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Under Fate's Wheel
Under Fate's Wheel
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Scanned, proofed and corrected from the original edition for your reading pleasure. (Worth every penny!)
***
An excerpt from the beginning of:
CHAPTER I
THE BEGINNING—WHY SHE RODE
"YOU'LL have to ride slowly, Sergeant Craig—and, tell the bearers to look out for those—those dog-holes. Don't let the men go too fast or unevenly, and be sure you make Harch understand that he will be well paid—paid for all his trouble. You'll be able to make it before sundown—and—that's all, I think. Oh wait!" Captain Lewis reins his horse close beside the improvised litter, made of a blanket swung hammock-wise between four stout regulars, and looks down upon the pale, handsome face with the bandaged temples and pain-darkened eyes. "Are you game for the tramp across country, Hill?" he asks kindly. "Can we make you any more comfortable in any way?"
The head upon the blanket pillow moves ever so little, and the lips essay a whisper. Captain Lewis drops from his saddle and bends close above the hammock.
"Beale? " whispers the white lips.
"Beale! Lieutenant Beale? Do you want him—is that it, Hill?"
"Yes—he—is going—east—soon."
"Yes, yes; I understand!" The Captain turns away, and beckons to the dashing lieutenant, who sits his horse with such sure and careless grace. They confer together for a moment, and then both come to the side of the injured man.
"Beale shall go with you, Hill, the captain says, and he will see you safely back and into the hospital. Goodbye once more, Hill." Turning to remount his horse, he catches the eye of Corporal Craig fixed upon him questioningly, and says, as if answering a spoken question, "No, Craig; you will remain in charge of the escort. Lieutenant Beale goes simply and solely as the companion of Hill.' He wheels his horse about in the dusty main road.
"Atten-tion—com -pany!" The men who have been gathered around the "hospital duty squad," and their charge, remount and fall easily into line almost before the word of command is given. Corporal Craig salutes his superior officer, and starts his little cavalcade on its way over the lesser trail leading south-east, and the main body of horsemen at the word of command sets off at a swinging trot eastward, over the main trail, toward their destination, the regimental port.
For two hours the men who carry the injured man in the hammock so carefully, so tenderly, plod on, pausing often to change the bearers, who walk and ride by turns; those who carry the burden pacing slowly, those who ride leading the four horses with the empty saddles, and Corporal Craig riding ahead, alert for the prairie dog-holes and the occasional openings, or "chimneys," so called, of the abandoned dug-outs, replaced now, some of them, by huts and sheds, these also abandoned for the most part, as the fever of the squatter has led him for ever westward; while Lieutenant Beale rides close by the hammock's side, watchful of every change in the pallid, pain-racked face of Sergeant Hill, his long time friend and comrade in adventure, and overhead there shines down the sun rays of a warm, June day. The level prairies of Wyoming stretch all about them, and the only sound not made by their own voices, or the movement of men and horses, is the hum of insect life, heard here and there as the tiny winged creatures hover above the waving grass and scattering blossoms of the plains.
It is a slow, monotonous journey; but at last it ends, and the party comes to a halt before the "ranche," so called of "Jim" Harch, half way between the port town and the point at which the escort party had left Captain Lewis and his "command" of thirty men. It is anything but the ideal ranche of the tender-foot's vision—before a glimpse of the reality shatters the romantic shade—little more than a system of tumble-down sheds and "lean-tos," in fact, held together and bolstered up by diverse shifts and lazy expedients, and redeemed from utter barrenness by a group of sickly young trees, struggling against drought and heat and the withering sand-storm for a precarious existence. Under these trees the escort halts, and the hammock is gently eased down, while Corporal Craig rides on to the corral to enter his plea for hospitality.
"Wot's up with ther feller?" queries Jim Harch, transferring a big mouthful of vile tobacco from his left cheek to his right, when he has heard the plea for shelter for the injured man and his caretakers. "'Ain't got nothin' kinta gei-ous, has he?"
"Nothing more than the kick of a horse, a blow, and a shock. Hurts worst internally, I'm afraid. Corporal Hill's horse died about thirty miles to the west while on the march, and he took a half-broken and half-breed pony out of a pack of a dozen we were taking across for use at the port....
