"Don't do that, doctor," feebly, surprisingly moaned the fevered lad. "Don't take me back to Frayne!"
[CHAPTER XIV]
[A VANISHED HEROINE]
Within forty-eight hours of the coming of Trooper Kennedy with his "rush" despatches to Fort Frayne, the actors in our little drama had become widely separated. Webb and his sturdy squadron, including Ray and such of his troop as still had mounts and no serious wounds, were marching straight on for the Dry Fork of the Powder. They were two hundred fighting men; and, although the Sioux had now three times that many, they had learned too much of the shooting powers of these seasoned troopers, and deemed it wise to avoid close contact. The Indian fights well, man for man, when fairly cornered, but at other times he is no true sportsman. He asks for odds of ten to one, as when he wiped out Custer on the "Greasy Grass," or Fetteman at Fort Phil Kearny,—as when he tackled the Gray Fox,—General Crook—on the Rosebud, and Sibley's little party among the pines of the Big Horn. Ray's plucky followers had shot viciously and emptied far too many saddles for Indian equanimity. It might be well in any event to let Webb's squadron through and wait for further accessions from the agencies at the southeast, or the big, turbulent bands of Uncapapas and Minneconjous at Standing Rock, or the Cheyennes along the Yellowstone.
So back went Lame Wolf and his braves, bearing Stabber with them, flitting northward again toward the glorious country beyond the "Chakadee," and on went Webb, with Blake, Gregg, Ray and their juniors, with Tracy to take care of such as might be wounded on the way; and, later still, the old post surgeon reached the Elk with guards and hospital attendants, and on the morrow row began his homeward march with the dead and wounded,—a sad and solemn little procession. Only twenty miles he had to go, but it took long hours, so few were the ambulances, so rough the crossings of the ravines; and, not until near nightfall was the last of the wounded,—Lieutenant Field,—borne in the arms of pitying soldiers into the old post hospital, too far gone with fever, exhaustion and some strong mental excitement to know or care that his strange plea had been, perforce, disregarded;—to know or care later that the general himself, the commander they loved and trusted, was bending over him at dawn the following day. Ordering forward all available troops from the line of the railway, "the Chief" had stopped at Laramie only long enough for brief conference with the post commander; then, bidding him come on with all his cavalry, had pushed ahead for Frayne. It couldn't be a long campaign, perhaps, with winter close at hand, but it would be a lively one. Of that the chief felt well assured.
Now, there was something uncanny about this outbreak on the part of the Sioux, and the general was puzzled. Up to September the Indians had been busy with the annual hunt. They were fat, well-fed, prosperous,—had got from the government pretty much everything that they could ask with any show of reason and, so they said, had been promised more. The rows between the limited few of their young men and some bullies among the "rustlers" had been no more frequent nor serious than on previous summers, when matters had been settled without resort to arms; but this year the very devil seemed to have got into the situation. Something, or probably somebody, said the general, had been stirring the Indians up, exciting—exhorting possibly, and almost the first thing the general did as he climbed stiffly out of his stout Concord wagon, in the paling starlight of the early morning, was to turn to Dade, now commanding the post, and to say he should like, as soon as possible, to see Bill Hay. Meantime he wished to go in and look at the wounded.
It was not yet five o'clock, but Dr. Waller was up and devoting himself to the needs of his patients, and Dade had coffee ready for the general and his single aide-de-camp, but not a sip would the general take until he had seen the stricken troopers. He knew Field by reputation, well and favorably. He had intimately known Field's father in the old days, in the old army, when they served together on the then wild Pacific shores "where rolls the Oregon." The great civil war had divided them, for Field had cast his soldier fortune with his seceding State, but all that was a thing of the past. Here was the son, a loyal soldier of the flag the father had again sworn allegiance to when he took his seat in the House of Representatives. The general thought highly of Field, and was sore troubled at his serious condition. He knew what despatches would be coming from the far South when the telegraph line began the busy clicking of the morning. He was troubled to find the lad in high fever and to hear that he had been out of his head. He was more than troubled at the concern, and something like confusion, in the old doctor's face.
"You don't think him dangerously wounded, do you?" he asked.
"Not dangerously, general," was the reply. "It's—well, he seems to have something on his mind." And more than this the doctor would not say. It was not for him to tell the chief what Webb had confided ere he left the post—that most of the currency for which Field was accountable was so much waste paper. Field lay muttering and tossing in restless misery, unconscious most of the time, and sleeping only when under the influence of a strong narcotic. Dade, with sadness and constraint apparent in his manner, hung back and did not enter the bare hospital room where, with only a steward in attendance, the young soldier lay. The doctor had gone with the general to the bedside, but the captain remained out of earshot at the door.