Sentry Number 4 had picked it up on his post an hour
before the dawn--a letter addressed in bold hand to Major Stanley Flint,
commanding Fort Frayne, and, presuming the major himself had dropped it,
he turned it over to the corporal of his relief, and so it found its way
toward reveille into the hands of old McGann, wheezing about his work of
building fires, and Michael laid it on the major's table and thought no
more about it until two hours later, when the major roused and read, and
then a row began that ended only with the other worries of his
incumbency at Frayne.
Secretly Flint was still doing his best to discover the bearer when came
the bold riders from the north with their thrilling news. Secretly, he
had been over at the guard-house interviewing as best he could, by the
aid of an unwilling clerk who spoke a little Sioux, a young Indian girl
whom Crabb's convalescent squad, four in number, had most unexpectedly
run down when sent scouting five miles up the Platte, and brought,
screaming, scratching and protesting back to Frayne. Her pony had been
killed in the dash to escape, and the two Indians with her seemed to be
young lads not yet well schooled as warriors, for they rode away
pellmell over the prairie, leaving the girl to the mercy of the
soldiers.
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