CHAPTER XXXIV.

TRAGEDY OF THE PLAIN.

Lieutenant Avery had been sent from Fort Leavenworth to Fort Laramie, thence to Fort Fetterman and on to Fort Phil Kearney. At each place he and his bride, both of whom were passionately fond of horseback riding, had taken long gallops into the surrounding country.

Before he had left the Yellowstone, to Lieutenant Avery had been confided a secret by a brother officer. This captain had asked young Avery not to mention the legend, which was of the country to the northward of Fort Phil Kearney. He had suggested that Avery, if he should be sent to that fort, should investigate, in a quiet way, the foundation of the Indian belief.

The story he told in detail was of fascinating interest to the lieutenant, who asked permission only to repeat it to his wife. The captain said it came to him from an Indian trailer who was familiar with that part of the Northwest, and said the Indians there told in whispers of a white queen, of Indian blood, who ruled the stars. They believed her to be the daughter of the moon, because of her pale beauty and great mass of yellow hair, which curled about her face like a halo.

This girl was said by the Indians to be of magnificent physical proportions and to fear nothing. She was supposed to be protected by the spirits, and great buffaloes and grizzly bears lay down and fawned at her feet. She was said by the red man to live upon a sacred mountain which none could scale, and to appear on its top in the moonlight conferring with the spirits. She was said to have a voice of such marvelous purity and sweetness that angels hovered near to listen and to applaud when she sang from the top of the mountain at evening. The Indians made offerings before the mountain and carried meat, fish, berries, and skins, which the rock itself swallowed up.

The captain said the Indian only had told him because he--the captain--had saved the red trailer’s life, and the latter had repeated the story as never before having been told for white men to scoff at. The red man had enjoined great secrecy, but the captain claimed that his curiosity had been excited, and he wanted some reliable white man to discover, if possible, upon what these Indian fairy tales were based.

Lieutenant Avery had promised to interest himself in the matter if he was ordered to Fort Phil Kearney. The country had been so graphically described to him that the young officer believed he could recognize the sacred mountain, if he should see it at a distance. It was said to be twenty miles from the fort in a northerly direction.

It was because of the captain’s story that the young lieutenant and his bride galloped northward one morning early, although warned by the officer in command to be constantly on the lookout for Indians, for they were becoming very troublesome in recent months. Although the couple had ridden out several miles in all directions during the first few days after their arrival, they had seen no Indian bands, and only an occasional lone red man after game or, more likely, headed for some fort or settlement for fire water or tobacco.

Avery was a daring fellow, and his young wife feared nothing when he was present. Their comradeship became proverbial at the military stations.

After the young couple rode away that morning their fate became a sealed book, and in due time the high army officials looked to Buffalo Bill to solve the mystery.

The Indians had suddenly appeared in numbers and constantly harassed the soldiers. Every mail brought news of atrocities all along the border of the Indian country. In this section the Cheyennes and Sioux were the terror of the frontiersman.

Proceeding at an easy canter the young lieutenant and his wife enjoyed the pure morning air. Here and there they would sometimes catch a glimpse of young coyotes playing at the mouth of a ravine. Overhead swung an eagle which could study from its height every crack in the surface of the plain, and note his foes and his intended prey. In the sage bush of the mesa and the willows along the creeks little birds were swinging and chattering merrily.

Up one long swell they rode and looked across to one still higher. From there, which seemed scarcely more than a mile away, they felt sure they must be able to view a vast stretch of country. Perhaps they could even see the wonderful sacred mountain. But that and another of these deceitful swells of the Western sea of sand and grass and sedge were passed without thought of turning back, and then Mrs. Avery exclaimed:

“Oh! see there! It is a castle!”

And, sure enough, there ahead of them, surmounting another of those “heights of land” or “divides,” gleaming, vari-colored in the sunlight, stood what at first glance might have been mistaken for some old-world castle of colossal size.

The lieutenant pulled his horse to a standstill and gazed in wonder and admiration.

“It is the sacred mountain,” he exclaimed. “And who can wonder that the simple savage peoples it with the children of his fancy, and tells among the tribes the dream of some romantic red yarn-spinner! We must go nearer and bring away some souvenirs to show, along with our description of this wonderful mountain palace and its pretty Indian legend.”

They rode on, causing their horses to leap gaping seams in the crust, and, after considerable difficulty, mounted the broad base which looked like an esplanade surrounding the citadel.

The commanding view of the country was delightful and the young couple lingered long in admiration.

