The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1903-09-23

OF the garrison. Beverly Field had
had been prompt to call, prompt to
be her escort when dance or drive,
ride or picnic was planned in her
honor, especially the ride, for Mr..
Adjutant Field loved the saddle, the
open prairie or the bold, undulating
bluffs. But Field was the busiest
man at the post. Other youngsters,
troop or company subalterns, had
far more time at their disposal, and
begged for rides and dances, strolls
and sports which the post adiutant
was generally far too busy to claim.
1t was Esther who brought lawn ten
mis- to Frayne and found eager pupils
of both sexes, but Field had been the
first to meet and welcome her; had
been for brief time at the start
her most constant cavalier. Then, as
others began to feel the charm of her
frank, cordial, joyous manner, and
learned to read the beauty that
beamed in her clear, truthful eyes
and winsome, yet not beautiful face,
they became assiduous in turn-two
of them almost distressingly so-and
she could notwound them byrefusals.
Then came a fortnight in which her
father sat as a member of court
martial at old Fort Laramie, where
were the band, headquarters and four
troops of the til, and Captain
| and Mrs. Freeman who were there
stationed, begged that Mrs. Dade and
Esther should come and visit them
during the session of the court.
There would be all manner of army
gaities and crowd of outside Of
ficers, and, as luck would have it,
Mr.. Field was ordered thither as a
witness in two important cases. The
captain and his good wife went by
stage; Esther and Beverly rode every
inch of the way in saddle, camping
over night with their joyous little
party at LaBonte. Then came love-
| ly week at Laramie, during which
Mr.. Field had but little to do but de-
vote himself to, and dance with, Es-
Their, and when his final testimony
was given and he returned to his sta
| ton, and not until then, Esther Dade
| discovered that life had little interest
or JOY without him; but Field rode
back unllnowing, and met at Frayne,
| before Esther Dade's return, a girl
who had come almost unheralded,
making the journey over the Medi-
cine Bow from Rock Springs on the
Union Pacific in the comfortable car
riage of old Bill Hay, the post trader,
escorted by that redoubtable woman,
Mrs. Bill Hay, and within the week of
| her arrival Nanette Flower was the
talk of every household at Fort
| Frayne.
Hay, the trader, had prospered in
his long years on the frontier, first as
trader among the Sioux, later as SUIT
Ter, and finally, when congress abol-
ished that title, substituting therefor
the euphemism, without material clog
upon the perquisites, as post trader
at Fort Frayne. No one knew how
much he was worth, for while appar-
| emily most open-hearted, whole
souled fellow, Hay was reticence it.
self when his fortunes or his family
were matters of question or COM
ment. He had long been married,
and Mrs. Hay, when at the post, was
social sphinN-ki1N-heart chart
table, lavish to the soldiers wives
and children, and devotion itself to
| the families of the officers when sick
ness and trouble came, as come in
the old days they often did. 1t was
she who took poor Ned Robinson's
| young widow and infant all the way
| to Cheyenne when the Sioux butch
cred the lucllless little hunting party
down by Laramie Peak. 1t was she
who nursed Capt. Forests wife and
daughter through ten weeks of
typhoid, and, with her own means,
sent them to the seashore, while the
husband and father was far up on
the Yellowstone, cut off from all COM
munication in the big campaign of '76.
1t was she who built the little chapel
and decked and dressed it for Easter
and Christmas. despite the fact that
she herself had been baptized in the
Roman Catholic faith. 1t was she who
went at once to every woman in the
garrison whose husband was ordered
out on scout or campaign, proffering
aid and comfort, despite the fact long
whispered in the garrisons of the
! Platte country, that in the old, old
days she had far more friends among
the red men than the white. That
could we'll be, because in those DAYS
white men were few and far between.
Everyone had heard the story that it
was through her the news of the
massacre at Fort Phil Kearney was
made known to the post commander,
for she could speak the dialects of
both the Arapahoe and the Sioux, and
she had the sign language of the
plains vertically at her fingers ends.
There were not lacking those who de-
clared that Indian blood ran in her
veins--that her mother was an
Ogallala squaw and her father
French Canadian fur trapper, story
to which her raven black hair and
brows, her deep, dark eyes and some
what swarthy complexion gave no
little color. But, long years before,
Bill Hay had taken her east, where
he had relatives, and where she
studied under excellent masters, re-