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CHAPTER III.
A ROBBER IN CAMP

THE trumpet played the retreat, the sunset gun thundered its good-night to the god of day; the adjutant hurried over and received the reports of the companies, the staff, and band, and then a messenger came running to them: "Mrs. Charlton wants you, Sergeant Waller. Fred's all safe, but they had a sharp fight."

The old man could not trust himself to speak. "Listen to this, sergeant," exclaimed Mrs. Charlton, as she hurried through the little group of ladies at her doorway, and looked up in his face with tear-dimmed eyes:

"Tell Waller that in a running fight of four miles Fred rode close at my heels and no man could have shown more spirit or less fear. I am sure it was a shot from his carbine that tumbled one war pony into the Laramie; and every call he had to sound rang out clear as a bell. I'm proud of the boy."

Waller's face was twitching and working; he cleared his throat and tried to speak; he dashed his hand across his eyes and ground his heels into the gravel of the walk; he heard the kind and gentle voices of the ladies joining in the chorus of congratulation, but he could not see their faces; a mist had risen before his eyes. Even the old formula, "I thank the captain's lady," had deserted him. He mumbled some inarticulate words, and then, in dread of disastrous breakdown, turned suddenly away and strode across the drive. More than one woman was in tears. There was not a ripple of faintest laughter when it was seen that in his blindness the old sergeant had collided with the tree box at the edge of the acequia. Straight to his humble quarters he went; but they were beautiful to him, radiant with the light of joy, pride, gratitude, and love that beamed and burnt in his honest heart.

And now, a year later, all the cavalry was in the field. Gold had tempted explorers and miners innumerable to the Black Hills of Dakota – Indian land by solemn treaty. The Government warned the invaders back, but to no purpose. The Indians swarmed from the agencies and massacred all whom they could overpower. Charlton's troop had early been hurried up to Red Cloud, and now with others was engaged in the perilous work of patrolling the trails around the Indian haunts.

Two months of hard and most exciting work had they had, and still the troubles were not over; and then just after the paymaster with his iron safe and bristling escort had paid the outlying posts a visit, and Captain Charlton had been ordered in with him to attend a court-martial at Fort Laramie, there came a week that no man in "B" troop ever forgot.

Mr. Rayburn had been wounded and was in the hospital at Fort Robinson. Twenty of the men were away on escort duty, and so it happened that only young Lieutenant Blunt and about thirty troopers were left at the camp just west of the Agency. Fearful that the money, "burning" as it always does in the soldiers' pockets, would tempt his men to gamble or drink and get into mischief around the crowded post, Charlton had ordered that the troop should march at once to the Niobrara and wait there for his return. It was known, of course, that many Indian bands were out, and it promised to be adventurous. It was Mr. Blunt's first independent command, too, and he felt a trifle nervous. All went well, however, until the morning of the second day, when Sergeant Graham excitedly called his young commander, his face clouded with dismay.

"Lieutenant," he cried, "Sergeant Dawson and several men were robbed last night. The money's clean gone!"

Blunt was out of his blanket in an instant. "How much is missing?" he asked.

"I can't tell yet, sir – a good deal. But that is not the worst of it."

"What on earth could be worse?"

"Trumpeter Waller's gone, sir – deserted; taken his horse, arms, and everything!"

CHAPTER IV.
SUSPICIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES

LIEUTENANT BLUNT'S position on this bright July morning was most embarrassing. Personally he had known the pet trumpeter of "B" troop less than a year; for, as was said in the previous chapter, in point of actual experience on the frontier the boy was the superior of the young West Pointer, who had joined only the preceding autumn. Finding young Fred so great a favorite among the officers and men, Mr. Blunt was quite ready to accept the general verdict, although his first impression of the youngster was that he was a trifle spoiled. On the other hand no other man in the troop had so favorably impressed the new officer as the "left principal guide," Sergeant Dawson, whose dashing horsemanship, fine figure and carriage, and sharp, soldierly ways had attracted his attention at the first outset. Then Dawson's manner to him was so scrupulously deferential and soldierly on all occasions – sometimes the old war-worn sergeants would be a trifle supercilious with green subalterns – that Blunt's moderate amount of vanity was touched. He was always glad, when his turn came round as officer of the guard, to find Sergeant Dawson on the detail, and he recalled, when he came to think over the events of his first half year with the regiment that very summer, that it was when on guard he began to imagine Fred Waller was "somewhat spoiled." Twice the boy "marched on" as orderly trumpeter when he and Dawson were on the guard detail for the day, and both times the sergeant had found fault with the musician, and had most respectfully and diplomatically, but in that semi-confidential manner which shrewd old soldiers so well know how to assume to very young subalterns, given Mr. Blunt to understand that the boy "needed looking after." Months later, when Blunt and Rayburn were discussing the probabilities of promotion, when the sergeant-major of the regiment took his discharge and there was lively competition among the soldiers for this, the finest non-commissioned post in the regiment, Blunt warmly advocated Dawson's claim. "He is the nattiest sergeant in the whole command," he said, "and the smartest one I know."

