FOES IN AMBUSH.

Southern Cross, Volume 2, Issue 31, 27 October 1894, Page 13

FOES IN AMBUSH.

BY CAPTAIN CHARLES KING Author of ‘I he Deserter ,’ ‘ The Colonel s Daughter ,’ ‘ A Soldier s Secret ,’

[ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.] CHAPTER XII.

It is a sultry day, early in July, and tLe sun is westward through a fleet of w T hite, wind-driven clouds that send a host of deep shadows sweeping and chasing over the wild prairie. It is one of the routes to the Black Hills of Dakota — the waggon road from the Union Pacific at Sidney by way of old Port Robinson, Nebraska, where a big garrison of some- fourteen companies of cavalry and infantry keep watch and ward over the Sioux Nation, which, one year previous, was in the midst of the maddest, most successful war it ever waged against the white man. Here are cavalrymen at their accustomed task, and though it is five years since we saw them under the heat and glare of the Arizona sun, there are familiar faces among those that greet us. A squad of a dozen, commanded by a vef eran*, on whc se worn blouse the chevrons of a first sergeant are stitched, booted and spurred, with carbines slung and saddles packed, are standing or sitting at ease, holding the reins-of their sleepy chargers and waiting apparently for the passengers who are to start in the stout-built ‘ Concord,’ drawn by four sleek, strong-looking mules, now standing in the shade near the canvas homestead of the commanding officer.

Presently two soldiers, following a young mad in civilian dress, come forward lugging a little green-painted iron safe, and this with a swing and a thud, they deposit in the waggon. ‘ You’ve seen that before, sergeant,’ laughs the civilian. ‘ I have, bedad, an’ when it had a heap more green inside and less outside, than it has now. Faith, I never expected to see it again nor the paymaster either. We were both bored through and through. ’Twas our good habits that saved us. Sure your predecessor was a game fighter, Mr Barnes, if he was a tenderfoot.’ As the sergeant speaks a little group of officers issues from the battalion commander’s tent. Foremost among them, in loose fl'apping raiment and broad-brimmed hat and green goggles, the round and portly shape of Major Plummer, the paymaster. ‘Well, old man,’ says the cavalry leader. ‘ You can hardly get into a scrape twixt here and Sidney. We’ve seen you through all right so far; now we’ll go on about our scouting. "Your old friend Feeny asked permission to see you safely to the

railway.’ ‘ What, Feeny P and a first sergeant too F I’m honored indeed ! Well, sergeant,’ he adds, catching sight of the grizzled red face under the old scouting hat. ‘ I’ll promise to let you run the machine • this time and not interfere, no matter what stories come to us of beauty in distress. All ready ?’ The group of officers presently disperses, two tall lieutenants strolling off together and throwing themselves under the spreading- branches of a big cottonwood. One of them darker and and somewhat heavier built now, but muscular, active, powerful, is Drummond the other a younger man by a brace of years, tall, blueeyed, blonde-bearded, wealing on his scouting blouse the straps of a second lieutenant, is our old friend Wing, and Wing does not hesitate in presence of his superior officer such is the bond of friendship between them, to draw from his breast-pocket a letter just received that day when the courier met them at the crossing of the Pawnee, and to lose himself in its contents.

1 All well with the madam and the boy?* queries Drummond, after the manner of the frontier when at last Wing folds and replaces his letter, a happy light in his brave blue eyes.

‘ All well Paquita says that Harvey has captured the entire household and that Grandpa Harvey is his abject slave. There isn’t anything in Chicago too good for, that two-year-old. They’ve had them photo’d together, the boy on his grandfather’s shoulder.’ ‘ Nothing new. Bless the dear old lady ! You should have seen her happiness in Harvey. She could hardly bear to let the little fellow out of her arms, and, how she cried and clung to him when we parted at the Oakland wharf P Poor little mother! She has never given up the hope of seeing that scapegrace of an uncle of mine again.’

‘ Has she ever heard how he tried to murder his nephew ?’ queries Drummond, grimly.

