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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Pony Tracks, by Frederic Remington
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
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-
-
-Title: Pony Tracks
-
-Author: Frederic Remington
-
-Release Date: October 10, 2012 [EBook #41011]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PONY TRACKS ***
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41011 ***
 
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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Pony Tracks, by Frederic Remington
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
-
-
-Title: Pony Tracks
-
-Author: Frederic Remington
-
-Release Date: October 10, 2012 [EBook #41011]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PONY TRACKS ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Greg Bergquist, Matthew Wheaton and the Online
-Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
-file was produced from images generously made available
-by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration: THE LAST STAND]
-
-
-
-
-    PONY TRACKS
-
-    _WRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED BY_
-
-    FREDERIC REMINGTON
-
-
-    NEW YORK
-
-    HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
-
-    FRANKLIN SQUARE
-
-
-    Copyright, 1895, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
-
-    _All rights reserved._
-
-
-    THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO THE FELLOWS WHO
-    RODE THE PONIES THAT MADE THE TRACKS
-
-
-    BY THE AUTHOR
-
-
-
-
-    CONTENTS
-
-
-    CHASING A MAJOR-GENERAL
-    LIEUTENANT CASEY'S LAST SCOUT
-    THE SIOUX OUTBREAK IN SOUTH DAKOTA
-    AN OUTPOST OF CIVILIZATION
-    A RODEO AT LOS OJOS
-    IN THE SIERRA MADRE WITH THE PUNCHERS
-    BLACK WATER AND SHALLOWS
-    COACHING IN CHIHUAHUA
-    STUBBLE AND SLOUGH IN DAKOTA
-    POLICING THE YELLOWSTONE
-    A MODEL SQUADRON
-    THE AFFAIR OF THE --TH OF JULY
-    THE COLONEL OF THE FIRST CYCLE INFANTRY
-    A MERRY CHRISTMAS IN A SIBLEY TEPEE
-    BEAR-CHASING IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS
-
-
-
-
-    ILLUSTRATIONS
-
-
-    THE LAST STAND
-    GENERAL MILES AND HIS ESCORT
-    THE SUPPLY TRAIN
-    UNITED STATES CAVALRY IN WINTER RIG
-    UNITED STATES INFANTRY IN WINTER RIG
-    CHIS-CHIS-CHASH SCOUT ON THE FLANKS
-    "TWO GHOSTS I SAW"
-    WATCHING THE DUST OF THE HOSTILES
-    THE HOTCHKISS GUN
-    A RUN TO THE SCOUT CAMP
-    IN THE TRENCHES
-    THE ADVANCE GUARD--A MILITARY SACRIFICE
-    THE HACIENDA SAN JOSÉ DE BAVICORA
-    EL PATRON
-    THE ADMINISTRADOR OF SAN JOSÉ DE BAVICORA
-    A HAIR-CUT À LA PUNCHER
-    THE MUSIC AT THE "BAILLE"
-    COMING TO THE RODEO
-    WAVING SERAPE TO DRIVE CATTLE
-    TAILING A BULL
-    JOHNNIE BELL OF LOS OJOS
-    WILLIAM IN ACTION
-    MOUNTING A WILD ONE
-    A MODERN SANCHO PANZA
-    MY COMRADE
-    ON THE MOUNTAINS
-    THE CASA CAMADRA
-    SHOOTING IN THE SIERRA MADRE
-    THE INDIAN'S STORY
-    THE CLIFF-DWELLINGS
-    THE PORTAGE
-    BLACK WATER
-    THE FAWN
-    BREAKING A JAM
-    HUNG UP
-    A COACHERO
-    THE START
-    MORNING TOILET
-    HARNESSING MULES
-    A DAKOTA CHICKEN-WAGON
-    ON THE EDGE OF A SLOUGH
-    A CONFERENCE IN THE MUD
-    "DON'T SHOOT!"
-    "MARK--LEFT"
-    "MARK!"
-    TROOPING HOMEWARD IN THE AFTER-GLOW
-    BURGESS, NEARLY FORTY-FIVE YEARS A SCOUT
-    THE BELL-MARE OVER A BAD PLACE
-    DOWN THE MOUNTAIN
-    GETTING GRUB
-    WORKING ON THE DIVIDE
-    BURGESS FINDING A FORD
-    GENERAL GUY V. HENRY, SEVENTH UNITED STATES CAVALRY
-    RIDING SITTING ON LEGS
-    OVER THE HURDLE BACK TO BACK
-    THROWING A HORSE
-    OVER THE HURDLES IN LINE
-    "WE WERE NOW OUT OF THE SMOKE"
-    OFFICER AND MEN--FIRST CYCLE INFANTRY
-    AMBULANCE CORPS--FIRST CYCLE INFANTRY
-    THE TOAST: "MERRY CHRISTMAS!"
-    WATERING HORSES
-    "DO YOU THINK THIS PONY IS GOING TO BUCK?"
-    DAN AND ROCKS
-    A DANGEROUS PLACE
-    "GONE AWAY"
-    TIMBER-TOPPING IN THE ROCKIES
-    THE BEAR AT BAY
-    THE FINALE
-    THE RETURN OF THE HUNTERS
-
-
-
-
-PONY TRACKS
-
-
-
-
-CHASING A MAJOR-GENERAL
-
-
-The car had been side-tracked at Fort Keough, and on the following
-morning the porter shook me, and announced that it was five o'clock.
-An hour later I stepped out on the rear platform, and observed that
-the sun would rise shortly, but that meanwhile the air was chill, and
-that the bald, square-topped hills of the "bad lands" cut rather hard
-against the gray of the morning. Presently a trooper galloped up with
-three led horses, which he tied to a stake. I inspected them, and saw
-that one had a "cow saddle," which I recognized as an experiment
-suggested by the general. The animal bearing it had a threatening
-look, and I expected a repetition of a performance of a few days
-before, when I had chased the general for over three hours, making in
-all twenty-eight miles.
-
-Before accepting an invitation to accompany an Indian commission into
-the Northwest I had asked the general quietly if this was a
-"horseback" or a "wagon outfit." He had assured me that he was not a
-"wagon man," and I indeed had heard before that he was not. There is
-always a distinction in the army between wagon men and men who go
-without wagons by transporting their supplies on pack animals. The
-wagon men have always acquired more reputation as travellers than
-Indian fighters. In a trip to the Pine Ridge Agency I had discovered
-that General Miles was not committed to any strained theory of how
-mounted men should be moved. Any settled purpose he might have about
-his movements were all locked up in a desperate desire to "get thar."
-Being a little late in leaving a point on the railroad, I rode along
-with Lieutenant Guilfoil, of the Ninth, and we moved at a gentle trot.
-Presently we met a citizen in a wagon, and he, upon observing the
-lieutenant in uniform, pulled up his team and excitedly inquired,
-
-"What's the matter, Mr. Soldier?"
-
-Guilfoil said nothing was the matter that he knew of.
-
-"Who be you uns after?"
-
-"No one," replied the lieutenant.
-
-"Well, I just saw a man go whirling up this 'ere valley with a soldier
-tearin' after him fit to kill" (that was the general's orderly), "and
-then comes a lot more soldiers just a-smokin', and I sort of wondered
-what the man had done."
-
-We laughed, and remarked that the general must be riding pretty hard.
-Other citizens we met inquired if that man was a lunatic or a
-criminal. The idea of the soldiers pursuing a man in citizen's clothes
-furthered the idea, but we assured them that it was only General Miles
-going somewhere.
-
-All of these episodes opened my eyes to the fact that if I followed
-General Miles I would have to do some riding such as I had rarely done
-before. In coming back to the railroad we left the Pine Ridge Agency
-in the evening without supper, and I was careful to get an even start.
-My horse teetered and wanted to gallop, but I knew that the
-twenty-eight miles would have to be done at full speed, so I tried to
-get him down to a fast trot, which gait I knew would last better; but
-in the process of calming him down to a trot I lost sight of the
-general and his orderly as they went tearing like mad over a hill
-against the last gleam of the sunset. I rode at a very rapid trot over
-the hills in the moonlight for over three hours, but I never saw the
-general again until I met him at dinner. Then I further concluded that
-if I followed the general I would have no time to regait my horses,
-but must take them as I found them, gallop or trot. So on this cool
-morning at Keough I took observations of the horses which were tied to
-the post, with my mind full of misgivings.