"Oh, yes!" answered Rayburn with a certain superiority of manner and a quiet sarcasm that provoked the junior officer; "there's no question about Dawson's smartness. One after another every 'plebe' in the regiment starts in with the same enthusiasm about Dawson. I had it myself about eight years ago. But the trouble with him is he isn't a stayer; he can't stand prosperity."

But Blunt preferred to hold to his own views and his faith in the second sergeant of the troop. And so it happened that on this eventful morning he sent Sergeant Graham at once to investigate as to the amounts stolen during the night, and directed that Sergeant Dawson, who was in command of the herd and picket guard, should come to him immediately.

The sun was just rising above the low treeless ridges on the horizon as the lieutenant stood erect and looked about him. Close at hand the Niobrara – "the Running Water" – was brawling over its stony shallows, and the smoke of tiny cook-fires was floating upward into the keen, crisp, morning air. Northward the slopes were bare and treeless, too, but closely carpeted with the dense growth of buffalo grass. Only a few yards out from the bivouac, hoppled and sidelined, the troop horses were cropping the still juicy herbage, and three or four soldiers, carbine in hand and garbed in their light-blue overcoats, were posted well out beyond the herd on every side, watching the valley far and near for any signs of Indian coming. Below the bivouac, and further from the Laramie road, was an old log hut, once used as a ranch and "bar" for thirsty souls traversing the well-worn way to the reservation; but the tide of travel had first shifted to the Sidney route, and then been stemmed entirely, so far as the line to or near the agencies was concerned, and the proprietor had taken himself and his fiery poison to better-paying fields. Far away to the southwest the blue cone of Laramie Peak stood boldly against the sky. Nearer at hand, though a day's ride away, old Rawhide Butte rose sturdily from the midst of surrounding prairie slopes. Upstream, among some sparse cottonwood, a bit of ruddy color among the branches caught the lieutenant's quick eye. Some Indian brave, wrapped in his blanket, had been laid to rest there out of reach of the snarling coyotes, one of whom could be dimly discerned slinking away under the bank, just out of easy rifle range.

Off to the south lay the same bold, barren, desolate-looking expanse of rolling prairie. Blunt could not suppress a shudder as he thought of the terrible risk the boy had run in his mad break for the settlements beyond the Platte. Of course he could go nowhere else. North, east, and west, all was Indian land, and no lone white man could live there. Of course he was making for the cattle ranges and settlements in Nebraska. Such at least were the lieutenant's theories. He had spent only one year on the frontier, but had been there long enough to know that among the cowboys, ranchmen, and especially among the "riff-raff" ever hanging about the small towns and settlements, a deserter from the army was apt to be welcomed and protected, if he had money, arms, or a good horse. Once plundered of all he possessed, the luckless fellow might then be turned over to the nearest post and the authorized reward of thirty dollars claimed for his apprehension; but if well armed and sober, the deserter had little trouble in making his way through the toughest mining camps and settlements.

CHAPTER V.
TRAILING THE TRAITOR

FRED Waller knew all the Valley of the North Platte as well as he did the trails around Sanders and Red buttes, and if he could succeed in eluding the Indian war parties, he would have no difficulty in fording the river, or swimming if necessary; and, with the start he must have had, his light weight, and powerful horse, it would be next to impossible to catch him, even if they could follow his trail. Besides, were they not ordered to remain at the Niobrara until Charlton's return? The more Mr. Blunt thought of the matter the more worried and perplexed he became. Anywhere else he might have sent a sergeant with a couple of men in pursuit, but here it would be exposing them to almost certain death. It was some minutes before Sergeant Dawson came in answer to the summons. Blunt could see the troopers gathered about the first sergeant, excitedly discussing the affair and bemoaning their individual losses. Graham was noting the amounts on a slip of paper, and his fine face was pale with distress. "Is that all now, men?" he asked as he completed the list, then sharply turned away, and once more approached his young commander.

