Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1896-12-12
FORT FRA FFfR 'fNHH ME.
RY CAPTAIN CHARLES KING.
Author of From Ranks "Foes in Ambush "a Soldiers
., Secret" "The Deserter" can Army Portia,' Etc

man who had so loved her, her strength
gave way, and brain fever and delirium
supervened. In the week that followed
that hapless holiday Ellis lowered on
the borderland 'twixt life and death,
and no man could say that the fatal
Christmastide might not claim still an
other of the Farrars.
And that week was one Of woe to poor
Jack Ormsby. He haunted the neighbor-
hood of the Farrars; he hung about the
gateway, importuning the doctor, the
colonel, Kitty, Will, anybody, for It'd
ings of the girl he loved. His fine. alert,
intelligent face was clouded with the
dread and sorrow that overcame him.
He could not see Mrs. Farrar-she rare
ly moved from her. stricken daughter 8
side-but twice he saw and talked with
Helen, and once, with her, walked out
to visit the new made grave. All that
week the shadows cast by the glare Of
the guardhouse flames seemed to wrap
Fort Frayne in gloom. and people gazed
upon the black ruins only with shud-
der.
The Indians, ever superstitious, had
professed to see the hand Of the Great
Spirit in the clouds, pointing remorse-
lessly at the spot and warning them Of
further wrath to come as consequence
of the unavenged murder o. chief
tain's son. Cowboys and hustlers, an
gered against the garrison because it
had interposed between them and their
purposed punishment of Big Roads
band, saw here capital opportunity Of
embroiling the red men with their
white defenders. By dozens, in shiver-
ing silence, wrapped in their blankets
and seated on their scraggy ponies, the
warriors had looked on at the solemn
little ceremony, and within another day
by scores the cowboys and settlers were
spreading the story that the white
chief had buried Tom Graice with all
the honors of war, despite his crimes and
misdemeanors, simply because he had
killed the son Of ON Indian chief-the
son of the chief whose people killed the
colonel of the Twelfth when he attack
ed the fleeing village on the Mini Pusa
three long years before. 1t was the
white soldiers way of taunting the red
man. 1t was proof Of his real feeling
toward the Indian.
"Look out for yourself, Big Road"
said these astute, frontier statesmen.
"Chief Fenton and his soldiers have
only lured you here within range Of
their walls that they may the more
readily swoop upon you some bitter
morning and put you and your war
riors, your women and children to the
sword" In the intense cold Of the three
days that succeeded the blizzard, there
was no interchange Of visits, so to
speak, between the fort and the Indian
village, but the emissaries Of Ben
Thorpe had been busily at work. Big
Road and his warriors had been bidden
to attend the stately funeral Of their
kinsman and friend, Crow Knife, on the
morning after Christmas, and had flock
ed to the scene and lifted up their
mournful chant when the volleys fash
ed and the crowd of attendant soldiers
bowed their heads in mingled homage
and sorrow That was as it should be,
but what did it mean that his slayer
should then be accorded equal honors-
aye, that more officers -chiefs-were
present at Graice's grave than when the
son of Brule warrior was laid to rest?
This they could not fathom, and this,
despite the strained relations that had
resulted in the death of Laramie Pete,
the cowboy emigsaries proved eager to
explain in their own way and to explain
to attentive ears.
"Old Fenton thought he'd done me
when he moved that bloody band up
here to the FORT" said the cowboy king
to his admiring audience over at the
saloon across the Platte. "If don pay
him off with compound interest within
the month and make him wish he hadn't
monkeyed with my business, call me
coyote. He and the stuck up gang ke
heads will wish to God they d left those
Indians where they were. "
And five days after Christmas Colonel
Fenton heard Of goings on within the
village that gave him cause to summon
his adjutant and officer of the day, to
double his sentries on every front and
to realize how much in these few years
he had learned to lean for counsel and
support on Malcolm Leale: for now the
colonel was forbidden, as was everybody
else, to see him even for moment.
Not only had the fash of the explosion
wrecked his eyesight, but there was
grave reason to fear that he had inhaled
the fame. Captain Leale was suffering
torment, yet bearing his burden without
q moan.
A troubled man was the veteran post
surgeon all that woeful week. Ellis
Farrar, delirious in burning fever, NAL
colin Leale PROSTATE on a. bed of pain,
blind and breathing only in agonized
gasps, Mrs. Farrar looking so fragile
and weak that it seemed as though
breath might blow away the feeble
flicker of her life, others Of the women
more or less overcome and shocked by
the events of the last few days, and now,
right in the midst of it all, came indi-
cations of trouble in the Indian village
up the stream-powwowin speech
making and dancing by night, runners
fitting to and from the Big Horn, mes
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