by Charles King
CHAPTER IX.
The prairie sod was torn by the hoofs of a hundred ponies. That wasevident. All around a little sink in the surface at a distance ofseveral hundred yards the warriors must have dashed and circled for fullan hour. Here along the rim of the shallow basin, each behind thebloated and stiffening carcass of his horse,--each surrounded bythreescore copper shells, showing that he had fought till hope andammunition both were gone,--lay the poor remains of the gallant boys whohad ridden silently away in obedience to their orders on the previousafternoon,--recognizable now only by their teeth or some still ungashedbody mark. How long they had pluckily, cheerily held out, confident ofthe speedy coming of the comrades from over that westward spur, andtherefore less miserly of their lead and eager to stretch some of theiryelling foes upon the sward, could now only be conjectured. Little bylittle their fierce, defiant fire had slackened. Little by littleconfidence had waned, and doubt and dread replaced it. Some, probably,had been earlier shot by the storm of centring bullets; some, possibly,had sent their last shot into the reeling brain,--death by one's ownhand being better at least than by slow and fiendish torture; and atlast, probably just at dusk, the triumphant savages were able to closein upon their helpless prey and reap their reward of scalps and plunderand wreak their fury on a mute and defenceless foe.
But in a search of full an hour not a sign had Warren's best scoutsdiscovered of Davies or his companion. The Indian trail, that of awar-party of at least fifty or sixty braves, led away southward again,into and through the timber in the distant river bottom, and there itbecame scattered, most of the party seeming to have ridden on towardsthe reservation in the darkness of the night, while others turnedup-stream, and their pony-tracks led towards the point where Warren'sbattalion had bivouacked. These were probably the causes of the flittingshadows Sanders had detected far out on the prairie,--these the owls andcoyotes whose weird cries had at intervals disturbed the silence of thenight. Solemnly, sadly, now, the burial-parties labored. The soil wascomparatively soft in the neighboring ravine,--much more so than higherup the slopes where the two crack shots had fallen earlier in theafternoon,--and here, with picket-pins and a spade or two which happenedto be with the pack-train, a trench was scooped out, into which the poorremains were lowered and then covered with stones, dragged from thedepths of the neighboring _coulee_. It took some hours to finish the sadduty, and meanwhile sharp-eyed scouts were busily occupied striving todetermine what had become of Davies and Sergeant McGrath.
In this work the major himself took the lead, and here Devers'sstatements had to be drawn upon. Old Indian-fighters pointed out many asignificant sign to sustain the theory that the fight must have lastedfull an hour,--the trampled condition of the turf,--the quantities ofshells lying behind every little hummock or ridge in the surroundingprairie that commanded the position of the defence or afforded shelterfrom its fire. Down in the very ravine in which the bodies were buried,full four hundred yards from the scene of their desperate stand, thesoft, sandy soil was pawed and trodden by waiting war-ponies, whoseriders, lying flat on their stomachs along the bank above, had kepttheir watch upon the besieged, firing whenever head or hand appearedabove their carcass fortification. The whole ingenuity of the Indianplan became apparent as the situation was studied. Noting after teno'clock that morning that the battalion was no longer marching duesouth, but had turned, heading southwest straight away for the landmarkof the valley,--that distant, black, pine-crested peak,--the lurkingwarriors had devised their scheme to lure a scouting detachment awayfrom the support of the column. Far down in the river bottom, ten milesaway to the left of the trail, they had built at the springs a "shack"from the relics of some miner's outfit captured thereabouts earlier inthe summer, and waiting until the head of the column was approaching thecrest of the water-shed to the north, set fire to their pile and thensecreted their main body in a deep ravine to await results, while smallparties were thrown well forward to pick off venturesome individuals, ifonly such rode out in reconnoissance. If the white chief "bit" anddetached a small party, then every effort was to be made to keep thebattalion occupied and interested,--to draw it along, if possible,towards the southwest,--just a few daring spirits devoting themselves tothis duty, while the stronger party, keeping in hiding until they luredit far beyond rescuing distance, gradually encircled the isolated squadand at last pounced upon their prey. It is no new device. It was toprevent just such a play that Warren had ordered Devers with his troopto keep midway, holding Davies's little party in sight and support andthe main column in communication. Had Devers obeyed the instructionsgiven him and gone on down along that jutting spur instead of far to thewest of it, the catastrophe would have been averted,--the Indian attack,even if attempted, could have been beaten off.