‘Never. Nor have we the faintest trace since the break up of the old Morales gang at Pronteras. They went all to pieces after their encounter with you and ‘C ’ Troop. What a chain of disasters ! Lost their leaders and three of their best men lost their rendezvous at Moreno’s, lost horses and mules for what our men didnlt get the Apaches did, and won absolutely nothing except the twenty-four hour possession of a safe they hadn’t time to open. Whereas I got my commission and my wife. Peeny honourable wounds and mention and the chevrons of a first sergeant ; Costigan got his sergeant’s stripes and the medal of honour, Murphy his sergeanty, Walsh and Latham medals and corporalship and the only fellow who didn’t get a blessed thing but scars was the commanding lieutenant your worthy self thanks to wiseacres at Washington who say Indian fighting isn’t war.’

‘ Didn’t I get a letter of thanks from the Department Commander P’ grins Drummond. ‘ What else could I expect ?’ ‘ What else ?’ is Wing’s impulsive rejoinder. Then, as though mindful of some admonition, quieting at once and speaking in a tone less suggestive. ‘Well, in your case I suppose you can be content with nothing, but bless me if I could.’ Then, suddenly rising and respectfully touching his weather-beaten hat, he salutes a stoutly built, soldierly-looking man in rough scouting dress, whose only badge of rank is the tarnished shoulder strap with the silver leaf on the shabbiest old fatigue coat to be found in the battalion, most of whose members, however, wear no coat at all. ‘Hullo, Wing-! didn’t mean to disturb your siesta —Drummond here?’ says the commander in his off-hand way, and at the sound of the wellknown voice, Drummond, too, is on his feet in a twinkling. ‘ Seen the papers that came in to-day ?’ queries the colonel, obliterating from his sentences all verbal superfluities. ‘ Not yet, sir; any news ?’ ‘ Trouble in Chicago. The railway strike has taken firm hold there. Police and Militia both seem unable to do anything against the mob, and the authorities are stampeded. Your home, isn’t it ? ‘ It was once, sir, but that was many a long year ago.’ ‘ W-e-ell,’ says the colonel thoughtfully, stroking his grizzled beard, ‘it’s my belief there is worse to come. It isn’t the striking railway hands that will do the mischief, but every time there’s a strike all the thieves and thugs and blackguards in the community turn out. That’s what happened in Pittsburg,—that’s what’s the matter in Chicago. It looks to me as though the plea for regular troops would have to be granted.’ ‘ Think we can get there, sir ?’ asks Wing eagerly. ‘ Don’t say. We’re supposed to have our hands full covering this section of Nebraska, though I haven’t heard of a hostile Sioux this summer. Besides they have a full regiment of infantry at Omaha and along the lakes. Doesn’t Mrs Wing say anything about the trouble ?’

‘ Her letter is four days old, sir, and only says her father looks npon the situation as one of much gravity, but women rarely see troubles of this

kind until they come to their door.’ ‘ Well, this is the ‘ Times ’ of two days ago. It reached Sidney at breadfast-time this morning, and Hatton brought two or three copies out when he came with the mail. I thought you two might be interested,’ and with that the colonel goes strolling along down the bank of the stream, pausing here and there to chat with some officer or give some order relative to the grazing of the h orses —one of his especial ‘ fads.’ And that evening, just as the sun disappears over the low bluff line to the west and the horses are being picketed for the night, while from a score of cook fires the appetizing savor of antelope steak and the aroma of ‘ soldier coffee ’ rise upon the air, a little dust-cloud sweeps out from the ravine into which disappears the Sidney Road and comes floating across the prairie. Keen-eyed troopers quickly note the speed with which it travels towards them. Officers and men who have been looking to the security of their steeds pause now on their way to supper and stand gazing through the gloaming at the coming cloud. In five minutes the cause is apparent. Two swift riders, urging their horses to full speed, racing for the ford. Five minutes more and the foremost throws himself from the saddle in midst of the group at the colonel’s tent and hands that officer a telegraphic despatch, which is received, epened, read with imperturable gravity, then pocketed. To the manifest chagrin of the courier he simply says : —‘ W-e-ell, I’m going to supper. You ail’d better have yours too.’

