Trumpeter Fred: A Story of the Plains

That night Fred Waller slept fitfully on the open prairie, with "Big Jim" tethered close at hand. Saturday morning found him ten miles to the east and ten miles further from the...

The provost sergeant at Fort Robinson is a man who has seen and heard a great deal in the course of his army life, and who has the enviable faculty of knowing everything that is...

That afternoon the court room was crowded when Sergeant Dawson retook his seat and glanced for the first time at the prisoner before him. In front of the boy was a little table,...

It was on Friday morning, at daybreak, that the desertion of Trumpeter Waller was reported to Lieutenant Blunt. It was Friday night that the telegrams were sent to Laramie and t...

It was while stationed at old Fort Sanders that Waller's enthusiastic devotion to his new captain and his captain's family began. The former troop commander was ordered to the r...

It was Saturday night that, from far up the Platte, the news came to Captain Wallace of the dash made by the Sioux for the Sidney road. For two days previous he had been hunting...

Church was over. The bugler had just sounded mess call, and the soldiers in their neat "undress" uniform were just going in to dinner, when a man on a "cow pony"--one of those w...

Bad news travels fast. Captain Charlton at Fort Laramie was stunned by the tidings flashed to him by telegraph from Red Cloud. Despite the array of damaging evidence, he could n...

Fred Waller knew all the Valley of the North Platte as well as he did the trails around Sanders and Red buttes, and if he could succeed in eluding the Indian war parties, he wou...

Back at the cavalry camp there was no little subdued chat and wonderment among the troopers. Lounging in the shade of the trees along the stream, and puffing away at their pipes...

Returning to the open sunshine he made the circuit of the house, and on the north side stopped and studied with an interest he had not felt before. A stout post was still standi...

First Sergeant Graham had sworn to the disappearance of the money at the Niobrara and the fact that at daybreak the trumpeter had gone with his horse, arms, and equipments. He a...

There were only thirty in all that night when the troop reached the Niobrara and unsaddled along the grassy banks. Rather slim numbers for the duty to be performed, and with the...

Lieutenant Blunt's position on this bright July morning was most embarrassing. Personally he had known the pet trumpeter of "B" troop less than a year; for, as was said in the p...

Blunt turned sorrowfully away and began to pace slowly up and down the bank. Near at hand over a little camp-fire his coffee pot was bubbling and hissing enticingly, but even th...

The trumpet played the retreat, the sunset gun thundered its good-night to the god of day; the adjutant hurried over and received the reports of the companies, the staff, and ba...