and
devotion of the soldiers, but heaping abuse upon the commander of the
post, who, with other troops at his disposal, had looked on and lifted
no hand to aid them. Later, of course, it was proved that the veteran
had foiled old Red Cloud's villainous plan to lure the whole garrison
into the open country and there surround and slowly annihilate it, while
then, or at their leisure later, his chosen ones should set fire to the
unprotected stockade and bear off those of the women or children whose
years did not commend them to the mercy of the hatchet. Soldiers and
thinking men soon saw the colonel was right and that the only mistake he
had made was in allowing any of the garrison to go forth at all. But
this verdict was not published, except long after as unimportant news
and in some obscure corner. The Laramie column, so the news ran, was
hastening down the Powder River to strike Red Cloud. The Indians would
be severely punished, etc., etc. But old Folsom's face grew whiter yet
as he read that such orders had been sent and that the General himself
was now at Laramie directing matters. "In God's name," urged he, "if you
have any influence with the General, tell him not to send a foot column
chasing horsemen anywhere, and above all not to follow down the Powder.
Next thing you know Red Cloud and all his young men will have slipped
around their flank and come galloping back to the Platte, leaving the
old men and women and worn-out ponies to make tracks for the 'heap
walks' to follow."

And Stevens listened dumbly. Influence he had never had. Folsom might be
right, but it was a matter in which he was powerless. When a depot
quartermaster, said he, could dictate the policy that should govern the
command of a colonel of the fighting force, there was no use in
remonstrance. Noon came and no news from the Cheyenne sheriff. The
commanding officer at Russell wired that he, too, was stripped of his
troops and had not even a cavalry courier to send after the General with
the startling news that Major Burleigh had vanished with large sums, it
was believed, in his possession. At one o'clock came tidings of the
fugitive. He, together with two other men, had spent the late hours of
the night at the lodgings of one of the party in Cheyenne, and at dawn
had driven away in a "rig" hired at a local stable, ostensibly to follow
the General to Laramie. They had kept the road northwestward on leaving
town--were seen passing along the prairie