United States or Ethiopia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Them sprigs of lieutenants down there," said he, "they're a surprising lot for learning virtue to a man. You take Balwin. Why, he ain't been out of the Academy only two years, and he's been telling me how card-playing ain't good for you. And what do you suppose he's been and offered Jarvis Cutler for a job? I'm to be wagon-master."
In the officers' quarters the captain rose regretfully from after-dinner digestion, and the three lieutenants sought their helmets with a sigh. Lieutenant Balwin had been dining an unconventional and impressive guest at the mess, and he now interrupted the anecdote which the guest was achieving with frontier deliberation. "Make yourself comfortable," he said.
Balwin covered the man with his rifle and called. The man turned his head, and seeing the rifle, sat up in his blanket. The squaw sat up also. Again the officer called, keeping his rifle steadily pointed, and the man dived like a frog over the bank. Like magic his blanket had left his limbs and painted body naked, except for the breech-clout.
One morning, after Lieutenant Balwin had become established at Fort Robinson, he was talking with his friend Lieutenant Powell, when Cutler knocked at the wire door. The wagon-master was a privileged character, and he sat down and commented irrelevantly upon the lieutenant's pictures, Indian curiosities, and other well-meant attempts to conceal the walk: "What's the trouble, Cutler?"
The man continued his limber flight, and they jumped down and followed, firing. They heard a yell on the plain above, and an answer to it, and then confused yells above and below, gathering all the while. The figure ran on above the river trail below the bank, and their bullets whizzed after it. "Indian!" asserted Balwin, panting. "Ran away, though," said Powell. "So'd you run.
The blue ranks marched to a single bugle the post was short of men and officers and the captain, with the released lieutenants, again sought digestion and cigars. Balwin returned to his guest, and together they watched the day forsake the plain. Presently the guest rose to take his leave.
There's a lone pine-tree right agin the edge." The wagon-master stopped. "I see all that," said Lieutenant Balwin, screwing the field-glasses. "There's a buck and a squaw lying under the tree." "Naw, sir," drawled Cutler, "that ain't no buck. That's him lying in his Injun blanket and chinnin' a squaw." "Why, that man's an Indian, Cutler. I tell you I can see his braids."
They had seen the fire from below, and on their way up the half-breed had passed them at a run. "Here's our point," said Cutler. "Will he hide with the Sioux, or will he take to the railroad? Well, that's my business more than being wagon-master. I'll get a warrant. You tell Lieutenant Balwin and somebody give me a fresh horse."
Balwin's tardy bullet threw earth over the squaw, who went flapping and screeching down the river. Balwin and Powell ran to the edge, which dropped six abrupt feet of clay to a trail, then shelved into the swift little stream. The red figure was making up the trail to the foot-bridge that led to the Indian houses, and both officers fired.
Cutler, hoping still to be wagon-master, wrote to Lieutenant Balwin, hearing in reply that the reinforcements would not arrive for two months. The session of the court came in one, and Cutler was the Territory's only witness. He gave his name and age, and hesitated over his occupation. "Call it poker-dealer," sneered Toussaint's attorney. "I would, but I'm such a fool one," observed the witness.
Word Of The Day