Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1899-1903, 1900-08-28
CHAPTER II.

Promotion was rapid in the cavalry
in those days. so soon after the war.
Indians contributed largely to the gen.
eral move, but there were other causes,
too. Dean had served.little over year
as second lieutenant in troop doing
duty along the lower Platte, when va
cancies occurring gave him speedy and
unlookedfor lift. He bad met Mr..
Folsom only once. The veteran trader
had embarked much of his capital in
business at Gate City. beyond the Rock
les, but officers from sort Emory, close
to the new frontier town, occasionally
told him he had won stanch friend in
that solid citizen.
'Iou ought to get transferred to
Emory" they said. Here's the band,
half dozen pretty girls, hops twice
the spring and summer in the noun
tains, fishing ad ibitum, and lots of
fun all the year around" But Deans
ears were oddly deaf. a classmate let
fall the observation that it YVES be-
cause of a New York girl who had jilt
ed him that Dean had foresworn So
ciety and stuck to a troop in the field;
but men who knew and served with the
young fellow found him an enthusiast
in his profession, passionately fond of
cavalry life in the open, bold rider, a
keen shot and a born hunter. Up with
the dawn day after day, in saddle long
hours, scouting the divides and ridges,
stalking antelope and black-tail deer,
chasing buffalo, he lived life that
hardened every muscle, bronzed the
skin, cleared the eye and brain and gave
toeven monotonous existence a "verve"
and Zest the dawdlers in those old-time
garrisons never knew.
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
a 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 in 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
the spring to locate the site of the new
post at Warrior Gap, Brooks troop, as
has been said, went along as escort and
Brooks caught mountain fever in the
hills. or some such ailment, and made
the home trip in the ambulance, leav-
ing the active command of &c" 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
lSoif certain lines, took shots with their
instruments at neighboring waters of
the fork. Two companies of infantry.
sent down from further posts along the
northern 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 We're 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 a
| level bench as the site on which to be-
| gin the stockade that was to incPose
the officers quarters and the barracks,
storehouse and magazine, and omin-
ously they glanced at one another and
then al the pine-skirted ridge that rose,
sharp and sudden, against the sky, not
4Oo yards away, dominating the site en-
tirely.
81 shouldn't like the job of clearing
away the gang of Indians 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
dians out of threatening positions,
and knew whereof he spoke.
| II shouldn't worry over things
you're never likely to have to do" said
the quartermaster, with sarcastic en-
phasis, and he was q. man who never