Under Fire

by Charles King

  CHAPTER VII.

  Jaded as were the horses, it was only by vigorous spurring that theywere forced into anything like a gallop. Earlier in the campaign, onlywith extreme difficulty could they have been held. In dispersed order,spreading out, fan-like, to avoid the volleys of mud hurled back by theleaders, the troop came struggling up to the opposite ridge, many of themen loading as they rode, all with eager eyes and compressed lipsstaring straight ahead for the first glance at what each knew must bethe foe. That no shot was to be dreaded from lurking Indians along theridge each reasoned from the fact that the trumpeter, after sounding hissignal and seeing them well on their way, had himself pushed on out ofsight. Once or twice the foremost thought they heard other shots. Allreined up as they reached the crest, and this was what they saw:

  Far ahead, down towards the valley ran a long tongue or spur from thehigh ground over which they had steadily been marching since the dawn.Farther away, perhaps ten miles, a black fringe in the depths of thevalley marked the winding river-bed. Against this and the dullbackground of the opposite rise a faint column of pale, blue-white smokewas drifting slowly westward from a little patch of trees at least amile nearer them than the river. "That's Antelope Springs," saidCrounse, who knew every league of the valley. Straight towards thispoint a little party of horse were now steadily moving, a dark spot uponthe slopes, and nearly a thousand yards away. They were graduallydescending to the valley along the eastern side of the long tonguereferred to, all ignorant, probably, of what might be going on upon theother. Obedient to his orders then, Davies was riding by the shortestline to the designated goal, and all with them thus far seemed tranquilenough. But hardly half a mile to the right front of their supportingcomrades, afoot now, and stopping every minute to let drive a long-rangeshot at some objects scurrying away over the slopes to the south, "theKid" was running, and ever and anon turning to beckon them on. Oneglance told the experienced hands what those fleeing rascalswere,--Indians, fresh from some deviltry, their swift ponies boundingover the little gullies and watercourses like so many goats. Once morethe troop spurred on, though every man realized the hopelessness of anypursuit. The first thought in every mind was the fate of their twoventuresome comrades. Even "the Kid" could not be sure what that was asthey reached him. "They're just over around that point," he almostsobbed in his excitement. "I saw the Indians sneaking up the ridgeyonder. They fired from there, and then rushed in with a yell, and I'mafraid they've got 'em."

  Brief search was all that was needed. Not half a mile west of the littleparty, and hidden from the sight and hearing of their comrades, the twoeager, hungry hunters had met their fate. Four lurking warriors,--partof the daring band that, hanging about the battalion, watched its everymove, ever on the alert for just such opportunity as this--had lashedtheir ponies to the gallop, darted along the winding ravine between thetwo ridges until opposite the point where the hunters crossed, thencrawling to the top, had shot the poor fellows from their hidden covert,and rushing in as they tumbled from their saddles, had quickly finishedthe bloody work. One of the men, Mullen, a notable shot, seemed to havebeen killed at the first fire, as he lay face downward, his handsgripping the wet soil, his scalp torn from the bare and bleeding skull.Phillips, his chum, had died fighting, and was riddled with shot andlance wounds. His horse, too, was killed, while that of Mullen waswandering helplessly about in a dazed sort of way, as though unable tocomprehend his own narrow escape. For once there had been no time forfurther mutilation. Contenting themselves with the arms, ammunition, andscalps of the troopers, the Indians had scurried away on the instant.The whole affair had not lasted two minutes, yet there on the openprairie, in broad daylight, with a four-company battalion of horse notsix hundred yards away in one direction, and double their own number oftroopers riding along not six hundred yards away in another, they haddared interpose between and swoop down upon their victims in theirfancied security. Devers was almost beside himself with grief and rage.

  "It's all that damned Sunday-school soldier's fault!" he burst forth."He's let these poor fellows ride slap into ambush, and gone off withouta thought of them." He would have said more, and in the full hearing ofthe whole command, but the stern voice of the major checked him.

