A Soldier's Trial: An Episode of the Canteen Crusade

by Charles King

TRUTH STRANGER THAN FICTION

There was wrath mingled with the rejoicing that thrilled all through the garrison that afternoon. Scattering far and wide, the ring-leaders, the more prominent braves engaged in the revolt at the agency, were seeking the refuge of kindred bands, leaving the old men and many Indian households to explain the situation and secure eventually the peace always so readily accorded. Placing a guard over the unconsumed property, and sending most of the cavalry in pursuit of the renegades, Stone telegraphed brief statement to department headquarters, lauding Ray and his plucky detachment as they deserved, and Dwight and the squadron as well, for their swift and skillful dash to the rescue. By sunset the few dead, the several wounded and many homeless women and children had been conveyed to the fort, Silver Hill turning out in force, and the Argenta and rival stables contributing rigs in abundance. Major Dwight was again beneath the same roof with little Jim, the father well-nigh as helpless as the fever-stricken boy, for, the excitement over, his duty done and splendidly done, and he himself shocked and shaken by the fall of his horse, shot down almost at the last moment of the charge, Dwight was brought back in the ambulance and assisted again to his reclining chair in the den. Home he quietly refused to go. Mrs. Dwight, as was proper and decorous, so soon as she could rally, under the ministrations of Félicie, from the prostration that befell as a result of seeing her adored, though deluded, husband riding off to battle without ever a word or kiss to his suffering one, lost little time in coming to implore her Oswald to return to his own room and her arms. But Dr. Waring gravely told her it was then impossible, and persuaded her, deluged in tears, to leave him in peace. Her parents, he said, would soon be with her. They had been telegraphed for, and were to start at once. Every provision should be made for their comfort and hers, and, he added, for her future; but she must understand that for the time being Major Dwight begged to be permitted to give his entire attention to his son, whose case was desperate.

So Inez, veiled and leaning heavily on the arm of Félicie, went sobbing homeward through the dusk of the closing and solemn day, followed by many curious eyes, and was once more within doors before Sandy Ray had been restored to his mother's arms. Not until the last of his "forlorn hope" had been gathered up and shipped back to Minneconjou would Sandy consent to be driven thither himself, to find almost every door at the post open to welcome him except his own, where there were now three or four more denizens than there were beds. Stone himself was on hand to say that Mrs. Stone had one of their spare rooms all prepared for him, and this, too, in spite of the fact that Stone had stowed away, where none could see, a certain letter that, unexplained, might yet render Sandy Ray ineligible to residence under any roof at Minneconjou for all time to come.

But, unbeknowst to the colonel, the matter of Sandy's billet had been settled beforehand. Lieutenant Purdy, of the Sixty-first, a near neighbor, had met the "conquering hero" almost halfway, with the information that his room was ready for him; his mother had already been in to see and to approve, and there he must make himself at home, close to his own quarters; and possibly Stone was grateful.

There were several things in connection with the day's work for which he could give no thanks whatever, and one of these was the news that finally came from the wood camp. Black Wolf's thunderous harangue of the early morning was not all an empty lie. Only the poor remains of the sergeant, seven of his little guard, and several of the workmen, each body surrounded by empty cartridge shells, mute witnesses of their desperate battle for life, were left of those who had so cheerily marched away; and, Blenke being safe lodged within the post, there were still three absent unaccounted for. Blenke himself seemed crushed by the tragic fate of these comrades whom he had vainly risked his life to save. There was great sympathy expressed for Blenke throughout the depleted garrison that night. There was talk of his daring essay all over the post. There was whispering of it even in the dim-lighted wards of the hospital, where lay the wounded and the scorched and seared. Possibly it was the torment of his burns that made Skelton toss, mutter, and finally blaspheme outright, but blaspheme he did at each successive mention of Blenke, and, presently, with frightful, spiteful vehemence and virulence. The steward in charge thought him delirious, and Skelton said perhaps he was. 'Twould make a cat laugh and a man stark mad to have to listen to such infernal rot, and this, as in duty bound the steward told to Wallen at his earliest appearance, whereat that wise young practitioner looked long at Skelton and—wiser still before he came away.

With all the official turmoil that grew and throve at Minneconjou in the week that followed, this narrative has nothing to do. The general came and went, and lots of troops and dozens of officers. Even Wister, far to the west, was called upon for its contingent for field service in rounding up the renegades, and Stanley Foster's troop, Stanley and all, came over the Sagamore by special delivery, so to speak, and detrained at Fort Siding, whence a detail sped to the fort for such supplies as were needed, and the troopers marched at dawn, a wearied-looking captain at their head. There was much to do in the field; there was much ado at the fort. This last, which barely escaped becoming official, had to do mainly with these, our dramatis personæ, and may now briefly be recorded, and then our story is done.

