By-and-by.”
A RUN TO THE SCOUT CAMP
We deployed on the flanks of the wagon so that the team horses might not be shot, which would have stopped the whole outfit, and we did ten miles at a record-breaking gallop. We struck the scout camp in a blaze of excitement. The Cheyennes were in war-paint, and the ponies’ tails were tied up and full of feathers. Had the Sioux materialized at that time, Mr. Casey would have had his orders broken right there.
After a lull in the proceedings, Mr. Thompson confided to me that “the next time I go to war in a wagon it will put the drinks on me”; and he saddled Piegan, and patted his neck in a way which showed his gratification at the change in transport. We pulled out again for the lower country, and as our scouts had seen the dust of Colonel Sanford’s command, we presently joined them.
Any remarks made to Mr. Thompson on the tobacco subject are taken seriously, and he has intimated to me a quiet yearning for a shot at “the particular slit-mouthed Brulé who got away with that Durham.”
How we awoke next morning with the sleet freezing in our faces, and how we made camp in the blizzard, and borrowed Sibley stoves of the soldiers, and how we were at last comfortable, and spent New-Year’s Eve in a proper manner, is of little interest.
I was awakened at a late hour that night by Captain Baldwin, of General Miles’s staff, and told to saddle up for a night’s ride to Pine Ridge. This was the end of my experience with Lieutenant Casey and his gallant corps. We shook hands cheerily in the dim candle-light of the tepee, and agreeing to meet in New York at some not distant day, I stepped out from the Sibley, mounted, and rode away in the night.
Three days later I had eaten my breakfast on the dining-car, and had settled down to a cigar and a Chicago morning paper. The big leads at the top of the column said, “Lieutenant E. W. Casey Shot.” Casey shot! I look again. Yes; despatches from head-quarters—a fact beyond question.