RESCUE AT DAWN.
The short July night wears rapidly away in the high latitudes of the Northwest. It is barely dark at nine, and in six hours
"Morn, in the white wake of the morning star,
Comes furrowing all the Orient into gold."
Yet the night wears wearily, watchfully away in the bivouac down among the cottonwoods south of the Black Hills. Exhausted with the excitement and fatigue of the day, some few men sleep fitfully at times, and other few doze once in a while among the watchers. All the livelong night there is jubilee among the Indians above and below. They keep up their howlings and war-dances in prospective triumph, for, so far as they can learn, they have done no more damage to the soldiers than the killing of a few horses and the wounding of some half a dozen men. Their own loss has been greater than that, and there is mourning for some of the braves slain in the combat of the day. They know that escape is impossible to the soldiers. They feel that with another day they can wear out the besieged; tempt them into firing off their ammunition, and, if they can only keep off their friends,—the regiment,—they have them sure.
All the same it is pleasing to Indian ideas of humor to keep up a delusion among the besieged of having captured their messenger. We know Ray is safely off, but Wayne and his men have no such comfort, for, for hours the Indians shout their taunts of "Catch white soger; eat 'um heart," and in their deep anxieties many of the men seem ready to believe it. To tell the truth, Wayne has hard work keeping up the pluck and spirits of some of the men, and towards morning the sufferings of the wounded are more than he can bear. Every little while the roystering Indians send a rattling fusillade in among the timbers, but do no great damage beyond making people uncomfortable. Some of them crawl close to the lines of sentries, but find nothing to encourage further inspection or advance. But Dana begs to be lifted in his blanket and carried some distance up-stream, where he can lie on the sand and get away from the sound of others' suffering, and Wayne and Hunter, with two or three men, bear him thither, and there, under the starlight and the waning moon, they lie at full length and softly talk over the situation. There is no disguising the truth. Their condition is most precarious: hemmed in on every side; ammunition almost gone, thanks to the reckless extravagance of the men in twelve hours' fighting, their only hope lies in Ray's reaching the —th that night and "routing out" the whole command for a dash to the rescue. They never dreamed, poor fellows, that Ray would never find the —th where they left it. All hope would have died had they known their comrades had gone.
Yet that very circumstance stands at this moment in their favor. The Cheyennes had learned with huge delight that the strange soldiers had marched off westward, apparently abandoning that watch near the reservations, and leaving it safe for them to scurry forth with bag and baggage, with women and children, on their rush for freedom—and Sitting Bull.
Sighting this little detachment of soldiers venturing on down the valley instead of hurrying back, they had signalled all over the country calling in war-parties to their aid, and formulated their scheme to ambuscade and "corral" it at the narrows of the valley; but Ray's vigilance and plainscraft had defeated that scheme; though they had good chances yet, if they only knew where the regiment had gone. Late the previous evening it had disappeared behind a prominent headland far up a valley farther to the south, and probably had there gone into camp for the night. Late this night they get the news that gives rise to vast speculation and some genuine anxiety. Runners come in who say that instead of camping there, the White Chief rode all night; turned northward soon as it was dark; crossed this very valley far above them at dawn, and where he went from there they couldn't say. They dare not follow. Was it possible the White Chief was going to beat them at their own tactics? Could it be that he was going to head them off? Attack them in the early morning far to the northwest? Lying on the ground, the officers heard many hoof-beats dying away in the distance, and wondered what it might mean. It meant that some fifty of their foemen had galloped away to look for their families and the rest of the band, and warn them of the new danger. It was more than certain that no help could come to the soldiers in the valley; but they must guard their people against this mysterious move. At daybreak those left behind would resume the effort to dislodge the soldiers, and then there would be a revel.
And daybreak comes all too soon. Far to the east the stars are paling, and a grayish veil rises slowly from the horizon. One by one the night-lamps in the heavens lose their sparkle and radiance, as the filament of the dawn shrouds and stifles them. Far down the valley tumbling outlines of ridge and height are carved out in sharper relief against the lightening sky. There is a stir in the leaves o'erhead and the soft rustle of the morning breeze. Presently the pallid veil at the east takes on a purplish blush, that is changing every instant to a ruddier hue. Faces are beginning to be dimly visible in the groups of defenders, pinched and drawn and cold in the nipping air, and Wayne notes with a half sob how blue poor Dana's lips are. The boy's thoughts are far away. Is he wandering? Is it fever already?
His eyes are closed, and he whispered to himself but a moment ago. Hunter is taking a cat-nap. Wayne is too anxious, too unhappy to sleep, and his wound is stiff and painful. A veteran first sergeant comes creeping up to them for orders, and they are brief enough:
"Don't let the men waste a shot. It's our only hope of holding out until help can come. They'll be on us again soon as it is fairly light."