  "Hush, Devers, hush!" he ordered, as he rode into the midst of the paleand excited group gathered about the lifeless forms. "Don't halt,Truman," he ordered, as the senior captain came trotting up at the headof the long straggling column. "Push right on and do your best to catchthose devils. I'll follow in a minute."

  Without either orders or permission six or eight of Devers's men spurredinto the nearest gaps in Truman's column,--and gaps were many,--others,half dazed, hung about their captain.

  "Send a messenger to Mr. Davies and let him know what's happened,"continued the major, after a moment of painful thought. "Bury your deadas quick as you can, then carry out your orders. Better halt Daviesuntil you're ready to move ahead." Saying this, and followed by hisorderly, the battalion commander spurred away towards a bedraggled partyof some fifty dismounted men, some with horses meekly drooping at theirmaster's heels, several without even the shadow of a steed. Truman had"fallen out" his utterly ineffective to form a guard for the sick andunhorsed, Davies's two patients among them, and one of those now, inweakness and excitement, crying like a child. A gray-haired lieutenantwas with the party striving to get this reserve into some kind of shape."Follow Captain Truman's trail to the river, Mr. Calvert," said themajor. "Bring your party along as well as you can. You'll find campsomewhere up-stream. We'll have rations to meet you. I'll have to go onnow after the battalion,--what there is of it," he added to himself, histeeth firmly set. "Was ever luck worse than this?"

  And thus was Captain Devers, as senior officer, left in command with thetroops that remained clustered about the still warm and bleeding bodiesof their murdered comrades, and his first order was characteristic."Ride after Mr. Davies, trumpeter. Tell him to halt his party where theyare, and say I wish to see him at once." Dashing the tears away from hiseyes, little Murray said, "Yes, sir," and mounted his horse. He wasstarting when Devers called him again. "You needn't tell Mr. Davieswhat's happened," he said. "It would demoralize him entirely;" adding inan undertone that was none the less audible to the men around him, "He'sworse than demoralized now."

  Digging graves with hunting-knives and fingers as the only tools iswearisome work. "What's the use of it anyhow?" reasoned the captain,impatiently. "We simply can't dig anything but a shallow trench insidean hour with the means at hand. The coyotes would paw up the bodies,sure, before we'd gone five miles. Better carry them along on these ledhorses by the shortest route to the river. We're bound to find plenty ofrocks there that the wolves can't roll away." It wasn't the first timethe sad little command had had to "pack" their dead and wounded, and ina quarter of an hour, with perhaps thirty men trailing along behind him,Devers, instead of obeying his original instructions, was strikingstraight across country for the river. And so it happened as nightfallapproached there were four parties of cavalry, widely dispersed, in thegathering gloom of the desolate prairie. The major with about onehundred men was still hurrying far to the southwest on the trail of theIndians, hoping before dark to find them in sufficient force to halt andshow fight. Calvert with his invalid corps followed three miles in theirwake, and losing ground with every minute; then Devers, with aboutthirty men in saddle and two dead on their _travois_, was slowlyplodding southward towards the stream. Davies's little squad, halted asordered, was now isolated from all, far over on the east side of thejagged spur, over whose crest their lieutenant had just disappeared fromtheir sight, with Murray in attendance, riding wearily back to find hiscaptain, disturbed by contradictory orders and dishearted to see him inmarch full a mile farther away than he supposed, and diverging from thepoint of direction of his own party with every step. Time and again hadDevers, still fuming with nervous tension and mingled wrath andpain,--hungry and savage, too, it must be borne in mind,--given vent tosome petulant expression bec
ause of the non-arrival of the young officerwhom he saw fit to hold responsible for the loss of his men; and when atlast Mr. Davies neared them, riding diagonally towards the troop fromthe low divide to the east, Devers did not change the direction of hislittle column so as to meet him half-way, but held on sullenlysouthward. Observance of the major's orders would have carried him alongthe trail of Davies's party until well across that ridge or spur, thenhaving gone the designated mile he should now be marching southwardalong the ridge where he could, frequently at least, see both Davies'ssquad and their distant objective-point,--that smouldering fire in thevalley. Marching as he was he could see neither.

