The Deserter eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 269 pages of information about The Deserter.

The Deserter eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 269 pages of information about The Deserter.

“And—­I wouldn’t believe it, but he did.  He sprang up and went right out with me, just flinging his overcoat round him; and he never seemed to want to come in.  The wind was blowing soft-like from the southeast, and he stood there straining his ears trying to hear the sounds I told him of; but at last he gave it up, and we went back to camp, and he took his lantern and looked in his saddle-bags, and I shook for fear; but he seemed to find everything all right, and in the next ten minutes he was asleep, and Gower came and whispered to me, and I went with him, and he gave me five hundred dollars, in twenties.  ‘Now you’re bound,’ says he; ‘keep the sentries off while I get my horse.’  And that’s the last I ever saw of him.  Then a strange thing happened.  ’Twas hardly daylight when a courier came galloping up, and I called the captain, and he read the despatch, and says he, ’By heaven, Clancy, you were right after all.  There are Indians over there.  Why didn’t I trust your ears?  Call up the whole command.  The Riflers have treed them at Battle Butte, and Captain Rayner has gone with his battalion.  We are to escort the wagons to where the boat lies beyond the bend, and then push over with all the horsemen we can take.’  It was after daylight when we got started, but we almost ran the wagons ’cross country to the boat, and there Captain Hull took F troop and what there was of his own, leaving only ten men back with the wagons; and not till then was Gower missed; but all were in such a hurry to get to the Indians that no one paid attention.  Mr. Hayne he begged the captain to let him go too:  so the train was left with the wagon-master and the captain of the boat, and away we went.  You know all about the fight, and how ’twas Mr. Hayne the captain called to and gave his watch and the two packages of money when he was ordered to charge.  I was right by his side; and I swore—­God forgive me!—­that through the crack and tear in the paper I could see the layers of greenbacks, when I knew ’twas only some ones and twos Gower had slipped in to make it look right; and Captain Rayner stood there and saw the packet, too, and Sergeant Walshe and Bugler White; but them two were killed with him:  so that ’twas only Captain Rayner and I was left as witnesses, and never till we got to Laramie after the campaign did the trouble come.  I never dreamed of anything ever coming of it but that every one would say Gower stole the money and deserted; but when the captain turned the packages over to Mr. Hayne, and then got killed, and Mr. Hayne carried the packages, with the watch, seal, saddle-bags, and all, in to Cheyenne, and never opened them till he got there,—­two weeks after, when we were all scattered,—­then they turned on him, his own officers did, and said he stole it and gambled or sent it away in Cheyenne.

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The Deserter from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.