CHAPTER I.
RALPH MCCREA.
The sun was going down, and a little girl with big, dark eyes who wassitting in the waiting-room of the railway station was beginning to lookvery tired. Ever since the train came in at one o'clock she had beenperched there between the iron arms of the seat, and now it was aftersix o'clock of the long June day, and high time that some one came forher.
A bonny little mite she was, with a wealth of brown hair tumbling downher shoulders and overhanging her heavy eyebrows. She was prettilydressed, and her tiny feet, cased in stout little buttoned boots, stuckstraight out before her most of the time, as she sat well back on thebroad bench.
She was a silent little body, and for over two hours had hardly openedher lips to any one,--even to the doll that now lay neglected on theseat beside her. Earlier in the afternoon she had been much engrossedwith that blue-eyed, flaxen-haired, and overdressed beauty; but, littleby little, her interest flagged, and when a six-year-old girlie losesinterest in a brand-new doll something serious must be the matter.
Something decidedly serious was the matter now. The train that came upfrom Denver had brought this little maiden and her father,--a handsome,sturdy-looking ranchman of about thirty years of age,--and they had beenwelcomed with jubilant cordiality by two or three stalwart men inbroad-brimmed slouch hats and frontier garb. They had picked her up intheir brawny arms and carried her to the waiting-room, and seated herthere in state and fed her with fruit and dainties, and made much ofher. Then her father had come in and placed in her arms this wonderfulnew doll, and while she was still hugging it in her delight, he laid aheavy satchel on the seat beside her and said,--
"And now, baby, papa has to go up-town a ways. He has lots of things toget to take home with us, and some new horses to try. He may be gone awhole hour, but will you stay right here--you and dolly--and take goodcare of the satchel?"
She looked up a little wistfully. She did not quite like to be leftbehind, but she felt sure papa could not well take her,--he was alwaysso loving and kind,--and then, there was dolly; and there were otherchildren with their mothers in the room. So she nodded, and put up herlittle face for his kiss. He took her in his arms a minute and huggedher tight.
"That's my own little Jessie!" he said. "She's as brave as her motherwas, fellows, and it's saying a heap."
With that he set her down upon the bench, and they put dolly in herarms again and a package of apples within her reach; and then the jollyparty started off.
They waved their hands to her through the window and she smiled shyly atthem, and one of them called to a baggage-man and told him to have aneye on little Jessie in there. "She is Farron's kid."
For a while matters did not go so very badly. Other children, who cameto look at that marvellous doll and to make timid advances, kept herinterested. But presently the east-bound train was signalled and theywere all whisked away.
Then came a space of over an hour, during which little Jessie sat thereall alone in the big, bare room, playing contentedly with her new toyand chattering in low-toned, murmurous "baby talk" to her, and pointingout the wonderful sunbeams that came slanting in through the dust of thewestern windows. She had had plenty to eat and a big glass of milkbefore papa went away, and was neither hungry nor thirsty; but all thesame, it seemed as if that hour were getting very, very long; and everytime the tramp of footsteps was heard on the platform outside she lookedup eagerly.
Then other people began to come in to wait for a train, and whenever thedoor opened, the big, dark eyes glanced quickly up with such a hopeful,wistful gaze, and as each new-comer proved to be a total stranger thelittle maiden's disappointment was so evident that some kind-heartedwomen came over to speak to her and see if all was right.
But she was as shy as she was lonely, poor little mite, and hung herhead and hugged her doll, and shrank away when they tried to take her intheir arms. All they could get her to say was that she was waiting forpapa and that her name was Jessie Farron.
At last their train came and they had to go, and a new set appeared; andthere were people to meet and welcome them with joyous greetings andmuch homely, homelike chatter, and everybody but one little girl seemedto have friends. It all made Jessie feel more and more lonely, and towonder what could have happened to keep papa so very long.
Still she was so loyal, so sturdy a little sentinel at her post. Thekind-hearted baggage-man came in and strove to get her to go with him tohis cottage "a ways up the road," where his wife and little ones werewaiting tea for him; but she shook her head and shrank back even fromhim.
Papa had told her to stay there and she would not budge. Papa had placedhis satchel in her charge, and so she kept guard over it and watchedevery one who approached.
The sun was getting low and shining broadly in through those westernwindows and making a glare that hurt her eyes, and she longed to changeher seat. Between the sun glare and the loneliness her eyes began tofill with big tears, and when once they came it was so hard to forcethem back; so it happened that poor little Jessie found herself cryingdespite all her determination to be "papa's own brave daughter."
The windows behind her opened out to the north, and by turning aroundshe could see a wide, level space between the platform and the hotel,where wagons and an omnibus or two, and a four-mule ambulance had beencoming and going.
