The Sioux Surrounded

: A Daughter Of The Sioux

In the hush of the wintry night, under a leaden sky, with snowflakes

falling thick and fast and mantling the hills in fleecy white, Webb's

column had halted among the sturdy pines, the men exchanging muttered,

low-toned query and comment, the horses standing with bowed heads,

occasionally pawing the soft coverlet and sniffing curiously at this

filmy barrier to the bunch grass they sought in vain. They had feasted

toget er, these comrade troopers and chargers, ere the sun went

down,--the men on abundant rations of agency bacon, flour and brown

sugar, found with black tailed deer and mountain sheep in abundance in

the captured village, and eked out by supplies from the pack train,--the

horses on big "blankets" of oats set before them by sympathetic friends

and masters. Then, when the skies were fairly dark, Webb had ordered

little fires lighted all along the bank of the stream, leaving the men

of Ray's and Billings' troops to keep them blazing through the long

night watches to create the impression among the lurking Sioux that the

whole force was still there, guarding the big village it had captured in

the early afternoon, and then, in silence, the troopers had saddled and

jogged away into the heart of the hills, close on the heels of their

guides.



There had been little time to look over the captures. The main interest

of both officers and men, of course, centred in Mr. Hay, who was found

in one of the tepees, prostrate from illness and half frantic from fever

and strong mental excitement. He had later tidings from Frayne, it

seems, than had his rescuers. He could assure them of the health and

safety of their wives and little ones, but would not tell them what was

amiss in his own household. One significant question he asked: Did any

of them know this new Major Flint? No? Well, God help Flint, if ever he,

Hay, got hold of him.



"He's delirious," whispered Webb, and rode away in that conviction,

leaving him to Ray and Billings.



Three miles out, on the tortuous trail of the pursued, the column halted

and dismounted among the pines. Then there was brief conference, and the

word "Mount" was whispered along the Beecher squadron, while Blake's men

stood fast. With a parting clasp of the hand Webb and "Legs" had

returned to the head of their respective commands, "Legs" and his

fellows to follow steadily the Indian trail through the twisting ravines

of the foothills; Webb to make an all-night forced march, in wide

detour and determined effort, to head off the escaping warriors before

they could reach the rocky fastnesses back of Bear Cliff. Webb's chief

scout "Bat," chosen by General Crook himself, had been a captive among

the Sioux through long years of his boyhood, and knew the Big Horn

range as Webb did the banks of the Wabash. "They can stand off a

thousand soldiers," said the guide, "if once they get into the rocks.

They'd have gone there first off only there was no water. Now there's

plenty snow."



So Blake's instructions were to follow them without pushing, to let them

feel they were being pursued, yet by no means to hasten them, and, if

the general's favorite scout proved to be all he promised as guide and

pathfinder, Webb might reasonably hope by dint of hard night riding, to

be first at the tryst at break of day. Then they would have the

retreating Sioux, hampered by their few wounded and certain prisoners

whom they prized, hemmed between rocky heights on every side, and sturdy

horsemen front and rear.



It was eight by the watch at the parting of the ways. It was 8:30 when

Blake retook the trail, with Sergeants Schreiber and Winsor, the latter

borrowed from Ray, far in the van. Even had the ground been hard and

stony these keen-eyed soldier scouts could have followed the signs

almost as unerringly as the Indians, for each had had long years of

experience all over the West; but, despite the steadily falling snow,

the traces of hoofs and, for a time, of travois poles could be readily

seen and followed in the dim gray light of the blanketed skies.

Somewhere aloft, above the film of cloud, the silvery moon was shining,

and that was illumination more than enough for men of their years on the

trail.



For over an hour Blake followed the windings of a ravine that grew

closer and steeper as it burrowed into the hills. Old game trails are as

good as turnpikes in the eyes of the plainsman. It was when the ravine

began to split into branches that the problem might have puzzled them,

had not the white fleece lain two inches deep on the level when "Lo"

made his dash to escape. Now the rough edges of the original impression

were merely rounded over by the new fallen snow. The hollows and ruts

and depressions led on from one deep cleft into another, and by midnight

Blake felt sure the quarry could be but a few miles ahead and Bear Cliff

barely five hours' march away. So, noiselessly, the signal "Halt!" went

rearward down the long, dark, sinuous column of twos, and every man

slipped out of saddle--some of them stamping, so numb were their feet.

