Warrior Gap: A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. Read online

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  Warrior Gap

  A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68.

  BY GENERAL CHARLES KING, U. S. A.

  AUTHOR OF "Fort Frayne," "An Army Wife," "Trumpeter Fred," "Found in thePhilippines," "A Wounded Name," "Noble Blood and a West Point Parallel,""A Garrison Tangle," etc., etc.

  THE HOBART COMPANY, New York City.

  Copyrighted 1898, by F. Tennyson Neely.

  Copyrighted, 1901, by The Hobart Company.

  WARRIOR GAP.

  1.

  Riding at ease in the lazy afternoon sunshine a single troop of cavalrywas threading its way in long column of twos through the bold andbeautiful foothills of the Big Horn. Behind them, glinting in theslanting rays, Cloud Peak, snow clad still although it was late in May,towered above the pine-crested summits of the range. To the right andleft of the winding trail bare shoulders of bluff, covered only by thedense carpet of bunch grass, jutted out into the comparative level ofthe eastward plain. A clear, cold, sparkling stream, on whose banks thelittle command had halted for a noontide rest, went rollicking awaynortheastward, and many a veteran trooper looked longingly, evenregretfully, after it, and then cast a gloomy glance over the barren anddesolate stretch ahead. Far as the eye could reach in that direction theearth waves heaved and rolled in unrelieved monotony to the very skyline, save where here and there along the slopes black herds orscattered dots of buffalo were grazing unvexed by hunters red or white,for this was thirty years ago, when, in countless thousands, the bisoncovered the westward prairies, and there were officers who forbade theirsenseless slaughter to make food only for the worthless, prowlingcoyotes. No wonder the trooper hated to leave the foothills of themountains, with the cold, clear trout streams and the bracing air, totake to long days' marching over dull waste and treeless prairie,covered only by sage brush, rent and torn by dry ravines, shadeless,springless, almost waterless, save where in unwholesome hollows dullpools of stagnant water still held out against the sun, or, furtherstill southeast among the "breaks" of the many forks of the SouthCheyenne, on the sandy flats men dug for water for their sufferinghorses, yet shrank from drinking it themselves lest their lips shouldcrack and bleed through the shriveling touch of the alkali.

  Barely two years a commissioned officer, the young lieutenant at thehead of column rode buoyantly along, caring little for the landscape,since with every traversed mile he found himself just that much nearerhome. Twenty-five summers, counting this one coming, had rolled over hiscurly head, and each one had seemed brighter, happier than the last, allbut the one he spent as a hard-worked "plebe" at the military academy.His graduation summer two years previous was a glory to him, as well asto a pretty sister, young and enthusiastic enough to think a brother inthe regulars, just out of West Point, something to be made much of, andJessie Dean had lost no opportunity of spoiling her soldier or ofwearying her school friends through telling of his manifold perfections.He was a manly, stalwart, handsome fellow as young graduates go, and oldones wish they might go over again. He was a fond and not too teasingkind of brother. He wasn't the brightest fellow in the class by thirtyodd, and had barely scraped through one or two of his examinations, butJessie proudly pointed to the fact that much more than half the classhad "scraped off" entirely, and therefore that those who succeeded ingetting through at all were paragons, especially Brother Marshall. Butgirls at that school had brothers of their own, girls who had never seenWest Point or had the cadet fever, and were not impressed with youngofficers as painted by so indulgent a sister. Most of the girls hadtired of Jessie's talks, and some had told her so, but there was one whohad been sympathetic from the start--a far Western, friendless sort ofgirl she was when first she entered school, uncouthly dressed,wretchedly homesick and anything but companionable, and yet JessieDean's kind heart had warmed to this friendless waif and she became herchampion, her ally, and later, much to her genuine surprise, almost heridol. It presently transpired that "the Pappoose," as the girlsnicknamed her because it was learned that she had been rocked in anIndian cradle and had long worn moccasins instead of shoes (whichaccounted for her feet being so much finer in their shape than those ofher fellows), was quick and intelligent beyond her years, that, thoughapparently hopelessly behind in all their studies at the start, andprovoking ridicule and sneers during the many weeks of her lonelinessand home-longing, she suddenly began settling to her work with grimdetermination, surprising her teachers and amazing her mates by the vimand originality of her methods, and, before the end of the year,climbing for the laurels with a mental strength and agility that putother efforts to the blush. Then came weeks of bliss spent with a dotingfather at Niagara, the seashore and the Point--a dear old dad as ill atease in Eastern circles as his daughter had been at first at school,until he found himself welcomed with open arms to the officers'mess-rooms at the Point, for John Folsom was as noted a frontiersman asever trod the plains, a man old officers of the cavalry and infantryknew and honored as "a square trader" in the Indian country--a man whomthe Indians themselves loved and trusted far and wide, and when a manhas won the trust and faith of an Indian let him grapple it to hisbreast as a treasure worth the having, great even as "the heart love ofa child." Sioux, Shoshone and Cheyenne, they would turn to "Old John" intheir councils, their dealings, their treaties, their perplexities, forwhen he said a thing was right and square their doubts were gone, andthere at the Point the now well-to-do old trader met men who had knownhim in by-gone days at Laramie and Omaha, and there his prettyschoolgirl daughter met her bosom friend's big brother Marshall, a firstclassman in all his glory, dancing with damsels in society, while shewas but a maiden shy in short dresses. Oh, how Jess had longed to be ofthat party to the Point, but her home was in the far West, her fatherlong dead and buried, her mother an invalid, and the child was neededthere. Earnestly had old Folsom written, begging that she who had beenso kind to his little girl should be allowed to visit the seashore andthe Point with him and "Pappoose," as he laughingly referred to her,adopting the school name given by the girls; but they were proud people,were the Deans, and poor and sensitive. They thanked Mr. Folsom warmly."Jessie was greatly needed at her home this summer," was the answer; butFolsom somehow felt it was because they dreaded to accept courtesiesthey could not repay in kind.