In bitterness of spirit the major was riding over the field, too full ofexasperation as yet to trust himself to send for and speak to hissubordinate, even when he felt that he must hold conference with him inorder to determine how best to direct the search. Twice or thrice hadDevers essayed to open communication with his chief and impress him withhis views, but Warren had sent him word by Hastings to supervise at thedesignated point--which he himself selected--the burial of the men,while he, the major, went on with the search. Time and again it wasnoted how often Devers would climb the bank and anxiously gaze off tothe west toward that fatal curtain,--the spur that separated him fromthe sacrificed detachment the night before. What his thoughts were couldonly be conjectured, but little Sanders seemed to hit pretty near themark when he confided to Hastings that Differs didn't seem to care adamn whether Warren followed the Indian trail or not; what he was afraidof was that the major would "get onto" his own. And indeed as themorning wore on it began to look as though that were what the major wasbent on doing. The scouting-parties had come back with their report ofwhat they had found in the river bottom, and by this time Warren withhis escort was three miles over to the west and slowly searching alongthe east face of the spur, peeping into every hollow and depression thatmight shelter a human form and looking everywhere for the print ofhorses' hoofs. At ten o'clock he had sent to Devers for some intelligentnon-commissioned officer who could point out about where they had lastseen Davies as he crossed the ridge returning to his men at sundown, butDevers very plausibly responded that while it might not be difficult todo so from where they parted, "just over on the west side," it couldn'tbe reliably done from so far to the east. The reply must at least serveto delay matters awhile, and every moment was of value to Devers.
His own theory was that, as twilight was setting in as Davies recrossedthe ridge, everything beyond in the low grounds was in deep obscurity.The attack had probably begun about the time the young officer, withMurray, first crossed the ridge in obedience to the captain's orders toreport to him in person. Less than an hour, Devers thought, elapsedbefore he could again have come within sight of the spot where he lefthis little command. By that time all was practically over. In thegathering darkness and in the glut and greed of their savage triumph theIndians had crowded about the victims. Davies and the sergeant,returning, had been allowed unmolested to make their way well downtoward the scene. The fire in the bottom was fed to lure them on (it wasstill smouldering when Warren's men trotted thither in the morning), andthe two had either been captured alive and run off with the main body tograce the stake at the scalp-dance to be held with fiendish rejoicingsomewhere beyond danger of interruption, or else, warned in some way,the two had sought to escape, and had been headed off and killed in someof the still unexplored ravines or _coulees_ farther to the southwest.In either case, provided the major did not persist in his investigationand so discover how very far Devers had led his troop away from sight orsupport of Davies's men, and how utterly he had failed to carry out hisorders, the captain felt tolerably confident that all the blame would belanded where it properly belonged,--on the shoulders of the dead anddefenceless lieutenant, whose reluctance to undertake the duty many hadobserved, and whose womanish swoon at sight of the slaug
htered men hadnot only proved his unfitness for frontier service, but long delayed hisreturn to his party. Devers had always said Davies was entirelyoverrated by the colonel and Truman and others; he had held all summerthat the lieutenant was a "molly-coddle;" he had been reproved more thanonce for what they termed his injustice to his subaltern, and now Davieshad proved just exactly what he knew he would prove,--a carpet knight, aprayer-meeting soldier, with neither grit nor brawn nor backbone; and ifhe was killed, at least he had died in time to save the regiment fromhaving to blush for him in the future. Devers had served throughout thewar of the rebellion in a regiment that saw no end of hard fighting, butalways when he happened to be on sick-leave or detached service of somekind, for in all of his years of service no man in his grade or corpshad so seldom been under fire, either in the South or on the plains.With abilities unquestioned and opportunities second to none, it wasnevertheless observed of him at the close of the four years' strugglethat there, at least, was a man who hadn't even mustering or recruitingservice to fall back upon when "brevets" went scattering broadcast overthe army, showering like the rain upon the just and the unjust. He hadlived all through it without having become distinguished for anythingthat might become a man, winning a name for himself principally forconsummate skill in getting out of what he was told to do withoutgetting into a scrape or out of the service. He became a tremendouspaper-fighter in the days that followed, however, and like some of ourwar generals, could find the weak points in the armor of his comrades ifhe couldn't in that of the enemy. He became a club-room critic of otherfellows' campaigns, companies, or conduct, as probably the mosteffective way of diverting attention from his own. He sneered at the warrecord of every contemporary who had achieved rank superior to his own,as with hardly an exception every one of them had done so, and made theburden of his song among the younger men the blunders, faults, andfollies of the elders. Without a drop of Irish blood in his veins, heinspired the belief that he must be own cousin to the newly-landedHibernian who announced himself as "agin the governmint," for post andregimental commanders without exception found him the most adroit,crafty, sinuous, and troublesome of captains,--one who was forever doingsomething to try them, yet nothing on which they could try him. Well heknew his unpopularity and sagely judged his opportunities. The libertieshe had dared with Warren he would not now have ventured with Riggs, orBlack Bill, or old Tintop, one and all of whom had learned to know himwell, and would have been prepared for some such betrayal of the trustreposed in him.
