WITH SULLY INTO THE SIOUX LAND

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

THE CONQUEST OF THE MISSOURI.
Profusely illustrated. Large 8vo net, $2.00.

FRONTIER BALLADS. Cover, end-paper
design, and illustrations by Maynard Dixon.
Novelty binding. $1.00 net

A. C. McCLURG & CO., Publishers
Chicago

Catching up a heavy stick he hurled it at the head of one of the warriors [CHAPTER III]

"AMONG THE SIOUX" SERIES

WITH SULLY INTO THE
SIOUX LAND
BY JOSEPH MILLS HANSON

AUTHOR OF "THE CONQUEST OF THE MISSOURI,"
"FRONTIER BALLADS," ETC.

ILLUSTRATED BY
JOHN W. NORTON

CHICAGO
A. C. McCLURG & CO.
1910

Copyright
A. C. McCLURG & CO.
1910

Published, November 12, 1910

Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, England

PRESS OF THE VAIL COMPANY
COSHOCTON, U. S. A.

TO MY FATHER
JOSEPH RANDALL HANSON,
WHO, AS A BOY AND YOUNG MAN ON
THE OLD DAKOTA FRONTIER, LIVED
THROUGH MORE ADVENTURES THAN A
VOLUME COULD DESCRIBE

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

WITH SULLY
INTO THE SIOUX LAND

CHAPTER I THE SCOURGE OF THE BORDER

"Papa is coming, mama! Papa is coming!"

Tommy Briscoe, brimming over with excitement, ran, shouting, across the yard and darted into the kitchen, leaving a half emptied pail of milk standing on the ground before the stable, where a small red calf he had been feeding promptly upset it. In a moment he reappeared in the doorway, his mother and little sister Annie behind him. Mrs. Briscoe, a woman still evidently under middle age but whose sweet, serious face showed plainly the lines which the patient endurance of hardships draw upon the faces of most frontier women, looked down the faintly marked road running away to the southward, surprise and perplexity in her eyes. Along the road and still some distance away, a horseman was galloping toward them furiously. The road led only to the Briscoe cabin, which was distant a number of miles from its nearest neighbors. The rider could hardly be any other than Mr. Briscoe; moreover, even at that distance his wife could recognize the color and the short, jerking gallop of the horse he was riding.

"It is certainly Chick," she said, half to herself and half to the children. "But what can bring Tom home so soon? He did not expect to be back before four or five o'clock and now it is hardly past noon. He must have left Fort Ridgely almost as soon as he reached there. I hope nothing is wrong."

"I hope he got the calico for my dolly's dress," exclaimed Annie, dancing up and down in anticipation of the gift her father had promised to bring her when he rode away in the morning.

"And I hope he got my coyote trap," added Tommy. "The coyotes will carry off all our chickens, first thing we know."

He raised the short bow he was carrying and sent a little iron-tipped arrow whizzing accurately into a tree-trunk fifty feet away. He had been going out to the meadow in a few minutes, and he never went anywhere without his bow and arrows, for he was sufficiently expert with them to bring down now and then a squirrel or a quail and sometimes even a prairie chicken.

The two children, unconscious of any cause for uneasiness in their father's early return, followed Mrs. Briscoe as she stepped from the door and walked a few paces down the road to meet the approaching rider, who came on without slacking pace until he drew up beside them. His horse, a small animal, was dripping with sweat and trembling with exertion, for it was a hot August day and his rider was a large man. Mr. Briscoe, for he it was, stepped down from the saddle rather stiffly. His face was very grave as he kissed his wife and children.

"Did you get my coyote trap, papa?" cried the little boy, almost before his father's foot had touched the ground.

"Did you bring my calico, papa?" chimed in Annie.

"No, my dears, I hadn't time. You had better run away a minute." He glanced at his wife significantly.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" exclaimed Tommy. "But let me unsaddle Chick." He caught the stirrup leather and swung himself nimbly into the saddle.

"Go and finish feeding the calf, Annie," said Mrs. Briscoe.

The little girl, with disappointed face, walked obediently toward the stable, into which Tommy had already ridden.

"What has happened, Thomas?" exclaimed Mrs. Briscoe, her voice quivering with anxiety, as soon as the children were beyond hearing.

Her husband laid his strong hand reassuringly on her arm.

"Don't be frightened, Mary," he said, "we shall doubtless get out of it all right, but we must hurry. The Indians broke out at the Lower Agency this morning; you know they have been becoming more and more restless for a good while past. When I reached Fort Ridgely, about eleven, Captain Marsh had already started for the Agency with about fifty men. He may have the disturbance crushed by this time. I saw Lieutenant Geer, who is left in command with forty men. Lieutenant Sheehan marched for Fort Ripley yesterday with fifty men. Geer would have sent an escort with me while I came for you but of course he could not spare a man from the handful he has. I think it would not be really dangerous to stay here, but to be on the safe side and not expose you and the children to any risk we had perhaps better pack what we can on the wagon and go to the fort for a few days till the trouble blows over. Where is Al?"

Mr. Briscoe was slapping the dust from his coat and hat as he talked. He tried to speak in as reassuring terms and as confident a tone as possible, but his wife intuitively knew that he was not telling her all that was in his mind.

"Al just went up to the meadow to turn the wind-rows," she said. "Tommy was going to help him as soon as he finished feeding the calf. Shall he go for Al?"

"Yes."

Mrs. Briscoe called to the boy, who dashed away toward the meadow, which lay only a short distance north, beyond a thicket of bushes and small trees. Then she turned to her husband, who was walking into the stable.

"You have had no dinner, Tom," she said.

"No, but I want none."

"Were any white people killed at the Agency?" she asked, as Mr. Briscoe came out with a halter and started toward the pasture lot where their other horse was grazing. He seemed to want to avoid questions, but he answered:

"They say there were."

"Many?"

Her husband paused. He was not accustomed to conceal things from his wife.

"Why," he replied, hesitatingly, "it is reported that all of them were killed; but that is probably exaggerated, and very likely it will prove there were none."

Mrs. Briscoe's face paled a little but she retained her composure. She asked no more questions, for now she knew all that was necessary for the present of the gravity of the situation. Moreover, she had supreme confidence in her husband's judgment. He started again toward the pasture, saying, as he glanced toward the lumber wagon standing near the kitchen door:

"You had better begin putting things in the wagon, Mary. You know what to take; only the most necessary and valuable things, for we shall doubtless be back in a few days."

Indeed, Mrs. Briscoe knew well by hard experience what to take. Once before during the brief year they had spent in the wild valley of the Minnesota River, they had fled to Fort Ridgely, about twenty miles south of their claim, at the alarm of an Indian uprising, which, however, in that instance had fortunately proved false. That was in the Spring of 1862; it was now August of the same year. When they moved into the country during the previous August, bringing the few possessions which remained to them from the wreck of their fortunes in Missouri, their nearest neighbor lived fourteen miles away. Now there were three pioneer families within a radius of ten miles of them, and, in comparison with the earlier isolation of their new home, they felt that the country was becoming quite densely peopled. But away to the southwest and west of them, not more than twenty-five miles distant, swarmed a host of neighbors whose presence there always oppressed their imaginations like the sight of a low, black bank of thunder clouds when they looked toward that quarter of the horizon. For southwest, at Red Wood Falls, was the Lower Agency, the assembling place of the M'dewakanton and the Wakpekute Indians, and west was the Upper Agency, on the Yellow Medicine River, where lived or congregated several thousand Sissetons and Wahpetons. Still further west and extending away to Big Stone Lake, nearly one hundred miles distant, were some other agencies and missions, where greater or less bodies of Indians of the above tribes made their headquarters. The Sissetons and Wahpetons on the Yellow Medicine were not greatly to be feared. Many of them had become Christians under the wise and kindly training of such heroic missionaries as Thomas L. Riggs and Thomas S. Williamson, who with their families had for years lived and maintained schools among them. Assisted by the United States Government, many of these Indians had come into the possession of good homes and farms and were rapidly becoming prosperous and accustomed to the ways of civilization.

But the M'dewakantons and Wakpekutes at the Lower Agency were of a different character. Few of them had ever shown a disposition to settle down to industry, and generally they spent their time out on the limitless western prairies of the then newly erected Territory of Dakota, living the wild, free life of their ancestors and coming to the Agency only when one of the annual payments was due them for the lands in Minnesota which they had sold to the Government several years before. At such times they were usually accompanied to the Agency by many turbulent spirits from the Sioux tribes living further west, who came to share in the Government's bounty and the feasting and celebrating which commonly followed its distribution.

In the month of August, 1862, the distribution of the Government payment, for various reasons, had been long delayed, and the wild Indians, waiting in idleness for it to come instead of being, as they should have been, out on the prairies hunting buffalo, became constantly more restless, suspicious and arrogant as time went on. The idea gained strength among them that the Government intended to cheat them of the payment. Moreover, they had heard many rumors of the great civil war in which the United States was engaged, and many white people among them did not hesitate to make them believe that the Nation was about to be overthrown, which, indeed, did not seem improbable in 1862 in view of the many reverses which the Union armies were suffering. Such reports, coupled with the fact that most of the United States troops along the Minnesota frontier had been sent to the South and that those remaining were few and scattered, caused the leaders of the hostile element among the Minnesota Indians to believe that the time had come when the whites might be driven back beyond the Mississippi, leaving the Indians again in possession of all their old territories west of that stream. At the time the Briscoe family had come into the country this feeling did not yet exist among the Indians, but during the Spring and Summer of 1862 many exciting incidents had occurred at the Agencies and elsewhere, in which the growing arrogance and self-confidence of the hostiles had been made plain. Of these incidents Mr. Briscoe had been made aware through his occasional trips to Fort Ridgely after supplies, and, having had some previous experience of the ways of Indians in the Southwest, he had been disquieted and apprehensive for the future. But he had kept his misgivings to himself as far as possible, not caring to alarm his family needlessly.

He knew that, early in August, Little Crow, the hereditary chief of the M'dewakantons, had been deposed from the chieftainship by his fellow tribesmen because of his attitude on an unpopular treaty made sometime before, and that the crafty old chief was eager to find some means of recovering his lost honors. He knew that Inkpaduta, the most cruel and bloodthirsty leader of all the Sioux Nation, together with a throng of his outlawed followers who had participated with him in the atrocious massacre of the white settlers at Spirit Lake, Iowa, in 1857, was hovering about the Lower Agency and mingling with the four or five thousand dissatisfied Indians who were gathered there, waiting with increasing impatience for the arrival of the annuity, and in a mood to listen eagerly to any suggestions of massacre and pillage which might be poured into their ears by Inkpaduta and his villainous companions. But what he did not know until he rode into Fort Ridgely on that terrible morning of August 18, 1862, was that on the previous day a wandering party of young M'dewakanton braves had murdered three white men and two white women near the hamlet of Acton, forty miles north of Fort Ridgely and about twenty from his own claim; that the young assassins had then ridden post-haste to the Lower Agency and with their news of bloodshed, which was like a match in a powder magazine, had set the whole savage horde assembled there into a frenzy for the blood of the whites; that Little Crow, seeing in a flash the opportunity for regaining the chief control of his tribe and, indeed, of the whole Sioux Nation, by leading them in a triumphant war, had given the word to the Indians—who had instinctively turned to him in the crisis—for a general uprising and massacre of all the whites; and that, in accordance with his orders and the mad impulse of the crowd, they had swarmed over the Agency, slaughtering every white person whom they could find,—store-keepers, Government employees, men, women, and children.

