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A Kinsman of Red Cloud
by
“Nobody shall get hurt here,” said Cutler, above the bedlam that was now set up. “Only that man’s wanted. The quieter I get him, the quieter it’ll be for others.”
Toussaint had dived for his pistol, but the proprietor of the dance-hall, scenting law, struck the half-breed with the butt of another, and he rolled over, and was harmless for some minutes. Then he got on his legs, and was led out of the entertainment, which resumed more gayly than ever. Feet shuffled, the fiddle whined, and truculent treble laughter sounded through the canvas walls as Toussaint walked between Cutler and the saloon-man to jail. He was duly indicted, and upon the scout’s deposition committed to trial for the murder of Loomis and Kelley. Cutler, hoping still to be wagon-master, wrote to Lieutenant Balwin, hearing in reply that the reinforcements would not arrive for two months. The session of the court came in one, and Cutler was the Territory’s only witness. He gave his name and age, and hesitated over his occupation.
“Call it poker-dealer,” sneered Toussaint’s attorney.
“I would, but I’m such a fool one,” observed the witness. “Put me down as wagon-master to the military outfit that’s going to White River.”
“What is your residence?”
“Well, I reside in the section that lies between the Missouri River and the Pacific Ocean.”
“A pleasant neighborhood,” said the judge, who knew Cutler perfectly, and precisely how well he could deal poker hands.
“It’s not a pleasant neighborhood for some.” And Cutler looked at Toussaint
“You think you done with me?” Toussaint inquired, upon which silence was ordered in the court.
Upon Cutler’s testimony the half-breed was found guilty, and sentenced to be hanged in six weeks from that day. Hearing this, he looked at the witness. “I see you one day agin,” he said.
The scout returned to Fort Laramie, and soon the expected troops arrived, and the expedition started for White River to join Captain Brent. The captain was stationed there to impress Red Cloud, and had written to headquarters that this chief did not seem impressed very deeply, and that the lives of the settlers were insecure. Reinforcements were accordingly sent to him. On the evening before these soldiers left Laramie, news came from the south. Toussaint had escaped from jail. The country was full of roving, dubious Indians, and with the authentic news went a rumor that the jailer had received various messages. These were to the effect that the Sioux nation did not desire Toussaint to be killed by the white man, that Toussaint’s mother was the sister of Red Cloud, and that many friends of Toussaint often passed the jailer’s house. Perhaps he did get such messages. They are not a nice sort to receive. However all this may have been, the prisoner was gone.
III
Fort Robinson, on the White River, is backed by yellow bluffs that break out of the foot-hills in turret and toadstool shapes, with stunt pines starving between their torrid bastions. In front of the fort the land slants away into the flat unfeatured desert, and in summer the sky is a blue-steel covet that each day shuts the sun and the earth and mankind into one box together, while it lifts at night to let in the cool of the stars. The White River, which is not wide, runs in a curve, and around this curve below the fort some distance was the agency, and beyond it a stockade, inside which in those days dwelt the settlers. All this was strung out on one side of the White River, outside of the curve; and at a point near the agency a foot-bridge of two cottonwood trunks crossed to the concave of the river’s bend–a bottom of some extent, filled with growing cottonwoods, and the tepees of many Sioux families. Along the river and on the plain other tepees stood.
One morning, after Lieutenant Balwin had become established at Fort Robinson, he was talking with his friend Lieutenant Powell, when Cutler knocked at the wire door. The wagon-master was a privileged character, and he sat down and commented irrelevantly upon the lieutenant’s pictures, Indian curiosities, and other well-meant attempts to conceal the walk: