"All right, Brannan. It is my belief that in the near future that writing-case of yours will turn up, and I mean to stay to see it, for when it does you'll need us both."
But Langston's hope for a speedy and brilliant coup was dashed by the news that came that very night. Forty-eight hours thereafter a little caravan of army wagons, Concords and ambulances, with an infantry escort, was slowly wending its way southward toward the welcoming roofs of old Fort Scott, with the wives and children of several families, with Mira and her newest friend, Mrs. Plodder, with the tall, martial-looking civilian riding in close attendance on the Cranston's equipage, basking in the life-giving sunshine and in the thrill and hope and sweet unrest of an ever-growing love, devoted and insistent in spite of vague and jealous dread, for there was not the feeblest flicker of encouragement in Miss Loomis's calm and oft-averted eyes. Langston asked himself in the still hours of the starlit night, camping on the banks of Dismal River, was it possible that her heart was following some soldier in the dusty column, riding hard, riding fast long miles away to the northwest now, eager to overtake the comrade soldiery already on the flank of the foe, and bear a trooper's part in the battle summer so suddenly to open. Even Percy Davies, laughing at the feeble protest of Dr. Burroughs, and heartily congratulated by old White himself, had donned his field dress and climbed stiffly into saddle, to ride once more with the fighting column, to the savage disappointment of his one red foe at the cantonments, and the utter confusion of other foes at Scott.
CHAPTER XXIX.
A hundred miles away,—a hundred as the crow flies, and not by the tortuous route the cavalry had to follow, through a region that, all in an hour's march, shifted its scene from the dull monotone of barren waves of prairie to bold, beautiful heights and deep sheltered ravines and cañons, the winding thread of the Mina Ska went foaming and leaping over its stony bed, taking occasional cat-naps in wide, shadowy shallows, only to wake up again to wilder riot under the frowning, fir-crested cliffs of the Black Rock Range. For many a long, sunshiny mile it had come floating placidly eastward, issuing from the great water-shed of the continent, drifting leisurely between low-lying, grassy banks all criss-crossed with ancient buffalo-trails, or the recent footprints of long-horned cattle, past the broad plateau, crowded by the wooden walls of Fort Ransom, past the roofs and spires of bustling Butte, a prairie metropolis, a railway and cattle town that rivalled Braska, past long miles of gleaming tangents of the transcontinental railway until it met the bold bluffs east of Alkali Station and was shouldered from its course and sent on long, tortuous détour to the northeast, until, beyond the great reservation of the red men in the loveliest hill country of the wild frontier, it once more turned sharply eastward at the point described in the sonorous language of the plains as "the Big Bend of the Mina Ska." Midway between its sweeping curve near Alkali and the sharp deflection at the big bend there came flowing into it from the westward, through the very heart of the Dakota lands, the clear, translucent waters of the Wakpa Wakon,—the Spirit River of the Sioux, all along whose storied shores for mouths had clustered the thronging villages of the tribe, living through the long, fierce winter in sheltered comfort, fed, warmed, inspired by the spoils and stories of the great campaign the year gone by. But now as though by magic had the tepees vanished. Only around the protecting agency, miles to the west, miles deeper in among the tumbling hills, were the lodges now clustered, hundreds of them, with their swarming occupants,—old men, old crones, Indian mothers, wives, sweethearts, maids, young boys, children, and pappooses,—all confidingly clinging to the protecting hand of the Great Father and claiming his bounty; while the husbands and fathers, the stalwart young warriors of the Sioux themselves, were skulking through the Bad Lands across the Ska, eagerly, warily watching the coming of the little cavalry column from the distant Chasing Water, while even in greater numbers their wild red cohorts patrolled the deep valley, the overhanging heights of the Ska itself, watching every move of the coming force from Ransom, bent on luring both, if possible, far within their borders, far in among those tangling, treacherous ravines and cañons, and, there surrounding, to massacre the last man.
