CHAPTER XVI.
At three o'clock in the morning, while the stars were still bright inthe eastern sky, the little party of troopers, Dean at the irhead, hadridden away from the twinkling lights of camp, and long before sunrisehad crossed the first divide to the north, and alternating trot, lopeand walk had put miles between them and Fort Emory before the drums ofthe infantry beat the call for guard mounting.
At ten o'clock the party halted under some spreading willows, deep in acleft of the bold, high hills that rolled away toward the Sweetwatervalley. Horses were unsaddled and picketed out to graze. A little cookfire was started close to the spring that fed the tiny brook, tricklingaway down the narrow ravine, and in a few moments the aroma of coffeeand of appetizing slices of bacon greeted the welcoming nostrils of thehungry men. The sun that had risen clear and dazzling was now obscuredby heavy masses of clouds, and time and again Dean cast anxious eyesaloft, for a storm seemed sweeping eastward from the distant Wahsatchrange, and long before the little command had dived downward from theheights into the depths of this wild, romantic and contracted valley,all the rolling upland toward Green River, far to the west, lay underthe pall of heavy and forbidding banks of hurrying vapor. Coffee andbreakfast finished, Dean climbed the steep bluff overhanging the spring,a faithful sergeant following, and what he saw was sufficient todetermine immediate action.
"Saddle up. We'll push ahead at once."
For an instant the veteran trooper looked dissent, but disciplineprevailed.
"The lieutenant knows that Carey's not in yet," he ventured to say, ashe started back down the narrow game trail which they had climbed.
"Yes; but yonder he comes and so does the storm. We can't be caught inthis canon in case of a hard rain. Let Carey have some coffee and abite, if he feels well enough. Then we'll push on."
Ordinarily when making summer marches over the range, the first "watercamp" on the Sweetwater trail was here at Canon Springs. On the road toFrayne, which crossed the brook ten miles to the east, all wagon trainsand troops not on forced march made similar camp. In the case ofscouting detachments or little parties sent out from Emory, it wasalways customary to spend the first night and make the first camp on theBox Elder at furthermost, then to push on, ready and refreshed, thefollowing day. Dean well knew that to get the best work out of hishorses he should start easily, and up to nine o'clock he had fullyintended to make the usual camp at the Springs. But once before, withina few years, a big scouting party camping in the gorge of the Box Elderhad been surprised by one of those sudden, sweeping storms, and beforethey could strike tents, pack up and move to higher ground, the streamtook matters into its own hands and spared them all further trouble onthat score, distributing camp and garrison equipage for long leaguesaway to the east. Two miles back, trooper Carey, who had beencomplaining of severe cramp and pain in the stomach, begged to beallowed to fall out and rest awhile. He was a reliable old soldier whenwhisky was not winning the upper hand, and this time whisky was not atfault. A dose of Jamaica ginger was the only thing their fieldpharmacopoeia provided, and Carey rolled out of his saddle and doubledup among the rocks with his hands on the pit of his stomach, grimacing.
"Go back if you think best, or come ahead and catch us at the Springs ifwell enough," were the orders left him, while the men pushed on, andnow, as the lieutenant said, Carey was coming himself. Some of the partywere already dozing when the sergeant's sharp order "Saddle up" wasgiven, but a glance at the lowering sky explained it all, and every manwas standing to horse and ready when the missing trooper came jogging inamong them, white, peaked, but determined. A look of mingleddisappointment and relief appeared on his face as he saw thepreparations for the start, but his only comment was, "I can make it,sir," as he saluted his young commander. Less than two hours from thetime they unsaddled, therefore, the troopers once more mounted, and,following their leader, filed away down the winding gorge. Presentlythere came the low rumble of thunder, and a sweep of the rising wind."Trot," said Dean, and without other word the little column quickenedthe pace.
The ravine grew wider soon and far less tortuous, but was still a narrowand dangerous spot. For a mile or two from the Springs its course wasnearly east of north, then it bore away to the northeast, and theSweetwater trail abruptly left it and went winding up a cleft in thehills to the west. Just as they reached this point the heavens openedand the clouds descended in a deluge of rain. Out came the ponchos,unstrapped from the saddle, and every man's head popped through the slitas the shiny black "shedwater" settled down on his shoulders.
"That outfit behind us will get a soaking if it has been fool enough tofollow down to the Springs," said Carey to the sergeant, as they beganthe pull up the slippery trail.
"What outfit?" asked Dean, turning in the saddle and looking back insurprise.
A blinding flash of lightning, followed almost on the instant by thecrack and roar of thunder, put summary stop to talk of any kind. Men andhorses bowed their heads before the deluge and the rain ran in streamsfrom the manes and tails. The ascending path turned quickly into arunning brook and the black forms of steeds and riders struggledsidewise up the grass-grown slopes in search of higher ground. Theheavens had turned inky black. The gloomy ravine grew dark as night.Flash after flash the lightning split the gloom. Every second or twotrooper faces gleamed ghastly in the dazzling glare, then as suddenlyvanished. Horses slipped or stumbled painfully and, man after man, theriders followed the example of the young soldier in the lead and,dismounting, led their dripping beasts farther up the steep incline.Halfway to the summit, peering through the wind-swept sheets of rain, apalisaded clump of rocks jutted out from the heights and, after a hardclimb, the little band found partial shelter from the driving storm, andhuddled, awe-stricken, at their base. Still the lightning played and thethunder cannonaded with awful resonance from crag to crag down the deepgorge from which they had clambered, evidently none too soon, forpresently, far down the black depths, they could see the Box Elder,under a white wreath of foam, tearing in fury down its narrow bed.
