A Daughter of the Sioux: A Tale of the Indian frontier

by Charles King

[NIGHT PROWLING AT FRAYNE]

In the full of the September moon the war-bands of the Sioux had defied agents and peace chiefs, commissioners and soldiers, and started their wild campaign in northern Wyoming. In the full of the October moon the big chief of the whites had swept the last vestige of their warriors from the plains, and followed their bloody trails into the heart of the mountains, all his cavalry and much of his foot force being needed for the work in hand. Not until November, therefore, when the ice bridge spanned the still reaches of the Platte, and the snow lay deep in the brakes and coulées, did the foremost of the homeward-bound commands come in view of old Fort Frayne, and meantime very remarkable things had occurred, and it was to a very different, if only temporary, post commander that Sandy Ray reported them as "sighted." Even brave old Dade had been summoned to the front, with all his men, and in their place had come from distant posts in Kansas other troops to occupy the vacant quarters and strive to feel at home in strange surroundings.

A man of austere mold was the new major,—one of the old Covenanter type, who would march to battle shouting hymn tunes, and to Christmas and Thanksgiving chanting doleful lays. He hailed, indeed, from old Puritan stock; had been a pillar in the village church in days before the great war, and emulated Stonewall Jackson in his piety, if he did not in martial prowess. Backed by local, and by no means secular, influences he had risen in the course of the four years' war from a junior lieutenancy to the grade of second in command of his far eastern regiment; had rendered faithful services in command of convalescent camps and the like, but developed none of that vain ambition which prompts the seeking of "the bubble reputation" at the cannon's mouth. All he ever knew of Southern men in ante-bellum days was what he heard from the lips of inspired orators or read from the pens of very earnest anti-slavery editors. Through lack of opportunity he had met no Southerner before the war, and carried his stanch, Calvinistic prejudices to such extent that he seemed to shrink from closer contact even then. The war was holy. The hand of the Lord would surely smite the slave-holding arch rebel, which was perhaps why the Covenanter thought it work of supererogation to raise his own. He finished as he began the war, in the unalterable conviction that the Southern President, his cabinet and all his leading officers should be hung, and their lands confiscated to the state—or its representatives. He had been given a commission in the army when such things were not hard to get—at the reorganization in '66, had been stationed in a Ku Klux district all one winter and in a sanitarium most of the year that followed. He thought the nation on the highroad to hell when it failed to impeach the President of high crimes and misdemeanors, and sent Hancock to harmonize matters in Louisiana. He was sure of it when the son of a Southerner, who had openly flouted him, was sent to West Point. He retained these radical views even unto the twentieth anniversary of the great surrender; and, while devoutly praying for forgiveness of his own sins, could never seem to forgive those whose lot had been cast with the South. He was utterly nonplussed when told that the young officer, languishing in hospital on his arrival, was the son of a distinguished major-general of the Confederate Army, and he planned for the father a most frigid greeting, until reminded that the former major-general was now a member of Congress and of the committee on military affairs. Then it became his duty to overlook the past.

He had not entered Field's little room, even when inspecting hospital (Flint was forever inspecting something or other)—the doctor's assurance that, though feeble, his patient was doing quite well, was all sufficient. He had thought to greet the former Confederate, a sorely anxious father, with grave and distant civility, as an avowed and doubtless unregenerate enemy of that sacred flag; but, as has been said, that was before it was pointed out to him that this was the Honorable M. C. from the Pelican State, now prominent as a member of the House Committee on Military Affairs. Motherless and sister-less was the wounded boy, yet gentle and almost caressing hands had blessed his pillow and helped to drive fever and delirium to the winds. It was twelve days after they brought him back to Frayne before the father could hope to reach him, coming post haste, too; but by that time the lad was propped on his pillows, weak, sorrowing and sorely troubled, none the less so because there was no one now to whom he could say why.

The men whom he knew and trusted were all away on campaign, all save the veteran post surgeon, whom hitherto he had felt he hardly knew at all. The women whom he had best known and trusted were still present at the post. Mrs. Ray and Mrs. Blake had been his friends, frank, cordial and sincere up to the week of his return from Laramie and his sudden and overwhelming infatuation for Nanette Flower. Then they had seemed to hold aloof, to greet him only with courtesy, and to eye him with unspoken reproach. The woman at Fort Frayne to whom he most looked up was Mrs. Dade, and now Mrs. Dade seemed alienated utterly. She had been to inquire for him frequently, said his attendant, when he was so racked with fever. So had others, and they sent him now jellies and similar delicacies, but came no more in person—just yet at least—but he did not know the doctor so desired. Field knew that his father, after the long, long journey from the distant South, was now close at hand,—would be with him within a few hours, and even with Ray's warm words of praise still ringing in his ears, the young soldier was looking to that father's coming almost with distress. It was through God's mercy and the wisdom of the old surgeon that no word, as yet, had been whispered to him of the discovery made when the money packages were opened—of the tragic fate that had, possibly, befallen Bill Hay and Miss Flower.

That a large sum of money was missing, and that Field was the accountable officer, was already whispered about the garrison. The fact that four officers and Mr. Hay were aware of it in the first place, and the latter had told it to his wife, was fatal to entire secrecy. But, in the horror and excitement that prevailed when the details of the later tragedy were noised about the post, this minor incident had been almost forgotten.

The disappearance of Hay and his brilliant, beautiful niece, however, was not to be forgotten for a moment, day or night, despite the fact that Mrs. Hay, who had been almost crazed with dread and terror when first informed there had been a "hold-up," rallied almost immediately, and took heart and hope when it became apparent that Indians, not white men, were the captors.

"The Sioux would never harm a hair of his head," she proudly declared. "He has been their friend for half a century." Nor had she fears for Nanette. The Sioux would harm nobody her husband sought to protect. When it was pointed out to her that they had harmed the guards,—that one of them was found shot dead and scalped at the shores of the Platte, and the other, poor fellow, had crawled off among the rocks and bled to death within gunshot of the scene,—Mrs. Hay said they must have first shown fight and shot some of the Sioux, for all the Indians knew Mr. Hay's wagon. Then why, asked Fort Frayne, had they molested him—and his?

The general had had to leave for the front without seeing Mrs. Hay. More than ever was it necessary that he should be afield, for this exploit showed that some of the Sioux, at least, had cut loose from the main body and had circled back toward the Platte—Stabber's people in all probability. So, sending Crabb and his little squad across the river to follow a few miles, at least, the trail of the wagon and its captors, and ascertain, if possible, whither it had gone, he hurried back to Frayne; sent messengers by the Laramie road to speed the cavalry, and orders to the colonel to send two troops at once to rescue Hay and his niece; sent wires calling for a few reinforcements, and was off on the way to Beecher, guarded by a handful of sturdy "doughboys" in ambulances, before ever the body of the second victim was found.

And then, little by little, it transpired that this mysterious war party, venturing to the south bank of the Platte, did not exceed half a dozen braves. Crabb got back in thirty-six hours, with five exhausted men. They had followed the wheel tracks over the open prairie and into the foothills far to the Northwest, emboldened by the evidence of there being but few ponies in the original bandit escort. But, by four in the afternoon, they got among the breaks and ravines and, first thing they knew, among the Indians, for zip came the bullets and down went two horses, and they had to dismount and fight to stand off possible swarms, and, though owning they had seen no Indians, they had proof of having felt them, and were warranted in pushing no further. After dark they began their slow retreat and here they were.