This eBook was produced by Michael Overton.





THE GREAT SALT LAKE TRAIL


By COLONEL HENRY INMAN

Late Assistant Quartermaster, United States Army
Author of _The Old Santa Fé Trail_, Etc.

And COLONEL WILLIAM F. CODY, “Buffalo Bill”

Late Chief of Scouts


Etext Edition edited by MICHAEL S. OVERTON


1898 (original edition), 2002 (Etext edition)


See PUBLICATION INFORMATION at the end of this Etext for a more
complete bibliographic listing of the original source.





PREFACE.



There are seven historic trails crossing the great plains of the
interior of the continent, all of which for a portion of their
distance traverse the geographical limits of what is now the
prosperous commonwealth of Kansas.

None of these primitive highways, however, with the exception of that
oldest of all to far-off Santa Fé, has a more stirring story than
that known as the Salt Lake Trail.

Over this historical highway the Mormons made their lonely Hegira to
the valley of that vast inland sea.  On its shores they established
a city, marvellous in its conception, and a monument to the ability
of man to overcome almost insuperable obstacles—the product of a
faith equal to that which inspired the crusader to battle to the death
for the possession of the Holy Sepulchre.

Over this route, also, were made those world-renowned expeditions
by Fremont, Stansbury, Lander, and others of lesser fame, to the
heart of the Rocky Mountains, and beyond, to the blue shores of the
Pacific Ocean.

Over the same trackless waste the Pony Express executed those
marvellous feats in annihilating distance, and the once famous
Overland Stage lumbered along through the seemingly interminable
desert of sage-brush and alkali dust—avant-courières of the telegraph
and the railroad.

One of the collaborators of this volume, Colonel W. F. Cody (“Buffalo
Bill”), began his remarkable career, as a boy, on the Salt Lake Trail,
and laid the foundations of a life which has made him a conspicuous
American figure at the close of this century.

It is not the intention of the authors of this work to deal in the
slightest manner with Mormonism as a religion.  An immense mass of
literature on the subject is to be found in every public library, both
in its defence and in its condemnation.  The latter preponderates, and
often seems to be inspired by an inexcusable ingenuity in exaggeration.

Of the trials of the Mormons during their toilsome march and their
difficulties with the government during the Civil War, this work will
treat in a limited way, but its scope is to present the story of the
Trail in the days long before the building of a railroad was believed
to be possible.  It will deal with the era of the trapper, the scout,
the savage, and the passage of emigrants to the gold fields of
California—when the only route was by the overland trail—and with
the adventures which marked the long and weary march.




CONTENTS.



CHAPTER I.  EXPLORING EXPEDITIONS.  Proposed Exploring Expedition
across the Northern Part of the Continent in 1774—Sir Alexander
Mackenzie's Expedition—The Expedition of Lewis and Clarke—Hunt's
Tour in 1810—March of Robert Stuart eastwardly.

CHAPTER II.  THE OLD TRAPPERS.  Captain Ezekiel Williams' Expedition
to the Platte Valley in 1807—Character of the Old Trapper—The Outfit
of his Men—Crosses the River—Immense Herds of Buffalo—Death of
their Favourite Hound—A Lost Trapper—A Prairie Burial—A Wolf-chase
after a Buffalo—An Indian Lochinvar—The Crow Indians—Their Country
—Rose, the Scapegoat Refugee—The Lost Trappers—A Battle with
the Savages.

CHAPTER III.  JIM BECKWOURTH.  General W. H. Ashley's Trapping
Expedition—Jim Beckwourth's Story—Two Axe—Kill Fourteen Hundred
Buffaloes—The Surround—Expedition is divided—Boats are built—
Green River Suck—Indians murder Le Brache—Beckwourth meets Castenga.

CHAPTER IV.  CAPTAIN SUBLETTE'S EXPEDITION.  Captain William
Sublette's Expedition in 1832—They meet Nathaniel J. Wyeth's Party—
Arrive at Green River Valley—Attacked by Indians—Antoine Godin
shoots a Blackfoot Chief—Fight between Whites, Flatheads, and
Blackfeet—An Indian Heroine—Major Stephen H. Long's Scientific
Expedition in 1820—Captain Bonneville's Expedition in 1832—
Lieutenant John C. Fremont's Expedition in 1842 to the Wind River
Mountains.

CHAPTER V.  TRADING-POSTS AND THEIR STORIES.  Trading-posts of the
Great Fur Companies—Fort Vasquez—Fort Laramie—Fort Platte—Fort
Bridger—Incidents at Fort Platte—A Drunken Spree—Death and Burial
of Susu-Ceicha—Insult to Big Eagle—Bull Tail's Effort to sell his
Daughter for a Barrel of Whiskey—A Rare Instance of a Trader's Honour.

CHAPTER VI.  THE MORMONS.  The Most Desolate of Deserts made to
blossom as the Rose—The Mormon Hegira—Pilgrim's Outfit—Curious
Guide-posts—The Hand-cart Expedition—Sufferings and Hardships during
the Exodus—An Impending War—General Harney's Expedition—Mormon
Tactics—Destroy the Supplies—Privations of the United States army
—President backs down—Salt Lake City—Brigham Young's Vision—
The Temple.

CHAPTER VII.  MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE.  Mountain Meadows Massacre—
Indians attack the Wagons—Lee offers Protection—Ambushed by Lee—
Lee flies to the Mountains—Mormon Church acquitted—Execution of
John D. Lee—Temporary Toll-bridges—Indian Raids on Cattle Ranches—
Stuttering Brown—Graves along the Trail.

CHAPTER VIII.  THE PONY EXPRESS.  The Problem of the Mails between
Atlantic and Pacific—The World-famed Pony Express—Necessity for it
—Its Originator—The Firm of Majors, Russell, & Waddell—The Route—
Organization—Its Paraphernalia—Daring Riders—J. G. Kelley's Story—
Colonel Cody's Story—Incidents and Stories—Old Whipsaw and Little
Cayuse, the Pawnee—Slade, the Desperado—The Lynching of Slade—
Establishment of the Telegraph.

CHAPTER IX.  THE STAGE ROUTE TO THE PACIFIC.  Discovery of Gold near
Pike's Peak—Exodus from Missouri—The Creation of the Overland Stage
Route to the Pacific Coast—Messrs. Russell and Jones' Failure—
Russell, Majors, & Waddell's Successful Establishment of a New Line—
Hockaday and Liggett's “One-horse” Affair—Advent of the First
Stage-coach into Denver—Financial Embarrassment—Ben Holliday—
Description of the Outfit of the Route—Incidents and Adventures.

CHAPTER X.  SCENERY ON THE TRAIL.  Scenery and Historical Localities
on the Route of the Old Trail—Loup Fork—De Smet's Account of a
Waterspout—Wood River—Brady's Island—Ash Hollow—Johnson's Creek—
Scott's Bluff—Independence Rock and its Legend—Chimney Rock—
Crazy Woman's Creek—Laramie Plains—Legends and Traditions about
the Great Salt Lake—Early Surveys.

CHAPTER XI.  INDIAN TRIBES ON THE TRAIL.  The Indian Tribes of the
Salt Lake Trail—The Otoes—I-e-tan—Blue-Eyes shot by I-e-tan—
The Pawnees—Their Tribal Mark—Legends and Traditions—Human
Sacrifices—Folk-lore.

CHAPTER XII.  SIOUX AND THEIR TRADITIONS.  The Sioux Nation—Cause of
their Hatred for the Whites—A Chief of the Brûlé Sioux tells a Story
—The Scarred-Arms—Story of the Six Sioux and the Mysterious Woman—
The Place of the Death Song—Wa-shu-pa and Ogallalla—Indian Fight at
Ash Hollow—Indian Tradition of a Flood.

CHAPTER XIII.  THE CROWS.  The Crows—Council at Fort Philip Kearny
in July, 1866—A-ra-poo-ash—Jim Beckwourth in a Fight between Crows
and Blackfeet—Beckwourth and the Great Medicine Kettle—The Missionary
and the Crows—The Legend of the Blind Men—The Pis-kun.

CHAPTER XIV.  FOLK-LORE OF BLACKFEET.  Folk-lore of Blackfeet—
The Lost Children—The Wolf-Man—The Utes—Massacre of Major
Thornburgh's Command on the White River—The Great Chief Ouray—
Piutes—Their Theories of the Heavens—The Big Medicine Springs—
Closed Hand—Man afraid of his Horses—No Knife—Sitting Bull—
Spotted Tail.

CHAPTER XV.  SIOUX WAR OF 1863.  Sioux War of 1863—Spotted Tail—
George P. Belden's Account—Sergeants Hiles and Rolla—Belden and
Nelson have an Adventure—Belden maps the Country—Guarding Ben
Holliday's Coaches—An Involuntary Highwayman—Capturing Sioux at
Gilman's Ranch—Morrow's Ranch—Bentz and Wise—Attack on the Ambulance
—Peace Commission—Massacre of Colonel Fetterman's Command at Fort
Phil Kearny.

CHAPTER XVI.  BUFFALO BILL'S ADVENTURES.  Buffalo Bill's Adventures
on the Salt Lake Trail—In Charge of a Herd of Beef Cattle—Kills an
Indian—With Lew Simpson—Held up—Attacked at Cedar Bluffs—A Brush
with Sioux—The Print of a Woman's Shoe—Capture a Village—Buffalo
Bill shoots Tall Bull.

CHAPTER XVII.  MASSACRE OF CUSTER'S COMMAND.  Buffalo Bill's
Adventures continued—Hunting at Fort McPherson—Indians steal his
Favourite Pony—The Chase—Scouting under General Duncan—Pawnee
Sentries—A Deserted Squaw—A Joke on McCarthy—Scouting for Captain
Meinhold—Texas Jack—Buckskin Joe—Sitting Bull and the Indian War
of 1876—Massacre of Custer and his Command—Buffalo Bill takes the
First Scalp for Custer—Yellow Hand, Son of Cut Nose—Carries
Despatches for Terry—Good-by to the General.

CHAPTER XVIII.  IN A TRAPPER'S BIVOUAC.  Around the Camp-fire in a
Trapper's Bivouac—Telling Stories of the Old Trail—Old Hatcher's
Trip to the Infernal Regions—Colonel Cody's Story of California Joe
—A Practical Joke.

CHAPTER XIX.  KIT CARSON ON THE YELLOWSTONE.  More Stories of the Trail
—Frazier and the Bear—An Indian Elopement—The Ogallallas and the
Brûlés—Chaf-fa-ly-a—Kit Carson on the Yellowstone—Battle with the
Blackfeet—Carson, Bridger, and Baker on the Platte—Jim Cockrell—
Peg Leg Smith.

CHAPTER XX.  BUILDING THE UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD.  The Story of the
Building of the Union Pacific Railroad—Extract from General Sherman's
Memoirs—General Dodge's Description of the Country when he first
saw it—Explorations for a Route—Conference with President Lincoln—
Location of the Military Post of D. A. Russell and the Town of Cheyenne
—Driving the Last Spike.

FOOTNOTES.

PUBLICATION INFORMATION.





CHAPTER I.
EXPLORING EXPEDITIONS.



As early as a hundred and thirty-five years ago, shortly after England
had acquired the Canadas, Captain Jonathan Carver, who had been
an officer in the British provincial army, conceived the idea of
fitting out an expedition to cross the continent between the forty-third
and forty-sixth degrees of north latitude.  His intention was to
measure the breadth of North America at its widest part, and to find
some place on the Pacific coast where his government might establish
a military post to facilitate the discovery of a “northwest passage,”
or a line of communication between Hudson's Bay and the Pacific Ocean.

In 1774 he was joined in his proposed scheme by Mr. Richard Whitworth,
a member of the British Parliament, and a man of great wealth.
Their plan was to form a company of fifty or sixty men, and with them
to travel up one of the forks of the Missouri River, explore the
mountains, and find the source of the Oregon.  They intended to sail
down that stream to its mouth, erect a fort, and build vessels to
enable them to continue their discoveries by sea.

Their plan was sanctioned by the English government, but the breaking
out of the American Revolution defeated the bold project.  This was
the first attempt to explore the wilds of the interior of the continent.

Thirty years later Sir Alexander Mackenzie crossed the continent
on a line which nearly marks the fifty-third degree of north latitude.
Some time afterwards, when that gentleman published the memoirs of
his expedition, he suggested the policy of opening intercourse between
the two oceans.  By this means, he argued, the entire command of
the fur trade of North America might be obtained from latitude
forty-eight north, to the pole, excepting in that territory held
by Russia.  He also prophesied that the relatively few American
adventurers who had been enjoying a monopoly in trapping along the
Northwest Coast would instantly disappear before a well-regulated trade.

The government of the United States was attracted by the report of
the English nobleman, and the expedition of Lewis and Clarke was
fitted out.  They accomplished in part what had been projected
by Carver and Whitworth.  They learned something of the character
of the region heretofore regarded as a veritable terra incognita.

On the 14th of May, 1804, the expedition of Lewis and Clarke left
St. Louis, following the course of the Missouri River, and returning
by the same route two years later.  There were earlier explorations,
far to the south, but none of them reached as high up as the Platte.
Lewis and Clarke themselves merely viewed its mouth.

In 1810 a Mr. Hunt, who was employed by the Northwest Fur Company,
and Mr. Donald M'Kenzie, with a number of trappers under their charge,
were to make a journey to the interior of the continent, but, hampered
by the opposition of the Missouri Fur Company, they were compelled to
abandon the enterprise, and it was not until the beginning of 1812
that their historic journey was commenced.

On the 17th of January, while their boats landed at one of the old
villages established by the original French colonists of the region
then known as the Province of Louisiana, they met the celebrated
Daniel Boone, who was then in his eighty-fifth year, and the next
morning they were visited by John Coulter, who had been with Lewis and
Clarke on their memorable expedition eight years previously.[1]
Since the return of Lewis and Clarke's expedition, Coulter had made
a wonderful journey on his own account.  He floated down the whole
length of the Missouri River in a small canoe, accomplishing the
passage of three thousand miles in a month.

On the 8th of April Hunt's party came in sight of Fort Osage,[2]
where they remained for three days, and were delightfully entertained
by the officers of the garrison.  On the 10th they again embarked and
ascended the Missouri.  On the 28th the party landed at the mouth
of the Platte and ate their breakfast on one of the islands there.
After passing the mouth of the river Platte, they camped on its banks
a short distance above Papillion Creek.  On the 10th of May they
reached the village of the Omahas, camped in its immediate neighbourhood,
and on the 15th of the same month they started for the interior of
the continent.  Their route lay far north of a line drawn parallel
to the Platte Valley, but they entered it after travelling through
the Black Hills, somewhere near the headwaters of the river from which
the beautiful valley takes its name.  After untold hardships and
sufferings the party arrived at Astoria on the following February,
having travelled a distance of thirty-five hundred miles.  They had
taken a circuitous route, for Astoria is only eighteen hundred miles,
in a direct line, from St. Louis.

The first authentic account of an expedition through the valley of the
Platte was that of Mr. Robert Stuart, in the employ of John Jacob Astor.
He was detailed to carry despatches from the mouth of the Columbia to
New York, informing Mr. Astor of the condition of his venture on the
remote shores of the Pacific.  The mission entrusted to Mr. Stuart
was filled with perils, and he was selected for the dangerous duty
on account of his nerve and strength.  He was a young man, and although
he had never crossed the Rocky Mountains, he had already given proofs,
on other perilous expeditions, of his competence for the new duty.
His companions were Ben Jones and John Day,[3] both Kentuckians,
two Canadians, and some others who had become tired of the wild life,
and had determined to go back to civilization.

They all left Astoria on the 29th of June, 1812, and reached the
headwaters of the Platte, thence they travelled down the valley to
its mouth, and embarked in boats for St. Louis.

When they reached the Snake River deserts, great sandy plains
stretched out before them.  Only occasionally were there intervales of
grass, and the miserable herbage was saltweed, resembling pennyroyal.
The desponding party looked in vain for some relief from the lifeless
landscape.  All game had apparently shunned the dreary, sun-parched
waste, but hunger was now and then appeased by a few fish which they
caught in the streams, or some sun-dried salmon, or a dog given to them
by the kind-hearted Shoshones whose lodges they sometimes came across.

At last the party tired of this weary route.  They determined to
leave the banks of the barren Snake River, so, under the guidance
of a Mr. Miller who had previously trapped in that region, they were
conducted across the mountains and out of the country of the dreaded
Blackfeet.  Miller soon proved a poor guide, and again the party
became bewildered among rugged hills, unknown streams, and the burned
and grassless prairies.

Finally they arrived on the banks of a river, on which their guide
assured them he had trapped, and to which they gave the name of Miller,
but it was really the Bear River which flows into Great Salt Lake.
They continued along its banks for three days, subsisting very
precariously on fish.

They soon discovered that they were in a dangerous region.  One evening,
having camped rather early in the afternoon, they took their
fishing-tackle and prepared to fish for their supper.  When they
returned to their camp, they were surprised to see a number of savages
prowling round.  They proved to be Crows, whose chief was a giant,
very dark, and looked the rogue that they found him to be.

He ordered some of his warriors to return to their camp, near by,
and bring buffalo meat for the starving white men.  Notwithstanding
the apparent kindness of this herculean chief, there was something
about him that filled the white men with distrust.  Gradually the
number of his warriors increased until there were over a score of
them in camp.  They began to be inquisitive and troublesome, and
the whites felt great concern for their horses, each man keeping
a close watch upon the movements of the Indians.

As no unpleasant demonstrations had been made by the savages, and
as the party had bought all the buffalo meat they had brought,
Mr. Stuart began to make preparations in the morning for his departure.
The savages, however, were for further dealings with their newly found
pale friends, and above everything else they wanted gunpowder,
for which they offered to trade horses.  Mr. Stuart declined to
accommodate them.  At this they became more impudent, and demanded
the powder, but were again refused.

The gigantic chief now stepped forward with an important air, and
slapping himself upon the breast, he gave the men to understand that
he was a chief of great power.  He said that it was customary for
great chiefs to exchange presents when they met.  He therefore
requested Mr. Stuart to dismount and give him the horse he was riding.
Mr. Stuart valued the animal very highly, so he shook his head at
the demand of the savage.  Upon this the Indian walked up, and taking
hold of Mr. Stuart, began to push him backward and forward in his
saddle, as if to impress upon him that he was in his power.

Mr. Stuart preserved his temper and again shook his head negatively.
The chief then seized the bridle, gave it a jerk that scared the
horse, and nearly brought Mr. Stuart to the ground.  Mr. Stuart
immediately drew his pistol and presented it at the head of the
impudent savage.  Instantly his bullying ended, and he dodged behind
the horse to get away from the intended shot.  As the rest of the
Crow warriors were looking on at the movement of their chief,
Mr. Stuart ordered his men to level their rifles at them, but not
to fire.  Upon this demonstration the whole band incontinently fled,
and were soon out of sight.

The chief, finding himself alone, with true savage dissimulation
began to laugh, and pretended the whole affair was intended only
as a joke.  Mr. Stuart did not relish this kind of joking, but it
would not do to provoke a quarrel; so he joined the chief in his
laugh with the best grace he could affect, and to pacify the savage
for his failure to procure the horse, gave him some powder, and
they parted professedly the best of friends.

It was discovered, after the savage had cleared out, that they had
managed to steal nearly all the cooking utensils of the party.

To avoid meeting the savages again, Mr. Stuart changed his route
farther to the north, leaving Bear River, and following a large branch
of that stream which came down from the mountains.  After marching
twenty-five miles from the scene of their meeting with the Crows,
they camped, and that night hobbled all their animals.  They preserved
a strict guard, and every man slept with his rifle on his arm,
as they suspected the savages might attempt to stampede their horses.

Next day their course continued northward, and soon their trail began
to ascend the hills, from the top of which they had an extended view
of the surrounding country.  Not the sign of an Indian was to be seen,
but they did not feel secure and kept a very vigilant watch upon
every ravine and defile as they approached it.  Making twenty-one
miles that day, they encamped on the bank of another stream still
running north.  While there an alarm of Indians was given, and
instantly every man was on his feet with rifle ready to sell his life
only at the greatest cost.  Indians there were, but they proved to be
three miserable Snakes, who were no sooner informed that a band of
Crows were in the neighbourhood, than they ran off in great trepidation.

Six days afterward they encamped on the margin of Mud River, nearly
a hundred and fifty miles from where they had met the impudent Crows.
Now the party began to believe themselves beyond the possibility of
any further trouble from them, and foolishly relaxed their usual
vigilance.  The next morning they were up at the first streak of day,
and began to prepare their breakfast, when suddenly the cry of
“Indians! Indians! to arms! to arms!” sounded through the camp.

In a few moments a mounted Crow came riding past the camp, holding
in his hand a red flag, which he waved in a furious manner, as he
halted on the top of a small divide.  Immediately a most diabolical
yell broke forth from the opposite side of the camp where the horses
were picketed, and a band of paint-bedaubed savages came rushing to
where they were feeding.  In a moment the animals took fright and
dashed towards the flag-bearer, who vigorously kicked the flanks of
his pony, and loped off, followed by the stampeded animals which
were hurried on by the increasing yells of the retreating savages.

When the alarm was first given, Mr. Stuart's men seized their rifles
and tried to cut off the Indians who were after their horses, but
their attention was suddenly attracted by the yells in the opposite
direction.  The savages, as they supposed, intended to make a raid
on their camp equipage, and they all turned to save it.  But when
the horses had been secured the reserve party of savages dashed by
the camp, whooping and yelling in triumph, and the very last one of
them was the gigantic chief who had tried to joke with Mr. Stuart.
As he passed the latter, he checked up his animal, raised himself
in the saddle, shouted some insults, and rode on.

The rifle of one of the men, Ben Jones, was instantly levelled at
the chief, and he was just about to pull the trigger, when Mr. Stuart
exclaimed, “Not for your life! not for your life, you will bring
destruction upon us all!”

It was a difficult matter to restrain Ben, when the target could be
so easily pierced, and he begged, “Oh, Mr. Stuart, only let me have
one crack at the infernal rascal, and you may keep all the pay that
is due me.”

“By heavens, if you fire, I will blow your brains out!” exclaimed
Mr. Stuart.

By that time the chief was far beyond rifle range, and the whole
daring band of savages, with all the horses, were passing out of sight
over the hills, their red flag still waving and the valley echoing
to their yells and demoniacal laughter.

The unhorsed travellers were dismayed at the situation in which they
found themselves.  A long journey was still before them, over rocky
mountains and wind-swept plains, which they must now painfully
traverse on foot, carrying on their backs everything necessary for
their subsistence.

They selected from their camp equipage such articles as were absolutely
necessary for their journey, and those things which they could not
carry were cached.  It required a whole day to make ready for their
wearisome march.  Next morning they were up at the break of day.
They had set a beaver-trap in the river the night before, and rejoiced
to find that they had caught one of the animals, which served as a
meal for the whole party.

On his way back with the prize, the man who had gone for it, casually
looking up at a cliff several hundred feet high, saw what he thought
were a couple of wolves looking down upon him.  Paying no attention
to them, he walked on toward camp, when happening to look back,
he still saw the watchful eyes peering over the edge of the precipice.
It now flashed upon him that they might not be wolves at all, but
Indian spies.

On reaching camp he called the attention of Stuart and his companions
to what he had observed, and at first they too entertained the idea
that they were wolves, but soon satisfied themselves that they
were savages.  If their surmises were true, the party was satisfied
that the whereabouts of their caches were known, and determined that
their contents should not fall into the hands of the savages.
So they were opened, and everything the men could not carry away
was either burned or thrown into the river.

On account of this delay they were not able to leave the place until
about ten o'clock.  They marched along the bank of the river, and
made but eighteen miles in two days, when they were obliged to stop
and build two rafts with which to cross the stream.  Discovering that
their rafts were very strong and able to withstand the roughness of
the current, instead of crossing, they floated on down the river.

For three days they kept on, staying only to camp on land at night.
On the evening of the third day, as they approached a little island,
much to their joy they discovered a herd of elk.  A hunter who was
put on shore wounded one, which immediately took to the water, but
being too weak to stem the current it was overtaken and drawn ashore.

As a storm was brewing, they camped on the bank where they had
drawn up the elk.  They remained there all the next day, protecting
themselves as best they could from the rain, hail, and snow, which
fell heavily.  Now they employed themselves by drying a part of the
meat they had secured; and when cutting up the carcass of the animal,
they discovered it had been shot at by hunters not more than a week
previously, as an arrow-head and a musket-ball were still in the
wounds.  Under other circumstances such a matter would have been
regarded as trivial, but as they knew the Snake Indians had no guns,
the presence of the bullet indicated that the elk could not have been
wounded by one of them.  They were aware that they were on the edge
of the Blackfeet country, and as these savages were supplied with
firearms, it was surmised that some of that hostile tribe must have
been lately in the neighbourhood.  This idea ended the peace of mind
they had enjoyed while they were floating down the river.

For three more days they stuck to their rafts and drifted slowly down
the stream, until they had reached a point which in their judgment
was about a hundred miles from where they embarked.

The lofty mountains having now dwindled to mere hills, they landed
and prepared to continue their journey on foot.  They spent a day
making moccasins, packing their meat in bundles of twenty pounds
for each man to carry, then leaving the river they marched toward
the northeast.  It was a slow, wearisome tramp, as a part of the way
lay through the bottoms covered with cottonwood and willows, and
over rough hills and rocky prairies.  Some antelope came within
rifle range, but they dared not fire, fearing the report would
betray them to the Blackfeet.

That day they came upon the trail of a horse, and in the evening
halted on the bank of a small stream which had evidently been an
Indian camping-place about three weeks ago.

In the morning when ready to leave, they again saw the Indian trail,
which after a while separated in every direction, showing that the
band had broken up into small hunting-parties.  In all probability
the savages were still somewhere in the vicinity, so it behooved the
white men to move with the greatest caution.  The utmost vigilance
was exercised, but not a sign was seen, and at night they camped
in a deep ravine which concealed them from the level of the
surrounding country.

The next morning at daylight the march was resumed, but before they
came out of the ravine on to the level prairie a council was held
as to the best course to pursue.  It was deemed prudent to make
a bee-line across the mountains, over which the trail would be
very rugged and difficult, but more secure.  One of the party named
M'Lellan, a bull-headed, impatient Scotchman, who had been rendered
more so by the condition of his feet which were terribly swollen
and sore, swore he had rather face all the Blackfeet in the country
than attempt the tedious journey over the mountains.  As the others
did not agree with his opinion, they all began to climb the hills,
the younger men trying to see who would reach the top of the divide
first.  M'Lellan, who was double the age of some of his companions,
began to fall in the rear for want of breath.  It was his turn that
day to carry the old beaver-trap, and finding himself so far behind
the others, he suddenly stopped and declared he would carry it no
farther, at the same time throwing it as far down the hill as he
could.  He was then offered a package of dried meat in its place,
but this in his rage he threw upon the ground, asserting that those
might carry it who wanted it; he could secure all the food he wanted
with his rifle.  Then turning off from the party he walked along
the base of the mountain, letting those, he said, climb rocks who
were afraid to face Indians.  Mr. Stuart and all his companions
attempted to impress him with the rashness of his conduct, but
M'Lellan was deaf to every remonstrance and kept on the way he had
determined to go.

As they felt they were now in a dangerous neighbourhood, and did not
dare to fire a rifle, they were compelled to depend upon the old
beaver-trap for their subsistence.  The stream on which they were
encamped was filled with beaver sign, and the redoubtable Ben Jones
set out at daybreak with the hope of catching one of the sleek fur
animals.  While making his way through a bunch of willows he heard
a crashing sound to his right, and looking in that direction, saw
a huge grizzly bear coming toward him with a terrible snort.
The Kentuckian was afraid of neither man nor beast, and drawing up
his rifle, let fly.  The bear was wounded, but instead of rushing
upon his foe as is usually the case with a wounded grizzly, he ran
back into the thicket and thus escaped.

They were compelled to remain some days at this camp, and as the
beaver-trap failed to supply them with food, it became absolutely
necessary to take the chances of discovery by the Indians, in order
to live, and Ben Jones was permitted to make a tour with his rifle
some distance from the camp, defying both bears and Blackfeet.
He had not been absent more than two hours when he came upon a herd
of elk and killed five of them.  When he reported his good news,
the party immediately moved their camp to the carcasses, about
six miles distant.

After marching a few days more, hunger again returned, the keenest
of their sufferings.  The small amount of bear and elk meat which
they had been able to carry in addition to their other equipage
lasted but a short time, and in their anxiety to get ahead they had
little time to hunt.  As scarcely any game crossed their trail,
they lived for three days upon nothing but a small duck and a few
miserable fish.  They saw numbers of antelope, but they were very
wild and they succeeded in killing only one.  It was poor in flesh
and very small, but they lived on it for several days.

After a while they came across the trail of the obstinate M'Lellan,
who was still ahead of them, and had encamped the night before on
the very stream where they now were.  They saw the embers of the fire
by which he had slept, and remains of a wolf of which he had eaten.
He had evidently fared better than themselves at this encampment,
for they had not a mouthful to eat.  The next day, about noon,
they arrived at the prairies where the headwaters of the stream
appeared to form, and where they expected to find buffalo in abundance.
Not even a superannuated bull was to be seen; the whole region was
deserted.  They kept on for several miles farther, following the
bank of the stream and eagerly looking for beaver sign.  Upon finding
some they camped, and Ben Jones set his trap.  They were hardly
settled in camp when they perceived a large column of smoke rising
in the clear air some distance to the southwest.  They regarded it
joyously, for they hoped it might be an Indian camp where they could
get something to eat, as their pangs of hunger had now overcome
their dread of the terrible Blackfeet.

Le Clerc, one of the Canadians, was instantly despatched by Mr. Stuart
to reconnoitre; and the travellers sat up till a late hour, watching
and listening for his return, hoping he might bring them food.
Midnight arrived, but Le Clerc did not make his appearance, and they
lay down once more supperless to sleep, hoping that their old
beaver-trap might furnish them with a breakfast.

At daybreak they hastened, eager and famishing, to the trap, but
found in it only the forepaw of a beaver, the sight of which
tantalized their hunger and added to their dejection.  They resumed
their journey with flagging spirits, but had not gone far when they
perceived Le Clerc approaching at a distance.  They hastened to meet
him, in hope of tidings of good cheer.  He had nothing to give them
but news of that strange wanderer, M'Lellan.  The smoke had arisen
from his encampment which took fire while he was fishing at some
little distance from it.  Le Clerc found him in a forlorn condition.
His fishing had been unsuccessful, and during twelve days that he had
been wandering alone through the savage mountains he had found
scarcely anything to eat.  He had been ill, sick at heart, and still
had pressed forward; but now his strength and his stubbornness
were exhausted.  He expressed his satisfaction that Mr. Stuart and
his party were near, and said he would wait at his camp for their
arrival, hoping they would give him something to eat, for without
food he declared he should not be able to go much farther.

When the party reached the place they found the poor fellow lying
on a bunch of withered grass, wasted to a skeleton, and so feeble
that he could scarcely raise his head or speak.  The presence of his
old comrades seemed to revive him; but they had no food to give him,
for they themselves were almost starving.  They urged him to rise
and accompany them, but he shook his head.  It was all in vain,
he said; there was no prospect of their getting speedy relief,
and without it he would perish by the way; he might as well,
therefore, stay and die where he was.  At length, after much
persuasion, they got him upon his legs; his rifle and other effects
were shared among them, and he was cheered and aided forward.
In this way they proceeded for seventeen miles, over a level plain
of sand, until, seeing a few antelopes in the distance, they camped
on the margin of a small stream.  All now, that were capable of
the exertion, turned out to hunt for a meal.  Their efforts were
fruitless, and after dark they returned to their camp famished
almost to desperation.

As they were preparing for the third time to lie down to sleep without
a mouthful of food, Le Clerc, one of the Canadians, gaunt and wild
with hunger, approached Mr. Stuart with his gun in his hand.  It was
all in vain, he said, to attempt to proceed any farther without food.
They had a barren plain before them, three or four days' journey in
extent, on which nothing was to be procured.  They must all perish
before they could get to the end of it.  It was better, therefore,
that one should die to save the rest.  He proposed, therefore, that
they should cast lots, adding, as an inducement for Mr. Stuart to
assent to the proposition, that he, as leader of the party, should be
exempted.

Mr. Stuart shuddered at the horrible proposition, and endeavoured to
reason with the man, but his words were unavailing.  At length,
snatching up his rifle, he threatened to shoot him on the spot
if he persisted.  The famished wretch dropped on his knees, begged
pardon in the most abject terms, and promised never again to offend
him with such a suggestion.

Quiet being restored to the forlorn encampment, each one sought repose.
Mr. Stuart, however, was so exhausted by the agitation of the past
scene, acting upon his emaciated frame, that he could scarcely crawl
to his miserable bed, where, notwithstanding his fatigues, he passed
a sleepless night, reflecting upon their dreary situation and the
desperate prospect before them.

At daylight the next morning they were up and on their way; they had
nothing to detain them, no breakfast to prepare, and to linger was
to perish.  They proceeded, however, but slowly, for all were faint
and weak.  Here and there they passed the skulls and bones of buffaloes.
This showed that these animals must have been hunted there during the
past season, and the sight of the bones served only to mock their
misery.  After travelling about nine miles along the plain, they
ascended a range of hills, and had scarcely gone two miles farther,
when, to their great joy, they discovered a superannuated buffalo bull
which had been driven from some herd and had been hunted and harassed
through the mountains.  They all stretched themselves out to encompass
and make sure of this solitary animal, for their lives depended on
their success.  After considerable trouble and infinite anxiety,
they at length succeeded in killing him.  He was instantly flayed and
cut up, and so ravenous were they that they devoured some of the
flesh raw.

When they had rested they proceeded, and after crossing a mountain
ridge, and traversing a plain, they waded one of the branches of
the Spanish River.  On ascending its bank, they met about a hundred
and thirty Indians of the Snake tribe.  They were friendly in their
demeanour, and conducted the starving trappers to their village,
which was about three miles distant.  It consisted of about forty
lodges, constructed principally of pine branches.  The Snakes,
like most of their nation, were very poor.  The marauding Crows,
in their late excursion through the country, had picked this unlucky
band to the bone, carrying off their horses, several of their squaws,
and most of their effects.  In spite of their poverty, they were
hospitable in the extreme, and made the hungry strangers welcome to
their cabins.  A few trinkets procured from them a supply of buffalo
meat, together with leather for moccasins, of which the party were
greatly in need.  The most valuable prize obtained from them,
however, was a horse.  It was a sorry old animal in truth, and it
was the only one which remained to the poor fellows, after the fell
swoop of the Crows.  They were prevailed upon to part with it to
their guests for a pistol, an axe, a knife, and a few other trifling
articles.

By sunrise on the following morning, the travellers had loaded their
old horse with buffalo meat, sufficient for five days' provisions,
and, taking leave of their poor but hospitable friends, set forth
in somewhat better spirits, though the increasing cold weather and
the sight of the snowy mountains which they had yet to traverse were
enough to chill their very hearts.  The country along the branch of
the river as far as they could see was perfectly level, bounded by
ranges of lofty mountains, both east and west.  They proceeded about
three miles south, where they came again upon the large trail of the
Crow Indians, which they had crossed four days previously.  It was
made, no doubt, by the same marauding band which had plundered the
Snakes; and which, according to the account of the latter, was now
camped on a stream to the eastward.  The trail kept on to the southeast,
and was so well beaten by horse and foot that they supposed at least
a hundred lodges had passed along it.  As it formed, therefore,
a convenient highway, and ran in a proper direction, they turned
into it, and determined to keep it as long as safety would permit,
as the Crow encampment must be some distance off, and it was not
likely those savages would return upon their steps.  They travelled
forward, all that day, in the track of their dangerous predecessors,
which led them across mountain streams, and along ridges, through
narrow valleys, all tending generally to the southeast.  The wind
blew cold from the northeast, with occasional flurries of snow,
which made them camp early, on the sheltered banks of a brook.
In the evening the two Canadians, Vallee and Le Clerc, killed a
young buffalo bull which was in good condition and afforded them an
excellent supply of fresh beef.  They loaded their spits, therefore,
and filled their camp kettle with meat, and while the wind whistled
and the snow whirled around them, they huddled round a rousing fire,
basked in its warmth, and comforted both soul and body with a hearty
and invigorating meal.  No enjoyments have greater zest than these,
snatched in the very midst of difficulty and danger; and it is
probable the poor wayworn and weather-beaten travellers relished
these creature comforts the more highly on account of the surrounding
desolation and the dangerous proximity of the Crows.

The snow which had fallen in the night made it late in the morning
before the party loaded their solitary packhorse, and resumed their
march.  They had not gone far before the trail of the Crows, which
they were following, changed its direction, and bore to the north
of east.  They had already begun to feel themselves on dangerous
ground, in travelling it, as they might be descried by scouts or spies
of that race of Ishmaelites, whose predatory life required them to
be constantly on the alert.  On seeing the trail turn so much to
the north, therefore, they abandoned it, and kept on their course
to the southeast for eighteen miles, through a beautiful undulating
country, having the main chain of mountains on the left, and a
considerable elevated ridge on the right.

That evening they encamped on the banks of a small stream, in the
open prairie.  The northeast wind was keen and cutting, and as they
had nothing but a scanty growth of sage-brush wherewith to make a fire,
they wrapped themselves in their blankets at an early hour.  In the
course of the evening M'Lellan, who had now regained his strength,
killed a buffalo, but it was some distance from the camp, and they
postponed supplying themselves from its carcass until morning.

The next day the cold continued, accompanied by snow.  They set
forward on their bleak and toilsome way, keeping to the northeast,
toward the lofty summit of a mountain which it was necessary for them
to cross.  Before they reached its base they passed another large
trail, a little to the right of a point of the mountain.  This they
supposed to have been made by another band of Crows.

The severity of the weather compelled them to encamp at the end of
fifteen miles on the skirts of the mountain, where they found
sufficient dry aspen trees to supply them with fire, but they sought
in vain about the neighbourhood for a spring or rill of water.
The next day, on arriving at the foot of the mountain, the travellers
found water oozing out of the earth, and resembling, in look and taste,
that of the Missouri.  Here they encamped for the night, and supped
sumptuously upon their mountain mutton, which they found in good
condition.

For two days they kept on in an eastwardly direction, against wintry
blasts and occasional storms.  They suffered, also, from scarcity
of water, having frequently to use melted snow; this, with the want
of pasturage, reduced their old packhorse sadly.  They saw many tracks
of buffalo, and some few bulls, which, however, got the wind of them
and scampered off.

On the 26th of October, they changed their course to the northeast,
toward a wooded ravine in a mountain.  At a small distance from its
base, to their great joy, they discovered an abundant stream,
running between willowed banks.  Here they halted for the night.
Ben Jones having luckily trapped a beaver and killed two buffalo bulls,
they remained there the next day, feasting, reposing, and allowing
their jaded horse to rest from his labours.[4]

Pursuing the course of this stream for about twenty miles, they came
to where it forced a passage through a range of hills, covered with
cedars, into an extensive low country, affording excellent pasturage
to numerous herds of buffalo.  Here they killed three cows, which
were the first they had been able to get, having heretofore had to
content themselves with bull-beef, which at this season of the year
is very poor.  The hump meat and tongues afforded them a repast fit
for an epicure.

It was now late in the season and they were convinced it would be
suicidal to continue their journey on foot, as still many hundred
miles lay before them to the Missouri River.  The absorbing question
now was where to choose a suitable wintering place; they happened
the next day to come upon a bend of the river which appeared to be
just the spot they were seeking.  Here was a beautiful low point
of land, covered by cottonwood, and surrounded by a thick growth
of willow, which yielded both shelter and fuel, as well as material
for building.  The river swept by in a strong current about a hundred
and fifty yards wide.  To the southeast were mountains of moderate
height, the nearest about two miles off, but the whole chain ranging
to the east, south, and southwest, as far as the eye could reach.
Their summits were crowned with extensive tracts of pitch-pine,
checkered with small patches of the quivering aspen.  Lower down
were thick forests of firs and red cedars, growing out in many places
from the very fissures of the rocks.  The mountains were broken and
precipitous, with huge bluffs protruding from among the forests.
Their rocky recesses and beetling cliffs afforded retreats to
innumerable flocks of the bighorn, while their woody summits and
ravines abounded with bears and black-tailed deer.  These, with the
numerous herds of buffalo that ranged the lower grounds along the
river, promised the travellers abundant cheer in their winter quarters.

On the 2d of November, they pitched their camp for the winter on
the woody point, and their first thought was to obtain a supply of
provisions.  Ben Jones and the two Canadians accordingly sallied forth,
accompanied by two other members of the party, leaving but one to watch
the camp.  Their hunting was uncommonly successful.  In the course of
two days they killed thirty-two buffaloes, and collected their meat
on the margin of a small brook, about a mile distant.  Fortunately
the river was frozen over, so that the meat was easily transported
to the encampment.  On a succeeding day a herd of buffalo came
trampling through the woody bottom on the river banks, and fifteen
more were killed.

It was soon discovered, however, that there was game of a more
dangerous nature in their neighbourhood.  On one occasion Mr. Crooks
wandered about a mile from camp, and had ascended a small hill
commanding a view of the river; he was without his rifle, a rare
circumstance, for in these wild regions, where one may at any moment
meet a wild animal or a hostile Indian, it is customary never to stir
out from the camp unarmed.  The hill where he stood overlooked the
spot where the killing of the buffalo had taken place.  As he was
gazing around, his eye was caught by an object below, moving directly
toward him.  To his dismay he discovered it to be a she grizzly
with two cubs.  There was no tree at hand into which he could climb,
and to run would only be to invite pursuit, as he would soon be
overtaken.  He threw himself on the ground, therefore, and lay
motionless, watching the movements of the animal with intense anxiety.
It continued to advance until at the foot of the hill, where it turned,
and made into the woods, having probably gorged itself with buffalo
flesh.  Mr. Crooks made all possible haste back to camp, rejoicing at
his escape, and determined never to stir out again without his rifle.
A few days afterwards a grizzly bear was shot at a short distance
from camp by Mr. Miller.

As the slaughter of so many buffaloes had provided the party with
beef for the winter, even if they met with no further supply, they now
set to work with heart and hand to build a comfortable shelter.
In a little while the woody promontory rang with the unwonted sound
of the axe.  Some of its lofty trees were laid low, and by the second
evening the cabin was complete.  It was eight feet wide, and eighteen
feet long.  The walls were six feet high, and the whole was covered
with buffalo-skins.  The fireplace was in the centre, and the smoke
found its way out by a hole in the roof.

The hunters were next sent out to procure deerskins for garments,
moccasins, and other purposes.  They made the mountains echo with
their rifles, and, in the course of two days' hunting, killed
twenty-eight bighorn and black-tailed deer.

The party now revelled in abundance.  After all they had suffered
from hunger, cold, fatigue, and watchfulness; after all their perils
from treacherous and savage men, they exulted in the snugness and
security of their isolated cabin, hidden, as they thought, even from
the prying eyes of Indian scouts, and stored with creature comforts.
They looked forward to a winter of peace and quietness; of roasting,
broiling, and boiling, feasting upon venison, mountain mutton,
bear's meat, marrow-bones, buffalo humps, and other hunters' dainties;
of dozing and reposing around their fire, gossiping over past dangers
and adventures, telling long hunting stories—until spring should
return; when they would make canoes of buffalo-skins, and float down
the river.

From such halcyon dreams they were startled one morning, at daybreak,
by a savage yell, and jumped for their rifles.  The yell was repeated
by two or three voices.  Cautiously peeping out, they beheld, to their
dismay, several Indian warriors among the trees, all armed and
painted in warlike style, evidently bent on some hostile purpose.

Miller changed countenance as he regarded them.  “We are in trouble,”
said he, “these are some of the rascally Arapahoes that robbed me
last year.”  Not a word was uttered by the rest of the party;
they silently slung their powder-horns, ball-pouches, and prepared
themselves for battle.  M'Lellan, who had taken his gun to pieces
the evening before, put it together in all haste.  He proposed that
they should break out the clay from between the logs, so as to be able
to fire upon the enemy.

“Not yet,” replied Stuart; “it will not do to show fear or distrust;
we must first hold a parley.  Some one must go out and meet them as
a friend.”

Who was to undertake the task?  It was full of peril, as the envoy
might be shot down at the threshold.

“The leader of a party,” said Miller, “always takes the advance.”

“Good!” replied Stuart; “I am ready.”  He immediately went forth;
one of the Canadians followed him; the rest of the party remained
in garrison, to keep the savages in check.

Stuart advanced, holding his rifle in one hand and extending the other
to the savage who appeared to be the chief.  The latter stepped forward
and took it; his men followed his example, and all shook hands with
Stuart, in token of friendship.  They now explained their errand.
They were a war-party of Arapahoe braves.  Their village lay on a
stream several days' journey to the eastward.  It had been attacked
and ravaged during their absence by a band of Crows, who had carried off
several of their women and most of their horses.  They were in quest
of vengeance.  For sixteen days they had been tracking the Crows
about the mountains, but had not yet come upon them.  In the meantime
they had met with scarcely any game, and were half famished.
About two days previously they had heard the report of firearms
among the mountains, and on searching in the direction of the sound,
had come to a place where a deer had been killed.  They had followed
the trail and it had brought them to the cabin.

Mr. Stuart now invited the chief and another, who appeared to be his
lieutenant, into the cabin, but made signs that no one else was
to enter.  The rest halted at the door and others came straggling up,
until the whole party, to the number of twenty-three, were gathered
in front.  They were armed with bows and arrows, tomahawks,
scalping-knives, and a few had guns.  All were painted and dressed
for war, having a savage and fierce appearance.  Mr. Miller recognized
among them some of the very fellows who had robbed him the preceding
year, and put his comrades on their guard.  Every man stood ready
to resist the first act of hostility, but the savages conducted
themselves peaceably, and showed none of that swaggering arrogance
which a war-party is apt to assume.

On entering the cabin, the chief and his lieutenant cast a wistful
look at the rafters, hung with venison and buffalo meat.  Mr. Stuart
made a merit of necessity, and invited them to help themselves.
They did not wait to be pressed.  The beams were soon eased of their
burden; venison and beef were passed out to the crew before the door,
and a scene of gormandizing commenced which few can imagine who have
not witnessed the gastronomical powers of an Indian after an interval
of fasting.  This was kept up throughout the day; they paused now and
then, it is true, for a brief interval, but only to renew the charge
with fresh ardour.  The chief and the lieutenant surpassed all the
rest in the vigour and perseverance of their attacks; as if, from
their station, they were bound to signalize themselves in all
onslaughts.  Mr. Stuart kept them well supplied with choice bits,
for it was his policy to overfeed them, and keep them from leaving
the cabin, where they served as hostages for the good conduct of their
followers.  Once only in the course of the day did the chief sally
forth.  Mr. Stuart and one of the men accompanied him, armed with
their rifles, but without betraying any distrust.  He soon returned,
and renewed his attack upon the larder.  In a word, he and his worthy
coadjutor, the lieutenant, ate until they were both stupefied.

Toward evening the Indians made their preparations for the night
according to the practice of war-parties.  Those outside of the cabin
threw up two breastworks, into which they retired at a tolerably
early hour, and slept like overfed hounds.   As to the chief and his
lieutenant, they slept inside, and in the course of the night they
got up two or three times to eat.  The travellers took turns, one at
a time, to mount guard until morning.  Scarcely had the day dawned
when the gormandizing was renewed by the whole band, and carried on
with surprising vigour until ten o'clock, when all prepared to depart.
They had still six days' journey to make, they said, before they could
come up with the Crows, who, they understood, were encamped on a river
to the north.  Their way lay through a hungry country where there
was no game; they would, moreover, have but little time to hunt;
they therefore craved a small supply of provisions for the journey.
Mr. Stuart again, invited them to help themselves.  They did so with
keen forethought, taking the choicest parts of the meat, and leaving
the late plenteous larder almost bare.  Their next request was for
a supply of ammunition.  They had guns, but no powder and ball.
They promised to pay magnificently out of the spoils of their foray.
“We are poor now,” said they, “and are obliged to go on foot, but we
shall soon come back laden with booty, and all mounted on horseback,
with scalps hanging at our bridles.  We will then give each of you
a horse to keep you from being tired on your journey.”

“Well,” said Mr. Stuart, “when you bring the horses, you shall have
the ammunition, but not before.”  The Indians saw by his determined
tone that all further entreaty would be unavailing, so they desisted,
with a good-humoured laugh, and went off exceedingly well freighted,
both within and without, promising to be back again in the course of
a fortnight.

No sooner were they out of hearing than the luckless travellers held
another council.  The security of their cabin was at an end, and
with it all their dreams of a quiet and cosey winter.  They were
between two fires.  On one side were their old enemies, the Crows;
on the other side, the Arapahoes, no less dangerous freebooters.
As to the moderation of this war-party, they considered it assumed,
to put them off their guard against some more favourable opportunity
for a surprisal.  It was determined, therefore, not to await their
return, but to abandon with all speed this dangerous neighbourhood.

The interval of comfort and repose which the party had enjoyed in
their cabin rendered the renewal of their fatigues intolerable for
the first two or three days.  The snow lay deep, and was slightly
frozen on the surface, but not sufficiently to bear their weight.
Their feet became sore by breaking through the crust, and their limbs
weary by floundering on without a firm foothold.  So exhausted and
dispirited were they, that they began to think it would be better
to remain and run the risk of being killed by the Indians, than to
drag on thus painfully, with the probability of perishing by the way.
Their miserable horse fared no better than themselves, having for the
first day or two no other forage than the ends of willow twigs, and
the bark of the cottonwood tree.

They all, however, appeared to gain patience and hardihood as they
proceeded, and for fourteen days kept steadily on, making a distance
of about three hundred miles.

During the last three days of their fortnight's travel, however,
the face of the country changed.  The timber gradually diminished,
until they could scarcely find fuel sufficient for culinary purposes.
The game grew more and more scanty, and finally none was to be seen
but a few miserable broken-down buffalo bulls, not worth killing.
The snow lay fifteen inches deep, and made the travelling grievously
painful and toilsome.  At length they came to an immense plain,
where no vestige of timber was to be seen, not a single quadruped
to enliven the desolate landscape.  Here, then, their hearts failed
them, and they held another consultation.  The width of the river,
which was nearly a mile, its extreme shallowness, the frequency of
quicksands, and various other characteristics, had at length made
them sensible of their errors with respect to it, and they now came
to the correct conclusion that they were on the banks of the Platte.
What were they to do?  Pursue its course to the Missouri?  To go on
at this season of the year seemed dangerous in the extreme.
There was no prospect of obtaining either food or fuel.  The country
was destitute of trees, and though there might be driftwood along
the river, it lay too deep beneath the snow for them to find it.

The weather was threatening a change, and a snow-storm on these
boundless wastes might prove as fatal as a whirlwind of sand on an
Arabian desert.  After much deliberation, it was at length determined
to retrace their last three days' journey of seventy-seven miles,
to a place where they had seen a sheltering growth of forest-trees,
and where there was an abundance of game.  Here they would once more
set up their winter quarters, and await the opening of navigation
to launch themselves in canoes.

Accordingly, on the 27th of December they faced about, retraced their
steps, and on the 30th regained the part of the river in question.

They encamped on the margin of the river, in a grove where there were
trees large enough for canoes.  Here they put up a shed for immediate
shelter, and at once proceeded to erect a cabin.  New Year's Day
dawned when but one wall of their cabin was completed; the genial and
jovial day, however, was not permitted to pass uncelebrated, even by
this weather-beaten crew of wanderers.  All work was suspended, except
that of roasting and boiling.  The choicest of the buffalo meat, with
tongues, humps, and marrow-bones, were devoured in quantities that
would have astonished any one who has not lived among hunters and
Indians.  As an extra regale, having nothing to smoke, they cut up an
old tobacco pouch, still redolent with the potent herb, and smoked it
in honour of the day.  Thus for a time, in present revelry, however
uncouth, they forgot all past troubles and anxieties about the future,
and their forlorn shelter echoed with the sound of gayety.

The next day they resumed their labours, and by the sixth of the month
the cabin was complete.  They soon killed abundance of buffalo, and
again laid in a stock of winter provisions.

The party was more fortunate in this its second cantonment.
The winter passed away without any Indian visitors; and the game
continued to be plentiful in the neighbourhood.  They felled two large
trees, and shaped them into canoes, and, as the spring opened, and
a thaw of several days melted the ice in the river, they made every
preparation for embarking.  On the 8th of March they launched forth
in their canoes, but soon found that the river had not depth sufficient
even for such slender barks.  It expanded into a wide, but extremely
shallow stream, with many sandbars, and occasionally various channels.
They got one of their canoes a few miles down it, with extreme
difficulty, sometimes wading, and dragging it over the shoals.  At last
they had to abandon the attempt, and to resume their journey on foot,
aided by their faithful old packhorse, which had recruited strength
during the winter.

The weather delayed them for several days, having suddenly become more
rigorous than it had been at any time during the winter; but on the
20th of March they were again on their journey.

In two days they arrived at the vast naked prairie, the wintry aspect
of which had caused them in December to pause and turn back.  It was
now clothed with the early verdure of spring, and plentifully stocked
with game.  Still, when obliged to bivouac on its bare surface,
without any covering, by a scanty fire of buffalo-chips, they found
the night-blasts piercingly cold.  On one occasion a herd of buffalo
having strayed near their evening camp, they killed three of them
merely for their hides, wherewith to make a shelter for the night.

They journeyed on for about a hundred miles, and the first landmark
by which they were able to conjecture their position with any degree
of confidence was an island about seventy miles in length, which they
presumed to be Le Grande Isle.[5]  They now knew that they were not
a very great distance from the Missouri River, if their presumption
was correct.  They went on, therefore, with renewed hope, and on the
evening of the third day met an Otoe Indian, who informed them they
were but a short distance from the Missouri.  He also told them of the
war that had been progressing between the United States and England.
This was news to them indeed, for during that whole period they had
been beyond the possibility of learning anything of civilized affairs.

The Indian conducted them to his village, where they were delighted
to meet two white trappers recently arrived from St. Louis.  A bargain
was now made with one of them, who agreed to furnish them with a canoe
and provisions for the voyage, in exchange for their venerable
traveller, the old horse.  In a few days they started and arrived at
Fort Osage, where they were again received hospitably by the officers
of the garrison, and where they enjoyed that luxury, bread, which
they had not tasted for over a year.  Reëmbarking, they arrived
in St. Louis on the 30th of April, without experiencing any further
adventure worthy of note.[6]




CHAPTER II.
THE OLD TRAPPERS.



On the return of Lewis and Clarke's expedition from the Rocky Mountains
where they had wintered with the Mandans, a celebrated chief of that
tribe, Big White, was induced to accompany Captain Lewis to Washington
in order that he might see the President, and learn something of the
power of the people of the country far to the East.

The Mandans at that time were at war with the Sioux, and Big White was
fearful that on his return to his own tribe some of the Sioux might
cut him and his party off, so he hesitated at first to accept the
invitation; but upon Captain Clarke assuring him that the government
would send a guard of armed men to protect and convoy him safely to
his own country, the chief assented, and took with him his wife and son.

In the spring of 1807, Big White set out on his return to the Mandan
country.  The promised escort, comprising twenty men under the command
of Captain Ezekiel Williams, a noted frontiersman, left St. Louis to
guard him and to explore the region of the then unknown far West.

Each man of the party carried a rifle, together with powder and lead
to last him for a period of two years.  They also took with them six
traps to each person, for it was the intention of the expedition,
after it had seen the brave Mandan safely to his own home, to hunt
for beaver and other fur-bearing animals in the recesses of the vast
region beyond the Missouri.

Pistols, knives, camp kettles, blankets, and other camp equipage
necessary to the success of the expedition and the comfort of the men
were carried on extra packhorses.  He did not forget to take gewgaws
and trinkets valued by the savage, as presents to the chiefs of the
several tribes they might chance to meet.

It will be remembered by the student of history that the expedition
of Lewis and Clarke was confined to the Missouri River.  They went up
that stream and returned by the same route, and as Lieutenant Pike
started west in 1805, it is claimed that this expedition of Captain
Williams, overland to the Rocky Mountains, was the second ever
undertaken by citizens of the United States.  The difficulties which
they expected to encounter, having no knowledge of the country through
which they were to pass, as may be surmised, were numerous and trying.
When leaving the Mandan chief at his village, near the mouth of the
Yellowstone, that excellent Indian gave the party some timely advice,
and it prevented their absolute annihilation on several occasions.
Captain Williams was especially urged to exercise the greatest
vigilance day and night; to pay the strictest attention to the
position of his camps and the picketing of his animals.  He was told
that, although the average Indian generally relied upon surprises on
their raids, they were not rash and careless, rarely attacking a party
that was prepared and on the lookout.

Captain Williams was a man of the most persistent perseverance,
patience, and unflinching courage, coupled with that determination of
character which has been the saving attribute of nearly all our famous
mountaineers from the earliest days.  His men, too, were all used to
the privations and hardships that a life on the border demands, for
Missouri, at the time of the expedition, was a wilderness in the most
rigid definition of the term.  All were splendid shots with the rifle,
and could hit the eye of a squirrel whether the animal stood still or
was running up the trunk of a tree.

The distance they travelled each day averaged about twenty-five miles.
When they were ready to camp, they selected a position where wood and
water were plentiful, and the grass good for their animals.  For the
first eight or ten nights they would kindle great fires, around which
they gathered, ate the fat venison their hunters had killed through
the day, and told stories of hunting and logging back in the mighty
forests of Missouri.  When they reached the region of the Platte they
were forced to abandon this careless practice, for they were now
entering a region infested by hostile savages, and they found it
necessary to act upon the suggestions of the Mandan chief, and be
constantly on their guard.

For the distance of about two hundred and fifty miles from the
Missouri they did not find game very abundant, although they never
suffered, as there was always enough to supply their wants.
The timber began to thin out too, and they were obliged to resort
for their fire to the bois de vache, or buffalo-chips.

One day, two of the hunters killed a brace of very fat deer close to
camp, and when the animals were dressed and their carcasses hung up
to a huge limb, the viscera and other offal attracted a band of hungry
wolves.  Not less than twenty of the impudent, famishing brutes
battened in luxurious frenzy on the inviting entrails and feet of the
slaughtered deer.  The wolves were of all sizes and colours; those
that were the largest kept their smaller congeners away from the feast
until they were themselves gorged, and then allowed the little ones to
gather up the fragments.  While the latter were waiting their turn
with a constant whining and growling, the dogs of the expedition
barked an accompaniment to the howls of the impatient animals, and
soon made a break for the pack.  They chased them around the trees and
out on the open prairie, when they turned upon the dogs and drove them
back to camp.  One of the most plucky of the dogs made a bold stand,
but was seized by as many of the wolves as could get hold of him, and
he was torn to shreds almost instantly.

The trappers did not want to waste any lead on the worthless animals,
but in the darkness set some of their beaver-traps, which they baited
with pieces of venison suspended just above them on a projecting limb
of a tree.  In the morning, when the trappers went out to look for
their supposed victims, both the meat and the traps were gone.
They had, in their inexperience, forgotten to fasten the traps to
anything, and if any of the wolves were caught, they had walked off,
traps and all!

While all were at breakfast, one of the mortified hunters, disgusted
at the loss of his trap, went off with the intention of tracking the
wolf that had carried it away, thinking perhaps if the animal had got
rid of it he would find it on its trail.  Sure enough, a wolf had been
caught by this man's trap, and in dragging it along had left in the
grass a very distinct trail, by which he was easily followed.
He was tracked into a thicket of hazel, entrance to which was almost
impossible, so rank and tangled was its growth.  No doubt the wolf
was alive, but how to recover his trap was an enigma to the hunter.
He called the dogs and endeavoured to get them to go in, but, after
their experience of the night before, they, with the most terrible
howls, declined to make the attempt.  Then it was observed that near
the clump of hazel was a large oak-tree, from whose limbs an extended
view of the centre of the thicket could be had.  One of the hunters,
at the suggestion of Captain Williams, climbed the tree, and shot the
wolf with his rifle.  The danger having passed, the wolf was dragged
from his retreat, and it was discovered that one of his forefeet had
been caught in the trap.  He was an immense fellow, and nearly black
in colour.

In the early days of the frontier, the following method was sometimes
employed to rid a camp of wolves.  Several fishhooks were tied
together by their shanks, with a sinew, and the whole placed in the
centre of a piece of tempting fresh meat, which was dropped where the
bait was most likely to be found by the prowling beasts.  The hooks
were so completely buried in the meat as to prevent their being shaken
off by the animal that seized the bait.  It is an old trapper's belief
that a wolf never takes up a piece of food without shaking it well
before he attempts to eat it, so that when the unlucky animal had
swallowed the wicked morsel, he commenced at once to howl most horribly,
tear his neck, and run incontinently from the place.  As wolves rarely
travel alone, but are gregarious in their habits, the moment the brute
has swallowed the bait and commenced to run, all make after him.
His fleeing is contagious, and they seldom come back to that spot
again.  Sometimes the pack will run for fifty miles before stopping.

One night, while encamped on the Platte, five of their horses were
missing when daylight came.  At first they thought the Indians had
run them off; but, on second thought, Captain Williams argued that
the animals could not have been stolen.  If the Indians had been able
to take the five, they could as easily have taken the whole herd.
This induced the men to go out and institute a search for the missing
animals.  Their trail, made very plain by the dew, was soon found in
the grass, and soon all were returned to camp.  The horses had cleared
themselves of their hobbles, and were going off in the direction of
their far-away home, and it was not until dark that the camp was
reached.  Thus a whole day was lost, but as they were yet within
comparatively safe distance of the river, no harm resulted from their
carelessness.  Now greater caution must be observed, for their journey
was to be a long one; it led through a region occupied by hostile
tribes who would watch them with an energy possible only to the North
American savage.  The Indians would waylay them in every ravine,
watch them every moment from the hilltops for the purpose of gaining
an advantage, hoping always to surprise them, steal their horses,
and take their scalps if possible.

From that day the company adopted new tactics; they travelled until
an hour before sundown, then halted, unsaddled their animals, and
picketed them out to graze.  In the meantime their supper was prepared,
the fires lighted, and, after resting long enough for their horses to
have filled themselves, generally after dark, they were brought in,
saddled, the fires were renewed, and the company would start on for
another camp eight or ten miles away, before again halting for the
night.  Of course, at the new camp no fires were kindled, and the men
rested in security from a possible attack by the savages.

One day the company came upon a band of friendly Kansas Indians who
were out on an annual buffalo-hunt, and Captain Williams resolved to
spend two or three days with this tribe, and indulge in a buffalo-hunt
with them.  The whole country through which they were now travelling
was literally covered with the great shaggy monsters; thousands and
thousands could be seen from every point.  The buffalo had not yet
been frightened.  Early the next morning, a dozen of the Kansas
Indians, splendidly mounted, with spears, bows, and arrows for
weapons, with the same number of Captain Williams' men, started for
the herd grazing so unsuspiciously a few miles off.  The Indians were
not only excellent hunters, but very superior horsemen, their animals
familiar with the habits of the huge beasts they were to encounter,
and well-trained in all the quick movements so necessary to a
successful hunt.  But it was not so with the men of Captain Williams'
party.  Many of them had never seen a buffalo before, and though
skilful hunters in their native woods on the Missouri River, they were
wholly unacquainted with the habits of the immense beasts they were
now to kill.  Their horses, too, were as unused to the sight of a
buffalo as their riders, and in consequence were badly frightened
at the first sight of the ungainly animals.  The men, of course,
used their rifles, which in those days were altogether too cumbersome
for hunting the buffalo.

The party soon came in view of the herd, which was quietly grazing
about a mile off.  Then the men dismounted, cinched up their saddles,
and getting their arms ready for the attack, in a few moments of brisk
riding were on the edge of the vast herd.  Every man picked out his
quarry and dashed after it, the Indians selecting the bulls, as they
were fatter at that time of year.  The cows had calves at their sides
and were much thinner.  In a moment the very earth seemed to tremble
under the sharp clatter of the hoofs of the now thoroughly alarmed
beasts, and the sound as they dashed away was like distant thunder.
The Indians and their horses seemed to understand their business
at once.  Advancing up to a buffalo, the savage discharged his bow
and launched his spear with unerring aim, and the moment it was seen
that a buffalo was mortally wounded, off he would ride to another
animal, leaving the dying victim where it fell.

For more than two hours the hard work was kept up until a dozen or
more of the huge bulls were dead upon the prairie within the radius
of a couple of miles.  The Indians had averaged more than a buffalo
apiece, while Captain Williams' men had signally failed to bring down
a single bull, because they were unable to handle their rifles while
riding.  In fact, several of the white men were carried away by their
unmanageable animals for miles from the scene of the hunt.  One was
thrown from his saddle.  One horse had in his mad fright rushed upon
an infuriated bull that had been wounded, and was disembowelled and
killed in a moment.  Its rider was compelled to walk to the camp,
deeply mortified at his discomfiture.

The savages invariably exercised an amount of coolness on a buffalo-hunt
that would astonish the average white man.  They never let an arrow
fly until they were certain of its effect.  Sometimes a single arrow
would suffice to kill the largest of bulls.  Sometimes, so great was
the force given, an arrow would pass obliquely through the body, when
a bone was not struck in its passage.

Captain Williams' party had now an abundance of delicious buffalo meat,
but it was at the expense of a horse, a considerable balance on the
debtor side, considering the long and weary march yet to be made.
Providence seems to have come luckily to the relief of the party at
this juncture, for, one of the savages having taken a particular
fancy to one of the dogs of the outfit, he offered to exchange a fine
young horse for it.  His offer was gladly acceded to by the captain.
The Indian was pleased with the bargain, but not more so than the
horseless hunter.

The next day Captain Williams crossed the Platte a short distance
below the junction of the North and South Forks, and just before
sundown, as usual, halted to graze the horses and prepare their
evening meal.  In a few moments the dog that had been exchanged for
a horse came into camp, and appeared overjoyed to see his white
friends again.  A piece of buffalo-hide was attached to his neck.
He had been tied, but had succeeded in gnawing the lariat in two,
and thus made his escape, following the trail of the party he knew
so well.

The region through which Captain Williams' party was now travelling
was dotted with the various animals which at that early period were
so numerous on the grand prairies of the Platte.  Conspicuous,
of course, were vast herds of buffalo, and near the outer edge of the
nearest could be distinctly seen a pack of hungry wolves, eagerly
watching for a chance to hamstring one of the superannuated bulls
which stood alone, remote from all his companions, in all the misery
of his forlorn abandonment.

In the afternoon, as the party were riding silently along the trail
by the margin of the river, a rumbling, muffled sound was heard,
like the mutterings of thunder below the horizon.  One of the Indians
whom Captain Williams had induced to accompany him for some distance
farther into the wilderness, told him that the noise was made by a
stampeded herd of buffalo, and the sound became clearer and more
distinct.  He believed the frightened animals were rushing in the
direction of the company, and if his surmises were true, there was
danger in store.  For more than an hour the rumbling continued,
sounding louder and louder, until at last a surging, dark-looking
mass of rapidly moving animals was visible on the horizon, seeming to
cover the entire surface of the prairie as far as the eye could see.

There was but one thing to do; either the herd must be divided by some
means, or death to all was inevitable.  Accordingly the horses were
hobbled, and the men rushed toward the approaching mass of surging
animals, firing off their rifles as rapidly and shouting as loudly as
they could.  Luckily for the hunters, as the vast array of frightened
buffaloes came toward them, the leaders, with bloodshot eyes, stared
for a moment at the new object of terror, divided to the right and
left, passing the now thoroughly alarmed men with only about fifty or
sixty yards between them.

For more than an hour the hard work of yelling and firing off their
rifles had to be kept up before the danger was over.  The buffalo
appeared to be more badly frightened at the yells of the Indian
than at anything else that confronted them.  One of the beautiful
greyhounds belonging to the company became demoralized, and, running
into the midst of the rushing herd as it passed by, was cruelly
trampled to death in an instant.

In the early days it was generally believed that, when buffalo were
seen stampeding in the manner described, they were being chased by
Indians; and the party, surmising this to be the cause of the present
onward rush of the animals, although getting short of their meat
rations, did not deem it prudent to kill any, so the vast herd of
the coveted animals was allowed to pass by without a shot being fired
at them.

The delay caused by the stampede made the party very late in making
their usual afternoon camp, and when they started on their hard march
again, three of the men were detailed to hunt for game.  They were
told to join the company at a bunch of timber just visible low down
on the western horizon, apparently about six miles distant, but as
afterward proved it was much farther.

The men who were ordered out by the captain were warned to observe
the strictest vigilance, and particularly not to separate from each
other, as it was evident they were in a dangerous country, and their
safety depended upon their keeping within supporting distance.

The main body of the party arrived at the bunch of timber about
sundown, and partook of a very slight repast, as the meat, upon which
they depended almost entirely, was nearly exhausted.  About dark,
however, two of the hunters who had left in the afternoon came into
camp bringing with them a fine deer.  They reported that their
companion had left them to get a shot at a herd of elk a mile away,
and while going after the deer which they had killed they lost sight
of him.  They also stated that they had seen three horsemen going in
the direction which the missing man had taken.  This painful news
created the greatest alarm in the camp; it was too late and dark to
go out in search of their missing comrade, and if he were still alive
he would be compelled to remain entirely unprotected during the night
on the prairie.  The captain at first thought of kindling a large fire,
hoping that the lost man would see the light and find his way in.
As this plan would betray the presence of the whole party to any
Indians who might be prowling about, it was wisely abandoned.
So the little camp-fires were extinguished, and a double guard posted,
for it was believed that, if the Indians had killed their comrade,
they would be likely to attack the main camp at dawn, the hour
usually selected for such raids.

The night passed slowly on; nothing disturbed the hunters except their
anxiety for their lost comrade.  At the faintest intimation of the
coming dawn, ten of the party, including the two who had been with
the missing man the previous afternoon, set out on their quest for
their lost companion.  They first went back to the spot where they
remembered having last seen him, but there was not a sign of him;
not even the track of his horse's hoofs could be seen.  The men
fired off their rifles as they rode along, and occasionally called out
his name, but not a sound came back in response.  At last they were
rewarded by the sight of a horse standing in a bunch of willows.
As they approached him, they were welcomed by his neighing.  They then
halted, and continued their shouting and calling by name, but not an
answer did they get.  They were now confirmed in their belief that
their comrade had been killed by the Indians, who were in possession
of his horse, and at that moment hidden in the bunch of willows
before them.  They were determined to know positively, so they
approached the spot very cautiously, with their fingers on the
triggers of their rifles, ready to repel an attack.  When they had
approached sufficiently near, they saw that the horse was carefully
fastened to the brush, and a short distance away was Carson[7]
lying down with his head resting on the saddle!  At first the men
thought him dead, but found out that he was only in a profound sleep,
indeed, really enjoying the most delightful dreams.  When they aroused
him he appeared bewildered for a moment, but soon recovered his normal
condition, and related his story to his now happy companions.  He said
that in his eagerness to get the elk he lost his bearings, and
wandered about until midnight.  He hoped that he might catch a glimpse
of their camp-fire, but failing in that, being tired and hungry,
he laid himself down and tried to sleep; but pondering upon his danger
he lay awake until daylight, and had just dropped into a deep slumber
when they found him, and he slept so soundly that he failed to hear
them call.  He said that he saw the Indians on horseback seen by the
other men; they passed by him within a hundred yards, but did not
see him, as he was already hidden in the willows where he was found.

The lost man being found, the party returned to camp and resumed its
journey, exercising renewed caution, as the signs of Indians grew
thicker as they moved on.  Tracks of the savages' horses and the
remains of their camp-fires were now of frequent occurrence, and the
game along the trail was easily frightened, another sign of the late
presence of Indians.

About noon some mounted Indians were discovered by the aid of the
captain's field-glass, on a divide, evidently watching the movements
of the party.  They were supposed to be runners of some hostile tribe,
who intended that night to steal upon them and take their horses, and
possibly attempt to take their scalps.  Toward night the same Indians
were again observed following the trail of the party, and they were
now satisfied the savages were dogging them.  Having arrived at the
margin of a small stream of very pure water, they halted for an hour
or more, allowing the Indians, who were evidently watching every
movement, to believe their intention was to camp for the night at
that spot.  As soon as the animals were sufficiently rested, however,
and had filled themselves with the nutritious grass growing so
luxuriantly all around them, they saddled up, first having added a
large amount of fresh fuel to their fires, and started on.  They made
a detour to the north in order to deceive the savages as much as
possible as to their real course.  The ruse had the desired effect,
for after travelling about ten miles farther, they slept soundly until
the next morning, without fires, on a delicious piece of green sod.

At the first streak of dawn the men were in their saddles again,
having outwitted the Indians completely.  It was about the first
of June; and one day, soon after they had gotten rid of their savage
spies, one of the party was stricken down with a severe sickness,
and they were compelled to lie in camp and attend to the sufferings
of their unfortunate comrade.  He had a high fever, grew delirious,
and as in those days bleeding was considered a panacea for all the
ills that flesh is heir to, the captain made several abortive attempts
to draw the diseased blood from the poor man, but failed completely.
He also dosed his victim with copious draughts of calomel, but the
result was far from salutary; the man grew worse, but the party
determined to remain with him until he did get better or death
relieved him of his sufferings.  Accordingly, to make themselves more
secure from probable attacks of the Indians, they threw up a rude
breastwork of earth, behind which they established themselves and
felt thereafter a greater degree of security.

Some of the men were despatched on a hunt for meat, and shortly
returned with part of the carcass of a young buffalo cow, and one
antelope, which was the first they had been able to kill.  The man who
killed it said that he resorted to the tactics generally adopted by
the Indians.  The timid animal would not allow him to approach within
rifle-shot, until he had excited its curiosity by fastening a
handkerchief on the end of his ramrod.  As soon as the antelope saw it,
it gradually walked toward him until so near that he was assured that
his piece would carry that far.  It actually came within thirty yards
of him, and he shot it while lying prone on the ground, the graceful
animal noticing nothing but the white rag that had attracted its
attention.

On the afternoon of that day a band of savages, mounted on fine horses,
made their appearance near the camp, and looked upon the white men
with great curiosity.  It was soon learned that they were Pawnees,
and with some little trouble they were enticed to come in, and a talk
was had with their leader.  They proved to be a party out after some
Osages who had stolen a number of horses.  They had been lucky enough
to overtake them, and had killed nearly all the thieves, regained
their horses, and had a number of the enemies' scalps.  The Pawnees
had met Captain Lewis the year before, and having received some
presents from him were inclined to regard the whites as a friendly
people.  This impression the captain further confirmed by himself
making them gifts of some tobacco and trifling trinkets.  They were
shown around the camp, and seemed to sympathize deeply with the
sick man, who was lying on his blankets in a dying condition.
They gathered some roots from the prairie, and assured the captain
that if the man would take them he would certainly recover; they also
urged their manner of sweating and bathing, but the appliances were
not at hand, so the advice had to be declined.[8]

That evening the sick man died; an event that was looked for, but
not so soon.  His body was immediately wrapped in his blanket and
deposited in a grave.  On the bark of a tree standing near, his name,
“William Hamilton,” and the date of his death were rudely carved
with a jack-knife by one of the party.

Early in the morning the occupants of the camp were shocked at the
sight of a pack of wolves most industriously at work on the grave
trying to unearth the body of their unfortunate comrade.  All the men
suddenly and almost simultaneously attempted to fire their rifles
at the pack, but were checked by the captain, who urged that the
report of their arms might bring down upon them a band of Indians
who were not so friendly as the Pawnees.  With great difficulty the
wolves were driven off, and the grave was covered with heavy logs
and the largest stones that could be procured in the vicinity.

The party then continued on their journey, feeling very sad over
the loss of Hamilton, for he was beloved by all on account of his
sterling qualities.

In the afternoon a great commotion was noticed far ahead of them
on the prairie.  At first they could not determine its cause, but
presently the captain, bringing his glass to bear upon the objects,
discovered it to be a small band of wolves in full chase after a
superannuated buffalo bull, which had been driven out of the herd
by the younger ones.

The frightened animal was coming directly toward the party with the
excited wolves close at his heels.  There were twelve wolves, and
evidently they had had a long chase, as both they and the buffalo
were nearly exhausted.  The party stopped to witness the novel fight,
a scene so foreign to anything they had witnessed before.  The wolves
were close around the buffalo, snapping incessantly at his heels,
in their endeavour to hamstring him.  They did not hold on like a dog,
but at every jump at the poor beast they would bring away a mouthful
of his flesh, which they gulped down as they ran.  So fierce was the
chase that the famishing wolves did not observe the men until they
came within ten yards of them; even then they did not appear to be
much frightened, but scampered off a short distance, sat on their
haunches, licked their bloody chops, and appeared to be waiting with
the utmost impatience to renew the chase again.  The buffalo had
suffered severely, and he was ultimately brought to the ground.
The party left him to his fate, and as they rode away they could see
the ravenous pack, with fresh impetuosity, tearing the poor beast
to pieces with true canine ferocity.

That evening, after the party had fixed their camp for the night,
two young Indians, a man and a squaw, rode up and alighted in the
midst of the company, apparently worn out from hard riding.
Their sudden appearance filled the company with amazement, and the
safety of all demanded an immediate explanation, for they all thought
that the young savage might be a runner or spy of some hostile band,
who were meditating an attack upon them.  But they were rather
nonplussed upon seeing the youthful maiden; they could not believe
that their first conjectures were correct, her presence precluded
such a possibility.  They had been told by Big White that war-parties
never encumbered themselves with women, and the jaded condition of
the young people's horses to some extent allayed their fears, for it
was evident the Indians had made a long and severe journey.

The captain requested the Indian who had accompanied his party thus far
to interrogate them as to what was their destination, and why they
had come so unceremoniously into the camp.  It was soon learned that
the boy was a Pawnee who had been captured by a band of Sioux a year
or more ago, and was carried by them to their village far up the
Missouri, in which he had remained a prisoner until an opportunity
had offered to make his escape.  The young girl with him was a Sioux,
for whom he had conceived a liking while among her tribe.

Their story, divested of the crude manner in which it was interpreted
by the Mandan and put into intelligent English, was as follows:—
The boy belonged to the Pawnee Loups, whose tribe lived on the Wolf
Fork of the Platte.  One day, in company with several of his young
comrades, he had gone down to the river to indulge in the luxury
of a swim, and while they were amusing themselves in the water,
a raiding band of the Tetons came suddenly upon them, making a
prisoner of him while the others managed to make their escape.
He was instantly snatched up, tied on a horse, and hurried away.
The animal he rode was led by one of the band, and goaded on by
another who followed immediately behind.  They travelled night and day
until they reached a point entirely free from the possibility of being
followed, and then he was leisurely conveyed to the main village at
the Great Bend of the Missouri.  As their prisoner happened to be the
son of a grand chief of the Pawnees, he was greatly prized as a
captive, and, on that account, was placed in the family of a principal
chief of the Tetons.  He was only sixteen years old according to his
statement, but he was already fully five and a half feet high, and one
of the handsomest and best proportioned Indians that Captain Williams
had ever seen.

He said that his name was Do-ran-to, and that it is frequently the
lot of Indian captives, to some extent, to occupy the relation of
servants or slaves to their captors, and to be assigned to those
menial and domestic offices which are never performed by men among
the Indians, but constitute the employment of the women.  To be
compelled to fill such a position in the village was very mortifying
to the Indian pride of Do-ran-to, the heir to a chieftainship in his
own tribe; but he became somewhat reconciled to it, as it threw him
in the company of a beautiful daughter of the principal man in the
village, whose name was Ni-ar-gua.

Do-ran-to was never permitted to go to war or to hunt the buffalo,
a mode of life too tame and inactive for one of his restless spirit;
but the compensation was in the frequent opportunities it gave him
of walking and talking with the beautiful Ni-ar-gua, over whose heart
he had soon gained a complete victory.

It would not do, however, for the daughter of a distinguished chief
to be the wife of a captive slave, belonging, too, to a tribe toward
which the Tetons entertained a hereditary hostility.  It would be a
flagrant violation of every rule of Indian etiquette.  The mother of
the youthful Ni-ar-gua, like her white match-making sisters, soon
noticed the growing familiarity of the two lovers, and she like a good
wife reported the matter to her husband, the chief.  The intelligence
was entirely unexpected, and by no means very agreeable to his feeling
of pride, so, after the savage method of disciplining refractory
daughters, Ni-ar-gua was not only roughly reproved for her temerity,
but received a good lodge-poling from her irate father, besides.
He also threatened to shoot an arrow through the heart of Do-ran-to
for his impudent pretensions.  The result, however, of the attempt
to break the match, as in similar cases in civilized life, was not
only unsuccessful, but served to increase the flame it was intended
to extinguish, and to strengthen instead of dissolve the attachment
between the two.

If now their partiality for each other was not visible and open,
they were none the less determined to carry out their designs.
When the young Pawnee perceived that there were difficulties in
the way, which would ever be insuperable while he remained a prisoner
among the Tetons, he immediately conceived the idea of eloping to
his own people, and embraced the first opportunity to apprise
Ni-ar-gua of his design.  The proposition met with a hearty response
on her part.  She was ready to go with him wherever he went, and
to die where he died.

Now there was a young warrior of her own tribe who also desired the
hand of the Teton belle, and he greatly envied the position Do-ran-to
occupied in the eyes of Ni-ar-gua.  In fact, he entertained the most
deadly hate toward the Pawnee captive, and suffered no opportunity
to show it to pass unimproved.  Do-ran-to was by no means ignorant
of the young warrior's feelings of jealousy and hate, but he felt
his disability as an alien in the tribe, and pursued a course of
forbearance as most likely to ensure the accomplishment of his designs.
Still, there were bounds beyond which his code of honour would not
suffer his enemy to pass.  On one occasion, the young brave offered
Do-ran-to the greatest and most intolerable insult which in the
estimation of Western tribes one man can give to another.

The person on whom this indignity is cast, by a law among the tribes,
may take away the life of the offender if he can; but it is customary,
and thought more honourable, to settle the difficulty by single
combat, in which the parties may use the kind of weapons on which
they mutually agree.  Public sentiment will admit of no compromise.
If no resistance is offered to the insult, the person insulted is
thenceforth a disgraced wretch, a dog, and universally despised.
Do-ran-to forthwith demanded satisfaction of the young Sioux, who,
by the way, was only too anxious to give it, being full of game and
mettle, as well as sanguine as to the victory he would gain over the
hated young Pawnee.  They agreed to settle their difficulty by single
combat, and the weapons to be used were war-clubs and short knives.
A suitable place was selected.  The whole village of the Tetons
emptied itself to witness the combat.  Men, women, and children
swarmed about the arena.  The two youthful combatants made their
appearance, stark naked, and took their positions about thirty yards
apart.  Just when the signal was given, Do-ran-to's eye caught that
of his betrothed Ni-ar-gua in the crowd.  Then said his heart,
“Be strong and my arm big!”  There was no fear then in Do-ran-to.

As the champions advanced toward each other, the Sioux was too
precipitate, and by the impulse of the charge was carried rather
beyond Do-ran-to, who, being more cool and deliberate, gave him,
as he passed, a blow on the back of the neck with his war-club that
perfectly stunned him and brought him to the ground.  Do-ran-to then
sprang upon him and despatched him by a single thrust of his knife.
The relatives of the unfortunate Sioux raised a loud lament, and,
with that piteous kind of howling peculiar to savages, bore him away.
Do-ran-to was now regarded as a young brave, and was greatly advanced
in the general esteem of the village.  He must now be an adopted son,
and no longer a woman, but go to war, and hunt the buffalo, the elk,
and the antelope.

The father of Ni-ar-gua, however, must in this matter be excepted.
In the general excitement in behalf of the lucky captive he lagged
behind, and was reserved and sullen.  Having conceived a dislike
for him, he was not inclined to confer upon him the honours he had
so fairly won.  And then it would not do to appear delighted with
the valour of the young Pawnee.  Ni-ar-gua was his favourite child,
and she must be the wife of some distinguished personage.  But the
chief was doomed, as many a father is, to be outwitted by his daughter
in matters of this kind.  At a time when he was absent, holding
a council with a neighbouring tribe of the Sioux upon great national
affairs, Do-ran-to picked out two of the chief's best horses on which
to escape with the girl to his own tribe.  Ni-ar-gua was ready.
When the village was sunk in a profound sleep, she met him in a
sequestered spot, bringing a supply of provisions for their intended
trip.  In a moment they were in their saddles and away!

They were not less than three “sleeps” from his own people, and
would be followed by some of the Tetons as long as there was any hope
of overtaking them.  By morning, however, there would be such a
wide space between them and their pursuers as to make their escape
entirely practicable, if no mishap befell them on the way.  They had
good horses, good hearts, a good country to travel over, and above
all a good cause, and why not good luck?

They travelled night and day, never stopping any longer than was
absolutely necessary to rest their horses.  After his story was told,
the captain tried to prevail upon the young couple to remain with
the company until morning, and enjoy that rest and refreshment which
he and the girl so much needed; but the gallant young savage said
that they had not slept since they had set out on their flight,
nor did they even dare to think of closing their eyes before they
should reach the village of the Pawnees.  He knew that he would be
pursued as long as there was any hope of overtaking him; and he also
knew what his doom would be if he again fell into the hands of the
Sioux.  Having remained, therefore, in the camp scarcely an hour,
the two fugitive lovers were again on the wing, flying over the green
prairie, guided by the light of a full and beautiful moon, and
animated and sustained by the purity of their motives and the hope
of soon reaching a place of safety and protection.

Captain Williams' party could not but admire the courage of the
Teton beauty, the cheerfulness, and even hilarity that she manifested
while in their camp.  When ready to start off, she leaped from the
ground, unassisted, into her Indian saddle, reined up her horse,
and was instantly beside him with whom she was now ready to share
any trial and brave any danger.  It was an exhibition of female
fortitude, that kind of heroism, peculiar to the sex in all races,
which elevates woman to a summit perfectly inaccessible to man.

The party moved on the next day, and the utmost caution was necessary
to prevent it from being cut off, for the region through which they
were now passing was infested with many bands of Sioux—a terror to
all other tribes on account of their superior numbers.  The several
bands were scattered from the waters of the Platte to the Black Hills,
and for a number of years resisted all efforts made by various
expeditions to push forward to the upper tribes.

One day, after leaving their camp where the Indian lovers had come
so suddenly upon them, a large herd of buffaloes was observed feeding
very quietly about a quarter of a mile from their line of travel,
offering those an opportunity who desired to show their horsemanship
and skill in a hunt.  Although they had an abundance of meat, and
it was the purpose of the captain that there should be no more
shooting than was absolutely necessary, the impetuous Carson asked
permission to try his hand.

The captain reluctantly granted his request, as it was nearly sundown,
and the company had come to its accustomed halt.  The more experienced
of the men urged Carson not to venture too near the object of
his pursuit, nor too far from the camp, as both steps might be
accompanied with danger to all.  The young man felt it to be the
safer plan to undertake the hunt on horseback, and as the heavy
rifles of those days were not so easily handled as the modern arm,
he armed himself with two braces of pistols.  The buffalo very soon
observed his approach, became frightened, and incontinently put off
at full speed.  This made it necessary that the hunter should increase
his speed, and immediately horse, hunter, and buffalo were out of
sight of the camp.

Having completed their evening meal and grazed their animals,
the party would have moved on, but Carson had not yet returned.
Night came on rapidly and still he did not make his appearance.
Many fears for his safety were now entertained in the camp, and
the suspicious circumstance of his prolonged absence generally
prevented the men from sleeping at all that night.  Early in the
morning a party went out to hunt him, and without much difficulty
found him.  He was sitting on a large rock near the stream,
perfectly lost.  Some of the men while looking for him had discovered
him when about a mile away, and naturally supposed he was an Indian,
as they could see no horse, and were very near leaving him to his
fate; but the thought that they might be mistaken prompted them to
approach, and they recognized him.  According to his story he chased
the buffalo for five or six miles, and for some time could not
induce his horse to go near enough to the animals for him to use
his pistols with any effect.  After repeated unsuccessful attempts,
however, he was enabled to ride up to the side of an immense bull,
and commenced to fire at him as he ran.  His repeated shots threw
the animal into the greatest rage, and as horse, bull, and rider
were dashing down the slope of the hill, the infuriated bull suddenly
stopped short, turned round, and began to battle.  The horse, not
trained to such dangerous tactics, following immediately behind
the bull, became at the moment perfectly unmanageable, rushed upon
the horns of the buffalo, and his rider was thrown headlong to the
ground.  When he had recovered himself, and got on his feet again,
he saw the buffalo running off as fast as his legs could carry him,
but found that his horse was so badly wounded as to be of no further
use to him.  When he gathered his senses, he would have gladly gone
back to the camp, but in the excitement of the chase he had paid
no attention to the direction he was going, and was absolutely lost.
He wandered about, and at last coming to a willow copse crawled in
and slept until morning.  At the first streak of dawn he crawled out
of his hiding-place, and very cautiously examined the prairie all
around him to learn whether any Indians had been prowling about.
Observing nothing that indicated any danger, he set out with the
intention of finding the party, and had tramped around until hunger
and fatigue had compelled him to sit down where they had found him.
As the party returned to camp they discovered Carson's horse;
he was dead, and a pack of hungry wolves had already nearly devoured
him.  In fact it was the general idea that the horse had been killed
by the wolves, as the whole country was infested by them, and,
scenting the blood of the wounded animal, soon put an end to his
misery.  They had commenced upon the saddle, and had so torn and
chewed it that it was perfectly useless.

Upon his arrival in camp the crestfallen Carson was asked a hundred
questions, but he did not feel like being taunted, as he had gone
without a morsel to eat for fifteen hours, had undergone great
fatigue, and was considerably bruised from his tumble off his horse.

Several nights after Carson's escapade, about an hour after dark
the party saw before them a light which they thought might indicate
the proximity of an Indian camp.  As some of the men who had been
out to reconnoitre approached it, they discovered they were not
mistaken in their surmises, and upon their return to camp and
reporting what they had seen, the captain thought it a wise plan
to move out as quickly as possible.  The Indians whom they had seen
numbered about a hundred, and they were seated around about fifteen
fires; some of them were women and they appeared to be very busy
drying meat; the party had evidently been out on a hunt.  A large
number of horses were grazing in the vicinity of the camp, and the
majority of the warriors were smoking their pipes, while their squaws
were hard at work.

Captain Williams pushed ahead all that night and the greater portion
of the next day before he dared to go into camp.  They continued on
for several days more, then made a temporary camp for the purpose of
trapping for beaver.  In a short time the men and horses recovered
from the effects of their toilsome journey.  The latter began to get
fat, their feet and backs, which had become sore, were healing up
rapidly, and they were soon in as fine a condition as when they left
St. Louis.  The men were having a good time, securing plenty of
beaver, and the camp resounded with laughter at the jokes which were
passed around.

For several weeks they had seen no signs of Indians, but one morning
one of the men discovered that an Indian had been caught in a trap,
from which, however, he had extricated himself, as it was found near
the spot where it had been set.  A day or two afterward, ten of the
party left the camp on a buffalo-hunt.  At the beginning of the chase
the buffalo were not more than a mile from the camp, but they were
pursued for more than three or four miles, which led the party into
danger.  A band of Blackfeet, numbering at least a hundred, suddenly
appeared over a divide, and, splendidly mounted on trained ponies,
came toward the hunters as fast as their animals could carry them.
Five of Captain Williams' men made their escape, and reached the
camp, but the remainder were cut off, and immediately killed and
scalped.  The five who made their escape were chased to within a
half-mile of the camp by several of the savages, one of whom, after
his comrades had wheeled their horses on seeing the men ready for
them, persistently kept on, evidently eager to get another scalp.
He paid for his rashness with his life, as one of the hunters who had
not yet discharged his rifle sent a bullet after him, which shot him
through and through, and he tumbled from his animal stone dead.

The loss of five men from a party which originally numbered only
twenty had a very depressing effect upon those who were left, and
Captain Williams felt that his situation was very critical.
He expected every moment to see a large band of the Blackfeet
come down upon him.  He was now certain of one thing; he knew that
his party had been watched by the savages for several days, as they
had noticed several times, during the past week, objects which they
believed to have been wolves, moving on the summits of the divides,
but after their unfortunate skirmish with the Indians they felt sure
that what they had taken to be wolves were in fact savages.

The fight with its disastrous results had occurred late in the
afternoon, so that it was not long before the party made their first
camp for the night.  The horses were all brought in and picketed near,
the traps gathered as fast as possible, and everything made ready for
a hasty departure as soon as darkness should close in upon them.
Large fires were lighted as usual, only more than the usual number
were kindled, and at midnight the sorrowful party mounted their
animals and set off.

They travelled as fast as their horses could walk for fully twenty-four
hours before they dared make another halt, but they soon found
themselves in the country of the Crows, who were friendly with the
whites.  The first village they encountered was a very large one,
and the chief induced them to remain with him for nearly a week,
during which time they went out on a buffalo-hunt with their newly
found friends.  They were not satisfied, however, with the region,
it being not nearly so fruitful in beaver as the country south of
the Crows, so they made a detour to the south.

When about to leave the generous Crows, one of Captain Williams' men,
whose name was Rose, expressed his intention to abandon the party and
take up his life with the Indians.  It appears that while Rose was in
the village he was not able to resist the charms of a certain Crow
maiden, whom he afterward chose as his wife, with whom he lived
happily for several years.  When Rose joined Captain Williams' party,
his antecedents were entirely unknown to that grand old frontiersman.
It turned out that he was one of those desperadoes of the then remote
frontier, who had been outlawed for his crimes farther east, and whose
character was worse than any savage, with whom even now such men
sometimes consort.  Rose had formerly belonged to a gang of pirates
who infested the islands of the Mississippi, plundering boats as they
travelled up and down the river.  They sometimes shifted the scene of
their robberies to the shore, waylaid voyagers on their route to
New Orleans, and often perpetrated the most cold-blooded murders.
When the villanous horde of cut-throats was broken up, Rose betook
himself to the upper wilderness, and when Captain Williams was forming
his company at St. Louis, he came forward and offered himself.
Captain Williams was not at all pleased with the sinister looks of
the fellow, suspecting that his character was not good, but it was
a difficult matter to induce men to join an expedition fraught with
so much daring and danger.  So the refugee was dropped among the Crows,
whose habits of life were much more congenial to the feelings of
such a man than the restraints of civilization.[9]

The Crow chief at the time of the visit of Captain Williams' party
to their nation was Ara-poo-ish, who was succeeded by the famous
Jim Beckwourth, who remained at the head of the tribe for many years.

When Captain Williams arrived at the headwaters of the Platte,
the party met with another disaster.  Early one morning seven of
the men, including the captain, went out to bring in their horses
which had been turned out to graze the evening before.  As they were
still in the country of the Crows, whom they regarded as their firm
friends, they had not exercised their usual precaution of securely
picketing their animals.  They merely had tied their two forefeet
loosely together to prevent them from straying too far, while they
retired to the shelter of some friendly timber a short distance away,
and lying down on their buffalo-robes, went to sleep.  When they
set out for their animals they could not be found.  A trail, however,
plainly discernible in the deep, dewy grass, was soon discovered,
very fresh, leading across a low divide.  They also came upon several
of the rawhide strips by which their horses had been hobbled.
These were not broken, but had evidently been unfastened,
a circumstance that filled the minds of the party with the most
painful anxiety.  They continued on the trail of the missing animals,
to the top of a ridge, where they were suddenly confronted by a band
of about sixty Indians.  The savages appeared to be busy preparing
an attack upon the party, for when the Indians observed the white men
they immediately mounted their ponies, and dashed right down the hill
toward them, at the same moment making the hills echo with their
diabolical whoops.  Captain Williams urged his men to make their
escape to the timber, but before they could reach it five of them
were overtaken, killed, and scalped!  The captain and one other man
succeeded in reaching the clump of trees, though very closely pursued.
The remaining men who were left in camp, seeing the savages coming,
snatched up their rifles, and each hiding himself behind the trunk
of a tree opened fire upon them.  That movement caused the savages
to wheel around and dash back, but they left several of their
comrades dead and wounded upon the ground.  In a few moments the
infuriated Indians made another charge, shouting and whooping as
only savages can, and launched a shower of arrows into the timber.
The underbrush was very dense, which prevented them from riding into
the timber, and also from seeing the exact whereabouts of Captain
Williams and his men.  It was a most fortunate circumstance, for
they would have been cut off if they had been out on the open prairie,
but as they could plainly see the savages, they took careful aim,
and at each report of the rifle a savage was brought to the ground.
The Indians made four successive charges, and discovering they were
not able to dislodge the little band of brave white men, they finally
abandoned the fight and rode away.  Nineteen of the Indians were
killed by Captain Williams' party, but it was a sad victory, for now
only ten men were left of the original twenty, and they were without
a single horse to ride or pack their equipage upon.