‘ Why, blame his old hide !’ pants the courier later, ‘ the quartermaster told me never to lose a second but get that to him bofore dark. The hull outfit’s ordered to Chicago by special train.’ And so, finding the secret out, the colonel presently put aside professional sang froid and condescends to be human again. ‘ Get a hearty supper all round, gentlemen —then—boots and saddles, and for Sidney.’ Two days later a fierce July sun is pouring down on a flood of humid, moisture-laden heat upon a densely packed sweltering mass of turbulent men, many of them flushed with triumph, for the ill-armed, illdisciplined militia of the seventies—a pigmy force as compared with the ‘ Guardsmen ’ of to-day —has been scatterd to the winds; the sturdy police have been swept from the streets and driven to the shelter of the stations. Mob law rules supreme. Dense clouds of smoke are rising from sacked warehouses and from long trains of burning cars. Here and there little groups of striking employes have gathered, holding aloof from the reckless and infuriated mob, appalled at the sight of riot and devastation resulting from their illadvised action. Many of their number, conscious of their responsibility for the scenes of bloodshed and pillage and wanton destruction of property, public and private, would now gladly undo their work and array themselves among the few defenders of the great corporations they have served for years and deserted at the call o± leaders whom they never saw and in a cause they never understood, but there can be ‘ no footsteps backward’ now. The tide of riot has engulfed the great city of the West, and the majesty of the law is but the laughing stock of the lowest of the masses. Huddled in their precinct stations the police are bandaging their bruised and broken heads. Rallied at their armories the more determined of the militia are preparing to defend them on their colours against the anticipated attack of fifty times their force in ‘ toughs ’ — Chicago’s vast accumulation of outlawed, vagabond, or criminal men. The city fathers are well nigh hopeless. Merchants and business men gather on 'Change with blanched faces and the oft-repeated query ‘ What next ? What next?’ Every moment brings tidings of fresh dismay. New fires, and a crippled and helpless department, for the rioters slash their hose

and laugh their efforts to scornP A gleam of hope shone in at ten o’clock and the Board room rang with cheers at the President’s announcement that the regulars were coming —a whole regiment of infantry from Omaha was already more than half way. But the gleam died out at noon when, with white lips an official read the telegram saying the strikers had ‘ side-tracked ’ the special trains bearing the soldiers and they could not advance another mile.

And so they had on one road, but there are others, better guarded, better run. The sun is well over to the west again, Chicago is resigning itself to another night of horror, when from the suburbs there comes gliding in to the city the oddest-looking railway train that has been seen for years: a sight at which a host of riotous men break away from the threatening front, dragging with them those ‘ pals ’ whom drink has either maddened or stupefied ; a sight which skulking blackguards who have picked up paving-stones, drop them into the gutters and think twice before they lay hand on their revolver butts. No puffing engine hauls the train : the motor power is at the rear. First and foremost is a platform car —open, uncovered, but over its buffer glisten the barrels of the dreaded Gatling gun, and around the gun — can these be soldiers ?—covered with dust and cinders, hardly a vestige of uniform among them, in the shabbiest of old felt bats, in hunting shirts of flannel or buckskin, in scout-worn trousers and Indian legging, but with their prairie-belts crammed with copper cartridges, their brawny brown hands grasping the browner carbine, their keen eyes peering straight into the faces of the thronging crowds, their bronze features set and stern, the whole car fairly bristles with men who have fought tribe after tribe of savage foes from Yellowstone to the Senora line, and who hold a savage mob in utter contempt. Here by the hub of the Gatling’s wheel stands old Feeny, close at the elbow of darkfaced Drummond. ‘C ’ Troop’s first platoon ‘ mans ’ the Gatling gun, and under its old leader of the Arizona campaigns ‘ leads the procession ’ into the Garden City of the ante-bellum days. By Drummond’s side is a railway official gazing ahead to see that every switch is properly set, and signalling back to the engineer when to slow, when to come confidently ahead. Behind the platform car come ordinary baggage and passenger coaches—black with men in the same rough, devil-may-care scouting rig. All but their horses and horse equipments left with the quartermaster at the Sidney station, the battalion has been run to Chicago exactly as it came from the plains, and Chicago’s toughs, who would have hooted and jeered, perhaps, at sight of polished brasses, and natty uniforms, recoil, bewildered, before this gang of silent and disciplined ‘jayhawkes.’ Steadily, silently, ominously, the train rolls along. As it is rounding a curve several uglylooking fellows are seen running at speed towards the switch-lever at the next street crossing. Excitedly the railway man clutches Drummond’s elbow and points. Two troopers are kneeling close at hand.

