain Cross says
+the assignment order's come and will be published at parade. Hurry up!"
+
+Dr. Graham could hardly believe it. As McCrea said, the War Department
+seldom issued the order before mid-July. "Mac" even hoped to be in
+Washington in time to say a word to the adjutant-general in Geordie's
+behalf. It was known that many would be assigned to the artillery, to
+which Cadet Graham had been recommended by the Academic Board. But all
+his boyhood had been spent on the frontier; his earliest recollections
+were of the adobe barracks and sun-dried, sun-cracked, sun-scorched
+parade of old Camp Sandy in Arizona. He had learned to ride an Indian
+pony in Wyoming before he was eight; he had learned to shoot in Montana
+before he was twelve; and he had ridden, hunted, fished, and shot all
+over the wide West before the happy days that sent him to the great
+cadet school of the nation. And now that he was graduated, with all his
+heart and hope and ambition he prayed that he might be commissioned in
+a cavalry regiment, if possible in McCrea's. Give him _that_, he said,
+and he would ask no favor from any man.
+
+How his heart was beating as he watched the adjutant, whom he himself
+had schooled and drilled and almost made, for Graham had been famous in
+his cadet days as a most successful squad instructor, a model first
+sergeant, and a great "first captain." How odd it seemed that he, a
+graduate, and that all these people, officers, and children, should now
+be hanging on the words that might fall from the younger soldier's
+lips! A telegram from Washington had told a veteran general visiting at
+the Point that his son had been assigned to the artillery, that the
+order would doubtless be published that evening. But it so happened
+that not until just before parade did the commandant return from a long
+ride, and so had no time to read it through. He had simply handed it,
+with others, to the silent young soldier, who had stood in full uniform
+full five minutes awaiting his coming. "Better order 'parade rest' part
+of time. It's a long read," he briefly said, and, stowing the orders
+under his sash, the adjutant had saluted, faced about, and hastened
+away.
+
+And now that young official has received the reports of the first
+sergeants and sent them, high-headed, martial, and precise, back to
+their stations in the line. And now again he has faced the commanding
+officer, saluted, and announced, "All are present, sir." And now that
+deliberate functionary has at last said, "Publish the orders, sir." And
+silence seems to fall, even upon the chatting groups of girls, as, with
+brief "'Tentio-o-o-on to Orders," the adjutant drops the point of his
+sword, letting it dangle from the gold swordknot on his wrist, and in
+another moment the clear young voice is ringing over the attent and
+martial audience.
+
+"War Department, Washington, D.C., June 25, 189--," he begins, and then
+briskly rattles away at the terse official paragraphs: "The following
+assignment of graduates of the United States Military Academy are
+hereby announced to take effect from June 14th." It begins with that
+highly scientific and enviable body, the Corps of Engineers, and Mr.
+George Graham, up to this moment still officially known as cadet,
+touches his mother's arm at sound of the third name on the list--that
+of Connell, his chum, his chosen comrade, his much-loved classmate
+through the long four years. "Dear old Con," he murmurs into her ears.
+"I'll telegraph my congratulations to him, whatever comes to me."
+
+There are eight in all assigned to the engineers, and then come the
+names of those gazetted to the artillery--five famous regiments, too,
+and Graham notes with joy that Beard, Conway, Foster, and Lawrence, all
+of whom were lower in general standing than himself, get their
+longed-for billet with the "red legs," and his name is not mentioned.
+That means he has not been assigned where he preferred not to go. But
+would the war secretary assign him where he longed to be? Yes, here it
+comes, first on the cavalry list, and his heart beats for joy.
+
+
+           "F----th Regiment of Cavalry.
+
+     "No. 15, Cadet George Montrose Graham to be Second Lieutenant,
+     Troop 'E,' _vice_ Fenton, promoted."
+
+And though her eyes are brimming and her lips _will_ quiver, Mrs.
+Graham clasps both her boy's hands in her own in speechless sympathy.
+It cannot all be joy, for this means miles and miles of separation that
+must come all too soon. Geordie can scarce believe his ears. Oh, it is
+too good! Not only the --th, but "E" Troop, Captain Lane's troop, the
+troop of which Feeny was first sergeant, the troop in which veteran
+Sergeant Nolan, two years ago at old Fort Reynolds, had said he and the
+men so hoped to see the day when Mr. Geordie might come back to them to
+be their lieutenant.
+
+And now McCrea was grasping and wringing his hand, with a "Welcome to
+the old regiment, Geordie," and blue-eyed "Bud" was dancing rapturously
+about until the doctor sternly bade him cease. "Is that the way you
+think they behave at Columbia, sir?" having never seen the behavior of
+Columbiads, or other collegians, at a ball match or boat-race or any
+public occasion of undergraduate rejoicing. Even among the spectators
+were many who lost interest for the moment in what the adjutant was
+reading, and watched, with kindling eyes, the unexpected little scene.
+But when Colonel Hazzard himself, the soldierly commandant, with his
+silver-gray mustache and hair, came striding through the crowd and held
+forth his hand to the young soldier, who instantly and instinctively
+faced him at attention, everybody within hearing noted the cordiality
+in his hearty tones as he shook Geordie's hand: "Mr. Graham, I'm more
+than glad you got the regiment of your choice, and you're going to one
+of the best captains in the army. I was on duty in tactics when Lane
+was in the Corps. Well, Mrs. Graham, we think we are sending him the
+making of one of the best lieutenants," and with that the colonel bowed
+as he took the hand of Geordie's mother. "Good sons make good soldiers
+all the world over, Mrs. Graham, and we'll expect great things of
+yours," he added, then grasped the doctor's out-stretched hand and gave
+way to others who came crowding forward, among them a gentle, motherly
+woman in half-mourning, whose eyes were moist as she exchanged greeting
+with Mrs. Graham.
+
+"Benny will be here the moment they break ranks," she said. "I know he,
+too, will want to congratulate George."
+
+And so there was quite a little gathering, and what the papers call an
+"ovation," about the young graduate, who was blushing not a little
+through his healthy tan. He was quite unable to hear where his
+classmates had been distributed in the other regiments of cavalry and
+infantry, and he was anxious to know, but even when the line of cadet
+officers came marching to the front and stood at salute before the
+battalion commander, and then broke ranks, and as many as a dozen made
+a rush at their former first captain, eager to take him by the hand and
+say a word of congratulation before they went bounding away to doff
+dress hats, plumes, and sashes--even then Graham could not see the
+order, for Colonel Hazzard called for it to show to a bevy of
+bright-eyed girls, who knew the graduating class, now scattered all
+over the United States, knew almost every one of them better than they
+did this, their foremost cadet officer, for George Graham, though he
+could dance, had seemed to care little for hops and less for girls. His
+few leisure hours of the last year at the Point he had spent at the
+side of his mother.
+
+But at last, leaving Mrs. Frazier and Benny at camp, the Grahams were
+walking slowly homeward in the wake of the brave young battalion,
+marching away with its quick, elastic stride to the spirited music of
+the fifes and drums. Lieutenant McCrea was still with them, while
+Lieutenant Wood, another family friend, had taken to the telegraph
+office Geordie's pencilled words of congratulation to his chum Connell,
+now lieutenant of engineers. Mrs. Graham leaned heavily on the arm of
+her sturdy son, thinking of all the joy that had been hers, after the
+years of separation. It had been such a welcome, welcome order that
+took Major Graham to duty at West Point the last lap of their boy's
+cadet life. Every Saturday evening he had spent "at home" in the
+surgeon's quarters, and many a Sunday afternoon. How she had looked
+forward from week end to week end! How swiftly had the weeks slipped
+by! How would she miss him in the years to come! How lonely would be
+the Saturdays and Sundays without her boys, for "Buddy" too, was to
+leave the home nest. He had passed for Columbia and was to have some
+terms at what the doctor loved to call "the humanities" before taking
+up the study of medicine. Her heart had been full of rejoicing and
+thanksgiving when graduation came, barely a fortnight agone--yet when,
+for the last time in cadet uniform Geordie stood before her, so
+soldierly, so manly, so honored by his comrades in the Corps, and she
+followed him with brimming eyes when, leaving his diploma in her hand,
+he turned away to his room, in the tower of the old first division, to
+lay aside forever the plume and sash, the sword and chevrons of the
+first captaincy, to shed the academy uniform for good and all, she knew
+she wished the whole year could be lived over again; she knew she would
+rather the time were still far distant when her son should "change the
+gray for the blue."
+
+But now, now, every hour of every day for three glorious and beautiful
+months, she was to have him by her side. She need not, she would not,
+think of the separation to come late in September, when he must join
+his regiment and be her boy no more. At least she would try not to
+think, but here was this cold, stern, business-like order to remind her
+that she had given her first-born to the service of his country--that
+now he belonged to the general government and no longer to her. All too
+soon--oh, many weeks too soon--had the mandate appeared, for it would
+haunt her day and night until the hour for parting came. Ah, thank God,
+that at least would not be for weeks! Even Geordie now had become
+silent and serious. He was listening to McCrea's eager words to Dr.
+Graham, all about the regiment and Fort Reynolds, and how he wished
+they were back there again, the finest station the --th had ever had,
+he declared, and "so near the mines!"
+
+"Just think, Geordie," he cried, "if we were all at Reynolds we could
+run up the range to the Silver Shield any day, and watch them dragging
+out gold."
+
+"You haven't lost faith in the Shield, then?" asked Mrs. Graham,
+smilingly. She thought and cared so little herself. She knew that
+several officers at Reynolds, her husband and McCrea among them, had
+invested their scant savings in that most promising venture. She knew
+that McCrea had vowed it would make them all rich if not famous one of
+these days, and that her methodical, cautious "canny Scot" of a husband
+had figured, pondered, and consulted long before he, too, had become
+convinced. She knew their holdings had been quoted far above what was
+paid for them, but what of all that? She had her boys, her husband, her
+army home, her health, and high content. What was wealth to her?
+
+"I own I was thinking more of the hunting and fishing, the scenery, and
+the splendid range," said Geordie, "but no matter where 'E' Troop goes,
+I want to be with it."
+
+"If the Shield pans out according to promise," said McCrea, with a
+laugh, "the regiment won't see me for many a day after I realize. I'm
+going in for a year's leave--and Europe."
+
+They had reached the front of Grant Hall by this time and were
+strolling slowly along, their voices hushed for the moment by the
+cheery hum of boyish talk and the clatter of mess furniture, as the
+Corps sat at their late supper. Then several officers, gathered about
+the steps of the club rooms in the south end, lifted their caps to Mrs.
+Graham and smiled greeting to the party.
+
+"Come back, Geordie!" was the cheery hail. "We want to wet that
+assignment in cavalry fashion." But Graham laughed and shook his head.
+
+"Can't break away just now," said he. "I'll look in later."
+
+"What I can't understand," said McCrea, "is that we got no word. With
+Freeman and Blake both on duty in Washington, one would think they'd
+have wired if they knew."
+
+"It's coming now," said the doctor, pointing to the telegraph orderly
+turning away from the steps of his quarters and coming swiftly toward
+them, brown envelope in hand. Just in front of the hospital gateway he
+met the party, saluted, and tendered the uppermost of two or three
+despatches to the doctor.
+
+"Freeman, I'm betting," said McCrea, as the doctor tore it open and
+read. They walked on slowly, expectant, but he did not speak. Then Mrs.
+Graham turned, gave one look, dropped Geordie's arm and clasped that of
+her husband. The rugged, weather-beaten face had grown suddenly gray.
+
+"George! husband!" she cried. "What's gone wrong?"
+
+For answer he simply handed her the paper.
+
+     "Designate proxy; meeting Monday. Fear everything lost. Come if
+     possible."
+
+"Mac," said the old doctor, solemnly, "it's Silver Shield that's melted
+away. Everything we had in the world."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE FIRST CALL
+
+
+Fort Reynolds, as has been told in the earlier story of George Graham's
+cadet days, lay among the eastward foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains,
+with a bustling little frontier city only six miles away down the
+winding valley of what was, in the early eighties, a clear, cold, and
+beautiful mountain stream that shone in the sun like molten silver.
+
+Silver Run it was called when Uncle Sam built the picturesque frontier
+fort of hewn logs and unseasoned pine soon after the Civil War. Silver
+Run, cold, pure, and glistening, it remained when Fort Reynolds became
+an important military post. Then the --th Cavalry took station at
+Reynolds, and there Geordie Graham found them when, with his father and
+mother and "Bud," he had come from cold Montana to the finest station
+they yet had known, and to the firmest friends, many of whom they had
+met before, when Geordie, as a little boy, was "Corporal Pops" to every
+man at old Camp Sandy.
+
+But Silver Run, though it ran more silver than it ever knew before, was
+beautiful no longer. Mines of remarkable value, mines of gold and
+silver, had been discovered twenty and thirty miles back in the
+mountains. Mining towns had sprung up along the steep and rocky banks.
+Mining methods had turned a limpid stream into a turbid torrent. Two
+railways had run their lines, hewing, blasting, boring, and tunnelling
+up the narrow valley, first to reach the mines and finally to merge in
+a "cut-off" to the great Transcontinental, so that now huge trains of
+Pullmans went straining slowly up-grade past the site of old Fort
+Reynolds, or came coasting down with smoking tires and fire-spitting
+brake-shoes, and between the loss of the water for his horses, and the
+hemming in of his rifle-ranges by rail right of way, Uncle Sam
+declared Fort Reynolds no longer tenable for cavalry. The regiment had
+been sent elsewhere, and only a quartermaster-sergeant and a squad of
+men remained.
+
+Yet Reynolds stood in the midst of thriving industries and swarming
+men. The First National Bank in town had now a marble front and a
+thousand depositors. The town was now a city and a railway centre, and
+the backbone of its business was no longer cattle, but mines and
+mining, full of fabulous wealth for those "on the inside," but of dark
+and devious measures for those "on the outside" or away, and of these
+were half a dozen army officers who had been dazzled by the easily
+acquired dollars of the earliest arrivals, and of these officers was
+one of the last men his friends thought possible to mislead--shrewd,
+calculating, cautious, canny old "Sawny" Graham, post surgeon at Fort
+Reynolds in the late eighties.
+
+Yet prospectors and explorers ten years earlier had declared gold would
+be found up the banks of Silver Run. In the glorious park country back
+of Squaw Canon, where Geordie and Bud had camped and fished and hunted
+as boys, the signs of the restless scouts of the great army of miners
+were to be seen at every hand. And then finally, in the very September
+that followed the return of Graham and Connell to take up the last half
+of their course at the Academy, there came sudden and thrilling
+announcement of "big finds" along Lance Creek, the upper tributary of
+Silver Run; then even finer indications on the Run itself, and the West
+went wild. All of a sudden the mountain-sides bristled with armed men
+and their _burros_. Camps sprang up in a night and shafts were sunk in
+a day. Yampah County, from primeval wilderness, leaped to renown, with
+a population of ten thousand. Gold and silver came "packed" down the
+trails to the First National. Then, faster than the precious metal came
+down, costly machinery, and prices, went up. Fortunes were declared in
+a week. Officers and men at Reynolds caught the craze.
+
+Many an old sergeant took his discharge and his savings and went to the
+mines; and young troopers without discharges took their lead and
+followed suit, and the colonel wired the War Department that if the
+regiment wasn't ordered away there wouldn't be anything left to order
+in the spring. Luckily, heavy snow-storms came and blocked the trails,
+and there was a lull at the mines, but unluckily, not before the few
+officers at Reynolds who had saved a dollar had invested every cent of
+their savings in the shares of the Golconda, the White Eagle, the
+Consolidated Denver, and especially the Silver Shield, and the man who,
+through frugality and good management, had the most to invest, and who
+had invested all, was Major Graham. When he left there for West Point
+the August following he had refused four times what he paid for his
+shares, and saw fortune smiling on his pathway to the Hudson. Now, less
+than ten months thereafter, on the borders of the Hudson, he saw ruin
+staring him in the face.
+
+For there had been assessments, and he had borrowed to meet them. There
+had come rumors of "leaks" and he had kept them to himself. McCrea,
+his boy's best friend in the regiment, had consulted him only ten days
+back as to whether it were not wise to realize on a portion at least of
+their holdings, and Graham, dreading a "bear" movement on the market,
+had said, "Hold fast."
+
+And now McCrea had turned back. He must go at once, he said, to the
+telegraph office. So Graham, his sorrowing wife, and his silent boys
+went on. She led him into their cheery quarters, and seated him in his
+old arm-chair and came and nestled beside him.
+
+"What is there to grieve about, dear?" she pleaded. "What does it
+really matter to us? We have health, home, our boys, each other--quite
+enough to live on--Why should it so distress you? Indeed, I almost
+cried aloud, 'Is that all?' when you showed me the message. I feared so
+much worse. Why, think, Graeme, in all the gay crowd that comes here
+every day, is there a woman half as happy as I am? Is there one of them
+really as rich as we are--we who have so many blessings?"
+
+"It's for 'Bud' I'm thinking most now," was the mournful answer. "There
+can be no Columbia for him. I've borrowed money to meet the
+assessments, and the money's got to be paid. This isn't like having
+one's house burned, or his ranch blown away, his herds scattered, by
+the act of God. This is being robbed of the savings of years by
+organized, legalized swindlers, men who claimed to be our friends. It's
+that--and my helplessness--that hurts."
+
+The boys had remained without, talking in low, grave tones, Bud's
+boisterous spirits suddenly quenched. Presently the sound of their
+murmuring died away. There was no answer when Mrs. Graham called. Going
+to the door she looked anxiously about her. From up the roadway to the
+north came the sound of merry voices and the shuffle of many feet--the
+battalion hurrying down the broad stone steps of Grant Hall and forming
+for the march back to camp. The young "first captain" called them to
+attention and gave the commands that swung them into column of platoons
+and striding away under the leafy arch to the open plain. Oh, with
+what pride had she not listened, night after night, from September to
+mid-June, to Geordie's ringing, masterful tones, _her_ Geordie,
+foremost officer of the Corps! And now all that was ended with the
+graduation to which he had so long looked forward, and now, when but
+half an hour ago he had so rejoiced in his assignment to the regiment
+of his choice--now must come this cloud upon his young life, his and
+blithe-hearted Bud, who so adored him. She knew well that his first act
+would be to set aside a certain portion of his scanty pay for her use,
+and for her own part she would not so have it.
+
+But where were the boys, and why had they gone? It was some minutes
+before Bud returned, alone.
+
+"Where is Geordie?" she asked.
+
+Bud dropped his cap on the hall table, looking dispirited and troubled.
+
+"Gone to the hotel, mother--wants to see"--with a gulp--"McCrea--and
+I'm of no use to anybody."
+
+"You can be and will be," was the gentle answer, as the mother wound an
+arm about and led him within. There in silence and semi-darkness they
+sat awhile. The doctor had gone into his little library to look over
+memoranda and accounts. It was nine o'clock when Geordie's quick,
+soldierly step was heard on the walk without. He came bounding up and
+in, alert, virile, and vigorous.
+
+"You saw Mr. McCrea, Geordie?"
+
+"Yes, mother. He's going to Newburg to catch the Pacific express on the
+Central, and, mother--I'm going with him."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+AWAY TO THE WEST
+
+
+By the general regulations of the United States army there is granted
+three months' leave of absence to graduated cadets of the Military
+Academy, to be taken advantage of immediately after graduation. It is
+given to these young men after their four years of rigorous discipline
+and hard study, that they may have abundant time to visit home and
+friends, and to enjoy a period of rest before reporting for duty again
+to begin their careers as officers of the army.
+
+For nearly two weeks since Graham's graduation day the mother had had
+him for her very own, busying herself in the choice of his modest
+outfit, and taking it not a little to heart that he declined to order
+his uniform and equipment until, as he said, he knew where he was
+going. She longed to see him in his "regimentals," yet shrank from it
+as a reminder that all too soon he would be taken from her side to wear
+it day after day with his comrades in arms. She could not think of that
+parting to come late in September. She would think only of the glory
+that was hers in having him here, having him now, with no bugle-call to
+tear him from her side. She was just beginning to realize her
+possession, her happiness, when that hateful telegram told of disaster
+at the mines, and urged her husband to have a representative at the
+spot. Within one hour of its receipt, George had come to say that he
+would be that representative, and within two hours, with at least his
+father's full consent, her dream was at an end and her boy was gone.
+
+That night toward ten he and McCrea were spinning away up the west
+shore under the lofty, rock-ribbed scarp of Crow Nest and Storm King,
+to ferry over to Fishkill from Newburg, and there take the Pacific
+express, making its first stop out of New York City. Each had hurriedly
+packed such store of clothing as seemed most appropriate to the region
+and the business to which he was bound. There was no vestige of uniform
+or badge of rank and station. Geordie took with him his favorite rifle,
+and in his valise, to be exhumed when they reached the Rockies, was a
+revolver he knew, rather better than his classmates, how to use, for he
+had learned as a lad on the plains. Each had his ticket for Chicago,
+where they were to change for Denver. Each had a money belt and a
+modest sum in currency. Each had his hopes of rescuing something if not
+all of the imperilled property, and neither had even a vague idea of
+the peril, difficulty, and treachery he was destined to encounter.
+
+Everything had promised well when Silver Shield was first exploited.
+Its promoters and agents showed high-grade ore, and reports of expert
+mining engineers promised abundance of it. All that was needed was
+development. "Come in now, on the ground-floor, and you'll be coining
+money in a year's time," said Mr. Breifogle, and to the number of seven
+the commissioned force at Fort Reynolds had "come." So long as they
+remained close to the spot all seemed going well. But Graham had been
+ordered to the Point, and the regiment over in the Oklahoma country.
+Then came trouble.
+
+It seemed odd that stock held so high should so soon have to be
+assessed. But "some expensive machinery was necessary." Then came a
+second and larger demand. Silver Shield was so valuable that envious
+eyes had been directed to it, and fraudulent claims and claimants were
+constantly turning up. Threatened litigation would be long and
+expensive. It would be cheaper far to buy off the litigants. So Graham,
+with a sigh and sore premonition of trouble, obtained the necessary
+amount on his personal note. McCrea, with inward misgiving, borrowed
+and sent it. Officers at Reno sent up what they could, but it wasn't
+enough, and in May came a third appeal. The secretary wrote that
+litigation had begun, and there was reason to believe the courts were
+being "approached" by the enemy. It was absolutely essential that
+"these parties should be bought off," and quite a sum would be
+necessary. The First National Bank of Argenta (which had once been
+robbed of a great sum by road-agents, who were run down and captured by
+officers and men of the --th, and the money recovered) ought in all
+conscience to be grateful to its benefactors, yet when Graham, McCrea,
+and Major Lawrence wrote, begging advice in the premises, the bank was
+non-committal. Some of its customers were among the litigants, as was
+later discovered. And so it resulted that not until near the end of
+June did it dawn upon the officers involved that the whole matter was
+nothing more nor less than a well-conceived, but rascally, scheme to
+"milk them dry," as was the expression, secure their shares at a
+sacrifice, or drive them out entirely.
+
+And they, the absentees, were only seven against seventy or more, who
+were experienced in all the crafts and devices by which mines have been
+dug at the expense of the many and then made to enrich the few.
+
+It was late at night when the fellow-travellers reached Denver. McCrea
+was depressed and silent, Geordie eager to push ahead. The former had
+had time to think over the situation, and in Chicago, while waiting for
+the Pacific express to start, he had had a fifteen-minute talk with a
+relative, a Western business man, to whom mining and undermining were
+matters well understood, and what this expert said had filled him with
+dismay. "You've simply been bled until you could bleed no more," said
+he. "Now they've no further use for you. What they want is your stock
+at five cents on the dollar, to sell to some new gudgeon at fifty. Why
+on earth, Mac, when you were considering this, didn't you consult me?"
+Why, indeed! Like many another man, Mac's eyes had been blinded, his
+ears deafened to everything but the wiles of the charmer. But with
+Geordie it was different. He had come because his father was bound to
+the wheel of duty and could not. Moreover, barring inexperience and
+youth, Geordie was better fitted to go and do than was his father, the
+doctor.
+
+He would waste no time with agents. He would employ no lawyer--that was
+simply waste of both time and money. Of the former they had little and
+of the latter even less. But his brain was active and fertile. He had
+slept but little on their swift westward way until after crossing the
+Mississippi. His mother's grief at parting, and her speechless anxiety
+as to the dangers that might beset him, had affected him deeply, and at
+first his silence and preoccupation were due to that. But the fighting
+blood of the Graeme was in his veins, and against the abominable wrong
+these "sharks" would do his father and his scattered friends the young
+fellow was bent on giving valiant battle; and he thought he saw his way
+to strike and to strike hard.
+
+McCrea had given him the names of most of the sergeants of the old
+regiment who, when their time expired, had taken their discharge and
+gone to the mines. Among them were three on whom he believed he could
+count to back him in a pinch. Among them was the veteran Nolan, on whom
+he _knew_ he could count.
+
+McCrea had wired ahead to an old and trusted friend, a resident of
+Denver and a successful railway engineer. He was at the station waiting
+when the two alighted from their train. It was McCrea's plan to spend
+one day in Denver in consultation with certain officials, and then to
+spring a surprise on the "board" at Argenta two days later. He had
+wired to Fort Reno on the way, urging that one officer, at least, of
+those most interested should hasten to Denver and meet him, and in the
+hands of Mr. Warden, their engineer friend, was the reply: Captain Lee
+would be with them in the morning. To register at a prominent hotel
+would simply advertise their coming. Warden had seen to that and
+engaged quarters for them near his own. Thither they were to go at
+once, and, valises in hand, they followed Warden's lead, McCrea and
+their guide talking eagerly together, Geordie following, silent and
+observant. Toward the iron gateway they pressed, jostled and elbowed by
+hurrying passengers.
+
+"It's but a few blocks' walk," Warden was saying. "I've a cart to take
+your grips and we can chat as we go. I thought you'd be glad of a bite
+or a cup of tea or something before turning in. Mr. Ross, who wired Dr.
+Graham, is here, and he'll meet us at the restaurant. He thinks they
+are following him--shadowing him."
+
+"Who?" asked McCrea.
+
+"Why, the crowd that are trying to get control there of Silver Shield.
+Some of them live in Argenta, he says, and found out he had been in
+correspondence with the doctor, and that it was he who had given
+warning." Then, glancing over his shoulder as they neared the gate, and
+speaking to Geordie, he continued, "What is the name of the brewer up
+there who wanted your place at the Point for his son?"
+
+"Breifogle."
+
+"That's the man," answered Warden. "Ross says he's one of the leaders
+of the move. Most of his money has been made by freezing out other
+men."
+
+And just at that moment, moving leisurely along in the rear of the
+train-load of belated passengers, they reached the exit gate, and the
+instant they came under the broad, blue-white glare of the electric
+globe overhead there was a sudden stir in the little gathering along
+the iron fence. A burly young man darted swiftly away, and in his haste
+tripped backward over an empty baby carriage. In a second he was
+floundering on the floor, his bowler hat rolling one way, his stick
+flying another. A shrill voice began to berate him as he struggled to
+his feet, but he paused neither to explain nor listen. He swooped for
+his hat and shot for a dark passage, but not before Geordie had caught
+a glimpse of his face.