  Presently coming to the head of one of those tortuous ravines washed outfrom the general surface of the prairie by the melting snows ofcenturies, and noting that if he kept to the eastward side he would haveto deflect a trifle to that direction, Devers inclined to his right, andten minutes later found it swinging around in front of him, alreadybroad and deep and obliquely crossing his path. Either he must dismountand lead down the abrupt declivity and up the opposite bank, or, keepingalong the bluff, follow the windings of the ravine. One wrong step hadled with him to another. There is a fatality about such things thatbesets the truest of men and bedevils the best intentions. The more hefollowed the right bank the farther west of south it bore him, andDevers hid his compass with his conscience in the breast of hishunting-shirt, and found relief in renewed expletives. It was Davieswho had to urge his horse to the lope to overtake the command sosteadily pulling away from him. He wondered who the poor fellows couldbe who seemed to have given out and were being dragged along on the_travois_, but it soon became necessary for him to descend into thedepths of the ravine, down along a tributary break, and then even innearing he lost sight of them until, after another canter and a hardpull up the opposite slope, he came at last suddenly face to face withhis captain. Murray by this time, his horse entirely used up, was far tothe rear.

  "It's an hour since I sent for you, Mr. Davies," began the captain,sternly. "What in God's name has kept you so long?"

  "I could come no quicker, sir," was the reply, given in respectful yetremonstrative tone. "My horse----"

  "Oh, you've got the best horse in the battalion, and he carries thelightest weight," said the captain, angrily; "physically andintellectually both, by God!" he added to himself. "You must have beenfar off your course to have been so long reaching me."

  "I was heading straight for the fire, captain,--straight as men couldgo. I kept it in sight every minute from the time we crossed the crestyonder," said Davies, his tired, haggard eyes looking squarely intothose of his commander instead of seeking sympathetic glance from thepale, drawn faces of the silent troopers nearest him.

  "Well, then, that is your excuse, I suppose, for allowing men tostraggle in defiance of my orders."

  "It is partially so, sir, partially not. I knew these were the ordersearly in the campaign, but ever since we ran out of rations Mullen andPhillips, as well as dozens of other men in the regiment, have been outhunting on the flanks every day. They never stopped to ask permissionthis time. I never knew that they were gone until they were out ofsight. I supposed, of course, they wouldn't be away so long."

  "I have told you more than once, Mr. Davies, that you were reckless ofmy instructions, and I've sent for you to show, once and for all, whatit has cost. Stand aside there!" he said sternly to the men, whom someinstinct of pity had prompted to gather between them and the stiffeningforms of the dead. "There are your hunters,--two of my best men, Mr.Davies, and who but you is responsible for this?"

  For a moment the young officer gazed as though stricken with suddenhorror, his blue eyes staring, his gaunt, pinched features ghastlywhite, and then Sergeant Haney and another trooper sprang from theirhorses and ran to his side. Weak, worn, starved, he had quailed at thedreadful sight, and was toppling head-foremost to the ground, swooningaway.

  "THERE ARE YOUR HUNTERS,--TWO OF MY BEST MEN."

  Page 96.]

  When half an hour later the captain with his silent and gloomy party hadresumed his march for the river, only with the field-glasses couldoccasional glimpses be had of the main command far away to the southwestin the gathering dusk. Lieutenant Calvert, with his invalid corps, wasdragging wearily after them, something like two miles away over therolling surface, sometimes dipping out of sight among the swales and_coulees_, sometimes crawling over some low wave, and Davies, restoredto consciousness and accompanied by one of Devers's oldest troopers,Sergeant McGrath, had once more ridden away to join his distant andisolated party. Just before it grew too dark to see anything at all hewas faintly visible at the top of the divide where he and the sergeanthad halted, evidently searching in the gloom of the lowlands beyond forsign of the squad he had left over an hour before. Then they disappearedand were seen no more.

