CHAPTER II.
CAVALRY ON THE MARCH.
It was a lovely June morning when the Fifth Cavalry started on itsmarch. Camp was struck at daybreak, and soon after five o'clock, whilethe sun was still low in the east and the dew-drops were sparkling onthe buffalo grass, the long column was winding up the bare, rolling"divide" which lay between the valleys of Crow and Lodge Pole Creeks. Inplain view, only thirty miles away to the west, were the summits of theRocky Mountains, but such is the altitude of this upland prairie,sloping away eastward between the two forks of the Platte River, thatthese summits appear to be nothing more than a low range of hillsshutting off the western horizon.
Looking southward from the Laramie road, all the year round one can seethe great peaks of the range--Long's and Hahn's and Pike's--glisteningin their mantles of snow, and down there near them, in Colorado, themountains slope abruptly into the Valley of the South Platte.
Up here in Wyoming the Rockies go rolling and billowing far out to theeast, and the entire stretch of country, from what are called the "BlackHills of Wyoming," in contradistinction to the Black Hills of Dakota,far east as the junction of the forks of the Platte, is one vastinclined plane.
The Union Pacific Railway winds over these Black Hills at Sherman,--thelowest point the engineers could find,--and Sherman is over eightthousand feet above the sea.
From Sherman, eastward, in less than an hour's run the cars go slidingdown with smoking brakes to Cheyenne, a fall of two thousand feet. Butthe wagon-road from Cheyenne to Fort Laramie twists and winds among theravines and over the divides of this lofty prairie; so that Ralph andhis soldier friends, while riding jauntily over the hard-beaten trackthis clear, crisp, sunshiny, breezy morning, were twice as high abovethe sea as they would have been at the tiptop of the Catskills andhigher even than had they been at the very summit of Mount Washington.
The air at this height, though rare, is keen and exhilarating, and oneneeds no second look at the troopers to see how bright are their eyesand how nimble and elastic is the pace of their steeds.
The commanding officer, with his adjutant and orderlies and a littlegroup of staff sergeants, had halted at the crest of one of these ridgesand was looking back at the advancing column. Beside the winding roadwas strung a line of wires,--the military telegraph to the borderforts,--and with the exception of those bare poles not a stick of timberwas anywhere in sight.
The whole surface is destitute of bush or tree, but the thick littlebunches of gray-green grass that cover it everywhere are rich with juiceand nutriment. This is the buffalo grass of the Western prairies, andthe moment the horses' heads are released down go their nozzles, andthey are cropping eagerly and gratefully.
Far as the eye can see to the north and east it roams over a rolling,tumbling surface that seems to have become suddenly petrified. Far tothe south are the snow-shimmering peaks; near at hand, to the west, arethe gloomy gorges and ravines and wide wastes of upland of the BlackHills of Wyoming; and so clear is the air that they seem but a shorthour's gallop away.
There is something strangely deceptive about the distances in anatmosphere so rare and clear as this.
A young surgeon was taking his first ride with a cavalry column in thewide West, and, as he looked back into the valley through which they hadbeen marching for over half an hour, his face was clouded with anexpression of odd perplexity.
"What's the matter, doctor?" asked the adjutant, with a grin on hisface. "Are you wondering whether those fellows really are United Statesregulars?" and the young officer nodded towards the long column ofhorsemen in broad-brimmed slouch hats and flannel shirts or fancifulgarb of Indian tanned buckskin. Even among the officers there was hardlya sign of the uniform or trappings which distinguish the soldiers ingarrison.
"No, it isn't _that_. I knew that you fellows who had served so long inArizona had got out of the way of wearing uniform in the field againstIndians. What I can't understand is that ridge over there. I thought wehad been down in a hollow for the last half-hour, yet look at it; wemust have come over that when I was thinking of something else."
"Not a bit of it, doctor," laughed the colonel. "That's where wedismounted and took a short rest and gave the horses a chance to pick abit."