All these things Mr. Briscoe knew, though in a confused and imperfect way, when he met his wife after his swift homeward journey from Fort Ridgely. But, being a brave man and one who had served his country with honor and courage during the Mexican War, he faced the situation with coolness and at the same time began preparing swiftly for the instant flight of his family to the fort. He realized that this was imperative if they were to escape destruction.

When her husband, as previously mentioned, started for the pasture, Mrs. Briscoe reëntered the house, a log building of three rooms, quite capacious for the region and the time, and pulling a trunk from the corner of each of the bedrooms, began hastily filling them with the family clothing and a few books, standard works, much worn but of good editions and carefully kept. From a locked cupboard drawer in the kitchen she brought a small box containing a few pieces of handsome silver ware, some of recent pattern but most of it old, into which she looked carefully before depositing it in one of the trunks. Two small oil paintings in frames she packed carefully, and when these had been disposed of in the trunks little remained in the slenderly furnished house except its rude furniture, largely homemade, the bedding and the pots and pans and crockery dishes in the kitchen. She had just begun taking these down and arranging them in a large box when a boy of about fifteen years, straight and tall for his age, with light complexion, light hair, and keen gray eyes, bounded into the kitchen from outside, closely followed by Tommy, who was merely a smaller, eight-year-old edition of himself. The elder lad stopped short, regarding Mrs. Briscoe's preparations for departure with startled eyes.

"What's the matter, mother?" he exclaimed. "What are you going to do?"

"Your father has just come back from the fort, Al. Haven't you seen him?"

"No, mother."

"He has gone to the pasture for Monty. We must drive to the fort at once, this afternoon. The Indians have broken out at the Lower Agency and the report at Fort Ridgely is that they have killed many white people."

"Whew-w!" whistled Al. "That's bad, isn't it? What will become of the hay?"

"Let's stay here and fight 'em!" cried Tommy, his head thrown back and his eyes flashing. "Why should we run away from a lot of bad Indians? They won't dare hurt us with papa here."

"Hush, Tommy," said his mother, yet not without a glance of pride at the fearless little fellow, so like his father. "There are a great many of them and we are far away from help."

"I don't care," persisted Tommy. "We could block up the doors and windows, and they can't shoot through these thick logs."

"No, Tommy," interrupted his brother, patting the small boy's shoulder, "but they could burn the house, and then where should we be?"

"Run for the woods."

"And be shot there, out of hand. No, no! Mother, are the trunks ready to put in the wagon?"

"Yes, but wait for your father to help you with them. You and Tommy can take out the mattresses and pillows. The fort will probably be full of refugees, and we shall need our bedding."

At this moment Mr. Briscoe entered.

"Hello, Al, boy," he said, in his usual tone, as if nothing unusual had happened.

"Hello, father," returned Al, while Tommy ran to Mr. Briscoe for another kiss. "You got back early."

"Yes," answered his father, simply. He glanced at his son, and the two pairs of steady gray eyes looked understandingly into each other for a second. Then Mr. Briscoe walked to a shelf and took down an army musket which hung, together with a double-barrelled shotgun, on a rack beneath it. The musket was loaded, but he took off the old percussion cap and replaced it with a new one. He loaded the shotgun from a powder horn and shot flask on the shelf and then carefully examined a large, six-shot, 44-calibre Starr revolver, also already loaded, of a model at that time recent, in which each chamber was loaded from the front with powder and ball and fired by a percussion cap. By this time his wife, aided by Annie, had the kitchen utensils in the box. Having put the weapons in condition for instant use, Mr. Briscoe said:

"Now, Al, we can load these heavy things in the wagon. We want to take the saddle and the new plough, too; we can't afford to have them destroyed while we're gone. Tommy, turn Spot out in the pasture with the calf. She can get water from the creek, and there is plenty of grass for her. It is a good thing that calf isn't entirely weaned yet. We will leave the barn door open for the chickens to go in at night. Monty and Chick are feeding now. As soon as they have finished we must be ready to hitch up."

When they had placed the first trunk in the wagon and were alone, Mr. Briscoe turned to his son.

"Al," he said, speaking rapidly and in a low voice, "be careful not to alarm your mother and the children, but you must know that we are in the greatest danger and that our only chance of safety lies in getting to the fort without the least delay. The Indians at the Lower Agency have gone mad. They have killed every white they could lay their hands on and have started to sweep the whole country clean. Some of them may come here at any moment. My boy—" He laid his hand on Al's shoulder and his voice became very earnest. He spoke almost as if he felt a premonition of coming events. "My boy, I know I can trust you; you are almost a man in judgment and understanding. If we should encounter Indians before we reach the fort and anything should happen to me, remember that your first care must be your mother and your little brother and sister. Protect them with your life but keep cool and do not throw it away. And afterward,—well, my boy, just do your duty by our dear ones and yourself as you honestly see it; no one can do more. And remember always that you are the son of a soldier."

Al's face paled a little beneath the tan while his father was speaking but he returned the latter's gaze steadily until he had finished. Then he replied:

"Why, father, nothing is going to happen to you. But of course I shall remember what you say and always try to do the best I can by mother and the children."

"I know you will, Al. Now, let us load that trunk and box and the rest of the things."

They continued their work rapidly while Mrs. Briscoe was busy putting up some food to take along and placing the rest in the root cellar back of the house where it might keep from spoiling as long as possible during their absence. The day was hot and sultry, but the sky was beautifully blue, with here and there white, fleecy clouds floating lazily across it. Green, gently rolling prairies stretched away on every hand, broken here and there by patches of dark, cool woodland where the trees stood clustered on a slope or marked the winding course of some ravine or sluggish creek. From the Briscoe cabin could be caught glimpses between the trees north of it of the hay-cocks on the sun-flooded meadow, where Al and Tommy had been working. It was a tract of native prairie grass and a small one, for Mr. Briscoe had mowed it with a scythe. No sound broke the stillness of the early afternoon except the rustle of the breeze through the treetops and the piping of a chickadee which had perched on a sunflower stalk beside the stable. It seemed impossible that in the midst of such peaceful surroundings the horrors of savage massacre and warfare could be abroad in the land; and so Al thought as he looked about him, just as his father and he finished loading the last of the household goods which they intended to take with them.

They were starting to the barn after the horses when they heard the breaking of branches and a commotion among the bushes in the strip of woodland toward the meadow. Mr. Briscoe and his son turned in sudden apprehension and saw six Indians, one after another, issue from the woods and ride toward them. They were mounted on ponies and were naked except for breech-clouts, while their heads were decked with feathers and streaming war-bonnets, and their faces and bodies hideously bedaubed with paint. Mr. Briscoe turned and walked deliberately toward the house.

"Don't run," he cautioned Al, in a low tone. "But go in and stick the revolver in your pocket under your coat, and set the guns just inside the kitchen door. Tell your mother if she hears a shot to run with the children from the bedroom door and hide in the rushes along the creek. I'll meet the Indians here." He stopped by the kitchen door. Then suddenly he asked, "Where's Tommy?"

"In the house, I think," answered Al. But Tommy was not in the house. He had bethought himself of the eggs and was in the barn hunting them, unconscious of the approaching visitors.

Al disappeared in the kitchen, and Mr. Briscoe walked toward the ominous group of callers, who came on in silence until they reached the door, each holding with one hand a rifle or musket laid across the neck of his pony. They looked at the loaded wagon, which betrayed the impending flight of the family.

"How," said Mr. Briscoe, smiling and extending his hand.

No responsive smiles lit the faces of the Indians. They regarded him in gloomy silence while their leader, a fellow of lighter hue than the rest, evidently a half-breed, sprang to the ground and, ignoring Mr. Briscoe's extended hand, said, gruffly, in broken English,

"We want food."

"You shall have it," replied Mr. Briscoe. "Wait a minute."

He stepped toward the door but the half-breed was before him.

"We take what we want," he said, jerking his head toward his followers. "Come on."

Mr. Briscoe saw that conciliation was impossible. Once within the house they would have the family at their mercy. He stepped inside the door and with one push of his powerful arm thrust the half-breed out on the step.

"Stay out, and I'll feed you. But not if you come in," he said.

Al, looking through from the next room, saw his father's action and instantly understood that it meant trouble. With the sudden authority of a man in the emergency, he exclaimed to his mother, pushing her toward the south door,

"Run to the creek, you and Annie! Keep out of sight; hide in the reeds. We'll take care of Tommy."

Then he ran back through the house toward his father. He reached him in less time than it takes to tell it; but the half-breed, cursing frightfully as he reeled back from Mr. Briscoe's thrust, had already shouted to his companions,

"Shoot him!"

One of the mounted Indians threw his musket to his shoulder but Mr. Briscoe, seizing the shotgun which Al had set beside the door, was quicker than the savage. His shot rang out and the Indian pitched headlong to the ground. Before he could cock the other hammer or even spring aside from the doorway, the half-breed's rifle cracked.

"My God! Mary!" gasped Mr. Briscoe, clutching his hand to his breast. He wheeled, staggered a step or two into the room and then sunk to the floor at Al's feet, dead.

It had all happened so quickly that the poor boy's brain was reeling with the horror of it. But in an instant he saw the half-breed's form silhouetted in the doorway, an evil grin overspreading his face. Mechanically Al raised the revolver in his hand and fired. Without a word, his father's murderer tumbled backward through the doorway and rolled out on the ground. Al stepped to the door. In one swift glance he saw three of the four remaining Indians galloping furiously away toward the meadow; he saw Tommy, half way between the barn and house, running toward the latter, and he saw the fourth Indian, leaning far over from his pony's side, swooping down upon the boy. The warrior looked back toward the house and in that instant's glimpse Al noted that he was a huge fellow, over six feet tall and that along his left cheek, down his neck and clear out on his naked shoulder, extended a long, livid scar as of an old and terrible wound by a sabre or knife. Again Al fired. But the Indian was some distance away and the bullet apparently missed him altogether. Before Al could get another aim the savage had caught Tommy, screaming and struggling, from the ground and, swinging him up on the pony's back, had ridden swiftly after his companions.

For a moment Al was beside himself with grief and rage. His brother was being carried away under his very eyes, probably to torture and death, and he could do nothing. He ran out madly after the fleeing Indians, shouting senseless threats and waving his arms. But he dared not fire, for the last rider held Tommy, struggling fiercely in his iron grip, as a shield between himself and pursuing bullets. In a few seconds all the Indians had disappeared in the strip of woods and then Al remembered his mother and sister. He abandoned his futile pursuit and ran to the house, not even glancing at the dead Indian in the yard nor the one before the door. Rushing into the kitchen, he threw himself in a paroxysm of grief beside his father's body, crying out to him and vainly striving to discover a sign of life in the quiet face, already grown so peaceful under the soothing touch of death. At length, with dry, silent sobs shaking his body, he rose slowly to his feet, closed and locked the door, composed his father's limbs and spread a cloth over his face. Then he picked up the musket, got the powder horn and box of bullets from the shelf, and, with one last glance at the still form on the floor, ran swiftly through the house and out, striking directly down the slope toward the marshy ground along the creek.