***
An excerpt from the beginning of:
CHAPTER I
THE BEGINNING—WHY SHE RODE
"YOU'LL have to ride slowly, Sergeant Craig—and, tell the bearers to look out for those—those dog-holes. Don't let the men go too fast or unevenly, and be sure you make Harch understand that he will be well paid—paid for all his trouble. You'll be able to make it before sundown—and—that's all, I think. Oh wait!" Captain Lewis reins his horse close beside the improvised litter, made of a blanket swung hammock-wise between four stout regulars, and looks down upon the pale, handsome face with the bandaged temples and pain-darkened eyes. "Are you game for the tramp across country, Hill?" he asks kindly. "Can we make you any more comfortable in any way?"
The head upon the blanket pillow moves ever so little, and the lips essay a whisper. Captain Lewis drops from his saddle and bends close above the hammock.
"Beale? " whispers the white lips.
"Beale! Lieutenant Beale? Do you want him—is that it, Hill?"
"Yes—he—is going—east—soon."
"Yes, yes; I understand!" The Captain turns away, and beckons to the dashing lieutenant, who sits his horse with such sure and careless grace. They confer together for a moment, and then both come to the side of the injured man.
"Beale shall go with you, Hill, the captain says, and he will see you safely back and into the hospital. Goodbye once more, Hill." Turning to remount his horse, he catches the eye of Corporal Craig fixed upon him questioningly, and says, as if answering a spoken question, "No, Craig; you will remain in charge of the escort. Lieutenant Beale goes simply and solely as the companion of Hill.' He wheels his horse about in the dusty main road.
"Atten-tion—com -pany!" The men who have been gathered around the "hospital duty squad," and their charge, remount and fall easily into line almost before the word of command is given. Corporal Craig salutes his superior officer, and starts his little cavalcade on its way over the lesser trail leading south-east, and the main body of horsemen at the word of command sets off at a swinging trot eastward, over the main trail, toward their destination, the regimental port.
For two hours the men who carry the injured man in the hammock so carefully, so tenderly, plod on, pausing often to change the bearers, who walk and ride by turns; those who carry the burden pacing slowly, those who ride leading the four horses with the empty saddles, and Corporal Craig riding ahead, alert for the prairie dog-holes and the occasional openings, or "chimneys," so called, of the abandoned dug-outs, replaced now, some of them, by huts and sheds, these also abandoned for the most part, as the fever of the squatter has led him for ever westward; while Lieutenant Beale rides close by the hammock's side, watchful of every change in the pallid, pain-racked face of Sergeant Hill, his long time friend and comrade in adventure, and overhead there shines down the sun rays of a warm, June day. The level prairies of Wyoming stretch all about them, and the only sound not made by their own voices, or the movement of men and horses, is the hum of insect life, heard here and there as the tiny winged creatures hover above the waving grass and scattering blossoms of the plains.
It is a slow, monotonous journey; but at last it ends, and the party comes to a halt before the "ranche," so called of "Jim" Harch, half way between the port town and the point at which the escort party had left Captain Lewis and his "command" of thirty men. It is anything but the ideal ranche of the tender-foot's vision—before a glimpse of the reality shatters the romantic shade—little more than a system of tumble-down sheds and "lean-tos," in fact, held together and bolstered up by diverse shifts and lazy expedients, and redeemed from utter barrenness by a group of sickly young trees, struggling against drought and heat and the withering sand-storm for a precarious existence. Under these trees the escort halts, and the hammock is gently eased down, while Corporal Craig rides on to the corral to enter his plea for hospitality.
"Wot's up with ther feller?" queries Jim Harch, transferring a big mouthful of vile tobacco from his left cheek to his right, when he has heard the plea for shelter for the injured man and his caretakers. "'Ain't got nothin' kinta gei-ous, has he?"
"Nothing more than the kick of a horse, a blow, and a shock. Hurts worst internally, I'm afraid. Corporal Hill's horse died about thirty miles to the west while on the march, and he took a half-broken and half-breed pony out of a pack of a dozen we were taking across for use at the port....
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