"Lieutenant," he said, halting and raising his hand in salute, "it isn't quite so bad as I feared, but bad enough. Sergeant Farron, Corporal Watts, and I are the principal losers, besides Sergeant Dawson. Three of the men who went into the Agency on pass just after we were paid had left most of their money with me, and that is gone. I had it with my own in the flat wallet I always carried in the inside pocket of my hunting-shirt. You can see, sir, how it was done," and the sergeant displayed a long clean cut through the Indian tanned buckskin. "It took a sharp knife and a light hand to do that, for I'm not a heavy sleeper. Farron, Watts, and I were sleeping side by side just over there on the bank, and they heard nothing all the night. But will the lieutenant look at this handkerchief, sir? Is it chloroformed? I feel dull and heavy, as though I had been drugged. He couldn't have got it from me any other way."

Blunt took the bandanna and sniffed it cautiously, and then turned it over and curiously inspected it. There was certainly an odor of chloroform about it – a strong odor.

"Whose is this?" he asked. "I do not remember seeing any of the men wearing one like this."

"None of them own it, sir. I've asked the whole party but Sergeant Dawson and the men on guard. They have these cheap red things for sale at the store there at the Red Cloud Agency, but none of the troop have I ever seen wearing them; they are too small for neck handkerchiefs. Dawson is out yet, trying to locate the trail. I've sent Robbins for him," and the sergeant looked anxiously away southward, searching the prairie with a world of pain and trouble in his eyes.

"What could possibly have induced the boy to turn scoundrel all at once?" asked the lieutenant. "It will break his old father's heart."

"I can't account for it, sir. He has been as honest and square as a boy could be ever since his enlistment; but the men tell me that he has been spending a good deal of time over in the post whenever we camped there, and I am afraid, from what Donovan says, that he has been gambling with the young fellows at the band quarters. There's a hard lot in there, I'm told; and the old hands encourage the boys to get all they can out of strangers, and then they turn to and fleece the boys. It is about four hundred dollars he has taken. A man knows that will last but a little while on the frontier, but to a boy it seems a big pile."

Then, rapidly approaching, the bounding hoofs of a troop horse were heard. Blunt eagerly turned and saw Sergeant Dawson galloping toward them down the north bank. Reining in so suddenly as almost to throw his panting bay upon his haunches, he vaulted lightly to the ground and stood before the lieutenant, his face beaded with sweat and his eyes glaring.

"Which way has he gone? could you tell?"

"Yes, sir, I trailed him out across the prairie yonder for three hundred yards or so. Then he took the Laramie road, and there the hoof tracks are all confused; but I knew he would never keep that line very long, and I'm almost certain I found the place where he turned off – a mile beyond the ford and well over the bluffs."

"Turned south toward the Sidney route?"

"Yes, sir, as though he was going to skirt the road a while, then make for Scott's Bluffs, keeping well west of the Sidney stage route. If he got on that he'd be likely to meet Captain Forrest's troop, sir."

"But you were in charge of the guard, sergeant. How came it that your sentries and you could let a man slip out with his horse and everything? The night was still, and they ought to have heard, even if they couldn't see."

"It was dark as pitch, lieutenant; the new moon was down before eleven o'clock; and as for hearing, the horses were uneasy and stamping or snorting all the while from midnight until two o'clock. Either they sniffed Indians, or the coyotes startled them. Then, the stream makes such a noise over the rocks, sir; and the lieutenant will remember we had no sentries out across the stream. The Indians couldn't stampede the herd from that direction."

"But how could he get his horse out from the herd without – "

"It wasn't there, sir," broke in the trooper, eager to defend himself against the imputation of carelessness or neglect. "Sergeant Graham will bear me out, sir, that Trumpeter Waller has been allowed to lariat his horse close by where he slept, and sometimes he'd loop the lariat by a light cord to his wrist. The captain allowed it, sir, and I supposed that the lieutenant would not care to change the captain's orders. Last night he slept, or rather made down his blanket and drove his picket-pin at the lower edge of the bivouac, sir, down there by that point; and Private Donovan tells me he moved still further down after dark. We could hear his horse whinnying a while – he didn't like being so far from the others. It's my belief, sir, he waited until all was quiet, and took some time when I was out on the prairie visiting the sentries to slip up the bank to where Sergeant Graham was sleeping, make his haul of the money, and then ride for all that he was worth as soon as he had got beyond ear-shot. It was easy enough to slip away through the stream without being heard."

"He has left his saddle-bags, blanket, and everything that was heavy, except his arms, behind him," said Graham moodily.

"And you really think that he has stolen the money and is trying to escape?" questioned the lieutenant.

"Indeed, sir," answered Dawson almost tearfully, "I don't know what to think. I hate to believe it of the boy we were all so fond of, though I used to plague him sometimes, just in fun – but I don't know what else to think. The men say that he has been a little wild at times, since he got from under the old man's care. But I don't know, sir; I wouldn't be apt to know what was going on in the barrack there at Robinson."