CHAPTER II THE FLIGHT THROUGH THE DARKNESS

Al had almost reached the nearest reeds when he heard a shot off to his left and looking in that direction saw Spot, the cow, sink to her knees and then topple over on her side. An Indian with rifle held aloof, exulting over this piece of slaughter, was galloping toward her. Al crouched low and ran into the reeds.

"Mother! Mother!" he called, softly, for the Indian was too far away to hear.

"Here," answered his mother's voice, not far off, and in a moment he had crept to her. Annie, crying softly, was beside her, and they were lying well hidden in a dense thicket of reeds close to the creek.

"Where is your father?" whispered Mrs. Briscoe, the instant he reached her, gazing at him with wide, terror-stricken eyes.

"Why, he—he—can't come now," Al faltered.

"He is killed," said Mrs. Briscoe, simply, in a lifeless voice.

Her son did not look at her.

"Yes," he said, almost inaudibly.

It seemed to him that the end of all things was closing down upon them. His mother did not weep; she was past tears. She did not even move, but her face was almost like chalk.

"And Tommy?" she asked presently.

"The Indians have carried him away," answered Al.

Mrs. Briscoe bowed her head upon her knees.

"Oh, my little boy, my baby boy!" she moaned. "Why should I live any longer with them gone?"

Al, stunned by the tragedies of the past few minutes, had nearly reached the lowest depths of despair. He felt numb and helpless, but at his mother's heartbroken cry a sudden rush of vitality and determination reanimated him. He recalled his father's words: "Remember that your first care must be your mother and your little brother and sister." He leaned forward and put his arm around his mother's shoulders.

"Mother," he said, "don't say that. You must live for Annie's sake and mine,—and Tommy's. We shall get him back; they will not hurt him, he is so young and bright. When we reach the fort the soldiers will send out after him."

By a mighty effort Mrs. Briscoe controlled herself. Her son's words had aroused her.

"You are right, Al," she said. "I must live for you and Annie and Tommy. But can we start for the fort now?"

"I am afraid we shall have to stay here till dark," he replied. "The Indians are still around. I will crawl up where I can get a look."

Leaving the musket beside his mother he crept up through the reeds until, by raising his head cautiously, he could see the house, about three hundred feet away at the top of the slope. An Indian was coming out of the barn leading Chick and Monty, both animals rearing and plunging wildly, for a horse brought up in civilization fears an Indian as much as he does a wolf. Al also saw columns of smoke beginning to arise from the roofs of the house and barn and realized with a terrible pang that his father's body was about to be incinerated in the ruins of his home. He felt a mad desire to rush from his concealment upon the savages and to fight them single-handed. But he restrained himself, for he realized that he would have no chance even against the four who were certainly there and who, for all he knew, might now have been joined by others. He lay there watching until the house and barn were wrapped in flames. Then two of the Indians rode out in opposite directions and making wide detours, circled around toward the swampy tract. Then he crept hastily back to his mother and gave her the revolver, the two empty chambers of which he had already re-loaded, himself taking the musket.

"They are going to search for us, mother," he whispered. "We must keep perfectly still. If they should find us and I should be hit, shoot Annie and then yourself. Never let them take you alive. But if there are only four of them we still have a good chance."

No more was said, and for a long time they lay quiet, their ears sharpened to unnatural keenness, listening to the snapping of reeds in the marsh to the east and west of them but never very close. The conviction at last came upon Al that their hunters, few in number, were afraid rather than anxious to find them, and he began to breathe easier. After more than an hour had elapsed he heard horses splashing in the creek above their hiding-place, and presently he crept again to the edge of the reeds. The house and barn were smouldering heaps of ashes, and the wagon was gone. No one was around the ruins but presently he saw, far off on a rise of the prairie to the eastward several horsemen, mere specks in the distance. He conjectured that it was the party which had wrought their ruin, bound for the Millers, their nearest neighbors, seven miles away. He wished ardently that he might warn the Millers but it was out of the question, so he went back to his mother and sister, and through the remaining hours of the afternoon and until darkness fell they lay in their concealment. Then very cautiously, under cover of the darkness, he piloted them across the creek, over several hills and low places, and so at last, two or three miles south of the claim, into the faintly marked road leading away to Fort Ridgely.

It is needless to enter into the details of that long and nerve-wracking journey. Not a moment of it was free from the dreadful fear of encountering enemies in the darkness, and, exhausted by excitement and grief, they dragged their way through the night, stopping every few yards to listen or peer into the gloom. Annie, utterly worn out, sometimes fell to the ground asleep, and then Al and Mrs. Briscoe had to take turns carrying her. Here and there at wide intervals around the vast circle of the horizon appeared a far distant, dull, yellow glow which they knew only too well must arise from other wrecked and burning homes like their own. Now and then the exhaustion of Mrs. Briscoe and Annie compelled them to sink down for a few moments' rest and it was almost daybreak when they finally reached a point which Al knew must be close to the cabin of the Olsens, about eight miles from Fort Ridgely, though they could see nothing of the house in the darkness. Evidently, therefore, it had not been burned, else they could have discerned the smouldering embers. Al saw the first faint streaks of dawn in the East and, realizing that they dared go no further by daylight, he led the way to a small clump of timber which he remembered, lying about a quarter of a mile east of the Olsens' buildings. He found a safe hiding-place for his mother and sister in a dense thicket of bushes under the trees, within a few feet of which he could himself lie and have a clear view of the Olsen house and its immediate vicinity. Here they remained until probably ten o'clock in the morning, Al all the time keeping a close watch on the house. Not a person nor an animal was about the place save a few chickens which he could see scratching in the yard, and he concluded that the Olsens must have been warned, perhaps by Mr. Briscoe himself on his homeward ride, and had escaped to the fort the day before. The Briscoes had not tasted food since the previous noon, and though neither his mother nor Annie would confess to being hungry, Al knew that they all needed nourishment in order to be able to continue their journey after nightfall. He determined to creep up to the deserted house in the hope of finding some food there, if nothing more than a few eggs in the log stable. Handing the revolver to his mother and dragging the musket along beside him, he made his way with painful slowness across the strip of open prairie between the woods and the house. On his way he saw nothing to alarm him, though he noted that just west of the house was a rise in the prairie, evidently concealing a depression beyond, into which he could not see. But no tree tops were visible over the rise, and he did not believe that any Indians would attempt to hide in an open valley. He made a hurried search through the house, which consisted of a single room, and was rewarded by finding a scant half-loaf of very stale bread. Nothing else could he find, for the family had evidently taken all their possessions, including food, in their flight. He was just about to start to the stable in a search for eggs when his heart suddenly seemed to stop beating at the sound of galloping hoofs just back of the house. To his startled ears it sounded like a hundred horses. His only thought was to get back to his mother and sister and, seizing the musket, he dashed out of the doorway and leaped away toward the trees, casting only one glance behind. It showed him a group of eight or ten mounted Indians just riding up on the other side of the house. His apprehension was such that he did not notice that they were dressed in civilized garments until he heard a voice shout in English and in a reassuring tone;

"Wait, boy, wait! we no hurt you!"

He ventured another glance behind and saw all the party save one standing still, their rifles held aloft in sign of peace. The remaining one was still riding toward him but his rifle was also held up. Al realized that they could easily have shot him in his tracks had they wished, and their failure to do so encouraged him. He halted while the lone Indian rode up to him, dismounted and extended his hand, which Al hesitatingly took. But the grasp was hearty and firm.

"We no hurt you," repeated the Indian. "We Christian Indian from Yellow Medicine. We hunting for whites to save from the bad M'dewakantons that make the much kill. We take you to Fort Ridgely. More white people there?" He pointed to the timber toward which Al had been running.

The boy hesitated a moment. The Indian's appearance and words, and still more his manner, inspired his confidence, and he found a brighter hope springing up within him than he had felt since his father's death. But should he trust his mother and Annie to these Indians when they had just suffered so terribly at the hands of others of the same race? Perhaps they were deceiving him in order to draw the rest of his party into their power and would then kill or torture them all. But, on the other hand, if the Indians were hostile he was already at their mercy, so his protection was lost to his mother and sister. Could they make their way to the fort alone if he should deny their presence now and go with the Indians himself, either to safety or death? He did not believe they could. But something kept telling him he must trust the Indian who stood before him, so friendly and earnest. He was every inch an Indian but his face lacked the expression of savage ferocity borne on the faces of the war party which had attacked them the day before. It seemed softened by better influences, and Al could hardly believe that he was treacherous. He took his difficult resolution.

"Yes," he answered. "There are more over there."

The Indian smiled. "Good," said he. "We take you all to the fort. You go get them." Then he added a little proudly, "We save since yesterday, one, two, six white family."

Al went into the woods and informed his mother that rescuers had come to them and, without mentioning their character, led her and Annie out. Mrs. Briscoe was much alarmed when she first saw the party of Indians assembled to meet them, but the latter greeted her so kindly and sympathetically that she soon felt easier. Three of the red men dismounted in order that she and Annie and Al might ride; and so, with the Indians leading their ponies, the cavalcade started southward at once in the direction of the fort. Al found that his confidence had not been misplaced, for in less than two hours they rode into the fort, safe but very weary and depressed.

Fort Ridgely was nothing more than a collection of buildings,—quarters for troops, storehouses, stables, and the other structures necessary for a permanent military establishment, standing on an exposed hill surrounded by ravines and having no stockade or other defences whatever around it; for it was designed merely as a cantonment and supply depot and not as a defensive fortification. When the Briscoes entered it on that afternoon of August 19, it presented a scene of confusion and distress hard to imagine. It was thronged with refugees,—men, women, and children, from all the surrounding country, many of them destitute of everything save the clothes they wore. Some were wounded or badly burned in escaping from houses set on fire by their assailants; and others were arriving now and then who had escaped almost miraculously from the devastated section about the Lower Agency or from more distant points in other directions. These people were being fed from the stores in the Government warehouse; and the post barracks were not large enough to accommodate them, for, fortunately, more troops had arrived since the day before.

Mrs. Briscoe soon found a friend in the warm-hearted Mrs. Olsen, who, as Al had conjectured, had come in on the previous day with her husband and children after having received warning of the uprising from Mr. Briscoe. Mrs. Olsen burst into tears on learning of the sad fate of the man to whom they very likely owed their own lives, and of the carrying off of poor little Tommy. She instantly brought them food, and after they had refreshed themselves, she insisted on Mrs. Briscoe and Annie taking her bed in their covered wagon and resting, at least until more commodious quarters could be found for them. Having seen his mother and sister thus as comfortably cared for as present circumstances would permit, Al started out to look for another place for them which would not so greatly inconvenience the Olsens, and to learn what could be done about sending pursuers after the Indians who had carried away Tommy.

Making his way among the groups of people, many of them disconsolate and weeping, and among the wagons, the animals, and the heaps of household goods scattered in confusion over the open parade ground in the centre of the fort, Al suddenly felt a hand slap his shoulder while a familiar voice said,

"Hello, Al Briscoe! When did you get here?"

He looked around and saw Wallace Smith, a young fellow of about his own age, whom he had met at the fort several times during the past year when he had come in after supplies. Wallace's father kept a general merchandise store just outside the fort, at which the Briscoes had done most of their trading, and it was toward this store that Al was walking when he encountered Wallace.