-
-[Illustration: GENERAL MILES AND HIS ESCORT]
-
-Patter, patter, patter--clank, clank, clank; up comes the company of
-Cheyenne scouts who are to escort the general--fine-looking, tall
-young men, with long hair, and mounted on small Indian ponies. They
-were dressed and accoutred as United States soldiers, and they fill
-the eye of a military man until nothing is lacking. Now the general
-steps out of the car and hands the commission into a six-mule
-ambulance. I am given a horse, and, mounting, we move off over the
-plain and into the hills. The sun comes streaming over the landscape,
-and the general is thinking about this old trail, and how years before
-he had ploughed his way through the blinding snow to the Lame Deer
-fight. I am secretly wishing that it would occupy his mind more fully,
-so that my breakfast might settle at the gentle gait we are going, but
-shortly he says, "It's sixty miles, and we must move along." We break
-into a gallop. The landscape is gilded by the morning sun, and the
-cool of the October air makes it a perfect thing, but there are
-elements in the affair which complicate its perfection. The "bad
-lands" are rough, and the general goes down a hill with even more
-rapidity than up it. The horses are not the perfect animals of the
-bridle-path, but poor old cavalry brutes, procured by the government
-under the old contract system, by which the government pays something
-like $125 for a $60 horse. This could be remedied by allowing the
-officers of each regiment to buy their own horses; but in our army
-nothing is remedied, because a lot of nice old gentlemen in Washington
-are too conservative to do anything but eat and sleep. There is a bit
-of human nature at the bottom of our army organization, and where is
-the man who can change that? Men who were the very jewels of the
-profession years ago have reached in due time the upper grades of
-rank, and occupy the bureaus of the department. These men who have
-acquired rank, years, and discretion naturally do nothing, and with
-sedate gravity insist that no one else shall do anything. The
-ambitious young men have to wait patiently for their retirement, and
-in process of waiting they, too, become old and conservative. Old
-soldiers are pardonable rubbish, since soldiers, like other men, must
-age and decay, the only distinction being that youthful vigor is of
-prime importance to a soldier, while in the case of the citizen any
-abatement of vigor is rewarded by being shelved. What to do with old
-soldiers is a problem which I will hand over to the economists as
-being beyond my depth. But to return to the going downhill. General
-Miles has acquired his knowledge of riding from wild Indians, and wild
-Indians go uphill and downhill as a matter of course at whatever gait
-they happen to be travelling. He would make his horse climb a tree
-with equal gravity if he was bound that way. The general has known
-Indians to ride for two days and a night at a rapid gallop, and it
-never occurs to him that he cannot do anything which any one else can;
-so he spurs along, and we go cutting around the _coulies_ and bluffs
-like frightened antelopes or mad creatures. The escort strings out
-behind. This is observed with a grim humor by the general, who desires
-nothing so much as to leave his escort far in the rear. He turns in
-his saddle, and seeing the dust of the escort far behind, says:
-"Shake up the young men a little; do 'em good. They get sleepy;" and
-away we go.
-
-It is over thirty miles to the first relay station, or courier's camp,
-and another problem looms up. The general's weight is over two hundred
-pounds, and I confess to two hundred and fifteen avoirdupois, and, as
-I have before remarked, my horse was not an Irish hunter, so my musing
-took a serious vein. It is all very well for a major-general to ride
-down a cavalry horse, but if such an accident were to happen to me,
-then my friends in the cavalry would crown me with thorns. Two hundred
-and fifteen pounds requires a great deal more careful attention than a
-one-hundred-and-forty-pound wasp-waisted cavalryman. What the latter
-can do with impunity would put me on foot--a thing that happened some
-ten years since in this very State of Montana, and a thing I have
-treasured in mind, and will not have repeated. So I brought the old
-horse down to a trot, and a good round trot eats up a road in short
-order. Your galloper draws away from you, but if the road is long
-enough, you find that you are at his heels.
-
-After a good day's ride of something like sixty miles, we met a troop
-of the Eighth Cavalry near its camp on the Tongue River, and the
-general is escorted in. The escorts draw into line, salute, and the
-general is duly deposited in a big Sibley tent; and I go away on the
-arms of some "cavalry kids" (as young lieutenants are called) to a
-hole in the ground (a dugout) where they are quartered. On the
-following morning I am duly admonished that if my whereabouts could
-have been ascertained on the previous evening, the expedition would
-have continued to the camp of the First Cavalry. I do not think the
-general was unduly severe, desiring simply to shift the
-responsibility of the procrastination on to other shoulders, and
-meanwhile being content to have things as they were. I was privately
-thanked by the citizen members of the commission for the delay I had
-caused, since they had a well-grounded conviction that sixty miles a
-day in an army ambulance was trouble enough. After some sarcasm by a
-jolly young sub, to the effect that "if one wants to call a citizen
-out of a tent, one must ring a dinner-bell," we were again mounted and
-on the way. I was badly mounted that day, but able to participate in
-the wild charge of forty-five miles to the Lame Deer camp, near the
-Cheyenne Agency. The fifty Cheyenne scouts and a troop of the Eighth
-were in escort.
-
-By a happy combination I was able to add greatly to my equestrian
-knowledge on this ride. It happened in this way; but I must explain.
-Some years ago I had occasion to ride a stock saddle (the cowboy
-article), and with all the positiveness of immature years, I held all
-other trees and all other methods of riding in a magnificent contempt.
-Later on I had to be convinced that a great many young cavalry
-officers in our service were the most daring and perfect riders, and
-that the McClelland saddle was the proper thing. I even elaborated a
-theory in explanation of all this, which I had duly shattered for me
-when I came East and frequented a New York riding-academy, where a
-smiling professor of the art assured me that cowboys and soldiers were
-the worst possible riders. Indeed, the sneers of the polite European
-were so superlative that I dared not even doubt his statements. Of
-course I never quite understood how my old champions of the cattle
-range and the war trail could pick things off the ground while in full
-career, or ride like mad over the cut banks and bowlders, if they were
-such desperately bad riders; and I never was able to completely
-understand why my European master could hardly turn in his saddle
-without tumbling off. But still he reduced me to submission, and I
-ceased even to doubt. I changed my style of riding, in deference to a
-public sentiment, and got my legs tucked up under my chin, and learned
-to loose my seat at every alternate footfall, and in time acquired a
-balance which was as secure as a pumpkin on the side of a barrel. Thus
-equipped with all this knowledge and my own saddle, I went out to the
-Northwest with the purpose of introducing a little revolution in
-cavalry riding. Things went swimmingly for a time. The interpreters
-and scouts watched my riding with mingled pity and scorn, but I knew
-they were unenlightened, and in no way to be regarded seriously. The
-general was duly amused by my teetering, and suggested to the smiling
-escort officers that "he has lived so long abroad, you know," etc.,
-all of which I did not mind, for my faith in the eternal art of the
-thing was complete. Now to tell how I discovered that I was riding a
-seat which was no seat at all, and was only retained by a series of
-happy accidents, I will continue. While at the head of the column,
-where I could see the deep ruts in the road and the bowlders, and
-could dodge the prairie-dog holes, it was simple enough; but my horse
-being a very clumsy galloper, and beginning to blow under the pace, I
-began to pull up, calculating to get a sharp trot, and overhaul the
-column when it slowed down. The column of soldiers dashed by, and the
-great cloud of dust rose up behind them which always follows a herd of
-animals in the West. Being no longer able to see, the only thing to do
-under the circumstances was to give my horse his head, and resign
-myself to the chances of a gopher hole, if it was foreordained that my
-horse should find one. True to his instincts, my old cavalry horse
-plunged into the ranks. You cannot keep a troop horse out of the
-ranks. They know their place, and seek it with the exactitude of
-water. If the cavalry tactics are ever changed, the present race of
-horses will have to be sold, because, while you can teach a horse
-anything, you cannot unteach him.
