Starlight Ranch, and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier

Then see! a ruddy flash! another! another! the muffled bang of fire-arms, and the vengeful yell and whoops of savage foeman float down to the breathless listeners at the station on the Chug. The Sioux are here in full force, and a score of them have swept down on that brave, hapless, helpless fellow riding through the darkness alone.

Phillips groaned. "Oh, why did we let him go? Quick, now! Every man to the ranch, and you get word to Lodge Pole, will you?"

"Ay, ay, and fetch the whole Fifth Cavalry here at a gallop!"

But when Ralph ran into the telegraph station a moment later, he found the operator with his head bowed upon his arms and his face hidden from view.

"What's the matter, – quick?" demanded Ralph.

It was a ghastly face that was raised to the boy, as the operator answered, —

"It – it's all my fault. I've waited too long. They've cut the line behind us!"

CHAPTER V

AT FARRON'S RANCH

When Sergeant Wells reached Farron's ranch that evening little Jessie was peacefully sleeping in the room that had been her mother's. The child was tired after the long, fifty-mile drive from Russell, and had been easily persuaded to go to bed.

Farron himself, with the two men who worked for him, was having a sociable smoke and chat, and the three were not a little surprised at Wells's coming and the unwelcome news he bore. The ranchman was one of the best-hearted fellows in the world, but he had a few infirmities of disposition and one or two little conceits that sometimes marred his better judgment. Having lived in the Chug Valley a year or two before the regiment came there, he had conceived it to be his prerogative to adopt a somewhat patronizing tone to its men, and believed that he knew much more about the manners and customs of the Sioux than they could possibly have learned.

The Fifth Cavalry had been stationed not far from the Chug Valley when he first came to the country, and afterwards were sent out to Arizona for a five-years' exile. It was all right for the Fifth to claim acquaintance with the ways of the Sioux, Farron admitted, but as for these fellows of the – th, – that was another thing. It did not seem to occur to him that the guarding of the neighboring reservations for about five years had given the new regiment opportunities to study and observe these Indians that had not been accorded to him.

Another element which he totally overlooked in comparing the relative advantages of the two regiments was a very important one that radically altered the whole situation. When the Fifth was on duty watching the Sioux, it was just after breech-loading rifles had been introduced into the army, and before they had been introduced among the Sioux.

Through the mistaken policy of the Indian Bureau at Washington this state of affairs was now changed and, for close fighting, the savages were better armed than the troops. Nearly every warrior had either a magazine rifle or a breech-loader, and many of them had two revolvers besides. Thus armed, the Sioux were about ten times as formidable as they had been before, and the task of restraining them was far more dangerous and difficult than it had been when the Fifth guarded them.

The situation demanded greater vigilance and closer study than in the old days, and Farron ought to have had sense enough to see it. But he did not. He had lived near the Sioux so many years; these soldiers had been near them so many years less; therefore they must necessarily know less about them than he did. He did not take into account that it was the soldiers' business to keep eyes and ears open to everything relating to the Indians, while the information which he had gained came to him simply as diversion, or to satisfy his curiosity.

So it happened that when Wells came in that night and told Farron what was feared at Phillips's, the ranchman treated his warning with good-humored but rather contemptuous disregard.

"Phillips gets stampeded too easy," was the way he expressed himself, "and when you fellows of the Mustangs have been here as long as I have you'll get to know these Indians better. Even if they did come, Pete and Jake here, and I, with our Henry rifles, could stand off fifty of 'em. Why, we've done it many a time."

"How long ago?" asked the sergeant, quietly.

"Oh, I don't know. It was before you fellows came. Why, you don't begin to know anything about these Indians! You never see 'em here nowadays, but when I first came here to the Chug there wasn't a week they didn't raid us. They haven't shown up in three years, except just this spring they've run off a little stock. But you never see 'em."

"You may never see them, Farron, but we do, – see them day in and day out as we scout around the reservation; and while I may not know what they were ten years ago, I know what they are now, and that's more to the purpose. You and Pete might have stood off a dozen or so when they hadn't 'Henrys' and 'Winchesters' as they have now, but you couldn't do it to-day, and it's all nonsense for you to talk of it. Of course, so long as you keep inside here you may pick them off, but look out of this window! What's to prevent their getting into your corral out there, and then holding you here! They can set fire to your roof over your head, man, and you can't get out to extinguish it."

"What makes you think they've spotted me, anyhow?" asked Farron.

"They looked you over the last time they came up the valley, and you know it. Now, if you and the men want to stay here and make a fight for it, all right, – I'd rather do that myself, only we ought to have two or three men to put in the corral, – but here's little Jessie. Let me take her down to Phillips's; she's safe there. He has everything ready for a siege and you haven't."

"Why, she's only just gone to sleep, Wells; I don't want to wake her up out of a warm bed and send her off four miles a chilly night like this, – all for a scare, too. The boys down there would laugh at me, – just after bringing her here from Denver, too."

"They're not laughing down there this night, Farron, and they're not the kind that get stampeded either. Keep Jessie, if you say so, and I'll stay through the night; but I've fixed some signals with them down at the road and you've got to abide by them. They can see your light plain as a beacon, and it's got to go out in fifteen minutes."

Farron had begun by pooh-poohing the sergeant's views, but he already felt that they deserved serious consideration. He was more than half disposed to adopt Wells's plan and let him take Jessie down to the safer station at Phillips's, but she looked so peaceful and bonny, sleeping there in her little bed, that he could not bear to disturb her. He was ashamed, too, of the appearance of yielding.

So he told the sergeant that while he would not run counter to any arrangement he had made as to signals, and was willing to back him up in any project for the common defence, he thought they could protect Jessie and the ranch against any marauders that might come along. He didn't think it was necessary that they should all sit up. One man could watch while the others slept.