"I just came in with my mother and sister," returned Al, shaking hands, and then he related briefly the events of the last twenty-four hours. Wallace was very sympathetic and at once took Al to the store. Here Mr. Smith told him that he would find a place for Mrs. Briscoe and Annie to sleep that night, in one of the rooms occupied by his own family above the store. As for Al, he could sleep in the store itself, in company with a number of men who were to be accommodated there. But when Al mentioned his hope of having an immediate pursuit made after Tommy's captors, Mr. Smith shook his head.

"I'm afraid you will find it can't be done now, my boy," he said. "There are too few men here. But you can see the commanding officer and ask him."

The boys, accordingly, left the store and walked toward the headquarters building.

"Can't the Indians capture this place pretty easily" asked Al, looking about. "I don't see what there is to keep them back."

Wallace looked serious. "Well, I don't know," he answered. "The officers seem to think we can stand them off if they come, and I'm afraid they surely will. Most of the men are busy now putting the buildings in shape for defence. There are about a hundred soldiers of the Fifth Minnesota Infantry here, for Lieutenant Sheehan was recalled by a messenger sent yesterday, and he got back with his men a little while ago. He is in command now. Have you heard about Captain Marsh?"

Al had not.

"Why, he marched for the Lower Agency yesterday morning with forty-five men, as soon as he heard of the outbreak there. They were ambushed by the Indians at the ferry across the Minnesota and, though they seem to have fought splendidly, all the men were killed except fifteen, who finally got back here. Captain Marsh himself was drowned in trying to swim the river. So, you see, there is a third of our force cut off at one blow. But a messenger was sent after Major Galbraith,—he is the agent, you know, at the Upper Agency,—at the same time that one went for Lieutenant Sheehan. Major Galbraith started yesterday for St. Paul with a company of half-breed recruits for the Union army. They are called the Renville Rangers. They ought to be back here pretty soon and will add fifty more men. Then there are a good many refugees, probably one hundred, who can fight, and we have several cannon, with a regular army sergeant in charge of them. The Indians, you know, are deadly afraid of cannon. So we ought to be able to make a pretty good defence, though I wish there were a stockade."

"Did you say that Major Galbraith's company is made up of half-breeds?" inquired Al, remembering with a shudder the evil face of the wretch who had shot his father and whom he himself had killed.

"Yes. But most of them are reliable fellows, otherwise they would not be willing to leave their country and go South to fight the rebels."

By this time they had reached the headquarters building, and Al saw, standing in front of it, five or six of the Indians who had brought them in.

"Who are those Indians, Wallace?" he asked. "They are some of the party who rescued us."

Wallace looked closely at the red men, who were standing idle with their ponies, evidently waiting for some one who was inside the building.

"Why, those are Sissetons from the Upper Agency," he said. "Probably John Otherday, Solomon Twostars or some of the Renvilles are with them. They have been going around the country all to-day and last night, warning white people and bringing them in and there are other parties of Sissetons and Wahpetons doing the same thing; though it's mighty dangerous business, for the hostiles are almost as bitter against them as against the whites. Very few of the Upper Indians seem to have joined the uprising. They are mostly Christians, you know, and their conduct shows the great work of the missionaries."

The boys entered the headquarters building, and though Lieutenant Sheehan was surrounded by many men, all urgently anxious to transact their business with him, Al presently found an opportunity to tell him of Tommy's capture and to ask that men be sent after him. The officer listened intently to the story and when it was finished, laid his hand kindly on Al's shoulder.

"My boy," said he, with much emotion, "God knows, I wish I could send men after your brother instantly; I know how you feel and especially how your mother must feel, and I would gladly do it for your poor father's sake, for he was a gallant officer in the Mexican War. But there are two dozen people here already who have lost members of their families in the same way; and for many of them the situation is much worse than yours, because those they have lost are grown and are likely to be killed or tortured by the Indians, while your brother is a child, and I don't believe they will hurt him. But I have had to tell every one the same thing; I can do nothing now. This place is likely to be attacked by a thousand or more Indians at any moment and we have not one-tenth enough men to defend it properly. Not a man can be spared from here now, for it will be all we can do to save ourselves and all these women and children from massacre. Probably in a few days we shall have hundreds of troops from St. Paul and the East, and then we can go after these infernal red murderers and punish them and rescue their living victims. But, meantime, you must be prepared to stand with the rest of us in defending your mother and little sister. And I think you are a lad who will do your share." He glanced approvingly at Al's straight figure and steady eyes.

"I shall try to, sir," answered Al.

"I know you will," said the Lieutenant. "You had better go and help the men who are working on the storehouse."

He pointed to the building mentioned and then turned to several men who were waiting for him; while Al, very much downcast at his failure but still feeling a little more hopeful of Tommy's safety because of Lieutenant Sheehan's words, walked out again with Wallace.

CHAPTER III BESIEGED IN FORT RIDGELY

The remainder of that afternoon and the following night passed without serious alarms, but it was heavy with labor for the little garrison. The roofs of the storehouses and of the barracks for enlisted men were covered with earth to protect them against fire arrows, and their sides were loop-holed. Earth and log barricades were erected at various points overlooking the heads of ravines. Little could be done to protect the officers' frame quarters or the log stables and outbuildings, which lay, much exposed, at the western corner of the fort. Early in the evening Major Galbraith's Renville Rangers came into the fort, forty-five strong, weary with a twelve-hour forced march from St. Peter, where they had been overtaken by the courier sent to recall them. A large majority of these men remained loyal to their duty during the ensuing days but a few of them, their slumbering ferocity roused by the reports of the uprising of their savage kindred, skulked away and joined the hostiles, committing before they left an act of dastardly treachery. Several small cannon, in charge of the gallant Ordnance Sergeant John Jones, of the United States regular army, were placed in commanding positions in the fort, and that night a heavy chain guard was posted all around the place. But, though several false alarms were given, no Indians appeared, and the night passed in reasonable quiet. Mrs. Briscoe, still too overwhelmed with dumb grief to do more than mechanically comply with the arrangements made for her and Annie by Al and her friends, passed the night not uncomfortably in the hospitable but over-crowded home of the Smiths; and Al slept with a dozen men and boys, including Wallace, on the floor of the store below, his musket and revolver beside him.

The early part of the next day was spent like the one preceding it, in further strengthening the barricades and buildings, in cleaning weapons, and, beyond that, simply in endless discussion of the ghastly events of the past few days and uneasy speculation upon the future. Though many of the refugees would have gladly given all that remained of their shattered fortunes to get to St. Paul or some other place of assured security, the attempt was not to be thought of, for it was known that the hostiles were skulking all about the post and any party which might start out for the East would undoubtedly be set upon and destroyed. A few scattered survivors of the massacre continued to come in now and then, exhausted, famished, often wounded, and always nearly insane from the unnumbered perils and rigorous hardships through which they had passed. An attack on the fort was expected at any time, as Lieutenant Sheehan's words to Al had indicated, and the only cause for wonder was that it had not come sooner. Indeed, had the defenders but known it, Little Crow had been urgent in the councils of the Indians for an overwhelming assault on Fort Ridgely on the evening of the eighteenth, immediately after the bloody defeat of Captain Marsh's detachment. But some of his more cautious followers opposed the plan on the ground that many of the warriors were still out over the country, murdering settlers and destroying property, so that the full strength of their forces could not yet be brought against the fort. This view was eagerly sustained by the strong element among the hostiles who were opposed to the whole outbreak on principle, seeing in it nothing but ultimate disaster for their people, yet who did not dare openly to champion the cause of the whites for fear of being summarily dealt with by their more violent associates. This element hoped that a delay in the attack on the fort might enable the whites to gather a sufficient force there to repulse it when it should be made, and assuredly the delay had rendered it possible for the defenders to place the post in a much better state of defence by the afternoon of August 20 than it had been two days before.

It was about one o'clock on that hot, still afternoon when Al and Wallace stepped out of the Smiths' store, having just finished their dinner. They were about to start over to the storehouse of the fort, where some work was still being done, when Wallace noticed a loose horse wandering down into one of the ravines not far from the store.

"That's one of our horses," he exclaimed. "He must have slipped his halter. If he goes far the Indians will catch him. Come on; let's get him!"

Followed by Al, he dashed into the stable for a halter and then started on a run for the ravine. The latter was quite wide and thickly fringed with bushes and small trees, while the bottom of it was carpeted with luxuriant grass, which the horse was nibbling as they came up. But their appearance startled him and with a snort he leaped past them and galloped on some distance further, when he again halted. The boys followed, Wallace this time approaching more diplomatically and saying in a soothing tone,

"Come, Frank; come boy! Nice boy!"

"He'll give you a jolt in the ribs if you get too close," warned Al, as he noticed the animal begin to edge his hind feet around in the direction of Wallace.

But Frank was not so mischievous as he looked; for in a moment Wallace had the halter on his head and the boys were just about to turn again up the ravine toward the fort, when, without the least warning, there sprang from the bushes not ten yards behind them two Indian warriors, dressed only in breech-clouts and both armed with bows and arrows. Uttering not a sound they sprang toward the boys with the evident intention of taking them alive. Al and Wallace were too dumbfounded to move until the Indians were almost upon them. Then Wallace dropped the horse's halter and, catching up a heavy stick lying at his feet, hurled it at the head of one of the warriors. It caught the savage fairly across the face and he reeled for an instant from the force of the blow, while his companion, somewhat daunted, halted also. The boys ran at full speed up the ravine, not even pausing to note the effect of Wallace's throw, which he afterward admitted had found its mark by pure accident. They had gone but a few yards when an arrow whizzed past Al's head and struck in the ground in front of them. They only ran the faster. A half-dozen more arrows flew by them and then Wallace uttered a cry of pain as one struck him fairly in the left arm. But by this time, fortunately, they were at the head of the ravine and only a few feet from the nearest buildings. Al stole a glance behind him, to see that their two pursuers had been joined by more than a dozen others; and then the boys dashed around the corner of the building, out of range, shouting at the tops of their voices,

"Indians! Indians!"

All over the fort men sprang to their feet, seized their guns, and such as were not already behind them rushed to the barricades and protected buildings. But by no means all of them had reached cover when a scattering, but numerous volley of musket shots and arrows was poured into the fort, not only out of the ravine from which the boys had escaped but from a number of others. Al then saw why the Indians following them had not fired on them with guns, for that would have spoiled the contemplated surprise of the fort, which their unexpected appearance in the ravine in pursuit of Frank had, perhaps, precipitated.

The defenders replied to the Indian fire so promptly and vigorously that the savages fell back from their first rush and concealed themselves about the heads of the ravines, whence they began a steady and well-sustained fire. The women and children, however, had nearly all reached places of shelter, when Al hurried up to the Smiths' store after his musket and revolver, almost dragging Wallace who, beside himself with pain, was frantically trying to pull the deeply imbedded arrow from his arm. They encountered Mr. Smith and his wife, accompanied by Mrs. Briscoe and Annie, who were fleeing from the exposed store, through which the Indian bullets were crashing, to the shelter of the barracks building.

"Here, Al," cried Mr. Smith, thrusting the latter's musket, revolver, and ammunition into his hands. "Don't go in there; you'll be killed. Come on, Wallace. God, lad, are you hurt?"

