CHAPTER VI.
The quartermaster's depot at Gate City was little more than a bigcorral, with a double row of low, wooden sheds for the storing ofclothing, camp and garrison equipage. There was a blacksmith and wagonrepair shop, and a brick office building. Some cottage quarters for theofficer in charge and his clerks, corral master, etc., stood close athand, while most of the employees lived in town outside the gates. Asingle-track spur connected the depot with the main line of the UnionPacific only five hundred yards away, and the command at Fort Emory, onthe bluff above the rapid stream, furnished, much to its disgust, thenecessary guard. A much bigger "plant" was in contemplation near alarger post and town on the east side of the great divide, and neitherFort Emory nor its charge--the quartermaster's depot--was consideredworth keeping in repair, except such as could be accomplished "by thelabor of troops," which was why, when he wasn't fighting Indians, thefrontier soldier of that day was mainly occupied in doing the odd jobsof a day laborer, without the recompense of one, or his privilege ofquitting if he didn't like the job. That he should know little of drilland less of parade was, therefore, not to be wondered at.
But what he didn't know about guard duty was hardly worth knowing. Hehad prisoners and property of every conceivable kind--Indians, horsethieves, thugs and deserters, magazines and medicines, mules andmunitions of war. Everything had to be guarded. The fort lay a mile tothe west of and two hundred feet higher than the railway hotel in theheart of the town. It looked down upon the self-styled city, and most ofits womenkind did the same on the citizens, who were, it must be owned,a rather mixed lot. The sudden discovery of gold in the neighboringfoothills, the fact that it promised to be the site of the division carshops and roundhouse, that the trails to the Upper Platte, theSweetwater, the Park country to the south, and the rich game regions ofthe Medicine Bow all centered there, and that stages left no less thantwice a week for some of those points, and the whole land was alive withexplorers for a hundred miles around--all had tended to give Gate City aremarkable boom. Cheyenne and Laramie, thriving frontier towns withcoroners' offices in full blast from one week's end to the other, and adouble force on duty Sundays, confessed to and exhibited pardonablejealousy. Yet there was wisdom in the warning of an old friend andfellow frontiersman, who said to Folsom, "You are throwing yourself andyour money away, John. There's nothing in those gold stones, there'snothing in that yawp about the machine shops; all those yarns werestarted by U. P. fellows with corner lots to sell. The bottom will dropout of that place inside of a year and leave you stranded."
All the same had Folsom bought big blocks and built his home there. Itwas the nearest town of promise to Hal Folsom's wild but beautiful homein the hills, and, almost as he loved Nell, his bonny daughter, did theold trader love his stalwart son. Born a wild Westerner, reared amongthe Sioux with only Indians or army boys for playmates, and preciouslittle choice in point of savagery between them, Hal had grown up anatural horseman with a love for and knowledge of the animal that isaccorded to few. His ambition in life was to own a stock farm. All theeducation he had in the world he owed to the kindness of loving-heartedarmy women at Laramie, women who befriended him when well-nighbroken-hearted by his mother's death. Early he had pitched his tent onthe very spot for a ranchman's homestead, early he had fallen in lovewith an army girl, who married the strapping frontiersman and was nowthe proud mistress of the new and promising stock farm nestling in thevalley of the Laramie, a devoted wife and mother. The weekly stage tothe railway was the event of their placid days except when some of theofficers and ladies would come from either of the neighboring posts andspend a week with her and Hal. From being a delicate, consumptive child,Mrs. Hal had developed into a buxom woman with exuberant health andspirits. Life to her might have some little monotony, but few cares;many placid joys, but only one great dread--Indians. John Folsom, herfond father-in-law, was a man all Indians trusted and most of themloved. Hal Folsom, her husband, had many a trusted and devoted friendamong the Sioux, but he had also enemies, and Indian enmity, like Indianlove, dies hard. As boy he had sometimes triumphed in games and sportsover the champions of the villages. As youth he had more than once foundfavor in the dark eyes that looked coldly on fiercer, fonder claimants,and one girl of the Ogallallas had turned from her kith and kin, spurnedmore than one red lover to seek the young trader when he left thereservation to build his own nest in the Medicine Bow, and they told astory as pathetic as that of the favorite daughter of old Sintogaliska,chief of the Brule Sioux, who pined and died at Laramie when she heardthat the soldier she loved had come back from the far East with apale-faced bride. There were red men of the Ogallallas to whom the nameof Hal Folsom was a taunt and insult to this day, men whom his fatherhad vainly sought to appease, and they were Burning Star, the lover, andtwo younger braves, the brothers of the girl they swore that Hal hadlured away.
