With Sully into the Sioux Land

by Joseph Mills Hanson

Mrs. Briscoe bowed her head upon her knees.

"Oh, my little boy, my baby boy!" she moaned. "Why should I live any longer with them gone?"

Al, stunned by the tragedies of the past few minutes, had nearly reached the lowest depths of despair. He felt numb and helpless, but at his mother's heartbroken cry a sudden rush of vitality and determination reanimated him. He recalled his father's words: "Remember that your first care must be your mother and your little brother and sister." He leaned forward and put his arm around his mother's shoulders.

"Mother," he said, "don't say that. You must live for Annie's sake and mine,—and Tommy's. We shall get him back; they will not hurt him, he is so young and bright. When we reach the fort the soldiers will send out after him."

By a mighty effort Mrs. Briscoe controlled herself. Her son's words had aroused her.

"You are right, Al," she said. "I must live for you and Annie and Tommy. But can we start for the fort now?"

"I am afraid we shall have to stay here till dark," he replied. "The Indians are still around. I will crawl up where I can get a look."

Leaving the musket beside his mother he crept up through the reeds until, by raising his head cautiously, he could see the house, about three hundred feet away at the top of the slope. An Indian was coming out of the barn leading Chick and Monty, both animals rearing and plunging wildly, for a horse brought up in civilization fears an Indian as much as he does a wolf. Al also saw columns of smoke beginning to arise from the roofs of the house and barn and realized with a terrible pang that his father's body was about to be incinerated in the ruins of his home. He felt a mad desire to rush from his concealment upon the savages and to fight them single-handed. But he restrained himself, for he realized that he would have no chance even against the four who were certainly there and who, for all he knew, might now have been joined by others. He lay there watching until the house and barn were wrapped in flames. Then two of the Indians rode out in opposite directions and making wide detours, circled around toward the swampy tract. Then he crept hastily back to his mother and gave her the revolver, the two empty chambers of which he had already re-loaded, himself taking the musket.

"They are going to search for us, mother," he whispered. "We must keep perfectly still. If they should find us and I should be hit, shoot Annie and then yourself. Never let them take you alive. But if there are only four of them we still have a good chance."

No more was said, and for a long time they lay quiet, their ears sharpened to unnatural keenness, listening to the snapping of reeds in the marsh to the east and west of them but never very close. The conviction at last came upon Al that their hunters, few in number, were afraid rather than anxious to find them, and he began to breathe easier. After more than an hour had elapsed he heard horses splashing in the creek above their hiding-place, and presently he crept again to the edge of the reeds. The house and barn were smouldering heaps of ashes, and the wagon was gone. No one was around the ruins but presently he saw, far off on a rise of the prairie to the eastward several horsemen, mere specks in the distance. He conjectured that it was the party which had wrought their ruin, bound for the Millers, their nearest neighbors, seven miles away. He wished ardently that he might warn the Millers but it was out of the question, so he went back to his mother and sister, and through the remaining hours of the afternoon and until darkness fell they lay in their concealment. Then very cautiously, under cover of the darkness, he piloted them across the creek, over several hills and low places, and so at last, two or three miles south of the claim, into the faintly marked road leading away to Fort Ridgely.