+
+"That was young Breifogle," said he.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+"I'M READY NOW"
+
+
+There was no other train over the Transcontinental, westward, before
+7.30 A.M. They had reached Denver by the Pacific express, and in five
+minutes the sleeper in which the two had journeyed from Chicago would
+be whirling swiftly away for "The Springs" before beginning the long,
+tortuous climb over the huge bulwark between them and the watershed of
+the great Colorado beyond. There had really been no reason why Graham
+should stop over at Denver. He knew none of the officials of the Silver
+Shield there resident. He did not wish to know them. They had doubtless
+conspired with their associates at Argenta to "squeeze out" his father
+and friends. They hoped and expected to buy in for a song the valuable
+stock held by this scattered band of soldiers and some twenty or
+thirty prospective victims in the distant East. This would give them a
+controlling interest in the property. It would make them virtual owners
+of a valuable mine. It would make them richer by far than they were
+beforehand. This would impoverish, and it might ruin, many of the
+absent who had furnished the means by which Silver Shield was
+developed. It was robbery outright, but robbery of a kind so common in
+our country that people have become callous to it. It was by just such
+means and methods that many of the great fortunes of America have been
+won, and the winners ride to-day on the topmost wave of prosperity and
+popular acclaim, when, if the people but realized the truth, many an
+object of their adulation would be wearing convict stripes and prison
+pallor to the end of his dishonored days.
+
+But Graham had journeyed with his long-time friend and senior
+officer--senior by seven years--and McCrea's plans, to a certain point,
+seemed to dominate those of the younger and less experienced man.
+McCrea's idea was to "tackle" the local directors first and compel
+recognition of their rights. He, as post quartermaster, had had
+business dealings with bankers and merchants both in Denver and
+Chicago. He believed that, reinforced by the presence of Captain Lee
+from Reno, he could make a certain impression, or else certain threats,
+that would bring these magnates to time.
+
+But Dr. Graham, an older head, thought otherwise, had so instructed
+Geordie and so endeavored to impress McCrea. The men, said he, had
+planned this out. "They stand to lose little in the market if the
+stocks are 'beared.' They have invested little; we have invested our
+all. If nothing was found they could quit. If good ore was found, then
+it was their game to conceal the fact, to demand more and more money
+for more and more development, force us out, get our shares, and own
+the property. Why, laddie, the man that warned me dared not sign his
+name, for every wire was watched; yet I'd stake six months' pay he's
+got the rights of it. There's ore there in plenty!"
+
+And so every indication said at the start. It wasn't until many Eastern
+people had been induced to invest (Dr. Graham's New York friends, the
+Fraziers, among them) that managers and directors began to tell dismal
+tales and ask for more and more. It was then that Dr. Graham bethought
+him of a brother Scot who dwelt near Argenta, a man once so poor that
+when his bairns were down with diphtheria he could not coax Argenta
+doctors out across the five-mile stretch of storm-swept, frozen
+prairie. It was the burly post surgeon from the fort who rode eight
+miles to and eight miles back in any kind of weather, night or day,
+until he snatched those babies back from death, and gave them, weak and
+gasping, yet alive, to the arms of their weeping and imploring and at
+last rejoicing mother. Oh, those are deeds that women remember so long
+as life remains to them, and that but few men forget, and the clansman,
+who couldn't begin to pay in cash for what "the Graeme" had done for
+him and his, could reward in fealty now. It was Donald Ross to whom the
+doctor had written, and Ross who made investigation and reply.
+
+And yet, though he had taken precaution to send his letter from a
+village post-office, and his message from a railway station ten miles
+east of Argenta, the spies of Silver Shield had heard of one or both,
+and now their watcher knew that two at least of the enemy were in their
+camp. For what else was young Breifogle there? For what but to give
+warning had he so suddenly vanished?
+
+It was of all this that Geordie was thinking, as silently he strode
+along by the side of the two elders, hearing yet scarcely heeding their
+eager talk. He had plans and projects of his own. Father was not the
+only one who had a friend or two in Yampah and up the range. Veteran
+troopers of the old regiment were scouting there for gold and silver,
+where ten years earlier they had scouted for the red warriors of
+Colorow and Yampah Jack. If he could but get in touch with Nolan, with
+Feeny, with almost any one of those now mining who once rode in "E"
+Troop! If he could only reach some of the men he guided over the
+Divide to the successful capture of the gang that looted the First
+National! Oh, the shame of Breifogle's ingratitude! As one of the
+bank's directors at that time, he had pledged everlasting gratitude to
+the officers and troopers who had restored their treasure.
+
+Suddenly Warden turned a corner, pushed back a swinging door, led the
+way into a clean, brightly lighted little "dairy" restaurant, passed on
+through to the less public tables partitioned off in alcoves of their
+own, and here, behind an outspread newspaper, sat, lonely and
+expectant, a broad-shouldered ranchman whose weather-beaten face beamed
+joyously at sight of the three, and whose big hands were on young
+Graham's squared shoulders before they had fairly shaken greeting to
+any one. "Geordie, mon, but it's glad I am to see ye!" was the
+whispered welcome. "Softly, now, there's--others here."
+
+Quickly they were served with steaks, scrambled eggs, toast, tea or
+coffee, as they chose, and two at least were hungry, yet Geordie,
+brimful of eagerness to put his plan into execution, could hardly
+spare time to eat. Yes, Ross knew Nolan and Feeny of old. Many's the
+time they'd dropped in at the ranch when antelope-stalking down the
+foot-hills. Nolan had prospered. He and Feeny, both, when last heard of
+were somewhere up among the mines. Burns was in Collins's Camp on Lance
+Creek. Toomey and Scully had got "cleaned out" and were firing on the
+Transcontinental.
+
+"Where?" demanded Geordie, his eyes dilating.
+
+"Mountain Division, both of 'em. Toomey on the Mogul that pulls the
+Time Freight over the range--" And here Geordie stopped him.
+
+"Hear this, Mr. McCrea," said he. "Toomey, of 'E' Troop, fireman on the
+big freight-engine! He'll surely know where the others are. Now, _you_
+know the railway people. You say you've got to stay here a day or two.
+Get _me_ permission to ride on any freight-engine, Mountain Division,
+for the next three days, and I'm off for the mines before we're half a
+day older, and no man here or there the wiser."
+
+"They'd spot you as you went through Argenta," said McCrea. "Breifogle
+will be watching every train."
+
+"Every _car_ of every train, perhaps; but I'll be firing by the time we
+get there, black with soot and coal-dust, and they wouldn't know me if
+they saw me. If the division superintendent doesn't give it away--and
+you--who's to know I've turned fireman on a freight? There's my chance,
+McCrea, and you know it!"
+
+"By Jove, Geordie, but I believe you're right," was McCrea's answer,
+rising to his feet and facing the eager young fellow across the table.
+"You're a 'dandy,' as was said of you on graduation day, only it was
+meant in a different sense. Who's in charge at the station now,
+Warden?" he asked, with sudden resolution. "I knew most of their
+traffic men when I was quartermaster."
+
+Warden whipped out a railway folder. "Colorado Transcontinental," he
+read, and began skimming down a long list of official titles and names.
+Traffic managers, freight and passenger agents, superintendents,
+division superintendents, and then, "Here we are, Mountain Division:
+W.B. Anthony."
+
+"Know him well," cried McCrea. "He brought the first passengers up to
+Argenta in eighty-seven. He was freight conductor on the U.P. when I
+was a boy at Cheyenne. We'll nab him first thing in the morning."
+
+"Can't we nab him to-night?" asked Geordie.
+
+McCrea laughed. "You're keen as your father, Pops," said he. "Niver put
+off till t'-morrow what can be done the day."
+
+"The laddie's right," said Ross. "I'm betting you'll find him at the
+yards till after No. 2 comes in--the Flyer--that's due at 12.40."
+
+And so it happened that, as the clocks were pointing to the quarter
+after midnight, Lieutenant Ralph McCrea and the newly appointed
+subaltern, both in plain travelling dress, once more appeared at the
+Union Station, and presently learned that Mr. Anthony was about the
+yard. It was not long thereafter that they found him, busy, as such men
+must ever be, yet recognizing McCrea at a glance and giving him
+cordial welcome.
+
+But when McCrea presented his friend, "Lieutenant Graham, whose father
+you probably knew as post surgeon at Reynolds," and then made his
+request, the official looked grave.
+
+"It's against orders," said he. "The Old Man has jacked up more than
+one of the best engineers for allowing it. Why, the Governor had to get
+a permit from the general manager for his son to ride in the cab of the
+Flyer only last week, and for some reason they've shut down on our
+freight people entirely. Gil Frost, bringing his own brother, who used
+to fire on the Union Pacific, over on old 550 two weeks ago, had to
+dance the carpet the next morning right here in Denver."
+
+"How do you break in your _new_ firemen?" asked Geordie. "Some of our
+best men are firing for you now. They had to begin somehow, I suppose."
+
+"Pitch 'em neck and crop into a cab, with a short-handled shovel and a
+sharp-tongued old hand. It nigh breaks their backs, but they learn
+quick that way."
+
+"Well, pitch me, neck and crop, into a cab, with as short a handle and
+sharp a tongue as you like, Mr. Anthony. I'm on three months' leave,
+and for reasons of my own want to learn how to fire an engine."
+
+For a moment Anthony looked at the young fellow in amaze. Then the
+resolute, square-jawed, clean-cut face began to impress him.
+
+"Well, I've been dealing with you army men out here nigh onto twenty
+years," said he, "and I'm blessed if I ever heard the like of that."
+
+"Don't let it surprise you into telling it, Anthony, that's all," put
+in McCrea. "Here! Let me give you a pointer--you've got a West Pointer.
+I've known you for a square man ever since we were stationed at
+Russell," and, linking his arm in that of the astonished official,
+McCrea drew him a few paces away from the point where they found him,
+with a great passenger-engine hissing and throbbing close at hand,
+waiting to take the Flyer whirling eastward toward the Missouri.
+Geordie stood silently and watched them. He saw the wonderment in
+Anthony's strong face give way to interest as McCrea talked rapidly on;
+saw interest deepen to sympathy and a certain excitement. In three
+minutes Anthony broke away and came hurrying back, looking at his
+watch.
+
+"Mr. Graham," said he, "d' you want to go up the line this very night?
+Could you be ready in two hours?"
+
+"I'm ready now," was the instant reply. "All I want is an old cap and
+overalls--the blacker the better."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+FIRST NIGHT ON THE RANGE
+
+
+Away up among the Rockies, with towering, pine-fringed, snow-sprinkled
+crests looming dimly about them in the moonlight, two young men stood
+waiting by a switch-target of the Transcontinental. Facing westward,
+they could see the huge bulk of the mountain range rolling up between
+them and the starry sky-line, black and forbidding in the middle
+distance, yet fading away northward and southward into faint and tender
+outlines--soft grays and violets--and with the earliest signals in the
+East of the speedy coming of the long summer's day. Facing eastward,
+there confronted them close at hand the huge black bulk of the mammoth
+Mogul engine, its dazzling head-light shining afar up the westward
+right of way, and throwing into heavier shade, by force of contrast,
+every object outside its beams. In the solemn stillness of nature in
+those high levels, almost the only sound was the soft hiss of escaping
+steam from the cylinder-cocks or an occasional rumble from the boiler.
+Even murmured words seemed audible and intelligible sixty feet away,
+and twice big Ben Tillson, the engineer of 705, had pricked up his ears
+as he circled about his giant steed, oiling the grimy joints, elbows,
+and bearings, and pondering in his heavy, methodical way over certain
+parting instructions that had come to him from the lips of the division
+superintendent. "A young feller learning firing" would board him at
+Chimney Switch, forty miles out from the Springs, and the Boss desired
+Ben Tillson to understand that "The Road" had its reasons, and the
+"young feller" was to be spared the customary quizzing. Furthermore,
+Ben Tillson was to understand that nothing was to be said about it. If
+anybody at Argenta or among the mines had any questions to ask, Ben was
+to know next to nothing.
+
+But what set Ben's wits to work was the odd behavior of his fireman,
+Jim Toomey. Toomey was a silent sort of chap as a rule, and surely,
+too, with a grudge against the gang over in Hatch's Cove and up the
+Run. Toomey had taken to firing because he had got cleaned out at the
+mines. Toomey ordinarily wasn't over-civil to anybody. Toomey, too, had
+been favored with a word from Mr. Anthony, and never had Big Ben seen
+his fireman more cheery over his work than he was that night as they
+panted and strained up the foot-hills to Chimney Switch. Ben could have
+sworn Toomey was "excited like" when they side-tracked there for a
+way-train, and never in the course of Big Ben's experience had he seen
+an old fireman greet a would-be as Toomey welcomed the tall "young
+feller" in the dirty cap, shirt, and overalls who there clambered into
+the cab. Twice, Ben could have further sworn, he had heard Toomey say
+"sir," a word Toomey used to no one less than the division
+superintendent.
+
+Somewhat grudgingly and suspiciously, therefore, had Ben nodded
+greeting and looked the "young feller" over. He did not extend his
+hand. The new-comer had on a pair of oiled-buck gauntlets, "soldier
+gauntlets," such as the cavalry used to have at Reynolds, that "all the
+boys in the cabs are stuck on." Even at the hardest kind of shovelling
+they outlived every other kind a dozen weeks, and the fireman was a
+lucky malefactor who could induce a soldier to part with his.
+
+And though the "young feller's" cap and clothing were strictly and
+unimpeachably professional and grimy, it was the face no less than the
+gloves and boots that told Ben Tillson this was no needy seeker after a
+job. The boots were new and fine, laced daintily up the front, and
+showed their style even through the lack of polish and the coating of
+dust and ashes. The gauntlets also, though worn and old, were innocent
+of grease. This was no cub fireman, said Ben, resentfully, as he
+revolved in mind a scheme or two that should take the stuffing of
+conceit out of him, when suddenly he paused. "Why, certainly," Ben had
+it, just another case such as he had been reading about, how the sons
+of successful railway magnates, discarding wealth and luxuries, had
+determined to learn the business from the bottom up and fit themselves
+for future eminence in railway circles. The "young feller" must be a
+Gould or a Vanderbilt, a Ledyard, a Huntington, a son of somebody at
+the financial head of things. While sacrificing none of his steady
+self-reliance or self-respect, Ben Tillson decided to treat his new
+fireman, assistant to the old, with all due civility. He would cringe
+or kowtow to no one, but, like the sturdy citizen he was, Ben deemed it
+wise to keep on the good side of the powers. It was necessary, however,
+that the new-comer should understand who was boss on that engine, and
+even as they stood waiting at the Chimney Ben had taken occasion to
+say, "I see you're not stuck on shovelling, young man"; then with a
+most knowing and suggestive wink, "I reckon you'd rather do tennis or
+tiddlywinks," and was surprised at the answer.
+
+"As matters stand, I'd rather be shovelling here than playing
+tennis--anywhere."
+
+"It's the first time you ever saw the West from a cab-window, I'm
+betting," said Ben. And George Graham, who had seen more of the West
+than Ben could ever hope to see, and who knew the Silver Run country
+before ever the railway reached the foot-hills, had the wisdom to
+answer, "You'd win."
+
+And now at Buffalo Butte 705 was side-tracked, awaiting the coming of
+passenger No. 4, east bound, and then--then there would be a clear run
+to and through Argenta. Then would come the familiar scenes about old
+Fort Reynolds; then the wild and picturesque beauty of Squaw Canon and
+Hatch's Cove, and then George Graham would be able to judge by surface
+indications how far his disguise had really disguised him. Toomey had
+already told him where Nolan and Feeny could be found. Toomey was to
+send word or a letter to both of them, and then it would be time to
+decide on the next move.
+
+For now the scheme was to reach the heart of what might be called the
+enemy's country, and to get there unsuspected, unobserved, and thus far
+all was working well.
+
+It was the second morning after his reaching Denver. Mr. Anthony had
+put him through to the Springs, and then to Chimney Switch, where he
+was to wait for 705 and Toomey. And even now as they stood there, he
+and Toomey, exchanging at intervals some low-toned words at the switch,
+the eastward skies were slowly taking on their early morning garb of
+pink and violet, the eastward fronts of the snow-sifted peaks and domes
+far to the north and south were lighting up with wondrous hues of gold
+and crimson; the stars aloft were paling and the moon was sinking low,
+and still big 705 stood hissing and grumbling placidly on the long
+siding, and the green lights back at the caboose blinked sleepily
+against the dawn. Two glimmering threads of light in rigid right lines,
+converging far beyond the rear of the train, stretched eastward from
+their feet until lost in the shadows of Buffalo Butte, and not yet had
+Toomey's accustomed ear been able to detect the faint, whirring, song
+of the rails that tells of the coming of far-distant, thundering
+wheels. "She's late again," said Toomey, uneasily. "We should have
+heard her whistling for Spearman's Ranch five minutes ago, and I wanted
+to pull you out of Argenta before seven o'clock."
+
+"You still think I'm not grimy enough," said Geordie, with a grin. "I
+can lay on a coat of coal-dust--"
+
+"'Tisn't that," came the murmured answer, with a shake of the head.
+"It's the back and shoulders, sir. You couldn't turn yourself
+hindside-foremost, could you, and get your chest between your
+shoulder-blades?"
+
+"I can cultivate a stoop," said Geordie, with a forward hunch of the
+shoulders. "But there you go with that 'sir' again. We're in uniform,
+but not that of the cavalry. You'll betray me yet, Toomey, if you're
+not careful. Now, about the stoop--"
+
+"It might do, s--, if you could keep it, but from the time you came to
+Reynolds you were the straightest boy in the garrison, and now, with
+four years at West Point, you've got a back on you flat as a board.
+That's what's going to queer us in passing you off for a kid fireman.
+It was hard enough going through before it was fairly light. Now,
+unless No. 4 gets in in five minutes, the sun will be lighting the
+length of the shed at Argenta, and we've got cars to cut out there,
+too. Confound No. 4!"
+
+And then a certain superfluous lantern, bleary with a night of service,
+came dawdling up the side of the train, and the conductor hove in
+sight, watch in hand. "Four left Argenta on time," said he to the
+engineer. "What the mischief keeps her? She ought to have gone by five
+minutes ago. Who's yonder with Toomey?"
+
+"Friend of his; young feller from Chimney, learning firing. Old man's
+orders," he added, at sight of rebuke in the conductor's eyes. "Told me
+himself to take him along and give him a show."
+
+The conductor set his lantern down near the fore truck of the tender.
+He did not half like it that a superior should give orders to his
+engineer that did not come through him. He had been a soldier in his
+day and accustomed to military ways of doing things. He was already
+chafing over a delay that would bring him behind time to Argenta. Now
+he was nettled at this apparent slight. "When did he tell you, and
+where?" was the demand. "He was at Denver the last I saw of him."
+
+"He ran out to the Springs on No. 5; passed you at Monument, probably;
+spoke to me at the round-house about ten o'clock." And having thus
+summarily settled the matter, Big Ben clambered sulkily once more into
+the cab.
+
+The conductor made a grimace expressive of much disgust. Presently he
+turned, left his lantern by the side of the engine, and then came
+angering on to the switch. He decided to see for himself what the
+stranger was like.
+
+In the gray light of the dawn the two young men, one of them stockily,
+strongly built, the other very slender and erect, were absorbed in
+eager talk. Not until the conductor was within five yards of them did
+Graham note his coming and signal "Hush." Abruptly came the challenge:
+
+"'Ain't you heard her whistle yet, Toomey?" and the tone implied that
+sheer neglect could be the only explanation for Toomey's failure in
+case no whistle had been heard.
+
+"Nary whistle," was the indifferent answer.
+
+"Well, how could you expect to hear it? You were talking a blue
+streak." And while the conductor's rebuke was levelled at Toomey, his
+sombre eyes were on Graham.
+
+"Doing that to keep awake," was the blunt reply. "Haven't been to bed
+for thirty hours."
+
+"That's nothing. In my day a-soldiering we didn't get to bed once a
+week. That's when we was after Morgan. You regulars couldn't stand
+that, I s'pose."
+
+"In my day we didn't get to bed once a month," answered Toomey, with
+equal truth. "That was when we was after Sittin' Bull. The volunteers
+that started on _that_ chase petered out at Powder River."
+
+The conductor sniffed. It had been give and take 'twixt him and Toomey
+ever since the discovery that each had served in the cavalry. Beaten
+thus far in the battle of chaff, the conductor tried another as he
+studied Geordie with unfriendly eyes.
+
+"Got a kid fireman here--'nother of y'r officers' dog-robbers?" he
+demanded.
+
+Toomey whirled on him in an instant, in spite of Geordie's
+quick-gripping hand. "You're boss on this train, Cullin," said he,
+savagely, "and you know I can't jaw back as you deserve, but if Bob
+Anthony happens to be where he can hear of _that_ remark, you'll get
+your time or _I'm_ a liar."
+
+For a moment Cullin stood and glared, wrath and humiliation
+commingling. Graham it was who quickly stepped forward and interposed.
+
+"Yes, I'm playing kid fireman, Mr. Cullin," said he, quietly, "and I
+was told by the division superintendent if any trouble arose to give
+this to the conductor," whereat he held forth a card on the back of
+which dimly appeared some written words. Over these Cullin glanced,
+unappeased, until he came to the last line and signature. Then a
+curious change swept slowly over his face. He looked Graham carefully,
+doubtfully from head to foot, slowly thrust the card in a
+waistcoat-pocket, and was turning silently away when Geordie hailed
+him, a ready smile on his young face.
+
+"I'll trouble you for the card," said he. "I may meet _other_
+conductors."
+
+Slowly Cullin fumbled for it, twiddled it between his fingers, and
+finally, half reluctant, restored it. At that instant, faint, distant,
+but distinct, came the sound of the whistle of the belated No. 4.
+"That's for Spearman's now," thought Geordie, but so tense had been the
+scene that for a moment no man spoke.
+
+Then Toomey gave tongue.
+
+"She'll go by here kiting," said he. "Ten miles down-grade and a
+two-mile straightaway from Cimarron Bend, out yonder." Again the
+whistle, and nearer. "That's for the crossing at the creek. By gad,
+she's just jumping! Hang onto your hair when you see her head-light and
+scramble for the cab."
+
+Another whistle, two short blasts and a long. Nearer still, yet still
+out of sight; and then presently there shot into view, over a mile
+away to the west, even though the gray light of the summer's dawn now
+overspread the landscape, the glare of a head-light. It was No. 4
+coming full tilt.
+
+And then--surprise! From steam-drum and 'scape-valve jetted clouds of
+flat-driven steam. No. 4 had suddenly "shut off," and was now coasting
+downhill like a huge toboggan.
+
+Another blast came from the whistle. "By Jove, she's going to stop!"
+said Cullin. "What on earth's the meaning of that?"
+
+With prodigious shriek and roar of steam, with clinching, crunching
+air-brakes on the glistening tires, with sparks flying from the
+whirring wheels and signal-lanterns swinging at the side, No. 4 came
+rushing in. As the baggage-car shot by, a little group of men stood by
+the doorway about a recumbent figure, and the conductor whisked up his
+lantern and started after it. When nearly opposite the caboose the big
+train settled to a stop. Four pairs of strong arms lifted the prostrate
+figure from one car to the other. There were brief, hurried words. A
+lantern waved; the whistle sounded two quick blasts; No. 4 slowly
+started, quickly gained speed, and, almost as quickly as it came, was
+steaming away for Buffalo Butte, its pale lamps gleaming dimly in the
+gathering light. The conductor came running forward.
+
+"Pull out for Argenta, Ben!" he shouted. "Say, young feller, drop
+shovelling and come back. I've got nobody to help me, and here No. 4's
+loaded me with a half-dead man to be taken home. There's a row at the
+mines. Every man is out from Silver Shield!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+FIRST AID TO THE WOUNDED
+
+
+Slowly, jerkily, the Time Freight began to gather headway as the big
+Mogul pulled, hissing loudly, from the siding to the main track, the
+ugly brown cars winding grudgingly after. This was before the days of
+mile-long freight-trains with air-brakes and patent couplers. Over the
+grades of the Transcontinental no engine yet had pulled more than
+twenty "empties." There was ever the danger of breaking in two. In the
+dim interior of the caboose the conductor, with Geordie Graham by his
+side, was bending over a battered and dishevelled form. As the rear
+trucks went clicking over the switch-points, the former sprang to the
+open doorway to see that his brakeman reset and locked the switch, and
+with a swift run overtook the caboose and swung himself aboard.
+
+"I'll be up in a minute, Andy," cried Cullin to his aid, already
+scrambling up the iron ladder for his station on the roof. "This poor
+devil's battered into pulp and I can't leave him." And again he was by
+Graham's side--Graham who, kneeling now and sponging with cold water
+the bruised, hacked, disfigured face of the senseless victim, had made
+a startling discovery.
+
+Here, with his clothing ripped, torn, and covered with dirt and blood,
+with one arm obviously broken and his head beaten, kicked, and cruelly
+gashed--here, beyond a doubt, lay the man who nearly five years earlier
+had been the one obstacle between him and the goal of his ambition, the
+cadetship at West Point; here lay the son of the man probably most
+prominent in the conspiracy against the absent shareholders of Silver
+Shield; here, in fine, lay the almost lifeless body of the youth he had
+seen spying upon their arrival at Denver--young Breifogle himself.
+
+By this time the Mogul was grinding her way up the track, in determined
+effort to land the Time Freight in the yards at Argenta before the
+whistle blew for seven o'clock. It was a twelve-mile pull up-grade,
+every inch of the way--twisting, turning, and tunnelling, as has been
+said--and the caboose reeled and swayed from side to side as it rounded
+the reverse curves and swung at the tail of the train. Cullin, lantern
+in hand, had climbed to his seat in the lookout.
+
+"I've got to be up here," he explained, "till we are through the
+tunnels. Do what you can. I suppose sponging is all we _can_ do."
+
+Graham nodded. He had stripped the leather-covered cushion from the
+conductor's chair, and with this and a rolled coat made a support for
+the senseless head. He had a fire-bucket of cold water, and even as he
+plied the wet sponge and sought to stanch the trickling blood, his wits
+were at work. The men on No. 4 had only time to say that four miles out
+from Argenta, down the Run beyond Narrow Gauge Junction, their whistle
+suddenly shrieked, the air-brakes were set with a clamp that jolted the
+whole train, and they slowed down just enough not to knock into
+flinders a hand-car that was sailing ahead of them, down-grade. "The
+pilot hit it a lick that tossed it into the ditch," No. 4's crew had
+explained, and beside it they had found--this.