‘ Shoot if they touch that switch,’ says Drummond, and instantly the locks click as the hammers are brought to full cock. The foremost runner is almost at the iron stand ; his hand is outstretched to grasp it, when a warring cry reaches his ears. Glancing back he sees his fellows scattering to either side, and one look at the smooth rolling car reveals the cause : two carbines are levelled at him, and flat he throws himself on his face and rolls to one side amid derisive laughter from the strikers themselves. A little further on a knot of surly rioters are gathered on the track. No warning whistle sounds, and the clanging bell is too far to the rear to attract their attention. ‘ Out of the way there!’ is the rough, bluntlyspoken order. No time this for standing on ceremony. Vengeful and scowling the men spring aside, some stooping to pick up rock, others reach-

lag- into their pockets for the ready pistol, but rocks are dropped and pistols undrawn as the trains whirls rapidly by and wrath gives place to mystification. Who —what are these strange, silent, stubby-bearded, suntanned fellows in slouch hats, flannel shirts, and the worn old black belts over the shoulder. Even the engine has its guard, and half-a-dozen of them, perched upon the tender, have levelled their carbines to flank and rear, ready to drive into the crowd the instant a brick is heaved or a trigger pulled. And so into the great stone station they roll, and here they find the platforms jammed with citizens -some drawn by curiosity, some active sympathisers in the strike, and many of them prominent leaders of the mob surging in the crowded thoroughfare without. The train has hardly come to a stand when from every direction the mass of outsiders is heaving up around it.

‘ Now, Peeny, clear the platform to the left. Take the other side, Wing,’ says Drummond, quietly, to the officer at the front door of the next car. In the very fraction of a second the first sergeant and a dozen men have leaped from the deck and straight into the heart of the crowd they go. “ Back with ye ! Out o’ this ! are the stern determined orders emphasised by vigorous prods with the heavy carbine butts. Astonished at methods so prompt and decided, there is only such restistance as the weight and bulk of those in the rear can offer, and that is but momentary. The sight of those gleaming Gatling barrels, the stern brief orders and the rapid, confident advance combine to overcome all idea of resistance. On both sides, at the head of the train, the huge crowd, half laughing, half suffocating, is heaved back upon itself and sent like a great human wave rolling up upon the iron lattice at the office end. Meantime, without an instant’s delay, the battalion springs out from the cars —forms rank on the north platform, counts fours, and then, arms at right shoulder, away it goes with swinging steady tramp around the rear of its train, across the parallel rows of rails and in another moment, greeted by tremendous cheers from the occupants of long lines and high tiers of stores, offices, business blocks, the grimy, dusty, war-worn campaigners come striding down the crowded street. How the people shout ! Staid old burghers, portly business men, trot panting alongside waving their hats and cheering themselves hoarse. ‘ Them fellers hasn’t no bouquets in their guns,’ is the way a street gamin expresses it.

‘ Whither are they going ?’—‘What have they first to do ?’ is the cry. Police officials ride now with the captain temporarily in command : a carriage has whisked the colonel over to head-quarters, but haste ! haste ! is the word. On they go, silent, grim, with the alkali dnst of the ISTorth Platte crossing still coating their rusty garb. A great swing bridge looms ahead : a dozen police deploy on either side and check the attending crowd. Over they go at rente step and then, turning to the right, tramp on down a roughly-paved street, growing dim and dimmer ever moment -with stifling smoke. Presently they are crossing- snake-like lines of bose, gashed and useless ; passing fire apparatus standing unhitched and neglected ; passing’ firemen exhausted and listless. Then occasional squads of scowling- men give way before their steady tramp, and are driven down alley-ways and around street corners by reviving police. Then the head of column turns to the left and comes full upon a scene of tumult —a great building in flames, a great mob surging about it defying police interference and bent apparently on gutting the structure from roof to cellar and pillaging the neighbouring stores. iSTow, men of the —tb, here’s work cut out for you ! Drive that mob, bloodlessly if you can, bloodletting if you must! The Colonel is again at the head. _AII are on foot.

