"Couriers in front of Captain Wallace report large war parties along the Platte, and some across, raiding the Sidney road. Four teamsters killed, scalped, and mutilated three miles south of river. Bodies found. Warn back everybody attempting to go that way."
The second was from the office of the department commander himself:
"Indians in force south of Platte, on Sidney road. If Colonel Gaines and Captain Cross have started, send couriers at once to recall them."
The major's face was dark with dismay.
"They have been gone nearly four hours," he exclaimed. "Even if I had swift riders ready, who could catch them in time?"
"I've been a trooper all my life, sir," came sudden answer. "Give me a horse and carbine and let me go."
The major might have known 'twas Sergeant Waller.
True to his word, and arranging with the officers of the court-martial to return in case his further testimony was required, Captain Charlton set forth at daybreak on Saturday, intending to push straight through to Red Cloud as fast as mules could drag or horses bear him. To the Niobrara crossing the road was hard and smooth, when once they cleared the sandy wastes of the Platte bottom. He had a capital team, a light ambulance, and a little squad of seasoned troopers to go with him as escort. It was a drive of nearly ninety miles, but he proposed resting his animals an hour at the Niobrara, another hour at sunset; feeding and watering carefully each time, and so keeping on to the old Agency until he reached his troop late at night.
No danger was to be apprehended until the party got beyond the Rawhide, and not very much until they were across the Niobrara, but Charlton and his half a dozen troopers had been over each inch of the ground time and again, and very little did they dread the Sioux.
After midday the little party had halted close beside the spot where Blunt's detachment had made their bivouac so short a time before. Here were the ashes of their cook-fires and the countless hoof-prints of the horses. Here, too, was the trail in double file, leading away northward across the prairie—a short cut to the Red Cloud road. Charlton followed it with his keen eyes, and noted with a smile how straight a line its young leader must have made for the "dip" in the grassy ridge a mile away, through which ran the hard, beaten track. Blunt prided himself on these little points of soldiership, as the captain well remembered, and when charged with guiding at the head of a column, was pretty sure to fix his eyes on some distant landmark and steer for that, with little regard for what might be going on at the rear.