Certainly expecting that the savages would shortly return with
reënforcements, the sad little company hurriedly gathered up their
furs and as many traps as the ten men could carry, and travelled about
ten miles, keeping close to the timber.  When darkness came on they
crept into a very dense growth of underbrush, where they passed the
greater part of the night in erecting a scaffold upon which they
cached their furs, traps, and other things which they found
inconvenient to carry.

As the prospects of the company were now gloomy in the extreme,
the spirits of the men drooped and their hearts became sad.
They were many hundreds of miles from any settlement, in the heart
of a wilderness almost boundless, and beset on every side by lurking
savages ready at any moment to dash in upon them when an opportunity
offered.

Of course, the project of crossing the Rocky Mountains and trapping
at the headwaters of the Columbia had now to be abandoned.
They wandered about, meeting with various adventures, until only
Captain Williams and two others of the party were left.  At last
they agreed to separate, the two intending to attempt the difficult
passage back to St. Louis, while the brave captain remained, and
finally reached the great Arkansas Valley in safety.




CHAPTER III.
JIM BECKWOURTH.



In 1812 General William H. Ashley, the head of the Rocky Mountain
Fur Company, travelled up the Platte Valley, which a few years
previously had been traversed by Captain Ezekiel Williams, whose
routes were nearly the same.  This party had a particularly hard time.
Before they reached the buffalo country the Indians had driven every
herd away.

In the company there were two Spaniards, who were one morning left
behind at camp to catch some horses that had strayed.  The two men
stopped at the house of a respectable white woman, and finding her
without protection, they assaulted her.  They were pursued to the
camp by a number of the settlers, who made the outrage known to the
trappers.  They all regarded the crime with the utmost abhorrence,
and felt mortified that any of their party should be guilty of conduct
so revolting.  The culprits were arrested, and they at once admitted
their guilt.  A council was called in the presence of the settlers,
and the men were offered their choice of two punishments: either to be
hanged to the nearest tree, or to receive one hundred lashes each on
the bare back.  They chose the latter, which was immediately inflicted
upon them by four of the trappers.  Having no cat-o'-nine-tails in
their possession, the lashes were inflicted with hickory withes.
Their backs were terribly lacerated, and the blood flowed in streams
to the ground.  The following morning the two Spaniards and two of the
best horses were missing from the camp; they were not pursued, however,
but by the tracks it was discovered they had started for New Mexico.

There were thirty-four men in the party, including the general, and
a harder-looking set for want of nourishment could hardly be imagined.
They moved forward hoping to find game, as their allowance was half
a pint of flour a day per man.  This was made into a kind of gruel.
If it happened that a duck or goose was killed, it was shared as
fairly as possible.

There were no jokes, no fireside stories, no fun; each man rose in
the morning with the gloom of the preceding night filling his mind;
they built their fires without saying a word, and partook of their
scanty repast in silence.

At last an order was given for the hunters to sally out and try their
fortunes.  Jim Beckwourth, who was one of the party, a mere youth
then, tells of the success in the following words:—

        I seized my rifle and issued from camp alone, feeling so
        reduced in strength that my mind involuntarily reverted to
        the extremity I had been brought to by my youthful folly in
        coming into such a desert waste.  About three hundred yards
        from the camp I saw two teal ducks; I levelled my rifle, and
        handsomely decapitated one.  This was a temptation to my
        constancy; appetite and conscientiousness had a long strife
        as to the disposal of the booty.  I reflected that it would be
        but an inconsiderable trifle to the mess of four hungry men,
        while to roast and eat him myself would give me strength to
        hunt for more.  A strong inward feeling remonstrated against
        such an invasion of the rights of my starving messmates;
        but if, by fortifying myself, I gained ability to procure
        something more substantial than a teal duck, my dereliction
        would be sufficiently atoned for, and my overruling appetite
        at the same time gratified.

        Had I admitted my messmates to the argument, they might
        possibly have carried it adversely.  But I received the
        conclusion as valid; so, roasting it without ceremony in
        the bushes, I devoured the duck alone, and felt greatly
        invigorated by the meal.

        Passing up the stream, I pushed forward to fulfil my obligation.
        At the distance of about a mile from the camp, I came across
        a narrow deer-trail through some bushes, and directly across
        the trail, with only the centre of his body visible (his two
        extremities being hidden by the rushes), not more than fifty
        yards distant, I saw a fine large buck standing.  I did not
        wait for a nearer shot.  I fired, and broke his neck.
        I despatched him by drawing my knife across his throat, and,
        having partially dressed him, hung him on a tree close by.
        Proceeding onward, I met a large wolf, attracted, probably,
        by the scent of the deer.  I shot him, and, depriving him
        of his meal, devoted him for a repast to the camp.  Before I
        returned, I succeeded in killing three good-sized elk, which,
        added to the former, afforded a pretty good display of meat.

        I then returned near enough to the camp to signal them to
        come to my assistance.  They had heard the reports of my
        rifle, and, knowing that I would not waste ammunition,
        had been expecting to see me return with game.  All who were
        able turned out at my summons, and, when they saw the booty
        awaiting them, their faces were irradiated with joy.

        Each man shouldered his load, but there was not one capable
        of carrying the weight of forty pounds.  The game being all
        brought into camp, the fame of Jim Beckwourth was celebrated
        by all tongues.  Amid all this gratulation, I could not
        separate my thoughts from the duck which had supplied my
        clandestine meal in the bushes.  I suffered them to appease
        their hunger before I ventured to tell my comrades of the
        offence of which I had been guilty.  All justified my conduct,
        declaring my conclusions obvious.  As it turned out, my
        proceeding was right enough; but if I had failed to meet with
        any game, I had been guilty of an offence which would have
        haunted me ever after.

        The following day we started up the river, and, after
        progressing some four or five miles, came in sight of plenty
        of deer sign.  The general ordered a halt, and directed all
        hunters out as before.  We sallied out in different directions,
        our general, who was a good hunter, being one of the number.
        At a short distance from the camp I discovered a large buck
        passing slowly between myself and the camp, at about
        pistol-shot distance.  As I happened to be standing against
        a tree, he had not seen me.  I fired, the ball passed through
        his body, and whizzed past the camp.  Leaving him,
        I encountered a second deer within three-quarters of a mile.
        I shot him and hung him on a limb.  Encouraged with my success,
        I climbed a tree to get a fairer view of the ground.
        Looking around from my elevated position, I perceived some
        large dark-coloured animal grazing on the side of a hill,
        about a mile and a half distant.  I was determined to have
        a shot at him, whatever he might be.  I knew meat was
        in demand, and that fellow, well-stored, was worth a thousand
        teal ducks.

        I therefore approached with the greatest precaution to within
        fair rifle-shot distance, scrutinizing him very closely,
        and still unable to make out what he was.  I could see
        no horns; if it was a bear, I thought him an enormous one.
        I took sight at him over my faithful rifle, which had never
        failed me, and then set it down, to contemplate the huge
        animal still further.  Finally I resolved to let fly.
        Taking good aim, I pulled the trigger, the rifle cracked,
        and then I made rapid retreat toward the camp.  After running
        about two hundred yards, and hearing nothing of a movement
        behind me, I ventured to look around, and to my great joy
        I saw the animal had fallen.

        Continuing my course to camp, I encountered the general,
        who, perceiving blood on my hands, addressed me: “Have you
        shot anything, Jim?”

        I replied, “Yes, sir.”

        “What have you shot?”

        “Two deer and something else,” I answered.

        “And what is something else?” he inquired.

        “I do not know, sir.”

        “What did he look like?” the general interrogated.
        “Had he horns?”

        “I saw no horns, sir.”

        “What colour was the animal?”

        “You can see him, General,” I replied, “by climbing yonder
        tree.”

        The general ascended the tree accordingly, and, looking
        through his spy-glass, which he always carried, exclaimed,
        “A buffalo, by heavens!” and coming nimbly down the tree,
        he gave orders for us to take a couple of horses, and go
        and dress the buffalo, and bring him to camp.

        I suggested that two horses would not carry the load;
        six were therefore despatched for the purpose, and they
        all came back well packed with the remains.

        That was the first buffalo I had ever seen though I had
        travelled hundreds of miles in the buffalo country.
        The conviction weighing upon my mind that it was a huge bear
        I was approaching had so excited me that, although within
        fair gun-shot, I actually could not see his horns.
        The general and my companions had many a hearty laugh at
        my expense, he often expressing wonder that my keen eye
        could not, when close to the animal, perceive the horns,
        while he could see them plainly nearly two miles away.

        When we moved up the river again, we hoped to fall in with
        game, though unfortunately found but little in our course.
        When we had advanced some twenty miles we halted.
        Our position looked threatening.  It was midwinter, and
        everything around us bore a gloomy aspect.  We were without
        any provisions, and we saw no means of obtaining any.
        At this crisis, six or seven Indians of the Pawnee Loup band
        came into our camp.  Knowing them to be friendly, we were
        overjoyed to see them.  They informed our interpreter that
        their village was only four miles distant, which at once
        accounted for the absence of game.  They invited us to their
        lodges, where they could supply us with everything we needed,
        but on representing to them our scarcity of horses, and the
        quantity of peltry we had no means of packing, they
        immediately started off to their village.  Our interpreter
        accompanied them, in quest of horses, and speedily returned
        with a sufficient number.  Packing our effects, we accompanied
        them to the village, Two Axe and a Spaniard named Antoine
        Behele, chief of the band, forming part of our escort.

        Arrived at their village, we replaced our lost horses by
        purchasing others in their stead, and now everything being
        ready for our departure, our general informed Two Axe of
        his wish to get on.

        Two Axe objected: “My men are about to surround the buffalo,”
        he said; “if you go now, you will frighten them.  You must stay
        four days more, then you may go.”  His word was law, so we
        stayed accordingly.

        Within the four days appointed they made the “surround,” and
        killed fourteen hundred buffaloes.  The tongues were counted
        by General Ashley himself, and thus I can guarantee the
        assertion.

        There were engaged in this hunt from one to two thousand
        Indians, some mounted and others on foot.  They encompassed
        a large space where the buffalo were contained, and,
        closing in around them on all sides, formed a complete circle.
        The circle at first enclosed measured say six miles in
        diameter, with an irregular circumference determined by
        the movements of the herd.  When the “surround” was formed,
        the hunters radiated from the main body to the right and left,
        and the ring was entire.  The chief then gave the order to
        charge, which was communicated along the ring with
        lightning-like speed; every man then rushed to the centre,
        and the work of destruction began.  The unhappy victims,
        finding themselves hemmed in on every side, ran this way and
        that in their mad efforts to escape.  Finding all chance of
        escape impossible, and seeing their slaughtered fellows
        drop dead at their feet, they bellowed with fright, and in
        the confusion that whelmed them lost all power of resistance.
        The slaughter generally lasted two or three hours, and seldom
        many got clear of the weapons of their assailants.

        The field over the “surround” presented the appearance of one
        vast slaughter-house.  He who had been the most successful in
        the work of devastation was celebrated as a hero, and received
        the highest honours from the fair sex, while he who had been
        so unfortunate as not to have killed a single buffalo was
        jeered at and ridiculed by the whole band.

        The “surround” accomplished, we received permission from
        Two Axe to take up our line of march.  Accordingly we started
        along the river, and had only proceeded five miles from the
        village when we found that the Platte forked.  Taking the
        South Fork, we journeyed on some six miles and camped.
        So we continued every day, making slow progress, some days
        not advancing more than four or five miles, until we had
        left the Pawnee villages three hundred miles in our rear.
        We found plenty of buffalo along our route until we approached
        the Rocky Mountains, when the buffalo, as well as all other
        game, became scarce, and we had to resort to the beans and
        corn supplied to us by the Pawnees.

        Not finding any game for a number of days, we again felt
        alarmed for our safety.  The snow was deep on the ground,
        and our poor horses could obtain no food but the boughs and
        bark of the cottonwood trees.  Still we pushed forward,
        seeking to advance as far as possible, in order to open a
        trade with the Indians, and occupy ourselves in trapping
        during the finish of the season.  We were again put upon
        reduced rations, one pint of beans per day being the allowance
        to a mess of four men, with other articles in proportion.

        We travelled on till we arrived at Pilot Butte, where two
        misfortunes befell us.  A great portion of our horses were
        stolen by the Crow Indians, and General Ashley was taken sick,
        caused, beyond doubt, by exposure and insufficient fare.
        Our condition was growing worse and worse; and, as a measure
        best calculated to procure relief, we all resolved to go
        on a general hunt, and bring home something to supply our
        pressing necessities.  All who were able, therefore, started
        in different directions, our customary mode of hunting.
        I travelled, as near as I could judge, about ten miles from
        the camp, and saw no signs of game.  I reached a high point
        of land, and, on taking a general survey, I discovered
        a river which I had never seen in this region before.  It was
        of considerable size, flowing four or five miles distant,
        and on its banks I observed acres of land covered with moving
        masses of buffalo.  I hailed this as a perfect godsend, and
        was overjoyed with the feeling of security infused by my
        opportune discovery.  However, fatigued and weak, I accelerated
        my return to the camp, and communicated my success to my
        companions.  Their faces brightened up at the intelligence,
        and all were impatient to be at them.

        The general, on learning my intelligence, desired us to move
        forward to the river with what horses we had left, and each
        man to carry on his back a pack of the goods that remained
        after loading the cattle.  He farther desired us to roll up
        snow to provide him with a shelter, and to return the next day
        to see if he survived.  The men, in their eagerness to get
        to the river (which is now called Green River), loaded
        themselves so heavily that three or four were left with
        nothing but their rifles to carry.

        We all feasted ourselves to our hearts' content upon the
        delicious, coarse-grained flesh of the buffalo, of which
        there was an unlimited supply.  There were, besides, plenty
        of wild geese and teal ducks on the river—the latter, however,
        I very seldom ventured to kill.  One day several of us were
        out hunting buffalo, the general, who, by the way, was a very
        good shot, being among the number.  The snow had blown from
        the level prairie, and the wind had drifted it in deep masses
        over the margins of the small hills, through which the buffalo
        had made trails just wide enough to admit one at a time.
        These snow-trails had become quite deep—like all snow-trails
        in the spring of the year—thus affording us a fine
        opportunity for lurking in one trail, and shooting a buffalo
        in another.  The general had wounded a bull, which, smarting
        with pain, made a furious plunge at his assailant, burying
        him in the snow with a thrust from his savage-looking head
        and horns.  I, seeing the danger in which he was placed,
        sent a ball into the beast just behind the shoulder, instantly
        dropping him dead.  The general was rescued from almost
        certain death, having received only a few scratches in the
        adventure.

        After remaining in camp four or five days, the general
        resolved upon dividing our party into detachments of four or
        five men each, and sending them upon different routes,
        in order the better to accomplish the object of our perilous
        journey, which was the collecting of all the beaver-skins
        possible while the fur was yet valuable.  Accordingly we
        constructed several boats of buffalo-hides for the purpose
        of descending the river and proceeding along any of its
        tributaries that might lie in our way.

        One of our boats being finished and launched, the general
        sprang into it to test its capacity.  The boat was made fast
        by a slender string, which snapping with a sudden jerk,
        the boat was drawn into the current and drifted away,
        general and all, in the direction of the opposite shore.

        It will be necessary, before I proceed further, to give the
        reader a description, in as concise a manner as possible,
        of this “Green River Suck.”

        We were camped, as we had discovered during our frequent
        excursions, at the head of a great fall of Green River,
        where it passes through the Utah Mountains.  The current,
        at a small distance from our camp, became exceedingly rapid,
        and drew toward the centre from each shore.  This place we
        named the Suck.  This fall continued for six or eight miles,
        making a sheer descent, in the entire distance, of over
        two hundred and fifty feet.  The river was filled with rocks
        and ledges, and frequent sharp curves, having high mountains
        and perpendicular cliffs on either side.  Below our camp,
        the river passed through a cañon, which continued below
        the fall to a distance of twenty-five or thirty miles.
        Wherever there was an eddy or a growth of willows, there was
        sure to be found a beaver lodge; the cunning creatures having
        selected that secluded, and, as they doubtless considered,
        inaccessible spot, to conceal themselves from the watchful
        eye of the trapper.

        After caching our peltry and goods by burying them in safe
        places, we received instructions from our general to
        rendezvous at the “Suck” by the first of July following.
        Bidding each other adieu, for we could hardly expect we should
        meet again, we took up our different lines of march.

        Our party was led by one Clements, and consisted of six,
        among whom was the boy Baptiste; he always insisted on
        remaining with his brother (as he called me).  Our route was
        up the river—a country that none of us had ever seen before—
        where the foot of the white man has seldom, if ever, left
        its print.  We were very successful in finding beaver as we
        progressed, and we obtained plenty of game for the wants of
        our small party.  Wherever we hauled up a trap, we usually
        found a beaver, besides a considerable number we killed with
        the rifle.

        In moving up the river we came to a small stream—one of the
        tributaries of Green River—which we named Horse Creek,
        in honour of a wild horse we found on its banks.  The creek
        abounded with the objects of our search, and in a very few
        days we succeeded in taking over one hundred beavers,
        the skins of which were worth ten dollars per pound in
        St. Louis.  Sixty skins, when dried, formed a pack of
        one hundred pounds.  After having finished our work on
        Horse Creek, we returned to the main river, and proceeded on,
        meeting with very good success, until we encountered another
        branch, which we subsequently named Le Brache Creek, from
        our comrade who was murdered by the Indians.  Our success was
        much greater here than at any point since leaving the Suck,
        and we followed it up until we came to a deep cañon, in which
        we camped.

        The next day, while the men were variously engaged about
        the camp, happening to be in a more elevated position than
        the others, I saw a party of Indians approaching within
        a few yards, evidently unaware of our being in their
        neighbourhood.  I immediately shouted, “Indians! Indians!
        to your guns, men!” and levelled my rifle at the foremost
        of them.  They held up their hands, saying, “Bueno! bueno!”
        meaning that they were good or friendly; at which my
        companions cried out to me, “Don't fire! don't fire! they are
        friendly—they speak Spanish.”  But we were sorry afterward
        we did not all shoot.  Our horses had taken fright at the
        confusion and ran up the cañon.  Baptiste and myself went
        in pursuit of them.  When we came back with them we found
        sixteen Indians sitting around our camp smoking, and jabbering
        their own tongue, which none of us could understand.
        They passed the night and next day with us in apparent
        friendship.  Thinking this conduct assumed, from the fact
        that they rather overdid the thing, we deemed it prudent to
        retrace our steps to the open prairie, where, if they did
        intend to commence an attack upon us, we should have a fairer
        chance of defending ourselves.  Accordingly we packed up
        and left, all the Indians following us.

        The next day they continued to linger about the camp.  We had
        but slight suspicion of their motives, although, for security,
        we kept constant guard upon them.  From this they proceeded
        to certain liberties (which I here strictly caution all
        emigrants and mountaineers against ever permitting), such as
        handling our guns, except the arms of the guard, piling them,
        and then carrying them together.  At length one of the Indians
        shouldered all the guns, and, starting off with them ran
        fifty yards from camp.  Mentioning to my mates I did not like
        the manœuvres of these fellows, I started after the Indian
        and took my gun from him, Baptiste doing the same, and we
        brought them back to camp.  Our companions chided us for
        doing so, saying we should anger the Indians by doubting
        their friendship.  I said I considered my gun as safe in my
        own hands as in the hands of a strange savage; if they chose
        to give up theirs, they were at liberty to do so.

        When night came on, we all lay down except poor Le Brache,
        who kept guard, having an Indian with him to replenish the
        fire.  Some of the men had fallen asleep, lying near by,
        when we were all suddenly startled by a loud cry from
        Le Brache and the instant report of a gun, the contents of
        which passed between Baptiste and myself, who both occupied
        one bed, the powder burning a hole in our upper blankets.
        We were all up in an instant.  An Indian had seized my rifle,
        but I instantly wrenched it from him, though I acknowledge
        I was too terrified to shoot.  When we had in some measure
        recovered from our sudden fright, I hastened to Le Brache,
        and discovered that a tomahawk had been sunk in his head,
        and there remained.  I pulled it out, and in examining the
        ghastly wound, buried all four fingers of my right hand in
        his brain.  We bound up his head, but he was a corpse in
        a few moments.

        Not an Indian was then to be seen, but we well knew they were
        in the bushes close by, and that, in all probability,
        we should every one share the fate of our murdered comrade.
        What to do now was the universal inquiry.  With the butt of
        my rifle I scattered the fire, to prevent the Indians making
        a sure mark of us.  We then proceeded to pack up with the
        utmost despatch, intending to move into the open prairie,
        where, if they attacked us again, we could at least defend
        ourselves, notwithstanding our disparity of numbers, we being
        but five to sixteen.

        On searching for Le Brache's gun, it was nowhere to be found,
        the Indian who had killed him having doubtless carried it off.
        While hastily packing our articles, I very luckily found five
        quivers well stocked with arrows, the bows attached, together
        with two Indian guns.  These well supplied our missing rifle,
        for I had practised so much with bow and arrow that I was
        considered a good shot.

        When in readiness to leave, our leader inquired in which
        direction the river lay; his agitation had been so great that
        his memory had failed him.  I directed the way, and desired
        every man to put the animals upon their utmost speed until
        we were safely out of the willows, which order was complied
        with.  While thus running the gauntlet, the balls and arrows
        whizzed around us as fast as our hidden enemies could send
        them.  Not a man was scratched, however, though two of our
        horses were wounded, my horse having received an arrow in
        the neck, and another being wounded near the hip, both
        slightly.  Pursuing our course we arrived soon in the open
        ground, where we considered ourselves comparatively safe.

        Arriving at a small rise in the prairie, I suggested to our
        leader that this would be a good place to make a stand, for
        if the Indians followed us we had the advantage in position.

        “No,” said he, “we will proceed on to New Mexico.”

        I was astonished at his answer, well knowing—though but
        slightly skilled in geography—that New Mexico must be many
        hundreds of miles farther south.  However, I was not captain
        and we proceeded.  Keeping the return track, we found
        ourselves, in the afternoon of the following day, about sixty
        miles from the scene of the murder.

        The assault had been made, as we afterward learned, by three
        young Indians, who were ambitious to distinguish themselves
        in the minds of their tribe by the massacre of an American
        party.

        We were still descending the banks of the Green River, which
        is the main branch of the Colorado, when, about the time
        mentioned above, I discovered horses in the skirt of the
        woods on the opposite side.  My companions pronounced them
        buffalo, but I was confident they were horses, because I
        could distinguish white ones among them.  Proceeding still
        farther, I discovered men with the horses, my comrades still
        confident I was in error.  Speedily, however, they all became
        satisfied of my correctness, and we formed the conclusion that
        we had come across a party of Indians.  We saw by their
        manœuvres that they had discovered us, for they were then
        collecting all their property together.

        We held a short council, which resulted in a determination
        to retreat toward the mountains.  I, for one, was tired of
        retreating, and refused to go farther, Baptiste joining me
        in my resolve.  We took up a strong position in a place of
        difficult approach; and having our guns and ammunition and
        an abundance of arrows for defence, considering our numbers,
        we felt ourselves rather a strong garrison.  The other three
        left us to our determination to fall together, and took to
        the prairie; but, changing their minds, they returned, and
        joined us in our position, deeming our means of defence better
        in one body than when divided.  We all, therefore, determined
        to sell our lives as dearly as possible should the enemy
        attack us, feeling sure that we could kill five times our
        number before we were overpowered, and that we should, in all
        probability, beat them off.

        By this time the supposed enemy had advanced toward us, and
        one of them hailed us in English as follows:—

        “Who are you?”

        “We are trappers.”

        “What company do you belong to?”

        “General Ashley's.”

        “Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!,” they all shouted, and we, in turn,
        exhausted our breath in replying.

        “Is that you, Jim Beckwourth?” said a voice from the party.

        “Yes.  Is that you, Castenga?” I replied.

        He answered in the affirmative, and there arose another
        hurrah.

        We inquired where their camp was.  They informed us it was
        two miles below, at the ford.  Baptiste and myself mounted
        our horses, descended the bank, plunged into the river, and
        were soon exchanging salutations with another of the general's
        old detachments.  They also had taken us for Indians, and
        had gathered in their horses while we took up our position
        for defence.

        That night was spent in general rejoicing, in relating our
        adventures, and recounting our various successes and reverses.
        There is as much heartfelt joy experienced in falling in with
        a party of fellow-trappers in the mountains as is felt at sea
        when, after a long voyage, a friendly vessel just from port
        is spoken and boarded.  In both cases a thousand questions
        are asked; all have wives, sweethearts, or friends to inquire
        after, and then the general news from the States is taken up
        and discussed.

        The party we had fallen in with consisted of sixteen men.
        They had been two years out; had left Fort Yellowstone only
        a short time previously, and were provided with every
        necessity for a long excursion.  They had not seen the
        general, and did not know he was in the mountains.  They had
        lost some of their men, who had fallen victims to the Indians,
        but in trapping had been generally successful.  Our little
        party also had done extremely well, and we felt great
        satisfaction in displaying to them seven or eight packets of
        sixty skins each.  We related to them the murder of Le Brache,
        and every trapper boiled with indignation at the recital.
        All wanted instantly to start in pursuit, and revenge upon
        the Indians the perpetration of their treachery; but there was
        no probability of overtaking them, and they suffered their
        anger to cool down.

        The second day after our meeting, I proposed that the most
        experienced mountaineers of their party should return with
        Baptiste and myself to perform the burial rites of our friend.
        I proposed three men, with ourselves, as sufficient for the
        sixteen Indians, in case we should fall in with them, and
        they would certainly be enough for the errand if we met
        no one.  My former comrades were too tired to return.

        We started and arrived at our unfortunate camp, but the body
        of our late friend was not to be found, though we discovered
        some of his long black hair clotted with blood.

        On raising the traps which we had set before our precipitate
        departure, we found a beaver in every one except four, which
        contained each a leg, the beavers having amputated them with
        their teeth.  We then returned to our companions, and moved
        on to Willow Creek, where we were handy to the caches of
        our rendezvous at the Suck.  It was now about June 1, 1822.

        Here we spent our time very pleasantly, occupying ourselves
        with hunting, fishing, target-shooting, footracing, gymnastic
        and sundry other exercises.  The other detachments now
        came in, bringing with them quantities of peltry, all having
        met with very great success.




CHAPTER IV.
CAPTAIN SUBLETTE'S EXPEDITION.



In 1832 Captain William Sublette,[10] a partner in the Rocky Mountain
Fur Company, and one of the most active, intrepid, and renowned
leaders in the trade, started on a trapping expedition up the Platte
Valley.  He was accompanied by Robert Campbell, another of the
pioneers in the fur industry, and sixty men well mounted, with their
camp equipage carried on packhorses.

At Independence, Missouri, he met a party commanded by Nathaniel J.
Wyeth of Boston, Massachusetts.  Mr. Wyeth, having conceived the idea
that a profitable salmon fishery connected with the fur trade might
be established at the mouth of the Columbia River, had accordingly
invested a great deal of capital.  He had calculated, as he supposed,
for the Indian trade, and had enlisted in his employ a number of
Eastern men who had never been West, and were totally unacquainted
with its dangerous travel.

Wyeth and his men found themselves completely at a loss when they
reached Independence, the then frontier post.  None of them except
the leader had ever seen an Indian or handled a rifle.  They had
neither guide nor interpreter, and were totally ignorant of the way
to deal with the savages, or provide food for themselves during long
marches over barren plains and wild mountains.  In this predicament
Captain Sublette found them, and in the bigness of his heart kindly
took them in tow.  Both parties travelled amicably together, and
they arrived without accident on the upper branches of the Platte.

Sublette, Campbell, Wyeth, and their parties pursued their march
westward unmolested, and arrived in the Green River Valley.  While in
camp one night on the bank of a small stream, toward morning a band
of Indians burst upon them, yelling, whooping, and discharging
a flight of arrows.  No harm was done, however, excepting the wounding
of a mule and the stampeding of several of their horses.

On the 17th of July, a small party of fourteen, led by Milton Sublette,
brother of the captain, set out with the intention of proceeding to
the southwest.  They were accompanied by Sinclair and fifteen free
trappers.  Wyeth, also, and his New England band of beaver hunters
and salmon fishers, now dwindled down to eleven, took this opportunity
to prosecute their cruise in the wilderness, accompanied by such
experienced pilots.

On the first day they proceeded about eight miles to the southeast,
and encamped for the night.  On the following morning, just as they
were preparing to leave camp, they observed a moving mass pouring
down a defile of the mountains.  They at first supposed them to be
another party of trappers, whose arrival had been daily expected.
Wyeth, however, reconnoitred them with a spy-glass, and soon perceived
they were Indians.  They were divided into two bands, forming,
in the whole, about one hundred and fifty persons, men, women, and
children.  Some were on horseback, fantastically painted and arrayed,
with scarlet blankets fluttering in the wind.  The greater part,
however, were on foot.  They had perceived the trappers before they
were themselves discovered, and came down yelling and whooping into
the plain.  On nearer approach, they were ascertained to be Blackfeet.

One of the trappers of Sublette's brigade, a half-breed, named
Antoine Godin,[11] now mounted his horse, and rode forth as if to hold
a conference.  In company with Antoine was a Flathead Indian,
whose once powerful tribe had been completely broken down in their
wars with the Blackfeet.  Both of them, however, cherished the most
vengeful hostility against these marauders of the mountains.
The Blackfeet came to a halt.  One of the chiefs advanced singly and
unarmed, bearing the pipe of peace.  This overture was certainly
pacific; but Antoine and the Flathead were predisposed to hostility,
and pretended to consider it a treacherous movement.

“Is your piece charged?” said Antoine to his companion.

“It is.”

“Then cock it and follow me.”

They met the Blackfoot chief half-way.  He extended his hand in
friendship.  Antoine grasped it.

“Fire!” cried he.

The Flathead levelled his piece, and brought the Blackfoot to the
ground.  Antoine snatched off his scarlet blanket, which was richly
ornamented, and galloped away with it as a trophy to the camp,
the bullets of the enemy whistling after him.  The Indians
immediately threw themselves into the edge of a swamp, among willows
and cottonwood trees, interwoven with vines.  Here they began to
fortify themselves, the women digging a trench and throwing up a
breastwork of logs and branches, deep hid in the bosom of the wood,
while the warriors skirmished at the edge to keep the trappers at bay.

The latter took their station in front, whence they kept up a
scattering fire.  As to Wyeth, and his little band of “down easters,”
they were perfectly astounded by this second specimen of life in the
wilderness; the men, being especially unused to bush-fighting and
the use of the rifle, were at a loss how to act.  Wyeth, however,
acted as a skilful commander.  He got all the horses into camp and
secured them; then, making a breastwork of his packs of goods,
he charged his men to remain in the garrison, and not to stir out
of their fort.  For himself, he mingled with the other leaders,
determined to take his share in the conflict.

In the meantime, an express had been sent off to the rendezvous for
reënforcements.  Captain Sublette and his associate, Campbell,
were at their camp when the express came galloping across the plain,
waving his cap, and giving the alarm, “Blackfeet! Blackfeet!
a fight in the upper part of the valley!—to arms! to arms!”

The alarm was passed from camp to camp.  It was a common cause.
Every one turned out with horse and rifle.  The Nez Percés and
Flatheads joined.  As fast as the trappers could arm and mount
they galloped off; the valley was soon alive with white men and
Indians scouring at full speed.

Sublette ordered his party to keep to the camp, being recruits from
St. Louis, and unused to Indian warfare, but he and his friend
Campbell prepared for action.  Throwing off their coats, rolling up
their sleeves, and arming themselves with pistols and rifles, they
mounted their horses and dashed forward among the first.  As they
rode along they made their wills in soldier-like style, each stating
how his effects should be disposed of in case of his death, and
appointing the other as his executor.

The Blackfeet warriors had supposed that the party of Milton Sublette
was all the foe they had to deal with, and were astonished to behold
the whole valley suddenly swarming with horsemen, galloping to the
field of action.  They withdrew into their fort, which was completely
hidden from sight in the dark and tangled wood.  Most of their women
and children had retreated to the mountains.  The trappers now
sallied out and approached the swamp, firing into the thickets at
random.  The Blackfeet had a better sight of their adversaries, who
were in the open field, and a half-breed was wounded in the shoulder.

When Captain Sublette arrived, he urged the men to penetrate the
swamp and storm the fort, but all hung back in awe of the dismal
horrors of the place, and the danger of attacking such desperadoes
in their savage den.  The very Indian allies, though accustomed
to bush-fighting, regarded it as almost impenetrable, and full of
frightful danger.  Sublette was not to be turned from his purpose,
but offered to lead the way into the swamp.  Campbell stepped
forward to accompany him.  Before entering the perilous wood,
Sublette took his brothers aside, and told them that in case he fell,
Campbell, who knew his will, was to be his executor.  This done,
he grasped his rifle and pushed into the thickets, followed by
Campbell.  Sinclair, the partisan from Arkansas, was at the edge of
the wood with his brother and a few of his men.  Excited by the
gallant example of the two friends, he pressed forward to share
their dangers.

The swamp was produced by the labours of the beaver, which, by
damming up the stream, had inundated a portion of the valley.
The place was overgrown with woods and thickets, so closely matted
and entangled that it was impossible to see ten paces ahead, and
the three associates in peril had to crawl along, one after another,
making their way by putting the branches and vines aside, but doing
it with great caution, lest they should attract the eye of some
lurking marksman.  They took the lead by turns, each advancing some
twenty yards at a time, and now and then hallooing to their men
to come on.  Some of the latter gradually entered the swamp, and
followed a little distance in the rear.

They had now reached a more open part of the wood, and had glimpses of
the rude fortress from between the trees.  It was a mere breastwork,
of logs and branches, with blankets, buffalo-robes, and the leather
covers of lodges extended around the top as a screen.  The movement
of the leaders as they groped their way had been descried by the
sharp-sighted enemy.  As Sinclair, who was in the advance, was putting
some branches aside, he was shot through the body.  He fell on the
spot.  “Take me to my brother,” said he to Campbell.  The latter gave
him in charge of some of the men, who conveyed him out of the swamp.

Sublette now took the advance.  As he was reconnoitring the fort,
he perceived an Indian peeping through an aperture.  In an instant
his rifle was levelled and discharged, and the ball struck the savage
in the eye.  While he was reloading he called to Campbell, and
pointed out the hole to him: “Watch that place, and you will soon
have a fair chance for a shot.”  Scarce had he uttered the words
when a ball struck him in the shoulder, and almost wheeled him around.
His first thought was to take hold of his arm with his other hand,
and move it up and down.  He ascertained, to his satisfaction, that
the bone was not broken.  The next moment he was so faint he could
not stand.  Campbell took him in his arms and carried him out of
the thicket.  The same shot that struck Sublette wounded another man
in the head.

A brisk fire was now opened by the mountaineers from the wood,
answered occasionally from the fort.  Unluckily, the trappers and
their allies, in searching for the fort, had got scattered, so that
Wyeth and a number of Nez Percés approached it on the northwest side,
while others did the same from the opposite quarter.  A cross-fire
thus took place, which occasionally did mischief to friends as well as
foes.  An Indian, close to Wyeth, was shot down by a ball which,
he was convinced, had been sped from the rifle of a trapper on the
other side of the fort.

The number of whites and their Indian allies had by this time so much
increased, by arrivals from the rendezvous, that the Blackfeet were
completely overmatched.  They kept doggedly in their fort, however,
making no effort to surrender.  An occasional firing into the
breastwork was kept up during the day.  Now and then one of the
Indian allies, in bravado, would rush up to the fort, fire over the
ramparts, tear off a buffalo-robe or a scarlet blanket, and return
with it in triumph to his comrades.  Most of the savage garrison
who fell, however, were killed in the first part of the attack.

At one time it was resolved to set fire to the fort, and the squaws
belonging to the allies were employed to collect combustibles.
This, however, was abandoned, the Nez Percés being unwilling to
destroy the robes and blankets, and other spoils of the enemy,
which they felt sure would fall into their hands.

The Indians, when fighting, are prone to taunt and revile each other.
During one of the pauses of the battle the voice of a Blackfoot was
heard.

“So long,” said he, “as we had powder and ball, we fought you in
the open field; when those were spent we retreated here to die with
our women and children.  You may burn us in our fort; but stay by
our ashes, and you who are so hungry for fighting will soon have
enough.  There are four hundred lodges of our brethren at hand.
They will soon be here—their arms are strong—their hearts are big—
they will avenge us!”

This speech was translated two or three times by Nez Percés and
creole interpreters.  By the time it was rendered into English the
chief was made to say that four hundred lodges of his tribe were
attacking the encampment at the other end of the valley.  Every one
now hurried to the defence of the rendezvous.  A party was left to
watch the fort; the rest galloped off to the camp.  As night came on,
the trappers drew out of the swamp, and remained about the skirts
of the wood.  By morning their companions returned from the
rendezvous, with the report that all was safe.  As the day opened,
they ventured within the swamp and approached the fort.  All was
silent.  They advanced up to it without opposition.  They entered;
it had been abandoned in the night, and the Blackfeet had effected
their retreat, carrying off their wounded on litters made of branches,
leaving bloody traces on the grass.  The bodies of ten Indians were
found within the fort, among them the one shot in the eye by Sublette.
The Blackfeet afterward reported that they had lost twenty-six
warriors in this battle.  Thirty-two horses were likewise found killed;
among them were some of those recently carried off from Sublette's
party, which showed that these were the very savages that had attacked
him.  They proved to be an advance party of the main body of Blackfeet,
which had been upon Sublette's trail for some time.  Five white men
and one half-breed were killed and several wounded.  Seven of the
Nez Percés were also killed, and six wounded.  They had an old chief
who was reputed to be invulnerable.  In the course of the action
he was hit by a spent ball, and threw up blood; but his skin was
unbroken.  His people were now fully convinced that he was proof
against a rifle-shot.

A striking circumstance is related as having occurred the morning
after the battle.  As some of the trappers and their Indian allies
were approaching the fort, through the woods, they beheld an Indian
woman, of noble form and features, leaning against a tree.
Their surprise at her lingering there alone, to fall into the hands
of her enemies, was dispelled when they saw the corpse of a warrior
at her feet.  Either she was so lost in her grief as not to perceive
their approach, or a proud spirit kept her silent and motionless.
The Indians set up a yell on discovering her, and before the trappers
could interfere, her mangled body fell upon the corpse which she had
refused to abandon.  It is an instance of female devotion, even to
the death, which is undoubtedly true.

After the battle the party of Milton Sublette, together with the free
trappers, and Wyeth's New England band, remained some days at the
rendezvous to see if the main body of Blackfeet intended to make an
attack.  Nothing of the kind occurred, so they once more put
themselves in motion, and proceeded on their route toward the southwest.

Captain Sublette, having distributed his supplies, had intended to
set off on his return to St. Louis, taking with him the peltries
collected from the trappers and Indians.  His wound, however, obliged
him to postpone his departure.  Several who were to have accompanied
him became impatient at his delay.  Among these was a young Bostonian,
Mr. Joseph More, one of the followers of Mr. Wyeth, who had seen
enough of mountain life and savage warfare, and was eager to return
to the abodes of civilization.  He and six others, among whom were
a Mr. Foy of Mississippi, Mr. Alfred K. Stephens of St. Louis, and
two grandsons of the celebrated Daniel Boone, set out together,
in advance of Sublette's party, thinking they would make their own
way through the mountains.

It was just five days after the battle of the swamp that these seven
companions were making their way through Jackson's Hole, a valley not
far from the Three Tetons, when, as they were descending a hill,
a party of Blackfeet, who lay in ambush, started up with terrific
yells.  The horse of the young Bostonian, who was in front, wheeled
round with affright, and threw his unskilful rider.  The young man
scrambled up the side of the hill, but, unaccustomed to such wild
scenes, lost his presence of mind, and stood as if paralysed on the
edge of the bank, until the Blackfeet came up and slew him on the
spot.  His comrades had fled on the first alarm; but two of them,
Foy and Stephens, seeing his danger, paused when they had got
half-way up the hill, turned back, dismounted, and hastened to his
assistance.  Foy was instantly killed.  Stephens was severely wounded,
but escaped, to die five days afterward.  The survivors returned
to the camp of Captain Sublette, bringing tidings of this new
disaster.  That hardy leader, as soon as he could bear the journey,
set out on his return to St. Louis, accompanied by Campbell.
As they had a number of packhorses, richly laden with peltries,
to convoy, they chose a different route through the mountains,
out of the way, as they hoped, of the lurking bands of Blackfeet.
They succeeded in making the frontier in safety.[12]

On the 1st of May, 1832, Captain B. E. Bonneville, of the Seventh
United States Infantry, having obtained leave of absence from
Major-General Alexander Macomb, left Fort Osage, at his own expense,
on a perilous exploration of the country to the Rocky Mountains and
beyond.

His party consisted of one hundred and ten men, the majority of whom
were experienced hunters and trappers.  Their means of transportation
were twenty wagons, drawn by oxen or by four mules each, loaded with
ammunition, provisions, and some merchandise intended for trading
with the Indians.  The wagons were moved in two columns, the men
marching in such a manner before and behind as to form an advance and
rear guard.  This caravan of Captain Bonneville's undoubtedly
contained the first wagons that the Indians had ever seen, and as
they passed through their country, they created a novel sensation
among the savages.  They examined everything about them minutely,
and asked a thousand questions, an unusual change from their
generally apathetic character.

On the march the captain invariably sent his hunters and scouts ahead,
to reconnoitre the country, as well as to procure game for the command.
On the 24th of May, as the caravan was slowly moving westward,
the scouts came rushing back, waving their caps, and shouting,
“Indians! Indians!”

A halt was immediately ordered, and it was discovered that a large
party of Crows were on the river, just above where the caravan then
was.  The captain, knowing that the tribe was noted for warlike deeds
and expertness in horse-stealing, gave orders to prepare for action.
All were soon ready for any emergency, the party moved on in battle
array, and in a short time about sixty Crow warriors emerged from
the bluffs.  They were painted in the most approved style of savage
art, well mounted on fine ponies, and evidently ready for a battle.
They approached the caravan in true Indian method, cavorting around
on their spirited animals, rushing on as if they intended to make
a charge, but when at the proper distance suddenly opened right and
left, wheeled around the travellers at the same instant, whooping
and yelling diabolically.  Their first wild demonstration of spoiling
for a fight having cooled down, they stopped, and the chief rode up
to the captain, extended his hand, which of course he took; and after
a pipe was smoked, nothing could exceed the spirit of friendliness
that prevailed.

They were on a raid against a band of Cheyennes who had attacked
their village in the night and killed one of their tribe.  They had
already been on the trail for twenty-five days, and said they were
determined never to return to their homes until they had had their
revenge.

They had been secretly hanging on the trail of Captain Bonneville's
party and were astonished at the wagons and oxen, but were especially
amazed by the appearance of a cow and calf quietly walking alongside.
They supposed them to be some kind of tame buffalo.  They regarded
them as “big medicine,” but when it was told them that the white men
would trade the calf for a horse, their wonder ceased, their
estimation of its wonderful power sank to zero, and they declined
to make the exchange.

On the 2d of June the Platte River was reached, about twenty-five
miles below Grand Island.  Captain Bonneville measured the stream
at that point, found it to be twenty-two hundred yards wide, and
from three to six feet deep, the bottom full of quicksand.

On the 11th of the same month the party arrived at the forks of the
Platte, but finding it impossible to cross on account of the quicksand,
they travelled for two days along the south branch, trying to discover
a safe fording-place.  At last they camped, took off the bodies of
the wagons, covered them with buffalo-hides, and smearing them with
tallow and ashes, thus turned them into boats.  In these they ferried
themselves and their effects across the stream, which was six hundred
yards wide, with a very swift current.

After successfully crossing the river, the line of march was toward
the North Fork, a distance of nine miles from their ford.  Terribly
annoyed by swarms of gnats and mosquitoes, they followed the
meanderings of the stream, and on the evening of the 17th arrived at
a beautiful grove, resonant with the songs of birds, the first they
had heard since leaving the banks of the Missouri.

Captain Bonneville made a camp at Chimney Rock, the height of which,
according to his triangulation, was one hundred and seventy-five yards.
On the 21st he made camp amidst the high and beetling cliffs, known
a few years afterward as Scott's Bluffs.

The route of Captain Bonneville's march was generally along the bank
of the Platte River, but frequently he was compelled, because of the
steep bluffs which bounded it, to make inland detours.

In July he camped on a branch of the Sweetwater, which by measurement
was sixty feet wide and four or five deep, flowing between low banks
over a sandy soil.  At that point numerous herds of buffalo were seen.

On the 12th of July, the caravan reached Laramie's Fork, and,
abandoning the Platte, made a detour to the southwest.  In two days
afterward they camped on the bank of the Sweetwater.  Up that stream
they moved for several days, and on the 20th of July first caught
a glimpse of the Rocky Mountains, which they crossed and then went
on to the Pacific coast.

On the 13th of July of the following year after his tour through the
Rocky Mountains, Bonneville arrived in the Green River Valley, which
he now found covered in every direction with buffalo carcasses.
It was evident that the Indians had recently been there and in great
numbers.  Alarmed at what he saw, the captain halted as soon as
night came on, and sent out his scouts to the trappers' rendezvous
at Horse Creek, where he expected to meet a party.  When the scouts
returned with some of the trappers, his mind was relieved by the
information that the great slaughter of the buffaloes had been made
by a band of friendly Shoshones.

The Green River Valley, at the time of Captain Bonneville's visit,
was one of the general rendezvous of the trappers, traders, and
Indians.  There he got together a band of some of the most experienced
men of the mountains, and determined to continue to explore into
unknown regions farther west.  His objective point was the Great
Salt Lake, of which he had heard such wonderful accounts, and on
the 24th of July he started from the Green River Valley with forty
men to explore that inland sea.

In the spring of 1835 Captain Bonneville returned to the Green River
Valley, and from there pursued his course down the Platte, reaching
the frontier settlements on the 22d of August, having been absent
over three years.  During all that time he had made no report to the
War Department, which thought he had perished on his venturesome
journey, and his name was stricken from the rolls of the army.
Several months after his arrival in Washington, and a satisfactory
explanation having been rendered, he was restored to his position.[13]

On the 22d of May, 1842, Lieutenant John C. Fremont, of the
United States Corps of Army Engineers, arrived at St. Louis in
pursuance of orders from the War Department, to command an exploring
expedition westward to the Wind River Mountains.  On the 10th of June
he started with the celebrated Kit Carson as his chief guide;
his route was up the Kansas River to the Blue, thence across to the
Platte, which he reached on the 25th.  The principal object of his
expedition was a survey of the North Fork of that river.  He found
the width of the stream, immediately below the junction of its two
principal branches, to be 5350 feet.  Hunting buffalo and an
occasional Indian scare were the only important incidents of his
march up the valley.  The expedition returned by the same route and
arrived at the mouth of the Platte on the 1st of October.

Before reaching Laramie's Fork, he met on the 28th of June a party
of fourteen trappers, in the employ of the American Fur Company,
making their way on foot with their blankets and light camp equipage
on their backs.  Two months previously they had started from the mouth
of the Laramie River in boats loaded with furs destined for the
St. Louis market.  They had taken advantage of the June freshet, and
were rapidly carried down as far as Scott's Bluffs.  There the water
spread out into the valley, and the stream was so shallow they were
compelled to unload the principal part of their cargo.  This they
secured as well as possible, and left a few of their men to guard it.
They continued struggling on with their boats in the sand and mud
fifteen or twenty days longer, then, farther progress being impossible,
they cached their remaining furs and property in trees on the bank of
the river, and, each man carrying what he could on his back, started
on foot for St. Louis.  The party was entirely out of tobacco when
they were met by Fremont, who kindly gave them enough to last them
on their homeward journey.

During the next decade the Platte Valley witnessed a wonderful change.
From the habitat of the lonely trapper, hunting on its many streams,
it became the chosen route of a vast migration, seeking possession of
the virgin soil of far-off Oregon, or attracted by the discovery of
gold in California.  The hegira of the Mormons to the sequestered
basin of the Great Salt Lake also swelled the stream, and was
followed soon after by the establishment of the overland stage,
the pony express, and the building of the Union Pacific Railroad.




CHAPTER V.
TRADING-POSTS AND THEIR STORIES.



As early as the first decade of the present century, the great fur
companies sent out expeditions up the valley of the Platte in the
charge of their agents, to trap the beaver and other animals valuable
for their beautiful skins.  The hardships of these pioneers in the
beginning of a trade which in a short time assumed gigantic proportions
are a story of suffering and privation which has few parallels in the
history of the development of our mid-continent region.  Until the
establishment of the several trading-posts, the lives of these men
were continuous struggles for existence, as no company could possibly
transport provisions sufficient to last beyond the most remote
settlements, and the men were compelled to depend entirely upon their
rifles for a supply of food.  When posts were located at convenient
distances from each other in the desolate country where their vocation
was carried on, the chances of the trapper for regular meals every day
were materially enhanced.  Before the establishment of these
rendezvous, where everything necessary for his comfort was kept,
the trapper subsisted on deer, bear-meat, buffalo, and wild turkeys
—the latter were found in abundance everywhere.  In times of great
scarcity, he was frequently compelled to resort to dead horses.
His coffee, and perhaps a scant supply of flour which he had brought
from the last settlement, would rarely suffice until he reached the
foot of the mountains; and even when obtainable the price was so
exorbitant that but few of the early adventurers could indulge in
such luxuries.

The first trading-post was established at the mouth of Clear Creek,
in 1832, by Louis Vasquez, and named Fort Vasquez, after its
proprietor, but never grew into much importance and was soon abandoned.

Fort Laramie, one of the most celebrated rendezvous of the trappers,
was erected in 1834, by William Sublette and Robert Campbell of
St. Louis, agents of the American Fur Company.  It was first called
Fort William, in honour of Sublette; later Fort John, and finally
christened Fort Laramie, after the river which took its name from
Joseph Laramie, a French-Canadian trapper of the earliest fur-hunting
period, who was murdered by the Indians near the mouth of the river.
It was located in the immediate region of the Ogallalla and Brule
bands of the great Sioux nation, and not very remote from that of
the Cheyennes and Arapahoes.

In 1835 the fort was sold to Milton Sublette, Jim Bridger, and others
of the American Fur Company, and the year following was by them
rebuilt at a cost of ten thousand dollars.  It remained a private
establishment until 1849, the year of the discovery of gold in
California, when the government bought and transformed it into
a military post, to awe the savages who infested the trail to the
Pacific, which had then become the great highway of the immense
exodus from the Eastern states to the gold regions of that coast.

The original structure was built in the usual style of all Indian
trading-stations of that day, of adobes, or sun-dried bricks.  It was
enclosed by walls twenty feet high and four feet thick, encompassing
an area two hundred and fifty feet long by two hundred wide.  At the
diagonal northwest and southwest corners, adobe bastions were erected,
commanding every approach to the place.

The number of buildings were twelve in all: there were five
sleeping-rooms, kitchen, warehouse, icehouse, meat-house, blacksmith
shop, and carpenter shop.  The enclosed corral had a capacity for
two hundred animals.  The corral was separated from the buildings by
a partition, and the area in which the buildings were located was
a square, while the corral was a rectangle, into which, at night,
the horses and mules were secured.  In the daytime, too, when the
presence of Indians indicated danger of the animals being stolen,
they were run into the enclosure.

The roofs of the buildings within the square were close against
the walls of the fort, and in case of necessity could be utilized
as a banquette from which to repulse any attack of the savages.
The main entrance to the enclosure had two gates, with an arched
passage intervening.  A small window opened from an adjoining room
into this passage, so that when the gates were closed and barred
any one might still hold communication, through this narrow aperture,
with those within.  Suspicious characters, especially the savages,
could do their trading without the necessity of being admitted into
the fort proper.  At times when danger was apprehended from an attack
by the Indians, the gates were kept shut and all business transacted
through the window.

About thirty men were usually employed at Fort Laramie when the trade
was at its height, as that station monopolized nearly the entire
Indian trade of the whole region tributary to it.  There the famous
frontiersmen, Kit Carson, Jim Bridger, Jim Baker, Jim Beckwourth,
and others, who in those remote times constituted the pioneers of
the primitive civilization of the country, made their headquarters.

The officials of the fur companies stationed at Fort Laramie ruled
with an absolute authority.  They were as potent in their sway as
the veriest despot, for they had no one to dispute their right to
lord it over all.  The nearest army outposts were seven hundred miles
to the east, and, like the viceroys of Spain after the conquest
of Mexico, they were a law unto themselves.

In its palmy days Fort Laramie swarmed with women and children,
whose language, like their complexions, was much mixed.  All lived
almost exclusively on buffalo meat dried in the sun, and their
hunters had to go sometimes fifty miles to find a herd of buffaloes.
After a while there were a few domestic cattle introduced, and the
conditions changed somewhat.

No military frontier post in the United States was so beautifully
located as Fort Laramie.  Surrounded by big bluffs at the intersection
of the Laramie and Platte rivers, forming a valley unsurpassed in
the fertility of its soil, together with the richness of its natural
vegetation, it was an oasis in the desert.  The glory of the once
charming place has departed forever.  It was abandoned by the
government a few years ago, as it was no longer a military necessity,
the savage tribes which it watched having either become tame or
removed to far-off reservations.

In 1826 Jim Bridger joined General Ashley's trapping expedition, and
eleven years afterward, in 1837, built Fort Bridger, for a long time
one of the most famous of the trading-posts.   It was located on
the Black Fork of Green River[14] where that stream branched into
three principal channels, forming several large islands, upon one of
which the fort was erected.  It was constructed of two adjoining
log houses, with sod roofs, enclosed by a fence of pickets eight feet
high, and, as was usual, the offices and sleeping-apartments opened
into a square, protected from attacks by the Indians by a massive
timber gate.  Into the corral all the animals were driven at night
to guard them from being stolen, or devoured by wild beasts.
The fort was inhabited by about fifty whites, Indians, and half-breeds.
The fort was the joint property of Bridger and Vasquez.  Upon the
Mormon occupation of the region the owners were obliged to abandon it,
on account of disagreements with that sect, in 1853.

Fort Platte, another trading-post belonging to the American Fur
Company, was situated about three-fourths of a mile above the mouth
of the Laramie River, on the left bank of the North Platte, and
constructed in the same general way described in the preceding
paragraphs.  As it is naturally to be supposed, there existed always
a desperate rivalry between the two forts.  Some of the scenes enacted
there long ago are full of blood-curdling adventure and reckless
indifference to the preservation of life.  The following is a true
picture of one of the annual gatherings of the Indian trappers who
came there to dispose of their season's furs, more than fifty
years ago:—

        The night of our arrival at Fort Platte was the signal for a
        grand jollification by all hands, with two or three exceptions,
        who soon got most gloriously drunk, and such an illustration
        of the beauties of harmony as was then presented would have
        rivalled Bedlam itself, or even the famous council-chamber
        beyond the Styx.

        Yelling, screeching, firing, fighting, swearing, drinking,
        and such like interesting performances were kept up without
        intermission—and woe to the poor fellow who looked for repose
        that night.  He might have as well thought of sleeping with
        a thousand cannons booming at his ears.

        The scene was prolonged till sundown the next day, and several
        made their egress from this beastly carousal minus shirts and
        coats, with swollen eyes, bloody noses, and empty pockets
        —the latter circumstance will be understood upon the mere
        mention of the fact that liquor was sold for four dollars
        a pint!

        The day following was ushered in by the enactment of another
        scene of comico-tragical character.

        The Indians camped in the vicinity, being extremely solicitous
        to imitate the example of their illustrious predecessors,
        commenced their demands for fire-water as soon as the first
        tints of morning began to paint the east; and, before the sun
        had told an hour of his course, they were pretty well advanced
        in the state of “How come you so?” and seemed to exercise
        their musical powers in wonderful rivalry with their white
        brethren.

        Men, women, and children were seen running from lodge to lodge
        with vessels of liquor, inviting their friends and relatives
        to drink; while whooping, singing, drunkenness, and trading
        for fresh supplies to administer to the demands of
        intoxication had evidently become the order of the day.
        Soon individuals were seen passing from one another, with
        mouths full of the coveted fire-water, drawing the lips of
        favoured friends to close contact, as if to kiss, and ejecting
        the contents of their own into the eager mouths of others
        —thus affording the delighted recipients tests of fervent
        esteem in the heat and strength of their strange draught.

        At this stage of the game the American Fur Company, as was
        charged, commenced to deal out to them gratuitously, strong
        drugged liquor for the double purpose of preventing the sale
        of the article by its competitor in trade, and of creating
        sickness, or inciting contention among the Indians while
        under the influence of sudden intoxication, hoping thereby
        to induce the latter to charge its ill effects upon an
        opposite source, and thus by destroying the credit of its
        rival to monopolize the whole trade.

        It is hard to predict with certainty what would have been
        the result of this reckless policy, had it been continued
        through the day.  Already its effects became apparent, and
        small knots of drunken Indians were seen in various directions,
        quarreling, preparing to fight, or fighting, while others
        lay stretched upon the ground in helpless impotency, or
        staggered from place to place with all the revolting
        attendants of intoxication.

        The drama, however, was brought to a temporary close by an
        incident which made a strange contrast in its immediate
        results.

        One of the head chiefs of the Brule village, in riding at full
        speed from Fort John to Fort Platte, being a little too drunk
        to navigate, plunged headlong from his horse, and broke his
        neck when within a few rods of his destination.  Then was
        a touching display of confusion and excitement.  Men and
        squaws commenced squalling like children—the whites were bad,
        very bad, said they, in their grief, to give Susu-Ceicha
        the fire-water that caused his death.  But the height of
        their censure was directed against the American Fur Company,
        as its liquor had done the deed.

        The corpse of the deceased chief was brought to the fort by
        his relatives with a request that the whites should assist
        at his burial; but they were in a sorry plight for such
        a service.  There were found some sufficiently sober for the
        task, however, and they accordingly commenced operations.

        A scaffold was erected for the reception of the body, which,
        in the meantime, had been fitted for its last airy tenement.
        The duty was performed in the following manner: It was first
        washed, then arrayed in the habiliments last worn by the
        deceased during life, and sewed in several envelopes of
        lodge-skin with his bows and arrows and pipe.  This done,
        all things were ready for the proposed burial.

        The corpse was borne to its final resting-place, followed by
        a throng of relatives and friends.  While moving onward with
        the dead, the train of mourners filled the air with
        lamentations and rehearsals of the virtues and meritorious
        deeds of their late chief.

        Arrived at the scaffold, the corpse was carefully reposed
        upon it facing the east, while beneath its head was placed
        a small sack of meat, tobacco, and vermilion, with a comb,
        looking-glass, and knife, and at its feet a small banner that
        had been carried in the procession.  A covering of scarlet
        cloth was then spread over it, and the body firmly lashed
        to its place by long strips of rawhide.  This done, the horse
        of the chieftain was produced as a sacrifice for the benefit
        of his master in his long journey to the celestial
        hunting-grounds.

        Then first, encircling it at a respectful distance, were
        seated the old men, next the young men and the warriors, and
        next the squaws and children.  Etespa-huska (The Long Bow),
        eldest son of the deceased, thereupon commenced speaking,
        while the weeping throng ceased its tumult to listen to
        his words.

        “O Susu-Ceicha! thy son bemourns thee, even as were wont the
        fledglings of the war-eagle to cry for the one that nourished
        them, when thy swift arrow had laid him in the dust.  Sorrow
        fills the heart of Etespa-huska; sadness crushes it to the
        ground and sinks it beneath the sod upon which he treads.

        “Thou hast gone, O Susu-Ceicha!  Death hath conquered thee,
        whom none but death could conquer; and who shall now teach
        thy son to be brave as thou wast brave; to be good as thou
        wast good; to fight the foe of thy people and acquaint thy
        chosen ones with the war-song of triumph; to deck his lodge
        with the scalps of the slain, and bid the feet of the young
        move swiftly in the dance?  And who shall teach Etespa-huska
        to follow the chase and plunge his arrows into the yielding
        sides of the tired bull?”

        Thus for half an hour did the young man tell of the virtues
        and great deeds of his father, and the moment he had finished,
        a tremendous howl of grief burst from the whole assemblage,
        men, women, and children alike.  When the wailing ceased
        they all returned to their respective lodges.

        The sad event of the day put a stop to the dissipation of
        the savages, and not long afterward they commenced to pull
        down their respective lodges, and removed to the neighbourhood
        of the buffalo, for the purpose of selecting their winter
        quarters.

        Two weeks later a band of Brules arrived in the vicinity of
        the fort and opened a brisk trade in liquor by indulging in
        a drunken spree.

        The savages crowded the fort houses seeking articles, and
        soon became a terrible nuisance.  One room in particular was
        constantly thronged to the exclusion of its regular occupants,
        when the latter, losing all patience with the savages, adopted
        the following plan to get rid of them.

        After closely covering the chimney, by the aid of some
        half-rotten chips a dense smoke was raised, the doors and
        windows being closed at the same time to prevent its escape,
        and in an instant the apartment became filled to the point of
        suffocation—too much so for the Indians, who gladly made
        a precipitate retreat.

        They were told it was the “Long-Knife Medicine.”[15]  During
        the visit of the savages at the fort, a warrior called
        “Big Eagle” was struck over the head by a half-drunken trader,
        an incident which came very near terminating seriously, but
        fortunately did not.  It might have ended in the massacre of
        all the whites had not some of the more level-headed promptly
        interfered and with much effort succeeded in pacifying the
        enraged chief by presenting him with a horse.

        At first the savage would admit of no compromise short of
        the offender's blood.  He had been struck by the white man,
        and blood alone must atone for the aggression.  Unless that
        should wipe out the disgrace he could never again hold up his
        head among his people—they would call him a coward, and say
        a white man struck the Big Eagle and he dared not resent it.

An Indian considers it the greatest indignity to receive a blow from
any one, even from his own brother; and unless the affair is settled
by the bestowal of a trespass offering on the part of the aggressor,
he is almost sure to seek revenge, either through blood or the
destruction of property.  This is more an especial characteristic
of the Sioux than of any other of the savage tribes.

The liquor-traffic was a most infamous one, as an abundance of facts
could prove.

In November, 1855, the American Fur Company, from Fort John, sent
a quantity of their drugged liquor to an Indian village on the
Chugwater, as a gift, for the purpose of preventing the sale of that
article by their competitors in trade.  The consequence was that
the poor creatures all got beastly drunk, and a fight ensued, in which
two chiefs, Bull Bear and Yellow Lodge, and six of their personal
friends were murdered.  Fourteen others who took part in the fracas
were badly wounded.  Soon afterward another affair of the same
character occurred, and resulted in the death of three of the savages.
Many were killed in like quarrels in the several Indian villages.

The liquor used in this nefarious trade was generally third or
fourth proof whiskey, which, after being diluted by a mixture of
three parts water, was sold to the savages at the exorbitant rate of
three cups for a single buffalo-robe, each cup holding about three
gills.  That was not all: sometimes the cup was not more than half
filled; then again the act of measuring was also a rascally
transaction, for when the poor savage became so drunk that he could
not see, he was cheated—more water was added, the unlucky purchaser
not receiving more than one-fourth of what he paid for.  There were
still other modes of cheating poor Lo.

To further show how demoralizing the traffic was I will relate an
instance: “Old Bull Tail,” a chief of the Sioux, had an only daughter,
who was named Chint-zille.  She was very handsome as savage beauty
goes, and the old chief really loved her, for the North American
Indian is possessed of as much devotion to his family as is to be
found in the most cultivated of the white race; but the old fellow
was inordinately fond of getting drunk, and at one time, not having
the wherewithal to procure the necessary liquor, made up his mind
that he would trade his daughter for a sufficient quantity.

One morning he entered the store of a trader, accompanied by
Chint-zille.  The following dialogue took place:

“Bull Tail is welcome to the lodge of the Long-Knife; but why is his
daughter, the pride of his heart, bathed in tears?  It pains me that
one so beautiful should weep.”

The old chief answered: “Chint-zille is a foolish girl.  Her father
loves her, and therefore she cries.”

“There should be greater cause for grief than that.”

“The Long-Knife speaks well.”

“How then can she sorrow?  Tell her to speak to me, that I may whisper
words of comfort in her ear.”

“I will tell you, Long-Knife: Bull Tail loves his daughter very much;
he loves Long-Knife very much! he loves them both very much.
The Great Spirit has put the thought into his mind that both alike
might be his children; then would his heart leap for joy at the
twice-spoken name of father!”

“I do not understand the meaning of Bull Tail's words.”

“Sure, Long-Knife, you are slow to understand!  Bull Tail would give
his daughter to the Long-Knife.  Does not Long-Knife love Chint-zille?”

“If I should say no, my tongue would lie; Long-Knife has no wife,
and who, like the lovely Chint-zille, is so worthy that he should
take her to his bosom?  How can I show my gratitude to her noble
father?”

“The gift is free, and Bull Tail will be too glad in its acceptance,
his friends will all be glad with him.  But that they may bless the
Long-Knife, let him fill up the hollow-wood[16] with fire-water, and
Bull Tail will take it to his lodge; then Chint-zille will be yours.”

“But Chint-zille grieves, she does not love the Long-Knife.”

“Chint-zille is foolish.  Let the Long-Knife measure the fire-water,
and she shall be yours.”

“No, Long-Knife will not do this; Chint-zille should never be the
wife of the man she does not love.”

The old chief pleaded for a long time with the trader to take the
girl and give him the liquid, but the trader was inexorable; he would
not form any such tangling alliance, so the old chief failed to get
the liquor, and he left the house with mortification and shame
depicted on his withered face.




CHAPTER VI.
THE MORMONS.



Utah was settled in 1847 by a religious community of people generally
known by the name of Mormons, but they style themselves,
“The Latter-day Saints of the Church of Jesus Christ.”

In the great valley of a vast inland sea, the existence of which was
unknown to the world seventy-five years ago, whose surroundings were
a desert in the most rigid definition of the term, a great
commonwealth has been established unparalleled in the history of
its origin by that of any of the civilized countries of the world.

Out of the most desolate of our vast arid interior areas, in less than
half a century has been evolved not only a magnificent garden spot,
but a great city with all the adjuncts of our most modern civilization.
Rich in its architecture, progressive in its art, with a literature
that is marvellous when the conditions from which it has sprung are
seriously considered, the Mormon community meets all the demands of
our ever advancing civilization.

Neither the love of gold, nor the cupidity of conquest, those
characteristics which have subordinated other portions of the
New World to the restless ambition of man, were the causes that have
revolutionized both the physical character and the social conditions
of the now wealthy and prosperous state of Utah.  As Bancroft very
forcibly states:
        Utah was settled upon an entirely new idea of God's revelation
        to the world.  Old faiths have been worked over and over;
        colonies have been built upon those tenets, but never before
        have any results comparable to those which characterize that
        of the Mormon faith been attained, in founding a community,
        based as it is upon an entirely new religion.

Originating east of the Mississippi, perhaps no sect in modern times
has been so persecuted as was that of the Mormons in their early days.
So great and unbearable had this persecution become that it was
determined by their leaders to seek some remote spot where they could
worship according to their own ideas, without fear of molestation.

The Mormon emigration to Utah was seriously considered by Brigham
Young years before 1847, the date of their exodus.  It is claimed
that he was but carrying out the plans of Joseph Smith, who early in
1842 said that his people “would yet be driven to the Rocky Mountains,
where they would be able to build a city of their own free from all
interference.”

In confirmation of this the following extract from Heber C. Kimball's
diary shows that a migration to some point west of the Rocky Mountains
was contemplated:
        Nauvoo Temple, December 31, 1845—President Young and myself
        are superintending the operations of the day, examining maps
        with reference to selecting a location for the Saints west of
        the Rocky Mountains, and reading the various works which have
        been written and published by travellers in those regions.

When it had been determined to leave for the Great Basin, winter
quarters were established on the Elk Horn River; and on the morning
of the 9th of April, 1847, the migration began, but was not fairly
inaugurated until the 14th.  The party were allowed a wagon, two oxen,
two milch cows, and a tent, to every ten of their number.  For each
wagon there was supplied a thousand pounds of flour, fifty pounds
of rice, sugar, and bacon, thirty of beans, twenty of dried apples
or peaches, twenty-five of salt, five of tea, a gallon of vinegar,
and ten bars of soap.  Every able-bodied man was compelled to carry
a rifle or musket.  His wagon served for bed and kitchen, and was
occasionally used as a boat in crossing the streams.  A day's journey
averaged about thirteen miles, with a rest at noon to dine and to
allow the cattle to graze.

For the benefit of those who were following them, the first party of
Mormons adopted some curious devices to inform their friends among
the latter how they were progressing.  For post-offices, they used
the bleached buffalo-skulls found on the prairie, which, after the
letters were placed inside, they suspended from the limbs of trees
along the route.  For guide-posts and to indicate their camping-places,
they painted on the bald fronts of other buffalo-skulls the date and
number of miles they had made.

After over three months of hardship and suffering, this party of
pioneers reached the portals of their destination.  On the 19th of
July, 1847, two of the number started from the advance camp soon after
sunrise to make a reconnoissance of the road, which left Cañon Creek
and ran along through a ravine to the west.
        The ascent was gradual for about four miles, when the dividing
        ridge was reached.  Here the two pioneers tied their horses,
        and on foot ascended a near-by mountain, Big Mountain by name,
        to obtain a glimpse of the country.  Previously, from the
        peaks of that neighbourhood, the pathfinder of the pioneer
        band had been met by a series of towering, snow-capped
        mountains, piled seemingly one upon the other, ever greeting
        his tired vision as he gazed eagerly westward, looking for
        the Promised Land.  But this time a different view was exposed.
        To the southwest, through a vista of gradually-sloping
        mountains, through an opening in the cañons, the light blue
        and the fleecy white clouds above seemed to be sinking into
        a plain of gold.  Two small portions of a level prairie were
        visible, and beyond rose a series of blue mountains, their
        peaks tipped with snow.  It was the Valley of the Great Salt
        Lake!

        From the summit of the Big Mountain, they gazed long and
        earnestly on the glorious view.  First they looked upon the
        high walls surrounding their position at the time, but ever
        would their eyes turn longingly to that little panorama of
        life and colour which appeared through a gap in the mountains,
        the yellow and green of the valley, the blue and white of the
        sky, with a foreground of dark mountains clothed in darker
        shrubbery.  The Oquirrhs rose majestically in the centre of
        the picture, and far beyond them a dim, shadowy outline of
        the Onaqui range, which completed the glorious landscape.

Previous to their arrival in the valley, on the 23d of June, the
Mormons met Jim Bridger and two of his employees en route to Fort
Laramie.  Bridger was told that he was the man of all men whom they
had been looking for, upon which he advised them to camp right where
they were, and he would tell them all he knew about the country and
the region around the Great Basin.  Camp was accordingly made,
Bridger took supper with Brigham Young, and the information he had to
impart was given in the old trapper's usual irregular way.  Learning
that the destination of the Mormons was in the Desert of the Salt Lake
Valley, Bridger offered to give one thousand dollars for the first ear
of corn raised there.  “Wait a little,” said the president of the
Mormons, “and we will show you.”  In describing to Brigham Young the
Great Salt Lake, which he called “Sevier Lake,” he said that some of
his men had spent three months going around it in canoes hunting
beaver, and that the distance was five hundred and fifty miles.

In 1856 thousands of European converts to the new religion emigrated
to Utah.  On their arrival in this country, however, they had very
little spare cash.  It was therefore decided by those in authority
that they should cross the plains with hand-carts, in which was to
be hauled their baggage.  Wagons were provided for tents, provisions,
and those who were not able to walk.

In a circular published in Liverpool by the Presidency of the British
Isles, among other things it recited that “The Lord, through his
Prophet, says of the poor, let them gird up their loins, and walk
through, and nothing shall hinder them.”

Iowa City was the point where the poor emigrants were outfitted and
received their hand-carts.  These were somewhat primitive in
construction:
        The shafts being about five feet long, and of hickory or oak,
        with crosspieces, one of them serving for a handle, forming
        the bed of the cart, under the centre of which was a wooden
        axletree, the wheels being also made of wood, with a light
        iron band, and the entire weight of the vehicle about sixty
        pounds.  Better carts were provided in subsequent years.

To each one hundred persons were furnished twenty hand-carts, five
tents, three or four milch cows, and a wagon with three yoke of oxen
to convey the provisions and camp equipage.  The quantity of clothing
and bedding was limited to seventeen pounds per capita, and the
freight of each cart, including cooking utensils, was about one
hundred pounds.

One of the companies reached the old winter quarters near the middle
of August, and there held a meeting to decide whether they should
continue the journey or encamp for the winter.  They had yet more than
a thousand miles to travel, and with their utmost efforts could not
expect to arrive in the valley until late in November.  The matter was
left with the elders, all of whom, excepting one named Levi Savage,
counselled them to go forward and trust in the Lord, who would surely
protect them.  Savage declared that they should trust, also, to such
common sense as the Lord had given them.  From his certain knowledge,
the company, containing as it did so large a number of the aged and
infirm, of women and children, could not cross the mountains thus late
in the season without much suffering, sickness, and death.  He was
overruled and rebuked for want of faith.  “Brethren and sisters,” he
replied, “what I have said I know to be true; but seeing you are going
forward, I will go with you.  May God in his mercy preserve us.”
The company set forth from their camp on the 18th, and on each
hand-cart was now placed a ninety-eight pound sack of flour, as the
wagons could not carry the entire load.  At first they travelled about
fifteen miles a day, although delays were caused by the breaking of
wheels and axles.  The heat and aridity of the plains and mountains
speedily made many of the cart-wheels rickety and unable to sustain
their burdens without frequent repairs.  Some shod the axles of their
carts with old leather, others with tin from the plates and kettles
of their mess outfit; and for grease they used their allowance of
bacon, and even their soap, of which they had but little.  On reaching
Wood River the cattle stampeded, and thirty head were lost, the
remainder being only sufficient to allow one yoke to each wagon.
The beef cattle, milch cows, and heifers were used as draft animals,
but were of little service, and it was found necessary to place
another sack of flour on each hand-cart.  The issue of beef was then
stopped, the cows gave no milk, and the daily ration was reduced to
a pound of flour, with a little rice, sugar, coffee, and bacon,
an allowance which only furnished breakfast for some of the men,
who fasted for the remainder of the day.

While encamped on the North Fork of the Platte the emigrants were
overtaken by another party of elders, returning from foreign missions,
who gave them what encouragement they could.  “Though it might storm
on their right and on their left the Lord would keep open their way
before them, and they would reach Zion in safety.”  After camping with
them for one night, the elders went on their way, promising to leave
provisions for them at Fort Laramie if possible, and to send them aid
from Salt Lake City.  On reaching Laramie no provisions were found,
and rations were again reduced, men able to work receiving twelve
ounces of flour daily, women and old men nine ounces, and children
from four to eight ounces.

As the emigrants travelled along the banks of the Sweetwater,
the nights became severe, and their bed-covering was now insufficient.
Before them were the mountains clad almost to the base with snow,
where already the storms of winter were gathering.  Gradually the
old and infirm began to droop, and soon deaths became frequent,
the companies seldom leaving their camping-ground without burying one
or more of the party.  Then able-bodied men began to succumb, a few
of them continuing to pull their carts before they died, and one or
two even on the day of their deaths.  On the morning when the first
snow-storm occurred, the last ration of flour was issued, and a march
of sixteen miles was before them to the nearest camping-ground on
the Sweetwater.  The task seemed hopeless, but at noon a wagon
drove up, containing Joseph A. Young and Stephen Taylor, from Salt
Lake City, who told them that a train of supplies would reach them
in a day or two.  Thus encouraged, the emigrants pushed forward.
By doubling their teams, and by the strongest of the party helping
the weak to drag their carts, all reached the camping-ground, though
some of the cattle perished, and during the night five persons died
of cold and exhaustion.

In the morning the snow was a foot deep, and there remained only two
barrels of biscuits, a few pounds of sugar and dried apples, and
a quarter of a sack of rice.  Two of the disabled cattle were killed,
their carcasses issued for beef, and on this and a small dole of
biscuits the emigrants were told that they must subsist until
supplies reached them.  The small remnant of provisions was reserved
for the young children and the sick.  It was now decided to remain
in camp, while the captain with one of the elders went in search of
the supply-trains.  The small allowance of beef and biscuit was
consumed the first day, and on the second day more cattle were killed
and eaten without biscuit.  On the next day there was nothing to eat,
for no more cattle could be spared.  Still the supplies came not,
being delayed by the same storm which the emigrants had encountered.
During these three days many died and numbers sickened.  Some expired
in the arms of those who were themselves almost at the point of death.
Mothers wrapped with their dying hands the remnant of their tattered
clothing around the wan forms of their perishing infants.  The most
pitiful sight of all was to see strong men begging for the morsel
of food that had been set apart for the sick and helpless.

It was now the evening of the third day, and the sun was sinking
behind the snow-clad ranges which could be traced far to the west
amid the clear, frosty atmosphere of the desert.  There were many who,
while they gazed on this scene, did not expect to see the light of
another day, and there were many who cared for life no longer, having
lost all that makes life precious.  They retired to their tents and
commanded themselves to their Maker, lay down to rest, perchance
to die.  But presently a shout of joy was raised.  From an eminence
near the western portion of the camp covered wagons were seen
approaching, with the captain at their head.  Immediately about half
of the provisions, together with a quantity of warm clothing,
blankets, and buffalo-robes were distributed to the companies.
The remainder was sent forward under charge of Grant for the use of
another company.

But the troubles of the hand-cart emigrants were not yet at an end.
Some were already beyond all human aid, some had lost their reason,
and around others the blackness of despair had settled, all efforts
to rouse them from their stupor being unavailing.  Each day the
weather grew colder, and many were frost-bitten, losing fingers,
toes, or ears, one sick man who held on to the wagon bars to avoid
jolting having all his fingers frozen.  At a camping-ground at
Willow Creek, a tributary of the Sweetwater, fifteen people were
buried, thirteen of them having been frozen to death.  Near South
Pass another company of the brethren met them, with supplies from
Salt Lake City, and from the trees near their camp several quarters
of fat beef were suspended—“a picture,” says Chislett, who had charge
of one of the companies, “that far surpassed the paintings of the
ancient masters.”  From this point warm weather prevailed, and fresh
teams from the valley constantly met them, distributing provisions
sufficient for their needs, and then travelling eastward to meet
the other company.

On reaching Salt Lake City on the 9th of November, it was found that
sixty-seven out of a total of four hundred and twenty had died on
the journey.  Of the six hundred emigrants included in Martin's
detachment, which arrived there three weeks later, a smaller
percentage perished.  The storm which overtook the party on the
Sweetwater reached them on the North Platte.  There they encamped
and waited about ten days for the weather to moderate.  Their rations
were reduced to four ounces of flour per head a day, for a few days,
until relief came.  On arriving at Salt Lake City the survivors were
received with the utmost kindness.

On their arrival at Devil's Gate on the Sweetwater, twenty men
belonging to the other company were left in charge of stock,
merchandise, and baggage, with orders to follow in the spring.
The snow fell deep, and many of the cattle were devoured by the
wolves, while others perished from cold.  The rest were slaughtered,
and on their frozen carcasses the men subsisted, their small stock
of flour and salt now being exhausted.  Game was scarce in the
neighbourhood, and with their utmost care the supply of food could
not hold out until spring.  Two of the men, with the only horses
that remained, were sent to Platte Bridge to obtain supplies; but the
animals were lost, and they returned empty-handed.  Presently the
meat was all consumed, and then their only resource was the hides,
which were cut into small pieces and soaked in hot water, after the
hair had been removed.  When the last hide had been eaten, nothing
remained but their boot-tops and the scraps of leather from their
wagon.  Even the neck-piece of a buffalo-skin which had served as
a door-mat was used for food.  Thus they kept themselves alive until
spring, when they subsisted on thistle-roots and wild garlic, until
at length relief came from Salt Lake City.[17]

On the 5th of December, 1857, John B. Floyd, then Secretary of War,
in his report to James Buchanan, President of the United States,
states that the people of Utah implicitly obeyed their prophet, and
that from the first day of their settlement in the territory it had
been their aim to secede from the Union.  He says that for years
they had not even pretended obedience to Federal authority, and that
they encouraged roaming bands of Indians to rob and massacre the
emigrants bound for the Pacific coast.

Previous to the assembling of any troops for duty in Utah to enforce
obedience to the laws of the government, an opinion was asked of
General Winfield Scott, then commanding the army, as to the feasibility
of sending an armed expedition into the territory.  Scott's decision
was most emphatically against the proposition to send troops there
so late in the season.  The general's advice was not heeded, however,
and in May orders were promulgated that the Fifth and Tenth Infantry,
the Second Dragoons, and a battery of the Fourth Artillery should
assemble at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, with the Valley of the Salt Lake
as their objective point.

In June, 1858, more than six thousand troops were mobilized for Utah,
and the command was given to Brigadier-General W. S. Harney.

In the whole military history of the country, before the Civil War,
no expedition had ever been better equipped and rationed than that
which was to be called “The Army of Occupation in Utah.”  Thousands
of cattle and immense supply-trains were started across the plains
in advance.  The price for the transportation was twenty-two cents
a pound.

These exorbitant contracts made the lucky individuals who had
secured them very wealthy.  By a little political wire-pulling he who
had secured the flour contract obtained permission to provide the
troops with Utah flour.  It cost him but seven cents a pound, but he
received the twenty-two cents which it would have cost to have
transported it from the States.

This large army was stationed in Utah Territory for nearly four years.
It is stated on good authority that the private soldiers asked of
each other, “Why were we sent here?  Why are we kept here?” while
the common people wondered whether the authorities at Washington kept
them there to make the contractors rich.

At that time the people of the territory were in a starving condition
in consequence of the failure of crops and the unusually severe
winter of 1856-1857.  There were thousands who for over a year had
never realized what a full meal meant; children by the hundreds
“endured the gnawings of hunger until hunger had become to them
a second nature”; yet despite this condition of affairs the orders
issued to General Harney from Washington display a lamentable
ignorance, or a determination to compel the Mormons to feed the
troops on the basis of the miracle of “the loaves and fishes.”
His instructions were as follows:
        It is not doubted that a surplus of provisions and forage,
        beyond the wants of the resident population, will be found
        in the Valley of Utah, and that the inhabitants, if assured
        by energy and justice, will be ready to sell them to the
        troops.  Hence, no instructions are given you for the extreme
        event of the troops being in absolute need of such supplies,
        and their being with-held by the inhabitants.  The necessities
        of such an occasion would furnish a law for your guidance.

Exactly the reverse of what was intended by the authorities at
Washington occurred in Utah.  In another chapter it is shown how the
Mormons stampeded the cattle of the supply-trains, and robbed them
of their contents, so it will be perceived that the Mormons themselves
subsisted on the rations intended for the troops, completely
controverting what was implied in the orders to General Harney.

On the day after the departure from Salt Lake of the officers[18] sent
on a special mission to investigate the condition of affairs in Utah,
Brigham Young issued a proclamation declaring martial law in Utah,
forbidding all armed forces to enter the territory under any pretence
whatever, and ordering the Mormon militia to be in readiness to march
at a moment's notice.  It is probable that the Nauvoo Legion, which
now included the entire military force of the territory, mustered at
this date from four to five thousand men.

Though imperfectly armed and equipped, and, of course, no match for
regular troops, the Mormons were not to be held in contempt.  In July,
1857,[19] the Nauvoo Legion had been reorganized, the two cohorts,
now termed divisions, having each a nominal strength of two thousand.
The division consisted of two brigades; the brigades of two regiments;
the regiments of five battalions, each of a hundred men, the
battalions being divided into companies of fifty, and the companies
into platoons of ten.  Each platoon was in charge of a lieutenant,
whose duty it was carefully to inspect the arms, ammunition, and
accoutrements.  All able-bodied males in the territory, excepting
those exempt by law, were liable to military duty, and it is probable
that the Mormons could have put in the field not less than seven
thousand raw troops, half disciplined, indeed, but inured to hardship,
and from the very nature of their environment splendid rifle-shots.

It was not the intention of the Mormons to encounter the army of Utah
in the open field, or even behind breastworks, if it could be avoided.
In order to explain their tactics a despatch sent by the
lieutenant-general of the Nauvoo Legion to Major Joseph Taylor will
make plain what they proposed to do.

        On ascertaining the locality or route of the troops, proceed
        at once to annoy them in every possible way.  Use every
        exertion to stampede their animals and set fire to their
        trains.  Burn the whole country before them and on their
        flanks.  Keep them from sleeping by night surprises; blockade
        the road by felling trees or destroying the river-fords where
        you can.  Watch for opportunities to set fire to the grass
        on their windward, so as, if possible, to envelop their
        trains.  Leave no grass before them that can be burned.
        Keep your men concealed as much as possible, and guard
        against surprises.  Save life always, when it is possible;
        we do not wish to shed a drop of blood if it can be avoided.[20]

When General Harney had joined his command and heard of the state
of affairs in Utah, he said in his characteristic bluff manner:
“I am ordered there, and I will winter in the valley or in hell!”
Before he reached the portals of the territory, however, his services
again being demanded in Kansas, Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston, then
at Fort Leavenworth, was appointed to the command of the army of Utah,
and during the interim Colonel Alexander assumed command of the forces.

About the middle of August, General Wells, in command of twelve
hundred and fifty men, supplied with thirty days' rations, established
headquarters at Echo Cañon.  Through this cañon, the Mormons
supposed, lay the path of the invading army, the only means of
avoiding the gorge being by a circuitous route northward to Soda
Springs, and thence by way of Bear River Valley, or the Wind River
Mountains.  On the western side of the cañon dams and ditches were
constructed, by means of which the road could be submerged to a depth
of several feet.  At the eastern side stone heaps were collected
and bowlders loosened from the overhanging rocks, so that a slight
leverage would hurl them on the passing troops, and parapets were
built as a protection for sharp-shooters.[21]

At this juncture a letter from General Wells was delivered to
Colonel Alexander, together with copies of the organic act, the law
of Utah, the proclamation forbidding the entrance of armed forces
into the territory, and a despatch from Brigham Young.  The last
was a remarkable document, and must have been somewhat of a surprise
to the colonel, who had proved himself one of the most gallant
soldiers of the Mexican War.  He was informed that he, Brigham Young,
was still governor of Utah, who ordered him to withdraw by the same
route he had entered.  Should he desire, however, to remain until
spring in the neighbourhood of the present encampment, he must
surrender his arms and ammunition to the Mormon quartermaster-general,
in which case he would be supplied with provisions, and would not
be molested.

Colonel Alexander replied in brief and business-like phrase.
He addressed Brigham Young as governor; stated that he would submit
his letter to the commanding officer immediately on his arrival;
that meanwhile the troops were there by order of the President, and
that their future movements and operations would depend on orders
issued by competent military authority.

In writing to brother officers en route to join their commands,
Colonel Alexander said:
        No information of the position or intentions of the commanding
        officer has reached me, and I am in utter ignorance of the
        object of the government in sending troops here, or the
        instructions given for their conduct after reaching here.
        I have decided on the following points: First, the necessity
        of a speedy move to winter quarters; second, the selection
        of a point for wintering; third, the best method of conducting
        the troops and supplies to the point selected.

A council of war was held, and the point selected was Fort Hall,
on Beaver Head Mountain, one hundred and forty miles from Fort Bridger.
So little did the colonel know about the disposition of the command,
that at the time and place when he expected to be joined by Colonel
Smith, in charge of supply-trains, that officer was still at the
South Pass, with an escort of two hundred men.

On the 11th of October the troops commenced their march.  Snow was
falling heavily, and for several days they were compelled to cut
a path for their wagons through the dense brush, their trains being
still of such unwieldy length that the vanguard had reached its
camping-ground at nightfall before the rear guard had moved from
its camp of the preceding day.  Meanwhile bands of Mormons, under
their nimble and ubiquitous leaders, hung on their flanks, just out
of rifle-shot, harassing them at every step, seven hundred oxen being
captured and driven to Salt Lake City on the 13th!

There was as yet no cavalry in the force.  A few infantry companies
were mounted on mules and sent in pursuit of the guerillas, but the
Saints merely laughed at them, terming them jackass cavalry.

The grass had been burned along the route, and the draught animals
were so weak that they could travel only three miles a day.  When the
point was reached where Smith's detachment was expected to join
the army, the commander, disappointed and sorely perplexed, called
a council of war, at which many of the officers were in favour of
cutting their way through the cañons at all hazard.

At this juncture a despatch was received from General Johnston,
who was now at South Pass, ordering the troops to proceed to
Fontenelle Creek, where pasture was abundant, and a few days later
a second despatch directed them to march to a point three miles below
the junction of Ham and Black Forks, the colonel stating that he
would join them there.  On the 3d of November they reached the place
of rendezvous, where Johnston arrived the following day, with a
reënforcement of cavalry and the supply-trains in charge of Smith.

Albert Sidney Johnston was a favourite officer, and had already given
earnest of the qualities that he displayed a few years later in the
campaigns of the Civil War, on the Confederate side.  The morale of
the army was at once restored, and each man put forth his utmost
energy at the touch of this excellent soldier.  But their troubles
were not yet ended.  The expedition was now ordered to Fort Bridger,
and at every step difficulties increased.  There were only thirty-five
miles to be travelled, but excepting on the margin of a few slender
streams the country through which their route lay was the barest of
desert land.  There was no shelter from the chill blasts of this
mountain solitude, where, even in November, the thermometer sometimes
sank to sixteen degrees below zero.  There was no fuel but the wild
sage and willow; there was little pasture for the half-frozen cattle.

The march continued on the 6th of November, and on the previous night
five hundred of the strongest oxen had been stolen by the Mormons.
The train extended over six miles, and all day long snow and sleet
fell on the retreating column.  Some of the men were frost-bitten,
and the exhausted animals were goaded by their drivers until many
fell dead in their traces.  At sunset the troops encamped wherever
they could find a particle of shelter, some under bluffs, and some
in the willow copses.  At daybreak the camp was surrounded by the
carcasses of frozen cattle.  Several hundred beasts had perished
during the night.  Still, as the trains arrived from the rear,
each one halted for a day or more, giving time for the cattle to
rest and graze on such scant herbage as they could find.  To press
forward rapidly was impossible, for it would have cost the lives
of most of the draught animals; to find shelter was equally impossible,
for there was none.  There was no alternative but to proceed slowly
and persistently, saving as many as possible of the horses, mules,
and oxen.  Fifteen days were required for this difficult operation.

Meanwhile Colonel Philip St. George Cooke, who arrived on the 19th by
way of Fort Laramie, at the head of five hundred dragoons, had fared
no better than the main body, having lost nearly half of his cattle.

On the 5th the command of Colonel Cooke passed the Devil's Gate.
While crossing what he calls a four-mile hill, he writes as follows:—

        The north wind and drifting snow became severe; the air
        seemed turned to frozen fog; nothing could be seen; we were
        struggling in a freezing cloud.  The lofty wall at Three
        Crossings was a happy relief; but the guide, who had lately
        passed there, was relentless in pronouncing that there was
        no grass.  As he promised grass and shelter two miles farther,
        we marched on, crossing twice more the rocky stream, half
        choked with snow and ice; finally he led us behind a great
        granite rock, but all too small for the promised shelter.
        Only a part of the regiment could huddle up there in the
        deep snow; whilst the long night through the storm continued,
        and in fearful eddies from above, before, behind, drove the
        falling and drifting snow.

Meanwhile the animals were driven once more across the stream to the
base of a granite ridge which faced the storm, but where there was
no grass.  They refused to eat, the mules huddling together and
moaning piteously, while some of the horses broke away from the guard
and went back to the ford.  The next day better camping-ground was
reached ten miles farther on.  On the morning of the 8th the
thermometer marked forty-four degrees below freezing point; but in
this weather and through deep snow the men made eighteen miles, and
the following day nineteen miles, to the next camping-grounds on
Bitter Creek, and in the valley of Sweetwater.  On the 10th matters
were still worse.  Herders left to bring up the rear with stray mules
could not force them from the valley, and there three-fourths of them
were left to perish.  Nine horses were also abandoned.  At night the
thermometer marked twenty-five degrees below zero; nearly all the
tent-pins were broken, and nearly forty soldiers and teamsters were
on the sick list, most of them being frost-bitten.  “The earth,”
writes the colonel, “has no more lifeless, treeless, grassless desert;
it contains scarcely a wolf to glut itself on the hundreds of dead
and frozen animals which for thirty miles nearly block the road.”

At length the army arrived at Fort Bridger—to find that the buildings
in and around it, together with those at Fort Supply, twelve miles
distant, had been burnt to the ground by Mormons, and the grain and
other provisions removed or destroyed.  All that remained were two
enclosures surrounded by walls of cobblestone cemented with mortar,
the larger one being a hundred feet square.  This was appropriated
for supplies, while on the smaller one lunettes were built and
mounted with cannon.  A sufficient garrison was stationed at this
point; the cattle were sent for the winter to Henry Fork in charge
of Colonel Cooke and six companies of the Second Dragoons, and about
the end of November the remainder of the troops went into winter
quarters on Black Fork of the Green River, two or three miles beyond
Fort Bridger, and a hundred and fifteen from Salt Lake City.  The site,
to which was given the name of Fort Scott, was sheltered by bluffs
rising abruptly at a few hundred yards from the bed of the stream.
Near by were clumps of cottonwood which the Mormons had attempted
to burn; but the wood being green and damp, the fire had merely
scorched the bark.

Though most of the beef cattle had been carried off by the Mormons or
Indians, a sufficient number of draught animals remained to furnish
meat for seven months during six days of the week, while of bacon
there was enough for one day in the week, and by reducing the ration
of flour, coffee, and other articles, they might also be made to last
until the first of June.  Parties were at once sent to Oregon and
New Mexico to procure cattle and remounts for the cavalry.  Meantime
shambles were built, to which the starved animals at Fort Henry were
driven, and butchered as soon as they had gathered a little flesh,
their meat being jerked and stored for future use.

There was not an ounce of salt in the entire camp; a supply was
proffered as a gift from Brigham Young, whom Johnston now termed,
“The great Mormon rebel,” which was rejected with contempt.  Salt was
secretly brought into the camp, but the commander would eat none
of it, and the officer's mess was soon after supplied by the Indians
at the rate of five dollars a pound!

Thus did the army of Utah pass the winter of 1857-1858, amid
privations no less severe than those endured at Valley Forge
eighty-one years before.

But meanwhile events occurred which promised a peaceful solution of
the difficulty.  The spirited resistance of the Saints had called
forth unfavourable comments on Buchanan's policy throughout the
United States and Europe.  He had virtually made war upon the
territory before any declaration had been issued; he had sent forward
an army before the causes of offence had been fairly investigated;
and now, at this critical juncture in the nation's history when there
was a possibility of the disruption of the Union, he was about to
lock up in a distant and almost inaccessible region more than
one-third of the nation's war material, and nearly all of its best
troops.  Even the soldiers themselves, though in a cheerful mood and
in excellent condition, had no heart for the approaching campaign,
accepting, as they did, the commonly received opinion that it was
merely a move on the President's political chess-board.  In a word,
Buchanan and the Washington politicians and the Johnston-Harney army
must confess themselves hopelessly beaten, before a blow was struck.
The army was powerless before the people they had come to punish.
All that remained to do was to forgive the Mormons and let them go.

Through the pressure brought to bear, the President was induced to
stop the threatened war.  On the 6th of April he signed a proclamation
promising amnesty to all who returned to their allegiance; and on
the 26th of June, 1858, the army of Utah entered the Valley of the
Great Salt Lake.

Thus ended this farcical demonstration on the part of the government
—a war without a battle!  There was, perhaps, no genuine basis of
necessity upon which to organize the expensive and disastrous
expedition against the Mormons.  The real cause, perhaps, should be
attributed to the clamour of other religious sects against what they
held to be an unorthodox belief.

The City of Salt Lake, the capital of the Mormon settlement, was
founded upon the arrival of that sect in the valley in 1847.  It is
situated in latitude 40 degrees 46 minutes north, and longitude
112 degrees 6 minutes west, (from Greenwich), at the foot of the
western slope of the Wahsatch Mountains, an extensive chain of
lofty hills, forming a portion of the eastern boundary of what is
known in our geography as the Great Basin.