‘ Clear this street! Out of the way !’ are the orders, and for a half block or so clear it is. Then comes the first opposition. On a pile of lumber a tall, stalwart man in grizzled beard and slouching hat—evidently a leader ot mark among the mob —is shouting orders and encouragement. What he says cannot be heard, but now, tightly wedged between the rows of buildings, the mob is at bay, and yelling mad response to the frantic appeals and g-esticula-tions of their leader, at least two thousand infuriated and reckless men have faced the little battalion surging- steadily up the narrow street. ‘Vou may have to fire, Drummond,’ says the Colonel, coolly. ‘ Get in rear of your company.’ Obedient, the tall lieutenant turns and follows his chief along the front of his advancing line so as to pass around the flank. He is not fifty paces from the piles on which the mob leader, with half a dozen half drunken satellites, is shouting his exhortations. Just as the lieutenant’s arm is grazing old Peeny’s elbow as he passes the first sergeant’s station a brick comes hurtling through the air, strikes full upon the back of the officer’s unprotected he?d, and sends him, face foremost, into the muddy street. In the yell of triumph that followed Wing’s voice for an instant is unheard. Obedient to its principle, ‘ Never load until about to fire,’ the battalion’s carbines are still empty, but all on a sudden 0 troop halts. ‘ With ball cartridges load !’ is Wing’s hoarse, vengeful order. ‘ Now aim low when I give the word. Fire hy company. Company , heady !’ and like one, the hammers click. But no command. ‘ Aim,’ follows. ‘ Look out ! Look out ! For goodness sake, dont fire ! Out of the way !’ are the frantic yells from the throats of the mob. Away they go. Scattering down sidestreets, alley-ways, behind lumber piles, everywhere —anywhere. Many even throw themselves flat on their faces to escape the expected tempest of lead. ‘ Don’t fire,’ says the Colonel, mercifully. ‘ Forward, double time, and give them the butt. We’ll support you.’ Down from the lumber piles come the erstwhile truculent leaders. ‘ Draw cartridge, men,’ orders Wing, in rage and disappointment. ‘ Now, butts to the front, and at them. Forward /’ and out he leaps to take the lead, dashing straight into the thick of the scattering mob, his men after him. There is a minute of wild yelling, cursing-, of resounding blows and trampling feet —and in Ihe midst of it all a single shot and when Wing, breathless, is finally halted two squares further on, only a dozen broken headed wretches remain along the street to represent the furious mob that confronted them a few minutes before. Only these, and one writhing, bleeding, form, around which half a dozen policemen are curiously gathered, and at whose side the battalion surg-eon has just knelt. ‘ He’s shot through and through,’ is his verdict, presently. ‘No power can save him. Who is he P’ ‘ About the worst and most dangerous ringleader of riot this town has known, sir,’ is the answer of one of the police officials. ‘Fo one knew where he came from either—or his real name.’

And then in his dying agony the fallen demagogue turns, and the other side of his twitching face comes upjoermost. Even through the thin, grizzly beard there is plainly seen an ugly, jagged scar stretching from ear to chin.