  "As if I could ever repay Jess for all the loving kindness to my littlegirl in her loneliness," said he. No, there was no delicious visitingwith Pappoose that summer, but with what eager interest had she notdevoured the letters telling of the wonderful sights the little farWesterner saw--the ocean, the great Niagara, the beautiful Point in theheart of the Highlands, but, above all, that crowned monarch, thatplumed knight, that incomparable big brother, Cadet Captain MarshallDean. Yes, he had come to call the very evening of their arrival. He hadescorted them out, Papa and Pappoose, to hear the band playing on thePlain. He had made her take his arm, "a schoolgirl in short dresses,"and promenaded with her up and down the beautiful, shaded walks,thronged with ladies, officers and cadets, while some old cronies tookfather away to the mess for a julep, and Mr. Dean had introduced someyoung girls, professors' daughters, and they had come and taken herdriving and to tea, and she had seen him every day, many times a day, atguard mounting, drill, pontooning or parade, or on the hotel piazzas,but only to look at or speak to for a minute, for of course she was"only a child," and there were dozens of society girls, young ladies, towhom he had to be attentive, es
pecially a very stylish Miss Brockway,from New York, with whom he walked and danced a great deal, and whom theother girls tried to tease about him. Pappoose didn't write it in somany words, but Jessie, reading those letters between the lines andevery which way, could easily divine that Pappoose didn't fancy MissBrockway at all. And then had come a wonderful day, a wonderful thing,into the schoolgirl's life. No less than twelve pages didsixteen-year-old Pappoose take to tell it, and when a girl finds time towrite a twelve-page letter from the Point she has more to tell than shecan possibly contain. Mr. Dean had actually invited her--_her_, ElinorMerchant Folsom--Winona, as they called her when she was a toddler amongthe tepees of the Sioux--Pappoose as the girls had named her atschool--"Nell," as Jessie called her--sweetest name of all despite thering of sadness that ever hangs about it--and Daddy had actually smiledand approved her going to the midweek hop on a cadet captain's broadchevroned arm, and she had worn her prettiest white gown, and the girlshad brought her roses, and Mr. Dean had called for her before all thebig girls, and she had gone off with him, radiant, and he had actuallymade out her card for her, and taken three dances himself, and hadpresented such pleasant fellows--first classmen and "yearlings." Therewas Mr. Billings, the cadet adjutant, and Mr. Ray, who was a cadetsergeant "out on furlough" and kept back, but such a beautiful dancer,and there was the first captain, such a witty, brilliant fellow, whoonly danced square dances, and several cadet corporals, all hopmanagers, in their red sashes. Why, she was just the proudest girl inthe room! And when the drum beat and the hop broke up she couldn'tbelieve she'd been there an hour and three-quarters, and then Mr. Deanescorted her back to the hotel, and Daddy had smiled and looked on andtold him he must come into the cavalry when he graduated next June, andhe'd show him the Sioux country and Pappoose would teach him the Indiandances. It was all simply lovely. Of course she knew it was all due toJessie that her splendid big brother should give up a whole evening fromhis lady friends. (Miss Brockway spoke so patronizingly to her in thehall when the girls were all talking together after the cadets hadscurried away to answer tattoo roll-call.) Of course she understood thatif it hadn't been for Jessie none of the cadets would have taken theslightest notice of her, a mere chit, with three years of school stillahead of her. But all the same it was something to live over and overagain, and dream of over and over again, and the seashore seemed verystupid after the Point. Next year--next June--when Marshall graduatedJessie was to go and see that wonderful spot, and go she did withPappoose, too, and though it was all as beautiful as Pappoose haddescribed, and the scene and the music and the parades and all weresplendid, there was no deliriously lovely hop, for in those days therecould be no dancing in the midst of examinations. There was only the onegreat ball given by the second to the graduating class, and Marshall hadso many, many other and older girls to dance with and say good-by to hehad only time for a few words with his sister and her shy, silent littlefriend with the big brown eyes to whom he had been so kind the previoussummer, when there were three hops a week and not so many hoppers inlong dresses. Still, Marshall had one dance with each and introducednice boys from the lower classes, and it was all very well, only notwhat Pappoose had painted, and Jessie couldn't help thinking and sayingit might all have been so much sweeter if it hadn't been for that odiousMiss Brockway, about whom Marshall hovered altogether too much, but,like the little Indian the girls sometimes said she was, Pappoose lookedon and said nothing.