Southwestward, at Painted Lodge Butte, after a long, long march through the heat and glare of the long June day, Colonel Winthrop had ordered his men to bivouac for the night. Riding steadily eastward by the "foot-hill" trail from Ransom, they had reached Willow Springs on Friday noon, purposing to camp there until the following dawn, but so alarming were the reports of the few fleeing settlers whom they met that the old colonel decided after an hour's rest to push on again. Without being trammelled by precise orders, the general tenor of his instructions was to march on down the Ska, and strike and punish any Indian war-parties he could find, and clear the valley as soon as possible. Major Chrome, with four troops, two of the Eleventh, his own, and two of the —th, Atherton's regiment, was ordered to march across country from the Chasing Water, and join Winthrop in the valley of the Ska. One hundred miles, as has been said, had Chrome to march to reach the valley at the nearest point, nearly opposite the mouth of the Spirit River. Nearly two hundred if he followed the stream would Tintop have to cover in going from Fort Ransom to that point, but he had started on a Wednesday morning, twenty-four hours ahead of Chrome. Each well knew he would probably have to fight his way. Each meant, according to his own lights, to do his best, and each resorted to measures radically different. Winthrop, active, eager, nervous in temperament, pushed forward boldly, rapidly, bent on "getting there," as he expressed it, and hitting hard before the reds could slip back to their holes. Chrome, slow, phlegmatic, cautious, advanced by carefully-studied marches, with scouts far ahead and flankers far dispersed. Arguing that Winthrop, with one hundred and fifty miles or more to go, and a bigger crowd to handle, and with Indians on his flank every inch of the way, would not be able to reach the Spirit River crossing inside of seven days,—Chrome parcelled out his own march accordingly. Starting with all speed from the cantonment, according to his instructions from Major White, he soon slowed down to a pace more in accordance with his own views. "If we get there Monday or Tuesday even," said he, "we'll be 'way ahead of Tintop." And this was at the close of the second day's march, when he could point to less than a total of forty-four miles covered. The country was still open, the trails distinct, the Indians reported in the distance were in small parties, probably from the Ogallalla reservation. To Cranston and Truman, as well as to the captains of the —th, there seemed every reason to push ahead. It was urged among them that, at last, Truman should speak, and Truman did, as the captains of the —th positively declined. "We have known Colonel Winthrop well, sir," said Truman, "and we believe he will make long marches, perhaps forced marches, to throw himself between the raiders and the reservation. Just as soon as a big force gets there, they will scatter for the far north and northwest. The only chance of punishing them is to get there at once while there is still something left for them to kill or burn,—something to tempt them. I fear, major, that unless we make better time we'll be too late for the ball."
Chrome listened placidly and without impatience of any kind. Yes, he admitted, that was what White himself said. White was fuming with wrath because he wasn't given command of a field column instead of being sent west to cover the Pawnee Station road. "Small blame to him!" muttered Cranston. "Why on earth couldn't this tortoise have been left to that work and old Whitey given to us?" No! Major Chrome meant to advance with caution and deliberation. If the Indians saw them coming precipitately, they might be equally precipitate in their flight, and thereby defeat the general's plans of having Tintop get in their rear, at which characteristic opinion Captain Canker, of the —th, a man of many moods, but a fighter, turned gloomily away, and was heard soon afterwards swearing viciously. It was the old story of the army of lions with a sheep at their head.
And then came a calm, cloudless, radiant June Sunday, a day as perfect and serene aloft as was that June Sunday of the year gone by on whose high noon there rose the mad clamor of the battle on the Little Horn, whose pitiless sun looked fiercely down upon the slaughtered ranks of Custer and his gallant Seventh, and just as the red went out of the western sky, and the sharp, jagged line of the Warrior Buttes melted into softer purple, there came galloping in from the distant outpost an excited trooper, who gave a paper to Major Chrome. The officers were seated about him at a tiny fire, and Cranston quickly lighted a candle lantern and the major read. It was from the officer of the picket.
"Thunder Hawk and Rides Double just in from over toward the Ska. They say they have seen 'plenty warriors' all day and are sure there has been a big fight far across the valley. We could plainly see Indian signal-smokes an hour ago, and Hawk says a heavy dust-cloud rose between him and the sunset." It was signed "Davies."
"Now, there, gentlemen!" said Chrome, "if we had pushed ahead any faster Davies couldn't have kept up with us, and this evening he's commanding the advance. If we had hurried, those Indians would have hurried too and got clear away before Tintop could have got behind them and struck them as he has. See how well it worked?" And Chrome glanced contentedly about him.