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Updated: May 19, 2025
Eastward and south westward the opposite bluffs cut off the view, and such Indians as watched them did so from the concealment of the ridges and ravines. Chrome's triumphant rejoicing of the early day was rapidly giving place to uneasiness. In the absence of rations even martial fame is an empty thing.
And half an hour later there came jogging wearily into camp, guided for a time only by the call, and finally met and escorted by the picket, a sergeant and trumpeter from old Tintop himself, and the letter they bore put an end even to Chrome's inertness. In brief, terse words it told the story.
The contrast between Major White's spirited handling of his battalion of foot and Major Chrome's listless management of a similar body of horse was vivid in the last degree.
It was a bitter pill to have to go down and consult with Canker, but he did not know what else to do. Noon found him, watched by the lurking Indians among the bluffs, still guarding his captured herd and waiting for Sanders to come along with the pack-train. But there was no dinner for Chrome's command that day, and, by nightfall, even the ponies were gone.
And when the dust-cloud settles on the flats south of the Minneconjou village, only one of "C" Troop remains to greet the eyes of the battalion adjutant, sent back with Major Chrome's impatient query as to why on earth the Eleventh doesn't come on. It is Sergeant Grant, who has toppled out of saddle dead.
It was the hat which Paul wore in Mr. Chrome's paint-shop. Everybody knew it, because it was daubed and spattered with paint. Mr. Noggin went to his work. He was a well-meaning man, but shallow-brained. He knew how to make good barrels, tubs, and buckets, but had no mind of his own.
It was just at the peep of day, after a glorious burst over the bounding turf, that Chrome's little battalion, some two hundred and forty strong, riding in broad column of fours, and guided by old Thunder Hawk himself, turned squarely to the left at the head of a long, dark, winding ravine, and, diminishing front to two abreast, and steadying down to the walk again, dove out of sight among the tortuous depths.
"They should have come to me," he said. "We're the ones in need," then sent him with an order to Canker, who, out on the right flank, was making the morning blue with blasphemy, and Sanders poured his tale into Canker's ears, and begged him to come and make Chrome understand the situation, and Canker replied that nothing short of a pile-driver could hammer an idea into a skull as thick as Chrome's, and nothing short of a blast get anything out of it.
This with Chrome's two troops not very far away and their own old colonel, with half the regiment, somewhere over in the hills to the southwest, they felt very well assured ought to be only a matter of a few hours. "It was big luck," said Truman, "that our little pack-train got in when it did. Ten minutes later and they'd have been cut off and massacred."
Chrome's shop, stopped, and looked round once more; but, seeing no one, raised a window and entered. The moon streamed through the windows, and fell upon the floor, making the shop so light that he had no difficulty in finding Mr. Chrome's paint buckets and brushes. Then, with a bucket in his hand, he climbed out, closed the window, and went to Miss Dobb's.
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