+
+And "this" it was now Geordie's task and duty to keep alive until they
+could turn it over to competent hands at Argenta. "This," which others
+failed to know, he had recognized. "This" it was for him to make known,
+yet in so doing he might betray himself and the purpose of his coming,
+and so undo every hope and plan he had made. There was no Toomey to
+help him now--no devoted ex-trooper and friend to back him. Engineer,
+fireman, conductor, and brakemen, every man of the crew had to be at
+his post as the freight panted away up the winding mountain road. The
+crew of No. 4 had searched the pockets in vain for a clew as to the
+injured man's identity. Everything was gone. His assailants had seen to
+that. Not a scrap had been found that could account for him. Even the
+shirt "tab" bore no initials; the watch-pocket of the trousers bore no
+name. The garments had been purchased ready-made and gave no sign.
+
+Then there was another matter to be considered. Badly as he was
+battered and bruised, the man was not dying. Graham knew how to test
+the pulse, and its strength told him not to fear. The chances were that
+his patient would return to consciousness before very long. Then
+recognition of his grimy attendant would probably follow. Breifogle was
+no fool, as Graham remembered, and a fireman's black cap and sooty
+shirt and overalls would be but scant disguise.
+
+And to carry out his plan it was essential that he should pass through
+Argenta, reach Hatch's Cove and eventually the Silver Shield mine, and
+reach this latter unknown and unsuspected. Toomey and he had hit on a
+plan--once Toomey could succeed in getting word to Nolan. But that,
+reasoned Geordie, might be impossible now in view of this new
+complication--serious trouble at the mines, and "every man out at
+Silver Shield."
+
+If only he could see Toomey again for a moment! That was impossible.
+Toomey's every muscle was needed to keep that fiery and insatiable
+monster fed with fuel every rod of the way to Argenta. There was no
+intermediate stop. There could be no signals--no sending of a message.
+Half the distance had they gone, panting and straining, barely fifteen
+miles to the hour. Broad daylight, and then the rejoicing sunshine, had
+come to cheer and gladden and revive, and Cullin shouted inquiry, as he
+bent down from his perch, and Graham nodded or shook his head by way of
+reply. Swiftly and scientifically he kept up the play of the sponges;
+shook his head to Cullin's suggestion of a little more whiskey--the
+frontier's "first aid" for every kind of mishap. The pulse said there
+was no further need of it, at the moment at least. And then, as they
+rumbled over some resounding bridge-work and crossed the swift and
+foaming Run, the train crept under the shadow of the cliff and
+stretched away over a bit of open, undulating grassland, and then the
+racket ceased for a while and it was possible, by bending down, to
+catch the patient's breathing.
+
+And it gave Geordie an idea.
+
+The poor, bruised head was turning in restless pain; the puffed and
+swollen lips were moving; the still unconscious man was muttering. Not
+a word could Geordie distinguish. It was all guesswork. But, glancing
+up at Cullin, he called: "He's trying to talk. Perhaps I can get his
+name," and again inclined his ear and bent down over the luckless
+fellow's face. "Yes," he said, loudly, so that Cullin could hear--"yes,
+I understand.... Don't worry.... You're with friends.... Tell us your
+name and home.... What? Try once again.... Bry--what? Oh, Breifogle?...
+Yes. Argenta? That's just where we're going. We'll be there very soon.
+Don't try to talk more now." And again the sponge was busily plied, and
+then the grimy nurse glanced upward at Cullin, now shinning down from
+his perch in the skylight. "His home's right ahead at Argenta.
+Breifogle's the name."
+
+"Breifogle!" shouted Cullin, aghast. "Why, that's the big brewer,
+banker, mine-owner, and Lord knows what all--that owns half of Yampah
+County and wants to own the rest. Could he tell who slugged him? Does
+he know anything about it? Ask him."
+
+Obediently Geordie put the question, but no answer came. "Seems to have
+wandered off," he said. "Perhaps we'd be wise to worry him with no more
+questions. If he's what you say, they'll be looking everywhere for him.
+When did the men at Silver Shield go out?"
+
+"Yesterday morning at ten o'clock, so they said on No. 4. There was a
+pack of 'em come down to Argenta to get to the owners, they said. By
+gad, they seem to have got _at_ one of 'em!"
+
+A moan from the sufferer was the only answer. Graham shook his head.
+"How soon can you make it?" he asked. "The sooner this man's in expert
+hands the better 'twill be."
+
+"Twelve minutes," said Cullin, with a snap of his silver watch-lid.
+"_You_ seem no slouch of a handler yourself. Where'd you learn?"
+
+"I lived with a doctor awhile," was the quiet answer. "He had to patch
+men up occasionally." And Geordie could barely suppress the grin that
+twitched the corners of his mouth. How strangely already his adventure
+was faring! "I suppose after hammering him senseless they set him
+adrift on that hand-car, hoping it would finish him and hide their
+crime," he hazarded.
+
+"Looks like it," was Cullin's short answer as once more he climbed to
+his station.
+
+Ten minutes later they were slowly trundling in among a maze of tracks
+and sidings, with long trains of gondolas, coal-cars, and dingy-brown
+freight-boxes on both sides. Cullin was shouting to invisible
+switchmen, and presently the train came bumping to a stand. Another
+minute and two or three early birds among the yardmen were climbing
+aboard and curiously, excitedly, peering over Geordie's head. He never
+looked up. Calmly he continued his sponging. Then Cullin's voice was
+heard again. A stretcher was thrust in at the rear door. Three or four
+men, roughly dressed, but with sorrow and sympathy in their careworn
+faces, bent over the prostrate body. They seemed to look to Graham
+for instructions.
+
+    [Illustration: "BIG BEN WAS BUSY WITH HIS OIL-CAN"]
+
+"You know where to take him?" he asked. "All right, then, I'll leave
+him with you." And before the station-master or other official could
+come, Graham had seen his patient transferred to the stretcher, borne
+forth into the sunshine and away to the passenger-room. Then, slipping
+from the left rear steps, with the train between him and the building,
+Geordie sauntered, softly whistling, up to the front again, and in five
+minutes was helping Toomey at the cab.
+
+It was not yet seven. Big Ben was busy with his oil-can. Three cars had
+been cut out from the train and run to a platform close at hand. It was
+high time they were off again, but the conductor was held in the
+office, whither he had gone for orders, as well as to report concerning
+their unsought passenger. Toomey was still angered against Cullin,
+between whom and himself there was ever more or less friction, but
+Geordie had begun to take a fancy to him. Cullin would never have said
+what he did had he known the identity of Toomey's pupil, and Geordie
+argued that Cullin's gruff and insolent greeting was in reality a
+tribute to his powers--a recognition of the fact that he looked the
+part he was trying to play.
+
+With so very much at stake depending on Graham's remaining
+unrecognized, with old Fort Reynolds only six miles ahead, and Silver
+Shield only twenty-six farther, it would be foolish to become involved
+in a squabble. But Toomey had been nursing his wrath. Big Ben was not
+too fond of Cullin, and Geordie found that they were quite bent on
+making trouble at first opportunity. In spite of the early hour an air
+of excitement pervaded the station. Many men were idling about the
+passenger platform, and here and there little groups could be seen in
+muttered conversation. There was no laughter, no light-hearted chaff.
+It was noted by both men in the cab, before Geordie rejoined them, that
+as the injured man was borne on his stretcher across the yard into the
+passenger station, these groups seemed rather to edge away instead of
+crowding about in morbid curiosity.
+
+No need to ask who or what they were. The pallor of the faces, so
+startling in contrast to the healthy tan of the ranch folk or the
+swarthy grime of the railway men--the mud-splashed boots and trousers
+told their tale. They were miners to a man, and miners in ugly mood.
+
+"The town's been full of 'em since noon yesterday," said a yardman to
+Ben, in answer to his question. "They are here to see the Silver Shield
+officers, and have been told they'd be up from Denver on No. 3. They
+chased old Breifogle out of his office yesterday afternoon, and he's
+been hiding ever since. Young Breifogle has been missing ever since
+yesterday noon."
+
+"That's him on the stretcher," said Big Ben, gloomily, for the news was
+already flying round. "Cullin says he's about done for. This young
+feller in here took care of him all the way up from Buffalo Butte. No.
+4 picked him up down the gulch and put him aboard us there."
+
+A long whistle was the only comment. At the first words spoken by the
+yardman, a quick glance passed between the two young men on the
+opposite, the fireman's, side of the cab. They could not see the
+speaker, but they knew the voice. It was that of a former trooper of
+the --th, another soldier who had sought to treble his savings at the
+mines and had lost them all; then, too proud to return and "take on"
+again, had found starvation-wages at Argenta.
+
+"Stay here," whispered Toomey, "and keep sittin'." Then, wiping his
+hands on a wad of waste, and with an affable grin on his face, he swung
+over behind Ben and leaned out of the cab.
+
+"Hullo, Scotty! Any of our fellers in that outfit?"
+
+"Hullo, Toomey! None of 'em with _that_ gang, but there's three of 'em
+came, and old Nolan's head of the whole caboodle. He's their cap' and
+spokesman."
+
+"Nolan! Nolan here?" cried Toomey, in great excitement, while Geordie
+felt his heart beating hard.
+
+"Nolan, as big as life and twice as wicked."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+A BALKED ARREST
+
+
+For a moment Graham's spirits sank like lead. Nolan, the stanch old
+soldier who had been his foremost trooper friend and guide, was the man
+of all others on whom he pinned his faith, on whose help he had relied,
+and upon whose loyalty and devotion he was ready to stake his every
+hope of success. And now--so said this former soldier and comrade--now
+Nolan was here in Argenta, instead of up at the mines, here with a mob
+of strikers, their leader and spokesman, chief of the crew, possibly,
+that had nearly done to death the son of one of the principal directors
+of Silver Shield.
+
+That Breifogle was his father's enemy, and a leading spirit in the plot
+to rob him, Geordie Graham knew full well. That Breifogle the younger
+had been sent to Denver to watch for the coming of Dr. Graham, McCrea,
+or others of the officers, all of whom he knew by sight and name, there
+was every reason to believe; but that Nolan should take part in or
+countenance the mobbing of the Breifogles, or any others of the
+mine-owners, was abhorrent, if not impossible.
+
+Now for the moment Geordie longed for the presence of McCrea, who had
+remained in Denver in hopes of bringing local officials to their senses
+and his terms. And McCrea, for his part, was at the same moment wishing
+to Heaven he had followed Geordie's lead and pushed ahead for the field
+of battle. The Denverite members of the board, warned of his presence,
+had easily managed to elude him, and with others were now on their way
+to Argenta for a special meeting, while McCrea was still held at a
+distance, lured by an appointment for a conference to come off that
+very morning at eleven, long three hours after the other conferees had
+vanished from town.
+
+But no older head was there to advise. Graham alone, representing the
+aggrieved shareholders, was at the scene of action. He could take
+counsel with no man on the ground. Win or lose he must decide and act
+for himself. Here he sat in the cab of the Mogul, impatient only five
+minutes back to push ahead for the mines, to get away without
+recognition. Now it might well be that the point at which to act was
+right here in town.
+
+"The mine is being operated at heavy expense and loss," had been the
+latest wail from the secretary. "There is not ore enough in sight to
+begin to pay the wages of the men. Yet every test convinces us that
+abundant results must follow further development." Another assessment,
+therefore, on top of all previous levies, had been the imperative
+demand. Geordie did not know it, but that pound was the last that broke
+the hold of three. They had sold their stock for what it would bring,
+and Breifogle and his clique were laughing in their sleeves. They knew
+there was ore in abundance, both in sight and touch. Geordie and McCrea
+believed it, and believed that if the one could establish the fact,
+and the other could bring the directors to book with proof of foul
+measures to squeeze out the small shareholders, victory would be in
+their hands.
+
+But what was to be done now? By this time the fact that young Breifogle
+had been fearfully beaten must be known to every man about the station,
+and was swiftly racing to the opening doors of every shop, office, and
+homestead in town. By this act the miners had destroyed every hope of
+sympathy, or even, possibly, of justice. Whatever their grievance it
+could not warrant murder. But what _was_ their grievance? What could
+have precipitated trouble at the mines and a wholesale walkout at
+Silver Shield? What could have brought the miners, nearly a hundred
+strong, here to Argenta, with Nolan at their head--Nolan, who had been
+the company's faithful servant, the best manager of men, the most
+level-headed and reliable "boss" at the Silver Shield?
+
+Toomey's friend had hurried away, for sound of increasing excitement
+came from the groups, now merging into one, about the telegraph
+office. Big Ben swung himself out of the cab once more, and with arms
+akimbo stood watching the distant gathering, wishing Cullin would come
+with orders or else with explanation of the delay. This left Graham and
+Toomey alone in the cab, and Toomey's first question was, "What can you
+do now, sir?"
+
+"Find Nolan," was the brief answer, "and get to the bottom of this."
+
+"Orders may come any minute," said Toomey, looking anxiously over his
+shoulder. "We'll have to pull out and go ahead. You couldn't--stay here
+at Argenta, could you?"
+
+"I may _have_ to. Here's Cullin now."
+
+"But no orders," said Toomey, with a gasp of relief, for from far over
+the tracks, catching sight of his watchful engineer, Cullin had waved
+his hand, palm towards them, twice to and fro, a gesture so like the
+Indian sign "No go" that Geordie knew its meaning at a glance. Silently
+they awaited his coming and listened, breathless, for his tidings when
+he came.
+
+"What's the row about?" asked Ben, as Cullin reached them, breathing
+hard.
+
+"Why, about their boss, it seems. The company gave him the bounce
+yesterday, and ordered him off the premises. He demanded fair play and
+a hearing, and then young Breifogle, who had gone up with the order for
+his discharge, began abusing him. Nolan--that's the man's name--called
+him down, and then Breifogle broke loose and cursed him, called him
+traitor and all manner of names, and ordered some of his men to throw
+him out. They did it, too, and brought on a fight. Breifogle and his
+friends were armed and the men were not. They shot two miners, arrested
+the 'ringleaders,' as they called 'em, and locked 'em up. Then the men
+quit the mine and laid for Breifogle when he tried to get out. He hired
+a rig and drove t'other way, out to Miners' Joy, slid out on the Narrow
+Gauge last night, and there was a dozen of 'em headed him off down at
+the Junction. Nolan and his crowd had come down here to see the
+directors and get their rights. Of course some of them did it, and
+there you are!"
+
+"Where's Nolan now?" asked Toomey.
+
+"Where _is_ he? Over at the company's office waiting for the directors,
+when he ought to be making tracks for Mexico."
+
+Graham's heart had been beating harder with every word. It bounded with
+wrath as he listened to this, yet listened in silence and stern
+self-control. But Toomey got a dig in the ribs that plainly said, "Make
+him say why."
+
+"'Twouldn't be like Long Nolan to be skipping when he's needed by his
+friends," growled Toomey. "He's no quitter, if he _was_ at Powder
+River," whereby it was Cullin's turn to get a dig, and little did he
+relish it.
+
+"That's another I owe you, Toomey," said he, "and we'll settle it
+by-and-by. Just now I'm thinking for your friend, if you are not. I
+knew him before ever you did, and would go ten miles to your one to
+help him. What you haven't sense enough to see is, that it won't be an
+hour before the sheriff's after him with a warrant, and if Breifogle
+dies he'll swing, sure as death. He was raving when they threw him out
+of the gate, and swore he would get even with Breifogle, and when it
+comes to trial there'll be a dozen witnesses to swear that he _did_.
+What kind of a trial do you think he'd have here at Argenta, with half
+the town owned by Breifogle & Co.?"
+
+This was, indeed, putting a new face on it, and still Graham listened
+in silence, trying to control the quiver and tingle of his nerves.
+
+There came a sudden call from the office. Shoving his way through the
+little mass of miners on the platform, the station-agent stepped to the
+edge and waved a hand to Cullin, but the hand was empty. The release
+order had not come. The big Mogul and the freight were still held, and
+now it was much after seven, and Argenta all astir. Cullin turned
+doggedly away. He seemed to know what was coming and did not half like
+it. Leaping down from the platform and striding over the
+cinder-blackened ties, the agent met him before he crossed the second
+track--met him and spoke in tone so low even Big Ben could not hear.
+All three men at the cab, they could not help it, were listening
+eagerly. It was easy to see, however, that the station-master was
+seeking information Cullin could not or dared not give. Every gesture,
+the upheaved shoulders, the sideward droop of the head, the forward
+toss of the hands, palms to the front, all as much as said, "Don't ask
+me." Then the agent turned slowly away, walked a dozen steps, looked
+back, and called:
+
+"I'll tell 'em what you say, but you'd better come yourself. Narrow
+Gauge'll get 'the Old Man' on the wire presently, then you'll have to.
+I'm betting they hold you here till you do."
+
+"Not if I know myself or--my orders," growled Cullin, as he returned,
+black-browed, to the cab.
+
+"What's up?" asked Big Ben, presently, seeing that the conductor waited
+to be asked.
+
+"Why, those Narrow Gauge fellows--they're owned here, you know--claim
+that two of their men were shot by the same gang that did up Breifogle.
+They're wiring both ways from the Junction, up here for sheriff and
+detectives, and down to the Springs for Bob Anthony. They say No. 4
+and I both know things about the slugging we haven't told. They say No.
+4 took three of the sluggers away, and that we're hiding some to take
+up into the mountains and turn 'em loose where they'll be safe. The
+only man with us is--this kid," and Cullin looked up darkly into the
+cab, his gloomy eyes on Geordie's coal-blackened face.
+
+Now, indeed, it was time for action, and, quietly as he could, Geordie
+put the question:
+
+"Did you tell them you had a stranger in the cab?"
+
+"Told 'em you were the only thing--or kind--I had."
+
+"But you told them I'd come all the way with you from Chimney Switch,
+did you not?"
+
+"I didn't tell 'em anything except what I said to Folder here--the
+station-master. I told 'em, through him, if they wanted anything on
+this train they needn't ask me. I wasn't responsible."
+
+Graham and Toomey exchanged quick glances. A wretched end would it be
+to all their planning if Geordie should now be dragged off the cab as
+accessory to the assault on young Breifogle, his helpless charge and
+patient of the early morning hours.
+
+Yet that was just what now was likely to happen. Resentful of there
+being a mystery about the cab, a secret he was not allowed to share--an
+outsider made known by Cullin's superiors to Cullin's subordinates, yet
+not presented to him--true to human nature Cullin had told what Geordie
+would conceal. In less than no time the enemy would know 705 had
+brought a stranger within their gates who was too wary to come by
+passenger-train. In less than ten minutes they might be there with a
+warrant for his arrest.
+
+And at that very moment there went up a shout from the group of miners
+at the office. One of their kind had come running in, breathless and
+alarmed. Three or four words only had he spoken, but they were enough.
+As one man the twoscore turned and ran for the broad street beyond the
+passenger station, were swallowed up in the gap between the express and
+baggage sheds and the passenger waiting-rooms, and could be heard
+shouting loudly beyond the high board fence--a chorus of cheers that
+seemed to start near the main entrance and went travelling on the wings
+of the wind westward up the lively street.
+
+And a moment later, even while they were wondering, out came "Folder
+here," the agent--this time paper in hand and waving for Cullin.
+"Orders at last," said Cullin, and sprang to get them. And this time
+both Graham and Toomey swung from the cab and eagerly followed.
+"Warrant out for Nolan!" they heard Folder say, "but they'll not get
+him here. The gang has whisked him away to the Fort and beyond, I
+reckon; and the sheriff who goes to Silver Shield takes his life in his
+hands." Then his eyes fell on the two firemen. "One of _you's_ wanted,"
+he added, "but I don't know which, and they're coming now."
+
+He pointed down the yard toward the east entrance. Almost on the run,
+two men came hurrying in. Toomey grabbed Geordie's sleeve. "They
+sha'n't have you _here_, anyhow. Jump for the cab." And jump they did,
+all three. Moved now by some indefinable sympathy he had not felt
+before, Cullin urged them on, and thrust the order into Big Ben's hairy
+fist as it swung from the window. Ben gave one glance, his left hand
+grasping the lever; Toomey made a flying leap for the bell-cord;
+Geordie scrambled in after; hiss went the steam-cocks; clang went the
+bell, and with an explosive cough that shook her big frame almost free
+of the rails the Mogul heaved slowly ahead. The shortened "Time
+Freight" picked up its heels and came jerkily after, and with her
+ponderous drivers rolling swifter and swifter, and the heavy panting
+speedily changing to short, quick, and quickening puffs, faster and
+faster big 705 swung clear of the switch-points, smoothly rounded to
+the main line, and with its dozen brown chickens following close,
+Indian file, after the fussy old hen in the lead, away went the fast
+freight, flaunting its green flags at the rear in the face of the
+pursuit, and the deputies drew up disgusted at the edge of the yard,
+their signals and their shouts unheeded.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+A RACE TO THE FORT
+
+
+Three miles out and the Mogul's six drivers were spinning like so many
+tops. Flat along the grimy roofs of the heaving freight-cars behind,
+the cloud of coal smoke from her stunted chimney fled rearward until
+clear of the train, then drifted idly across the rolling uplands. Ahead
+and to right and left, distant, snow-capped summits barred the
+sky-line. On either side the gray-green slopes, bare and treeless,
+billowed away, higher and higher toward the range, with here and there
+a bunch of fattening cattle gazing stupidly at the invaders of their
+peace and quietude. Close at hand to the left the murky waters of the
+stream flashed quickly by. Close at hand to the right the hard-beaten
+prairie road meandered over the sod. There had been a ridge or two
+and some sharp curves just west of town, and now, as they rounded
+the last of these and flew out upon an almost level track, the bottom
+of some prehistoric mountain lake, the eyes of two of the three silent
+occupants of the cab were strained along the gleaming rails ahead, and
+almost at the same instant the same thought sprang to the lips of
+each--Big Ben, with his left hand at the throttle, hunched up on his
+shelf, his cap pulled down over the bushy brows, and Geordie, across
+the cab on the fireman's seat, clinging to the window-frame to
+withstand the lurching of the throbbing monster, while between them, on
+the coal-blackened floor, Toomey, with his big shovel flinging open the
+iron gate to the blazing furnace for every new mouthful he fed it, and
+snapping it shut when he turned away for another, for not a whiff of
+the draught could be wasted. Once past the deserted station at the Fort
+there would come eight miles of twisting and turning and struggling
+up-grade, and every pound of steam would be needed to pull even this
+baker's dozen of heavily laden cars now thundering merrily along
+behind.
+
+    [Illustration: "NOT A WHIFF OF THE DRAUGHT COULD BE WASTED"]
+
+Only two short, smooth miles ahead lay the low ridge that formed the
+eastern boundary of the old reservation. Beyond it, on the broad
+_mesa_, stood the buildings of the frontier garrison, once Geordie's
+home and refuge. The tall flag-staff came suddenly into view, and in
+less than four minutes they would be rushing by. Over forty miles to
+the hour were they flying now. Big Ben had just let out another notch
+as they swung into the two-mile tangent, when at the same instant he
+and Geordie caught sight of three or four black dots dimly bobbing in
+the midst of a little dust-cloud on the roadway far ahead, and almost
+at the same instant came from each the low cry, "There they are!"
+
+Toomey dropped his shovel and glanced forward over Ben's burly
+shoulder, then, grabbing the vertical handrails on cab and tender,
+leaned out and gazed astern. The wagon road twisted over the bleak
+"divide" the train had just rounded, and, barring a team or two jogging
+slowly into town, was bare of traffic. "No chasers so far," he shouted,
+as he again stooped to his tools.
+
+"No chasers but us could catch 'em," growled Ben. "We'll give 'em a
+toot of the whistle!" he shouted across to Geordie, and the steam blast
+shrieked through the keen morning air in obedience to the quick pull at
+the cord.
+
+And now 705 was fairly flying, the green flags at the rear flattened
+like shingles in the whistling wind, and a cloud of mingled dust and
+smoke rolling furiously after the caboose. Big Ben had "pulled her wide
+open," and under full head of steam the powerful engine tore like a
+black meteor up the glistening track. In eagerness and excitement
+almost uncontrollable George Graham clung to his perch and gazed with
+all his eyes. Barely a mile ahead now spurred the fugitives, his old
+friend Nolan in their midst--Nolan whom he had come all those miles to
+see!
+
+And then a strange thing happened. So far from finding reassurance,
+friendship, sympathy in the whistle blast, the riders had read the very
+opposite. So far from slackening speed and letting the signalling train
+come up on them, they had suddenly veered to the left, the south, and,
+bending low like jockies over their coursers' manes, they shot across
+the track, dived down into the pebbly bottom, and the next thing
+Geordie saw they were plunging breast-deep through the brown and
+heaving torrent, the waters foaming at their knees.
+
+"Might 'a' known it!" bellowed Toomey, disgusted. "'Course they reason
+we've got the sheriff and posse aboard, and they're taking the
+short-cut to the--you know," he said, with a sudden significant gulp,
+to Geordie, and a warning glance at Ben. Even now that he had left the
+trooper habits months behind, Toomey could not forget or disregard
+trooper ethics. Ben might be friendly to Nolan, just as he claimed,
+but--would Ben keep other's secrets?
+
+And even under his coat of coal and tan Geordie's face blazed suddenly.
+As a lad whom the troopers knew and loved and trusted, he could not
+help knowing in by-gone days of the ranch just south of the
+post--"Saints' Rest," they called it, laughingly--the shack owned and
+occupied by an old soldier with a numerous family: the rendezvous for
+many a revel, the resting-place of many a hunting-party, the refuge of
+many a home-bound squad of "the boys," before the days of the canteen
+that brought comfort and temperance into the army for the short but
+blessed spell of its existence--boys just back from an unhallowed
+frolic in town, and not yet sober enough to face their first sergeant
+and "the Old Man" at the orderly room. Oh, wonderful things were told
+of old Shiner and his ranch! In the eyes of some straitlaced commanders
+he had been little better than a receiver of stolen goods, a soldier
+Shylock who loaned moneys at usurious interest, a gambler who fleeced
+the trooper folk of their scanty pay, a dispenser of bad liquors and
+worse morals. Some truth there may have been in some of these tales,
+yet Shiner had been a strangely useful man. He supplied the post with
+milk and cream, butter and eggs, of better quality and lower price than
+could possibly be had in town. He knew the best hunting and fishing on
+the range. He had teams and "rigs" at all times at the service of
+officers and soldiers, when the post ambulance was forbidden by an
+unfeeling government. He had a corral and stockade that had more than
+once bidden stout defiance to both the law and the lawless. He had, so
+the fort children firmly believed, a subterranean passage from his
+stockade to the sentry-lines. He was hated by both sheriff and sutler
+in days when the latter lived and thrived; he overreached the one,
+undersold the other, and outwitted both. He befriended every soldier in
+a scrape, whether the offence were against the majestic letter of the
+civil law or only the unimportant spirit of the military. In the eyes
+of the few he was much of a sinner; in the eyes of the many no less of
+a saint; and, after careful casting up of accounts, the colonel of the
+--th Cavalry had declared Shiner far more good than bad, treated him
+accordingly, and won a surprised and devoted friend and ally. Another
+officer Shiner swore by was Dr. Graham, and for reasons similar to
+those of his fellow, and farther-distant, ranchman Ross.
