New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1886-06-02

might fail to comprehend, she had
understood the touch of those baby
lips.
With a kiss that was even more ten
der than usual. Marion Heriot took
her boy on her knees, and told him
fairy stories until dinner time, to the
| utter neglect of the undarned stock
ings and the torn skirt.
All that day Mabel felt strangely
! anxious and restless whenever Trot-
tie was out of her sight. But by the
next morning common-sense had
gotten the better Of Imagination,
and, absorbed in her everyday duties,
she allowed him to play with the 9TH
er children on the parade ground. At
2 o'clock the maid was sent to bring
him into dinner, he having failed to
appear as hunglily prompt as usual.
In a quarter OF an hour she returned,
full of mingled excitement and fright,
and said that, not finding Trottie on
the parade she had gone to the houses
Of the other officers children, only to
be told that Trottie was not with any
OF them. Nor had he been seen for
some time. Then Mabel, a terrible
certainty stabbing her heart with g.
pang that made her fair face look sud-
denly gray and aged, cried, sharply,
"That Indian woman has taken him!
My baby! my baby!"
In vain Tom Heriot assured her
that their naughty boy, who was a
great pet in the regiment, would sure
ly be found in one of the soldier
quarters, feasting his eyes and ears
with strange sights and sounds.
$50 and see," she said hoarsely;
"but you will not find him unless you
will find her."
When he came back presently, very
white and quiet, from his useless
search, the alarm had spread, and there
were kind faces and anxious suggestions
| and offers of assistance in Mabels
pretty little drawing-room, which sud-
denly looked so desolate.
Nobody but Mabel gave the Indian
| woman more than passing thought,
for they were all used to daily visits
from Indians, who had long been per-
fectly peaceful: and were believed quite
incapable of holder crime than pet
ty dishonesty. Besides, what motive
| could tempt them to steal child
| whose discovery in their hands would
be most certainly severely punished,
while even his undiscovered possession
could not avail them in any way? It
| was not long before soldier was sent,
| after q whispered consultation, to
climb down the bluff at the further end
OF the parade, toward which the moth
ers in the garrison had been
glancing chudderingly ever since
the news of Trottie's disappear
| ance. In q terribly short time he re-
turned, the tears filling his kindly
Irish eyes, and in his hand Trottie' s
little fez, which he had found halfway
down the bluff, just where rock over
hung the swift Yellowstone. A great
silence fell upon the fort, which had
been so full of excitement, and the
voices which had spoken of hope and
courage to Mabel we're hushed when
Tom Heriot, sinking down besides his
wifes chair, laid his head on her knees
and sobbed.
1t was Mabel who spoke, almost at
once, in a strange strained voice that
was yet instinct with energy, and
something which, if it were not hope,
yet was resolved that it would not be
despair.
"Tom, darling, do not give him up.
Our boy never went near the bluff. He
promised me again this morning that
he would not, and he would no more
break g. promise than-than you
would, Tom. That Indian woman has
him. Find her-fnd her quickly, dear
cannot wait much longer"
More to soothe her than from
any hope OF finding her belief true,
Tom, with another officer and few
soldiers, rode to the little Indian
camp about mile from the fort, only
to find that nothing was left of it but
some burned-out fires. Something OF
his wife's strong conviction seemed to
pass into Tom Heriot's heart at
the sight OF that suddenly deserted
camp.
"We must make up several parties
and search for them" he said, briefly,
to the officer with him, as they rode
back to the fort, but there was the
light OF new hope in his eyes.
There is this much of resemblance
to a family in such d small and isolated
community as the garrison at Fort
Fletcher, that, however much they
may quarrel among themselves in
prosperity, the touch of a great sor.
row on one Ct it's members effaces all
asperities for the time in the remem-
brance Of how close and entire is their
mutual dependence on each other.
From the colonel down to the latest
arrived recruit there was no heart in
the regiment that did not feel pang
at the thought Of the blue fearless
eyes and straight baby figure which
whether carried away in the rush OIL
the Yellowstone or across the prairie
to some Indian hiding place, they had
little hope OF seeing again. There
was more volunteers than were needed
for the searching parties as soon as
Tom asked for them, and with the last
one to set out Tom went himself, after