Suddenly, from behind a bluff two miles to the westward, a score of mounted Indians swung into view.

The young lieutenant glanced at his bride and turned pale. Could their horses outfoot the wiry Indian war ponies? He feared the worst, and his throat grew parched as he pictured the fate of his wife in the hands of these red fiends.

The young woman had seen and understood. She looked confidently into the eyes of her husband. She had no fear, but the look she saw in his eyes sent a little quaver to her heart.

“Let us get away as quickly as possible,” he said. “Perhaps they have not seen us.”

He knew better, and as he lifted her to the saddle she felt his hand tremble.

For a half mile over the broken surface their progress was necessarily slow--and how rapidly those red devils lessened the intervening space!

The lieutenant pointed to a distant bluff and told his companion to keep her eyes fixed on that and “ride--ride! ride, as you never rode before!”

Swinging in behind her, Avery unslung his carbine and looked to the magazine. It was full.

“Eight Indians!” he whispered to himself, “and there are twenty-two.”

He looked to his revolver--“five more; still there are nine!”

He felt for his knife--“could he last till nine were down, if--if he held her image in his mind?”

Somehow he felt that even death could not conquer if her life and honor were at stake.

Into the hardened frame of the college athlete he felt the steel of “I _must_ win” creeping.

He watched the oncoming yelling horde and measured with trained eye their proportional gain.

He glanced at the fair one, who was riding so nobly, and then he saw red. His nerves became like piano wires and his muscles like bands of steel.

Presently he urged his horse forward until nearly neck and neck with that of his bride. He reached over and touched her soft, white hand and looked into her eyes.

“Ride, Dottie! For Heaven’s sake ride, and let nothing stir you from the saddle! Don’t spare the horse! Don’t be alarmed if they begin to shoot, and don’t look back, whatever you do! Remember, Dot; don’t look back! I am going to stop some of their ponies.”

Again he dropped back and watched their pursuers.

Now the savages were trying their rifles, but the distance was yet too great.

He allowed Dot to gain rapidly on him, and then suddenly pulling his horse to a dead stand, he wheeled and threw his carbine to his shoulder.

As the first cartridge exploded a pony leaped sidewise and fell headlong. Its rider rolled over and over, trampled upon by those bounding after.

Again the carbine spoke and a red man threw up his arms and plunged from the back of his pony.

The lieutenant now put spurs to his steed and raced madly after the brave little woman in advance.

“Six more and then--then they’ll have to come nearer for their medicine,” murmured the lieutenant, as he lovingly patted his carbine.

Bullets now sprinkled plentifully about them, and without pausing in his headlong flight, Avery responded, now and then, by dropping a red man from the saddle.

How long could his wife’s horse hold out at this killing pace? That was uppermost in his mind. His own noble animal was fast becoming winded.

He knew that only half the distance to the fort was covered. If he only could hold the fiends in check until she was beyond their reach, it was all he would ask.

He wondered if the clatter of the rifles behind and rain of bullets had sent terror to her heart.

She held the same poise and she had not once looked back. If he could only offer her a few words of comfort.

And then came the final catastrophe! Even as he gazed lovingly at the trim little figure in the saddle her horse plunged into a prairie dog’s hole and fell with a broken leg.

The fair rider struck the ground and lay as if dead.

Lieutenant Avery threw himself from the saddle and his horse dashed on. His wife’s animal was thrashing about pitifully and threatening momentarily to flounder upon that beloved form.

“Here’s one for you, poor little Fan!” he said, pulling his revolver and shooting the suffering horse through the head.

“And I must save one for you, too, Dot,” he said, to the inanimate form of his wife, as he picked her up and placed her behind the body of the horse where the Indian bullets could not reach her.

Kneeling there, the carbine now began to talk rapidly and several more ponies galloped away riderless.

He did not mind the bullets spatting about him in the sand and into the carcass of the horse--they could not reach her.

Yes, he could feel a burning sensation in his shoulder; a red-hot band suddenly encircled his body; blood was running into his eyes from a “scratch” on the head, somewhere.

The carbine was empty now and the revolver came into play. That, too, was empty except for one chamber--he had carefully kept count.

The savages were almost upon him, yelling, shooting, wielding knives and tomahawks, as he arose to his full height and drew his last weapon, his knife.

“They’re too many for me,” he said, “but they shall not have you, Dot!” and he took careful aim at the white, upturned brow.

“I saved this for you----”

The sentence and the deed were never completed, for a bullet sent him headlong, as the red riders swarmed about.