+
+Yet Geordie had often heard of mysterious doings at Shiner's that would
+not bear official investigation--had heard and kept silent. In those
+days Shiner dwelt close under the sheltering wing of a sympathetic
+garrison. Now, if still there, he must be living in the light, and for
+the first time it dawned upon Geordie that what he heard of Shiner in
+by-gone days and kept to himself, he could not hear and know and keep
+to himself now. It was one thing to be a garrison boy; it was another
+to be an officer in the army of the United States.
+
+The instant that it dawned upon him that Nolan and his friends were
+heading across country for Shiner's old plant, riding hard in the
+belief that they were pursued by rail, it flashed upon him that he
+could not join Nolan there--indeed, he must, if a possible thing, guide
+or direct him elsewhere.
+
+Already the pursued were through the ford and, with dripping flanks,
+were scrambling up the opposite shore. Already big 705 was almost
+abreast of them, and in another moment would be swiftly speeding by.
+It was two years since Geordie last set eyes on Nolan, but there was no
+mistaking, even at that distance, the tall, gaunt figure and the
+practised seat in saddle. Behind him trailed three comrades, two of
+whom, at least, were tyros in the art of horsemanship. They were
+hanging on for dear life as their steeds labored on after the leader.
+The object of all four was obviously to get beyond easy rifle range of
+the rushing train before drawing rein to reconnoitre, and now, probably
+noting that the engine was driving on full speed, with no sign of
+stopping, the tall horseman in the lead circled swiftly to his right,
+along the crest of a low ridge perhaps three hundred yards away, then
+peered from under his broad hatbrim at the supposed enemy.
+
+And then it was that Graham and Toomey, both, sprang back to the
+coal-pile in the tender, clambered high as possible on the shifting
+slope, and, balancing as best they could, whipped off their caps, swung
+them joyously about their heads, and eagerly gave the old-time,
+well-known cavalry signal, "Forward!" "Forward!" They saw Nolan and
+his friends seated on their panting horses, staring after them in amaze
+and wonderment, then resolutely following.
+
+A mile now would bring them whistling by the site of old Fort Reynolds,
+and a lump rose in Geordie's throat, for the weather-beaten, ramshackle
+stables came in view as the Mogul rounded a long, easy curve, and
+there, beyond them and on the level bench before them, stood the trim
+rows of officers' quarters, now deserted and tenantless, yet guarded by
+the single sergeant and his little squad of men. To the right, afar up
+the track near the foot-bridge and ford, lay the station building,
+wellnigh useless now since the greater interests and industries, that
+had made the railway possible and forced the Indian farther back, had
+also fouled the mountain stream and spoiled the site for a cavalry
+post.
+
+There stood the freight sheds; there were the chutes for horses and
+mules; there, beyond them, the now abandoned office and waiting-room;
+and there, still glistening white and towering, the semaphore
+signal-mast of the railway; and then and there, sure and sudden, there
+dropped the black arm straight across and above their glistening path
+in the never-to-be-neglected order--Stop!
+
+Big Ben's lined face went swiftly gray through its coat of grime, but
+the firm hand did its instant work with the throttle. Then, swinging
+from his seat, he grasped the glistening lever and, peering intently
+forward, stood ready to throw it in reverse. Toomey sprang for the cord
+and jerked one fierce toot out of the whistle, the old-time signal for
+down-brakes before Westinghouse and his science put everything at the
+touch of the engineer. Almost at the moment the swift rush of the train
+became jarring and rough. Two daring men scampered, monkey-like, along
+the top of the cars, twisting a brake on each, then darting to the
+next. A furious gust of steam tore from the escape-valve and streamed
+away overhead. Not a thing was in sight on the track, not a soul on the
+platform, to account for the alarming signal. A switch-target clanked
+as they tore over the points; a vagrant dog scurried away toward the
+once thriving saloon, and not until they drove in, hissing, grinding,
+and bumping, to the side of the dusty platform, did Ben's keen eyes
+catch sight of two herdsmen's horses--cow ponies--tethered back of the
+shanty beside the saloon, and up went the lid of his box at the
+instant, in went his right hand, and then out it came full grasp on a
+brown-barrelled six-shooter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+BAD NEWS FROM THE MINES
+
+
+"A hold-up," muttered Toomey, as, obedient to Big Ben's orders, "Duck,
+you two!" he and Geordie crouched for the moment in the dark interior
+of the cab. But who would hold up a freight bound to, not away from,
+the mines? Twice, thrice, indeed, since the cavalry had been sent from
+Fort Reynolds, the overland express had been flagged between Argenta
+and Summit Siding, and masked men had boarded the train, despoiled the
+passengers and Pullmans; and once old Shiner had come under suspicion
+because certain plunder was found at his place.
+
+"The robbers are discharged soldiers," swore the sheriff of Yampah;
+"their haunt is at Shiner's." Yet not so much as a scrap of other
+evidence was there found. Shiner threw open his doors to the officers,
+bade them search high and low, declared upon honor as he would upon
+oath that he himself had found the damaging evidence--two pocket-books
+and some valueless papers--on the open prairie a mile from his place
+the day after the third of the "hold-ups." There had long been bad
+blood betwixt him and the sheriff, and this time the man of the law
+gave the lie, and but for prompt work of bystanders--deputy Shiners and
+sheriffs both--there would have been cause for a coroner's inquest on
+the spot. Before that day it had been avowed hostility between them;
+now it was war to the knife. Much of this was known to the men of the
+railway, who sided according to their lights. Few of them knew Shiner;
+many knew the sheriff. It was patent at a glance that Big Ben held to
+the views of the latter and looked upon Shiner's hand, or Shiner's
+hands, as the cause of the hold-up. Nor was he entirely wrong. Even as
+Cullin came running up the track from the rear of the train, and
+brakemen running atop of it, eager to learn the cause of the stop, two
+men with saddle-bags slung over the left arm stepped out from behind
+the passenger depot and met the conductor half-way. Glancing back, Ben
+caught sight of them and, pistol in hand, started to swing from the
+engine, crying "Come on!" to Toomey. Springing to his feet, Toomey gave
+one look back to the platform. His keen eyes danced with excitement and
+joy. "Hold on!" he shouted to Ben. "It's all right. Lay low," he
+whispered to Geordie. "It's Shiner himself!"
+
+And old Shiner it was, cool, quiet, pale, resolute in face of a furious
+conductor and a threatening crew--Shiner, presently backed by a
+sergeant of regulars and two of his men, who had come running over the
+foot-bridge at the stop of the train, and now silently ranged
+themselves in tacit support. What Cullin had demanded was how Shiner
+dared tamper with the signals--how, in fact, he had managed to, since
+they had been carefully locked--and who was he, anyhow. And Shiner had
+simply answered: "I've a boy shot and dying at Silver Shield. I only
+heard it late in the night. There's no other way to get to him. I pay
+full fare and all damages"--but he got no further, for Toomey came
+atrot from the engine, threw himself upon him, and grasped his hand.
+
+"What's the trouble, old man?" was the instant question.
+
+And Shiner, turning, saw an old friend and beneficiary, and should have
+taken heart at the sight. Instead of which, at sound of a sympathetic
+voice, he who had been firm and fearless in the face of abuse and
+opposition now wellnigh broke down. "They've killed--little Jack!" he
+almost sobbed. "Thank God _you're_ here, Toomey!"
+
+"Of course you'll take him!" cried Toomey, turning sharp on Cullin.
+
+"Of course I _won't_ take him!" snarled Cullin, wrath and temper
+stiffening his back, "but the law shall, quick as I can fix it. Back to
+your cab, both of you!" he waved, for Ben, too, was bulkily climbing
+the platform steps. "Pull out at once and don't you stop for no more
+snidework!"
+
+"And leave this man here?" shouted Toomey. "Then you can do your own
+firing from here on, Cullin. Hold on, Ben, till I get my things off.
+You can obey if you like, but it's the last run I make with
+this--faugh! And you say _you've_ been a soldier!" It was Toomey's
+chance, after weeks of pent-up rage for battle, and he couldn't throw
+it away. Seeing that Ben, dull, heavy, and uncomprehending, was staring
+stupidly about him, not knowing what to do; seeing that even Cullin was
+melting at sight of the grief in Shiner's face; seeing the sympathy in
+the eyes of the bluecoats and the shame in those of the brakemen,
+Toomey turned loose on his adversary, and Toomey, when fairly started,
+could talk to the point. It was a tongue-lashing, indeed, and one that
+left the conductor no chance to reply.
+
+"It's 'gainst orders, and you know it, Toomey," was his futile gasp,
+when Toomey stopped for breath.
+
+"'Gainst orders you've broken time and again, and you know it! 'Gainst
+orders Bob Anthony would break your head for not breaking! It's 'gainst
+orders for you to pull out now when you're blocked, till you get
+further orders--and yet you say go."
+
+"How can I get orders without a man or a wire at the station?" burst in
+Cullin, grasping at straws. "How can I get authority to take this man
+along? He's liable to arrest anyhow for tampering with the signals."
+
+And then another voice was interjected, another disputant stepped
+quickly forward, and Toomey checked himself in the first breath of an
+impassioned outburst; his black hand suddenly shot half-way up to the
+cap-visor, then came down with a jerk; his heels had clicked together
+and his knees straightened out, then as suddenly went limp. The
+new-comer had sprung up the steps. The form was slender and sinewy.
+Hands, face, and dress were black with soot, but the young voice was
+deep and the ring of accustomed command was in every word. "That's your
+cue, Mr. Cullin. Arrest him and fetch him along." Then turning to
+Toomey: "There's no one at the cab. Better get back, quick!" he added.
+And Toomey went.
+
+Big Ben gave one look and, without a word, waddled after his fireman.
+The tears that stood in old Shiner's eyes dashed away at the brush of a
+sleeve. A light of astonishment, comprehension, relief suddenly gleamed
+in their place. The sergeant stared for a moment, looked blankly at his
+men, then side-stepped for another long gaze at the new-comer's face.
+Cullin turned sharply, resentful at first at the tone of authority,
+wrath in his heart and rebuke on his tongue, but then came sudden
+reminder of Anthony's card--the card the strange young fellow had
+presented only when needed to convince, the card he had been so
+sagacious as to retain, the card that proclaimed him a friend of the
+powers and a person to be considered. Moreover, the friend and person
+had suggested a means by which actual surrender to the situation might
+appear as virtual and moral victory. One more look at Shiner and then
+Shiner settled it. "I submit to arrest, Mr. Cullin. Let me go with
+you--and settle."
+
+"Get aboard the caboose," was the gruff answer, and, all apparent
+meekness, Shiner obeyed. "Not you," added Cullin, as Shiner's
+saddle-bag-bearing friend would have followed. "Give me the bags," said
+Shiner, "and you look to--" A significant glance at the signal told the
+rest. Cullin followed it with his eyes, saw the arm still lowered to
+the "stop," knew that it should not be left there, and for a moment
+held back.
+
+"_He_'ll fix it," said Shiner, from the platform of the caboose, while
+his eyes sought the face of the tall young fellow at Cullin's back.
+Cullin strode to the corner of the office and followed the ranchman
+with curious eyes. That sun-tanned, bow-legged person straddled down
+the back steps, his big spurs jingling, a high boot-heel catching on
+next to the lowermost and pitching him forward. He clamped his
+broadbrim on his head with one hand and steadied his holster with the
+other, straightened up with half-stifled expletive, and the next minute
+was swarming up the slender iron rungs of the signal-ladder. "He's got
+to prop it up where it belongs," said the sergeant. "Reckon he must
+have shot the wire that held it." And of a truth the wire was severed.
+But when Cullin turned back to his train with the mystery cleared, the
+sight and sound of new commotion blocked his own signal to start.
+
+Two horsemen, on foam-spattered broncos, were spurring vehemently down
+the road from the eastward ridge. Two others were trailing exhaustedly
+two hundred lengths behind, only just feebly popping over the divide.
+And to these persons both his prisoner and his prisoner's advocate, who
+were clasping hands as he whirled and saw them, were now signalling
+cheer and encouragement. Ten cars ahead, at the cab, Big Ben and
+Toomey, too, were leaning far out and eagerly watching the chase; the
+sergeant and his men, wondering much at the sight, but professionally
+impassive, strode to the end of the platform for better view, then all
+of a sudden began to shout and swing their caps, and before Cullin
+could recover from his surprise the foremost rider, tall, spare, with
+long, grizzled mustache and fiery eyes, threw himself from saddle and
+came bounding up the steps. He was surrounded in an instant, only one
+man hanging back. The slender young fellow in the grimy cap and
+overalls quietly stepped into the dark interior of the caboose.
+
+In the glare of the unclouded sunshine, breathing hard from his
+exertion, his hand grasped successively by Shiner and the three
+soldiers, the veteran trooper told his hurried tale, while, one after
+another, his followers, wellnigh exhausted, labored after him, and
+finally rolled stiffly to _terra firma_ at the station, their wretched
+livery mounts, with dripping, quivering flanks and drooping heads,
+stood straddling close at hand, too utterly used up to stagger away.
+
+Nolan's story was brief but explicit. Somebody in the swarm that
+overwhelmed the Narrow Gauge train the previous night had crept back to
+town after midnight and started the story that young Breifogle had been
+slugged by the gang. By early morning it got to the father's ears. With
+the sheriff and some friends he had driven down in the wake of No. 4,
+found plenty of men who could tell of the mobbing, but none who could
+tell of his son. The miners had scattered; the few passengers also,
+glad that they were not "wanted" by that infuriated crowd. It was then
+after sunrise, and, almost crazed by anxiety and wrath, Breifogle had
+hurried back to Argenta. His first thought seemed to be vengeance on
+Nolan, whom rumor declared the ringleader of his son's assailants, and
+a warrant was out for his arrest, even as the big Mogul was rolling
+into the yard, with its dingy-brown train of freight-cars and the
+battered body of that luckless youth, Nolan's assailant at Silver
+Shield.
+
+The first full peril of his situation broke upon Nolan the instant the
+news was rushed to him. Innocent of any part in the assault though he
+was--ignorant of it, in fact, until dawn--he well knew that every
+artifice would be played against him, and that all the power, the
+means, and methods of the Breifogle clique would be lavishly used. Long
+imprisonment would be sure, harsh trial certain, acquittal improbable,
+hanging almost a certainty.
+
+"Away with you! Get back to the mines and the mountains!" was the
+instant warning, and without the loss of a minute, mounted on such
+horses as his friends could hire, he and three of his trustiest
+followers had galloped away. They thought the sheriff was at their
+heels when the Fast Freight came thundering after them, but hailed,
+with amaze and joy, the signal from the tender, and, feeling sure the
+train would await them here, had spurred on to the station.
+
+"You'll send the horses back for us, will you, sergeant?" he finished.
+Then eagerly, "Now, conductor, shall we pull out for Summit?"
+
+"Pull out for nothing," was the astounding answer. "You know perfectly
+no Time Freight on this road takes a passenger of any kind, and it
+would be more'n my job's worth to take you!"
+
+"Then, in God's name, why did you signal?" was the almost agonized
+question.
+
+"Signal be jiggered! I never signalled. No man of _my_ crew signalled.
+If you want to get back to the mines, stay here and flag No. 5. She'll
+be along at eleven."
+
+"Along at _eleven_! Man alive, the sheriff will be here with a posse of
+forty long before that!"
+
+"_Long_ before that!" almost screamed old Shiner. "Look, there, what
+you see! He's coming now!"
+
+And then Geordie Graham, listening with beating heart within the open
+doorway of the caboose, could stand the strain no longer. The man he
+must see, the man on whom everything depended, the old friend whom he
+most trusted and believed in stood in sore peril. The cause for which
+he had come all these miles must fail so sure as Nolan slipped into the
+power of the adversary, even though grasped by the hand of the law. It
+was no time for ethics--no time for casuists. He let his voice out in
+the old tone of authority:
+
+"You've no time to lose, Mr. Cullin. Arrest them, too, and come on!"
+
+With wonderment in his eyes, with Shiner whispering caution in his ear,
+"Long" Nolan was hustled aboard the caboose just as the wheels began to
+turn, his breathless followers clambering after, while afar up the
+divide toward the east, by twos and threes, in eager pursuit, egged on
+by lavish promise of reward, the sheriff of Yampah, with a score of his
+men, spurred furiously on the trail of a train that, starting slowly
+and heavily, speedily gained headway and soon went thundering up the
+grade, "leaving the wolves behind."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+FIRST SHOTS OF THE SUMMER
+
+
+Half-way up the scarred slope of mountain-side, and opposite the mouth
+of a deep ravine, hung the crude wooden buildings and costly machinery
+of a modern mine. Zigzagging up the heights, the road that led to it
+from the ramshackle town in the valley was dotted with groups of
+rough-coated men, all plodding steadily onward. Perched on "benches"
+and shelves and dumps of blasted rock and fresh-heaped earth, similar
+though smaller clusters of buildings dotted the lower slopes, marring
+the grand outlines and sweeping curves of the great upheavals, cutting
+ugly gashes in the green and swelling billows, yet eagerly sought in
+the race for wealth and the greed for gold, because of the treasures
+they wrested from the bowels of the everlasting hills. Afar down the
+winding valley a turbid stream went frothing away to the foot-hills,
+telling of labor, turmoil, and strife. Beside it twisted and turned the
+railway that burrowed through the range barely five miles back of the
+town, and reappeared on the westward face of the Silver Bow, clinging
+dizzily to heights that looked down on rolling miles of pine, cedar,
+stunted oak, and almost primeval loneliness. The mineral wealth, said
+the experts, lay on the eastward side, and by thousands the miners were
+there, swarming like ants all over the surface seeking their golden
+gain.
+
+    [Illustration: SILVER SHIELD]
+
+And something was surely amiss at the mines when the chimneys of as
+many as six of the "plants" gave forth no smoke, when the fires were
+out and the men adrift. Something had happened that called the
+craftsmen from a dozen other burrows to the aid of those at the new and
+lately thronging works, on that shoulder at the mouth of the gorge--the
+mine of the Silver Shield. Murder most foul, said the story, had been
+done in the name of the law. Armed guards of the property had shot
+down, it was said, a half-score of workmen, clamoring only for their
+pay and their rights. A son of the principal owner, so it was known,
+had ordered his men to fire. A son of an old soldier and settler,
+living in peace barely forty miles away, was one of the victims, for he
+had taken sides with Long Nolan, who without rhyme or reason had been
+discharged, and violently flung from the premises. There had been a
+wild rush on the guard, a volley, a recoil, a rally in force, and an
+outcry for vengeance. Then the guard had to shoot in earnest and
+self-defence, for their lives were at stake. Some of the men had gone
+to Argenta to plead with the owners, but most had remained to stir all
+hands within ten miles to the support of their fellows. The miscreant
+who had ordered "fire" had escaped across to Miners' Joy, only to be
+dealt with by sympathizers on the Narrow Gauge; but the men who fired
+and who shot to kill were trapped like rats in a hole. Surrounded on
+every side, every avenue of escape now guarded, they and the luckless
+manager of the mine were cooped in their log fortification, with two
+lives and several serious wounds to answer for, and as the sun went
+westering this long summer's day they had two hours left in which to
+decide--come out and surrender or be burned out where they lay.
+
+Half the village had gone to swell the ranks of the rioters; another
+half--slatternly women and unkempt children--swarmed in the single
+street and gazed upward at the heights. Every ledge about the
+threatened buildings was black with men, men furious with hate and mad
+with liquor, men needing only determined and resolute leaders to go in
+and finish their fearful work.
+
+But here was their lack. The men they had counted on, one man in
+particular on whose account many of their number had braved the guard
+and threatened the owners--one man, Long Nolan himself, refused point
+blank to have aught to do with them or their plans. Another man, he
+whose son lay dying in the village, shot down by the guards, was there,
+sad-eyed yet stern-faced, to stay and dissuade them. The one train up
+from the East that day--the only one that could come, for now the road
+was blown out in a dozen places down the gorge--had brought with it
+Nolan and Shiner, with two or three friends at their back, and Nolan
+and Shiner, in spite of their wrongs, were pleading hard for peace,
+pleading so hard, so earnestly, that by 5 P.M. many a man, American
+born, had seen the force of their reasoning and had stepped back from
+the front.
+
+But among the killed was a poor lad from the mountains of Bohemia.
+Among the vengeful throng were swarms of foreigners who could
+understand little or nothing of what Nolan and his friends were saying,
+and who speedily would have scorned it could they have understood, for
+at five o'clock another speaker took the stand, a man of the people he
+called himself, a foreigner long on our shores, yet fluent in the
+language of the Slavs, and in ten minutes the torrent was turned. With
+terror in his eyes, a man who had long worked with Nolan, a foreigner,
+too, came running to the silent, anxious little group of Anglo-Saxons.
+"Nolan--Nolan," he cried. "He says you was traitor! He says you was
+gone to Argenta and told all their secrets, and you was bought
+off--bribed--and you bring strangers to help you! He says you and they
+are just spies, an' now they come for _you_!"
+
+One glance from where the little group were crouching, sheltered from
+possible shots from the buildings, yet between them and the throng,
+told Nolan and Shiner the alarm was real, the words were true. Like so
+many maddened beasts, a gang of uncouth, unkempt, blood-thirsty beings
+were now crowding up the narrow roadway from the bench below.
+
+"My God, Mr. Geordie!" cried Nolan, in sudden agony of spirit, "I never
+once dreamed of this!"
+
+It was, indeed, a moment of terror. Here, barely a dozen in all, were
+Nolan, Shiner, George Graham, and a few of the more intelligent, the
+Americans, among the miners. There, possibly a hundred yards away, and
+to the number of at least three hundred, a throng of human brutes,
+utterly ignorant, superstitious, credulous, craftily inspired, were
+now surging slowly forward up the heights. Two minutes would bring them
+about the little party in overwhelming strength. Flight anywhere
+downhill was impossible. The one refuge in sight was that beleaguered
+little clump of buildings just beyond them up the slope, garrisoned by
+a dozen desperate men who had shouted warning again and again, they'd
+shoot down the first man that showed a head above the rocks.
+
+But desperate straits need desperate measures. All on a sudden a tall,
+slender youth, in the coarse dress of a railway fireman, sprang from
+the midst of the pallid-faced group and, waving his handkerchief over
+his head, called back, "Stay where you are one minute!" and then,
+without a second's falter or swerve, straight for the nearest building,
+a low, one-story log-house, the manager's office near the mouth of the
+mine, waving his white signal high as his arm could reach, and
+shouting, "Don't fire--we are friends!" George Graham swiftly climbed
+for the upper level. One rifle flashed. One bullet whizzed over his
+head, but he reached the road, then, both arms extended, rushed
+straight for the door.
+
+It was thrown open to admit him by Cawker, the manager, white-faced
+almost as they whom Geordie had left. "Come out here!" cried Graham.
+"See for yourself. Nolan, Shiner, with those few lads, are all that
+have stood between you and the mob below. Every American is out of it.
+They're coming to kill Nolan for turning against them. Call him up!
+Call them all--There's barely a dozen. Then you've got just as many
+more to stand by you!"
+
+And Cawker had sense to see and to realize. "Call 'em yourself," said
+he. "Don't shoot, men! These are friends come to aid us!" he cried,
+running up and down in front of the loop-holes. "Come on, Nolan and all
+of you," he added, for Graham had gone bounding half-way back again,
+and, like so many goats, the threatened party came scrambling out of
+their shelter and up the steep incline, while afar down the hill-side
+rose a yell of baffled rage and vengeance.
+
+"Hold the rest of them whatever you do!" shouted Geordie, again racing
+back. "Don't let that gang over the edge or you're gone!" And again the
+brown barrels of the rifles thrust forth from the wooden walls and were
+turned on the bend of the road. Almost breathless, Long Nolan, and with
+him the little squad of adherents, came running up to the door.
+"Inside, quick as you can!" shouted Cawker. "We've got to give those
+blood-hounds a lesson."
+
+Even as he spoke a shot struck the thick, iron hinge of the heavy door,
+the lead spattering viciously. Another ripped through the casement of
+the nearest window, and a shiver of glass was heard within, as the
+bullet spun through the shade of a lamp swinging from the beam above.
+Cawker ducked, unaccustomed to such sounds, and dove to the interior.
+Old Nolan, soldier of the Civil War and veteran of many an Indian
+skirmish, disdained to notice it. Geordie, bemoaning the luck that had
+left his pet rifle in Denver, busied himself with Nolan in "herding"
+the party within before himself following. Then Shiner was found
+missing.
+
+"He started with us," cried Nolan. "He wanted to go back to be with his
+boy, but we showed him he'd never get through. Those brutes would head
+him off and kick his life out. He must have--Good God, Mr. Geordie!
+Look where he lies!"
+
+And then they saw that the old plainsman, in his eagerness to make a
+way back to his possibly dying son, had quit the rush when half-way up,
+had turned eastward and sought a foot-path down the mountain-side, had
+found it guarded, like the rest, by a gang that yelled savage welcome
+at sight of him. Then, too late, he had turned again, had managed to
+run some fifty yards along the jagged slope, when a shot from a
+well-aimed rifle laid him low. With a leg broken just above the knee,
+poor Shiner went down, and without so much as a word, with only one
+glance into each other's eyes, Long Nolan and Geordie swooped down to
+the rescue.
+
+Breasting the hill fifty yards below him came the heaving throng of
+rioters, few of them, luckily, with fire-arms, but all bent on
+vengeance. Darting downhill to Shiner came the old and the new of the
+regiment he had known for years and swore by to the end--Nolan, its
+oldest sergeant when discharged; Graham, its youngest subaltern when so
+recently commissioned. But, old and new, they were one in purpose and
+in spirit. The trained muscles, the lithe young limbs of the new bore
+him bounding down the slope in half the time it took the elder. Shiner
+lay facing the coming throng, grim hate in his eyes and revolver in
+hand. In the fury of yells that arose he never heard the shout of
+encouragement from above. Geordie was bending over him, had seized him
+by the arm, was slinging him on his broad young back before ever Shiner
+saw the face of his rescuer, and Geordie, with his helpless burden, was
+stumbling up the height again before Nolan could join and aid him.
+
+By that time the peering guardians of the office had caught sight of
+the cause of the pandemonium of howls and curses from below, and the
+onward rush was stayed by the sound of shots from the hill and bullets
+whistling overhead. Yet only for a moment. Bullets sent downhill almost
+always fly high, and finding this to be so the mob took courage and
+came on again, those who had guns or revolvers shooting frantically up
+the slope, splintering rocks and spattering dirt as they bit at the
+heels of the rescuers. It was a desperate, do or die, neck or nothing,
+bit of daring and devotion--Nolan's third and Geordie's first
+experience in just such a feat. But the blood of the Graemes was up,
+and the younger soldier was not to be outdone by the old. The guards at
+the office burst into a cheer as the two came staggering up to the
+level, with poor Shiner groaning between them, and then quick work and
+hot was needed, for the mob came fierce on their trail.
