Starlight Ranch, and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier

n was beginning to look very tired. Ever since the train came in at one o'clock she had been perched there between the

ing her heavy eyebrows. She was prettily dressed, and her tiny feet, cased in stout little button

seat beside her. Earlier in the afternoon she had been much engrossed with that blue-eyed, flaxen-haired, and overdressed beauty; but, litt

h jubilant cordiality by two or three stalwart men in broad-brimmed slouch hats and frontier garb. They had picked her up in their brawny arms and carried her to the waiting-room, and seated her there in state and fed her with

o take home with us, and some new horses to try. He may be gone a whole hour,

her,-he was always so loving and kind,-and then, there was dolly; and there were other children with their mothers in t

id. "She's as brave as her mother wa

ut dolly in her arms again and a package of apples w

hyly at them, and one of them called to a baggage-man and told hi

k at that marvellous doll and to make timid advances, kept her interested. Bu

to her, and pointing out the wonderful sunbeams that came slanting in through the dust of the western windows. She had had plenty to eat and a big glass of milk before papa went away, and was n

quickly up with such a hopeful, wistful gaze, and as each new-comer proved to be a total stranger the little maid

her doll, and shrank away when they tried to take her in their arms. All they could

m with joyous greetings and much homely, homelike chatter, and everybody but one little girl seemed to have friend

ame in and strove to get her to go with him to his cottage "a ways up the road," where his wife

. Papa had placed his satchel in her charge, and so she

ge her seat. Between the sun glare and the loneliness her eyes began to fill with big tears, and when once they came it was so hard to for

uld see a wide, level space between the platform and the hotel, where wagons

with disappointment. At last, just as she had turned and was kneeling on the seat and gazing through the te

ith a low phaeton in which were seated two ladies; and directly after

uniform of a cavalry sergeant; the other was a blue-eyed, faired-haired young fellow of sixteen years, who ra

Ralph!" and, turning quickly around, he caught sight of a little girl stretching

orse, bounded up the platform into the waiting-room, and gathered the

s face. The ladies wondered to see Ralph McCrea coming towards them with a strange child in his a

road. The station-master says she has been here all alone since he went off at one o'clock with some friends to buy

e leading them in to the quartermaster's corral as we rode from the stables. I did not recognize Farron at the distance, but Sergeant Wells will gallop out and tell

l about it," and the loving woman stood up in the carriage and held forth her arms, to which little Jessie was glad en

of "Horrors!"-and the heavy satchel. These were placed where Jessie could see them and feel that they were safe, and then she was able to answer a few questions and to look up trustfully into the

ll alone! How long has her mother been dead, Ra

one before,-but Farron took her to Denver to visit her mother's people last April, and has just gone for her. Sergeant Wells said he stopped at the ranch

him sometimes when our troop was at Laramie. What was th

t on up to the Powder River country. Our troop and the Grays are all that are left to guard that whole

they will soon be up there to help you,

the reservations and Sitting Bull's people. Only six troops-half the regiment-have come. Papa's le

o look into the situation, and he has been in the telegraph office much of the afternoon wiring to Chicago, wher

m odd, after I've been galloping all over this country from here to the Chug for the last three years, that now fat

o much. This year they are worse than ever, and there has been no cavalry to spare. If you were my boy, I should b

th Sergeant Wells. Pshaw! He and I would be safer than the old stage-coach any day. That is never 'jumped' south of Laramie, though it is chased now

tting all her troubles. Both the ladies were wives of officers of the army, and were living at Fort Russell, three miles out fro

Platte River, between the Big Horn Mountains and the Black Hills. For two years previous great numbers of the young warriors had been slipping away from the Sioux res

ng the settlers. Now, all pacific means having failed, the matter had been turned over to General Crook, who had recently

h-loaders, well supplied with ammunition and countless herds of war ponies, and

then the government decided on a great summer campaign. Generals Terry and Gibbon were to hem the Indians from th

were represented among the forces that scouted to and fro in the wild and beau

of Forts Laramie, Robinson, and Fetterman, many ladies and children remained under the protection of small garrisons of infantry

"backed" an Indian pony before he was seven, and could sit one like a Comanche by the time he was ten. He had accompanied his father on man

his father and his father's men to watch and keep him from harm, he had even charged his first buffalo her

rea was going back to his army home, when, as ill-luck would have it, the great Sioux war broke out in the early summer

cort a few days before, bringing Ralph's pet, his beautiful little Kentucky sorrel "Buford," and now the boy and his

sleeper, there came the sound of rapid hoof-beats, and Sergeant Wells ca

o thankful to Mrs. Henry for her kindness, and begs to know if she would mind bringing Jessie out

ot, se

housand Indians gone out from the reservation in the last two days.

ace grew

the midst of them, w