South of the Platte, as it rolled past Frayne and Laramie, those Indianswere bound by treaty not to go. North of the Platte Hal Folsom waswarned never again to venture. These were stories which were well knownto the parents of the girl he wooed and won, but which probably were notfully explained to her. Now, even behind the curtain of that shelteringriver, with its flanking forts, even behind the barrier of the mountainsof the Medicine Bow, she often woke at night and clutched her baby toher breast when the yelping of the coyotes came rising on the wind.There was no woman in Wyoming to whom war with Red Cloud's people boresuch dread possibility as to Hal Folsom's wife.
And so when Marshall Dean came riding in one glad June morning, bronzed,and tanned, and buoyant, and tossed his reins to the orderly who trottedat his heels, while the troop dismounted and watered at the stream, Mrs.Folsom's heart was gladdened by his confident and joyous bearing. Twice,thrice he had seen Red Cloud and all his braves, and there was nothing,said he, to worry about. "Ugly, of course they are; got some imaginarygrievances and talk big about the warpath. Why, what show would thosefellows have with their old squirrel rifles and gas-pipe Springfieldsagainst our new breech-loaders? They know it as well as we do. It's alla bluff, Mrs. Folsom. You mark my words," said he, and really the boybelieved it. Frequent contact in the field with the red warriorsinspires one with little respect for their skill or prowess until thatcontact becomes hostile, then it's time to keep every sense on guard andleave no point uncovered.
"But what if the Indian Bureau should let them have breech-loaders?" sheanxiously asked. "You know that is Red Cloud's demand."
"Oh," said Dean, with confidence born of inexperience in the Bureauways, "they couldn't be such fools. Besides, if they do," he addedhopefully, "you'll see my troop come trotting back full tilt. Now, I'mcounting on a good time at Emory, and on bringing your sister and mineup here to see you."
"It will be just lovely," said Mrs. Hal, with a woman's natural butunspoken comparison between the simplicity of her ranch toilet and theprobable elegancies of the young ladies' Eastern costumes. "They'll findus very primitive up here in the mountains, I'm afraid; but if they likescenery and horseback riding and fishing there's nothing like it."
"Oh, they're coming sure. Jessie's letters tell me that's one of the bigtreats Mr. Folsom has promised them. Just think, they should be alongthis week, and I shall be stationed so near them at Emory--of all placesin the world."
"How long is it since you have seen Elinor--'Pappoose,' as your sistercalls her," asked Mrs. Hal, following the train of womanly thought thendrifting through her head, as she set before her visitor a brimminggoblet of buttermilk.
"Two years. She was at the Point a day or two the summer of ourgraduation," he answered carelessly. "A real little Indian girl she was,too, so dark and shy and silent, yet I heard Professor M----'s daughtersand others speak of her later; she pleased them so much, and Jessiethinks there's no girl like her."
"And you haven't seen her since--not even her picture?" asked Mrs. Hal,rising from her easy-chair. "Just let me show you the one she sent Hallast week. I think there's a surprise in store for you, young man," w
asher mental addition, as she tripped within doors.