-
-[Illustration: THE SUPPLY TRAIN]
-
-In front I could see two silhouettes of soldiers tearing along, and
-behind could hear the heavy pounding of the troop horses, the clank of
-arms, the snorts and heavy breathings. I could hardly see my horse's
-head, to say nothing of the ground in front. Here is where the perfect
-grip with the thighs is wanted, and here is where the man who is
-bundled up like a ball on his horse's back is in imminent danger of
-breaking his neck. I felt like a pack on a government mule, and only
-wished I had some one to "throw the diamond hitch over me." The
-inequalities of the road make your horse plunge and go staggering
-sidewise, or down on his knees, and it is not at all an unusual thing
-for a cavalryman to upset entirely, though nothing short of a total
-turn-over will separate a veteran soldier from his horse. After a few
-miles of these vicissitudes I gained the head of the column, and when
-the pace slackened I turned the whole thing over in my mind, and a
-great light seemed to shine through the whole subject. For a smooth
-road and a trotting horse, that European riding-master was right; but
-when you put a man in the dust or smoke, over the rocks and cut banks,
-on the "bucking" horse, or where he must handle his weapons or his
-_vieta_, he must have a seat on his mount as tight as a stamp on an
-envelope, and not go washing around like a shot in a bottle. In a park
-or on a country road, where a man has nothing to do but give his
-undivided attention to sticking on his saddle, it has its advantages.
-An Indian or a cowboy could take the average park rider off from his
-horse, scalp him, hang him on a bush, and never break a gallop. I
-do not wish to seem intolerant, because I will say that the most
-beautiful horse and the most perfect horseman I have ever seen was the
-bay gelding Partisan and his rider in the high-school class at the
-recent Horse Show in New York; but I do insist that no one shall for a
-moment imagine that the American style of riding is not the firmest of
-all seats.
-
-[Illustration: UNITED STATES CAVALRY IN WINTER RIG]
-
-With a repetition of the military forms, we reached the cavalry camp
-on the Lame Deer Creek. This is an old battle-ground of the
-general's--his last fight with the Cheyennes, where, as the general
-puts it, we "kicked them out of their blankets in the early morning."
-These Indians recognize him as their conqueror, and were allied with
-him in the Nez Percé campaign. One old chief pointed to the stars on
-his shoulder-strap, and charged him to remember that they helped to
-put them there.
-
-That night was very cold, and I slept badly, so at an early hour I
-rolled out of my blankets and crawled into my clothes. I stepped out
-of my tent, and saw that the stars were yet visible and the light of
-the morning warming up to chase the gray shadows over the western
-hills. Three tight little cavalry soldiers came out on the parade, and
-blew three bugles as hard as ever they could to an unappreciative
-audience of sleepy soldiers and solemn hills. I walked down past the
-officers' row, and shook the kinks out of my stiffened knees.
-Everything was as quietly dismal as only a sleeping camp can be. The
-Sibley containing General Miles showed no signs of life, and until he
-arose this little military solar system would not revolve. I bethought
-me of the irregulars. They were down in the river bottom--Lieutenant
-Casey and his Indian scouts. I knew that Casey had commanded Indian
-scouts until his temper was as refined as beaten gold, so I thought it
-safer to arouse him than any one else, and, walking down, I scratched
-at his tent--which is equivalent to knocking--and received a rather
-loud and surly inquiry as to what I wanted. My sensitive nature was so
-shocked by this that, like the bad actor, I had hopes for no more
-generous gift than a cigarette. I was let into the Sibley, and saw the
-ground covered with blanketed forms. One of the swathed forms sat up,
-and the captain allowed he wanted to get up in the night, but that
-ever since Lieutenant Blank had shot at the orderly he was afraid to
-move about in the gloom. Lieutenant B. sat up and denied the
-impeachment. Another officer arose and made some extended remarks on
-the unseemly disturbance at this unseasonable hour. To pass over these
-inequalities of life, I will say that the military process of
-stiffening a man's backbone and reducing his mind to a logarithm
-breeds a homogeneous class whom we all know. They have small waists,
-and their clothes fit them; they are punctilious; they respect forms,
-and always do the dignified and proper thing at the particular
-instant, and never display their individuality except on two
-occasions: one is the field of battle and the other is before
-breakfast. Some bright fellow will one day tell in print the droll
-stock anecdotes of the United States army, and you'll all agree that
-they are good. They are better, though, if you sit in a Sibley on a
-cold morning while the orderly boils the coffee; and are more
-fortunate if you have Ned Casey to embellish what he calls the
-international complications which arose from the bombardment of Canada
-with paving-stones by a drunken recruit at Detroit.
-
-After the commission had talked to a ring of drowsy old chiefs, and
-the general had reminded them that he had thrashed them once, and was
-perfectly willing to do it again if they did not keep in the middle of
-the big road, the commission was loaded into the ambulances.
-
-[Illustration: UNITED STATES INFANTRY IN WINTER RIG]
-
-The driver clucked and whistled and snapped his whip as a preliminary
-which always precedes the concerted movement of six mules, and we
-started. This time I found that I had a mount that was "a horse from
-the ground up," as they phrase it in the red-blooded West. Well it was
-so, for at the relay camp I had issued to me a sorrel ruin which in
-the pristine vigor of its fifth year would not have commanded the
-value of a tin cup. After doing a mile of song and dance on this poor
-beast I dismounted, and shifting my saddle back to my led horse of the
-morning, which was led by a Crow scout, made the sixty-mile march of
-that day on the noble animal. Poor old chap, fit for a king, good for
-all day and the next, would bring six hundred dollars in the New York
-Horse Exchange, but condemned to pack a trooper in the ranks until a
-penurious government condemns and sells him to a man who, nine times
-out of ten, by the law of God, ought not to be intrusted with the
-keeping of the meanest of his creatures, to say nothing of his noblest
-work--a horse. "Such is life," is the salve a good soldier puts on his
-wounds.
-
-During the day we went all over the battle-field of the Little Big
-Horn. I heard a good deal of professional criticism, and it is my
-settled conviction that had Reno and Benteen gone in and fought as
-hard as they were commanded to do, Custer would have won his fight,
-and to-day be a major-general. The military moral of that affair for
-young soldiers is that when in doubt about what to do it is always
-safe to go in and fight "till you drop," remembering that, however a
-citizen may regard the proposition, a soldier cannot afford to be
-anything else than a "dead lion."
-
-We were nearing the Crow Agency and Fort Custer, and it is against all
-my better impulses, and with trepidation at the impropriety of
-unveiling the truth, that I disclose the fact that the general would
-halt the column at a convenient distance from a post, and would then
-exchange his travel-worn garb for glittering niceties of a
-major-general's uniform. The command then advanced into the fort. The
-guns bellowed and the cavalry swung into line, while numerous officers
-gathered, in all the perfection of neat-fitting uniforms, to receive
-him. At this time the writer eliminated himself from the ceremonial,
-and from some point of vantage proceeded to pull up his boots so as to
-cover as much as possible the gaping wounds in his riding-trousers,
-and tried vainly to make a shooting-jacket fit like an officer's
-blouse, while he dealt his hat sundry thumps in a vain endeaver to
-give it a more rakish appearance. He was then introduced and
-apologized for in turn. To this day he hopes the mantle of charity was
-broad enough to cover his case.
-
-What a contrast between soldiers in field and soldiers in garrison!
-Natty and trim--as straight as a sapling, with few words and no
-gestures--quite unlike those of two days, or rather nights, ago, when
-the cold froze them out of their blankets, and they sat around the
-camp-fires pounding tin cans and singing the Indian medicine song with
-a good Irish accent. Very funny that affair--the mixture of Cheyenne
-and Donnybrook is a strange noise.
-
-The last stage from Custer to the railroad is thirty-five miles and a
-half, which we did with two relays, the latter half of it in the
-night. There was no escort--only two orderlies and the general--and I
-pattered along through the gloom. The clouds hung over the earth in a
-dense blanket, and the road was as dim as a Florentine fresco; but
-night nor cold nor heat can bring General Miles to a walk, and the
-wild charge in the dark was, as an experience, a complete thing. You
-cannot see; you whirl through a cañon cut in the mud; you plough
-through the sage-brush and over the rocks clatter and bang. The
-general is certainly a grim old fellow--one of the kind that make
-sparks fly when he strikes an obstacle. I could well believe the old
-Fifth Infantryman who said "he's put many a corn on a dough-boy's
-foot," and it's a red-letter day for any one else that keeps at his
-horse's heels. You may ride into a hole, over a precipice, to
-perdition, if it's your luck on this night, but is not the general in
-front? You follow the general--that's the grand idea--that is the
-military idea. If the United States army was strung out in line with
-its general ahead, and if he should ride out into the broad Atlantic
-and swim to sea, the whole United States army would follow along, for
-that's the idea, you know.
