E-text prepared by Al Haines
[Frontispiece: "I Read It in your Face," He Insisted. "It Told of Love."]
BOB HAMPTON OF PLACER
BY
RANDALL PARRISH
AUTHOR OF "WHEN WILDERNESS WAS KING," "MY LADY OF THE NORTH," "HISTORIC ILLINOIS," ETC.
ILLUSTRATED BY ARTHUR I. KELLER
EIGHTH EDITION
CHICAGO A. C. McCLURG & CO. 1907
COPYRIGHT A. C. McCLURG & Co. 1906
Entered at Stationers' Hall, London All rights reserved
Published, September 22, 1906
Second Edition October 1, 1906 Third Edition October 15, 1906 Fourth Edition November 1, 1906 Fifth Edition November 15, 1906 Sixth Edition December 1, 1906 Seventh Edition January 5, 1907 Eighth Edition January 9, 1907
CONTENTS
PART I FROM OUT THE CANYON
PART II WHAT OCCURRED IN GLENCAID
PART III ON THE LITTLE BIG HORN
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"I Read It in your Face," He Insisted. "It Told of Love" . . . . . . Frontispiece
They Advanced Slowly, the Supported Blankets Swaying Gently to the Measured Tread
"Mr. Slavin Appears to have Lost his Previous Sense of Humor," He Remarked, Calmly
Together They Bore Him, now Unconscious, Slowly down below the First Fire-Line
BOB HAMPTON OF PLACER
PART I
FROM OUT THE CANYON
CHAPTER I
HAMPTON, OF PLACER
It was not an uncommon tragedy of the West. If slightest chronicle of it survive, it must be discovered among the musty and nearly forgotten records of the Eighteenth Regiment of Infantry, yet it is extremely probable that even there the details were never written down. Sufficient if, following certain names on that long regimental roll, there should be duly entered those cabalistic symbols signifying to the initiated, "Killed in action." After all, that tells the story. In those old-time Indian days of continuous foray and skirmish such brief returns, concise and unheroic, were commonplace enough.
Yet the tale is worth telling now, when such days are past and gone. There were sixteen of them when, like so many hunted rabbits, they were first securely trapped among the frowning rocks, and forced relentlessly backward from off the narrow trail until the precipitous canyon walls finally halted their disorganized flight, and from sheer necessity compelled a rally in hopeless battle. Sixteen,—ten infantrymen from old Fort Bethune, under command of Syd. Wyman, a gray-headed sergeant of thirty years' continuous service in the regulars, two cow-punchers from the "X L" ranch, a stranger who had joined them uninvited at the ford over the Bear Water, together with old Gillis the post-trader, and his silent chit of a girl.
Sixteen—but that was three days before, and in the meanwhile not a few of those speeding Sioux bullets had found softer billet than the limestone rocks. Six of the soldiers, four already dead, two dying, lay outstretched in ghastly silence where they fell. "Red" Watt, of the "X L," would no more ride the range across the sun-kissed prairie, while the stern old sergeant, still grim of jaw but growing dim of eye, bore his right arm in a rudely improvised sling made from a cartridge-belt, and crept about sorely racked with pain, dragging a shattered limb behind him. Then the taciturn Gillis gave sudden utterance to a sobbing cry, and a burst of red spurted across his white beard as he reeled backward, knocking the girl prostrate when he fell. Eight remained, one helpless, one a mere lass of fifteen. It was the morning of the third day.