The growth of this delightful mountain city in its arid, desolate
environment is a monument to the patience, industry, and devotion
to a principle which has few parallels.

The corporate limits aggregate about fifty square miles; no city in
the world, perhaps, possesses streets of such an extraordinary width.
Through their whole vast length the magnificent trees which fringe
them are irrigated by streams of pure water flowing from the several
cañons in the vicinity.  By this constant passage of these mountain
streams, the air is deliciously cooled, and Salt Lake City made one of
the most beautiful and charming places on the North American continent.

It is declared by the faithful that Brigham Young affirmed it was in
a vision that the place was designated to him by an angel from heaven
as the exact spot where the capital of Zion should be built.

By the requirements of an original ordinance each residence was to
be located twenty feet in the rear of the lot, the intervening space
forming a little park filled with flowers, trees, and shrubbery.
By the same system of irrigation which flows through the streets to
nourish the trees, the water runs into every garden spot, and
produces a beauty of verdure in what was once the most barren of
wastes.

Even in its infancy, Salt Lake City was the only charming spot
between the Missouri River and the Pacific Ocean, for in the early
days of the hazardous passage across the plains, the whole region
with rare exceptions was conspicuous for the entire absence of trees.
There was one monotonous blaze of sunshine, day after day, as the
caravans and overland coaches plodded through the alkali dust of the
desert.  The weary traveller gazed upon nothing but seemingly
interminable prairies and naked elevations, destitute of verdure,
or as he entered the rock-ribbed Continental Divide, only rugged
mountains relieved the eternal sameness of his surroundings.
Salt Lake City, nestling in its wealth of trees and flowers, was
a second “Diamond of the Desert.”  In its welcome shade, the dusty
traveller, like the solitary Sir Kenneth, reposed his jaded limbs
and dreamed of the babbling brooks and waving woodlands he had left
a thousand miles behind him.

The temple and the tabernacle, of purely Mormon conception, are the
most elaborate and attractive architectural structures in the city.

It is claimed by the faithful that the site of the temple was
announced by Brigham Young to his people on an evening in July,
1847, a very short time after the arrival of the Mormon pioneers.
The story runs that while roaming in company with some of his apostles,
about the region of the camp, discussing and declaring that where
they had halted was the very place on which to rear the new Zion,
the prophet stuck his cane in the ground and said to those who were
with him, “Here is where the temple of our God shall rise.”

Of course there was no appeal from his dictum, and from the moment
of his declaration that spot was regarded as sacred by all the people,
who firmly believed that when their leader spoke it was through
inspiration from heaven.




CHAPTER VII.
MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE.



The most terrible fate that ever befell a caravan on the Old Trail
was that known to history as the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

The story of this damnable, outrageous, and wholesale murder is as
follows:—

In the spring of 1857 a band of emigrants numbering one hundred and
thirty-six, from Missouri and Arkansas, set out for Southern
California.  The party had about six hundred head of cattle, thirty
wagons, and thirty horses and mules.  At least thirty thousand
dollars worth of plunder was collected by the assassins after the
massacre.

Owing to the impending war between the United States and the Mormons,
the Saints had been ordered not to furnish any emigrant trains with
supplies.  In view of this fact the leaders of the train found it
difficult to get provisions for the party after reaching the territory
occupied by that sect.  The party reached Salt Lake and camped about
the end of July, but finding the Mormons in so unfriendly a mood,
decided to break camp and move on.  Continuing their journey, they
proceeded to Beaver City, thence to Parowan, where they obtained
a scanty supply of provisions.

Arriving at Cedar City, they succeeded in purchasing about fifty
bushels of wheat, which was ground at a mill belonging to John D. Lee,
formerly commander of the fort at Cedar, but then Indian agent, and
in charge of an Indian farm near Harmony.

About thirty miles to the southwest of Cedar are the Mountain Meadows,
which form the divide between the waters of the Great Basin and those
which flow into the Colorado.  At the south end of the Meadows, which
are four to five miles in length and one in width, but here run to
a narrow point, is a large stream, the banks of which are about ten
feet in height.  Close to this stream the emigrants were encamped on
the 5th of September, almost midway between two ranges of low hills
some four hundred yards apart.

It was Saturday evening when the trains encamped at Mountain Meadows.
On the Sabbath they rested, and at the usual hour one of them
conducted divine service as had been their custom throughout the
journey.

At dawn on the following morning while the camp-fires were being
lighted, they were fired upon by Indians, or white men disguised as
savages, and more than twenty were killed or wounded, their cattle
having been driven off by the assailants who had crept on them under
cover of darkness.  The men now ran for their wagons, pushed them
together so as to form a corral, and dug out the earth deep enough
to sink them to the hubs; then in the centre of the enclosure they
made a rifle-pit large enough to contain the entire company.
Thereupon the attacking party, which numbered from three to four
hundred, withdrew to the hills, on the crest of which they built
parapets, whence they shot down all who showed themselves outside
the intrenchment.

The emigrants were now in a state of siege, and had little hope of
escape as all the outlets of the valley were guarded.  Their ammunition
was almost exhausted, many of their number were wounded, and their
sufferings from thirst had become intolerable.  Down in the ravine
and within a few yards of the corral was the stream of water, but only
after sundown could any of the precious liquid be obtained, and then
at great risk, for this point was covered by the muskets of the
Indians, who lurked all night among the ravines waiting for their
victims.

On the morning of the fifth day of the siege, a wagon was seen
approaching, accompanied by an escort of Mormon soldiers.  When near
the intrenchment the company halted, and one of them, William Bateman
by name, was sent forward with a flag of truce.  In answer to this
signal a little girl, dressed in white, appeared in an open space
between the wagons.  Half-way between the Mormons and the corral,
Bateman was met by one of the emigrants named Hamilton, to whom he
promised protection for his party on condition that their arms were
surrendered, assuring him that they would be conducted safely to
Cedar City.  After a brief interview each returned to his comrades.

It was arranged that John D. Lee should conclude terms with the
emigrants, and he immediately went into their camp.  Bidding the men
pile their arms into the wagon, to avoid provoking the Indians,
he placed in them the wounded, the small children, and a little
clothing.  While thus engaged, a man rode up with orders from Major
Higbee, an officer of the Mormon army, to hasten, as the Indians
threatened to renew the attack.

The emigrants were then hurried away, the men and women following
the wagons, the latter in front.  All were in single file, and on
each side of them the militia were drawn up two deep, with twenty
paces between their lines.  Within two hundred yards of the camp,
the men were halted until the women approached a copse of scrub-oak,
about a mile distant, and near which, it appears, the Indians were
in ambush.

The men now resumed their march, the militia forming in single file,
each one walking by the side of an emigrant, and carrying his musket
on the left arm.  As soon as the women were close to the ambuscade,
Higbee, who was in charge of the detachment, gave a signal, which
had evidently been prearranged, by saying to his command, “Do your
duty”; and the horrible butchery commenced.  Most of the men were
shot down at the first fire.  Three only escaped from the valley;
of these, two were quickly run down and slaughtered; the third was
slain at Muddy Creek, some fifty miles distant.

The women and those of the children who were on foot ran forward some
two or three hundred yards, when they were overtaken by Indians,
among whom were some Mormons in disguise.  The women fell on their
knees, and with clasped hands sued in vain for mercy, clutching the
garments of their murderers.  Children pleaded for life, but the
steady gaze of innocent childhood was met by the demoniac grin of
the savages, who brandished over them uplifted knives and tomahawks.
Their skulls were battered in, or their throats cut from ear to ear,
and, while still alive, the scalp was torn from their heads.  Some of
the little ones met with a more merciful death, one, an infant in
arms, being shot through the head by the same bullet that pierced its
father's heart.  Of the women none were spared, and of the children
only those who were not more than seven years of age.

To two of Lee's wagoners was assigned the duty, so called, of
slaughtering the sick and wounded.  Obeying their instructions,
they stopped their teams and despatched their unfortunate victims.
Some were shot; others had their throats cut.

The massacre was now completed, and after stripping the bodies of
all articles of value, Brother Lee and his associates went to
breakfast, returning after a hearty meal to bury their dead.

It was a ghastly sight that met their eyes on their return, and one
that caused even the assassins to shudder and turn pale.  The bodies
had been entirely denuded by the Indians.  Some of the corpses were
horribly mangled and nearly all of them scalped.  The dead were piled
in heaps in a ravine near by and a little earth thrown over them.
This was washed off by the first rains, leaving the remains to be
devoured by wolves and coyotes.

It was not until two years after the massacre that they were decently
interred, by a detachment of United States troops sent for that
purpose from Camp Floyd.

On arriving at Mountain Meadows, the soldiers found skulls and bones
scattered for the space of a mile around the ravine, where they had
been dragged by the wolves.  Nearly all of the bodies had been gnawed
by those ghouls of the desert, so that few could be recognized,
as their dismembered skeletons were bleached by the sun.  Many of
the skulls had been crushed by the butts of muskets, or cloven with
tomahawks; others were shattered by firearms discharged close to
the head.

A few remnants of apparel, torn from the backs of women and children
as they ran from their merciless pursuers, still fluttered among the
bushes, and near by were masses of human hair, matted and trodden
in the earth.

Over the last resting-place of the victims was erected a cone-shaped
cairn, twelve feet high.  Against its northern base was a slab of
rough granite with the following inscription: “Here 120 men, women,
and children were massacred in cold blood, early in September, 1857.
They were from Arkansas.”  Surmounting the cairn was a cross of cedar,
inscribed with the words: “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith
the Lord.”

The survivors of the awful slaughter were seventeen children, from
two months to seven years of age, who were carried, on the evening
of the massacre, by John D. Lee and others to the house of Jacob
Hamblin, and afterward placed in charge of Mormon families at various
points in the territory.  All of them were recovered in the summer
of 1858, with the exception of one, who was rescued a few months
later, and though thinly clad, they bore no marks of ill-usage.
In 1859 they were conveyed to Arkansas, the Congress of the United
States having appropriated ten thousand dollars for their rescue and
restoration to relatives.

Those concerned in the massacre had pledged themselves by the most
solemn oaths to stand by each other, and ever to insist that the deed
was done entirely by Indians.  For several months this was the
accepted theory, but when it became known that some of the children
had been spared, suspicion at once pointed elsewhere, for among all
the murders committed by the Utes, there was not a single instance
of their having shown any such mercy.  Moreover, it was ascertained
that an armed party of Mormons had left Cedar City, and had returned
with spoil, and that the savages complained of having been unfairly
treated in the division of the booty.

It is claimed that when John D. Lee discovered that the United States
authorities suspected him as being the principal actor in the awful
tragedy, he left the valley of the Great Salt Lake, and hid himself
in one of the cañons of the Colorado,[22] where he remained for years
suffering that terrible anxiety which comes to all fugitives from
justice, sooner or later, and which is said by those who have
experienced it to be absolutely unbearable.

In 1874, under the provisions of what is legally known as the
“Poland Bill,” whereby the better administration of justice was
subserved, the Grand Jury was instructed to investigate the Mountain
Meadows Massacre, and find bills of indictment against John D. Lee,
William H. Dame, Isaac C. Haight, and others.  Warrants were issued
for their arrest, and after a vigorous search Lee and Dame were
captured, Lee having been discovered in a hog-pen at a small
settlement on the Sevier River.

On the 23d of July, 1875, the trial was begun, at Beaver City,
in Southern Utah.  Much delay ensued, however, by the absence of
witnesses, and by the fact that Lee had promised to make a full
confession, and turn state's evidence.  His statement was not
accepted by the court, and the case was brought to trial on the
23d of July, with the expected result, that the jury, eight of whom
were Mormons, failed to agree.

Lee was then tried a second time, and it was proved that the Mormon
Church had nothing to do with the massacre; that Lee, in fact, had
acted in direct opposition to the officers of the Church.  It was
shown that he was a villain and a murderer of the deepest dye; that
with his own hands, after inducing the emigrants to surrender and
give up their arms, he had shot two women and brained a third with
the butt-end of his musket, and had cut the throat of a wounded man
whom he had dragged from one of the wagons; that he had gathered
the property of the emigrants and disposed of it for his own benefit.
It was further proved that Lee shot two or three of the wounded, and
that when two girls, who had been hiding in the brush, were brought
into his presence by an Indian after the massacre, the latter asked
what was to be done with them, to which Lee replied, “They are too
old to be spared.”  “They are too pretty to be killed,” answered
the chief.  “Such are my orders,” said Lee, whereupon the Indian
shot one, and Lee, dragging the other to the ground, cut her throat.

Lee was convicted of murder in the first degree, and, having been
allowed to select his own method of execution, was sentenced to be
shot.  The case was appealed to the supreme court of the territory,
but the judgment was sustained, and it was ordered that the sentence
be carried into effect on the 23d of March, 1877.  The others who
had been tried were discharged from custody.

A short time before his execution Lee made a confession in which he
attempted to palliate his guilt by throwing the burden of the crime
on his accomplices, especially on Haight and Higbee, and to show that
the massacre was committed by order of Brigham Young and the High
Council, all of which was absolutely false.

On the 13th of March he wrote:
        I feel as composed and as calm as a summer morning.  I hope
        to meet my fate with manly courage.  I declare my innocence.
        I have done nothing designedly wrong in that unfortunate and
        lamentable affair with which I have been implicated.  I used
        my utmost endeavours to save them from their sad fate.
        I freely would have given worlds, were they at my command,
        to have averted that evil.  Death to me has no terror.  It is
        but a struggle, and all is over.  I know that I have a reward
        in heaven, and my conscience does not accuse me.

Ten days later he was led to execution at the Mountain Meadows.
Over that spot the curse of the Almighty seemed to have fallen.
The luxuriant herbage that had clothed it twenty years before had
disappeared; the springs were dry and wasted, and now there was
neither grass nor any green thing, save here and there a copse of
sage-brush or scrub-oak, that served but to make its desolation still
more desolate.  It is said that the phantoms of the murdered emigrants
still flit around the cairn that marks their grave, and nightly
reënact in ghastly pantomime the scene of this hideous tragedy.

About ten o'clock on the morning of the 23d a party of armed men,
alighting from their wagons, approached the site of the massacre.
Among them were the United States marshal, William Nelson, the
district attorney, a military guard, and a score of private citizens.
In their midst was John Doyle Lee.  Blankets were placed over the
wheels of one of the wagons, to serve as a screen for the firing
party.  Some rough boards were then nailed together in the shape of
a coffin, which was placed near the edge of the cairn, and upon it
Lee took his seat until the preparations were completed.  The marshal
now read the order of the court, and, turning to the prisoner, said,
“Mr. Lee, if you have anything to say before the order of the court
is carried into effect you can do so now.”

Rising from his coffin, he looked calmly around for a moment, and
then with unfaltering voice repeated the statements already quoted
from his confession.  “I have but little to say this morning,”
he added.  “It seems I have to be made a victim; a victim must be had,
and I am the victim.  I studied to make Brigham Young's will my
pleasure for thirty years.  See now what I have come to this day!
I have been sacrificed in a cowardly, dastardly manner.  I cannot
help it; it is my last word; it is so.  I do not fear death; I shall
never go to a worse place than I am now in.  I ask the Lord my God,
if my labours are done, to receive my spirit.”

A Methodist clergyman, who acted as his spiritual adviser, then knelt
by his side and offered a brief prayer, to which he listened
attentively.  After shaking hands with those around him, he removed
a part of his clothing, handing his hat to the marshal, who bound
a handkerchief over his eyes, his hands being free at his own request.
Seating himself with his face to the firing party, and with hands
clasped over his head, he exclaimed: “Let them shoot the balls
through my heart.  Don't let them mangle my body.”

The word of command was given, the report of the rifles rang forth
on the still morning air, and without a groan or quiver the body of
the criminal fell back lifeless on his coffin.

God was more merciful to him than he had been to his victims.[23]

Once one of Russell, Majors, & Waddell's trains, upon arriving at
the Little Blue River below Kearney, en route to Fort Laramie, had
a little skirmish with the Sioux.  One of the party, who was going
to the Fort to erect a sawmill for the government,[24] tells about it
as follows:—

        I had travelled ahead of the train a mile or more, had gotten
        off my mule, laid down awhile, and I believe fell asleep.
        On awaking I saw three Indians coming out of the brush on
        the creek bottom; I took a glance at them, and quietly stood
        where I was.  After a while they approached me; I mounted
        my mule and held my loaded shot-gun before me across the
        saddle, with my finger on the trigger.  Two formed themselves
        in front of me and one behind.  I paid no special attention
        to them, but they immediately began to make signs in relation
        to swapping their horses for my mule.  I merely pointed to
        the U.S. on the shoulder of the animal, indicating that it
        was not my property.  They quickly saw they couldn't scare me,
        though I didn't know but what they were making up their minds
        to kill me; finally, however, without any further
        demonstration they rode off one at a time, and left me,
        where I remained until my train came up.

        When we made camp that afternoon a good-sized band of
        Cheyennes and Arapahoes gathered around with their usual
        salutations of “How? How?”  I suggested to the wagon-master
        to boil some old coffee-grounds after we had eaten our dinner,
        and with some sugar and crackers or something of that
        character, give them to the Indians, which was done.  In the
        afternoon we moved out on the road toward Kearney and ahead
        of us was a train going unloaded to the same place.  As we
        strung out on the trail I noticed that the chief of the band,
        I think he was known as “Hairy Bear” of the Cheyennes, and
        all of his warriors were riding along, one opposite nearly
        every driver.  I told the wagon-master that he had better
        stop the train and tell the Indians they must take either
        one end of the road or the other, as it was evident they
        were getting ready for a row.  Upon discovering that we were
        “up to” their little job, they went ahead.

        At dark, after we had encamped again, the assistant
        wagon-master of the train in front came to us and told of
        a little scrap he had with these same Indians.  One of them
        at first undertook to snatch the handkerchief off his neck;
        another Indian had shot two or three arrows after a teamster,
        then they rode off.

        Our train went on five miles, where we were going to camp,
        when a messenger was sent by the commanding officer at the
        fort suggesting that the two caravans camp together, which
        we did.  In the morning, when we started out, I rode ahead
        on my mule as usual, and when I had got about half-way to
        the fort I saw the white shoulder-blade of a buffalo setting
        up on end about fifty yards from the road.  I rode out and
        picked it up; it was standing on end with a little wisp of
        grass wrapped around it; on the face of it were three men
        painted red.  The broad end of the blade in the ground was
        marked out like a fort, with little black spots, meaning
        tracks of soldiers, and a man in black was there with his
        rifle drawn, and resting across one of the red men's necks.
        Another was shot below the shoulder-joint, and one had his
        arm broken.  Painted in red, right up toward the joint,
        was a wolf trotting from it.  This indicated that the Indians
        had had a fight; three of them had been wounded, one in
        the back, one in the neck, and one had his arm broken.
        There were also three spears, the points of which were stuck
        in the ground, indicating that three Indians were dead and
        had no more use for the weapons.

        I took the bone to the fort and there the interpreter told
        what it all meant.  I discovered it to be a valuable history
        of what was going on: the Cheyennes and Arapahoes who had
        been with us had separated; the Arapahoes had gone away and
        tried to steal some ponies; they would be along pretty soon.
        All this occurred after the Arapahoes had separated from
        the Cheyennes.  The latter had placed the shoulder-blade of
        the buffalo on the trail, to prevent their making the mistake
        of going to the fort, where, after their trouble with the
        train, the soldiers would make it hot for them; but as I had
        found their message first, their plan was frustrated.

        Later on the Indians came to the fort, and one of the
        teamsters who had been wounded happened to be there, and he
        picked out the very Indian who had shot him.  The commanding
        officer directed the sergeant of the guard to arrest the
        savage, which he did, and proceeded to put him in irons.
        While fastening on a ball and chain, the Indian struck the
        soldier on the head who was holding him.  Upon this the
        commanding officer told one of the guards to shoot him, which
        the man did very promptly.  The bullet went clear through
        the Indian, and shot one of the interpreter's fingers off.
        After this little incident, there was a general free-for-all
        fight, in which the Indians were badly worsted.  After this
        battle the Indians went south and were not troublesome for
        some time.

When the snow began to melt from the mountain peaks in the spring
the little insignificant creeks swelled up and for a few weeks were
transformed into raging torrents, too deep or too dangerous to ford.
At such seasons the few ranchmen who were in the country built
temporary bridges across them, hardly ever exceeding fifty feet in
length.  While the streams were high, these bridges were a veritable
gold-mine from the revenue paid by the freighters as toll.  In order,
however, to make their toll lawful, every bridge-owner was required
to possess himself of a charter from the secretary of the territory,
and approved by the governor.  This official document simply
authorized the proprietor to charge such toll as he saw fit, which
was always extravagantly high—usually five dollars for each team
of six yoke of cattle and wagon.  These ranchmen also kept an
assortment of groceries and barrels of whiskey, for the latter of
which the teamsters were always liberal customers.

It very often happened, through ignorance of the law or from ignoring
it, that these ranchmen took out no charter, because its possession
was so rarely questioned.

At the trail-crossing of Rock Creek was one of these frontier
toll-bridges.  In the spring of 1866 two trains were travelling in
company, one in charge of a man known as Stuttering Brown, because
of an impediment in his speech.  He was a man of undoubted courage,
and determined.  When angry, he indulged in some of the quaintest and
wittiest original expressions imaginable; but if you laughed at him,
he became very much offended, as he was particularly sensitive about
the impediment of his speech.  Still, he was a man who appreciated
a joke, and enjoyed it even if it was upon himself.

Brown's train comprised twenty teams, and the other twenty-six.
His train happened to be in the lead that day, and as they neared
the bridge, Brown rode back to the other wagon-master and said:—

“B-B-Billy, wh-what are you g-g-going to do about p-p-paying t-t-toll
on this b-b-bridge?”

He answered that if the fellow had a charter, he would be compelled
to pay; otherwise he would not, as probably the charges were
exorbitant.  Brown argued they might have some trouble with the
ranchman if pay was refused, as they generally had a pretty tough
crowd around them who were ready for any kind of a skirmish.

His friend called attention to the fact that together they had
fifty-five men, well armed on account of probable Indian troubles.
They were all good fighters, and they would ask for no greater fun
than cleaning out the ranch, if it was discovered that the proprietor
had no charter.

Brown returned to the bridge, where the ranchman stood preparing
to collect his toll, which was five dollars a team in advance.
This would require one hundred dollars from Brown and a hundred and
thirty from the other train.  Brown refused point blank to pay the
bill, and the ranchman asked him upon what grounds.

Brown's reply was:—

“Y-Y-You h-h-haint g-g-got no ch-ch-charter.”  The ranchman answered
him that he had, and if he would go back to the ranch with him,
he would show it.  The ranch was only a few hundred yards away.

Brown accompanied him, and in a short time returned to the train.
His friend asked him if the charter was all right, to which Brown
replied in the affirmative, saying that he had settled for his outfit,
and that his friend had better do the same, which he accordingly did.

After crossing the bridge, the other wagon-master noticed that Brown
was very much amused about something, occasionally indulging in loud
bursts of laughter.  His friend inquired the cause of his mirth, but
he refused to tell.

When they arrived at the camping-ground that evening, and after
corralling the trains and placing out the proper guards, Brown invited
his friend to take supper with him.  While eating he was asked what
had so amused him during the afternoon.  He said that when he went up
to the ranch to see the bridge charter, he rode to the door, sat on
his mule, and asked the ranchman to trot out his charter and be d——d
quick about it.

The man went into a black room and pretty soon returned, shouting:—

“You stuttering thief, here it is!  What do you think about it?”

Brown looked up and found that he was peering into the muzzle of
a double-barrelled gun, probably loaded with buck-shot.  The ranchman
was pointing it directly at his head, with both triggers cocked.
Brown saw he was in earnest, and asked if that was the charter.
The ranchman replied that it was.

His friend then asked, “What did you do, Brown?”

“N-N-Not much.  J-J-Just t-t-told him, th-th-that's good, and settled.”

Some years afterward, when Brown was part owner and superintendent
of the Black Hills stage-line, he was waylaid and killed by the
Indians, while on a return trip from Custer City.  Thus ended the
career of one of the bravest and best of the men on the frontier.

One of the most famous of temporary toll-ferries was over the
trail-crossing of Green River.  It was owned by Bill Hickman,
a Mormon, and as the river was seldom fordable he reaped a rich
harvest of gold from the emigrant trains.  His prices for crossing
teams depended upon the ability of their owners to pay, varying from
five to twenty dollars each.  The old ford may still be seen just
below the station of Green River on the Union Pacific Railroad.

During the preparation for the Mormon war the supply-trains of the
government were constantly harassed by that people.  The genius of
campaigning by destroying trains was Major Lot Smith.  One evening,
at the head of forty men, after riding all night, he came in sight
of a westward-bound government train.  On coming up to it he ordered
the drivers to turn round and go back on their trail.  They obeyed
promptly, but as soon as Smith was out of sight, they wheeled around
and travelled west again.  During the day a party of Mormon troops
passed them, and taking all of the freight out of the wagons, left
them standing there.

Smith was afterward informed by his scouts that a caravan of
twenty-six wagons was approaching.  Upon this information he halted
his men and, after eating, started again at dusk, approached the
train while it was in camp at a place near Simpson's Hollow, and
ambushed his party for several hours.  Meanwhile, he learned that
there were two trains, each of twenty-six wagons; but in fact as was
afterward discovered there were really three of seventy-five wagons
in all.

About midnight, while only a few of the teamsters were gathered
around their camp-fire, some of them drinking, some smoking, they
suddenly saw what seemed to be an endless procession of armed and
mounted men emerge from the darkness.

Smith, quietly coming up, asked for the captain of the outfit, whose
name was Dawson.  As a majority of the teamsters were asleep, their
guns fastened to the covers of the wagons, and any resistance almost
hopeless, Dawson stepped forward, surrendered, and told his men to
stack their arms and group themselves on a spot designated by Smith.
Smith dealt successively with the other trains in like manner.  Then,
after lighting two torches, he handed one of them to a Gentile in
his party, known as Big James, remarking at the same time, “It is
eminently proper for a Gentile to spoil a Gentile.”

Riding from wagon to wagon, Smith's men set fire to the covers, which
rapidly caught in the crisp mountain air, and were soon all ablaze.
Dawson, meanwhile, was ordered by Smith to the rear of the trains
to take out provisions for his captors, and when everything was
fairly burning he and his party rode away, first informing his
panic-stricken captives that he would return as soon as he had
delivered the provisions to his comrades near by, and instantly shoot
any one who should make any attempt to extinguish the flames.

The destruction of these supply-trains was a severe blow to the army
of occupation; both troops and animals suffered severely in
consequence of the loss of provisions.

The year 1865 was fruitful of Indian depredations along the Old Trail,
particularly that portion which ran through the Platte Valley.
The Sioux and Cheyennes allied themselves in large bands against
the whites, and raided the beautiful region from one end to the
other.  Theirs was a trail of blood like that of Attila, “The Scourge,”
and their fiendish acts rivalled those of that monster of the Old World.

On the south side of the Platte River, about a hundred and twenty-five
miles from Denver, were located, successively, three ranches, known
as the Wisconsin, the American, and Godfrey's.

On the morning of the 19th of January, of the year above mentioned,
a company of cavalry, marching from Denver, passed along by the
Wisconsin Ranch a little before nine o'clock.  As the Indians were
on the war-path, and upon request of the proprietor, the captain of
the company promised to send back ten men of his troop, to help
defend the property, as they were going to their station a few miles
east of there.

The cavalry had hardly disappeared from view across the divide when
the savages began their attack.  The captain of the cavalry, hearing
the continuous firing, immediately returned with his command, and
at once a fierce battle took place a short distance from the ranch.
The troops retreated and went into camp at Valley Station.

There were seven white persons living on the ranch at that time:
Mr. Mark M. Coad, P. B. Danielson, his wife and two children, besides
two hired men.  They fought the Indians until five o'clock in the
afternoon without any outside assistance, and had killed several.
About noon the savages set fire to the haystack and stable, which
caused a dense smoke to settle over the house in which the besieged
were sheltered.

As the fight progressed, the Indians seemed determined to have the
building at any hazard; so they cut a large amount of wood and piled
it against the back door, with the intention of burning it down so
as to gain an entrance.  The door was blockaded with sacks of grain,
to prevent the bullets from coming into the room, and while the
savages were placing the wood on the outside, the men quietly removed
the sacks of grain.  When the besiegers were ready to kindle the fire,
the door was swung open, and Mr. Coad, springing to the opening as
it swung back, killed three of the Indians, and wounded several more
with his two pistols, then jumped back and the door was closed.

The daring act was performed so quickly that the savages were
instantly demoralized.  They dared not return the shots for fear of
killing some of their own party who were attempting to enter the house.

After the door was again closed the Indians regained their senses,
and a perfect shower of bullets rained against the house.  The savages,
now discouraged from the suddenness and effect of Mr. Coad's attack,
and the loss of so many of their number, retreated to their camp and
hostilities ceased for the time.

While this battle was in progress at the Wisconsin ranch, another
fight was going on at the American ranch, twelve miles east.
This ranch was occupied by the Messrs. Morrissey, one of whom had
his wife, two children, and six or eight hired men.

It was subsequently shown that the men must have fought very
desperately, as they were found locked arm in arm with the savages,
holding their pistols or knives in their hands.  The ranch was
looted of its valuables and burned.  The whites were all killed,
excepting Mrs. Morrissey and her two children, who were taken
prisoners and carried off by the Indians, but shortly afterward were
surrendered to the government.  Early in the morning of the same day
the Indians attacked the Godfrey ranch.  There were living there
Mr. Godfrey, better known as Old Ricket; his wife; his daughter,
a girl of fourteen years; and two other white men.

They fought the savages for several hours, and finally, seeing that
they stood no chance of capturing the place, the Indians determined
to burn it; so they set fire to the haystack which stood near the
building.  After the Indians had lighted the stack, Mr. Godfrey's
little daughter rushed out of the door with a bucket of water,
extinguished the flames, and returned safely into the house,
notwithstanding the shower of bullets and arrows that rained all
around her.

The Indians just then, somehow learning that the American ranch
had been taken, and there was a chance for them in the division
of the spoils, withdrew all their force and went down there.

From there they went on to the Wisconsin ranch, which had not been
captured, for the purpose of reënforcing the besieging party at
that place.  The besieged had succeeded in sending a messenger
during the day to the commanding officer of the troops at Valley
Station, asking for assistance to enable them to get away from
the ranch, well knowing that the savages would return in the morning,
with reënforcements.  The captain sent up a detachment of fifteen
men, and escorted the people of the ranch down to the Station.
The next morning Mr. Coad, with a detachment of troops as escort,
and several wagons, started for the purpose of taking away the goods
to a place of safety.  When approaching the ranch they found it in
the possession of the Indians; and the troops, seeing the strength
of the savage force, knew that it would be worse than useless to
attempt to drive them away; so they returned to the Station.
Thus three of the finest ranches on the trail at that time were
destroyed.

One of the most disastrous and effectual raids by the savages during
the year 1865 was the burning and sacking of Julesburg, which was
within rifle-shot of Fort Sedgwick, on the South Platte River, in
what is now Weld County, Colorado.

There the government established a military reservation, comprising
sixty-four square miles, in the exact centre of which the fort was
located.  The reservation extended across the river, and included
the mouth of Pole Creek, a small tributary of the Platte, which
debouches into it from the north.

The original Julesburg, at that time,[25] was a mere hamlet of crude
frame buildings, and but for the proximity of Fort Sedgwick it would
have been destroyed long before it was.

On the morning of the 2d of February, the men at the stage station,
called Julesburg, discovered a small band of Indians in the valley
to the east of them, who were evidently out on the war-path, as they
had all their paraphernalia on, were finely mounted, hideously
painted, and profusely decorated with feathers.  Possessing a fair
knowledge of the savage character and rightly conceiving the intention
of the savages, the station employees incontinently left for the fort
for safety, and to give the alarm of the presence of the Indians.

Captain O'Brien, who was in command of Fort Sedgwick, had already
had some experience in savage warfare; and, although his force was
extremely small, immediately upon receipt of the intelligence that
hostile Indians were in the vicinity and that the overland stage
station was in danger, he sounded boots and saddles.  Thirty-five
soldiers reënforced by volunteer citizens were soon on the trail
of the savages, led by the gallant captain.

The government scouts had that morning reported that there were no
Indians near, and consequently no apprehension of danger entered the
minds of either soldier or civilian; little did they surmise that
just out of sight over the divide more than two thousand of the
painted devils were hiding.

The small band of savages that had entered the valley, and which had
been first seen by the station men, were pursued for some distance,
when they separated and rode out into the sand-hills.  At almost the
same instant, while the soldiers were after them, swarms of savages
began to pour into the valley in the rear of the troops, about
a half a mile west of them.  They soon massed in great numbers, and
rapidly closed every avenue of escape, riding in bands and giving
vent to the most horrid war-whoops and unearthly yells as they saw
their vantage.

Captain O'Brien ordered his troopers to dismount, and, enjoining his
men to keep cool, to make every shot tell, turned upon the Indians
and opened fire where they were thickest.  There ensued one of the
most sanguinary struggles, considering the few soldiers engaged,
that the plains have ever witnessed.

“Load and fire at will” was the order, and the repeating rifles of
the soldiers made awful havoc; the slaughter immediately in front of
the white men was indeed terrible, and the Indians, demoralized at
the manner in which their ranks were being decimated, hurriedly
fell back.  This permitted the troops to make considerable advance
in the direction of the fort before they again halted.

Pressed on each flank and in rear, the troops were compelled to
divert their fire to those points, but when the progress of the
savages was again stayed, they once more concentrated their shots
where they were densely massed in front.  It appeared as if every
ball found its victim.  The discharges were so rapid, and the aim
so careful, that the Indians had to give way before it, permitting
the soldiers to advance once more.  Thus they fought step by step,
with great loss, but brave to the last degree.

It was a fortunate matter that the savages were armed principally
with bows and arrows, there being very few rifles among them.  Had it
been otherwise, had the Indians been armed with repeating rifles,
as were the whites, it is probable that not a single soldier would
have been left to tell the story.  The Indians filled the air with
flights of arrows, but woe to the Indian who came within range of
the deadly rifles!  Many shafts with spent force fell harmlessly
among the soldiers.  Many inflicted slight wounds, and some were
fatal.  Some of the whites were killed by bullets, some by arrows.

Reënforcements from the fort finally opened an avenue of escape
for the remaining whites, and eighteen of the forty men who went out
in the morning came back; the rest were killed, scalped, and
mutilated by the savages!  Their bodies, however, were recovered and
buried on the side of the bluff just south of the fort, and headboards
with appropriate inscriptions mark the final resting-place of each.

When they found that a part of their prey would escape, the Indians
began to turn their attention to pillaging at the stage station.
One house contained a general assortment of groceries and outfitting
goods.  These they loaded upon their ponies and carried over the
river.  They then disappeared among the hills, leaving all the
buildings on fire.

The stage company had a large amount of grain and supplies stored at
the station.  These were burned, and a treasure-coach with fifty
thousand dollars in money was captured.

As soon as Captain O'Brien reached the fort, he ordered out the
field-pieces and commenced shelling the enemy.  Being a very expert
gunner, he directed the fire of the guns so effectively as to kill
a large number of savages.  A crowd of redskins had gathered round
some open boxes of raisins and barrels of sugar, when a shell burst
in the midst of them, killing thirteen, as was afterward admitted by
some of the Indians present.  They also admitted the loss of more
than a hundred warriors during the fight.

In January, 1867, Mr. J. F. Coad, now of Omaha, had a contract with
the United States army to supply all the government military posts
between Julesburg and Laramie with wood.  He left home about the 17th
of the month, and was escorted by a company of soldiers, who were
en route to Fort Laramie, as far as forty miles beyond Julesburg,
where he left them, and proceeded up Pole Creek, thence to Lawrence's
Fork, where his men and wagons were, to commence work on his contract.

On the morning after his arrival at his wagon-camp, Mr. Coad and
three of his employees, while loading wood about a mile and a half
from camp, were attacked by about forty Indians, who came charging
down the valley and prevented their retreat to the ranch.  Seeing
that they were entirely cut off and without any hope of assistance,
they immediately concluded that their only escape from death was to
run for their lives, and get back into the hills, if possible,
believing that on account of the steep and rugged trail the savages
could not pursue them.

It was fearfully cold, the thermometer ranging about twenty-five
degrees below zero.  Just as they started to put their plan in motion,
another band of Indians was coming up the valley.  These joined the
others, and bore down on the white men.

On arriving at the base of the hill up which the white men were
climbing, the Indians dismounted and started on foot after them.
Seeing their tactics, Mr. Coad and his companions took off all their
superfluous clothing and threw it away, notwithstanding the severity
of the temperature.  One of the men, in passing near a ledge of rock,
discovered a hiding-place under it, dropped down and crawled in,
filling his tracks with dirt as he backed into the cave.  The Indians
in trailing the party passed by this rock, returned to it, and held
a council.  They then went back to their horses.  The other white men
secreted themselves in a cañon, built a fire, and there remained
until long after dark.

Left in the wagon-camp were three other men, who had a hard fight
with the Indians from about eleven o'clock in the morning until
three in the afternoon.  They were inside of the cabin, and managed
to keep the savages at a safe distance by firing at them through
the crevices whenever they came within rifle-shot.  The Indians kept
riding in a circle around the cabin for several hours, and, finding
they could not dislodge the three brave men, they abandoned the
attempt, after losing one of their ponies, which received a
rifle-bullet in his foreleg.

Some of the wood-choppers who had been at work a mile and a half up
the valley also had an exciting experience during the day with the
savages, but came out unharmed.

After the entire party of white men assembled in camp that night,
a council was held, and it was determined to send a messenger to the
commanding officer of the post at Julesburg, stating the condition
of affairs and the number of Indians supposed to be in the vicinity.

The next morning Mr. Coad and his men gathered what cattle they could
find, intending to leave for the fort.  They started, got on top of
the divide, and camped for the night.  A raging blizzard set in,
one of those terrible storms of snow and wind characteristic of the
region, and the cattle sought shelter from the fearful weather by
returning to the valley which they had left the day before, and where
there was plenty of timber.  The party was able, however, to hold
a few head.  So they hitched them up to the mess-wagon and returned
to their old camp, intending to wait until the messenger they had
sent to the fort should arrive with troops; but they were not sure
he had gone safely through.

The next morning Mr. Coad started east on the divide on the only
horse the Indians had left him, and about nine o'clock that night
he met Lieutenant Arms, of the Second Cavalry, in command of
Company E of that regiment.

Lieutenant Arms told him that he had met a large war-party of savages
about four o'clock that afternoon, and was detained fighting them
until after dark, when they disappeared and went south, at a point
about ten miles west of Sidney.  Lieutenant Arms had captured several
head of cattle and two of Mr. Coad's horses from the Indians in this
engagement.

Mr. Coad returned with the troops to the camp on Lawrence's Fork,
arriving there at two o'clock in the morning.  The temperature that
night was thirty degrees below zero, and the troops suffered terribly
from the extreme cold during their march.  After arriving in the
timber and getting something to eat, all turned in in their blankets
and rested until daylight the next morning.  As soon as breakfast was
disposed of, the command started on their return march, crossed the
divide which they had travelled over the previous night, and at three
o'clock in the morning reached Pole Creek, where they rested until
daylight.  As soon as the day dawned they started south, endeavouring
to find the trail of the Indians.  The weather was extremely cold,
the thermometer ranging about thirty degrees below zero.  In the
afternoon, while on the divide, the snow being very deep, the command
was completely lost, and wandered aimlessly for several hours, not
knowing which course to take.  Finally, when it was nearly dark, they
came within sight of Pole Creek, immediately recognized the locality,
and were saved.

At night, after travelling all the next day, they reached a ranch
about thirty-five miles west of Julesburg, where they stopped and
were made comfortable.  It was discovered, after the command had
thawed out, that out of thirty-six men thirty were more or less
frozen; some had frozen noses, some their ears, some their toes,
and two had suffered so badly their feet had to be amputated.
On the following day an ambulance arrived from Julesburg, to bring
in the men who were in the worst condition.  Those who were able
mounted their horses and reached the post all right.

During those early years, before the growth of the great states
beyond the Missouri, a mighty stream of immigration rushed onward
to the unknown, illimitable West.  Its pathway was strewn with
innumerable graves of men, women, and little children.  Silence and
oblivion have long since closed over them forever, and no one can
tell the sad story of their end, or even where they lay down.
Occasionally, however, the traveller comes across a spot where some
of these brave pioneers succumbed to death.  One of the most noted
of these may be seen about two miles from the town of Gering, on the
Old Trail, in what is now known as Scott's Bluffs County, Nebraska.
Around the lonely grave was fixed a wagon-tire, and on it rudely
scratched the name of the occupant of the isolated sepulchre,
“Rebecca Winter,” and the date, 1852.  The tire remains as it was
originally placed, and, as if to immortalize the sad fate of the
woman, many localities in the vicinity derive their names from that
on the rusty old wagon tire: “Winter Springs,” “Winter Creek Precinct,”
and the “Winter Creek Irrigation Company”!




CHAPTER VIII.
THE PONY EXPRESS.



Owing to the gold discoveries of 1849, the state of California was
born in almost a single day.  The ocean route to the Pacific was
tedious and circuitous, and the impetuosity of the mining population
demanded quicker time for the delivery of its mails than was taken by
the long sea-voyage.  From the terminus of telegraphic communication
in the East there intervened more than two thousand miles of a region
uninhabited, except by hostile tribes of savages.  The mail from the
Atlantic seaboard, across the Isthmus of Darien to San Francisco,
took at least twenty-two days.  The route across the desert by stage
occupied nearly a month.

To reduce this time was the absorbing thought of the hour.
Senator Gwinn of California, known after the Maximilian escapade in
Mexico as “Duke Gwinn,” first made the suggestion to the proprietors
of the Overland Stage Line that if they could carry the mails to the
Pacific coast in a shorter time than it then required, and would
keep the line open all the year, increased emigration and the building
of a railroad by the government would be the result.[26]

The following is an authentic history of the Pony Express, as related
to the authors of this work by Colonel Alexander Majors, the surviving
member of the once great firm of Russell, Majors, & Waddell, who were
the originators of the scheme.

In the winter of 1859, while the senior partner of the firm was in
Washington, he became intimately acquainted with Senator Gwinn of
California, who, as stated previously, was very anxious that a quicker
line for the transmission of letters should be established than that
already worked by Butterfield; the latter was outrageously circuitous.

The senator was acquainted with the fact that the firm of Russell,
Majors, & Waddell were operating a daily coach from the Missouri River
to Salt Lake City, and he urged Mr. Russell to consider seriously
the propriety of starting a pony express over the same route, and
from Salt Lake City on to Sacramento.

After a lengthy consultation, Mr. Russell consented to attempt the
thing, provided he could induce his partners to take the same view
of the proposed enterprise as himself, and he then returned to
Leavenworth, the head-quarters of the firm, to consult the other
members.  On learning the proposition suggested by Senator Gwinn,
both Colonel Majors and Mr. Waddell at once decided that the expense
would be much greater than any possible revenue from the undertaking.

Mr. Russell, having, as he thought, partially at least, committed
himself to the Senator, was much chagrined at the turn the affair
had taken, and he declared that he could not abandon his promise
to Mr. Gwinn, consequently his partners must stand by him.

That urgent appeal settled the question, and work was commenced to
start the Pony Express.

On the Overland Stage Line operated by the firm, stations had been
located every ten or twelve miles, which were at once utilized for
the operation of the express; but beyond Salt Lake City new stations
must be constructed, as there were no possible stopping-places on
the proposed new route.  In less then two months after the promise
of the firm had been pledged to Senator Gwinn, the first express was
ready to leave San Francisco, and St. Joseph, Missouri, simultaneously.

The fastest time ever thus far made on the “Butterfield Route” was
twenty-one days between San Francisco and New York.  The Pony Express
curtailed that time at once by eleven days, which was a marvel of
rapid transit at that period.

The plant necessary to meet the heavy demand made on the originators
of the fast mail route over the barren plains and through the
dangerous mountains was nearly five hundred horses, one hundred and
ninety stations, two hundred men to take care of these stations,
and eighty experienced riders, each of whom was to make an average
of thirty-three and one-third miles.  To accomplish this each man
used three ponies on his route, but in cases of great emergency
much longer distances were made.

The letters or despatches to be carried by the daring men were
required to be written on the finest tissue paper, weighing half
an ounce, five dollars being the charge for its transportation.

As suggested by two members of the firm, when they protested that
the business would not begin to meet the expenses, their prophecies
proved true; but they were not disappointed, for one of the main
objects of the institution of the express was to learn whether the
line through which the express was carried could be made a permanent
one for travel during all the seasons of the year.  This was
determined in the affirmative.

One of the most important transactions of the Pony Express was the
transmittal of President Buchanan's last message, in December, 1860,
from the Missouri River to Sacramento, over two thousand miles,
in eight days and a few hours, and the next in importance was the
carrying of President Lincoln's message, his inaugural of March 4,
1861, over the same route in seven days and seventeen hours.
This was the quickest time for horseback riding, considering the
distance made, ever accomplished in this or any other country.

In the spring of 1860 Bolivar Roberts, superintendent of the western
division of the Pony Express, came to Carson City, Nevada, to engage
riders and station-agents for the Pony Express route across the
Great Plains.  In a few days fifty or sixty were engaged—men noted
for their lithe, wiry physiques, bravery and coolness in moments
of great personal danger, and endurance under the most trying
circumstances of fatigue.  Particularly were these requirements
necessary in those who were to ride over the lonely route.  It was
no easy duty; horse and human flesh were strained to the limit of
physical tension.  Day or night, in sunshine or in storm, under the
darkest skies, in the pale moonlight and with only the stars at
times to guide him, the brave rider must speed on.  Rain, hail, snow,
or sleet, there was no delay; his precious burden of letters demanded
his best efforts under the stern necessities of the hazardous service;
it brooked no detention; on he must ride.  Sometimes his pathway led
across level prairies, straight as the flight of an arrow.  It was
oftener a zigzag trail hugging the brink of awful precipices, and
dark, narrow cañons infested with watchful savages eager for the
scalp of the daring man who had the temerity to enter their mountain
fastnesses.

At the stations the rider must be ever ready for emergencies;
frequently double duty was assigned him.  He whom he was to relieve
had been murdered by the Indians perhaps, or so badly wounded, that
it was impossible for him to take his tour; then the already tired
expressman must take his place, and be off like a shot, although he
had been in the saddle for hours.

The ponies employed in the service were splendid specimens of speed
and endurance; they were fed and housed with the greatest care,
for their mettle must never fail the test to which it was put.
Ten miles at the limit of the animal's pace was exacted from him,
and he came dashing into the station flecked with foam, nostrils
dilated and every hair reeking with perspiration, while his flanks
thumped at every breath!

Nearly two thousand miles in eight days must be made; there was no
idling for man or beast.  When the express rode up to the station,
both rider and pony were always ready.  The only delay was a second
or two as the saddle-pouch with its precious burden was thrown on and
the rider leaped into his place, then away they rushed down the trail
and in a moment were out of sight.

Two hundred and fifty miles a day was the distance travelled by the
Pony Express, and it may be assured the rider carried no surplus
weight.  Neither he nor his pony were handicapped with anything that
was not absolutely necessary.  Even his case of precious letters made
a bundle no larger than an ordinary writing tablet, but there was
five dollars paid in advance for every letter transported across the
continent.  Their bulk was not in the least commensurable with their
number, there were hundreds of them sometimes, for they were written
on the thinnest tissue paper to be procured.  There were no silly
love missives among them nor frivolous correspondence of any kind;
business letters only, that demanded the most rapid transit possible
and warranted the immense expense attending their journey, found
their way by the Pony Express.

The mail-bags were two pouches of leather impervious to rain, sealed,
and strapped to the rider's saddle before and behind.  The pouches
were never to contain over twenty pounds in weight.  Inside the
pouches, to further protect their contents from the weather,
the letters and despatches were wrapped in oil-silk, then sealed.
The pockets themselves were locked and were not opened between
St. Joseph and Sacramento.

The Pony Express as a means of communication between the two remote
coasts was largely employed by the government, merchants, and traders,
and would eventually have been a paying venture had not the
construction of the telegraph across the continent usurped its
usefulness.

The arms of the Pony Express rider, in order to keep the weight at
a minimum, were, as a rule, limited to revolver and knife.

The first trip from St. Joseph to San Francisco, nineteen hundred
and sixty-six miles, was made in ten days; the second in fourteen,
the third and many succeeding trips in nine.  The riders had a
division of from one hundred to one hundred and forty miles, with
relays of horses at distances varying from twenty to twenty-five miles.

In 1860 the Pony Express made one trip from St. Joseph to Denver,
six hundred and twenty-five miles, in two days and twenty-one hours.

The Pony Express riders received from one hundred and twenty to
one hundred and twenty-five dollars a month.  But few men can
appreciate the danger and excitement to which those daring and plucky
men were subjected; it can never be told in all its constant variety.
They were men remarkable for their lightness of weight and energy.
Their duty demanded the most consummate vigilance and agility.
Many among their number were skilful guides, scouts, and couriers,
and had passed eventful lives on the Great Plains and in the Rocky
Mountains.  They possessed strong wills and a determination that
nothing in the ordinary event could balk.  Their horses were
generally half-breed California mustangs, as quick and full of
endurance as their riders, and were as sure-footed and fleet as
a mountain goat; the facility and pace at which they travelled was
a marvel.  The Pony Express stations were scattered over a wild,
desolate stretch of country, two thousand miles long.  The trail
was infested with “road agents,” and hostile savages who roamed in
formidable bands ready to murder and scalp with as little compunction
as they would kill a buffalo.

Some portions of the dangerous route had to be covered at the
astounding pace of twenty-five miles an hour, as the distance between
stations was determined by the physical character of the region.

The day of the first start, says Colonel Majors, on the 3d of April,
1860, at noon, Harry Roff, mounted on a spirited half-breed broncho,
left Sacramento on his perilous ride, covering the first twenty miles,
including one change, in fifty-nine minutes.  On reaching Folsom
he changed again and started for Placerville at the foot of the
Sierra Nevada Mountains, fifty-five miles distant.  There he connected
with “Boston,” who took the route to Friday's Station, crossing the
eastern summit of the Sierra Nevada.  Sam Hamilton next fell into line
and pursued his way to Genoa, Carson City, Dayton, Reed's Station,
and Fort Churchill, seventy-five miles.  The entire run was made in
fifteen hours and twenty minutes, the whole distance being one hundred
and eighty-five miles, which included the crossing of the western
summit of the Sierra Nevada through thirty feet of snow!  Here Robert
Haslam took the trail from Fort Churchill to Smith's Creek,
one hundred and twenty miles through a hostile Indian country.
From that point Jay G. Kelley rode from Smith's Creek to Ruby Valley,
Utah, one hundred and sixteen miles.  From Ruby Valley to Deep Creek,
H. Richardson, one hundred and five miles; from Deep Creek to Rush
Valley, old Camp Floyd, eighty miles.  From Camp Floyd to Salt Lake
City, fifty miles, the end of the western division, was ridden by
George Thacher.

On the same day, and the same moment, Mr. Russell superintended the
start of the Pony Express from its eastern terminus.  An arrangement
had been made with the railroads between New York and Saint Joseph
for a fast train which was scheduled to arrive with the mail at the
proper time.  The Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad also ran a special
engine, and the boat which made the crossing of the Missouri River
was detained for the purpose of instantly transferring the letters.
Mr. Russell in person adjusted the letter-pouch on the pony.
Many of the enthusiastic crowd who had congregated to witness the
inauguration of the fast mail plucked hairs from the hardy little
animal's tail as talismans of good luck.  In a few seconds the rider
was mounted, the steamboat gave an encouraging whistle, and the pony
dashed away on his long journey to the next station.

The large newspapers of both New York and the Pacific coast were
ready patronizers of the express.  The issues of their papers were
printed on tissue manufactured purposely for this novel way of
transmitting the news.  On the arrival of the pony from the West,
the news brought from the Pacific and along the route of the trail
was telegraphed from St. Joseph to the East the moment the animal
arrived with his important budget.

To form some idea of the enthusiasm created by the inauguration of
the Pony Express, the _St. Joseph Free Democrat_ said in relation
to this novel method of carrying the news across the continent:—

        Take down your map and trace the footprints of our
        quadrupedantic animal: From St. Joseph, on the Missouri,
        to San Francisco, on the Golden Horn—two thousand miles—
        more than half the distance across our boundless continent;
        through Kansas, through Nebraska, by Fort Kearney, along the
        Platte, by Fort Laramie, past the Buttes, over the Rocky
        Mountains, through the narrow passes and along the steep
        defiles, Utah, Fort Bridger, Salt Lake City, he witches
        Brigham with his swift pony-ship—through the valleys, along
        the grassy slopes, into the snow, into sand, faster than
        Thor's Thialfi, away they go, rider and horse—did you
        see them?

        They are in California, leaping over its golden sands,
        treading its busy streets.  The courser has unrolled to us
        the great American panorama, allowed us to glance at the
        home of one million people, and has put a girdle around
        the earth in forty minutes.  Verily the riding is like the
        riding of Jehu, the son of Nimshi, for he rideth furiously.
        Take out your watch.  We are eight days from New York,
        eighteen from London.  The race is to the swift.

A whole volume might be gathered of the stirring incidents and
adventures of the hardy employees of the Pony Express in its two
years of existence.  The majority of the actors in that memorable
enterprise have passed beyond the confines of time.

J. G. Kelley, one of the veteran riders, now living in Denver,
tells his story of those eventful days, when he rode over the lonely
trail carrying despatches for Russell, Majors, & Waddell.

        Yes, I was a Pony Express rider in 1860, and went out with
        Bolivar Roberts, and I tell you it was no picnic.  No amount
        of money could tempt me to repeat my experience of those days.
        To begin with, we had to build willow roads, corduroy fashion,
        across many places along the Carson River, carrying bundles
        of willows two and three hundred yards in our arms, while
        the mosquitoes were so thick that it was difficult to tell
        whether the man was white or black, so thickly were they
        piled on his neck, face, and arms.

        Arriving at the Sink of the Carson River, we began the
        erection of a fort to protect us from the Indians.  As there
        were no rocks or logs in that vicinity, it was built of
        adobes, made from the mud on the shores of the lake.  To mix
        this and get it to the proper consistency to mould into
        adobes, we tramped all day in our bare feet.  This we did
        for a week or more, and the mud being strongly impregnated
        with alkali carbonate of soda, you can imagine the condition
        of our feet.  They were much swollen and resembled hams.
        We next built a fort at Sand Springs, twenty miles from
        Carson Lake, and another at Cold Springs, thirty-seven miles
        east of Sand Springs.  At the latter station I was assigned
        to duty as assistant station-keeper, under Jim McNaughton.

        The war against the Pi-Ute Indians was then at its height,
        and as we were in the middle of their country, it became
        necessary for us to keep a standing guard night and day.
        The Indians were often skulking around, but none of them ever
        came near enough for us to get a shot at him, till one dark
        night when I was on guard, I noticed one of our horses prick
        up his ears and stare.  I looked in the direction indicated
        and saw an Indian's head projecting above the wall.
        My instructions were to shoot if I saw an Indian within
        rifle-range, as that would wake the boys quicker than anything
        else; so I fired and missed my man.

        Later on we saw the Indian camp-fires on the mountain, and
        in the morning many tracks.  They evidently intended to
        stampede our horses, and if necessary kill us.  The next day
        one of our riders, a Mexican, rode into camp with a bullet-hole
        through him from the left to the right side, having been shot
        by Indians while coming down Edwards Creek, in the Quaking
        Aspen Bottom.  He was tenderly cared for but died before
        surgical aid could reach him.

        As I was the lightest man at the station, I was ordered to
        take the Mexican's place on the route.  My weight was then
        one hundred pounds, while I now weigh one hundred and thirty.
        Two days after taking the route, on my return trip, I had to
        ride through the forest of quaking aspen where the Mexican
        had been shot.  A trail had been cut through these little
        trees, just wide enough to allow horse and rider to pass.
        As the road was crooked and the branches came together from
        either side, just above my head when mounted, it was
        impossible for me to see ahead for more than ten or fifteen
        yards, and it was two miles through the forest.  I expected
        to have trouble, and prepared for it by dropping my
        bridle-reins on the neck of the horse, putting my Sharp's
        rifle at full cock, and keeping both my spurs into the pony's
        flanks, and he went through that forest “like a streak of
        greased lightning.”

        At the top of the hill I dismounted to rest my horse, and
        looking back saw the bushes moving in several places.
        As there were no cattle or game in that vicinity, I knew the
        movements to be caused by Indians, and was more positive
        of it, when, after firing several shots at the spot where I
        saw the bushes in motion, all agitation ceased.  Several days
        after that two United States soldiers, who were on their way
        to their command, were shot and killed from the ambush of
        those bushes, and stripped of their clothing by the red devils.

        One of my rides was the longest on the route.  I refer to
        the road between Cold Springs and Sand Springs, thirty-seven
        miles, and not a drop of water.  It was on this ride that
        I made a trip which possibly gave to our company the contract
        for carrying the mail by stage-coach across the Plains,
        a contract that was largely subsidized by Congress.

        One day I trotted into Sand Springs covered with dust and
        perspiration.  Before I reached the station I saw a number of
        men running toward me, all carrying rifles, and one of them
        with a wave of his hand said, “All right, you pooty good boy;
        you go.”  I did not need a second order, and as quickly as
        possible rode out of their presence, looking back, however,
        as long as they were in sight, and keeping my rifle handy.

        As I look back on those times I often wonder that we were not
        all killed.  A short time before, Major Ormsby of Carson City,
        in command of seventy-five or eighty men, went to Pyramid Lake
        to give battle to the Pi-Utes, who had been killing emigrants
        and prospectors by the wholesale.  Nearly all of the command
        were killed.  Another regiment of about seven hundred men,
        under the command of Colonel Daniel E. Hungerford and Jack
        Hayes, the noted Texas Ranger, was raised.  Hungerford was
        the beau-ideal of a soldier, as he was already the hero of
        three wars, and one of the best tacticians of his time.
        This command drove the Indians pell-mell for three miles to
        Mud Lake, killing and wounding them at every jump.  Colonel
        Hungerford and Jack Hayes received, and were entitled,
        to great praise, for at the close of the war terms were made
        which have kept the Indians peaceable ever since.  Jack Hayes
        died several years ago in Alameda, California.  Colonel
        Hungerford, at the ripe age of seventy years, is hale and
        hearty, enjoying life and resting on his laurels in Italy,
        where he resides with his granddaughter, the Princess Colonna.

        As previously stated it is marvellous that the pony boys were
        not all killed.  There were only four men at each station,
        and the Indians, who were then hostile, roamed over the
        country in bands of from thirty to a hundred.

        What I consider my most narrow escape from death was being
        shot at by a lot of fool emigrants, who, when I took them to
        task about it on my return trip, excused themselves by saying,
        “We thought you was an Indian.”

Another of the daring riders of the Pony Express was Robert Haslam.[27]
He says:
        About eight months after the Pony Express was established,
        the Pi-Ute war commenced in Nevada.  Virginia City, then the
        principal point of interest, and hourly expecting an attack
        from the hostile Indians, was only in its infancy.  A stone
        hotel on C street was in course of construction, and had
        reached an elevation of two stories.  This was hastily
        transformed into a fort for the protection of the women and
        children.  From the city the signal-fires of the Indians could
        be seen on every mountain peak, and all available men and
        horses were pressed into service to repel the impending
        assault of the savages.

        When I reached Reed's Station, on the Carson River, I found
        no change of horses, as all those at the station had been
        seized by the whites to take part in the approaching battle.
        I fed the animal that I rode, and started for the next
        station, called Buckland's, afterward known as Fort Churchill,
        fifteen miles farther down the river.  It was to have been
        the termination of my journey (as I had changed my old route
        to this one, in which I had had many narrow escapes, and
        been twice wounded by the Indians), and I had already ridden
        seventy-five miles; but, to my great astonishment, the other
        rider refused to go on.  The superintendent, W. C. Marley,
        was at the station, but all his persuasion could not prevail
        on the rider, Johnson Richardson, to take the road.  Turning
        then to me, Marley said:—

        “Bob, I will give you fifty dollars if you make this ride.”

        I replied, “I will go at once.”

        Within ten minutes, when I had adjusted my Spencer rifle,
        which was a seven-shooter and my Colt's revolver, with two
        cylinders ready for use in case of emergency, I started.
        From the station onward it was a lonely and dangerous ride
        of thirty-five miles, without a change, to the Sink of the
        Carson.  I arrived there all right, however, and pushed on
        to Sand Springs, through an alkali bottom and sand-hills,
        thirty miles farther, without a drop of water all along
        the route.  At Sand Springs I changed horses and continued
        on to Cold Springs, a distance of thirty-seven miles.
        Another change and a ride of thirty more miles brought me
        to Smith's Creek.  Here I was relieved by J. G. Kelley.
        I had ridden one hundred and eighty-five miles, stopping
        only to eat and change horses.

        After remaining at Smith's Creek about nine hours, I started
        to retrace my journey with the return express.  When I
        arrived at Cold Springs, to my horror I found that the
        station had been attacked by Indians, the keeper killed,
        and all the horses taken away.  I decided in a moment what
        course to pursue—I would go on.  I watered my horse, having
        ridden him thirty miles on time, he was pretty tired, and
        started for Sand Springs, thirty-seven miles away.  It was
        growing dark, and my road lay through heavy sage-brush,
        high enough in some places to conceal a horse.  I kept a
        bright lookout, and closely watched every motion of my poor
        pony's ears, which is a signal for danger in an Indian
        country.  I was prepared for a fight, but the stillness of
        the night and the howling of the wolves and coyotes made cold
        chills run through me at times; but I reached Sand Springs in
        safety and reported what had happened.  Before leaving,
        I advised the station-keeper to come with me to the Sink of
        the Carson, for I was sure the Indians would be upon him the
        next day.  He took my advice, and so probably saved his life,
        for the following morning Smith's Creek was attacked.
        The whites, however, were well protected in the shelter of
        a stone house, from which they fought the savages for four
        days.  At the end of that time they were relieved by the
        appearance of about fifty volunteers from Cold Springs.
        These men reported that they had buried John Williams,
        the brave keeper of that station, but not before he had been
        nearly devoured by the wolves.

        When I arrived at the Sink of the Carson, I found the
        station-men badly frightened, for they had seen some fifty
        warriors, decked out in their war-paint and reconnoitring.
        There were fifteen white men here, well armed and ready for
        a fight.  The station was built of adobe, and was large enough
        for the men and ten or fifteen horses, with a fine spring
        of water within a few feet of it.  I rested here an hour,
        and after dark started for Buckland's, where I arrived without
        a mishap and only three and a half hours behind schedule time.
        I found Mr. Marley at Buckland's, and when I related to him
        the story of the Cold Springs tragedy and my success,
        he raised his previous offer of fifty dollars for my ride to
        one hundred.  I was rather tired, but the excitement of the
        trip had braced me up to withstand the fatigue of the journey.
        After a rest of one and a half hours, I proceeded over my own
        route from Buckland's to Friday's Station, crossing the
        Sierra Nevada.  I had travelled three hundred and eighty miles
        within a few hours of schedule time, and was surrounded by
        perils on every hand.

After the Pony Express was discontinued Pony Bob was employed by
Wells, Fargo, & Company as an express rider in the prosecution of
their transportation business.  His route was between Virginia City,
Nevada, and Friday's Station and return, about one hundred miles,
every twenty-four hours; schedule time, ten hours.  This engagement
continued for more than a year; but as the Union Pacific Railway
gradually extended its line and operations, the Pony Express business
as gradually diminished.  Finally the track was completed to Reno,
Nevada, twenty-three miles from Virginia City, and over this route
Pony Bob rode for more than six months, making the run every day,
with fifteen horses, inside of one hour.  When the telegraph line
was completed, the Pony Express over this route was withdrawn, and
Pony Bob was sent to Idaho, to ride the company's express route of
one hundred miles, with one horse, from Queen's River to the Owyhee
River.  He was at the former station when Major McDermott was killed
at the breaking out of the Modoc War.

On one of his rides he passed the remains of ninety Chinamen who had
been killed by the Indians, only one escaping to tell the tale.
Their bodies lay bleaching in the sun for a distance of more than
ten miles from the mouth of Ives Cañon to Crooked Creek.  This was
Pony Bob's last experience as Pony Express rider.  His successor,
Macaulas, was killed by the Indians on his first trip.

A few daredevil fellows generally did double duty and rode eighty or
eighty-five miles.  One of them was Charles Cliff, now living in
Missouri, who rode from St. Joseph to Seneca and back on alternate
days.  He was attacked by Indians at Scott's Bluff, receiving three
balls in his body and twenty-seven in his clothes.  He made Seneca
and back in eight hours each way.

James Moore, the first post-trader at Sidney, Nebraska, made a ride
which may well lay claim to be one of the most remarkable on record.
He was at Midway Station, in Western Nebraska, on June 8, 1860, when
a very important government despatch for the Pacific coast arrived.
Mounting his pony, he sped on to Julesburg, one hundred and forty
miles away, and he got every inch of speed out of his mounts.
At Julesburg he met another important government despatch for
Washington.  The rider who should have carried the despatch east had
been killed the day before.  After a rest of only seven minutes and
without eating a meal, Moore started for Midway, and he made the round
trip, two hundred and eighty miles, in fourteen hours and forty-six
minutes.  The west-bound despatch reached Sacramento from St. Joseph
in eight days, nine hours, and forty minutes.

The authors of this book may be pardoned for the inevitable
introduction here of the part taken by one of them in this service.
Their old friend Colonel Majors, a well-known figure for many years
in frontier life, when speaking of “Billy” Cody, as he was called in
those days, says that while engaged in the express service, his route
lay between Red Buttes and Three Crossings,[28] a distance of one
hundred and sixteen miles.  It was a most dangerous, long, and lonely
trail, including the perilous crossing of the North Platte River,
which at that place was half a mile wide and, though generally shallow,
in some places reached a depth of twelve feet, a stream often much
swollen and very turbulent.  An average of fifteen miles an hour had
to be made, including change of horses, detours for safety, and time
for meals.

He passed through many a gauntlet of death in his flight from station
to station, bearing express matter that was of the greatest value.

Colonel Cody, in telling the story of his own experiences with the
Pony Express, says:—

        The enterprise was just being started.  The line was stocked
        with horses and put into good running order.  At Julesburg
        I met Mr. George Chrisman, the leading wagon-master of
        Russell, Majors, & Waddell, who had always been a good friend
        to me.  He had bought out “Old Jules,” and was then the owner
        of Julesburg Ranch, and the agent of the Pony Express line.
        He hired me at once as a Pony Express rider, but as I was so
        young he thought I was not able to stand the fierce riding
        which was required of the messengers.  He knew, however, that
        I had been raised in the saddle—that I felt more at home
        there than in any other place—and as he saw that I was
        confident that I could stand the racket, and could ride as far
        and endure it as well as some of the old riders, he gave me
        a short route of forty-five miles, with the stations fifteen
        miles apart, and three changes of horses.  I was fortunate in
        getting well-broken animals, and being so light I easily made
        my forty-five miles on my first trip out, and ever afterward.

        As the warm days of summer approached I longed for the cool
        air of the mountains; and to the mountains I determined to go.
        When I returned to Leavenworth I met my old wagon-master and
        friend, Lewis Simpson, who was fitting out a train at Atchison
        and loading it with supplies for the Overland Stage Company,
        of which Mr. Russell, my old employer, was one of the
        proprietors.  Simpson was going with this train to Fort Laramie
        and points farther west.

        “Come along with me, Billy,” said he, “I'll give you a good
        lay-out.  I want you with me.”

        “I don't know that I would like to go as far west as that
        again,” I replied, “but I do want to ride the Pony Express
        once more; there's some life in that.”

        “Yes, that's so; but it will soon shake the life out of you,”
        said he.  “However, if that's what you've got your mind set on,
        you had better come to Atchison with me and see Mr. Russell,
        who, I'm pretty certain, will give you a situation.”

        I met Mr. Russell there and asked him for employment as a
        Pony Express rider; he gave me a letter to Mr. Slade, who was
        then the stage-agent for the division extending from Julesburg
        to Rocky Ridge.  Slade had his headquarters at Horseshoe
        Station, thirty-six miles west of Fort Laramie, and I made the
        trip thither in company with Simpson and his train.

        Almost the first person I saw after dismounting from my horse
        was Slade.  I walked up to him and presented Mr. Russell's
        letter, which he hastily opened and read.  With a sweeping
        glance of his eye he took my measure from head to foot, and
        then said:—

        “My boy, you are too young for a Pony Express rider.  It takes
        men for that business.”

        “I rode two months last year on Bill Trotter's division, sir,
        and filled the bill then; and I think I am better able to ride
        now,” said I.

        “What! are you the boy that was riding there, and was called
        the youngest rider on the road?”

        “I am the same boy,” I replied, confident that everything was
        now all right for me.

        “I have heard of you before.  You are a year or so older now,
        and I think you can stand it.  I'll give you a trial, anyhow,
        and if you weaken you can come back to Horseshoe Station and
        tend stock.”

        Thus ended our interview.  The next day he assigned me to
        duty on the road from Red Buttes on the North Platte to the
        Three Crossings of the Sweetwater—a distance of seventy-six
        miles—and I began riding at once.  It was a long piece of
        road, but I was equal to the undertaking; and soon afterward
        had an opportunity to exhibit my power of endurance as a
        Pony Express rider.

        For some time matters progressed very smoothly, though I had
        no idea that things would always continue so.  I was well
        aware that the portion of the trail to which I had been
        assigned was not only the most desolate and lonely, but it
        was more eagerly watched by the savages than elsewhere on the
        long route.

        Slade, the boss, whenever I arrived safely at the station,
        and before I started out again, was always very earnest in
        his suggestions to look out for my scalp.

        “You know, Billy,” he would say, “I am satisfied yours will
        not always be the peaceful route it has been with you so far.
        Every time you come in I expect to hear that you have met
        with some startling adventure that does not always fall to
        the average express rider.”

        I replied that I was always cautious, made detours whenever
        I noticed anything suspicious.  “You bet I look out for
        number one.”  The change soon came.

        One day, when I galloped into Three Crossings, my home station,
        I found that the rider who was expected to take the trip out
        on my arrival, had gotten into a drunken row the night before
        and had been killed.  This left that division without a rider.
        As it was very difficult to engage men for the service in that
        uninhabited region, the superintendent requested me to make
        the trip until another rider could be secured.  The distance
        to the next station, Rocky Ridge, was eighty-five miles and
        through a very bad and dangerous country, but the emergency
        was great and I concluded to try it.  I therefore started
        promptly from Three Crossings without more than a moment's
        rest.  I pushed on with the usual rapidity, entering every
        relay station on time, and accomplished the round trip of
        three hundred and twenty-two miles back to Red Buttes without
        a single mishap and on time.  This stands on the records as
        being the longest Pony Express journey ever made.

        A week after making this trip, and while passing over the
        route again, I was jumped on by a band of Sioux Indians who
        dashed out from a sand ravine nine miles west of Horse Creek.
        They were armed with pistols, and gave me a close call with
        several bullets, but it fortunately happened that I was
        mounted on the fleetest horse belonging to the express company,
        and one that was possessed of remarkable endurance.  Being cut
        off from retreat back to Horseshoe, I put spurs to my horse,
        and lying flat on his back, kept straight for Sweetwater,
        the next station, which I reached without accident, having
        distanced my pursuers.  Upon reaching that place, however,
        I found a sorry condition of affairs, as the Indians had made
        a raid on the station the morning of my adventure with them,
        and after killing the stock-tender had driven off all the
        horses, so that I was unable to get a remount.  I therefore
        continued on to Ploutz' Station—twelve miles farther—thus
        making twenty-four miles straight run with one horse.  I told
        the people at Ploutz' what had happened at Sweetwater Bridge,
        and went on and finished the trip without any further adventure.

        About the middle of September the Indians became very
        troublesome on the line of the stage-road along the Sweetwater.
        Between Split Rock and Three Crossings they robbed a stage,
        killed the driver and two passengers, and badly wounded
        Lieutenant Flowers, the assistant division agent.
        The redskinned thieves also drove off the stock from the
        different stations, and were continually lying in wait for
        the passing stages and Pony Express riders, so that we had to
        take many desperate chances in running the gauntlet.

        The Indians had now become so bad and had stolen so much stock
        that it was decided to stop the Pony Express for at least six
        weeks, and to run the stages only occasionally during that
        period; in fact, it would have been impossible to continue
        the enterprise much longer without restocking the line.

        While we were thus all lying idle, a party was organized to
        go out and search for stolen stock.  This party was composed
        of stage-drivers, express-riders, stock-tenders, and ranchmen
        —forty of them all together—and they were well armed and
        well mounted.  They were mostly men who had undergone all
        kinds of hardships and braved every danger, and they were
        ready and anxious to “tackle” any number of Indians.
        Wild Bill, who had been driving stage on the road and had
        recently come down to our division, was elected captain of
        the company.  It was supposed that the stolen stock had been
        taken to the head of the Powder River and vicinity, and the
        party, of which I was a member, started out for that section
        in high hopes of success.

        Twenty miles out from Sweetwater Bridge, at the head of Horse
        Creek, we found an Indian trail running north toward Powder
        River, and we could see by the tracks that most of the horses
        had been recently shod and were undoubtedly our stolen
        stage-stock.  Pushing rapidly forward, we followed this trail
        to Powder River; thence down this stream to within about forty
        miles of the spot where old Fort Reno now stands.  Here the
        trail took a more westerly course along the foot of the
        mountains, leading eventually to Crazy Woman's Fork—
        a tributary of Powder River.  At this point we discovered that
        the party whom we were trailing had been joined by another
        band of Indians, and, judging from the fresh appearance of the
        trail, the united body could not have left this spot more than
        twenty-four hours before.

        Being aware that we were now in the heart of the hostile
        country and might at any moment find more Indians than we had
        lost, we advanced with more caution than usual and kept a
        sharp lookout.  As we were approaching Clear Creek, another
        tributary of Powder River, we discovered Indians on the
        opposite side of the creek, some three miles distant; at least
        we saw horses grazing, which was a sure sign that there were
        Indians there.

        The Indians, thinking themselves in comparative safety—never
        before having been followed so far into their own country by
        white men—had neglected to put out any scouts.  They had no
        idea that there were any white men in that part of the country.
        We got the lay of their camp, and then held a council to
        consider and mature a plan for capturing it.  We knew full
        well that the Indians would outnumber us at least three to one,
        and perhaps more.  Upon the advice and suggestion of Wild Bill,
        it was finally decided that we should wait until it was nearly
        dark, and then, after creeping as close to them as possible,
        make a dash through their camp, open a general fire on them,
        and then stampede the horses.

        This plan, at the proper time, was very successfully executed.
        The dash upon the enemy was a complete surprise to them.
        They were so overcome with astonishment that they did not know
        what to make of it.  We could not have astounded them any more
        had we dropped down into their camp from the clouds.  They did
        not recover from the surprise of this sudden charge until
        after we had ridden pell-mell through their camp and got away
        with our own horses as well as theirs.  We at once circled the
        horses around toward the south, and after getting them on the
        south side of Clear Creek, some twenty of our men—just as the
        darkness was coming on—rode back and gave the Indians a few
        parting shots.  We then took up our line of march for
        Sweetwater Bridge, where we arrived four days afterward with
        all our own horses and about one hundred captured Indian ponies.

        The expedition had proved a grand success, and the event was
        celebrated in the usual manner—by a grand spree.  The only
        store at Sweetwater Bridge did a rushing business for several
        days.  The returned stock-hunters drank and gambled and fought.
        The Indian ponies, which had been distributed among the
        captors, passed from hand to hand at almost every deal of
        cards.  There seemed to be no limit to the rioting and
        carousing; revelry reigned supreme.  On the third day of the
        orgy, Slade, who had heard the news, came up to the bridge and
        took a hand in the “fun,” as it was called.  To add some
        variation and excitement to the occasion, Slade got into a
        quarrel with a stage-driver and shot him, killing him almost
        instantly.

        The boys became so elated as well as “elevated” over their
        success against the Indians that most of them were in favour
        of going back and cleaning out the whole Indian race.  One old
        driver especially, Dan Smith, was eager to open a war on all
        the hostile nations, and had the drinking been continued
        another week he certainly would have undertaken the job,
        single-handed and alone.  The spree finally came to an end;
        the men sobered down and abandoned the idea of again invading
        the hostile country.  The recovered horses were replaced on
        the road, and the stages and Pony Express again began running
        on time.

        Slade, having taken a great fancy to me, said, “Billy, I want
        you to come down to my headquarters, and I'll make you a sort
        of supernumerary rider, and send you out only when it is
        necessary.”

        I accepted the offer and went with him down to Horseshoe,
        where I had a comparatively easy time of it.  I had always
        been fond of hunting, and I now had a good opportunity to
        gratify my ambition in that direction, as I had plenty of
        spare time on my hands.  In this connection I will relate one
        of my bear-hunting adventures.  One day, when I had nothing
        else to do, I saddled up an extra Pony Express horse, and,
        arming myself with a good rifle and pair of revolvers,
        struck out for the foot-hills of Laramie Peak for a bear-hunt.
        Riding carelessly along, and breathing the cool and bracing
        mountain air which came down from the slopes, I felt as only
        a man can feel who is roaming over the prairies of the far
        West, well armed and mounted on a fleet and gallant steed.
        The perfect freedom which he enjoys is in itself a refreshing
        stimulant to the mind as well as the body.  Such indeed were
        my feelings on this beautiful day as I rode up the valley of
        the Horseshoe.  Occasionally I scared up a flock of sage-hens
        or a jack-rabbit.  Antelopes and deer were almost always in
        sight in any direction, but, as they were not the kind of
        game I was after on that day, I passed them by and kept on
        toward the mountains.  The farther I rode the rougher and
        wilder became the country, and I knew that I was approaching
        the haunts of the bear.  I did not discover any, however,
        although I saw plenty of tracks in the snow.

        About two o'clock in the afternoon, my horse having become
        tired, and myself being rather weary, I shot a sage-hen, and,
        dismounting, I unsaddled my horse and tied him to a small tree,
        where he could easily feed on the mountain grass.  I then
        built a little fire, and broiling the chicken and seasoning it
        with salt and pepper, which I had obtained from my saddle-bags,
        I soon sat down to a “genuine square meal,” which I greatly
        relished.

        After resting for a couple of hours, I remounted and resumed
        my upward trip to the mountain, having made up my mind to
        camp out that night rather than go back without a bear, which
        my friends knew I had gone out for.  As the days were growing
        short, night soon came on, and I looked around for a suitable
        camping-place.  While thus engaged, I scared up a flock of
        sage-hens, two of which I shot, intending to have one for
        supper and the other for breakfast.

        By this time it was becoming quite dark and I rode down to one
        of the little mountain streams, where I found an open place in
        the timber suitable for a camp. I dismounted, and, after
        unsaddling my horse and hitching him to a tree, I prepared to
        start a fire.  Just then I was startled by hearing a horse
        whinnying farther up the stream.  It was quite a surprise to me,
        and I immediately ran to my animal to keep him from answering
        as horses usually do in such cases.  I thought that the strange
        horse might belong to some roaming band of Indians, as I knew
        of no white men being in that portion of the country at that
        time.  I was certain that the owner of the strange horse could
        not be far distant, and I was very anxious to find out who my
        neighbour was, before letting him know that I was in his
        vicinity.  I therefore resaddled my horse, and leaving him tied
        so that I could easily reach him, I took my gun and started out
        on a scouting expedition up the stream.  I had gone about four
        hundred yards when, in a bend of the stream, I discovered ten
        or fifteen horses grazing.  On the opposite side of the creek
        a light was shining high up the mountain bank.  Approaching
        the mysterious spot as cautiously as possible, and when within
        a few yards of the light—which I discovered came from a dugout
        in the mountain side—I heard voices, and soon I was able to
        distinguish the words, as they proved to be in my own language.
        Then I knew that the occupants of the dugout were white men.
        Thinking that they might be a party of trappers, I boldly
        walked up to the door and knocked for admission.  The voices
        instantly ceased, and for a moment a deathlike silence reigned
        inside.  Then there seemed to follow a kind of hurried
        whispering—a sort of consultation—and then some one called out:—

        “Who's there?”

        “A friend and a white man,” I replied.

        The door opened, and a big ugly-looking fellow stepped forth
        and said:—

        “Come in.”

        I accepted the invitation with some degree of fear and
        hesitation, which I endeavoured to conceal, as I thought it
        was too late to back out, and that it would never do to
        weaken at that point, whether they were friends or foes.
        Upon entering the dugout my eyes fell upon eight as rough and
        villanous-looking men as I ever saw in my life.  Two of them
        I instantly recognized as teamsters who had been driving in
        Lew Simpson's train, a few months before, and had been discharged.

        They were charged with the murdering and robbing of a ranchman;
        and, having stolen his horses, it was supposed that they had
        left the country.  I gave them no signs of recognition,
        however, deeming it advisable to let them remain in ignorance
        as to who I was.  It was a hard crowd, and I concluded the
        sooner I could get away from them the better it would be for
        me.  I felt confident that they were a band of horse-thieves.

        “Where are you going, young man, and who's with you?” asked
        one of the men, who appeared to be the leader of the gang.

        “I am entirely alone.  I left Horseshoe Station this morning
        for a bear-hunt, and not finding any bears I had determined
        to camp out for the night and wait till morning,” said I;
        “and just as I was going into camp a few hundred yards down
        the creek I heard one of your horses whinnying, and then I
        came to your camp.”

        I was thus explicit in my statement in order, if possible,
        to satisfy the cut-throats that I was not spying upon them,
        but that my intrusion was entirely accidental.

        “Where's your horse?” demanded the boss thief.

        “I left him down at the creek,” I answered.

        They proposed going after the horse, but I thought that that
        would never do, as it would leave me without any means of
        escape, and I accordingly said, in hopes to throw them off
        the track, “Captain, I'll leave my gun here and go down and
        get my horse, and come back and stay all night.”

        I said this in as cheerful and as careless a manner as
        possible, so as not to arouse their suspicious in any way or
        lead them to think that I was aware of their true character.
        I hated to part with my gun, but my suggestion of leaving it
        was a part of the plan of escape which I had arranged.
        If they have the gun, thought I, they will surely believe that
        I intend to come back.  But this little game did not work at
        all, as one of the desperadoes spoke up and said:—

        “Jim and I will go down with you after your horse, and you can
        leave your gun here all the same, as you'll not need it.”

        “All right,” I replied, for I could certainly have done
        nothing else.  It became evident to me that it would be better
        to trust myself with two men than with the whole party.
        It was apparent from this time on I would have to be on the
        alert for some good opportunity to give them the slip.

        “Come along,” said one of them, and together we went down
        the creek, and soon came to the spot where my horse was tied.
        One of the men unhitched the animal, and said, “I'll lead
        the horse.”

        “Very well,” said I; “I've got a couple of sage-hens here.
        Lead on.”

        I picked up the sage-hens which I had killed a few hours
        before, and followed the man who was leading the horse, while
        his companion brought up the rear.  The nearer we approached
        the dugout the more I dreaded the idea of going back among
        the villanous cut-throats.  My first plan of escape having
        failed, I now determined upon another.  I had both of my
        revolvers with me, the thieves not having thought it necessary
        to search me.  It was now quite dark, and I purposely dropped
        one of the sage-hens, and asked the man behind me to pick
        it up.  While he was hunting for it on the ground, I quickly
        pulled out one of my Colt's revolvers and struck him a
        tremendous blow on the back of the head, knocking him
        senseless to the ground. I then instantly wheeled around and
        saw that the man ahead, who was only a few feet distant, had
        heard the blow and had turned to see what was the matter,
        his hand upon his revolver.  We faced each other at about the
        same instant, but before he could fire, as he tried to do,
        I shot him dead in his tracks.  Then, jumping on my horse,
        I rode down the creek as fast as possible, through the
        darkness and over the rough ground and rocks.

        The other outlaws in the dugout, having heard the shot which
        I had fired, knew there was trouble, and they all came rushing
        down the creek.  I suppose by the time they reached the man
        whom I had knocked down that he had recovered, and hurriedly
        told them of what had happened.  They did not stay with the
        man whom I had shot, but came on in hot pursuit of me.
        They were not mounted, and were making better time down the
        rough mountain than I was on horseback.  From time to time
        I heard them gradually gaining on me.

        At last they came so near that I saw that I must abandon my
        horse.  So I jumped to the ground, and gave him a hard slap
        with the butt of one of my revolvers, which started him on
        down the valley, while I scrambled up the mountain side.
        I had not ascended more than forty feet when I heard my
        pursuers coming closer and closer; I quickly hid behind a
        large pine-tree, and in a few moments they all rushed by me,
        being led on by the rattling footsteps of my horse, which they
        heard ahead of them.  Soon they began firing in the direction
        of the horse, as they no doubt supposed I was still seated on
        his back.  As soon as they had passed me I climbed further up
        the steep mountain, and knowing that I had given them the slip,
        and feeling certain I could keep out of their way, I at once
        struck out for Horseshoe Station, which was twenty-five miles
        distant.  I had very hard travelling at first, but upon
        reaching lower and better ground I made good headway, walking
        all night and getting into the station just before daylight
        —footsore, weary, and generally played out.

        I immediately waked up the men of the station and told them
        of my adventure.  Slade himself happened to be there, and he
        at once organized a party to go out in pursuit of the
        horse-thieves.  Shortly after daylight twenty well-armed
        stage-drivers, stock-tenders, and ranchmen were galloping in
        the direction of the dugout.  Of course I went along with the
        party, notwithstanding that I was very tired and had had
        hardly any rest at all.  We had a brisk ride, and arrived in
        the immediate vicinity of the thieves' rendezvous at about
        ten o'clock in the morning.  We approached the dugout
        cautiously, but upon getting in close proximity to it we could
        discover no horses in sight.  We could see the door of the
        dugout standing wide open, and we marched up to the place.
        No one was inside, and the general appearance of everything
        indicated that the place had been deserted—that the birds had
        flown.  Such, indeed, proved to be the case.

        We found a new-made grave, where they had evidently buried
        the man whom I had shot.  We made a thorough search of the
        whole vicinity, and finally found their trail going southeast
        in the direction of Denver.  As it would have been useless
        to follow them, we rode back to the station; and thus ended
        my eventful bear-hunt.  We had no trouble for some time
        after that.

A friend who was once a station agent tells two more adventures of
Cody's:
        It had become known in some mysterious manner, past finding
        out, that there was to be a large sum of money sent through
        by Pony Express, and that was what the road agents were after.

        After killing the other rider, and failing to get the treasure,
        Cody very naturally thought that they would make another
        effort to secure it; so when he reached the next relay station
        he walked about a while longer than was his wont.

        This was to perfect a little plan he had decided upon, which
        was to take a second pair of saddle-pouches and put something
        in them and leave them in sight, while those that held the
        valuable express packages he folded up in his saddle-blanket
        in such a way that they could not be seen unless a search
        was made for them.  The truth was, Cody knew that he carried
        the valuable package, and it was his duty to protect it with
        his life.

        So with the clever scheme to outwit the road agents,
        if held up, he started once more upon his flying trip.
        He carried his revolver ready for instant use and flew along
        the trail with every nerve strung to meet any danger which
        might confront him.  He had an idea where he would be halted,
        if halted at all, and it was a lonesome spot in a valley,
        the very place for a deed of crime.

        As he drew near the spot he was on the alert, and yet when
        two men suddenly stepped out from among the shrubs and
        confronted him, it gave him a start in spite of his nerve.
        They had him covered with rifles and brought him to a halt
        with the words: “Hold!  Hands up, Pony Express Bill, for we
        know yer, my boy, and what yer carries.”

        “I carry the express; and it's hanging for you two if you
        interfere with me,” was the plucky response.

        “Ah, we don't want you, Billy, unless you force us to call in
        your checks; but it's what you carry we want.”

        “It won't do you any good to get the pouch, for there isn't
        anything valuable in it.”

        “We are to be the judges of that, so throw us the valuables
        or catch a bullet.  Which shall it be, Billy?”

        The two men stood directly in front of the pony-rider, each
        one covering him with a rifle, and to resist was certain death.
        So Cody began to unfasten his pouches slowly, while he said,
        “Mark my words, men, you'll hang for this.”

        “We'll take chances on that, Bill.”

        The pouches being unfastened now, Cody raised them with one
        hand, while he said in an angry tone, “If you will have them,
        take them.”  With this he hurled the pouches at the head of
        one of them, who quickly dodged and turned to pick them up,
        just as Cody fired upon the other with his revolver in his
        left hand.

        The bullet shattered the man's arm while, driving the spurs
        into the flanks of his mare, Cody rode directly over the man
        who was stooping to pick up the pouches, his back turned to
        the pony-rider.

        The horse struck him a hard blow that knocked him down, while
        he half fell on top of him, but was recovered by a touch of
        the spurs and bounded on, while the daring pony-rider gave
        a wild triumphant yell as he sped on like the wind.

        The fallen man, though hurt, scrambled to his feet as soon
        as he could, picked up his rifle, and fired after the
        retreating youth, but without effect, and young Cody rode on,
        arriving at the station on time, and reported what had happened.

        He had, however, no time to rest, for he was compelled to
        start back with his express pouches.  He thus made the
        remarkable ride of three hundred and twenty-four miles without
        sleep, and stopping only to eat his meals, and resting then
        but a few moments.  For saving the express pouches he was
        highly complimented by all, and years afterward he had the
        satisfaction of seeing his prophecy regarding the two road
        agents verified, for they were both captured and hanged by
        vigilantes for their many crimes.

                                 *     *     *

        “There's Injun signs about, so keep your eyes open.”  So said
        the station-boss of the Pony Express, addressing young Cody,
        who had dashed up to the cabin, his horse panting like a hound,
        and the rider ready for the fifteen-mile flight to the next
        relay.  “I'll be on the watch, boss, you bet,” said the
        pony-rider, and with a yell to his fresh pony he was off like
        an arrow from a bow.

        Down the trail ran the fleet pony like the wind, leaving the
        station quickly out of sight, and dashing at once into the
        solitude and dangers of the vast wilderness.  Mountains were
        upon either side, towering cliffs here and there overhung the
        trail, and the wind sighed through the forest of pines like
        the mourning of departed spirits.  Gazing ahead, the piercing
        eyes of the young rider saw every tree, bush, and rock, for
        he knew but too well that a deadly foe, lurking in ambush,
        might send an arrow or a bullet to his heart at any moment.
        Gradually, far down the valley, his quick glance fell upon
        a dark object above the bowlder directly in his trail.

        He saw the object move and disappear from sight down behind
        the rock.  Without appearing to notice it, or checking his
        speed in the slightest, he held steadily upon his way.  But he
        took in the situation at a glance, and saw that on each side
        of the bowlder the valley inclined.  Upon one side was a
        fringe of heavy timber, upon the other a precipice, at the
        base of which were massive rocks.

        “There is an Indian behind that rock, for I saw his head,”
        muttered the young rider, as his horse flew on.  Did he intend
        to take his chances, and dash along the trail directly by his
        ambushed foe?  It would seem so, for he still stuck to the trail.

        A moment more and he would be within range of a bullet, when,
        suddenly dashing his spurs into the pony's sides, Billy Cody
        wheeled to the right, and in an oblique course headed for the
        cliff.  This proved to the foe in ambush that he was suspected,
        if not known, and at once there came the crack of a rifle,
        the puff of smoke rising above the rock where he was concealed.
        At the same moment a yell went up from a score of throats, and
        out of the timber on the other side of the valley darted a
        number of Indians, and these rode to head off the rider.

        Did he turn back and seek safety in a retreat to the station?
        No! he was made of sterner stuff, and would run the gauntlet.

        Out from behind the bowlder, where they had been lying in
        ambush, sprang two braves in all the glory of their war-paint.
        Their horses were in the timber with their comrades, and,
        having failed to get a close shot at the pony-rider, they
        sought to bring him down at long range with their rifles.
        The bullets pattered under the hoofs of the flying pony, but
        he was unhurt, and his rider pressed him to his full speed.

        With set teeth, flashing eyes, and determined to do or die,
        Will Cody rode on in the race for life, the Indians on foot
        running swiftly toward him, and the mounted braves sweeping
        down the valley at full speed.

        The shots of the dismounted Indians failing to bring down the
        flying pony or their human game, the mounted redskins saw that
        their only chance was to overtake their prey by their speed.
        One of the number, whose war-bonnet showed that he was a chief,
        rode a horse that was much faster than the others, and he drew
        quickly ahead.  Below the valley narrowed to a pass not a
        hundred yards in width, and if the pony-rider could get to
        this wall ahead of his pursuers, he would be able to hold
        his own along the trail in the ten-mile run to the next
        relay station.

        But, though he saw that there was no more to fear from the
        two dismounted redskins, and that he would come out well
        in advance of the band on horseback, there was one who was
        most dangerous.  That one was the chief, whose fleet horse
        was bringing him on at a terrible pace, and threatening to
        reach there at the same time with the pony-rider.

        Nearer and nearer the two drew toward the path, the horse of
        Cody slightly ahead, and the young rider knew that a
        death-struggle was at hand.  He did not check his horse, but
        kept his eyes alternately upon the pass and the chief.
        The other Indians he did not then take into consideration.
        At length that happened for which he had been looking.

        When the chief saw that he would come out of the race some
        thirty yards behind his foe, he seized his bow and quick as
        a flash had fitted an arrow for its deadly flight.  But in
        that instant Cody had also acted, and a revolver had sprung
        from his belt and a report followed the touching of the
        trigger.  A wild yell burst from the lips of the chief, and
        he clutched madly at the air, reeled, and fell from his
        saddle, rolling over like a ball as he struck the ground.

        The death-cry of the chief was echoed by the braves coming on
        down the valley, and a shower of arrows was sent after the
        fugitive pony-rider.  An arrow slightly wounded his horse,
        but the others did no damage, and in another second Cody had
        dashed into the pass well ahead of his foes.  It was a hot
        chase from then on until the pony-rider came within sight of
        the next station, when the Indians drew off and Cody dashed
        in on time, and in another minute was away on his next run.

The history of all Colonel Cody's encounters with the savages during
the time he was in the service of the Pony Express would require many
pages to recite, and as there is naturally a repetition in the manner
of all attacks and escapes in his struggles with the Indians of the
Great Plains and mountains, it would perhaps be but supererogation
to tell them all without taxing the reader's interest.

Many stories of adventure are related of those terrible times, and
at the beginning of the opening of the route across the continent it
was with difficulty that the projectors of the dangerous undertaking
found men willing to take the chances that constantly menaced the
daring riders of the lonely route.

There was an old trapper whose only cognomen among the civilized men
of the border was “Whipsaw.”  Of course he must have had another, but
none ever knew of it or cared to inquire.

One day, while in his lonely camp attending to his duties, a Sioux
Indian brought to him a captive Pawnee child about two years old.
The little savage was stark naked and almost frozen.  The Sioux, who
was plainly marked by a horrid scar across his face, desired to
dispose of the child to the trapper, and the latter, as was every one
of that class now vanished forever, full of pity and kind-hearted to
a fault, did not hesitate a moment, but traded a knife for the
helpless baby—all the savage asked for the little burden of humanity.

The old trapper took care of the young Pawnee, clothed him in his
rough way, encased the little feet in moccasins, and with a soft
doe-skin jacket the little fellow throve admirably under the gentle
care of his rough nurse.

When the young Pawnee had reached the age of four years the old
trapper was induced to take charge of one of the overland stations
on the line of the Pony Express.  The old agent began to love the
young savage with an affection that was akin to that of a mother;
and in turn the Pawnee baby loved his white father and preserver.
As the little fellow grew in stature he evinced a most intense hatred
for all members of his own dark-skinned race.  He never let an
opportunity go by when he could do them an injury, however slight.

Of course at times many of the so-called friendly Indians would visit
the station and beg tobacco from the old trapper, but on every
occasion the young Pawnee would try to do them some injury.  Once,
when he was only four years old, and a party of friendly Indians as
usual had ridden up to the station, the young savage quietly crept
to where their horses were picketed, cut their lariats, and stampeded
all of them!  At another time he made an attempt to kill an Indian
who had stopped for a moment at the station, but he was too little to
raise properly the rifle with which he intended to shoot him.