"Why, but, colonel! that must have been two miles back,--full half anhour ago: you don't mean that ridge is two miles away? I could almosthit that man riding down the road towards us."
"It would be a wonderful shot, doctor. That man is one of the teamsterswho went back after a dropped pistol. He is a mile and a half away."
The doctor's eyes were wide open with wonder.
"Of course you must know, colonel, but it is incomprehensible to me."
"It is easily proved, doctor. Take these two telegraph poles nearest usand tell me how far they are apart."
The doctor looked carefully from one pole to another. Only a single wirewas strung along the line, and the poles were stout and strong. After amoment's study he said, "Well, they are just about seventy-five yardsapart."
"More than that, doctor. They are a good hundred yards. But even at yourestimate, just count the poles back to that ridge--of course they areequidistant, or nearly so, all along--and tell me how far you make it."
The doctor's eyes began to dilate again as he silently took account ofthe number.
"I declare, there are over twenty to the rear of the wagon-train andnearly forty across the ridge! I give it up."
"And now look here," said the colonel, pointing out to the eastwardwhere some lithe-limbed hounds were coursing over the prairie with Ralphon his fleet sorrel racing in pursuit. "Look at young McCrea out therewhere there are no telegraph poles to help you judge the distance. If hewere an Indian whom you wanted to bring down what would you set yoursights at, providing you had time to set them at all?" and the veteranIndian fighter smiled grimly.
The doctor shook his head.
"It is too big a puzzle for me," he answered. "Five minutes ago I wouldhave said three hundred at the utmost, but I don't know now."
"How about that, Nihil?" asked the colonel, turning to a soldier ridingwith the head-quarters party.
Nihil's brown hand goes up to the brim of his scouting hat in salute,but he shook his head.
"The bullet would kick up a dust this side of him, sir," was the answer.
"People sometimes wonder why it is we manage to hit so few of theseCheyennes or Sioux in our battles with them," said the colonel. "Now youcan get an idea of one of the difficulties. They rarely come within sixhundred yards of us when they are attacking a train or an infantryescort, and are always riding full tilt, just as you saw Ralph just now.It is next to impossible to hit them."
"I understand," said the doctor. "How splendidly that boy rides!"
"Ralph? Yes. He's a genuine trooper. Now, there's a boy whose wholeambition is to go to West Point. He's a manly, truthful, dutiful youngfellow, born and raised in the army, knows the plains by heart, and justthe one to make a brilliant and valuable cavalry officer, but thereisn't a ghost of a chance for him."
"Why not?"
"Why not? Why! how is he to get an appointment? If he had a homesomewhere in the East, and his father had influence with the Congressmanof the district, it might be done; but the sons of army officers havereally very little chance. The President used to have ten appointments ayear, but Congress took them away from him. They thought there were toomany cadets at the Point; but while they were virtuously willing toreduce somebody else's prerogatives in that line, it did not occur tothem that they might trim a little on their own. Now the President isallowed only ten 'all told,' and can appoint no boy until some of histen are graduated or otherwise disposed of. It really gives him only twoor three appointments a year, and he has probably a thousand applicantsfor every one. What chance has an army boy in Wyoming against the son ofsome fellow with Senators and Representatives at his back in Washington?If the army could name an occasional candidate, a boy like Ralph wouldbe sure to go, and we would have more soldiers a
nd fewer scientists inthe cavalry."
By this time the head of the compact column was well up, and the captainof the leading troop, riding with his first lieutenant in front of hissets of fours, looked inquiringly at the colonel, as though halfexpectant of a signal to halt or change the gait. Receiving none, andseeing that the colonel had probably stopped to look over his command,the senior troop leader pushed steadily on.
Behind him, four abreast, came the dragoons,--a stalwart, sunburned,soldierly-looking lot. Not a particle of show or glitter in their attireor equipment. Utterly unlike the dazzling hussars of England or theEuropean continent, when the troopers of the United States are out onthe broad prairies of the West "for business," as they put it, hardly abrass button, even, is to be seen.