The center of human interest, of local interest, at least, was for a memorable week shifted from the major's quarters to those where lay our little Jimmie, tossing night and day in fever that threatened to burn out everything but itself, tended night and day by gentle hands, by devoted women, by one especially whose pluck and patience never gave out, and whose physical powers proved indomitable—Priscilla Sanford. There were days in which they could not induce the father to remain below. His whole being seemed centered in that desperate fight for life, wherein he, a soldier of many a heady fight, could wield no weapon for the cause for which he would instantly have laid down life itself could it but insure that of his only son. There came one awful day in which, as he bent over the stricken form, his lips moving in piteous prayer to Heaven, his eyes imploringly fixed upon the flushed and fevered little face, suddenly a gleam of recognition seemed to flash from the now dilating eyes, and as he and Priscilla leaned eagerly forward, in shuddering terror the writhing form shrank from his touch, the sobbing cry, startling in its utter amaze, incredulity—its imploring appeal burst from the burning lips, "Don't strike me, daddy; please don't! Indeed, indeed I didn't lie!" And with a groan of anguish unspeakable Oswald Dwight dropped upon his knees and, sobbing aloud, buried his face in his quivering hands. It was Priscilla who finally raised him to his feet, and Waring led him, exhausted, from the room. From that hour, in which it seemed as though Heaven itself had directed the final lesson should be given, and through him, the patient victim of human fallibility, the boy began to mend; and one day Waring and Wallen, coming forth together, stopped and solemnly shook hands at the head of the stairs and left the chastened father and that dauntless nurse silently communing in the presence of the fluttering, yet reawakened, life the one had so nearly imperiled, the other had so indomitably battled to save.

And all this while there were other lives and other fates and other fortunes almost as desperately entangled and endangered. The general had summoned Stone to follow him afield. It was hard work finding those scattered wards of the nation, those lambs of the flock fled afar from the agency, and Stone left with the fate of his three wood guards still undetermined, for the soldiers had searched in vain. He left, too, with most of his men, while Major Layton, ordered up from Niobrara, took temporary command of the post, Dwight being, as yet, unfit for duty of any kind. Stone was a week away, scouting through the Sagamore and over toward the Belle Fourche, and brought back with him some four-score "reds" of various ages and sexes, and two well-nigh starved and exhausted men, two of French's devoted band, who, they said, had been sent out the night before the attack to build and fire a beacon on the summit of a tall, sharp, pine-crested height a mile away from camp. French thought the signal might bring help from the post. They never reached that crest. They heard the Indians shouting to each other in pursuit. They made their way farther into the hills and lived on what they had in their haversacks, hiding by day, for the hills seemed full of redskins. They were taken to hospital to recuperate, and meantime, while Stone's battalion settled down again into quarters, and business at Skidmore's resumed its normal aspect, and the guard and prisoners their abnormal number, Major Layton returned to Niobrara after imparting to Colonel Stone a story he had succeeded in tracing back to three sentries, a story he could neither stifle nor throttle, and that he left with Colonel Stone to deal with as best he might; and Stone, thinking again, as he had thought a thousand times before, of that letter in feminine hand, and in his private desk, felt his heart go down to his boots. In brief, the story was that twice during the week a young and slender officer had issued from the rear gate of Lieutenant Purdy's quarters, made his way in the black shadows of the fence-line to the rear gate of Major Dwight's, where once, at least No. 4 could swear, it was nearly an hour before he reappeared.

Stone took council that very evening with Waring, the senior surgeon. Waring had just come from Rays', saying little Jim, though dreadfully weak and emaciated, was surely convalescing—that Dwight, with all his joy, seemed humbler than a little child. "I believe, by gad, that in his present frame of mind he'd forgive her, that incomprehensible little wretch of a wife of his, no matter what she'd done, if she'd come and ask him now."

Whereupon Stone abruptly said, "By —— he sha'n't! Come in here," and he closed the study door behind them. Within twenty minutes thereafter Dr. Waring had mastered the contents of three precious papers. First, Major Layton's memorandum of the sentry's statements; second, a little note that said, "at the usual place and time" and informing somebody of the writer's intention of quitting "Minneconjou—and him—forever"; third, a note explanatory of the second, and this note was type-written and without signature: