owed" he never felt so used up in his
life; so the kind-hearted post commander lugged forth a demijohn and
poured out two stiff noggins of whiskey, refreshed by which they retold
their tale. Miller "gave them the rein" for five minutes and then
cross-questioned, as a result of which proceeding he soon dismissed
them to the barracks and breakfast, and announced to Hatton and the
adjutant that there would be no change in the orders,--he didn't
believe one-fourth of their story. The stage, he said, wasn't due at
Eagle's Nest until four o'clock in the morning, and these men had
declared it burned at three. It was utterly improbable that it came
farther than Phillips's crossing of the Chugwater, where it was due at
midnight, and where long before that time all the hands at the station
had been warned, both by couriers and fugitives, that the Indians were
swarming up the valley. They had cut the telegraph-wire, of course, on
striking the road, early in the afternoon, and it was impossible to
tell just how things had been going; but he was willing to bet that the
stage was safe, despite the assertions of the ranchmen that they had
seen the blaze and heard the appalling shrieks of the victims. The
major's confidence, however, could not be shared by the dozen houses
full of women and children whose closest protectors were far away on
the fields where duty called them. Laramie was filled with white,
horror-stricken faces and anxious eyes, as the ladies flitted from door
to door before the call for guard-mounting, and "boomed" the
panic-stricken ranchmen's story until it reached the proportions of a
wholesale massacre and an immediately impending siege of the fort by
Red Cloud and all his band. Women recalled the fearful scene at Fort
Phil Kearney in 1866, when the same old chieftain, Mach-pe-a-lo-ta,
surrounded with a thousand warriors the little detachment of three
companies and butchered them within rifle range of the trembling wives
and children at the post; and so by the time the story reached the
doctor's kitchen it had assumed the dimensions of a colossal tragedy.
They were just gathering in the breakfast-room,--Nellie a trifle pale
and weary-looking, the doctor and Holmes a bit the worse for having sat
up so late and smoked so many cigars, but disposed to be jovial and
youthful for all that. Coffee was not on the table, and Robert failed
to respond to the tinkling of the little silver bell. Then sounds of
woe and lamentatio