"Let me go, too, mamma," was Esther's prompt appeal, as she heard her mother's words. "I can put the children to bed while you and Mrs. Foster are over there."
And so with Hogan, lantern bearing, mother and daughter had followed the sergeant's wife across the broad, snow-covered parade; had passed without comment, though each was thinking of the new inmate, the brightly-lighted hospital building on the edge of the plateau, and descended the winding pathway to the humble quarters of the married soldiers, nestling in the sheltered flats between the garrison proper and the bold bluffs that again close bordered the rushing stream. And here at Sergeant Foster's doorway Esther parted from the elders, and was welcomed by shrieks of joy from three sturdy little cherubs—the sergeant's olive branches, and here, as the last notes of tattoo went echoing away under the vast and spangled sky, one by one her charges closed their drooping lids and dropped to sleep and left their gentle friend and reader to her own reflections.
There was a soldier dance that night in one of the vacant messrooms. Flint's two companies were making the best of their isolation, and found, as is not utterly uncommon, quite a few maids and matrons among the households of the absent soldiery quite willing to be consoled and comforted. There were bright lights, therefore, further along the edge of the steep, beyond those of the hospital, and the squeak of fiddle and drone of 'cello, mingled with the plaintive piping of the flute, were heard at intervals through the silence of the wintry night. No tramp of sentry broke the hush about the little rift between the heights—the major holding that none was necessary where there were so many dogs. Most of the soldiers' families had gone to the dance; all of the younger children were asleep; even the dogs were still, and so, when at ten o'clock Esther tiptoed from the children's bedside and stood under the starlight, the murmur of the Platte was the only sound that reached her ears until, away over at the southwest gate the night guards began the long-drawn heralding of the hour. "Ten o'clock and all's well" it went from post to post along the west and northward front, but when Number Six, at the quartermaster's storehouse near the southeast corner, should have taken up the cry where it was dropped by Number Five, afar over near the flagstaff, there was unaccountable silence. Six did not utter a sound.
Looking up from the level of "Sudstown," as it had earlier been named, Esther could see the black bulk of the storehouse close to the edge of the plateau. Between its westward gable end and the porch of the hospital lay some fifty yards of open space, and through this gap now gleamed a spangled section of the western heavens. Along the bluff, just under the crest, ran a pathway that circled the southeastward corner and led away to the trader's store, south of the post. Tradition had it that the track was worn by night raiders, bearing contraband fluids from store to barracks in the days before such traffic was killed by that common sense promoter of temperance, soberness and chastity—the post exchange. Along that bluff line, from the storehouse toward the hospital, invisible, doubtless, from either building or from the bluff itself, but thrown in sharp relief against that rectangular inlet of starry sky, two black figures, crouching and bearing some long, flat object between them, swift and noiseless were speeding toward the hospital. The next instant they were lost in the black background of that building. Then, as suddenly and a moment later, one of them reappeared, just for a moment, against the brightly lighted window,—the southernmost window on the easterward side—the window of the room that had been Beverly Field's—the window of the room now given over to Eagle Wing, the Sioux,—the captive for whose safe keeping a special sentry within the building, and this strangely silent Number Six without, were jointly responsible. Then that silhouetted figure was blotted from her sight in general darkness, for the lights within as suddenly went out.
And at that very moment a sound smote upon her ear, unaccountable at that hour and that side of the garrison—hoofbeats swiftly coming down into the hollow from the eastward bluff,—hoofbeats and low, excited voices. Foster's little house was southernmost of the settlement. The ground was open between it and the heights, and despite the low, cautious tones, Esther heard the foremost rider's muttered, angering words. "Dam fool! Crazy! Heap crazy! Too much hurry. Ought t' let him call off first!" Then an answer in guttural Sioux.
And then in an instant it dawned upon the girl that here was new crime, new bloodshed, perhaps, and a plot to free a villianous captive. Her first thought was to scream for aid, but what aid could she summon? Not a man was within hail except these, the merciless haters of her race and name. To scream would be to invite their ready knives to her heart—to the heart of any woman who might rush to her succor. The cry died in her throat, and, trembling with dread and excitement, she clung to the door post and crouched and listened, for stifled mutterings could be heard, a curse or two in vigorous English, a stamping of impatient ponies, a warning in a woman's tone. Then, thank God! Up at the storehouse corner a light came dancing into view. In honest soldier tones boomed out the query "What's the matter, Six?" and then, followed by a scurry of hoofs, a mad lashing of quirts, a scramble and rush of frightened steeds, and a cursing of furious tongues, her own brave young voice rang out on the night. "This way, sergeant! Help—Quick!"
Black forms of mounts and riders sped desperately away, and then with all the wiry, sinewy strength of her lithe and slender form, Esther hurled herself upon another slender figure, speeding after these, afoot. Desperately she clung to it in spite of savage blows and strainings. And so they found her, as forth they came,—a rush of shrieking, startled, candle-bearing women,—of bewildered and unconsciously blasphemous men of the guard—her arms locked firmly about a girl in semi-savage garb. The villain of the drama had been whisked away, leaving the woman who sought to save him to the mercy of the foe.