Many an unexpected event has resulted from the formal, concise orders
issued by the War Department. Cupid in the disguise of Mars has thus
frequently toyed with the fate of men, sending many a gallant soldier
forward, all unsuspecting, into a battle of the heart.
It was no pleasant assignment to duty which greeted First Lieutenant
Donald Brant, commanding Troop N, Seventh Cavalry, when that regiment
came once more within the environs of civilization, from its summer
exercises in the field. Bethune had developed into a somewhat
important post, socially as well as from a strictly military
standpoint, and numerous indeed were the attractions offered there to
any young officer whose duty called him to serve the colors on those
bleak Dakota prairies. Brant frowned at the innocent words, reading
them over again with gloomy eyes and an exclamation of unmitigated
disgust, yet there was no escaping their plain meaning. Trouble was
undoubtedly brewing among the Sioux, trouble in which the Cheyennes,
and probably others also, were becoming involved. Every soldier
patrolling that long northern border recognized the approach of some
dire development, some early coup of savagery. Restlessness pervaded
the Indian country; recalcitrant bands roamed the "badlands";
dissatisfied young warriors disappeared from the reservation limits and
failed to return; while friendly scouts told strange tales of weird
dances amid the brown Dakota hills. Uneasiness, the spirit of
suspected peril, hung like a pall over the plains; yet none could
safely predict where the blow might first descend.
Brant was not blind to all this, nor to the necessity of having in
readiness selected bodies of seasoned troops, yet it was not in soldier
nature to refrain from grumbling when the earliest detail chanced to
fall to him. But orders were orders in that country, and although he
crushed the innocent paper passionately beneath his heel, five hours
later he was in saddle, riding steadily westward, his depleted troop of
horsemen clattering at his heels. Up the valley of the Bear Water,
slightly above Glencaid,--far enough beyond the saloon radius to
protect his men from possible corruption, yet within easy reach of the
military telegraph,--they made camp in the early morning upon a wooded
terrace overlooking the stage road, and settled quietly down as one of
those numerous posts with which the army chiefs sought to hem in the
dissatisfied redmen, and learn early the extent of their hostile plans.
Brant was now in a humor considerably happier than when he first rode
forth from Bethune. A natural soldier, sincerely ambitious in his
profession, anything approximating to active service instantly aroused
his interest, while his mind was ever inclined to respond with
enthusiasm to the fascination of the plains and the hills across which
their march had extended. Somewhere along that journey he had dropped
his earlier burden of regret, and the spirit of the service had left
him cheerfully hopeful of some stern soldierly work. He watched the
men of his troop while with quip and song they made comfortable camp;
he spoke a few brief words of instruction to the grave-faced first
sergeant, and then strolled slowly up the valley, his own affairs soon
completely forgotten in the beauty of near-by hills beneath the golden
glory of the morning sun. Once he paused and looked back upon ugly
Glencaid, dingy and forlorn even at that distance; then he crossed the
narrow stream by means of a convenient log, and clambered up the
somewhat steep bank. A heavy fringe of low bushes clung close along
the edge of the summit, but a plainly defined path led among their
intricacies. He pressed his way through, coming into a glade where
sunshine flickered through the overarching branches of great trees, and
the grass was green and short, like that of a well-kept lawn.