Wallace made no reply, but all of them ran, crouching low, to the barracks, which they reached safely after a race of a few rods, though it seemed like a mile with the bullets and arrows whistling about them. Here Dr. Alfred Muller, the brave assistant surgeon of the fort, aided by his heroic wife, took charge of Wallace and soon had the arrow extracted from his arm and the painful, though not serious, wound properly dressed. It was the first of nearly a score of similar cases which the Mullers were called upon to treat in Fort Ridgely. Wallace was much distressed at his inability to take his place with the defenders, but Al and Mr. Smith had to leave him in the surgeon's charge and hasten out to join the rest of the active garrison. On their way they encountered Sergeant Jones, working desperately with several other men over the vent of one of the small cannon. Al had already wondered dimly why he had heard none of the cannon firing, but he understood after Mr. Smith had asked,

"Why don't you open with the guns, sergeant? It would scare the Indians worse than anything."

"Can't," replied the sergeant, without looking up from his work. "Some of Major Galbraith's infernal half-breeds have spiked every one of the guns and then skipped out. But I'll have them in action in a few minutes."

He continued boring furiously with the drill he was using to clear the nail from the gun's vent and in a moment he shouted,

"Hooray! She's clear!" Then he added, addressing the cannoneer of the detachment, "Give them two-second shell and spherical case, fast as you can work her. Sweep the head of the ravine and aim low. I'll see if I can open the next one."

Drill in hand, he rushed away toward another gun some distance off, totally oblivious to the fire opened on him as soon as he appeared on the open ground. Mr. Smith and Al followed him and took their places among a number of others already there, behind a log barricade which stood not far from the next gun and facing the post stables out beyond the western corner of the fort. The men around them were chiefly refugees and some of them were greatly excited, firing rapidly and without aim, while a few others crouched down and did not attempt to shoot at all. There were no officers among them and no one seemed to be in command.

"Don't fire without something to aim at, Al," said Mr. Smith. "Wait till you see the flash of a gun or a movement in the grass and then shoot at the spot."

Mr. Smith was armed with a muzzle-loading rifle, which he was firing very slowly and carefully, and Al followed his example, for neither of them had much ammunition. Mr. Smith knew that the other men with them were not much better off, for the small arms ammunition supply of the fort was perilously low, and he tried with some success to induce them to fire more deliberately. The panic-stricken skulkers, however, he could not arouse to their duty. They merely lay still and cursed him when he told them to get up and sneered at their cowardice.

Out to their left, Sergeant Jones was still trying unsuccessfully to open the vent of the field-gun. Occasionally the boom of the gun which he had already repaired roared out above the crackle of musketry, and in the ravine which its fire was sweeping the Indians gave way and retired. Presently he succeeded in getting the second gun into action, and the assailants disappeared from that front also; and by the time he had them all working the Indians had become discouraged. Their fire gradually slackened, and as night approached, their main body drew off; though enough warriors still remained in well concealed places to maintain a desultory fire, and the weary garrison, resting on their arms, caught but fitful repose through the hours of darkness, for no one could tell when the attack might be renewed.

The fort remained in a state of siege all the next day until near evening, the garrison taking reliefs in guarding the defences. But about dusk the Indian fire ceased altogether, and total silence settled over the hillsides, which for thirty hours had echoed the turmoil of battle. Three soldiers lay dead within the fort and eight others of the garrison were wounded. The quiet which reigned through the night and the morning of the twenty-second was more disturbing than the uproar which had preceded it. While the latter prevailed, the garrison at least knew where their enemies were and what they were doing, while now no one could tell what new and formidable plans they might be hatching. No one believed that they had given up the hope of taking the fort and those in the garrison most familiar with the Indian methods of warfare regarded it as certain that they were making ready for a final, great assault.

Early on the afternoon of the twenty-second it came, beginning with a sudden and tremendous volley fired into the fort from all sides at once. The Indians, in a seemingly countless horde, then sprang up and made a rush for the fort, which seemed about to be overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers. But the garrison was in position and ready for them. Volley after volley poured into the approaching mass of savages, while the shells of the artillery tore through their ranks. Unused to bearing the losses of an open, stand-up fight, the Indians quickly gave way and fled back to the ravines, where, however, they remained, stubbornly pouring in an intense fire, which searched every portion of the fort. Little Crow was some distance behind the Indian lines, directing the general attack, while on the field itself, Mankato, Good Thunder, Big Eagle and other veteran chiefs were leading the savage hosts, which outnumbered the garrison five to one. They pressed the attack relentlessly. Musket and rifle balls tore through the officers' wooden quarters and other exposed structures, and now and then a fire arrow whizzed through the air and struck its blazing torch into one of the frame buildings. Soon several of the latter, including the Smiths' store, broke into flames and the roar of the conflagration added to the terrifying confusion of the battle, while stifling smoke clouds rolled across the field, both blinding and choking the defenders.

But though the attack was vigorous all along the line, it was especially so at the western corner of the fort, where the Indians had discovered that if they could gain possession of the exposed stables they could command and render untenable a considerable extent of the interior defences. Al was at the same barricade which he had occupied two days before, but it was being defended now chiefly by men of the Renville Rangers, who were fighting as courageously as the best of veterans. All at once Al saw Lieutenant Sheehan and Lieutenant Gorman, of the Rangers, run up to the field gun near them, and heard Sheehan cry to the gunners:

"Fire shell into the left of those stables! Set them afire if you can. The Indians are trying to get in them."

Then the officers ran on to their barricade.

"Boys," shouted Lieutenant Gorman to the Rangers, "those stables on the right must be burned. Come on! Don't go near the ones on the left; the cannon is going to knock them to pieces. Hurry up!"

He sprang across the barricade, and a number of the men without the least hesitation darted after him over the exposed ground in front, their guns trailing beside them and their heads bent low. Hardly thinking what he was doing but eager to be of service, Al followed them, and in the general uproar he did not hear Lieutenant Sheehan shouting to him to come back. The distance was not great, and though the bullets seemed to rain around them, almost before he knew it Al found himself with Lieutenant Gorman and his dusky companions inside the stable, and none of them hurt. Under Lieutenant Gorman's quick orders, the Rangers snatched up handfuls of hay, lighted them, and blew them into flames along the inner walls of the building. But Al, during the moment they were thus occupied, peered out through an opening in the western end of the stable. What he saw alarmed him. There were Indians everywhere, just below the edge of the hill out of the direct line of fire from the fort, and a number of them were actually along the outside wall of the stable itself. Al thrust his revolver through the opening and fired three times in rapid succession, with what effect he never knew, for he heard Lieutenant Gorman shout,

"She'll burn now. Come on, get away! Get away!"

The inner walls of the stable were a seething mass of flames as they fled through the doorway, hearing as they ran the crash and explosion of a shell in the stables beside the one which they had just left. As he sprang back behind the barricade again, Al felt a hand grasp him roughly by the arm, and heard Lieutenant Sheehan's voice saying in his ear:

"You young rascal, what do you mean by running out like that and risking your life? You're not a soldier; I didn't order you out. What would your mother and sister do if you were killed?"

This aspect of the matter had not occurred to Al before. He began to reply, in penitent confusion,

"Why,—I don't know, sir. I—"

"Well, hang it, don't do it again, that's all," broke in the officer. Then he added, while a half smile came over his face, powder-grimed and wet with perspiration: "Anyhow, you're a plucky youngster. Your father would be proud of you."

"I should say he is plucky," interjected Gorman. "He started to clean out the redskins over there, but hadn't time to finish the job."

The two officers disappeared through the smoke up the line, and Al resumed his methodical musket practice, the Rangers around him now and then glancing at him approvingly, though he did not notice it.

The fire along their immediate front relaxed a little as the stables blazed into ruins and the assailants found that they could not utilize this coveted point of vantage. But the Indians clung to the ravines with a stubbornness truly amazing, the utmost efforts of the artillery failing to dislodge them. Presently one of the Rangers kneeling beside Al, with a gesture of despair threw down his gun,—a cumbersome, old-fashioned weapon of the type called "Harper's Ferry muskets," with which all Major Galbraith's men were armed,—and exclaimed,

"No more bullets!"

It was an ominous announcement and one which was very soon followed by others of similar nature, not only at their barricade, but all over the fort. Consumed by the rapid fire which had been necessary to hold back the fierce Indian attack, the small arms ammunition supply of the fort was almost exhausted, and a few moments more of such work would see it all expended. A dreadful contingency faced the defenders. With their ammunition all gone, their assailants would be able to rush in and slaughter them almost at will. One by one the men of the garrison ran out of bullets and the fire perceptibly slackened. The Indians quickly noticed this and, guessing the cause, redoubled their efforts.

Al, thanks to his careful use of ammunition, still had quite a supply left, but he saw with horror what the general situation was and realized that unless something could be done to relieve it, they would all be massacred in a few minutes. Being under no orders and wishing to be with his mother and sister at the last moment, if this was really at hand, he left the barricade and ran to the barracks building, where they were crowded with the other noncombatants. A distressing scene met his eyes as he entered. Many of the women were gathered in groups, weeping and wringing their hands, their children clinging about them, while here and there others knelt, praying aloud or absorbed in silent supplications. A long row of wounded lay stretched on pallets at one side. But across the room he saw another group, the only one in which the spirit of courage and determination seemed still to prevail. To Al's surprise, his mother was one of this party, apparently perfectly calm and her face lighted by an expression of noble resolution and self-forgetfulness. With her were several other women of like firm spirit, and two or three men, all of them busily absorbed in some occupation around a stove in which a hot fire was blazing. Al soon found that they were casting musket balls, their supply of lead consisting of the flattened bullets of the Indians, which men were gathering up outside and bringing to them to be re-moulded. The rapidly increasing supply which they were thus preparing was being augmented by some of Sergeant Jones's artillerymen, who were opening spherical case shot and removing from them the balls, which served perfectly for musket ammunition. Although Lieutenant Sheehan and Sergeant Jones had thought of these providential expedients but a few moments before, already small quantities of the new balls were being taken out and distributed to the men in the defences, whose fire, consequently, was resuming its former volume.

His hope and enthusiasm all returned to Al as soon as he found that a vigorous defence could still be maintained, and after an affectionate embrace and a few words with his mother and Annie, he ran back again to the barricade. It was not long after his return there, and late in the afternoon, that the Indians once more made a determined effort to storm the position. Marshalling their forces below the crest of the hill, they rushed up from the ravines in throngs, brandishing their weapons and whooping at the tops of their voices; while the flare of their many-colored war-bonnets and robes, the tiger-like contortions of their muscular, naked bodies, and the glint of rifle barrel and knife blade, flashing back the rays of the sinking sun, made a spectacle as wildly magnificent as it was awe-inspiring. But again the heroic garrison proved equal to the emergency. From barricade and loop-holed wall the infantry poured steady volleys into them, while the artillery, holding its fire until the charge was well under way, lashed their ranks with case shot. Though they had started forward with the utmost enthusiasm, they soon began to hesitate and break. With their undisciplined methods of fighting, the Indian does not live who could withstand such a fire. In a moment they had halted, and a few seconds more saw them scurrying back to the ravines, utterly repulsed, while from the throats of the sturdy little garrison rose cheer after cheer of victory, and men leaped upon the barricades and tossed their hats in the air. Every one felt that the enemy had made his last, supreme effort, and such, indeed, proved to be the case. The Indian fire gradually died away, and by nightfall silence again reigned over Fort Ridgely, wrecked, smoking, and shot-torn, but triumphant.

