“Whoopee! I am going,” said he, seizing Carl’s arm with a grip that astonished him. “You must go, too. Where’s your horse?”
This was something that Carl had not yet had time to attend to—getting a horse to replace the one that he had left in the hands of the Sioux. The very first man he came to was a teamster who had a couple of horses, and he raised no objections whatever to loaning Carl the best one in the lot.
“It won’t take you long to decide which one is the best,” said he, as he led the way out of the gate, “’cause one is about as good as the other. They don’t look as though they had any get up about them, but you get on ’em and try ’em.”
“Will he run fast if the Indians get after him?” asked Carl, as he slipped a bridle on the horse while the teamster put a saddle on his back.
“Are you going out after the Indians?” inquired the man in surprise. “By George! you want to look out.”
“That is the reason I asked the question.”
“I have never seen this horse in a race, but I bet you he will get there. Look out that they don’t play the same trick on you that they played upon Custer.”
“I will look out for that. You come in on the parade-ground and hold him while I get my things.”
When Carl hurried through the gate he saw a long line of cavalry drawn up on the parade-ground, with their officers at the head, and the adjutant was just going into the colonel’s door to tell him that the troops were all present or accounted for. They were all sitting stiffly in their saddles, waiting for the word to move. They were waiting to see, too, who was going to command them; but in a few seconds after the adjutant disappeared the colonel came to the door, and then this question was answered. He had his greatcoat on, a pair of heavy gauntlet gloves on his hands, and the point of a sabre dragged on the ground behind him.
“That’s all right,” said Carl, making haste into his room. “Now we will see how much the colonel knows about fighting Indians.”