With every mile the air had grown keener and colder. They were glad when

the next word whispered was, "Lead on" instead of "Mount."



By this time they were far up among the pine-fringed heights, with the

broad valley of the Big Horn lying outspread to the west, invisible as

the stars above, and neither by ringing shot nor winged arrow had the

leaders known the faintest check. It seemed as though the Indians, in

their desperate effort to carry off the most important or valued of

their charges, were bending all their energies to expediting the

retreat. Time enough to turn on the pursuers when once the rocks had

closed about them,--when the wounded were safe in the fastnesses, and

the pursuers far from supports. But, at the foot of a steep ascent, the

two leading scouts,--rival sergeants of rival troops but devoted friends

for nearly twenty years,--were seen by the next in column, a single

corporal following them at thirty yards' distance, to halt and begin

poking at some dark object by the wayside. Then they pushed on again. A

dead pony, under a quarter inch coverlet of snow, was what met the eyes

of the silently trudging command as it followed. The high-peaked wooden

saddle tree was still "cinched" to the stiffening carcass. Either the

Indians were pushed for time or overstocked with saddlery. Presently

there came a low whistle from the military "middleman" between the

scouts and a little advance guard. "Run ahead," growled the sergeant

commanding to his boy trumpeter. "Give me your reins." And, leaving his

horse, the youngster stumbled along up the winding trail; got his

message and waited. "Give this to the captain," was the word sent back

by Schreiber, and "this" was a mitten of Indian tanned buckskin, soft

and warm if unsightly, a mitten too small for a warrior's hand, if ever

warrior deigned to wear one,--a mitten the captain examined curiously,

as he ploughed ahead of his main body, and then returned to his

subaltern with a grin on his face:



"Beauty draws us with a single hair," said he, "and can't shake us even

when she gives us the mitten. Ross," he added, after a moment's thought,

"remember this. With this gang there are two or three sub-chiefs that we

should get, alive or dead, but the chief end of man, so far as 'K'

Troop's concerned, is to capture that girl, unharmed."



And just at dawn, so gray and wan and pallid it could hardly be told

from the pale moonlight of the earlier hours, the dark, snake-like

column was halted again, nine miles further in among the wooded heights.

With Bear Cliff still out of range and sight, something had stopped the

scouts, and Blake was needed at the front. He found Schreiber crouching

at the foot of a tree, gazing warily forward along a southward-sloping

face of the mountain that was sparsely covered with tall, straight

pines, and that faded into mist a few hundred yards away. The

trail,--the main trail, that is,--seemed to go straight away eastward,

and, for a short distance, downward through a hollow or depression;

while, up the mountain side to the left, the north, following the spur

or shoulder, there were signs as of hoof tracks, half sheeted by the

new-fallen snow, and through this fresh, fleecy mantlet ploughed the

trooper boots in rude, insistent pursuit. The sergeants' horses were

held by a third soldier a few yards back behind the spur, for Winsor was

"side scouting" up the heights.



The snowfall had ceased for a time. The light was growing broader every

moment, and presently a soft whistle sounded somewhere up the steep, and

Schreiber answered. "He wants us, sir," was all he said, and in five

minutes they had found him, sprawled on his stomach on a projecting

ledge, and pointing southeastward, where, boldly outlined against the

gray of the morning sky, a black and beetling precipice towered from

the mist-wreathed pines at its base. Bear Cliff beyond a doubt!



"How far, sergeant?" asked the captain, never too reliant on his powers

of judging distance.



"Five miles, sir, at least; yet some three or four Indians have turned

off here and gone--somewhere up there." And, rolling half over, Winsor

pointed again toward a wooded bluff, perhaps three hundred feet higher

and half a mile away. "That's probably the best lookout this side of the

cliff itself!" he continued, in explanation, as he saw the puzzled look

on the captain's face. "From there, likely, they can see the trail over

the divide--the one Little Bat is leading the major and, if they've made

any time at all, the squadron should be at Bear Cliff now."



