“No,” said the cook. “Don’t I tell you that he has the best horse on the ranch? Some of the men are out now looking for him. He didn’t take to the prairie, but concealed himself in the mountains. He won’t come out till he gets among his friends.”
The cook spoke so earnestly, and seemed so disgusted over Harding’s escape, that the sergeant never thought to blame him for it. If the truth must be told, he was the man who brought the horse and tied him to the bushes in the yard so that the squawman could readily find him, and he stood in his door and saw Harding leap out of the window, mount the nag, and ride away in the darkness. Some of the men were indeed out, but they were not looking for Harding. They were attending to the cattle.
“I think we will go back and report to the colonel,” said the sergeant, after meditating a few moments. “He ought to know that he ain’t going to get the man.”
And we may add that this was the last adventure that befell Carl while he stayed at the fort. The troops never suspected Carl, and neither did they ever see Harding again. What became of him after that nobody knew. Of course the soldiers were all on the lookout for him, but he disappeared completely. And we may go further, and say that no one on the ranch ever heard of Claude again. A young man with such habits as his don’t often turn out to be anybody in the world. If he keeps such company as the two men who attempted to rob Carl of his money, he is probably in State’s prison before this time.
The sergeant and all the soldiers were surprised and perplexed over the escape of Harding, and when the horses had had a rest and the men had eaten their supper they set out for the fort. The men stood on the porch and saw them go; and when they had got out of sight the cook turned to Carl, laid one finger alongside his nose, and winked first one eye and then the other. If the sergeant had seen that motion he might have been led to suspect something.
Carl, the Trailer, remained at home for a week, and when he started for the fort again he took a big load from Thompson’s mind by telling him that he had seen all the scouting he wanted to see, and that in a few days he was coming home to remain.
“There is no more fight in the Sioux, for, now that Sitting Bull has gone and Big Foot was killed during that fight, there will be no one to take command of them,” said Carl. “But first I want to bring the lieutenant up here, to let him see how I live when I am at home. I will come back in a week or two, and I shall never go away again.”
The men were all glad to hear that piece of news, and when Carl returned in company with the lieutenant, they extended to him a hearty welcome; for Carl had told his herdsmen how he behaved in that fight with the Sioux, and they were glad to shake a brave man by the hand.
“I don’t see why you wanted to leave this nice place, where you have everything just as you want it, and come down to the fort to go scouting,” said Parker, when he had been shown about the ranch, and supper was over and the men had gathered on the porch. “If I had a ranch like this I would resign in a minute. I never would go on another hunt after Indians.”
That was what his men all said, and they were glad to welcome him home. Carl still lives on the plains, but he does not go down to the fort as much as he used to. Time has made changes, and there are but few officers left who knew him as Carl, the Trailer. Parker has now become a captain, and has been ordered to the coast. He keeps up a regular correspondence with Carl; and of all the stories he has to tell to his younger officers, there are none that he takes so much delight in as those in which the young scout was engaged. The Ghost Dance is a thing of the past. It has never been heard of since Yellow Bird caught up that handful of dust and threw it into the air, which started the massacre of Wounded Knee.