He had worried Black Bill--long time his post commander--to the verge ofexasperation with his perpetual hair-splitting and quibbling. He hadplayed his last trump with Tintop early in the campaign, and receivedthat grizzled veteran's rasping intimation that one more experimentwould lead to arrest and court-martial, and received it with everyappearance of amaze and pain, which might have been effective had notHastings been called upon beforehand to give his version of the affairthat led to it. It was one of those constantly recurring examples ofDevers's "cussedness" which led many a stout cavalry officer to setforth just what he'd do with Devers if he only had him under hiscommand, yet the very men so confident they could bring him to time werenot infrequently the ones who subsequently found him too adroit fortheir straightforward methods. Black Bill told Tintop that Devers was asbad as the Irishman's flea,--put your thumb on him and he isn't there."I'll cinch him," said Tintop in reply, "if he tries any of his damnednonsense on me." But with every intention of doing his level best,"Topsy" little knew the infinite resources of the man.
One of Devers's idiosyncrasies was a hatred of doing things as anybodyelse did them. This in a service where absolute uniformity was expectedwas prolific of no end of chafing. In every garrison where his troop wasstationed he had become notorious. If the other companies turned out inwhite gloves at retreat, Devers's would come in gauntlets. When dressparade, dismounted, was ordered at Fort Birney one mild Novemberevening, he marched his men out in arctics and fur caps, and claimedthat to be the proper full dress for the season. When Colonel Emerson inregimental orders lauded the devotion of Sergeant Foley, who swam theicy Missouri with despatches from Captain Cameron's beleaguered command,and ordered a handsome collar to be made by the regimental saddler to beworn thereafter by his gallant gray, now transferred to the bandbecause of the cuts and scars he had received in that fierce campaign,Devers similarly decorated Trumpeter Finnegan's bull terrier "Mike," whoswam the Mini Ska in pursuit of his master the night of the wintry dashon Tall Bull's village, and gravely paraded "Mike" with the troop nextmuster day. These and a score of similarly annoying yet hardlypunishable attempts to bring ridicule upon or run counter to the ordersof his commanders, had actually rendered some of his seniors so averseto having him under them that it often resulted in his being givenindependent details, lonely detachment duty, "one-company posts," andsimilar isolation which almost any other officer would have shrunk from,but that Devers really seemed to enjoy, and, from having been so muchhis own commanding officer, he was all the less fitted to render promptand cheerful obedience to others when they again had to have him. Withany command greater than that of a single troop he had never beenintrusted. There was no end of speculation and chaff around thecamp-fires, therefore, early in the summer, when Devers, mostunwillingly, it was said, was hauled in from some outlying post where hehad nothing to do but hunt, eat, and sleep, and reported for duty onwhat turned out to be the toughest of Indian campaigns. What was worse,he was ordered to report to Tintop, and now, said the boys, there _will_be fun.
