The Yale expositor. (Yale, St. Clair County, Mich.) 1894-current, 1907-11-15
Bugler Dick.

sent % ths indian couatry after the
grand review In Washington Just
where we picked up little Dick no one
seemed to know.
We had a lot of hangers-on when we
left for the march across the plains.
and strict orders were issued TO weed
them ont ana leave them behind. Dick
was one of them, but we had fixed
things Three days later he joined us
under cover of night mounted on a
government mule, and from thence on
he was one of us. In his idle hours at
the fort he had learned to blow bugle
AMI give most Of the calls, but there
was no place for him. 1t was in the
Indian heyday. Almost every tribe In
the west was hostile and out on the
warpath, and when once we had left
the frontier behind us all the talk was
of the red man and his way of fighting
and his liendish crueltles. There would
be no such thing as fear with the old
veterans of the Army OF the Potomac,
but we often wondered how our boy
would take It, He was no boaster. He
never said whether he would run or
| fight, but he fought
One day the Sixth was ordered out
TO follow n broad trail and hang to it
until we had come up with the y,ar
party and punished il. At n certain
point we divided into three columns.
Half an hour later the first column
walked into an ambush with its eyes
wide open. We were greenhorns mt
Indian fighting. Half a dozen men
had fallen when the colonel looked
around for his bugler The lad had
been one of the first To fall Tho other
columns must come TO our relief or
we should be wiped out. We could
neither advance nor retreat and the
hidden redskins offered us no target.
It was then that little Dick dropped
the carbine he had taken from Il dead
troopers hands, and. running forward,
he seized the bugle from the grip of
the dying lad and shouted:
"All right. colonel: | know what you
want"
The other columns had heard the
sound of the firing but had made no
move. 1t was only when they heard
the notes OF the buglc telling that we
were in sore straits that they came
galloplng down and helped us win II
victory
don't know how they fixed Il. but
from that day on little Dick was orc
of the regular buglers. II TOOK him
away from MS much of his time. hut
when he had half an hovr % spa"e
he was back "home" with us. IT was
i'm the early summer when we headed
out on the plains For months we
fought the red man whenever aDl
wherever we could bring him 10 bay.
As autumn came we pressed him far
Their and farther toward his winter re-
treat. and one clustering day the com
mand was divided To deal him n stag
gering blow. The chiefs stakcd all on
big fight and lost We routed ana
pursued them. and Il was after the
pursuit ended that Bugler Dick was
found to be among the missing His
bugle calls had been heard all through
the fight. and men had seen him smil-
ing and laughing under hot fire, but
as we went into camp and the roll was
called there was no one To answer to
the name.
Many good men had fallen that day.
Comrade had lost comrade, and in ut
least three cases brother had lost
brother. but as the night came down
1t seemed that in losing little Dick we
had lost the one most beloved in the
whole command. In the bright moon
light half Il hundred Of us forgot our
WEAKNESS and hunger and hunted for
him. We searched the open plain the
dark ravines, the thickets and the will
low fringed streams. We found our
dead and wounded, and we found the
stark forms OF hundred savages, but
we did not find the one we sought.
BY the time the sun rose 1t became
plain that Bugler Dick had somehow
been taken prisoner and spirited away.
There were those who told such tales
of cruelties toward the whites that one
felt his hair crawling but when these
had set our teeth on edge and brought
curses to our lips some one would re-
member that the prisoner was only q
lad and that the Indians often adopted
boys Oi HIS uSt ulll lItuttu iithi MINI
ly.
One of the sorrowful things about
It was that the expedition was ordered
In for the winter. 1t was making
ready for It's return when such n
strong appeal was made to the COM
nandcr that he sent out 400 men OF
the Sixth to see il any trace OF the
boy could be found He would have
done no more had our colonel been
missing We followed the trail OF the
beaten warriors for fifty miles. 1t
was only w.Hn they discovered what
small command we were that they
rallied and aid in ambush for us In
great ravint We believed them still
flying and V ere riding into the jaws Of
DEATH out OF which no man would
have emerged alive. when we hearl
bugle calls Tnere was an instant ha.t
while every ear was strained TO catch
the sound again. Then 400 men seemed