-
-But for the headlong plunge of an orderly, we passed through all
-right, with due thankfulness on my part, and got to our car at the
-siding, much to the gratification of the Chicago colored man in
-charge, who found life at Custer Station a horrid blank. Two hundred
-and forty-eight miles in thirty-six hours and a half, and sixty miles
-of it on one horse, was not bad riding, considering everything. Not
-enough to make a man famous or lame, but enough for the time being.
-
-
-
-
-LIEUTENANT CASEY'S LAST SCOUT
-
-ON THE HOSTILE FLANKS WITH THE CHIS-CHIS-CHASH
-
-
-The train bearing the Cheyenne scout corps pulled into Rapid City
-somewhat late. It is possible you may think that it was a train of
-Pullman palace cars, but you would be mistaken, for it was a freight
-train, with the horses in tight box-cars, the bacon and
-Chis-chis-chash[1] on flat gravel cars, and Lieutenants Casey and
-Getty in the caboose. Evidently the element of haste was woven into
-this movement. We were glad to meet again. Expansive smiles lit up the
-brown features of the Indian scouts as they recognized me. Old
-Wolf-Voice came around in his large, patronizing way and said,
-"How?--what you do out here?" Wolf-Voice was a magnificent type of the
-Indian, with a grand face, a tremendous physique, and enough
-self-containment for a High-Church bishop. High-Walking nudged
-Stump-Horn and whispered in his ear, and they both smiled as they
-looked at me. Lieutenant Casey walked out in the road and talked with
-General Miles, who sat on his beautiful sorrel horse, while two scouts
-and a young "horse-pusher"[2] from St. Louis helped me to load one
-strawberry-roan horse, branded "52" on the nigh front foot, into a
-box-car with a scrawny lot of little ponies, who showed the hard
-scouting of the last month in their lank quarters.
-
-[Footnote 1: The name the Cheyennes apply to themselves.]
-
-[Footnote 2: Boy who travels with horses on the cars.]
-
-The quartermaster came down and asked Lieutenant Casey for a
-memorandum of his outfit, which was "70 horses, 49 Indian scouts, 1
-interpreter, 2 white officers, 1000 pounds of bacon, so many crackers,
-2000 pounds forage, 5 Sibley tents, and 1 citizen," all of which the
-quartermaster put down in a little book. You are not allowed by United
-States quartermasters to have an exaggerated estimate of your own
-importance. Bacon and forage and citizens all go down in the same
-column, with the only distinction that the bacon and forage outnumber
-you.
-
-We were pulled down the road a few miles to the town of Hermoso, and
-there, in the moonlight, the baggage was unloaded and the wild little
-ponies frightened out of the cars, down a chute, into the stock
-corrals. The Sibleys were pitched, and a crowd of curious citizens,
-who came down to feast their eyes on the Chis-chis-chash, were
-dissipated when a rather frugal dinner was prepared. This was
-Christmas night, and rather a cheerless one, since, in the haste of
-departure, the Sibley stoves had been forgotten. We never had stoves
-again until the gallant Leavenworth battalion came to the rescue with
-their surplus, and in the cold, frosty nights in the foot-hills there
-can be no personal happiness where there are no stoves. We brewed a
-little mess of hot stuff in a soldier's tin cup, and, in the words of
-Private Mulvaney, we drank to the occasion, "three fingers--standing
-up!"
-
-The good that comes in the ill wind where stoves are lacking is that
-you can get men up in the morning. Sun-worship must have originated in
-circumstances of this kind. The feeling of thankfulness at the sight
-of the golden rays permeates your soul, and your very bones are made
-glad.
-
-A few ounces of bacon, some of those accursed crackers which are made
-to withstand fire, water, and weevil, a quart of coffee blacker than
-evil, then down come the Sibleys, the blankets are rolled and the
-saddles adjusted, and bidding _adios_ to the First Infantry (which
-came in during the night), we trot off down the road.
-
-These, then, are the Cheyenne scouts. Well, I am glad I know the fact,
-but I never can reconcile the trim-looking scout corps of Keogh with
-these strange-looking objects. Erstwhile their ponies were fat, and
-cavorted around when falling in ranks; now they paddle along in the
-humblest kind of a business-like jog-trot. The new overcoats of the
-corps metamorphose the scouts into something between Russian Cossacks
-and Black Crooks. Saddle pockets bulge out, and a thousand and one
-little alterations in accoutrement grow up in the field which are
-frowned down in garrison. The men have scouted hard for a month, and
-have lost two nights' sleep, so at the halts for the wagons they lop
-down in the dust of the road, and sleep, while the little ponies stand
-over them, ears down, heads hanging, eyes shut, and one hind foot
-drawn up on its toe. Nothing can look so dejected as a pony, and
-doubtless few things have more reason to feel so. A short march of
-twenty-five miles passes us through the Seventeenth Infantry camp
-under Colonel Offley, and down to the Cheyenne River, where we camp
-for the night. There is another corps of Cheyenne scouts somewhere
-here on the river, under Lieutenant L. H. Struthers, of the First
-Infantry, and we expect to join them. On the other side of the
-Cheyenne rise the tangled masses of the famous Bad Lands--seamed and
-serrated, gray here, the golden sunset flashing there, with dark
-recesses giving back a frightful gloom--a place for stratagem and
-murder, with nothing to witness its mysteries but the cold blue winter
-sky. Yet we are going there. It is full of savage Sioux. The sun goes
-down. I am glad to cease thinking about it.
-
-[Illustration: CHIS-CHIS-CHASH SCOUT ON THE FLANKS]
-
-It is such a mere detail that I will not waste time on it, but this
-freezing out of your blankets four or five times every night, and this
-having to go out and coax a cooking fire into a cheerful spirit, can
-occupy a man's mind so that any words not depraved do not seem of any
-consequence. During one of the early hours I happened to sleep, and in
-this interval Mr. Struthers came into our tepee. He had been on a
-night's ride to the colonel for orders, and in passing, dropped in for
-a chat with Casey. When about to go, he said,
-
-"Oh, by-the-way, I met Remington."
-
-"Do you want to renew the acquaintance?" replied Casey.
-
-"Why--how--why--yes."
-
-"Well, he's there, on the other side of this tent." And Mr. Struthers
-passed out in the gloom, and his muttered expressions of astonishment
-were presently lost in the distance. I had ridden and camped with Mr.
-Struthers a few days since in the up country, while on the way to "the
-galloping Sixth."
-
-The next day we passed down the river, and soon saw what to
-inexperienced eyes might be dark gray rocks on the top of yellow
-hills. They were the pickets of the Cheyennes, and presently we saw
-the tepees and the ponies, and then we rode into camp. The men from
-Tongue River greeted the men from Pine Ridge--the relatives and
-friends--with _ki-yis_ of delight. The corps from Pine Ridge was
-organized from the Cheyennes on that reservation, and was as yet only
-partially disciplined, and in no way to be compared with Casey's Old
-Guard from Tongue River. Some two nights before, the Sioux had fired
-into their camp, and they had skirmished with the enemy. The vermilion
-of the war-path was on every countenance, and, through sympathy, I saw
-that our men too had gone into this style of decorative art; for faces
-which had previously been fresh and clean now passed my vision
-streaked and daubed into preternatural ferocity.
-
-It grew late and later, and yet Lieutenant Struthers did not return
-from his scouting of the day. We were alarmed, and wondered and hoped;
-for scouting through the Bad Lands to the stronghold was dangerous, to
-state it mildly. A few shots would not be heard twelve miles away in
-the hills. We pictured black objects lying prone on the sand as we
-scouted next day--little masses of clay which had been men and horses,
-but would then be as silent as the bare hillocks about them.
-
-"Ki-yi-yip--a-ou!" and a patter in the gloom.
-
-"That's Struthers." We fall over each other as we pile out of the hole
-in the Sibley, and find Struthers and Lieutenant Byrom, of the Eighth
-Cavalry, all safe and sound.
-
-"We have been on the stronghold; they are all gone; rustle some
-coffee," are words in the darkness; and we crawl back into the tent,
-where presently the big, honest, jolly eyes of Mr. Struthers look over
-a quart cup, and we are happy. Byrom was a fine little cavalryman, and
-I have good reason to know that for impudent daring of that
-desperately quiet kind he is distinguished in places where all men are
-brave.
-
-Away goes the courier to the colonel for orders, and after a time back
-he comes--a wild dash of twelve miles in the dark, and of little
-moment here, but a life memory to an unaccustomed one.