"Beg pardon, lieutenant," shouted the veteran sergeant in the youngcommander's ear, even in that moment never forgetting the habitualsalute, "but if I didn't see the reason for that sudden order to saddleI more than see it now. We would have been drowned like rats down therein the gulch."
"I'm wondering if anybody _has_ drowned like rats," shouted Dean, inreply. "Carey says another party was just behind us. Who could they be?"
But for answer came another vivid, dazzling flash that for an instantblinded all eyes. "By God! but that's a stunner!" gasped a big trooper,and then followed the deafening bang and crash of the thunder, and itsechoes went booming and reverberating from earth to heaven and rollingaway, peal after peal, down the bluff-bound canon. For a moment no othersound could be heard; then, as it died away and the rain came swashingdown in fresh deluge, Carey's voice overmastered the storm.
"That's struck something, sir, right around yonder by the Springs. Godhelp that outfit that came a-gallopin' after me!"
"What was it? Which way were they coming?" Dean managed to ask.
"Right along the bluff, sir, to the east. Seemed like they was ridin'over from the old camp on the Frayne road. There was twenty-five orthirty of 'em, I should say, coming at a lope."
"Cavalry?" asked Dean, a queer look in his face.
"No, sir. They rode dispersed like. They was a mile away when I sightedthem, and it was gittin' so black then I don't think they saw me at all.They were 'bout off yonder, half a mile east of the Springs when Idipped down into the ravine, and what seemed queer was that two of themgalloped to the edge, dismounted, and were peering down into the gorgelike so many Indians, just as though they didn't want to be seen. I wasgoin' to tell the lieutenant 'bout it first thing if I had found ourfellows off their guard, but you were all mounted and just starting."
Instinctively Dean put forth his hand under the dripping poncho andtugged at the straps of his off saddle-bag. No need for dread on thatscore. Th
e bulky package, wrapped, sealed and corded, was bulging out ofthe side of his field pouch till it looked as though he had crammed acavalry boot into its maw.
"Thirty men--mounted?--no wagons or--anything?" he anxiously asked.
"Full thirty, sir, and every man armed with rifle as far as I couldsee," said Carey, "and if it was us they was after, they'd have had usat their mercy down in that pocket at the Springs."
A shout from one of the men attracted the attention of the leaders. Thestorm had spent its force and gone rolling away eastward. The thunderwas rumbling far over toward the now invisible crest of the Black Hillsof Wyoming. The rain sheets had given place to trickling downpour. A dimlight was stealing into the blackness of the gorge. Louder and fiercerroared the Box Elder, lashing its banks with foam. And then came the cryagain.
"I tell you it is, by God! for there goes another!"
All eyes followed the direction of the pointing finger. All eyes saw,even though dimly, the saddled form of a horse plunging and strugglingin the flood, making vain effort to clamber out, then whirlinghelplessly away--swept out of sight around the shoulder of bluff, andborne on down the tossing waves of the torrent. Men mean no irreverencewhen they call upon their Maker at such times, even in soldier oath. Itis awe, not blasphemy.
"By God, lieutenant, that's what we'd a been doing but for your order."It was the sergeant who spoke.
And at that very hour there was excitement at Fort Emory. At eighto'clock the colonel was on his piazza looking with gloomy eyes over thedistant rows of empty barracks. The drum-major with the band at hisheels came stalking out over the grassy parade, and the post adjutant,girt with sash and sword-belt, stood in front of his office awaiting thesergeant-major, who was unaccountably delayed. Reduced to a shadow, thegarrison at Fort Emory might reasonably have been excused, by this time,from the ceremony of mounting a guard, consisting practically of tenprivates, three of whom wore the cavalry jacket; but old "Pecksniff" wasdetermined to keep up some show of state. He could have no parade orreview, but at least he could require his guard to be mounted with allthe pomp and ceremony possible. He would have ordered his officers outin epaulets and the full dress "Kossuth" hat of the period, but epauletshad been discarded during the war and not yet resumed on the farfrontier. So the rank and file alone were called upon to appear in theblack-feathered oddity a misguided staff had designed as the headgear ofthe array. "Pecksniff's" half-dozen doughboys, therefore, with theirattendant sergeants and corporals in the old fashioned frock and felt,and a still smaller squad of troopers in yellow-trimmed jackets andbrass-mounted forage caps, were drawn up at the edge of the paradeawaiting the further signal of adjutant's call, while the adjutanthimself swore savagely and sent the orderly on the run for thesergeant-major. When that clock-governed functionary was missingsomething indeed must be going wrong.
Presently the orderly came running back.
"Sergeant Dineen isn't home, sir, and his wife says he hasn't been backsince the lieutenant sent him in town with the last dispatch."
"Tell the first sergeant of "B" Company, then, to act as sergeant-majorat once," said the adjutant, and hurried over to his colonel. "Dineen'snot back, sir," he reported at the gate. "Can anything be wrong?"
"I ordered him to bring with him the answer to my dispatch to thegeneral, who wired to me from the railway depot at Cheyenne. Probablyhe's been waiting for that, and the general's away somewhere. We oughtto have an operator here day and night," said Pecksniff petulantly. Butthe irritation in his eyes gave way to anxiety when at that moment thesutler's buggy was seen dashing into the garrison at headlong speed, hissmart trotter urged almost to a run. Griggs reined up with no littlehard pulling at the colonel's gate, and they could see a dozen yards offthat his face was pale.
"Have you any idea, colonel," he began the moment the officers reachedhim, "where Major Burleigh can be? He left the depot somewhere aboutthree o'clock this morning with that Captain Newhall. He hasn't returnedand can't be found. Your sergeant-major was waylaid and robbed some timeafter midnight, and John Folsom was picked up senseless in the alleyback of his house two hours ago. What does it all mean?"