+
+"There's more Winchesters there in the gun-rack," shouted Cawker, as
+Shiner was laid on a bunk in a back room. "They'll be all round us here
+in a minute."
+
+"Aim low and pick out the leaders, d'ye hear?" panted Nolan. "Don't let
+'em get within reach of the buildings, whatever you do. They'll burn
+'em over our heads. Let me have your loop-hole, _you_!" he ordered a
+young fellow, whose lips were blue with excitement and dread. "Go sit
+by Shiner and give him water till I spoil a few of these voters." And
+the presence of the veteran, the confident ring of his voice, seemed to
+lend instant courage to the defence.
+
+And courage, cool courage and grit, were needed, for the situation was
+difficult, if not, indeed, desperate. With any skilled leader to direct
+the mob, the refuge sought by the defence would already have been
+ruined. The office building, made of hewn logs laid horizontally and
+with possible view of defence, had been placed at the brow of the slope
+on one side and near the mouth of the mine on the other. Later,
+however, rude structures of unplaned pine sprung up--compressor-plant,
+blacksmith-shop, and the like--about it, no one of them strong enough
+to serve as a fort, and all of them a menace now because they screened
+the approaches on two sides and could be fired in a dozen places.
+
+And now that Graham and Nolan were here to aid, this defect was noticed
+at once.
+
+"This won't do at all, Mr. Cawker," said Graham, as he sprung the lever
+of a new Winchester and glanced into the chamber. "We'll be surrounded
+and burned out of here in ten minutes. We've got to occupy those
+others, too."
+
+Cawker stared at the "young feller" with angering eyes. A moment agone
+and he was praising his daring, but that astonishing tone of authority
+nettled him. What business had a railway fireman telling him, a mine
+manager, what to do in case of a row?
+
+"_You_ get to a loop-hole and 'tend to that," snapped he. "I'll 'tend
+to my business," and he turned to Long Nolan, just heaving up from a
+peep-hole, for support and approval. Nolan he knew for a soldier of
+old. He had learned to respect him quite as much as he jealously
+feared, and Nolan's answer took him utterly aback:
+
+"You do as he tells you and do it quick. He knows his business better'n
+ever you'll begin to know yours."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A NIGHT ON GUARD
+
+
+Two minutes more, with eight men to back him, George Graham was
+knocking or sawing out holes in the blacksmith-shop, and presently a
+man with a reliable Winchester was crouched by each opening watching
+the next move of the foe. The shop was perched at the edge of a
+flat-topped "dump", commanding the rocky slopes to the roadway on one
+side, the hill on the other. It was exposed to shots from below, yet
+the hardest to reach by direct assault. In the larger building a bit
+farther back, the compressor-house, Cawker and four others were
+stationed, guarding the approach from the north. The manager had taken
+Nolan's broad hint, and the subsequent orders, with one long look of
+amaze, then with the light of comprehension in his eyes and the
+silence of consent on his lips. Did he not know that the main charge
+against Nolan had been loyalty to his old comrades rather than his new
+employers? Did he not know, or at least more than suspect, that the
+company was trying to "freeze out" the distant holders? Did he not
+know, down in his heart, that it was out and out robbery? And now, in
+spite of youth and disguise, the manager saw in this masterful stranger
+one of the very elements the owners had sought to keep at a distance
+and in ignorance of true conditions. So far from resenting, he now
+thanked God for his coming. What else could explain Nolan's
+deference--Nolan, the most independent and self-respecting man at the
+mines? What else could it mean but that this youth was one of his
+officers--men skilled and schooled in warfare if not in mining--men
+taught to face danger with stout heart and stubborn front? All in the
+space of a few seconds the truth had flashed upon Cawker. It might not
+be just what the owners would want, thought he, but it's almighty good
+for us all.
+
+Nolan, with a handful of men, still clung to the stoutest of the
+buildings. It stood without the entrance to the ravine in which had
+been discovered the outcropping that started the fame of Silver Shield.
+In this, also, stood two other buildings, but these were so far from
+the outer shop that flames need not be feared. Nolan was to care for
+the wounded and guard the outward approach, and all three were in close
+support of each other. Whoever managed to rush that little group of
+buildings would know, if he lived, that he had been through a fight.
+
+And now it was after six of the long summer day. The rioters had
+received a wholesome lesson in the volley that met their first attempt
+to swarm up from the south. They had gone tumbling and cursing back to
+shelter, with three men wounded and many of the others badly scared,
+and now were being harangued by their vociferous leader, and hundreds
+had come to hear. Graham turned to the young Slav who had borne the
+first news to Nolan. "Creep out there as far as you can," he ordered,
+"listen to what is said, and tell me. They cannot reach you." But the
+frightened lad crouched and whimpered. He _dared_ not.
+
+"Come on, then," answered Geordie, grasping the stout collar of the
+hickory shirt, and come he had to, moaning and imploring. With revolver
+in his right hand, his unwilling interpreter in the left, Geordie
+scrambled down to the roadway, and then, coming in view of the gang,
+crouched with his prisoner behind sheltering bowlders, regardless of
+the shots which began to hiss from below. The speaker was still
+shouting; his words were easily heard. Yells of approval and savage
+delight punctuated every other sentence. "What was that?" demanded
+Geordie, as the applause became furious.
+
+"He say they make circle--all sides, uphill, sidehill, downhill. They
+all together run in when he give the word."
+
+"He fights like a Cheyenne," grinned the young commander. "How soon do
+they begin?"
+
+"Right off; now! They come from _all_ round!" was the almost agonized
+cry.
+
+"Then I won't have to lug you back. You can go!"
+
+And like a frightened hare the young foreigner darted away, dodging and
+diving up the slope, only to fall exhausted at the top, and then to
+creep on all-fours to the shelter of the office. Already some of the
+armed rioters had managed to climb far up the hill-side and from behind
+rock or ledge to open fire on the platform. The range was full three
+hundred yards, their aim was poor, and the bullets flew wild, but the
+effect on this poor lad was all they could ask. He collapsed at the
+opening door.
+
+Leisurely, yet cautiously, Geordie climbed in his tracks--went first to
+the office to give warning to Nolan, then round to the compressor to
+instruct the little guard. Cawker poked a head from a window and looked
+anxiously toward the gaping mouth of the ravine. The darkness of night
+was already settling in its gloomy depths. The homely shed looked black
+and forbidding. Aloft on each side were precipitous slopes affording
+but slight foothold. Little likelihood was there of rioters sliding
+down to attack them, but, suppose they pried loose, or blasted out,
+some of those huge rocks up the mountain and sent them rolling,
+bounding, crashing down? What might _then_ happen?
+
+A bullet tearing through the shingling, ten feet above Cawker's
+protruding head, made him jerk it in, like a turtle, but presently it
+reappeared at the window.
+
+"It's the dynamite I'm thinking of," said he. "A rock lighting on that
+now--"
+
+"Where is it?" interrupted Graham.
+
+"In that first shed yonder--a dozen boxes."
+
+"Bring two men and come along," was the quick order, and it was no time
+now for reluctance, resentment, much less refusal. The two men summoned
+shrank back and would not come, but Cawker found two who dared to
+follow. It was a case of "duck and run" for all.
+
+"Watch the hill-side above!" shouted Graham, in tones that rang through
+every building and reached every ear. "Shoot down every man that tries
+to heave rocks into the ravine, or fire at us. We're going to move
+that dynamite."
+
+Once within the shelter of the gorge, with comrades carefully sighting
+the slopes, Geordie felt the danger would not be very great. A swift
+rush carried all four over the open space of twenty yards. Three or
+four shots came zipping from aloft, but the instant ring of Winchesters
+back of them told that watchful eyes had noted every head that
+appeared, and the swift crackle of fire from the shop put instant stop
+to the fun up the slope. Into the store-room the manager led them, and
+unlocked a heavy little trap-door within; then, one by one, the
+ominous-looking cases were dragged forth, hoisted, and swiftly borne to
+the mouth of the mine. Three tunnels there seemed to be, as Geordie
+hurriedly noted, but into the largest and lowermost they shouldered
+their perilous burden and carefully, cautiously, stacked the boxes well
+inside; went back, and searched out, and followed with all the fuse and
+powder stored at the top. Then, with rock and ore and barrels of earth,
+they built a stout barrier in front of the tunnel, blocking it from
+without, and the sun was down and night was upon them when they
+stumbled back to their posts.
+
+For now still a weightier problem remained to them--how to defend those
+works in the dark.
+
+In all, Geordie Graham found they had just twenty men on whom he could
+count. The trembling young Slav at the blacksmith-shop, the blue-lipped
+boy in the office, and sorely wounded old Shiner were out of the fight.
+But Cawker's mine-guards were native born, or Irish, and most of the
+reinforcements that came with Nolan and himself were Americans, and all
+were good men and true. By day they could see and shoot at any man or
+men who sought to approach them with hostile intent. By night they
+could see nothing. There was only one way, said Graham, to prevent the
+more daring among the rioters crawling in on them and firing some of
+the shops, and that was to throw out strong pickets on every side, then
+trust to their ears, their grit, and their guns.
+
+Already he had been selecting good positions in which to post his
+sentries. Ten at least, full half his force, would be needed, and while
+vigilant watch was kept through the twilight, and a warning shot sent
+at every hat that showed within dangerous range, Geordie went from
+building to building picking out his men.
+
+Arms, ammunition, and provisions, fortunately, they had in abundance.
+The company had long since seen to that. Nolan already had set "Blue
+Lips" to work building a fire in the big kitchen stove at the office
+and setting the kettle to boil. Coffee, hard bread, and bacon, with
+canned pork and beans, were served to all hands, about five at a time,
+and then, with Nolan to station the watchers on the south and west
+fronts, George and his five stole out on the northward slope, alert,
+cautious, and silent, moving only a few paces at a time.
+
+Afar down in the depths of the valley the clustered lights of the
+excited town shone brilliantly through the gloaming. Every now and then
+through the surrounding silence came the bark of dogs, the shrill
+voices of clamoring women, and occasionally a burst of howls and yells.
+Some rude orator was still preaching death and destruction to a more
+than half-drunken gang, urging them on to the aid of their brethren up
+the levels above. All about the Silver Shield, however, was ominously
+still. Over on opposite heights and down in stray gulches could be seen
+the flitting lights of rival establishments, and away to the west,
+around the base of the mountain where the railway squirmed by the side
+of the tortuous stream, two or three locomotive-engines, on stalled
+trains, had been whistling long and hard for aid. All that was useless.
+Above for a mile, below for a league, the track had been torn up in
+places, and down along Silver Run, toward Hatch's Cove and the
+foot-hills, culverts and cuts had been mined and blown out for five
+miles more. No sheriff's posses from below, no hated Pinkertons, no
+despised militia, no dreaded regulars, should come to the aid of Silver
+Shield till there was nothing left worth saving.
+
+And up here on the northward flank of the bold, rounded heights that
+overhung the town, and harbored now both besieged and besiegers,
+invisible to each other and to the lower world in the darkness, Geordie
+Graham lay crouching behind a little bowlder, every sense on edge, for
+to his left front, a little higher up, he could distinctly hear low,
+gruff voices, confused murmurings and movements, sounds that told him
+that, relying on their overwhelming numbers, the mob was coming slowly,
+surely, down to carry out their threat to fire the buildings and to
+finish as they pleased the wretched defenders.
+
+It was barely nine o'clock. Below him, perhaps twenty yards downhill,
+was his nearest sentry. Above him, and a little retired, was another, a
+silent young German-American who had been at the head of the men
+working tunnel Number Two. Beyond him still, and thrown back toward the
+head of the ravine, was one of Cawker's guard, a sharp-eyed,
+sharp-witted chap who had seemed at first to chafe at Graham's hints
+and orders, yet had acted on them. And on these two, so far as sound
+could enable him to judge, all ignorant of their presence and purpose,
+this uncouth mass of men was bearing down. Winchester in hand and, as
+he himself said later, his heart in his mouth, Geordie stole swiftly
+uphill to the post of the German and found him kneeling and all aquiver
+with excitement. He, too, had just heard.
+
+"Don't fire till I do," said Graham. "I'll be right out where you can
+hear me challenge." A few steps higher he climbed, and then called low
+and clear:
+
+"D'you hear them coming, guard? Can you see anything?"
+
+And the answer came in the drawl of the Southland:
+
+"Hyuh 'em plain 'nuff, but they don't show a light yet. Reckon they
+don't mean tuh."
+
+"We'll give them the fill of our magazines if they don't halt at the
+word. Wait till I let drive, then let them have it!"
+
+And so, crouching low, straightforward along the slope he sped, till,
+perhaps twenty yards out, the black bulk of the mountain-side loomed
+between him and the westward heaven, while against the stars of the
+northern horizon he could dimly determine, heaving steadily toward him,
+not fifty paces away, some huge, murmuring, moving mass. And then there
+rang out on the silence of the night, clear, stern, and commanding, a
+voice the like of which their ears had never heard, in words that even
+they could not fail to comprehend:
+
+"Halt where you are--or we fire!"
+
+There was an instant of recoil and confusion and fear. Then furious
+tones from far back in the throng and guttural shoutings that seemed
+urging them on, for, presently, on they came, but in the silence and
+dread of death.
+
+Back went the lever of Graham's Winchester; slap went the bolt to its
+seat, with the shining cartridge ahead of it; up came the butt to the
+shoulder; and then, once more, that deep, virile voice rang along the
+heights and went echoing away across the gorge. Back at the mine
+Nolan's heart leaped at the sound of it. Away down in the village they
+heard it and shrank, for the next instant set them all shrieking; for
+the lightning flashed and the rifles barked loud and swift, and strong
+men howled and turned and fled, anywhere out of the way, and some fell
+headlong, screaming and cursing, in the rush and panic that spread from
+one stern and sudden word--the soldier command: "Fire!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE MAN OF THE SIEGE
+
+
+Down in the valley that night there was commotion and uproar for hours,
+but there was quiet at Silver Shield. One after another furious
+speeches were made in foreign tongues, speeches in which the murderous
+occupants of the mine buildings were doomed to an eternity of torment,
+and the would-be murderous element among the miners was lauded to the
+skies and urged to further effort.
+
+But the astonishing repulse, the fact that they had been met in the
+open as well as in the dark, and that a swift and sudden fire had been
+poured into their very midst, had shattered the nerve of men already
+shaken, although it later turned out that only three of their number
+had really been shot (two of them in the back), and that twoscore had
+been trampled and torn by their own people, while some thirty or more
+were missing, "left dead on the hill," said their fellows, in the mad
+rush for safety that followed the first flash. That sharp, stern order
+and the instant response had started the rumor that soldiers, regulars,
+had come up from the fort. It was pointed out that while the
+Transcontinental was blocked down the Run, no one had thought to
+cripple the Narrow Gauge over in the valley beyond. The road was open
+to Miners' Joy, the road by which young Breifogle had made his escape,
+and by this roundabout route had succor reached the besieged garrison.
+
+All that liquor and eloquence could do was tried on the raging townsmen
+that night, but not until broad daylight could they be induced to make
+another trial, and by that time few were able to keep their feet on the
+level.
+
+Less than half a dozen shots from each of five Winchesters had been
+enough, combined with darkness, to utterly rout the mass of rioters.
+Mindful of the lesson well learned at the Point--to instantly follow a
+staggering blow--Graham had sprung from his cover, called to his
+fellows to "come on," and so, shouting and shooting at the very heels
+of the panic, had not only chased them in headlong flight, but,
+returning, had picked up half a dozen terrified prisoners and herded
+them back to Nolan for such reassurance and comfort as that grim old
+trooper saw fit to administer. When morning broke the depths of the
+valley were still shrouded in mist and gloom. Up on the heights the
+brilliant hues of the dawn shone far and wide on rocky peak and
+pinnacle and, above the wooden tower of the office building, on the
+fluttering folds of an American flag.
+
+That was a grewsome day on Lance Creek. Four of the mines, temporarily
+bereft of hands, had fired up and gone to work with such force as they
+had, and declined to take back the men who had quit. The managers,
+superintendents, bosses, and owners held council together and started
+out with what they termed a relief expedition to rescue the garrison of
+Silver Shield. They were seen as they came solemnly marching uphill,
+waving a white flag by way of assurance, and were met on the roadway
+by Nolan and Geordie. Cawker was taking a much-needed nap.
+
+"Are you all safe?" was the eager question from below.
+
+"Safe from what?" asked Nolan, from above.
+
+"Why, the mob, the rioters. Didn't they try to clean you out last
+night?"
+
+"Did they?" asked Nolan turning to his silent young friend the fireman.
+"Was that what those fellows were thinking of that you chased off the
+hill? Why, maybe it was! But here, what we came down to find out was
+about Shiner's boy. How's he?"
+
+Then the rescuers looked at one another in some bewilderment. The
+leaders were friends of Cawker. They hardly knew Nolan. They did not
+know his companion the fireman.
+
+"D'you mean to tell us you've had no trouble up there?" was the eager
+demand.
+
+"Why, lots of it, four days ago--'t least _I_ had," answered Nolan,
+grimly, "but nothin' worth mention last night."
+
+"Why, man," cried the manager of the White Eagle, "there were a
+thousand riotous Bohemians and Dagoes, and Lord knows what all, went up
+there last night to burn those buildings over your heads and you with
+'em."
+
+"Why, cert'nly," said Nolan, with preternatural gravity and a wink at
+his comrade, who was doing his utmost to keep a straight face. "It must
+have been some of those fellows _you_ blew in about ten o'clock. But
+say," he broke off, as though this matter bored him, "what we want to
+know is about Shiner's boy. They didn't seem to have time to talk."
+
+By which time it dawned upon the officials present that Nolan was
+having fun with them, and though the spokesmen were nettled, many
+others, with genuine American sense of humor, felt that he couldn't be
+blamed.
+
+"Your name is Nolan, I think," said a man from the Denver. "We've heard
+of you. Shiner's boy is better, though still weak. You mustn't feel we
+left you to shift for yourselves up there. Our men were all out, and
+we didn't know how soon they'd be swooping on us. 'Twasn't until last
+night it was generally known that you were back, and that you and your
+friends were what saved Cawker and the Silver Shield yesterday. How's
+_he_?"
+
+"Cawker? Oh, Cawker's probably about got dinner ready for you gentlemen
+by this time. If you are sure about Shiner we won't go down."
+
+"Go down? Why, Nolan, they'd murder you!"
+
+But there came a sudden shot, and then a shout, from somewhere uphill.
+On the edge of the dump a man was eagerly waving his hat, pointing away
+to the northeast along the massive slope of the mountain.
+
+"Well, Mr. Fireman," said Nolan, "I guess we'll have to go back. But
+you are sure about Shiner, are you?"--this again to the visitors, as he
+persisted in calling them. "Well, come right along up and see the old
+man himself. Dinner ought to be ready now."
+
+But, once back at the buildings, Nolan left to Cawker and his guard
+the pleasure of receiving the crowd from across the creek. He and
+Geordie were needed at once at the lookout on top of the office, the
+little tower above which fluttered the flag. Down on the platform
+anxious faces were upturned, for the sentry had seen a countless throng
+of men, so he said, coming over from Miners' Joy. To Cawker and his
+fellows it meant but one thing: The miners in the northward valley,
+more numerous than these along Lance Creek, reinforced, probably, by a
+swarm of the idlers from Hatch's Cove, were coming to the aid of their
+friends and fellow-countrymen in the strike at Silver Shield.
+
+For two miles out the road from the village meandered up a winding
+ravine, then went twisting and turning along the eastward face of the
+mountain until it dipped out of sight over the massive divide. Down in
+the depths of the gorge little dots of men could be seen hurrying away
+up the trail as though going to meet the coming concourse. Away out
+along the mountain-side not to exceed three or four vehicles and a
+scant dozen of horsemen could dimly be made out, crawling slowly
+southward, coming gingerly towards them. Where, then, was the
+"countless throng"?
+
+"They were in sight on yonder ridge," said the lookout, "not ten
+minutes ago. They must be hiding in the hollows, waiting for the others
+to catch up," whereupon Nolan, looking daggers, had called him a
+scarehead, and Geordie shouted for Cawker's glass. It was sent up the
+stairway in less than a minute and focussed on Porphyry Point, a
+massive buttress overhanging the farther valley. For long seconds
+Geordie steadied the binocular against the staff and peered silently
+through. At last he said: "Some riders and two or three livery-rigs are
+coming, but I see no men afoot." Then, turning over his shoulder to
+Cawker, standing in the midst of his friends and fellow-managers, and
+looking eagerly aloft, he called: "Better have dinner now, if it's
+ready. It will take 'em an hour to get here."
+
+"Who is that young fellow, anyhow?" asked Townsend, of the Vanguard
+Mine, and the ears of a score of men awaited the answer.
+
+"That young feller," said Cawker, in low tone, and impressively, "was a
+stranger to every one here, except old Nolan and Shiner, just
+twenty-four hours ago. Now there ain't one of 'em but swears by him. I
+don't know him from Adam, and Nolan won't tell, but, gentlemen--that
+young feller's a dandy!"
+
+And this of a youth in grimy cap, flannels, and overalls, with a pair
+of smouched soldier gauntlets hiding the white of his hands, and a
+coating of coal-dust and smudge hiding all but the clear, healthy white
+of his eyes!
+
+But an hour later came at least partial enlightenment. Picking their
+way, afoot and a few in saddle, welcomed by shouts from the lately
+besieged, and escorted by a deputation sent forward to meet them, there
+began to arrive certain citizens well known to the neighborhood by name
+and reputation.
+
+There was the sheriff of Yampah, with a small squad of deputies. There
+was the mayor of Argenta, a director in the mines, and with him,
+puffing prodigiously and slowly up the ramp from the wagon-road, two
+brother directors away out from Denver. There were certain prominent
+citizens of Argenta and Hatch's Cove. There were certain railway men,
+with men and tools at their back and no time to waste. There were two
+men in civilian dress whom many a man of Silver Run knew for soldiers
+at once, for as such had they known them before--Captain Lee and
+Quartermaster McCrea of the old --th Cavalry--and there had been a
+remarkable meeting and hand-shaking between them and Nolan, and a
+whispered confabulation, at the end of which the two dove into the
+office building where Shiner still lay, comforted by better news of his
+boy, by good surgical aid, and by a skilful and competent nurse who,
+for more than one reason, preferred to keep out of sight for the time
+being. There had been a face-to-face meeting between sergeant and
+sheriff when Nolan came forth from a rapturous scene at old Shiner's
+bedside. But this time the sheriff looked sheepish, and there was no
+talk of arrest. Young Breifogle, it seems, would not die of his
+wounds. One of the culprits had "split" and the real assailants were
+known.
+
+And there had been a fine shower of congratulation on Cawker for his
+heroic defence and determined stand against tremendous odds, and the
+three magnates present of Silver Shield had begun with much unction to
+talk of reward and appreciation, and very probably Cawker felt both
+heroic and deserving, and quite ready to accept all credit and pay, but
+there were too many witnesses, too many wise men, too many suggestive
+smiles and snickers and audible remarks, and Cawker had sense to see
+and then to rise manfully to the occasion.
+
+"We did the best we knew how, gentlemen," said he, "but I am bound to
+say Silver Shield would have been in ruins this minute, and most of us
+dead, if it hadn't been for Nolan--the man you ordered thrown out."
+
+There was a silence almost dramatic for a moment.
+
+"Who ordered him thrown out?" asked Mr. Stoner, of Denver.
+
+"The directors, sir, unless young Mr. Breifogle lied. These men are my
+witnesses."
+
+And the answer came straightway.
+
+"No such orders were given by the board. If Mr. Breifogle gave them,
+they were his alone."
+
+Whereupon a shout went up that shook the roof. But the end was not yet.
+Nolan was dragged forward to be grasped by the hand and smothered with
+congratulations, and old Nolan, in turn, would have none of it. A dozen
+men had seized Geordie Graham, even as his classmates and comrades had
+chaired him a few weeks back at the Point, and black, grimy, and
+protesting, he was heaved forward and deposited in front of the
+astonished trio. But the shout that went up from all sides was
+significant. Lee and McCrea were shouting, too.
+
+"More heroes?" asked Mr. Stoner, wide-eyed and uncomprehending.
+"Well--er, Nolan, they told us on the way over that there must be a
+hundred soldiers here."
+
+"That's about right, sir," grinned Nolan; then, reaching forth, he laid
+a hand lightly on Graham's broad shoulder, "and here stands--most of
+'em."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+AWAY ON THE WARPATH
+
+
+And all these chapters it has taken to tell how it came about that
+Second Lieutenant George Montrose Graham was quite a celebrity in the
+--th Cavalry before ever he reported for duty with his troop. Several
+weeks the Silver Shield Mining Company spent in a squabble among
+themselves that ended in the smothering of "the Breifogle interest,"
+and came near to sending "the Boss of Argenta" to jail. Several days
+elapsed before Captain Lee and Lieutenants McCrea and Graham felt it
+entirely prudent to leave, but when they did it was with the assurance
+that stockholders who had endured to the end, as had Graham, Lee, and
+McCrea, were now to reap the reward of their tenacity.
+
+It is a recorded fact that, within three weeks after the departure of
+McCrea and Geordie from West Point for the West, there came an offer to
+Dr. Graham of something like six times the cost price of his shares,
+and the offer was declined, with thanks.
+
+It is a recorded fact that Silver Shield was reorganized within the
+summer, to the end that the controlling interest passed from Colorado
+to Chicago.
+
+It is a recorded fact that, from afar out in the Rockies, there came to
+Lieutenant Colonel Hazzard, Commandant of Cadets, a "wire" that puzzled
+him not a little until he laid it before his clear-headed wife, who
+gave him a delighted kiss and scurried away to show it to Mrs. Graham.
+It read:
+
+     "You win. I lose; and, losing, am a heavy winner."
+
+For Bonner had supplied the money that paid for much of that costly
+plant, most of which would have gone up in smoke and down in ruin could
+the mob have had its way. Bonner himself had rushed out to Denver at
+news of the trouble. Bonner sent for Cawker and Nolan, and others of
+the employes, and learned for himself how things had been going, and
+was not too civil to Stoner and his Denver colleagues. Bonner, a
+director in the Transcontinental, heard from Anthony and Cullin all
+about the young fireman they spirited up to the mines, and the elder
+Breifogle had to hear how that young fireman cared for the battered son
+and heir, after his "beating up" at the fists and feet of the rioters,
+and if Breifogle bore no love for the Grahams, he at least loved his
+own.