-
-"We go on the stronghold in the morning," says Casey; "and now to
-bed." A bed consists of two blankets spread on the ground, and all the
-personal property not otherwise appropriated piled on top. A luxury,
-mind you, is this; later it was much more simple, consisting of earth
-for a mattress and the sky for a counterpane.
-
-The sun is not up when in comes the horse herd. My strawberry roan
-goes sneaking about in the frosty willows, and after sundry
-well-studied manoeuvres I get a grip on the lariat, and am lugged
-and jerked over the brush until "52 on the nigh front foot" consents
-to stand still. I saddle up, but have lost my gun. I entreat Mr.
-Thompson, the interpreter, to help me find it. Mr. Thompson is a man
-who began fighting for the Union in East Tennessee about thirty years
-long gone, and he has continued to engage in that work up to date. Mr.
-Thompson has formed a character which is not as round as a ball, but
-much more the shape of horn-silver in its native state. He is humorous
-by turns, and early in my acquaintance he undertook the cultivation of
-my mind in the art of war as practised on the frontier. On this
-occasion he at last found my Springfield, and handed it to me with the
-admonition "that in times like these one warrior can't look after
-another warrior's gun."
-
-The wagons were to go--well, I never knew where, but they went off
-over the hills, and I never saw them again for some miserable days and
-dreary nights. Five Pine Ridge Cheyennes and Mr. Wolf-Voice were my
-party, and we filed away. At Battle Creek we watered, and crossed the
-Cheyenne a mile above. My horse was smooth shod, and the river frozen
-half-way over, so we slid around on the ice, and jumped into the icy
-waters, got wet, crawled out, slid around some more, and finally
-landed. Mr. Wolf-Voice looked me over, and smilingly said, "Me think
-you no like 'em"; wherein his conclusion was eminently correct. Who
-does like to have a mass of ice freeze on him when naturally the
-weather is cold enough to satisfy a walrus?
-
-It was twelve miles through the defiles of the Bad Lands to the blue
-ridge of the high mesa where the hostiles had lived. The trail was
-strewn with dead cattle, some of them having never been touched with a
-knife. Here and there a dead pony, ridden to a stand-still and left
-nerveless on the trail. No words of mine can describe these Bad Lands.
-They are somewhat as Doré pictured hell. One set of buttes, with cones
-and minarets, gives place in the next mile to natural freaks of a
-different variety, never dreamed of by mortal man. It is the action of
-water on clay; there are ashes, or what looks like them. The painter's
-whole palette is in one bluff. A year's study of these colors by Mr.
-Bierstadt, Professor Marsh, and Mr. Notman might possibly convey to
-the Eastern mind an idea; so we'll amble along after Mr. Wolf-Voice,
-and leave that subject intact.
-
-"Hark!" My little party stops suddenly, and we all listen. I feel
-stupid.
-
-"You hear 'em?" says Wolf-Voice, in a stage-whisper.
-
-"Hear what?" I say.
-
-"Shots."
-
-Then we all get out our guns and go galloping like mad. I can't
-imagine why, but I spur my horse and perform equestrian feats which in
-an ordinary frame of mind I should regard as insane. Down a narrow
-trail we go, with the gravel flying, and through a _coulée_, up a
-little hill, on top of which we stop to listen, and then away we go.
-The blue wall grows nearer, and at last we are under it. A few
-cotton-wood trees, some frozen water, a little cleft on the bluffs,
-and I see a trail winding upward. I know these warriors are going
-up there, but I can't understand precisely how. It is not the first
-perilous trail I have contemplated; but there are dead cattle lying at
-the bottom which had fallen off and been killed in the ascent. We
-dismount and start up. It tells on your wind, and tries the leg
-muscles. Up a steep place a horse wants to go fast, and you have to
-keep him from running over you. A bend in the trail where the running
-water has frozen seems impassable. I jump across it, and then pull the
-bridle and say, "Come on, boy!" If I were the horse I would balk, but
-the noble animal will try it. A leap, a plunging, and with a terrible
-scrabble we are all right. Farther up, and the incline is certainly
-eighty-five degrees. My horse looses his front feet, but a jerk at the
-headstall brings him down, and he plunges past me to be caught by an
-Indian at the top of the trail. For a moment we breathe, and then
-mount.
-
-[Illustration: "TWO GHOSTS I SAW"]
-
-Before us is a great flat plain blackened by fire, and with the grass
-still burning. Away in the distance, in the shimmer of the air waves,
-are figures.
-
-"Maybe so dey Sioux," says Wolf-Voice. And we gallop towards them.
-
-"What will you do if they are?" I ask.
-
-"Stand 'em off," replies the war-dog.
-
-Half an hour's ride showed them to be some of our Cheyennes. All about
-the plain were strewn the remains of dead cattle (heads and horns,
-half-butchered carcasses, and withal a rather impressive smell),
-coyotes, and ravens--all very like war. These Brulés must have lived
-well. There were lodge poles, old fires, and a series of rifle pits
-across the neck of land which the Sioux had proposed to defend;
-medicine poles, and near them the sacrifices, among which was food
-dedicated to the Great Spirit, but eventually consumed by the less
-exalted members of Casey's command. I vandalized a stone pipe and a
-rawhide stirrup.
-
-The less curious members of our band had gone south, and Wolf-Voice
-and I rode along together. We discussed war, and I remember two of
-Wolf-Voice's opinions. Speaking of infantry and their method of
-fighting, he said:
-
-"Dese walk-a-heap soldiers dey dig hole--get in--shoot heap--Injun
-can't do nothin' wid 'em--can't kill 'em--can't do nothin' but jes go
-'way."
-
-Then, explaining why the Sioux had shown bad generalship in selecting
-their position, he turned in his saddle, and said, "De big guns he
-knock 'em rifle pit, den de calavy lun pas' in column--Injun no stop
-calavy--kill 'em heap, but no stop 'em--den de walk-a-heap dey come
-too, and de Sioux dey go ober de bluffs." And with wild enthusiasm he
-added, "De Sioux dey go to hell!" That prospect seemed to delight Mr.
-Wolf-Voice immensely.
-
-It was a weary ride over the black and smoking plain. A queer mirage
-was said by my Indian to be the Cheyenne scouts coming after us. Black
-figures of animals walking slowly along were "starving bronchos
-abandoned by the hostiles."
-
-"Cowboy he catch 'em," said Wolf-Voice.
-
-I explained that Colonel Offley had orders not to allow any citizens
-to cross the Cheyenne River.
-
-"Cowboy he go give um dam; he come alle samee."
-
-And I thought Wolf-Voice was probably right.
-
-On the southern edge of the bluffs of the mesa we halted, and found
-water for man and beast. The command gradually concentrated, and for
-half an hour we stood on the high points scanning the great flats
-below, and located the dust of the retiring hostile column and the
-back lying scouts. Lieutenant Casey had positive orders not to bring
-on an engagement, and only desired to hang on their flanks, so as to
-keep Miles familiar with the hostile movements. A courier started on
-his lonely ride back with a note for the major-general. Our scouts
-were flying about far down the valley, and we filed off after them.
-Presently a little column of dust follows a flying horseman towards
-us. On, on he comes. The scouts grow uneasy; wild creatures they are,
-with the suspicion of a red deer and the stealth of a panther.
-
-[Illustration: WATCHING THE DUST OF THE HOSTILES]
-
-The Sioux have fired on our scouts. Off we go at a trot, scattering
-out, unslinging our guns, and the air full of fight. I ride by Casey,
-and see he is troubled. The orders in his pocket do not call for a
-fight. Can he hold these wild warriors?
-
-"Struthers, we have got to hold these men," said Casey, in a tone of
-voice which was full of meaning. To shorten the story, our men were at
-last gotten into ranks, and details made to cover the advance. The
-hostiles were evidently much excited. Little clouds of dust whirling
-hither and thither showed where the opposing scouts were shadowing
-each other. The sun was waning, and yet we spurred our weary horses on
-towards the enemy. Poor beasts! no food and too much exercise since
-daylight.
-
-The Cheyennes were uneasy, and not at all pleased with this scheme of
-action. What could they know about the orders in Lieutenant Casey's
-pocket, prompted by a commanding general thinking of a thousand and
-one interests, and with telegrams from Washington directing the
-avoidance of an Indian war?
