violent upflares even in camp that resulted in more than bruises and uproar. But just as the drear Black Hills were said to be speckled with gold, he believed that man was likewise. Also he had the mighty civilising medicine of Mrs Neale, a woman who might have been a preacher had she not been cloven. The mixture of beauty andreligion in her could make troopers faint with what can only be reckoned love. Maybe lust too.
If the sergeant had been still overground it’s not likely he would have stood for this occasion. But the sergeant were now tendering his name I should think with trembling hand at the Pearly Gates.
The day appointed was cold, sere, and dark. The river before our fort looked dank and sad, what John Cole called the ‘hairless’ ground all about us worried by stray smears of ice and snow. A goodly number of buildings had sprung up outside the protection of the fort. There was a saddlery premises painted in a dying green, and the office of the Indian agent was stuck up beside the fort wall like a piece of poetry amid the plain story of everywhere else. Plasterers and carpenters had come up all the way from Galveston, Texas for some reason to fit out that little palace. As for our fort it were fairly falling down in places but the colonel kept it shipshape as funds would let him. The big gates with its old arch of lodgepole trees seemed to hark back to forgotten times. First thing we knew, our much depleted cavalry troop was ranged in front of the major’s quarters that is to say on the back end of the parade ground. We had our muskets primed but we was told to keep them slung on our sashes easy fashion. Boethius was told to set his two cannon behind the stable block to be brung up just in case but I do not believe the major for a moment thought this would be necessary. No, sir. Major believed he had read the soul of his man like an open book and could count on his interpretation of that fanciful bible. First thing was, the pickets on the wall above the gates called out theirsighting of the Sioux horsemen, coming up slow and gentle in the distance and now stopping it would appear about half a mile off. Now Mr Graham was ordered to go out on horseback to them and see what was what and Mr Graham he mounts up and goes with two slightly trembling troopers through the opened gates. I noticed it was Starling Carlton held the gates for them and closed them tight behind them. On off they rode like chaps expecting Death sooner than Christmas. The far ground where the Sioux waited was just high enough for us to spot them there. There wasn’t a man wanted to have goed with Mr Graham and his escort. Mr Graham was a bald little man so he was hardly a threat to anyone. The two troopers with him were black-eyed Spanish-looking men from Texas that no one would miss if they was murdered. Or so I was thinking. I guess I was amusing myself in the tension. So then Mr Graham duly reaches the band of Sioux and he must be yapping, as John Cole calls it, and the yapping goes on for a while, and then Mr Graham comes back as stately as a little king and the look of relief on the face of the troopers was a priceless sight. The chief wants to come in alone, he says, as a proof of his good intentions, and talk to the major. I hear then some of the troopers laughing because they’re thinking maybe we can just shoot the desperado then. But they don’t know the major and maybe Caught-His-Horse-First knows the book of the major just as well as the major knows his. It’s the sort of arrangement stirs the heart rather. You got to admire a man that will ride forward from his armed comrades and come on to the gates of a whiteman’s fort. Starling Carlton has left the gates wide after admitting Mr Graham and we can all see thechief approaching. In the distance we especially note the exuberant beauty of his head-dress and his flowing clothing. He wears a metal breastplate made of whiteman’s alloy doubtless but you feel he wears it like a great
If the sergeant had been still overground it’s not likely he would have stood for this occasion. But the sergeant were now tendering his name I should think with trembling hand at the Pearly Gates.
The day appointed was cold, sere, and dark. The river before our fort looked dank and sad, what John Cole called the ‘hairless’ ground all about us worried by stray smears of ice and snow. A goodly number of buildings had sprung up outside the protection of the fort. There was a saddlery premises painted in a dying green, and the office of the Indian agent was stuck up beside the fort wall like a piece of poetry amid the plain story of everywhere else. Plasterers and carpenters had come up all the way from Galveston, Texas for some reason to fit out that little palace. As for our fort it were fairly falling down in places but the colonel kept it shipshape as funds would let him. The big gates with its old arch of lodgepole trees seemed to hark back to forgotten times. First thing we knew, our much depleted cavalry troop was ranged in front of the major’s quarters that is to say on the back end of the parade ground. We had our muskets primed but we was told to keep them slung on our sashes easy fashion. Boethius was told to set his two cannon behind the stable block to be brung up just in case but I do not believe the major for a moment thought this would be necessary. No, sir. Major believed he had read the soul of his man like an open book and could count on his interpretation of that fanciful bible. First thing was, the pickets on the wall above the gates called out theirsighting of the Sioux horsemen, coming up slow and gentle in the distance and now stopping it would appear about half a mile off. Now Mr Graham was ordered to go out on horseback to them and see what was what and Mr Graham he mounts up and goes with two slightly trembling troopers through the opened gates. I noticed it was Starling Carlton held the gates for them and closed them tight behind them. On off they rode like chaps expecting Death sooner than Christmas. The far ground where the Sioux waited was just high enough for us to spot them there. There wasn’t a man wanted to have goed with Mr Graham and his escort. Mr Graham was a bald little man so he was hardly a threat to anyone. The two troopers with him were black-eyed Spanish-looking men from Texas that no one would miss if they was murdered. Or so I was thinking. I guess I was amusing myself in the tension. So then Mr Graham duly reaches the band of Sioux and he must be yapping, as John Cole calls it, and the yapping goes on for a while, and then Mr Graham comes back as stately as a little king and the look of relief on the face of the troopers was a priceless sight. The chief wants to come in alone, he says, as a proof of his good intentions, and talk to the major. I hear then some of the troopers laughing because they’re thinking maybe we can just shoot the desperado then. But they don’t know the major and maybe Caught-His-Horse-First knows the book of the major just as well as the major knows his. It’s the sort of arrangement stirs the heart rather. You got to admire a man that will ride forward from his armed comrades and come on to the gates of a whiteman’s fort. Starling Carlton has left the gates wide after admitting Mr Graham and we can all see thechief approaching. In the distance we especially note the exuberant beauty of his head-dress and his flowing clothing. He wears a metal breastplate made of whiteman’s alloy doubtless but you feel he wears it like a great
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