+
+It is a recorded fact that old Shiner got well of his wound after many
+long weeks, and his brave boy in much shorter time, and that both were
+handsomely rewarded. Cawker came in for a good thing by way of a raise,
+but it was Long Nolan whom Bonner and the magnates set on a
+pinnacle--Long Nolan, and, as Nolan would have it, Nolan's young
+commander.
+
+It is a matter of record that when Captain Lee went back to the
+regiment he congratulated Lane, for one thing, on having held on to his
+stocks--almost the only one at Reno who did--and, for another, on
+having such a youngster for second lieutenant. "He has won his spurs,"
+said Lee, "before ever he donned his uniform." And there was rejoicing
+in the regiment over Lee's description of events, for five of the
+younger officers, graduated within three years, knew "Pops" in his
+cadet days and remembered him well; and all of the old officers who had
+served at Camp Sandy and at Fort Reynolds knew him in babyhood, or
+boyhood, or both. So did most of the veteran troopers.
+
+And it is a matter of record that, on the eastward way again, both
+McCrea and Geordie dined with Mr. Bonner at the Chicago Club, and the
+new major-general commanding the military division graciously accepted
+Bonner's bid to be one of the dinner-party, and took Geordie aside
+after coffee had been served, noting that the silent young fellow
+neither smoked nor touched his wine, and asked him a few questions
+about the Point and many about the mines, and at parting the general
+was so good as to express the wish that when Geordie came out to join
+in September he would stop and see him, all of which was very
+flattering to a young fellow just out of cadet gray, and Geordie, as in
+duty bound, said that he certainly would, little dreaming how soon--how
+very soon--he and the old regiment would be riding hard under the lead
+of that hard-riding leader, and facing a foe led by warriors true and
+tried--a foe any ten of whom could have made mince-meat of ten times
+their number of such foemen as Graham had met at the mines.
+
+How could they, the brave young class, have dreamed, that exquisite
+June day of their graduation, that within six months some of their
+number were destined to do desperate battle with a desperate band of
+the braves of the allied Sioux in the Bad Lands of South Dakota?
+
+For it is also a matter of record that Lieutenant and Quartermaster
+McCrea made application, as he had promised, for six months' leave of
+absence, with permission to go beyond sea, and with every intention of
+spending most of the winter in sunny Italy. But he spent it in saddle
+and snowdrift, in scout and skirmish, and in at least one sharp,
+stinging, never-to-be-forgotten battle with the combined bands of the
+Sioux, and came within an ace of losing his life as well as his leave,
+for many a brave soldier and savage warrior fell in that bitter
+fight--Geordie Graham's maiden battle. Little wonder he hopes he may
+never see another like it.
+
+And it all came about as such affairs have so often occurred in the
+past. Unheeded warnings, unnoted threats, unpunished outbreaks, that
+experienced soldiers about the reservation could readily understand,
+and foretell what was coming, and make their own individual
+preparations for the inevitable. But nothing they could report to
+superiors would shake the serene confidence of the Department of the
+Interior in the pacific purposes of its red children, the wards of the
+nation. All along in the summer and the early autumn the "ghost-dance"
+had been spreading from tribe to tribe, the war drum had been thumping
+in the villages, the Indian messiah, a transparent fraud, as all might
+see, wandered unrebuked from band to band--half a dozen messiahs, in
+fact--and along in September, instead of Geordie Graham's best-loved
+chum and classmate, Connell, of the Engineers, there came to the Point
+a letter from that young officer, that Graham received with rejoicing,
+read with troubled eyes, and for the first time in his life kept from
+his mother. There came a time, later still, when there were many
+letters to be kept from her, but those sorrowful days were not as yet.
+This letter, however, he could not bring himself to show her, for it
+told of things she had been dreading to hear ever since the papers
+began telling of the ghost-dancing on the plains. It read:
+
+     "PECATONICA, WISCONSIN, _September 5th._
+
+     "DEAR POPS,--I fully intended to be with you to spend a week as
+     promised, before joining at Willett's Point, but you are more
+     likely to be spending that week with me. I am just back from a
+     run to the Black Hills with father. He has some property about
+     Deadwood. Returning, I stopped two days at Fort Niobrara, as
+     the guest of 'Sampson' Stone, whose troop is stationed there,
+     and I tell you it was interesting. He took me up to the
+     reservation, and I had my first look at the Sioux on their
+     native heath, and saw for myself how peaceful they are.
+     Everybody at the agency is scared stiff. Every officer at the
+     fort, from the colonel down, is convinced that war is coming.
+     The governor of Nebraska has been up looking after the settlers
+     and ranch folk and warning them away. General Miles has an
+     officer there watching the situation. From him I heard that
+     your regiment is to be sent to the field at once to march
+     northward; that other troops are warned, and I suppose you'll
+     be joining somewhere on the way. But the row, when it comes,
+     will break out north of the Niobrara, and the --th may not get
+     there in time.
+
+     "Stone says if you want a taste of the real thing, to apply for
+     orders to report for duty to the commanding officer at Fort
+     Niobrara until the arrival of your regiment. I have begged the
+     Chief of Engineers to let me have a few weeks in the field with
+     General Miles, and am assured that the general will apply for
+     me. Not that I can be of any value as Engineer Officer, but
+     just to get the experience, and perhaps see what we've been
+     reading of a dozen years--a real Indian campaign. Now, old man,
+     you know that country. You were there as a boy. _You_ could be
+     of use. Why not ask for orders at once? Then we can push out
+     via Sioux City together. I know how the mother will protest,
+     especially since she was robbed of three precious weeks in
+     July; but, isn't it the chance of a lifetime? Isn't this what
+     we are for, after all? Wire decision. Yours as ever,
+
+                                   "CONNELL."
+
+"Good old Badger," murmured Geordie. "He always was right." Then that
+letter went to an inner pocket, and for the first time in his life,
+with something to conceal from her, George Graham turned to his mother.
+
+It was a beautiful September evening. The gray-and-white battalion had
+just formed for parade. The throng of spectators lined the roadway in
+front of the superintendent's quarters, and with that proud mother
+clinging as usual to his arm, with that ominous letter in the breast of
+his sack-coat, so close that her hand by a mere turn of the wrist could
+touch it, George Graham stood silently beside her as she chatted
+happily with Mrs. Hazzard. Not ten feet distant, leaning on a cane, was
+an officer lamed for life and permanently retired from service because
+of a desperate wound received in savage warfare. With him, eagerly
+talking, was a regimental comrade who had survived the bloody day on
+the Little Big Horn, and he was telling of things he had seen and men
+whom he had met, men whose names were famous among the Sioux and were
+now on the lips of the nation at large. Foremost of these was the
+old-time enemy of every white man, long the leader of the most powerful
+band that ever disputed the dominion of the West, Tatanka
+Iyotanka--Sitting Bull.
+
+Not fifty miles from Standing Rock Agency, surrounded by devoted
+followers, dwelling in Indian ease and comfort, but rejoicing in new
+opportunities for evil, Sitting Bull, said the spokesman, was holding
+frequent powwows with the ghost-dancers, urging, exciting, encouraging
+all, and still the Indian Bureau would not--and the army, therefore,
+could not--interfere. Everywhere from the Yellowstone to the confines
+of Nebraska the young braves of the allied bands were swarming forth
+and holding their fierce and ominous rites, and the autumn air of the
+Dakotas rang with the death song and war-whoop. The blood craze was
+upon them and would not down. The messiah had appeared to chief after
+chief, warning him the time had come to rise and sweep the white
+invaders from the face of the earth, promising as reward long years of
+plenty and prosperity, the return of the vanished buffalo, the
+resurrection of their famous dead, a savage millennium the thought of
+which was more than enough to array the warriors for battle. "It's
+coming; it's _bound_ to come!" said the captain, in his decisive way,
+"and if old Bull isn't choked off speedily we'll have work for a dozen
+regiments as well as ours."
+
+Graham listened, fascinated, yet praying his mother might not hear.
+Secure in the possession of her stalwart son, full of joy in their
+present and pride in his past, she chatted merrily on. Mrs. Frazier,
+too, had joined them, another woman who had reason to rejoice in
+Geordie's prowess at Silver Shield. They were so blithely, busily,
+engaged that he presently managed to slip unobserved away and join the
+little group about the speaker. Colonel Hazzard, too, was there and
+held forth a cordial hand to the new-comer. Geordie's father never
+betrayed half the pride in him that the colonel frankly owned to.
+
+"This must interest you not a little," said he.
+
+"More than I can tell you, sir," was the quick answer. "More than I
+dare let mother know! But I have come for advice. I've a letter from
+Mr. Connell. Read it, sir, and tell me how to go about it. Before
+mother can get wind of it, I want orders to report at Niobrara."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+A SCOUT FOR THE SIOUX
+
+
+The dawn of an autumn day was breaking over a barren and desolate
+landscape. The mist was rising from the silent pools of the narrow
+stream that alternately lay in lazy reaches and sped leaping and
+laughing in swift rapid over pebbly bed--the Mini Chaduza of the Sioux.
+The sun was still far below the eastward horizon, but the clouds were
+gorgeous with his livery of red and gold, and the stars had shrunk from
+sight before the ardor of his beams. The level "bench" through which
+the stream meandered, the billowing slopes to the north and south, were
+bare of foliage and uninviting to the eye, yet keen and wary eyes were
+scanning their bald expanse, studying every crest and curve and ridge
+in search of moving objects. Only at the very brink of the flowing
+waters, and only in far-scattered places along the stream, little
+clumps of cottonwood-trees gave proof that nature had not left the
+valley utterly without shade and refuge when the summer's sun beamed
+hotly down upon the lower lands of the Dakotas. And now only among
+these scattered oases could even practised eyes catch any sign of life.
+
+Here and there under the banks and shielded from outer view, near-by
+watchers might discover little, dull-red patches glowing dimly in the
+semi-darkness. Here and there among the timber and along the brink
+little groups of dark objects, shifting slowly about, betrayed the
+presence of animal life, and afar out upon the prairie slopes tiny
+black spots on every side, perhaps a dozen in all, told the
+plains-practised eye that here was a cavalry bivouac--a little detached
+force of Uncle Sam's blue-shirted troopers, thrown out from the shelter
+of fort or garrison, and lurking for some purpose in the heart of the
+Indian country.
+
+For Indians there were by scores right here at the old antelope
+crossing only the night before. The sands of the ford were still
+trampled by myriad hoofs of ponies and streaked by the dragging poles
+of the travois. The torn earth on the northward rise out of the stream
+was still wet and muddy from the drip of shaggy breast and barrel of
+their nimble mounts. No need to call up Iron Shield or Baptiste or
+young Touch-the-Skies, Sioux scouts from the agency, to interpret the
+signs and point the way. The major commanding and all his officers and
+most of his men could read the indications as well as the half-breeds,
+natives to the soil. A big band of young warriors, with a few elders,
+had yielded to the eloquence of the messengers of Sitting Bull and were
+out for mischief. They had been missing from the agencies several
+weeks; had been ghost-dancing with their fellows from Pine Ridge to the
+west, and were by this time probably on their way to swell the ranks
+and stiffen the back of that big chief of the Minniconjou Sioux--"Big
+Foot," as known to the whites, Si Tanka, as known to the Indian
+Bureau, and "Spotted Elk," so said Iron Shield, the scout, as known to
+the Sioux themselves.
+
+A famous character was Si Tanka. Next to Sitting Bull, now that Gall
+was out of the way, dying of illness and old age, Si Tanka had more
+influence than any chief afield, and he longed to be acknowledged head
+of the allied Sioux. He had been to Washington, had been photographed
+side by side with Mr. Blaine on the steps of the Capitol; had sold to
+the whites the right of way for a railway through his Cheyenne River
+lands. He belonged to the Cheyenne River Agency far to the east, and
+declined to live there. He had his own village up in the Cherry Creek
+country, midway between the troops at Fort Meade in the Black Hills and
+Fort Bennett on the Missouri. He had white man's log-cabins, wagons,
+furniture, horses, hens, and chickens. He had, moreover, hundreds of
+cartridges, and the means and appliances wherewith to reload his
+shells, and he had, what was worse, a lively son, Black Fox, who had
+more Winchesters than he knew what to do with, and an insatiable
+longing to use them against the whites.
+
+Ever since the ghost-dancing had begun, Si Tanka stayed in the open.
+Agents went forth and begged him to come in where he belonged--to the
+Cheyenne Agency at the east, or to the Pine Ridge to the southwest, or
+the Rosebud to the southeast, or, if his lordship preferred, he might
+even go camp near Fort Meade, or surrender at Standing Rock Agency to
+the northeast, but to be out in the wilds and barely one hundred miles
+from Sitting Bull, also posing as a private and sovereign citizen,
+accepting government support but declining government supervision--that
+was something the Indian Bureau viewed with alarm, and well it might,
+for if Tatanka Iyotanka (Bull Sitting Big) and Siha Tanka, Si for short
+(Foot Big), should take it into their dusky heads to be allies and not
+rivals, if the great Uncapapa and the big Minniconjou were to join
+forces, there would be the mischief to pay all over the West. So the
+Bureau sent and civilly requested. Si Tanka most uncivilly replied,
+and Tatanka Iyotanka scorned to reply at all.
+
+What made matters bad was this, that young braves were eternally
+getting crazy over the ghost-dancing and going off to join these big
+chiefs. "_Akichita hemacha_" ("I am a warrior"), being all they had to
+say to friends and teachers who sought to dissuade them.
+
+Away up at Fort Meade, in the Black Hills, were some high-mettled
+fellows, cavalry and infantry, who were eagerly watching the
+indications, one burly major of Horse fairly losing his temper over the
+situation, and begging the powers to let him take his capital squadron,
+with one or two companies of infantry, and, between his horsemen, his
+"walkaheaps," and himself, sturdy "Napa Yahmni," as the Sioux had named
+him, swore he'd bring Big Foot to his senses and back to the agency.
+Napa yahmni meant "three fingers," that being all that were left on one
+of his hands after a scrimmage with Southern sabres during the great
+Civil War. Really, there was reason why something should be done, or
+surely the settlers and ranch folk would be made to suffer. And with
+troops there at Fort Meade, in the Hills, and over at Fort Yates, on
+the Missouri, and at Fort Robinson off to the southwest, or Niobrara
+here to the east, it was high time Mr. Big Foot was made to behave, and
+still the government stayed its orders and held its hand.
+
+One cool-headed, nervy, mild-mannered young officer had taken his life
+in his hands, and a half-breed interpreter in civilized clothing,
+visited Si Tanka's big village and had a talk with his turbulent
+braves, to the end that as many as forty decided to quit, go home and
+be good, give up evil spirits, intentions, and ghost-dancing, to the
+rage of Black Fox and the amaze of Napa Yahmni, but it wasn't a week
+before another Messiah broke loose among the sand-hills of western
+Nebraska, and braves by the dozen sped thither to hear him; and
+presently both agencies had another influx of outsiders, urging revolt
+and uprising, and the old men counselled vainly, and preachers and
+teachers pleaded without avail. The young wards of the nation were
+ripe for mischief. The day of their deliverance had come. The Messiah
+was calling his chosen to the wild wastes of the Bad Lands, where they
+could sing and shout and dance till they dropped, and then if they went
+mad with religion, and away to the warpath, it meant woe for western
+Nebraska and for the Dakotas far and near. This was the situation that
+called for a scout from Fort Niobrara, and thus it happened that for
+over a fortnight a little column of cavalry had been patrolling the
+breaks and the valleys away to the northwest, peering into the old
+haunts of the Sioux along the headwaters of the pretty streams rising
+among the hills beyond the weather-beaten landmark of Eagle's Nest.
+They found lodge poles a-plenty on Black Pipe Creek, and the ashes of
+many a little fire along Pass Creek and Bear-in-the-Lodge, and away to
+the Yellow Medicine. They circled clear round the wild worshippers, it
+seems, far west as the Wounded Knee, without ever encountering one; and
+yet keeping them on the move had broken up their incantations, and, as
+the major believed, had worn out their obstinate determination to
+stick to their medicine-men and Messiahs whether the Great White Father
+would have it or not.
+
+For two days the column had followed, eastward now, the trail of a big
+band, and just when Baptiste and Touch-the-Sky, interpreters, would
+have it that the crazy chiefs and their followers had been fairly
+headed off and balked of their purpose of joining Big Foot beyond the
+Cheyenne, just when it seemed likely that another day would enable the
+troops to overhaul them and herd them peaceably, if possible, forcibly,
+if not, back to the sheltering wing of the agency and the Indian
+police, lo, just at sunset, after a long day's march, a corporal had
+come galloping, full cry, from the rear-guard, while the scouts were
+still far out to the front: "The Indians are back of us at least six
+miles, going like mad for the north!"
+
+Then the major commanding said things that made his pilots' ears
+tingle. It was all gospel truth. Finding themselves followed and being
+steadily pressed onward toward the fort and the settlements, the
+astute warriors had left a goodly sized party ambling along in front,
+to lead the cavalry on; had dropped away all afternoon by twos and
+threes as though looking for antelope or black tail, not northward
+where the valley of the upper Chaduza was open and shallow and they
+could be seen for miles, but southward among the breaks and ravines
+where they were hidden entirely; had reassembled on a little branch to
+the southwest and then, when the column was well out of sight, had
+rushed for the north and the wild country so recently left; had forded
+the Chaduza and by moonrise were doubtless safely camped for the night
+on the south fork of White River. All the major could do was order his
+men to the right-about, march to the crossing (another weary six miles
+after the thirty-six of the day), and, with drooping horses and riders,
+unsaddle, cook supper, and settle for the night, then send couriers to
+the post in the morning.
+
+And now morning had come and couriers had not yet gone, for an hour
+before the first break of day--the _anpaniya_ of the Sioux--there had
+come galloping from the northeast a riderless horse, at sight of whose
+blood-stained saddle and stirrup hood the herd-guard woke the officer
+of the pickets. The captain unrolled from his blanket, took one look by
+the light of the moon, and bade the corporal find Baptiste, who needed
+not to see the saddle; he knew the horse at a glance.
+
+"Pete Gamble's," said he. "They've begun killing!" And Pete Gamble was
+a ranchman well known to them all, both Indian and white. "If they
+would kill _him_," said he, "they would kill anybody."
+
+And as if this were not enough, barely half an hour later two men, mad
+with terror, came spurring in over the northward ridge, almost
+delirious with joy to find themselves in the presence of friends. Their
+little hunting camp, they said, had been suddenly "jumped" early in the
+night. They had managed to get out with stampeded horses, but every one
+else was butchered, and the Indians were after _them_. The major
+doubled his guards to the north and awaited the Indian coming. He
+would not rouse his wearied men until actually assailed.
+
+But now it was fairly broad daylight, and not an Indian feather had
+shown nor an Indian shot been heard. Slowly, sleepily, at the gruff
+summons of their sergeants, the troopers were crawling out of their
+blankets and stretching and yawning by the fires. No stirring
+trumpet-call had roused them from their dreams. A stickler for style
+and ceremony was the major in garrison, but out on Indian campaign he
+was "horse sense from the ground up," as his veterans put it. He
+observed all formalities when on ordinary march, and none whatever when
+in chase of the Indians.
+
+He had let them sleep to the very last minute, well knowing he might
+have stern demands to make that day. He and his adjutant had reduced
+the statements of the hunters to writing, and a brief, soldierly report
+was now ready to go to the general commanding the department, who had
+come out to Fort Niobrara to be nearer the scene of action. The fort
+lay nearly fifty miles away, south of east, the agency even farther to
+the north and east, and the recalcitrant braves were heading away
+through the wilds of their old reservation, and might stop only for
+occasional bite, sup, or sleep until they joined forces with Big Foot
+or Black Fox, full a hundred miles as the crow flies, for now were they
+branded renegades in the light of the law.
+
+In the crisp, chill air of the late autumn morning tiny smokes from the
+cook-fires sailed straight aloft, melting speedily into the blue. For
+nearly half a mile along the stream horses and pack-mules were
+scattered upon the "bench," browsing eagerly on the dew-laden bunch
+grass. Farther out beyond them on every side, with their campaign hats
+pulled down over their grim eyebrows and their heads deep in the
+collars of their cavalry overcoats, the men of the guard still kept
+vigilant watch. Long years of experience on the Indian frontier had
+taught their leaders the need of precaution, and the sentries took
+their cue from the "old hands." By a little camp-fire, booted,
+spurred, slouch-hatted, like his troopers, and muffled in a light-blue
+overcoat that could not be told from theirs, the major commanding was
+giving brief directions to three troopers who stood silently before
+him, their carbines dangling from their broad shoulder-belts, with the
+reins of their chargers in hand. Wiry and gaunt were these chargers,
+wiry and gaunt were the men, for those were days when neither horse nor
+rider went over-weight on campaign, or came back with a superfluous
+ounce. But horses and men had stripped for the day's work. Blanket,
+poncho, and overcoat, saddle-bags, side lines, lariat, and
+picket-pin--everything, in fact, but themselves, their arms,
+cartridges, canteens, saddles, saddle-blankets, and bridles--had been
+left to the pack-train. A good breakfast to start with, a few hardtack
+and slices of bacon in the breast-pocket of the hunting-shirt, settled
+the question of subsistence. They were to start at once, deliver those
+despatches at Niobrara, unless headed off by Indians, long before set
+of sun, and be back with reply before its rise on the morrow.
+
+Then came the question as to the fate of the poor fellows of Gamble's
+and the hunters' camp.
+
+"Mr. Willard," said the major to his adjutant, as the couriers mounted
+and rode away, "send one platoon over to Gamble's camp--it'll take 'em
+all day--and another back on the trail of the teamsters, and see what
+they can find of the outfit. They'll have to hunt for it themselves.
+The hunters say they wouldn't go back for a million apiece."
+
+The adjutant was figuring in his note-book. He closed it, arose at
+once, and looked about him. Officers and men, the six troops, or
+companies, of the detachment seemed busy at breakfast. The aroma of
+soldier coffee floated on the keen morning air, and under the gentle,
+genial influence of the welcome stimulant men began to thaw out, and
+presently the firesides were merry with chaff and fun. A curious and
+sympathetic group, to be sure, hovered about the survivors of the
+hunters' camp, listening rather doubtfully to their tales, for the
+tales had taken devious turns under cross-examination. But for the
+bloody trappings of Pete Gamble's horse, telling mutely of tragedy, the
+hunters might have met only contempt and scoffing. Indian scares were
+old as the trails.
+
+"Whose turn is it?" presently questioned the major, as Mr. Willard
+started away. The adjutant halted and faced about:
+
+"'D' and 'F' troops, sir."
+
+"All right. One officer and twenty men from each will be enough."
+
+And then came striding forward, with quick, elastic steps, a young
+soldier in dark-blue campaign shirt and riding-breeches, a three weeks'
+stubble on his clear-cut, sun-burned face, a field-glass slung over one
+shoulder, a leather-covered note-book tucked away inside his
+cartridge-belt. No sign of rank was visible about his dress, yet there
+could be little doubt of it. The major looked up, smiling.
+
+"Fast going for topographical notes yesterday, wasn't it, Mr. Connell?"
+
+"I'm afraid so, sir. Indeed, I'm ashamed to submit them, but I wouldn't
+have missed this scout for a month's pay, all the same."
+
+"Well, we don't often see the engineers on this sort of duty. I'm glad
+the general sent you along. What is it, captain?" he broke off, turning
+to a gray-mustached, choleric-looking veteran who came suddenly upon
+them, breathing rather hard.
+
+"Major," began the stout man, impetuously, "this makes the third time
+in ten days 'F' Troop's been ordered on side scout, or some part of it.
+Now we're ordered back to hunt up what's left of that wagon camp,
+and--"
+
+"One moment, captain," interposed the commander, placidly. "You say
+'we.' My orders are only one officer and twenty men."
+
+"Well, I have only one officer with me, and _he_ don't belong," was the
+querulous rejoinder. "He's simply a volunteer with the command, and so
+utterly inexperienced that I consider it necessary to go myself. I
+can't trust my men to a mere boy just out of school."
+
+"That will do, Captain Garrett," said the major, promptly, yet with
+absolutely unruffled tone and temper. "If _I_ can, _you_ may. Mr.
+Graham has had more experience than you are aware of."
+
+"Does Mr. Graham go--in command?" asked Connell, eagerly, as Captain
+Garrett, silenced, but swelling with amaze, stood helplessly by. "May
+_I_ go with him, sir?"
+
+"By all means, Mr. Connell, if you wish."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+FIRST SIGHT OF THE FOE
+
+
+In half an hour the sun was up and two little detachments of cavalry
+were up and away--one of them, under Lieutenant O'Fallon, filing out of
+the cotton-woods, at the eastward verge, and heading straight on the
+trail of the couriers, who were already out of sight down the valley;
+the other, leaving a few minutes later, was just disappearing from view
+of the watchers in the bivouac, over the low ridge or divide that
+spanned the northward sky-line. Once before, five years back, Geordie
+Graham had led a little cavalry command on a swift and successful chase
+after a gang of frontier desperadoes who had robbed the bank at
+Argenta. Now, for the first time in his life, he was both guide and
+commander. Now, as they had done time and again in cadet days, Connell
+and Graham, "Badger" and "Coyote," went side by side, almost hand in
+hand, on the path of stirring and at last perilous duty.
+
+To Connell the scout had thus far been one of almost unalloyed
+enjoyment and profit. Attached to the staff of the commander as
+engineer and topographical officer, he had ridden at will on the flanks
+of the column, a single orderly his sole attendant, a prismatic compass
+his only instrument. Then with the declining hours of the day came the
+making up of his notes, and after supper the hours of confab with
+Geordie, who, whenever possible, would come over to headquarters
+camp-fire. There was no sociability at his own.
+
+"It is too bad," Major Berry had confided to Connell the third day out.
+"It just so happened that 'Old Grumbly' was the one captain without a
+subaltern when Mr. Graham reported for duty with us, and your fine
+young classmate had to take the place of one of the absentees. The
+colonel couldn't help himself. Grumbly is a good soldier in his way,
+Mr. Connell, and knows his trade, too. I suppose Graham has--sized him
+up?" This with a cock of his head and a keen glance.
+
+"Shouldn't wonder, sir; but if he has, he's kept it to himself."
+
+"Well, if Garrett gets to bothering Graham too much, you let me know."
+
+"I will, sir, if Graham lets _me_ know, but--I'm mistaken in Graham if
+he opens his head on the subject."
+
+And though the scout was now in its third week, and things had been
+said and done by "Grumbly" Garrett that set other men to talking, not a
+word had come from "Coyote."
+
+But it soon transpired that if Graham wouldn't speak of his troop
+commander _pro tem._, neither did he speak to him, save when occasion
+required. Day after day on the march it was noted that while the senior
+lieutenant of each troop rode side by side with his captain, the young
+West Pointer serving with "F" was almost always at the rear of its
+column of twos, where, as it transpired, Garrett had given him orders
+to march and see that the men kept closed. But no complaint came from
+Graham.
