There's a shot from below, and the bivouac springs to life.
CHAPTER II
THE TRAIL AND THE CHASE
A shot in the dead of night from an outpost in the heart of the Indian country is something that soon ceases to be either exciting or of great interest, but the first that is heard on the campaign makes the pulses bound. Men sprang to their feet, horses pawed and snorted, and the sergeant of the guard and myself made rapid time to the point from which the alarm had come. There was the sentinel alone, unharmed, but perturbed in spirit. To the question, somewhat sternly put, "Who fired that shot?" he replies, with evident chagrin, "I did, sir; somethin' was crawlin' right up that holler, an' I challenged an' he didn't answer, an' I fired; but danged if I know what it was." Before there is time to say a word of rebuke, plainly enough in the bright moonlight something does come crawling up out of a "hollow" two hundred yards away – something of a yellow or reddish brown, on four legs, with a long, smooth, sneaking shamble that carries the quadruped rapidly over the ground, then changes to an ungainly lope, which takes him to a safe distance in six seconds; and there the creature turns, squats on his haunches, and coolly surveys us. Turning away in silent indignation, as I get almost out of earshot it is some comfort to hear the sergeant's pithy commentary, "Ye wall-eyed gutter-snipe, your grandmother would ha' known that was nothin' but a cayote."
Then follows the inevitable volley of chaff with which the Paddy greets every blunder on the part of his fellow-soldiers, and for a few minutes the silent bivouac is rollicking with fun. That some recent attempt has been made to instruct the troopers of Company "C" in the finesse of sentry duty is apparent from the shouted query, "Hi, Sullivan, if it was two cayotes would you advance the saynior or the junior wid the countersign?" at which there is a roar, and Lieutenant Keyes visibly blushes. In half an hour all is quiet again. Officers and men, we watch turn and turn about during the night, undisturbed, save at 3 o'clock the outlying sentries report that they distinctly heard the rapid beat of many hoofs dying away towards the west.
We are astir at the first gray of dawn, rolling our blankets and promptly saddling, for we must ride well down the Cheyenne and find the Mini Pusa, the dry north fork, before breakfast can be attended to. No stirring trumpet marks our reveille. We mount in silence, and like shadowy spectres ride away northward in the broadening valley. The stars are not yet paling in the west, but Bat's quick eye detects fresh hoof-prints not two hours old in the springy soil of the hillside, half a mile out from camp. Sure enough. They had prowled around us during the night, longing for our scalps, but not daring to attack. Only a few venturesome spies had galloped down to take observations, and had then ridden away to join their brothers in arms, and plot our destruction. We laughed as we shook our bridle-reins and jogged along, thinking how confounded they would be when they caught sight of our main body, who, with General Carr at their head, would be along by noon. A six-mile ride brought us into the belt of cottonwoods and willows along the bed of the stream, but the South Cheyenne had sunk out of sight. Broad reaches of streaked and rippled sand wound through the timber, clearly showing where, earlier in the season, a rapid, sweeping torrent had borne great logs and heaps of brushwood upon its tawny breast; but it had dwindled away to nothing, and our thirsty horses looked reproachfully at their masters as, dismounting, we ploughed up the yielding sand, in hopes of finding the needed water beneath. This is one of the dismal peculiarities of the streams of the Far West. On the 1st of May we would have found that valley barely fordable; on the 25th of June it was as dry as a bone.
Mounting again, and scattering through the timber "down stream," a shout from Major Stanton had the effect of the trumpet rally on skirmish drill.
Our party came together with eager haste, and found him under a steep bank, shaded by willows, his horse fetlock deep in what remained of a once deep pool; and two or three at a time our chargers slaked their thirst. It was poor water – warm, soapy, alkaline – but better than none at all.
Just before noon we were clambering up the hills on the northeast of the Mini Pusa. Our orders were to proceed with the utmost caution on nearing the trail. General Sheridan had clearly indicated that it must cross the valley of the South Cheyenne some distance west of the Beaver, and very near its confluence with the Mini Pusa. Stanton and I, with our field-glasses in hand, were toiling up through the yielding, sandy soil with Little Bat; Lieutenant Keyes and the escort, leading their horses, following. Once at the top of the ridge we felt sure of seeing the country to the eastward, and hardly had Bat reached the crest and peered cautiously over than he made a quick gesture which called the major and myself to his side. He pointed to the southeast, and, sweeping our glasses in that direction, we plainly saw the broad, beaten track. It looked like a great highway, deserted and silent, and it led from the thick timber in the Cheyenne valley straight to the southeast up the distant slope, and disappeared over the dim, misty range of hills in the direction of the Red Cloud and Spotted Tail reservations.
General Sheridan was right. Sitting in his distant office in Chicago, he was so thoroughly informed that he could order out his cavalry to search through a region hitherto known only to the Sioux, and tell them just where they would find the highway by which the vast hordes of hostiles under Sitting Bull were receiving daily reinforcements and welcome supplies of ammunition from the agencies three and four hundred miles to the southeast.
This was the traffic which General Carr and the Fifth Cavalry were ordered to break up; and here, just at noon, our little band of three officers and forty men, far in the advance, had struck the trail, as General Sheridan predicted. Keeping horses and men well under cover, we crept to a farther ridge, and from there our glasses commanded a grand sweep of country: the valley of the South Cheyenne for fifty miles to the southeastward, until the stream itself was lost in the tortuous cañon of the Southern Black Hills; the great, towering range of the Black Hills themselves forty miles to the eastward, and the lone peak far to the northeast that the Sioux called (phonetically spelling) Heengha Kahga. The earliest maps simplified that into "Inyan Kara," and now the school-children of Deadwood talk glibly of the big hill that, higher than Harney's or Custer's Peak, their geography terms the "Indian Carry." Why can't we keep the original names?
Once thoroughly satisfied of our proximity to the trail, Major Stanton directed the escort to retrace its steps to the thick timber along the Mini Pusa, where it would be out of sight, while he and I, with our powerful binoculars, kept watch upon the Indian highway. The afternoon was hot and cloudless; not a breath of air stirred the clumps of sage-bush, the only vegetation along the bluffs and slopes. The atmosphere was dazzlingly clear, and objects were visible to us through our glasses that we knew to be miles away. The signal smokes to the west, and our front of the day before, had disappeared; not a living thing was in sight. Our men and horses were hidden among the dense cottonwoods a mile behind us, but, though invisible to us, we well knew that trusty eyes were keeping watch for the first signal from the hillside.
Three – four o'clock came, and not a soul had appeared upon the Indian trail. Away over the intervening ridge to the rear we could see the valley of Old Woman's Fork, down which we had come the day previous, and our glasses detected, by an hour after noon, clouds of dust rising high in air, harbingers of the march of General Carr and the main body. At last the major closed his glasses with a disgusted snap and the remark, "I don't believe there's an Indian stirring to-day."
Not in our sight – not within our hearing, perhaps. The blessed Sabbath stillness falls on all within our ken; our steeds are blinking, our men are drowsing in the leafy shades below. Only the rising dust, miles to the southward, reveals the coming of comrade soldiery. Far to the northwest, a single dark speck, floating against the blue of heaven, attracts the lingering inspection of my field-glass. Eagle or buzzard, I do not know. The slow, circling, stately flight in ascending spiral carries him beyond our vision, but from his altitude the snow-capped peaks of the Big Horn range are clearly visible, and on this still Sabbath afternoon those mighty peaks are looking down upon a scene of carnage, strife, and slaughter that, a week hence, told only by curt official despatches, will thrill a continent with horror. Even as we watch there on the slopes