They were crawling to him by this time, Blake and Schreiber, among the

stunted cedars that grew thickly along the rocky ledge. Winsor, flat

again on his stomach, sprawled like a squirrel close to the brink. Every

moment as the skies grew brighter the panorama before them became more

extensive, a glorious sweep of highland scenery, of boldly tossing

ridges east and south and west--the slopes all mantled, the trees all

tipped, with nature's ermine, and studded now with myriad gems, taking

fire at the first touch of the day god's messenger, as the mighty king

himself burst his halo of circling cloud and came peering over the low

curtain far at the eastward horizon. Chill and darkness and shrouding

vapor vanished all in a breath as he rose, dominant over countless

leagues of wild, unbroken, yet magnificent mountain landscape.



"Worth every hour of watch and mile of climb!" muttered Blake. "But it's

Indians, not scenery, we're after. What are we here for, Winsor?" and

narrowly he eyed Ray's famous right bower.



"If the major got there first, sir,--and I believe he did,--they have to

send the prisoners and wounded back this way."



"Then we've got 'em!" broke in Schreiber, low-toned, but exultant. "Look

sir," he added, as he pointed along the range. "They are signalling

now."



From the wooded height ten hundred yards away, curious little puffs of

smoke, one following another, were sailing straight for the zenith, and

Blake, screwing his field glasses to the focus, swept with them the

mountain side toward the five-mile distant cliff, and presently the

muscles about his mouth began to twitch--sure sign with Blake of

gathering excitement.



"You're right, sergeant," he presently spoke, repressing the desire to

shout, and striving, lest Winsor should be moved to invidious

comparisons, to seem as nonchalant as Billy Ray himself. "They're

coming back already." Then down the mountain side he dove to plan and

prepare appropriate welcome, leaving Winsor and the glasses to keep

double powered watch on the situation.



Six-fifty of a glorious, keen November morning, and sixty troopers of

the old regiment were distributed along a spur that crossed, almost at

right angles, the line of the Indian trail. Sixty fur-capped,

rough-coated fellows, with their short brown carbines in hand, crouching

behind rocks and fallen trees, keeping close to cover and warned to

utter silence. Behind them, two hundred yards away, their horses were

huddled under charge of their disgusted guards, envious of their fellows

at the front, and cursing hard their luck in counting off as number

four. Schreiber had just come sliding, stumbling, down from Winsor's

perch to say they could hear faint sound of sharp volleying far out to

the eastward, where the warriors, evidently, were trying to "stand off"

Webb's skirmish line until the travois with the wounded and the escort

of the possible prisoners should succeed in getting back out of harm's

way and taking surer and higher trail into the thick of the wilderness

back of Bear Cliff. "Some of 'em must come in sight here in a minute,

sir," panted the veteran sergeant. "We could see them plainly up

there--a mule litter and four travois, and there must be a dozen in

saddle."



A dozen there were, for along the line of crouching men went sudden

thrill of excitement. Shoulders began to heave; nervous thumbs bore down

on heavy carbine hammers, and there was sound of irrepressible stir and

murmur. Out among the pines, five hundred yards away, two mounted

Indians popped suddenly into view, two others speedily following, their

well-nigh exhausted ponies feebly shaking their shaggy, protesting

heads, as their riders plied the stinging quirt or jabbed with cruel

lance; only in painful jog trot could they zig zag through the trees.

Then came two warriors, leading the pony of a crippled comrade. "Don't

fire--Don't harm them! Fall back from the trail there and let them in.

They'll halt the moment they see our tracks! Get 'em alive, if

possible!" were Blake's rapid orders, for his eyes were eagerly fixed on

other objects beyond these dejected leaders--upon stumbling mules,

lashed fore and aft between long, spliced saplings and bearing thus a

rude litter--Hay's pet wheelers turned to hospital use. An Indian boy,

mounted, led the foremost mule; another watched the second; while, on

each side of the occupant of this Sioux palanquin, jogged a blanketed

rider on jaded pony. Here was a personage of consequence--luckier much

than these others following, dragged along on travois whose trailing

poles came jolting over stone or hummock along the rugged path. It was

on these that Blake's glittering eyes were fastened. "Pounce on the

leaders, you that are nearest!" he ordered, in low, telling tones, the

men at his left; then turned to Schreiber, crouching close beside him,

the fringe of his buckskin hunting shirt quivering over his bounding

heart. "There's the prize I want," he muttered low. "Whatever you do,

let no shot reach that litter. Charge with me the moment the leaders

yell. You men to the right," he added, slightly raising his voice, "be

ready to jump with me. Don't shoot anybody that doesn't show fight. Nab

everything in sight."






