“Why, this is no fort!” said Oscar, contemptuously. “There isn’t even a stockade. What’s to prevent a band of Indians raiding through the whole place? I could take it myself, if I had men enough.”
His cousin Charlie laughed, and said: “Forts are not built out here nowadays to defend a garrison. The army men don’t propose to let the Indians get near enough to the post to threaten it. The fact is, I guess, this fort is only a depot-like, as our friend Younkins would say, for the 81 soldiers and for military stores. They don’t expect ever to be besieged here; but if there should happen to be trouble anywhere along the frontier, then the soldiers would be here, ready to fly out to the rescue, don’t you see?”
“Yes,” answered Sandy; “and when a part of the garrison had gone to the rescue, as you call it, another party of redskins would swoop down and gobble up the remnant left at the post.”
“If I were you, Master Sandy,” said his brother, “I wouldn’t worry about the soldiers. Uncle Sam built this fort, and there are lots of others like it. I don’t know for sure, but my impression is that Uncle Sam knows what is best for the use of the military and for the defence of the frontier. So let’s go and take a look at the sutler’s store. I want to buy some letter-paper.”
The sutler, in those days, was a very important person in the estimation of the soldiers of a frontier post. Under a license from the War Department of the Government, he kept a store in which was everything that the people at the post could possibly need. Crowded into the long building of the Fort Riley sutler were dry-goods, groceries, hardware, boots and shoes, window-glass, rope and twine, and even candy of a very poor sort. Hanging from the ceiling of this queer warehouse were sides of smoked meat, strings of onions, oilcloth suits, and other things that were designed for the comfort or convenience of the officers and 82 soldiers, and were not provided by the Government.
“I wonder what soldiers want of calico and ribbons,” whispered Sandy, with a suppressed giggle, as the three lads went prying about.
“Officers and soldiers have their wives and children here, you greeny,” said his brother, sharply. “Look out there and see ’em.”
And, sure enough, as Sandy’s eyes followed the direction of his brother’s, he saw two prettily dressed ladies and a group of children walking over the smooth turf that filled the square in the midst of the fort. It gave Sandy a homesick feeling, this sight of a home in the wilderness. Here were families of grown people and children, living apart from the rest of the world. They had been here long before the echo of civil strife in Kansas had reached the Eastern States, and before the first wave of emigration had touched the head-waters of the Kaw. Here they were, a community by themselves, uncaring, apparently, whether slavery was voted up or down. At least, some such thought as this flitted through Sandy’s mind as he looked out upon the leisurely life of the fort, just beginning to stir.
All along the outer margin of the reservation were grouped the camps of emigrants; not many of them, but enough to present a curious and picturesque sight. There were a few tents, but most of the emigrants slept in or under their 83 wagons. There were no women or children in these camps, and the hardy men had been so well seasoned by their past experiences, journeying to this far western part of the Territory, that they did not mind the exposure of sleeping on the ground and under the open skies. Soldiers from the fort, off duty and curious to hear the news from the outer world, came lounging around the camps and chatted with the emigrants in that cool, superior manner that marks the private soldier when he meets a civilian on equal footing, away from the haunts of men.
The boys regarded these uniformed military servants of the Government of the United States with great respect, and even with some awe. These, they thought to themselves, were the men who were there to fight Indians, to protect the border, and to keep back the rising tide of wild hostilities that might, if it were not for them, sweep down upon the feeble Territory and even inundate the whole Western country.