-
-Old-soldier Thompson even, with all his intelligence and knowledge of
-things, felt the wild Berserker battle valor, which he smothered with
-difficulty, and confined himself to potent remarks and spurring of
-old Piegan. He said: "This is a new kind of war. Them Injuns don't
-understand it, and to tell you the truth, I don't nuther. The Injuns
-say they have come all the way from Tongue River, and are going back
-poor. Can't get Sioux horses, can't kill Sioux," and in peroration he
-confirmed his old impression that "this is a new kind of war"; and
-then relapsed into reveries of what things used to be before General
-Miles invented this new kind of war.
-
-In our immediate front was a heavy body of Sioux scouts. Lieutenant
-Casey was ahead. Men broke from our ranks, but were held with
-difficulty by Struthers and Getty. Back comes Casey at a gallop. He
-sees the crisis, and with his hand on his six-shooter, says, "I will
-shoot the first man through the head who falls out of the ranks." A
-mutiny is imminent in the Pine Ridge contingent, but the diplomat
-Struthers brings order at last, and we file off down the hills to the
-left, and stop by a stream, while Casey goes back and meets a body of
-Sioux on a high hill for a powwow. I watched through a glass, and the
-sun went down as they talked. We had orders not to remove our saddles,
-and stood in the line nervously expecting anything imaginable to
-happen. The daring of Casey in this case is simply an instance of a
-hundred such, and the last one cost him his life. By his prompt
-measures with his own men, and by his courage in going among the Sioux
-to powwow, he averted a bloody battle, and obeyed his orders. There
-was one man between two banks of savage warriors who were fairly
-frothing at the mouth--a soldier; the sun will never shine upon a
-better.
-
-At last, after an interminable time, he came away. Far away to the
-right are two of our scouts driving two beeves. We see the bright
-blaze of the six-shooters, the steers tumble, and hunger is no longer
-one of our woes.
-
-[Illustration: THE HOTCHKISS GUN]
-
-The tired horses are unsaddled, to eat and drink and roll. We lay dry
-cotton-wood limbs on the fires, heavy pickets are told off, and our
-"bull meat" is cooked in the primitive style. Old Wolf-Voice and
-another scout are swinging six ribs on a piece of rawhide over a fire,
-and later he brings me a rib and a little bit of coffee from a roll in
-his handkerchief. I thought him a "brick," and mystified him by
-telling him so.
-
-Three or four Brulés are let in through our pickets, and come "wagging
-their tails," as Two-Moons says, but adding, "Don't you trust the
-Sioux." They protest their good intentions, borrow tobacco, and say
-Lieutenant Casey can send in a wagon for commissaries to Pine Ridge,
-and also that I can go through their lines with it. Were there ever
-greater liars on earth?
-
-I sat near the fire and looked intently at one human brute opposite, a
-perfect animal, so far as I could see. Never was there a face so
-replete with human depravity, stolid, ferocious, arrogant, and all the
-rest--ghost-shirt, war-paint, feathers, and arms. As a picture,
-perfect; as a reality, horrible. Presently they go away, and we
-prepare for the night. This preparing for the night is a rather simple
-process. I have stolen my saddle blanket from my poor horse, and, with
-this laid on the ground, I try my saddle in four or five different
-positions in its capacity of pillow. The inventor of the Whitman tree
-never considered this possible use of his handiwork, or he might have
-done better. I next button the lower three buttons of my overcoat, and
-thus wrapped "I lie down to pleasant dreams"--of rheumatism.
-
-An hour later and the fires go down. Black forms pass like uneasy
-spirits, and presently you find yourself thrashing around in the
-underbrush across the river after branches to feed that insatiable
-fire. One comrade breaks through the ice and gets wet, and inelegant
-remarks come from the shadowy blackness under the river-banks. I think
-a man shouldn't use such language even under such circumstances, but I
-also think very few men wouldn't. A chilling wind now adds to the
-misery of the situation, and the heat of the fire goes off in a cloud
-of sparks to the No Man's Land across the river. After smoking a pipe
-for two hours your mouth is raw and your nervous system shattered, so
-nothing is left but to sit calmly down and just suffer. You can hate
-the Chinese on the other side of the world, who are now enjoying the
-rays of the sun.
-
-And morning finds you in the saddle. It always does. I don't know how
-it is--a habit of life, I suppose. Mornings ought to find me cosily
-ensconced in a good bed, but in retrospect they seem always to be in
-the saddle, with a good prospect of all day ahead, and evening finds
-me with a chunk of bull meat and without blankets, until one fine day
-we come to our wagons, our Sibleys, and the little luxuries of the
-mess chest.
-
-The next morning I announced my intention of going to Pine Ridge
-Agency, which is twenty-five miles away. Mr. Thompson, two scouts, and
-a Swedish teamster are to go in for provisions and messages. Mr.
-Thompson got in the wagon. I expressed my astonishment at this and the
-fact that he had no carbines, as we expected to go through the hostile
-pickets and camp. He said, "If I can't talk them Injuns out of killin'
-me, I reckon I'll have to go." I trotted along with Red-Bear and
-Hairy-Arm, and a mile and a half ahead went the courier, Wells. Poor
-man! in two hours he lay bleeding in the road, with a bullet through
-the hips, and called two days for water before he "struck the long
-trail to the kingdom come," as the cowboys phrase it.
-
-We could see two black columns of smoke, which we did not understand.
-After we had gone eight or ten miles, and were just crossing a ravine,
-we saw a Sioux buck on a little hill just ahead, out of pistol-shot.
-He immediately rode the "danger signal." Red-Bear turned his horse in
-the "peace sign," and advanced. We drove over the ravine, and halted.
-I dismounted. Six young Brulé Sioux rose out of the ground, and rode
-up to Red-Bear, and the hills were full of pickets to the right and
-left. We waited to hear the result of Red-Bear's conversation, when he
-presently came back and spoke to Thompson in Cheyenne. I looked at
-him; his eyes were snapping, and his facial muscles twitched
-frightfully. This was unusual, and I knew that things were not well.
-
-"Red-Bear says we will have to go back," explained Thompson; and
-turning to Red-Bear he requested that two Sioux might come closer, and
-talk with us. Things looked ominous to me, not understanding Cheyenne,
-which was being talked. "This is a bad hole, and I reckon our cake is
-dough right here," said Thompson.
-
-Hairy-Arm's face was impassive, but his dark eyes wandered from Brulé
-to Brulé with devilish calculation. Two young bucks came up, and one
-asked Thompson for tobacco, whereat he was handed a package of Durham
-by Thompson, which was not returned.
-
-"It's lucky for me that tobacco ain't a million dollars," sighed
-Thompson.
-
-Another little buck slipped up behind me, whereat Mr. Thompson gave me
-a warning look. Turning, I advanced on him quickly (I wanted to be as
-near as possible, not being armed), and holding out my hand, said,
-"How, colah?" He did not like to take it, but he did, and I was saved
-the trouble of further action.
-
-"We'll never get this wagon turned around," suggested Mr. Thompson, as
-the teamster whipped up; but we did. And as we commenced our movement
-on Casey's camp, Mr. Thompson said, "Go slow now; don't run, or
-they'll sure shoot."
-
-"Gemme gun," said the little scout Red-Bear, and we all got our arms
-from the wagon.
-
-There was no suspense now. Things had begun to happen. A little
-faster, yet faster, we go up the little banks of the _coulée_, and, ye
-gods! what!--five fully armed, well-mounted cowboys--a regular rescue
-scene from Buffalo Bill's show.
-
-"Go back!" shouted Thompson.
-
-Bang! bang! bang! and the bullets whistle around and kick up the dust.
-Away we go.
-
-Four bucks start over the hills to our right to flank us. Red-Bear
-talked loudly in Cheyenne.
-
-Thompson repeated, "Red-Bear says if any one is hit, get off in the
-grass and lie down; we must all hang together."
-
-We all yelled, "We will."
-
-A well-mounted man rode like mad ahead of the laboring team horses to
-carry the news to the scout camp. The cowboys, being well mounted,
-could easily have gotten away, but they stuck like true blues.
-
-Here is where the great beauty of American character comes out.
-Nothing can be taken seriously by men used to danger. Above the
-pounding of the horses and the rattle of the wagon and through the
-dust came the cowboy song from the lips of Mr. Thompson:
-
-    "Roll your tail,
-    And roll her high;
-    We'll all be angels
-    By-and-by."