Again and again her eyes had wandered towards this space in hopefulsearch for father's coming, only to meet with disappointment. At last,just as she had turned and was kneeling on the seat and gazing throughthe tears that trickled down her pretty face, she saw a sight that madeher sore little heart bound high with hope.
First there trotted into the enclosure a span of handsome bay horseswith a low phaeton in which were seated two ladies; and directly afterthem, at full gallop, came two riders on spirited, mettlesome sorrels.
Little Jessie knew the horsemen at a glance. One was a tall, bronzed,dark-moustached trooper in the fatigue uniform of a cavalry sergeant;the other was a blue-eyed, faired-haired young fellow of sixteen years,who raised his cap and bowed to the ladies in the carriage, as he reinedhis horse up close to the station platform.
He was just about to speak to them when he heard a childish voicecalling, "Ralph! Ralph!" and, turning quickly around, he caught sight ofa little girl stretching out her arms to him through the window, andcrying as if her baby heart would break.
In less time than it takes me to write five words he sprang from hishorse, bounded up the platform into the waiting-room, and gathered thechild to his heart, anxiously bidding her tell him what was the trouble.
For a few minutes she could only sob in her relief and joy at seeinghim, and snuggle close to his face. The ladies wondered to see RalphMcCrea coming towards them with a strange child in his arms, but theywere all sympathy and loving-kindness in a moment, so attractive was hersweet face.
"Mrs. Henry, this is Jessie Farron. You know her father; he owns a ranchup on the Chugwater, right near the Laramie road. The station-mastersays she has been here all alone since he went off at one o'clock withsome friends to buy things for the ranch and try some horses. It musthave been his party Sergeant Wells and I saw way out by the fort."
He paused a moment to address a cheering word to the little girl in hisarms, and then went on: "Their team had run away over the prairie--a mantold us--and they were leading them in to the quartermaster's corral aswe rode from the stables. I did not recognize Farron at the distance,but Sergeant Wells will gallop out and tell him Jessie is all right._Would_ you mind taking care of her a few minutes? Poor little girl!" headded, in lower and almost beseeching tones, "she hasn't any mother."
"_Would_ I mind!" exclaimed Mrs. Henry, warmly. "Give her to me, Ralph.Come right here, little daughter, and tell me all about it," and theloving woman stood up in the carriage and held forth her arms, to whichlittle Jessie was glad enough to be taken, and there she sobbed, and wassoothed and petted and kissed as she had not been since her mother died.
Ralph and th
e station-master brought to the carriage the wonderfuldoll--at sight of whose toilet Mrs. Henry could not repress asignificant glance at her lady friend, and a suggestive exclamation of"Horrors!"--and the heavy satchel. These were placed where Jessie couldsee them and feel that they were safe, and then she was able to answer afew questions and to look up trustfully into the gentle face that wasnestled every little while to hers, and to sip the cup of milk thatRalph fetched from the hotel. She had certainly fallen into the hands ofpersons who had very loving hearts.
"Poor little thing! What a shame to leave her all alone! How long hasher mother been dead, Ralph?" asked the other lady, rather indignantly.
"About two years, Mrs. Wayne. Father and his officers knew them verywell. Our troop was camped up there two whole summers near them,--lastsummer and the one before,--but Farron took her to Denver to visit hermother's people last April, and has just gone for her. Sergeant Wellssaid he stopped at the ranch on the way down from Laramie, and Farrontold him, then, he couldn't live another month without his little girl,and was going to Denver for her at once."
"I remember them well, now," said Mrs. Henry, "and we saw him sometimeswhen our troop was at Laramie. What was the last news from your father,Ralph, and when do you go?"
"No news since the letter that met me here. You know he has beenscouting ever since General Crook went on up to the Powder Rivercountry. Our troop and the Grays are all that are left to guard thatwhole neighborhood, and the Indians seem to know it. They are 'jumping'from the reservation all the time."
"But the Fifth Cavalry are here now, and they will soon be up there tohelp you, and put a stop to all that,--won't they?"
"I don't know. The Fifth say that they expect orders to go to the BlackHills, so as to get between the reservations and Sitting Bull's people.Only six troops--half the regiment--have come. Papa's letter said I wasto start for Laramie with them, but they have been kept waiting fourdays already."
"They will start now, though," said the lady. "General Merritt has justgot back from Red Cloud, where he went to look into the situation, andhe has been in the telegraph office much of the afternoon wiring toChicago, where General Sheridan is. Colonel Mason told us, as we drovepast camp, that they would probably march at daybreak."
"That means that Sergeant Wells and I go at the same time, then," saidRalph, with glistening eyes. "Doesn't it seem odd, after I've beengalloping all over this country from here to the Chug for the last threeyears, that now father won't let me go it alone. I never yet set eyes ona war party of Indians, or heard of one south of the Platte."
