Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1895-01-10
SERGEANT CRGSUS.
~ cAPT. CHARLES KING. U. q. a.
Copyright Isa,. BY J. B. LippIncott Co.
CHAPTER x.

A proud boy was Perry Thornton the
night the details of the robbery reached
them. Finding no paymaster at
Willow Springs on Friday noon, and
alarmed by reports Of Indian outrages
down the Mini Ska, Tintop, as has been
seen, decided to push on for Painted
Lodge as soon as men and horses had
enjoyed an hour of incoming; and SO bv
sunset of the long June day the cavai.
~ had put some forty-three miles to
their credit and gone into camp once
more, close to the stream, and not more
than ten miles from the bridge over
which was carried the broad and once
well-beaten trail from Pawnee to the
agency. Thornton, eager to win his
spurs, and being prime favorite with
Tintop, as indeed he was with every-
body, had been accorded the bliss Of a
side-scout, and was sent over to the
stage station at the bridge to gather
news. There was no difficulty in load
ing up with rumors. The air was full
OF them. Perry found at the station
half dozen cowboys, ranchmen and
the like, most Of whom had escaped by
the skin of their teeth and the per-
Torrance Of prodigies Of personal valor.
The old telegraph line from
Pawnee to the station was in
tact, but north through Wagon
gap and SO on to the agency there
had been no communication for a
week, and no one was venturesome
enough to go out and discover why.
Around by way of Bismarck and
Yankton 1t was easy, though slow
work, to communicate with the agency
people, and the situation warranted
the belief that the Sioux had slashed
sthe wires running southwark from
their reservation, and therefore toward
The railway and the coming soldiers,
but had left the northward passage
open, under the natural impression
that no tidings could ever get to the
enemy by road that ran the opposite
way. Perry was urged by his inform
ants to get back to camp and bring up
the cavalry, and had not gone a mile
Before the accident happened which
led to the shooting Of the horse he was
riding. The telegraph company, think
.ng to be enterprising, had sent a
young man out with an instrument only
aday before, and reopened the old Office
at Ska Bridge station, and when cow
boy came running in to say the lieu
tenant and his party had been jumped
on the way back to Painted Lodge, the
dispatch was sent at once, which SO
alarmed the good folks at Ransom.
and which Rhett found means to mod
lily on the following day; by which
time, however, the truth was learned
1T Ska Bridge, as the cavalry battal-
ion, going for all it was worth"
passed on down stream in cloud Of
'lll.ali dust. Perry was ready for an
other ride even after long days
marcn, when, late Saturday night, as
they slept far down the Ska, courier
rode in from the stage station behind,
with full particulars of the robbery
and the news that some of the gang
were unquestionably striving to es-
cape toward the Indian agency to the
north, and had been seen squirting
through Wagon gap The telegraph
operator at the station had told Old
Tintop all that he knew Of the affair
during the brief moment that the
colonel halted, but now dispatches and
news came after them.
We've got to send an officer and ten
men on the trail of those beggars,"
said Tintop, sitting up in his blankets
and reading by the light Of Gray's Ian
Tern. Whose turn is it?"
Mine, colonel" sang out a CHEEKY
voice FROM roll Of bedding under an
opposite cottonwood, and in moment
Thornton, fresh as daisy, was pull
ing on his boots and girding himself for
the ride
You've just got back, You young
cub, and the horse you killed was worth
the news you brought ten times over"
growled the colonel.
swell, that's why I want to have an
other 60 sir" was the prompt, laugh
ing answer. And Tintop would not say
him nay.
It was this way that Thornton came
to miss the stirring fight of the bat
talon on the Sunday noontide and to
into siege Of his own beside
which, IN point of peril and pluck and
strain, the fierce brief
hour Of battle Of his comrades was but
q bagatelle.
At one a. m. on Sunday he and his
little squad rode away on the west
ward trail, guided by the courier who
the news. Two miles back
from camp they left the river and
edged away to their right over the
valley towards rift in the
boundary hills just family visible in
,he dim and ghostly light. An hour
after dawn they halted in deep
.avine to water their horses, and then
vent looping on again, Thornton eager
md exultant, proud Of his trust and
to overhaul the robbers II
siding could do it. By noon Sunday
,hev had pushed northward out OF the
ran with the fresh trail leading on; by
he had halted to feed, water, and I'M
addle awhile in the midst Of the wild
canerv at the head Of Fossil creek,
he ten-mile pass out Of sight behind
md the rocky walls Of Slaughter cove
- great distance ahead. 1t was here