Winged Arrow's Medicine; Or, The Massacre at Fort Phil Kearney

by Harry Castlemon

"I don't suppose Red Cloud will believe that, even if it is read to him," said the Colonel. "The General's letter has been received. Pshaw! There is not a man living who can get through those lines and reach me with a dispatch from him."

"So long as they don't know that, we don't care what they believe," said Cyrus, pulling off his moccasin and stowing the dispatch away inside of it. "If it will only throw his camp into confusion that is all we ask for. Well, Kurn, good-by. Remember, I will do my best."

"Good-by, Cyrus," replied the Colonel, extending his hand. "You have been faithful and just to me while you were here, and I shall depend upon you."

"Don't do that, Kurn; don't do that," said Cyrus, earnestly. "I will do my best, and that is all anybody can do."

Cyrus pressed the Colonel's hand for a moment, then turned toward the window and in another instant was gone. He made his way to his quarters without seeing anybody, threw himself upon his bunk, and in a little while was fast asleep. His comrades came in and aroused him when it was time to go to supper, but Cyrus did not want any. He kept his bunk until his roommates were all in bed and fast asleep, and the sentries on duty had proclaimed "Twelve o'clock and all's well!" when he began to bestir himself. His first duty was to satisfy himself that all the scouts were in dreamland, and when this had been done he took his rifle, put on his hat, and noiselessly left his quarters. The next thing was to pass the sentries; but a man who could pass within five feet of a slumbering Sioux was not to be deterred by passing a white sentry on his post. To climb the logs and drop down on the other side was an event that was easy enough for Cyrus to accomplish, and in a few minutes the tramp of the sentries was left out of hearing.

Why was it that the Colonel was so anxious to have him leave the Fort without being seen by anybody? To tell the truth, everybody in the Fort was becoming discouraged. Three weeks had now elapsed since the erection of the palisades, and during that time the Sioux had completely surrounded them and shut them in as tight as though they had "been bottled up." A person was at liberty to go anywhere within a mile of the Fort, because certain guns which had been accurately trained covered every foot of the space; but over the hills it was as much as a man's life was worth to venture. Guy Preston was the only one, when searching for his birds, who had disobeyed that order; but it was a miracle that he had been allowed to come back. The signal tower, which stood at the distance of half a mile from the Fort, was manned every morning by four men who went out there to keep watch of the Indians; but every time that group was ready to go out, it took a Company of men to protect them. That was before Red Cloud had made his new order, that the only way to get rid of the whites was to kill all the men and burn the palisades, and this order was in force at the time Cyrus left the post. By drawing his warriors off in the daytime, Red Cloud was tempting the Colonel to send out a train for fuel, and when that was done the massacre was to begin. The Colonel was determined to get dispatches through by some means, but he did not want to let the men know that another person had tried it and failed. It would not be long, he thought, before the men would think that it was utterly impossible to get through the Sioux lines, and so would give it up, stay there, and be massacred. He knew better than any other man did the danger that they were in, and it was no wonder that he felt downhearted.

The Fort being left out of sight and hearing, Cyrus threw himself on all fours and made his way toward Piney Creek, a little stream on the banks of which the post was located. He intended to get as far as possible below the encircling bands of Sioux before daylight, then arise to his feet and go toward his destination as fast as he could. This was a new way of leaving the lines behind him, the other scouts preferring to strike out over the prairie and try their chances in that way; but it seems that the Sioux were alive to this movement also. The stream was not large or deep enough for him to descend its current, otherwise he would have sought a log somewhere and attempted to swim by them; but as it was he was compelled to wade sometimes in the water and at other times to flounder through bushes so thick that the darkness could almost be felt, and he did not cover more than a mile an hour. Every few feet he would stop and listen until his acute senses told him that the way was clear, and then he would struggle on again.

But Red Cloud, the head chief of the Ogallala Sioux who were making war because they were determined that the road should not pass through their country, was an old campaigner and not to be beaten by any such trick as this. He withdrew his warriors in the daytime so as to tempt the Colonel to send out a train to get fuel, but knowing that the train could not come out at night, he sent his men in closer, being equally determined that no scout should get out to carry the news of their condition to other quarters. Consequently Cyrus had not progressed more than a mile or two when he heard a smothered exclamation in front of him, and before he could sink down where he was and get his weapon into a condition for use, he found himself in the clutches of a Sioux warrior, upon whom he had almost stepped. Of course Cyrus resisted, but it was all in vain. Another Sioux joined in the fracas, another and another came up to assist, and in less time than it takes to tell it, the scout was thrown prostrate on the ground, his weapon twisted out of his grasp, and his hands bound behind his back. It was all done quietly, and one standing at a distance of twenty feet away would not have known that there was anything going on. Why did Cyrus not take out his letter when the Sioux caught him? Because his hands were bound, and he knew that those who had him prisoner were not the ones who had any authority in the band.

In spite of what he had said to the contrary, Cyrus was not a little alarmed when he found himself powerless in the hands of the Sioux; but it was useless to resist the savages, lest he should feel the prod of a knife in his flesh, and when they put a rope around his neck and started off with him, Cyrus went along with them as quietly as if he had formed one of the party.

It was four miles to Red Cloud's village, and Cyrus could not see anything on the way to remind him where he was. The Indians knew the course, and when they brought him into their town he was surprised at what he saw there. He had never seen so large a multitude of savages as was gathered there under Red Cloud. There were several camp fires scattered about among the lodges, none of which were wholly extinguished, and, aided by the light that they threw out, Cyrus could see nothing but tepees on all sides of him. He was conducted at once to a lodge a little apart from the others; one brave threw up a flap of it which served as a door and Cyrus was thrust in. It was all dark in there, and Cyrus hesitated about stepping around for fear that he should tread upon some of the inmates, when one of his captors came in and seized him by the shoulder.