The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1904-02-10
|ADaughter
| Of the Sioux
By GEN. CHARLES KING.
Copyright, 1902, b, Tbs Hobart Company.
CHAPTER XXII.

In the whirl and excitement fcl-
lowing the startling cutlery from the
flats, all Fort Frayne was speedily
involved. The guard came rushing
through the night, Corporal Shannon
stumbling over a PROSTATE form
the sentry on Number Six, gagged
and bound. The steward shouted
from the hospital porch that Eagle
Wing, the prisoner patient, had
escaped through the rear window,
despite its height above the sloping
ground. A little ladder, borrowed
from the quartermaster's corral,
was found a moment later. An In
dian pony, saddled Sioux fashion,
was caught running, riderless, to-
ward the traders back gate his
horsehair bride torn half way from
his shaggy head. Sergeant Crabb,
waiting for no orders from the ma
jor, no sooner heard that Moreau
was gone than he rushed his stable
guard to the saddleroom, and in Is
minutes had, not only his OWN squad,
but half a dozen casual troopers
circling the post in search of the
trail, and in less than half an hour
was hot in chase of two fleeing
horsemen, dimly seen ahead through
the starlight, across the snowy
wastes. That snowfall was the
SiouS's undoing. Without it the
trail would have been invisible at
night. With it, the pursued were
well-nigh hopeless from the start.
Precious time had been lost in cir
cling far out south Of the post before
making for the ford whittier Crabb's
instinct sent him at once to the end
that he and two of his fellows
ploughed through the foaming
waters barely 500 yards behind the
chase and as they rode vehemently
onward through the starlight,
straining every nerve, they heard
nothing of the happenings about
the Fosters doorway, where by this
time post commander, post sur
geon, post quartermaster and act
ing post adjutant, post ordnance,
quartermaster and commissary
sergeants, many of the post guard
and most of the post laundresscs
had gathered-some silent, anxious
and bewildered, some excitedly
babbling; while, within the SER
geant's domicile, Esther Dade, very
pale and somewhat out of breath,
was trying with quiet self possession
to answer the myriad questions
poured at her, while DR.. Waller was
ministering to the dazed and moan
ing sentry, and, in an adjoining
tenement, little group had gather
ed about an unconscious form. Some
one had sent for Mrs. Hay, who was
silently, tearfully chatting the limp
and almost lifeless hands of girl in
Indian garb. The cloak and skirts
of civilization had been found be-
meath the window of the deserted
room, and were exhibited as a means
of bringing to his senses much
beWildered major, whose first words
on entering the hut gave rise to
wonderment in the eyes of most of
his hearers, and to an impulsive re-
ply from the lips of Mrs. Hay.
II warned the general that girl
would play us some Indian trick,
EuU lie OTucTCQ ucF TclcuSe, SIlO
Flint, and with wrathful emphasis
came the answer.
'Erhe general warned you this girl
would play you a trick, and, thanks
to no one but you, she's done it!''
Then rising and stepping aside,
the long-sutfering woman revealed
The paid, senseless face-not of the
little Indian maid, her shrinking
charge and guest-but of the niece
she loved and had lived and lied for
many and trying years-Nanette La
Tleur, long-lost sisters only child.
So Blake knew what he was talking
about that keen November morning
among the pines at Bear Cliff. He
had unearthed an almost forgotten
legend of old Fort Laramie
"Who could have done it?" asked
Flint. 1t was inconceivable to DR..
Walters mind that any one of the SOL
die1y could have been tempted to