-
-[Illustration: A RUN TO THE SCOUT CAMP]
-
-We deployed on the flanks of the wagon so that the team horses might
-not be shot, which would have stopped the whole outfit, and we did ten
-miles at a record-breaking gallop. We struck the scout camp in a blaze
-of excitement. The Cheyennes were in war-paint, and the ponies' tails
-were tied up and full of feathers. Had the Sioux materialized at that
-time, Mr. Casey would have had his orders broken right there.
-
-After a lull in the proceedings, Mr. Thompson confided to me that "the
-next time I go to war in a wagon it will put the drinks on me"; and he
-saddled Piegan, and patted his neck in a way which showed his
-gratification at the change in transport. We pulled out again for the
-lower country, and as our scouts had seen the dust of Colonel
-Sanford's command, we presently joined them.
-
-Any remarks made to Mr. Thompson on the tobacco subject are taken
-seriously, and he has intimated to me a quiet yearning for a shot at
-"the particular slit-mouthed Brulé who got away with that Durham."
-
-How we awoke next morning with the sleet freezing in our faces, and
-how we made camp in the blizzard, and borrowed Sibley stoves of the
-soldiers, and how we were at last comfortable, and spent New-Year's
-Eve in a proper manner, is of little interest.
-
-I was awakened at a late hour that night by Captain Baldwin, of
-General Miles's staff, and told to saddle up for a night's ride to
-Pine Ridge. This was the end of my experience with Lieutenant Casey
-and his gallant corps. We shook hands cheerily in the dim candle-light
-of the tepee, and agreeing to meet in New York at some not distant
-day, I stepped out from the Sibley, mounted, and rode away in the
-night.
-
-Three days later I had eaten my breakfast on the dining-car, and had
-settled down to a cigar and a Chicago morning paper. The big leads at
-the top of the column said, "Lieutenant E. W. Casey Shot." Casey shot!
-I look again. Yes; despatches from head-quarters--a fact beyond
-question.
-
-A nasty little Brulé Sioux had made his _coup_, and shot away the life
-of a man who would have gained his stars in modern war as naturally as
-most of his fellows would their eagles. He had shot away the life of
-an accomplished man; the best friend the Indians had; a man who did
-not know "fear"; a young man beloved by his comrades, respected by his
-generals and by the Secretary of War. The squaws of another race will
-sing the death-song of their benefactor, and woe to the Sioux if the
-Northern Cheyennes get a chance to _coup_!
-
-"Try to avoid bloodshed," comes over the wires from Washington. "Poor
-savages!" comes the plaintive wail of the sentimentalist from his
-place of security; but who is to weep for the men who hold up a row of
-brass buttons for any hater of the United States to fire a gun at? Are
-the squaws of another race to do the mourning for American soldiers?
-Are the men of another race to hope for vengeance? Bah!
-
-I sometimes think Americans lack a virtue which the military races of
-Europe possess. Possibly they may never need it. I hope not. American
-soldiers of our frontier days have learned not to expect sympathy in
-the East, but where one like Casey goes down there are many places
-where Sorrow will spread her dusky pinions and the light grow dim.
-
-
-
-
-THE SIOUX OUTBREAK IN SOUTH DAKOTA
-
-
-We discussed the vague reports of the Wounded Knee fight in the upper
-camps of the cordon, and old hands said it could be no ordinary affair
-because of the large casualty. Two days after I rode into the Pine
-Ridge Agency, very hungry and nearly frozen to death, having ridden
-with Captain Baldwin, of the staff, and a Mr. Miller all night long. I
-had to look after a poor horse, and see that he was groomed and fed,
-which require considerable tact and "hustling" in a busy camp. Then
-came my breakfast. That struck me as a serious matter at the time.
-There were wagons and soldiers--the burial party going to the Wounded
-Knee to do its solemn duty. I wanted to go very much. I stopped to
-think; in short, I hesitated, and of course was "lost," for after
-breakfast they had gone. Why did I not follow them? Well, my natural
-prudence had been considerably strengthened a few days previously by a
-half-hour's interview with six painted Brulé Sioux, who seemed to be
-in command of the situation. To briefly end the matter, the burial
-party was fired on, and my confidence in my own good judgment was
-vindicated to my own satisfaction.
-
-I rode over to the camp of the Seventh United States Cavalry, and met
-all the officers, both wounded and well, and a great many of the men.
-They told me their stories in that inimitable way which is studied art
-with warriors. To appreciate brevity you must go to a soldier. He
-shrugs his shoulders, and points to the bridge of his nose, which has
-had a piece cut out by a bullet, and says, "Rather close, but don't
-amount to much." An inch more, and some youngster would have had his
-promotion.
-
-I shall not here tell the story of the Seventh Cavalry fight with Big
-Foot's band of Sioux on the Wounded Knee; that has been done in the
-daily papers; but I will recount some small-talk current in the Sibley
-tepees, or the "white man's war tents," as the Indians call them.
-
-Lying on his back, with a bullet through the body, Lieutenant Mann
-grew stern when he got to the critical point in his story. "I saw
-three or four young bucks drop their blankets, and I saw that they
-were armed. 'Be ready to fire, men; there is trouble.' There was an
-instant, and then we heard sounds of firing in the centre of the
-Indians. 'Fire!' I shouted, and we poured it into them."
-
-"Oh yes, Mann, but the trouble began when the old medicine-man threw
-the dust in the air. That is the old Indian signal of 'defiance,' and
-no sooner had he done that act than those bucks stripped and went into
-action. Just before that some one told me that if we didn't stop that
-old man's talk he would make trouble. He said that the white men's
-bullets would not go through the ghost shirts."
-
-Said another officer, "The way those Sioux worked those Winchesters
-was beautiful." Which criticism, you can see, was professional.
-
-Added another, "One man was hit early in the firing, but he continued
-to pump his Winchester; but growing weaker and weaker, and sinking
-down gradually, his shots went higher and higher, until his last went
-straight up in the air."
-
-[Illustration: IN THE TRENCHES]
-
-"Those Indians were plumb crazy. Now, for instance, did you notice
-that before they fired they raised their arms to heaven? That was
-devotional."
-
-"Yes, captain, but they got over their devotional mood after the
-shooting was over," remonstrated a cynic. "When I passed over the
-field after the fight one young warrior who was near to his death
-asked me to take him over to the medicine-man's side, that he might
-die with his knife in the old conjurer's heart. He had seen that the
-medicine was bad, and his faith in the ghost shirt had vanished. There
-was no doubt but that every buck there thought that no bullet could
-touch him."
-
-"Well," said an officer, whose pipe was working into a reflective
-mood, "there is one thing which I learned, and that is that you can
-bet that the private soldier in the United States army will fight.
-He'll fight from the drop of the hat anywhere and in any place, and
-he'll fight till you call _time_. I never in my life saw Springfield
-carbines worked so industriously as at that place. I noticed one young
-fellow, and his gun seemed to just blaze all the while. Poor chap!
-he's mustered out for good."
-
-I saw the scout who had his nose cut off. He came in to get shaved.
-His face was covered with strips of court-plaster, and when informed
-that it would be better for him to forego the pleasure of a shave, he
-reluctantly consented. He had ridden all day and been in the second
-day's fight with his nose held on by a few strips of plaster, and he
-did not see just why he could not be shaved; but after being talked to
-earnestly by a half-dozen friends he succumbed.
-
-"What became of the man who did that?" I asked of him.
-
-He tapped his Winchester and said, "Oh, I got him all right!"
-
-I went into the hospital tents and saw the poor fellows lying on the
-cots, a little pale in the face, and with a drawn look about the mouth
-and eyes. That is the serious part of soldiering. No excitement, no
-crowd of cheering comrades, no shots and yells and din of battle. A
-few watchful doctors and Red Cross stewards with bottles and bandages,
-and the grim spectre of the universal enemy hovering over all, and
-ready to dart down on any man on the cots who lay quieter and whose
-face was more pale than his fellows.
-
-I saw the Red Cross ambulances draw up in line, and watched the
-wounded being loaded into them. I saw poor Garlington. His blond
-mustache twitched under the process of moving, and he looked like a
-man whose mustache wouldn't twitch unnecessarily. Lieutenant
-Hawthorne, who was desperately shot in the groin while working the
-little Hotchkiss cannon, turned his eyes as they moved Garlington from
-the next cot, and then waited patiently for his own turn.
