When on the third day into the outskirts of Fort Wallace rode with their melancholy news the returning column, they found the little post hard-put. Sacks of sand had been piled up for additional barricades; mounds of earth betokened dug-outs. Twice the Indians had attacked it. Yes, the Cheyennes under Chief Roman Nose had insultingly cantered up, and when boldly had out-charged the two small companies of the Seventh, led by Captain (Colonel) Alfred Barnitz, they were met by a counter-charge from the Indians. Only after a hand-to-hand fight were Roman Nose’s warriors at last driven off. Sergeant Anderson thought that he had wounded Roman Nose. Half a dozen negro soldiers, on outpost picket duty, had dashed forward, waiting no orders, in a wagon, to help the cavalry; and the fort officers were loud in their praise of the act. So poor little Fort Wallace, alone amidst the burning or freezing plains, last post of the line to protect the road to Denver, was in sore straits.
[154]
The telegraph was two hundred miles east, at Fort Harker; even the stages had stopped running, save at long intervals, in pairs, when a guard of soldiers could be furnished; dispatches and supplies had been interrupted. Now the bad rations were rapidly growing worse, and scurvy and cholera were aiding the Indians. The scurvy was caused by lack of fresh meat and of vegetables; none of the doctors knew just why the cholera appeared; it seemed to come from the heat and the ground.
The condition of plucky Fort Wallace worried the general much. Succor must be brought in, of course. His own column had arrived pretty much exhausted by long marches; but he decided to take one hundred of the better mounted men and make a forced march to Fort Harker, for supplies. Captain Barnitz had not been able to spare any men for that purpose.
To Ned this was the most exciting march yet. It must be made mainly at night, for coolness and to evade the Indians. All the stage route from Wallace to Harker was said to be closely watched by the Cheyennes and Sioux. The stations were abandoned; or else the men had collected in their dug-outs, entered by underground passages from the station-house or the stable.
To approach these dug-outs, especially at night, was no pleasant matter. The first appeared as only a low mound of earth dimly outlined against the dusky[155] horizon. In fact, the scouts must get off their horses and stoop against the ground, to see it. On slowly filed the column—and as the next thing that happened, out from the mound spurted a jet of fire—another—two more; and to “Crack! Bang-bang! Crack!” bullets hummed viciously past the general, and Captain Hamilton (who commanded the column), and Ned himself.
“What’s the matter there?” sung out loudly the general and the captain. “We’re friends! White men! Cavalry!”
“Bang! Bang-bang! Crack!” And more bullets.
“Get your men out of here quick, captain. Those fellows are crazy,” directed the general. “Send somebody forward to parley, and tell ’em who we are.”
Lieutenant Tom Custer volunteered.
“You’d better crawl,” advised the general.
Colonel Tom advanced, in the dusk, toward the low mound beside the station buildings. Presently he had disappeared; he was crawling. “Bang!” greeted him a shot.
“Hello!” he hailed. “Don’t shoot. We’re cavalry, I tell you.”
“Come in close then; stand up an’ show yourself, if you’re white,” retorted a voice.
“I’m coming,” answered Tom. “I’m Lieutenant Custer of the Seventh.”
The lieutenant arrived, and the column, listening,[156] could hear him earnestly explaining. Now from the dug-out a light flickered, and the lieutenant shouted to the column to come on.
The dug-out held five station-men. They were waiting, on the outside, and even in the starlight they were sombre-eyed and haggard.
“What’s the meaning of this, sirs?” demanded the general, angrily.
“Well, cap’n, you see it’s this way,” explained the leader, a huge man with great full beard reaching to his waist. “We thought you was Injuns, an’ we ain’t takin’ any chances, these days.”
“But you heard us ............