As it is the inherent attribute of all savages to be far in advance
of the whites in the alertness and acuteness of two or three of the
senses, the baby Pawnee was wonderfully so.  He could hear the
footsteps of a bear or the scratching of a panther, or even the tramp
of a horse's hoof on the soft sod, long before the old trapper could
make out the slightest sound.  He could always tell when the Pony
Express rider was approaching, miles before he was in sight, if in
the daytime, and at night many minutes before the old trapper's ears,
which were very acute also, could distinguish the slightest sound.

The boy was christened “Little Cayuse” because his ears could catch
the sound of an approaching horse's foot long before any one else.

In the middle of the night, while his white father was sound asleep
on his pallet of robes, the little Pawnee would wake him hurriedly,
saying “Cayuse, cayuse!” whenever the Pony Express was due.  The rider
who was to take the place of the one nearing the station, would rise,
quickly put the saddle on his broncho, and be all ready, when the pony
arrived, to snatch the saddle-bags from him whom he was to relieve,
and in another moment dash down the trail mountainward.

It was never too cold or too warm for the handsome little savage to
get up on these occasions and give a sort of rude welcome to the
tired rider, who, although nearly worn out by his arduous duty, would
take up the baby boy and pet him a moment before he threw himself down
on his bed of robes.

The young Pawnee had a very strange love for horses.  He would always
hug the animals as they came off their long trip, pat their noses, and
softly murmur, “Cayuse, cayuse.”[29]

The precocious little savage was known to every rider on the trail
from St. Joe to Sacramento.  Of course the Indians were always on the
alert to steal the horses that belonged to the stations, but where
Little Cayuse was living they never made a success of it, owing to his
vigilance.  Often he saved the animals by giving the soundly sleeping
men warning of the approach of the savages who were stealthily
creeping up to stampede the animals.

The boy was better than an electric battery, for he never failed to
notify the men of the approach of anything that walked.  So famous
did he become that his wonderful powers were at last known at the
headquarters of the great company, and the president sent Little
Cayuse a beautiful rifle just fitted to his stature, and before he had
reached the age of six he killed with it a great gray wolf that came
prowling around the station one evening.

One cold night, after twelve o'clock, Whipsaw happened to get out of
bed, and he found the little Pawnee sitting upright in his bed,
apparently listening intently to some sound which was perfectly
undistinguishable to other ears.

The station-boss whispered to him, “Horses?”

“No,” replied the little Pawnee, but continued looking up into his
father's face with an unmistakable air of seriousness.

“Better go to sleep,” said Whipsaw.

Little Cayuse only shook his head in the negative.  The station-boss
then turned to the other men and said: “Wake up, all of you, something
is going wrong.”

“What is the matter?” inquired one of the riders as he rose.

“I don't exactly know,” replied the boss, “but Cayuse keeps listening
with them wonderful ears of his, and when I told him to go to sleep
he only shook his head, and that boy never makes a mistake.”

A candle was lighted, it was long after the express was due from
the east.

The little Pawnee looked at the men and said, “Long time—no cayuse—
no cayuse.”

They then realized what the Pawnee meant: it was nearly two o'clock,
and the rider from the East was more than two hours behind time.
The little Pawnee knew it better than any clock could have told him,
and both of the men sat up uneasy, fidgeting, for they felt that
something had gone wrong, as it was beyond the possibility for any
rider, if alive, to be so much behind the schedule time.  They
anxiously waited by the dim light of their candle for the sound of
horses' feet, but their ears were not rewarded by the welcome sound.

Cayuse, who was still in his bed watching the countenances of the
white men, suddenly sprang from his bed, and, creeping cautiously out
of the door, carefully placed his ear to the ground, the men meanwhile
watching him.  He then came back as cautiously as he had gone out,
and slowly creeping up to Whipsaw, merely said, “Heap cayuses!”

It was not the sound of the rider's horse whom they had so long been
expecting, but a band of predatory Sioux bent on some errand of
mischief; of that they were certain, now that the Pawnee had given
them the warning.  Little Cayuse took his rifle from its peg over his
bed, and, walking to the door, peered out into the darkness.  Then he
crept along the trail, his ears ever alert.  The men seized their
rifles at the same moment, and followed the little savage to guard
being taken by surprise.

All around the rude cabin which constituted the station, the boss had
taken the precaution, when he first took charge, to dig a trench deep
enough to hide a man, to be used as a rifle-pit in case the occasion
ever offered.

It was to one of these ditches that Little Cayuse betook himself, and
the men followed the child's example, and took up a position on either
side of him.  Lying there without speaking a word, even in a whisper,
the determined men and the brave little Cayuse waited for developments.

Soon the band of savage horse-thieves arrived at a kind of little
hollow in the trail, about an eighth of a mile from the door of the
station.  They got off their animals and, Indian-fashion, commenced
to crawl toward the corral.

On they came, little expecting that they had been long since
discovered, and that preparation was already made for their reception.
One of them came so near the men hidden in the pit that the boss
declared he could have touched him with his rifle.  The old trapper
was very much disturbed for fear that Little Cayuse would in his
childish indiscretion open fire before the proper time arrived, which
would be when the savages had entered the cabin.  The child, however,
was as discreet as his elders, and although it was his initial fight
with the wily nomads of the desert, he acted as if he had thirty or
forty years of experience to back him.

The band numbered six, as brave and determined a set of cut-throats
as the great Sioux Nation ever sent out.  The clouds had broken apart
a little, and the defenders of the station could count their forms
as they appeared between the diffused light of the horizon and the
roof of the cabin.

On reaching the door the Indians stopped a moment, and with their
customary caution listened for some sound to apprise them that the
inmates were sleeping.  Suspecting this to be the case, they pushed
the door carefully open and entered the cabin, one after another.

Now had come the supreme moment which the boss had so patiently hoped
for!  Whipsaw rose to his feet, and without saying a word to them,
his comrades, including Little Cayuse, followed him.  He intended to
charge upon the savages in the cabin, although there were six to
three, for it would hardly do to count the little Pawnee in as a man.
The rider who had been waiting for the arrival of the other then
placed his rifle on the ground, and each taking their revolvers,
two apiece in their hands, ready cocked, advanced to the door.

They knew that the fight would be short and hot, so with the Pawnee
between them they arrived at the entrance.  Now the Sioux evidently
heard them, and came rushing out, but it was too late!  The Pony
Express men opened fire, and two of the savages bit the dust.
They returned the salute, but with such careless aim that their shots
were perfectly harmless; but as the white men fired again, two more of
the savages fell, and only two were left.  The rider got a shot in
the shoulder, but he kept on with his revolver despite his pain,
while the boss, who had fired all his shots, was compelled to throw
the empty weapon into the persistent savage's face, while Little
Cayuse kept peppering the other with small shot from his rifle.

Then the Indian at whom the boss had thrown his revolver came at him
with his knife, and was getting the best of it, when Little Cayuse,
watching his chance, got up close to the savage who was about to
finish his father, and let drive into the brute's side a charge of
shot that made a hole as big as a water-bucket, and the red devil
fell without knowing what had hit him.

Both of the men were weak from loss of blood, and when they had
recovered a little, not far away in the hollow they found the horses
the savages had ridden and that of the express rider, all together.
About a mile farther down the trail they found the dead body of
the rider, shot through the head.  His pony still had on the saddle
and the mail-pouch, which the Indians had not disturbed.  In the
morning the men carried the remains of the unfortunate rider to the
cabin and buried it near the station, and it may be truthfully said
that if it had not been for the plucky little Pawnee, there would
have been no mourners at the funeral.

That afternoon the men dug a trench into which they threw the dead
Indians to get them out of the way, but while they were employed in
the thankless work, Little Cayuse was discovered most unmercifully
kicking and clubbing one of the dead warriors; then he took his little
rifle and cooking it emptied its contents into the prostrate body.

The boss then took the weapon away from him, but the boy cried out
to him, “See! see!”

Looking down closely into the face of the object of the boy's wrath,
he discovered by that hideous scar the fiend who had captured Little
Cayuse when a mere baby, the scar-faced Sioux from whom Whipsaw had
purchased the boy.[30]

The employees of the Pony Express were different in character from
the ordinary plainsmen of those days.  The latter as a class were
usually boisterous, indulged in profanity, and were fond of whiskey.
Russell, Majors, & Waddell were God-fearing, temperate gentlemen
themselves, and tried to engage no man who did not come up to their
own standard of morality.

There was one notable exception in the person of Jack Slade, the
station-agent at Fort Kearney, who was a desperado in the strictest
definition of the term; that is, he was a coward at heart, as all of
his class are, and brave only when every advantage was in his favour.
The number of men he killed in cold blood would probably aggregate
more than a score.  One of his most damnable acts was the killing of
an old French-Canadian trapper, whose name was Jules Bernard, who
lived on a ranch on the eastern border of Colorado.  While he lived
there he got into a quarrel with Slade, and the latter swore he would
kill Jules on sight.  Slade waited five years for his opportunity.
The story is told by an eye-witness as follows:[31]—

        I was thirteen years old when Jules married me and took me
        to his ranch at Cottonwood Springs.  He had three log
        buildings side by side; one contained our private apartments,
        one was the store, and the other the kitchen and quarters
        for the man and his wife who ran the ranch for us.

        Slade was a Kentuckian, a very quiet man when sober, but
        terribly ugly when drinking.  He came to our store one day
        fearfully drunk and swore he would shoot some d——d Frenchman
        before night, at the same time reaching for his pistol.
        Jules knew what he meant and sprang for his shot-gun, the only
        weapon near; before Slade could bring his pistol to bear,
        Jules levelled his gun and shot him in the stomach, filling it
        full of fine shot.  He fell, and Jules, going to him, said he
        would take him to Denver and pay all his doctor-bills and
        other expenses if he would shake hands.  Slade agreed to this,
        and Jules hitched up a team, hauled him clear to Denver, and
        paid his bills there for four or five months.  He came near
        dying.  Jules afterward heard that when Slade got well and
        left Denver, he had sworn he would shoot him the first time
        they met; so Jules was always ready for him.

        One morning long after this Jules started for his old ranch
        to get some horses and cattle that had been left there.
        He had to pass by Slade's place, and knowing that Slade had
        sworn to kill him, he took along a Frenchman living with us,
        called Pete Gazzous, and an American named Smith.  They rode
        in a light wagon, and as they were all armed with rifles,
        pistols, and knives, Jules thought he was well prepared to
        defend himself.

        They watched very close until they got past Slade's ranch,
        but saw no signs of any one.  They stopped at a spring a mile
        or two beyond to water their horses, and as Jules was stooping
        down to get a drink, a shot struck him in the leg and broke
        it just above the knee.  He called to Smith to unharness the
        horses, bring him one, and help him on so that they could get
        away; but the crowd was so frightened they could not stir,
        and in a few moments they were surrounded by Slade and his
        band of twenty-five men.

        They carried Jules to the ranch, and tied him up to a
        dry-goods box.  Slade shot at him for a while, aiming as near
        as he could without hitting him, finally shooting off one of
        his ears; and then he ordered his twenty-five men to empty
        the contents of their revolvers into him.  They then threw his
        body into a hole which they dug.

        The next day a lot of Slade's men came and took away all the
        goods in the trading-post; they left me about six hundred
        dollars.  They got three thousand dollars that Jules had when
        he left, and they got the stock, I suppose.  I never heard
        anything about them.  They said afterward that Jules had money
        in the bank, but we could not find any bank-book, and if he
        had one it was probably on his person.  I was just a child and
        did not know what to do.  In a day or two a man came along who
        lived on a ranch farther west; he was going to Denver for
        goods; he took me, the man, and woman with him to Denver.[32]

Slade eventually drifted into Montana, and in 1865 was hanged by the
vigilantes on suspicion of being the leader of a band of road agents.

He was living on a ranch near Virginia City at the time, and every
few days came into town outrageously drunk, alarming the people by
shooting through the streets, riding into saloons, and proclaiming
himself to be the veritable “Bad man from Bitter Creek.”

The belief that he was connected with matters worse than bad whiskey
had overstrained the patience of the long-suffering citizens.
Soon the suggestive and mysterious triangular little pieces of paper
dropped upon the sidewalks of the town, surmounted with the skull and
cross-bones, called the vigilantes to a meeting at which the death of
Slade and two of his companions was determined upon.  The next morning
following the evening of the meeting, Slade came to town with his two
men, actually sober, and went into a drug-store for a prescription.
While waiting for his preparation, twelve shotguns suddenly covered
them, and they were ordered to throw up their hands.  Slade complied
smilingly, but proposed to reason with them as to the absurdity of
taking him for a bad man.

The only concession granted, however, was permission to send a note
to his wife at the ranch, and an hour allowed to make his peace with
the unknown.

Ropes were placed around the necks of the three men, who at the end
of the allotted time were given short shrift and were soon hanging
between heaven and earth.  While their bodies were swaying in the
breeze, Slade's wife suddenly appeared mounted on a fine horse, with
a cocked pistol in each hand, determined to attempt a rescue.
On observing that it was too late, she quailed before the determined
countenances of the vigilantes.  She soon left the scene of the
lynching, and in a short time moved out of the country, carrying with
her, as it was believed, a large amount of the proceeds of her
husband's robberies.

In the winter of 1860 Mr. Edward Creighton, who had for many years
been engaged in constructing telegraph lines all over the United
States, determined to inaugurate a pet project he had entertained for
a long time, to build one to the Pacific Coast.

In the year above referred to, he had many consultations with the
stockholders of the Western Union, the result of which was that a
preliminary survey was decided upon.  Notwithstanding that travelling
by the Overland coach was beset with great danger from attacks by
road agents and Indians, Mr. Creighton was compelled to cross the
continent by the only means of transportation; and, stopping at Salt
Lake City, he excited the interest and enlisted the support of the
great head of the Mormon Church.

It had been arranged to invite the association of the California
Telegraph Company in the enterprise, and, notwithstanding the terrors
of a midwinter journey, Mr. Creighton pressed on on horseback for
Sacramento.  It was a fearful trip, but the man who made it was stout
of heart and he braved the rigours of the mountains, accomplished
his mission, and in the spring of 1861 returned to Omaha to commence
the great work.  The United States, meanwhile, had granted a subsidy
of forty thousand dollars a year to the first company who should
build a line across the continent.  It may well be imagined that
a great race was immediately inaugurated for heavy wagers, between
Mr. Creighton's force and that of the Californians, who were building
eastwardly, each party trying to reach Salt Lake City before the other.

Mr. Creighton had eleven hundred miles to construct, while the
California company's distance from the objective point was only four
hundred and fifty; yet the indefatigable Mr. Creighton reached Salt
Lake City with his completed line on the 17th of October, one week
ahead of his competitors.

On the 24th of the same month, but a little more than half a year
after its commencement, Mr. Creighton had established telegraphic
communication from ocean to ocean.  For his remuneration he took
one hundred thousand dollars worth of the stock of the new enterprise
at about eighteen cents on the dollar.  When the project was completed,
the company trebled its amount of shares and Mr. Creighton's one
hundred thousand dollars immediately enhanced to three hundred
thousand.  The stock at once rose to the value of eighty-five cents,
and he sold out his original one hundred thousand dollars for eight
hundred and fifty thousand, still retaining two hundred thousand
dollars worth of stock.[33]

With the completion of the telegraph across the continent all the
important news could be flashed from ocean to ocean in a few seconds,
so the Pony Express ceased to be necessary; the great Concord coach,
too, was limited to the mere transportation of passengers and express
matter.  It was the avant courier of more rapid transit by the
palatial trains of the magnificent Union Pacific system which shod
the old trail with steel, though at the beginning of the era of the
Overland Stage such a railroad was regarded as an idle dream.




CHAPTER IX.
THE STAGE ROUTE TO THE PACIFIC.



The excitement caused in 1858 by the alleged discovery of gold in
the vicinity of Pike's Peak created a fever among the people of the
United States, and there was a mighty exodus from everywhere east
of the Missouri, similar to that to the Alaskan regions to-day.

The Missouri River was at that time the western terminal of the few
railroads then in existence, and there was very little probability
that they would make farther progress toward the setting sun.
The individual who had determined to start for the new, but delusive,
western mountainous El Dorado, must perforce make his wearisome
journey by slowly plodding ox-teams, pack-mules, or the lumbering
stage-coach.  Such means of travel had just been inaugurated by
Mr. W. H. Russell (then the senior partner of the firm of Russell,
Majors, & Waddell) and a Mr. John S. Jones of Missouri, who conceived
the idea of putting on a line of coaches between the Missouri River
and Denver—the latter place a mere mushroom hamlet, just struggling
into existence, and whose future as yet no man could predict with any
degree of certainty.

It was a bold undertaking, for they had to purchase all their equipage
on credit, giving their notes payable in three months.  One thousand
large Kentucky mules were bought, and a sufficient number of coaches
to supply the proposed route with a daily line each way.

There was already a semi-monthly line operated by Messrs. Hockaday
and Liggett, running from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Salt Lake City.
This line was poorly appointed.  It consisted of a limited number of
light, cheap vehicles, with but few animals to draw them.  The same
team was used for hundreds of miles, as no stations had been
established on the long route.  The teams were turned out to graze,
and were obliged to stop often for that purpose.  It sometimes
required twenty-one days to make the trip from St. Joseph to Salt Lake.

Under the new régime of Russell & Jones, the coaches made their daily
trips in six days to Denver, travelling about one hundred miles every
twenty-four hours.  The first stage arrived in Denver on the 17th of
May, 1859, and its advent was regarded as a great success by those
who knew nothing of the immense expense attending the enterprise.
When the ninety-day notes given in payment for the outfit of the
new route became due, the money was not forthcoming, and it became
necessary for the wealthy firm of Russell, Majors, & Waddell[34] to
meet the outstanding obligations of the delinquent Russell & Jones.
To save the credit of their senior partner the firm had to pay the
debts of the defunct concern, and take possession of all the mules,
coaches, and other belongings of the stage-line to secure themselves
for the amount they had advanced in establishing the Denver route.

In a few months the firm bought out the semi-monthly line of Hockaday
and Liggett, believing that by uniting the two companies the business
might be brought up to a paying standard, at least meet the expenses
if nothing more.

As soon as Russell, Majors, & Waddell took hold of the line, the time
between St. Joseph and Salt Lake, a distance of twelve hundred miles,
was reduced to ten days.  The coach ran daily both ways, and stations
were established at distances varying from ten to fifteen miles along
the whole route.

The original trail ran up the valley of the Smoky Hill, or the Smoky
Hill Fork of the Republican,[35] but was shortly after changed to the
valley of the Platte, and starting from St. Joseph,[36] went on to
Fort Kearney, thence following the river to Julesburg, where it
crossed the stream.  From there to Fort Laramie, to Fort Bridger,
thence to Salt Lake, through Camp Floyd, Ruby Valley, Carson City,
Placerville, and Folsom to Sacramento.[37]

The old-line coach was a grand swinging and swaying vehicle, an
imposing cradle on wheels, and hung on thoroughbraces instead of
springs.  It was drawn by six handsome horses or mules, which were
changed every ten miles on the average; and they fairly flew over the
level road.  Baggage was limited to twenty-five pounds, which, with
the care of the passengers, mail, and express, was in charge of the
conductor, who was the legitimate captain of the strange craft in its
long journey across the continent.  He sat beside the driver on the
box, and both of them used to sleep in their places thirty or forty
minutes at a time, while spinning along on good roads at the rate of
eight or ten miles an hour.

Over each two hundred and fifty miles of road an agent was installed,
and was invested with great authority.  His geographical jurisdiction
was known as a “division,” and his duty consisted in purchasing
horses, mules, harness, and the food for both men and animals.
He distributed these things at the different stage-stations when,
according to his judgment, they needed them.  He also had charge of
the erection of all buildings and the water-supply, usually wells.
He also paid the station-keepers, hostlers, drivers, and blacksmiths,
and he engaged and discharged whomsoever he pleased; in fact, he was
a great man in his division, and generally a man of more than average
intelligence.

The conductor's tour of duty was about the same length as the agent's,
or about two hundred and fifty miles.  He sat with the driver, and
often, when necessary, rode that great distance all night and all day
without other rest or sleep than that he could obtain while in his
seat on top of the flying coach.  Drivers went back over the same
route—over exactly the same length of road, and naturally became
so familiar with it that the darkest night had no terrors for them.

The distance from St. Joseph to Sacramento by the stage-coach route
was nearly nineteen hundred miles.  The trip was often made in fifteen
days, but the time specified by the mail contracts, and required by
the government schedule, was limited to nineteen days.  This was to
give ample allowance for possible winter storms and snows, or other
causes of detention.

The stage company had everything in their charge under the most rigid
discipline, and the system was as nearly perfect as possible.

The enterprise, financially, was a losing one for the great firm which
organized and operated it, the entire expense exceeding the receipts
by many hundreds of thousands of dollars.  Messrs. Russell, Majors, &
Waddell, however, continued its operation until March, 1862, when the
whole concern was transferred to Ben Holliday.[38]

When Holliday took charge, the United States mail was given to it and
immediately the line became a paying institution.  The government
expended, in quarterly payments, eight hundred thousand dollars a year
for transporting the mails from the Missouri River to San Francisco.

It was very fortunate for the government and the people generally that
the stage-line was organized at the time it was, and kept in such
perfect condition on the Middle Route, as it was called, when the
Civil War commenced, for it would have been impossible to transport
mails on the Southern Route, previously patronized by the government.
This route ran from San Francisco via Los Angeles, El Paso, and Fort
Smith to St. Louis, and the Confederate government would not have
allowed it to run through that portion of their country during the war.

During the war there was a vast amount of business, both in mail,
express, and passengers, as it was the only practicable line between
California and the great states east of the Missouri River.

Under the indefatigable Ben Holliday his stage-coaches penetrated
every considerable mining camp in the mountains, and as the government
would not, or could not, establish post-offices at these remote points,
the stage company became their own postmasters.  They conveyed letters
in their own official envelopes, first placing thereon a United States
stamp.  Twenty-five cents was charged for every letter, consequently
the revenue from this source was enormous.

Occasionally on the remote plains, or in the fastnesses of the
mountains, the proprietor of a little store, where he kept a
heterogeneous assortment of such goods as were required by the hardy
miners, would constitute himself the postmaster.  Of course he charged
exorbitant rates for the transmission of the mail to the nearest
regular station.  It is recorded of one of these self-appointed
officials that, although he transported the mail but once a month,
he still charged twenty-five cents for each letter.  He used an empty
barrel for the reception of mail.  He cut a hole in the top, and
posted above it the following suggestive warning, to all who sent
letters from his place: “This is the Post-Office.  Shove a quarter
through the hole with your letter.  We have no use for stamps as
I carry the mail.”

The business of the old line coach increased with startling rapidity.
It aggregated an enormous sum every year.  For carrying the mails
alone over the whole route, the government paid twelve hundred and
fifty thousand dollars.

The drivers of the Overland coaches received from one hundred and
fifty to two hundred and fifty dollars a month, and their keep.
Their wages were graduated by their ability and length of service.
Such large salaries were paid because of the great risk run by the
brave men, for their duty was a continuously hazardous one.

All classes of men were to be found among these drivers, from the
graduate of Yale and Harvard to the desperado deep-dyed in his
villainy.  The latter sometimes enlisted in the work for the sole
purpose of robbery.  The stage with its valuable load of riches and
the wealth of its passengers excited his cupidity.

It is told in the annals of those troublous times on the Old Trail,
how once, in July, 1865, a coach loaded with seven passengers and an
immense amount of gold bullion and other treasure was sacrificed to
these robbers.  The passengers were all frontier men, well used to
the contingencies of that trying era; they were also aware of the
strong probability of the coach being attacked before it reached its
destination, and were prepared to repel any premeditated attempt of
that character.  All were fully armed, principally with double-barrelled
guns loaded with twenty-six buckshot, a formidable charge with which
to plug a man.  They were determined that their hard-earned wealth
should not be taken from them without a struggle.  They watched
in turns for the first demonstration of the road agents, having
made up their minds to get the first crack at the thieves.

The driver was known as Frank Williams, and the man who occupied the
post of honour, sitting at his right on the box, was one of the
would-be robbers.  On arriving at a very lonely spot on the trail,
this individual on top cried out that the robbers were upon them,
and a hurried shot was fired from the outside.  At the same moment
the men inside discharged their pieces.  A regular volley was then
shot at the passengers from an ambush alongside the trail, four fell
dead, another was severely wounded in three places, and one saved
his life by lying perfectly still and feigning death as the thieves
emerged from the brush to fire a second time.  One of the other
passengers was mortally wounded and the other escaped uninjured by
secreting himself in the brush which fringed the trail.

It seems that the driver had purposely engaged in the service of the
company for just such an opportunity as this, and he deliberately
drove his coach into this sequestered spot where the robbers were to
attack it by appointment.  It is alleged that he received his share
of the spoils, and then left the service incontinently.  His ill-gotten
wealth, however, did him very little good; for he was tracked to
Denver, and hanged with that sudden promptness for which “Judge
Lynch's Court” is noted, a court that brooks no delay in the execution
of its decisions, and from which there is no appeal.

Over seventy thousand dollars was the harvest of this raid, but none
of the robbers were ever caught excepting the driver, upon whom, as
stated, a well-merited punishment was inflicted.

During the Civil War his route passed through the Sioux country, a
tribe that was at war with the whites, and as there were not enough
troops to protect the line, it was changed from South Pass to
Bridger's Pass on the Bitter Creek route, or as it was then known,
“The Cherokee Trail.”

The mail-line was often attacked by Indians, who killed the employees
and passengers, robbed and burnt the stations, and stole the stock.

Early in the year 1862 the Indians made continuous raids on the
coaches and stations between Fort Laramie and the South Pass.
In April of that year a terrible battle occurred between the
mail-stage and the Indians on the Sweetwater River near Split Rock,
or Devil's Creek. The white party consisted of nine men with two
coaches loaded with mail.  They were in charge of Lem Flowers,
the division agent, and Jimmie Brown, the conductor.  The Indians
began the attack at early dawn and the white men were so harassed that
they were compelled to run the two coaches alongside of each other,
pile the mail-sacks between the wheels, and throw sand over them for
breastworks.  From this barricade they fought the savages the whole
day, but they lost all the stock, and six of the men were wounded.
Several Indians were killed during the fight, and when night came on
they withdrew.  Under cover of the darkness the men took the front
wheels of the running-gear of the coaches, put the wounded upon them,
and, drawing it themselves, made their escape to the station of the
Three Crossings of the Sweetwater River.

One of the employees who passed over the route shortly after the fight
and visited the scene of the battle in company with the notorious
Slade, who was then division agent, says: “The coaches were still
standing as they were placed by the party in the fight, completely
riddled with bullets and arrows.  Every vestige of leather straps and
cushions was stripped off, the mail-sacks cut open, their contents
thrown out, and the sacks themselves carried off.  Valuable letters,
drafts, and bills for large amounts were scattered all over the ground.
This mail was gathered up by the employees, put in gunny sacks, hauled
to Julesburg, and from there forwarded to the Post-Office Department
at Washington.”

Another memorable raid was made by the savages on the old line
mail-route on Sunday, the 7th of August, 1864.  It was a simultaneous
attack on that portion of the line extending over two hundred miles
from Julesburg eastwardly to Liberty Farm, at the head of the Little
Blue River.  The mail-coaches, the stations, travelling freight
caravans, ranches, and parties putting up hay were alike attacked.
Forty people were killed, many ranches and trains burned, much stock
and other property stolen and destroyed in that eventful raid.

At last the raids of the savages along the North Platte had become so
frequent, and the duty so hazardous, that it was almost impossible for
the Overland Stage Company to find drivers, although the highest wages
were offered.  At this juncture W. F. Cody decided to turn stage-driver
and his services were gladly accepted.

While driving a stage between Split Rock and Three Crossings, he was
set upon by a band of several hundred Sioux.  Lieutenant Flowers,
assistant division agent, sat on the box beside Cody, and there were
half a dozen passengers well armed inside.  Cody gave the reins to
Flowers, applied the whip, and the passengers defended the stage in
a running fight.  Arrows fell around and struck the stage like hail,
wounding the horses and dealing destruction generally, for two of the
passengers were killed and Flowers badly wounded.  Cody seized the
whip from the wounded officer, applied it savagely, shouting defiance,
and drove on to Three Crossings, thus saving the stage.

The only period when the long route up the Platte Valley enjoyed an
immunity from the continuous trouble with the savages, before the
completion of the Union Pacific Railroad, was when General Albert
Sidney Johnston's army, in 1857, had been mobilized for the impending
Mormon war.  More than five thousand regular soldiers, with its
large commissary trains and their complement of teamsters, all well
armed, together with batteries of artillery, in passing through the
country so intimidated the Indians, who had never before seen such an
array of their enemies, that they remained at a respectful distance
from the trail.

In the spring of 1865 the Indians seemed more determined than ever
to wage a relentless war along the line of the Overland Stage.

A regular army officer in his journal says:—

        During the time when we were guarding Ben Holliday's
        stage-coaches, and when attacks on them were of frequent
        occurrence, I had an adventure which I think is worth relating.

        I was out at one of the lower ranches, and the Indians were
        very troublesome.  Our guards were nearly all sick or wounded,
        and the coaches had to go out insufficiently protected.

        One evening the coach was late, and, as to be behind time was
        a sure sign that something was wrong, we all felt very uneasy.
        The drivers made it a rule to get from one station to another
        on time, and if they did not arrive, parties were immediately
        started out to the next ranch, ten miles below, to see what
        the matter was, the stations being eight, ten, and twelve
        miles apart.

        On the particular evening in question I had got tired of
        waiting, and gone over to the stable-keeper to see if we had
        not better take the change horses, go down the road, and try
        if we could not find the coach.  It was due at the station at
        eight-thirty in the evening, and it was now ten, so I was
        confident it had been attacked or broken down.  While we were
        talking, the sentinel on the outpost, whose business it was
        to look out for the stage and give notice of its approach,
        signalled that the coach was coming.  We all ran down the
        road to meet it, and soon saw it coming slowly along with
        three horses instead of four, and the driver driving very
        slowly, as if he were going to a funeral, or hauling wounded.

        When we came up to the coach we learned that he was indeed
        both conveying a corpse and wounded.  On the arrival of the
        party at the ranch, Captain Hancock, who was a passenger,
        related to me all that had happened, and I repeat the story
        as it fell from his lips.

        “We were,” said the captain, “driving along smartly in the
        bottom, about four miles below, when, just as we crossed
        a little ravine, some twenty Indians jumped out of the long
        grass and fired on us.  The first volley killed Mr. Cinnamon,
        a telegraph operator, who was a passenger, on his way from
        Plum Creek to some point up the river.  He was riding on the
        box with the driver when he received the fatal shot, and the
        driver caught his body just as it was falling forward off the
        coach on the rear horses.  He put Cinnamon's corpse in the
        front boot among the mail bags, where it now is.

        “The first fire had also killed our nigh wheeler, and, as the
        coach was going pretty fast at the time, the horse was dragged
        a considerable distance, and his hind leg becoming fast
        between the spokes of the fore wheel, his body was drawn up
        against the bed of the coach and all further progress
        completely blocked.

        “The driver took it very coolly, first swearing fearfully at
        the Indians, toward whom he cracked his whip repeatedly,
        as if flaying their naked backs, and then, having vented his
        spleen, he quietly descended from his box and stripped the
        harness off the dead horse.

        “Meanwhile the Indians had been circling around us, firing
        into the coach every few minutes, and I had got under the
        wagon with my clerks, the better to be protected and to fire
        at the Indians, who could be seen best from the ground as
        they moved against the horizon.

        “The driver tried in vain to extricate the leg of the dead
        horse from the wheel, but it was firmly wedged in, and after
        uniting my strength to his, I found it necessary to take my
        knife and amputate the leg at the knee-joint.  The body was
        at length removed, and mounting the box, the driver bid us
        get in, and we were off once more.  One of the clerks had been
        severely wounded, and, as his wound was quite painful, we had
        to drive very slowly; so we were late in getting in.”

        While the captain was talking, the driver came to the door
        to say the coach was waiting, for on the Plains stages stop
        not for accidents or dead men.  I bade my friend good-night,
        hoping he would not again be interrupted on his journey by
        the redskins, and, the driver cracking his whip, the four
        fresh bays bounded forward at a gallop, and soon carried the
        coach out of sight of the valley.

        Next day we buried poor Cinnamon, and sent the wounded man to
        McPherson, where he could have medical attendance, and we were
        pleased to learn he speedily recovered.

        I rode down to where the coach had been attacked, and saw the
        dead horse and the ravine from which the Indians had sprung.
        The fight had evidently been a sharp one, and I could see by
        the trail that the savages had followed the coach nearly to
        the ranch, and then struck across toward the Republican,
        never stopping, in all probability, until they reached it,
        ninety miles distant.

An idea may be formed of the immense proportions to which the old
mail-line service had grown, when in November, 1866, Ben Holliday
sold out his interest to Wells, Fargo, & Company.  The main line and
its branches were transferred for one million five hundred thousand
dollars in cash, and three hundred thousand dollars in the stock of
the Express Company.  This vast sum only covered the animals, rolling
stock, stations, etc., but in addition to this, the Express Company
was to pay the full value of the grain, hay, and provisions on hand
at the time of the transfer, and this amounted to nearly six hundred
thousand dollars.

The old line of mail-service continued until its usefulness was
gradually usurped by the completion of the Union and Central Pacific
railroads.  The coaches started daily from the eastern and western
terminals of the rapidly approaching iron trail, the gap between
them lessening until on the day of driving the last spike with the
junction of the rails the old stage-line through the Platte Valley
had vanished forever.




CHAPTER X.
SCENERY ON THE TRAIL.



From the earliest westward march of civilization, the beautiful valley
of the Platte, through which the Salt Lake Trail coursed its way,
has been a grand pathway to the mountains, and thence over their
snow-capped summits to the golden shores of the Pacific Ocean.

In a little more than a third of a century, through the agency of
that grandest of civilizers, the locomotive, the charming and fertile
valley has been carved into prosperous commonwealths, whose development
from an almost desert waste is a marvellous monument to the restless
energy of the American people, and of their power to conquer the
wilderness.

In 1842 Lieutenant John C. Fremont travelled up the Blue, on his
first exploring expedition, and arrived in the Platte at Grand Island,
where the party separated, a portion proceeding up the North Fork
of the river, toward Laramie, and another up the South Fork.
The following year the great pathfinder ventured on a second
expedition by the way of the Kansas and Republican rivers, reaching
the Platte at the mouth of Beaver Creek.

In 1847 the Platte Valley became the highway of the Mormons in their
wonderful exodus from Illinois to Utah, and ten years later the
trails made by that remarkable sect were followed by the rush of
pioneers to the newly discovered gold fields of California.

Twelve years later, the beautiful valley was traversed by a greater
rush of adventurers than ever before in its history.  In the summer
of 1850 Mr. Green Russell and his adventurous companions discovered
gold on a tributary of the Platte.  The report spread so rapidly that
the greatest excitement at once developed on the frontier of Missouri,
which was then the boundary between civilization and the unknown
Far West.  In the following spring the exodus to the gold fields began.
The old overland route was famed for its picturesque scenery, but as
the weary traveller slowly trod the dangerous trail, he was too often
in constant dread of attacks by the blood-thirsty savages to allow
his mind to dwell upon the details of the magnificent landscape.
To-day, however, as the same route is practically shod with iron,
the tourist, from the windows of his car on the Union Pacific,
may safely contemplate the historic valley.  Its beautiful towns and
hamlets, its cultivated plains, its watercourses, its skyward-reaching
peaks, may be seen in a security which would have passed the very
dreams of a pioneer fifty years ago.

The scenery is sufficiently wild to please the most exacting, even
to-day; for its isolated buttes, rocky bluffs, lightning-splintered
gorges, foaming torrents, fantastically formed bowlders, and towering
mountains brook no change at the hands of puny man, and are as firm
as the rock itself.  Under a sky that nowhere else seems to be of
such an intensely cerulean hue, the charm of the region is intensified.

Before a European ever looked upon it, the Platte Valley was for
centuries, in all probability, a gateway to the mountains.
The prehistoric mound-builders, perhaps, travelled its lonely course,
and on through the portals of the great Continental Divide, to the
southern sea.  The rude, primitive savage of North America, with whom
the hairy mammoth and primeval elephant were contemporary, in a
geological epoch, whose distance in the misty past appalls, traversed
the silent trail across the continent.  He packed on his back the
furs of the colder regions, where he lived.  He carried copper from
the mines on the shores of Lake Superior; the horns of the moose, elk,
and deer; robes of the buffalo, the wolf, and kindred animals.
Among his merchandise were masses of red pipestone from the sacred
quarries east of the Missouri.  He journeyed with these treasures to
the people of the southwest and exchanged them for what to him were
equally precious: brilliant feathers of tropical birds; valuable gems,
like the revered turquoise; rare metals; woven fabrics, and other
commodities foreign to his own wind-swept and snow-bound plains.

The Platte Valley, for untold ages, was a beautiful, awful wilderness,
thronged by stately headed elk, and the resort of vast herds of
buffalo, deer, and antelope.  Until a few years ago their skulls and
bones could still be seen in some localities, scattered thick upon
the ground between the bluffs and the river.  Now all the game has
vanished, excepting, perhaps, a few antelope and deer in some favoured
mountain recess, where the white man has not invaded the rocky soil
with his plough.

Until fifty years ago the whole region watered by the Platte was
regarded as a veritable desert, never to be brought under the domain
of agriculture, but forever doomed to a hopeless sterility.  Its
inhabitants were a wild, merciless horde of savages, whose only aim
was murder, and an unceasing warfare against any encroachment upon
their domain by the hated palefaces.

The river is very shallow, and for that reason was called by the Otoes,
whose country embraced the region at its mouth, the Ne-bras-ka, and
re-christened the Platte by the French trappers, a term synonymous to
that given by the Indians.

The Platte River, nearly three-quarters of a century ago, was called
by Washington Irving,
        The most magnificent and most useless of streams.  Abstraction
        made of its defects, nothing can be more pleasing than the
        perspective which it presents to the eye.  Its islands have
        the appearance of a labyrinth of groves floating on the waters.
        Their extraordinary position gives an air of youth and
        loveliness to the whole scene.  If to this be added the
        undulations of the river, the waving of the verdure, the
        alternations of light and shade, the succession of these
        islands varying in form and beauty, and the purity of the
        atmosphere, some idea may be formed of the pleasing sensations
        which the traveller experiences on beholding a scene that
        seems to have started fresh from the hands of the Creator.

The valley is wide, and once was covered with luxuriant grass and
dotted with many-coloured flowers.  For a great distance along its
lower portions, the banks were fringed with a heavy growth of
cottonwood, willow, and other varieties of timber.

In its solitude at the beginning of the present century, it might
properly be claimed as the arena of the tornado and the race course
of the winds.  Climatic changes, which follow the empire of the plough,
have dissipated such atmospheric phenomena as characterized the vast
wilderness in its days of absolute isolation from the march of
civilization, as they have elsewhere in the central regions of the
continent.

The revered Father De Smet, who traversed the then dreary wilderness
of the Platte Valley, as long ago as fifty-seven years, thus writes
in his letters to the bishop of St. Louis, of a tornado he witnessed:—

        However, it happens sometimes, though but seldom, that the
        clouds, floating with great rapidity, open currents of air
        so violent as suddenly to chill the atmosphere and produce
        the most destructive hailstorms.  I have seen some hailstones
        the size of an egg.  It is dangerous to be abroad during these
        storms.  A Cheyenne Indian was lately struck by a hailstone,
        and remained senseless for an hour.

        Once as the storm raged near us, we witnessed a sublime sight.
        A spiral abyss seemed to be suddenly formed in the air.
        The clouds followed each other into it with great velocity,
        till they attracted all objects around them, whilst such
        clouds as were too large and too far distant to feel its
        influence turned in an opposite direction. The noise we heard
        in the air was like that of a tempest.  On beholding the
        conflict, we fancied that all the winds had been let loose
        from the four points of the compass.  It is very probable
        that if it had approached nearer, the whole caravan would
        have made an ascension into the clouds.  The spiral column
        moved majestically toward the north, and lighted on the
        surface of the Platte.  Then another scene was exhibited to
        view.  The waters, agitated by its powerful function, began
        to turn round with frightful noise, and were suddenly drawn
        up to the clouds in a spiral form.  The column appeared to
        measure a mile in height; and such was the violence of the
        winds, which came down in a perpendicular direction, that in
        the twinkling of an eye the trees were torn and uprooted,
        and their boughs scattered in every direction.  But what is
        violent does not last.  After a few minutes the frightful
        visitation ceased.  The column, not being able to sustain
        the weight at its base, was dissolved almost as quickly
        as it had been formed.

        In proportion as we proceeded toward the source of this
        wonderful river, the shades of vegetation became more gloomy,
        and the brows of the mountain more craggy.  Everything seemed
        to wear the aspect not of decay, but of age, or rather of
        venerable antiquity.

The broad old Salt Lake Trail to the Rocky Mountains coincided with
the Platte River about twenty miles below the head of Grand Island.
The island used to be densely wooded, and extended for sixty or
seventy miles.  The valley at that point is about seven miles wide,
and the stream itself, between one and two from bank to bank.

The South Platte was a muddy stream, and with its low banks, scattered
flat sand-bars, and pigmy islands, a melancholy river, straggling
through the centre of vast prairies, and only saved from being
impossible to find with the naked eye by its sentinel trees standing
at long distances from each other, on either side.

The Platte of the mountain region scarcely retains one characteristic
of the stream far below.  Here, it is confined to a bed of rock and
sand, not more than two hundred yards wide, and its water is of
unwonted clearness and transparency.  Its banks are steep and the
attrition caused at the time of spring freshets shows a deep vegetable
mould reaching far back, making the soil highly fertile.  Here, too,
the river forces its way through a barrier of tablelands, forming one
of those striking peculiarities incident to mountain streams, called
by the Spaniards a cañon; that is, a narrow passage between high and
precipitous banks, formed by mountains; a common term in the language
of the mountaineers describing one of these picturesque breaks through
the range.

The scenery of the upper Platte is constantly changing, the river
presenting more the appearance of a genuine mountain stream.
Its banks are here and there heavily fringed with timber, rich grass
grows luxuriantly in the flat bottoms, and the dark bluffs which
bound them form a beautiful background, interspersed occasionally
by snow-capped peaks.

In little more than the third of a century the vast area of desert-waste
comprising the valley of the Platte, and beyond, has been transmuted
by that most effective of civilizers the railroad, into great states.
On the terra incognita there have appeared large cities and towns,
whose genesis is a marvel in the history of nations.  Peace has
spread her white wings over the bloody sands of the trail, whose
sublime silence but a short time since was so often broken by the
diabolical whoop of the savage, as he wretched the reeking scalp from
the head of his enemy.  Where it required many weeks of dangerous,
tedious travel to cross the weary pathway to the mountains, now, in
all the luxuriance of modern American railway service, the traveller
is whirled along at the rate of fifty miles all hour, and where it
required many days for the transmission of news, the events of the
whole civilized world, as they hourly occur, are flashed from ocean
to ocean in a few seconds.

The islands, bluffs, and isolated peaks of the trail have clustering
around them many thrilling legends, stories, and events; some of them
reaching far backward into the dim light of tradition; others having
happened within the memory of men now living.  All are strangely
characteristic of the region, and are as full of poetry and pathos
as the epics of ancient Greece, whose stories are the basis of the
literature of the world to-day.

Some traveller, who has visited every picturesque spot on both
continents, has truthfully said: “No!  Never need an American look
beyond his own country for the sublime and beautiful of natural
scenery.”  Nowhere else on the continent is the landscape for such a
distance so varied, so distinctly picturesque, beautiful, and sublime,
as that which may be viewed from the car windows of the magnificent
trains of the Union Pacific Railway.  They swiftly course over almost
the identical pathway once followed by the overland stage-coach,
the pony express, and the slowly plodding ox caravans in the days
when the possibility of a transcontinental trail of steel was regarded
as a chimera.

Less than a hundred miles from the Missouri River is the famous
Loup Fork of the Platte, once celebrated for the great Pawnee Indian
village on its south bank, where, long before the white man encroached
upon the beautiful region, that once powerful tribe lived in a sort
of barbaric splendour.  This affluent was so named by the early
French-Canadian trappers because of the numerous packs of wolves that
haunted the region.  Game, consisting of deer, buffalo, antelope,
turkeys, and prairie chickens, abounded, while the stream itself was
covered with ducks and geese.  During the days of travel by the old
trail, at the crossing-place was a primitive ferry.  The current was
always very strong, and when the fork was much swollen, dangerous.
The region watered by the Loup Fork is unsurpassed in fertility by
any other portion of the valley of the Platte.  After crossing the
stream, the Union Pacific's track is a perfectly straight line, and
when the fields are golden with the harvests, the view from the train
is the most marvellous agricultural landscape to be found anywhere
on the continent.

A few miles westward, beyond Grand Island, is Wood River, a noted
landmark and camping-place for those who followed the tide of
immigration to Utah, and to the gold fields of California, in 1849.
It was always a pleasant spot, and is now a station on the Union
Pacific Railway.  As the tourist crosses the bridge over the stream
in a palace car, he may look down from his window, and meditate on
the brilliancy of the present, and the misty past, with all its
adventures and suffering.  The march of civilization has made
wonderful changes in fifty years.  It has forced the Indians, the
buffaloes, and the antelopes away from the prairies, and in their
places comfortable homes may now be seen on the sites of old camps.
The pretty little stream still runs its race to the Platte, and
lingering near the bank at the old ford, murmurs its story of the
long ago, as the train rushes by.

After passing Grand Island, the next place of importance between the
flourishing town of Columbus and North Platte is that known as Brady's.

Brady's Island honours the memory of an old-time trapper, who was
brutally murdered by one of his partners in 1847.  They were engaged
in their vocation as employees of the American Fur Company, on the
many tributaries of the Platte, and their camp at the time was on the
island that bears the unfortunate man's name.  The tradition says
that the little coterie of trappers had landed there to pack their
accumulation of the season's furs for the market of St. Louis, then
the only place where they could be disposed of in the whole West.

The day when everything was about ready for embarkation down the
river to the Missouri, in a rude boat which they had constructed of
buffalo-hides drawn over a framework of poles, Brady and one of the
men were in the camp alone—the others were at work on the bank of
the stream.  Brady and the one who was left in the camp that morning
were ever on bad terms with each other, and more than once had
indulged in some severe quarrels.

When the rest of their party returned to the camp preparatory to
starting, they found Brady dead, lying in a pool of his own blood.
His partner, when questioned as to the cause of his death, affirmed
that he was accidentally killed by the premature discharge of his
own rifle, which he had been carelessly handling.

The story was not believed by the men, and the cold-blooded murderer
escaped lynching by his companions only by the better judgment of the
cooler heads of some, who insisted that possibly the tale might be
true.  The body of the unlucky trapper was buried near the spot where
he fell, but was soon dug up by the wolves, and his bones left to
bleach in the wintry sun.  Portions of them were found eight or ten
years afterward by another party of trappers, and when they recognized
them as those of a human being, they carefully reinterred them.

The party of trappers, sad at the loss of one of their number, started
down the Platte, with their boat-load of furs, but finding the river
too shallow to navigate their frail craft, they were compelled to
abandon it.  They themselves carried what they could of its contents
and made the best of their way on foot, two hundred and fifty miles,
to the nearest settlement.  In a few days their provisions began to
run short, and as game became scarce, they separated, after making
about one hundred miles of their lonesome journey, each man taking
his own trail toward the Missouri.  The murderer of Brady happened
to be a very indifferent walker, and was soon left many miles behind
his comrades.

When the foremost of the party arrived at the Pawnee village, on the
Loup Fork of the Platte, they sent back two members of that tribe to
bring in the lost man, while they continued on their journey toward
the Missouri.  A week or more later a small party of trappers
belonging to the same fur company, happening to go near the Indian
village, were stopped by the head chief, who requested them to go
with him, to see a white man who was lying very sick in his teepee.

They complied with the Indian's request, and found the murderer of
Brady at the point of death.  He confessed to them how Brady came to
his end; told of his own sufferings, and believed them to be the
justice that was dealt out to him for the unwarranted killing of his
partner.  He told them, further, that when his companions left him on
the road, he had tried to light a fire at night with his pistol, and
the charge accidentally entered his thigh bone, tearing it into
splinters.  In that deplorable condition he was absolutely helpless;
to walk was an impossibility.  He could hardly move at all, far less
dress his wound properly.  He managed, by tying a piece of cloth to
a stick, to let any passing trapper know where he was lying.
He remained there for six days and nights, when at last his ear
caught the sound of human voices, and waking up from the stupor which
had overcome him from his weakness, to his great delight he discovered
two friendly Pawnees leaning over him, their countenances filled with
compassion.  They gave him some nourishment, tenderly conveyed him
to their village, and had kindly cared for him ever since.

He expired while the trappers were conversing with him.

One of the historic places on the left bank of the North Fork of the
Platte is Ash Hollow,[39] twelve miles distant from the main stream,
famous for a battle between Little Thunder, chief of the Brule Sioux,
and the Second Regiment of United States Dragoons, under command of
Brevet Brigadier William S. Harney; in which some eighty Indians were
slain, and the lives of twelve of our own soldiers lost.

Johnson's Creek was named for a foolish missionary a great many years
ago, who was on his way to Oregon, in company with a party of
emigrants in charge of John Gray.

As they were breaking camp one morning, a band of Sioux suddenly
charged out of the hills, and preparations were immediately made by
Mr. Gray and his men to repel them.  Against such a course as this
Mr. Johnson loudly protested.  He declared that it would be a terrible
outrage to shed innocent blood, and as the savages neared the camp,
he marched out to meet them and have a talk, notwithstanding that
he was told by his companions that the Indians would not listen to
him for a moment, but would take his scalp.

The deluded fool really believed that the savages would not harm him,
because he was a missionary, and had ventured out among them to do
their race good.  Of course he fell a victim to his own ridiculous
credulity; for the moment the Indians came close enough, they
incontinently murdered him, and his hair was dangling at the belt of
one of the warriors before Johnson had a chance to put in a word.

In the fight which ensued three of the Indians were killed, and were,
with the mangled remains of the unfortunate missionary, buried in
one grave.

Independence Rock is an isolated mass of clear granite, located a few
hundred yards from the right bank of the Sweetwater.  Its base covers
an area of nearly five acres, and rises to a height of about three
hundred feet.  There is a slight depression on its summit, otherwise
the rock would be nearly oval in shape.  In the early days of the
trail, a little soil, which had probably been drifted into the
depression mentioned, supported a few sickly shrubs and one dwarf
tree.

The front face of this ancient landmark, like that of Pawnee Rock,
on the old Santa Fé Trail, is covered with the names of trappers,
traders, emigrants, and other men who supposed that their rude
carvings would immortalize them.

The rock derives its patriotic name from the fact that many years ago
one of the first party of Americans who crossed the continent by the
way of the Platte Valley, under the leadership of a man named Thorp,
celebrated their Fourth of July at the foot of the now historic mass
of granite.

The most prominent inscription on the face of the rock is Independence.
Father De Smet, the celebrated Jesuit priest, says of it in his
letters to the bishop of St. Louis, in 1841:
        The first rock which we saw, and which truly deserves the name,
        was the famous rock Independence.  At first I was led to
        believe that it had received this pompous name from its
        isolated situation and the solidity of its basis; but I was
        afterward told that it was called so because the first
        travellers who thought of giving it a name arrived at it on
        the very day when the people of the United States celebrate
        the anniversary of their separation from Great Britain.
        We reached this spot on the day that immediately succeeds this
        celebration.  We had in our company a young Englishman,
        as jealous of the honour of his nation as the Americans;
        hence we had a double reason not to cry hurrah, for
        Independence.  Still, on the following day, lest it might be
        said that we passed this lofty monument of the desert with
        indifference, we cut our names on the south side of the rock,
        under initials (I. H. S.) which we would wish to see engraved
        on every spot.  On account of all these names, and of the
        dates that accompany them, as well as of the hieroglyphics
        of Indian warriors, I have surnamed this rock “The Great
        Record of the Desert.”

As is the case with nearly all of the prominent bluffs, mountains,
and isolated peaks in the romantic valley, Independence Rock has its
Indian legend.  The story as told by an old warrior is this:—

        A great many years ago, long before any white man had looked
        upon the valley of the Upper Platte, the chief of the Pawnees,
        whose big villages extended for some distance along that
        river, was known as the Crouching Panther.  He was one of the
        bravest warriors that the famous Pawnee nation had ever
        produced; large in stature, powerful in his strength, yet as
        lithe and quick as the animal from which he derived his name.
        He was beloved by his tribe, and none of his many warriors
        could compete with him for an instant in all the manly games
        which afford the amusements of the savages, nor with him in
        the chase after the buffalo or the more fleet antelope.
        His prowess, too, in battle was far beyond that of any of the
        great warriors which tradition had handed down; yet he was not
        envied by any, for he was of a loving and kind disposition.
        He was equal in feats of horsemanship to the Comanches, which
        nation excels in that particular over all other Plains tribes.

        In the village there lived a superannuated chief, who
        possessed a daughter considered the handsomest maiden in all
        the region which was watered by the great Platte.  She was as
        graceful as an antelope in all her movements, and, as is usual
        in the strange nomenclature of the savages who take their
        cognomens from some characteristic of their nature, she was
        known as the Antelope, because she more resembled that
        graceful animal than any other of the young maidens in her
        tribe.  She would flit from rock to rock, when out gathering
        berries, or float down the stream in her birch-bark canoe,
        catching fish for her aged father's meals.  Crouching Panther
        had for a long time had his eyes riveted upon the Antelope,
        and would often lie for hours on some high point of rock
        watching the youthful girl as she attended to the cares of
        her lodge.  He never returned from a successful hunt without
        sending some choice portion of the buffalo or other animal
        he had killed to the lodge of the Antelope.

        The arrangements, according to the customs of the tribe, had
        already been made for a wedding of the favourite young savages,
        when on the night preceding the ceremony a party of Sioux,
        the deadly hereditary enemies of the Pawnees, made a night
        assault upon the village, and after a terrible fight carried
        off a number of scalps, and many prisoners, among whom was
        the Antelope.

        The prisoners were hurried off to one of the remote fastnesses
        of the Sioux up in the mountains, in the vicinity of
        Medicine Bow River, where, as was the custom of the Indians,
        they intended to sacrifice their prisoners by the worst
        methods of torture as ingeniously cruel as they could possibly
        make it.

        In two days after the return of the warriors to the Sioux
        village was the sacrifice to be made.  The friends and
        relatives of the Sioux who had been killed in the assault
        upon the Pawnees were drawn up around the unfortunate captives,
        who were about to be fastened to stakes and stand the terrible
        ordeal of death by fire, when suddenly, like a clap of thunder
        out of a clear sky, the terrible war-whoop of the Pawnees
        sounded in the ears of the now thoroughly frightened Sioux,
        who saw, to their dismay, a band of the dreaded Pawnees led
        by the intrepid Crouching Panther.  Dashing down upon them,
        they fought their way to where the prisoners were already
        stoically awaiting their terrible fate, and the Crouching
        Panther, rushing to where the Antelope was standing, after
        killing half a dozen of his foes, caught her up, and throwing
        her before him on his saddle, dashed off with his brave
        little band of followers before the astonished Sioux could
        recover.  It was not long before they recovered their presence
        of mind, however, and, enraged by the loss of their prisoners,
        immediately mounted their horses and quickly followed the
        daring Pawnees on the trail.

        The Sioux outnumbered the Pawnees ten to one, but Crouching
        Panther had just that amount of courage in his nature that
        numbers did not stop him when bent on such a mission, and he
        had proceeded a great way on the trail with his warriors and
        the Antelope toward their native village when they were
        overtaken by a vastly superior force, and a terrible fight
        took place.  Many a Sioux did the Crouching Panther send to
        the happy hunting-grounds, notwithstanding that he was
        handicapped by the living burden in front of him on his horse.
        He was near the rock, when he found that all his warriors,
        though having fought bravely, were cut down, and himself alone,
        death staring him in the face, or what was worse, the torture
        for himself and the girl with him.  He jumped from his animal
        with the now fainting maiden in his arms, and, rushing up the
        mountain, followed by a dozen of his foes, sprang to the edge
        of the dizzy height, and stood for a moment confronting his
        enemies.  The sun was just setting; the valley was flooded
        with a golden light, and he stood there with the Antelope in
        his arms at bay for a moment, gazing in disdain upon his
        pursuers.  As one of the Sioux was foremost in his attempt to
        seize the Crouching Panther, the latter hurled his hatchet
        with terrible, unerring force, and buried it deep into the
        presumptuous savage's brain.  At the same moment crying out
        “The spirits of a hundred Pawnee braves will accompany their
        great chief to the happy hunting-grounds of their fathers,”
        he pressed close to his bosom the beautiful form of the
        Antelope, sprang out into the clear air, and bounding from
        rock to rock, the two lovers were dashed to pieces on the
        stony ground below.

Chimney Rock, on the Platte, was once a famous landmark in the early
days of the trail.  When he reached it, the pioneer traveller knew
that nearly one-half of the journey from the Missouri River and the
Great Salt Lake was over.  For miles on either side of it, it was
plainly visible to the lonely trapper, the hunter, and the
western-bound emigrant.

Erosion has worn it to an insignificant pillar, but it at one time
was a portion of the main chain of bluffs bounding the valley of the
Platte.  Denudation through countless ages separated it from them.
Fifty years ago it was a conical elevation, about a hundred feet high,
from the apex of which another shaft arose forty feet.  Its strange
formation was caused by disintegration of the softer portions of its
mass.  It is located on the south side of the river, not far from the
boundary line between Nebraska and Wyoming.  It looked like a factory
chimney, hence its name.

The origin of “Crazy Woman's Creek,” according to a legend of the
Crows, told by an aged chief to George P. Belden, is as follows:—

        Years ago, when my father was a little boy, there came among
        us a man who was half white.  He said he wished to trade with
        our people for buffalo-robes, beaver, elk, and deerskins, and
        that he would give us much paint, and many blankets and pieces
        of cloth in exchange for furs.  We liked him, and believed him
        very good, for he was rich, having many thousands of beads and
        hundreds of yards of ribbons.  Our village was then built on
        the river, about twenty miles above where we now are, and game
        was very plentiful.  This river did not at that time have the
        name of Crazy Woman, but was called Big Beard, because a
        curious grass grows along its banks that has a big beard.
        What I am about to relate caused the name of the river to be
        changed.

        The trader built a lodge of wood and stones, and near it a
        great, strong house, in which he kept all his immense wealth.
        It was not long until he had bought all the robes and furs
        for sale in the village, and then he packed them on ponies,
        and bidding us good-by, said he was going far to the east
        where the paleface lives, but that he would soon come back,
        bring us many presents and plenty of blankets, beads, and
        ribbons, which he would exchange as before for robes and furs.
        We were sorry to see him go, but, as he promised to return
        in a few moons, we were much consoled.  It was not long until
        our spies reported something they could not understand coming
        into our country, and the whole village was in a great state
        of alarm.  Some of the boldest ventured out, and returned with
        the joyful intelligence that the strange objects our young men
        had seen was the trader and his people.  All the village ran
        to meet him, and the sight was strange enough indeed.
        The Crows had in those days never seen a wagon, horse, or ox,
        and the trader had brought all these things.  The wagons they
        called teepees on rollers; the horses were giants beside the
        little ponies, and the oxen, all believed were tame buffaloes.
        There, also, was a squaw, who was perfectly white, and who
        could not understand anything that was said to her.  She wore
        dresses down to her feet, of which she seemed to be ashamed,
        and our women said she tied cords tightly about her waist,
        so as to make it small.  She had very long hair, and did not
        plait but rolled it, and, instead of letting it hang down,
        wrapped it tightly about her head.

        It was not long until the trader had all his wagons unloaded
        and his store open.  He had brought all the women beads and
        ribbons, and the men brass rings.  Besides what he sold, he
        made many presents; so everybody loved him, for no one had
        ever before seen so rich and generous a man.

        One day he told the Big Chief to come into the back part of
        the store and he would show him something wonderful.
        The chief went, wondering what it could be, and when they
        were alone, the trader drew out a very little barrel and,
        taking a wooden cup, poured out some black-looking water,
        which he told the chief to drink.  The chief did as desired
        and immediately felt so jolly he asked for more.  The trader
        promised, if he would never tell any one where he got the
        black water, he would give him all he wanted.  The chief
        promised, and the trader gave him another cupful.  Now the
        chief danced and sang, and went to his lodge, where he fell
        down in a deep sleep, and no one could wake him.  He slept
        so long the warriors gathered about the lodge wondering what
        could ail him, and they were about to go to the trader and
        demand to know what kind of medicine he had given the chief
        to make him behave so strangely when the chief woke up and
        ordered them all to their lodges, and to ask no questions.

        Next day the chief went to the trader and said he had had
        great dreams; that he thought he had slain many of his
        enemies, and that the black medicine must be very good to
        make him have such pleasant visions.  He begged the trader
        to give him some more, and he did so.  Thus the chief did
        every day, and all the village wondered; for they believed
        the trader had bewitched him.  In former times the chief had
        been a very quiet and dignified man, but now he sang, danced
        in the streets, and publicly hugged the women, so every one
        thought him crazy.  The Crows disliked the conduct of their
        chief very much, and began to grumble against the trader;
        for they thought he was to blame for the great change that
        had come over their chief.  Some said he was bewitched,
        others that the trader had an evil spirit in one of his boxes,
        and thus they talked, some believing one thing, and some
        another, but all blaming him.  One of the young warriors
        called a secret council, and the matter was discussed, and
        it was finally decided that the trader must leave or they
        would put him to death.  A warrior, who was a great friend
        of the trader, was sent to tell him of the decision of the
        council, and when he did so, the trader laughed and said if
        he would come into the back of the store, and never tell
        anybody, he would show him what ailed the chief.  The warrior
        went, and the trader gave him a ladleful of the black water
        to drink.  Presently he began to sing and dance about, and
        then went out into the street and sang, which greatly
        surprised every one, for he had never done so before.
        The young men gathered about him and asked him what ailed him,
        but he only said, “Oh, go to the trader and get some of the
        black water!”  So they went to the trader and inquired what
        kind of black water he had that affected people so strangely;
        and the trader told them he had only the same kind of water
        they drank, and brought out his pail, that they all might
        drink.  Each warrior took up the ladle and drank some, and
        made the trader drink some, and then they sat down to wait
        and see if it would affect them like the chief and their
        brother-warrior; but it did not, and they rose up and said,
        “The trader or our brother lies, and we will see who is the
        liar.”  They went to the warrior's lodge and found him sound
        asleep, nor could they wake him.  Two remained to watch by
        him, and the others went to their teepees.  When the sun
        was up, the warriors rose, and, seeing the others sitting
        in his tent, said, “Why are you here, my brothers?”  And the
        eldest of the two warriors replied, “You have lied to us,
        for the trader has no black water.”  The warrior, recollecting
        his promise not to tell, said, “It is true that the trader has
        no black water, and who said he had?”  They explained to him
        his conduct of the day before, at which he was greatly
        astonished, and he declared if such was the case he must have
        been very sick in his head and not known what he said.
        Thereupon the warriors withdrew and reported all to their
        brethren.  The warriors were greatly perplexed, and knew not
        what to do or think, but decided to wait and see.

        The chief and warrior were now drunk every day, and the young
        chief called another council.  It was long and stormy in its
        debate, all the wise men speaking, but no one giving such
        counsel as the others would accept.  At last a young warrior
        rose and said that he had watched, and that it was true that
        the trader had a black water which he gave the chief and
        warrior to drink; for he had made a hole in the wall of the
        trader's store and through it saw them drinking the black
        water.  He advised them to bring the trader and warrior
        before them, and he would accuse them to their face of what
        he had seen, and if they denied the truth he would fight them.

        This speech was received with great satisfaction, and the
        young chief at once sent some warriors to fetch the trader
        and their brother.

        When they were come into the council and seated, the young
        warrior repeated all he had said, and asked if it were not
        true that they would fight him.

        The warrior who was first asked rose up and said the young
        warrior lied, and that he was ready to fight him; but when
        the trader was told to stand up and answer, he, seeing there
        was no use in denying the matter, confessed all.  He said the
        black water was given him by the white people, a great many
        of whom drank it, and it made them behave as they had seen
        the chief and the warrior do.  He also told them that after
        a man drank of it he felt happy, laughed and sang, and when
        he lay down he dreamed pleasant dreams and slew his enemies.

        The curiosity of the warriors was greatly excited and the
        young chief bade the trader go and bring some of his black
        water, that they might taste it.  He was about to depart when
        the young warrior who had before spoken rose and desired him
        to be seated, when he said: “The warriors heard my speech,
        and it was good.  The brother, however, when I asked him if
        he would tell the council the truth, said I lied, and he
        would fight me.  Let us now go out of the village and fight.”

        The young chief asked the drunkard if he had anything to say,
        when he rose and addressed the council as follows:—

        “Oh, my brethren, it is true that I have drunk of the black
        water, and that I have lied.  When the trader first gave it
        to me to drink, he made me promise that I would never tell
        what it was, or where I got it, and he has many times since
        said if I told any one he would never give me any more to
        drink.  Oh, my brethren, the black water is most wonderful,
        and I have come to love it better than my life, or the truth.
        The fear of never having any more of it to drink made me lie,
        and I have nothing more to say but that I am ready to fight.”

        Then the council adjourned, and every one went out to see
        the warriors fight.  They were both men of great skill and
        bravery, and the whole village came to see the battle.
        He who drank the black water was the best spears-man in the
        tribe, and every one expected to see the other warrior killed.

        The spears were brought, and when they were given to the
        combatants it was seen that the hand of him who had lied
        shook so he could hardly hold his spear.  At this his friends
        rallied him, and asked him if he was afraid.  He replied that
        his heart was brave, but that his hand trembled, though not
        with fear, for it had shook so for many days.

        Then the battle began, and at the second throw of the spears
        he with the trembling hand was clove through the heart, and
        killed instantly, while the other warrior did not receive a
        wound.

        After the fight was over, the warriors all went to the trader's
        lodge, and he brought in a pail more than a quart of the
        black water, which he gave in small quantities to each warrior.
        When they had swallowed it, they began to dance and sing, and
        many lay down on the ground and slept as though they were dead.
        Next day they came again and asked for more black water; and
        so they came each day, dancing and singing, for more than
        a week.

        One morning the trader said he would give them no more black
        water unless they paid him for it, and this they did.
        The price was at first one robe for each sup sufficient to
        make them sleep, but, as the black water became scarce,
        two robes, and finally three were paid for a sleep.  Then the
        trader said he had no more except a little for himself, and
        this he would not sell; but the warriors begged so hard for
        some he gave them a sleep for many robes.  Even the body-robes
        were soon in the hands of the trader, and the warriors were
        very poor, but still they begged for more black water, giving
        a pony in exchange for each sleep.  The trader took all the
        ponies, and then the warriors offered their squaws, but there
        was no more black water, and the trader said he would go and
        fetch some.

        He packed all the robes on the ponies and was about to set out,
        when a warrior made a speech, saying that now that he had all
        their robes and ponies, and they were very poor, the trader
        was going away and would never return, for they had nothing
        more to give him.  So the warriors said he should not depart,
        and ordered him to unpack the ponies.  The trader told them
        he would soon return with plenty of black water, and give it
        to them as he did at first.  Many of the warriors were willing
        that he should depart, but others said no, and one declared
        that he had plenty of black water still left and was going off
        to trade with their enemies, the Sioux.  This created great
        excitement, and the trader's store and all his packs were
        searched, but no black water found.  Still the warriors
        asserted that he had it, and that it was hidden away.
        The warriors declared that they would kill him unless he
        instantly told them where he had hid it, and upon his not
        being able to do so, they rushed into his lodge and murdered
        him before the eyes of his squaw, tearing off his scalp and
        stamping upon his body.  This so alarmed the white squaw that
        she attempted to run out of the lodge, and, as she came to
        the door, a warrior struck her on the head with his tomahawk
        and she fell down as though she were dead.

        The chief made a great speech, saying that now, as the trader
        was dead, they would burn his lodge and take back all their
        robes and ponies.  So the lodge was fired, and as it burned
        a Crow squaw saw by its light the white squaw lying before
        the door, and that she was not dead, and she took her to her
        lodge, sewed up her wounds, and gave her something to eat.
        The squaw lived and got well, but she was crazy and could not
        bear the sight of a warrior, believing that every one who
        came near her was going to kill her.

        One day the white squaw was missing, and the whole village
        turned out to look for her.  They followed her tracks far
        down the river, but could not find her.  Some women out
        gathering berries a few days afterward said the white squaw
        came to them and asked for food, showing them at the same
        time where she was hiding in the bluffs near by.  She begged
        them not to tell the warriors where she was, or they would
        come and kill her.  The squaws tried to dissuade her from
        a notion so foolish, but they could not get her to return
        to the village.

        Every day the squaws went and took her food, and she lived
        for many months, no one knowing where she was but the women.
        When the warriors came about she hid away, and would not stir
        out until they were gone.  One day, however, a warrior out
        hunting antelope came suddenly upon her and she fled away,
        but he followed her, wishing to bring her to the village.
        All day she ran over the hills, and at night the warrior came
        back, being unable to catch her.  She was never seen again,
        and what became of her is not known, although it is likely
        she died of hunger, or that the wild beasts destroyed her.

        Ever after, when the Indians came here to camp, they told
        the story of the crazy woman, and the place became known as
        the “place of the crazy woman,” and the name of Big Beard
        was almost entirely forgotten.

Laramie Plains present a broad bottom on both sides of the river,
comprising about twelve hundred square miles, bounded on the north
and east by the Black Hills, on the south by a “divide” of arenaceous
rock, embedded in marl and white clay, almost barren of verdure, while
on the west are the beautiful Medicine Bow Mountains.  The southern
portion of these plains is watered by a succession of streams which
rise in the mountains, some of them discharging their volume into the
Laramie River, others sinking in the sand—a characteristic of many
creeks and so-called rivers of the central region of the continent.

The northern portion of these vast prairies is a high tableland,
devoid of water, its soil mixed with clay and sand, but producing the
grass peculiar to the other plains region.  Toward the southeastern
extremity, at the foot of an isolated mountain, is a salt lake of
considerable dimensions, several other sheets of water are also to
be seen in the vicinity of the Medicine Bow Mountains, all of which
are strongly impregnated with mineral salts.  The Laramie River
traces its course through the whole extent, rising in the southern
extremity of the Medicine Bow Mountains, and empties into the
North Platte, at Fort Laramie.

Laramie Peak was the guiding hill that emigrants first saw of the
far-famed western mountains—especially its snow-covered crest,
a veritable beacon, its summit glistening in the morning sun as its
rays fell upon it, the majestic hill ever pointing out the direction
which the earnest pilgrims should travel.

The existence of a large lake of salt water somewhere amid the wilds
west of the Rocky Mountains seems to have been vaguely known as long
ago as two hundred years.  As early as May, 1689, the Baron
La Hontan,[40] lord-lieutenant of the French colony at Placentia,
in New Foundland, wrote an account of discoveries in this region,
which was published in the English language in 1735.

In the letter, which is dated at “Missilimakinac,” he gives “an
account of the author's departure from and return to Missilimakinac;
a description of the Bay of Puants and its villages; an ample
description of the beavers, followed by the journal of a remarkable
voyage upon Long River, and a map of the adjacent country.”

        Leaving Mackinaw, he passed into Green Bay, which he calls
        “the Bay of Pouteoutamois,” and arrived at the mouth of Fox
        River, which he describes as “a little, deep sort of a river,
        which disembogues at a place where the water of the lake
        swells three feet high in twelve hours, and decreases as much
        in the same compass of time.”

        The villages of the Sakis, Pouteouatamis, and some Malominis
        are seated on the side of that river, and the Jesuits have
        a house, or college, built upon it.  Ascending the Fox River,
        called “the river of Puants,” he came to a village of Kikapous,
        which stands on the brink of a little lake, in which the
        savages fish great quantities of pikes and gudgeons.
        [Lake Winnebago?]

        Still ascending the river, he passed through the “little lake
        of the Malominis,” the sides of which “are covered with a sort
        of oats, which grow in tufts, with a small stalk, and of which
        the savages reap plentiful crops,” and at length arrived at
        the land carriage of Ouisconsinc, which “we finished in two
        days; that is, we left the river Puants, and transported our
        canoes and baggage to the river Ouisconsinc, which is not
        above three-quarters of a league distant, or thereabouts.”
        Descending the Wisconsin, in four days he reached its mouth,
        and landed on an island in the river Mississippi.

        So far, the journey of the Baron La Hontan is plain enough;
        but beyond this point it is rather apocryphal.  He states that
        he ascended the Mississippi for nine days, when he “entered
        the mouth of the Long River, which looks like a lake full of
        bulrushes.”  He sailed up this river for six weeks, passing
        through various nations of savages, of which a most fanciful
        description is given.  At length, determined by the advance
        of the season, he abandoned the intention of reaching the
        head of the river, and returned to Canada, having at the
        termination of his voyage first “fixed a long pole, with the
        arms of France done upon a plate of lead.”  The following
        is his description of the “Long River”: “You must know that
        the stream of the Long River is all along very slack and easy,
        abating for about three leagues between the fourteenth and
        fifteenth villages; for there, indeed, its current may be
        called rapid.  The channel is so straight that it scarce winds
        at all from the head of the lake.  'Tis true 'tis not very
        pleasant, for most of its banks have a dismal prospect, and
        the water itself has an ugly taste; but then its usefulness
        atones for such inconveniences, for 'tis navigable with the
        greatest ease, and will bear barks of fifty tons, till you
        come to that place which is marked with a flower-de-luce in
        the map, and where I put up the post that my soldiers
        christened La Hontan's Limit.”

        A detailed map accompanies this imaginative voyage up this
        most imaginary river.  It is represented as flowing east
        through twenty-five degrees of longitude, numerous streams
        putting into it on either side, with mountains, islands,
        villages, and domains of Indian tribes, whose very names have
        at this day sunk into oblivion.  The map was afterward
        published, in 1710, by John Senex, F.R.S., as a part of North
        America, corrected from the observations communicated to the
        Royal Society at London and the Royal Academy at Paris.

        This discovery of Baron La Hontan excited, even at that early
        day, the spirit of enterprise and speculation which has proved
        so marked a feature in the national character.  In a work
        published in 1772, and entitled “A description of the Province
        of Carolina, by the Spaniards called Florida, and by the
        French La Louisiane, by Daniel Cox,” the then proprietary,
        the first part of the fifth chapter is devoted to “A new and
        curious discovery and relation of an easy communication
        between the river Meschacebe (Mississippi) and the South Sea,
        which separates America from China, by means of several
        large rivers and lakes.”

The existence of the Great Salt Lake of Utah was known to the early
Spanish voyageurs under the intrepid Coronado, through stories told
them by the Indians, but there is no trustworthy account of any of
them having seen it.  To Jim Bridger, the famous mountaineer and
scout, must be accorded the honour of having been the first white man
to look upon its brackish waters.  He discovered it in the winter of
1824-25, accidentally, in deciding a bet.  The story of this visit to
the Great Salt Lake comes down to us by the most reliable testimony.
It appears that a party of trappers, under the command of William H.
Ashley, one day found themselves on Bear River, in what is known as
Willow Valley, and while lying in camp a discussion arose in relation
to the probable course of the river.  A wager was made, and Bridger
sent out to determine the question.  He paddled a long distance and
came out on the Great Salt Lake, whose water he tasted and found it
salt.  Having made the discovery as to where the Bear River emptied,
he retraced his lonely journey and reported the result to his companions.

Upon his report of the vast dimensions of the strange inland body of
salt water, they all became anxious to learn whether other streams
did not flow into the lake, and if so, there were new fields in which
to try their luck in trapping beaver.  To learn the fact four of them
constructed boats of skins, and paddling into the lake, explored it.

Of course, it cannot be clearly proven that Old Jim Bridger was the
first white man who saw the Great Salt Lake, but all others who have
made claim to its discovery have not satisfied the demands of truth
in their particulars, so the honour must and does rest upon Bridger;
for no more authentic account of its discovery can be found.
His statement is corroborated by such men as Robert Campbell,
of St. Louis, and other famous mountaineers of the time.

There is a pretty piece of fiction connected with one of the claimants
to its discovery, by the celebrated Jim Beckwourth, that famous
Afro-American, who was chief of the Crow Nation.  It says:
        One day in June, 1822, a beautiful Indian maiden offered him
        a pair of moccasins if he would procure for her an antelope
        skin, and bring the animal's brains with it, in order that
        she might dress a deerskin.  Beckwourth started out in his
        mission, but failed to see any antelope.  He did see an
        Indian coming toward him, whose brains he proposed to himself
        to take to the savage maiden after he had killed the buck,
        believing that she would never discover the difference, and
        had pulled up his rifle to fire when he happily saw that his
        supposed savage was William H. Ashley, of the American Fur
        Company, and who told him that he had sailed through Green
        River into the Great Salt Lake.

It may be true that Ashley did sail upon the Great Salt Lake before
Bridger; but the story lacks confirmation; it has not that reliable
endorsement which Bridger's claim possesses.

Jedediah Smith, another of the famous coterie of old trappers, called
the lake Utah, and the river which flows into it from the south after
the celebrated Ashley.

Much has been given to the world in relation to the vicinity of the
Great Salt Lake and the contiguous part of Utah by the famous author,
Washington Irving, in his adventures of Captain Bonneville, but it
should be taken cum grano salis; for, as Bancroft truthfully observes:
        Irving humoured the captain, whose vanity prompted him to give
        his own name to the lake, although he had not a shadow of
        title to that distinction.  Yet on Bonneville's map of the
        region, the lake is plainly lettered “Bonneville's Lake.”

        Many old maps, dating from 1795 to 1826, have laid down upon
        them an inland sea, or lake, together with many other strange
        rivers and creeks, which never had any existence except in
        the minds of their progenitors, taken from the legendary tales
        of the old trappers, who in turn got them from the savages.

        The early emigrants to Oregon and California did not travel
        within many miles of the Great Salt Lake, so but very scanty
        reports are to be found in relation to the country.  General
        Fremont, too, like a great many explorers, got puffed up with
        his own importance, and when, on the 6th of September, 1846,
        he saw for the first time the Great Salt Lake, he compares
        himself to Balboa, when that famous Spaniard gazed upon the
        Pacific.  Fremont, too, says that he was the first to sail
        upon its saline waters, but again, as in many of his statements,
        he commits an unpardonable error; for Bridger's truthful story
        of the old trappers who explored it in search of streams
        flowing into it, in the hopes of enlarging their field of
        beaver trapping, antedates Fremont's many years.[41]

Captain Stansbury, of the United States army, made the first survey
of the lake in 1849-50.  Stansbury Island was named after him;
Gunnison Island after Lieutenant Gunnison, of his command; Fremont's
Island, after that explorer, who first saw it in 1843, and called it
Disappointment Island.

Members of Captain Bonneville's company first looked upon the lake
from near the mouth of the Ogden River, in 1833.  His name has been
given to a great fossil lake, whose shore line may now be seen
throughout the neighbouring valleys, and of which the Great Salt Lake
is but the bitter fragment.

The outlet to this vast ancient body of water has been shown by
Professor Gilbert to have been at a place now called Red Rock Pass.




CHAPTER XI.
INDIAN TRIBES ON THE TRAIL.



The Otoes, once occupying the region at the mouth of the Platte, were
a very brave and interesting tribe.  When first known to the whites,
in the early part of the century, the chief of the nation was I-e-tan,
a man of great courage, excellent judgment, and crafty, as are always
the most intelligent of the North American savages.  His leading
attributes were penetration of character, close observation of
everything that occurred, and a determination to carry out his ideas,
which were remarkable in their development.  An old regular army
officer, long since dead, who knew I-e-tan well and spoke his language,
said that he had known him to form estimates of men, judicious, if not
accurate, from half an hour's acquaintance, and without understanding
a word that was spoken.  But beneath his calm exterior there burned
a lava of impetuous passions, which, when strongly moved, burst forth
with a fierce and blind violence.

I-e-tan had the advantage of a fine and commanding figure,
so remarkable, indeed, that once at a dinner, on a public occasion,
at Jefferson Barracks, his health was drunk, with a complimentary
allusion to the lines from Shakespeare:

        A combination and a form indeed,
        Where every god did seem to set his seal
        To give the world assurance of a man.

In a deep carousal which took place one night in the village, in 1822,
his brother, a fine fellow, named Blue-eyes (that colour being rare[42]
among the Indians), had the misfortune to bite off a small piece of
I-e-tan's nose.  So soon as he became sensible of this irreparable
injury, to which, as an Indian, he was, perhaps, even more sensitive
than a white man, I-e-tan burned with a mortal resentment.  He retired,
telling his brother that he would kill him.  He got a rifle, returned,
and deliberately shot him through the heart.  He had found Blue-eyes
leaning with folded arms against a pillar of his lodge, and thus,
with a heroic stoicism, which has been rightly attributed as a
characteristic of the race, without a murmur, or the quiver of a
muscle, he submitted to his cruel fate.

Then was I-e-tan seized with a violent remorse, and exhibited the
redeeming traits of repentance and inconsolable grief, and of
greatness, in the very constancy of the absorbing sentiment.
He retired from all intercourse with his race, abstaining wholly from
drink, for which he had a propensity, and, as if under a vow, he went
naked for nearly two years.  He also meditated suicide, and was
probably only prevented from committing it by the influence of a white
friend.  He sought honourable death in desperate encounters with all
the enemies he could find, and in this period acquired his name, or
title, from a very destructive attack he made upon a party of another
tribe.  He lived a year or two with the Pawnees, acquiring perfectly
their difficult language, and attaining a great influence over them,
which he never lost.  After several years of such penance, I-e-tan
revisited the villages of his nation, and, in 1830, on the death of
La Criniere, his elder brother, succeeded him as principal chief.

I-e-tan married many of the finest girls of his own and neighbouring
tribes, but never had any children.  Latterly one of his wives
presented him with a male child, which was born with teeth.
I-e-tan pronounced it a special interposition of the Great Spirit,
of which this extraordinary sign was proof.

I-e-tan was the last chief who could so far resist the ruinous
influence of the increasing communication of his tribe with the
villanous, the worse than barbarous, whites of the extreme frontier
as to keep the young men under a tolerable control, but his death
proved a signal for license and disorder.

Intemperance was the great fault in I-e-tan's character, and the cause
of his greatest misfortune and crime.  It led to his violent death.
The circumstances of this tragedy are worthy of record, if only that
they develop some strong traits of aboriginal character.  They are as
follows: In April, 1837, accompanied by his two youngest wives, at a
trading-house at the mouth of the Platte, he indulged in one of his
most violent fits of drunkenness, and in this condition, on a dark
and inclement night, drove his wives out of doors.  Two men of his
tribe, who witnessed these circumstances, persuaded the women to fly
in their company.  One of these men had formerly been dangerously
stabbed by I-e-tan.  Actuated by hatred, calculating the chief's power
was on the decline, and depending on the strength of their connections,
which were influential, the seducers became tired of living out in
hunting-camps and elsewhere, and determined to return to the village
and face it out.  Such cases of elopement are not very frequent;
but after a much longer absence the parties generally become silently
reconciled, if necessary, through the arrangement of friends.
I-e-tan said, however, that it was not only a personal insult and
injury, but an evidence of defiance of his power, and that he would
live or die the chief of the Otoes.  His enemies had prepared their
friends for resistance, and I-e-tan armed himself for the conflict.
He sought and found the young men in the skirts of the village, near
some trees where their supporters were concealed.  I-e-tan addressed
the man whom he had formerly wounded: “Stand aside!  I do not wish to
kill you; I have perhaps injured you enough.”  The fellow immediately
fled.  He then fired upon the other, and missed him.  As the white
man was about to return the fire, he was shot down by a nephew of
I-e-tan's from a great distance.  I-e-tan then drew a pistol, jumped
astride his fallen enemy, and was about to blow out his brains, when
the interpreter, Dorian, hoping even then to stop bloodshed, struck up
his pistol, which was discharged in the air, and seized him around the
body and arms.  At this instant the wounded man, writhing in the agony
of death, discharged his rifle at random.  The ball shattered Dorian's
arm and broke both of I-e-tan's, but the latter, being then unloosened,
sprang and stamped upon the body, and called upon his sister, an old
woman, to beat out his brains.  This she did with an axe, with which
she had come running with his friends and nephews from the village.
At this instant—Dorian being out of the way—a volley was fired at
I-e-tan, and five balls penetrated his body.  Then his nephews, coming
too late to his support, took swift vengeance.  They fired at his now
flying enemies, and, although they were in motion, nearly two hundred
yards distant, three of them fell dead.

I-e-tan was conveyed to his lodge in the village, where being
surrounded by many relations and friends, he deplored the condition
of the nation, and warned them against the dangers to which it was
exposed.  He assured them most positively that if he willed it,
he could continue to live, but that many of the Otoes had become
such dogs that he was weary of governing them, and that his arms
being broken, he could no longer be a great warrior.  He gave some
messages for his friend, the agent, who was expected at the village,
and then turning to a bystander, told him he had heard that day that
he had a bottle of whiskey, and ordered him to bring it.  This being
done, he caused it to be poured down his throat, and when drunk he
sang his death song and died.

The Pawnees were the next considerable tribe on the Salt Lake Trail,
west of the Otoes.  The Pawnee territory, as late as sixty years ago,
extended from the Niobrara, south to the Arkansas.  This territory
embraced a large portion of what is now Kansas and Nebraska, but it
must not be supposed for a moment that they held undisputed possession
of this territory.  On their north a constant war was waged against
them by the Dakotas, or Sioux, while on the south every tribe,
comprising the Osages, the Comanches, the Arapahoes, and the Kiowas,
were equally relentless in their hostility.  In fact, as far back as
their history and traditions date, the Pawnees were constantly on the
defensive against the almost numberless hereditary enemies by which
they were surrounded.  No greater proof of their prowess is needed
than the statement that during all the years of their continual
warfare, they held possession of their vast and phenomenally rich
hunting-grounds.  In 1833, by treaty they surrendered to the United
States all of their territory south of the Platte River.  In 1858 they
gave up their remaining territory, excepting a strip thirty miles long
and fifteen miles wide upon the Loup Fork of the Platte.  In 1874 they
sold this last of their original possessions to the United States and
were placed upon a Reservation in the Indian Territory.

In the traditions of the several bands it is related that the Pawnees
originally came from the south.

The tribal mark of the Pawnee is a scalp-lock, nearly erect, having
the appearance of a horn.  In order to keep it in its upright position,
it was filled with vermilion or some other pigment.  It is claimed by
those who have made a special study of this tribe that the name Pawnee
is derived from pa-rik-i, a horn.

Lewis and Clarke found them above the mouth of the Cheyenne River.
Both these early explorers state in their _Itinerary_ that the Pawnee
women were very handsome.  At that date they were very friendly
toward the United States, and remained so for a great many years.
Seventeen or eighteen years afterward they became fearfully hostile.
This remarkable change in their attitude toward the government has
been attributed to the action of the Northwestern Fur Company, which
spared no efforts to divert the trade of the Pawnee region from the
Missouri Fur Company.  Their first outbreak was in 1823, when they
made a raid upon some boats of the last-mentioned company, killing
and wounding a number of their men.  In consequence of this overt act,
an expedition under Colonel Leavenworth, in conjunction with six
hundred friendly Dakotas, was organized at Council Bluffs, and sent
against them.  In August of that same year a treaty of peace was made
with them, but nine years afterward Catlin found them so hostile that
it was dangerous to attempt any intercourse with them.[43]

All of the early French writers have much to say of the Pawnees, but
there is not space in this book to quote the many interesting facts
contained in their writings.  Their number in the early years of the
century, according to various authors, differs materially, one
enumerating them as high as twenty-five thousand, another as low as
six thousand.  In 1838 the tribe suffered terribly from smallpox,
which it is alleged was communicated to it by Dakota women they had
taken as prisoners.  The mortality among the grown persons was not
very great, but that of the children was enormous.  In 1879, according
to the official census of the Indian Bureau, the tribe had been
reduced to one thousand four hundred and forty.

One eminent author, Mr. John B. Dunbar, very correctly says:
        The causes of this continual decrease are several.  The most
        constantly acting influence has been the deadly warfare with
        surrounding tribes.  Probably not a year in this century has
        been without losses from this source, though only occasionally
        have they been marked with considerable disasters.  In 1832
        the Ski-di band suffered a severe defeat on the Arkansas from
        the Comanches.  In 1847 a Dakota war-party, numbering over
        seven hundred, attacked a village occupied by two hundred and
        sixteen Pawnees, and succeeded in killing eighty-three.
        In 1854 a party of one hundred and thirteen were cut off by
        an overwhelming body of Cheyennes and Kiowas, and killed
        almost to a man.  In 1873 a hunting party of about four
        hundred, two hundred and thirteen of whom were men, on the
        Republican, while in the act of killing a herd of buffalo,
        were attacked by nearly six hundred Dakota warriors, and
        eighty-six were killed.  But the usual policy of their
        enemies has been to cut off individuals, or small scattered
        parties, while engaged in the chase or in tilling isolated
        corn patches.  Losses of this kind, trifling when taken
        singly, have in the aggregate borne heavily on the tribe.
        It would seem that such losses, annually recurring, should
        have taught them to be more on their guard.  But let it be
        remembered that the struggle has not been in one direction,
        against one enemy.  The Dakotas, Crows, Kiowas, Cheyennes,
        Arapahoes, Comanches, Osages, and Kansans have faithfully
        aided each other, though undesignedly in the main, in this
        crusade of extermination against the Pawnees.  It has been,
        in the most emphatic sense, a struggle of the one against
        the many.  With the possible exception of the Dakotas, there
        is much reason to believe that the animosity of these tribes
        has been acerbated by the galling tradition of disastrous
        defeats which Pawnee prowess had inflicted upon themselves
        in past generations.  To them the last seventy years have
        been a carnival of revenge.

The Pawnees once were a great people.  They had everything that
heart could wish.  Their corn and buffalo gave them food, clothing,
and shelter.  They were very light-hearted and contented when at
peace; in war they were cunning, fierce, and generally successful.
Their very name was a terror to their enemies.

When the Pawnees of the Platte were sorely afflicted with smallpox,
and when they were visited by their agent, he depicts in his report
the most horrible scenes.  The poor wretches were utterly ignorant of
any remedy or alleviation.  Some sank themselves to the mouth in the
river, and awaited death which was thus hastened.  The living could
not always protect the dying and dead from the wolves.  Their chief,
Capote Bleu, once exclaimed to an American officer: “Oh my father, how
many glorious battles we might have fought, and not lost so many men!”

The Pawnees were probably the most degraded, in point of morals,
of all the Western tribes; they were held in such contempt by the
other tribes that none would make treaties with them.  They were
populous at one time, and were the most inveterate enemies of the
whites, killing them wherever they met.

The Pawnees in reality comprised five bands, which constituted the
entire nation: The Grand Pawnee Band; the Republican Pawnee Band;
Pawnee Loups, or Wolf Pawnees; Pawnee Picts, or Tattooed Pawnees; and
Black Pawnees.  Each land was independent and under its own chief,
but for mutual defence, or in other cases of urgent necessity, they
united in one body, and in the early days on the plains could raise
from thirty to forty thousand warriors.

They were, perhaps, the most cruel of all Indian nations.  They evinced
a demoniacal delight in inflicting the most exquisite tortures upon
their captives.  They were impure, both in their ordinary conversation
and in their daily conduct.  Still, they had some redeeming qualities.
The recognition of the claims of their relations might be emulated by
our higher civilization; so impressed upon their natures was the duty
to those who were related to them, that their language contains a
proverb: “Ca-si-ri pi-rus, he wi-ti ti-ruk-ta-pi-di-hu-ru—Why, even
the worms, they love each other—much more should men.”  They were
also very hospitable, very sociable, and fond of telling stories.
They really had a literature of stories and songs, which, if they
could be gathered in their entirety, would make a large volume.

        One form of sacrifice formerly practised in the tribe, or
        rather in one band—for the other bands emphatically
        disclaimed any share in the barbarous rite—stood apart in
        unhappy prominence.  This was the offering of human sacrifices
        (their captives); not burning them as an expression of
        embittered revenge, but sacrificing them as a religious
        ordinance.  What the origin of this terrible practice was the
        Pawnees could never definitely explain.  The rite was of long
        standing evidently.  The sacrifice was made to the morning
        star, “O-pir-i-kut,” which, with the Ski-di, especially,
        was an object of superstitious veneration.  It was always
        about corn-planting time, and the design of the bloody ordeal
        was to conciliate that being and secure a good crop; hence it
        has been supposed that the morning star was regarded by them
        as presiding over agriculture, but it was not so.  They
        sacrificed to that star simply because they feared it,
        imagining that it exerted a malign influence if not well
        disposed.  The sacrifice, however, was not an annual one;
        it was only made when special occurrences were interpreted
        as calling for it.  The victim was usually a girl, or young
        woman, taken from their enemies.  The more beautiful the
        unfortunate was, the more acceptable the offering.  When it
        had been determined in a council of the band to make the
        sacrifice, the person was selected, if possible, some months
        beforehand, and placed in charge of the medicine-men, who
        treated her with the utmost kindness.  She was fed plentifully
        that she might become fleshy, and kept in entire ignorance
        of her impending doom.  During this time she was made to eat
        alone, lest having by chance eaten with any one of the band,
        she would by the law of hospitality become that person's guest,
        and he be bound to protect her.  On the morning of the day
        finally fixed for the ordeal, she was led from lodge to lodge
        throughout the village, begging wood and paint, not knowing
        that these articles were for her own immolation.  Whenever a
        stick of wood or portion of red or black paint was given her,
        it was taken by the medicine-men attending, and sent to the
        spot selected for the final rite.  A sufficient quantity of
        these materials having been collected, the ceremony was begun
        by a solemn conclave of all the medicine-men.  Smoking the
        great medicine pipe, displaying the contents of the medicine
        bundle, dancing, praying, etc., were repeated at different
        stages of the proceedings.  A framework of two posts, about
        four and a half feet apart, was set in the ground, and to
        them two horizontal crosspieces, at a height of two and seven
        feet, were firmly fastened.  Between the posts a slow fire
        was built.  At nightfall the victim was disrobed and the
        torture began.  After the sickening sight had continued long
        enough, an old man, previously appointed, discharged an arrow
        at the heart of the unfortunate, and freed her from further
        torture.  The medicine-men forthwith cut open the chest, took
        out the heart, and burned it.  The smoke rising from the fire
        in which it was burning was supposed to possess wonderful
        virtues, and implements of war, hunting, and agriculture were
        passed through it to insure success in their use.  The flesh
        was hacked from the body, buried in the corn patches, thrown
        to the dogs, or disposed of in any way that caprice might
        direct.  The skeleton was allowed to remain in position till,
        loosened by decay, it fell to the ground.[44]

The last time this sacrifice was made, according to official reports,
was sixty years ago (April, 1838).  Dunbar relates this last reported
sacrifice as follows:
        The winter previous to the date given, the Ski-di, soon after
        starting on their hunt, had a successful fight with a band of
        Ogallalla Sioux, killed several men and took over twenty
        children.  Fearing that the Sioux, according to their tactics,
        would retaliate by coming upon them in overwhelming force,
        they returned for safety to their village before taking
        a sufficient number of buffalo.  With little to eat, they
        lived miserably, lost many of their ponies from scarcity of
        forage, and, worst of all, one of the captives proved to have
        the smallpox, which rapidly spread through the band, and in
        the spring was communicated to the rest of the tribe.
        All these accumulated misfortunes the Ski-di attributed to
        the anger of the morning star, and accordingly they resolved
        to propitiate its favour by a repetition of the sacrifice,
        though in direct violation of a stipulation made two years
        before that the sacrifice should not occur again.