Well, there was. It took a week of persistent "cinching" to get Deversand his troop to understand that they were no longer an independentbody, but must serve under the orders of a colonel or major. He had atfirst been put in Bell's battalion, and every time the colonel pointedout a fault Devers "thought" that was as Major Bell wanted it, and whenBell called his attention to some irregularity, Devers had understoodColonel Winthrop to say that that was the way it should be done. Bellfinally said that he'd be damned if he wouldn't rather have no commandat all than one with Devers in it. The first day Devers's horses wereherded to graze far out on the slopes,--five hundred yards beyond thoseof any other troop,--and Tintop said he wished Captain Devers hereafternot to allow his herd to be driven beyond those of the rest of theregiment. Next day they were kicking up a dust not fifty yards fromTintop's tent,--as far inside the cordon as they had been outsidebefore,--and Devers plausibly explained that he wanted to be sure hewasn't too far away. The third day, after a long march with Indians onevery hand, Tintop ordered "double guards and side lines when the herdswent out to graze." The horses of the other troops were ridden out bythe men to good grazing-ground some five hundred yards from the bivouacfires, and there the riders slipped off and the side lines were slippedon; but Devers's horses were side-lined as soon as unsaddled, and thenthe poor brutes, thus hobbled fore and aft, were driven, painfullylurching, out to graze. Tintop boiled over at the sight of sounhorsemanlike a proceeding and rode wrathfully at Devers to rebuke him."Why, colonel," said Devers, "I wouldn't have done it for the world, butMr. Gray was so positive in saying it must be done when they went out, Icouldn't do otherwise. Of course if he'd said when they _got_ out I----"And though Tintop swore savagely through his teeth that Devers knewwell just what was meant, as did every other troop commander, hecouldn't prove it. Next day, before the side lines were put on, in somemysterious way Devers's herd was stampeded and ran six miles before theycould be rounded up, and he explained it was all because they weren'tside-lined in the first place, as they were always accustomed to being,and as the regulations required they should be in the Indian country.This was another thing to make Tintop blaspheme. Every day for a weeksomething was amiss, and, having gone to the length of his own tether,Devers took to saying that it was all Mr. Davies's fault or SergeantSomebody's,--"Mr. Davies had just joined and was utterly inexperienced."Then Tintop gave Devers positive orders not to content himself withtelling people to do thus and so, but to see that the orders we
reobeyed, and Devers then took his pipe and his blankets andostentatiously spent hours of the afternoon out on the open prairie, amonument to the severity and exactions of his colonel. And still thehorses, all of them, got far out on the foot-hills, and Tintop orderedhim a day or two later, when on Scalp Creek, not to let his herd getmore than half a mile away from the troop fires, as they had no tents,and then Devers had his herd-guards build fires and boil coffee far outon the prairie, and claimed that those were his troop fires, andtherefore his herd was within reasonable distance of them. Then Tintopswore another oath and ordered Devers not to let his horses graze morethan half or less than quarter of a mile from his own head-quartersfire, and as there followed a few days of hot weather, Devers sent hisherd to the foot-hills again, claiming that there was no longer ahead-quarters fire to regulate by, which proved to be a fact, as in suchwarm weather there was no need of one. Then, one day, Tintop in so manywords ordered the captain hereafter not to do as he thought, but simplyas his colonel said, and this led to the final incident, still moreside-splitting,--one that the boys in the regiment never tired oftelling. Tintop with his battalion was sent on a seven days' scout,during which he ordered all the troop commanders, until furtherinstruction, not to permit their herds to graze more than five hundredyards from camp. Three days later, what was his wrath to find Devers'sherd almost a mile away down the stream, and close by the tents of MajorRoome's battalion of Foot that had been for a week placidly awaiting thereturn of the cavalry! Tintop had halted and unsaddled some distanceup-stream. There wasn't a shred of canvas with the regiment while onthis brisk raid, nor was there need of it in such perfect weather, andTintop with Gray by his side stood fuming in the midst of surroundingcook fires, when Devers came placidly up in obedience to the summons ofthe orderly, and many an ear was brought to bear and bets were given andtaken that this time Devers would catch it and no rebate. "How is it,sir," demanded Tintop, "that in defiance of my positive orders you allowyour herd to go so far away?"
"Why, colonel, you distinctly said they mustn't be herded over fivehundred yards from camp. Of course if I'd been allowed to think Iprobably wouldn't have done it, but I sent mine down there accordingly.That's the only _camp_ I see,--this is only a bivouac." And all Tintopcould ejaculate in response was, "Well, may I be damned!"
These and a host of similar stories had come to Warren's ears in thecourse of the campaign, and he had laughed at them as had everybodyelse, for after all no man could say that actual harm had occurred as aresult of Devers's experiments. So curiously are we constituted thatwhen it is only the commander who is braved or his adjutant who isruffled, the bulk of the line can bear it with equanimity. Therefore,while Tintop, Black Bill, Riggs, and his seniors generally could neverrefer to Devers except with sympathetic swear words, there were not afew of the officers junior in rank to his who found no little fun in allthese incidents. Like most stories in or out of the army, they wereperhaps exaggerative, but, like smoke, they could not exist withoutsmouldering fire. If there were any speculation about Devers in theregiment, it was as to how he would behave if he ever did get into afight, or what would happen in the event of his some day squirming outof an order on which vital issues depended. "You'll go too far yet,Devers," said a soldier who strove conscientiously to be his friend andcounsellor, "and when you do, where will be the commander under whom youhave ever served to say a good word for you?"
