Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1900-11-14
CHAPTER II.-CONTINUED.


All the long summer of the year after
his graduation, from mid-April until
November, he never once slept beneath
wooden roof, and more often than
not the sky was his only canopy. That
summer, too, Jessie spent at home,
Pappoose with her most of the time,
and one year more would finish them
at the reliable old Ohio school. By
that time Folsom's handsome new
home would be in readiness to receive
his daughter at Gate City. By that
time, too, Marshall might hope to have
leave and come in to Illinois to well
come his sister and gladden. his moth
er's eyes. But until then, the boy had
said to himself, he'd stick to the field,
and the troop that had the toughest
work to do was the one that suited him.
and so it had happened that by the
second spring of his service in the regi-
ment no subaltern was held in higher
esteem by senior officers or regarded
with more envy by the lazy ones among
the juniors than the young graduate,
for those, too, were days III which grad
yates were few and far between, except
in higher grades. Twice had he ridden
in the dead of winter the devious trail
through the Medicine Bow range to
Frayne Once already had he been
sent the long march to and from the
Big Horn, and when certain officers
were ordered to the mountains early in
she spring to locate the site of the new
post at Warrior Gap, Brooks troop, as
hoe oil
Brooks caught mountain fever in the
hills, or some such allment, and made
the home trip in the ambulance, leav-
ing the active command of SCI troop
to his subaltern.
With the selection of the site Dean
had nothing to do. Silently he looked
on as the quartermaster, the engineer,
and staff officer from Omaha paced
off certain lines, took shots with their
instruments at neighboring waters of
the fork. Two companies of infantry,
sent down from further posts along the
,orthern slopes Of the range, had
stacked their arms and pitched their
dog tents" and vigilant vedettes and
sentries peered over every command
ing height and ridge to secure the in
vaders against surprise. Invaders they
certainly were from the Indian point
of view, for this was Indian Story
Land, the most priced, the most beauti-
full, the most prolific in fish and game
in all the continent. Never had the red
man chung with such tenacity to any
section of his hunting grounds as did
the northern Sioux TO this, the north
and northeast watershed of the Big
Horn range. Old Indian fighters
among the men shook their heads
when the quartermaster selected
level bench as the site on which to be-
gin the stockade that was to inclose
the officers quarters and the barracks,
storehouse and magazine, and omin-
ously they glanced at one another and
then at the pine-skirted ridge that rose,
sharp and sudden, against the sky, not
400 yards away, dominating the site en-
tirely.
ST shouldn't like tt e job of clearing
away the gang of In,lians that might
seize that ridge" said Dean, when later
asked by the engineer what he thought
of it, and Dean had twice by that time
been called upon to help hustle" In
dams out of threatening positions,
and knew whereof he spoke.
ST shouldn't worry over things
you're never likely to have to do said
the quartermaster, with sarcastic en-
phasis, and he was a man who never
yet had had to face a foeman in the
field, and Dean said nothing more, but
felt right well he had no friend in
Nal Burleigh.
They left the infantry there to guard
the site and protect the gang of wood
choppers set to work at once, then
turned their faces homeward They
had spent four days and nights at the