The colonel notes with satisfaction the nimble, active pace of thehorses as they go by at rapid walk, and the easy seat of the men intheir saddles.
First the bays of "K" Troop trip quickly past; then the beautiful, sleekgrays of "B," Captain Montgomery's company; then more bays in "I" and"A" and "D," and then some sixty-five blacks, "C" Troop's color.
There are two sorrel troops in the regiment and more bays, and later inthe year, when new horses were obtained, the Fifth had a roan and adark-brown troop; but in June, when they were marching up to take theirpart in the great campaign that followed, only two of their companieswere not mounted on bright bay horses, and one and all they were in thepink of condition and eager for a burst "'cross country."
It was, however, their colonel's desire to take them to theirdestination in good trim, and he permitted no "larking."
They had several hundred miles of weary marching before them. Much ofthe country beyond the Platte was "Bad Lands," where the grass is scantand poor, the soil ashen and spongy, and the water densely alkaline. Allthis would tell very sensibly upon the condition of horses that allwinter long had been comfortably stabled, regularly groomed andgrain-fed, and watered only in pure running streams flushed by springsor melting snow.
It was all very well for young Ralph to be coursing about on his fleet,elastic sorrel, radiant with delight as the boy was at being again "outon the plains" and in the saddle; but the cavalry commander's first caremust be to bring his horses to the scene of action in the most effectivestate of health and soundness. The first few days' marching, therefore,had to be watched with the utmost care.
As the noon hour approached, the doctor noted how the hills off to thewest seemed to be growing higher, and that there were broader vistas ofwide ranges of barren slopes to the east and north.
The colonel was riding some distance ahead of the battalion, his littleescort close beside, and Ralph was giving Buford a resting spell, andplacidly ambling alongside the doctor.
Sergeant Wells was riding somewhere in the column with some chum of olddays. He belonged to another regiment, but knew the Fifth of old. Thehounds had tired of chasing over a waterless country, and with lollingtongues were trotting behind their masters' horses.
The doctor was vastly interested in what he had heard of Ralph, andengaged him in talk. Just as they came in sight of the broad, openvalley in which runs the sparkling Lodge Pole, a two-horse wagon rumbledup alongside, and there on the front seat was Farron, the ranchman, withbright-eyed, bonny-faced little Jessie smiling beside him.
"We've caught you, Ralph," he laughed, "though we left Russell an houror more behind you. I s'pose you'll all camp at Lodge Pole for thenight. We're going on to the Chug."
"Hadn't you better see the colonel about that?" asked Ralph, anxiously.
"Oh, it's all right! I got telegrams from Laramie and the Chug, both,just before we left Russell. Not an Indian's been heard of this side ofthe Platte, and your father's troop has just got in to Laramie."
"Has he?" exclaimed Ralph, with delight. "Then he knows I've started,and perhaps he'll come on to the Chug or Eagle's Nest and meet me."
"More'n likely," answered Farron. "You and the sergeant had better comeahead and spend the night with me at the ranch."
"I've no doubt the colonel will let us go ahead with you," answeredRalph, "but the ranch is too far off the road. We would have to stay atPhillips's for the night. What say you, sergeant?" he asked, as Wellscame loping up alongside.
"The very plan, I think. Somebody will surely come ahead to meet us, andwe can make Laramie two days before the Fifth."
"Then, good-by, doctor; I must ask the colonel first, but we'll see youat Laramie."
"Good-by, Ralph, and good luck to you in getting that cadetship."
"Oh, well! I _must_ trust to luck for that. Father says it all dependson my getting General Sheridan to back me. If _he_ would only ask forme, or if I could only do something to make him glad to ask; but whatchance is there?"
What chance, indeed? Ralph McCrea little dreamed that at that verymoment General Sheridan--far away in Chicago--was reading despatchesthat determined him to go at once, himself, to Red Cloud Agency; that infour days more the general would be there, at Laramie, and that in twowonderful days, meantime--but who was there who dreamed what wouldhappen meantime?