With Sully into the Sioux Land

John Stuart Mill · en
Sully put his horse to the gallop and rode swiftly toward the head of
the approaching column. As he reached Captain Miner, he pulled up.

"Captain," he cried, "three Indians have killed Captain Feilner at the
crossing of the Little Cheyenne, just ahead of us here. They rode north,
across the creek. Take Company A and follow the cowardly assassins and
bring them to me, dead or alive; mind you, dead or alive!"

"Feilner killed!" exclaimed Captain Miner. "The dirty scoundrels!"

He swung his horse so sharply that it reared, and dashed back along the
column of Company A until he reached First Sergeant A. M. English, who
was in command.

"Sergeant," he cried, in ringing tones which every eagerly listening man
in the company could hear, "Captain Feilner has been killed, and we are
ordered to pursue the Indians!"

Then he galloped back to the head of the column and, rising in his
stirrups, shouted,

"Column left, march! Company, trot! Gallop! Follow me, boys!"

With a rising thunder of hoofs and a swirling dust cloud behind them,
through which the glint of carbines, sabres, and accoutrements flashed
in the sunshine, the cavalry swept over the hill in front and away. The
General rode hotly after them to the crest and watched them streaming
through the depression and up the slopes beyond. Then he laughed grimly.

"See the d--n Coyotes," he exclaimed. "They go like a flock of sheep!
They'll kill their horses before they catch the redskins. Ride after
them and tell Miner to take it easy."

Al, who ever since hearing the distressing news had been quivering with
impotent rage over the cruel fate of his good friend, Captain Feilner,
caught the General's last words. He turned with a swift salute, even as
he put spurs to his horse.

"I'll tell him, General!" he cried, and rode away like the wind.

"Here, you!" cried the General, "Come back!"

But Al did not want to hear.

"Oh, let him go," Sully added, in a lower tone, "I reckon he's a Coyote
himself," and he chuckled as he saw Al put his horse over a gully at the
bottom of the hill and tear up the opposite rise close on the heels of
the last ragged end of the racing Dakota Cavalry.




CHAPTER IX

THE REVENGE OF THE COYOTES