The wolf at the door

Uncle Aleck and Mr. Bryant had gone over to Chapman’s Creek to make inquiries about the prospect of obtaining corn for their cattle through the coming winter, as the failure of their own crop had made that the next thing to be considered. The three boys were over at the Younkins cabin in quest of news from up the river, where, it was said, a party of California emigrants had been fired upon by the Indians. They found that the party attacked was one coming from California, not migrating thither. It brought the Indian frontier very near the boys to see the shot-riddled wagons, left at Younkins’s by the travellers. The Cheyennes had shot into the party and had killed four and wounded two, at a point known as Buffalo Creek, some one hundred miles or so up the Republican Fork. It was a daring piece of effrontery, as there were two military posts not very far away, Fort Kearney above and Fort Riley below.

“But they are far enough away by this time,” said Younkins, with some bitterness. “Those military posts are good for nothin’ but to run to in case of trouble. No soldiers can get out into the plains from any of them quick enough to catch the slowest Indian of the lot.”

Charlie was unwilling to disagree with anything that Younkins said, for he had the highest respect for the opinions of this experienced old plainsman. But he couldn’t help reminding him that it would take a very big army to follow up every stray band of Indians, provided any of the tribes should take a notion to go on the warpath.

“Just about this time, though, the men that were stationed at Fort Riley are all down at Lawrence to keep the free-State people from sweeping the streets with free-State brooms, or something that-a-way,” said Younkins, determined to have his gibe at the useless soldiery, as he seemed to think them. Oscar was interested at once. Anything that related to the politics of Kansas the boy listened to greedily.

“It’s something like this,” explained Younkins. “You see the free-State men have got a government there at Lawrence which is lawful under the Topeka Legislator’, as it were. The border-State men have got a city government under the Lecompton Legislatur’; and so the two are quarrelling to see which shall govern the city; ’tisn’t much of a city, either.”

“But what have the troops from Fort Riley to do with it? I don’t see that yet,” said Oscar, with some heat.

“Well,” said Younkins, “I am a poor hand at politics; but the way I understand it is that the Washington Government is in favor of the border-State fellows, and so the troops have been sent down to stand by the mayor that belongs to the Lecompton fellows. Leastways, that is the way the sutler down to the post put it to me when I was down there with the folks that were fired on up to Buffalo Creek; I talked with him about it yesterday. That’s why I said they were at Lawrence to prevent the streets being swept by free-State brooms. That is the sutler’s joke. See?”

“That’s what I call outrageous,” cried Oscar, his eyes snapping with excitement. “Here’s a people up here on the frontier being massacred by Indians, while the Government troops are down at Lawrence in a political quarrel!”

The boys were so excited over this state of things that they paid very little attention to anything else while on their way back to the cabin, full of the news of the day. Usually, there was not much news to discuss on the Fork.

“What’s that by the cabin-door?” said Sandy, falling back as he looked up the trail and beheld a tall white, or light gray, animal smelling around the door-step of the cabin, only a half-mile away. It seemed to be about as large as a full-grown calf, and it moved stealthily about, and yet with a certain unconcern, as if not used to being scared easily.

“It’s a wolf!” cried Oscar. “The Sunday that Uncle Aleck and I saw one from the bluff yonder, he was just like that. Hush, Sandy, don’t talk so loud, or you’ll frighten him off before we can get a crack at him. Let’s go up the trail by the ravine, and perhaps we can get a shot before he sees us.”

It was seldom that the boys stirred abroad without firearms of some sort. This time they had a shot-gun and a rifle with them, and, examining the weapons as they went, they ran down into a dry gully, to follow which would bring them unperceived almost as directly to the cabin as by the regular trail. As noiselessly as possible, the boys ran up the gully trail, their hearts beating high with expectation. It would be a big feather in their caps if they could only have a gray wolf’s skin to show their elders on their return from Chapman’s.

“You go round the upper side of the house with your rifle, Oscar, and I’ll go round the south side with the shot-gun,” was Charlie’s advice to his cousin when they had reached the spring at the head of the gully, back of the log-cabin. With the utmost caution, the two boys crept around opposite corners of the house, each hoping he would be lucky enough to secure the first shot. Sandy remained behind, waiting with suppressed excitement for the shot. Instead of the report of a firearm, he heard a peal of laughter from both boys.

“What is it?” he cried, rushing from his place of concealment. “What’s the great joke?”

“Nothing,” said Oscar, laughing heartily, “only that as I was stealing around the corner here by the corral, Charlie was tiptoeing round the other corner with his eyes bulging out of his head as if he expected to see that wolf.”

“Yes,” laughed Charlie, “and if Oscar had been a little quicker, he would have fired at me. He had his gun aimed right straight ahead as he came around the corner of the cabin.”