  All the same, Mr. Dean had had a glorious graduation summer of it,though Jessie saw too little of him, and Pappoose nothing at all afterthe breakup of the class. In September the girls returned to school,friends as close as ever, even though a little cloud overshadowed thehitherto unbroken confidences, and Marshall joined the cavalry, as oldFolsom had suggested, and took to the saddle, the prairie, the bivouac,and buffalo hunt as though native and to the manner born. They werebuilding the Union Pacific then, and he and his troop, with dozens ofothers scattered along the line, were busy scouting the neighborhood,guarding the surveyors, the engineers, and finally the track-layers, forthe jealous red men swarmed in myriads all along the way, lacking onlyunanimity, organization, and leadership to enable them to defeat theenterprise. And then when the whistling engines passed the forks of thePlatte and began to climb up the long slope of the Rockies to Cheyenneand Sherman Pass, the trouble and disaffection spread to tribes far morenumerous and powerful further to the north and northwest; and there roseabove the hordes of warriors a chief whose name became the synonym fordeep rooted and determined hostility to the whites--Machpealota (RedCloud)--and old John Folsom, he whom the Indians loved and trusted, grewanxious and troubled, and went from post to post with words of warningon his tongue.

  "Gentlemen," he said to the commissioners who came to treat with theSioux whose hunting grounds adjoined the line of the railway, "it's allvery well to have peace with these people here. It is wise to cultivatethe friendship of such chiefs as Spotted Tail andOld-Man-Afraid-of-His-Horses but there are irreconcilables beyond them,far more numerous and powerful, who are planning, preaching war thisminute. Watch Red Cloud, Red Dog, Little Big Man. Double, treble yourgarrisons at the posts along the Big Horn; get your women and childrenout of them, or else abandon the forts entirely. I know those warriorswell. They outnumber you twenty to one. Reinforce your garrisons withoutdelay or get out of that country, one of the two. Draw everything southof the Platte while yet there is time."

  But wiseacres at Washington said the Indians were peaceable, and allthat was needed was a new post and another little garrison at WarriorGap, in the eastward foothills of the range. Eight hundred thousanddollars would build it, "provided the labor of the troops was utilized,"and leave a good margin for the contractors and "the Bureau." And it wasto escort the quartermaster and engineer officer and an aide-de-camp onpreliminary survey that "C" Troop of the cavalry, Captain Brookscommanding, had been sent on the march from the North Platte at Frayneto the headwaters of the Powder River in the Hills, and with it went itsnew first lieutenant, Marshall Dean.