Lieutenant Dale decided from the incident that Al ought to learn the art of boxing, in which he himself was quite expert, having learned it in college. So thereafter they spent an hour or so every day in sparring. By the time the voyage was over, Al had become as skilful as his instructor, and General Sully, Captain Feilner and the other officers often gathered to watch their bouts and to encourage them to greater efforts.
At Glasgow, his old home, Al had an opportunity to go ashore for a short time and he was astonished and grieved to note the changes which three short years had wrought in the familiar old town. The levee was deserted save by a few indolent loafers who, without recognizing him, stared at him suspiciously as he went past; for in that terror-haunted country, fear and suspicion of everybody and everything had become the habit of the people. Climbing the hill to the main part of town, he found grass growing in the once bustling business streets and many buildings locked and vacant. His father's old store was among them, closed as he had left it. He saw no familiar faces; most of the men and boys he had known were off in one of the armies, Confederate or Union, and the women were not often venturing from their houses in such times. In the residence section the scene was still worse. House after house stood deserted and going to decay. With slow steps Al went on to the place which had been the home of his family in the dear old days when they were happy and prosperous. The gate was fallen from the hinges, weeds were growing thickly over the gravel walks, several panes of glass were broken out of the windows, and a loose shutter creaked dolefully in the wind. He rested his hand on a weather-beaten fence picket and gazed out into the garden he remembered so well, where he and Tommy and Annie had played; and beyond that into the orchard, where the summer apples used to grow so large and red and juicy. The cords of his throat tightened and a mist swam before his eyes. Weeds and grass and broken limbs strewed the ground; silence and desolation were everywhere. He turned away abruptly and hastened back to the levee, never stopping until he was once more on the boiler deck of the Island City, where General Sully and several other officers were smoking and playing cards. It seemed to him as if a ghost were following him, the ghost of dead days, so tenderly remembered that the thought of them was unendurable, and for the time being he wanted only to plunge into the present and forget.
CHAPTER VIII PRAIRIE MARCHING
It would take a volume to recount all the interesting experiences which befell Al and his companions on the long trip to Fort Sully, Dakota, where the greater part of General Sully's troops had wintered; but, as they contributed nothing of moment to the narrative which we are following, they must be passed by. The fleet reached Kansas City, then a small but rapidly growing frontier town, nearly three weeks after leaving St. Louis, a journey which is now accomplished by rail in seven or eight hours. At Omaha the Island City left the barge which had been dragging at her stern all the way from St. Louis, as it was such an impediment that she could no longer handle it in the extremely low stage of the water. On May 30 the fleet reached Sioux City, where some troops were taken on board, as were still more at Fort Randall, twelve days later. About June 20 they arrived at Fort Sully and here the long steamboat journey came to an end so far as the General and his staff were concerned, as here they left the boat to march with the column of troops up the eastern side of the Missouri. Though he expected to see them frequently again during the Summer, Al regretted leaving the officers and pilots of the Island City, especially Captain Lamont, to whom he had become quite attached. After his encounter with the deck hand, Jim, the Captain had shown a liking for him and during many idle hours had done much toward initiating him into the fascinating mysteries of steamboating. The fleet itself was going on up the river with the cargoes, keeping as nearly as possible abreast of the column.
It was a great relief to be on shore again and able to ride a galloping horse and to move about freely, after the long confinement to the narrow limits of the boat. For two or three days after the arrival of the fleet, Fort Sully presented a very animated appearance. Here were assembled about half of the troops which were to make up the expedition into the hostile country: the Sixth Iowa Cavalry under Colonel Pollock; three companies of the Seventh Iowa Cavalry under Lieutenant-Colonel Pattee; Brackett's Battalion of Minnesota Cavalry under Major Brackett, which had marched overland from Fort Snelling to Sioux City and thence to Fort Sully; and two companies of Dakota Cavalry under Captain Miner.
All these soldiers, over one thousand in number, constituting the First Brigade of General Sully's army, were quartered in the barracks of the fort or encamped close around the stockade. The buildings of the fort, which were similar to most of those built on the Northwestern frontier, were of large, unhewn cottonwood logs; and the stockade, about two hundred and seventy feet square, was made of cedar pickets rising twelve feet above the ground, loop-holed for musketry and flanked by two bastions, one on the northeastern and one on the southwestern corner, containing cannon to sweep the faces of the stockade. It had been built by General Sully's troops, many of whom were still there, at the close of the campaign in 1863. A short distance out from the fort were several hundred lodges of Indians, recently hostile, but who, wearying of the struggle, had come in to tender their submission to General Sully. Al, through interpreters, made eager inquiry among them for news of Tommy, but could learn nothing. The Indians, who were of several different tribes of the Sioux Nation: Yanktonais, Brules, Two Kettles, Minneconjoux, Sans Arcs, Uncpapas, and also Blackfeet, reported that the hostiles were gathered in one immense camp of some eighteen hundred lodges, or about six thousand warriors, three days' march west of the Missouri on the headwaters of Heart River, and that they were eager for a fight.
After a few days spent at the fort in organizing and refitting the troops, shoeing the horses and mules, repairing harness, and loading supplies for immediate use into the train of nearly one hundred wagons which was to accompany the column, the latter moved out on its northward march on the twenty-third of June.
Now began days which were full of novel experiences for Al. Though he had to spend a good deal of time with the wagon train, aiding Lieutenant Bacon, the acting assistant quartermaster, in issuing and caring for the supplies, he found many hours each day to ride at the head of the column with the General and his staff, who usually marched there. The weather was generally warm, and the vast, seemingly boundless prairie was parched with drought. The new grass was sparse and dry and hidden under the dead, brown bunches of last year's blue joint and buffalo grass, so that the troops and wagon train usually marched in a cloud of dust which, rising from the feet of the hundreds of trampling animals, was visible for many miles through the clear air of that high plateau country. They knew that Indian scouts were all about them, closely observing their progress, but the red men seldom showed themselves, and one unfamiliar with their ways might easily have believed that there were no enemies near. Game, such as buffalo and antelope, could often be seen in the distance and it was a sore temptation to many of the men to see them and not give pursuit. Indeed, sometimes a party would sally out after a buffalo; but unless the party was strong, it was always against the advice of the old campaigners, especially the officers and men of the Dakota Cavalry, who had been hunting and fighting Indians all over the southern part of their vast territory ever since the Summer of 1862. These men, recruited among the fearless and adventurous pioneers who had first settled in Dakota a few years before, had been dubbed "the Coyotes" by their companions in arms because of the speed and skill with which they could march and manœuvre against their wily foes; and it was from them that South Dakota in later years derived its familiar nickname, "the Coyote State."