        In connection with its abolition, the oft-told story of
        Pit-a-le-shar-u is recalled.  Sa-re-cer-ish, second chief of
        the Cau-i band, was a man of unusually humane disposition,
        and had strenuously endeavoured to secure the suppression of
        the practice.  In the spring of 1817 the Ski-di arranged to
        sacrifice a Comanche girl.  After Sa-re-cer-ish had essayed
        in vain to dissuade them, Pit-a-le-shar-u, a young man about
        twenty years of age, of almost giant stature, and already
        famed as a great brave, conceived the bold design of rescuing
        her.  On the day set for the rite he actually cut the girl
        loose, after she had been tied to the stakes, placed her upon
        a horse that he had in readiness, and hurried her away across
        the prairies till they were come within a day's journey of
        her people's village.  There, after giving necessary
        directions as to her course, he dismissed her, himself
        returning to the Pawnees.  The suddenness and intrepidity of
        his movements, and his known prowess, were no doubt all that
        saved him from death at the moment of the rescue and after
        his return.  Twice afterward he presumed to interfere.
        In one instance, soon after the foregoing, he assisted in
        securing by purchase the ransom of a Spanish boy, who had
        been set apart for sacrifice.  Several years later, about
        1831, he aided in the attempted rescue of a girl.
        The resistance on this occasion was so determined that even
        after the girl had been bought and was mounted upon a horse
        behind Major Daugherty, at that time general agent, to be
        taken from the Ski-di village, she was shot by one of the
        medicine-men.  The magnanimous conduct of Sa-re-cer-ish and
        Pit-a-le-shar-u in this matter stands almost unexampled in
        Indian annals.

The Pawnees were essentially a religious people, if one may be allowed
to use the term in connection with a tribe whose morals were at such
a low ebb.  They worshipped Ti-ra-wa, who is in and of everything.
Differing from many tribes, who adore material things, the Pawnees
simply regarded certain localities as sacred—they became so only
because they were blessed by the Divine presence.  Ti-ra-wa was not
personified; he was as intangible as the God of the Christian.
The sacred nature of the Pawnee deity extended to all animal nature
—the fish that swim in the rivers, the birds that fly in the air,
and all the beasts which roam over the prairie were believed by the
Pawnee to possess intelligence, knowledge, and power far beyond that
of man.  They were not, however, considered as gods; their miraculous
attributes were given to them by their ruler, whose servants they
were, and who often made them the medium of his communications to man.
They were his messengers, his angels, and their powers were always
used for good.  Prayers were made to them in time of need, but rather
pleading for their intercession with Ti-ra-wa than directly to them.
All important undertakings were preceded by a prayer for help, and
success in their undertakings was acknowledged by grateful offerings
to the ruler.  The victorious warrior frequently sacrificed the scalp
torn from the head of his enemy, which was burned with much elaborate
mummery by the medicine-men, and he who brought back from a raid many
horses always gave one to the chief medicine-man as a thank-offering
to Ti-ra-wa.

The Pawnees entertained feelings of reverence and humility only toward
their god; they really did not love him, but looked to him for help
at all times.  The young braves were particularly exhorted to humble
themselves before Ti-ra-wa, to pray to him, and to look to One Above,
to ask help from him.

During Monroe's administration, a very influential and physically
powerful Indian named Two Axe, chief counsellor of the Pawnee Loups,
went to pay a visit to the “Great Father,” the President of the
United States.  Two Axe was over six feet high and well proportioned,
of athletic build, and as straight as an arrow.  He had been delegated
to go to Washington by his tribe to make a treaty with the government.

Having been introduced to the President, the latter made known to him,
through the interpreter, the substance of a proposal.  The keen-witted
Indian, perceiving that the treaty taught “all Turkey” to the white
man, and “all Crow” to his tribe, sat patiently during the reading of
the document.  When it was finished, he rose with all his native
dignity, and in a vein of true Indian eloquence, in which he was
unsurpassed, declared that the treaty had been conceived in injustice
and born in duplicity; that many treaties had been signed by Indians
of their “Great Father's” concoction, wherein they had bartered away
the graves of their ancestors for a few worthless trinkets, and
afterward their hearts cried out for their folly; that such Indians
were fools and women.  He expressed very freely his opinion of the
President and the whites generally, and concluded by declaring that
he would sign no paper which would ever cause his own breast or those
of his people to sorrow.

Accordingly, Two Axe broke up the council abruptly, and returned to
his home without making any treaty with his “Great Father” at all.

The folk-lore stories and songs of the Pawnees are full of pathos,
humour, and thrilling incidents.  The legend of the Dun Horse is
comparable in its enchantment to the stories of Aladdin and his
wonderful lamp.

        Many years ago there lived in the Pawnee tribe an old woman
        and her grandson, a boy about sixteen years old.  These people
        had no relations, and were very poor.  Indeed, they were so
        miserably poor that they were despised by the rest of the
        tribe.  They had nothing of their own, and always, after the
        village started to move the camp from one place to another,
        these two would stay behind the rest, to look over the old
        ground and pick up anything that the other Indians had thrown
        away as worn out or useless.  In this way they would sometimes
        get pieces of robes, worn-out moccasins with holes in them,
        and bits of meat.

        Now it happened one day, after the tribe had moved away from
        the camp, that this old woman and her boy were following
        along the trail behind the rest, when they came to a miserable,
        old, worn-out horse, which they supposed had been abandoned
        by some Indians.  He was thin and exhausted, was blind of one
        eye, had a sore back, and one of his fore legs was very much
        swollen.  In fact, he was so worthless that none of the
        Pawnees had been willing to take the trouble to try to drive
        him along with them.  But when the old woman and her boy came
        along, the boy said: “Come now, we will take this old horse,
        for we can make him carry our pack.”  So the old woman put
        her pack on the horse and drove him along, but he limped and
        could only go very slowly.

        The tribe moved up on the North Platte, until they came to
        Court-house Rock.  The two poor Indians followed them, and
        camped with the others.  One day while they were here,
        the young men who had been sent out for buffalo came hurrying
        into camp and told the chiefs that a large herd of buffalo
        were near, and that among them was a spotted calf.

        The head chief of the Pawnees had a very beautiful daughter,
        and when he heard about the spotted calf, he ordered his old
        crier to go about through the village, and call out that the
        man who should kill the spotted calf should have his daughter
        for wife.  For a spotted robe is “Ti-war-uks-ti” (Big Medicine).

        The buffalo were feeding about four miles from the village,
        and the chiefs decided that the charge should be made from
        there.  In this way the man who had the fastest horse would
        be the most likely to kill the calf.  Then all the warriors
        and men picked out their best and fastest horses, and made
        ready to start.  Among those who prepared for the charge was
        the poor boy, on the old dun horse.  But when they saw him,
        all the rich young braves on their fast horses pointed at him
        and said: “Oh, see; there is the horse that is going to catch
        the spotted calf”; and they laughed at him so that the poor
        boy was ashamed, and rode off to one side of the crowd, where
        he could not hear their jokes and laughter.

        When he had ridden off some little way, the horse stopped,
        and turned his head around and spoke to the boy.  He said:
        “Take me down to the creek, and plaster me all over with mud.
        Cover my head, and neck, and body, and legs.”  When the boy
        heard the horse speak, he was afraid; but he did as he was
        told.  Then the horse said: “Now mount, but do not ride back
        to the warriors who laugh at you because you have such a poor
        horse.  Stay right here, until the word is given to charge.”
        So the boy stayed there.

        And presently all the fine horses were drawn up in line and
        pranced about, and were so eager to go that their riders could
        hardly hold them in.  At last the old crier gave the word,
        “Loo-ah” (go).  Then the Pawnees all leaned forward on their
        horses and yelled, and away they went.  Suddenly, away off to
        the right, was seen the old dun horse.  He did not seem to
        run.  He seemed to sail along like a bird.  He passed all the
        fastest horses, and in a moment he was among the buffalo.
        First he picked out the spotted calf, and charging up
        alongside of it, straight flew the arrow.  The calf fell.
        The boy drew another arrow and killed a fat cow that was
        running by.  Then he dismounted and began to skin the spotted
        calf before any of the other warriors came up.  But when
        the rider got off the old dun horse, how changed he was!
        He pranced about and could hardly stand still near the dead
        buffalo.  His back was all right again; his legs were well
        and fine; and both his eyes were clear and bright.

        The boy skinned the calf and cow that he had killed, and then
        he packed the meat on the horse and put the spotted robe on
        top of the load, and started back to camp on foot, leading
        the dun horse.  But even with his heavy load the horse pranced
        all the while, and was scared at everything he saw.  On the
        way to camp, one of the rich young chiefs of the tribe rode
        up to the boy, and offered him twelve good horses for the
        spotted robe, so that he could marry the head chief's daughter,
        but the boy laughed at him and would not sell the robe.

        Now, while the boy walked to the camp leading the dun horse,
        most of the warriors rode back, and one of those that came
        first to the village went to the old woman and said to her:
        “Your grandson has killed the spotted calf.”  And the old
        woman said: “Why do you come to tell me this?  You ought
        to be ashamed to make fun of my boy because he is poor.”
        The warrior rode away, saying, “What I have told you is true.”
        After a while another brave rode up to the old woman, and
        said to her: “Your grandson has killed the spotted calf.”
        Then the old woman began to cry, she felt so badly because
        every one made fun of her boy because he was poor.

        Pretty soon the boy came along, leading the horse up to the
        lodge where he and his grandmother lived.  It was a little
        lodge, just big enough for two, and was made of old pieces
        of skin that the old woman had picked up, and was tied
        together with strings of rawhide and sinew.  It was the
        meanest and worst lodge in the village.  When the old woman
        saw her boy leading the dun horse with a load of meat and
        the robes on it, she was very much surprised.  The boy said
        to her: “Here, I have brought you plenty of meat to eat, and
        here is a robe that you may have for yourself.  Take the meat
        off the horse.”  Then the old woman laughed, for her heart
        was glad.  But when she went to take the meat from the horse's
        back, he snorted and jumped about, and acted like a wild horse.
        The old woman looked at him and wondered, and could hardly
        believe that it was the same horse.  So the boy had to take
        off the meat, for the horse would not let the old woman come
        near him.

        That night the horse again spoke to the boy, and said:
        “Wa-ti-hes Chah-ra-rat-wa-ta.”  To-morrow the Sioux are
        coming in a large war-party.  They will attack the village,
        and you will have a great battle.  Now, when the Sioux are
        drawn up in line of battle, and are all ready to fight, you
        jump on me, and ride as hard as you can, right into the
        middle of the Sioux, and up to their head chief, their
        greatest warrior, and count coup on him, and kill him, and
        then ride back.  Do this four times, and count coup on four
        of the bravest Sioux, and kill them, but don't go again.
        If you go the fifth time, maybe you will be killed, or else
        you will lose me.  “La-ku-ta-chix” (remember).  The boy promised.

        The next day it happened as the horse had said, and the Sioux
        came down and formed in line of battle.  Then the boy took
        his bow and arrows, and jumped on the dun horse, and charged
        into the midst of them.  And when the Sioux saw that he was
        going to strike their head chief, they all shot their arrows
        at him, and the arrows flew so thickly across each other that
        they darkened the sky, but none of them hit the boy, and he
        counted coup on the chief and killed him, and then rode back.
        After that he charged again among the Sioux, where they were
        gathered the thickest, and counted coup on their bravest
        warrior and killed him.  And then twice more, until he had
        gone four times as the horse had told him.

        But the Sioux and the Pawnees kept on fighting, and the boy
        stood around and watched the battle.  At last he said to
        himself, “I have been four times and have killed four Sioux;
        why may I not go again?”  So he jumped on the dun horse and
        charged again.  But when he got among the Sioux, one Sioux
        warrior drew an arrow and shot.  The arrow struck the dun
        horse behind the fore legs and pierced him through.  And the
        horse fell down dead.  But the boy jumped off and fought his
        way through the Sioux and ran away as fast as he could to the
        Pawnees.  Now, as soon as the horse was killed, the Sioux
        said to each other, “This horse was like a man.  He was brave.
        He was not like a horse.”  And they took their knives and
        hatchets and hacked the dun horse and gashed his flesh, and
        cut him into small pieces.

        The Pawnees and Sioux fought all day long, but toward night
        the Sioux broke and fled.

        The boy felt very badly that he had lost his horse, and after
        the fight was over he went out from the village to where it
        had taken place to mourn for his horse.  He went to the spot
        where the horse lay, and gathered up all the pieces of flesh
        which the Sioux had cut off, and the legs and hoofs, and put
        them all together in a pile. Then he went off to the top of
        a hill near by and sat down and drew his robe over his head,
        and began to mourn for his horse.

        As he sat there, he heard a great wind storm coming up, and
        it passed over him with a loud rushing sound, and after the
        wind came a rain.  The boy looked down from where he sat to
        the pile of flesh and bones, which was all that was left of
        the horse, and he could just see it through the rain.
        And the rain passed by, and his heart was very heavy and he
        kept on mourning.

        And pretty soon came another rushing wind, and after it a rain;
        and as he looked through the driving rain toward the spot
        where the pieces lay, he thought that they seemed to come
        together and take shape, and that the pile looked like a horse
        lying down, but he could not see very well for the thick rain.

        After this came a third storm like the others; and now when
        he looked toward the horse he thought he saw its tail move
        from side to side two or three times, and that it lifted its
        head from the ground.  The boy was afraid and wanted to run
        away, but he stayed.  And as he waited, there came another
        storm.  And while the rain fell, looking through the rain,
        the boy saw the horse raise himself up on his fore legs and
        look about.  Then the dun horse stood up.

        The boy left the place where he had been sitting on the
        hilltop, and went down to him.  When the boy had come near to
        him the horse spoke and said, “You have seen how it has been
        this day; and from this you will know how it will be after
        this.  But Ti-ra-wa has been good, and he let me come to life
        back to you.  After this do what I tell you; not any more,
        not any less.”  Then the horse said, “Now lead me far off,
        far away from the camp, behind that big hill, and leave me
        there to-night, and in the morning come for me”; and the boy
        did as he was told.

        And when he went for the horse in the morning, he found with
        him a beautiful white gelding, much more handsome than any
        horse in the tribe.  That night the dun horse told the boy to
        take him again to the place behind the big hill and to come
        for him the next morning; and when the boy went for him again,
        he found a beautiful black gelding.  And so for ten nights he
        left the horse among the hills, and each morning he found
        a different-coloured horse, a bay, a roan, a gray, a blue,
        a spotted horse, and all of them finer than any horses that
        the Pawnees had ever had in the tribe before.

        Now the boy was rich, and he married the beautiful daughter
        of the head chief, and when he became older he was made head
        chief himself.  He had many children by his beautiful wife,
        and one day, when his oldest boy died, he wrapped him in his
        spotted calf robe and buried him in it.  He always took good
        care of his old grandmother, and kept her in his own lodge
        until she died.  The dun horse was never ridden except at
        feasts and when they were going to have a doctors' dance,
        but he was always led about with the chief wherever he went.
        The horse lived in the village for many years, until he became
        very old, and at last he died.




CHAPTER XII.
SIOUX AND THEIR TRADITIONS.



A little more than half a century ago the many bands of the great
Sioux nation[45] hardly knew anything of the civilization of the
whites in any part of the continent; none of their chiefs had ever
visited the capital of the nation, or, for that matter, any American
settlement.  They knew nothing of the English language.  The few
whites they had ever met were those employed by the great fur
companies.  They regarded them to be a wise sort of a people, a little
inferior, however, to themselves, living in lodges like their own and
subsisting on the buffalo and other wild game constituting the food
of the Indians.

When that relatively great exodus from the States commenced, beginning
with the Mormon hegira, closely followed by emigrants on their way to
Oregon, this tide, with its great number of oxen, wagons, and other
means of transportation, at first so astonished the Sioux, who had
never believed for a moment that the world contained so many white men,
that they were completely dumbfounded.  When, however, they saw the
wanton slaughter of buffalo by this army of men, their amazement
turned to hatred and a desire for revenge, and then commenced that
series of wars and skirmishes, with their attendant horrible massacres,
ending with the battle of Wounded Knee.

In the summer of 1846 there was a pall of sorrow and disaster hovering
over all of the bands of the western Dakotas; the year previous they
had met with great reverses.  Many large war-parties had been sent out
from the various villages, the majority of which were either badly
whipped or entirely cut off.  The few warriors who returned to their
homes were heartbroken and discouraged; so that the whole nation was
in mourning.

Among these war-parties, ten of the Sioux warriors made a raid into
the Snake country.  They were led by the son of a prominent Ogallalla
chief, called the Whirlwind.  When they reached the Laramie Plains
they were met by a superior number of their enemies, and every warrior
killed to a man.  The Snakes having accomplished this, they became
greatly alarmed at what they had done, dreading the revenge of the
Dakotas, which they knew would be inevitable; so, desiring to signify
their wish for peace, they sent the scalp of one of their victims,
with a small piece of tobacco attached, to his relations.  The Snakes
induced one of the Indian traders to act as their messenger on this
mission of peace, and the scalp was hung up in a room at Fort Laramie,
but Whirlwind, the father of the dead warrior who had led the
unfortunate band, was inexorable.  He hated the Snakes with his whole
soul, and long before the scalp had arrived he had consummated his
preparations for revenge.  He despatched runners loaded with presents
of tobacco and other trinkets to all the Dakotas within three hundred
miles of his village.  They were to propose a grand combination for
the purpose of war, and to determine upon a place and time for the
meeting of the warriors.  Ever ready for war, as is the normal
attitude of the average North American savage, the Whirlwind's plan
was readily acceded to, and a camp on the Platte, known as Labonte's,
was the point designated as the rendezvous.  At that place their
war-like ceremonies were to be celebrated with great dignity and
solemnity; a thousand warriors, it is declared, were to be sent out
into the enemy's country; but the thing ended in smoke.  True, a great
many Indians gathered there, but they went on a big buffalo hunt
instead of fighting the Snakes.

The Sioux are noted for their individual bravery, and whole chapters
might be written of their prowess, but the following incident will
suffice to show the character of their daring.  In 1846 a celebrated
warrior performed a notable exploit at the Pawnee village on the
Loup Fork of the Platte.  He arrived there all alone, late one dark
night, and climbing up the outside of one of the lodges, quietly gazed
for a few moments, through the round hole for the escape of smoke at
the top, at the unsuspecting inmates sleeping peacefully under their
buffalo-robes around the expiring fire.  Dropping himself lightly
through the opening, he noiselessly unsheathed his knife, and,
stirring the embers, stood for a moment as if selecting his victims,
then one by one he stabbed and scalped them.  Just as he had wrenched
the reeking locks from the last victim, a child suddenly sat up and
began to scream violently, upon which the warrior rushed out of the
door of the lodge uttering the terrible Sioux war-cry.  Then shouting
his own name in triumph and defiance, he darted out upon the dark
prairie, leaving the whole village behind him in a tumult with the
howling of a hundred dogs, the screams of the women, and the yells
of the enraged Pawnee braves.

The folk-lore and tales of the Sioux, though not so numerous, perhaps,
as among the more sociable Pawnees, are full of interest and the
superstitions of the tribe.

Many years ago, in a camp of delighted trappers, one of the chiefs of
the Brulé Sioux related the following story of his own experience when
only a young brave in the councils of his nation:—

        When I was a youthful warrior, I used to delight in war, and
        very seldom did a party go out on the war-path without me.
        My scars (which the old fellow showed on his body) prove to
        you that I am speaking the truth, and that I was always to be
        found in the thickest of the fight.  We hardly ever came back
        to our village without a dozen or more scalps torn from the
        heads of our enemies.  Sometimes, too, we returned like fools,
        without a single scalp, and then were ashamed to present
        ourselves at the dances.

        Once we were out after the Crows, and our spies were far in
        advance of the main body of warriors.  We were hurrying on,
        expecting soon to meet the enemy, when we saw the spy, whom
        we had sent ahead, come back without any bows or arrows;
        his scalp was torn off and his face was covered with blood.

        When questioned about his strange appearance, he replied that
        the enemy were aware of the approach of our band, and were
        lying in ambush for us in great numbers.  He suddenly came
        upon their runners, who robbed him of his arms, tore off
        his scalp, and left him for dead.  He stated that he remained
        quietly where he had fallen until night came on, and when
        the breeze came down from the mountains it gave him strength
        to come to us and warn us of the enemy's nearness and great
        numbers.

        Believing his story to be true, we turned tail and made our
        way back to our village empty-handed, to be laughed at.

        Three moons passed, and we again started for the country of
        our enemies.  The warrior who had lost his scalp having
        recovered, and being again with us, he was sent out as a spy.
        He soon returned with the scalps of two of the enemy dangling
        from his spear-point.  He did not stop to tell of his
        adventures, but hurried us on to meet the foe, and following
        him eagerly, we soon came to where they were, and after a hard
        fight came out victorious.

        Among those who were killed was a warrior whose scalp was
        missing.  Who did this? asked one of the other, but no one
        answered.  At last our spy laughingly said, “Behind that hill
        over there,” pointing with his spear to a large mountain,
        “there is a fountain that sings a melody fit for the ears of
        great warriors; let's go to it and drink.”

        Following his footsteps, he led us to a beautiful spring
        whose water was as shining as silver, and which fell in
        beautiful song over the rocks in its bed, and all around
        the charming spot were large old cottonwoods, which threw
        a grateful shade over the fountain, making it clear and
        always cool.

        “Drink freely, warriors,” said the spy; then hiding himself
        for a moment he returned among us, having with him all his
        arms and the robe he wore when he had first left us on his
        mission to hunt the enemy, so many moons before.

        We gazed at him in astonishment, when, seeing our amazement,
        he said:—

        “Brother warriors, you wondered at my misfortune and hard luck
        when we last visited the Crow country; you wondered at my
        sorrowful condition among the killed just now, but you will be
        more astonished to know that I now stand among you having what
        I had lost.  Would you also like to know how I procured the
        scalps of two of the enemy?

        “Three times has the full moon turned her face upon us Sioux
        since at this very spot I met an enemy.  We rushed at each
        other for the attack, when he cried:—

        “Are we not both braves?  Why should we fight?  When our
        warriors meet in the heat of the battle, then we may join
        them—until then let us have a truce.

        “To this I answered, Says the Crow peace?

        “This said, we shook hands and sat down by the fountain.
        To amuse my enemy I proposed a game of ‘hand.’[46]
        He accepted my challenge, and we first played for an arrow
        against an arrow, then bow for bow, robe for robe, and scalp
        for scalp.  I was out of luck and lost everything.  I handed
        to him all the things, but with a promise from him that
        I should have another chance when we met again.

        “We did meet again.  The Great Spirit smiled upon me and
        I won back everything.  Then I said, Crow, scalp for scalp.
        He accepted the challenge and we played.  He lost, and I with
        my winnings arose to leave.

        “Sioux warrior, said he, meet me in the fight that we may try
        the game of arms.

        “That pleases me, I replied; will the Crow name the place?

        “A valley lies beyond this hill, said he; there my people
        await their enemies; let me hope to see you with them.

        “To that place I led you, said our spy.  We fought and
        conquered.  My opponent was among the killed.  Need I tell
        you who took the scalp?”

There is an affluent of the Cheyenne River called by the Sioux
“Weur-sena-wakpa.”  The stream rises at the base of a lofty mountain
of the same name.  This mountain is held in great veneration by the
Sioux nation, and a member of that tribe rarely went into the
neighbourhood without making an offering to it.

The legend concerning its mystery is one of the beautiful myths of
the Sioux.

Many ages ago, when the Sioux lived to the north and the Shoshone or
Snake tribe of Indians lived in the region of the mountains, planting
their villages and hunting all over the country for game, the whole
region was a series of lakes and creeks; only the highlands bordering
them were left for the deer and buffalo to graze.  Then the creeks and
rivers slowly rose, and the land of the Shoshones was greatly reduced
by the encroachment of the water.  Years passed on, and the tribe,
attracted by some more suitable region, went away, or were driven off
by the hostile bands, especially the Scarred-Arms (the Cheyennes[47]).

In the course of a great many years the Sioux and the Scarred-Arms
always fought with each other with varying success, whenever they met;
sometimes one tribe, sometimes the other, was victorious.

Once a band of the Sioux entered into the very heart of the country
of the Scarred-Arms, and while on their return to their own country,
fell into an ambush of the enemy, and only six out of the whole party
escaped to convey the terrible news to their village.

These six, hotly pursued by the Scarred-Arms, sought refuge in the
mountains.  They found there a hidden passage leading into a recess
in the mountain's side, which they hurriedly entered.  They were
delighted with it, for it had a gravelly floor, with a spring of pure,
sweet, cool water gushing out of the side of its rocky wall.  There,
believing they might remain secure from their enemy, they proposed to
rest for a short time and recuperate themselves; for they were nearly
exhausted by their efforts to escape from the bloody scalping-knives
of the Scarred-Arms.  They kindled a fire, around which the six
warriors huddled, telling each other, as is the savage wont, of their
numerous hairbreadth escapes and single combats with the common enemy;
also trying to devise some means of eluding the Scarred-Arms, who they
knew to be still searching for them.

While they were thus discussing the probabilities of the affair,
they were startled by a strange noise, like the rustling of leaves,
in a dark corner of the cave; but they were more frightened when they
suddenly saw the dim form of a person moving about in the subdued
light.  The figure advanced toward them, and they discovered it to be
that of a feeble old woman, who said as she approached them:—

“Children, you have been against the Scarred-Arms, you have fought
them, and of a large party you alone are left alive.  I know it all.

“You come here into my lodge to escape from your pursuers, and the
sound of your voices and the heat of your council fire has disturbed
my rest and waked me from a long trance.  By your eager looks you
would know my strange story.  Many ages have gone by (for days, moons,
seasons, and ages are painted before me as they pass) since the
Shoshones, who lived where now live the Scarred-Arms, visited the
lodges of the Sioux and made the prairie drink the blood of slaughtered
warriors.  I was their captive, and, with scalps of the slain, I was
taken from the graves of my people.  The Shoshones brought me to this
country, when yet the buffalo grazed upon the hills and mountains;
for the valleys and plains were the home of the waters.

“Living with the Shoshones, I was not happy.  I thought of my people;
of all those dear to me; and I prayed to the Good Spirit that I might
again behold them ere my passage to the death-land.  I fled, hoping to
reach the home of my birth; but age had enfeebled me; and being
pursued, I sought refuge in this cave.  Here, having passed a night
and a day in earnest communion with the ‘Big Medicine,’ a strange
feeling came upon me.  I slumbered in a dreamy state from then until
now.  But your looks again ask, who are the Shoshones? what became of
them? and from whence are the Scarred-Arms?

“The Sioux will soon know the Shoshones, and bring from their lodges
many scalps and medicine-dogs.  Divided into two tribes, that nation
long since sought homes in other lands.  One crossed the Snow-hills,
toward the sun-setting; the Sioux shall visit them and avenge the
blood and wrongs of ages.  The other journeyed far toward the sun of
winter, and now live to the leftward of the places where Hispanola
builds his earth-lodge.[48]

“Then came the Scarred-Arms from a far-off country, a land of much
snow and cold.  Pleased with the great numbers of buffalo and other
game that they found here, they stopped for the chase, and by many
generations of possession have claimed these regions for their own;
but they are not theirs.  The Great Spirit gave this country to the
Sioux, and they shall inhabit the land of their daughter's captivity.

“Why are you waiting here?  Go and avenge the blood of your comrades
upon the Scarred-Arms.  They even now light their camp-fire by the
stream at the mountain's base.  Fear not; their scalps are yours.
Then return to my people, that ye may come and receive your inheritance.

“Haste ye, that I may die; and oh!  War-ka-tun-ga!  Inasmuch as thou
hast answered the prayer of thy handmaid, and shown to me the faces
of my people, take me from hence.”

The awe-struck warriors withdrew.  They found the enemy encamped at
the foot of the mountain, as they had been told by the mysterious
woman.  They attacked them, and were victorious.  Thirty-five scalps
were the reward of their bravery.

On arriving at their village, their strange adventures excited the
astonishment of all the warriors, chiefs, and medicine-men.
They planned an expedition against the Scarred-Arms, having been
nerved up to a pitch of extraordinary bravery by the story of the old
woman of the cave.  Thus their enemies were eventually driven from
the country, and the Sioux came into possession of their own.

The thankful warriors went to the cave en masse, to do reverence to
the memory of the strange medicine-woman who had told them so many
wonderful things.  They found, upon their arrival there, only a small
niche in the side of the mountain, and a sparkling little stream.
Both the cave and the woman had disappeared.

For years after this strange occurrence the Sioux warriors visited
the land of the Shoshones for scalps, and, as they passed the mountain
where the old woman had been seen, they always offered something to
the spirit of the place, and stopped to quench their thirst at the
sparkling little stream.

On White River there is a bluff against which the full force of the
stream has dashed for ages, until it has formed a precipice several
hundred feet high.  It is called by the Indians The Place of the Death
Song.  There is a legend which says that at one time the bands of the
Ogallallas and Brulés lived upon this river, immediately opposite the
precipice.  While residing there one of the braves of the Ogallallas
offered to the father of a beautiful squaw six horses for her,
according to the savage custom of thus purchasing a wife.  The offer
was immediately accepted by the father of the young girl, for he was
very poor and needed the animals to use on the impending annual hunt
after buffalo.

When the maiden heard that she was to become the wife of the Ogallalla,
she burst into tears, and so obstinate was her resistance that the
marriage was deferred for some days because of her inconsolable grief.

The cause of her unwillingness to become the bride of the Ogallalla
was that she was in love with a young warrior of her own village,
and she would not, as Indian maidens generally do, love at her sire's
mere bidding.

Her father was determined, however, that his child should be governed
by the customs of the tribe, and was only waiting for her sorrow to
subside a little before he turned her over to the Indian he had chosen
for her.

During this probation, however, the girl contrived to meet the warrior
whom she had promised to marry, and they determined to elope.
They accordingly fled to a remote village, where they hoped to live
undisturbed.

They were pursued by the relentless father, both were captured, and
the young warrior's life was forfeited by the laws of the tribe,
for his presumption in stealing the maiden, while she was most
unmercifully whipped and confined in her father's lodge.
The Ogallalla had already paid the price agreed upon for the maiden,
and the horses were then picketed among those of the irate father.

Early the next morning, after the death of her lover, the girl rose
from her bed of buffalo-robes, and dressing herself in her best
clothes, left the lodge.  Not one of the villagers thought it at all
strange that she should thus array herself, for they knew it was to be
her wedding-day, and as she walked through the village, many a young
warrior looked upon her with feelings of envy toward the Indian who
was then to make her his bride.

She wandered toward the river, crossed it, and ascended the high peak
on the opposite side.  She then seated herself at the edge of the
fearful precipice, and looked calmly down from its giddy height.

She soon became the cynosure of all eyes in the village, not only
because of her remarkable beauty, but of her charmingly formed person,
so plainly exposed to the view of all.

Presently the captivated gazers were surprised to hear her begin to
sing in a mournful chant, and the strange words of her plaintive
melody were wafted through the clear mountain air so that all could
catch every word.  They listened:—

“Why should I stay? he is gone.  Light of my eyes; joy of my soul;
show me my dwelling!  'Tis not here; 'tis far away in the Spirit Land.
Thither he is gone.  Why should I stay?  Let me go!”  “She sings her
death song,” exclaimed all who were watching and listening to her from
their places in the village.

“She will throw herself from the precipice,” said her father.
And immediately a dozen warriors rushed toward the top of the cliff
to rescue her from the terrible fate which she had chosen, and the
leader of them all was the Ogallalla who was to have her for his bride.

She saw them coming, and as soon as they started she began again:—

“Spirit of death, set me free!  Heart, thou art desolate.  Farewell,
O sun.  Vain are the plains of the earth, its flowers, and purling
streams.  I loved you all once—but now no longer love.  Thee I woo,
kind Death!  Wa-shu-pa calls me hence.  In life we were one.
We'll bask together in the Spirit Land.  Short is my pass to thee.
Wa-shu-pa, I come!”

Concluding her song, she threw herself forward, just as the foremost
warriors arrived at the summit, in time to catch at her robe as she
pitched down, leaving the garment in their hands; in another instant
she was a mangled mass at the base of the cruel mountain.

In the winter of 1835 Ash Hollow was the scene of a fierce and bloody
battle between the Pawnees and Sioux, hereditary enemies.  The affray
commenced very early in the morning, and continued until nearly dark.
It was a closely fought battle.  Every inch of ground was hotly
contested.  The arrows fell in showers, bullets whistled the death
song of many a warrior on both sides, and the yells of the combating
savages filled the wintry air.  At length all the ammunition was
completely exhausted on both sides, but still the battle raged.
War-clubs, tomahawks, and scalping-knives rattled in the deadly
personal conflict, and terrible war-whoops resounded, as now one side
then the other gained some slight advantage.

As darkness drew over the scene, the Pawnees abandoned the field to
the victorious Sioux, leaving more than sixty of their best warriors
dead on the bloody sod.  But the Sioux had not escaped a terrible loss.
Forty-five of their bravest fighters were lying dead, and the defeated
party of Pawnees were pursued but a very little distance when the
chase was abandoned and they returned to their village at the forks
of the Platte.

It is alleged that this disaster so humiliated the Pawnees that they
at once abandoned their town.  They moved down the Platte more than
four hundred miles, and at the same time also abandoned their town on
the Republican Fork of the Kansas River, and rarely ever ventured up
the river as far as the scene of their great defeat, unless in very
large parties.

For twenty years afterward the evidences of the terrible battle could
be seen in the bleached bones scattered all over the vicinity of the
conflict.

Many of the Indian tribes of the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains
have a tradition of a flood, but as they differ only in the matter of
detail, a single one is presented here, that of the Sioux.  It was
told around the camp-fire, on General Carr's expedition against the
hostile bands of that nation, in 1869, when Colonel W. F. Cody
(Buffalo Bill) was chief of scouts.

One day some of the men brought into camp a large bone, which the
surgeons pronounced to be the femur, or thigh-bone of a man.
Some Indian prisoners, who had been captured a short time before,
were sent for and asked to give their opinion of this find.  As soon
as they saw it, they, too, said it was the thigh-bone of a man.

Its peculiarity was its unusual size; in circumference it was as large
as a man's body.  The general asked the Indians how they knew it was
the thigh-bone of a man.  They replied that a great many years ago,
living on the plains, there was a race of men who were so big that it
was said they were tall enough to run alongside of a buffalo, pick him
up, put him under one of their arms, and tear off a whole quarter of
his meat and eat it as they walked on.  These large men became so
powerful in their own estimation that they defied the Great Spirit.
This angered the Great Spirit, and he made the rain come.  It kept on
raining until the rivers and creeks were full of water and flooded
over their banks.  The Indians were compelled to move out of the
valleys and go up on the divides and small hills; but they were not
allowed to remain there long.  The water kept rising and rising until
it covered the divides and little hills; so the Indians kept moving
up, higher and higher, until they reached the top peaks of the Rocky
Mountains, but the water still rose until it covered the highest
points, and all these big people were drowned.  After they were all
dead, it ceased raining; the water began to recede, and finally
returned to the original channels of the rivers and creeks.  Then the
Great Spirit made a race of people of the size that we are to-day;
people whom he could handle and who would not defy him.

The word “medicine” in all of the tribes in some sense is a misnomer;[49]
it really signifies dreamer, or prophet, and is synonymous with the
word “prophet” in the Old Testament.  The Indian form of government
may be characterized as a theocracy, and the medicine-man is the high
priest.  His dreams and his prophecies are held sacred by the people.
Should what he tells them turn out to be untrue, the fault lies with
themselves, and he claims that his instructions have been disregarded.
If by accident his dreams are exactly verified, the confidence of the
tribe in their medicine-man surpasses all belief.  The medicine lodge
is their tabernacle of the wilderness—the habitation of the Great
Spirit, the sacred ark of their faith.




CHAPTER XIII.
THE CROWS.



The tribe of Indians known as the Crows[50] are entitled to the very
marked distinction of being the most manly in their conduct in its
relation to the whites.  The integrity of their friendship has been
tested on many occasions, and they have never proved false to their
protestations.  Their chiefs declare that a Crow was never known to
kill a white man excepting in self-defence.

As has been the fate of the North American savage since that dark
December day when the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, the Crows have
been driven year after year from one of the most beautiful natural
regions on the continent.  Not only have the whites been the usurpers,
but both the Sioux and the Cheyennes have been instrumental in
confining them to a constantly decreasing area, until now the remnant
of a once great nation is the ward of the government, and located on
a limited reservation.

To prove that Ab-sa-ra-ka, as the tribe designated their beautiful
hunting-grounds, was rightly named, it is only necessary to quote a
conversation which took place at a council held at Fort Philip Kearny,
in July, 1866, when the following question was asked of Black-Horse,
the Wolf-That-Lies-Down, Red-Arm, and Dull-Knife:—

“Why do the Sioux and Cheyennes claim the land which belongs to the
Crows?”  To which these chiefs answered:—

“The Sioux helped us.  We stole the hunting-grounds of the Crows
because they were the best.  The white man is along the great waters,
and we wanted more room.  We fight the Crows because they will not
take half and give us peace with the other half.”

It is claimed that the Crows sprang from the Gros Ventres of the
Missouri, whose language they speak.  The Gros Ventres were a very
weak tribe, or band, who had, by incessant wars with the surrounding
tribes, become reduced to a very insignificant number of warriors.
It is alleged, according to their tradition, that the Crows became
a separate nation nearly two hundred years ago, because the tribe
was becoming too numerous.

In the early years of the century the head chief of the Crows was
A-ra-poo-ash.  The celebrated Jim Beckwourth[51] had already become
a leader among the Crows, and shortly after the death of A-ra-poo-ash
was unanimously chosen in his place.

The Blackfeet were always very persistent and unrelenting enemies of
the Crows, and some of the most bloody combats recorded in savage
warfare occurred between these two tribes.

Once, while in the Crow village, a party of Blackfeet, numbering
thirty or forty, came stealing through the Crow country, killing every
straggler, and carrying off every horse they could lay their hands on.
The Crow warriors immediately started after them and pressed them so
closely that they could not escape.  The Blackfeet then threw up a
semicircular breastwork of logs at the foot of a precipice, and
awaited the approach of their enemies.  Logs and sticks were piled up
four or five feet in front of them, which thoroughly protected them.
The Crows might have swept over this breastwork and exterminated the
Blackfeet; but though outnumbering them, they did not dream of
storming the little fortification.  Such a proceeding would have been
altogether repugnant to the savage notion of warfare.  Whooping and
yelling, and jumping from side to side like devils incarnate, they
poured a shower of bullets and arrows upon the logs, yet not a
Blackfoot was hurt; but several of the Crows, in spite of their
antics, were shot down.  In that ridiculous manner the fight continued
for an hour or two.  Now and then a Crow warrior, in an ecstasy of
valour and vainglory, would scream forth his war-song, declare himself
the bravest and greatest of all Indians, grasp his hatchet, strike
it wildly upon the breastwork, and then, as he retreated to his
companions, fall dead, riddled with arrows; yet no combined attack
was made, the Blackfeet remaining secure in their intrenchment.
At last Jim Beckwourth lost patience:—

“You are all a set of fools and old women,” cried he; “come with me,
if any of you are brave enough, and I'll show you how to fight.”

Beckwourth instantly threw off his trapper's suit of buckskin,
stripping himself naked as were the Indians themselves.  Throwing his
rifle on the ground, he grasped a small hatchet, and running over the
prairie to the right, hidden by a hollow from the eyes of the
Blackfeet, he climbed up the rocks and reached the top of the
precipice behind them.  Forty or fifty young warriors followed him.
By the cries and whoops that arose from below, Beckwourth knew that
the Blackfeet were just beneath him; then running forward, he leaped
from the rock right in the midst of the surprised savages.  As he fell,
he caught one of the Blackfeet by his long, loose hair, and dragging
him toward him, buried his hatchet in his brain.  Then grasping
another by the belt at his waist, he struck him a stunning blow, and
gaining his feet, shouted the Crow war-cry.  He swung his hatchet so
fiercely around him that the astonished Blackfeet crowded back and
gave him room.  He might, had he chosen, have leaped over the
breastwork and escaped; but this was not necessary, for with devilish
yells the remainder of the Crow warriors came dropping in quick
succession over the rock, and rallied around him.

The convulsive struggle within the breastwork was frightful; for a few
moments the Blackfeet fought and yelled like pent-up tigers; but the
butchery was complete, and the mangled bodies lay piled together under
the precipice.  Not a Blackfoot made his escape.

In 1833 a band of Blackfeet, superior in numbers to the Crows, most
unmercifully whipped them.  On their return to their village one night
in August, shortly after the fight, there was a grand display of
meteoric showers, and although the Crow warriors were ready to face
death in any form, the wonderful celestial display appalled them.
They regarded it as the wrath of the Great Spirit showered visibly
upon them.  In their terrible fright, they, of course, looked to their
chief for some explanation of it.  But as Beckwourth himself was as
much struck with the wonderful occurrence, he was equally at a loss
with his untutored followers to account for the remarkable spectacle.

Evidently, he knew, he must augur some result from it, though his own
dejected spirit did not prompt him to deduce a very encouraging one.
He thought of all the impostures that are practised upon the credulous,
and his imagination suggested some brilliant figures to his mind.
He thought at first of declaring to them that the Great Spirit was
pleased with the expedition, and was lighting the band on its way
with spirit lamps; or that the meteors were the spirits of departed
braves, coming to assist their worldly brothers in another impending
fight; but he was not sanguine enough of possible results to indulge
in any attractive oratory.  He merely informed his warriors that he
had not time to consult his medicine, but that as soon as he could he
would interpret the miracle in full.

When his band of warriors arrived at the village, he found all of the
people's minds still agitated with fear at the late phenomenon.
Every one was talking of it with wonder and amazement, and the chief's
opinion was demanded at once; they were expecting it, and wanted to
know what the consequences were to be.  Admonished by his recent
defeat, Beckwourth now had no trouble in reading the stars.  He told
his warriors that they had evidently offended the Great Spirit;
that it was because of his wrath they had suffered defeat in their
excursion to the Blackfeet country, and returned with the loss of
twenty-three warriors.  He then told them that a sacrifice must be
made to appease the wrath of the Great Spirit, and he recommended that
a solemn council be convened and a national oblation be offered up.

Beckwourth knew that he was doing an absurd thing, but the superstition
of the people demanded it, and he must cater to their desires because
it was popular.

The camp where the Crows then were was a mourning-camp, in which,
according to their religion, “medicine” would have no effect.
The camp was, therefore, moved to another place, about ten miles
distant, in order to properly offer up the sacrifice.

All the leading men and braves assembled in council, and Beckwourth,
as their great medicine-man, was consulted as to what kind of an
offering should be made which would effect its purpose of appeasing
the wrath that was consuming the tribe.

Beckwourth retired for a while from the council, telling the chiefs
he must consult his medicine.  Returning in a short time, he ordered
them to bring out the great medicine kettle, which was of brass,
capable of holding ten gallons, and was worth ten buffalo-robes.
It was then ordered to be polished until it shone as bright as the
sun's face.  That being done, Beckwourth ordered the warriors to
throw in all the most costly and highly prized trinkets, or whatever
they cherished most dearly.  It was soon filled with the band's
choicest treasures.  Keepsakes, fancy-work, in which months of patient
toil had been expended, knick-knacks, jewels, and rings so highly
regarded that the costliest gems of emperors seemed poor in comparison.
All these were thrown into the kettle willingly, along with a bountiful
contribution of fingers[52] until it could hold no more.  Then weights
were attached to it, when it was carried to an air-hole in the ice
where the river was very deep, and there sunk with becoming ceremony,
young maidens habited in the best apparel bearing the burden.

The great sacrifice completed, the minds of the people were relieved,
and the result of the next war-party was anxiously looked forward to,
to learn if the oblation was accepted by the Great Spirit.  The crying
and lamentations continued, however, unabated, so much to the
derangement of Beckwourth's nervous system that if he could, he would
have gladly retired from the village to seek some less dolorous
companionship.

The incantations seemed to have had a good effect, for on another
expedition shortly afterward the war-party returned with lots of
scalps and thirteen hundred horses, which they had stolen from the
Blackfeet.[53]

The Crows enjoyed a practical joke as well as their more humorous
white brethren, as the following incident will attest.

In the summer of 1842 a war-party of about two hundred Crows invaded
the Sioux country by way of Laramie Pass, penetrating as far as Fort
Platte and beyond, in pursuit of the enemy.

A few miles above the fort, they stopped a lone Frenchman, an employee
of one of the fur companies, who was rather new to the region, and
also green in everything that pertains to Indian methods.  They began
by signs to inquire the trail of the Sioux (the sign for that tribe
being a transverse pass of the right front finger across the throat),
which the poor Frenchman interpreted as their intention to cut his.
He immediately began to bellow like a calf, accompanying himself with
an industrious number of crosses, and a most earnest prayer to the
Virgin to graciously save him from his impending fate.

The savages, noticing his strange conduct, and regarding it as an
evidence of fear, were disposed to have a little fun at his expense.
Then mounting him upon one of their spare horses, they tied his hands
and feet, and led him to one of the trading-posts of the American Fur
Company, as a prisoner.

The gates of the fort were, of course, closed, but the Crows demanded
immediate admittance, declaring they wanted to trade.  What goods were
wanted by them? was asked by the officer in charge; to which the
leader of the savages replied, tobacco.

“What have you got to trade for it?” was then asked.

“A white man,” was the answer.

“A white man?” asked the surprised commander.  “What do you want for him?”

“Oh! he is not worth much.  A plug of tobacco is his full value!” was
the response by nearly all the warriors.

The commandant, seeing through the savage joke, and on recognizing
the unfortunate Frenchman, told the Indians they might possibly find
a market for him at the other fort.  He did not want to purchase.

The savages paraded around the walls of the post for a few minutes,
and with a salutation of terrible war-whoops, dashed off for Fort Platte.

When they reached Fort Platte, having tumbled two platforms of their
dead enemies on the trail,[54] they told the same story to the
commanding officer, who felt disposed to humour their joke and
accordingly gave the tobacco to the savages.  Upon this they turned
over the Frenchman, nearly frightened to death, and rode away in
pursuit of the Sioux.

Many years ago a missionary went among the Crows.  He was admitted to
an audience of the leading men, and commenced, through an interpreter,
to tell them the story how sin first came into the world, and how all
men had become bad, whether white or red.  Then he proceeded to
explain the principles of Christianity, telling the savages that he
had come among them to do them good, to show them how to be happy,
and declaring that unless they listened to him and worshipped the
Good Spirit as he instructed them, they could never reach that happy
country into which good people alone found admittance after death.

A venerable chief then arose and said: “My white brother is a stranger
to us.  He talks evil of us, and he talks evil of his own people.
He does this because he is ignorant.  He thinks my people, like his,
are wicked.  Thus far he is wrong.  Who were they who killed the very
good man of whom he tells us?  None of them were red men!  The red man
will die for his friends—he will not kill them!  Let my paleface
brother talk to the white man.  His own people—they are very bad.
He says he would do us good!  He does us no good to chide us and say
we are bad.  True, we are bad—and were we as bad as the palefaces,
it would become us to listen to him.  Would my brother do us good?
Then let him tell us how to make powder and we will believe in the
sincerity of his profession—but let him not belie us by saying we
are bad, like the palefaces!”

The Crows also have their legends of enchantment, as have other tribes.

Once upon a time a party of Crow Indians were out hunting the buffalo,
and they had with them a blind man.  As he was a great hindrance to
them, they put up a teepee on the bank of the Stinking Water for him,
and told him to remain there until they returned.

They left him something to eat and built a fire for him.  Then they
drove a stake in the ground and stretched a lariat to the Stinking
Water so that he could drink, and they also stretched another lariat
to the timber, and told him to follow that and he could get wood.
Thus they left him, and shortly after their departure another party of
Crows came along, and they, too, had a blind man with them; so they
concluded to follow the example of the first party, and leave him to
keep the first blind man company.

The two blind men sat down and spent their time in telling stories;
but the two hunting-parties were detained, and the two blind men ran
out of provisions, and became very hungry.  They sat at their fire and
wondered what they should do for something to eat.  Finally they could
stand it no longer, and one of them suggested that they go down to the
river and catch a fish to eat.

“No,” said the other; “Sak-a-war-te (the Great Spirit of the Crows)
told our people to hunt the buffalo, and it would make him very angry
for us to catch and eat fish”; but hunger getting the better of him,
he consented.

They went down to the water, and it was not long before they caught a
large fish.  They came back to their teepee, made a fire, and
proceeded to cook their fish.  They were sitting on either side of the
fire talking, and when the fish was done, Sak-a-war-te came quietly in
and took the fish out of the pot over the fire.  Soon they discovered
that their fish was gone, and then they began to accuse each other of
having taken it.  From words they came to blows, and while they were
fighting, Sak-a-war-te was standing there and laughing at them.
At last he spoke to them and told them to stop fighting—that he,
Sak-a-war-te, had taken the fish to try them.

He then said that they were bad Indians; they had broken his commands
to his people, which was to kill only the buffalo.  But he said he
would try them again.  He told them to go to the Stinking Water, and
take some mud and rub it on their eyes, then to wash it off and they
would see.  Then he told them they must obey him and go hunt the
buffalo.  Then he left them.

They did as he told them to do, and in a short time they could see.
Then they sat down and talked over matters; but their hunger
increasing and the hunting-parties not returning, they at last were
compelled to go down to the river and catch another fish.

They had no sooner landed a fish than they both lost their sight again.
In remorse they sat by their fire once more, and again Sak-a-war-te
came to them, and told them what bad Indians they had been, but said
he would try them once more.  So he told them a second time to go
down to the river, to take mud and apply it to their eyes, then wash
it off, and when they had received their sight, they should never
again take fish, for if they did they would become blind and never
again recover their sight.  They must hunt only the buffalo.  They did
as the Great Spirit had told them to do, and immediately received
their sight once more.  Then they went and made them bows and arrows,
as Sak-a-war-te had said they should, and while they were thus
employed, their friends returned from the hunt and gave them food.
The hunters were very much surprised to find that the men had
recovered their sight, and when they were told how it was accomplished,
all said they would ever after be good Indians and hunt only the buffalo.

The Blackfeet Indians are divided into three tribes, and each tribe
again divided into Blackfeet, Bloods, and Piegans.  This confederation,
while distinct, is regarded as a nation, and one of the stipulations
was that there should never be any clashing between them; but
notwithstanding this there have been many bloody fights.

According to tradition, they once lived much farther east and north,
near the Saskatchewan country.  Two or three hundred years ago they
were driven from there by hostile tribes, and they slowly moved to
the Rocky Mountains, where they have remained.

Their country, like that of the Crows, is a magnificent region
—a perfect paradise for a people who subsisted wholly on wild game.
Such subsistence was a necessity, too, for their mountainous range
belongs to that arid portion of our mid-continent area where, without
irrigation, it is doomed to a hopeless bondage of sterility.
Millions of buffalo and antelope roamed the plains, and in the
forest-fringed valleys and on the pine-clad divides, elk, deer, and
mountain sheep flocked in immense numbers.

The characteristics of the Blackfeet were bravery, hardiness, and
a ferocity that made them formidable enemies to the other tribes with
which they were constantly at war.  Particularly were they the
everlasting foes of the Crows, from whom they stole horses by the
wholesale; but very frequently the tables were turned, and the Crows
retaliated, robbing the Blackfeet of thousands.

They were probably the best hunters of all the plains' tribes, and
in the early days before their contact with the whites their weapons
were of the most primitive character.  They used merely bows with
stone-pointed arrows, and they resorted to the most ingenious methods
in order to capture the buffalo, which was their principal food.
In fact, they subsisted almost entirely upon that great ruminant.

One of their plans to catch the huge beasts was known as the “pis-kun,”
literally meaning deep blood-kettle.  It was really an immense corral,
generally constructed just below a steep precipice, and its sides and
ends enclosed by logs, stone, or brush—anything that came handy and
answered the purpose.  On the prairie above the precipice, wings
extended out on either side, in shape of an open triangle.  Into this
the buffalo were carefully driven, and in their fright precipitated
themselves over the brink.

The proceedings were always conducted with much ceremony, and involved
a good deal of savage mummery.  The sun, which was one of their deities,
must be propitiated.  The evening previous to the attempt to drive
a herd of buffalo into the pis-kun, one of the medicine-men of the
band commenced by praying to the sun for the success of the undertaking.
He was the one to make the buffalo come, and early in the morning
he got out his robes and started on his mission, after warning his
wives that they must not show themselves, even by looking out of the
door of the lodge, until he came back from his mission, but that they
must constantly burn sweet grass as an offering to the god of the day.

He must necessarily fast when engaged in this duty, and when he was
ready to make his appearance on the prairie the warriors all followed
him, hiding themselves behind the temporary fence that bounded the
pis-kun.  He then dressed himself in a bonnet which was made of the
head of a buffalo, and with a robe of the same animal thrown around
him slowly approached the peacefully grazing herd.

Arriving in the immediate vicinity, the buffalo, attracted by the
apparition, looked up.  The medicine-man walked then very deliberately
toward the opening of the pis-kun.  Generally the buffalo began to
follow him, and as he saw that they did so he increased his pace,
the animals, whose curiosity was aroused, at the same time doing
the same.

When the herd was securely within the corral, the hidden Indians
suddenly rose from their places, yelling as only savages can, at the
same instant shaking their robes, and the stampeded animals rushed
headlong to their death over the precipice.  Hundreds were instantly
killed, while others were so dreadfully disabled as to make them an
easy prey.  Then commenced an indiscriminate skinning and cutting up,
the chiefs and most noted warriors receiving the choicest meat.

As has been the fate of nearly all the Indian tribes west of the
Missouri River, the smallpox made fearful inroads among the Blackfeet.
It first appeared in 1845, and the tribe was decimated.  In fact,
it is said that the disease almost swept the plains of Indians.
In 1757-1758, it again visited them, but was not so virulent as at
its first appearance.  The measles carried off thousands in 1864;
and again, in 1869, the smallpox broke out in the Blackfeet villages.
In 1883-1884, strange as it may appear, twenty-five per cent of the
Piegan band actually died from hunger!  The cause of this terrible
disaster was that the buffalo had been driven from the Blackfoot
country, or rather exterminated, and the tribe, which had ever wholly
depended upon that animal for their subsistence, in a short time was
reduced to a state of absolute starvation.

Like the buffalo, the once powerful Blackfeet are nearly all gone.
The few left are living on a small reservation, and are somewhat
self-sustaining.  What a sad commentary!  Fifty years ago the
Blackfeet numbered over forty thousand warriors, and their name was
a terror to the white man who had the temerity to travel through
their country.

The Blackfoot account of creation is not a very definite one; portions
of it are too vulgar for refined ears, but in it is to be found a
story of a once great flood, which seems to be common to the cosmogony
of all tribes.




CHAPTER XIV.
FOLK-LORE OF BLACKFEET.



The folk-lore of the Blackfeet is very voluminous and full of humour.
Of course, as in other tribes, superstition and enchantment make up
the basis of their stories; and it will be noticed by the student of
their traditions, that there is that same marked similarity to those
related in the lodges of widely separated tribes, indicating a common
origin for them all.  Two of the more interesting of these tales are
“The Lost Children” and “The Wolf-Man.”

        Once a camp of people stopped on the bank of a river.  There
        were but a few lodges of them.  One day the little children
        in the camp crossed the river to play on the other side.
        For some time they stayed near the bank, and then they went
        up over a little hill and found a bed of sand and gravel;
        and there they played for a long time.

        There were eleven of these children.  Two of them were
        daughters of the chief of the camp, and the smaller of these
        wanted the best of everything.  If any child found a pretty
        stone she would try to take it for herself.  The other
        children did not like this, and they began to tease the little
        girl, and to take her things away from her.  Then she got
        angry and began to cry, and the more she cried the more the
        children teased her; so at last she and her sister left the
        others and went back to camp.

        When they got there they told their father what the other
        children had done to them, and this made the chief very angry.
        He thought for a little while and then got up and went out of
        the lodge, and called aloud, so that everybody might hear,
        saying: “Listen! listen!  Your children have teased my child
        and made her cry.  Now we will move away and leave them behind.
        If they come back before we get started they shall be killed.
        If they follow us and overtake the camp they shall be killed.
        If the father and mother of any one of them take them into
        their lodge I will kill that father and mother.  Hurry now,
        hurry and pack up, so that we can go.  Everybody tear down
        the lodges as quickly as you can.”

        When the people heard this they felt very sorry, but they had
        to do as the chief said; so they tore down the lodges and
        quickly packed the dog travois, and started off.  They packed
        in such a hurry that they left many little things lying in
        camp—knives and awls, bone needles and moccasins.

        The little children played about in the sand for a long time,
        but at last they began to get hungry; and one little girl said
        to the others, “I will go back to the camp and get some dried
        meat and bring it here, so that we may eat.”  And she started
        to go to the camp.  When she came to the top of the hill and
        looked across the river she saw that there were no lodges
        there, and did not know what to think of it.  She called down
        to the children and said, “The camp is gone”; but they did not
        believe her, and went on playing.  She kept on calling and at
        last some of them came to her, and then all saw that it was as
        she had said.  They went down to the river and crossed it, and
        went to where the lodges had stood.  When they got there they
        saw on the ground the things that had been left out in the
        packing; and as each child saw and knew something that had
        belonged to its own parents it cried, and sang a little song,
        saying: “Mother, here is your bone needle; why did you leave
        your children?”  “Father, here is your arrow; why did you
        leave your children?”  It was very mournful, and they all cried.

        There was among them a little girl who had on her back her
        baby brother, whom she loved dearly.  He was very young,
        a nursing child, and already he was hungry and beginning to
        fret.  This little girl said to the others: “We do not know
        why they have gone, but we know they have gone.  We must
        follow the trail of the camp and try to catch up with them.”
        So the children started to follow the camp.  They travelled on
        all day; and just at night they saw a little lodge near the
        trail.  They had heard the people talk of a bad old woman who
        killed and ate people, and some of the children thought that
        this old woman might live here; and they were afraid to go to
        the lodge.  Others said: “Perhaps some one lives here who has
        a good heart.  We are very tired and very hungry, and have
        nothing to eat, and no place to keep warm.  Let us go to this
        lodge.”

        They went to it; and when they went in they saw an old woman
        sitting by the fire.  She spoke kindly to them, and asked them
        where they were travelling; and they told her that the camp
        had moved on and left them, and that they were trying to find
        their people, that they had nothing to eat, and were tired and
        hungry.  The old woman fed them and told them to sleep there
        to-night, and to-morrow they could go on and find their people.
        “The camp,” she said, “passed here to-day when the sun was low.
        They have not gone far.  To-morrow you will overtake them.”
        She spread some robes on the ground and said: “Now lie here
        and sleep.  Lie side by side with your heads towards the fire,
        and when morning comes you can go on your journey.”
        The children lay down and soon slept.

        In the middle of the night the old woman got up and built
        a big fire, and put on it a big stone kettle full of water.
        Then she took a big knife, and, commencing at one end of the
        row, began to cut off the heads of the children, and to throw
        them into the pot.  The little girl with the baby brother lay
        at the other end of the row, and while the old woman was doing
        this she awoke and saw what was taking place.  When the old
        woman came near to her she jumped up and began to beg that she
        would not kill her.  “I am strong,” she said.  “I will work
        hard for you.  I can bring your wood and water, and tan your
        skins.  Do not kill my little brother and me.  Take pity on
        us and save us alive.  Everybody has left us, but do you have
        pity.  You shall see how quickly I will work, how you will
        always have plenty of wood.  I can work quickly and well.”
        The old woman thought for a little while, then she said:
        “Well, I will let you live for a time, anyhow.  You shall
        sleep safely to-night.”

        The next day, early, the little girl took her brother on her
        back, and went out and gathered a big pile of wood, and
        brought it to the lodge before the old woman was awake.
        When she got up she called to the girl, “Go to the river and
        get a bucket of water.”  The girl put her brother on her back,
        and took the bucket to go.  The old woman said to her: “Why do
        you carry that child everywhere?  Leave him here.”  The little
        girl said: “Not so.  He is always with me, and if I leave him
        he will cry and make a great noise, and you will not like that.”
        The old woman grumbled, but the girl went on down to the river.

        When she got there, just as she was going to fill her bucket,
        she saw a great bull standing by her.  It was a mountain
        buffalo, one of those which live in the timber; and the long
        hair of its head was all full of pine needles and sticks and
        branches, and matted together.  (It was a Su-ye-stu-mik,
        a water-bull.)  When the girl saw him, she prayed him to take
        her across the river, and so to save her and her little
        brother from the bad old woman.  The bull said, “I will take
        you across, but first you must take some of the sticks out of
        my head.”  The girl begged him to start at once; but the bull
        said, “No, first take the sticks out of my head.”  The girl
        began to do it, but before she had done much she heard the old
        woman calling her to bring the water.  The girl called back,
        “I am trying to get the water clear,” and went on fixing the
        buffalo's head.  The old woman called again, saying, “Hurry,
        hurry with that water.”  The girl answered, “Wait, I am
        washing my little brother.”  Pretty soon the old woman called
        out, “If you don't bring that water, I will kill you and your
        brother.”  By this time the girl had most of the sticks out of
        the bull's head, and he told her to get on his back, and went
        into the water and swam across the river.  As he reached the
        other bank, the girl could see the old woman coming from her
        lodge down to the river with a big stick in her hand.

        When the bull reached the bank, the girl jumped off his back
        and started off on the trail of the camp.  The bull swam back
        again to the other side of the river, and there stood the old
        woman.  This bull was a sort of servant of the old woman.
        She said to him, “Why did you take those children across the
        river?  Take me on your back now and carry me across quickly,
        so that I may catch them.”  But the bull said, “First take
        these sticks out of my head.”  “No,” said the old woman;
        “first take me across, then I will take the sticks out.”
        The bull repeated, “First take the sticks out of my head,
        then I will take you across.”  This made the old woman very
        angry, and she hit him with the stick she had in her hand;
        but when she saw that he would not go, she began to pull the
        sticks out of his head very roughly, tearing out great
        handfuls of hair, and every moment ordering him to go, and
        threatening what she would do to him when she got back.
        At last the bull took her on his back, and began to swim
        across with her, but he did not swim fast enough to please her;
        so she began to pound him with her club to make him go faster.
        When the bull got to the middle of the river he rolled over on
        his side, and the old woman slipped off, and was carried down
        the river and drowned.

        The girl followed the trail of the camp for several days,
        feeding on berries and roots that she dug; and at last one
        night after dark she overtook the camp.  She went into the
        lodge of an old woman who was camped off at one side, and the
        old woman pitied her and gave her some food, and told her
        where her father's lodge was.  The girl went to it, but when
        she went in her parents would not receive her.  She had tried
        to overtake them for the sake of her little brother who was
        growing thin and weak because he had not been fed properly;
        and now her mother was afraid to let her stay with them.
        She even went and told the chief that her children had come
        back; he was angry, and he ordered that the next day they
        should be tied to a post in the camp, and that the people
        should move on and leave them there.  “Then,” he said, “they
        cannot follow us.”

        When the old woman who had pitied the children heard what the
        chief had ordered, she made up a bundle of dried meat, and
        hid it in the grass near the camp.  Then she called her dog
        to her—a little curly dog.  She said to the dog: “Now listen.
        To-morrow when we are ready to start I will call you to come
        to me, but you must pay no attention to what I say.  Run off
        and pretend to be chasing squirrels.  I will try to catch you,
        and if I do so I will pretend to whip you; but do not follow
        me.  Stay behind, and when the camp has passed out of sight,
        chew off the strings that bind those children.  When you have
        done this, show them where I have hidden that food.  Then you
        can follow the camp and overtake us.”  The dog stood before
        the old woman and listened to all that she said, turning his
        head from side to side, as if paying close attention.

        Next morning it was done as the chief had said.  The children
        were tied to the tree with rawhide strings, and the people
        tore down all the lodges and moved off.  The old woman called
        her dog to follow her, but he was digging at a gopher hole and
        would not come.  Then she went up to him and struck at him
        hard with her whip, but he dodged and ran away, and then stood
        looking at her.  Then the old woman became very angry and
        cursed him, but he paid no attention; and finally she left him,
        and followed the camp.  When the people had all passed out of
        sight, the dog went to the children and gnawed the strings
        which tied them until he had bitten them through.  So the
        children were free.

        Then the dog was glad, and danced about and barked, and ran
        round and round.  Pretty soon he came up to the little girl
        and looked up in her face, and then started away, trotting.
        Every little while he would stop and look back.  The girl
        thought he wanted her to follow him.  She did so, and he took
        her to where the bundle of dried meat was and showed it to her.
        Then, when he had done this, he jumped upon her and licked the
        baby's face, and then started off, running as hard as he could
        along the trail of the camp, never stopping to look back.
        The girl did not follow him.  She now knew it was no use to go
        to the camp again.  Their parents would not receive them, and
        the chief would perhaps order them to be killed.

        She went on her way, carrying her little brother and the
        bundle of dried meat.  She travelled for many days and at last
        came to a place where she thought she would stop.  Here she
        built a little lodge of poles and brush, and stayed there.
        One night she had a dream, and an old woman came to her,
        in the dream, and said to her, “To-morrow take your little
        brother and tie him to one of the lodge poles, and the next
        day tie him to another, and so every day tie him to one of
        the poles until you have gone all around the lodge and have
        tied him to each pole. Then you will be helped, and will no
        longer have bad luck.”

        When the girl awoke in the morning she remembered what the
        dream had told her, and she bound her little brother to one of
        the lodge poles; and each day after this she tied him to one
        of the poles.  Each day he grew larger, until, when she had
        gone all around the lodge, he was grown to be a fine young man.

        Now the girl was glad, and proud of her young brother who was
        so large and noble-looking.  He was quiet, not speaking much,
        and sometimes for days he would not say anything.  He seemed
        to be thinking all the time.  One morning he told the girl
        that he had a dream and that he wished her to help him build
        a pis-kun.  She was afraid to ask him about the dream, for she
        thought if she asked questions he might not like it.  So she
        just said she was ready to do what he wished.  They built the
        pis-kun, and when it was finished the boy said to his sister,
        “The buffalo are to come to us, and you are not to see them.
        When the time comes you are to cover your head and to hold
        your face close to the ground; and do not lift your head nor
        look, until I throw a piece of kidney to you.”  The girl said,
        “It shall be as you say.”

        When the time came, the boy told her where to go; and she went
        to the place, a little way from the lodge, not far from the
        corral, and sat down on the ground, and covered her head,
        holding her face close to the earth.  After she had sat there
        a little while, she heard the sound of animals running, and
        she was excited and curious, and raised her head to look; but
        she saw only her brother, standing near, looking at her.
        Before he could speak, she said to him, “I thought I heard
        buffalo coming, and because I was anxious for food I forgot
        my promise and looked.  Forgive me this time, and I will try
        again.”  Again she bent her face to the ground, and covered
        her head.

        Soon she heard again the sound of animals running, at first a
        long way off, and then coming nearer and nearer, until at last
        they seemed close, and she thought they were going to run over
        her.  She sprang up in fright and looked about, but there was
        nothing to be seen but her brother, looking sadly at her.
        She went close to him and said, “Pity me.  I was afraid, for
        I thought the buffalo were going to run over me.”  He said,
        “This is the last time.  If again you look, we will starve;
        but if you do not look, we will always have plenty, and will
        never be without meat.”  The girl looked at him and said,
        “I will try hard this time, and even if those animals run
        right over me, I will not look until you throw the kidney
        to me.”  Again she covered her head, pressing her face against
        the earth and putting her hands against her ears, so that she
        might not hear.  Suddenly, sooner than she thought, she felt
        the blow from the meat thrown at her, and springing up, she
        seized the kidney and began to eat it.  Not far away was her
        brother, bending over a fat cow; and, going up to him, she
        helped him with the butchering.  After that was done, she
        kindled a fire and cooked the best parts of the meat, and they
        ate and were satisfied.

        The boy became a great hunter.  He made fine arrows that went
        faster than a bird could fly, and when he was hunting he
        watched all the animals and all the birds, and learned their
        ways and how to imitate them when they called.  While he was
        hunting, the girl dressed buffalo-hides and the skins of deer
        and other animals.  She made a fine new lodge, and the boy
        painted it with figures of all the birds and the animals he
        had killed.

        One day, when the girl was bringing water, she saw a little
        way off a person coming.  When she went in the lodge, she told
        her brother, and he went out to meet the stranger.  He found
        that he was friendly and was hunting, but had had bad luck and
        killed nothing.  He was starving and in despair, when he saw
        this lone lodge and made up his mind to go to it.  As he came
        near it, he began to be afraid, and to wonder if the people
        who lived there were enemies or ghosts; but he thought,
        “I may as well die here as starve,” so he went boldly to it.
        The strange person was very much surprised to see this
        handsome young man with the kind face, who could speak his own
        language.  The boy took him into the lodge, and the girl put
        food before him.  After he had eaten, he told his story,
        saying that the game had left them, and that many of his
        people were dying of hunger.  As he talked, the girl listened;
        and at last she remembered the man, and knew that he belonged
        to her camp.

        She asked him some questions, and he talked about all the
        people in the camp, and even spoke of the old woman who owned
        the dog.  The boy advised the stranger, after he had rested,
        to return to his camp and tell the people to move up to this
        place, that here they would find plenty of game.  After he had
        gone, the boy and his sister talked of these things.  The girl
        had often told him what she had suffered, what the chief had
        said and done, and how their own parents had turned against
        her, and that the only person whose heart had been good to her
        was this old woman.  As the young man heard all this again,
        he was angry at his parents and the chief, but he felt great
        kindness for the old woman and her dog.  When he learned that
        those bad people were living, he made up his mind that they
        should suffer and die.

        When the strange man reached his own camp, he told the people
        how well he had been treated by these two persons, and that
        they wished him to bring the whole camp to them, and that
        there they should have plenty.

        This made great joy in the camp, and all got ready to move.
        When they reached the lost children's camp, they found
        everything as the stranger had said.  The brother gave a feast;
        and to those whom he liked he gave many presents, but to the
        old woman and the dog he gave the best presents of all.
        To the chief nothing at all was given, and this made him very
        much ashamed.  To the parents no food was given, but the boy
        tied a bone to the lodge poles above the fire, and told the
        parents to eat from it without touching it with their hands.
        They were very hungry, and tried to eat from this bone; and as
        they were stretching out their necks to reach it—for it was
        above them—the boy cut off their heads with his knife.
        This frightened all the people, the chief most of all; but
        the boy told them how it all was, and how he and his sister
        had survived.

        When he had finished speaking, the chief said he was sorry
        for what he had done, and he proposed to his people that this
        young man should be made their chief.  They were glad to do
        this.  The boy was made the chief, and lived long to rule the
        people in that camp.

The story of the Wolf-Man runs as follows:—

        There was once a man who had two bad wives.  They had no shame.
        The man thought if he moved away where there were no other
        people, he might teach these women to become good, so he moved
        his lodge away off on the prairie.  Near where they camped was
        a high butte, and every evening about sundown the man would go
        up on top of it, and look all over the country to see where
        the buffalo were feeding, and if any enemies were approaching.
        There was a buffalo-skull on the hill, which he used to sit on.

        “This is very lonesome,” said one woman to the other, one day.
        “We have no one to talk with, nor to visit.”

        “Let us kill our husband,” said the other.  “Then we will go
        back to our relations and have a good time.”

        Early in the morning the man went out to hunt, and as soon as
        he was out of sight, his wives went up on top of the butte.
        There they dug a deep pit, and covered it over with light
        sticks, grass, and dirt, and placed the buffalo-skull on top.

        In the afternoon they saw their husband coming home, loaded
        down with meat he had killed.  So they hurried to cook for him.
        After eating, he went up on the butte and sat down on the
        skull.  The slender sticks gave way, and he fell into the pit.
        His wives were watching him, and when they saw him disappear,
        they took down the lodge, packed everything on the dog travois,
        and moved off, going toward the main camp.  When they got
        near it, so that the people could hear them, they began to
        cry and mourn.

        “Why is this?” they were asked.  “Why are you in mourning?
        Where is your husband?”

        “He is dead,” they replied.  “Five days ago he went out on
        a hunt, and he never came back.”  And they cried and mourned
        again.

        When the man fell into the pit, he was hurt.  After a while
        he tried to get out, but he was so badly bruised he could not
        climb up.  A wolf travelling along came to the pit and saw
        him, and pitied him.  “Ah-h-w-o-o-o-o!  Ah-h-w-o-o-o-o!” he
        howled, and when the other wolves heard him they all came
        running to see what was the matter.  There came also many
        coyotes, badgers, and kit-foxes.

        “In this hole,” said the wolf, “is my find.  Here is a
        fallen-in man.  Let us dig him out, and we will have him for
        our brother.”

        They all thought the wolf spoke well, and began to dig.
        In a little while they had a hole close to the man.  Then the
        wolf who found him said, “Hold on; I want to speak a few words
        to you.”  All the animals listening, he continued, “We will
        all have this man for our brother, but I found him, so I think
        he ought to live with us big wolves.”  All the others said
        that this was well; so the wolf went into the hole, and,
        tearing down the rest of the dirt, dragged out the almost dead
        man.  They gave him a kidney to eat, and when he was able to
        walk a little, the big wolves took him to their home.
        Here there was a very old blind wolf, who had powerful medicine.
        He cured the man, and made his head and hands look like those
        of a wolf.  The rest of his body was not changed.

        In those days the people used to make holes in the pis-kun
        walls and set snares, and when wolves and other animals came
        to steal meat, they were caught by the neck.  One night the
        wolves all went down to the pis-kun to steal meat, and when
        they got close to it, the man-wolf said, “Stand here a little.
        I will go down and fix the places, so you will not be caught.”
        He went on and sprung all the snares; then he went back and
        called the wolves and others—the coyotes, badgers, and foxes—
        and they all went in the pis-kun and feasted, and took meat
        to carry home.

        In the morning the people were surprised to find the meat gone,
        and their nooses all drawn out.  They wondered how it could
        have been done.  For many nights the nooses were drawn and
        the meat stolen; but once, when the wolves went there to steal,
        they found only the meat of a scabby bull, and the man-wolf
        was angry, and cried out, “Bad-you-give-us-o-o-o!
        Bad-you-give-us-o-o-o!”

        The people heard him and said, “It is a man-wolf who has done
        all this.  We will catch him.”  So they put pemmican and nice
        back fat in the pis-kun, and many hid close by.  After dark
        the wolves came again, and when the man-wolf saw the good
        food, he ran to it and began eating.  Then the people all
        rushed in and caught him with ropes and took him to a lodge.
        When they got inside to the light of the fire, they knew at
        once who it was.  They said, “This is the man who was lost.”

        “No,” said the man, “I was not lost.  My wives tried to kill
        me.  They dug a deep hole, and I fell into it, and I was hurt
        so badly that I could not get out; but the wolves took pity on
        me and helped me, or I would have died there.”

        When the people heard this they were angry, and they told the
        man to do something.

        “You say well,” he replied.  “I give those women to the
        I-kun-uh-kah-tsi; they know what to do.”

        After that night the two women were never seen again.[55]

                                    * * *

        The Utes are strictly mountain Indians.  They were a fierce,
        warlike tribe, and for years continuously raided the sparse
        settlements at the base of the Rocky Mountains on both their
        slopes.  They were known to the Spaniards early in the
        seventeenth century.  The Utah Nation is an integral part of
        the great Shoshone family, of which there are a number of
        bands, or tribes—the Pah-Utes, or Py-Utes, the Pi-Utes, the
        Gosh-Utes, or Goshutes, the Pi-Edes, the Uinta-Utes, the
        Yam-Pah-Utes, besides others not necessary to enumerate.

        The word Utah originated with the people inhabiting the
        mountain region early in the seventeenth century, when
        New Mexico was first talked of by the Spanish conquerors.
        Pah signifies water; Pah-guampe, salt water, or salt lake;
        Pah-Utes, Indians that live about the water.  The word was
        spelled in various ways, “Yutas” by the early Spaniards.
        This is perhaps the proper way.  Other spellings are “Youta,”
        “Eutaw,” “Utaw,” and “Utah,” which is now the accepted
        one.[56]

The Utes, unquestionably, were the Indians concerned in the “Mountain
Meadows Massacre.”  The Utes, too, were the tribe that committed the
atrocities at their agency, killing the Meeker family and others there,
finishing their deeds of murder by the massacre of Major T. T.
Thornburgh's command on the White River in 1879.  The terrible story
is worth recounting:—

        Major T. T. Thornburgh, commanding officer of the Fourth
        United States Infantry, at Fort Fred Steele on the Union
        Pacific Railroad in Wyoming, was placed in charge of the
        expedition which left Rawlins for White River Agency,
        September 24.  The command consisted of two companies, D and F
        of the Fifth Cavalry, and Company E of the Fourth Infantry,
        the officers included in the detachment being Captains Payne
        and Lawson of the Fifth Cavalry, Lieutenant Paddock of the
        Third Cavalry, and Lieutenants Price and Wooley of the Fourth
        Infantry, with Dr. Grimes accompanying the command as surgeon.
        Following the troops was a supply-train of thirty-three wagons.

        When the command reached the place known as Old Fortification
        Camp, Company E of the Fourth Infantry, with Lieutenant Price
        in command, was dropped from the command, the design of this
        step being to afford protection to passing supply-trains, and
        to act as a reserve in case there was demand for it.
        Major Thornburgh turned his face toward the Indian country in
        deep earnest, with the balance of his command consisting of
        the three cavalry companies numbering about one hundred and
        sixty men.

        Having been directed to use all despatch in reaching the
        agency, the major marched forward with as great rapidity as
        possible.  The route selected is not well travelled, and is
        mountainous, and of course the troops did not proceed so
        rapidly as they might have done on more familiar highways.

        Nothing was seen of or heard from the Indians until Bear River
        was reached; this runs north of the reservation and almost
        parallel with the northern line.  At the crossing of this
        stream, about sixty-five miles from White River Agency, ten
        Indians, headed by two Ute chiefs, Colorow and Jack, made
        their appearance.  They were closely questioned, but professed
        great friendliness for the whites and would betray none of the
        secrets of their tribe.  They declared that they were merely
        out on a hunt, and repeated that they were friends of the
        white man and of the Great Father's government, and especially
        of the Great Father's soldiers.

        After this parley, which took place September 26, Thornburgh
        sent his last telegram from camp: “Have met some of the Ute
        chiefs here.  They seem friendly and promise to go with me to
        the agency.  They say the Utes don't understand why we came
        here.  I have tried to explain satisfactorily; don't now
        anticipate any trouble.”  The conclusion is that Thornburgh
        was one of the most prudent and discreet of officers, but that
        he was thrown off his guard by the savages.

        The march was continued and nothing more was seen of the
        Indians though a close watch by keen-eyed scouts was kept up
        for them, until Williams' Fork, a small tributary of Bear
        River, was reached, when the same ten Indians first seen again
        quite suddenly and very mysteriously appeared.  They renewed
        their protestations of friendship, while they covertly and
        critically eyed the proportions of the command.  They made a
        proposition to the commander that he take an escort of five
        soldiers and accompany them to the agency.  A halt was called
        and Major Thornburgh summoned his staff to a consultation.
        After carefully discussing the matter with a due regard for
        the importance, the advantage, and disadvantage of the step,
        the officers' council came to the conclusion that it was not
        wise to accept this proffer on the part of the Indians, as it
        might lead to another Modoc trap, and to Thornburgh's becoming
        another Canby.  Thornburgh's scout, Mr. Joseph Rankin, was
        especially strong in opposition to the request of the Indians.

        Major Thornburgh then concluded to march his column within
        hailing distance of the agency, where he would accept the
        proposition of the Indians.  But he was never allowed to carry
        out his designs.  Here it became apparent how thin the
        disguise of friendship had been, and Thornburgh was soon
        convinced how fatal would have been the attempt for him,
        accompanied by only five men, to treat with them.

        The command had reached the point where the road crosses Milk
        River, another tributary of the Bear River, inside the
        reservation and in the limits of Summit County, about
        twenty-five miles north of the agency, when they were attacked
        by the hostiles, numbering, it is believed, between two
        hundred and fifty and three hundred warriors, who had been
        lying in ambush.

        The scene of the attack was peculiarly fitted for the Indian
        method of warfare.  When Thornburgh's command entered the
        ravine or cañon they found themselves between two bluffs
        thirteen hundred yards apart.  Those on the north were two
        hundred feet high, those on the south one hundred feet.
        The road to the agency ran through the ravine in a
        southeasterly direction, following the bend of the Milk River,
        at a distance of five hundred yards.  Milk River is a narrow,
        shallow stream, which here flows in a southwesterly direction,
        passing through a narrow cañon.  Through this cañon, after
        making a detour to avoid some very difficult ground,
        the wagon-road passes for three or four miles.  Along the
        stream is a growth of cottonwood trees; but its great advantage
        as an ambuscade lies in the narrowness of the cañon.
        On the top of the two ranges of bluffs the Indians had
        intrenched themselves in a series of pits, so that when the
        troops halted at the first volley, they stood between two
        fires at a range of only six hundred and fifty yards from
        either bluff.

        The battle took place on the morning of September 29.
        The locality of the ambush had been known as Bad Cañon,
        but it will hereafter be described as Thornburgh's Pass.
        Lieutenant Cherry discovered the ambush, and was ordered by
        Major Thornburgh to hail the Indians.  He took fifteen men of
        E Company for this work.  Major Thornburgh's orders were not
        to make the first fire on the Indians, but to wait an attack
        from them.  After the Indians and Cherry's hailing party had
        faced each other for about ten minutes, Mr. Rankin, the scout,
        who was an old Indian fighter, seeing the danger in which the
        command was placed, hurried direct to Major Thornburgh's side
        and requested him to open fire on the enemy, saying at the
        same time that that was their only hope.  Major Thornburgh
        replied:—

        “My God!  I dare not; my orders are positive, and if I
        violate them and survive, a court-martial and ignominious
        dismissal may follow.  I feel as though myself and men were
        to be murdered.”

        Major Thornburgh, with Captain Payne, was riding at the head
        of the column; Company F, Fifth Cavalry, in advance;
        Lieutenant Lawson commanding next; and D Company, Fifth
        Cavalry, Lieutenant Paddock commanding, about a mile and
        a half to the rear, in charge of the wagon-train.

        Cherry had moved out at a gallop with his men from the right
        flank, and noticed a like movement of about twenty Indians
        from the left of the Indians' position.  He approached to
        within two hundred yards of the Indians and took off his hat
        and waved it, but the response was a shot fired at him,
        wounding a man of the party and killing his horse.  This was
        the first shot, and was instantly followed by a volley from
        the Indians.  The work had now begun in real earnest, and
        seeing the advantage of the position he then held, Cherry
        dismounted his detachment and deployed along the crest of the
        hill to prevent the Indians flanking his position, or to cover
        his retreat if found necessary to retire upon the wagon-train,
        which was then coming up slowly, guarded by Lieutenant
        Paddock's company, D, Fifth Cavalry.

        Orders were sent to pack the wagons and cover them, with the
        company guarding them.  The two companies in advance were
        Captain Payne's company, F, Fifth Cavalry, and Lieutenant
        Lawson's company, E, Third Cavalry, which were dismounted and
        deployed as skirmishers, Captain Payne on the left and
        Lieutenant Lawson on the right.

        From Cherry's position he could see that the Indians were
        trying to cut him off from the wagons, and at once sent word
        to Major Thornburgh, who then withdrew the line slowly,
        keeping the Indians in check until opposite the point which
        his men had, when, seeing that the Indians were concentrating
        to cut off his retreat, Captain Payne, with Company F, Fifth
        Cavalry, was ordered to charge the hill, which he did in
        gallant style, his horse being shot under him and several of
        his men wounded.

        The Indians being driven from this point, the company was
        rallied on the wagon-train.  Major Thornburgh then gave orders
        to Cherry to hold his position and cover the retreat of
        Lieutenant Lawson, who was ordered to fall back slowly with
        the company horses of his company.

        Cherry called for volunteers of twenty men, who responded
        promptly and fought with desperation.  Nearly every man was
        wounded before he reached camp, and two men were killed.
        Cherry brought every wounded man in with him.  Lieutenant
        Lawson displayed the greatest coolness and courage during this
        retreat, sending up ammunition to Cherry's men when once they
        were nearly without it.

        Simultaneously with the attack on Thornburgh's advance the
        Indians swept in between the troops and the wagon-train, which
        was protected by D Company, Lieutenant Paddock commanding.
        The desperate situation of the soldiers in the ravine was at
        once apparent to every officer and man in the ambush.
        The soldiers fought valiantly, desperately, and the Indians
        shrank under the terrible counter fire.  A more complete trap
        could not be contrived, for the troops were not only
        outnumbered, but exposed to a galling fire from the bluffs,
        over the edge of which it was impossible to reach the foe,
        as the range of sight would, of course, carry bullets clean
        over the Indian pits.

        Major Thornburgh was here and there and everywhere, directing
        the attack, the defence, and later the retreat.  He was
        constantly exposed to fire, and the wonder is that his
        intrepidity did not win his death ere it did.  Captain Payne
        and his company, under orders from Thornburgh, fell back to a
        knoll, followed by Lieutenant Lawson and company, the retreat
        being covered by Lieutenant Cherry's command.  Hemmed in at
        both outlets of the pass and subjected to a steady deathly
        fire from the heights on either side, the troops were melting
        down under the savage massacre.

        Major Thornburgh, seeing the terrible danger in which his
        command was placed from the position of the Indians, at once
        mounted about twenty men, and at the head of them he dashed
        forward with a valour unsurpassed by Napoleon at the Bridge of
        Lodi, and made a charge on the savages between the command and
        the train.

        It was in this valorous dash that Thornburgh met his fate,
        thirteen of his bold followers also being killed, the gallant
        leader falling within four hundred yards of the wagons.
        The remainder of the command, then in retreat for the train
        corral, followed the path led by Thornburgh and his men.
        As Captain Payne's company was about to start, or had started,
        his saddle-girth broke and he got a fearful fall.  One of his
        men dismounted and assisted him on his horse, the captain's
        horse having run away.  F Company, Fifth, followed by the
        captain, he being badly bruised, reached the wagon-train to
        find it being packed, and Lieutenant Paddock wounded, and
        fighting the Indians.  Lieutenants Lawson and Cherry fell back
        slowly with their companies dismounted and fighting all the
        way, every man doing his duty.

        The stubborn resistance of Lieutenant Cherry in covering the
        retreat gave time for the troops at the train to form
        temporary breastworks of men's bundles, flour, sacks of corn,
        wagons, and dead horses.  When the last detachment had reached
        the Paddock corral the soldiers fought intrenched, horses
        being shot down rapidly and the foe settling into position on
        all the high points about them.  Captain Payne, who by
        Thornburgh's death came into command, drew up eight of the
        wagons and ranged them as a sort of a breastwork along the
        northern and eastern sides of an oval, at the same time
        cutting transverse trenches on the western and southern points
        of the oval, along the line of which the men posted themselves.
        Inside the oval eight more wagons were drawn up for the
        purpose of corralling the animals, and there was also a pit
        provided for sheltering the wounded.  Behind the pits ran a
        path to the nearest bend of Milk River, which was used for
        obtaining water.  The command held its position until 8:30
        o'clock that night, when the Indians withdrew.

        In the engagement there were twelve soldiers killed and
        forty-two wounded.  Every officer in the command was shot with
        the exception of Lieutenant Cherry, of the Fifth Cavalry.
        The Indians killed from one hundred and fifty to two hundred
        mules belonging to the government.  Surgeon Grimes was wounded
        but was able for duty.  The troops had about six days'
        supplies.[57]

One of the greatest chiefs of the Ute Nation was Ouray.  His character
was marked by its keen perception, and ideas of right and wrong,
according to a strictly Christian code.  He was bold, and an
uncompromising protector of the rights of his tribe, and equally as
earnest in his endeavours to impress upon the minds of the Indians
that the whites were their friends.  He was renowned for his wisdom
rather than for his bravery, which is the test of greatness among
savages.  He was brave, too, but that did not, in his own conception,
complete the qualities which a leader should possess.  His tribe
during the period of his chieftainship had five battles with the
Arapahoes and several with the Sioux and Cheyennes.  It was a bloody
war between the Indians of the plains and the mountains, between
highlanders and lowlanders, and in these struggles Ouray became a
renowned warrior.

During some of these battles with the Arapahoes, Ouray led as many as
seven hundred warriors into the field.  At one time he had but thirty
braves with him, while the enemy numbered nearly eight hundred.
The Arapahoes came upon the Utes one morning just about daylight,
surprising them completely.  Ouray rallied his small force, however,
formed them into a square, and after retreating a short distance,
fighting continuously for fourteen hours, succeeded in repulsing his
foes.

The story of his life is an interesting one.  He says that he was born
in Taos Valley in New Mexico, near the Pueblo village of that name,
in 1839.  The band to which he belonged spent a great deal of its time
in the Taos Valley, San Luis Park, and along the base of the Sangre
de Cristo Mountains.  In that region they were accustomed to meet the
Apaches, who came from the south.  It was a common thing for a tribe
of Indians to marry out of their own.  Ouray's father married an
Apache woman, hence the epithet so often sneeringly applied to the
chief, by those who did not like him, of “He's an Apache pappoose.”

His band became so accustomed to association with the Mexicans that
some of them began to adopt the customs of that people, and when
Ouray's father and mother decided to wed, they were married in the
little adobe church on a hill in the village at the Red River Crossing.
A priest performed the ceremony according to the Catholic ritual.
When Ouray was born, he was taken to the same building and baptized
into the Catholic faith.[58]

Ouray was not head chief at first; but his influence increased so fast
with the other bands of the tribe, that, in the year of President
Lincoln's death, he was declared head chief of the whole Ute Nation.

Ouray resided in a neatly built adobe house erected for him by the
government; it was nicely carpeted and furnished in modern style.
He owned a farm of three hundred acres, a real garden spot.  Of these
he cultivated a hundred, owned a large number of horses, cattle, and
sheep, and rode in a carriage presented to him by Governor McCook of
Colorado.  He hired labourers from among the Mexicans and Indians.
He was very much attached to the white man's manner of living, and
received from the government a thousand dollars a year annuity.
From first to last, Ouray had been friendly to the whites, and always
an advocate of peace.  The moment he heard of the attack on Thornburgh's
command, he sent runners to the spot and ordered the Indians to cease
at once; so powerful was he that hostilities ended immediately.

The Pi-Utes have a rather poetical conceit in accounting for the
movements of the celestial bodies.  Their theory is that the sun rules
the heavens.  He is a big chief; the moon is his squaw, and the stars
are his children.  The sun devours his children whenever he is able
to catch them.  They are constantly afraid of him as he is passing
through the sky.  He gets up very early in the morning; his children,
the stars, fly out of sight, and go away into the blue; and they are
not seen again until he goes to bed, which is deep down under the
ground, in a great hole.  When he goes to his hole, he creeps and
crawls, and sleeps there all night.  The hole is so little that he
cannot turn around in it, so he is obliged, when he has had all the
sleep he requires, to pass on through, and in the morning he is seen
in the east again.  When he comes out of his hole, he begins to hunt
through the sky to catch and eat any of the stars he can find.  All of
the sun is not seen; his shape is like a snake or lizard.  It is not
his head that is seen, but his stomach, which is stuffed with stars
he has devoured.  His wife, the moon, goes into the same hole as her
husband, to sleep also.  She has great fear of him, and when he comes
into the hole to sleep, she does not remain there long, if he be cross.

The moon has great love for her children, the stars, and is ever happy
to be travelling up where they are.  Her children feel perfectly safe,
and smile as she passes along.  But she cannot help one of them being
devoured every month.  It is ordered by Pah-ah, the Great Spirit, who
dwells above all, that the sun must swallow one of his children each
month.  Then the mother-moon feels very sorry, and she must mourn.
She paints her face black, for her child is gone.  But the dark will
soon wear away from her face a little by little, night after night,
and after a time her face becomes all bright again.  Soon the sun
swallows another child, and the moon puts on her black paint again.

They account for the appearance of a comet by stating that the sun
often snaps at one of the stars, his children, and does not get a good
hold of it, he only tears a piece out; and the star, getting wild with
pain, goes flying across the sky with a great spout of blood flowing
from it.  It is then very much afraid, and as it flies it always keeps
its head turned to watch the sun, its father, and never turns its face
away from him until it is far out of his reach.

A few years ago, the Utes sold their lands to the United States
government, and the various bands were removed to a reservation.

Among the many legends of the Utes, that accounting for the origin of
the hot springs at the mouth of the cañon of the Rio las Gallinas
(near Las Vegas, N.M.) is one of the most remarkable.  It was related
to one of the authors of this volume thirty-two years ago, by an aged
warrior, while the party of Indians and white men who had been hunting
for black-tail deer in the mountains were sitting around their
camp-fire at night.

The wrinkled and paint-bedaubed savage veteran filled his pipe,
lighted it, then taking a whiff after saluting the sky, the earth,
and the cardinal points of the compass, passed it around,
Indian-fashion, and began his weird story; which is here given,
divested of the poor English of our interpreter:—

        Thousands of snows have passed, thousands of Indian summers
        made their delightful round, since the Medicine Waters were
        formed there by the Great Spirit to prove that the people of
        the powerful Ute Nation were his special care.  Warriors, too,
        who were wounded in battle with their hereditary enemies,
        the Pawnees of the plains—if they were brave and had pleased
        the Great Spirit—had only to repair to the hot waters flowing
        out of the mountain side, bathe three times a day in their
        healing flood, and drink of the coldest that sprang from the
        same rocky ledge.  Then, in the course of a few suns, no matter
        how badly injured, they would certainly recover and become
        stronger than ever.  If, however, any who had behaved cowardly
        in the heat of action—which to the Great Spirit is a great
        abomination, never condoned—and went to the Big Medicine to
        heal his wounds, the water had no effect and he soon died.
        So these Medicine Waters were not only a panacea for all
        diseases, and injuries received in honourable warfare, but an
        infallible test of the courage of every wounded warrior engaged
        in frequent sanguinary conflicts.

That the action of Las Vegas Hot Springs was believed to be a direct
manifestation of the power of the Great Spirit, the legend farther
confirms, for after his preliminary observations of their efficacy and
purpose, the old warrior continued:
        The Utes were the first people created.  They had thousands of
        ponies.  The mountains were filled with deer, bear, bighorn,
        and elk, while the plains below were black with herds of buffalo.
        They were very wealthy.  Many hundreds of years they remained
        the happiest race on earth, always victorious in battle, and
        never suffering for food.  Their head chief at this time was
        We-lo-lon-nan-nai (the forked lightning), the bravest warrior
        of all the tribes.  His people loved him for his good qualities,
        and the justice with which he administered the affairs of
        the nation.  One morning he was taken suddenly ill, and called
        into his lodge the celebrated medicine-men of his band to
        prescribe for him; but these famous doctors, after exhausting
        all their art and cunning, were obliged to declare there was
        no hope for their chief; he would soon be gathered to his
        fathers unless the Great Spirit, in his love for his chosen
        people, would interfere.  To enlist his offices in behalf of
        their cherished dying leader, the oldest medicine-man, by virtue
        of seniority, ordered a sacrifice to be made as an offering
        of adoration and suppliance.

        A large altar of pine logs was erected near the lodge of
        We-lo-lon-nan-nai, and a buffalo bull, freshly captured for
        the purpose, driven to the spot, killed, and his hide taken off.
        The entire carcass was lifted with much ritualistic observance
        upon the altar, and then the whole tribe, in obedience to the
        order of the head medicine-man, prostrated themselves on the
        ground.  Touching a torch to the pile, and wrapping himself
        in the bloody skin of the animal, the medicine-man took a
        position about a hundred yards from the altar in an attitude
        of supplication, to commune with the Great Spirit.

        Absolute silence reigned; not a sound broke the awful solemnity
        of the occasion, excepting the crackling of the fragrant pine
        limbs used as fuel, and the seething of the flesh as it melted
        under the heat.

        When the altar and all its appliances had been burnt to ashes,
        the medicine-man gave the signal for the people to rise, and
        then announced the communication he had received from the
        Great Spirit.

        “We-lo-lon-nan-nai will not die; he shall live long enough to
        rule over the Ute Nation; but he is very sick.  He must be
        carried to a spot which will be designated by the Great Spirit,
        where he will cause a Big Medicine to appear out of the ground.
        It will not only cure the chief of the Utes this time, but it
        is for the sick and wounded of the nations for all time to come.
        To-morrow, at sunrise, We-lo-lon-nan-nai must be escorted by
        a hundred warriors to where the Big Medicine is to appear,
        guided by the flight of an arrow to be shot from the bow of
        the youngest medicine-man in the tribe as often as the end of
        its flight is reached.  Day after day shall he shoot, until
        the arrow stands up in the earth, where is the place the
        Big Medicine is to be found, when We-lo-lon-nan-nai smokes
        the red-stone peace-pipe of the tribe.”