+
+Now, however, as the two old chums rode away on a side scout of their
+own, it might well be expected that "Coyote" would be less reticent.
+The eyes of half the command had followed them appreciatively as the
+detachment started, Graham and Connell in the lead, Sergeant Drum, and
+his nineteen following in compact column of twos. No sooner did they
+reach the outlying sentries, however, than it was noted that the young
+leader looked back over his shoulder, and the next moment two troopers
+detached themselves from the rest and spurred out ahead until full six
+hundred yards in the lead. Then two others obliqued out to the right
+and left until nearly as a great a distance on the flanks.
+
+"Knows his biz," said the adjutant, sententiously.
+
+"Knows nothing but what I've taught him day by day," snarled Captain
+Garrett. "And I wash my hands of all responsibility for that detachment
+once it's out of sight of us."
+
+"Shut up," growled a junior. "The 'Old Man's' got ears, and he'll hear
+you."
+
+"Well, I _want_ him to hear--it's time he _did_ hear--and heed," was
+the surly answer. But "Grumbly's" eyes were wisely watching the major
+as he spoke, noting that the "Old Man" was busy with his binocular,
+following Graham's movements up the long, gradual, northward slope. The
+moment the major dropped it and turned toward the group, Captain
+Garrett changed his tone. "What I'm most afraid of is his getting
+lost," said he.
+
+"You needn't be, captain," said the bearded commander, placidly. "Mr.
+Graham knows this country better than we do. He spent long months here
+before ever we set eyes on it."
+
+Garrett's jaw dropped. "Then why didn't he tell me? How was I to know?"
+
+"Principally, I fancy," drawled the adjutant, who loved to rub "Old
+Grumbly's" fur the wrong way, "because you told him two weeks ago that
+when you wanted advice or information on any subject from him you'd ask
+it."
+
+But while Graham had as yet won no friend in Captain Garrett, he had
+found many among the troopers. His fine horsemanship, his kind,
+courteous manner to them, his soldierly bearing toward their irascible
+captain, had appealed to them at the start and held them more and more
+toward the finish. They saw the second day out that he was no novice at
+plainscraft. The captain had asked his estimate of the distance from a
+ford of the Chaduza to a distant butte, and promptly scoffed at his
+answer; indeed, it surprised most of them. Yet "Plum" Gunnison,
+pack-master, who had served seven years at the post, said the
+lieutenant was right. They saw within the fourth day that the new-comer
+was an old stager in more ways than one. "Touch-the-Sky," scout and
+interpreter, said the lieutenant knew sign talk, which was more than
+their captain did. They were to see still more within the compass of a
+day's march, but they had seen enough in their two weeks' comradeship
+to give them confidence in the young officer they never felt for their
+own and only "Grumbly," who, with all his experience, would often
+blunder, and Grumbly's blunders told on his troop, otherwise they might
+not have cared.
+
+In low tone the troopers were chatting as they crossed the divide and
+once more came in view of the two far out in advance, riding now
+northeastward. They were following back, without much difficulty, the
+hoof-prints of the two fugitives who, riding in terror and darkness,
+had so fortunately found their bivouac at break of day. And it was of
+these two both the men and their young officers were talking as the
+little party jogged steadily on.
+
+Peaceful hunters and law-abiding men the pair had represented
+themselves. They were originally five in all--three "pardners," a
+wagoner, and a cook. Their "outfit" consisted of a covered wagon with
+four draught and three saddle horses. They indignantly spurned the
+suggestion that they had whiskey to swap with the Indians for fur and
+peltries. They had a ranch down on Snake River, were well known in
+Valentine, had never made trouble, nor had trouble, with the Indians;
+but the game was all gone from their home neighborhood, and so long as
+they kept off the reservation they knew there was no reason for the
+Indians troubling them. And here came another suggestion. The "Old
+Man," Major Berry, had somewhat bluntly asked if they did not know they
+had been trespassing, had been well within the reservation lines and
+north of Nebraska, and the two swore stoutly that Lem Pearson, partner
+and projector of the enterprise, had said he knew the country
+perfectly, had been there half a dozen times, and they left it all to
+him. They never dreamed they were doing wrong until their camp was
+"jumped" in the dead of night, and the Sioux chased them every inch of
+the way till they got in sight of the cavalry.
+
+Yet here was the detachment, at six o'clock of this sparkling morning,
+clear out of sight of the rest of the cavalry, and half-way across the
+long swale of the next divide, and, though the print of the shod horses
+was easily followed, not once yet, anywhere--although the little troop
+was spread out in long extended line and searched diligently--not once
+had they found the print of a pony hoof. Now they were full an hour,
+and nearly four miles, out from camp, and Geordie signalled, slowly
+swinging his campaign hat about his head, for his men to assemble, then
+dismount and take their ten minutes' rest.
+
+"Con," said he, presently, "it's my belief those scamps were lying. The
+only Indians near the Chaduza were those that skipped for White River
+last night and are probably heading for Eagle's Nest now. Their trail
+must be three miles or more west of us here, and South Fork isn't three
+miles ahead. We'll see it from yonder ridge."
+
+Connell was squatting, tailor fashion, on the turf, and thoughtfully
+playing "mumble-t'-peg" with his hunting-knife, while his troop horse
+cropped thriftily at the bunch grass. Graham had been giving a glance
+over his little command, watching the resetting of a saddle or a
+careful folding of a blanket. It would presently be time to mount and
+start, but there was something on his mind, and, as of old, he wanted
+to have it out with his chum.
+
+Connell drew his knife from the sod, then, with the point on the tip of
+the left forefinger and the haft deftly held between the thumb and
+finger of his right, shifted it over by his right ear and sent it
+whirling down, saw it sink two inches in the sand, bolt upright, then
+queried: "They said their camp was on the Fork ten miles away
+northward. Could that be?"
+
+"It might. The Fork turns almost square to the north and runs back of
+Rosebud. But what I mean is, they weren't chased by the Sioux. I doubt
+if they fought them at all."
+
+"How about Gamble's horse?--and the blood? There's been some kind of a
+fight. Look, Con! There's a signal!"
+
+Surely enough. As Connell sprang to his feet and the men quickly turned
+to their grazing horses, one of the troopers, far in advance, could be
+seen close to the crest of the divide. He had dismounted to creep
+forward and peer over, and now, half-way back to where he had left his
+horse, was waving his hat, with right arm extended from directly over
+his head down to the horizontal and to the east.
+
+"Mount!" said Geordie, quietly, springing lightly to saddle with a
+thrill of excitement in his young heart. "Follow at a walk, sergeant,
+off to the northeast. That's where we're needed, Con."
+
+For the advance-guard, mounting quickly, was now loping along parallel
+with the divide, yet keeping well down below its backbone, and, putting
+spurs to their horses, "Badger" and "Coyote," the chums of old, darted
+swiftly away to join them.
+
+Five minutes more, while a trooper held the horses of the young
+officers and their guides, while in silence and with eager eyes the
+little detachment came jogging over the swale to the support of the
+leaders, three forms were crouching forward to the top of the wavelike
+ridge, and presently three heads, uncovered, were peering over into the
+valley beyond. Then the arm of one of them was outstretched, pointing.
+Then the field-glasses of two others were unslung, fixed and focused
+on some distant object; and then back, still crouching, came one of the
+number, signalling to Sergeant Drum to come on. Whereupon, without a
+word of command, simply following the example of their foremost man,
+the riders gave the bridle-hand, and with the other whipped the ready
+carbines from their sockets, and with the butts resting on the right
+thigh, the brown muzzles advanced, came on at a swift trot, those in
+rear unconsciously pressing forward on those in front.
+
+Then another signal--this time from their young commander, who had come
+running down afoot, leaving "Badger" at the crest. In the eagerness of
+the forward rush the riders were opening out, coming right and left
+front into line, as the soldiers say, and Graham's gauntleted
+hands--the same gauntlets Big Ben had coveted three months
+earlier--were extended full to right and left, the length of each arm,
+and then brought "palms together" in front. "Close in," it said, as
+plain as day, and almost instantly Drum's gruff voice could be heard in
+rebuke; almost as quickly the practised riders could be seen closing
+the outer leg and rein. Another moment and the little line was trotting
+almost boot to boot. Then as they neared the point where the slope
+became abrupt, Graham's right hand, palm forward, went straight aloft,
+a gesture instantly repeated by the sergeant, and in two seconds more
+the horses, panting a little with excitement, were pawing the turf, and
+Drum's voice, low and compelling, ordered, "Count fours!" The next
+moment the odd numbers darted forward four yards, and halted. The next,
+with carbines swung over their shoulders, numbers one, two, and three
+were swinging from saddle, the next all horses were again in one line,
+with every fourth trooper still seated in saddle; and the dismounted
+men deftly lashing their reins to the headstalls of numbers two and
+three, while three himself passed his reins up to number four. Then,
+nimbly, with carbines at trail, up came a dozen wiry young fellows in
+dusty campaign rig, running swiftly up the slope, and in another moment
+were sprawling on their stomachs close to the crest, their slouch hats
+flung aside.
+
+And this was what they saw: Before them, to the right front, stretching
+away to the north, lay a broad valley, through which meandered a wider,
+bigger stream than the familiar Chaduza. It came winding down from the
+west before making its sweeping bend to the northward. It was fringed
+in spots by cotton-woods, and bare to the very banks in others. It was
+desolate and lifeless far as the eye could see, west and north. But
+away to the northeast, perhaps seven miles or so, a faint column of
+smoke was rising against the skies. Away to the northwest, perhaps a
+dozen miles, in alternate puffs, another and narrower smoke column was
+rising--Sioux signals, as they knew at once--and right down here before
+their eyes, midway between the shining river and the foot of the
+northward slope, perhaps two thousand yards out--a little more than a
+mile--was coming toward them a four-horse wagon, its white top a wreck,
+its struggling team lashed by the whip of the driver and the quirts of
+half a dozen dusky outriders, while others still circled and shouted
+and urged them on, while afar back on the east bank of the stream other
+riders could be seen darting about in keen excitement. All on a sudden,
+but by no means all unprepared, "Corporal Pops" and his little command
+found themselves facing a new proposition and a band of turbulent
+Sioux.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+PROOF POSITIVE OF GUILT
+
+
+And the first words spoken came from the lips of Sergeant Drum--like
+many another old campaigner among the old-time regulars, a privileged
+character.
+
+"Didn't I tell ye those fellers were lyin'? Here's their wagon now,
+that was burnt over their heads!"
+
+At intervals of several paces, as they could best find points from
+which to see without being seen from the northern side, the little
+detachment lay sprawled along the crest, the brown barrels of the
+carbines well forward. Graham and Connell, peering through their
+field-glasses, their elbows resting on the turf, were side by side
+about the centre. Behind them, nearly a hundred paces down the
+southward slope, stood the horses in an irregular line, a corporal
+remaining in charge, keenly watching the movements of his superiors,
+yet keeping constant control of the four horse-holders, who, like
+himself, remained in saddle. There could be no telling what moment they
+might be needed.
+
+For an odd and perplexing situation was this in which the young
+commander was placed. Ordered to follow back the trail of the fugitive
+hunters to the point where they claimed to have been "jumped" by
+hostile Indians; ordered to find, if possible, the remains of the
+victims, men and horses, and of the burned wagon and "outfit"; ordered
+also to search for signs by which the assailants might be discovered,
+the command had come suddenly in sight of a wagon and horses that
+answered the description of those said to have been destroyed, and if
+that wasn't a white man driving them, both binoculars were at fault.
+
+But what did it mean that the captors should be coming southwestward
+with their booty? Why had they not burned the wagon? They could never
+use it at the reservation. Many young men, of course, were out and
+afield with the ghost-dancers, but the elders, the native police, and
+the agent would quickly hear of it, and trouble would follow for
+somebody. George Sword, Sioux chief of police and stanch adherent of
+General Crook--"Wichahnpi Yahmni" (Three Stars), as they called him
+whom so long the Sioux had honored, and whom now they were so deeply
+mourning--George Sword was a man who did his duty well; Geordie, as a
+boy, had known him, and known how the general trusted him. A wagon like
+this would be of no more use to the captors than a locomotive; yet here
+they were, a dozen of them, urging it on, while others of their kind,
+afar back down-stream, were darting about, little black dots of
+horsemen scampering over the distant slopes, evidently watching some
+parties still farther away and invisible to the lurking cavalry.
+
+Could it be that they were trying to repeat an old-time deed of
+chivalry told to this day of their fathers--restoring lost property to
+the legitimate owners? Could it be that, knowing the presence of the
+squadron on the Mini Chaduza, and the probability of the frightened
+owners having found refuge there, these Indians were now actually
+driving thither? They were still on their reservation. There was
+nothing but the fugitives' statement to warrant the belief that the
+camp had been attacked and burned. There was nothing, in fact, to
+justify an attack upon the present possessors. They would probably
+scatter, rush to the reservation, tell their tale to the agent, and the
+press and the peace societies would presently be flooding the country
+with columns concerning the murderous onslaught on a friendly people
+made by a reckless soldiery.
+
+Yet something had to be done, and that right speedily; for now, instead
+of breasting the long slope, and coming, as at first, straight toward
+the ridge, the Indians were lashing the leaders in gradual turn to the
+westward. Now they were skirting the foot of the incline and moving
+parallel to the ridge, and then it was that Geordie saw the reason.
+They had made the wide sweep outward in order to circle the head of a
+ravine which, starting only a few hundred yards out to the left front,
+went winding deeper and steeper through the "bench" until it finally
+opened out into the creek bottom a long mile away.
+
+Yes, the whole scheme was evident now. They had captured the camp and
+the wagon with its contents, and, knowing the difficult country and
+crossings along the lower Fork, were scurrying with their booty around
+the great southward bend, hoping to get away to the west, reach the
+trail of the war-party that had evaded the cavalry, and follow on with
+their prize. Or else, still keeping within the reservation line, to
+drive on westward for the valley of the Wounded Knee and their red
+brethren of the Pine Ridge Agency, the Brules of old Spotted Tail's
+(Sinte gleshka's) long famous band.
+
+Yet there, too, this wagon would be a white elephant. Why had they not
+divided among themselves the simple contents of a hunter's camp outfit,
+cut loose with the horses, and burned the big vehicle, which they could
+not use?
+
+Then all in a moment the truth flashed upon Geordie. Years before he
+had heard of such traffic, heard the fierce denunciation lavished by
+officers and men upon the miscreants who, for love of gold, would sell
+to Indians, at fabulous price, the means of murdering their fellow-men.
+All on a sudden his voice was heard:
+
+"Back to your horses, men! Mount, sergeant, and follow. Come on,
+Connell! That's why it takes four horses to lug it--that wagon is
+loaded with lead!"
+
+One minute more and from the lips of one wary Indian, well out on the
+"bench," went up a shrill whoop of warning. Away up the the grassy
+incline, from over the ridge and spurring straight for the wagon, now
+at the head of the ravine, came two lithe young horsemen, riding like
+the wind, the right hand of the foremost far uplifted in the signal
+known the plains over--to halt. Behind these two came an orderly
+trooper full gallop. Behind these three, presently, there popped into
+view a score of slouch-hatted, blue-bloused, sturdy dragoons, and with
+many a screech of wrath and disgust, away went the last of the Sioux,
+scooting for the shelter of the creek bank beyond. Shoot they longed
+to, yet dare not. The word had not yet gone forth. The medicine-men
+still said nay. The time was not yet ripe. A few days more must they
+suffer until Si Tanka and his braves were met, until, in overwhelming
+force, they could turn on the scattered and helpless settlers. That was
+easier warfare than fighting soldiers, and counted for just as much in
+scalps and glory. Away they went to the cotton-wood bottom, and one
+wellnigh exhausted, thoroughly demoralized white man collapsed on the
+driver's seat, and four sweating, staggering horses pulled up, panting
+and blowing, and the score of blue-coated riders came thundering on, to
+rein up in triumph around a silent but obviously excited brace of
+lieutenants, one of whom simply pointed into the depths of the wagon
+body. From under a lot of dingy camp equipage peeped out three or four
+little boxes the soldiery knew at sight. Sergeant Drum spurred
+alongside and whisked off what was left of the cover, and a dirty
+blanket or two, and there was a larger box, half filled with magazine
+rifles. There were ten boxes of Winchester cartridges, one thousand to
+the box. There was the secret of the "hunter's camp." They had been
+selling arms to the Sioux.
+
+"Good find, that, Geordie," grinned Connell, as his comrade sat
+pencilling a brief despatch to the major, while three of the men, with
+liberal sprinklings from their canteens and brisk fanning with their
+hats, were striving to revive the collapsed wagoner.
+
+"I need his story," said our plains-wise Pops. "Pull him to, if
+possible," and then went on with his writing.
+
+
+                    "SOUTH FORK, WHITE RIVER,
+                        "_October_ -- '90, 9 A.M.
+     "_Lieutenant H.H. Willard, Adjutant Detachment
+         --th Cavalry._
+
+     "SIR,--I have to report that we have just intercepted a small
+     party of Sioux driving off a four-horse wagon, which contains
+     eleven Henry and Winchester rifles and at least ten thousand
+     rounds of ball cartridges. This is probably the 'outfit' of the
+     fugitives who reached bivouac this morning, reporting it burned
+     and their comrades killed.
+
+     "One of the latter, at least, is alive, but we found him
+     unconscious, although unharmed. He was driving the wagon. The
+     Indians scattered, but are now assembling in the cotton-woods a
+     mile distant. More seem coming to join them. If attacked, we
+     will hold out; but I wish to push on and ascertain what befell
+     the others. We cannot, however, leave the wagon, nor have I
+     force enough to leave a guard.
+
+                        "Very respectfully,
+                              "G.M. GRAHAM,
+                          "_Second Lieutenant --th Cavalry_,
+                            "_Commanding detachment_."
+
+Then came a significant P.S., at sight of which, little over an hour
+later, Major Berry's eyes snapped, and so did his speech.
+
+"Bring those two scoundrels here!" said he, and a hangdog-looking pair
+they were when presently lined up before the bearded commander, while
+no less a personage than Captain Garrett, at the head of forty
+troopers, was setting forth on the trail of his much-envied subaltern,
+to relieve him, if surrounded and attacked by the Sioux; to relieve
+him, in any event, of the care of the wagon, but under no circumstances
+to relieve him of his command or duties. Unless menaced by strong
+parties of the Sioux, Mr. Graham was to go ahead with a dozen
+additional men, carry out his orders, and Captain Garrett with the rest
+should bring that wagon to camp.
+
+Then with Geordie's report and postscript in hand, the major stood
+glowering at the fugitives of the morning, now most ruefully yet
+furtively studying his face. They suspected something amiss when warned
+awhile before that they were not to try to ride off. They knew there
+was mischief to pay now.
+
+"You two sku--specimens," began the major, ominously, "told me you were
+only accidentally on the Sioux reservation. You swore you were simply
+out hunting antelope."
+
+"That's God's truth, major," whined the taller of the two, though the
+other seemed ready to parley and plead.
+
+"That's an infernal lie!" was the answer. "You told me the Sioux
+'jumped' your camp, killed your partner, and burned your wagon." And
+with menace in his burning eyes the veteran officer paused for a reply.
+
+"'Fore God, major, that's how it looked to us. 'Course it was
+pitch-dark--"
+
+"Pitch-dark--in bright moonlight! This is worse, and more of it.
+You're a pair of black-hearted villains! You went there deliberately.
+You went with a wagon-load of arms and ammunition to sell to Sioux
+Indians just bound for the war-path. You'd swing for that if there was
+any law in the land, but swing you shall--anyhow!"
+
+"You dassn't touch us!" burst in the leader, sudden spirit and defiance
+in his tone, well knowing how powerless were the military in face of
+civil law. "We're no poor devils of dog-robbers. We demand protection
+and a fair trial--a jury of our peers; that means no hide-bound gang of
+soldiers. You can't prove we sold so much as a shot, an' you know it,
+an' you're only trying to bluff."
+
+"That's enough, _you_!" was the startling answer. "Sergeant of the
+guard, shoot these men like dogs if they attempt to escape. We sha'n't
+waste time trying to prove you sold arms. What we can prove, and will
+prove, and by your own man, too, and hang you high as Haman for it, is
+that Pete Gamble, deputy sheriff, caught you at your devilish work, and
+you shot him dead from ambush!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE WAR-DANCE AND THE CHARGE
+
+
+With two days' cooked rations in their saddle-bags now, with a line of
+hearty appreciation from Major Berry and renewed instructions to go
+ahead, with a dozen more men than he had at the start, and the best
+wishes of his temporary commander, Geordie Graham had pushed on again
+northeastward down the right bank of the Fork. Waiting until the party
+was fairly out of sight over the far-distant "divide," and watching
+meantime the movements of the still remaining Indians in the timber,
+Captain Garrett finally put his puny command in march for the Mini
+Chaduza, bringing the wagon and the now semi-restored charioteer along.
+Five of Gunnison's pack-mules, sent on with the troop, had so lightened
+the wagon of its load that the lately abused horses, given a good feed
+of oats and a swallow of water, were able to trundle it lightly along.
+With another day it was started under escort for Niobrara, its late
+owners, cursing their fate, unwilling passengers inside.
+
+It was late afternoon when the two halves of "F" Troop lost sight of
+each other, the captain going, grumbling, back to the main body with a
+much disappointed command; the subaltern riding swiftly away down the
+widening valley, with an exultant platoon at his back, all hands
+rejoicing that theirs was the first capture of the campaign. Parallel
+with them, afar across the stream, darting from cover to cover and
+keeping vigilant watch, rode half a dozen redskins. Most of their
+brethren, by this time, were far away toward Eagle's Nest, in quest of
+the main body. These few were charged with the duty of keeping track of
+the little troop, in order to be able to report exactly the direction
+in which it was going and that no pursuit was intended. This definitely
+settled, they, too, galloped away, and the valley, so far as Geordie
+could judge, was now free of red riders.
+
+The sun was low in the west. The wagon-tracks still led on. The night
+was near at hand, and the troopers in advance had seen no sign of a
+camp. Ten miles, at least, had they marched, and, avoiding a deep
+westward bend of the stream, the trail now led them over a low ridge,
+from whose crest the scouts signalled, "Nothing in sight."
+
+Yet, a few minutes later, Graham and Connell, dismounting there the
+better to scour the country with their glasses, were seen by the main
+body to spring to their feet and then to saddle, Graham facing toward
+them and with his hat signalling, "Change direction half left," whereat
+Sergeant Drum, riding steadily along perhaps four hundred yards behind
+his young commander, simply turned his horse's head in the direction
+indicated, left the wagon-track, and silently his comrades followed.
+"They've found it," said Drum, and found it they had.
+
+Though the wheel-marks still held to the northward, and the three
+troopers far in the lead had seen nothing as yet worthy of special
+report, the strong lenses of the signal-glass had told their own story.
+
+"Look yonder, Connell, in that clump of cotton-woods beyond the low
+point," were Graham's words as he sprang to his feet. "See those black
+things in the timber? They're buzzards!"
+
+Five minutes later the corporal, too, was signalling, he and his men at
+a halt. They, too, had made discoveries: the track, as it later
+developed, of two shod horses pursued by shoeless Indian ponies.
+Southeastward this trail went up a long, shallow ravine, then veered
+round to the south. It told of fugitives and, for a time, of pursuers.
+Ten minutes after the first discovery, down in the sandy bottom and
+close to the stream, the officers caught sight of a brace of prairie
+wolves, skulking away from the timber, among the branches of which some
+grewsome birds were flapping and fluttering, while two or three sailed
+slowly overhead. Presently the riders came in view of a little
+scooped-out shelter where the sand was all torn by hoofs, and herein
+lay the poor remains that served as confirmation of the driver's
+story--all that was left, as was soon determined, of poor Gamble, one
+of the most feared and fearless men of the Western frontier.
+
+Shot twice, and from behind, he had managed to gallop a few hundred
+yards up-stream, and then, weak from loss of blood, had toppled out of
+saddle, crawled to this hollow, and presently died. Half a mile farther
+down-stream the camp site was found, hoof and moccasin tracks in
+myriads about it, camp-kettles and debris still scattered around, empty
+cans, sacks, and boxes flung at the edge of the stream. Here,
+evidently, the traders had spent two or three days, and here, there,
+and everywhere were fragments of pasteboard cartridge-cases. A thriving
+industry, this, until suddenly swooped upon by Gamble, who paid for his
+discovery with his life. Here, then, was closed one chapter of the
+hunters' tale. But what had become of their partner? What had broken up
+their camp and driven them, terror-stricken, from the reservation?
+
+Not until the dawning of another day was this fully determined.
+Meanwhile there came new complications--a strange and stirring
+adventure of their own.
+
+Finding fair grass on the "bench" a few rods farther down the stream,
+Geordie had chosen a site for the bivouac, and disposed his little
+force for the night. While there had been as yet no overt act of
+hostility on the part of the Sioux, and while all the Indians taking
+part in the affair of the morning had now, apparently, ridden off to
+join the renegade band, and were presumably far to the northwest, no
+chances could be taken. The horses, after two hours' grazing, were led
+into the timber and hoppled. The sentries were posted well out. The
+little camp-fires had been screened under the bank, and full half the
+command had rolled in their blankets and settled to sleep. When the
+moon came peering up over the distant eastward heights, Geordie and
+Connell, chatting in low tones under a sheltering cotton-wood, were
+suddenly summoned by a trooper coming in on the run from the outpost
+below, a mile at least from where they had buried poor Gamble.
+"Indians, sir," said he, "and lots of 'em, coming up the valley on the
+other bank."
+
+"Douse your fires, there!" was the first order. "Look well to your
+horses, sergeant. Stay here in charge. I'll send word what to do."
+
+Then, with eager stride, Geordie hurried away after the messenger,
+Connell close at his heels. Two hundred yards they followed, winding
+along under the bank, and presently came to a sharp bend, beyond which
+and across the stream the prairie lay open and undulating for many a
+league, the only obstruction to the view being a little grove of
+cotton-woods on the opposite shore and possibly half a mile away, and
+that little grove and the level bench about it were alive with Indians
+and Indian ponies, the former at least in high state of excitement.
+
+Kneeling behind the trunk of a fallen cotton-wood, two troopers were
+intently studying the situation. "They came riding down from over
+yonder to the northeast, sir," said one of them, a corporal, making
+room for his lieutenant. "There must have been as many as a hundred all
+told, with others trailing behind. There's going to be a pow-wow of
+some kind. They've unsaddled and turned the ponies out, and some
+feller's shoutin' and singin'--you can hear him now, sir."
+
+Hear him! As he warmed up to his speech, incantation, or whatever it
+was, the speaker could have been heard distinctly a long mile away, and
+all the bivouac up-stream, not already sound asleep, sat up to listen.
