“From the patrol I found where their camps and lines and outworks to cover the roads were, and also that it was but a quarter of a mile across a wood-lot to the road which I had intended to retire by, which ran southeast towards Spearfish and Hallam Junction, so I trundled my bikes over to it, and laid them in a column formation off the road, and left them under guard. I formed my command and turned some fellows out of some rifle-pits, which were designed to protect the road, and it was growing light. We charged into the town, which had been alarmed by our fire directed at the men in the pits. The first thing we struck was a long line of temporary camps, of what was probably a regiment, which was on the other side of a railroad embankment; but they were in a panic and offered us no resistance, while we advanced, rapidly firing, and nearly destroyed them. As we entered the town I took one battalion and directed it against the car-shops, which were full of stores and troops: these men we also nearly destroyed; and, having set fire to the shops, I entered the main part of the town, and as we advanced I had it also fired. From my right I heard heavy firing, and knew that the other command had encountered opposition; and turning to my right I struck a second railroad embankment, swarming behind with men who were standing off the advance of the other battalion. I enfiladed them, and they retired precipitously. From the net-work of railroad embankments farther up the flats north of Colville I could see masses of men forming. They began firing at me from a great distance, but we were protected by the railroad fill and did not mind it; while our sharpshooters, with their arms of longer range, annoyed the enemy quite a little, and kept up his demoralization. A great many men had gotten away from the town when I had attacked the car-shops, and I was in fear lest they might form in my rear under the cover of the burning town, so I had my wounded removed rapidly to the hill where my bikes were left, and then retreated rapidly under the cover of the smoke. The enemy were left so completely in the air that they advanced slowly, while from the cover of the brush on the upper edge of a field I held them in play for an hour while my wounded got a good start. At last they seemed to form, and approached to my right, going around the smoke of the burning town, and as they outnumbered me four to one, they would speedily have outflanked me. I began the retreat as I had intended. I had thirty-eight badly wounded men who had to be carried in blankets, fifty-six slightly wounded who would be trundled on bicycles, and had left eighteen dead on the field.”
“I say, colonel, how do you remove wounded men on bicycles?” asked some one.
“It is simple when you see it, but rather difficult to explain. If you will come down some day I will be glad to show you a wounded drill, and then you can see for yourself. By cutting sticks and tying a blanket or shelter-tent a desperately wounded man can be laid prone between two bicycles, or if slightly hurt he can be trundled or even ridden double with a comrade, while one man can move two and even three bicycles. Oh, I tell you, the bike is a great contrivance once you come to understand it,” proceeded the Colonel of Cycle Infantry.
“I should like to have fought those fellows a little harder, but I was sixty miles inside of their lines, and I knew that to prolong the affair would mean that they would be heavily reinforced, and besides this was my first expedition. I had already destroyed the bigger half of the enemy and burned the town, and I did not apprehend a vigorous pursuit. What to do with my wounded was now on my mind. The country to the east of North Colville is very broken, wild, and sparsely inhabited. It had become necessary to abandon my wounded. I selected a point over twelve miles from our battle-ground, far back from the unfrequented road, in a very wild spot in the hills, and left every man not able to travel there, with all our rations and two medical officers, with ten men as a detail for the camp. My trail of course continued, and they were never suspected. Coming to the valley of the Spearfish I halted and slept my command until sundown, and then started for our lines. On the way I rode into and demoralized a half-dozen bands of armed insurgents, and struck our lines at five o’clock in the morning.”
“What became of your wounded up there, colonel?” asked the medical officer with the long pipe.
“The evening following Captain Barhandle with fifty men started and made a successful march to their relief, and left two more medical officers and a lot of medical stores and rations, and came back three days after. The camp was never discovered, and was relieved when the general here made his first expedition into Wood County. They had protected themselves from prowlers by waylaying the roads, and had a dozen prisoners in camp, together with a half-dozen milch cows. My bike men are excellent foragers, since they have been so much on outpost duty.”
“Suppose, Colonel Pedal, you were forced to abandon your bicycles, what would you do?”
“We had a detachment on a scout the other day who were pressed into some bad country and had to abandon their machines, which they did by sinking them in Dead Creek, and the next day we went out and recovered them. If it is desired to utterly destroy them, it can be done in an instant by stepping on the wheel and ‘buckling’ it, or if you remove the chain, it is useless to any one but yourself,” explained the colonel.
“Now, colonel, do you consider that you can move your men successfully in a hilly or mountainous country?” inquired Ladigo.
“In all candor, no—not to a good advantage. I can march uphill as fast as infantry, and go down at limited-express speed; but I really want a rather flat country with lots of roads. I am not particular as to the quality of the roads, so there are enough of them. I can move through snow which has been tracked down by teams; I can fly on the ice; and when it is muddy there is always an inch or so beside the road which is not muddy, and that is enough for me. A favorable place for a bicycle is along a railroad track—going in the centre or at one side. When suddenly attacked, my men can get out of the road like a covey of quail, and a bicycle can be trundled across the worst possible country as fast as a man can travel, for you see all the weight of the man’s gun and pack are on the wheel, which runs without any appreciable resistance, and all bike men know how to throw a bicycle over a fence with ease, and my average march is eighty miles a day. Ladigo, remember—eighty miles a day. No kind of roads, no conditions of weather, or anything but superior force can stop my command for an instant, sir;” and the colonel of cavalry rose and added, “Colonel Pedal, will you have a drink with me?”