The stables and outlying buildings, with the exceptions of the guard-house and the magazine, were smouldering ruins; the officers' quarters were riddled through and through; the storehouse and barracks were pock-marked and splintered with bullets; nearly all the oxen and mules belonging to the quartermaster's department were captured or killed, and seven more wounded men lay beside those who had been injured two days before. But the fight was won. Through the night the garrison lay on their arms, watching the glare of distant conflagrations off to the southeast, where the defeated Indians were burning farm-houses and stacks as they marched on to the village of New Ulm, sixteen miles away. Fort Ridgely remained undisturbed, though New Ulm, where two hundred and fifty volunteer citizens under the command of Judge Charles E. Flandreau had gathered to defend the town and the one thousand five hundred non-combatants in refuge there, was desperately attacked next day, almost wholly burned, and nearly captured by the infuriated savages. Though the Indians seemed to be gone from their vicinity, the occupants of Fort Ridgely were obliged to remain inert for several days longer, and then, at last, on the morning of the twenty-seventh, their eyes were gladdened by the sight of a large column of troops approaching from the eastward, and the little army of Colonel H. H. Sibley, hastily recruited and as yet poorly disciplined and wretchedly armed, but full of ardor, marched into the quadrangle of shattered buildings amid the cheers of the men and the tearful thanksgivings of the women. The never-to-be-forgotten siege was over.

CHAPTER IV REFUGEES

The arrival of Colonel Sibley's troops gave to the destitute refugees in Fort Ridgely their first opportunity of turning from the desperate struggle for immediate self-preservation in which they had been ceaselessly involved for nine days, to contemplate fully the extent of the disaster which had fallen upon them and to consider what their future course must be. To most of them the Indian outbreak and its consequent massacre and pillage had brought the total ruin of their fortunes, for in general they were poor people who had come into the West and started their homes on free Government land, in the hope of acquiring comfort and modest fortunes through years of faithful labor. But to the families which had been so fortunate as to remain intact, losing no loved members at the hands of the savages, the disaster was not irremediable. The property they had lost was not, in most cases, of very great value, save as measured by labor; and as their lands still remained to them, they could again enter into occupation as soon as settled conditions were restored, and in a short time recover their former positions. So, although a few such families lost heart and left the country, most of them remained and lived to see the time when they were very glad they had done so.

But with the families which had been shattered by the savages, which had lost father or mother or sons or daughters struck down in the slaughter, the case was far different. And many, alas, were in this condition, for more than one thousand white people had fallen victims to the Indians along the desolated Minnesota frontier during those few mid-August days. Where the head of a family had been lost, his widow and children must either undertake to eke out a precarious existence on the devastated claim from which they had been driven, surrounded by the hard conditions of pioneer life, or they must return to the older parts of the country whence they had originally come, and there seek the aid and protection of relatives or friends. The first arrangement was often impossible, for not many a widow with a family of small children could hope to sustain herself in such a country, beautiful and fertile but at that time wild and practically unbroken. For these reasons there was a long and doleful procession of destitute people passing through St. Paul, Winona, and the other towns along the Mississippi River on their way back to the more easterly States during the days of late August and early September, 1862. They came from Fort Ridgely, from New Ulm, from Acton and Forest City and Hutchinson and a score of other little settlements along the border. Among these unfortunate people were to be found the survivors of the Briscoe family, bound for St. Louis, Missouri. How they had finally come to decide upon this course will require some explanation.

When Al first realized, with the advent of Colonel Sibley's troops into Fort Ridgely, that the Indians had been checked and the tide turned, and that the white men were really setting about regaining possession of the country, his first and greatest ambition was to set out at once for the rescue of Tommy; his second was to visit the lonely and ruined cabin twenty miles north of the fort and there give the remains of his father tender burial. But he soon found that difficulties lay in the way of accomplishing either of these desires. The army could not instantly spring forth as one man and rush to the rescue of his brother. The soldiers had to be prepared and provided for a campaign which, moreover, even when inaugurated, must be carefully and methodically carried out. Several hundred white captives, among whom it seemed almost certain that Tommy would be found, were in the possession of the Indians. If a precipitate attack should be made upon the latter their captives would, past a doubt, be massacred to a soul. Their release must be accomplished by diplomacy; the Indians must be made to realize that only by the safe delivery of their prisoners could they hope to mitigate the stern punishment which they had richly earned at the hands of the Government, and which would surely be meted out to them sooner or later. To accomplish the safe delivery of the captives might mean weeks of careful work on the part of the friendly Indians in inducing the hostile element to see the necessity for such action. It might require numerous councils and it might require fighting, properly prepared for.

All this meant that if Al were to take personal part in the rescue of Tommy, they must stay at Fort Ridgely for some time to come; and to stay at Fort Ridgely meant that they must have some money. Here was the most distressing difficulty in the whole situation. The Briscoes had absolutely nothing left; they were penniless. Even their few household goods had been destroyed or carried away by the Indians and these goods, together with their buildings and the handful of live stock and farm implements on their claim, had constituted all their worldly possessions. They had not always been in such a precarious condition; in fact, two years before the period at which our story opens they would not have dreamed that they could ever be reduced to such circumstances as were theirs when we first saw them.

In 1860 the Briscoes had been living in the prosperous little city of Glasgow, Missouri, at that time an important centre of steamboat traffic on the Missouri River, drawing to its numerous and well-appointed stores the trade of a wide region of farms and plantations, and to its wharves and warehouses the great crops of hemp and tobacco, corn and grain, vegetables and live-stock with which the whole rich country teemed. Mr. Briscoe's business, the retailing of furniture, was extensive and profitable, his home was as comfortable and attractive as any in the town, and his family lacked for none of the comforts of life, while many of its luxuries were also theirs. Once or twice a year, usually in the summer and winter, when there was something of a lull in the business, they would make a trip to St. Louis, where Mrs. Briscoe's sister, her only near relative, lived with her husband and family. His parents had intended to send Al to an academy in St. Louis in the Fall of 1861, to complete his preparatory education before applying for an appointment as a cadet at West Point. Then came the opening of the Civil War and the beginning of a rapid succession of events in the family, which had forced the abandonment of this and of all the other plans which they had cherished for the future.

The opening of hostilities, precipitated by the attack on Fort Sumter, produced a commercial and industrial effect upon the country at large almost as calamitous as the political one; and this was particularly true in the Border States, where sentiment was sharply divided. Mr. Briscoe's business was one which depended to an unusual degree upon conditions of general prosperity and tranquillity. When the people of the community found their incomes destroyed or sharply cut down by general conditions, they could and did get along without new furniture, though they could not get along without groceries or clothing. His business suffered on this account, but it suffered still more from other causes.

Mr. Briscoe had always commanded an unusual degree of popularity in Glasgow since he had gone there, a youth, in 1844, because he had enlisted for the Mexican War, among many other volunteers from the town and from Howard County, in the First Regiment of Missouri Dragoons, under Colonel Alexander W. Doniphan; an organization immensely popular in central Missouri at the time. He had served through all the wonderfully romantic campaigns of that regiment with gallantry and distinction, coming out of the war a first lieutenant. He had won his sergeantcy for saving the life of a comrade, another Glasgow youth, in the fight at Brazitos, New Mexico, December 21, 1846; his second lieutenantcy for faithfulness and courage during the long march from Sante Fe to Chihuahua, and his first lieutenantcy for gallantry in the capture of that city from a Mexican army five times as large as the American force, on February 28, 1847. Consequently, on his return to Glasgow he had been regarded as a hero, and the people could not do enough for him, showing their favor in one most practical way by bestowing as much of their trade upon him as they possibly could. He, in turn, entertained the liveliest interest in the exciting events of the Mexican War and the most profound and loyal regard for his old commander, Colonel Doniphan. It was in the latter's honor that he christened his eldest son Alexander Doniphan, and we have seen that he even applied the fanciful names, Chihuahua and Montezuma,—shortened for convenience to Chick and Monty,—to his horses, in memory of his days below the Rio Grande.

But the very fact that he had been one of Doniphan's men was equivalent to a declaration that in spirit he was a sympathizer with the political theories and social institutions at that time almost universally accepted by the people of the Southern States, where slavery prevailed; for it was among people of such convictions that Doniphan's regiment had been almost wholly recruited. Because he had been one of them, everybody so naturally assumed that his views agreed with those of his military associates that he was seldom even called upon to express himself. When he was, the fact that he said little, and that of a rather non-committal character, only led people to believe that he did not care for discussion and regretted the political unrest of the time, as, indeed, did many others. This ill-defined position did very well until the beginning of the period of intense agitation and bitterness immediately following the election of Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency in the Fall of 1860. He then found himself forced to face the issue frankly and declare, not only to himself but to others, whether he intended to throw in his fortunes with the South in the war which every one foresaw was rapidly approaching, or to stand firmly by the Union.

It was a bitterly hard choice for him to make and one which he deferred as long as possible; for, though both he and his wife were of Northern birth and ancestry, the most cherished associations of their lives had been with Southern people, and they loved the South like their native land. But he believed, and Mrs. Briscoe believed with him, that the Southern idea of destroying the Union was absolutely wrong, and that a true American citizen's allegiance was due, not to any one State or section but to the nation. When, after much painful reflection, he found himself unalterably committed to this conviction, he was a man of too much courage not to declare it. His associates and fellow citizens in the town learned of his attitude first with astonishment, then with resentment, and finally with cold hostility. He had made his choice, he had voluntarily arrayed himself against the dearest desires of their hearts and what they conceived to be the most vital interests of their lives. They turned from him as from a betrayer, a traitor, and he suddenly found himself worse than a stranger in the community where for fifteen years past he had been respected and beloved above most other citizens. It was the sad story, as old as organized society, of the dearest private associations torn asunder by the rancor of public controversy. His business suddenly declined to almost nothing. It would not have been so bad if he had made provision for the future. But it had always been so easy to make money that he and his family had spent it just as easily, for it had seemed that the business alone would always continue to provide them with all they might need. His credit with the wholesale houses of St. Louis and the East was large and unquestioned, and when the trouble came his store was full of goods unpaid for. Too long he struggled to dispose of his stock in a town whose people, all at once, either could not or would not buy. Finally, when his creditors, themselves pressed for money by the industrial depression, began to harass him, he sold at ruinous sacrifices. But he could not stem the tide. He was forced into bankruptcy, and stock, store building, home and household goods, all went down in the yawning pit of debt; for such was his sense of honor that he would withhold nothing in order to pay to those who had trusted him the money to which they were justly entitled. And he did pay it, dollar for dollar, to the last cent; but when it was paid he had nothing left in the world except a little less than three hundred dollars in cash, a few bits of cherished family silver and bric-a-brac belonging to his wife, and a scanty stock of family clothing. His brother-in-law in St. Louis, Mr. Colton, would gladly have helped him, but he, also, had been brought to the verge of ruin by the business upheaval, and Mr. Briscoe, well knowing this, declined to add a particle to his burdens.

