Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1892-11-14

Abandoning his horse, Ellis pushed on
afoot and reached camp he knew not
how. He only remembered hearing
that distant tattoo.
Farquhar never hesitated. Brewster
never asked. Holden made him and
each of his men swallow cup of steam
ing coffee, and the colonel took it as a
matter of course that Curly was the
very man to go.
''You have brandy and blankets in
plenty?" he asked. Holden is loading
more into the ambulance, and it follows
at once. Off with you now
Impatient even of this brief detention,
Brewster led his little band of troopers
off into the night. There was not man
i'm the Twelfth that wouldn't have faced
worst things than a blizzard for old
Berrien's sake, and as for this it was but
a bagatelle. ..All we've got to do is scud
before the gale. fellers,' sung out Muir
ply. joyously, as they went cantering
out of camp, and in second more were
lost to sight and hearing. Then came
the chatter and rattle of the hospital
team. the ambulance, weighted down
with robes and blankets and a brace of
heavy troopers. despite which ballast
the light vehicle was well nigh whirled
Farquhar and the doctor had time to
turn to Ellis and to think.
..They must have got my dispatch
Tuesday night and left by the earliest
train said Holden. Glow utterly out
rageous proceeding! And yet might
have known it of Mrs. Berrien."
Meantime there had been dismay at
the quartermaster's depot. Sterrett,
noting the increasing severity of the
gale at riightfall, had begun upbrsiding
himself for having allowed the ladies to
persist in the rash attempt. He had
done his best to persuade Mrs. Berrien
and to assure her that the major was
doing we'll: he pointed out to her that
they had nothing but rough shelter of
log and turf and canvas at the camp;
that there was absolutely no place
where delicately nurtured women could
be cared for. He offered her and Miss
Winifred his own warm, snug, though
rudely furnished room at the station,
and ordered his chief clerk to clear out
and sleep in the office. He told her how
impossible it was for him to leave his
post and his duties of forwarding sup
plies, and explained that there was no
officer to properly escort them. But one
by one she had promptly overthrown his
objections. Escort? Here was Sergeant
Ellis. What better could she ask? AS
for lack of accommodation at the camp,
had she not lived all one winter with
her beloved Dick in a Kansas dugout
Just the year after their marriage? Had
she not camped with him on the Yellow
stone?-nursed him in deserted log hut
through the mountain fever in the Big
Horn? Were there not women, school
teachers and the agents and traders
families there at the agency? What had
she to fear for herself or Winifred in
the midst of the Twelfth?
but the regiment is ordered to march
tomorrow. said Sterrett. ut is an open
secret that the Indians have slipped
away from the troops along the Chey
enne, and there's the mischief to pay"
'.All the more reason for my being at
my husbands side promptly answered
this army heroine. ''Dr. Holden will
have to 90, and Dick will be left prac-
tically alone. Winifred and | start at
once. even if we have to walk.
OF course that ended the matter.
Against sue determination he was
powerless. H.. ing first done his best
to detain them he had then bent all his
efforts to the duty of transportation, and
now at late hour in the evening and in
the energetic and familiar language Of
the corral was disappearing the fate that
had led him to yield his better Judgment
to her importantly. Somewhere about
nine o'clock one of the Outriders had
been dragged off his horse more dead
than alive and told pitiful tale of hav-
ing been driven before the storm, and
he didn't even know how far they had
got before he lost sight of the ambu-
lance entirely, but was sure that one
and all they had lost the road and now
were adrift on the prairie. This was
bad enough: but at ten o'clock or there
about the corral master came in to say
that the riderless horse of the other man
had just arrived at the gate and, barely
able to stagger, was led inside.
ssPete had flask along said the cor
raj master sententlOusly. "That's what's
the matter with him."
Then Sterrett could stand it no longer.
Soldiers there were none to send-they
were all over the range, at the canton
ment or beyond; civilians were there in
plenty. dozens of refugees from the
ranches, dozens of railroad men and
train hands, one or two Disguised CORE
spondents who had got the 'stip as to
impending movements all too late to
catch the luckier members of that all
pervading fraternity, but who were quick
to realize the scoop they would have
in transmitting to their respective jour-
mails full and picturesque details of the