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Page 35
But the kindest beast in the regiment failed to respond except with a
plunge and increased lameness. Soon there was no more question of his
incapacity.
Lieutenant Morgan halted his mount, and, looking at the woe-begone
O'Hara, laughed. "A nice trick this is, Sergeant," he said, "to start
out on a trip to dodge Indians with a spavined horse. Why didn't you get
a broomstick? Now go back to camp as fast as you can go; and that horse
ought to be blistered when you get there. See if you can't really cure
him. He's too good to be shot." He patted the gray's nervous head, and
the beast rubbed it gently against his sleeve, quiet under his hand.
"Yessirr. The Lieutenant'll ride slow, sorr, f'r me to catch up on ye,
sorr?"
Miles Morgan smiled and shook his head. "Sorry, Sergeant, but there'll
be no slow riding in this. I'll have to press right on without you; I
must be at Massacre Mountain to-night to catch Captain Thornton
to-morrow."
Sergeant O'Hara's chin dropped. "Sure the Lieutenant'll niver be
thinkin' to g'wan alone--widout _me_?" and with all the sergeant's
respect of his superiors, it took the Lieutenant ten valuable minutes to
get the man started back, shaking his head and muttering forebodings, to
the camp.
It was quiet riding on alone. There were a few miles to go before there
was any chance of Indians, and no particular lookout to be kept, so he
put the horse ahead rapidly while he might, and suddenly he found
himself singing softly as he galloped. How the words had come to him he
did not know, for no conscious train of thought had brought them; but
they surely fitted to the situation, and a pleasant sense of
companionship, of safety, warmed him as the swing of an old hymn carried
his voice along with it.
God shall charge His angel legions
Watch and ward o'er thee to keep;
Though thou walk through hostile regions,
Though in desert wilds thou sleep.
Surely a man riding toward--perhaps through--skulking Indian hordes, as
he must, could have no better message reach him than that. The bent of
his mind was toward mysticism, and while he did not think the train of
reasoning out, could not have said that he believed it so, yet the
familiar lines flashing suddenly, clearly, on the curtain of his mind,
seemed to him, very simply, to be sent from a larger thought than his
own. As a child might take a strong hand held out as it walked over
rough country, so he accepted this quite readily and happily, as from
that Power who was never far from him, and in whose service, beyond most
people, he lived and moved. Low but clear and deep his voice went on,
following one stanza with its mate:
Since with pure and firm affection
Thou on God hast set thy love,
With the wings of His protection
He will shield thee from above.
The simplicity of his being sheltered itself in the broad promise of the
words.
Light-heartedly he rode on and on, though now more carefully; lying flat
and peering over the crests of hills a long time before he crossed
their tops; going miles perhaps through ravines; taking advantage of
every bit of cover where a man and a horse might be hidden; travelling
as he had learned to travel in three years of experience in this
dangerous Indian country, where a shrub taken for granted might mean a
warrior, and that warrior a hundred others within signal. It was his
plan to ride until about twelve--to reach Massacre Mountain, and there
rest his horse and himself till gray daylight. There was grass there and
a spring--two good and innocent things that had been the cause of the
bad, dark thing which had given the place its name. A troop under
Captain James camping at this point, because of the water and grass, had
been surprised and wiped out by five hundred Indian braves of the wicked
and famous Red Crow. There were ghastly signs about the place yet;
Morgan had seen them, but soldiers may not have nerves, and it was good
camping ground.
On through the valleys and half-way up the slopes, which rolled here far
away into a still wilder world, the young man rode. Behind the distant
hills in the east a glow like fire flushed the horizon. A rim of pale
gold lifted sharply over the ridge; a huge round ball of light pushed
faster, higher, and lay, a bright world on the edge of the world, great
against the sky--the moon had risen. The twilight trembled as the yellow
rays struck into its depths, and deepened, dying into purple shadows.
Across the plain zigzagged pools of a level stream, as if a giant had
spilled handfuls of quicksilver here and there.
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