        Arriving at the great cañon, where the arrow stood upright
        in the earth, and where only a cold stream of water flowed
        through its bottom, We-lo-lon-nan-nai sat himself down under
        the rocky ledge at the entrance to the mighty gap in the range,
        and, lighting his pipe, directed the smoke of the fragrant
        kin-nik-i-nik toward the heavens.  Suddenly there was a terrible
        convulsion of the earth, and immediately there burst forth
        fountains of hot water and mud mounds, where before there was
        not the sign of a spring.

        Astonished at this manifestation, We-lo-lon-nan-nai offered up
        a silent prayer, and, divesting himself of his robe, told his
        followers to bury him in the hot mud up to his head.  They
        complied with his orders, and he remained in the excavation,
        which was made large enough to receive his entire body, for a
        whole day; and when taken out at night all his pains were gone,
        and he seemed to his warriors to have recovered his youth.
        Many of them who were suffering with different ailments then
        tried the efficacy of the hot water and the mud, and were from
        that instant cured.

        The report of the miraculous healing of the Ute chief soon
        spread among the neighbouring tribes, and the sick from
        everywhere came flocking to the Big Medicine Springs, which
        they continued to use until the white man took possession of
        the country, and the Indians have ever since been lessening
        gradually in number, until there are now but few left, because
        deprived of their Big Medicine.

        We-lo-lon-nan-nai ruled over the Utes for many years after his
        restoration to health; in fact, never died, but was carried on
        the wings of an immense bird, which was supposed by the
        wandering warriors to be a messenger of the Great Spirit,
        right to the abode of the blessed.  His name is revered to
        this day, and the young men are encouraged to emulate his
        virtues, the story of which has come down through untold æons.[59]

To the uninitiated reader, it may, perhaps, be interesting to know
the meaning of the somewhat strange Indian cognomens.

The majority of savages receive their names from some peculiarity of
person, costume, or from bodily deformity.  Ba-oo-kish, or Closed Hand,
a noted Crow chief, was thus named from the fact that when young his
hand was so badly burned as to cause his fingers to close within the
palm, and grow fast.  White Forehead, because he always wore a white
band around his head to conceal the scar of a wound which had been
inflicted by a squaw.  Mock-pe-lu-tah, Red Cloud or Bloody Hand, one
of the most terrible warriors of the Sioux Nation, derived his name
from his deeds of blood, and the red blankets which his braves
invariably wore.  They “never moved on their enemies without appearing
as a cloud, so great were their numbers.  Sweeping down with his hosts
on the border, he covered the hills like a red cloud in the heavens,
and never returned to his village until he had almost exterminated
the tribe or settlement against which his wrath was directed.”
Ta-shunk-ah-ko-ke-pah-pe, Man afraid of his Horses, obtained his name
from having captured a great many horses at one time, which he was
constantly afraid he would lose.  Once, when the Shoshones attacked
his camp, he left his family in the hands of the enemy, to run off his
horses.  No Knife, a noted man of the Omahas, was named from an
incident that occurred at the time of his birth.  He was born on the
march, and was ever after known by his singular appellation.
Ta-ton-ka-ig-oton-ka, Sitting Bull, the most vindictive and determined
enemy the whites ever had, was so named because once, after having
shot a buffalo, he leaped from his horse astride of the animal to skin
it, when with the Indian upon him the wounded bull sat up on his
haunches.  The celebrated Sioux chief, Sin-ta-gal-las-ca, Spotted Tail,
when young always wore a coon tail in his hair, hence his name.
Connected with the history of this famous warrior, there is a pathetic
episode, which shows the better side of Indian character.

Spotted Tail had a daughter, who was very beautiful according to the
savage idea.  She fell in love with an army officer stationed at Fort
Laramie.  He did not reciprocate her passion, and plainly told the
dusky maiden he could never marry her.  The poor girl visited the fort
every day, and would sit for hours on the porch on her beloved's
quarters until he came out, and then she would quietly follow him
about with the fidelity of a dog.  She seemed to ask no greater
pleasure than to look at him, be near him, and was ever miserable
when out of his sight.

Spotted Tail, who was cognizant of his daughter's affection for the
young army officer, remonstrated with her in vain, and when he found
he could not conquer her foolish passion, sent her away to a remote
band of his tribe.  She obediently went without murmuring, but,
arrived at her destination, she refused food, and actually pined away
until she became a mere skeleton.  Spotted Tail was sent for, to see
her die.  He hastened to her bed of robes and found her almost gone.
With the little strength she had left, she told her father of her
great love for the whites, and made him promise that he would ever
after her death live at peace with them.  Then she appeared to be very
happy, and closing her eyes said, “This is my last request, bury me at
Fort Laramie,” then died.  The old chief carried her body to the fort,
and interred it with the whites, where she wished to live.

The grave of the unfortunate maiden had been carefully marked, and
as long as the fort was garrisoned it continued to be an object of
great interest.

Spotted Tail, after the death of his daughter, never spoke in council
with the whites without referring to her request, and declared it to
be his wish to live at peace with the people she loved so well.




CHAPTER XV.
SIOUX WAR OF 1863.



In 1863, the Indians of the valley under the leadership of the
celebrated Sioux war-chief, Spotted Tail, broke out, and the
government determined to chastise them.  An expedition was organized,
which was to rendezvous at North Platte, consisting of the First
Nebraska Cavalry, Twelfth Missouri Cavalry, a detachment of the Second
United States and Seventh Iowa Cavalry, Colonel Brown, the senior
officer, commanding the whole.

Some of the operations of this expedition and personal adventures have
been told by George P. Belden, then belonging to the First Nebraska
Cavalry.[60]  He was a famous trapper, scout, and guide, and was known
as “The White Chief.”  He afterward became an officer in the regular
army.  His account runs as follows:—

        The snow was quite deep on the plains, and knowing that the
        hostile Indians, who were then encamped on the Republican
        River, were encumbered by their villages, women, and children,
        it was thought to be a favourable time to strike them a severe
        blow.  There were many Indians in our command, among others a
        large body of Pawnee scouts.  Early in January the expedition
        left the Platte River, and marched southward toward the
        Republican.  When we reached the river a depot of supplies was
        established and named Camp Wheaton, after the general then
        commanding the Department of the Platte.  This done, the
        scouting began, and we were ready for war.  Nor were we long
        kept waiting, for Lieutenant James Murie, who marched out to
        Short Nose Creek with a party of scouts, was suddenly attacked
        by a large body of Sioux, and six of his men wounded.  Colonel
        Brown considered this an unfortunate affair, inasmuch as the
        Indians, having learned by it the presence of troops in their
        country, would be on the alert, and, in all probability,
        at once clear out with their villages.  He determined, if it
        were possible, still to surprise them, and ordered the command
        immediately into the saddle.  We pushed hard for Solomon's
        Fork, a great resort for the savages, but arrived only in time
        to find their camps deserted and the Indians all gone.

        One evening, as we were encamped on the banks of the Solomon,
        a huge buffalo bull suddenly appeared on the bluff overlooking
        the camp, and gazed in wonder at a sight so unusual to his
        eyes.  In a moment a dozen guns were ready to fire, but as the
        beast came down the narrow ravine washed by the rains in the
        bluff, all waited until he should emerge on the open plain
        near the river.  Then a lively skirmish was opened on him, and
        he turned and quickly disappeared again in the brush.  Several
        of the soldiers ran up one of the narrow water-courses, hoping
        to get a shot at him as he emerged on the open prairie.  What
        was their surprise to meet him coming down.  He ran up one
        ravine, and being half crazed by his wounds, had, on reaching
        the prairie, turned into the one in which the soldiers were.
        As soon as he saw him, the soldier in front called out to
        those behind him to run, but they, not understanding the
        nature of the danger, continued to block up the passage.
        The bull could barely force his great body between the high
        and narrow banks; but before all the soldiers could get out of
        the ravine he was upon them, and trampled two of them under
        his feet, not hurting them much, but frightening them terribly.
        As the beast came out again on the open bank of the river a
        score of soldiers, who had run over from their camp with their
        guns, gave him a dozen balls.  Still he did not fall, but,
        dashing through the brush, entered the cavalry camp, and
        running up to a large gray horse that was tied to a tree,
        lifted the poor brute on his horns and threw him into the air.
        The horse was completely disembowelled, and dropped down dead.
        The buffalo next plunged his horns into a fine bay horse,
        the property of an officer in the Seventh Iowa Cavalry, and
        the poor fellow groaned with pain until the hills resounded.
        Exhausted by his exertions and wounds, the bull laid down
        carefully by the side of the horse, as if afraid of hurting
        himself, and in a moment rolled over dead.  We skinned and
        dressed him, and carried the meat into camp for our suppers;
        but it was dearly bought beef, at the expense of the lives of
        two noble horses; and Colonel Brown notified us he wished no
        further contracts closed on such expensive terms.

        While we lay encamped at the depot of supplies, on the
        Republican, Colonel Brown called for volunteer scouts, stating
        that he would give a purse of five hundred dollars to any one
        who would discover a village of Indians and lead the command
        to the spot.  This glittering prize dazzled the eyes of many
        a soldier, but few had the courage to undertake so hazardous
        an enterprise.  Sergeant Hiles, of the First Nebraska, and
        Sergeant Rolla, of the Seventh Iowa, came forward and said
        they would go upon the expedition provided they could go alone.
        Both were shrewd, sharp men, and Colonel Brown readily gave
        his consent, well knowing that in scouting, where the object
        is not to fight, but to gain information and keep concealed,
        the fewer men in the party the better their chances of escape.

        On the day after Hiles and Rolla had left camp, Nelson, who
        had come down and joined the army as a guide, proposed to me
        that we should go out and hunt an adventure.  My old love of
        Indian life was upon me, and I joyfully accepted his
        proposition.  I applied to Colonel Brown for permission to set
        out at once, but he declined to grant my request, on the
        ground that it was not necessary or proper for an officer to
        engage in such an enterprise.  I, however, coaxed the colonel
        a little, and he finally told me I might go.

        Packing several days' supplies on a mule, as soon as it was
        dark Nelson and I started, he leading the mule, and I driving
        him from behind.  We travelled over to the Little Beaver, then
        up the stream for some distance, when we crossed over and
        camped on Little Beaver.  Here we expected to find Indian
        signs, but were disappointed.  We rested for a short time, and
        then travelled down the Beaver until opposite Short Nose Creek,
        when we crossed the divide and camped on that stream.
        Two days later we pushed on to Cedar Creek, and then crossed
        over to Prairie Dog Creek.  We had travelled only at night,
        hiding away all day in the brush that lined the creeks, and
        keeping a sharp lookout for Indians.  So far, we had seen no
        Indian signs, and began to despair of finding any, when one
        morning, just as we were preparing for breakfast, I heard
        several shots fired, apparently four or five miles up the
        creek.  Nelson ran out on the bluff, and, applying his ear to
        the ground, said he could distinctly hear the reports of many
        rifles.  We could not imagine what this meant, and withdrew
        into the bluffs “to make it out,” as the old trappers say.

        Nelson was the first speaker, and he gave it as his opinion
        that Colonel Brown, who had told us before leaving camp he
        would soon start for the Solomon, had set out earlier than he
        expected, and was now crossing above us.  I set my compass,
        and, finding we were nearly on the line where Brown would
        cross, readily fell in with Nelson's reasoning.  So sure was I
        that the guns we had heard were Colonel Brown's soldiers out
        hunting that I proposed we should saddle up and go to them.
        This move came near proving fatal to us, as will presently
        appear.  We rode boldly up the stream, in broad daylight,
        some five miles, when, not finding any trail, I began to
        express my surprise at the long distance we had heard the
        reports of the guns, but Nelson told me it was no uncommon
        thing, when snow was on the ground, to hear a rifle-shot ten
        to twenty miles along a creek bottom, and, incredible as this
        may seem, I found out afterward it was nevertheless true.

        We rode on about five miles farther, when suddenly Nelson
        halted, and, pointing to an object a long distance ahead, said
        he believed it was a horseman.  We lost no time in getting
        into the bluffs, where we could observe what went on without
        being seen, and soon saw an animal coming down the creek
        bottom.  As it drew near, we discovered it to be a horse,
        evidently much frightened, and flying from pursuers.
        The horse galloped past, but stopped half a mile below us and
        quietly went to grazing, every now and then raising his head
        and looking up the creek, as if he expected to see some enemy
        following him.  We lay for several hours momentarily expecting
        to see a body of Indians coming down the creek, but none came,
        and at noon Nelson said I should watch, and he would crawl
        down the creek and see if he could discover anything from the
        horse.  I saw Nelson approach quite near the animal, and heard
        him calling it, when, to my surprise, it came up to him and
        followed him into the bluffs.  The horse was the one Sergeant
        Hiles had ridden from the camp a few days previous, and was
        well known to Nelson and me as a superb animal, named Selim.

        It did not take us long to come to the conclusion that Hiles
        and Rolla had been attacked, and that the firing we had heard
        in the morning was done by the Indians.  From the fact that
        Hiles' horse had no saddle on when found, we concluded he had
        been in the hands of the Indians, and had probably broken away
        from them, and we doubted not that at least Hiles was dead.

        Fearing the savages would come down upon us next, we lost no
        time in getting down the creek.  We soon passed where we had
        encamped the night before, and, finding the fire still burning,
        put it out, and, covering up the ashes, pushed on for several
        miles and camped among the bluffs.  Nelson carried up several
        logs from the creek, with which to make a barricade in case of
        attack, and, Nelson taking first watch, I lay down to sleep,
        without fire or supper, except a piece of raw pork.

        At nine o'clock I arose to watch, and soon after midnight,
        the moon coming up bright and clear, I awoke Nelson, and
        suggested to him we should saddle up and cross over to Cedar
        Creek, for I had a strong presentiment that some misfortune
        would befall us if we remained longer where we were.  It is
        not a little singular, but true, that man has a wonderful
        instinct, and can nearly always divine coming trouble or
        danger.  This instinct in the frontiersman, of course, is
        wonderfully developed by the perilous life he leads; but,
        call it presentiment or what you will, this instinct exists
        in every beast of the field, as well as in the human breast,
        and he who follows it can have no safer guide.  Several times
        have I saved my life by obeying the dictates of that silent
        monitor within, which told me to go, and yet gave me no reason
        for my going.

        We had not ridden far when we came upon a heavy Indian trail,
        and found it not more than four or five hours old.  The tracks
        showed some fifty ponies, and all going in the direction of
        the Republican.  We were now convinced that Rolla had escaped
        and the Indians were pursuing him.  Following on the trail for
        some distance, until we came to a bare spot on the bluff where
        our horses would leave no tracks in the snow, we turned to the
        left, and, whipping up the ponies, struck out for a forced
        march.  We knew the Indians might return at any moment, and if
        they should find our trail they would follow us like blood-hounds.

        All night long we pushed on, halting only at sunrise to eat a
        bite and give our poor ponies a few mouthfuls of grass.  Again
        we were off, and throughout the day whipped and spurred along
        our animals as rapidly as possible.  At night we halted for
        two hours to rest, and then mounted the saddle once more.
        On the fifth day we met a company of cavalry that had been
        sent out by Colonel Brown to look for us, and with them we
        returned to camp.

        We learned from the cavalrymen that Sergeant Hiles had been
        attacked by the Indians, and Sergeant Rolla had been killed.
        Hiles, though he had lost his horse, had managed to work his
        way back to camp on foot, where he had arrived the morning
        they left camp, nearly starved.  We had gone much out of our
        way to escape the Indians who had followed Hiles; but since we
        had avoided them and succeeded in saving our scalps, we did
        not care a fig for our long and toilsome journey.

        Sergeant Hiles related to me his adventures after leaving camp,
        and I will here repeat them as a sequel to my own.  He said:
        “Rolla and I travelled several days, and finally pulled up
        on Prairie Dog Creek.  We had seen no Indians, and were
        becoming careless, believing there were none in the country.
        One morning just about daybreak I built a fire, and while
        Rolla and I were warming ourselves we were fired upon by some
        forty Indians.  Rolla fell, pierced through the heart, and
        died instantly.  How I escaped I know not, for the balls
        whistled all around me, knocking up the fire, and even
        piercing my clothing, yet I was not so much as scratched.

        “I ran to my horse, which was saddled and tied near by, and
        flinging myself on his back, dashed across the prairies.
        The Indians followed, whooping and yelling like devils, and
        although their ponies ran well, they could not overtake my
        swift-footed Selim.  I had got well ahead of them, and was
        congratulating myself on my escape from a terrible death, when
        suddenly Selim fell headlong into a ravine that was filled
        with drifted snow.  It was in vain I tried to extricate him;
        the more he struggled the deeper he sank.  Knowing the Indians
        would be up in a few minutes, I cut the saddle-girths with
        my knife, that the horse might be freer in his movements, and
        then, bidding him lie still, I took my pistols and burrowed
        into the snow beside him.  After I had dug down a little way,
        I struck off in the drift, and worked myself along it toward
        the valley.  I had not tunnelled far before I heard the
        Indians coming, and, pushing up my head, I cut a small hole in
        the crust of the snow, so I could peep out.  As the savages
        came up they began to yell, and Selim, making a great bound,
        leaped upon the solid earth at the edge of the ravine, and,
        dragging himself out of the drift, galloped furiously across
        the prairies.  Oh! how I wished then I was on his back, for I
        knew the noble fellow would soon bear me out of reach of all
        danger.

        “The Indians divided, part of them going up the ravine and
        crossing over to pursue Selim, while the rest dismounted to
        look for his rider.  They carefully examined the ground all
        around to find my trail, but not finding any, they returned
        and searched up and down the ravine for me.  Two or three
        times they punched in the snow near me, and once an Indian
        passed within a few feet of the hole.  Great drops of
        perspiration stood on my forehead, and every moment I expected
        to be discovered, dragged out, and scalped, but I remained
        perfectly still, grasping my pistols, and determined to make
        it cost the redskins at least three of their number.

        “After a while the Indians got tired searching for me, and
        drew off to consult.  I saw the party that had gone in pursuit
        of Selim rejoin their companions, and I was not a little
        gratified to observe that they did not bring back my gallant
        steed with them, from which I knew he had made his escape.

        “The Indians mounted and rode down the ravine, examining every
        inch of ground for my trail.  As I saw them move off, hope
        once more revived in my breast; but in an hour they came back
        and again searched the drift.  At last, however, they went
        off without finding me, and I lay down to rest, so exhausted
        was I, from watching and excitement, that I could not stand.
        I knew I did not dare to sleep, for it was very cold, and a
        stupor would come upon me.  All that day and night, and the
        next day, I lay in the drift, for I knew the Indians were
        watching it.

        “On the second night, as soon as it was dark, I crawled out,
        and worked my way to the foot of the ravine.  At first I was
        so stiff and numb I could hardly move hand or foot, but as I
        crawled along, the blood began to warm up, and soon I was able
        to walk.  I crept cautiously along the bluffs until I had
        cleared the ravine, and then, striking out on the open prairie,
        steered to the northward.  Fortunately, the first day out I
        shot an antelope and got some raw meat, which kept me from
        starving.  In two days and a half I reached the camp, nearly
        dead from fatigue and hunger, and was thoroughly glad to be at
        home in my tent once more, with a whole scalp on my head.”

        We had not found an Indian village, and none of us got the
        five hundred dollars, but we all had a glorious adventure, and
        that to a frontiersman is better than money.

        While we lay in camp on Medicine Creek, Colonel Brown sent
        for me, and ordered me to look up and map the country.  I was
        detached as a topographical engineer, and this order relieved
        me from all company duty, and enabled me to go wherever I
        pleased, which was not a little gratifying to one so fond of
        rambling about.

        Packing my traps on my pony one day, I set out down the
        Medicine ahead of the command, intending to hunt wild turkeys
        until near night, and then rejoin the command before it went
        into camp.  The creek bottom was alive with turkeys, the cold
        weather having driven them to take shelter among the bushes
        that lined the creek.  I had not gone far when a dense fog
        arose, shutting out all objects, even at the distance of a few
        feet.  It was a bad day for hunting, but presently as I rode
        along I heard a turkey gobble close by, and, dismounting,
        I crept among the bushes and peered into the fog as well as
        I could.  I saw several dark objects, and drawing up my
        double-barrelled shot-gun fired at them.  Hardly had the noise
        of the explosion died away, when I heard a great flopping in
        the bushes, and on going up to it found a large turkey making
        his last kicks.  I picked him up and was about to turn away,
        when I saw another fine old gobbler desperately wounded, but
        trying to crawl off.  I ran after him, but he hopped along
        so fast I was obliged to give him the contents of my other
        barrel to keep him from getting away into the thick brush.

        I had now two fine turkeys, and, as the day was bad,
        determined to go no further, but ascend the bluffs and wait
        for the command.  I went out on the prairie, and made a
        diligent search for the old trail, but, as it was covered with
        some seven inches of snow, I could not find it.  Knowing the
        command would pass near the creek, I went back to hunt,
        thinking I would go up after it had passed, strike the trail,
        and follow it into camp.

        I had not gone far down the creek when I ran into a fine elk,
        and knocked him over with my Henry rifle.  I cut off the
        choice pieces, and, packing them on my pony, once more set out
        to find the trail.  I knew the command had not passed, and
        ascended the highest point on the bluff, straining my eyes to
        see if I could not discover it moving.  I waited several hours,
        but not finding it, I concluded it had not marched by the old
        trail, but struck straight across the country.  I now moved up
        the creek, determined to keep along its bank until I came to
        the old camp, and then follow the trail.  I had not gone far
        when I came upon two Indians who belonged to my company, and
        who were also looking for the command.

        Night was coming on, the wind rising, and the air growing
        bitter cold, so I said to the Indians we would go down the
        creek where there was plenty of dry wood, and make a night
        camp.  They readily assented, and we set out, arriving at a
        fine grove just before dark.

        While one of the Indians gathered wood, the other one and I
        cleared away the snow to make a place for our camp.  The snow
        in the bottom was nearly three feet deep, and when we had
        bared the ground a high wall was piled up all around us.
        The wood was soon brought, and a bright fire blazing.  After
        warming ourselves, we opened a passage through the snow for a
        short distance, and clearing another spot led our horses into
        this most perishable of stables.  Our next care was to get
        them some cottonwood limbs to eat, and then we gathered small
        dry limbs and made a bedstead of them on which to spread our
        blankets.  Piling in some wood until the fire roared and
        cracked, we sat down in the heat of the blaze, feeling quite
        comfortable, except that we were desperately hungry.  Some
        coals were raked out, and the neck of the elk cut off and
        spitted on a stick to roast.  When it was done we divided it,
        and sprinkling it with a little pepper and salt from our
        haversacks had as savoury and wholesome a repast as any
        epicure might desire.  After supper, hearing the coyotes
        howling in the woods below, I had the Indians bring in my
        saddle, to which was strapped the elk meat, and, cutting the
        limb off a tree close by the fire, we lifted the saddle
        astride the stump so high up that the wolves could not reach
        it.  All being now in readiness for the night, we filled our
        pipes and sat down to smoke and talk.

        At nine o'clock the Indians replenished the fire, and, feeling
        sleepy, I wrapped myself in my blankets and lay down to rest.
        I soon fell asleep, and slept well until nearly midnight, when
        I was awakened by the snapping and snarling of the wolves near
        the fire.  The wood had burned down to a bed of coals, and
        gave but a faint light, but I could see a dozen pair of red
        eyes glaring at me over the edge of the snowbank.  The Indians
        were sound asleep, and, knowing they were very tired, I did
        not wake them, but got my gun, and, wrapping myself in my
        blankets, sat up by the fire to watch the varmints and warm my
        feet.  Presently I heard a long wild howl down in the woods,
        and knew by the “whirr-ree, whirr-ree” in it that it proceeded
        from the throat of the dreaded buffalo wolf, or Kosh-e-nee, of
        the prairies.  There was another howl, then another, and
        another, and, finally, a loud chorus of a dozen.  Instantly
        silence fell among the coyotes, and they began to scatter.
        For a time all was quiet, and I had begun to doze, when
        suddenly the coals flew all over me, and I opened my eyes just
        in time to see a great gray wolf spring out of the fire and
        bound up the snowbank.  I leaped to my feet and peered into
        the darkness, where I could see scores of dark shadows moving
        about, and a black cluster gathered under my saddle.  I called
        the Indians, who quietly and nimbly jumped to their feet, and
        came forward armed with their revolvers.  I told them what had
        happened, and that we were surrounded by a large pack of gray
        wolves.  We had no fear for ourselves, but felt uneasy lest
        they might attack our horses, who were pawing and snorting
        with alarm.  I spoke to them kindly, and they immediately
        became quiet.  At the suggestion of the Indians I brought
        forward my revolvers, and we all sat down to watch the
        varmints, and see what they would do.

        In a few minutes, a pair of fiery, red eyes looked down at us
        from the snowbank; then another, and another pair, until there
        were a dozen.  We sat perfectly still, and presently one great
        gray wolf gathered himself, and made a leap for the elk-meat
        on the saddle.  He nearly touched it with his nose, but failed
        to secure the coveted prize, and fell headlong into the fire.
        We fired two shots into him, and he lay still until one of the
        Indians pulled him out to keep his hair from burning and
        making a disagreeable smell.  In about five minutes, another
        wolf leaped at our elk-meat and fell in the fire.
        We despatched him as we had done the first one, and then threw
        him across the dead body of his brother.  So we kept on firing
        until we had killed eight wolves; then, tired of killing the
        brutes with pistols, I brought out my double-barrelled
        shot-gun, and loading each barrel with nine buckshot, waited
        until they were gathered thick under the tree on which hung
        my meat, and then let them have it.  Every discharge caused
        some to tumble down, and sent the rest scampering and howling
        to the rear.  Presently they became more wary, and I had to
        fire on them at long range.

        The Indians now went out and gathered some dry limbs, and we
        kindled up a bright fire.  Then we threw the carcasses of the
        nine dead wolves, that were in our camp, over the snowbank,
        and knowing that the beasts would not come near our bright
        fire, two of us lay down to sleep, while the third remained up
        to watch and keep the fire burning.

        The coyotes now returned, and with unearthly yells attacked
        their dead brothers, snapping, snarling, and quarrelling over
        their carcasses as they tore the flesh and crunched the bones.

        We rose at daylight, and through the dim light could see the
        coyotes trotting off to the swamp, while near the camp lay
        heads, legs, and piles of cleanly licked bones, all that was
        left of the gray wolves we had killed.

        After breakfast we set out to find the command, striking
        across the country, expecting to come upon their trail.
        We travelled all day, however, and saw no trail.  At night
        we camped out again, and were scarcely in camp, when we again
        heard the wolves howling around us.  They had followed us all
        day, no doubt expecting another repast, such as had been
        served to them the night before.  We, however, kept a bright
        fire burning, and no gray wolves came about; so the coyotes
        were disappointed, and vented their disappointment all night
        long in the most dismal howls I ever heard.  At times, it
        seemed as though there were five hundred of them, and joining
        their voices in chorus they would send up a volume of sound
        that resembled the roar of a tempest, or the discordant
        singing of a vast multitude of people.

        While we cooked breakfast, a strong picket of wolves watched
        all around the camp, feasting their greedy eyes from a
        distance on my elk-meat.  When we started from camp, a hundred
        or more of them followed us, often coming quite close to the
        back pony, and biting and quarrelling about the elk that was
        never to be their meat.  When we halted, they would halt, and
        sitting down, loll out their tongues and lick the snow.
        At length, I took my shot-gun, and loading the barrels, fired
        into the thickest of the pack.  Two or three were wounded, and
        no sooner did their companions discover that they were
        bleeding and disabled, than they fell upon them, tore them to
        pieces, and devoured every morsel of their flesh.  I had seen
        men who would do the same thing with their fellows, but until
        I witnessed the contrary with my own eyes, I had supposed this
        practice was confined to the superior brute creation.

        The third day out, finding no trace of the command, we
        concluded to go back to the Medicine and seek the old camp,
        from which we could take the trail and follow it up until we
        came upon it.  We reached the Medicine at sundown, and there,
        to our satisfaction, found the troops still in camp, where we
        had left them.  They had not marched in consequence of the
        cold and foggy weather.

        I was soon in my own tent and sound asleep, being thoroughly
        worn out with the exposure and fatigue of my long journey.

        I was sent down from Camp Cottonwood (now Fort McPherson),
        with thirty men, to Gilman's Ranch, fifteen miles east of
        Cottonwood on the Platte, where I was to remain, guard the
        ranch, and furnish guards to Ben Holliday's overland
        stage-coaches.  In those days, Gilman's was an important place,
        and in earlier times had been a great trading point for the
        Sioux.  Two or three trails led from the Republican to this
        place and every winter the Sioux had come in with their ponies
        loaded down with buffalo, beaver, elk, and deer skins, which
        they exchanged with the traders at Gilman's.  War had, however,
        put a stop to these peaceful pursuits; still the Sioux could
        not give up the habit of travelling these favourite trails.
        The ponies often came in from the Republican, not now laden
        with furs and robes, but each bearing a Sioux warrior.
        The overland coaches offered a great temptation to the
        cupidity of the Sioux, and they were not slow to avail
        themselves of any opportunity to attack them.  The coaches
        carried the mails and much treasure, and if the savages could
        now and then succeed in capturing one, they got money, jewels,
        scalps, horses, and not infrequently white women, as a reward
        for their enterprise.

        Troops were stationed in small squads at every station, about
        ten miles apart, and they rode from station to station on the
        top of all coaches, holding their guns ever ready for action.
        It was not pleasant, this sitting perched up on top of a coach,
        riding through dark ravines and tall grass, in which savages
        were ever lurking.  Generally the first fire from the Indians
        killed one or two horses, and tumbled a soldier or two off the
        top of the coach.  This setting one's self as a sort of a
        target was a disagreeable and dangerous duty, but the soldiers
        performed it without murmuring.  My squad had to ride up to
        Cottonwood, and down to the station below, where they waited
        for the next coach going the other way, and returned by it to
        their post at Gilman's.  All the other stations were guarded
        in like manner; so it happened that every coach carried some
        soldiers.

        One evening my pony was missing, and thinking he had strayed
        off but a short distance, I buckled on my revolvers and went
        out to look for him.  I had not intended to go far, but not
        finding him, I walked on, and on, until I found myself some
        four miles from the ranch.  Alarmed at my indiscretion, for I
        knew the country was full of Indians, I hastily set out to
        return, and as it was now growing dark, I determined to go up
        a ravine that led to the post by a nearer route than the trail.
        I had got nearly to the end of the ravine, where the
        stage-road crossed it, and was about to turn into the road
        when, on looking up the bank, I saw on the crest of the slope
        some dark objects.  At first I thought they were ponies, for
        they were moving on all fours, and directly toward the road.
        I ran up the bank, and had not gone more than ten yards, when
        I heard voices, and looking around, saw within a dozen steps
        of me five or six Indians lying on the grass, and talking in
        low tones.  They had noticed me, but evidently thought I was
        one of their own number.  Divining the situation in a moment,
        I walked carelessly on until near the crest of the hill, where
        I suddenly came upon a dozen more Indians, crawling along on
        their hands and knees.  One of them gruffly ordered me down,
        and I am sure I lost no time in dropping into the grass.
        Crawling carefully along, for I knew it would not do to stop,
        I still managed to keep a good way behind and off to one side.
        We at last reached the road, and the Indians, gun in hand,
        took up their position in the long grass close by the roadside.
        I knew the up-coach would be due at the station in half an hour,
        and I was now myself in the unpleasant position of waylaying
        one of the very coaches I had been sent to guard.  Perhaps one
        of my own soldiers coming up on the coach would kill me, and
        then what would people say? how would my presence with the
        Indians be explained? and how would it sound to have the
        newspapers publish, far and near, that an officer of the
        United States army had deserted his post, joined the Indians,
        and attacked a stage-coach?  However, there was no help for it,
        and I lay still waiting for developments.  It was now time for
        the coach, and we watched the road with straining eyes.  Two
        or three times I thought I heard the rumbling of the wheels,
        and a tremor seized me, but it was only the wind rustling in
        the tall grass.  An hour went by, and still no coach.
        The Indians became uneasy, and one who seemed to be the leader
        of the expedition rose up, and, motioning the others to follow
        him, started off down the hill toward the ravine.  I made a
        motion as if getting up, and seeing the Indians' backs turned,
        dropped flat on my face and lay perfectly still.  Slowly their
        footsteps faded away, and raising my head I saw them mount
        their ponies and disappear over the neighbouring hill, as if
        going down the road to meet the coach.

        As soon as they were out of sight, I sprang up and ran as fast
        as I could to the ranch when, relating what had happened,
        I started with some soldiers and citizens down the road to
        meet the stage.  We had not gone far when we heard it coming
        up, and on reaching it found it had been attacked by Indians
        a few miles below, one passenger killed and two severely
        wounded.  The coach had but three horses, one having been
        killed in the fight.  The Indians had dashed at the coach
        mounted, hoping to kill the horses, and thus cut off all means
        of retreat or flight, but they had only succeeded in killing
        one horse, when the passengers and soldiers had driven them
        off, compelling them to carry two of their number with them,
        dead or desperately wounded.

        I was more careful after that, when I went out hunting ponies,
        and never tried again to waylay a coach with Indians.

        Among the soldiers stationed at Gilman's Ranch were a number
        of Omaha and Winnebago Indians, who belonged to my company, in
        the First Nebraska Cavalry.  I had done all I could to teach
        them the ways of civilization, but despite my instructions,
        and their utmost endeavours to give up their wild and
        barbarous practices, every now and then old habits would
        become too strong upon them to be borne, and they would
        indulge in the savage customs of their youth.  At such times
        they would throw aside their uniforms, and, wrapping a blanket
        about them, sing and dance for hours.

        One evening they were in a particularly jolly mood, and having
        obtained permission to have a dance, went out in front of the
        building, and for want of a better scalp-pole, assembled
        around one of the telegraph poles.  One fellow pounded lustily
        on a piece of leather nailed over the mouth of a keg, while
        the others hopped around in a circle, first upon one leg, then
        the other, shaking over their heads oyster-cans, that had been
        filled with pebbles, and keeping time to the rude music, with
        a sort of guttural song.  Now it would be low and slow, and
        the dancers barely move, then, increasing in volume and
        rapidity, it would become wild and vociferous, the dancers
        walking very fast, much as the negroes do in their “cake-walks.”
        We had had all manner of dances and songs, and enough drumming
        and howling to have made any one tired, still the Indians
        seemed only warming up to their work.  The savage frenzy was
        upon them, and I let them alone until near midnight.  Their own
        songs and dances becoming tiresome, I asked them to give me
        some Sioux songs, for I had been thinking all the evening of
        the village up the Missouri, and of my squaws.  The Indians
        immediately struck up a Sioux war song, accompanying it with
        the war dance.

        All the Indian songs and dances are terminated with a jump,
        and a sort of wild yell or whoop.  When they had danced the
        Sioux war song, and ended it with the usual whoop, what was
        our surprise to hear it answered back at no great distance,
        out upon the prairie.  At first I thought it was the echo, but
        Springer, a half-breed Indian, assured me what I had heard was
        the cry of other Indians.  To satisfy myself, I bade the
        Indians repeat the song and dance, and this time, sure enough,
        when it was ended the whoop was answered quite near the ranch.
        I went inside, lest my uniform should be seen, and telling
        Springer to continue the dance, I went to a back window and
        looked out, in the direction from which the sound came.

        The moon was just rising, and I could distinctly see three
        Sioux Indian warriors sitting on their ponies, within a few
        hundred paces of the house.  They seemed to be intently
        watching what was going on, and were by no means certain as to
        the character of the performers or performance.  At a glance,
        I made them out to be our deadly enemies, the Ogallalla Sioux,
        and determined to catch them.  I quickly called Springer, and
        bade him kindle up a small fire, and tell the Indians to
        strike up the death song and scalp-dance of the Sioux.  This,
        as I expected, at once reassured the strange warriors, and,
        riding up quite close, they asked Springer, who was not
        dancing, and who had purposely put himself in their way:—

        “What are you dancing for?”

        “Dancing the scalps of four white soldiers we have killed,”
        replied Springer.

        “How did you kill them?” inquired the foremost Indian warrior.

        “You see,” said Springer, who, being part Sioux, spoke the
        language perfectly, “we were coming down from the Neobarrah,[61]
        and going over to the Republican to see Spotted Tail and our
        friends, the Ogallallas, when some soldiers fired on us here,
        and seeing there were but four of them, we attacked and killed
        them all.  They are now lying dead inside; come, get down and
        help dance their scalps.”

        Two of the warriors immediately dismounted, giving their
        ponies to a third one to hold, who remained mounted.  Springer
        seemed to take no notice of this, but leading the warriors up
        to the dance, joined in with them, the other Indians making
        room in the circle for the newcomers.

        When the dance was ended, Springer said, “Come, let us bring
        out the scalps,” and turning to the two Indians, inquired,
        “Will you look at the bodies?”  About half the Indians had
        already gone into the ranch, under pretence of getting the
        scalps, and the two Sioux walked in with Springer, apparently
        without suspicion that anything was wrong.

        As soon as they had crossed the threshold the door was closed
        behind them, and two burly Omahas placed their backs against it.
        It was entirely dark in the ranch, and Springer proceeded to
        strike a light.  When the blaze of the dry grass flared up
        it revealed everything in the room, and there stood the two
        Sioux, surrounded by the Omahas, and a dozen revolvers
        levelled at their heads.

        Never shall I forget the yell of rage and terror they set up,
        when they found they were entrapped.  The Sioux warrior
        outside, who was holding the ponies, heard it, and plunging
        his heels into the sides of his pony, made off as fast as he
        could.  Notwithstanding my men fired a dozen shots at him,
        he got off safely, and carried away with him all of the three
        ponies.

        The two Sioux in the ranch were bound hand and foot, and laid
        in one corner of the room; then my Indians returned to the
        telegraph pole to finish their dance.  Feeling tired, I lay
        down and fell asleep.

        Next morning I was awakened by most unearthly yells, and
        looking out, saw my Indians leaping and dancing and yelling
        around the telegraph pole, where they now had a large fire
        burning.  Presently Springer came in and said the Indians
        wanted the prisoners.  I told him they could not have them,
        and that in the morning I would send them to Colonel Brown,
        at McPherson, as was my duty.  Springer, who was a
        non-commissioned officer, communicated this message to the
        Indians, when the yelling and howling redoubled.  In a short
        time, Springer came in again, and said he could do nothing
        with the Indians, and that they were determined to have the
        prisoners, at the same time advising me to give them up.
        I again refused, when the Indians rushed into the ranch, and,
        seizing the prisoners, dragged them out.  Seeing they were
        frenzied I made no resistance, but followed them closely,
        keeping concealed, however.

        They took the Sioux to an island on the Platte, below the
        ranch, and there, tying them to a tree, gathered a pile of
        wood and set it on fire.

Here follows a description of the unspeakable tortures which the
unfortunate prisoners suffered, and which are too horrible to be told
in these pages.

        The Sioux uttered not a complaint, but endured all their
        sufferings with that stoicism for which the Indian is so justly
        celebrated, and which belongs to no other race in the world.

        Sick at heart, I crept back to the ranch and went to bed,
        leaving the Indians engaged in a furious scalp-dance, and
        whirling the bloody scalps of the Sioux over their heads,
        with long poles to which they had them fastened.

        Next morning, when I awoke, I found the Indians wrapped in
        their blankets, and lying asleep all around me.  The excitement
        of the night had passed off, and brought its corresponding
        depression.  They were very docile and stupid, and it was with
        some difficulty I could arouse them for the duties of the day.
        I asked several of them what had become of the Sioux prisoners,
        but could get no other answer than, “Guess him must have got
        away.”

        I was sorely tempted to report the affair to the commanding
        officer at Fort McPherson, and have the Indians punished, but
        believing it would do more good in the end to be silent,
        I said nothing about it.  After all, the Omahas and Winnebagoes
        had treated the Sioux just as the Sioux would have treated
        them, had they been captured, and so, it being a matter
        altogether among savages, I let it rest where it belonged.

        I was for a time, in 1865, on duty at Fort Cottonwood,
        Nebraska, as adjutant of my regiment, the First Nebraska
        Volunteer Cavalry, when the scarcity of officers at the post
        made it necessary for the commanding officer to detail me,
        with thirty Indian soldiers, to proceed to, and garrison
        Jack Morrow's Ranch, twelve miles west of the fort, on the
        south side of the Platte River.  The Sioux were very hostile
        then, and it was an ordinary occurrence for ranches to be
        burned and the owners killed.

        Morrow's Ranch, unlike the little, low, adobe ranches
        everywhere seen, was a large three-story building, with
        out-buildings adjacent, and a fine large stable for stock,
        the whole being surrounded by a commodious stockade of cedar
        palisades, set deep in the ground, and projecting to the
        height of about ten or twelve feet above the surface.

        Upon arriving at the ranch, late at night, my usually noisy
        Indians were quietly sleeping in the huge ox-wagons, which had
        been provided for transportation.  I found the front of the
        ranch lit up by fires built between the stockade and the
        buildings on a narrow strip of ground, serving for a front
        yard.  I had been informed by the commanding officer at
        Cottonwood, that Mr. Morrow was not living at his ranch, but
        was away East, and the object in sending me there was to
        prevent the Indians from burning so valuable a property.
        I was not prepared to find a party encamped at the ranch, and
        not knowing but that they might be Indians, waiting in so
        favourable a spot to waylay travellers or emigrants passing
        the road in front of the stockade, I told my drivers to halt
        their teams, and, quietly awakening my Indians, I bade them be
        in readiness to rush up if I should give them a signal by
        yelling, but to remain in the wagons until I called them, and
        to make no noise.  I then quietly rode forward to reconnoitre,
        and as the stockade timbers were set very close together,
        I had to crawl up to the loop-holes cut in the timber to see
        what was going on inside.  Standing on the ground, and holding
        my pony's nose with my hand to keep him quiet, I stood on my
        tiptoes, and could see, through one of the loop-holes,
        a curious sight, but one natural enough on the frontier.

        Grouped around three small fires, built close to the front of
        the ranch, sat some ten or twelve weather-beaten men, whose
        hair hung to their shoulders, and each one of whom wore a
        slouched hat, a pair of revolvers, and a good stout knife,
        the inseparable companions of a western prairie man.  All were
        intent on eating supper of fried bacon, slapjacks, and coffee.

        They had no guard, doubtless feeling secure in their number
        and means of defence, against any Indian attack that might be
        made.  “Hello!” I shouted, “have you got supper enough for one
        more?”  “Yes, if you are white or red; but if black, no,” was
        answered back, with an invitation to “show” myself.  I led the
        pony across the narrow trench which ran around the stockade,
        and, mounting him, rode into the yard.  As I approached the
        party I overheard remarks, such as, “An army cuss”; “One of
        those little stuck-up officers.”  But not appearing to have
        heard them, I got down, and asked what party they were.
        “Wood-haulers,” they replied; “taking building logs down the
        road”; followed by “Who are you, and where are you going this
        late at night?”  I told them who I was, and that I had now
        finished my journey, as I intended to stop there.  I was
        immediately informed in a curt manner that they guessed I was
        rather “mixed” about staying there, if I had any stock along,
        for the stables were full, and the ranch, too; and they had
        no room for any additional people or stock.  I told them that
        I had two teams standing outside, and that it was my intention
        to put the mules and my pony in the stable; and if there was
        no room there, I should make room by turning out some of their
        animals.  To this I was plainly told that I could neither turn
        a mule out nor put an animal in, nor could I remain at the
        ranch, which they had occupied for their own quarters,
        Jack Morrow having left and gone East, probably never to return.
        They said they were a little stronger in numbers than myself
        and my two drivers, and I must move on or they would make me.
        I told them that I was a United States officer, acting under
        orders, and that it would be an easy matter for me to ride back
        to Cottonwood and get men enough to enforce my orders unless
        they submitted.  Several of the rough-looking fellows said that
        they each carried good revolvers, and that it was an easy
        matter to stop me if I attempted to return to Cottonwood, and
        swore they would do so.  I remained quiet for a moment, and
        the leader of the party looking at me, asked: “What are you
        going to do about it?”  “I am going to open the stables and
        put my animals in that shelter,” I replied, at the same time
        mounting my pony and riding out to the stables, a short
        distance in front of which stood my teams.  Several of the
        frontiersmen got up, and, without saying a word, walked to the
        stables, and went up close to the doors.  I ordered the
        teamsters to drive to the stables, unharness from the heavy
        ox-wagons, place their teams inside, and if they could not
        find vacant stalls enough, to untie and turn loose mules to
        empty the required number for my teams.  The teamsters obeyed
        by driving up, and when they had dismounted and were about to
        unhitch from the wagons, one of the wood-haulers at the stable
        door said: “You can save yourself the trouble, mister, of
        unhitching them mules, for you ain't a going to put them in
        this stable; and the first man that attempts it I'll fix.”

        “Suppose I wish to open that door and put up my teams,” said I,
        “without any trouble; wouldn't it be better for all concerned?”
        “You go to h——l!” he replied; and added, “You won't get in
        this stable; that's settled.”  “I'll see about that!” and
        yelling “Turn out! Turn out!” in the Indian language, my
        soldiers jumped from the canvas-covered wagons, yelling like
        demons, and brandishing their carbines and revolvers in a
        threatening manner.  Never were men so taken back as the
        wood-haulers.  They were sure we were Sioux, and started to
        run, but I called them back.  Not a word was then spoken while
        my Indians led the mules, that were now unhitched, into the
        stables.

        Leaving the teamsters to feed and water their animals, I turned
        my pony over to an Omaha, to unsaddle, and marched my soldiers
        up to the house, of which I took possession.  The roughs
        changed their tune, and tried to laugh the matter off, saying
        they knew all the time the wagons were full of soldiers, and
        they only wanted to see if I had “nerve.”  I told them they
        could leave their teams in the stables, as my teamsters told
        me there was room enough yet remaining for all the mules, but
        that in the morning they must leave.  At early light they were
        off, not, however, before I had found out the names of the
        leaders of the gang.  The doors of the house had been taken
        off the hinges, and the framed pine used to sleep and chop
        meat on, all being marked with gashes chopped in them with
        axes.  The windows were also broken, the glass and sashes gone,
        and the building as much damaged as if Indians had been there
        for a month.  I did all I could to save the property scattered
        over the grounds, and remained at the ranch some weeks, until
        an order came for me to go to Omaha as a witness before the
        United States Court.

        While the troops lay at Camp Cottonwood, now Fort McPherson,
        the scurvy broke out among the men and caused terrible
        suffering.  There were no anti-scorbutics nearer than
        Leavenworth, Kansas, which could be had for the troops, and
        before these could be received, the disease increased to an
        alarming extent.  At last, however, the remedies arrived, and
        the men began rapidly to convalesce.  The doctor advised them
        to eat wild fruit and berries, and to take plenty of exercise
        in the open air.  There was a plum grove about four miles from
        the camp, and as this wild fruit was very wholesome, the sick
        men went out nearly every day to gather it.

        One morning, Captain Mitchell, of the Seventh Iowa Cavalry,
        procured an ambulance, and, taking with him a driver named
        Anderson, an orderly named Cramer, and seven hospital patients,
        started for the plum grove.  They arrived at the first grove
        about ten o'clock, and, finding that most of the plums had
        been gathered, drove on to another grove some three miles
        farther up the cañon.  They were now about seven miles from
        camp, too far to be safe, but, as no Indians had been seen
        lately in the country, they did not feel uneasy.  At the upper
        grove they found two soldiers of the First Nebraska Cavalry,
        named Bentz and Wise, who had been sent out by the quartermaster
        to look for stray mules, and they had stopped to gather some
        plums.  As both these men were well armed, Captain Mitchell
        attached them to his party, and felt perfectly secure.

        Bentz and Wise went up the cañon a little way, and while
        eating fruit were suddenly fired on from the bushes by almost
        a dozen Indians.  At the first volley Bentz had his belt cut
        away by a ball, and lost his revolver.  The soldiers turned
        to fly, but, as they galloped off, another ball entered Bentz'
        side, desperately wounding him.  They now rode down the cañon,
        hoping to rejoin Captain Mitchell's party, but soon saw a body
        of Indians riding down the bluff ahead of them, evidently with
        the design of cutting them off.  Wise told Bentz to ride hard,
        at the same time handing him one of his revolvers, to defend
        himself in case of emergency.  Bentz was very feeble and dizzy,
        so much so, indeed, that he could barely sit in the saddle.

        Wise was mounted on a superb horse belonging to Lieutenant
        Cutler, which he had taken out to exercise, and, seeing that
        the Indians would head them off, and that Bentz, who was
        riding an old mule, could not keep up, he gave the powerful
        brute rein, and shot down the cañon like an arrow.  He passed
        the intervening Indians in safety, just as three of them
        dashed out of a pocket in the bluff and cut off poor Bentz.

        Wise saw Bentz knocked from his mule, and, knowing it was
        useless to try to save him, left him to his fate, and thought
        only of saving his own life.  He rode hard for Captain
        Mitchell, who was not far distant, but before he could reach
        him another party of Sioux headed him off, and he turned and
        rode up the bluffs to the flat lands.  The Indians pursued him,
        and made every effort to kill or capture him, but his fine
        horse bore him out of every danger.  Three times he was cut
        off from the camp, but by taking a wide circuit he managed to
        ride around the Indians, and at last succeeded in reaching the
        high road above the camp.  As many settlers lived on this road,
        the Indians did not venture to follow him along it, and he was
        soon safely housed in the log-cabin of a frontiersman, and
        relating his adventures.

        Meanwhile Captain Mitchell, having seen the fate of Bentz and
        escape of Wise, made haste to assemble his party, and, lifting
        those who were too weak to climb into the wagon, they set off
        for the camp.  Mitchell and Anderson were the only two of
        the party who had arms, but they assured the sick men they
        would defend them to the last.  Anderson took the lines and
        drove, while Mitchell seated himself in the rear end of the
        ambulance, with a Henry rifle to keep off the Indians.

        They had not gone far before they came upon a large force of
        warriors drawn across the cañon, to cut off their retreat.
        The bluffs were very steep and high on both sides of them,
        and escape seemed impossible; nevertheless Mitchell ordered
        Anderson to run his team at the right-hand bluff and try and
        ascend it.  The spirited animals dashed up the steep bank and
        drew the wagon nearly half-way up, when one of the wheels
        balked and nearly overturned the wagon.  A loud yell from
        the savages, at this moment, so frightened the horses that
        they sprang forward, and, before they could appreciate it,
        they were over the bluff on the level prairie, and flying
        toward the camp at the rate of ten miles an hour.

        They now began to hope, but had only gone as far as the first
        plum grove when they saw the Indians circling around them, and
        once more getting between them and the post.  Still they hoped
        that some soldiers might be in the first grove gathering plums,
        or that Wise had reached the post and given the alarm, so that
        help would soon come to them.  Captain Mitchell fired his
        rifle once or twice, to attract the attention of any persons
        who might be in the plum grove, but there was no response, and
        Anderson drove rapidly on.

        The Indians now began to close in upon the ambulance from all
        sides.  They would ride swiftly by a few yards distant, and,
        swinging themselves behind the neck and shoulders of their
        ponies, fire arrows or balls into the wagon.  Two of the sick
        men had already been wounded, and Captain Mitchell, finding it
        impossible to defend them while the ambulance was in motion,
        the shaking continually destroying his aim, ordered Anderson
        to drive to the top of the hill near by, and they would fight
        it out with the redskins.  Cramer now took the lines, when,
        either through fear or because he did not believe in the
        policy of stopping, he kept straight on.  Captain Mitchell
        twice ordered Cramer to pull up, but, as he paid no attention,
        he told Anderson to take the lines from him.  In attempting to
        obey the Captain's order, Anderson lost his footing and fell
        out of the wagon.  The Captain now sprang forward, put his
        foot on the brake to lock the wheels, when a sudden lurch of
        the wagon caused him to lose his balance, and he fell headlong
        on the prairie.  Fortunately, he alighted near a deep gully,
        where the water had cut out the bank, and, rolling himself
        into it, he looked out and saw Anderson crawling into a bunch
        of bushes near by.  When these accidents happened,
        the ambulance had just crossed over the crest of a little hill,
        and, as the Indians had not come over as yet, they did not see
        either of the men fall from the wagon.  The Captain had only
        two revolvers, but Anderson's gun, a Spencer rifle, had been
        thrown out with him, and he picked it up and took it into
        the bushes.

        In a few moments the Indians came up, riding very fast, and
        the main body crossed the ravine near where Captain Mitchell
        lay.  Some of them jumped their horses directly over the spot
        where he was concealed, but in a few moments they were gone,
        and soon had disappeared behind the neighbouring divide,
        leaving the Captain and Anderson to their own reflections.
        What to do was the next question.  That the Indians would
        overtake the ambulance, kill all its occupants, and return,
        the Captain had not a doubt.  He determined to go down the
        ravine, and, calling Anderson to follow, started off.  He had
        already crawled some distance when, hearing the clatter of
        horses' hoofs, he peeped over the edge of his cover, and saw
        about seventy-five Indians riding directly up to where he was
        concealed.  Giving himself up for lost, he lay down, drawing
        his revolvers and preparing them for action, for he was
        determined not to let the savages have his scalp without
        making a desperate resistance.  The warriors came up, and,
        dismounting within thirty yards of him, began a lively
        conversation.  The chief walked up close to the brink of the
        ravine, and almost within arm's-length of the Captain, and
        stood gazing on the ground.  Mitchell now saw the chief was
        blind of an eye and wore a spotted head-dress; and he knew by
        these marks he was none other than the celebrated Sioux
        warrior, Spotted Tail.  On making this discovery the Captain
        levelled both his revolvers at the chief's breast, and was
        fully determined to fire.  He believed that the loss of five
        captains would be a small matter, if by their death they could
        secure the destruction of the great leader of the Sioux.
        Just as he was about to pull the triggers a loud shout from
        the warriors caused Spotted Tail to start forward and run
        rapidly up the hill.  The ponies were led down the ravine and
        the warriors scattered in all directions, seeking cover.
        One of them ensconced himself in the ravine not more than
        thirty feet from Mitchell.  Raising his head so that he could
        see out, the Captain endeavoured to ascertain what caused all
        the excitement among the Indians.  At first he had thought
        he was discovered, then that reënforcements from the fort had
        arrived, and a battle was about to begin; but now he saw
        Anderson was discovered.  When the Captain had started down
        the ravine Anderson had followed him, and just emerged from
        the bushes when the Indians suddenly came up.  He had dropped
        on the ground, and endeavoured to roll himself back among the
        sage-brush, when an Indian saw him and gave the alarm.
        The warriors, not knowing how many white men might be in the
        brush, with their usual caution, had immediately sought cover.

        A hot fire was opened on Anderson's position, and at first he
        did not respond at all.  A warrior, more bold than discreet,
        ventured to go closer to the bushes, when a small puff of
        white smoke was seen to rise, a loud report rang out on the
        air, and the warrior fell, pierced through the heart.  A yell
        of rage resounded over the hills, and three more Indians ran
        toward Anderson's cover.  Three reports followed each other in
        rapid succession, and the three Indians bit the dust.  There
        was now a general charge on Anderson, but he fired so fast and
        true that the Indians fell back, carrying with them two more
        of their number.

        The Captain now felt it his duty to help Anderson, and was
        about to open fire with his revolvers, when Anderson, who,
        no doubt, expected as much, yelled three or four times, saying
        in a sort of a cry, “My arm is broken; keep quiet; can't work
        the Spencer any more.”  The brave fellow no doubt intended
        this as a warning to the Captain not to discover himself by
        firing, and he reluctantly accepted the admonition and kept
        quiet.

        A rush by some thirty warriors was now made on Anderson, and,
        notwithstanding his disabled condition, he managed to kill
        three more Indians before he was taken.  He was overpowered,
        however, dragged out of the bushes, and scalped in full sight
        of the Captain.  He fought to the last, and compelled them to
        kill him to save their own lives.  Nothing could exceed the
        rage of the Indians, and especially old Spotted Tail, as he
        saw the body of warrior after warrior carried down the hill,
        until nine dead Indians were laid beside Anderson.  In his
        grief for the loss of his braves, the old chief kicked the
        corpse of poor Anderson, and the other Indians came up and
        mutilated it horribly.

        In a few minutes after the death of Anderson, a mounted party
        was seen coming over the hills, and about thirty warriors rode
        up to Spotted Tail, and reported that they had captured the
        ambulance and killed all who were in it.  They exhibited to
        Spotted Tail the scalps of all Captain Mitchell's late
        companions, except that of Cramer.  The ambulance horses were
        brought back, each carrying what is known “down East” as a
        “noble red man.”

        In a few moments the warriors had their dead comrades securely
        strapped to ponies, and, mounting their own, set out toward
        the Republican.  As soon as they were out of sight, and it
        became dark, Captain Mitchell started for the camp, where he
        arrived about ten o'clock, and told the story of the
        “Cottonwood Massacre,” as I have here related it.

        Early the next morning I was sent out with a large force to
        pursue and, if possible, overtake and punish the Indians.
        For two days I followed them hard, and, on the evening of the
        second day, came upon a small party as they were crossing a
        stream, but in attempting to charge them, they scattered over
        the prairie and were soon lost in the darkness.  The trail now
        divided in every direction, and it would have been impossible
        to follow it unless each soldier had pursued some half a dozen
        warriors, when it is not likely he would have returned.  So we
        turned back, and marched for Cottonwood.  The bodies of the
        dead had been brought in and buried, and everything had been
        found as Captain Mitchell had stated.

        Private Wise was severely censured for not immediately going
        to camp and giving the alarm, but he said he had no idea the
        wagon and its sick men had ever left the cañon, for there
        were at least one hundred and fifty warriors around it when
        he came away, so he thought he might as well rest until
        morning before bearing such dismal news as he had to
        communicate to his fellow-soldiers.

In 1867 nearly all the Plains tribes of Indians evinced a sullen
disposition, and the indications were that the country was on the eve
of a prolonged savage war.  The cause of this, perhaps, might well be
attributed to the encroachments by the whites, upon the great
hunting-grounds of the tribes.  The transcontinental lines of railway
were nearly completed and in their wake followed an immigration from
the Eastern states, unprecedented in the history of the nation.
President Andrew Johnson appointed a Peace Commission, composed of
a large number of the most distinguished men of the country, both
military and civil.  Their duty was to visit the various chiefs, and
endeavour to make such treaties with them as would ensure permanent
peace.  History shows that so far as the object for which it was
created is concerned, it was a stupendous farce.  Let it be understood,
however, that the failure to accomplish the work intended, was through
no fault of the Commission.  The fault lies with Congress which
neglected to make the necessary appropriations to carry out the
stipulations of the treaties.  On account of this broken faith on the
part of the government there occurred a series of massacres, and a
prolonged war, which cost millions of dollars.[62]

One of the stipulations on the part of the Commission was that the
Sioux, Arapahoes, and Cheyennes were to surrender that portion of
their country along the Big Horn Mountains and territory tributary to
them.  The Man afraid of his Horses and Red Cloud were very determined
in their opposition, and Red Cloud with his entire band withdrew,
shortly after commencing his work of mischief.  It is a fact that so
indignant and enraged were the Indians at the idea of the government
depriving them of their favourite hunting-grounds, that a messenger,
sent out to induce the chiefs to come in, was badly whipped, insulted,
and ordered to go back to where he came from.

Old Major Bridger, the celebrated scout, and Jack Stead,[63] the
interpreter of the Commission, had no faith in the propositions of
some of the chiefs, notably Black Horse, who agreed to accept the
proposition of the Commission and ally themselves with the whites.
These chiefs were the representatives of over a hundred lodges; they
had been out on a hunt when they met Red Cloud who stated to them
that they must join the Sioux and drive the white man back.  To their
honour be it said, these chiefs kept their word and fulfilled to
the letter the pledges to keep the peace which they had given the
Commission.

Following the so-called treaty a series of depredations was made by
discontented bands of Indians, and culminated in the massacre of
troops near Fort Phil Kearny.  The following account of this fight is
taken from Senate Document No. 13, 1867:—

        On the morning of December 21 the picket at the signal station
        signalled to the fort that the wood train was attacked by the
        Indians, and corralled, and the escort fighting.  This was not
        far from 11 o'clock A.M., and the train was about two miles
        from the fort, and moving toward the timber.  Almost immediately
        a few Indian pickets appeared on one or two of the surrounding
        heights, and a party of about twenty near the Big Piney, where
        the mountain road crossed the same, within howitzer range of
        the fort.  Shells were thrown among them from the artillery in
        the fort, and they fled.

        The following detail, viz., fifty men and two officers from
        the four different infantry companies, and twenty-six
        cavalrymen and one officer, was made by Colonel Carrington.
        The entire force formed in good order, and was placed under
        command of Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel Fetterman, who received
        the following orders from Colonel Carrington: “Support the
        wood train, relieve it, and report to me.  Do not engage or
        pursue Indians at its expense; under no circumstances pursue
        over Lodge Trail Ridge.”  These instructions were repeated by
        Colonel Carrington in a loud voice, to the command when in
        motion, and outside the fort, and again delivered in substance
        through Lieutenant Wands, officer of the day, to Lieutenant
        Grummond, who was requested to communicate them again to
        Colonel Fetterman.

        Colonel Fetterman moved out rapidly to the right of the wood
        road, for the purpose, no doubt, of cutting off the retreat of
        the Indians then attacking the train.  As he advanced across
        the Piney, a few Indians appeared in his front and on his
        flanks, and continued flitting about him, beyond rifle range,
        till they disappeared beyond Lodge Trail Ridge.  When he was
        on Lodge Trail Ridge, the picket signalled the fort that the
        Indians had retreated from the train; the train had broken
        corral and moved on toward the timber.  The train made the
        round trip, and was not again disturbed that day.

        At about fifteen minutes before twelve o'clock, Colonel
        Fetterman's command had reached the crest of Lodge Trail Ridge,
        was deployed as skirmishers, and at a halt.  Without regard
        to orders, for reasons that the silence of Colonel Fetterman
        now prevents us from giving, he, with the command, in a few
        moments disappeared, having cleared the ridge, still moving
        north.  Firing at once commenced, and increased in rapidity
        till, in about fifteen minutes and at about 12 o'clock M.,
        it was a continuous and rapid fire of musketry, plainly
        audible at the fort.  Assistant Surgeon Hines, having been
        ordered to join Fetterman, found Indians on a part of Lodge
        Trail Ridge not visible from the fort, and could not reach
        the force there struggling to preserve its existence.  As soon
        as the firing became rapid Colonel Carrington ordered Captain
        Ten Eyck, with about seventy-six men, being all the men for
        duty in the fort, and two wagons with ammunition, to join
        Colonel Fetterman immediately.  He moved out and advanced
        rapidly toward the point from which the sound of firing
        proceeded, but did not move by so short a route as he might
        have done.  The sound of firing continued to be heard during
        his advance, diminishing in rapidity and number of shots till
        he reached a high summit overlooking the battle-field, at
        about a quarter before one o'clock, when one or two shots
        closed all sound of conflict.

        Whether he could have reached the scene of action by marching
        over the shortest route as rapidly as possible in time to have
        relieved Colonel Fetterman's command, I am unable to determine.

        Immediately after Captain Ten Eyck moved out, and by orders
        of Colonel Carrington issued at the same time as the orders
        detailing that officer to join Colonel Fetterman, the
        quartermaster's employees, convalescents, and all others in
        the garrison, were armed and provided with ammunition, and
        held in readiness to reënforce the troops fighting, or defend
        the garrison.

        Captain Ten Eyck reported, as soon as he reached a summit
        commanding a view of the battle-field, that the Peno Valley
        was full of Indians; that he could see nothing of Colonel
        Fetterman's party, and requested that a howitzer should be
        sent him.  The howitzer was not sent.  The Indians, who at
        first beckoned him to come down, now commenced retreating, and
        Captain Ten Eyck, advancing to a point where the Indians had
        been standing in a circle, found the dead naked bodies of
        Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel Fetterman, Captain Brown, and about
        sixty-five of the soldiers of their command.  At this point
        there were no indications of a severe struggle.  All the
        bodies lay in a space not exceeding thirty-five feet in
        diameter.  No empty cartridge shells were lying about, and
        there were some full cartridges.  A few American horses lay
        dead a short distance off, all with their heads toward the
        fort.  This spot was by the roadside, and beyond the summit of
        the hill rising to the east of Peno Creek.  The road, after
        rising this hill, follows this ridge along for about half or
        three-quarters of a mile, and then descends abruptly to Peno
        Creek.  At about half the distance from where these bodies lay
        to the point where the road commences to descend to Peno Creek
        was the dead body of Lieutenant Grummond; and still farther on,
        at the point where the road commences to descend to Peno Creek,
        were the dead bodies of the three citizens and four or five of
        the old, long-tried, and experienced soldiers.  A great number
        of empty cartridge shells were on the ground at this point,
        and more than fifty lying on the ground about one of the dead
        citizens, who used a Henry rifle.  Within a few hundred yards
        in front of this position ten Indian ponies lay dead, and
        there were sixty-five pools of dark and clotted blood.
        No Indian ponies or pools of blood were found at any other
        point.  Our conclusion, therefore, is that the Indians were
        massed to resist Colonel Fetterman's advance along Peno Creek
        on both sides of the road; that Colonel Fetterman formed his
        advanced lines on the summit of the hill overlooking the creek
        and valley, with a reserve near where the large number of dead
        bodies lay; that the Indians, in force of from fifteen to
        eighteen hundred warriors, attacked him vigorously in this
        position, and were successfully resisted by him for half an
        hour or more; that the command then being short of ammunition,
        and seized with panic at this event and the great numerical
        superiority of the Indians, attempted to retreat toward the
        fort; that the mountaineers and old soldiers, who had learned
        that a movement from Indians, in an engagement, was equivalent
        to death, remained in their first position, and were killed
        there; that immediately upon the commencement of the retreat
        the Indians charged upon and surrounded the party, who could
        not now be formed by their officers, and were immediately
        killed.  Only six men of the whole command were killed by
        balls, and two of these, Lieutenant-Colonel Fetterman and
        Captain Brown, no doubt inflicted this death upon themselves,
        or each other, by their own hands, for both were shot through
        the left temple, and powder burnt into the skin and flesh
        about the wound.  These officers had also often-times asserted
        that they would not be taken alive by Indians.

        In the critical examination we have given this painful and
        horrible affair, we do not find of the immediate participants
        any officer living deserving of censure; and, even if evidence
        justifies it, it would ill become us to speak evil of or
        censure those dead who sacrificed life struggling to maintain
        the authority and power of the government and add new lustre
        to our arms and fame. . . .

        The difficulty, in a “nutshell,” was that the commanding
        officer of the district was furnished no more troops or
        supplies for this state of war than had been provided and
        furnished him for a state of profound peace.




CHAPTER XVI.
BUFFALO BILL'S[64] ADVENTURES.



In May, 1857, I started for Salt Lake City with a herd of beef cattle,
in charge of Frank and Bill McCarthy, for General Albert Sidney
Johnston's army, which was then being sent across the plains to fight
the Mormons.

Nothing occurred to interrupt our journey until we reached Plum Creek,
on the South Platte River, thirty-five miles west of old Fort Kearny.
We had made a morning drive and had camped for dinner.  The wagon-masters
and a majority of the men had gone to sleep under the mess wagons;
the cattle were being guarded by three men, and the cook was preparing
dinner.  No one had any idea that Indians were anywhere near us.
The first warning we had that they were infesting that part of the
country was the firing of shots, and the whoops and yells from a party
of them, who, catching us napping, gave us a most unwelcome surprise.
All the men jumped to their feet and seized their guns.  They saw with
astonishment the cattle running in every direction, stampeded by the
Indians, who had shot and killed the three men who were on day-herd
duty; and the red devils were now charging down upon the rest of us.

I then thought of mother's fears of my falling into the hands of the
Indians, and I had about made up my mind that such was to be my fate;
but when I saw how coolly and determinedly the McCarthy brothers were
conducting themselves and giving orders to the little band, I became
convinced that we would “stand the Indians off,” as the saying is.
Our men were all well armed with Colt's revolvers and Mississippi
yagers, which last carried a bullet and two buckshot.

The McCarthy boys, at the proper moment, gave orders to fire upon the
advancing enemy.  The volley checked them, although they returned the
compliment, and shot one of our party through the leg.  Frank McCarthy
then sang out, “Boys, make a break for the slough yonder, and we can
have the bank for a breastwork.”

We made a run for the slough, which was only a short distance off,
and succeeded in safely reaching it, bringing with us the wounded man.
The bank proved to be a very effective breastwork, affording us good
protection.  We had been there but a short time when Frank McCarthy,
seeing that the longer we were corralled the worse it would be for us,
said:—

“Well, boys, we'll try to make our way back to Fort Kearny by wading
in the river and keeping the bank for a breastwork.”

We all agreed that this was the best plan, and we accordingly
proceeded down the river several miles in this way, managing to keep
the Indians at a safe distance with our guns, until the slough made
a junction with the main Platte River.  From there down, we found the
river at times quite deep; and in order to carry the wounded man along
with us, we constructed a raft of poles for his accommodation, and in
this way he was transported.

Occasionally the water would be too deep for us to wade, and we were
obliged to put our weapons on the raft and swim.  The Indians followed
us pretty close, and were continually watching for an opportunity to
get a good range and give us a raking fire.  Covering ourselves by
keeping well under the bank, we pushed ahead as rapidly as possible,
and made pretty good progress, the night finding us still on the way
and our enemies yet on our track.

I, being the youngest and smallest of the party, became somewhat tired,
and without noticing it I had fallen behind the others for some little
distance.  It was about ten o'clock and we were keeping very quiet and
hugging close to the bank, when I happened to look up to the moonlit
sky and saw the plumed head of an Indian peeping over the bank.
Instead of hurrying ahead and alarming the men in a quiet way,
I instantly aimed my gun at his head and fired.  The report rang out
sharp and loud on the night air, and was immediately followed by an
Indian whoop; and the next moment about six feet of dead Indian came
tumbling into the river.  I was not only overcome with astonishment,
but was badly scared, as I could hardly realize what I had done.
I expected to see the whole force of Indians come down upon us.  While
I was standing thus bewildered, the men who had heard the shot and the
war-whoop and had seen the Indian take a tumble, came rushing back.

“Who fired that shot?” cried Frank McCarthy.

“I did,” replied I, rather proudly, as my confidence returned and I
saw the men coming up.

“Yes, and little Billy has killed an Indian stone-dead—too dead to
skin,” said one of the men, who had approached nearer than the rest,
and had almost stumbled over the corpse.  From that time forward I
became a hero and an Indian killer.  This was, of course, the first
Indian I had ever shot, and as I was then not more than eleven years
of age, my exploit created quite a sensation.

The other Indians, upon learning what had happened to their advance,
fired several shots without effect, but which hastened our retreat
down the river.  We reached Fort Kearny just as the reveille was being
sounded, bringing the wounded man with us.  After the peril through
which we had passed, it was a relief to feel that once more I was safe
after such a dangerous initiation.

Frank McCarthy immediately reported to the commanding officer and
informed him of all that had happened.  The commandant at once ordered
a company of cavalry and one of infantry to proceed to Plum Creek on
a forced march—taking a howitzer with them—to endeavour to recapture
the cattle from the Indians.

The firm of Russell, Majors, & Waddell had a division agent at Kearny,
and this agent mounted us on mules so that we could accompany the
troops.  On reaching the place where the Indians had surprised us,
we found the bodies of the three men, whom they had killed and scalped
and literally cut into pieces.  We, of course, buried the remains.
We caught but few of the cattle; the most of them had been driven off
and stampeded with the buffaloes, there being numerous immense herds
of the latter in that section of the country at the time.  The Indians'
trail was discovered running South toward the Republican River, and
the troops followed it to the head of Plum Creek, and there abandoned
it, returning to Fort Kearny without having seen a single redskin.

The company's agent, seeing that there was no further use for us in
that vicinity—as we had lost our cattle and mules—sent us back to
Fort Leavenworth.  The company, it is proper to state, did not have
to stand the loss of the expedition, as the government held itself
responsible for such depredations by the Indians.

On the day that I got into Leavenworth, sometime in July, I was
interviewed for the first time in my life by a newspaper reporter,
and the next morning I found my name in print as “the youngest Indian
slayer on the plains.”  I am candid enough to admit that I felt very
much elated over this notoriety.  Again and again I read with eager
interest the long and sensational account of our adventure.
My exploit was related in a very graphic manner, and for a long time
afterward I was considerable of a hero.  The reporter who had thus set
me up, as I then thought, on the highest pinnacle of fame, was John
Hutchinson, and I felt very grateful to him.  He now lives in Wichita,
Kansas.

In the following summer, Russell, Majors, & Waddell entered upon a
contract with the Government for transporting supplies for General
Albert Sidney Johnston's army that was sent against the Mormons.
A large number of teams and teamsters were required for this purpose,
and as the route was considered a dangerous one, men were not easily
engaged for the service, though the pay was forty dollars a month in
gold.  An old wagon-master named Lew Simpson, one of the best who ever
commanded a bull-train, was upon the point of starting with about ten
wagons for the company, direct for Salt Lake, and as he had known me
for some time as an ambitious youth, requested me to accompany him as
an extra hand.  My duties would be light, and in fact I would have
nothing to do, unless some one of the drivers should become sick,
in which case I should be required to take his place.  But even more
seductive than this was the promise that I should be provided with
a mule of my own to ride, and be subject to the orders of no one save
Simpson himself.

The offer was made in such a manner that I became at once wild to go,
but my mother interposed an emphatic objection and urged me to abandon
so reckless a desire.  She reminded me that in addition to the fact
that the trip would possibly occupy a year, the journey was one of
extreme peril, beset as it was by Mormon assassins and treacherous
Indians, and begged me to accept the lesson of my last experience and
narrow escape as a providential warning.  But to her pleadings and
remonstrances I returned the answer that I had determined to follow
the plains as an occupation, and while I appreciated her advice, and
desired greatly to honour her commands, yet I could not forego my
determination to accompany the train.

Seeing that it was impossible to keep me at home, she reluctantly
gave her consent, but not until she had called upon Mr. Russell and
Mr. Simpson in regard to the matter, and had obtained from the latter
gentleman his promise that I should be well taken care of, if we had
to winter in the mountains.  She did not like the appearance of
Simpson, and upon inquiry she learned, to her dismay, that he was a
desperate character, and that on nearly every trip he had made across
the plains he had killed some one.  Such a man, she thought, was not
a fit master or companion for her son, and she was very anxious to
have me go with some other wagon-master; but I still insisted on
remaining with Simpson.

“Madam, I can assure you that Lew Simpson is one of the most reliable
wagon-masters on the plains,” said Mr. Russell, “and he has taken a
great fancy to Billy.  If your boy is bound to go, he can go with no
better man.  No one will dare to impose on him while he is with Lew
Simpson, whom I will instruct to take good care of the boy.  Upon
reaching Fort Laramie, Billy can, if he wishes, exchange places with
some fresh man coming back on a returning train, and thus come home
without making the whole trip.”

This seemed to satisfy mother, and then she had a long talk with
Simpson himself, imploring him not to forget his promise to take
good care of her precious boy.  He promised everything that she asked.

Thus, after much trouble, I became one of the members of Simpson's
train.  Before taking our departure, I arranged with Russell, Majors,
& Waddell that when my pay fell due it should be paid over to my
mother.  As a matter of interest to the general reader, it may be well
in this connection to give a brief description of a freight train.
The wagons used in those days by Russell, Majors, & Waddell were known
as the “J. Murphy wagons,” made at St. Louis specially for the plains
business.  They were very large and very strongly built, being capable
of carrying seven thousand pounds of freight each.  The wagon-boxes
were very commodious—being about as large as the rooms of an ordinary
house—and were covered with two heavy canvas sheets to protect the
merchandise from the rain.  These wagons were generally sent out from
Leavenworth, each loaded with six thousand pounds of freight, and each
drawn by several yokes of oxen in charge of one driver.  A train
consisted of twenty-five wagons, all in charge of one man, who was
known as the wagon-master.  The second man in command was the
assistant wagon-master; then came the “extra hand,” next the night
herder; and lastly, the cavayard driver, whose duty it was to drive
the lame and loose cattle.  There were thirty-one men all told in a
train.  The men did their own cooking, being divided into messes of
seven.  One man cooked, another brought wood and water, another stood
guard, and so on—each having some duty to perform while getting
meals.  All were heavily armed with Colt's pistols and Mississippi
yagers, and every one always had his weapons handy so as to be
prepared for any emergency.

The wagon-master, in the language of the plains, was called the
“bull-wagon boss”; the teamsters were known as “bull-whackers”;
and the whole train was denominated a “bull-outfit.”  Everything at
that time was called an “outfit.”  The men of the plains were always
full of droll humour and exciting stories of their own experiences,
and many an hour I spent in listening to the recitals of thrilling
adventures and hairbreadth escapes.

The trail to Salt Lake ran through Kansas northwestwardly, crossing
the Big Blue River, then over the Big and Little Sandy, coming into
Nebraska near the Big Sandy.  The next stream of any importance was
the Little Blue, along which the trail ran for sixty miles; then
crossed a range of sand-hills, and struck the Platte River ten miles
below old Fort Kearny; thence the course lay up the South Platte to
the old Ash Hollow Crossing, thence eighteen miles across to the North
Platte, near the mouth of the Blue Water, where General Harney had his
great battle in 1855 with the Sioux and Cheyenne Indians.  From this
point the North Platte was followed, passing Court House Rock,
Chimney Rock, and Scott's Bluffs, and then on to Fort Laramie, where
the Laramie River was crossed.  Still following the North Platte for
some considerable distance, the trail crossed the river at old
Richard's Bridge, and followed it up to the celebrated Red Buttes,
crossing the Willow Creeks to the Sweetwater, passing the great
Independence Rock and the Devil's Gate, up to the Three Crossings of
the Sweetwater, thence past the Cold Springs, where, three feet under
the sod, on the hottest day of summer, ice can be found; thence to
the Hot Springs and the Rocky Ridge, and through the Rocky Mountains
and Echo Cañon, and thence on to the Great Salt Lake Valley.

In order to take care of the business which then offered, the freight
for transportation being almost exclusively government provisions,
Russell, Majors, & Waddell operated thirty-five hundred wagons,
for the hauling of which they used forty thousand oxen, and gave
employment to four thousand men; the capital invested by these three
freighters was nearly two million dollars.  In their operations,
involving such an immense sum of money, and employing a class of
labourers incomparably reckless, some very stringent rules were
adopted by them, to which all their employees were made to subscribe.
In this code of discipline was the following obligation: “I, ——,
do hereby solemnly swear, before the Great and Living God, that during
my engagement, and while I am in the employ of Russell, Majors,
& Waddell, that I will under no circumstances use profane language;
that I will drink no intoxicating liquors of any kind; that I will
not quarrel or fight with any other employee of the firm, and that in
every respect I will conduct myself honestly, be faithful to my duties,
and so direct all my acts as will win the confidence and esteem of my
employers, so help me God.”

This oath was the creation of Mr. Majors, who was a very pious and
rigid disciplinarian; he tried hard to enforce it, but how great was
his failure it is needless to say.  It would have been equally
profitable had the old gentleman read the riot act to a herd of
stampeded buffaloes.  And he believes it himself now.

The next day we rolled out of camp and proceeded on our way toward
the setting sun.  Everything ran along smoothly with us from that
point until we came within about eighteen miles of Green River,
in the Rocky Mountains—where we camped at noon.  At this place we had
to drive our cattle about a mile and a half to a creek to water them.
Simpson, his assistant, George Woods, and myself, accompanied by the
usual number of guards, drove the cattle over to the creek, and while
on our way back to camp we suddenly observed a party of twenty horsemen
rapidly approaching us.  We were not yet in view of the wagons, as a
rise of ground intervened, and therefore we could not signal the
train-men in case of any unexpected danger befalling us.  We had no
suspicion, however, that we were about to be trapped, as the strangers
were white men.  When they had come up to us, one of the party, who
evidently was the leader, rode out in front and said:—

“How are you, Mr. Simpson?”

“You've got the best of me, sir,” said Simpson, who did not know him.

“Well, I rather think I have,” coolly replied the stranger, whose
words conveyed a double meaning, as we soon learned.  We had all come
to a halt by this time and the strange horsemen had surrounded us.
They were all armed with double-barrelled shot-guns, rifles, and
revolvers.  We also were armed with revolvers, but we had no idea of
danger, and these men, much to our surprise, had “got the drop” on us
and had covered us with their weapons, so that we were completely at
their mercy.  The whole movement of corralling us was done so quietly
and quickly that it was accomplished before we knew it.

“I'll trouble you for your six-shooters, gentlemen,” now said the leader.

“I'll give 'em to you in a way you don't want,” replied Simpson.

The next moment three guns were levelled at Simpson.  “If you make
a move you're a dead man,” said the leader.

Simpson saw that he was taken at a great disadvantage, and thinking
it advisable not to risk the lives of the party by any rash act on
his part, he said: “I see now that you have the best of me; but who
are you, anyhow?”

“I am Joe Smith,” was the reply.

“What! the leader of the Danites?” asked Simpson.

“You are correct,” said Smith, for he it was.

“Yes,” said Simpson, “I know you now; you are a spying scoundrel.”

Simpson had good reasons for calling him this and for applying to him
a much more opprobrious epithet, for only a short time before this,
Joe Smith had visited our train in the disguise of a teamster, and had
remained with us two days.  He suddenly disappeared, no one knowing
where he had gone or why he had come among us.  But it was all
explained to us now that he had returned with his Mormon Danites.
After they had disarmed us, Simpson asked, “Well, Smith, what are you
going to do with us?”

“Ride back with us and I'll soon show you,” said Smith.

We had no idea of the surprise which awaited us.  As we came upon the
top of the ridge, from which we could view our camp, we were astonished
to see the remainder of the train-men disarmed, stationed in a group,
and surrounded by another squad of Danites, while other Mormons were
searching our wagons for such articles as they wanted.

“How is this?” inquired Simpson.  “How did you surprise my camp without
a struggle?  I can't understand it.”

“Easily enough,” said Smith; “your men were all asleep under the wagons,
except the cooks, who saw us coming and took us for returning
Californians or emigrants, and paid no attention to us until we rode up
and surrounded your train.  With our arms covering the men, we woke
them up, and told them all they had to do was to walk out and drop
their pistols—which they saw was the best thing to do under
circumstances over which they had no control—and you can just bet
they did it.”

“And what do you propose to do with us now?” asked Simpson.

“I intend to burn your train,” said he; “you are loaded with supplies
and ammunition for Sidney Johnston, and as I have no way to convey
the stuff to my own people, I'll see that it does not reach the
United States troops.”

“Are you going to turn us adrift here?” asked Simpson, who was anxious
to learn what was going to become of himself and his men.

“No; I am hardly so bad as that.  I'll give you enough provisions to
last you until you can reach Fort Bridger,” replied Smith; “and as soon
as your cooks can get the stuff out of the wagons, you can start.”

“On foot?” was the laconic inquiry of Simpson.

“Yes, sir,” was the equally short reply.

“Smith, that's too rough on us men.  Put yourself in our place and
see how you would like it,” said Simpson; “you can well afford to give
us at least one wagon and six yokes of oxen to convey us and our
clothing and provisions to Fort Bridger.  You're a brute if you don't
do this.”

“Well,” said Smith, after consulting a minute or two with some of his
company, “I'll do that much for you.”

The cattle and the wagon were brought up according to his orders,
and the clothing and provisions were loaded on.

“Now you can go,” said Smith, after everything had been arranged.

“Joe Smith, I think you are a mean coward to set us afloat in a
hostile country without giving us our arms,” said Simpson, who had
once before asked for the weapons, and had had his request denied.

Smith, after further consultation with his comrades, said:—

“Simpson, you are too brave a man to be turned adrift here without
any means of defence.  You shall have your revolvers and guns.”
Our weapons were accordingly handed over to Simpson, and we at once
started for Fort Bridger, knowing that it would be useless to attempt
the recapture of our train.

When we had travelled about two miles, we saw the smoke rise from our
old camp.  The Mormons, after taking what goods they wanted and could
carry off, had set fire to the wagons, many of which were loaded with
bacon, lard, hard-tack, and other provisions, which made a very hot,
fierce fire, and the smoke to roll up in dense clouds.  Some of the
wagons were loaded with ammunition, and it was not long before loud
reports followed in rapid succession.  We waited and witnessed the
burning of the train, and then pushed on to Fort Bridger.  Arriving at
this post, we learned that two other trains had been captured and
destroyed in the same way, by the Mormons.  This made seventy-five
wagon loads, or 450,000 pounds of supplies, mostly provisions, which
never reached General Johnston's command, to which they had been
consigned.

After reaching the fort, it being far in November, we decided to spend
the winter there with about four hundred other employees of Russell,
Majors, & Waddell, rather than attempt a return, which would have
exposed us to many dangers and the severity of the rapidly approaching
winter.  During this period of hibernation, however, the larders of
the commissary became so depleted that we were placed on one-quarter
rations, and at length, as a final resort, the poor, dreadfully
emaciated mules and oxen were killed to afford sustenance for our
famishing party.

Fort Bridger being located in a prairie, all fuel used there had to
be carried for a distance of nearly two miles, and after our mules and
oxen were butchered we had no other recourse than to carry the wood on
our backs or haul it on sleds, a very tedious and laborious alternative.

Starvation was beginning to lurk about the post when spring approached,
and but for the timely arrival of a westward-bound train loaded with
provisions for Johnston's army, some of our party must certainly have
fallen victims to deadly hunger.

The winter finally passed away, and early in the spring, as soon as
we could travel, the civil employees of the government, with the
teamsters and freighters, started for the Missouri River, the Johnston
expedition having been abandoned.  On the way down we stopped at
Fort Laramie, and there met a supply-train bound westward.  Of course
we all had a square meal once more, consisting of hard-tack, bacon,
coffee, and beans.  I can honestly say that I thought it was the best
meal I had ever eaten; at least I relished it more than any other,
and I think the rest of the party did the same.

On leaving Fort Laramie, Simpson was made brigade wagon-master, and
was put in charge of two large wagon-trains, with about four hundred
extra men, who were bound for Fort Leavenworth.  When we came to Ash
Hollow, instead of taking the usual trail over to the South Platte,
Simpson decided to follow the North Platte down to its junction with
the South Platte.  The two trains were travelling about fifteen miles
apart, when one morning while Simpson was with the rear train,
he told his assistant wagon-master, George Woods, and myself, to
saddle up our mules, as he wanted us to go with him and overtake the
head train.

We started off at about eleven o'clock and had ridden about seven
miles, when—while we were on a big plateau, back of Cedar Bluffs—
we suddenly discovered a band of Indians coming out of the head of a
ravine, half a mile distant, and charging down upon us at full speed.
I thought that our end had come this time.  Simpson, however, was
equal to the occasion, for with wonderful promptness he jumped from
his jaded mule, and in a trice shot his own animal and ours also,
and ordered us to assist him to jerk their bodies into a triangle.
This being quickly done, we got inside the barricade of mule flesh
and were prepared to receive the Indians.  We were each armed with
a Mississippi yager and two revolvers, and as the Indians came swooping
down on our improvised fort, we opened fire with such good effect that
three fell dead at the first volley.  This caused them to retreat out
of range, as with two exceptions they were armed with bows and arrows,
and therefore, to approach near enough to do execution would expose at
least several of them to certain death.  Seeing that they could not
take our little fortification, or drive us from it, they circled
around several times, shooting their arrows at us.  One of these
struck George Woods in the left shoulder, inflicting only a slight
wound, however, and several lodged in the bodies of the dead mules;
otherwise they did us no harm.  The Indians finally galloped off to
a safe distance, where our bullets could not reach them, and seemed
to be holding a council.  This was a lucky move for us, for it gave us
an opportunity to reload our guns and pistols, and prepare for the
next charge of the enemy.  During the brief cessation of hostilities,
Simpson extracted the arrow from Woods' shoulder, and put an immense
quid of tobacco on the wound.  Woods was then ready for business again.

The Indians did not give us a very long rest, for with another
desperate charge, as if to ride over us, they came dashing toward
the mule barricade.  We gave them a hot reception with our yagers and
revolvers.  They could not stand or understand the rapidly repeating
fire of the revolver, and we checked them again.  They circled around
us once more and gave us a few parting shots as they rode off, leaving
behind them another dead Indian and a horse.

For two hours afterward they did not seem to be doing anything but
holding a council.  We made good use of this time by digging up the
ground inside the barricade, with our knives, and throwing the loose
earth around and over the mules, and we soon had a very respectable
fortification.  We were not troubled any more that day, but during the
night the cunning rascals tried to burn us out by setting fire to the
prairie.  The buffalo grass was so short that the fire did not trouble
us much, but the smoke concealed the Indians from our view, and they
thought they could approach close to us without being seen.  We were
aware of this and kept a sharp lookout, being prepared all the time
to receive them.  They finally abandoned the idea of surprising us.

Next morning, bright and early, they gave us one more grand charge,
and again we “stood them off.”  They then rode away half a mile or so
and formed a circle around us.  Each man dismounted and sat down,
as if to wait and starve us out.  They had evidently seen the advance
train pass on the morning of the previous day, and believed that we
belonged to that outfit and were trying to overtake it; they had
no idea that another train was on its way after us.

Our hopes of escape from this unpleasant and perilous situation now
depended upon the arrival of the rear train, and when we saw that the
Indians were going to besiege us instead of renewing their attacks,
we felt rather confident of receiving timely assistance.  We had
expected that the train would be along late in the afternoon of the
previous day, and as the morning wore away we were somewhat anxious
and uneasy at its non-arrival.

At last, about ten o'clock, we began to hear in the distance the loud
and sharp reports of the big bull-whips, which were handled with great
dexterity by the teamsters, and cracked like rifle-shots.  These were
as welcome sounds to us as were the notes of the bagpipes to the
besieged garrison at Lucknow, when the reënforcements were coming up
and the pipers were heard playing, “The Campbells are coming.”
In a few moments we saw the lead or head wagon coming slowly over the
ridge, which had concealed the train from our view, and soon the whole
outfit made its appearance.  The Indians observed the approaching
train, and, assembling in a group, they held a short consultation.
Then they charged upon us once more, for the last time, and as they
turned and dashed away over the prairie, we sent our farewell shots
rattling after them.  The teamsters, seeing the Indians and hearing
the shots, came rushing forward to our assistance, but by the time
they reached us the redskins had almost disappeared from view.
The teamsters eagerly asked us a hundred questions concerning our
fight, admired our fort, and praised our pluck.  Simpson's remarkable
presence of mind in planning the defence was the general topic of
conversation among all the men.

When the teams came up we obtained some water and bandages with which
to dress Woods' wound, which had become quite inflamed and painful,
and we then put him into one of the wagons.  Simpson and myself
obtained a remount, bade good-by to our dead mules which had served us
so well, and after collecting the ornaments and other plunder from the
dead Indians, we left their bodies and bones to bleach on the prairie.
The train moved on again and we had no other adventures except several
exciting buffalo-hunts on the South Platte, near Plum Creek.

We arrived at Fort Leavenworth about the middle of July, 1858, when
I immediately visited home.

I had been home only about a month, after returning from Fort Bridger,
when I again started out with another train, going this time as
assistant wagon-master under Buck Bomer.  We went safely through to
Fort Laramie, which was our destination, and from there we were ordered
to take a load of supplies to a new post called Fort Wallace, which
was being established at Cheyenne Pass.  We made this trip and got
back to Fort Laramie about November 1.  I then quit the employ of
Russell, Majors, & Waddell, and joined a party of trappers who were
sent out by the post trader, Mr. Ward, to trap on the streams of the
Chugwater and Laramie for beaver, otter, and other fur animals, and
also to poison wolves for their pelts.  We were out two months, but as
the expedition did not prove very profitable, and was rather dangerous
on account of the Indians, we abandoned the enterprise and came into
Fort Laramie in the latter part of December.

Being anxious to return to the Missouri River, I joined with two
others, named Scott and Charley, who were also desirous of going East
on a visit, bought three ponies and a pack-mule, and we started out
together.  We made rapid progress on our journey, and nothing worthy
of note happened until one afternoon, along the banks of the Little
Blue River, we spied a band of Indians hunting on the opposite side of
the stream, three miles away.  We did not escape their notice, and
they gave us a lively chase for two hours, but they could find no good
crossing, and as evening came on we finally got away from them.

We travelled until late in the night, when upon discovering a low,
deep ravine which we thought would make a comfortable and safe
camping-place, we stopped for a rest.  In searching for a good place
to make our beds, I found a hole, and called to my companions that
I had found a place for a rest.  One of the party was to stand guard
while the others slept.  Scott took the first watch, while Charley and
I prepared our beds.

While clearing out the place we felt something rough, but as it was
dark we could not make out what it was.  At any rate we concluded that
it was bones or sticks of wood; we thought perhaps it might be the
bones of some animal which had fallen in there and died.  These bones,
for such they really proved to be, we pushed one side, and then we lay
down.  But Charley, being an inveterate smoker, could not resist the
temptation of indulging in a smoke before going to sleep.  So he
sat up and struck a match to light his old pipe.  Our subterranean
bedchamber was thus illuminated for a moment or two; I sprang to my
feet in an instant, for a ghastly and horrifying sight was revealed
to us.  Eight or ten human skeletons lay scattered upon the ground!

The light of the match died out, but we had seen enough to convince
us that we were in a large grave, into which, perhaps, some unfortunate
emigrants, who had been killed by the Indians, had been thrown; or,
probably, seeking refuge there, they had been corralled and killed
on the spot.  If such were the case they had met the fate of thousands
of others, whose friends have never heard of them since they left
their Eastern homes to seek their fortunes in the far West.  However,
we did not care to investigate this mystery any further, but we hustled
out of that chamber of death and informed Scott of our discovery.
Most of the plainsmen are very superstitious, and we were no exception
to the general rule.  We surely thought that this incident was an evil
omen, and that we would be killed if we remained there any longer.

“Let us dig out of here quicker than we can say Jack Robinson,” said
Scott; and we began to “dig out” at once.  We saddled our animals and
hurriedly pushed forward through the darkness, travelling several
miles before we again went into camp.  Next morning it was snowing
fiercely, but we proceeded as best we could, and that night we
succeeded in reaching Oak Grove Ranch which had been built during the
summer.  We here obtained comfortable accommodations and plenty to eat
and drink—especially the latter.

Scott and Charley were great lovers and consumers of “tanglefoot” and
they soon got gloriously drunk.  They kept it up for three days,
during which time they gambled with the ranchmen, who got away with
all their money; but little they cared for that, as they had their
spree.  They finally sobered up, and we resumed our journey, urging
our jaded animals as much as they could stand, until we struck
Marysville on the Big Blue.  From this place to Leavenworth we secured
first-rate accommodations along the road, as the country had become
pretty well settled.

In the spring of 1879, the Fifth Cavalry were ordered to the Department
of the Platte and took up their line of march for Fort McPherson,
Nebraska.  We laid over one day at Fort Wallace, to get supplies, and
from Fort Wallace we moved down to Sheridan, where the command halted
for us to lay in a supply of forage which was stored there.  I was
still messing with Major Brown, with whom I went into the village to
purchase a supply of provisions for our mess; but unfortunately we
were in too jolly a mood to fool away money on “grub.”  We bought
several articles, however, and put them into the ambulance and sent
them back to camp with our cook.  The major and myself did not return
until reveille next morning.  Soon afterward the general sounded
“boots and saddles,” and presently the regiment was on its way to
Fort McPherson.

It was late before we went into camp that night and we were very tired
and hungry.  Just as Major Brown was having his tent put up, his cook
came to us and asked where the provisions were that he had bought the
day before.

“Why, did we not give them to you—did you not bring them to camp in
the ambulance?” asked Brown.

“No, sir; it was only a five-gallon demijohn of whiskey, a five-gallon
demijohn of brandy, and two cases of Old Tom-Cat gin,” said the cook.

“The mischief!” I exclaimed; “didn't we spend any money for grub at
all?”

“No, sir,” replied the cook.

“Well, that will do for the present,” said Major Brown.

It seems that our minds had evidently been running on a different
subject than provisions while we were loitering in Sheridan, and we
found ourselves, with a two hundred and fifty mile march ahead of us,
without anything more inviting than ordinary army rations.

At this juncture Captain Denny came up and the major apologized for
not being able to invite him to take supper with us; but we did the
next best thing, and asked him to take a drink.  He remarked that that
was what he was looking for, and when he learned of our being out of
commissary supplies and that we had bought nothing except whiskey,
brandy, and gin, he said joyously:—

“Boys, as we have an abundance, you can eat with us and we will drink
with you.”