“And that wolf is probably miles and miles away from here by this time, while you two fellows were sneaking around to find him. Just as if he was going to wait here for you!” It was Sandy’s turn to laugh, then.

The boys examined the tracks left in the soft loam of the garden by the strange animal, and came to the conclusion that it must have been a very large wolf, for its footsteps were deep as if it were a heavy creature, and their size was larger than that of any wolf-tracks they had ever seen.

When the elders heard the story on their arrival from Chapman’s, that evening, Uncle Aleck remarked with some grimness, “So the wolf is at the door at last, boys.” The lads by this understood that poverty could not be far off; but they could not comprehend that poverty could affect them in a land where so much to live upon was running wild, so to speak.

“Who is this that rides so fast?” queried Charlie, a day or two after the wolf adventure, as he saw a stranger riding up the trail from the ford. It was very seldom that any visitor, except the good Younkins, crossed their ford. And Younkins always came over on foot.

Here was a horseman who rode as if in haste. The unaccustomed sight drew all hands around the cabin to await the coming of the stranger, who rode as if he were on some important errand bent. It was Battles. His errand was indeed momentous. A corporal from the post had come to his claim, late in the night before, bidding him warn all the settlers on the Fork that the Cheyennes were coming down the Smoky Hill, plundering, burning, and slaying the settlers. Thirteen white people had been killed in the Smoky Hill country, and the savages were evidently making their way to the fort, which at that time was left in an unprotected condition. The commanding officer sent word to all settlers that if they valued their lives they would abandon their claims and fly to the fort for safety. Arms and ammunition would be furnished to all who came. Haste was necessary, for the Indians were moving rapidly down the Smoky Hill.

“But the Smoky Hill is twenty-five or thirty miles from here,” said Mr. Bryant; “why should they strike across the plains between here and there?”

Battles did not know; but he supposed, from his talk with the corporal, that it was expected that the Cheyennes would not go quite to the fort, but, having raided the Smoky Hill country down as near to the post as might seem safe, they would strike across to the Republican Fork at some narrow point between the two rivers, travel up that stream, and so go back to the plains from which they came, robbing and burning by the way.

The theory seemed a reasonable one. Such a raid was like Indian warfare.

“How many men are there at the post?” asked Uncle Aleck.

“Ten men including the corporal and a lieutenant of cavalry,” replied Battles, who was a pro-slavery man. “The rest are down at Lawrence to suppress the rebellion.”

“So the commanding officer at the post wants us to come down and help defend the fort, which has been left to take care of itself while the troops are at Lawrence keeping down the free-State men,” said Mr. Bryant, bitterly. “For my part, I don’t feel like going. How is it with you, Aleck?”

“I guess we had better take care of ourselves and the boys, Charlie,” said Uncle Aleck, cheerily. “It’s pretty mean for Uncle Sam to leave the settlers to take care of themselves and the post at this critical time, I know; but we can’t afford to quibble about that now. Safety is the first consideration. What does Younkins say?” he asked of Battles.

“A randyvoo has been appointed at my house to-night,” said the man, “and Younkins said he would be there before sundown. He told me to tell you not to wait for him; he would meet you there. He has sent his wife and children over to Fuller’s, and Fuller has agreed to send them with Mrs. Fuller over to the Big Blue, where there is no danger. Fuller will be back to my place by midnight. There is no time to fool away.”

Here was an unexpected crisis. The country was evidently alarmed and up in arms. An Indian raid, even if over twenty miles away, was a terror that they had not reckoned on. After a hurried consultation, the Whittier settlers agreed to be at the “randyvoo,” as Battles called it, before daybreak next morning. They thought it best to take his advice and hide what valuables they had in the cabin, make all snug, and leave things as if they never expected to see their home again, and take their way to the post as soon as possible.

It was yet early morning, for Mr. Battles had wasted no time in warning the settlers as soon as he had received notice from the fort. They had all the day before them for their preparations. So the settlers, leaving other plans for the time, went zealously to work packing up and secreting in the thickets and the gully the things they thought most valuable and they were least willing to spare. Clothing, crockery, and table knives and forks were wrapped up in whatever came handy and were buried in holes dug in the ploughed ground. Lead, bullets, slugs, and tools of various kinds were buried or concealed in the forks of trees, high up and out of sight. Where any articles were buried in the earth, a fire was afterwards built on the surface so that no trace of the disturbed ground should be left to show the expected redskins that goods had been there concealed. They lamented that a sack of flour and a keg of molasses could not be put away, and that their supply of side-meat, which had cost them a long journey to Manhattan, must be abandoned to the foe if he came to take it. But everything that could be hidden in trees or buried in the earth was so disposed of as rapidly as possible.

