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Jimmy Peters, the landlord's boy, scouting out to Folsom's, came back on the run, breathless from three-quarters of a mile of panting through that rare atmosphere, to say that he had just seen a couple of officers ride away to the fort, and old man Folsom with "the Engineer feller" were coming out the front gate. They'd be along in a few minutes.
Looking away southeastward from the porch of Folsom's homestead, one could see in the daytime a vista of shingled roofs and open yards, a broad valley, with a corral and inclosures on the southern edge of the town, but not a tree. To-night only dim black shadows told where roof and chimney stood, and not a sign could they see of the depot.
But Loring's men and horses both were sorely wearied now, and at sundown the little command reached a sheltered nook where grass, wood, and water were abundant. Here restfully, yet anxiously they bivouacked until three in the morning, and then once more, refreshed but alert and cautious, watchful of their prisoners and watchful of the signs ahead, on they sped for Folsom's ranch.
There are letters for you at the office." There were two one from Loomis, at Emory; one from Jessie, of all places in the world, at Folsom's ranch. This he read first. "We got here late night before last, after such an exciting journey, Marshall dear," said she, "and I can't begin to tell you all the strange things that have happened, for Mr.
"I did the work on a tundra claim," said Folsom; "the Lulu " "The Lulu!" Folsom's friend stared at him. "Haven't you heard about the Lulu? My God! Where you been, anyhow? Why, the Lulu's a mint! Guth is a millionaire and he made it all without turning a finger." Folsom's grip on the bar-rail tightened until his knuckles were white.
The travelers put up that night at the Tin Road-house, a comfortless shack sheathed with flattened kerosene cans, and Folsom's irritation at his new partner increased, for Harkness was loud, boastful, and blatantly egotistical, with the egotism that accompanies dense ignorance.
The surgeon said he must remain in bed at least a week, so meantime the troop packed up, sent its wagons ahead over the range, bade God speed to "F" as it passed through en route to the front, exchanged a volley of chaff and chewing tobacco over the parting game of "freeze out" fought to a finish on many an outspread saddle blanket, then, jogged on toward Gate City, making wide détour at the suggestion of the field officer in command at Frayne, that they might scout the Laramie plains and see that all was well at Folsom's ranch.
A fellow who didn't care to come to Emory and preferred rough duty up along the Platte must be lacking in some essential particular, thought the women folk, and at the very moment that Marshall Dean sat there at Hal Folsom's ranch, as brave and hardy and capable a young officer as ever forded the Platte, looking forward with pleasurable anticipations to those days to come at Emory, with Jessie Jessie and, of course, Pappoose so close at hand in town, there was gaining ground at the post an impression that the safety of the board of officers sent to choose the site of the new Big Horn post had been imperiled by Dean's weakening at a critical moment in presence of a band of probably hostile Sioux.
Folsom's eyeballs became living fire with the desperate gleam of the reckless chances of life. Cutthroat he might have been, but he was brave, and he proved the significance of Wade's attitude. "Pards, hyar's to luck!" he rang out, hoarsely, and with pantherish quickness he leaped for his gun.
The new General actually came, ostensibly to inspect the post, but spent twelve hours at Folsom's by Loring's side to the one devoted to Stevens, and everybody felt that there was a storm brewing that would break when finally the witnesses for the defense arrived and the Loring court could meet. But who would have dreamed there could be such dramatic scene before a military tribunal?
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