"All the same they came, Ralph, and it was simply to protect thosesettlers that your father's company was there so much. This year theyare worse than ever, and there has been no cavalry to spare. If you weremy boy, I should be worried half to death at the idea of your ridingalone from here to Laramie. What does your mother think of it?"
"It was mother, probably, who made father issue the order. She writesthat, eager as she is to see me, she wouldn't think of letting me comealone with Sergeant Wells. Pshaw! He and I would be safer than the oldstage-coach any day. That is never 'jumped' south of Laramie, though itis chased now and then above there. Of course the country's full ofIndians between the Platte and the Black Hills, but we shouldn't belikely to come across any."
There was a moment's silence. Nestled in Mrs. Henry's arms the wearylittle girl was dropping off into placid slumber, and forgetting all hertroubles. Both the ladies were wives of officers of the army, and wereliving at Fort Russell, three miles out from Cheyenne, while theirhusbands were far to the north with their companies on the Indiancampaign, which was just then opening.
It was an anxious time. Since February all of the cavalry and much ofthe infantry stationed in Nebraska and Wyoming had been out in the wildcountry above the North Platte River, between the Big Horn Mountains andthe Black Hills. For two years previous great numbers of the youngwarriors had been slipping away from the Sioux reservations and joiningthe forces of such vicious and intractable chiefs as Sitting Bull, Gall,and Rain-in-the-face, it could scarcely be doubted, with hostile intent.
Several thousands of the Indians were known to be at large, andcommitting depredations and murders in every direction among thesettlers. Now, all pacific means having failed, the matter had beenturned over to General Crook, who had recently brought the savageApaches of Arizona under subjection, to employ such means as he foundnecessary to defeat their designs.
General Crook found the Sioux and their allies armed with the bestmodern breech-loaders, well supplied with ammunition and countless herdsof war ponies, and far too numerous and powerful to be handled by thesmall force at his command.
One or two sharp and savage fights occurred in March, while the mercurywas still thirty degrees below zero, and then the government decided ona great summer campaign. Generals Terry and Gibbon were to hem theIndians from the north along the Yellowstone, while at the same timeGeneral Crook was to march up and attack them from the south.
When June came, four regiments of cavalry and half a dozen infantryregiments were represented among the forces that scouted to and fro inthe wild and beautiful uplands of Wyoming, Dakota, and Eastern Montana,searching for the Sioux.
The families of the officers and soldiers remained at the barracks fromwhich the men were sent, and even at the exposed stations of FortsLaramie, Robinson, and Fetterman, many ladies and children remainedunder the protection of small garrisons of infantry. Among the ladies atLaramie was Mrs. McCrea, Ralph's mother, who waited for the return ofher boy from a long absence at school.
A manly, sturdy fellow was Ralph, full of health and vigor, due in greatpart to the open-air life he had led in his early boyhood. He had"backed" an Indian pony before he was seven, and could sit one like aComanche by the time he was ten. He had accompanied his father on many along march and scout, and had ridden every mile of the way from the GilaRiver in Arizona, across New Mexico, and so on up into Nebraska.
He had caught brook trout in the Cache la Poudre, and shot antelopealong the Loup Fork of the Platte. With his father and his father's mento watch and keep him from harm, he had even charged his first buffaloherd and had been fortunate enough to shoot a bull. The skin had beenmade into a robe, which he carefully kept.
Now, all eager to spend his vacation among his favorite haunts,--in thesaddle and among the mountain streams,--Ralph McCrea was going back tohis army home, when, as ill-luck would have it, the great Sioux warbroke out in the early summer of our Centennial Year, and promised togreatly interfere with, if it did not wholly spoil, many of hischerished plans.
Fort Laramie lay about one hundred miles north of Cheyenne, and SergeantWells had come down with the paymaster's escort a few days before,bringing Ralph's pet, his beautiful little Kentucky sorrel "Buford," andnow the boy and his faithful friend, the sergeant, were visiting at FortRussell, and waiting for a safe opportunity to start for home.
Presently, as they chatted in low tones so as not to disturb the littlesleeper, there came the sound of rapid hoof-beats, and Sergeant Wellscantered into the enclosure and, riding up to the carriage, said toRalph,--
"I found him, sir, all safe; but their wagon was being patched up, andhe could not leave. He is so thankful to Mrs. Henry for her kindness,and begs to know if she would mind bringing Jessie out to the fort. Themen are trying very hard to persuade him not to start for the Chug inthe morning."
"Why not, sergeant?"
"Because the telegraph despatches from Laramie say there must be athousand Indians gone out from the reservation in the last two days.They've cut the wires up to Red Cloud, and no more news can reach us."
Ralph's face grew very pale.
"Father is right in the midst of them, with only fifty men!"