Perhaps the boys, after the first flush of apprehension had passed, rather enjoyed the novelty and the excitement. Their spirits rose as they privately talked among themselves of the real Indian warfare of which this was a foretaste. They hoped that it would be nothing worse. When the last preparations were made, and they were ready to depart from their home, uncertain whether they would ever see it again, Sandy, assisted by Oscar, composed the following address. It was written in a big, boyish hand on a sheet of letter-paper, and was left on the table in the middle of their cabin:

Good Mister Indian: We are leaving in a hurry and we want you to be careful of the fire when you come. Don’t eat the corn-meal in the sack in the corner; it is poisoned. The flour is full of crickets, and crickets are not good for the stomach. Don’t fool with the matches, nor waste the molasses. Be done as you would do by, for that is the golden rule.

Yours truly,
the Whittier settlers.

Even in the midst of their uneasiness and trouble, their elders laughed at this unique composition, although Mr. Bryant thought that the boys had mixed their version of the golden rule. Sandy said that no Cheyenne would be likely to improve upon it. So, with many misgivings, the little party closed the door of their home behind them, and took up their line of march to the rendezvous.

The shortest way to Battles’s was by a ford farther down the river, and not by the way of the Younkins place. So, crossing the creek on a fallen tree near where Sandy had shot his famous flock of ducks, and then steering straight across the flat bottom-land on the opposite side, the party struck into a trail that led through the cottonwoods skirting the west bank of the stream. The moon was full, and the darkness of the grove through which they wended their way in single file was lighted by long shafts of moonbeams that streamed through the dense growth. The silence, save for the steady tramp of the little expedition, was absolute. Now and again a night-owl hooted, or a sleeping hare, scared from its form, scampered away into the underbrush; but these few sounds made the solitude only more oppressive. Charlie, bringing up the rear, noted the glint of the moonlight on the barrels of the firearms carried by the party ahead of him, and all the romance in his nature was kindled by the thought that this was frontier life in the Indian country. Not far away, he thought, as he turned his face to the southward, the cabins of settlers along the Smoky Hill were burning, and death and desolation marked the trail of the cruel Cheyennes.

Now and again Sandy, shivering in the chill and dampness of the wood, fell back and whispered to Oscar, who followed him in the narrow trail, that this would be awfully jolly if he were not so sleepy. The lad was accustomed to go to bed soon after dark; it was now late into the night.

All hands were glad when the big double cabin of the Battles family came in sight about midnight, conspicuous on a rise of the rolling prairie and black against the sky. Lights were burning brightly in one end of the cabin; in the other end a part of the company had gone to sleep, camping on the floor. Hot coffee and corn-bread were ready for the newcomers, and Younkins, with a tender regard for the lads, who were unaccustomed to milk when at home, brought out a big pan of delicious cool milk for their refreshment. Altogether, as Sandy confessed to himself, an Indian scare was not without its fun. He listened with great interest to the tales that the settlers had to tell of the exploits of Gray Wolf, the leader and chief of the Cheyennes. He was a famous man in his time, and some of the elder settlers of Kansas will even now remember his name with awe. The boys were not at all desirous of meeting the Indian foe, but they secretly hoped that if they met any of the redskins, they would see the far-famed Gray Wolf.

While the party, refreshed by their late supper, found a lodging anywhere on the floor of the cabin, a watch was set outside, for the Indians might pounce upon them at any hour of the night or day. Those who had mounted guard during the earlier part of the evening went to their rest. Charlie, as he dropped off to sleep, heard the footsteps of the sentry outside and said to himself, half in jest, “The Wolf is at the door.”

But no wolf came to disturb their slumbers. The bright and cheerful day, and the song of birds dispelled the gloom of the night, and fear was lifted from the minds of the anxious settlers, some of whom, separated from wives and children, were troubled with thoughts of homes despoiled and crops destroyed. Just as they had finished breakfast and were preparing for the march to the fort, now only two or three miles away, a mounted man in the uniform of a United States dragoon dashed up to the cabin, and, with a flourish of soldierly manner, informed the company that the commanding officer at the post had information that the Cheyennes, instead of crossing over to the Republican as had been expected, or attacking the fort, had turned and gone back the way they came. All was safe, and the settlers might go home assured that there was no danger to themselves or their families.

Having delivered this welcome message in a grand and semi-official manner, the corporal dismounted from his steed, in answer to a pressing invitation from Battles, and unbent himself like an ordinary mortal to partake of a very hearty breakfast of venison, corn-bread, and coffee. The company unslung their guns and rifles, sat down again, and regaled themselves with pipes, occasional cups of strong coffee, and yet more exhilarating tales of the exploits and adventures of Indian slayers of the earlier time on the Kansas frontier. The great Indian scare was over. Before night fell again, every settler had gone his own way to his claim, glad that things were no worse, but groaning at Uncle Sam for the niggardliness which had left the region so defenceless when an emergency had come.