It was a satisfactory arrangement, and from that time forward we traded
our liquors for solids.  When the rest of the officers heard of what
Brown and I had done they all sent us invitations to dine with them
at any time.  We returned the compliment by inviting them to drink
with us whenever they were dry.  Although I would not advise anybody
to follow our example, yet it is a fact that we got more provisions
for our whiskey than the same money, which we paid for the liquor,
would have bought; so after all it proved a very profitable investment.

On reaching North Fork of the Beaver and riding down the valley
toward the stream, I suddenly discovered a large, fresh Indian trail.
On examination I found it to be scattered all over the valley on both
sides of the creek, as if a very large village had recently passed
down that way.  Judging from the size of the trail, I thought there
could not be less than four hundred lodges, or between twenty-five
hundred and three thousand warriors, women, and children in the band.
I galloped back to the command, distant about three miles, and
reported the news to General Carr, who halted the regiment, and after
consulting a few minutes, ordered me to select a ravine, or as low
ground as possible, so that we could keep the troops out of sight
until we could strike the creek.

We went into camp on the Beaver, and the general ordered Lieutenant
Ward to take twelve men and myself and follow up the trail for several
miles, and find out how fast the Indians were travelling.  I was soon
convinced, by the many camps they had made, that they were travelling
slowly, and hunting as they journeyed.  We went down the Beaver on
this scout about twelve miles, keeping our horses well concealed under
the banks of the creek, so as not to be discovered.

At this point Lieutenant Ward and myself, leaving our horses behind us,
crawled to the top of a high knoll, where we could have a good view
for some miles down the stream.  We peeped over the summit of the hill,
and, not over three miles away, we could see a whole Indian village in
plain sight, and thousands of ponies grazing around on the prairie.
Looking over to our left on the opposite side of the creek,
we observed two or three parties of Indians coming in, loaded down
with buffalo meat.

“This is no place for us, Lieutenant,” said I; “I think we have
important business at the camp to attend to as soon as possible.”

“I agree with you,” said he; “and the quicker we get there the better
it will be for us.”

We quickly descended the hill and joined the men below.  Lieutenant
Ward quickly wrote a note to General Carr, and handing it to a corporal,
ordered him to make all possible haste back to the command and deliver
the message.  The man started off on a gallop, and Lieutenant Ward
said: “We will march slowly back until we meet the troops, as I think
the general will soon be here, for he will start immediately upon
receiving my note.”

In a few minutes we heard two or three shots in the direction in which
our despatch courier had gone, and soon after we saw him come running
around the bend of the creek, pursued by four or five Indians.
The lieutenant, with his squad of soldiers and myself, at once charged
among them, when they turned and ran across the stream.

“This will not do,” said Lieutenant Ward, “the whole Indian village
will now know that soldiers are near by.”

“Lieutenant, give me that note, and I will take it to the general,”
said I.

He gladly handed me the despatch, and spurring my horse I dashed up
the creek.  After having ridden a short distance, I observed another
party of Indians also going to the village with meat; but instead of
waiting for them to fire on me, I gave them a shot at long range.
Seeing one man firing at them so boldly, it surprised them, and they
did not know what to make of it.  While they were thus considering,
I got between them and our camp.  By this time they had recovered from
their surprise, and cutting their buffalo meat loose from their horses,
they came after me at the top of their speed; but as their steeds were
tired out, it did not take me long to leave them far in the rear.

I reached the command in less than an hour, delivered the despatch to
General Carr, and informed him of what I had seen.  He instantly had
the bugler sound “boots and saddles,” and all the troops—with the
exception of two companies which we left to guard the train—were soon
galloping in the direction of the Indian camp.

We had ridden about three miles when we met Lieutenant Ward, who was
coming slowly toward us.  He reported that he had run into a party of
Indian buffalo-hunters, and had killed one of the number, and had had
one of his horses wounded.  We immediately pushed forward, and after
marching about five miles came within sight of hundreds of mounted
Indians advancing up the creek to meet us.  They formed a complete
line in front of us.  General Carr, being desirous of striking their
village, ordered the troops to charge, break through their line, and
keep straight on.  This movement would, no doubt, have been successfully
accomplished had it not been for the rattle-brained and daredevil
French Lieutenant Schinosky, commanding Company B, who, misunderstanding
General Carr's orders, charged upon some Indians at the left, while
the rest of the command dashed through the enemy's line, and was
keeping straight on, when it was observed that Schinosky and his
company were surrounded by four or five hundred redskins.  The general,
to save the company, was obliged to sound a halt, and charge back to
the rescue.  The company, during this short fight, had several men and
quite a number of horses killed.

All this took up valuable time, and night was coming on.  The Indians
were fighting desperately to keep us from reaching their village,
which, being informed by couriers of what was taking place, was
packing up and getting away.  During that afternoon it was all that
we could do to hold our own in fighting the mounted warriors, who were
in our front, and contesting every inch of the ground.  The general
had left word for our wagon-train to follow up with its escort of two
companies, but as it had not made its appearance he entertained some
fears that it had been surrounded, and to prevent the loss of the
supply-train we had to go back and look for it.  About nine o'clock
that evening we found it, and went into camp for the night.

Early the next day we broke camp and passed down the creek, but there
was not an Indian to be seen.  They had all disappeared and gone with
their village.  Two miles farther we came to where a village had been
located, and here we found nearly everything belonging or pertaining
to an Indian camp, which had been left in the great hurry to get away.
These articles were all gathered up and burned.  We then pushed out
on the trail as fast as possible.  It led us to the northeast toward
the Republican; but as the Indians had a night the start of us we
entertained but little hope of overtaking them that day.  Upon
reaching the Republican in the afternoon the general called a halt,
and as the trail was running more to the east, he concluded to send
his wagon-train on to Fort McPherson by the most direct route, while
he would follow on the trail of the redskins.

Next morning at daylight we again pulled out, and were evidently
gaining rapidly on the Indians, for we could occasionally see them in
the distance.  About eleven o'clock that day, while Major Babcock was
ahead of the main command with his company, and while we were crossing
a deep ravine, we were surprised by about three hundred warriors who
commenced a lively fire upon us.  Galloping out of the ravine on to
the rough prairie the men dismounted and returned the fire.  We soon
succeeded in driving the enemy before us, and were so close upon them
at one time that they abandoned, and threw away nearly all their
lodges and camp equipage, and everything that had any considerable
weight.  They left behind them their played-out horses, and for miles
we could see Indian furniture strewn along in every direction.
The trail became divided, and the Indians scattered in small bodies,
all over the prairie.  As night was approaching, and our horses were
about giving out, a halt was called.  A company was detailed to
collect all the Indian horses running loose over the country, and to
burn the other Indian property.

The command being nearly out of rations I was sent to the nearest
point, old Fort Kearny, about sixty miles distant for supplies.

Shortly after we reached Fort McPherson, which continued to be the
headquarters of the Fifth Cavalry for some time, we fitted out a new
expedition to the Republican River country, and were reënforced by
three companies of the celebrated Pawnee Indian scouts, commanded by
Major Frank North: his officers being Captain Lute North, brother of
the major, Captain Cushing, his brother-in-law, Captain Morse, and
Lieutenants Beecher, Matthews, and Kislandberry.  General Carr
recommended at this time to General Augur, who was in command of the
Department, that I be made chief of scouts in the Department of the
Platte, and informed me that in this position I would receive higher
wages than I had been getting in the Department of the Missouri.
This appointment I had not asked for.

I made the acquaintance of Major Frank North, and I found him and his
officers perfect gentlemen, and we were all good friends from the very
start.  The Pawnee scouts had made quite a reputation for themselves,
as they had performed brave and valuable services in fighting against
the Sioux, whose bitter enemies they were; being thoroughly acquainted
with the Republican and Beaver country, I was glad that they were to
be with the expedition, and my expectation of the aid they would
render was not disappointed.

During our stay at Fort McPherson I made the acquaintance of Lieutenant
George P. Belden, known as “The White Chief.”  I found him to be an
intelligent, dashing fellow, a splendid rider, and an excellent shot.

While we were at this post, General Augur and several of his officers,
and also Thomas Duncan, Brevet Brigadier and Lieutenant-Colonel of the
Fifth Cavalry, paid us a visit for the purpose of reviewing the command.
The regiment turned out in fine style and showed themselves to be
well-drilled soldiers, thoroughly understanding military tactics.
The Pawnee scouts were also reviewed and it was very amusing to see
them in their full regulation uniform.  They had been furnished a
regular cavalry uniform and on this parade some of them had their
heavy overcoats on, others their large black hats, with all the brass
accoutrements attached; some of them were minus pantaloons and only
wore a breech-clout.  Others wore regulation pantaloons but no shirts,
and were bareheaded; others again had the seat of their pantaloons
cut out, leaving only leggings; some of them wore brass spurs, though
without boots or moccasins; but for all this they seemed to understand
the drill remarkably well for Indians.  The commands, of course, were
given to them in their own language by Major North, who could talk it
as well as any full-blooded Pawnee.  The Indians were well mounted and
felt proud and elated because they had been made United States soldiers.
Major North had for years complete power over these Indians and could
do more with them than any man living.  That evening after the parade
was over the officers and quite a number of ladies visited a grand
Indian dance given by the Pawnees, and of all the Indians I have ever
seen, their dances excel those of any other tribe.

Next day the command started; when encamped, several days after,
on the Republican River near the mouth of the Beaver, we heard the
whoops of the Indians, followed by shots in the vicinity of the mule
herd, which had been taken down to water.  One of the herders came
dashing into camp with an arrow sticking into him.  My horse was close
at hand, and, mounting him bareback, I at once dashed off after the
mule herd, which had been stampeded.  I supposed that certainly
I would be the first man on the ground, but I was mistaken, however,
for the Pawnee Indians, unlike regular soldiers, had not waited to
receive orders from their officers, but had jumped on their ponies
without bridles or saddles, and placing ropes in their mouths, had
dashed off in the direction whence the shots had come, and had got
there ahead of me.  It proved to be a party of about fifty Sioux,
who had endeavoured to stampede our mules, and it took them by surprise
to see their inveterate enemies—the Pawnees—coming at full gallop
toward them.  They were not aware that the Pawnees were with the
command, and as they knew that it would take regular soldiers some
time to turn out, they thought they would have ample opportunity to
secure the herd before the troops could give chase.

We had a running fight of fifteen miles and several of the enemy were
killed.  During this chase I was mounted on an excellent horse, which
Colonel Royall had picked out for me, and for the first mile or two
I was in advance of the Pawnees.  Presently a Pawnee shot by me like
an arrow and I could not help admiring the horse he was riding.
Seeing that he possessed rare running qualities, I determined to get
possession of the animal in some way.  It was a large buckskin or
yellow horse, and I took a careful view of him so that I would know
him when I returned to camp.  After the chase was over I rode up to
Major North and inquired about the buckskin horse.

“Oh, yes,” said the major, “that is one of our favourite steeds.”

“What chance is there to trade for him?” I asked.

“It is a government horse,” said he, “and the Indian who is riding him
is very much attached to him.”

“I have fallen in love with the horse myself,” said I, “and I would
like to know if you have any objections to my trading for him if I can
arrange it satisfactorily with the Indian?”

He replied: “None whatever, and I will help you to do it; you can give
the Indian another horse in his place.”

A few days after this, I persuaded the Indian, by making him several
presents, to trade horses with me, and in this way I became the owner
of the buckskin steed, not as my own property, however, but as a
government horse that I could ride.  I gave him the name of “Buckskin
Joe,” and he proved to be a good second Brigham.  That horse I rode
off and on during the summers of 1869, '70, '71, and '72, and he was
the horse that the Grand Duke Alexis rode on his buffalo-hunt.

The command scouted several days up the Beaver and Prairie Dog rivers,
occasionally having running fights with war-parties of Indians, but
did not succeed in getting them into a general battle.  At the end of
twenty days we found ourselves back on the Republican.

Hitherto the Pawnees had not taken much interest in me, but while at
this camp I gained their respect and admiration by showing them how
I killed buffaloes.  I had gone out in company with Major North and
some of the officers, and saw them make a “surround.”  Twenty of the
Pawnees circled a herd and succeeded in killing only thirty-two.

While they were cutting up the animals another herd appeared in sight.
The Indians were preparing to surround it, when I asked Major North
to keep them back and let me show them what I could do.  He accordingly
informed the Indians of my wish, and they readily consented to let me
have the opportunity.  I had learned that Buckskin Joe was an excellent
buffalo horse, and felt confident that I would astonish the natives;
galloping in among the buffaloes, I certainly did so, by killing
thirty-six in less than a half-mile run.  At nearly every shot I killed
a buffalo, stringing the animals out on the prairie, not over fifty
feet apart.  This manner of killing was greatly admired by the Indians,
who called me a big chief, and from that time on I stood high in their
estimation.

On leaving camp, the command took a westward course up the Republican,
and Major North with two companies of his Pawnees and two or three
companies of cavalry, under the command of Colonel Royall, made a
scout to the north of the river.  Shortly after we had gone into camp,
on the Black Tail Deer Fork, we observed a band of Indians coming over
the prairie at full gallop, singing and yelling and waving their
lances and long poles.  At first we supposed them to be Sioux, and all
was excitement for a few moments.  We noticed, however, that our
Pawnee Indians made no hostile demonstrations or preparations toward
going out to fight them, but began swinging and yelling themselves.
Captain Lute North stepped up to General Carr and said:—

“General, those are our men who are coming, and they have had a fight.
That is the way they act when they come back from a battle and have
taken any scalps.”

The Pawnees came into camp on the run.  Captain North calling to one
of them—a sergeant—soon found out that they had run across a party
of Sioux who were following a large Indian trail.  These Indians had
evidently been in a fight, for two or three of them had been wounded,
and they were conveying the injured persons on travois.[65]
The Pawnees had “jumped” them and killed three or four after a sharp
fight, in which much ammunition was expended.

Next morning the command, at an early hour, started out to take up
this Indian trail which they followed for two days as rapidly as
possible, it becoming evident from the many camp-fires which we passed
that we were gaining on the Indians.  Wherever they had encamped
we found the print of a woman's shoe, and we concluded that they had
with them some white captive.  This made us all the more anxious to
overtake them, and General Carr accordingly selected all his best
horses, which could stand a hard run, and gave orders for the
wagon-train to follow as fast as possible, while he pushed ahead on a
forced march.  At the same time I was ordered to pick out five or six
of the best Pawnees, and go on in advance of the command, keeping ten
or twelve miles ahead on the trail, so that when we overtook the
Indians we could find out the location of their camp, and send word to
the troops before they came in sight, thus affording ample time to
arrange a plan for the capture of the village.

After having gone about ten miles in advance of the regiment, we began
to move very cautiously, as we were now evidently nearing the Indians.
We looked carefully over the summits of the hills before exposing
ourselves to plain view, and at last we discovered the village encamped
in the sand-hills south of the South Platte River at Summit Springs.
Here I left the Pawnee scouts to keep watch while I went back and
informed General Carr that the Indians were in sight.

The general at once ordered his men to tighten their saddles and
otherwise prepare for action.  Soon all was excitement among the
officers and soldiers, every one being anxious to charge the village.
I now changed my horse for old Buckskin Joe, who had been led for me
thus far, and was comparatively fresh.  Acting on my suggestion,
the general made a circuit to the north, believing that if the Indians
had their scouts out, they would naturally be watching in the
direction whence they had come.  When we had passed the Indians and
were between them and the Platte River, we turned toward the left and
started for the village.

As we halted on the top of the hill overlooking the camp of the
unsuspecting Indians, General Carr called out to his bugler: “Sound
the charge!”  The bugler for a moment became intensely excited, and
actually forgot the notes.  The general again sang out: “Sound the
charge!” and yet the bugler was unable to obey the command.
Quartermaster Hays, who had obtained permission to accompany the
expedition, was riding near the general, and comprehending the dilemma
of the man, rushed up to him, jerked the bugle from his hands, and
sounded the charge himself in clear and distinct notes.  As the troops
rushed forward, he threw the bugle away, then, drawing his pistols,
was among the first men that entered the village.

The Indians had just driven up their horses and were preparing to make
a move of the camp, when they saw the soldiers coming down upon them.
A great many of them succeeded in jumping upon their ponies, and
leaving everything behind them, advanced out of the village and
prepared to meet the charge; but upon second thought they quickly
concluded that it was useless to try to check us, and those who were
mounted rapidly rode away, while the others on foot fled for safety to
the neighbouring hills.  We went through their village, shooting right
and left at everything we saw.  The Pawnees, the regular soldiers, and
officers were all mixed up together, and the Sioux were flying in
every direction.

The pursuit continued until darkness made it impossible to longer
follow the Indians, who had scattered and were heading off in every
direction like a brood of young quails.

It was nearly sunrise when “boots and saddles” was sounded, breakfast
having been disposed of at the first streak of dawn.  The command
started in a most seasonable time, but finding that the trail was all
broken up, it was deemed advisable to separate into companies, each
to follow a different one.

The company which I headed struck out toward the northwest over a
route indicating the march of about one hundred Indians, and we
followed this for nearly two days.  At a short bend of the Platte a
new trail was discovered leading into the one the company was following,
and at this point it was evident that a junction had been made.
Farther along, evidences of a reunion of the entire village increased,
and now it began to appear that farther pursuit would be somewhat
hazardous, owing to the greater force of the Indians.  But there were
plenty of brave men in the company, and nearly all were anxious to
meet the Indians, however great their numbers might be.  This anxiety
was appeased on the third day, when a party of about six hundred Sioux
was discovered riding in close ranks near the Platte.  The discovery
was mutual, and there was immediate preparation for battle on both
sides.  Owing to the overwhelming force of the Indians, extreme caution
became necessary, and instead of advancing boldly, the soldiers sought
advantageous ground.  Seeing this, the Indians became convinced that
there had been a division of General Carr's command, and that the
company before them was a fragmentary part of the expedition; they
therefore assumed the aggressive, charging us until we were compelled
to retire to a ravine and act on the defensive.  The attack was made
with such caution that the soldiers fell back without undue haste, and
had ample opportunity to secure their horses in the natural pit, which
was a ravine that during wet seasons formed a branch of the Platte.

After circling about the soldiers with the view of measuring their
full strength, the Indians, comprehending how small was the number,
made a desperate charge from two sides, getting so near us that
several of the soldiers were badly wounded by arrows.  But the Indians
were received with such a withering fire that they fell back in
confusion, leaving twenty of their warriors on the ground.  Another
charge resulted like the first, with heavy loss to the redskins, which
so discouraged them that they drew off and held a protracted council.
After discussing the situation among themselves for more than an hour
they separated, one body making off as though they intended to leave,
but I understood too well to allow the soldiers to be deceived.

The Indians who remained again began to ride in a circle around us,
but maintained a safe distance, out of rifle range.  Seeing an
especially well-mounted Indian riding at the head of a squad, passing
around in the same circle more than a dozen times, I decided to take
my chances for dismounting the chief—as he proved to be—and to
accomplish this purpose I crawled on my hands and knees three hundred
yards up the ravine, stopping at a point which I considered would be
in range of the Indian when he should again make the circuit.
My judgment proved correct, for soon the Indian was seen loping his
pony through the grass, and as he slackened speed to cross the ravine,
I rose up and fired, the aim being so well taken that the chief
tumbled to the ground, while his horse, after running a few hundred
yards, approached the soldiers, one of whom ran out and caught hold
of the long lariat attached to the bridle, and thus secured the animal.
When I returned to the company, all of whom had witnessed my feat of
killing an Indian at a range of fully four hundred yards, by general
consent the horse of the victim was given to me.

This Indian whom I killed proved to be Tall Bull, one of the most able
chiefs the Sioux ever had; and his death so affected the Indians that
they at once retreated without further attempt to dislodge us.

Some days after this occurrence General Carr's command was brought
together again, and had an engagement with the Sioux, in which more
than three hundred warriors and a large number of ponies were captured,
together with several hundred squaws, among the latter being Tall
Bull's widow, who told with pathetic interest how the Prairie Chief[66]
had killed her husband.




CHAPTER XVII.
MASSACRE OF CUSTER'S COMMAND.



I remained at Fort Sedgwick during the winter, and early the following
spring I returned to Fort McPherson, under orders to report to
Major-General Emory of the Fifth Cavalry, who had been appointed
commander of the District of the Republican, with headquarters at that
post.  As the command had been almost continuously in the field,
it was generally thought that we were to have a long rest.  During
the fall of 1869 there were two or three scouting expeditions sent out,
but nothing of very great importance was accomplished by them.
There was plenty of game in the vicinity, and within a day's ride
there were large herds of deer, antelope, and elk, which I spent a
great deal of time in hunting.

Early one morning in the spring of 1870 the Indians, who had approached
the post during the night, stole twenty-one head of horses from a
government contractor.  They also ran off some of the government
animals, and among the number my pony, Powder Face.  Company I of the
Fifth Cavalry was immediately ordered out after the savages, and I was
directed to accompany them as trailer.  We discovered their tracks
after some difficulty, as the Indians were constantly trying to hide
them, and we followed them sixty miles, when darkness set in.

We were within about four miles of Red Willow Creek, and I felt
confident the Indians would camp that night in the vicinity.  Advising
the commanding officer to halt his company and “lay low,” I proceeded
on to the creek, where, moving around cautiously, I suddenly discovered
horses feeding in a bend of the stream on the opposite side.  I hurried
back to the troops with the information, and Lieutenant Thomas moved
his company to the bank of the creek, with the intention of remaining
there until daylight, and then, if possible, surprise the Indians.

Just at break of day we mounted our horses, and after riding a short
distance we ascended a slight elevation, when, not over one hundred
yards distant, we looked down into the Indian camp.  The Indians,
preparing to make an early start, had driven up their horses and were
in the act of mounting, when they saw us charging down upon them.
In a moment they sprang upon their ponies and dashed away.  Had it not
been for the creek, which lay between us and them, we would have got
them before they could have mounted their horses; but as it was rather
miry, we were unexpectedly delayed.  The Indians fired some shots at
us while we were crossing, but as soon as we got over we went for them
in hot pursuit.  A few of the redskins, not having time to mount,
had started on foot toward the brush.  One of these was killed.

A number of our soldiers, who had been detailed before the charge to
gather up any of the Indian horses that might be stampeded, succeeded
in capturing thirty-two.  I hurriedly looked over them to see if
Powder Face was there, but he was not.  Starting in pursuit of the
fugitives I finally espied an Indian mounted on my favourite, dashing
away and leading all the others.  We continued the chase for two or
three miles, overtaking a couple of Indians who were mounted on
one horse.  Coming up behind them I fired my rifle, when they were
about thirty feet away; the ball passed through the backs of both,
and they fell head-long to the ground; but I made no stop, however,
just then, for I had my eye on the savage who was riding Powder Face.
It seemed to be fun for him to run away from us, and run away he did,
for the last I saw of him he was going over a divide about three miles
away.  I bade him adieu.  On my way back to the Indian camp I stopped
and secured the war-bonnets and accoutrements of the pair I had killed,
and at the same time gently raised their hair.

We were feeling rather tired and hungry as we had started out on the
trail thirty-six hours before without breakfast and taking no rations
with us; but there was no murmur of complaint.  In the abandoned camp,
however, we had sufficient dried buffalo meat to give us all a meal,
and, after remaining there for two hours to rest our animals, we
commenced our return trip to Fort McPherson, where we arrived at night,
having travelled one hundred and thirty miles in two days.

This being the first fight Lieutenant Thomas had ever commanded in,
he felt highly elated over his success, and hoped that his name would
be mentioned in the special orders for gallantry; sure enough, when we
returned both he, myself, and the whole command received complimentary
mention in a special order.  This he certainly deserved, for he was a
brave, energetic, dashing little officer.  The war-bonnets which I had
captured I turned over to General Carr, with the request that he
present them to General Augur, whose daughters were visiting at the
post at the time.

Shortly after this another expedition was organized at Fort McPherson
for the Republican River country.  It was commanded by General Duncan,
who was a jolly, blustering old fellow, and the officers who knew him
well said that we would have a good time, as he was very fond of
hunting.  He was a good fighter, and one of the officers said that an
Indian bullet never could hurt him, as he had been shot in the head
with a cannon-ball which had not injured him in the least, but had
glanced off and killed one of the toughest mules in the army.

The Pawnee scouts, who had been mustered out of service during the
winter of 1869-1870, we reorganized to accompany this expedition.
I was glad of this, as I had become quite attached to one of the
officers, Major North, and to many of the Indians.  The only white
scout we had at the post, besides myself, at that time, was John Y.
Nelson, whose Indian name was Sha-Cha-Cha-Opoyeo,[67] which interpreted
means Red Willow fill the Pipe.  This man is a character in his way;
he has a Sioux squaw for a wife, and consequently a half-breed family.

We started out from the post with the regimental band playing the
lively air of “The Girl I left behind Me.”  We made but a short march
that day, and camped at night at the head of Fox Creek.  Next morning
General Duncan sent me word by his orderly that I was to bring up my
gun and shoot at a mark with him; but I can assure the reader that I
did not feel much like shooting anything except myself, for on the
previous night I had returned to Fort McPherson and spent several
hours in interviewing the sutler's store in company with Major Brown.
I looked around for my gun, and found that I had left it behind.
The last that I could remember about it was that I had it at the
sutler's store.  I informed Major Brown of my loss, who said that I
was a nice scout to start out without a gun.  I replied that that was
not the worst of it, as General Duncan had sent for me to shoot a
match with him, and I did not know what to do; for if the old gentleman
discovered my predicament, he would very likely severely reprimand me.

“Well, Cody,” said he, “the best you can do is to make some excuse,
and then go and borrow a gun from some of the men, and tell the
general you lent yours to some man to go hunting with to-day.  While
we are waiting here, I will send back to the post and get your rifle
for you.”  I succeeded in obtaining a gun from John Nelson, and then,
marching up to the general's headquarters, I shot the desired match,
which resulted in his favour.

This was the first scout the Pawnees had been on under the command of
General Duncan, and in stationing his guards around the camp, he posted
them in a manner entirely different from General Carr and Colonel
Royall, as he insisted that the different posts should call out the
hour of the night thus:—

“Post No. 1, nine o'clock, all is well!” etc.

The Pawnees, who had their regular turns at standing upon guard, were
ordered to call the hour the same as the white soldiers.  This was
very difficult for them to do, as there were but few of them who could
express themselves in English.  Major North explained to them that
when the man on post next to them should call out the hour, they must
call it also, copying him as nearly as possible.  It was very amusing
to hear them do this.  They would try to remember what the other man
had said on the post next to them.  For instance, a white soldier
would call out, “Post No. 1, half-past nine o'clock, all is well!”
The Indian standing next to him knew that he was bound to say something
in English, and he would sing out something like the following:—

“Poss number half-pass five cents—go to ——!  I don't care!”
This system was really so ridiculous and amusing that the general had
to give it up, and the order was accordingly countermanded.

Nothing of any great interest occurred on this march, until one day,
while proceeding up Prairie Dog Creek, Major North and myself went out
in advance of the command several miles and killed a number of
buffaloes.  Night was approaching, and I began to look around for a
suitable camping-ground for the command.  Major North dismounted from
his horse and was resting, while I rode down the stream to see if
there was plenty of grass in the vicinity.  I found an excellent
camping-spot, and, returning to Major North, told him that I would ride
over the hill a little way, so that the advance guard could see me.
This I did; and when the advance came in sight, I dismounted and lay
down upon the grass to rest.

Suddenly I heard three or four shots, and in a few moments Major North
came dashing up toward me, pursued by eight or ten Indians.
I instantly sprang into my saddle, and fired a few shots at the
Indians, who by this time had all come in sight, to the number of
fifty.  We turned our horses and ran, the bullets flying after us
thick and fast, my whip being shot from my hand and daylight being put
through the crown of my hat.  We were in close quarters, when suddenly
Lieutenant Volkmar came galloping up to our relief with several
soldiers; and the Indians, seeing them, whirled and retreated.
As soon as Major North got in sight of his Pawnees he began riding in
a circle.  This was a sign to them that there were hostile Indians in
front; and in a moment the Pawnees broke ranks pell-mell, and, with
Major North at their head, started for the flying warriors.  The rest
of the command pushed forward, also, and chased the enemy for three or
four miles, killing three of them.

But this was a wrong move on our part, as their village was on Prairie
Dog Creek, while they led us in a different direction; one Indian only
kept straight on up the creek—a messenger to the village.  Some of
the command, who had followed him, stirred up the village and
accelerated its departure.  We finally got back to the main force, and
then learned that we had made a great mistake.  Now commenced another
stern chase.

The second day that we had been following these Indians we came upon
an old squaw, whom they had left on the prairie to die.  Her people
had built for her a little shade or lodge, and had given her some
provisions, sufficient to last her on her trip to the happy
hunting-grounds.  This the Indians often do when pursued by an enemy
and one of their number becomes too old to travel any longer.
This squaw was recognized by John Nelson, who said she was a relative
of his wife.  From her we learned that the flying Indians were known
as Pawnee-Killer's band, and that they had lately killed Buck's
surveying party, consisting of eight or nine men, the massacre having
occurred a few days before on Beaver Creek.  We knew that they had
had a fight with the surveyors, as we found quite a number of
surveying instruments, which had been left in the abandoned camp.
We drove these Indians across the Platte River and then returned to
Fort McPherson, bringing the old squaw with us; from there she was
sent to the Spotted Tail agency.

Fort McPherson was in the centre of a fine game country, in which
buffalo were particularly plentiful, and though fairly surrounded by
hostile Indians, it offered so many attractions for sportsmen that
several hunting-parties braved the dangers for the pleasures of
buffalo-chasing.  In September, 1871, General Sheridan brought a
number of friends out to the post for a grand hunt, coming by way of
North Platte in a special car, and thence by government wagons to
the fort, which was only eighteen miles from that station.

Soon after the departure of General Sheridan's party, General Carr
started out on a twenty days' scout, not so much for the purpose of
fighting Indians, but more for the object of taking some friends on
a hunt.  His guests were a couple of Englishmen—whose names I cannot
now remember—and Mr. McCarthy of New York, who was a relative of
General Emory.  The command consisted of three companies of the Fifth
Cavalry, one company of Pawnee Indians, and twenty-five wagons.
Of course I was called on to accompany the expedition.

One day, after we had been out from the post for some little time,
I was hunting on Deer Creek, in company with Mr. McCarthy, about
eight miles from the command.  I had been wishing for several days
to play a joke on him, and had arranged a plan with Captain Lute North
to carry it into execution.  I had informed North at about what time
we would be on Deer Creek, and it was agreed that he should appear
in the vicinity with some of his Pawnees, who were to throw their
blankets around them, and come dashing down upon us, firing and
whooping in true Indian style, while he was either to conceal or
disguise himself.  This programme was faithfully and completely
carried out.  I had been talking about Indians to McCarthy, and he
had become considerably excited, when just as we turned a bend of
the creek, we saw not half a mile from us about twenty Indians, who
instantly started for us on a gallop, firing their guns and yelling
at the top of their voices.

“McCarthy, shall we dismount and fight, or run?” said I.

He didn't wait to reply, but, wheeling his horse, started at full
speed down the creek, losing his hat and dropping his gun; away he
went, never once looking back to see if he was being pursued.  I tried
to stop him by yelling at him and saying that it was all right, as the
Indians were Pawnees.  Unfortunately he did not hear me, but kept
straight on, not stopping his horse until he reached the camp.

I knew that he would tell General Carr that the Indians had jumped him,
and that the general would soon start out with the troops.  So as soon
as the Pawnees rode up to me I told them to remain there while I went
after my friend.  I rode after him as fast as possible, but he had
arrived at the command some time before me; and when I got there the
general had, as I had suspected he would do, ordered out two companies
of cavalry to go in pursuit of the Indians.  I told the general that
the Indians were only some Pawnees, who had been out hunting and that
they had merely played a joke upon us.  I forgot to inform him that
I had put up the trick, but as he was always fond of a good joke
himself, he did not get very angry.  I had picked up McCarthy's hat
and gun, which I returned to him, and it was some time before he
discovered who was at the bottom of the affair.

A short time after this, the Fifth Cavalry was ordered to Arizona,
a not very desirable country to soldier in.  I had become greatly
attached to the officers of the regiment, having been with them
continually for over three years, and had about made up my mind to
accompany them, when a letter was received from General Sheridan
instructing the commanding officer “not to take Cody with him,” and
saying that I was to remain in my old position.  In a few days the
command left for its destination, taking the cars at McPherson Station,
where I bade my old friends adieu.  During the next few weeks I had
but little to do, as the post was garrisoned by infantry, awaiting the
arrival of the Third Cavalry, commanded by General Reynolds.  They had
been on duty for some time in Arizona, where they had acquired quite
a reputation on account of their Indian fighting qualities.  Shortly
after their arrival a small party of Indians made a dash on McPherson
Station, about five miles from the fort, killing two or three men and
running off quite a large number of horses.  Captain Meinhold and
Lieutenant Lawson with their company were ordered out to pursue and
punish the Indians if possible.  I was the guide of the expedition,
and had an assistant, T. B. Omohundro, better known as “Texas Jack,”
and who was a scout at the post.

Finding the trail I followed it for two days, although it was difficult
trailing because the redskins had taken every possible precaution to
conceal their tracks.  On the second day Captain Meinhold went into
camp on the South Fork of the Loupe, at a point where the trail was
badly scattered.  Six men were detailed to accompany me on a scout
in search of the camp of fugitives.  We had gone but a short distance
when we discovered Indians camped, not more than a mile away, with
horses grazing near by.  They were only a small party, and I
determined to charge upon them with my six men, rather than return
to the command, because I feared they would see us as we went back,
and then they would get away from us entirely.  I asked the men if
they were willing to attempt it, and they replied that they would
follow me wherever I would lead them.  That was the kind of spirit
that pleased me; and we immediately moved forward on the enemy,
getting as close to them as possible without being seen.

I finally gave the signal to charge, and we dashed into the little
camp with a yell.  Five Indians sprang out of a willow teepee, and
greeted us with a volley, and we returned the fire.  I was riding
Buckskin Joe, who with a few jumps brought me up to the teepee,
followed by my men.  We nearly ran over the Indians, who were
endeavouring to reach their horses on the opposite side of the creek.
Just as one was jumping the narrow stream a bullet from my old
“Lucretia” overtook him.  He never reached the other bank, but dropped
dead in the water.  Those of the Indians who were guarding the horses,
seeing what was going on at the camp, came rushing to the rescue of
their friends.  I now counted thirteen braves, but as we had already
disposed of two, we had only eleven to take care of.  The odds were
nearly two to one against us.

While the Indian reënforcements were approaching the camp I jumped
the creek with Buckskin Joe, to meet them, expecting our party would
follow me; but as they could not induce their horses to make the leap,
I was the only one who got over.  I ordered the sergeant to dismount
his men, leaving one to hold the horses, and come over with the rest
and help me drive the Indians off.  Before they could do this,
two mounted warriors closed in on me and were shooting at short range.
I returned their fire and had the satisfaction of seeing one of them
fall from his horse.  At this moment I felt blood trickling down my
forehead, and hastily running my hand through my hair I discovered
that I had received a scalp-wound.  The Indian who had shot me was not
more than ten yards away, and when he saw his partner tumble from his
saddle he turned to run.

By this time the soldiers had crossed the creek to assist me, and were
blazing away at the other Indians.  Urging Buckskin Joe forward, I was
soon alongside of the chap who had wounded me, when, raising myself in
the stirrups, I shot him through the head.

The reports of our guns had been heard by Captain Meinhold, who at
once started with his company up the creek to our aid, and when the
remaining Indians, whom we were still fighting, saw these
reënforcements coming, they whirled their horses and fled; as their
steeds were quite fresh they made their escape.  However, we killed
six out of the thirteen Indians, and captured most of their stolen
stock.  Our loss was one man killed, and another—myself—slightly
wounded.  One of our horses was killed, and Buckskin Joe was wounded,
but I didn't discover the fact until some time afterward, as he had
been shot in the breast and showed no signs of having received a
scratch of any kind.  Securing the scalps of the dead Indians and
other trophies we returned to the fort.

I made several other scouts during the summer with different officers
of the Third Cavalry, one being with Major Aleck Moore, a good officer,
with whom I was out for thirty days.  Another long one was with Major
Curtis, with whom I followed some Indians from the South Platte River
to Fort Randall on the Missouri River, in Dakota, on which trip the
command ran out of rations and for fifteen days subsisted entirely
upon the game we killed.

In 1876 the great Sioux war was inaugurated.  Colonel Mills had
written me several letters saying that General Crook was anxious for
me to accompany his command, and I promised to do so, intending to
overtake him in the Powder River country.  But when I arrived at
Chicago, on my way West, I learned that my old regiment, the gallant
Fifth Cavalry, was on its way back from Arizona to join General Crook,
and that my old commander, General Carr, was in command.  He had
written to military headquarters at Chicago to learn my whereabouts,
as he wished to secure me as his guide and chief of scouts.  I then
gave up the idea of overtaking General Crook, and hastened on to
Cheyenne, where the Fifth Cavalry had already arrived.  I was met at
the depot by Lieutenant King, adjutant of the regiment, who had been
sent down from Fort D. A. Russell for that purpose by General Carr,
who had learned by a telegram from military headquarters at Chicago
that I was on the way.  I accompanied the lieutenant on horseback to
the camp, and as we rode, one of the boys shouted, “Here's Buffalo
Bill!”  Soon after there came three hearty cheers from the regiment.
Officers and men were all glad to see me, and I was equally delighted
to meet them once more.  The general at once appointed me his guide
and chief of scouts.

The next morning the command pulled out for Fort Laramie, and on
reaching the post we found General Sheridan there, accompanied by
General Frye and General Forsythe, en route to Red Cloud agency.
As the command was to remain here a few days, I accompanied General
Sheridan to Red Cloud and back, taking a company of cavalry as escort.

The Indians having committed a great many depredations on the Union
Pacific Railroad, destroying telegraph lines, and also on the Black
Hills road, running off stock, the Fifth Cavalry was sent out to scout
the country between the Indian agencies and the hills.  The command
operated on the South Fork of the Cheyenne and at the foot of the
Black Hills for about two weeks, having several engagements with
roving bands of Indians during the time.  General Wesley Merritt—who
had at that time but lately received his promotion to the colonelcy of
the Fifth Cavalry—now came out and took control of the regiment.
I was sorry that the command was taken from General Carr, because
under him it had made its fighting reputation.  However, upon becoming
acquainted with General Merritt, I found him to be an excellent officer.

The regiment, by continued scouting, soon drove the Indians out of
that section of the country, as we supposed, and we had started on our
way back to Fort Laramie, when a scout arrived at the camp, and
reported the massacre of General Custer and his band of heroes on the
Little Big Horn, on the 25th of June, 1876.  He also brought orders to
General Merritt to proceed at once to Fort Fetterman and join General
Crook in the Big Horn country.

The extraordinary and sorrowful interest attaching to the destruction
of Custer and his brave followers prompts me to give a brief
description of the causes leading thereto, and some of the details of
that horrible sacrifice which so melts the heart to pity.

When the Black Hills gold fever first broke out in 1874, a rush of
miners into that country resulted in much trouble, as the Indians
always regarded the region with jealous interest, and resisted all
encroachments of white men.  Instead of the government adhering to the
treaty of 1868 and restraining white men from going into the Hills,
General Custer was sent out, in 1874, to intimidate the Sioux.
The unrighteous spirit of this order the general wisely disregarded,
but proceeded to Prospect Valley, and from there he pushed into the
Valley of the Little Missouri.  Custer expected to find good grazing
ground in this valley, suitable for a camp which he intended to pitch
there for several days, and reconnoitre.  The country, however, was
comparatively barren, and the march was therefore continued to the
Belle Fourche Valley, where excellent grazing, water, and plenty of
wood was found.

Crossing the Fourche the regiment was now among the outlying ranges
of the Hills, where a camp was made and some reconnoitring done; but,
finding no Indians, General Custer continued his march, skirting the
Black Hills and passing through a country which he described as
beautiful beyond description, abounding with a most luxurious
vegetation, cool crystal streams, a profusion of bright,
sweet-smelling flowers, and plenty of game.

Proceeding down this lovely valley, which he appropriately named
Floral Park, an Indian camp-fire, recently abandoned, was discovered,
and fearing a collision unless pains were taken to prevent it, Custer
halted and sent out his chief scout, Bloody Knife, with twenty
friendly Indian allies, to trail the departed Sioux.  They had gone
but a short distance when, as Custer himself relates,
        Two of Bloody Knife's young men came galloping back and
        informed me that they had discovered five Indian lodges a few
        miles down the valley, and that Bloody Knife, as directed,
        had concealed his party in a wooded ravine, where they awaited
        further orders.  Taking Company E with me, which was afterward
        reënforced by the remainder of the scouts and Colonel Hart's
        company, I proceeded to the ravine where Bloody Knife and his
        party lay concealed, and from the crest beyond obtained a full
        view of the five Indian lodges, about which a considerable
        number of ponies were grazing.  I was enabled to place my
        command still nearer to the lodges undiscovered.  I then
        despatched Agard, the interpreter, with a flag of truce,
        accompanied by ten of our Sioux scouts, to acquaint the
        occupants of the lodges that we were friendly disposed and
        desired to communicate with them.  To prevent either treachery
        or flight on their part, I galloped the remaining portion of
        my advance and surrounded the lodges.  This was accomplished
        almost before they were aware of our presence.  I then entered
        the little village and shook hands with its occupants,
        assuring them through the interpreter that they had no cause
        to fear, as we were not there to molest them, etc.

Finding there was no disposition on the part of General Custer to harm
them, the Indians despatched a courier to their principal village,
requesting the warriors to be present at a council with the whites.
This council was held on the following day, but though Custer dispensed
coffee, sugar, bacon, and other presents to the Indians, his advice to
them regarding the occupation of their country by miners was treated
with indifference, for which, he observes in his official report,
“I cannot blame the poor savages.”

During the summer of 1875 General Crook made several trips into the
Black Hills to drive out the miners and maintain the government's
faith, but while he made many arrests there was no punishment, and
the whole proceeding became farcical.  In August of the same year
Custer City was laid out, and two weeks later it contained a population
of six hundred souls.  These General Crook drove out, but as he marched
from the place others swarmed in and the population was immediately
renewed.

It was this inability, or real indisposition, of the government to
enforce the terms of the treaty of 1868, that led to the bitter war
with Sitting Bull, and which terminated so disastrously on the 25th
of June, 1876.

It is a notorious fact that the Sioux Indians, for four years
immediately preceding the Custer massacre, were regularly supplied
with the most improved fire-arms and ammunition by the agencies at
Brûlé, Grand River, Standing Rock, Port Berthold, Cheyenne, and Fort
Peck.  Even during the campaign of 1876, in the months of May, June,
and July, just before and after Custer and his band of heroes rode
down into the valley of death, these fighting Indians received eleven
hundred and twenty Remington and Winchester rifles and four hundred
and thirteen thousand rounds of patent ammunition, besides large
quantities of loose powder, lead, and primers, while during the summer
of 1875 they received several thousand stands of arms and more than
a million rounds of ammunition.  With this generous provision there is
no cause for wonder that the Sioux were able to resist the government
and attract to their aid all the dissatisfied Cheyennes and other
Indians in the Northwest.

Besides a perfect fighting equipment, all the Indians recognized in
Sitting Bull the elements of a great warrior, one whose superior,
perhaps, has never been known among the tribe; he combined all the
strategic cunning of Tecumseh with the cruel, uncompromising hatred
of Black Kettle, while his leadership was far superior to both.
Having decided to precipitate a terrible war, he chose his position
with consummate judgment, selecting a central vantage point surrounded
by what is known as the “Bad Lands,” and then kept his supply source
open by an assumed friendship with the Canadian French.  This he was
the better able to accomplish, since some years before he had
professed conversion to Christianity under the preaching of Father
Desmet and maintained a show of friendship for the Canadians.

War against the Sioux having been brought about by the combined Black
Hill outrages and Sitting Bull's threatening attitude, it was decided
to send out three separate expeditions, one of which should move from
the north, under General Terry, from Fort Lincoln; another from the
east, under General Gibbon, from Fort Ellis, and another from the
south, under General Crook, from Fort Fetterman; these movements were
to be simultaneous, and a junction was expected to be formed near the
headwaters of the Yellowstone River.

For some cause, which I will refrain from discussing, the commands did
not start at the same time.  General Crook did not leave Fetterman
until March 1, with seven hundred men and forty days' supply.
The command was entrusted to Colonel Reynolds of the Third Cavalry,
accompanied by General Crook, the department commander.  Nothing was
heard from this expedition until the 22d following, when General Crook
forwarded from Fort Reno a brief account of his battle on Powder River.
The result of this fight, which lasted five hours, was the destruction
of Crazy Horse's village of one hundred and five lodges; or that is
the way the despatch read, though many assert that the battle resulted
in little else than a series of remarkable blunders which suffered the
Indians to make good their escape, losing only a small quantity of
their property.

One serious trouble rose out of the Powder River fight, which was
found in an assertion made by General Crook, or at least attributed
to him, that his expedition had proved that instead of being fifteen
or twenty thousand hostile Indians in the Black Hills and Big Horn
country, the total number would not exceed two thousand.  It was upon
this estimation that the expeditions were prepared.

The Terry column, which was commanded by General Custer, consisted
of twelve companies of the Seventh Cavalry, and three companies of
the Sixth and Seventeenth Infantry, with four Gatling guns, and
a detachment of Indian scouts.  This force comprised twenty-eight
officers and seven hundred and forty-seven men of the Seventh Cavalry,
eight officers and one hundred and thirty-five men of the Sixth and
Seventeenth Infantry, two officers and thirty-two men in charge of
the Gatling battery, and forty-five enlisted Indian scouts, a grand
total of thirty-eight officers and nine hundred and fifty-nine men,
including scouts.

The combined forces of Crook, Gibbon, Terry, and Custer did not exceed
twenty-seven hundred men, while opposed to them were fully seventeen
thousand Indians, all of whom were provided with the latest and most
improved patterns of repeating rifles.

On the 16th of June General Crook started for the Rosebud, on which
stream it was reported that Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse were
stationed; about the same time a party of Crow Indians who were
operating with General Crook returned from a scout and reported that
General Gibbon, who was on Tongue River, had been attacked by Sitting
Bull, who had captured several horses.  Crook pushed on rapidly toward
the Rosebud, leaving his train behind and mounting his infantry on
mules.  What were deemed accurate reports stated that Sitting Bull was
still on the Rosebud, only sixty miles from the point where General
Crook camped on the night of the 15th of June.  The command travelled
forty miles on the 16th, and when within twenty miles of the Sioux'
principal position, instead of pushing on, General Crook went into camp.

The next morning he was much surprised to find himself attacked by
Sitting Bull, who swooped down upon him with the first streaks of
coming dawn, and a heavy battle followed.  General Crook, who had
camped in a basin surrounded on all sides by high hills, soon found
his position so dangerous that it must be changed at all hazards.
The advance was at once with Noyes' battalion occupying a position
on the right, Mills on the right centre, Chambers in the centre, and
the Indian allies on the left.  Mills and Noyes charged the enemy in
magnificent style, breaking the line and striking the rear.  The fight
continued hot and furious until two o'clock in the afternoon, when a
gallant charge of Colonel Royall, who was in reserve, supported by
the Indian allies, caused the Sioux to draw off to their village,
six miles distant, while General Crook went into camp, where he
remained inactive for two days.

In the meantime, as the official report recites: “Generals Terry and
Gibbon communicated with each other June 1, near the junction of the
Tongue and Yellowstone rivers, and learned that a heavy force of
Indians had concentrated on the opposite bank of the Yellowstone,
but eighteen miles distant.  For fourteen days the Indian pickets had
confronted Gibbon's videttes.”

General Gibbon reported to General Terry that the cavalry had
thoroughly scouted the Yellowstone as far as the mouth of the Big Horn,
and no Indians had crossed it.  It was now certain that they were not
prepared for them, and on the Powder, Tongue, Rosebud, Little Big Horn,
and Big Horn rivers, General Terry at once commenced feeling for them.
Major Reno of the Seventh Cavalry, with six companies of that regiment,
was sent up Powder River one hundred and fifty miles, to the mouth
of Little Powder River, to look for the Indians, and if possible to
communicate with General Crook.  He reached the mouth of the Little
Powder in five days, but saw no Indians, and could hear nothing of
Crook.  As he returned, he found on the Rosebud a very large Indian
trail about nine days old, and followed it a short distance, when
he turned about up Tongue River, and reported to General Terry what
he had seen.  It was now known that no Indians were on either Tongue
or Little Powder rivers, and the net had narrowed down to Rosebud,
Little Big Horn, and Big Horn rivers.

General Terry had been waiting with Custer and the steamer _Far West_
at the mouth of Tongue River, for Reno's report, and as soon as he
heard it he ordered Custer to march up the south bank to a point
opposite General Gibbon, who was encamped on the north bank of the
Yellowstone.  Accordingly Terry, on board the steamer _Far West_,
pushed up the Yellowstone, keeping abreast of General Custer's column.

General Gibbon was found in camp quietly awaiting developments.
A consultation was had with Generals Gibbon and Custer, and then
General Terry definitely fixed upon the plan of action.  It was
believed that the Indians were at the head of the Rosebud, or over
on the Little Big Horn, a dividing ridge only fifteen miles wide and
separating the two streams.  It was announced by General Terry that
General Custer's column would strike the blow.

At the time that a junction was formed between Gibbon and Terry,
General Crook was about one hundred miles from them, while Sitting
Bull's forces were between the commands.  After his battle Crook fell
back to the head of Tongue River.  The Powder, Tongue, Rosebud, and
Big Horn rivers all flow northwest, and empty into the Yellowstone;
as Sitting Bull was between the headwaters of the Rosebud and Big Horn,
the main tributary of the latter being known as the Little Big Horn,
a sufficient knowledge of the topography of the country is thus
afforded by which to definitely locate Sitting Bull and his forces.

Having now ascertained the position of the enemy, or reasoned out the
probable position, General Terry sent a despatch to General Sheridan,
as follows: “No Indians have been met with as yet, but traces of a
large and recent camp have been discovered twenty or thirty miles up
the Rosebud.  Gibbon's column will move this morning on the north side
of the Yellowstone, for the mouth of the Big Horn, where it will be
ferried across by the supply steamer, and whence it will proceed to
the mouth of the Little Big Horn, and so on.  Custer will go to the
Rosebud to-morrow with his whole regiment, and thence to the
headwaters of the Little Big Horn, thence down that stream.”

Following this report came an order, signed by E. W. Smith, Captain of
the Eighteenth Infantry, Acting Assistant Adjutant-General, directing
General Custer to follow the Indian trail discovered, pushing the
Indians from one side, while General Gibbon pursued them from an
opposite direction.  As no instructions were given as to the rate at
which each division should travel, Custer, noted for his quick,
energetic movements, made ninety miles the first three days, and,
discovering the Indians in large numbers, divided his command into
three divisions, one of which he placed under Major Reno, another
under Major Benteen, and led the other himself.

As Custer made a detour to enter the village, Reno struck a large body
of Indians, who, after retreating nearly three miles, turned on the
troops and ran them pell-mell across Grassy Creek into the woods.
Reno overestimated the strength of his enemies and thought he was
being surrounded.  Benteen came up to the support of Reno, but he too
took fright and got out of his position without striking the enemy.

While Reno and Benteen were trying to keep open a way for their
retreat, Custer charged on the village, first sending a courier,
Trumpeter Martin, to Reno and Benteen with the following despatch:
“Big village; be quick; send on the packs.”  This order was too plain
to be misunderstood.  It clearly meant that he had discovered the
village, which he intended attacking at once; to hurry forward to his
support and bring up the packs, ambulances, etc.  But, instead of
obeying orders, Reno and Benteen stood aloof, fearful lest they should
endanger their position, while the brave Custer and his squad of noble
horses rushed down like a terrible avalanche upon the Indian village.
In a moment, fateful incident, the Indians came swarming about that
heroic band until the very earth seemed to open and let loose the
elements of volcanic fury, or like a riot of the fiends of Erebus,
blazing with the hot sulphur of their impious dominion.  Down from
the hillside, up through the valleys, that dreadful torrent of Indian
cruelty and massacre poured around the little squad to swallow it up
with one grand swoop of fire.  But Custer was there at the head, like
Spartacus fighting the legions about him, tall, graceful, brave as a
lion at bay, and with thunderbolts in his hands.  His brave followers
formed a hollow square, and met the rush and roar and fury of the
demons.  Bravely they breasted that battle shock, bravely stood up and
faced the leaden hail, nor quailed when looking into the blazing
muzzles of five thousand deadly rifles.

Brushing away the powder grimes that had settled in his face, Custer
looked over the boiling sea of fury around him, peering through the
smoke for some signs of Reno and Benteen, but seeing none.  Still
thinking of the aid which must soon come, with cheering words to his
men he renewed the battle, fighting still like a Hercules and piling
heaps of victims around his very feet.

Hour after hour passed, and yet no friendly sign of Reno's coming;
nothing to be seen through the battle-smoke, except streaks of fire
splitting through the misty clouds, blood flowing in rivulets under
tramping feet, dying comrades, and Indians swarming around him,
rending the air with their demoniacal “hi-yi-yip-yah!—yah-hi-yah!”

The fight continued with unabated fury until late in the afternoon;
men had sunk down beside their gallant leader until there was but a
handful left, only a dozen, bleeding from many wounds and hot carbines
in their stiffening hands.—The day is almost done, when look!  Heaven
now defend him!  The charm of his life is broken, for Custer has
fallen; a bullet cleaves a pathway through his side, and as he falters
another strikes his noble breast.  Like a strong oak stricken by the
lightning's bolt, shivering the mighty trunk and bending its withering
branches down close to the earth, so fell Custer; but, like the
reacting branches, he rises partly up again, and striking out like
a fatally wounded giant he lays three more Indians dead and breaks his
mighty sword on the musket of a fourth; then, with useless blade and
empty pistol, falls back the victim of a dozen wounds.—He was the
last to succumb to death, and died, too, with the glory of
accomplished duty on his conscience and the benediction of a grateful
country on his head.  The place where fell these noblest of heroes is
sacred ground, and though it be the Golgotha of a nation's mistakes,
it is bathed with precious blood, rich with the gems of heroic
inheritance.

I have avoided attaching blame to any one, using only the facts that
have been furnished me to show how Custer came to attack the Sioux
village and how and why he died.

When the news of the terrible massacre was learned, soldiers everywhere
made a pilgrimage to the sacred place, and friendly hands reared a
monument on that distant spot commemorative of the heroism of Custer
and his men.  They collected together all the bones and relics of the
battle and piled them up in pyramidal form, where they stand in
sunshine and storm, overlooking the Little Big Horn.

Soon after the news of Custer's massacre reached us, preparations were
immediately made to avenge his death.  The whole Cheyenne and Sioux
tribes were in revolt, and a lively, if not very dangerous, campaign
was inevitable.

Two days before receipt of the news of the massacre, Colonel Stanton,
who was with the Fifth Cavalry, had been sent to Red Cloud agency, and
on the evening of the receipt of the news of the Custer fight a scout
arrived in our camp with a message from the colonel informing General
Merritt that eight hundred Cheyenne warriors had that day left Red
Cloud agency to join Sitting Bull's hostile forces in the Big Horn
country.

Notwithstanding the instructions to proceed immediately to join
General Crook by the way of Fort Fetterman, General Merritt took the
responsibility of endeavouring to intercept the Cheyennes, and as the
sequel shows he performed a very important service.

He selected five hundred men and horses, and in two hours we were
making a forced march back to Hat, or War Bonnet Creek—the intention
being to reach the main Indian trail running to the north across that
creek before the Cheyennes could get there.  We arrived there the next
night, and at daylight the following morning, July 17, 1876, I went
out on a scout, and found that the Indians had not yet crossed the
creek.  On my way back to the command I discovered a large party of
Indians, which proved to be the Cheyennes, coming up from the south,
and I hurried to the camp with this important information.

The cavalrymen quietly mounted their horses, and were ordered to
remain out of sight, while General Merritt, accompanied by two or
three aids and myself, went out on a tour of observation to a
neighbouring hill, from the summit of which we saw that the Indians
were approaching almost directly toward us.  Presently fifteen or
twenty of them dashed off to the west in the direction from which we
had come the night before; and, upon closer observation with our
field-glasses, we discovered two mounted soldiers, evidently carrying
despatches for us, pushing forward on our trail.

The Indians were evidently endeavouring to intercept these two men,
and General Merritt feared that they would accomplish their object.
He did not think it advisable to send out any soldiers to the
assistance of the couriers, for fear they would show to the Indians
that there were troops in the vicinity who were waiting for them.
I finally suggested that the best plan was to wait until the couriers
came closer to the command, and then, just as the Indians were about
to make a charge, to let me take the scouts and cut them off from the
main body of the Cheyennes, who were coming over the divide.

“All right, Cody,” said the general, “if you can do that, go ahead.”

I rushed back to the command, jumped on my horse, picked out fifteen
men, and returned with them to the point of observation.  I told
General Merritt to give us the word to start out at the proper time,
and presently he sang out:—

“Go in now, Cody, and be quick about it.  They are going to charge on
the couriers.”

The two messengers were not over four hundred yards from us, and the
Indians were only about two hundred yards behind them.  We instantly
dashed over the bluffs, and advanced on a gallop toward them.
A running fight lasted several minutes, during which we drove the enemy
some little distance and killed three of their number.  The rest of
them rode off toward the main body, which had come into plain sight
and halted upon seeing the skirmish that was going on.  We were about
half a mile from General Merritt, and the Indians whom we were chasing
suddenly turned upon us, and another lively skirmish took place.
One of the Indians, who was handsomely decorated with all the ornaments
usually worn by a war-chief when engaged in a fight, sang out to me,
in his own tongue: “I know you, Pa-he-haska; if you want to fight,
come ahead and fight me.”

The chief was riding his horse back and forth in front of his men, as
if to banter me, and I concluded to accept the challenge.  I galloped
toward him for fifty yards and he advanced toward me about the same
distance, both of us riding at full speed, and then, when we were only
about thirty yards apart, I raised my rifle and fired; his horse fell
to the ground, having been killed by my bullet.  Almost at the same
instant my own horse went down, he having stepped into a gopher-hole.
The fall did not hurt me much, and I instantly sprang to my feet.
The Indian had also recovered himself, and we were now both on foot,
and not more than twenty paces apart.  We fired at each other
simultaneously.  My usual luck did not desert me on this occasion,
for his bullet missed me, while mine struck him in the breast.
He reeled and fell, but before he had fairly touched the ground I was
upon him, knife in hand, and had driven the keen-edged weapon to its
hilt in his heart.  Jerking his war-bonnet off, I scientifically
scalped him in about five seconds.

The whole affair from beginning to end occupied but little time, and
the Indians, seeing that I was some little distance from my company,
now came charging down upon me from a hill, in hopes of cutting me off.
General Merritt had witnessed the duel, and realizing the danger I was
in ordered Colonel Mason with Company K to hurry to my rescue.
The order came none too soon, for if it had been one minute later
I would have had not less than two hundred Indians upon me.  As the
soldiers came up I swung the Indian chieftain's top-knot and bonnet
in the air, and shouted:—

“The first scalp for Custer!”

General Merritt, seeing that he could not now ambush the Indians,
ordered the whole regiment to charge upon them.  They made a stubborn
resistance for a little while, but it was no use for any eight hundred,
or even sixteen hundred, Indians to try to check a charge of the
gallant old Fifth Cavalry.  They soon came to that conclusion and
began a running retreat toward Red Cloud agency.  For thirty-five
miles we drove them, pushing them so hard that they were obliged to
abandon their loose horses, their camp equipage, and everything else.
We drove them into the agency, and followed in ourselves, notwithstanding
the possibility of our having to encounter the thousands of Indians at
that point.  We were uncertain whether or not the other agency Indians
had determined to follow the example of the Cheyennes and strike out
upon the war-path; but that made no difference with the Fifth Cavalry,
for they would have fought them all if necessary.  It was dark when
we rode into the agency, where we found thousands of Indians collected
together; but they manifested no disposition to fight.

While at the agency I learned the name of the Indian chief whom I had
killed that morning; it was Yellow Hand, a son of old Cut Nose
—a leading chief of the Cheyennes.  Cut Nose, having learned that
I had killed his son, sent a white interpreter to me with a message to
the effect that he would give me four mules if I would turn over to
him Yellow Hand's war-bonnet, guns, pistols, ornaments, and other
paraphernalia which I had captured.  I sent back word to the old
gentleman that it would give me pleasure to accommodate him, but
I could not do it this time.

The next morning we started to join General Crook, who was camped near
the foot of Cloud Peak in the Big Horn Mountains, awaiting the arrival
of the Fifth Cavalry before proceeding against the Sioux, who were
somewhere near the head of the Little Big Horn—as his scouts informed
him.  We made rapid marches and reached General Crook's camp on Goose
Creek about the 3d of August.

At this camp I met many an old friend, among whom was Colonel Royall,
who had received his promotion to the lieutenant-colonelcy of the
Third Cavalry.  He introduced me to general Crook, whom I had never
met before, but of whom I had often heard.  He also introduced me to
the General's chief guide, Frank Grouard, a half-breed, who had lived
six years with Sitting Bull, and knew the country thoroughly.

We remained in this camp only one day, and then the whole troop pulled
out for the Tongue River, leaving our wagons behind, but taking with
us a large pack-train.  We marched down the Tongue River for two days,
thence in a westerly direction over the Rosebud, where we struck the
main Indian trail, leading down this stream.  From the size of the
trail, which appeared to be about three or four days old, we estimated
that there must have been in the neighbourhood of seven thousand
Indians in the war-party.

We pushed on, but we did not seem to gain much on the Indians, as they
were evidently making about the same marches that we were.

Soon the two commands were nearly out of supplies, so the trail was
abandoned.  The troops kept on down Powder River to its confluence
with the Yellowstone, and remained there several days.  Here we met
General Miles, who reported that no Indians had as yet crossed the
Yellowstone.  Several steamboats soon arrived with a large quantity
of supplies, and once more the “Boys in Blue” were made happy.

One evening while we were in camp on the Yellowstone at the mouth of
Powder River, I was informed that the commanding officers had selected
Louis Richard, a half-breed, and myself, to accompany General Miles on
a scouting expedition on the steamer _Far West_, down the Yellowstone
as far as Glendive Creek.

The _Far West_ was to remain at Glendive overnight, and General Miles
wished to send despatches back to General Terry at once.  At his
request I took the despatches and rode seventy-five miles that night
through the Bad Lands of the Yellowstone, and reached General Terry's
camp next morning, after having nearly broken my neck a dozen times
or more.

There being but little prospect of any more fighting, I determined to
go East as soon as possible.  So I started down the river on the
steamer _Yellowstone_ en route to Fort Beauford.  On the same morning
Generals Terry and Crook pulled out for Powder River, to take up the
old Indian trail which we had recently left.

The steamer had proceeded down the stream about twenty miles when it
was met by another boat on its way up the river, having on board
General Whistler and some fresh troops for General Terry's command.
Both boats landed, and almost the first person I met was my old friend
and partner, Texas Jack, who had been sent out as a despatch carrier
for the _New York Herald_.

General Whistler, upon learning that General Terry had left the
Yellowstone, asked me to carry him some important despatches from
General Sheridan, and although I objected, he insisted on my performing
this duty, saying that it would only detain me a few hours longer;
as an extra inducement, he offered me the use of his own thoroughbred
horse, which was on the boat.  I finally consented to go, and was soon
speeding over the rough and hilly country toward Powder River, and I
delivered the despatches to General Terry the same evening.  General
Whistler's horse, though a good animal, was not used to such hard
riding, and was far more exhausted by the journey than I was.

After I had taken a lunch, General Terry asked me if I would carry
some despatches back to General Whistler, and I replied that I would.
Captain Smith, General Terry's aide-de-camp, offered me his horse for
the trip, and it proved to be an excellent animal; for I rode him that
same night forty miles over the Bad Lands in four hours, and reached
General Whistler's steamboat at one o'clock.  During my absence the
Indians had made their appearance on the different hills in the
vicinity, and the troops from the boat had had several skirmishes with
them.  When General Whistler had finished reading the despatches,
he said, “Cody, I want to send information to General Terry concerning
the Indians who have been skirmishing around here all day.  I have
been trying all the evening long to induce some one to carry my
despatches to him, but no one seems willing to make the trip, and
I have got to fall back on you.  It is asking a great deal, I know,
as you have just ridden eighty miles; but it is a case of necessity,
and if you'll go, Cody, I'll see that you are well paid for it.”

“Never mind about the pay,” said I, “but get your despatches ready and
I'll start at once.”

In a few minutes he handed me the package, and, mounting the same
horse which I had ridden from General Terry's camp, I struck out for
my destination.  It was two o'clock in the morning when I left the
boat, and at eight o'clock I rode into General Terry's camp, just as
he was about to march—having made one hundred and twenty-five miles
in twenty-two hours.

General Terry, after reading the despatches, halted his command and
then rode on and overtook General Crook, with whom he held a council;
the result was that Crook's command moved on in the direction which
they had been pursuing, while Terry's forces marched back to the
Yellowstone and crossed the river on steamboats.  At the urgent
request of General Terry I accompanied the command on a scout in the
direction of the Dry Fork of the Missouri, where it was expected we
would strike some Indians.

The first march out from the Yellowstone was made in the night, as we
wished to get into the hills without being discovered by the Sioux
scouts.  After marching three days, a little to the east of north,
we reached the buffalo range and discovered fresh signs of Indians,
who had evidently been killing buffaloes.  General Terry now called
on me to carry despatches to Colonel Rice, who was still camped at
the mouth of Glendive Creek, on the Yellowstone, distant about eighty
miles from us.

Night had set in with a storm, and a drizzling rain was falling when,
at ten o'clock, I started on this ride through a section of country
with which I was entirely unacquainted.  I travelled through the
darkness a distance of about thirty miles, and at daylight I rode
into a secluded spot at the head of a ravine where stood a bunch of
ash-trees, and there I concluded to remain till night, for I considered
it a very dangerous undertaking to cross the wide prairies in broad
daylight, especially as my horse was a poor one.  I accordingly
unsaddled my animal, and ate a hearty breakfast of bacon and hardtack
which I had stored in the saddle-pockets; then, after taking a smoke,
I lay down to sleep, with my saddle for a pillow.  In a few minutes
I was in the land of dreams.

After sleeping some time—I can't tell how long—I was suddenly
awakened by a roaring, rumbling sound.  I instantly seized my gun,
sprang to my horse, and hurriedly secreted him in the brush.  Then I
climbed up the steep side of the bank and cautiously looked over the
summit; in the distance I saw a large herd of buffaloes which were
being chased and fired at by twenty or thirty Indians.  Occasionally
a buffalo would drop out of the herd, but the Indians kept on until
they had killed ten or fifteen.  Then they turned back and began to
cut up their game.

I saddled my horse and tied him to a small tree where I could reach
him conveniently, in case the Indians should discover me by finding my
trail and following it.  I then crawled carefully back to the summit
of the bluff, and in a concealed position watched the Indians for two
hours, during which time they were occupied in cutting up the buffaloes
and packing the meat on their ponies.  When they had finished this work
they rode off in the direction whence they had come and on the line
which I had proposed to travel.  It appeared evident to me that their
camp was located somewhere between me and Glendive Creek, but I had
no idea of abandoning the trip on that account.

I waited till nightfall before resuming my journey, and then I bore
off to the east for several miles, and by taking a semicircle to avoid
the Indians I got back on my original course, and then pushed on
rapidly to Colonel Rice's camp, which I reached just at daylight.

Colonel Rice had been fighting Indians almost every day since he had
been encamped at this point, and he was very anxious to notify General
Terry of the fact.  Of course I was requested to carry his despatches.
After remaining at Glendive a single day, I started back to find
General Terry, and on the third day I overhauled him at the head of
Deer Creek while on his way to Colonel Rice's camp.  He was not,
however, going in the right direction, but bearing too far to the East,
and so I informed him.  He then asked me to guide the command, and
I did so.

On arriving at Glendive I bade good-by to the general and his officers,
and took passage on the steamer _Far West_, which was on her way down
the Missouri.




CHAPTER XVIII.
IN A TRAPPER'S BIVOUAC.



The majority of old-time trappers and scouts always had an inexhaustible
fund of anecdote and adventure.  Stories were often told at night when
the day's duty of making the round of the traps was done, the beaver
skinned, and the pelts hung up to cure.  Their simple supper disposed,
and being comfortably seated around their fire of blazing logs,
each one of them indulged, as a preliminary, in his favourite manner
of smoking.  Some adhered to the traditional clay pipe, others, more
fastidious, used nothing less expensive than a meerschaum.  Many,
however, were satisfied with a simple cigarette with its covering of
corn husk.  This was Kit Carson's usual method of smoking, and he was
an inveterate partaker of the weed.  Frequently there was no real
tobacco to be found in the camp; either its occupants had exhausted
their supply, or the traders had failed to bring enough at the last
rendezvous[68] to go round.  Then they were compelled to resort to the
substitutes of the Indians.  Among some tribes the bark of the red
willow, dried and bruised, was used; others, particularly the mountain
savages, smoked the genuine kin-nik-i-nick, a little evergreen vine
growing on the tops of the highest elevations, and known as larb.

It was a rare treat to come across one of those solitary camps when
out on a prolonged hunt, for the visitor was certain of a cordial
welcome, and everything the generous men had was freely at your
service.  The crowning pleasure came at night, when stories were told
under the silvery pines, with troops of stars overhead, around a
glowing camp-fire, until the lateness of the hour warned all that it
was time to roll up in their robes, if they intended to court sleep.

Let the reader, in fancy, accompany us to some thunder-splintered
cañon of the great rock-ribbed Continental Divide, and when the
shadows of night come walking along the mountains, seek one of these
sequestered camps, take our place in the magic circle, and listen to
wondrous tales as they are passed around.  There is nothing to disturb
the magnificent silence save an occasional soughing of the fitful
breeze in the tops of the towering pines, or the gentle babbling of
some tiny rivulet as its water soothingly flows over the rounded
pebbles in its bed.  There is a charm in the environment of such a
spot that will photograph its picture on the memory as the gem of all
the varied experiences of a checkered life.

One of the best raconteurs was Old Hatcher, as he was known throughout
the mountains.  He was a famous trapper of the late '40's.  Hatcher
was thoroughly Western in all his gestures, moods, and dialect.
He had a fund of stories of an amusing, and often of a marvellous cast.
It was never any trouble to persuade him to relate some of the scenes
in his wayward, ever-changing life; particularly if you warmed him up
with a good-sized bottle of whiskey, of which he was inordinately fond.

When telling a story he invariably kept his pipe in his mouth, using
his hands to cut from a solid plug of Missouri tobacco, whenever his
pipe showed signs of exhaustion.  He also fixed his eyes on some
imaginary object in the blaze of the fire, and his countenance
indicated a concentration of thought, as if to call back from the
shadowy past the coming tale, the more attractive, perhaps, by its
extreme improbability.

He declared that he once visited the realms of Pluto, and no one ever
succeeded in disabusing his mind of the illusion.

The story is here presented just as he used to tell it, but divested
of much of its dialect, so hard to read, and much more difficult to
write:—

“Well!” beginning with a vigorous pull at his pipe.  “I had been down
to Bent's Fort to get some powder, lead, and a few things I needed at
the beginning of the buffalo season.  I remained there for some time
waiting for a caravan to come from the States which was to bring the
goods I wanted.  Things was wonderfully high; it took a beaver-skin
for a plug of tobacco, three for a cup of powder, and other knick-knacks
in proportion.  Jim Finch, an old trapper that went under by the Utes
near the Sangre de Cristo Pass, a few years ago, had told me there was
lots of beaver on the Purgatoire.  Nobody knowed it; all thought the
creeks had been cleaned out of the varmints.  So down I goes to the
cañon, and sot my traps.  I was all alone by myself, and I'll be
darned if ten Injuns didn't come a screeching right after me.
I cached.  I did, and the darned red devils made for the open prairie
with my animals.  I tell you, I was mad, but I kept hid for more than
an hour.  Suddenly I heard a tramping in the bushes, and in breaks my
little gray mule.  Thinks I them 'Rapahoes ain't smart; so tied her to
grass.  But the Injuns had scared the beaver so, I stays in my camp,
eating my lariat.  Then I begun to get kind o' wolfish and squeamish;
something was gnawing and pulling at my inwards, like a wolf in a
trap.  Just then an idea struck me, that I had been there before
trading liquor with the Utes.

“I looked around for sign, and hurrah for the mountains if I didn't
find the cache!  And now if I didn't kiss the rock that I had pecked
with my butcher-knife to mark the place, I'm ungrateful.  Maybe the
gravel wasn't scratched up from that place, and to me as would have
given all my traps for some Taos lightning, just rolled in the
delicious fluid.[69]

“I was weaker than a goat in the spring, but when the Taos was opened,
I fell back and let it run in.  In four swallows I concluded to pull
up stakes for the headwaters of the Purgatoire for meat.  So I roped
old Blue, tied on my traps, and left.

“It used to be the best place in the mountains for meat, but nothing
was in sight.  Things looked mighty strange, and I wanted to make the
back track; but, says I, here I am, and I don't turn, surely.

“The bushes was all scorched and curly and the cedar was like fire had
been put to it.  The big, brown rocks was covered with black smoke,
and the little drink in the bottom of the cañon was dried up.  I was
now most under the old twin peaks of ‘Wa-te-yah’[70]; the cold snow
on top looking mighty cool and refreshing.

“Something was wrong; I must be shoving backwards, I thought, and that
before long, or I'd go under, so I jerked the rein, but I'll be dog-goned,
and it's true as there's meat running, Blue kept going forward.
I laid back and cussed and kicked till I saw blood, certain.  Then I
put out my hand for my knife to kill the beast, but the 'Green River'[71]
wouldn't come.  I tell you some unvisible spirit had a paw there,
and it's me that says it, 'bad medicine' it was, that trapping time.

“Loosing my pistol, the one I traded at Big Horn, the time I lost my
Ute squaw, and priming my rifle, I swore to keep right on; for after
staying ten years in these mountains, to be fooled this way wasn't the
game for me nohow.

“Well, we, I say, ‘we,’ for Blue was some—as good as a man any day;
I could talk to her, and she'd turn her head as if she understood me.
Mules are knowing critters—next to human.  At a sharp corner Blue
snorted, and turned her head, but couldn't go back.  There, in front,
was a level cañon with walls of black and brown and gray stone, and
stumps of burned piñon hung down ready to fall onto us; and, as we
passed, the rocks and trees shook and grated and croaked.  All at once
Blue tucked her tail, backed her ears, bowed her neck, and squealed
right out, a-rearing on her hind legs, a-pawing, and snickering.
This hoss didn't see the cute of them notions; he was for examining,
so I goes to jump off and lam the fool; but I was stuck tight as if
there was tar on the saddle.  I took my gun, that there iron, my rifle,
and pops Blue over the head, but she squealed and dodged, all the time
pawing; but it wasn't no use, and I says, ‘you didn't cost more than
two blankets when you was traded from the Utes, and two blankets ain't
worth more than two beaver-skins at Bent's Fort, which comes to two
dollars a pair, you consarned ugly pictur—darn you, anyhow!’  Just
then I heard a laughing.  I looks up, and two black critters—they
wasn't human, sure, for they had black tails and red coats—Indian
cloth, cloth like that traded to the Indians, edged with white, shiny
stuff, and brass buttons.

“They come forward and made two low bows.  I felt for my scalp-knife,
for I thought they was approaching to take me, but I couldn't use it
—they was so darned polite.

“One of the devils said, with a grin and bow, ‘Good-morning, Mr. Hatcher!’

“‘H——!’ says I, ‘how do you know me?  I swear this hoss never saw
you before.’

“‘Oh, we've expected you a long time,’ said the other, ‘and we are
quite happy to see you—we've known you ever since your arrival in
the mountains.’

“I was getting sort of scared.  I wanted a drop of Taos mighty bad,
but the bottle was gone, and I looked at them in astonishment, and
said—‘The devil!’

“‘Hush!’ screamed one, ‘you must not say that here—keep still, you
will see him presently.’

“I felt streaked, and a cold sweat broke out all over me.  I tried to
say my prayers, as I used to at home, when they made me turn in at night—

        “‘Now I lay me.’

“Pshaw!  I'm off again, I can't say it; but if this child could have
got off his animal, he'd took hair and gone down the trail for
Purgatoire.

“All this time the long-tailed devils was leading my animal, and me
top of her, the biggest fool dug out, up the same cañon.  The rocks
on the sides was pecked smooth as a beaver-skin, ribbed with the grain,
and the ground was covered with bits of cedar, like a cavayard of
mules had been nipping and scattering them about.  Overhead it was
roofed, leastwise it was dark in here, and only a little light come
through the holes in the rock.  I thought I knew where we was, and
eeched awfully to talk, but I sot still and didn't ask any questions.

“Presently we were stopped by a dead wall.  No opening anywhere.  When
the devils turned from me, I jerked my head around quick, but there
was no place to get out—the wall had growed up behind us too.  I was
mad, and I wasn't mad neither; for I expected the time had come for
this child to go under.  So I let my head fall on my breast, and I
pulled the wool hat over my eyes, and thought for the last of the
beaver I had trapped, and the buffalo as had taken my lead pills in
their livers, and the poker and euchre I'd played at the Rendezvous at
Bent's Fort.  I felt comfortable as eating fat cow to think I hadn't
cheated any one.

“All at once the cañon got bright as day.  I looked up, and there was
a room with lights and people talking and laughing, and fiddles
screeching.  Dad, and the preacher at home when I was a boy, told me
the fiddle was the devil's invention; I believe it now.

“The little fellow as had hold of my animal squeaked out—‘Get off
your mule, Mr. Hatcher!’

“‘Get off!’ said I, for I was mad as a bull pricked with Comanche
lances, for his disturbing me.  ‘Get off?  I have been trying to, ever
since I came into this infernal hole.’

“‘You can do so now.  Be quick, for the company is waiting,’ says he,
pert-like.

“They all stopped talking and were looking right at me.  I felt riled.
‘Darn your company.  I've got to lose my scalp anyhow, and no
difference to me—but to oblige you’—so I slid off as easy as if I
had never been stuck.

“A hunchback boy, with little gray eyes in his head, took old Blue away.
I might never see her again, and I shouted—‘Poor Blue!  Good-by, Blue!’

“The young devil snickered; I turned around mighty stern—‘Stop your
laughing, you hell-cat—if I am alone, I can take you,’ and I grabbed
for my knife to wade into his liver; but it was gone—gun,
bullet-pouch, and pistol, like mules in a stampede.

“I stepped forward with a big fellow, with hair frizzled out like an
old buffalo just before shedding time; and the people jawing worse
than a cavayard of paroquets, stopped, while frizzly shouted:—

“‘Mr. Hatcher, formerly of Wapakonnetta, latterly of the Rocky Mountains.’

“Well, there I stood.  Things were mighty strange, and every darned
nigger of them looked so pleased like.  To show them manners, I said,
‘How are you?’ and I went to bow, but chaw my last tobacco if I could,
my breeches was so tight—the heat way back in the cañon had shrunk
them.  They were too polite to notice it, and I felt for my knife to
rip the dog-goned things, but recollecting the scalp-taker was stolen,
I straightens up and bowed my head.  A kind-looking, smallish old
gentleman, with a black coat and breeches, and a bright, cute face,
and gold spectacles, walks up and pressed my hand softly.

“‘How do you do, my dear friend?  I have long expected you.  You cannot
imagine the pleasure it gives me to meet you at home.  I have watched
your peregrinations in the busy, tiresome world with much interest.
Sit down, sit down; take a chair,’ and he handed me one.

“I squared myself on it, but if a ten-pronged buck wasn't done sucking
when I last sot on a chair, and I squirmed awhile, uneasy as a
gun-shot coyote; then I jumps up and tells the old gentleman them sort
of fixings didn't suit this beaver, he prefers the floor.  I sets
cross-legged like in camp, as easy as eating meat.  I reached for my
pipe—a fellow so used to it—but the devils in the cañon had cached
that too.

“‘You wish to smoke, Mr. Hatcher?—we will have cigars.  Here!’ he
called to an imp near him, ‘some cigars.’

“They was brought in on a waiter, about the size of my bullet-pouch.
I empties them into my hat, for good cigars ain't to be picked up on
the prairie every day, but looking at the old man, I saw something was
wrong.  To be polite, I ought to have taken but one.

“‘I beg pardon,’ says I, scratching my scalp, ‘this hoss didn't think
—he's been so long in the mountains he's forgot civilized doings,’
and I shoved the hat to him.

“‘Never mind,’ says he, waving his hand and smiling faintly, ‘get
others,’ speaking to the boy alongside of him.

“The old gentleman took one and touched his finger to the end of my
cigar—it smoked as if fire had been sot to it.

“‘Waugh! the devil!’ screams I, darting back.

“‘The same!’ chimed in he, biting off the little end of his, and
bowing, and spitting it out, ‘the same, sir.’

“‘The same! what?’

“‘Why—the devil.’

“‘H——l! this ain't the hollow tree for this coon—I'll be making
medicine,’ so I offers my cigar to the sky and to the earth, like an
Injun.

“‘You must not do that here—out upon such superstition,’ says he,
sharp-like.

“‘Why?’

“‘Don't ask so many questions—come with me,’ rising to his feet, and
walking off slow and blowing his cigar-smoke over his shoulder in a
long line, and I gets alongside of him.  ‘I want to show you my
establishment—you did not expect to find this down here, eh?’

“My breeches was all-fired stiff with the heat in the cañon, and my
friend, seeing it, said, ‘Your breeches are tight; allow me to place
my hand on them.’

“He rubbed his fingers up and down once, and by beaver, they got as
soft as when I traded them from the Pi-Utes on the Gila.

“I now felt as brave as a buffalo in the spring.  The old man was so
clever, and I walked alongside of him like an old acquaintance.
We soon stopped before a stone door, and it opened without touching.

“‘Here's damp powder, and no fire to dry it,’ shouts I, stopping.

“‘What's the matter; do you not wish to perambulate through my
possessions?’

“‘This hoss doesn't savey what the human for perambulate is, but I'll
walk plum to the hottest fire in your settlement, if that's all you mean.’

“The place was hot, and smelt of brimstone; but the darned screeching
took me.  I walks up to the other end of the lodge, and steal my mule,
if there wasn't Jake Beloo, as trapped with me to Brown's Hole!  A lot
of hell-cats was a-pulling at his ears, and a-jumping on his shoulders,
and swinging themselves to the ground by his long hair.  Some was
running hot irons into him, but when we came up they went off in a
corner, laughing and talking like wildcats' gibberish on a cold night.

“Poor Jake! he came to the bar, looking like a sick buffalo in the eye.
The bones stuck through his skin, and his hair was matted and long,
all over, just like a blind bull, and white blisters spotted him.
‘Hatch, old fellow! you here too?—how are you?’ says he, in a
faint-like voice, staggering and catching on to the bar for support—
‘I'm sorry to see you here; what did you do?’  He raised his eyes to
the old man standing behind me, who gave him such a look, he went
howling and foaming at the mouth to the fur end of the den and fell
down, rolling over the damp stones.  The devils, who was chuckling by
a furnace where was irons a-heating, approached easy, and run one into
his back.  I jumped at them and hollered, ‘You owdacious little
hell-pups, let him alone; if my scalp-taker was here, I'd make buzzard
feed of your meat, and parfleche of your dog-skins,’ but they squeaked
out, to ‘go to the devil.’

“‘Waugh!’ says I, ‘if I ain't pretty close to his lodge, I'm a nigger!’

“The old gentleman speaks up, ‘Take care of yourself, Mr. Hatcher,’ in
a mighty soft kind voice, and he smiled so calm and devilish—it nigh
froze me.  I thought if the ground would open with an earthquake, and
take me in, I'd be much obliged anyhow.  Thinks I, ‘You saint-for-saken,
infernal hell-chief, how I'd like to stick my knife in your withered
old bread-basket.’

“‘Ah! my dear fellow, no use trying—that's a decided impossibility.’
I jumped ten feet.  I swear a medicine-man couldn't a-heard me, for
my lips didn't move, and how he knew is more than this hoss can tell.

“‘I see your nervous equilibrium is destroyed; come with me.’

“At the other side the old gentleman told me to reach down for a brass
knob.  I thought a trick was going to be played on me, and I dodged.

“‘Do not be afraid; turn it when you pull; steady; there, that's it.’
It came, and a door shut of itself.

“‘Mighty good hinges!’ said I, ‘don't make any noise, and go shut
without slamming and cussing them.’

“‘Yes—yes! some of my own importation.  No, they were never made here.’

“It was dark at first, but whenever the other door opened, there was
too much light.  In another room there was a table in the middle, with
two bottles, and little glasses like them in St. Louis at the
drink-houses, only prettier.  A soft, thick carpet was on the floor,
and a square glass lamp hung from the ceiling.  I sat cross-legged on
the floor, and he on a sofa, his feet cocked on a chair, and his tail
coiled under him, comfortable as traders in a lodge.  He hollered
something, I couldn't make out, and in comes two black crook-shanked
devils with a round bench and a glass with cigars in it.  They vamosed,
and the old coon, inviting me to take a cigar, helps himself, and
reared his head back, while I sorter lays on the floor, and we smoked
and talked.

“‘But have we not been sitting long enough?  Take a fresh cigar, and
we will walk.  That was Purgatory where your quondam friend, Jake
Beloo, is.  He will remain there awhile longer, and, if you desire it
can go, though it cost much exertion to entice him here, and then only
after he had drunk hard.’

“‘I wish you would, sir.  Jake was as good a companion as ever trapped
beaver, or gnawed poor bull in the spring, and he treated his squaw as
if she was a white woman.’

“‘For your sake I will; we may see others of our acquaintance before
leaving this,’ says he, sorter queer-like, as if to mean, no doubt of it.

“The door of the room we had been talking in shut of its own accord.
We stooped, and he touched a spring in the wall, a trap-door flew open,
showing a flight of steps.  He went first, cautioning me not to slip
on the dark stairs; but I shouted not to mind me, but thanked him for
telling me, though.

“We went down and down, until I began to think the old cuss was going
to get me safe too, so I sung out—‘Hello! which way; we must be
mighty nigh under Wah-to-yah, we've been going on so long?’

“‘Yes,’ said he, much astonished; ‘we're just under the Twins.  Why,
turn and twist you ever so much, you do not lose your reckoning.’

“‘Not by a long chalk!  This child had his bringing-up at Wapakonnetta,
and that's a fact.’

“From the bottom we went on in a dampish sort of a passage, gloomily
lit up with one candle.  The grease was running down the block that
had an auger-hole bored in it for a candlestick, and the long snuff to
the end was red, and the blaze clung to it as if it hated to part
company, and turned black, and smoked at the point in mourning.
The cold chills shook me, and the old gentleman kept so still,
the echoes of my feet rolled back so solemn and hollow, I wanted liquor
mighty bad—mighty bad!

“There was a noise smothered-like, and some poor fellow would cry out
worse than Comanches a-charging.  A door opened, and the old gentleman
touching me on the back, I went in and he followed.  It flew to, and
though I turned right around, to look for sign to escape, if the place
got too hot, I couldn't find it.

“‘What now, are you dissatisfied?’

“‘Oh, no!  I was just looking to see what sort of a lodge you have.’

“‘I understand you perfectly, sir; be not afraid.’

“My eyes were blinded in the light, but rubbing them, I saw two big
snakes coming at me, their yellow and blood-shot eyes shining awfully,
and their big red tongues darting backwards and forwards, like a
panther's paw when he slaps it on a deer, and their jaws wide open,
showing long, slim, white fangs.  On my right four ugly animals jumped
at me, and rattled their chains—I swear their heads was bigger than
a buffalo's in summer.  The snakes hissed and showed their teeth, and
lashed their tails, and the dogs howled and growled and charged, and
the light from the furnace flashed out brighter and brighter; and
above me, and around me, a hundred devils yelled and laughed and swore
and spit, and snapped their bony fingers in my face, and leaped up to
the ceiling into the black, long spider-webs, and rode on the spiders
which was bigger than a powder-horn, and jumped onto my head.
Then they all formed in line, and marched and hooted and yelled; and
when the snakes joined the procession, the devils leaped on their
backs and rode.  Then some smaller ones rocked up and down on springing
boards, and when the snakes came opposite, darted way up in the air
and dived down their mouths, screeching like so many Pawnee Indians
for scalps.  When the snakes was in front of us, the little devils
came to the end of the snakes' tongues, laughing and dancing, and
singing like idiots.  Then the big dogs jumped clean over us, growling
louder than a cavayard of grizzly bear, and the devils, holding on to
their tails, flopped over my head, screaming—‘We've got you—we've
got you at last!’

“I couldn't stand it no longer, and shutting my eyes, I yelled right
out, and groaned.

“‘Be not alarmed,’ and my friend drew his fingers along my head and
back, and pulled a little narrow black flask from his pocket, with—
‘Here, take some of this.’

“I swallowed a few drops.  It tasted sweetish and bitterish—I don't
exactly know how, but as soon as it was down, I jumped up five times
and yelled ‘Out of the way, you little ones, and let me ride’; and
after running alongside, and climbing up his slimy scales, I got
straddle of a big snake, who turned his head round, blowing his hot,
sickening breath in my face.  I waved my old wool hat, and kicking him
into a fast run, sung out to the little devils to get up behind, and
off we started, screeching, ‘Hurrah for Hell!’  The old gentleman
rolled over and bent himself double with laughing, till he pretty nigh
choked.  We kept going faster and faster till I got on to my feet,
although the scales was mighty slippery, and danced Injun, and whooped
louder than them all.

“All at once the old gentleman stopped laughing, pulled his spectacles
down on his nose, and said, ‘Mr. Hatcher, we had better go now,’ and
then he spoke something I couldn't make out, and all the animals stood
still; I slid off, and the little hell-cats, a-pinching my ears and
pulling my beard, went off squealing.  Then they all formed in a half
moon before us—the snakes on their tails, with heads way up to the
black cobwebbed roof, the dogs reared on their hind feet, and the
little devils hanging everywhere.  Then they all roared, and hissed,
and screeched several times, and wheeling off, disappeared just as the
lights went out, leaving us in the dark.

“‘Mr. Hatcher,’ said the old gentleman again, moving off, ‘you will
please amuse yourself until I return’; but seeing me look wild, said,
‘You have seen too much of me to feel alarmed for your own safety.
Take this imp for your guide, and if he is impertinent, put him
through; and for fear the exhibitions may overcome your nerves, imbibe
of this cordial,’ which I did, and everything danced before my eyes,
and I wasn't a bit scared.

“I started for a red light that came through the crack of a door, and
stumbled over a three-legged chair, as I pitched my last cigar-stump
to one of the dogs chained to the wall, who caught it in his mouth.
When the door was opened by my guide, I saw a big blaze like a prairie
fire, red and gloomy; and big black smoke was curling and twisting and
spreading, and the flames a-licking the walls, going up to a point,
and breaking into a wide blaze, with white and green ends.  There was
bells a-tolling, and chains a-clinking, and mad howls and screams; but
the old gentleman's medicine made me feel as independent as a trapper
with his animals feeding around him, two pack of beaver in camp, with
traps sot for more.

“Close to the hot place was a lot of merry devils laughing and
shouting, with an old pack of greasy cards—it reminded me of them we
used to play with at the Rendezvous—shuffling them to the time of the
Devil's Dream, and Money Musk; then they'd deal in slow time, with the
Dead March in Saul, whistling as solemn as medicine-men.  Then they
broke out sudden with Paddy O'Rafferty, which made this hoss move
about in his moccasins so lively that one of them that was playing
looked up and said, ‘Mr. Hatcher, won't you take a hand?  Make way,
boys, for the gentleman.’

“Down I got amongst them, but stepped on one little fellow's tail,
who had been leading the Irish jig.  He hollered till I got off it,
‘Owch! but it's on my tail ye are!’

“‘Pardon,’ said I, ‘but you are an Irishman!’

“‘No, indeed!  I'm a hell-imp, he! he! who-oop!  I'm a hell-imp,’ and
he laughed and pulled my beard, and screeched till the rest threatened
to choke him if he didn't stop.

“‘What's trumps?’ said I, ‘and whose deal?’

“‘Here's my place,’ said one, ‘I'm tired of playing; take a horn,’
handing me a black bottle; ‘the game's poker, and it's your next deal
—there's a bigger game of poker on hand’; and picking up an iron rod
heating in the fire, he punched a miserable fellow behind the bars,
who cussed him and ran away into the blaze out of his reach.

“I thought I was great at poker by the way I gathered in the
beaver-skins at the Rendezvous, but here the slick devils beat me
without half trying.  When they'd slap down a bully pair, they'd
screech and laugh worse than trappers on a spree.

“Says one, ‘Mr. Hatcher, I reckon you're a hoss at poker away in your
country, but you can't shine down here—you ain't nowhere.  That
fellow looking at us through the bars was a preacher up in the world.
When we first got him, he was all-fired hot and thirsty.  We would dip
our fingers in water, and let it run in his mouth, to get him to teach
us the best tricks—he's a trump; he would stand and stamp the hot
coals, and dance up and down while he told his experience.  Whoop-ee!
how he would laugh!  He has delivered two long sermons of a Sunday,
and played poker at night of five-cent antes, with the deacons, for
the money bagged that day; and when he was in debt he exhorted the
congregation to give more for the poor heathen in a foreign land,
a-dying and losing their souls for the want of a little money to send
them a gospel preacher—that the poor heathen would be damned to
eternal fire if they didn't make up the dough.  The gentleman that
showed you around—old Sate, we call him—had his eyes on the preacher
for a long time.  When we got him, we had a barrel of liquor and
carried him around on our shoulders, until tired of the fun, and threw
him in the furnace yonder.  We call him “Poke,” for that was his
favourite game.  Oh, Poke,’ shouted my friend, ‘come here; here's a
gentleman who wants to see you—we'll give you five drops of water,
and that's more than your old skin's worth.’

“He came close, and though his face was poor, and all scratched, and
his hair singed mighty nigh off, make meat of this hoss, if it wasn't
old Cormon, that used to preach in the Wapakonnetta settlement!  Many
a time he's made my hair stand on end when he preached about the other
world.  He came closer, and I could see the chains tied on his wrists,
where they had worn to the bone.  He looked a darned sight worse than
if the Comanches had scalped him.

“‘Hello! old coon,’ said I, ‘we're both in that awful place you talked
so much about; but I ain't so bad off as you yet.  This young
gentleman,’ pointing to the devil who told me of his doings—‘this
gentleman has been telling me how you took the money you made us throw
in on Sunday.’

“‘Yes,’ said he, ‘if I had only acted as I told others to do, I would
not have been scorching here for ever and ever—water! water!  John,
my son, for my sake, a little water.’

“Just then a little rascal stuck a hot iron into him, and off he ran
in the flames, ‘cacheing’ on the cool side of a big chunk of fire,
a-looking at us for water; but I cared no more for him than the Pawnee
whose scalp was tucked in my belt for stealing my horses on Coon Creek;
and I said:—

“‘This hoss doesn't care a cuss for you; you're a sneaking hypocrite;
you deserve all you've got and more too—and look here, old boy, it's
me that says so.’

“I strayed off a piece, pretending to get cool, but this hoss began to
get scared, and that's a fact; for the devils carried Cormon until
they got tired of him, and, said I to myself, ‘Ain't they been doing
me the same way?  I'll cache, I will.’

“Well, now, I felt sort of queer, so I saunters along kind o' slowly,
until I saw an open place in the rock, not minding the imps who was
drinking away like trappers on a bust.  It was so dark there, I felt
my way mighty still, for I was afraid they'd be after me.  I got
almost to a streak of light when there was such a rumpus in the cave
that gave me the trembles.  Doors was slamming, dogs growling and
rattling their chains, and all the devils a-screaming.  They come
a-charging; the snakes was hissing sharp and wiry; the beasts howled
long and mournful, and thunder rolled up overhead, and the imps was
yelling and screeching like they was mad.

“It was time to break for timber, sure, and I run as if a wounded
buffalo was raising my shirt with his horns.  The place was damp, and
in the narrow rock, lizards and vipers and copperheads jumped out at
me, and climbed on my legs, but I stamped and shook them off.  Owls,
too, flopped their wings in my face and hooted at me, and fire blazed
out and lit the place up, and brimstone smoke came nigh choking me.
Looking back, the whole cavayard of hell was coming; nothing but
devils on devils filled the hole!

