CHAPTER XVIII. A Prisoner at Last
"So this is scouting for Indians, is it?" exclaimed Fred, when the bugle blew one morning and Guy began buckling on his sword. "We have been out two weeks, and during that time we have not seen one single Indian, nor the sign of one. I thought they would be all around us. That is the way they act in storybooks."
"We are not dealing with storybooks now, but with solid flesh-and-blood Sioux," said Guy, who was making all haste to answer the bugle call. "We have seen signs enough, even if we have not seen Indians. We have followed their trail for a week, and that is as much as I want to see."
"But why don't we follow them up and whip them? All we have to do is to go back there in the 'bad lands,' and there we would find them."
Before we go any further we should like to inquire if you have any idea of how these "bad lands" look. We have often heard that hostile Indians find refuge there when badly pressed by the troops, but how do they appear and in what shape are they? You have often seen a clay field after a long and hot drought in summer, how it is seamed over with innumerable cracks, perfectly perpendicular, leaving miniature chasms between. This, magnified by a thousand, are the "bad lands" of the Northwest. They are immense patches of clay soil, baked by the long and intense drought of that climate into chasms four or five feet wide and perhaps twenty feet deep, absolutely impassable for wagons, quagmires in the early spring, and a labyrinth of deep gullies in summer. The hostiles know every one of these ravines, where it leads to and the springs of water that are to be found on the banks of it, and the troops that are sent after them do not. Once fairly inside the "bad lands," the Indians disappear and leave no trace behind.
"We do not want to be whipped badly enough to go into those 'bad lands,'" said Guy, with a laugh. "The moment Colonel Smith saw where the trail led to, he said that we were not strong enough to go in there after them, and when he said that, he hit me right on top of the head. I don't want to go in there either. I am perfectly willing to go back to the Fort, without seeing any of them. You don't know how an ambush looks. I have seen one of them from a distance, and I don't want to see another."
"Well, good-by, if you call that going," said Fred, as Guy swung himself upon his horse. "Keep your eyes open, and don't let any Sioux come down on us."
Guy fell in beside his Company, waved his hand as a farewell signal to Fred, and rode out with the cavalrymen to act as eyes for the infantry, who were guarding the train. These marched along pretty nearly as they pleased, giving no thought to danger, for they knew that the cavalry, who skirted their flanks at a distance of three or four miles, would see the Sioux long before they could and easily warn them, so that they could get into line of battle. Presently the bugle sounded again, and that was a call for Fred. In a few minutes the entire expedition was under way, bound for the Fort, without having seen a warrior since they had been out.
"They are all in the 'bad lands,'" said Colonel Smith, who felt somewhat crestfallen over his bad luck. "I really wish that I had about four times as many men as I have with me. I would follow them into their retreats and drive them out."
That was the way that more than one man felt in regard to the disappearing Sioux, and many a soldier clutched his piece with a firmer grip and cast his eyes toward the hills on which he had last seen the cavalry, in the hope that they would come over the swells in haste with the report that the Sioux were not far behind them. That would give him a chance to knock over one or two to pay them for the number they had killed during the massacre at the Fort. That was something the soldiers could not get out of their minds. They had already made it up among them that "Remember Fort Phil Kearney" should be their battle cry the next time they went into action. And the opportunity came for them much sooner than they had expected. They had marched until pretty near twelve o'clock and the commanders were holding a consultation about what they had better do for dinner, whether to halt the column at the top of the nearest swell and have dinner there, or go on until four o'clock and then have dinner and supper together, when suddenly, and without the least warning, they heard the rattle of carbines behind the nearest hill on the right. A squad of cavalry, numbering perhaps twenty men or more, had discovered the Sioux. They had seen the squad more than half an hour before, and they were going along as if everything were all right.