As a first measure Farron and the sergeant took a turn around the ranch. The house itself was about thirty yards from the nearest side of the corral, or enclosure, in which Farron's horses were confined. In the corral were a little stable, a wagon-shed, and a poultry-house. The back windows of the stable were on the side towards the house, and should Indians get possession of the stable they could send fire-arrows, if they chose, to the roof of the house, and with their rifles shoot down any persons who might attempt to escape from the burning building.

This fault of construction had long since been pointed out to Farron, but the man who called his attention to it, unluckily, was an officer of the new regiment, and the ranchman had merely replied, with a self-satisfied smile, that he guessed he'd lived long enough in that country to know a thing or two about the Indians.

Sergeant Wells shook his head as he looked at the stable, but Farron said that it was one of his safe-guards.

"I've got two mules in there that can smell an Indian five miles off, and they'd begin to bray the minute they did. That would wake me up, you see, because their heads are right towards me. Now, if they were way across the corral I mightn't hear 'em at all. Then it's close to the house, and convenient for feeding in winter. Will you put your horse in to-night?"

Sergeant Wells declined. He might need him, he said, and would keep him in front of the house where he was going to take his station to watch the valley and look out for signals. He led the horse to the stream and gave him a drink, and asked Farron to lay out a hatful of oats. "They might come in handy if I have to make an early start."

However lightly Farron might estimate the danger, his men regarded it as a serious matter. Having heard the particulars from Sergeant Wells, their first care was to look over their rifles and see that they were in perfect order and in readiness for use. When at last Farron had completed a leisurely inspection of his corral and returned to the house, he found Wells and Pete in quiet talk at the front, and the sergeant's horse saddled close at hand.

"Oh, well!" he said, "if you're as much in earnest as all that, I'll bring my pipe out here with you, and if any signal should come, it'll be time enough then to wake Jessie, wrap her in a blanket, and you gallop off to Phillips's with her."

And so the watchers went on duty. The light in the ranch was extinguished, and all about the place was as quiet as the broad, rolling prairie itself. Farron remained wakeful a little while, then said he was sleepy and should go in and lie down without undressing. Pete, too, speedily grew drowsy and sat down on the porch, where Wells soon caught sight of his nodding head just as the moon came peeping up over the distant crest of the "Buffalo Hill."

How long Farron slept he had no time to ask, for the next thing he knew was that a rude hand was shaking his shoulder, and Pete's voice said, —

"Up with you, Farron! The signal's fired at Phillips's. Up quick!"

As Farron sprang to the floor, Pete struck a light, and the next minute the kerosene lamp, flickering and sputtering at first, was shining in the eastward window. Outside the door the ranchman found Wells tightening his saddle-girths, while his horse, snorting with excitement, pricked up his ears and gazed down the valley.

"Who fired?" asked Farron, barely awake.

"I don't know; Ralph probably. Better get Jessie for me at once. The Indians are this side of the Platte sure, and they may be near at hand. I don't like the way Spot's behaving, – see how excited he is. I don't like to leave you short-handed if there's to be trouble. If there's time I'll come back from Phillips's. Come, man! Wake Jessie."

"All right. There's plenty of time, though. They must be miles down the valley yet. If they'd come from the north, the telegraph would have given warning long ago. And Dick Warner – my brother-in-law, Jessie's uncle – always promised he'd be down to tell me first thing, if they came any way that he could hear of it. You bet he'll be with us before morning, unless they're between him and us now."

With that he turned into the house, and in a moment reappeared with the wondering, sleepy-eyed, half-wakened little maid in his strong arms. Wells was already in saddle, and Spot was snorting and prancing about in evident excitement.

"I'll leave the 'Henry' with Pete. I can't carry it and Jessie, too. Hand her up to me and snuggle her well in the blanket."

Farron hugged his child tight in his arms one moment. She put her little arms around his neck and clung to him, looking piteously into his face, yet shedding no tears. Something told her there was danger; something whispered "Indians!" to the childish heart; but she stifled her words of fear and obeyed her father's wish.

"You are going down to Phillips's where Ralph is, Jessie, darling. Sergeant Wells is going to carry you. Be good and perfectly quiet. Don't cry, don't make a particle of noise, pet. Whatever you do, don't make any noise. Promise papa."

As bravely as she had done when she waited that day at the station at Cheyenne, the little woman choked back the rising sob. She nodded obedience, and then put up her bonny face for her father's kiss. Who can tell of the dread, the emotion he felt as he clung to the trusting little one for that short moment?

"God guard you, my baby," he muttered, as he carefully lifted her up to Wells, who circled her in his strong right arm, and seated her on the overcoat that was rolled at his pommel.

Farron carefully wrapped the blanket about her tiny feet and legs, and with a prayer on his lips and a clasp of the sergeant's bridle hand he bade him go. Another moment, and Wells and little Jessie were loping away on Spot, and were rapidly disappearing from view along the dim, moonlit trail.

For a moment the three ranchmen stood watching them. Far to the northeast a faint light could be seen at Phillips's, and the roofs and walls were dimly visible in the rays of the moon. The hoof-beats of old Spot soon died away in the distance, and all seemed as still as the grave. Anxious as he was, Farron took heart. They stood there silent a few moments after the horseman, with his precious charge, had faded from view, and then Farron spoke, —

"They'll make it all safe. If the Indians were anywhere near us those mules of mine would have given warning by this time."

The words were hardly dropped from his lips when from the other side of the house – from the stable at the corral – there came, harsh and loud and sudden, the discordant bray of mules. The three men started as if stung.