CHAPTER XIII.
SURROUNDED.
"One thing is certain: we ought to get word over to Wayne or he'll be cut off." The speaker was old Stannard, and his auditors were a knot of half a dozen officers of the —th. It was just daybreak, cold, crisp, and clear. It was about a week after the news of the battle of the Little Horn had reached the regiment. Already its two strongest battalions were marching to join Crook at the Big Horn, but a little squadron—two troops under command of Captain Wayne—lay nearly two days' march away, lower down the broad valley towards the southeast. The tidings that had come by special couriers were exciting, even alarming. A great outbreak had occurred among the Indians still at the agencies on White River. Nearly a thousand of the Southern Cheyennes, who had nothing whatever to do with the quarrel of Sitting Bull and his people, who had no grievance whatever against the government, but had been fed, clothed, petted, and pampered for six or eight years, and who up to this time remained at the reservations, had become so emboldened at the success of the renegades and warriors in the Big Horn country, so envious of their great massacre of Custer and his men, that they had suddenly thrown off all disguise, loaded up with all the provisions, arms, and ammunition they could buy or steal, and had jumped for the Northwest, murdering and pillaging as they went. Waiting no orders, dropping, indeed, the retrograde movement he was ordered to make before this outbreak was known, the regimental commander had turned his columns and shot "cross country" on a night march to head them off. A soldier who doubted the "grit" of his officers and men, who was himself indisposed to dare so strong and savage a foe, could easily have taken refuge in these orders and, marching as directed, avoid the Cheyennes entirely. They were known to be the fiercest, sharpest, trickiest fighters of the plains, full of pluck and science, superb horsemen, fine shots, splendidly mounted and equipped. A foe, indeed, the average man would think twice before "tackling," especially in the light of the fearful exhibition of Indian prowess of the 25th of June. But the leader of the —th never thought twice. No sooner did the breathless couriers reach him with the news than he formed his plans instanter. Within an hour every horse and man in the —th seemed to know they had a race and a fight ahead. Eighty miles of rough country to ride over before they could strike the line on which the Cheyennes were moving, and then the —th could speak for themselves. The news of the tragedy of the Little Horn came like a stunning blow to many a fellow who had lost old and tried comrades in the fray; but while laugh and jest seemed banished for the time, there was no doubting the spirit of the regiment for the coming business. They had turned sharply from their course late in the afternoon of the previous day, had marched nearly all night, had halted to make coffee and give the horses water and a good feed as they reached the sheltering cottonwoods by the stream; and now, while some of the officers with their field-glasses were lying prone upon the commanding ridges studying the distant valley for signs, another party was gathered here around the colonel, who had been having a brief chat with "old Stannard."
"Wayne has been warned by this time. I sent two of the scouts across from the Rawhide last evening," was the colonel's quiet reply to the impulsive outburst of his junior.
"He is off their line of march entirely, I know," admitted Stannard, "but those fellows have had eyes out in every direction. They know just where he is. They know just where that wagon-train is, and up to last evening they knew just where we were, though they are puzzled now, I reckon. All I'm afraid of is that the moment they find we're not in supporting distance, they'll drop what they're after and turn on Wayne. He ought to be only forty odd miles down this valley,—considerably off their line,—and if he has kept close and not fooled away his time he is safe enough; but Wayne is Wayne, colonel, and I've known him to go poking off on side scouts and losing time 'topogging' over pretty country when he ought to have been making tracks for home." (Stannard would use the vernacular of the frontier when at all excited.) "Now it would be just like Wayne to have lost a day in just such a manner. I hope not,—but I fear it."
"He has Ray with him," suggested Captain Turner.
"I know that; but Wayne is butt-headed as a billy-goat on some points, and one is that he can't be taught anything about Indians. He's as innocent and unsuspicious and incapable of appreciating their wiles as the average Secretary of the Interior; and Wayne isn't the kind of man to be influenced by Ray's opinions. He'd be more apt to tell Ray to keep them to himself. It couldn't be helped, of course, but it's a pity two companies had to be sent on that scout. I'd feel safer under Ray with one troop than under Wayne with two."
"I confess I wish we could see just where they were and what they were doing," said the colonel, with an anxious look on his sun-blistered face; "but we have our hands full as it is. Come, Mr. Adjutant, it's time we were off! Get the men in saddle and have the arms and ammunition inspected,—fifty rounds to the man, at least. Major Stannard, where would you locate Truscott's command this morning? I shall send couriers back from here to find him and tell him to join Wayne."
To join Wayne! Well, just at that particular moment Wayne was wishing that he might,—or somebody equally strong. And if the colonel could but have seen the fix that doughty dragoon was in—fifty miles away—the concern on his ruddy face would have been intensified. Wayne had succeeded in justifying everything Stannard had said of him. He had, indeed, been "fooling away his time" on side scouts, and now, before he had fairly dreamed of the possibility of such a thing, the hills around him were alive with Indians.
Ray, with his troop, had been assigned to the captain's command for a scout of some importance over towards the reservations three days before this unlucky morning. Rumors of the disaffection of the Cheyennes had come to the colonel. Everybody knew that the Indians would be wild with delight over the news from Sitting Bull. Indeed, there was reason to believe that it was being whispered at the reservations before the telegraph flashed the tidings broadcast on the 5th of July. Were there not two days there on the Mini Pusa—the 2d and 3d of July—when little parties of Indians were chased towards as well as from the White River? Wayne's orders were to scout the valley and report whether Indians were venturing out that way. Before he had been two days away from the regiment he found trail after trail of war-parties crossing the valley northward. Signal-smokes and night-fires were in the hills beyond. The evidence was conclusive to expert eyes, but Wayne said that, all told, no more than one hundred warriors could have gone out. He was bent on going farther and seeing how many more there were. Ray, as second in rank among the five officers present, ventured to suggest that they had seen quite enough, and that without delay they should either return directly to the regiment or send word. Wayne would not send because only a hundred tracks had been seen, and by the time he had run over double that number the two scouts with them refused to go back. "We would be cut off and killed, sure as fate," was their comprehensive reason. They bivouacked that night in the timber, keeping out strong guards and pickets, but with early dawn were astir, moving back up the valley. Once again had Ray offered a suggestion,—that they should put back during the night, but Wayne was nettled at the fact that Ray's prophecy had come true. They had stayed too long and gone too far. He was a John Bull sort of fellow, full of the ponderous, bumptious courage which prompts the men of that illustrious island empire to be shot down like cattle by Boers and Zulus and Arabs and Afghans, adhering rigidly to the tactics of Waterloo to fight the scientific light troops of the savages sooner than depart from that which was the conventional British method of making war. Wayne was lacking only in moral courage. He was afraid to say he was wrong and Ray was right. Before they had gone two miles he was forced to admit it. He was hemmed in on every side.