"Oh, they downed one of them," answered the captain, eying her closely the while and speaking with much precision, "a fellow who cursed them freely in fluent English." Yes, she was surely turning paler.—"A bold, bad customer, from all accounts. Blake thought he must be of Lame Wolf's fellows, because he—seemed to know Kennedy so well and to hate him. Kennedy has only just come down from Fort Beecher, where Wolf's people have been at mischief."
"But what became of him? What did they do with him?" interrupted the girl, her lips quivering in spite of herself.
"Oh,—left him, I suppose," answered the veteran, with deliberate design. "What else could they do? There was no time for ceremony. His fellow savages, you know, can attend to that."
For a moment she sat there rigid, her black eyes staring straight into the imperturbable face of the old soldier. No one had ever accused Dade of cruelty or unkindness to man or woman, especially to woman; yet here he stood before this suffering girl and, with obvious intent, pictured to her mind's eye a warrior stricken and left unburied or uncared for on the field. Whatever his reasons, he stabbed and meant to stab, and for just one moment she seemed almost to droop and reel in saddle; then, with splendid rally, straightened up again, her eyes flashing, her lip curling in scorn, and with one brief, emphatic phrase ended the interview and, whirling Harney about, smote him sharply with her whip, and darted away:—
"True!" said she. "Civilized warfare!"
"If that girl isn't more than half savage," said Dade, to himself, as Harney tore away out of the garrison on the road to the ford, "I am more than half Sioux. Oh, for news of Ray!"
Ray indeed! It was now nearly four o'clock. Telegrams had been coming and going over the Laramie wire. "The Chief," as they called their general, with only one of his staff in attendance, had reached Cheyenne on time, and, quitting the train, declining dinner at the hotel and having but a word or two with the "Platform Club,"—the little bevy of officers from Fort Russell whose custom it was to see the westbound train through almost every day—had started straightway for Laramie behind the swiftest team owned by the quartermaster's department, while another, in relay, awaited him at the Chugwater nearly fifty miles out. Driving steadily through the starlit night, he should reach the old frontier fort by dawn at the latest, and what news would Dade have to send him there? Not a word had he uttered to either the officers who respectfully greeted, or reporters who eagerly importuned, him as to the situation at Frayne; but men who had served with him in Arizona and on the Yellowstone many a year before, knew well that grave tidings had reached him. Dade had, in fact, supplemented Webb's parting despatch with another saying that Blake's little party, returning, had just been sighted through the telescope nine miles out, with two men afoot. But not until the general reached Lodge Pole Creek did the message meet him, saying that Webb's advance guard could hear the distant attack on Ray. Not until he reached the Chugwater in the early night could he hope to hear the result.
It was nightfall when the awful suspense of the garrison at Frayne was even measurably lifted. Blake, with three troopers at his back, had then been gone an hour, and was lost in the gloaming before Dr. Tracy's orderly, with a face that plainly told the nervous tension of his two hours' ride, left his reeking, heaving horse at the stables and climbed the steep path to the flagstaff, the shortest way to the quarters of the commanding officer. Despite the gathering darkness, he had been seen by a dozen eager watchers and was deluged with questions by trembling, tearful women and by grave, anxious men.
"There's been a fight; that's all I know," he said. "I was with the pack mules and the ambulances and didn't get to see it. All I saw was dead ponies way out beyond Ten Mile Ridge. Where's the major?—I mean the captain?" No! the orderly didn't know who was killed or wounded, or that anybody was killed and wounded. All he knew was that Dr. Tracy came galloping back and ordered the ambulances to scoot for the front and him to spur every bit of the way back to Frayne with the note for Captain Dade.
All this was told as he eagerly pushed his way along the board walk; soldiers' wives hanging on his words and almost on him; officers' wives and daughters calling from the galleries or running to the gates, and Dade heard the hubbub almost as quickly as did Esther, who hurried to the door. By the light of the hall lamp the commander read the pencilled superscription of the gummed envelope and the word "Immediate" at the corner. The same light fell on a dozen anxious, pleading faces beyond the steps. His hand shook in spite of himself, and he knew he could not open and read it in their presence. "One moment," he said, his heart going out to them in sympathy as well as dread. "You shall hear in one moment," and turned aside into the little army parlor.