"Whoo-oop!" All in a second the mountain woke, the welkin rang, to a

yell of warning from the lips of the leading Sioux. All in a second

they whirled their ponies about and darted back. All in that second

Blake and his nearmost sprang to their feet and flung themselves forward

straight for the startled convoy. In vain the few warriors bravely

rallied about their foremost wounded; the unwieldy litter could not turn

about; the frantic mules, crazed by the instant pandemonium of shouts

and shots,--the onward rush of charging men,--the awful screams of a

brace of squaws, broke from their leading reins; crashed with their

litter against the trees, hurling the luckless occupant to earth. Back

drove the unhit warriors before the dash of the cheering line. Down went

first one pony, then a second, in his bloody tracks. One after another,

litter, travois, wounded and prisoner, was clutched and seized by

stalwart hands, and Blake, panting not a little, found himself bending

staring over the prostrate form flung from the splintered wreck of the

litter, a form writhing in pain that forced no sound whatever from

between grimly clinching teeth, yet that baffled effort, almost superb,

to rise and battle still--a form magnificent in its proportions, yet

helpless through wounds and weakness. Not the form Blake thought to see,

of shrinking, delicate, dainty woman, but that of the furious warrior

who thrice had dared him on the open field--the red brave well known to

him by sight and deed within the moon now waning, but, only within the

day gone by, revealed to him as the renegade Ralph Moreau,--Eagle Wing

of the Ogalalla Sioux.



Where then was Nanette?



"Look out for this man, corporal!" he called, to a shouting young

trooper. "See that no harm comes to him." Then quickly he ran on to the

huddle of travois. Something assured him she could not be far away.

The first drag litter held another young warrior, sullen and speechless

like the foremost. The next bore a desperately wounded brave whose

bloodless lips were compressed in agony and dumb as those of the dead.

About these cowered, shivering and whimpering, two or three

terror-stricken squaws, one of them with a round-eyed pappoose staring

at her back. A pony lay struggling in the snow close by. Half a dozen

rough soldier hands were dragging a stricken rider from underneath. Half

a dozen more were striving to control the wild plungings of another

mettlesome little beast, whose rider, sitting firmly astride, lashed

first at his quivering flank and then at the fur gauntleted hands,--even

at the laughing, bearded faces--sure sign of another squaw, and a game

one. Far out to the front the crackle of carbine and rifle told that

Webb was driving the scattered braves before him,--that the comrade

squadron was coming their way,--that Bear Cliff had been sought by the

Sioux in vain,--that Indian wiles and strategy, Indian pluck and staying

power, all had more than met their match. Whatever the fate of Lame

Wolf's fighting force, now pressed by Henry's column, far in the

southward hills, here in sight of the broad Big Horn valley, the white

chief had struck a vital blow. Village, villagers, wounded and prisoners

were all the spoil of the hated soldiery. Here at the scene of Blake's

minor affair there appeared still in saddle just one undaunted,

unconquered amazon whose black eyes flashed through the woolen hood that

hid the rest of her face, whose lips had uttered as yet no sound, but

from whom two soldiers recoiled at the cry of a third. "Look at the hand

of her, fellers! It's whiter than mine!"



"That's all right, Lanigan," answered the jovial voice of the leader

they loved and laughed with. "Hold that pony steady. Now, by

your-ladyship's leave," and two long, sinewy arms went circling about

the shrinking rider's waist, and a struggling form was lifted

straightway out of saddle and deposited, not too gracefully, on its

moccasined feet. "We will remove this one impediment to your speech,"

continued Blake, whereat the muffling worsted was swiftly unwound, "and

then we will listen to our meed of thanks. Ah, no wonder you did not

need a side-saddle that night at Frayne. You ride admirably a

califourchon. My compliments, Mademoiselle La Fleur; or should I

say--Madame Moreau."



For all answer Blake received one quick, stinging slap in the face from

that mittenless little right hand.