+War-chief or medicine-man, he had a voice that dinned upon the ear of
+night and dominated all other sounds, from guttural grunt of assent to
+frantic yell of applause, as the roar of Niagara in the Cave of the
+Winds drowns the futile babble of the guides. Once in early boyhood
+Geordie had heard an Indian orator of whom his father and
+fellow-officers spoke ever in honor and esteem--a chief whose people
+wellnigh worshipped him--"Rolling-Thunder-in-the-Mountains," they
+called him ("Hin-Mato-Iya-Latkit," in their weird dialect). And as
+George and Connell knelt here now, listening to this deep, reverberant
+voice, thundering from bluff to bluff across the mile-wide valley, the
+name and fame of old Chief Joseph, whom the whites had so misunderstood
+and wronged, came back to the young commander with redoubled force.
+
+But no such chief as Joseph was this who, standing in the leaping
+firelight, high among the red warriors about him, was lashing them to
+frenzy with his resounding words. No interpreter crouched with the
+little party at the point; none was needed to tell them that he was
+preaching of battle, blood, and vengeance. From time to time the wail
+of women could be heard, wild as the scream of the panther, and, as one
+sign led to another, it dawned upon Geordie and the veteran trooper by
+his side that some brave of the band had recently been done to death by
+foul means or treachery, that now the tribe was being roused to a pitch
+of fury, to a mad thirst for vengeance; and even before the red orator
+had finished his harangue the war-drum began its fevered throb, the
+warriors, brandishing knife, club, hatchet, or gun, sprang half
+stripped into the swift-moving circle, and with shrill yells and weird
+contortions started the shuffling, squirming, snake-like evolutions of
+the war-dance. Faster, wilder went the drumbeats; fiercer, madder went
+the dance; and, unable to resist the impulse, Graham and Connell,
+secure in the belief that the Indians were utterly engrossed, crept
+cautiously onward and outward, with the corporal at their back,
+determined to see what they could of this savage and appalling
+ceremony.
+
+Half-way to the scene had they crept when the shrill wailing of the
+squaws gave way to shriller screams, to almost maniac laughter. The
+orator had ceased his incantations. The wild drummers stopped their
+pounding. The warriors, as though with one accord, clustered about the
+fire in fascination, and for the moment all save the squaws were
+stilled, and the crouching watchers, quarter of a mile away, looked
+blankly into each other's faces for explanation. "What on earth are
+they up to now?" whispered Connell.
+
+The answer came within the minute: a sound sweeter to savage ears than
+love-lay of the maidens, than war-song of the braves, than even the
+wild, triumphant chorus of the scalp-dance; a sound that suddenly rose
+for a moment above the clamor of the squaws, and then was answered and
+overwhelmed and drowned in mad, exultant, even fiendish, yells of
+delight--it was the scream of a strong man in awful agony.
+
+"My God!" cried the corporal. "They've got some poor devil there,
+torturing, burning him to death!"
+
+"To the horses! Come on, Con!" was the instant answer. And the three
+went bounding back along the bank, pursued and spurred by the savage
+shouting from below, but, as God so willed it, without so much as a
+glance. Over the lair of the picket they flew, with only the orders
+"Come on!" Away over the elastic "bench" they dashed, hot-foot for the
+bivouac, and Drum, the veteran, saw them coming like the wind, and read
+their tale and the instant need. "Saddle up!" he shouted, while the
+group was still afar. "Jump for it, men! There's not a second to lose!"
+
+Up from their blankets sprang the few sleepers. In from their stations
+scurried the outlying sentries. Rattle went the bits between the teeth
+of the excited chargers. Slap went the saddles on the broad, glossy
+backs. There was hurry and rush and swift leaping for arms, the snap of
+cinchas, the snorting of steeds, yet not a word was spoken until the
+low order to lead into line; and straightway old Drum marshalled his
+men, silent, yet with hearts beating like hammers, and then down their
+front rode their youthful lieutenant, a stranger to all but a month
+agone, yet now they lived on his slightest word. Oh, what
+thoughts--what thoughts of mother and home, and the brave old days of
+boyhood and the Point, had been winging through his brain during the
+long hours of the day! But now--now there was no time for thought!
+There was time only for action; for a fellow-man lay in deadly peril,
+in dreadful torment, only a short mile away.
+
+"Not a sound--not a shot, men," he ordered, as the quivering line
+reined up before him. "Follow our lead, stampede the ponies, and charge
+through the crowd; then rally quick as you can."
+
+Splash! drove the leaders into the shallows. Breast deep, foaming, they
+spurred through the stream, the troop plunging after, with carbines
+slung over their shoulders. Out on the opposite bank and up to the
+"bench" they swarmed, then veered away northward over the resounding
+level, Geordie and Connell, classmates and chums, bounding away in
+advance. No danger of Indian eyes or ears, no dread of hindering shot
+or ambush. When the pale-face writhes at the torture stake, even Indian
+vedette forgets his trade for the lust of such luxury as witnessing
+that. Up into line with the leading four galloped the chargers in rear.
+On toward the leaping flames in the grove led those lithe young riders
+ahead. Mad with excitement, some nervous new horses snatched at their
+bits and burst from the line, and Geordie, glancing back, saw them
+gaining in spite of restraining hand. What mattered it, anyhow?
+Every second was precious. The ground was open, the herded ponies less
+than half a mile forward, and already alarmed. "Let 'em go!" he
+shouted, with a wave of the revolver over his head. "Straight through
+the herd, men. _Ch-a-a-a-rge!_"
+
+    [Illustration: "'STRAIGHT THROUGH THE HERD, MEN.
+    _CH-A-A-A-RGE!_'"]
+
+Then up went a cheer that rang over the valley, shrill above the
+thunder of hoofs, the shriek and scream of terrified squaws, the shouts
+of astonished braves. Away like the wind went the streaming swarm of
+ponies, in mad flight for the north! Away like scatter-brained rabbits,
+darting hither and thither in the firelight, rushing madly to shelter,
+leaping from the "bench" to the sandy bottom below, scurrying in wild
+panic anywhere, everywhere, went warriors, women, and children; for,
+close on the heels of the vanishing herd came unknown numbers of
+blue-coated, brave--hearted, tumultuous riders, tearing through camp
+like a human tornado, turning the scene of the late revel into a
+turmoil of woe. Vain the few shots aimed in haste and excitement. Vain
+the rallying cry of a fighting chief. A blow from the butt of Ned
+Connell's revolver sprawled him headlong over a prostrate form--a white
+man "staked out" in front of the fire, swooning from mingled misery,
+weakness, and joy.
+
+It was Pearson, the missing "partner," captured alive by the Sioux,
+doomed to die by slow torture, in revenge for a young warrior shot down
+by the gun-traders in a senseless squabble two nights before.
+
+And the troop had saved him and his fellow-captive, the cook, without
+so much as firing a shot.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+BATTLE AND VICTORY
+
+
+And this was the story that went on the heels of the escort convoying
+the gun-traders in to the fort, and much did Major Berry relish the
+composition of that report. It had long been the claim of himself and
+his comrades that white men were encouraged to enter the reservation
+with arms and cartridges, and that it was easy for the Sioux to lure
+their police, or to mislead the sheriff, away from the point where
+these unprincipled smugglers crossed the line.
+
+Now, infuriated at the cowardice and treachery of two of their number,
+Pearson, the leader, and Bent, the wagoner, had made a clean breast of
+the business. They had driven hard bargains, had laid in good stores of
+beaver, wolf, and deer skins, and no little cash. Then Little Crow
+came, quarrelled over an obvious cheat, called one partner a liar, was
+struck, abused, and thrown out. He galloped away and came back with
+Gamble, a man they dare not let live, once having learned their secret.
+Both Little Crow and he were treacherously shot by the partners as they
+were riding to warn George Sword and his police. Then came the swift
+vengeance of the Sioux, the flight of Hurley and Gross, leaving their
+unwary comrades to an awful fate. While one party of Indians made way
+with the wagon, in hopes of running it--horses, contents, and all--to
+the camp of Si Tanka, another party, the immediate relatives and
+friends of Little Crow, rode off with the two captives to the village
+where Little Crow lay dying, and finally, fearing interruption there,
+came back to the valley by night for the wildest, most delirious orgy
+known to Indian tradition--the slow doing to death of captured enemy by
+ingenious and horrible torture.
+
+And this was the indescribable ceremony nipped in the bud by our young
+lieutenant and his twoscore men, to whose energy, courage, and skill
+Major Berry gave all credit, though Garrett claimed it "in the name of
+my troop."
+
+All night had they faced a furious and clamorous band--chiefs,
+warriors, and women--shouting denunciation, demanding their prey, and
+threatening attack in tremendous force. But Geordie had posted his men
+for battle, hidden the recaptured under the bank, and dared the whole
+band to come on and get them, if they thought it advisable, which, it
+seems, they did not. With his patients on Indian _travois_ ("borrowed,"
+ponies and all, perhaps without ceremony, from the supply on the spot),
+Graham slowly retraced his steps the following morning, and was met
+half-way in by the squadron in force, the heartiest kind of a welcome,
+and news that thrilled through his veins like the sound of the charge.
+
+"The --th and your own troop are camped south of the line, Mr. Graham.
+I have orders for you to go in to-morrow."
+
+Just so soon, therefore, as he could turn over his patients to the care
+of the surgeon, write his brief report of the scout, and say good-bye
+and a few words of thanks to Sergeant Drum and his fellows, who longed
+to tell him how they hated to let him go, and after hearty handshakes
+from Berry and his brother officers ("Samson" Stone taking special
+credit to himself for having, as he expressed it, "put Graham and
+Connell onto the time of their lives"), our Geordie blushingly bade
+farewell to these comrades of a strenuous month, and, with faithful
+Connell at his side, and a little escort attending, rode away down to
+the Chaduza, to report to the general commanding, and then go on to his
+own, for ominous tales had come from the Bad Lands. There was trouble
+in store for all.
+
+    [Illustration: UNITED STATES CAVALRY IN WINTER RIG]
+
+First, however, there was wonderful welcome for him at Niobrara. The
+skies had grown wintry. The snow patches were beginning to dot the
+prairie, but the camp-fires burned the brighter, and men clustered
+about them and talked of the "luck" of the new lieutenant, whom the
+general himself alighted from his escort wagon to greet and to
+question. For several days the chums were needed at the fort, where
+both prisoners and witnesses were held, but the case against the
+self-styled hunters was so overwhelming that the demand for their stay
+was soon at an end, and, in the train of the general, they went on
+westward to the winter camp of the assembled cavalry, whither "the old
+regiment" had preceded them, and there, one dark and wintry evening,
+with the snow-flakes sifting down, and the depths of a distant valley
+all dotted with tiny blazes--the cook fires of a whole brigade--they
+were met by a troop of cavalry in fur caps and gauntlets, and huge,
+blanket-lined overcoats--swarthy, bearded fellows, with service-stained
+boots and trappings, but looking fit for the hardest kind of
+campaigning and any kind of a fight. It swung from column into line,
+saluted the general with advanced carbines, and then, wheeling by fours
+to right, trotted briskly away with the little cortege, and presently
+its commander, after a few words with the general, fell back, peering
+from under his bushy headpiece, and sung out in cheery tones Geordie
+had not heard for many a day, yet knew on the instant:
+
+"Ah, there you are, Mr. Graham! We have a horse with us ready for you
+now!" And lo! it was Captain Lane, with his own troop ("E" of the
+--th), sent out to lead the general's escort into camp. Leaving the
+companions of the long, jolting ambulance ride, Geordie sprang to the
+back of a mettlesome bay, led forward by a muffled-up trooper who
+steadied the young officer's stirrup before turning aside to remount,
+while a tall, spare, wiry-looking sergeant sat stiffly in saddle, his
+fur-covered hand at salute, his long gray mustache and stubbly beard
+and thin hooked nose being almost all that could be seen of the face;
+yet the twinkle in his waiting captain's eyes and a twitch in the
+muscles of the veteran's lips set Geordie to staring, and presently out
+went his hand and up went his glad young voice:
+
+"Nolan! Nolan! _You_ back with us again!"
+
+"Couldn't keep out of it, sir, when we got word that the old troop was
+to have another Indian campaign. No more could Toomey."
+
+And lo! it was his friend of the Big Mogul now again bestriding a troop
+horse, detailed specially to meet him! And Lane, with a wave of his
+hand and a laugh that was good to hear, left the three cronies of
+Silver Run to ride in together while he galloped on to his duties.
+
+"But the mines, Nolan, and your position?" questioned Geordie, as soon
+as the greetings were over and he could recover from his amaze.
+
+"The mine is as sound as a government bond, sir, and Shiner's holding
+down my job till I want it again; and Mr. Anthony told me to say that
+whenever the lieutenant got tired of soldiering to come back with
+Toomey and take his old trick with the shovel."
+
+And so, joyous and laughing, the three friends of old rode down to the
+thronging camps in the valley, and to the stern duties that so soon
+awaited them.
+
+For there came a day when men's faces went white with the news that
+Sitting Bull, the great chief (Tatanka-iyo-Tanka), had died in
+desperate fight with the police sent to arrest him; that Si Tanka and
+his band, nabbed by "Napa Yahmni," had most unaccountably managed later
+to elude him, and were now at large, raising the standard of revolt,
+summoning all the wild warriors far and near to join forces with him.
+And then, indeed, the frontier blazed with signal-fires by night and
+burning ranches by day, and there came a week of hard riding for the
+old regiment, and of sharp campaigning for all--a week in which at last
+the wily red chief Si Tanka was finally surrounded and, with all his
+people and ponies, herded on down through the Bad Lands to the breaks
+of Wounded Knee--fierce, truculent, defiant. For long months he had
+braved the "Great Father" himself, refusing to submit to any authority;
+but the sight of those long columns of silent, disciplined "horse
+soldiers," squadrons white and black, some of them riding along with
+wonderful little field-guns clinking beside them on wheels, overawed
+Si Tanka's followers and disheartened his friends.
+
+There came a day when he had to submit, and agree to surrender, and go
+whither orders might send him, and with his fierce spirit crushed, he
+bowed his head and took to his lodge, and laid him down in his robes,
+sick, body and soul. And then the old regiment marched over to the
+mission to guard prisoners and property, and another was sent scouting
+after scattering little war parties, and Connell, who had again been
+serving with the general, got word to Geordie that orders had come
+putting an end to his "holiday," and calling him East to his legitimate
+duty. Could Geordie get over to see him, and the disarming of Big
+Foot's band, on the morrow?
+
+Graham showed the missive to his captain, and Lane took it to the
+colonel. "Let Graham go," said the latter. "There's nothing to be done
+here."
+
+And so it happened that once again the two chums were together, and
+this time on a momentous and perilous day.
+
+They saw from the hill-side the scowling braves of Big Foot, led forth
+from camp and seated on the ground, shrouded in their blankets, in
+long, curving lines. They saw the designated troops of a rival regiment
+drawn up in silent array, facing the sullen warriors. They saw the
+women and children of the latter huddled at the edge of the Indian
+camp, while officers, sergeants, and soldiers were sent searching
+through the frowzy lodges for secreted arms. Through their glasses they
+saw the old medicine-man, in the centre of the Indian ranks, glancing
+furtively, savagely, right and left, his lips moving in muttered
+incantation, while the searchers among the lodges came forth from one
+after another, baffled, empty-handed, suspicious. Why had not some one
+suggested it would be wise to search, individually, each brave before
+conducting him to the line?
+
+"There's going to be trouble, Con!" cried Graham, suddenly dropping his
+field-glass. "Look! There goes McCrea!" And surely enough, at that very
+instant, as though he, too, had noted the ominous signs, their elder
+comrade came galloping diagonally across the front, heading straight
+for the spot where stood the commander of the silent little battalion.
+"He's going to warn them," answered Connell. "Let's join him."
+
+    [Illustration: "UP WENT TWO LITTLE PUFFS OF EARTH"]
+
+And just as he spoke, and before either could turn to the waiting
+horses, up into air went the hands of the chanter, up went two little
+puffs of earth, sand, and gravel as he tossed them on high; and before
+even they could come sifting and showering downward, up in a flash
+sprang the muttering line, off went every blanket, and out leaped a
+warrior, armed and painted for battle. Suddenly they whirled on the
+searchers advancing upon them. Crash went their wild volley, downing
+both friend and foe, for the first shots tore straight through the
+huddle of women, and their shrieks followed swift on the deadly clamor
+of the guns.
+
+And then for a moment there was dire confusion. In the space of a
+second, it seemed, the red line had leaped to its feet, then dashed
+through the smoke of its volley, straight for the cowering forms of old
+men, women, and children. Another second and, sheltered by the skirts
+of their squaws, the warriors were blazing away at the astonished
+soldiery. "Good God, boys, we can't fire on women and children!"
+shouted one brave young sergeant. "Down on your faces! Down!" And
+"down" was his last word, as down on his bullet-riven face he plunged,
+shot dead through the brain.
+
+Almost at the same moment McCrea's galloping steed stumbled heavily
+forward and rolled stiffening on the frozen earth, his gallant rider
+flung headlong beyond him. Another moment and Geordie and Connell,
+leaping from saddle, had run to his aid, even as the crash of a volley,
+at the word of command, told that the troopers had answered the furious
+challenge. Another moment still, and a young surgeon sprang to the
+relief of the signalling officers; and then, leaving their senseless
+friend to his care, all athrill with the fury of battle, Graham and
+Connell, "Badger" and "Coyote," whipping out their revolvers, rushed on
+down the slope to join the blue line just springing afoot to the
+charge.
+
+Of the moment that followed, the wild cheer and onward dash, the race
+over blood-stained snow-patches, the stumble over falling forms (some
+friend, some foe), the ripping and slashing at fire-spitting lodges, in
+which some of the band had sought refuge, the agonized screaming of
+children, the appalling shrieks of the squaws--of all this it was
+difficult later to give clear account. Geordie only knew that he, and
+those nearest him in the rush through the smoke, lost many a shot
+rather than risk killing fleeing women and babes, spared warriors who
+would never spare them, for down went first one comrade, down went
+another, and all on a sudden something bit, stung, and tore through his
+thigh, and down on his outflung arms, with Con sobbing over him, went
+Geordie Montrose Graham, first captain the year agone, fireman in July,
+and now junior lieutenant of Company "E."
+
+Many a Christmas holiday was spoiled that winter by the news from
+Wounded Knee. "Bud" Graham, Columbia freshman, spending a fortnight
+with father and mother at the Point, had gone with them and Colonel
+Hazzard to Grant Hall one starlit evening. Orders were to be published
+to the corps of cadets at supper, and the commandant wished them to
+hear. They ascended the broad stone steps, Mrs. Graham on the arm of
+the colonel, Mrs. Hazzard escorted by grim "Dr. Sawney," who was
+wondering not a little what might be coming. Two or three officers from
+the mess joined the little family party, and they all clustered at the
+big folding-doors--Bud breathless with anticipation and excitement. The
+cadet corporal of the guard saluted at sight of the distinguished
+arrivals, and, at a sign from the colonel, held open the portal on one
+side so that, without being seen, the visitors could distinctly hear
+what might be read within.
+
+And presently it came. In ringing tones the adjutant ordered attention.
+The chatter and clamor instantly ceased. Briefly the young officer
+rattled off the details for the morrow, and then announced:
+
+"The following communication is published for the information of the
+battalion of cadets:
+
+
+                    "FIELD HEADQUARTERS,
+                "FORT NIOBRARA, NEB., _December_ --, 1890.
+     "COMMANDING OFFICER, --TH CAVALRY,
+                    "_In the Field, near Wounded Knee._
+
+     "SIR,--The general commanding the military division directs me
+     to notify you of the return of the detachment under Major
+     Berry, --d Cavalry, after a thorough scout of some three weeks'
+     duration, resulting in the breaking up and scattering of
+     several of the bands of 'ghost-dancers,' and the capture of at
+     least one large party now being sent under escort to Pine Ridge
+     Agency.
+
+     "One most important result of the scout was the discovery and
+     arrest of certain white men engaged in selling arms and
+     ammunition to the Indians, the capture of much of their
+     'outfit,' and the rescue, under circumstances of imminent
+     peril, of two of the party whom the Indians were in the very
+     act of putting to death by torture.
+
+     "The entire credit for this exploit, which was conducted with
+     excellent judgment and most commendable dash and daring, is
+     given by Major Berry to Lieutenant George Montrose Graham, of
+     your regiment, and the division  commander--
+
+But he could be heard no further. The iron discipline of West Point was
+powerless to stem the torrent of cadet enthusiasm at this public
+mention of their beloved leader of the year gone by. Up sprang the
+entire corps, and the rafters rang with the thunder of their cheers--a
+thunder that seemed to redouble rather than dwindle at sight of the
+silver-haired commandant, smiling in through the opening door.
+
+And from such a scene as that, with streaming eyes and trembling lips
+and a heart overflowing with pride, joy, gratitude, and the longing to
+throw herself upon her knees and pour out her very soul in praise and
+thanksgiving, this devoted mother was summoned to another.
+
+The doctor had fled away from the bevy of friends who had hastened to
+congratulate and shake him by the hand. He had finally escaped to his
+little den, trying to compose himself, and write calmly and
+judiciously, as became a father, to his soldier son. Bud, nearly wild
+with delight, had finally been "fired," as he expressed it, from Cadet
+Frazier's room by the officer-in-charge, and started for home toward
+half-past ten o'clock, when in front of the officers' mess he was
+suddenly hailed by a grave-faced professor:
+
+"You're needed at home, Bud," and, running, he found Colonel Hazzard
+and his father at the library door, a telegram open in the latter's
+trembling hand.
+
+"Not a word now, son. Just read this and then--call mither."
+
+With paling face and suddenly swimming eyes, Bud read the dancing
+words:
+
+     "Severe action. Graham wounded; left thigh. Serious, but doing
+     well. Our loss heavy.
+
+                    "(Signed)   MCCREA."
+
+And so they got the first news of the bitter midwinter battle that
+ended the days of Big Foot and so many of his band, that cost us the
+lives of so many gallant officers and men, among the icy flats and
+snow-patched ravines along the Wounded Knee.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But there came a meeting in March that brought surcease for all that
+fond mother's sorrow. There came an evening when the battalion, in its
+muffling winter garb of gray, went bounding up the broad stone steps
+into the old mess-hall, and, stripping off caps and overcoats, quickly
+settled down to their hearty supper, for the days were longer, the
+first spring drills had begun, and tremendous appetites had these alert
+young fellows. The clamor and chatter began on the instant--a merry
+riot of chaff and fun. No outlying picket gave warning of the approach
+of disturbers, but once again that great-hearted commandant had planned
+a demonstration that should delight a mother's soul. Once again he was
+leading her up to the massive portal, with a tall youth swinging on
+crutches beside her, and a joyous little party in her train. Only that
+day had he arrived--her Geordie--a little pallid from long housing and
+wearied from the long ride, but wonderfully well and happy otherwise,
+and assured that a few weeks more would see him strong as ever. Connell
+had met him at Buffalo. Bud was up from New York. McCrea had escorted
+him all the way from Chicago, where John Bonner would have held him
+for a week of lionizing, but he could not be stopped for an hour. Nolan
+and Toomey had ridden every mile to the railway to see their young
+leader aboard, but over the meeting with that yearning mother there was
+none on earth to spy. Long hours she kept him to herself, but, now that
+evening had come, she yielded him to the colonel's pleading.
+
+"It is for their sake," said he, and for their sake even Geordie
+consented.
+
+And so, very much as he had planned on the previous occasion, Colonel
+Hazzard led them to the door as supper was nearly over, having
+previously notified his officer-in-charge, but no man in the corps was
+in the secret. "Whatever happens," said he, "shall be entirely
+spontaneous."
+
+For a moment they waited until, as before, the voice of the adjutant
+was heard, clear and commanding, above the clamor. Then came the
+publications, a perfunctory order or two, and then the colonel put
+forth a hand, pushed open the door, and while Mrs. Graham and Bud,
+trembling with excitement, clung to each other's arms, and the rest of
+the group instinctively closed about them, Hazzard turned to the two
+young graduates--his captains of the year gone by, now looking not a
+little white and by no means happy--and signalled "step within," he
+himself close following, and throwing wider the door so that Mrs.
+Graham might see.
+
+As the big half swung slowly inward, and the two crutches were planted
+across the threshold, Connell hung back, but the colonel would not so
+have it. The corporal of the guard, surprised at the intrusion, stepped
+forward to check the strangers within their gates, then as suddenly
+halted, his eyes alight with instant recognition and rejoicing, his
+hand springing up in salute, even as the cadet officers at the head of
+the nearest tables found their feet in instant and irresistible
+impulse. Up, too, sprang the first captain, at the opposite side, his
+first thought to rebuke, his second, at sight of the halted trio, to
+shout with delight. Before he could gather his wits the matter was
+settled for him, for all. The adjutant, amazed, dropped his paper and
+uplifted his eyes, for his voice was stilled by a stentorian shout from
+an inner table and the simultaneous rush of a light-footed fellow who
+almost swept Pops off his crutches as his arms flung about him.
+"Cyclone" Holt, a big-lunged Kentuckian, had bounded to his chair with
+a yell of "Hurray! 'Badger' and '_Ki_ote!'" and all order was gone in
+an instant. Up as one man sprang the startled battalion. Had Holt gone
+mad? Had Frazier a fit? For answer came cheers from those nearest the
+door, cheers that spread like wildfire from table to table, and all in
+a second every young soldier was swinging a napkin and shouting like
+mad--some leaping on chairs, some even mounting the tables, a scene
+such as the mess-hall never witnessed before. Vain the effort of some
+one to guide the cheering (they had not then learned an academy yell),
+and for once in its day the corps went wild, every man for himself.
+They yelled at Geordie, blushing and dishevelled from Benny's embrace.
+They yelled at Connell, standing modestly by, with his set lips
+twitching, his eyes filling fast. They yelled at their colonel, now
+smilingly backing away. They yelled for three minutes without ever a
+stop, until some fellow, versed in town-meeting methods, began yelling
+for "Speech!" and that started others, and "Speech!" was the word
+ringing all over the hall, and that was more than enough to start
+Geordie. Speak he could not and would not. He could only stand smiling
+and shaking his head, until he saw they would not be denied; and then,
+at last, the lad who had faced and downed popular prejudice all through
+his cadet life, who had faced foes at the Point and foes on the
+plains--faced them with dauntless front and determined will--who had
+stood like a rock at the front of the enemy, trembled now like a leaf
+in the sight of his friends, and so, for the first time, shrank back
+and fled. Just as on the day of his graduation, our Geordie turned from
+the tumult of comrade acclaim and sought his mother's side. Con darted
+after him, and the big door closed on the chums of cadet days, on the
+"Badger" and "Coyote"--on Connell and "Corporal Pops."
+
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+    | Typographical errors corrected in text:                   |
+    |                                                           |
+    | Page 134:  beleagured replaced with beleaguered           |
+    |                                                           |
+    | The last four chapter titles were numerical only,         |
+    | "CHAPTER" was added for consistency.                      |
+    |                                                           |
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of To The Front, by Charles King
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