  Ten miles up-stream, around rousing camp-fires, in the thick of thetimber, the main body of the expedition--their lately starvingcomrades--were holding high carnival. Men and horses were astonishingtheir stomachs with dainties to which they had long been unaccustomed,for wagons had come out from the settlements to meet them, pouring inall the afternoon, and, mindful of his detached battalion, the colonelhad presently despatched three or four of these welcome loads, wellguarded, down the winding river in search of Warren, with instructionsto bivouac at once and feast, and at nightfall they had met him, haltedat the river after the luckless pursuit. The wagons were unloaded on thespot, and two of them pushed on out to meet Calvert, and be loaded upagain with his exhausted plodders, while scouts, mounted on the draughtmules that had had so long and hard a pull all day, and yet werestronger and fresher than the starving horses, were sent on down-streamin search of Devers. With these latter went a pencilled note from thebattalion commander as follows:

  "Rations here in plenty. Unless you and Davies are used up, you'd bettercome along to camp. We'll keep bright fires burning to guide you. Ipresume you've seen no Indians, or we'd have heard from you beforenow."

  In sending this letter Major Warren assumed two things: first, thatDevers had carried out his orders, crossed the long spur that jutteddown almost to the stream at its deep concave bend, and then, movingsouth, had kept Davies in sight, if not actually in touch. Second, thatDavies had carried out his orders, investigated the fire, and thenrejoined his captain. For, reasoned the major, had Davies been attacked,Devers would have known it, supported him at once, and sent word to us.Men instructed to watch for signals from the ridge had reported thatnothing had been seen, which surely would not have been the case hadDevers desired to communicate. He assumed further that Davies must nowbe somewhere about the point where the spur sank to the general level ofthe valley, some eight or nine miles down-stream, too far to send awagon in the dark where there was no road, but not too far for men tomarch, with rations as their reward.

  "Ride straight for that point," said he to the sergeant who was to carrythe note, "and watch for their fires in case they have camped." And thesergeant and his companions--two wiry troopers whom nothing seemed todaunt or tire--had ridden away on their ambling mules, their ownstomachs warmed with hot coffee and bread and bacon, and their soldiermaws crammed with that most beneficent and comforting of frontierluxuries,--navy plug. What was a night ride after their weeks ofmarching to the joy of being first to announce full rations for allhands! They had gone only half-way, perhaps four miles, when fromsomewhere in the timber to their right front, certainly not more thanfive hundred yards ahead, they came suddenly in view of something atwhich each man instantly reined in, and the sergeant, springing from hissaddle, grabbed his mule by the nose. "Grab yours, too," he muttered,hoarsely; "for God's sake don't let the damn fools bray." And in anotherinstant each of the astonished and protesting brutes was grabbedaccordingly.

  "Sure it must be the camp of 'B' Troop," said the other man,resentfully. "Indians wouldn't be lighting camp-fires so close to us."

  "It can't be the captain," answered Sergeant Rice, with emphasis he wellremembe
red and spoke of long months later. "I heard the major's ordersto him, and he couldn't be this side of that point without havingdisobeyed them."

  But just then, soft and faint, sad and plaintive and low, there camefloating on the night wind the familiar notes of the sweetest of trumpetcalls, and Rice turned to his comrades in amaze. "It _is_ old Differs,by Jupiter! Who but he would be sounding taps with Indians on everyside? Does the darn crank think that worn-out men can't go to sleepwithout it?" Even the soldiers, then, were alive to some of thecaptain's peculiarities. Even they could not do him justice. Even Ricesupposed that Devers, rejoicing in being once more freed from thesupervision of superior authority which he so cordially hated and sopersistently strove to evade, was celebrating the event by resuming thesounding of unnecessary bugle calls, prohibited for night use duringthe recent campaign. But neither the sergeant nor his comrades dreamedthat it was in its other, in its saddest significance, the sweet oldcall was sounding,--that Devers and his men were bidding the lastfarewell, and piping "lights out" to them who rode forth gallantly atmorn, only at sundown to be numbered with the dead.