The Project Gutenberg EBook of 'Laramie;', by Charles King

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Title: 'Laramie;'
or, The Queen of Bedlam.

Author: Charles King

Release Date: February 5, 2010 [EBook #31188]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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"LARAMIE;"

OR,

THE QUEEN OF BEDLAM.

A

STORY OF THE SIOUX WAR OF 1876.

BY

CAPTAIN CHARLES KING, U.S.A.,

AUTHOR OF "THE COLONEL'S DAUGHTER," "MARION'S FAITH," "THE DESERTER,"
"FROM THE RANKS," ETC.

PHILADELPHIA:
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
1889.

Copyright, 1889, by J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.

"LARAMIE"

OR,

THE QUEEN OF BEDLAM.

A STORY OF FRONTIER ARMY LIFE.

I.

The snow had gone from all the foot-hills and had long since
disappeared in the broad river bottom. It was fast going from the
neighboring mountains, too--both the streams told plainly of that, for
while the Platte rolled along in great, swift surges under the Engineer
Bridge, its smaller tributary--the "Larmie," as the soldiers called
it--came brawling and foaming down its stony bed and sweeping around
the back of the fort with a wild vehemence that made some of the
denizens of the south end decidedly nervous. The rear windows of the
commanding officer's house looked out upon a rushing torrent, and where
the surgeon lived, at the south-west angle, the waters lashed against
the shabby old board fence that had been built in by-gone days, partly
to keep the children and chickens from tumbling into the stream when
the water was high, partly to keep out marauding coyotes when the water
was low. South and west the bare, gray-brown slopes shut out the
horizon and limited the view. Eastward lay the broad, open valley
beyond the confluence of the streams,--bare and level along the
crumbling banks, bare and rolling along the line of the foot-hills.
Northward the same brown ridges, were tumbled up like a mammoth wave a
mile or so beyond the river, while between the northern limit