te. 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
_detour_ 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. This _detour_ was duly reported to the peppery veteran
at Fort Emory, an old colonel whose command was by this time reduced
from "headquarters, field, staff and band," six companies of infantry
and four troops of cavalry, to the band and two desperately overworked
companies of foot. "Two nights in bed" were all his men could hope for,
and sometimes no more than one, so grievous was the guard duty. Hence
"old Pecksniff," his adjutant and quartermaster and his two remaining
companies saw fit to take it as most unkind in Lieutenant-Colonel Ford
to authorize that diversion of Dean's, and highly improper on Dean's
part to attempt it. By this time, too, there was in circulation at Emory
a story that this transfer of "C" to interior lines and away from
probable contact with the Sioux was not so much that it had done far
more than its share of that arduous work, completely using up its
captain, as that, now the captain was used up, the authorities had their
doubts as to the "nerve" of the lieutenant in temporary command. 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.
Burleigh had plainly intimated as much to his chief clerk and Colonel
Stevens, and when Loring and Stone came through a day or two later and
questions were asked about that meeting, the