To go into business again at such a time, in another town and without capital, was not to be thought of. Neither was sufficiently remunerative employment to be found, nor could he yet enter the Union army, as he ardently desired to do, leaving his family destitute. The free Government lands seemed to offer a home which they could acquire with little difficulty, and a living in the meantime as cheap as could be found anywhere. So they chose Minnesota and went to the claim north of Fort Ridgely, where Mr. Briscoe hoped that in a few years he might develop a farm and accumulate a little money. Then, if the war was not yet over and his services were still needed, he might leave Al in charge for a time and go to the front.

Such, briefly, was the history of the Briscoe family up to the time when we first met with them, and such their plans for the future, so rudely interrupted by the calamities of the Indian outbreak. Without father, without money, without agricultural implements or horses, and without even a home to live in, with the whole country still overrun by hostile savages, it was out of the question, after the relief of Fort Ridgely, for them either to return to their claim or to remain where they were. The only place in the world which seemed to offer a haven of refuge for the time being, at least, was the home of Mrs. Briscoe's sister in St. Louis. Pitying friends among the other almost equally destitute refugees, even soldiers of the garrison who were touched by the wretched plight of the little family and by Al's manly conduct during the siege, contributed to a small fund sufficient to take them by steamboat to St. Louis; and on one of the last days of August they started for St. Paul with a large party, escorted by a detachment of soldiers.

Before they left, Al and his mother asked and obtained an interview with Colonel Sibley, concerning Tommy. Colonel Sibley was a man of great prominence in Minnesota, having been elected the first Governor of the State after its admission to the Union in 1858. At the time of the Indian outbreak he was living at the mouth of the Minnesota River, where Governor Ramsey sent for him to take command of the troops called out to suppress the uprising, because of his great influence over the Indians and his familiarity with their methods of warfare. He was a gentle, kindly man, whose heart was torn by the loss and suffering of the people along the western border of his State. Mrs. Briscoe and Al called at his headquarters on the morning of the day they left for St. Paul. The Colonel received them with his accustomed courtesy, asked them to be seated and, himself taking a chair facing them, listened to Mrs. Briscoe's sad story with deep and compassionate attention. When she had finished he sat, seemingly lost in thought, for a short time, his chin resting on his hand. Then he looked up at Mrs. Briscoe and said:

"Madam, my heart bleeds for you. I wish that it were within my power to restore your little son to you at once. I wish that you might remain in Minnesota in order that you could sooner have the happiness of knowing when he is recaptured. But neither you nor your son here," he glanced at Al, "need feel that your absence will defer the little boy's rescue one moment longer than if you remained here. The recovery of all the white captives is now in the hands of my forces and we shall get them all as soon as we possibly can. I give you my promise, Mrs. Briscoe; I will personally see to it that he is sent to you in St. Louis as soon as it can be done, and if there should be any delay you shall be promptly notified of the facts. Your husband's remains shall also receive Christian burial whenever a party can visit your claim, and in case any of your property is found there which is of value, I will have it stored here in Fort Ridgely until you return or send for it. Can you tell me, my boy," he turned to Al, "anything of the appearance of the Indian who carried away your brother which might help to identify him?"

"I should know him again instantly, sir, if I saw him," Al replied. "He was a tall fellow, over six feet, I think, and seemed very strong. He had a deep scar, like a knife or sword cut, running down his left cheek and along his neck and shoulder."

"O-ho!" ejaculated the colonel. "That surely ought to make it easy if he is an Indian belonging to any of the tribes in this region. Orderly!"

Instantly a soldier opened the door, came to attention and saluted.

"Tell Major Brown I want to see him."

The orderly disappeared, but in a moment the door opened again admitting Major Joseph R. Brown, a famous Indian trader who had been Major Galbraith's predecessor as Indian agent at the Lower Agency, and who was now in command of one of Colonel Sibley's companies of volunteers. Probably no white man in Minnesota was personally acquainted with more of the Indians in that section. Colonel Sibley and Al described to him the Indian who had carried off Tommy, but Major Brown shook his head.

"I know no Indian in these parts who answers to that description," he replied. "He must be an outsider; perhaps a Yanktonais who has drifted in because there was trouble in the air. There are probably a good many of them around."

This was disappointing intelligence yet enlightening in a way, for though it indicated that Tommy was not in the clutches of any of the Minnesota savages, at the same time it limited his captor to one of the Dakota tribes further west and to that extent simplified the mystery of his whereabouts and possible fate. Colonel Sibley, however, was still of the opinion that he would be found with the other white captives when these should be recovered, as he did not believe that a warrior from a distant part of the country would care to burden himself permanently with a prisoner.

With such unsatisfactory conclusions Al and his mother were forced to be content, and though somewhat encouraged by the hopeful and reassuring words of Colonel Sibley, who did his best to cheer them, they began the long journey toward St. Louis with heavy hearts.

CHAPTER V HOPE DEFERRED

It is not necessary to enter into the details of that trip, which was devoid of unusual incidents. In due time the unfortunate family reached their destination, where they were affectionately received by the Coltons and taken into their home. Since the dark days at the beginning of the war the Coltons had been obliged to give up their pleasant home on Morgan Street, in what was then one of the most desirable residence districts of the city, and had moved into a smaller house on Palm Street, far up on the North Side and not many blocks from the St. Louis Fair Grounds. Mr. Colton had succeeded in weathering his reverses and still had his business, that of real estate, downtown; but it was in a far from prosperous condition, and his income was hardly sufficient to support him and his family, consisting of his wife and two small children. He had had the misfortune, when a young man, to lose his left arm at the elbow so that he was handicapped in the battle of life; but he made up in mental capacity what he lacked in physical, so he had always been able, until the beginning of the war, to make a comfortable living.

On the second evening after their arrival in St. Louis, when supper was over, Mr. Colton asked Al to take a walk with him. They strolled west across the open lots and along the thinly populated streets lying in the direction of the Fair Grounds. Mr. Colton seemed rather abstracted and talked but little; and presently Al asked, abruptly,

"Uncle Will, your business isn't paying very well just now, is it?"

"Well, no, it isn't, Al," Mr. Colton replied, apparently a little startled by the question. "Why?"

"I have been thinking ever since we got here," Al answered, "that our coming to you as we have, without money or anything else, will add a great deal to your expenses and other troubles. Of course I look forward to repaying you in the future, so far as money can repay such kindness; but that won't help just now, and I wish I could find some work to do right away, so that I could earn enough to pay part of the living expenses of Mother and Annie and myself."

Mr. Colton laid his hand affectionately on Al's shoulder.

"My boy," said he, "you are your father's true son. That is just what he would have been thinking of in similar circumstances. I am glad you have spoken of it, Al, for it is just that problem which has been troubling me ever since you and your dear mother and little sister came. You know how thankful I should be if I could provide you all with everything you need and have no question of means enter into the matter."

"Yes, I do know, Uncle Will," said Al, earnestly.

Mr. Colton went on, "I should like to make your poor mother and Annie as comfortable and easy in every way as possible and I should like to have you continue with school until you are ready to take up your chosen profession. But I do not see how I can compass these desires at present, though perhaps I can later. I was just going to suggest that it would probably be necessary for you to get employment for a while when you spoke of it. I am more pleased than I can say that you thought of it first, without any suggestion."

"I don't see how any one could fail to understand the situation, sir," answered Al. "Do you suppose I could find a place to-morrow?"

"Quite likely. You can go down town with me in the morning, and during the day we can call on several acquaintances of mine, some one of whom may be able to give you as good a position as you can well fill to begin with."

Accordingly, quite early next morning they started for the business district. Mr. Colton's office was more than two miles from his home and they walked to Fifth Street and there took a horse car down town. The first place at which they called was a large wholesale grocery house whose proprietor, Mr. White, was a personal friend of Mr. Colton. The latter held a brief private interview with him, rapidly relating the circumstances under which the Briscoes had come to St. Louis, and then Al was called in. Mr. White liked him from the first, and within half an hour he was hard at work on an upper floor of the big warehouse, assisting one of the shipping clerks in getting down, checking, and sending out orders of goods. Mr. White had informed him that as soon as he was sufficiently familiar with the stock and the method of checking it out, he would himself be promoted to a position as shipping clerk.

Though as time went on and the days lengthened into weeks, Al was obliged to confess to himself that the business possessed few attractions for him, yet he applied himself industriously to mastering its details, feeling not only a sense of satisfaction in the knowledge that he was winning his employer's confidence and approval, but a still deeper pride in the fact that he was becoming able to bear a very material share of the modest living expenses of himself and his mother and sister. Although Mr. White imagined that Al's rapid progress in familiarizing himself with his work was due to a natural aptitude for the business, the fact was that he was simply determined to get ahead and earn as much money as possible. A constant mental unrest, due chiefly to his suspense over Tommy's fate, possessed him, and he tried to soothe it as far as might be by becoming absorbed in his work. Beyond his natural anxiety for his brother, however, though he did not exactly realize it, was the repugnance to obligation, the unquenchable desire to have his mother and sister independent, which was a characteristic inherited from his sturdy father. He very soon qualified himself to take his place as a shipping clerk, thus securing an advance in pay, which enabled him still further to relieve his uncle's unwonted burdens.

Thus the Autumn went by and Mrs. Briscoe began to look impatiently for news from General Sibley, for they had been able to gather something in a fragmentary way from the St. Louis papers of the events which had taken place in Minnesota since they had left there, and they knew that Colonel Sibley had been made a brigadier general of volunteers for his skilful conduct of the Indian campaign. At length one day the long-looked-for letter came. Mr. Colton brought it out from his office, and with palpitating hearts the family gathered around Al while he read it aloud; for Mrs. Briscoe was too much agitated to read it. The letter was dated at Fort Snelling and was in General Sibley's own handwriting. It read as follows:

Mrs. Thomas Briscoe, St. Louis, Mo.

My Dear Madam: It is with the deepest regret that I am obliged to inform you that thus far our efforts to recover your young son from his Indian captors have been unsuccessful. Late in September we rescued about two hundred and fifty white prisoners near the Yellow Medicine but he was not among them. We have also captured about two thousand of the Indian miscreants who were prominent in the late outbreak and massacre, and they are now being tried by a court martial. Many of them are being convicted and will be executed. Among them, however, is no individual satisfying the description of the captor of your son Thomas, as given to me by your elder son.

I have, however, received information which leads me to believe that this man is a Yanktonais from the region of the Missouri River, who is known to have been consorting with the Minnesota Indians during the late outrages and who has since fled into Dakota again. Indian prisoners whom I have interviewed claim that he took with him a white boy, who, I have little doubt, is your son. The several prisoners with whom I have conversed all agree that the child appeared to be in good health when they saw him, though I have been able to gather nothing further concerning him.

It is quite possible that his captor may weary of holding your son a prisoner during the coming winter and take him into one of the fur-trading posts along the Missouri River. But, in case this should not happen, I may say to you that it is the present intention of the Government to send strong expeditions against the hostile Indians about Devil's Lake and along the Missouri, next summer. I may be in command of one of the columns; but, whether I am or not, I beg to assure you that no efforts will be spared to effect the release of your son and his speedy restoration to you. Nor is it at all probable that such a thorough campaign as is now contemplated will fail of the desired result, for it is the Government's purpose to pursue the Indians relentlessly until their last prisoner is recovered, until the last savage guilty of atrocities against the whites is given up to justice, and until the entire Sioux Nation is brought to submission.

