CHAPTER VI.
Dispatches.
“By the way, Parker, I think the colonel has some other business for you to transact when you get back to the fort,” said the captain, when they had ridden a little while in silence. “Of course the colonel has not said so, but I rather gained the idea from something I heard the adjutant say to him.”
“I am ready to assume anything he thinks I can do, sir,” said the lieutenant, who wondered what this new business was going to be. “I will even go to Standing Rock Agency.”
“And I suppose that is right where he wants to send you with dispatches for General Miles,” said the captain. “You will have one guide with you, and as large an escort as the colonel may think you need.”
“I am ready to undertake it,” said Parker, “but I don’t intend to be captured.”
“That’s the way to talk,” said the captain. “But the colonel does not expect that the Sioux will attempt to capture you and hold you as a prisoner. You will have to go right by the place where they are holding their Ghost Dance, and if the Indians discover you, they will lose no time in keeping you until their dance is over.”
“I don’t see what good that will do, sir. Don’t they want us to know anything about it?”
“Well, I guess they don’t. The Sioux have a theory that if anyone outside their tribe witnesses the ceremony, that will make the dance of no account, and it will all have to be done over again.”
Lieutenant Parker seemed to have grown two inches when he heard this. He was going to get a chance to make a hero of himself—that is, if the colonel thought fit to send him with the dispatches. He thought of what old California Joe would have done in a case like this. After Custer’s fight with Black Kettle, in which a great victory was gained and the power of the Cheyennes completely broken, Joe was selected as a courier to carry the report to General Sheridan, whose headquarters were at Camp Supply. The journey was only about a hundred miles long, but it was through a country that was thickly covered with hostile Indians. General Custer offered him an escort of fifty men, but to his surprise Joe said he did not want anybody except Jack Corbin, his partner. Custer told him to go ahead, and these two men made the journey—two hundred miles—in just forty-eight hours, although they had several wide detours to make in order to keep clear of the savages. Lieutenant Parker did not know whether or not he was experienced enough to try such a plan as that, but he determined that he would attempt it. Everything depended on getting by the Sioux without being seen. If the Indians discovered him he would certainly be captured, and what would be done with him after that he did not know. He would not say anything to the captain about it, but if the colonel asked him how large an escort he wanted, he would take Carl, the Trailer, and set off.