And now on this fatal September morning that ominous warning was ringingin his ears again and again. Down in the bottom of his brooding heart heknew, and well knew, that had he obeyed, as he should have obeyed,Warren's orders, this catastrophe could not have occurred, and that hemore than any other man on earth was responsible for the death of thesegallant fellows, who, whether they looked up to him or not, were by thestern discipline of the service dependent on him for the expectedsupport. If he could realize this, how much the quicker would others beto attach the blame to him! how much the more necessary must it be tolose no time in diverting suspicion elsewhere! The fatal propensity todistort or disobey, which perhaps he could have downed had Tintop orRiggs been there, he could not resist with Warren,--an enviedcontemporary, presumably new to his idiosyncrasies. Nor would he, ofcourse, even with him, have disobeyed could he have foreseen the fatalconsequences. That would have been risking too much. But now that he haddisobeyed, and in all probability would be held accountable for thecatastrophe, his one road to safety and to acquittal lay in saddling allpossible responsibility on some one else,--preferably Davies. This, ifDavies were silent in death, would not be difficult. Whatsoever othersmight think or say, they could prove nothing. If, however, Davies turnedup alive and alert, then matters might be grave indeed. No wonder heclimbed again and again the westward bank and levelled his glasses atthe dull-hued ridge against the brilliant westward sky, frequentlygiving vent to loud denunciation of the leaders in the mismanagedcampaign. It was nearly ten o'clock before his dead were laidaway,--before anything occurred that looked like discovery of themissing pair. Then came new excitement.
Far down toward the point where the distant spur seemed to sink to thegeneral level of the prairie one or two of Warren's scouts could be seenrapidly spurring, as though in answer to signals. Presently they, too,began waving their hats to those searching higher up the ridge. Then alldisappeared over on the westward side. Something evidently had beenfound, and Devers's men, their work completed, were grouped eagerly upthe bank. Over half an hour in mingled hope and suspense they waited,and then there rode in a mounted messenger.
"The major's compliments to Captain Devers," he said, "and he'll waitfor the captain and his troop over yonder. I'm to show the way."
"Have they found anything?" asked Devers.
"Yes, sir,--Mr. Davies; but he's more dead than alive. There is no signof McGrath."
"Do you mean Mr. Davies is wounded?"
"No, sir. He seems just dazed-like."
"That's what I said all along," spoke the captain, loudly, so that itwas heard by all the soldiers near at hand. "He never tried to rejoinhis detachment. He never had any nerve. He probably saw what was goingon and hid himself, never daring even to let us know. Damn thesepsalm-singing, Sunday-go-to-meeting soldiers anyhow! Here, Howard," hecontinued, turning to a young trooper who stood silently at his horse'shead, "you come with me. Lead on, corporal. Sergeant Haney, mount thetroop and follow." And with that the captain rode away.
For a moment, as the men were bringing up their horses and leading theminto line, there was silence. Looking after the three horsemen now wellout on the prairie to the west, the party saw that the messenger wasriding some distance in advance, and that Howard, a recruit who joinedwith the detachment early in the campaign, was now side by side andevidently in conversation with the captain. It had been a summer ofcampaigning in which not only the nicer distinctions as between officerand man--not only all symbols of rank and uniform--had graduallydisappeared, but with them, little by little, some of the firstprinciples of good order and military discipline. Officers had beenheard openly condemning or covertly sneering at the seniors in command.It was not strange that the rank and file should fall into similar ways.
"Never had any nerve, is it?" muttered Private Dooley, after a moment."Boy and man I've soldiered in this regiment longer than you, CaptainDiffers, and I know an officer and a gentleman when I see wan, and it'sthe public opinion av more than wan private that there's more av both inthat young feller's starvin' stummick than in your whole damn overfed,bow-legged carcass. How's that, Brannan?" said he, turning to his nextneighbor, a wan, sad-faced recruit.
"Shut up there, Dooley!" ordered Sergeant Haney, briefly. "No more ofthat! Count fours."