With renewed assurances of my deep sympathy and regret that I have no more satisfactory news for you at the present time, I beg to remain, my dear madam,

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
H. H. Sibley, Brig. Gen., U. S. V.

Mrs. Briscoe broke down completely on hearing this disappointing intelligence and could not be comforted for a long time. But the courageous spirit which had already carried her through so much finally reasserted itself; since there was nothing to do except endure the suspense, she resolved to endure it patiently and not depress the spirits of those around her with her own griefs.

On his part Al felt at first that he could not bear to spend more time in idle waiting while his brother remained a captive. It seemed to him that he must start out and do something. But reflection showed him that this desire, though natural, was futile. Hard as the conclusion was, it seemed plain that the best thing was to trust General Sibley and the soldiers with the problem, at least for the present and until the results of the next summer's campaign could be known. Had he been old enough to enlist, Al would undoubtedly have joined the army in spite of everything, in order to be at the front and share in the search for his brother. But as he would not be sixteen until the early Spring of 1863, that was out of the question.

Nevertheless, the atmosphere of the place and the time in which he was living were well calculated to develop in him the strong military inclinations of his nature, and as the months went on he found it more and more difficult to be satisfied with the work in which he was engaged. There was hardly an hour of the day in which squads or companies of troops did not pass along the busy streets of St. Louis, and often full regiments, with bands playing and colors flying, or batteries of artillery rumbling over the cobble-stones, marched past on their way to the Levee to embark on steamers for the seat of war in the South. St. Louis was the great recruiting depot of the West, and at Benton Barracks, just beyond the Fair Grounds and only a few blocks from the Colton home, as many as twenty thousand men were nearly always quartered, mustering, drilling, outfitting and then marching away to take their places in the fighting armies at the front. News of battle was constantly in the air and the war formed the chief topic of conversation always and everywhere. Now it was the disastrous repulse of the Army of the Potomac at Fredericksburg, Virginia; then the terrible conflict at Murfreesboro, Tennessee; and then, a little later, the capture of Fort Hindman, at Arkansas Post, Arkansas; while authentic news and uncertain rumors of other battles, skirmishes, and military movements circulated constantly.

Though St. Louis was a Union city by a very substantial majority there nevertheless existed there a strong though suppressed Southern sentiment; but Al was even less inclined to be influenced by it than his father would have been, or than he would have been himself before his father's death. The reason was that public opinion in the North and West at this time held that the outbreak of the Indians in Minnesota had been instigated and encouraged by agents from the Southern Confederacy, who hoped, by precipitating an Indian war upon the Northwest, not only to divert a good many Union troops from the South but even possibly to effect a Confederate conquest of the Northwestern Territories. Happily for the fair fame of American civilization, it has in later years been quite clearly established that the Confederates had nothing to do with inciting the barbarous outbreak, but at the time it was firmly believed in the Northwest. Therefore it seems but natural that a person in Al's position, grieving for a father murdered and a brother carried away captive by the red fiends, should entertain bitterness toward those whom he believed to be largely responsible for his bereavement. This feeling but added to his interest in the military preparations of those who were going to fight the Southerners, and increased his desire to be a partaker in their toils and trials and triumphs.

When he found an opportunity to do so, as he did on Sunday afternoons and his other infrequent holidays, he occasionally went down to the river front where were to be seen the big transport steamers, starting out loaded to the guards with troops or coming in with cargoes of sick and wounded men, and where, also, were generally to be found one or more of the pugnacious-looking iron-clad gunboats which had been and still were fighting their way foot by foot down the battery-lined rivers of the South, carrying the flag of the Union into regions where it had been outcast for two years past. But more frequently his steps turned toward Benton Barracks, for there on the great parade ground between the huge barracks, each seven hundred and fifty feet in length, were always to be found swarms of troops at drill. Here he would see a squad of four or eight recruits receiving from a corporal instructions in the rudiments of tactics, such as the salutes, the facings, or the manual of arms. A little further on would be a regiment executing ponderous evolutions in company or battalion front.

Observing all these tactical exercises with lively interest and careful attention, Al soon began to comprehend the methods and objects of movements which at first seemed wholly bewildering. He obtained a copy of the "United States Infantry and Rifle Tactics," the text book then in use for the instruction of the United States troops, and spent evening after evening studying them until he was much more familiar with the contents than the average volunteer soldier several years his senior. Though he could not utilize his knowledge because of his youth, he persisted in acquiring it, not only because he liked it but because he felt that eventually it would be useful to him, especially if he could ever carry out his cherished ambition of entering West Point.

One day in the Spring of 1863, Mr. White called Al into his private office.

"The chief commissary of subsistence in this city has asked me if I could tell him of a few good men to act as civilian clerks in his department," said he. "They must be men who understand something of staple groceries such as the army uses and who know how to get out orders and ship goods. Would you like to have such a position for a while?"

Al's eyes brightened. Such work would place him in closer touch with the army, an object which appealed to him strongly. But he bore in mind his obligations and answered, cautiously,

"I should like it very much, Mr. White, if you approve of it and if I could make as much as I do now."

"The position will pay you a little more than you are getting now," said Mr. White, leaning back in his chair as if to give plenty of time to the discussion, "and it will give you some valuable experience if you aim to continue in the wholesale grocery business. The commissary department is handling enormous quantities of goods in St. Louis now and an insight into the Government's methods of transacting such a volume of business will be a great benefit to you. Of course, whenever you want to leave the Government's employ and come back here, your position will be open for you. You are very young for such a place but you have made such rapid progress and learned to do your work so well and thoroughly that I shall have no hesitation in recommending you as one of my best employees."

"Thank you, sir," said Al, flushing with pleasure. "I hope I deserve it."

"You understand," Mr. White continued, "I don't want you to leave me; but I owe it to the Union to give her the best I have when she asks it. I am past middle age myself and I don't think I am worth enough as a soldier to volunteer yet; there are plenty of younger and stronger men still pouring in to fill up the armies. But if the war drags on and the time comes that I feel she needs my actual, physical services, I shall go. Meantime, as I say, I shall give her the best I have in other ways, and you are part of that best. Though you are not old enough to be a soldier, I know you will appreciate that your work as a civilian employee may be quite as valuable to the Government as though you were enlisted in the service."

"Indeed I do, Mr. White," answered Al, "and I shall do my best to serve the Union faithfully."

In the new work upon which he entered next day Al continued throughout that momentous Summer and Fall. Though serving in a capacity both humble and obscure, he had his part in preparing and forwarding the supplies which enabled General Grant to cut loose from his base, swing his army around to the rear of Vicksburg, and two months later to capture that Gibraltar of the Mississippi with all its garrison and munitions of war. He helped to make ready the subsistence carried by Grant's and Sherman's armies when they went to the relief of Chattanooga; and from the depots where he worked a constant stream of stores was always going forward to the thousands of Union troops scattered in fortified posts and encampments or marching hither and thither all over the Southwest fighting innumerable minor battles and skirmishes. But his daily occupation was very prosaic and needs no more than casual mention.

At length, when Autumn came again, another letter was received from General Sibley. It was as disappointing as the one of the year before. He told briefly of the long Summer's campaign in which he had marched westward from the Minnesota River to the Missouri, defeating the Indians in three pitched battles and driving them across the Missouri, and of the later advance of another column up the valley of the Missouri, under General Alfred Sully, which had also encountered and defeated the Indians. But neither column had rescued Tommy, though they had heard rumors of his whereabouts and had gained a little new information concerning his captor.

The latter, it now seemed clearly established, was an Upper Yanktonais warrior named Te-o-kun-ko, or, in English, The Swift. From the statements of hostile Indians who had talked with friendlies or had surrendered to the troops during the campaign, it appeared that this man had not been with the main body of the Indians during the Summer; he had taken his family, in company with a small party of about a dozen other lodges, over into the country along the Yellowstone and Powder Rivers, in Idaho. They had probably spent the season in hunting and skirmishing occasionally with the Crows, the powerful people occupying most of that region, who were hereditary enemies of the Sioux. It must be understood that the great Sioux Nation consists of a number of different tribes, of which the Upper Yanktonais tribe is one, and the Lower Yanktonais another. It seemed that he still had with him the white boy whom he had captured in Minnesota. The lad seemed perfectly contented and was displaying such aptitude and prowess in learning to ride, shoot, hunt, and perform the other feats of skill, agility, and hardihood which the Indians regard as most manly, that Te-o-kun-ko took great pride and delight in him and was evidently trying to wean him away from any longing for his white relatives, in the hope of eventually making him, to all practical intents, a full-fledged Sioux warrior.

General Sibley added that in the Spring of 1864 General Sully would almost certainly lead another expedition up the Missouri to fight the Indians, though whether he himself would move against them again was doubtful. He renewed his regrets that he had been unable to recapture Tommy, and his hopes that another year would surely see him restored to his family, and here the letter ended.

Mrs. Briscoe and Al were not only bitterly disappointed by the news; it positively stunned them. The idea that Tommy could have been, all this time, anything but a suffering and wretchedly unhappy prisoner, was entirely new to them. That he could have grown not merely contented with his lot among the savages but even attached to it, a possibility very clearly suggested by General Sibley's letter, seemed unbelievable, at least to Mrs. Briscoe. But Al, on reflection, was not so much inclined to scoff at it as he had been at first. He remembered having heard of several cases in which white boys, taken captive by Indians when so young that their affections and habits were not deeply rooted, had become so attached to the wild, free life of the red men that they voluntarily renounced civilization and remained all their lives with the people of their adoption. Then he recalled the prominent characteristics of Tommy's disposition,—his sturdy independence, his love for being out of doors, for handling horses and for hunting and trapping,—inclinations which he had not shown until their removal to Minnesota but which had developed rapidly there, where Tommy, in the midst of a solitude which was almost wilderness, had apparently been happier than ever before in his life. He recalled, also, the little boy's warm-hearted affection for his parents and for himself and Annie; a trait of character which certainly seemed the strongest argument against the theory that Tommy could grow to forget them. But Al was obliged to admit to himself that the other impulses of his young brother's nature would all find gratification in the life of the plains; while, moreover, if he were kindly treated, even his affections might be kindled for the people with whom he was living. He had been with the Indians now for more than a year, which is a long time in a young boy's life.

The more he became convinced of such possibilities, the more was Al disturbed and alarmed by them. It had been bad enough to think of his brother as a heart-broken captive, but to think of him as perhaps a future renegade, an apostate to his race, was far worse, for it added shame to sorrow. He could not bear to think of his mother having to face such a calamity. Finally he took his troubled thoughts to his uncle, who was always kind, sympathetic and helpful.

"I have been thinking a great deal about this matter, too, Al," said Mr. Colton. "There is no question in my mind that Tommy might take the course you speak of, if he should remain long enough with the Indians. From the reports we have he seems to be well and even happy. The most important reason now for getting him away from them seems to be to remove him from their moral influence. But, incredible as it may seem, I really believe there may be a possibility that now; even if the soldiers should find him, he would be unwilling to come away with them."

Al looked at his uncle and slowly nodded his head in agreement.

"Yes, I believe that might be so," he answered. "And it seems to me, Uncle Will, for that very reason if no other, I ought to go with the next expedition; for if Tommy should be found I know that when he saw me and I told him about mother and all of us, he would want to come back. But I can't go, that's all."