“I threw down my hat to run faster, and then jerked off my old blanket,
but still they was gaining on me.  I made one jump clean out of my
moccasins.  The big snake in front was getting closer and closer, with
his head drawed back to strike; then a hell-dog run up nearly alongside,
panting and blowing with the slobber running out of his mouth, and a
lot of devils hanging on to him, who was a-cussing me and screeching.
I strained every joint, but it was no use, they still gained—not fast—
but gaining.  I jumped and swore, and leaned down, and flung out my
hands, but the dogs was nearer every time, and the horrid yelling and
hissing way back grew louder and louder.  At last, a prayer mother
used to make me say, I hadn't thought of for twenty years, came right
before me as clear as a powder-horn.  I kept running and saying it,
and the darned devils held back a little.  I gained some on them.
I stopped repeating it, to get my breath, when the foremost dog made
a lunge at me—I had forgot it.  Turning up my eyes, there was the old
gentleman looking at me, and keeping alongside without walking.  His
face wasn't more than two feet off, and his eyes was fixed steady, and
calm and devilish.  I screamed right out.  I shut my eyes, but he was
there still.  I howled and spit, and hit at it, but couldn't get his
darned face away.  A dog caught hold of my shirt with his fangs, and
two devils, jumping on me, caught me by the throat, a-trying to choke
me.  While I was pulling them off, I fell down, with about thirty-five
of the infernal things and the dogs and the slimy snakes on top of me,
a-mashing and tearing me.  I bit pieces out of them, and bit again,
and scratched and gouged.  When I was 'most give out, I heard the
Pawnee scalp-yell, and use my rifle for a poking stick, if in didn't
charge a party of the best boys in the mountains.  They slayed the
devils right and left, and set them running like goats, but this hoss
was so weak fighting he fainted away.  When I come to, I was on the
Purgatoire, just where I found the liquor, and some trappers was
slapping their ‘whats’ in my face to bring me to.  All around where
I was laying, the grass was pulled up, and the ground dug with my
knife, and the bottle, cached when I traded with the Utes, was smashed
to flinders against a tree.

“‘Why, what on earth, Hatcher, have you been doing here?  You was
kicking and tearing around, and yelling as if your scalp was taken.
We don't understand these hifalootin notions.’

“‘The devils of hell was after me,’ said I, mighty gruff.  ‘This hoss
has seen more of them than he ever wants to see again.’

“They tried to get me out of the notion, but I swear, and I'll stick
to it, I saw a heap more of the all-fired place than I want to again.
If it ain't a fact, I don't know fat cow from poor bull.”

Hatcher always ended his yarn with this declaration, and you could
never make him believe that he had had only a touch of delirium tremens.

This story is related by Colonel W. F. Cody:—

        In 1864 two military expeditions were sent into the northwest
        country to disperse any hostile gatherings of Indians, one
        expedition starting from Fort Lincoln on the Missouri River
        under command of General George A. Custer.  It was on this
        expedition that Custer discovered gold in the Black Hills,
        a discovery which finally led up to the great Sioux war of 1876,
        when he lost his life in the battle of the Little Big Horn.
        The other expedition started from Rawlins on the Union Pacific
        Railway to go north into the Big Horn Basin in the Big Horn
        Mountain country.  This expedition was commanded by Colonel
        Anson Mills.  I was chief scout and guide of the expedition.

        One day, when we were on the Great Divide of the Big Horn
        Mountains, the command had stopped to let the pack-train close
        up.  While we were resting there, quite a number of officers
        and myself were talking to Colonel Mills, when we noticed,
        coming from the direction in which we were going, a solitary
        horseman about three miles distant.  He was coming from the
        ridge of the mountains.  The colonel asked me if I had any
        scouts out in that direction, and I told him I had not.
        We naturally supposed that it was an Indian.  He kept drawing
        nearer and nearer to us, until we made out it was a white man,
        and as he came on I recognized him to be California Joe.[72]

        When he got within hailing distance, I sung out, “Hello, Joe,”
        and he answered, “Hello, Bill.”  I said: “Where in the world
        are you going to, out in this country?”  (We were then about
        five hundred miles from any part of civilization.)  He said he
        was just out for a morning ride.  I introduced him to the
        colonel and officers, who had all heard and read of him, for
        he had been made famous in Custer's _Life on the Plains_.
        He was a tall man, about six feet three inches in his moccasins,
        with reddish gray hair and whiskers, very thin, nothing but
        bone, sinew, and muscle.  He was riding an old cayuse pony,
        with an old saddle, a very old bridle, and a pair of elk-skin
        hobbles attached to his saddle, to which also hung a piece of
        elk-meat.  He carried an old Hawkins rifle.  He had an old
        shabby army hat on, and a ragged blue army overcoat, a buckskin
        shirt, and a pair of dilapidated greasy buckskin pants that
        reached only a little below his knees, having shrunk in the
        wet; he also wore a pair of old army government boots with the
        soles worn off.  That was his make-up.

        I remember the colonel asking him if he had been very
        successful in life.  He pointed to the old cayuse pony, his
        gun, and his clothes, and replied, “This is seventy years'
        gathering.”  Colonel Mills then asked him if he would have
        anything to eat; he said he had plenty to eat, all he wanted
        was tobacco.  Tobacco was very scarce in the command, but they
        rounded him up sufficient to do him that day.  When invited to
        go with us, he said he was not particular where he went,
        he would just as soon go one way as the other; he remained
        with us several days, in fact, he stayed the entire trip.

        He was of great assistance to me, as he knew the country
        thoroughly.  He was a fine mountain guide, but I could seldom
        find him when I most needed him, as he was generally back with
        the column, telling frontier stories and yarns to the soldiers
        for a chew of tobacco.

        One day I rode back from the advance guard to ask the colonel
        how far he wanted to go before camping, and while I was riding
        along talking to him, we noticed that the advance guard had
        stopped and were standing in a circle, evidently looking at
        something very intently.  They were so interested that they
        did not come to their senses until the colonel and myself rode
        in among them.  Then they immediately moved forward, leaving
        the colonel and myself to see what they had been investigating.
        It was a lone grave in the desolate mountains, and whoever had
        been buried there evidently had friends, because the spot was
        nicely covered with stones to prevent the wolves from digging
        up the corpse.

        We were looking at this grave when old Joe rode up, and as he
        stopped he threw down his hat on the pile of rocks and said,
        “At last.”

        The colonel said, “Joe, do you know anything about the history
        of this grave?”  Joe replied—

        “Well I should think I did.”  The colonel then asked him to
        tell us about it.  Joe said:—

        “In 1816”—we didn't stop to think how far back 1816 was—
        “I had been to Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River with
        a company of fur traders, and had been trapping in that country
        for two or three years, and by that time the party had made up
        their minds they would start back to the States, across the
        mountains.  They were headed for the Missouri River, and when
        they got there, they intended to build a boat and float down
        to St. Louis.  As they were coming across the Continental
        Divide of the Rocky Mountains, had reached the eastern slope,
        and were coming down one of the tributaries of the Stinking
        Water, some one of the party discovered what he thought to be
        gold nuggets in the bed of the stream.  The water was clear.
        Every man went down to the water prospecting.  The stream was
        so full of gold nuggets that they all jumped off their horses,
        leaving them packed as they were, and commenced throwing gold
        nuggets out on the banks.

        “They abandoned everything they had with them, provisions and
        all, excepting their rifles, and prepared to load the gold.

        “Then they started for the Missouri River again, and when they
        reached the spot where this grave was, a man was taken suddenly
        ill, died in a very few minutes, and they buried him there.”

        Old Joe gave a sly wink, as much as to say, “We buried the
        money with the man.”

        At this time quite a number of officers gathered around where
        the advance of the command had halted, and there may have been
        thirty or forty soldiers listening to this story; there were
        some who took it to be one of Joe's lies that he usually told
        for tobacco.

        The colonel ordered the bugler to sound “forward.”  The command
        moved on and within five or six miles went into camp.  But
        every man who had listened to Joe's story of this grave,
        feeling that there was some hundred thousand dollars buried
        in it, gave it a look as they passed by.

        We moved on and went into camp.  Joe was messing with me, and
        after we had supper he said, “Bill, would you like to see a
        little fun to-night?”  I said, “Yes, I am in for fun or
        anything else.”  He said, “As soon as it gets dark you follow
        me.”  I said, “You bet I will follow you,” thinking all the
        time that he was going back to dig this fellow up.

        As soon as it was dark he started and motioned me to follow
        him, but, instead of going back on the trail, he went in the
        direction that we intended to go in the morning.  Thinks I to
        myself, “That is good medicine, we won't go directly back on
        the trail but follow another.”

        I asked him if we did not want to take a pick and shovel with
        us, and he said, “What for?”  I said, “We will need it.”
        He said, “No, we won't need it; you come on.”

        When we got outside the camp he commenced to turn around to
        the left, getting back on our trail.  I said, “This is all
        right.”  He was now going back toward the grave.  We went
        about a mile on the trail and he said, “Sit down here.”
        I said, “Don't we want to go on?”  He said, “What for?”
        I said, “To dig that fellow up and get the money.”  He said,
        “The money be damned; I never saw the bloomin' grave before,”
        or something like that.  I was disappointed.  He said, “Wait a
        few minutes until after ‘taps,’ and you will see that camp
        empty itself.”

        Presently here they came, scouts, soldiers, and packers by the
        dozen, sneaking through the brush and hurrying back on the
        trail.  Old Joe laid down behind this bowlder and just rolled
        with laughter to see them going to dig up the grave.

        The next morning the boys told me that they dug up the grave
        and found some bones; they dug up a quarter of an acre of
        ground and never got the colour of a piece of gold; then they
        “tumbled.”




CHAPTER XIX.
KIT CARSON ON THE YELLOWSTONE.



One of the Old American Fur Company's trappers by the name of Frazier,
as often told of him around the camp-fire, was one of those athletic
men who could outrun, outjump, and throw down any man among the more
than a hundred with whom he associated at the time.  He was the best
off-hand shot in the whole crowd, and possessed of a remarkably steady
nerve.  He met with his death in a curious way.  Once when away up the
Platte he with one of his companions were hunting for game in an aspen
grove.  Suddenly an immense grizzly bear came ambling along about
fifty yards away, evidently unaware of his enemy, man, being near him.
Frazier told his comrade to take to a tree, while he would behind one
of the others and kill the beast.  He raised his rifle, fired, and
the bullet lodged just above the bear's eye.  As the ball struck him,
the animal seemed intuitively to get the direction from which it came,
and started for Frazier.  The aspens have a very smooth, slippery bark
and are very difficult to climb.  Frazier failed to get high enough
to be out of reach of the dying and enraged bear, and in a few minutes
was a mangled mass at the foot of the tree, both he and the bear dead.

The majority of people, probably, imagine that the white man learned
the art of trapping from the Indian; but the converse is the case.
The savages, long before their contact with the white man, silently
crept along the banks of the creeks and, caching themselves in the
brush on their margin, with a patience characteristic of the race,
waited for the beaver to show himself in the shallow water, or crawl
on the banks, when they killed him with their stone-pointed arrows.
The process was a tedious one, and they earnestly desired to know of
some other method of capturing the wary little animal, so necessary
in their domestic economy.  So to their intense satisfaction, when
the white man came among them, they saw him walk boldly along the
streams and place a curious instrument in the water, which caught
the beaver and held him until the trapper was ready to take him out.

With their usual shyness the Indians watched the white man's method
from the underbrush skirting the margin of the creeks, and when the
trapper had left, they stole his trap and carried it off to their
village.  A long time elapsed before the savage learned how to use
the trap which had so interested him.  It was not until the white man
taught him that he learned how to watch the beaver at work in the pale
moonlight; how to know where the beaver-houses were, the proper method
of placing the trap, its peculiar bait, and then to leave it to catch
the beaver.

The following story was told many years ago by George P. Belden, and
it is the second instance of Indian elopement that has come under the
observation of the authors of this book.  It occurred some time in
the early '40's.

        The Ogallallas and Brûlés were once the most powerful tribes
        on the plains, and were particularly friendly.  The chief of
        the Brûlés was an old and experienced warrior.  The chief of
        the Ogallallas had a son whose name was Souk.  The old Brûlé
        frequently noticed the young Ogallalla, and seemed mightily
        pleased with him.  On one or two occasions he spoke to Souk
        encouragingly, and one day went so far as to invite him to
        visit his tribe, and spend a few days at his lodge.  These
        visits were often repeated, and it was during one of them
        Souk met the daughter of his friend, who was the belle of her
        tribe, and, besides her great personal charms, was esteemed
        to be the most virtuous and accomplished young woman in the
        nation.  It did not take long for her to make an impression
        on the heart of Souk, and soon both the young people found
        themselves over head and ears in love with each other.

        The Indian girl was proud of her lover, as well she might be,
        for he was only twenty-eight years of age, tall, handsome,
        good-tempered, and manly in his deportment.  Besides these
        considerations in his favour, he was virtually the head of his
        tribe, and no warrior was more renowned for deeds of valour.
        A born chief, the idol of his aged father, prepossessing in
        his appearance, already the leader of his band and its chief
        warrior.  He was just such a person as was likely to move the
        heart and excite the admiration of a young girl.

        Chaf-fa-ly-a was the only daughter of the Brûlé chief, and
        the spoiled pet of her father.  She was tall, lithe, and agile
        as an antelope.  She could ride the wildest steed in her
        father's herds, and no maiden in the tribe could shoot her
        painted bow so well, so daintily braid her hair, or bead
        moccasins as nicely as Chaf-fa-ly-a.  Giving all the love of
        her passionate nature to Souk, he loved her with all the
        strength of his manly heart in return.  Day after day the
        lovers lingered side by side, sat under the shade of the great
        trees by the clear-running brook, or hand in hand gathered
        wild flowers in the shadows of the hills.

        Sometimes Souk was at the village of his father, but he always
        made haste to excuse himself, and hurried back to the camp of
        the Brûlé chief.  In truth he was never content, except when
        by the side of the bewitching Chaf-fa-ly-a.  The old men knew
        of the growing attachment between their children, and seemed
        rather to encourage than to oppose it.  Chaf-fa-ly-a was
        buoyantly happy, and a golden future seemed opening up before
        her.  Souk often reflected how happy he would be when he and
        his darling were married; and frequently at night, when the
        stars were out, the young lovers would sit for hours and plan
        the future happiness of themselves and the people over whom
        they would rule.

        One day Souk returned to his father's camp, and formally
        notified him of his love for Chaf-fa-ly-a, and demanded her
        in marriage.  The old chief listened attentively, and at the
        close of Souk's harangue rose and struck the ground three
        times with his spear, declaring that he knew of no reason why
        his son should not be made happy, and have Chaf-fa-ly-a to
        wife.  The grateful Souk was so overjoyed, that, forgetting
        his position and the rank of his chief, he fell upon his neck,
        and, kissing him again and again, actually shed tears.
        Putting him kindly aside, the father, well knowing the
        impatience of young lovers, hastily summoned three of his most
        distinguished chiefs, and said to them, “Mount your swiftest
        horses! go to the camps of the Brûlé, and when you have come
        to him, say, Souk, the son of his old friend, loves his only
        daughter, Chaf-fa-ly-a, and that I demand her of him in
        marriage to my son.  You will also say that, according to the
        ancient customs of our tribes, I will pay to him whatever
        presents he may demand for the maiden, and that it is my
        desire, the friendship long existing between ourselves and
        our people may be cemented by the marriage of our children.”

        Bowing low, the chiefs retired, and were soon on their way to
        the Brûlé village, which was three days' journey distant.
        Rather than wait impatiently in the camp until the chiefs
        would return, Souk proposed to go on a short hunting excursion
        with some warrior friends to whom he could unbosom himself.

        Meantime the chiefs had proceeded on their errand, and on
        the evening of the third day caught sight of the Brûlé camp.
        They were hospitably received by the venerable chief, who did
        all in his power to make them comfortable after their fatiguing
        ride.  On the following morning the chief assembled his
        counsellors, and, making a great dog-feast, heard the request
        of the ambassadors.  When they had done speaking, the Brûlé
        rose and announced his consent to the marriage, saying he was
        delighted to know that his daughter was to be the wife of
        so brave and worthy a young man as the son of his friend.
        He then dismissed the chiefs, stating that he would shortly
        send an embassy to receive the promised presents, and complete
        the arrangements for the marriage of the young couple.

        When the chiefs returned to their camp and announced the
        result of their mission, there was great rejoicing, and Souk,
        who had cut his hunt short and returned before the chiefs, was
        now, perhaps, the happiest man in the world.  There was still,
        however, one thing which greatly troubled him.  He knew his
        father was very proud, and considered the honour of an
        alliance with his family so great that but few presents would
        be required to be made.  On the other hand, the old Brûlé was
        exceedingly parsimonious, and, no doubt, would take this
        opportunity to enrich himself by demanding a great price for
        his daughter's hand.

        Determined not to wait the pending negotiations before seeing
        his sweetheart, Souk summoned a band of his young warriors,
        and, burning with love, set out for the Brûlé camp.  It being
        the month of June, Souk knew the old chief would have removed
        from his winter encampment to his summer hunting-grounds and
        pasture, on the Lower Platte.  This would require some seven
        or eight days' more travel, and carry him through a portion of
        the territory of his enemies; but love laughs at danger, and,
        selecting eight tried companions, he set out.  The evening
        of the second day brought him to the border of his father's
        dominions, and, selecting a sheltered camp by the side of a
        little stream, they determined to rest their animals for a day
        before crossing the territory of the hostile Cheyennes.

        As soon as it was dark they saddled their horses, and,
        swimming the Upper Platte, set out to cross the enemy's lands.
        Their route lay in a southeasterly direction, and led them
        over a fine hilly country, almost destitute of wood, except in
        the deep valleys and narrow ravines.  The sun had long passed
        the meridian, the horses had rested, and the travellers taken
        their midday meal, but as yet had seen nothing to indicate
        that man was anywhere in this vast region.

        The sun was fast going down, and they were endeavouring to
        reach a good camping-ground known to several of the party,
        when suddenly, as they were descending a mountain, they saw
        below them smoke curling up, and, in the distance, two objects
        which looked like ants on the plain.  From their position they
        could not see the fires from whence the smoke arose, but the
        sight of it caused them hastily to dismount and lead their
        horses under shelter of the projecting rocks, that they might
        not be discovered.

        Two advanced on foot to reconnoitre, creeping cautiously
        round the base of the rocks, and then onward among fallen
        masses that completely screened them.  At length they reached
        a point from which they beheld, about a half a mile below
        them, an encampment of over one hundred men.  Three large
        fires were blazing, and while groups were gathered around
        them, others were picketing their horses, and evidently
        preparing to encamp for the night.  Souk's men had not long
        been in their observatory when they saw two men riding
        furiously down the valley toward the camp, and they instantly
        surmised these were the two black spots they had seen on
        the plain, and that Souk and his party had been discovered.
        They were not long left in doubt, however, for as soon as the
        horsemen reached the camp they rode to the chief's lodge,
        commenced gesticulating wildly, and pointing toward the cliffs
        where Souk and his men were.  A crowd gathered around the
        new-comers, and presently several were seen to run to their
        horses and commence saddling up.  The scouts now hastily left
        their hiding-place, and hurried back to Souk, whom they
        informed of all that was occurring below.

        Not a moment was to be lost, and, ordering his men to mount,
        Souk turned up the mountain along the path he had just come.
        He knew he had a dangerous and wily enemy to deal with,
        ten times his own in numbers, and that it would require all
        his skill to elude them, or the greatest bravery to defeat
        them, should it become necessary to fight.

        Fortunately he knew a pass farther to the west, that was
        rarely used, and for this he pushed with all his might.
        On reaching the mountain top, and looking back, black objects
        could be seen moving rapidly up the valley, and they knew that
        the enemy was in pursuit of them.  All night Souk toiled along,
        and, when the morning began to break, saw the pass he was
        seeking several miles ahead.  Reaching the mountain's edge at
        sunrise, they dismounted and began the perilous descent into
        the gorge.  In two hours it was accomplished, and they entered
        the sombre shadows of the great cañon.  They had begun to
        feel safe, when suddenly the man in front reined up his horse
        and pointed to several pony tracks in the sand.  Souk
        dismounted and examined them, and, on looking around, saw
        where the animals had been picketed, apparently, about two
        hours before.

        Could it be possible that the enemy had reached the pass
        before him, and were waiting to attack him higher up in the
        gorge?  He could hardly credit it, and yet it must be so,
        for who else could be in the lonely glen.  Recollecting that
        the cañon to the right would carry him into the great pass
        some ten miles higher up, he still hoped to get through before
        the enemy reached it, and, hastily mounting, they galloped
        furiously forward.  They had come in sight of the great pass,
        when, just as they were about to enter it, they saw a man
        sitting on a horse a few hundred yards ahead of them, and
        directly in the trail.  On observing the Ogallallas,
        the horseman gave the Cheyenne war-whoop, and, in a moment,
        a dozen other mounted men appeared in rear of the first.

        Grasping his spear, Souk shouted his war-whoop, and, ordering
        his men to charge, dashed down upon the enemy.  Plunging his
        spear into the nearest foe, he drew his battle-axe and clove
        open the head of the one in the rear, and before his comrades
        could come up with him had unhorsed a third.  A shout down
        the great cañon caused Souk to hurriedly look that way, when
        he saw about fifty warriors galloping toward him.  He now knew
        he had reached the pass ahead of the main body, and encountered
        only the scouts of the Cheyennes.  Ordering his men to push on
        up the pass to the great valley beyond, he, with his two
        companions, remained behind to cover their retreat.  On coming
        to their dead and wounded warriors, the Cheyennes halted and
        held a conference, while Souk and his friends leisurely
        pursued their journey.  In the gorge in which he then was,
        Souk knew ten men were as good as a hundred, and he was in no
        hurry to leave the friendly shelter of the rocks.  Taking up
        a position behind a sharp butte, he fortified the place, and
        quietly waited for the Cheyennes.  Hour after hour passed, but
        they did not appear.  The shadows of evening were beginning
        to creep into the ravines, and several of Souk's party were
        anxious to quit their retreat and continue their journey,
        confident that the Cheyennes had returned to their camp; but
        the wily young Sioux told them to be patient, and he would
        inform them when it was time to go.  The evening deepened into
        twilight, the moon rose over the peaks and stood overhead,
        indicating that it was midnight, but still Souk would not go.
        His men had begun to grumble, when suddenly a noise was heard
        in the gorge below, and presently voices and the tramp of
        horses could be distinguished.  Souk ordered four of his men
        to mount and be ready to leap the rude rock breastworks when
        he gave them notice, and to cheer and shout as lustily as
        possible.  He then lay down with the other four, and waited
        for the foe.  To his delight he noticed, as the Cheyennes
        came up, many of them were dismounted and leading their ponies.
        They came within a few feet of the barricade before they
        perceived it, and then Souk and his comrades commenced a rapid
        discharge of arrows into their midst.  Three or four shots had
        been fired before the Cheyennes knew what the matter was, or
        where the whizzing shafts came from.  Then Souk shouted his
        battle-cry, and the four mounted Sioux, repeating it from
        behind the butte, dashed over the barricade and charged the
        enemy, who broke and fled in the utmost confusion down the
        gorge.  In a moment Souk, with his remaining Sioux, was
        mounted and after them.  The animals of the Cheyennes broke
        loose from some of the dismounted warriors before they could
        mount, and left them on foot.  Several hid among the rocks,
        but Souk overtook and killed four.  The pursuit was kept up
        for nearly five miles, when Souk turned back and hastily
        continued his journey to the Brûlé camp, where he arrived in
        safety on the evening of the seventh day.

        He was kindly received by the father of his prospective bride,
        and given a dozen fine lodges for himself and friends.
        The meeting between Souk and his sweetheart was as tender as
        that of lovers could be, and now, that they were once together,
        both were perfectly happy.  Near the Brûlé encampment were
        some mountain vines covered with flowers, and here Souk and
        Chaf-fa-ly-a each day spent hour after hour in sweet communion
        with each other.  The stream was dotted for miles with hundreds
        of richly painted teepees; thousands of horses and ponies were
        constantly to be seen grazing in the green valley, and scores
        of warriors in their gay and various-coloured costumes galloped
        to and fro among the villages.  It was a pleasant sight at the
        home of the old Brûlé, and one that filled their young hearts
        with pride and joy, for all these herds and people were one
        day to be theirs.

        After lingering a month in the camp, the old Brûlé announced
        to Souk he was about to send the chiefs to receive the
        presents for Chaf-fa-ly-a's hand, and if the young man and
        his friends wished to return home it would be a favourable
        opportunity for them to do so.  Souk took the hint and made
        preparations accordingly.

        By the advice of the old chief, the party took another route,
        and, although it was two days longer, it brought them in
        safety to the Ogallalla encampment.

        At Souk's request, his father immediately assembled the
        council, and the negotiations for Chaf-fa-ly-a's hand began.
        An aged Brûlé made the first speech, expatiating on the power
        of his chief, the richness of his tribe, and the beauty of
        Chaf-fa-ly-a.  This was followed by an Ogallalla, who dwelt
        at length upon the power of his chief, his rank, and age, and
        upon the nobleness, bravery, and skill of Souk.  Several other
        speeches were made on each side, in which the young man and
        woman were alternately praised, and the glory of their fathers
        extolled to the skies.  The council then adjourned until the
        following day, the important point of the conference—the price
        of the lady's hand—not having been touched upon at all.

        Next day the conference continued, and toward evening the
        Brûlé chiefs, after having spoken a great deal, abruptly
        demanded fifty horses and two hundred ponies as the price
        for Chaf-fa-ly-a.

        The friends of Souk were a good deal surprised at the
        extravagant demand of the Brûlé, it being about three times
        more than they expected to give.  Souk's father could not
        conceal his indignation, and, saying he would give but
        twenty-five horses and one hundred ponies, adjourned the
        council, directing the Brûlé chiefs to return home and inform
        their venerable head of his decision.

        Souk returned to his lodge with a heavy heart, for he clearly
        foresaw trouble, and that his love, like all other “true loves,”
        was not to run smoothly.  Summoning his friends, he desired
        them to make as many presents as possible to the Brûlé chiefs,
        and before they started he added five horses of his own,
        hoping by this liberality to secure their good-will.  He also
        caused them to be secretly informed, that if they could induce
        the Brûlé chief to accept his father's offer, he would, on the
        day of his marriage, present to each of them a fine horse.

        Before leaving the Brûlé camp, Souk and Chaf-fa-ly-a had vowed
        a true lover's vow, that, come what would of the council, they
        would be faithful to each other, and die rather than break
        their plighted troth.  Souk had also promised his betrothed
        he would return in the fall and make her his wife, with or
        without the consent of the tribes.

        As the summer months wore away, and no word was received from
        the Brûlé camp, Souk became each day more restless, and
        finally, calling together a few friends, started once more for
        the Brûlé's home.

        He was received most cordially by the old chief, and, as
        before, given most hospitable entertainment.  Often, however,
        he thought he detected sadness on the old man's face, and on
        questioning Chaf-fa-ly-a as to the cause of her father's
        trouble, the poor girl burst into tears and confessed she was
        about to be sacrificed for her father's good.  She said that
        the Cheyenne chief, with whom her father had long been at war,
        had asked her hand, and promised, on receiving her as one of
        his wives, to cease from warring with the Sioux.  Her father,
        actuated by a desire to do his people and friends good, had,
        after the refusal of Souk's father to furnish the required
        presents, given the Cheyenne a promise, and they were to be
        married the following year, when the grass grew green on the
        earth.  The old chief preferred greatly to have Souk for a
        son-in-law, but he wished also to serve his people and old
        friends.  The treaty was to be binding on the Cheyennes, for
        the Ogallallas as well as the Brûlés, and therefore Souk and
        his father would be greatly benefited by her marriage to the
        Cheyennes.

        This astounding intelligence came near upsetting Souk's better
        judgment, and for a while he was nearly demented.  Taking the
        fond girl in his arms, he swore, rather than see her the wife
        of the hated Cheyenne, he would spill both his own and her
        blood, and they would go to the happy hunting-grounds together.
        Chaf-fa-ly-a begged him to be calm, and she would make her
        escape with him and fly to his people.  It was agreed that
        early in the spring, before the encampment moved to its summer
        pastures, Souk, with a chosen band, should come over the
        mountains, and in the confusion, when the tribe was on its
        march, they would seize a favourable opportunity to escape
        into the mountains, from which they could make their way to
        Souk's father and implore his protection.

        Cautioning him, even by a look, not to betray any knowledge
        of her engagement to the Cheyenne, the lovers parted, and next
        day Souk set out for his home, apparently utterly indifferent
        as to the result of the negotiations for his marriage.

        Slowly the winter months dragged along, and to the impatient
        Souk they seemed interminable; but at length the water began
        to come down from the mountains, and the ice grew soft on the
        streams.  As soon as he saw these indications of returning
        spring, Souk called his bravest friends together and set out
        from the camp.  He did not tell any one where he was going,
        and it was only when they began to ascend the mountains that
        they suspected they were on the way to the Brûlé camp.
        In eight days they descended the plain into the old chief's home.

        He was greatly astonished to see Souk, for he believed it
        impossible at that season of the year for any one to cross
        the mountain.  However, he gave Souk and his friends a hearty
        welcome, and again provided them with everything they needed.

        Next day the chief rode down the river to prepare the camps
        for moving, and Souk and Chaf-fa-ly-a, being left alone in the
        camp, had all the opportunity they desired for laying their
        plans.  Chaf-fa-ly-a said the camp would move in four days,
        and that in the meantime they must make every preparation for
        their flight.  There was one horse in the herd, she said, that
        was the swiftest in the tribe, and he must be either killed or
        she would ride him.  Her father had always objected to her
        mounting this animal because he was so vicious; but, now that
        he was away, it would be a good time for her to ride the animal,
        and show to her father that she was a better horsewoman than
        he thought.  Once upon him, she could pretend a fondness for
        the beast, and thus secure him to ride on the trip.  Souk
        agreed to all she said, and the wild horse was at once sent for.
        He reared and plunged fearfully, but at length he was conquered,
        and Chaf-fa-ly-a mounted his back.  Souk rode by her side, and
        they galloped down the river to meet the old chief, who they
        knew must by that time be returning homeward, as it was nearly
        evening.  They soon met him, and when he saw his daughter on
        the wild horse, he was greatly surprised, but not displeased,
        for all Indians are proud of their horsemanship.  Cautioning
        her to be very careful and hold him fast, Souk, the old chief,
        and Chaf-fa-ly-a rode back to the village together.

        Next day Chaf-fa-ly-a again rode the wild horse, and in the
        evening slyly extracted a promise from her father that she
        should be permitted to ride him when the village changed its
        camping-ground.

        On the morning of the fourth day the herds were gathered,
        the teepees pulled down, and the village commenced its march
        to the summer pastures.  The men had got the herds fairly on
        the way, and the sun was just tipping the icy peaks of the
        mountains, when Souk and Chaf-fa-ly-a mounted their steeds and
        galloped swiftly forward.  Chaf-fa-ly-a rode the wild horse,
        and Souk was mounted on a splendid stallion.  All of Souk's
        warriors had been sent the day before to Pole Creek, a day in
        advance, under the pretence of hunting.

        Riding on until they reached the head of the herd, they were
        about to pass, when the herders informed the young couple that
        it was the chief's orders no one should go ahead of the herd
        and they could proceed no farther.  Giving the men a pleasant
        reply, Chaf-fa-ly-a said she was only trying the mettle of her
        horse, and at once turned back.  They had gone but a little
        distance when they entered the sand-hills, and, making a wide
        circuit, came out far in advance of the herd.  They were now
        on the banks of a little lake, and, giving their horses full
        rein, sped by its clear waters.

        Long before night the young people reached Pole Creek and
        found Souk's warriors.  He hastily explained to them what had
        happened, and, charging them to remain, and if possible draw
        the enemy from the trail, Souk and his sweetheart again set
        forward.

        One of the warriors who remained behind was to personate a
        woman, and, if possible, make the old chief's people think he
        was Chaf-fa-ly-a.  Souk said he knew a pass through the Black
        Hills that would bring them to his father's country two days
        sooner than by any other route, and, although the way was
        somewhat dangerous, they must take all risks and depend on
        the swiftness of their horses for their escape.

        All night they rode on, and at sunrise halted on the top of
        a high hill to breakfast on cold roast antelope and wild
        artichokes.  Chaf-fa-ly-a's horse bore her light weight
        without seeming fatigued, but Souk was heavy and his steed
        began to show signs of distress.

        Far in the distance they could see the blue line of the gap
        that still lay between them and safety; and, hurriedly
        refreshing themselves from a spring of pure water, they again
        set out, hoping to reach it before night.

        It was near sundown when they began to ascend the high ridge
        that led into the gap, and they had just reached the crest
        when Chaf-fa-ly-a, scanning the valley below them, descried
        horsemen following on their trail.  They had hoped they were
        not yet discovered, and under cover of night might still reach
        the pass in safety, but the horsemen soon divided, and one
        half went up the valley, while the others continued to follow
        the trail.  Souk knew in a moment that those who went up the
        valley were going to head them off, and, although they had
        nearly double the distance to ride, their road was comparatively
        smooth, while Souk's lay along precipices and over crags.
        Calling to Chaf-fa-ly-a that they must now ride for their
        lives, Souk whipped up the horses, and they began to climb
        rapidly the rugged pathway.

        All night they pushed along, and at daylight found themselves
        quite near the pass.  Souk scanned the valley through the
        hazy light, but could detect no traces of the Brûlé people.
        He began to hope that they had not yet arrived, and spoke
        encouragingly to Chaf-fa-ly-a, who, pale with fatigue, now sat
        upon her horse like a statue.  Descending into the deep cañon,
        Souk directed Chaf-fa-ly-a to ride rapidly for the pass, while
        he followed close in the rear, ready to attack the enemy that
        might appear.  They had gone about half a mile, and were just
        entering the jaws of the great gorge, when a cry of distress
        rose from the lips of the girl, and, looking to his right,
        Souk saw about twenty Brûlés rapidly closing on the pass.
        The noble girl whipped up her horse, and, darting forward like
        an arrow, shot through the pass full fifty yards ahead of the
        foremost Brûlé warrior.

        Souk grasped his battle-axe, and, reaching the pass just as
        the first Brûlé came up, struck his horse on the head,
        dropping him on the ground and sending the rider rolling over
        the rocks.  The second warrior, seeing the fate of his
        companion, swerved his steed to one side and strove to pass
        Souk, but he quickly drew his bow and drove an arrow through
        the horse behind the fore-shoulder, causing him to drop to his
        knees and fling his rider on the ground.

        The lovers were now ahead of all of their pursuers, and,
        urging their gallant steeds to their utmost, they soon had
        the satisfaction of hearing the shouts of the Brûlés dying in
        the distance behind them.  In an hour they halted, refreshed
        themselves, and rested their horses.  In the distance they
        could see the Brûlés halting by a stream, and apparently
        resting also.  The lovers were the first to move on, and,
        when once in the saddle, they lost no time.

        It was past noon when Souk saw some objects several miles off
        to the left, and soon made them out to be part of the Brûlés,
        who were making for the river, to cut him off from the ford.
        The race was a long one, but the lovers won it, and crossed
        in safety.

        On the third day they entered the great mountains and drew
        near the borders of the country of Souk's father.  At sunset
        they crossed a little creek, which Souk pointed out to
        Chaf-fa-ly-a as the boundary of the Ogallalla lands.  Riding
        forward a dozen miles, they halted in a wild, mountainous
        region, and, for the first time since starting, prepared to
        take some rest.  Souk comforted Chaf-fa-ly-a with the
        assurance that another day would take them to his home, and
        that they were now well out of danger.

        A sheltered spot was selected for their camp, near a stream,
        and while Souk gathered some sticks to make a small fire, his
        bride walked down to the water's edge.  He saw her turn up the
        stream, and in a moment more she was lost from view.  The fire
        was soon lighted, and Souk busy preparing the evening meal,
        when suddenly he heard a fearful shriek at no great distance.

        Seizing his battle-axe, he rushed toward the spot from whence
        the sound proceeded, but could see no one.  Calling the name
        of his bride, he dashed forward through the thicket, but could
        see or hear nothing of her.  He called loudly again, but
        received no response.  The silence was agonizing, and he
        listened for several moments, when he heard the crackling of
        some branches in the distance.  He rushed frantically to the
        spot, but his career was quickly stopped by an object on the
        ground.  It was the torn and now bloody mantle of his beloved.
        The mystery was in part explained—she had retired to this
        secluded spot to offer up a prayer to the Great Spirit for
        their safe deliverance, and, as was her custom, had taken off
        her mantle and spread it on the earth.  On this she had knelt,
        when a grizzly bear, that terrible beast of the Rocky Mountains,
        had rushed upon her and killed her before she could utter a
        second cry.  His huge paws were deeply imprinted on the sand,
        and the trail along which he had dragged his victim was
        distinctly visible.  Souk, taking the rent garment, plunged
        into the brushwood.

        He crossed the thicket in several directions, but in vain;
        it was dark, and he could not follow the trail.  He returned
        to the camp in a frame of mind bordering on despair.  Raising
        his hand to heaven, he swore by the great Wa-con Ton-ka to
        track the beast to his den and slay him, or perish in the
        conflict.  It seemed to him an age before the light appeared,
        but at length the gray streamers began to streak the east, and
        Souk was on the trail.  Again and again he lost it, but the
        growing light enabled him to find it, and he pushed on.
        He found the lair half a mile out, where the beast had eaten
        a part of his beloved, and, as he looked at the blood-stains
        on the ground, his brain seemed about to burst from his skull.
        Pieces of garments were left on some of the bushes where the
        bear had dragged the body along.  Far up into the mountains
        Souk followed the trail, but at length lost it among the rocks.
        All day he hunted for it in vain, and when night came he
        returned to his camp.  He expected the enemy had come up
        during his absence, but he found the horses where he had left
        them, and the camp undisturbed.  How he wished the Brûlés
        would come and kill him.  He cursed himself, and wished to die,
        but could not.  Then he slept, how long he knew not, but the
        sun was far up in the heavens and shining brightly when he awoke.

        Mounting one of the horses, and leading the other, he started
        at full speed.  He wished to leave as quickly as possible, and
        forever, the cursed spot that had witnessed the destruction of
        all his earthly happiness.  It afforded him some relief to
        ride fast, and he dashed onward, he neither knew nor cared
        where.  His well-trained steed took the road for him, and as
        the evening shadows were beginning to creep over the valley,
        he saw far ahead the teepees of his father's village.
        He lashed his horse and rode like a madman into the town.
        His faithful warriors had returned, but they hardly knew their
        beloved young chief, so changed was he.  At the door of his
        father's lodge his brave horse fell dead, and Souk rolled over
        on the ground insensible.

        He was carefully lifted up and laid on his own bed, where for
        many days he remained in a raging fever, at times delirious,
        and calling wildly on the name of Chaf-fa-ly-a.  Little by
        little he recovered, and at length went about the village
        again, but he hardly ever spoke to any one; and for years
        the Brûlés and Ogallallas never visited each other.

In the early days the celebrated Kit Carson and Lucien B. Maxwell
trapped on every tributary of the Platte and Yellowstone, long before
they joined General Fremont's first exploring expedition as principal
scouts and guides in company with Jim Bridger, Jim Baker, and others.

In the early '40's, Kit Carson as the leader, with a hundred
subordinates, organized a party of trappers to operate upon the
Yellowstone and its many tributaries.  The Blackfeet, upon whose
ground the men were to encroach, were bitter enemies of the whites,
and it was well known that serious difficulties with those savages
could not be avoided, so Carson prepared his plans for considerable
fighting.  He assigned one half his followers to the work of trapping
exclusively, while the remainder were to attend to the camp duties
and vigilantly guard it.

As Carson, on many previous occasions, had had tussles with the
hostile Blackfeet, he was not at all disinclined to meet them again on
their own ground; and as he felt doubly strong with such a large party
of old mountaineers, he rather hoped that the savages would attack him,
as he wished to settle some ancient scores with them.

Carson was, however, disappointed that season, and he could not at
first understand why the Blackfeet had left him so severely alone;
but he found out, later, that the smallpox had decimated them, and
they were only too glad to retire to their mountain fastnesses,
completely humbled, and hide in terror hoping to escape further
attacks of the dreaded disease.

Carson and his party spent the winter in that region with the friendly
Crows, passing a delightful season, with an abundance of food, living
in the comfortable buffalo-skin lodges of the tribe, and joining in
their many amusements.

While there was no lack of provisions for the party in the village of
the kind-hearted Crows, their horses suffered greatly.  The earth was
covered with deep snow, and Carson and his trappers were kept busy
every day gathering willow twigs and cottonwood bark to sustain the
life of the animals.  Great herds of buffalo, driven to the locality
by the severity of the weather, and depending, too, upon the timber
for their sustenance, made it even harder work to supply the horses.

On the opening of spring, Carson and his party commenced to trap again,
and returning to the fruitful country of the hostile Blackfeet, they
learned that the tribe had completely recovered from the visitation
of the smallpox of the previous year.  Some bands were camped near
the trapping-ground, and were in excellent condition, spoiling for
a fight with the whites.

Upon discovering the state of affairs, Carson and five of his most
determined men set out on a reconnoitring expedition.  They found the
site of the Blackfeet village, and, hurrying back to camp, a party of
forty-three was selected, with Carson as leader.  The remainder were
to follow on with their baggage, and if it should become necessary
when they came up to the savages to assist them; Carson and his brave
followers marched ahead, eager for a fight.

It did not require a very long time to overtake the savages, who had
commenced to move their village; and making a sudden charge among them,
Carson and his men killed ten of the savages at the first fire.
The Blackfeet immediately rallied and began to retreat in good order.
The whites were in excellent spirits over the result of the first dash
and followed it up for more than three hours; then, their ammunition
running low, their firing became less rapid, and they had to exercise
the greatest caution.  At this juncture the savages suspected the
reason that the white men had moderated their attack, and, with most
demoniacal yells, they rallied, and charged with such force that
Carson and his men were obliged to retreat.

Now, in the charge of the Indians, the trappers could use their
pistols with great effect, and the savages were again driven back.
Again they rallied, however, and in such increased numbers that they
forced Carson and his men once more to retreat.

During the last rally of the Indians, the horse of one of the trappers
was killed, and fell with its whole weight on its rider.  Six warriors
immediately rushed forward to scalp the unfortunate man.  Seeing his
helpless condition, Carson rushed to his assistance, jumped from his
horse, placed himself in front of his fallen companion, and shouting
at the same instant for his men to rally around him, shot the foremost
warrior dead with his unerring rifle.

Several of the trappers quickly responded to Carson's call, and the
remaining five savages were compelled to dash off, without the coveted
scalp of the fallen white man, but only two of them ever regained
their places in the ranks of their brother braves, for three
well-directed shots dropped them dead in their tracks.

Carson's horse had run away, so, as his comrade was now saved,
he mounted behind one of the men who had come when he called for help,
and rode back to the rest of his command.  Then, being thoroughly
exhausted, both parties ceased firing by mutual consent, each waiting
for the other to renew hostilities.

While indulging in this armistice, the other trappers came up with the
camp equipage.  The savages showed no fear at this addition to the
force of the enemy, but, calmly covering themselves among the detached
rocks a little distance from the battle-ground, quietly awaited the
expected onslaught.

With the fresh supply his companions had brought, Carson cautiously
advanced on foot with reënforcements to dislodge the savages from
their cover.  The battle was renewed with increased vigour, but the
whites eventually scattered the savages in all directions.

It was a complete victory for the trappers, as they had killed a great
many of the Blackfeet warriors, and wounded a larger number, while
their own loss aggregated but three men killed and only a few severely
wounded.

Now that the battle was ended, the trappers camped on the ground where
the bloody engagement occurred, buried the dead, tended the wounded,
and, from that time on, pursued their vocation throughout the whole
Blackfeet country without fear of molestation, so salutary had been
the chastisement of the impudent savages.  The latter took good care,
ever afterward, to keep out of the way of the intrepid Carson, having
had enough of him to last the rest of their lives.

During the battle with Carson's trappers, the Blackfeet had sent their
women and children on in advance; and, when the engagement had ended,
and the discomfited warriors, so much reduced in number, returned
without one scalp, the big skin lodge, which had been erected for the
prospective war-dance, was occupied by the wounded savages, and the
hatred for the whites among the tribe was intensified to the last
degree of bitterness.

After the season's ending, which had been very successful, Carson
engaged himself as hunter, at the fort of the American Fur Company on
the South Platte; and as game of all kinds—deer, elk, and antelope—
was abundant, the duty was a delightful one.

The following spring, Carson, in conjunction with Bridger, Baker, and
other famous plainsmen, trapped on all the affluents of the Platte,
and camped for the following winter in the Blackfeet country, without
seeing any of his enemies until spring had again made its rounds.
He and his men then discovered that they were near one of the
Blackfeet's greatest strongholds.

Upon this forty men, with Carson as the leader, were chosen to give
them battle.  They found the Indians, to the number of several hundred,
and charged upon them.  They met with a brave resistance, and the
battle continued until darkness put an end to the fight, when both
whites and savages retired.  At the first sign of dawn Carson and his
party prepared for a renewal of the conflict, but not an Indian was to
be seen.  They had fled, taking away with them their dead and wounded.

Carson and his followers returned to their camp and held a council of
war, at which it was decided that as the band they had whipped would
report the affair to the chiefs of the several villages, the terrible
loss they had sustained would inspire all the warriors to make a
united effort to wipe out the trappers.  The savages knew where their
camp was established, so it would be wise to prepare for another grand
battle on the same ground, by looking to their defences.  To that end
sentinels were posted on a lofty hill near by, breastworks were thrown
up under Carson's supervision, and the utmost precaution taken to
guard against a surprise.

One morning the sentinel on the top of the mountain announced by
signals that the Indians were on the move; but the little fortification
was already completed, and the anxious trappers coolly awaited the
approach of the savages.

Slowly the redskins in full war-paint gathered around the sequestered
camp, and more than a thousand warriors had congregated within half
a mile of the trappers' breastwork in three days.

Dressed in their fancy bonnets, and hideously bedaubed with yellow and
vermilion streaks across their foreheads and on each cheek, armed with
bows, tomahawks, and long lances, they presented a formidable-looking
front to the small number of whites.  The trappers kept cool, however;
every man clutched his rifle, determined to sell his life only at
fearful cost to the confident savages.

They commenced one of their horrible war-dances right in sight and
hearing of the trappers, and at dawn the following day they advanced
toward the little fortification, carefully prepared for a concerted
attack.

Carson cautioned his men to reserve their fire until the Indians were
near enough to make sure that every shot would count; but the savages,
seeing how effectively the trappers had intrenched themselves, retired
after firing a few harmless shots, and went into camp a mile distant.
Finally they separated into two bands, leaving the whites a
breathing-spell.  The latter were well aware an encounter must
necessarily be of a most desperate character.

The Indians had evidently recognized Carson, who had so frequently
severely punished them, and they made no further attempt to molest
the trappers, much to the relief of the beleaguered men.

Jim Cockrell,[73] as he was known in the mountains, was one of the
earliest of the old trappers.  He left his home in Missouri in the
spring of 1822, and started for the heart of the Rocky Mountains,
with a single packhorse to carry his camp equipage, and a single
riding-horse.  He trapped by himself for more than two years.
In a short time that terrible loneliness which comes to all men,
for man is a gregarious animal, was experienced in all its horrors by
this isolated trapper.  Like all men of his class at that time, he was
exceedingly superstitious.  He wanted somebody to talk to, and in the
absence of a possibility of finding one of his own kind, his greatest
desire was for a dog, a true friend under all circumstances.  He says
that he prayed long and earnestly for the fulfilment of his wish.
To his surprise on awaking one morning from the night's sleep he saw
a dog lying on his robes alongside of him.  Remote from all civilization
and far from any Indian camp, he never, to the day of his death,
had the slightest idea how the dog came to him; but no one could ever
disabuse his mind of his belief that Providence had answered his appeal.

The youthful trapper avoided the Indians as much as possible, for,
tenderfoot as he was at first, he knew well that they would harass him
in every possible way, in order to drive him from a region which was
their elysium.  He found it an easy matter, after he became acquainted
with their habits, to keep out of their sight.  In a short time, also,
he was under a sort of protection of Peg Leg Smith, who lived with his
Indian wife near Soda Springs, now in Idaho.

James Cockrell was over six feet high, very hospitable, generous and
kind to friends, but decidedly outspoken to his enemies.  After having
accumulated some money by trapping, he returned to Missouri, lived
upon a fine farm, and died at a ripe old age.

Peg Leg Smith was a famous trapper, and after marrying a squaw of
the Shoshone tribe, who proved to be a very efficient partner in
preparing the pelts of the animals he had caught, he made a great
deal of money.

He was very fond of whiskey and generally full of it, particularly
while remaining in the settlements, and would have his fun if he had
to make it for himself.  In the early '30's, Peg Leg Smith came down
from his mountain home, sold his season's trapping, then put up at
the Nolan House at Independence, Missouri, for a general good time.
In a very few hours he was drunk, and remained in that condition for
some time.  After he had been at the hotel a week, the clerk put his
bill under the door of his room, simply to let him know the amount of
his account.  When Smith saw it he determined to have some fun out
of it.  He went down to the office apparently in a perfect rage, and
holding the account up to the clerk, said he was grossly insulted;
“here's this paper stuck under my door, and it's one of the greatest
insults that I have ever received.”  Smith kept on talking in this
wild strain for a few moments, until he arrested the attention of
every one in the bar-room.  The poor clerk tried to pacify him, but,
failing completely, sent for Mr. Nolan, the proprietor, who, coming in,
tried to reason with Smith, but all in vain.  Finally, Smith in great
indignation called for his horse.  It was a fine animal, as he always
rode the best that could be procured.  Upon this demand the landlord
told him to pay his bill and he could have his horse.  He went back
to his room, procured his gun, and started for the stable, which was
about fifty yards from the house.  The hostler had already been ordered
not to let him have the animal and to lock the stable door.  Peg Leg
on reaching the stable demanded his horse, but he was refused.
He raised his gun and shot the lock all to pieces.  The fellows who
were looking on screamed with laughter and made fun, greatly to the
mortification of Nolan.  Smith then told the hostler to take good care
of his horse, and, his apparent indignation changing to a smile,
he walked back to the house.  Then he invited every one up to the bar
and spent twenty or thirty dollars before he left for his room.[74]




CHAPTER XX.
BUILDING THE UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD.



In this story of the Salt Lake Trail, our account would not be
complete without including the history of the great “Iron Trail” that
now practically, for a long distance, follows the grassy path of the
lumbering stage-coach, the slowly moving freight caravans drawn by
patient oxen, or the dangerous route of the relatively rapid Pony
Express.

No better story of the construction of the Great Union Pacific Railroad
can be found than the address of its chief engineer, General G. M.
Dodge, before the Society of the Army of the Tennessee, at Toledo,
Ohio, on the 15th of September, 1888.  He had been over the whole
region which extends from the Missouri River to Salt Lake in the early
'50's, and, as has been said of him by a distinguished jurist, now
dead:
        He was an enthusiast who communicated enthusiasm to his
        working forces, and he showed his skill in the management of
        hostile Indians, and the ruffians and gamblers who followed
        the camp.  The close of the war, in which he distinguished
        himself, left him at liberty to accept this position of chief
        engineer, and his intimate relations with Grant and Sherman
        put him on such terms with commanding officers of garrisons
        and military posts along the route, that he was enabled to
        avail himself of military aid against marauding Indians, and
        also frequently in maintaining order when worthless
        camp-followers become unruly.

The authors of this work have deemed it advisable to quote the greater
part of General Dodge's address, as a more complete account of the
construction of the road than anything to be found elsewhere on the
subject:—

        Turn with me to the first volume of General Sherman's memoirs,
        page 79, where he says:—

        “Shortly after returning from Monterey, I was sent to General
        Smith up to Sacramento City to instruct Lieutenants Warner and
        Williamson, of the engineers, to push their surveys of the
        Sierra Nevada Mountains, for the purpose of ascertaining the
        possibility of passing that range by a railroad, a subject
        that then elicited universal interest.  It was generally
        assumed that such a road could not be made along any of the
        immigrant roads then in use, and Warner's orders were to look
        farther north up the Feather River, or some of its tributaries.
        Warner was engaged in this survey during the summer and fall
        of 1849, and had explored to the very end of Goose Lake,
        the source of Feather River, when this officer's career was
        terminated by death in battle with the Indians.”

        He was too modest to add, as I have no doubt was the fact,
        that those instructions were sent at his own suggestion;
        that was the first exploring party ever sent into the field
        for the special purpose of ascertaining the feasibility of
        constructing a railway on a portion of the line of one of the
        transcontinental routes, and that the exploration preceded
        by at least four years the act of Congress making
        appropriations “for explorations and surveys for a railroad
        route from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean,”
        the earlier fruits of which were embodied in thirteen
        ponderous volumes, printed at the expense of the government.

        And still further.  The interest thus early manifested
        continuing with unabated force was signalized in the closing
        days of his official life by a summary of transcontinental
        railroad construction up to that date, 1883, so exhaustive as
        to the leading facts that I am at a loss touching the scope
        he expects me to give to this paper.  This summary may be
        found in General Sherman's last report to the Secretary
        of War, including the exhaustive statistics of Colonel Poe.
        (Ex. Doc. 1, Part 2, Forty-eighth Congress, 1st Session,
        pages 46, 47, and 253-317.

        Under all circumstances, therefore, I must assume that he
        expects me to confine my remarks to something of an elaboration
        of the details of the construction of those lines with which
        I was personally identified, more especially that which first
        of all linked the two oceans together. . . .

        When I first saw the country west of the Missouri River it was
        without civil government, inhabited almost exclusively by
        Indians.  The few white men in it were voyageurs, or connected
        in some way with the United States army.  It was supposed to
        be uninhabitable, without any natural resources or
        productiveness, a vast expanse of arid plains, broken here
        and there with barren, snow-capped mountains.  Even Iowa was
        unsettled west of the Des Moines River.

        It cost the government in those days from one to two cents per
        pound to haul freight one hundred miles to supply its posts;
        and I was at one time in the country between the Humboldt and
        the Platte nearly eight months without seeing a white man
        other than my own employees.

        Now, from the Missouri River to the Pacific, from the Red River
        and the Rio Grande to the British possessions, the territory
        is all under civil law.

        The vast region is traversed its entire length by five great
        transcontinental lines of railroad.  There is hardly a county
        in it not organized, and it is safe to say that there is not
        a township that is without an occupant.  Its plains teem with
        all the products grown east of the Missouri River.  It has
        become the great corn and wheat producing belt of the United
        States; its mountains are the producers of millions upon
        millions of the precious ores, and from every range and valley
        iron and coal in immense quantities are being mined.

        It is said that a railroad enhances ten times the value of
        the country through which it runs and which it controls, but
        the value of this country has been enhanced hundreds of times.
        The government has reaped from it a thousand-fold for every
        dollar it has expended; and the Pacific roads have been the
        one great cause that made this state of affairs possible.
        The census of 1890 will place, in this territory, fifteen
        million of people, and in twenty years it will support forty
        million.

        It is difficult, I doubt not, for you to comprehend the fact
        that the first time I crossed the Missouri River was on a raft,
        and at the point where stands the city of Omaha to-day.
        That night I slept in the teepee of an Omaha Indian.

        When I crossed my party over to make the first explorations
        not one of us had any knowledge of Indians, of the Indian
        language, or of plains craft.  The Indians surrounded our
        wagons, took what they wanted, and dubbed us squaws.  In my
        exploring, ahead and alone, I struck the Elkhorn River about
        noon.  Being tired, I hid my rifle, saddle, and blanket,
        sauntered out into a secluded place in the woods with my pony,
        and lay down to sleep.  I was awakened and found my pony gone.
        I looked out upon the valley, and saw an Indian running off
        with him.  I was twenty-five miles from my party and was
        terrified.  It was my first experience, for I was very young.
        What possessed me I do not know, but I grabbed my rifle and
        started after the Indian hallooing at the top of my voice.
        The pony held back, and the Indian, seeing me gaining upon him,
        let the horse go, jumped into the Elkhorn, and put that river
        between us.

        The Indian was a Pawnee.  He served me in 1865, and said to me
        that I made so much noise he was a “heap scared.”

        Within a radius of ten miles of that same ground to-day are
        five distinct lines of railroad, coming from all parts of the
        country, concentrating at Omaha for a connection with the
        Union Pacific.

        The first private survey and exploration of the Pacific
        Railroad was caused by the failure of the Mississippi &
        Missouri, now the Chicago, Rock Island, & Pacific, to complete
        its project.

        The men who put their money into that enterprise conceived
        the idea of working up a scheme, west of Iowa, that would be
        an inducement to capital to invest in carrying their project
        across Iowa to the Missouri River.  They also wished to
        determine at what point on the Missouri the Pacific Railroad
        would start, so as to terminate their road at that point.
        The explorers adopted Council Bluffs, Iowa, as that point.
        All roads crossing the state for years ended their surveys at
        that point, and all roads now built connect with that point.
        These explorations, commenced by me in 1853, were continued
        each year until 1861, when the result was seen in the framing
        of the bill now known as the Law of 1862.

        After this bill was passed, the Union Pacific Company was
        organized at Chicago, September 2, 1862, and Reed, Dey, and
        Brayton made reconnoissances east of the mountains, Reed
        confining his work to the crossing of the mountains to reach
        the Great Salt Lake Basin.  The effort to engage capital in
        the road was a failure.

        During these explorations, in 1856 or 1857, I happened to
        return to Council Bluffs, where Mr. Lincoln chanced to be on
        business.  It was then quite an event for an exploring party
        to reach the States.  After dinner, while I was sitting on the
        stoop of the Pacific House, Mr. Lincoln came and sat beside
        me, and in his kindly way and manner was soon drawing from me
        all I knew of the country west, and the result of my surveys.
        The secrets that were to go to my employers he got, and,
        in fact, as the saying there was, he completely “shelled my
        woods.”  President Lincoln, in the spring of 1863, sent for me
        to come to Washington.

        When I received the summons from General Grant, at Corinth,
        Mississippi, to repair to Washington, giving no reason,
        it alarmed me.  I had armed without authority a lot of negroes
        and organized them into a company to guard the Corinth
        contraband camp.  It had been severely criticised in the army,
        and I thought this act of mine had partly to do with my call
        to Washington; however, upon reaching there and reporting to
        the President, I found that he recollected his conversation on
        the Pacific House stoop; that he was, under the law, to fix
        the eastern terminus of the Pacific Road; and, also, that he
        was very anxious to have the road commenced and built, and
        desired to consult me on these questions.  He finally fixed
        the terminus at Council Bluffs, Iowa.

        In the discussion of the means of building the road I thought
        and urged that no private combination should be relied on,
        that it must be done by the government.  The President frankly
        said that the government had its hands full.  Private
        enterprise must do the work, and all the government could do
        was to aid.  What he wished to know of me was, what was
        required from the government to ensure its commencement and
        completion.  He said it was a military necessity that the road
        should be built.

        From Washington I proceeded to New York, and after consulting
        there with the parties who had the question before them,
        the bill of 1864 was drawn.  In due time it passed, and under
        it the Union and Central Pacific Railroads, constituting one
        continuous line, were built.

        In the fall of 1864, and after the fall of Atlanta, and while
        on my return from City Point, where I had been to visit
        General Grant for a couple of weeks, the commander-in-chief
        sent me back by way of Washington to see the President.

        While the President referred to the Pacific Road, its progress
        and the result of my former visit, he gave it very little
        thought, apparently, and his great desire seemed to be to get
        encouragement respecting the situation around Richmond, which
        just then was very dark.  People were criticising Grant's
        strategy, and telling him how to take Richmond.  I think the
        advice and pressure on President Lincoln were almost too much
        for him, for during my entire visit, which lasted several
        hours, he confined himself, after reading a chapter out of
        a humorous book (I believe called the _Gospel of Peace_),
        to Grant and the situation at Petersburg and Richmond.

        After Atlanta, my assignment to a separate department brought
        the country between the Missouri River and California under
        my command, and then I was charged with the Indian campaigns
        of 1865 and 1866.  I travelled again over all that portion
        of the country I had explored in former years, and saw the
        beginning of that great future that awaited it.  I then began
        to comprehend its capabilities and resources, and in all
        movements of our troops and scouting parties I had reports
        made upon the country—its resources and topography; and
        I myself, during the two years, traversed it east and west,
        north and south, from the Arkansas to the Yellowstone and
        from Missouri to the Salt Lake Basin.

        It was on one of these trips that I discovered the pass
        through the Black Hills, and gave it the name of Sherman,
        in honour of my great chief.  Its elevation is 8236 feet, and
        for years it was the highest point reached by any railroad in
        the United States.  The circumstances of this accidental
        discovery may not be uninteresting to you.

        While returning from the Powder River campaign I was in the
        habit of leaving my troops, and, with a few men, examining
        all the approaches and passes from Fort Fetterman south, over
        the secondary range of mountains known as the Black Hills,
        the most difficult to overcome with proper grades of all the
        ranges, on account of its short slopes and great height.  When
        I reached the Lodge-Pole Creek, up which went the overland
        trail, I took a few mounted men—I think six—and with one of
        my scouts as guide, went up the creek to the summit of
        Cheyenne Pass, striking south along the crest of the mountains
        to obtain a good view of the country, the troops and trains at
        the same time passing along the east base of the mountains on
        what was known as the St. Vrain and the Laramie trail.

        About noon, in the valley of a tributary of Crow Creek,
        we discovered Indians, who at the same time discovered us.
        They were between us and our trains.  I saw our danger and
        took means immediately to reach the ridge and try to head
        them off, and follow it to where the cavalry could see our
        signals.  We dismounted and started down the ridge, holding
        the Indians at bay, when they came too near, with our
        Winchesters.  It was nearly night when the troops saw our
        smoke-signals of danger and came to our relief; and in going
        to the train we followed this ridge out until I discovered
        it led down to the plains without a break.  I then said to my
        guide that if we saved our scalps I believed we had found the
        crossing of the Black Hills—and over this ridge, between the
        Lone Tree and Crow Creeks, the wonderful line over the
        mountains was built.  For over two years all explorations had
        failed to find a satisfactory crossing of this range.
        The country east of it was unexplored, but we had no doubt
        we could reach it.

        In 1867, General Augur, General John A. Rawlins, Colonel
        Mizner, and some others, crossing the plains with me, reached
        the point where I camped that night.  We spent there the
        Fourth of July, and General Rawlins made a remarkable speech
        commemorating the day.  We located there the post of D. A.
        Russell and the city of Cheyenne.  At that time the nearest
        settlement was at Denver, one hundred and fifty miles away;
        and while we lay there the Indians swooped down on a Mormon
        train that had followed our trail, and killed two of its men;
        but we saved their stock, and started the graveyard of the
        future city.

        The explorations by the government for a Pacific railroad are
        all matters of official report, long since published and open
        to all.  They were the basis for the future explorations of
        all the transcontinental lines, except the Union Pacific,
        then known as that of the forty-second parallel of latitude.
        That line, and the country from the Arkansas to the Yellowstone,
        was explored and developed mainly by private enterprise, and
        it is by far the most practicable line crossing the continent
        —the shortest and quickest, of lightest curvature, and lowest
        grades and summits.  It is not, in an engineering point of
        view, the true line from the Atlantic to the Pacific, but in
        a commercial point of view it is.

        In an engineering point of view we demonstrated, before the
        year 1860, that the true line was up the Platte to its forks,
        to which point the Union Pacific is now built, then up (where
        the Oregon Short Line now runs) to the Columbia, and then to
        tide-water at Portland.  The Union and Central were built for
        commercial value, and to obtain the shortest and quickest line
        from ocean to ocean.  The line of the Central was controlled
        almost entirely by the development of the mining industries
        in California and Nevada until it reached the Humboldt; then
        its natural course would be to reach Salt Lake and the Mormon
        settlements.  The Union Pacific objective point was the Pacific
        Coast by way of the Great Platte Valley and Salt Lake. . . .

        When we reached the mountains a series of questions arose as
        to how this base should be determined.  The eastern base was
        determined by Mr. Blickensderfer, who was appointed by the
        government.  After examining the country he declared it to be
        right at the foot of the mountains, where the heavy grades to
        overcome the first range, the Black Hills, were made necessary
        —a very proper decision.  The west base of the Sierra was
        located near Sacramento, where the drift of the mountains
        reached into the valley, or where, you might say, the first
        approach to the mountains begins, but long before the heavy
        grades commenced.

        A good story is told, the truth of which I will not undertake
        to vouch for, in relation to the fixing of the base.  By the
        original railroad act, as we have noticed, the President was
        to fix the point where the Sacramento Valley ended and the
        foot-hills of the Sierra Nevada began.  Chief Engineer Judah,
        in his report, had designated Barmore's, thirty-one miles
        from Sacramento, as the beginning of the mountains.  This
        corresponded with a decision of the Supreme Court of the
        United States, made in April, 1864, in the case of the
        Liedsdorff grant.  The contestants of the grant attempted to
        fix the eastern boundaries at Alder Creek, eighty miles nearer
        Sacramento.  This grant, by Mexican authority, was bounded by
        the foot-hills on the east.  The Supreme Court decided that
        the foot-hills commenced about thirty miles from that city.
        Several attempts were made by Mr. Sargent, then a member of
        Congress, and since United States Senator, soon after the
        passage of the original act, to bring the attention of
        President Lincoln to this subject, but the President's
        constant occupation, with weightier duties forced upon him by
        the great war, prevented his action.  The time came, however,
        when it could be no longer delayed.

        Owing to the increase of subsidy among the hills and mountains,
        it was important to the railway company that the foot-hills
        should begin as near as possible to Sacramento.  The senator
        claims the credit of moving the mountains from Barmore's to
        Arcade Creek, a distance of twenty-four miles.  His relation
        of the affair to his friends is this: Lincoln was engaged with
        a map when the senator substituted another, and demonstrated
        by it and the statement of some geologist that the black soil
        of the valley and the red soil of the hills united at Arcade.
        The President relied on the statements given to him, and
        decided accordingly.  “Here you see,” said the senator,
        “how my pertinacity and Abraham's faith removed mountains.”

        Reconnoissances made in 1862, 1863, 1864, had demonstrated
        that a serious question would arise in reaching the Humboldt
        Valley from the western foot of the Wahsatch Mountains in the
        Salt Lake Basin.  Should the line go north or south of the lake?
        The Mormon Church and all of its followers, a central power of
        great use to the transcontinental roads, were determinedly
        in favour of the south line.  It was preached from the pulpits
        and authoritatively announced that a road could not be built
        or run north of the lake.  But our explorations in an earlier
        day unqualifiedly indicated the north side, though an
        exhaustive examination was made south, and only one line run
        north, it being our main line to the California state line
        surveyed in 1867.

        The explorations by parties south of the lake, and the
        personal examinations of the chief engineer, determined that
        it had no merits compared with the north line, and on such
        report the north line was adopted by the company and accepted
        by the government.

        Brigham Young called a conference of his church, and refused
        to accept the decision; prohibited his people from contracting
        or working for the Union Pacific, and threw all his influence
        and efforts to the Central Pacific, which just at that time
        was of great moment, as there was a complete force of Mormon
        contractors and labourers in Salt Lake Valley competent to
        construct the line two hundred miles east or west of the lake.
        The two companies also had entered into active competition,
        each respectively to see how far east or west of the lake
        they could build, that city being the objective point, and
        the key to the control of the great basin.

        The Central Pacific Company entered upon the examination of
        the lines long after the Union Pacific had determined and
        filed its line, and we waited the decision of their engineers
        with some anxiety.  We knew they could not obtain so good a
        line, but we were in doubt whether, with the aid of the Mormon
        Church, and the fact that the line south of the lake passed
        through Salt Lake City, the only commercial capital between
        the Missouri River and Sacramento, they might decide to take
        the long and undulating line; and then the question as to
        which (the one built south, the other built north, and it
        would fall to the government to decide) should receive the
        bonds and become the transcontinental line.  However, the
        engineers of the Central Pacific, Clements and Ives, took as
        strong ground, or stronger than we, in favour of the north
        line, and located almost exactly on the same ground the Union
        Pacific had occupied a year before; and this brought the
        Mormon forces to the Union Pacific, their first love.

        The location of the Union Pacific was extended to the
        California state line, and that of the Central Pacific to the
        mouth of the Weber Cañon.  The Union Pacific work hastened,
        and most of the line graded to Humboldt Wells, two hundred and
        nineteen miles west of Ogden, and the Union Pacific met the
        track of the Central Pacific at Promontory Summit, one
        thousand one hundred and eighty-six miles west of the Missouri
        River, and six hundred and thirty-eight miles east of
        Sacramento, on May 9, 1869, to the wonder of America, and the
        utter astonishment of the whole world, completing the entire
        line seven years before the limit of time allowed by the
        government. . . .

        In 1863 and 1864 surveys were inaugurated, but in 1866 the
        country was systematically occupied; and day and night, summer
        and winter, the explorations were pushed forward through
        dangers and hardships that very few at this day appreciate;
        as every mile had to be within range of the musket, there was
        not a moment's security.  In making the surveys, numbers of
        our men, some of them the ablest and most promising, were
        killed; and during the construction our stock was run off by
        the hundred, I might say by the thousand.  As one difficulty
        after another arose and was overcome, both in the engineering
        and construction departments, a new era in railroad building
        was inaugurated.

        Each day taught us lessons by which we profited for the next,
        and our advances and improvements in the art of railway
        construction were marked by the progress of the work; forty
        miles of track having been laid in 1865, two hundred and sixty
        in 1866, two hundred and forty in 1867, including the ascent
        to the summit of the Rocky Mountains, at an elevation of eight
        thousand two hundred and forty feet above the ocean; and
        during 1868 and to May 10, 1869, five hundred and fifty-five
        miles, all exclusive of side and temporary tracks, of which
        over one hundred and eighty miles were built in addition.

        The first grading was done in the autumn of 1864, and the
        first rail laid in July, 1865.  When you look back to the
        beginning at the Missouri River, with no railway communication
        from the east, and five hundred miles of the country in
        advance; without timber, fuel, or any material whatever from
        which to build or maintain a roadbed itself; with everything
        to be transported, and that by teams or at best by steamboats,
        for hundreds and thousands of miles; everything to be created,
        with labour scarce and high—you can all look back upon the
        work with satisfaction and ask, under such circumstances,
        could we have done better? . . .

        The experience of the war made possible the building of this
        transcontinental railroad, not only physically, but financially.
        The government, already burdened with billions of debt,
        floated fifty million dollars more, and by this action it
        created a credit which enabled the railroad company to float
        an equal amount; and these two credits, when handled by men of
        means and courage, who also threw their own private fortunes
        into the scale, accomplished the work.

        If it had been proposed, before the war, that the United
        States should use its credit, and issue bonds to build a
        railroad two thousand miles long across a vast, barren plain,
        only known to the red man, uninhabited, without one dollar
        of business to sustain it, the proposition alone would have
        virtually bankrupted the nation.

        Possibilities of finance, as developed during the war, made
        this problem not only possible, but solved and carried it out,
        and accomplished in three years a feat which no previous plan
        had proposed to accomplish in less than ten years; and while
        it was being accomplished, the only persons who had real,
        solid, undoubted faith in its completion were that portion
        of the nation who had taken an active part in the war.

        Necessity brought out during the war bold structures that in
        their rough were models of economy in material and strength.
        In taking care of direct and lateral strains by positions of
        posts and braces, they adopted principles that are used to-day
        in the highest and boldest structures; and I undertake to say
        that no structure up to date has been built which has not
        followed those simple principles that were evolved out of
        necessity, though reported against during the war by the most
        experienced and reliable engineers of the world.

        A few bold spirits backed the enterprise with their fortunes
        and independent credit.  They were called fools and fanatics.
        Oakes Ames—the real pluck of the work—said to me once, “What
        makes me hang on is the faith of you soldiers,” referring, at
        the time, to the support the army was giving us, led by Grant,
        Sherman, Sheridan, Pope, Thomas, Augur, and Crook, and all who
        had direct communication with us on the plains.  There was
        nothing we could ask them for that they did not give, even
        when regulations did not authorize it, and took a large
        stretch of authority to satisfy our demands.

        The commissary department was open to us.  Their troops
        guarded us, and we reconnoitred, surveyed, located, and built
        inside of their picket-line.  We marched to work by the tap of
        the drum with our men armed.  They stacked their arms on the
        dump, and were ready at a moment's warning to fall in and
        fight for their territory.

        General Casement's track-train could arm a thousand men at
        a word; and from him, as a head, down to his chief spiker,
        it could be commanded by experienced officers of every rank,
        from general to captain.  They had served five years at the
        front, and over half of the men had shouldered a musket in
        many battles.  An illustration of this came to me after our
        track had passed Plum Creek, two hundred miles west of the
        Missouri River.  The Indians had captured a freight-train and
        were in possession of it and its crews.  It so happened that
        I was coming down from the front with my car, which was a
        travelling arsenal.  At Plum Creek Station word came of this
        capture and stopped us.  On my train were perhaps twenty men,
        some a portion of the crew, some who had been discharged and
        sought passage to the rear.  Nearly all were strangers to me.
        The excitement of the capture and the reports coming by
        telegraph of the burning train brought all the men to the
        platform, and when I called upon them to fall in, to go
        forward and retake the train, every man on the train went
        into line, and by his position showed that he was a soldier.
        We ran down slowly until we came in sight of the train.
        I gave the order to deploy as skirmishers, and at the command
        they went forward as steadily and in as good order as we had
        seen the old soldiers climb the face of Kenesaw under fire.

        Less than ten years before, General Sherman had suggested
        a different method of dispensing with the Indian.  Writing to
        his brother, he said:—

        “No particular danger need be apprehended from Indians.  They
        will no doubt pilfer and rob, and may occasionally attack and
        kill stragglers; but the grading of the road will require
        strong parties, capable of defending themselves; and the
        supplies for the road and maintenance of the workmen will be
        carried in large trains of wagons, such as went last year to
        Salt Lake, none of which were molested by the Indians.
        So large a number of workmen distributed along the line will
        introduce enough whiskey to kill off all the Indians within
        three hundred miles of the road.”

In speaking of the climatic changes incident to the building of
transcontinental lines of railroad, General Dodge also says:—

        The building of the Pacific roads has changed the climate
        between the Missouri River and the Sierra Nevada.  In the
        extreme West it is not felt so much as between the Missouri
        River and the Rocky Mountains.  Before settlement had
        developed it, the country west of the Missouri River could
        raise little of the main crops, except by irrigation.  From
        April until September no rain fell.  The snows of the
        mountains furnished the streams with water and the bunch-grass
        with sufficient dampness to sustain it until July when it
        became cured and was the food that sustained all animal life
        on the plains, summer and winter.

        I have seen herds of buffalo, hundreds of thousands in number,
        living off bunch-grass that they obtained by pawing through
        two feet of snow, on the level.  It was this feature that
        induced the stocking of immense ranches with cattle.  Buffalo
        never changed the character of the grass, but herds of cattle
        did, so that now, on the ranges, very little of the bunch or
        buffalo grass remains.

        Since the building of these roads, it is calculated that the
        rain belt moves westward at the rate of eight miles a year.
        It has now certainly reached the plains of Colorado, and for
        two years that high and dry state has raised crops without
        irrigation, right up to the foot of the mountains.

        Salt Lake since 1852 has risen nineteen feet, submerging whole
        farms along its border and threatening the level desert west
        of it.  It has been a gradual but permanent rise, and comes
        from the additional moisture falling during the year—rain and
        snow.  Professor Agassiz, in 1867, after a visit to Colorado,
        predicted that this increase of moisture would come by the
        disturbance of the electric currents, caused by the building
        of the Pacific railroads and settlement of the country.[75]

        It must be admitted, however, that the growth of the once vast
        supposed relatively sterile region west of the Missouri River
        is not due in its entirety to the building of railroads, but
        that the idea of absolute sterility was a mistaken one;
        without a fertile soil and other possibilities for the
        advancement of civilization there, railroads would never have
        been constructed.  The railroads have developed what was
        inherently not a desert in its most rigid definition, but a
        misunderstood region, which only awaited the touch of the
        genius of agriculture, made possible alone by the building of
        transcontinental highways.

But for the railroads the great central region of the continent would
indeed be a howling wilderness.  As the late Sidney Dillon,
ex-president of the Union Pacific Railroad, wrote in a magazine
article on “The West and the Railroads” in the _North American Review_
for April, 1891,
        Like many other great truths, this is so well known to the
        older portions of our commonwealth that they have forgotten it;
        and the younger portions do not comprehend or appreciate it.
        Men are so constituted that they use existing advantages
        as if they had always existed, and were matters of course.
        The world went without friction matches during thousands of
        years, but people light their fires to-day without a thought
        as to the marvellous chemistry of the little instrument that
        is of such inestimable value, and yet remained so long unknown.
        The youngster of to-day steps into a luxurious coach at
        New York, Philadelphia, or Chicago, eats, sleeps, surveys
        romantic scenery from the window during a few days, and
        alights in Portland or San Francisco without any just
        appreciation of the fact that a few decades since it would
        have required weeks of toilsome travel to go over the same
        ground, during which he would have run the risk of starvation,
        of being lost in the wilderness, plundered by robbers, or
        killed by savages.  The most beneficent function of the
        railway is that of a carrier of freight.  What would it cost
        a man to carry a ton of wheat one mile?  What would it cost
        for a horse to do the same?  The railway does it at a cost of
        less than a cent.  This brings Dakota and Minnesota into
        direct relation with hungry and opulent Liverpool, and makes
        subsistence easier and cheaper throughout the civilized world.
        The world should, therefore, thank the railway for the
        opportunity to buy wheat, but none the less should the West
        thank the railway for the opportunity to sell wheat.

        Nothing now marks the spot at Promontory Point where the
        formal ceremony of driving in the last spike took place on
        May 10, 1869, and even the small station known as Promontory
        is at some distance from that point where the connection
        between the two transcontinental roads was originally made.
        The whole aspect of the country, from the Missouri River to
        Salt Lake, has marvellously changed.  Where then were only
        tents, there are now well-built, substantial, and prosperous
        towns; and instead of the great desert wastes, supposed to be
        beyond reach of cultivation, one may now see an almost
        unbroken stretch of corn-fields and cultivated lands.

        The five or six hundred men who saw the junction made at
        Promontory Point were strongly impressed with the conviction
        that the event was of great national importance; but they
        connected it with the development of transcontinental
        communication, and trade with China and Japan, rather than
        with internal development, or what railroad men call local
        traffic.  They were somewhat visionary, no doubt, but none of
        them dreamed that the future of the Pacific road depended more
        on the business that would grow out of the peopling of the
        deserts it traversed than upon the through traffic.

        It is not too much to say that the opening of the Pacific road,
        viewed simply in its relation to the spread of population,
        development of resources, and actual advance of civilization,
        was an event to be ranked in far-reaching results with the
        landing of the Pilgrims, or perhaps the voyage of Columbus.

The Great Salt Lake Trail is now crossed and recrossed by the iron
highway of commerce.  The wilderness is no longer silent; the spell of
its enchantment is broken.  The lonely trapper has vanished from the
stern mountain scene.  The Indian himself has nearly disappeared, and
in another generation the wild landmarks of the old trail will be
almost the only tangible memorials of the men who led the way.





FOOTNOTES.



[1] This John Coulter was the first white man to see and describe
the wonders of what is now the National Park.  His account, however,
was received as a frontier lie, and the truth of his statements
were not verified until long after the hardy adventurer's death.

[2] Fort Osage, on the Missouri River, was on the site of the present
town of Sibley, where the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé Railroad
crosses that stream.

[3] John Day was a remarkable man.  His life was full of wonderful
adventures.  He became insane while on this expedition of Stuart's,
and was sent back to Astoria, but shortly afterwards he died there.
The well-known John Day's River was so called in his honour.

[4] From an inspection of the map which accompanied Stuart's march,
this stream was evidently the headwater of the North Fork of the
Platte; but he was not aware of the fact.

[5] Grand Island in the Platte River was thus originally named by the
early trappers and voyageurs, the majority of whom were French Canadians.

[6] See _Astoria_, by Washington Irving.

[7] This was not Kit Carson.  The great frontiersman did not make his
advent in the mountains until years afterward.

[8] An Indian vapour-bath, or sweating-house, is a square six or
eight feet deep, usually built against a river bank, by damming up
the other three sides with mud, and covering the top completely,
excepting an opening about two feet wide.  The bather gets into
the hole, taking with him a number of stones that have been heated,
and a vessel filled with water.  After seating himself he begins to
pour the water on the hot stones, until the steam generated is
sufficient to answer his purpose.  When he has perspired freely,
he goes out and plunges in the stream, the colder the water the better.

[9] Rose lived with the Crows many years, became a great man among
them, could speak their language fluently.  He was a giant, and
fearless to recklessness, and by his deeds of daring became one of
the first braves of the tribe.  At one time, in a desperate fight
with the Blackfeet, he shot down the first savage who opposed him,
and with the war-club of his victim killed four others.  His name
among the Crows was “Che-ku-kaats,” or the man who killed five.
His knowledge of the country was marvellous, and some years after
his adoption by the tribe, he was the principle guide and interpreter
for Fitzpatrick and Sublette, who conducted a trapping expedition
sent across the continent by General Ashley.  How he died is unknown;
one rumour says from his licentious habits, another that he was
killed by some of his adopted brethren.  He was a heroic vagabond,
but the redeeming feature of his life was that he taught the Crows
to cultivate the friendship of the whites, a policy which that tribe
observed for years.

[10] See Washington Irving's _Astoria_.

[11] He was the son of an Iroquois hunter, who had been cruelly
murdered by the Blackfeet on a small stream below the mountains
which still bears his name.

[12] In 1820 Major Stephen H. Long, of the United States army,
commanded an expedition through the Platte Valley and beyond,
under the direction of the War Department.  As its object was purely
scientific, and its details uninteresting to the general reader,
it is omitted here.

[13] Captain Bonneville attained the rank of colonel, was retired
in 1861, and died on the 12th of June, 1878.

[14] The Black Fork of Green River is in the southwest corner of the
state of Wyoming.

[15] The name “Long-Knife” was applied by the Indians to the command
of Lewis and Clarke when they crossed the continent in 1804-5, and
it has remained as a name for the whites ever since.

[16] A keg.

[17] Bancroft.

[18] Captain Stuart Van Vliet, U.S.A.

[19] In reciting the preparations for the impending war on the part
of the Mormons, the hardships of the United States troops, and other
incidents relating to the troubles in Utah Territory, the authors of
this volume quote freely from Bancroft, Senate and House Democrats of
the Thirty-third Congress, as well as reports of the War Department.

[20] Taylor was captured by the United States troops about sixteen
miles from Fort Bridger, and the letter of instruction found on
his person.

[21] The remains of those dams and breastworks could be seen for many
years afterward, by travellers on the trains of the Union Pacific
Railroad which passed through the cañon.

[22] He took refuge in the Grand Cañon of the Colorado River;
his hiding-place was three miles from any possible pass, and he kept
a faithful adherent constantly on guard.  When any one was seen
approaching the pass, Lee was immediately signalled and forthwith
repaired to a cave, where he remained until it was discovered whether
the intruder was friend or foe.  If not a friend, he kept to his cave
until the party had left, then returned to his house.  Lee followed
this life for five or six years, until he became so weary of dodging,
and running from supposed enemies, that he finally returned to
Salt Lake City.  I saw his cave and house some years ago when,
in company with General N. A. Miles and others, I made a pleasure
trip to the Grand Cañon.—W. F. CODY.

[23] See Bancroft's _Pacific States_.

[24] Washington E. Hinman.

[25] The present Julesburg, until a few years ago, was called
“Denver Junction”; the old town was situated a mile west on the
opposite side of the river, and the Julesburg of 1867 was five miles
farther west, north of the Platte, and is now known as Weir.

[26] Senator Gwinn espoused the cause of the Southern Confederacy,
and lost his wonderful prestige and influence in California, as well
as a fortune, in his fealty to his native state, Mississippi.  In 1866
he was created Duke of Sonora by Maximilian, in the furtherance of
his visionary scheme of western empire, but died soon afterwards.

[27] Known throughout the West as “Pony Bob.”

[28] So called because the trail ran through a cañon where the
Sweetwater reached from wall to wall, and had to be crossed three
times in a short distance.

[29] “Cayuse” means horse in some Indian dialects.

[30] Cy Warman vouches for this story in his _Frontier Stories_.
Copyright by Charles Scribner's Sons, 1898.

[31] Related to Harriet MacMurphy (to whom we are indebted for this
truthful account) by Mrs. Elton Beckstead, who at the age of thirteen
was Jules' wife and saw her husband murdered.

[32] The child-wife does not tell (perhaps never knew) that Slade
nailed one of her husband's ears to the door of the Pony Express
station, and wore the other for several weeks as a watch-charm.

[33] Mr. Creighton died of paralysis in 1874, and his widow endowed
a college named for him.

[34] Major John Burke thus briefly in a biographical sketch of these
men tells of their antecedents: “Russell was a Green Mountain boy,
who before his majority had gone West to grow up with the country,
and after teaching a three months' school on the frontier of Missouri,
hired himself to an old merchant of Lexington at thirty dollars
to keep books. . . .  Alexander Majors was a son of Kentucky frontier
mountain parentage, his father a colleague and friend of Daniel Boone.
William Waddell, of Virginian ancestry, emigrants to the Blue Grass
region of the same state as Majors, was bold enough for any enterprise,
and able to fill any niche the West demanded.”

[35] This stream was named by Fremont on his second expedition of
exploration to the regions of the then unknown “Far West.”

[36] The initial starting-point of the stage line was Leavenworth,
on the Missouri, but after a few months it was changed to Atchison.

[37] This was the route of the Pony Express which was inaugurated
some years afterward.

[38] Ben Holliday was one of those wonderful characters developed by
a life of adventure and danger, having been nurtured amid the most
startling incidents of the frontier.  He was born near the old
Blue Lick battlefield.  At seventeen he was Colonel Doniphan's
courier.  When only twenty-eight years old he entered Salt Lake Valley
with fifty wagonloads of goods, and was endorsed by Brigham Young
as being worthy of the confidence of his people.  Ten years later
he was the head of the Overland Route; at forty-five the owner of
sixteen steamers on the Pacific Ocean, with an immense trade to
Central America, China, and Japan.

[39] Near the station of Ogallala, on the Union Pacific Railroad.

[40] The unfrocked monk, Geudeville, who travelled extensively in
Canada, and published in London, in 1703, his _New Voyages to North
America_, under the nom de plume of Baron La Hontan.  It is doubted
how far this jolly soldier and bon vivant travelled west.  He had
served at various points in the interior, and leaves no reason to
doubt his presence, at various times, at what was Fort Gratiot,
Michilimackinac, Green Bay, and other points in the region of the
Upper Lakes.  It is the opinion of the historians, however, that he
went no farther than Green Bay.  There can be but little question of
the character of the fiction he attempted to palm off on his readers.
His work is a literary curiosity, unexcelled in bibliography, for its
bold assumption in attempting to impose on a credulous age a tale of
fancied adventures and fictitious observation.  He was a veritable
Baron Munchausen.

[41] Bancroft.

[42] Although very rare indeed, among all other tribes, it was the
leading physical characteristic with the Mandans, a nation long since
extinct, who occupied the region at the mouth of the Yellowstone.

[43] This band was known as the Arikaras—not the Pawnees proper.

[44] See Long's _Expedition_ and Schoolcraft's _Indian Tribes_.

[45] The proper designation of this numerous tribe is Dakota,
meaning allied; the word “Sioux,” although difficult to trace to its
proper origin, is generally conceded to be a nickname—one of reproach
given to them by their ancient enemies east of the Mississippi.

[46] A common game among the savages.  One party to the game takes
a pebble or small bullet in the curve of both his hands.  After he
has tossed it about for a few seconds, he swiftly holds them apart,
and if his opponent can guess which hand the pebble or stone is in,
he wins; if not, he loses.  Immense amounts are frequently wagered
in this game, for the North American Indian is an inveterate gambler.

[47] The name owes its origin to the practice of this tribe scarring the
left arm, crosswise, a custom which was kept up until a few years ago.

[48] It is a fact that the Comanches and Shoshones, though living
a thousand miles apart, with hostile tribes between them, speak exactly
the same language, and call themselves by the same general name.
They have, however, lost all tradition of having once formed one nation.

[49] As in some instances the medicine-men, so called, are really
the doctors of the tribe, and as “médecin” is French for doctor,
the early French voyageurs gave this term to these mystery-men,
by which they have been known ever since.

[50] The name of the Crows is not the correct appellation of the
tribe.  They have never yet acknowledged the name, though as such are
officially recognized by the United States government.  It was
conferred upon them in the early days by the interpreters, either
through ignorance of the language, or for the purpose of ridicule.
The name which they themselves acknowledge, and they recognize no
other, is in their language Ap-sah-ro-kee, which signifies the
Sparrow Hawk people.

[51] Beckwourth was a mulatto born in Virginia in 1798.  He was of
medium height, of strong muscular power, quick of apprehension, very
active, and one of the greatest warriors the Crow Nation has ever
produced.  Around his neck he wore a perforated bullet, with a large
oblong bead on each side of it, secured by a thread of sinew.  He wore
this amulet during the whole time he was chief of the Crows.  He was
one of the few honest Indian traders of whom history gives any account.

[52] Disfigurement of the body and dismemberment of the fingers,
as an observance of mourning, was common among all Indian tribes.
Sometimes upon the death of a warrior in battle his horse was cut
and slashed, “to make him feel sorry for the loss of his master.”

[53] During the sessions of the Peace Commission at Fort Laramie in
1866, Beckwourth was sent on a mission to consult with the chiefs of
the Crows.  He was taken sick in one of their villages and died there,
probably from old age rather than disease.

[54] The Sioux bury their dead on platforms erected seven or eight
feet above the ground.

[55] For the best and most authentic collection of Indian Folk-lore,
see George Bird Grinnel's admirable volumes on the subject.

[56] Bancroft.

[57] This account is taken from files of the Denver newspapers
published at the time of the massacre.

[58] Ouray did not profess the Catholic religion, despite his early
training.  He believed in the Ute god, and in a happy hunting-ground,
and also in a bad place, where wicked people cannot meet their friends.

[59] There is more in this legend of a primitive, superstitious people,
from an ethnological view of its details, than would be suspected at
first.  The story of the sacrifice and the medicine-man wrapping
himself in the bloody hide of the buffalo, the use of the pine as fuel,
and the prostration of the multitude, while communion is held with
the Great Spirit, is the same ceremony that was observed by the Druids,
and religious peoples before them.  This peculiar offering of blood
was common to the Indian who in the early years of the century
occupied a portion of the territory east of the Mississippi.  It will
be remembered by the student of American history that when the war
of 1812-1815 was pending, the celebrated Tecumseh and his brother,
the Shawnee Prophet, called the tribes together, in order to induce
them to side with the English.  At that famous council they sacrificed
a spotless red heifer on a high altar, and the medicine-man wrapped
the bloody skin around him, while all the savages present prostrated
themselves and communed with the Great Spirit to know what to do.
The result was that Tecumseh's plans were defeated, for the Indians
were told by the Great Spirit to side with the Americans.

In the eleventh Book of the _Æneid_, Virgil relates the same
observance on Mount Soracte, where there was a temple dedicated to
Apollo, and a sacrifice made annually to the god, who represented
the sun.  Arruns in his prayer says:—

        Apollo, thou of gods
        The mightiest, who in guard the sacred mount
        Soracte holdest, and whom first of all
        We worship, unto whom are heaped the fires
        The piney branches make, and whom adore
        Thy votaries, as we walk, by pious zeal
        Sustained, on burning coals.

[60] _The White Chief_, by George P. Belden.  Edited by General
James S. Brisbin.  Published by C. F. Vent; Cincinnati, 1872.

[61] Niobrara.

[62] The Southern Cheyennes, Kiowas, and Arapahoes waged an unrelenting
war along the whole line of the border from Nebraska to Texas, under
the leadership of the dreaded Sa-tan-ta.

[63] Jack Stead was a runaway sailor boy.  He was on the Peacock
when it was wrecked years ago near the mouth of the Columbia River.
He lived for years in the Rocky Mountains, and was the first man to
report to the United States government the Mormon preparations to
resist it.  He had a Cheyenne wife, was a good story-teller, and
loved whiskey.

[64] William Frederick Cody (“Buffalo Bill”), the scout, guide, and
Indian fighter, was born on the 26th of February, 1846, in a primative
log-cabin in the backwoods of Iowa.  In 1852, the family removed to
Kansas, where the father of young Cody, two years later, became a
martyr to the Free State cause.  From the moment the family was thus
deprived of its support, the only boy, though a mere child, at the age
of nine years, commenced his career.  As a collaborator in the
preparation of this work, he has been prevailed upon to relate all the
incidents of his life, so far as they confined to the region of which
this volume treats.  [E-text editor's note: They encompass chapters 16
and 17 in their entirety.  In the original book, every paragraph
appeared in quotation marks.]  For his further adventures in the
Arkansas Valley and south of it, see _The Old Santa Fé Trail_.

[65] Long poles, one fastened on each side of a pony, the ends dragging
on the ground far to the rear; on these the dead and wounded were
carried.  The Indians also move their camp equipage by this primitive
means of transportation.

[66] Strange as it may seem, this savage, instead of being moved with
hatred toward Colonel Cody, as a civilized woman would have been under
similar circumstances, actually looked upon him with special favour
and esteemed it quite an honour that her husband, a great warrior
himself, should have met his death at the hands of such a brave man as
the Prairie Chief, the name the Indians had given to the colonel.

[67] Nelson is still shooting Indians from the top of the old Deadwood
stage-coach in the Wild West show.

[68] The rendezvous, in trapper's parlance, was a point somewhere
in the region where the agents of the fur companies congregate to
purchase the season's catch, and where the traders brought such goods
as trappers needed, to sell.

[69] A very bad quality of whiskey made in Taos in the early days,
which, on account of its fiery nature, was called “Taos Lightning.”

[70] The Ute name for the Spanish Peaks.

[71] His name for his knife.  It was the custom of the old trappers
and hunters to personify their weapons, usually in remembrance of the
locality where they got them.

[72] If “California Joe” had any other name, but few knew it; he was
a grizzled trapper and scout of the old régime.  He was the best
all-round shot on the plains.  He was the first man to ride with
General Custer into the village of Black Kettle, of the Cheyennes,
when that chief's band was annihilated in the battle of the Washita,
in November, 1868, by the U. S. Cavalry and the Nineteenth Kansas.
Joe was murdered in the Black Hills several years ago.

[73] Uncle of Senator Cockrell of Missouri.

[74] The real name of this strange old trapper was Thomas L. Smith.
He was eventually killed by the Indians.

[75] The authors of this book both well remember when the sand-hills
of the Arkansas River were, as their name implied, mere dunes of
shifting sand.  Now they are covered with rich verdure upon which
thousands of cattle feed, and in the intervales are to be seen some of
the finest fruit-farms in the region of the central plains.  Whether
Professor Agassiz was correct, or whether it is caused by great cycles
of atmospheric variation, it is a fact.





PUBLICATION INFORMATION.



This section presents a record of the source book used to complete
this Etext edition of The Great Salt Lake Trail by Col. Henry Inman
and Col. William F. Cody.  This Etext is not a faithful representation
of the source book's typesetting, but does contain the complete text
of the authors.


Bibliographic Reference.

The source book was obtained from the Johnson County (Kansas) Library.
The bibliographic reference of the book is as follows:

Inman, Henry, and William F. Cody.  _The Great Salt Lake Trail_.  1898.
     Social Science Reprints Series.  Williamstown, Mass.: Corner House
     Publishers, 1978.


MARC Record Display.

The MARC record display from the Johnson County Library web catalog
(jcl.lib.ks.us) is displayed as follows:

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100     10      $a Inman, Henry, $d 1837-1899.
245     14      $a The Great Salt Lake trail / $c by Colonel Henry Inman and
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260     0        $a Williamstown, Mass. : $b Corner House Publishers, $c 1978.
300               $a xiii, 529 p. : $b ill., front. (2 port.) plates, fold. map. ;
        $c 23 cm.
490     1        $a Social science reprints
500               $a Reprint of the 1898 editon published by Macmillan, New York.
500               $a Includes index.
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650      0       $a Frontier and pioneer life $z West (U.S.).
650      0       $a Indians of North America $z West (U.S.).
651      0       $a West (U.S.) $x Description and travel.
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