The nurse girl, a half-breed, one of the numerous progeny of the Frenchtrappers and explorers who had married among the Sioux, was hushing theburly little son and heir to sleep in his Indian cradle, crooning somesong about the fireflies and and Heecha, the big-eyed owl, and themother stooped to press her lips upon the rounded cheek and to flickaway a tear-drop, for Hal 2d had roared lustily when ordered to hisnoonday nap. Away to the northward the heavily wooded heights seemedtipped by fleecy, summer clouds, and off to the northeast Laramie Peakthrust his dense crop of pine and scrub oak above the mass of snowyvapor that floated lazily across that grim-visaged southward scarp. Thedrowsy hum of insects, the plash of cool, running waters fell softly onthe ear. Under the shade of willow and cottonwood cattle and horses werelazily switching at the swarm of gnats and flies or dozing through theheated hours of the day. Out on the level flat beyond the corral thetroopers had unsaddled, and the chargers, many of them stopping to rollin equine ecstasy upon the turf, were being driven out in one big herdto graze. Without and within the ranch everything seemed to speak ofpeace and security. The master rode the range long miles away in searchof straying cattle, leaving his loved ones without thought of danger.The solemn treaty that bound the Sioux to keep to the north of thePlatte stood sole sentinel over his vine and fig tree. True there hadbeen one or two instances of depredation, but they could be fastened onno particular band, and all the chiefs, even defiant Red Cloud, andinsolent, swaggering Little Big Man, denied all knowledge of theperpetrators. Spotted Tail, it was known, would severely punish any ofhis people who transgressed, but he could do nothing with theOgallallas. Now they were not two hundred miles away to the north, theirranks swollen by accessions from all the disaffected villages andturbulent young braves of the swarming bands along the Missouri andYellowstone, and if their demands were resisted by the government, orworse, if they were permitted to have breech-loaders or magazine rifles,then just coming into use, no shadow of doubt remained that war to theknife would follow. Then how long would it be before they came chargingdown across the Platte, east or west of Frayne, and raiding those newranches in the Laramie Valley?
Reassuring as he meant his words to be, Marshall Dean himself lookedanxiously about at the unprotected walls. Not even the customary"dugout" or underground refuge seemed to have been prepared. Almostevery homestead, big or little, of those days, had its tunnel from thecellar to a dugout near at hand, stocked with provisions and water andprovided with loopholes commanding the neighborhood, and herein thebesieged could take refuge and stand off the Indians until help shouldcome from the nearest frontier fort. "The name of Folsom is oursafeguard," said Mrs. Hal, in her happy honeymoon days, but that wasbefore the mother told her of the threats of Burning Star or the storyof the Ogallalla girl he vainly loved. "All that happened so long ago,"she murmured, when at last the tale was told. But Hal should have known,if she did not, that, even when it seems to sleep, Indian vengeance isbut gaining force and fury.
Presently Mrs. Hall came tripping forth again, a little _carte devisite_ in her hand, a smile of no little significance on her lips."Now, Mr. Dean, will you tell me what you think of that for a pappoose?"
And with wonderment in his eyes the young officer stood and held it andgazed.
There stood Pappoose, to be sure, but what a change! The little maidenwith the dark braids of hair hanging far below her waist had developedinto a tall, slender girl, with clear-cut, oval face, crowned by a massof dark tresses. Her heavy, low-arching brows spanned the thoughtful,deep, dark-brown eyes that seemed to speak the soul within, and thebeautiful face was lighted up with a smile that showed just a peep offaultless white teeth, gleaming through the warm curves of her soft,sensitive lips. The form was exquisitely rounded, yet supple and erect.
"Hasn't Jessie written you of how Nell has grown and improved?" saidMrs. Hall, with a woman's quick note of the admiration and surprise inDean's regard.
"She must have," was the answer, "I'm sure she has, but perhaps Ithought it schoolgirl rhapsody--perhaps I had too many other things tothink of."
"Perhaps you'll find it superseding these too many things, Mr. SoldierBoy," was Mrs. Hal's mental comment. "Now, sir, if you've gazed enoughperhaps you'll tell me your plans," and she stretched forth a reclaiminghand.
But he hung on to the prize. "Let me keep it a minute," he pleaded."It's the loveliest thing I've seen in months."
And, studying his absorbed face, she yielded, her eyebrows arching, apretty smile of feminine triumph about her lips, and neither noticed thenon-commissioned officer hurrying within the gate, nor that half the menin "C" Troop at their bivouac along the stream were on their feet andgazing to northeast, that far down the valley a horseman was speedinglike the wind, that little puffs of smoke were rising from the crests ofthe grand landmark of the range and floating into the blue of theheavens. Both started to their feet at the abrupt announcement.
"Lieutenant, there are smoke signals on Lar'mie Peak."