‘ This isn’t his first row by any number of means, if it is his last,’ says a sergeant of police. ‘ Look at that ! Who shot him, anyhow ?’ ‘ I did,’ is the cool, prompt answer, and Sergeant Feeny raises his hand to his carried carbine and stands attention as he sees the surgeon kneeling there. ‘ I did—-and just in the nick of time. He had drawn a bead on our lieutenant, but even if he hadn’t I’d have downed him and so would any man in that company yonder,’ and Feeny points to where ‘0 ’ troop stands resting after its charge. ‘You knew him, then P’

‘ Knew him instantly, as a deserter, thafe, highwayman, and murderer — knew him as Private Bland in Arizona, and would know him anywhere by that scar.’ 4 ls he badly hurt, doctor P That was an awful whack.’ ‘ It isn’t the lieutenant, sir,’ says Feeny, respectfully, but with strange significance in his tone as he draws a policeman aside. ‘ Look !’ And Wing, bending over, gives one glance into the dying face, then covers his eyes with his hands and turns blindly, dizzily away. That evening Jim Drummond is lying on a most comfortable sofa which has been rolled close to the casement where every whiff of the cool, lake breeze can fan his face, and where, glancing languidly around, he contrasts the luxury of these surroundings with the rude simplicity of the life he has lived and loved so many years. Gray-haired George Harvey, kindly Mrs Stone, bis sister, blissful, beautiful Fanny Wing with burly baby Harvey in her arms and her proud soldierly husband by her side, and a tall, lovely, silent girl have all been there to minister to his need and bid him thrice welcome and make him feel that here, if anywhere on earth, he is at home. And here the battalion surgeoii and his family physician unite in declaring he must remain until released by their order, and here for three days and nights he is nursed and petted and made so much of that he is unable to recognise himself —and here sister Puss comes to cry over and kiss and bless him, and, in her turn, to be made much of and forbidden to leave, and then, after her big brother’s return to duty with the battalion, now being fed and feted by all the North Side, he must needs come over every evening to see her. t-isterly pride in her big brother is so beautiful to see —so is her self-abnegation for, somehow or other, though he comes to see her he stays to look at Ruth Harvey, shy, silent, and beautiful, and soon as though by common cen'sent, that corner of the big parlour is given up to those two, the tall, stalwart trooper and the slender, willowy girl. And one evening- he comes earlier than usual in manifest discomposure, and soon it transpires that important orders have reached him. Fanny turns pale. 4 Are you —all— ordered back ?’ she cries, and is for an instant radiant at his assurance that the order involves only himself. He is called to Department Headquarters to report in person to the general comanding, who is about to make a tour through the mountains in northwestern Wyoming and wants Drummond with the escort. She is radiant only until she catches sight of her sister’s face. It is not so very warm an evening-, yet she marshals the household out on the steps, out on the back varandah anywhere out of that parloui, where, just as the faint notes of the trumpets ax-e hear-d, sounding their marshal ‘ tattoo,’ and just as Lieutenant Wing-, returning from a tip-toed visit to his sleeping boy and escaped for the moment from the vigilance of his wife, now happens to go blundering in ■ —■ there is heard from the dimly-lighted corner near the piano the sound of subdued sobbing, the sound of a deep manly voice,, low, soothing, wondrously happy, the sound a sound • —■ indesci’ibabie in appropriate English yet never misunderstood a sound at which Wing- halts short, pauses one instant ‘irresolute; then faces about and g-oes tip-toeing out into the brilliant sheen of the vestibule lamps into the brilliant gleam of his fond wife’s questioning, reproachful eyes. And, for all answer, it being perhaps too public a spot for other demonstration, Wing simply hugs himself. That night, under the arching roof of the great railway station the comrades, so long united by the ties of such respect and affection as are engendered only by years of danger and hax-dship borne in common, and now so happily united by a closer tie, are pacing the platform absorbed in parting words.

‘ Jim, think what a load I’ve had" to carry all these five years and forbidden by my good angel to breathea word of it to you.’ ‘ I can’t realise my own happiness,. old man. I never dreamt that, after she grew up and saw for herself, shewould remember her girlish fancy or hu 7e another thought for me. ‘ I know you didn’t. Yet Fan says that ever since the voyage in the Newbern little Ruth has never had a thought for anybody else.’ There is a moment’s silence, then. Wing speaks again. ‘ There has not been time formother’s letter to reach me. I had to write, of course, and tell her of the fate that at last bofel him. Do you know I feel as though after all it wasmy hand that did it.’ ‘ How so ?’ ‘ Feeny says he knew him the instant that side of his face was turned to him —the side my knife laid open years ago. That was a fatal scar.’ The End.