Kill myself, if I fell in the hands
of a fiendish Indian. I believe that Mrs. Hunt, however, was almost as
much afraid of the pistol as she was of the Indians.
Ten minutes after the shots were fired there was perfect silence
throughout the garrison, and we knew absolutely nothing of what was
taking place around us. Not one word did we dare even whisper to each
other, our only means of communication being through our hands. The
night was intensely dark and the air was close - almost suffocating.
In this way we sat for two terrible hours, ever on the alert, ever
listening for the stealthy tread of a moccasined foot at a corner of
the house. And then, just before dawn, when we were almost exhausted
by the great strain on our strength and nerves, our husbands came.
They told us that a company of infantry had been quite near us all the
time, and that a troop of cavalry had been constantly patrolling
around the post. I cannot understand how such perfect silence was
maintained by the troops, particularly the cavalry. Horses usually
manage to sneeze at such times.
There is always a sentry at our corner of the garrison, and it was
this sentinel who was attacked, and it is the general belief among the
officers that the Indians came to this corner hoping to get the-troops
concentrated at the beat farthest from the stables, and thus give them
a chance to steal some, if not all, of the cavalry horses. But Mr. Red
Man's strategy is not quite equal to that of the Great Father's
soldiers, or he would have known that troops would be sent at once to
protect the horses.
There were a great many pony tracks to be seen in the sand the next
morning, and there was a mounted sentinel on a hill a mile or so away.
It was amusing to watch him through a powerful field glass, and we
wished that he could know just how his every movement could be seen.
He sat there on his pony for hours, both Indian and horse apparently
perfectly motionless, but with his face always turned toward the post,
ready to signal to his people the slightest movement of the troops.
Faye says that the colored troops were real soldiers that night, alert
and plucky. I can readily believe that some of them can be alert, and
possibly good soldiers, and that they can be good thieves too, for
last Saturday night they stole from us the commissary stores we had
expected to last us one week - everything, in fact, except coffee,
sugar, and such things that we keep in the kitchen, where it is dry.
The commissary is open Saturday mornings only, at which time we are
requested to purchase all supplies we will need from there for the
following week, and as we have no fresh vegetables whatever, and no
meat except beef, we are very dependent upon the canned goods and
other things in the commissary.
