lad.
"Don't take me back to Frayne!"

CHAPTER XIV

A VANISHED HEROINE

Within forty-eight hours of the coming of Trooper Kennedy with his
"rush" despatches to Fort Frayne, the actors in our little drama had
become widely separated. Webb and his sturdy squadron, including Ray and
such of his troop as still had mounts and no serious wounds, were
marching straight on for the Dry Fork of the Powder. They were two
hundred fighting men; and, although the Sioux had now three times that
many, they had learned too much of the shooting powers of these seasoned
troopers, and deemed it wise to avoid close contact. The Indian fights
well, man for man, when fairly cornered, but at other times he is no
true sportsman. He asks for odds of ten to one, as when he wiped out
Custer on the "Greasy Grass," or Fetteman at Fort Phil Kearny,--as when
he tackled the Gray Fox,--General Crook--on the Rosebud, and Sibley's
little party among the pines of the Big Horn. Ray's plucky followers had
shot viciously and emptied far too many saddles for Indian equanimity.
It might be well in any event to let Webb's squadron through and wait
for further accessions from the agencies at the southeast, or the big,
turbulent bands of Uncapapas and Minneconjous at Standing Rock, or the
Cheyennes along the Yellowstone.

So back went Lame Wolf and his braves, bearing Stabber with them,
flitting northward again toward the glorious country beyond the
"Chakadee," and on went Webb, with Blake, Gregg, Ray and their juniors,
with Tracy to take care of such as might be wounded on the way; and,
later still, the old post surgeon reached the Elk with guards and
hospital attendants, and on the morrow row began his homeward march with
the dead and wounded,--a sad and solemn little procession. Only twenty
miles he had to go, but it took long hours, so few were the ambulances,
so rough the crossings of the ravines; and, not until near nightfall was
the last of the wounded,--Lieutenant Field,--borne in the arms of
pitying soldiers into the old post hospital, too far gone with fever,
exhaustion and some strong mental excitement to know or care that his
strange plea had been, perforce, disregarded;--to know or care later
that the general himself, the commander they loved and trusted, was
bending over him at dawn the following day. Ordering forward all
available troops from the line of the railway, "the Chief" had stopped
at Laramie only long enough for brief conferen