-
-I was talking with old Captain Capron, who commanded the battery at
-the fight--a grim old fellow, with a red-lined cape overcoat, and
-nerve enough for a hundred-ton gun. He said: "When Hawthorne was shot
-the gun was worked by Corporal Weimert, while Private Hertzog carried
-Hawthorne from the field and then returned to his gun. The Indians
-redoubled their fire on the men at the gun, but it seemed only to
-inspire the corporal to renewed efforts. Oh, my battery was well
-served," continued the captain, as he put his hands behind his back
-and looked far away.
-
-This professional interest in the military process of killing men
-sometimes rasps a citizen's nerves. To the captain everything else was
-a side note of little consequence so long as his guns had been worked
-to his entire satisfaction. That was the point.
-
-[Illustration: THE ADVANCE GUARD--A MILITARY SACRIFICE]
-
-At the mention of the name of Captain Wallace, the Sibley became so
-quiet that you could hear the stove draw and the wind wail about the
-little canvas town. It was always "Poor Wallace!" and "He died like a
-soldier, with his empty six-shooter in his right hand, shot through
-the body, and with two jagged wounds in his head."
-
-I accosted a soldier who was leaning on a crutch while he carried a
-little bundle in his right hand. "You bet I'm glad to get out in the
-sunlight; that old hospital tent was getting mighty tiresome."
-
-"Where was I shot?" He pointed to his hip. "Only a flesh wound; this
-is my third wound. My time is out in a few days; but I'm going to
-re-enlist, and I hope I'll get back here before this trouble is over.
-I want to get square with these Injuns." You see, there was
-considerable human nature in this man's composition.
-
-The ambulance went off down the road, and the burial party came back.
-The dead were for the time forgotten, and the wounded were left to
-fight their own battles with stitches and fevers and suppuration. The
-living toiled in the trenches, or stood out their long term on the
-pickets, where the moon looked down on the frosty landscape, and the
-cold wind from the north searched for the crevices in their blankets.
-
-
-
-
-AN OUTPOST OF CIVILIZATION
-
-
-The hacienda San José de Bavicora lies northwest from Chihuahua 225 of
-the longest miles on the map. The miles run up long hills and dive
-into rocky cañons; they stretch over never-ending burnt plains, and
-across the beds of tortuous rivers thick with scorching sand. And
-there are three ways to make this travel. Some go on foot--which is
-best, if one has time--like the Tahuramaras; others take it ponyback,
-after the Mexican manner; and persons with no time and a great deal of
-money go in a coach. At first thought this last would seem to be the
-best, but the Guerrero stage has never failed to tip over, and the
-company make you sign away your natural rights, and almost your
-immortal soul, before they will allow you to embark. So it is not the
-best way at all, if I may judge from my own experience. We had a coach
-which seemed to choose the steepest hill on the route, where it then
-struck a stone, which heaved the coach, pulled out the king-pin, and
-what I remember of the occurrence is full of sprains and aches and
-general gloom. Guerrero, too, is only three-fourths of the way to
-Bavicora, and you can only go there if Don Gilberto, the _patron_ of
-the hacienda--or, if you know him well enough, "Jack"--will take you
-in the ranch coach.
-
-After bumping over the stones all day for five days, through a
-blinding dust, we were glad enough when we suddenly came out of the
-tall timber in the mountain pass and espied the great yellow plain
-of Bavicora stretching to the blue hills of the Sierra. In an hour's
-ride more, through a chill wind, we were at the ranch. We pulled up at
-the entrance, which was garnished by a bunch of cow-punchers, who
-regarded us curiously as we pulled our aching bodies and bandaged
-limbs from the Concord and limped into the _patio_.
-
-[Illustration: THE HACIENDA SAN JOSÉ DE BAVICORA]
-
-To us was assigned the room of honor, and after shaking ourselves down
-on a good bed, with mattress and sheeting, we recovered our
-cheerfulness. A hot toddy, a roaring fireplace, completed the effect.
-The floor was strewn with bear and wolf skin rugs; it had pictures and
-draperies on the walls, and in a corner a wash-basin and pitcher--so
-rare in these parts--was set on a stand, grandly suggestive of the
-refinements of luxury we had attained to. I do not wish to convey the
-impression that Mexicans do not wash, because there are brooks enough
-in Mexico if they want to use them, but wash-basins are the
-advance-guards of progress, and we had been on the outposts since
-leaving Chihuahua.
-
-Jack's man William had been ever-present, and administered to our
-slightest wish; his cheerful "Good-mo'nin', gemmen," as he lit the
-fire, recalled us to life, and after a rub-down I went out to look at
-the situation.
-
-Jack's ranch is a great straggling square of mud walls enclosing two
-_patios_, with adobe corrals and out-buildings, all obviously
-constructed for the purposes of defence. It was built in 1770 by the
-Jesuits, and while the English and Dutch were fighting for the
-possession of the Mohawk Valley, Bavicora was an outpost of
-civilization, as it is to-day. Locked in a strange language, on
-parchment stored in vaults in Spain, are the records of this
-enterprise. In 1840 the good fathers were murdered by the Apaches, the
-country devasted and deserted, and the cattle and horses hurried to
-the mountain lairs of the Apache devils. The place lay idle and
-unreclaimed for years, threatening to crumble back to the dust of
-which it was made. Near by are curious mounds on the banks of a dry
-_arroyo_. The punchers have dug down into these ruins, and found adobe
-walls, mud plasterings, skeletons, and bits of woven goods. They call
-them the "Montezumas." All this was to be changed. In 1882 an American
-cowboy--which was Jack--accompanied by two companions, penetrated
-south from Arizona, and as he looked from the mountains over the fair
-plain of Bavicora, he said, "I will take this." The Apaches were on
-every hand; the country was terrorized to the gates of Chihuahua. The
-stout heart of the pioneer was not disturbed, and he made his word
-good. By purchase he acquired the plain, and so much more that you
-could not ride round it in two weeks. He moved in with his hardy
-punchers, and fixed up Bavicora so it would be habitable. He chased
-the Indians off his ranch whenever he "cut their sign." After a while
-the Mexican _vaqueros_ from below overcame their terror, when they saw
-the American hold his own with the Apache devils, and by twos and
-threes and half-dozens they came up to take service, and now there are
-two hundred who lean on Jack and call him _patron_. They work for him
-and they follow him on the Apache trail, knowing he will never run
-away, believing in his beneficence and trusting to his courage.
-
-I sat on a mud-bank and worked away at a sketch of the yellow sunlit
-walls of the mud-ranch, with the great plain running away like the
-ocean into a violet streak under the blue line of the Peña Blanca. In
-the rear rises a curious broken formation of hills like millions of
-ruins of Rhine castles. The _lobos_[3] howl by night, and the
-Apache is expected to come at any instant. The old _criada_ or
-serving-woman who makes the beds saw her husband killed at the front
-door, and every man who goes out of the _patio_ has a large assortment
-of the most improved artillery on his person. Old carts with heavy
-wooden wheels like millstones stand about. Brown people with big straw
-hats and gay _serapes_ lean lazily against the gray walls. Little pigs
-carry on the contest with nature, game-chickens strut, and clumsy
-puppies tumble over each other in joyful play; _burros_ stand about
-sleepily, only indicating life by suggestive movements of their great
-ears, while at intervals a pony, bearing its lithe rider, steps from
-the gate, and, breaking into an easy and graceful lope, goes away into
-the waste of land.
-
-[Footnote 3: Wolves.]
-
-[Illustration: EL PATRON]
-
-I rose to go inside, and while I gazed I grew exalted in the
-impression that here, in the year of 1893, I had rediscovered a Fort
-Laramie after Mr. Parkman's well-known description. The foreman, Tom
-Bailey, was dressed in store clothes, and our room had bedsteads and a
-wash-basin; otherwise it answered very well. One room was piled high
-with dried meat, and the great stomachs of oxen filled with tallow;
-another room is a store full of goods--calicoes, buckskin, _riatas_,
-yellow leather shoes, guns, and other quaint plunder adapted to the
-needs of a people who sit on the ground and live on meat and
-corn-meal.
-
-"Charlie Jim," the Chinese cook, has a big room with a stove in it,
-and he and the stove are a never-ending wonder to all the folks, and
-the fame of both has gone across the mountains to Sonora and to the
-south. Charlie is an autocrat in his curious Chinese way, and by the
-dignity of his position as Mr. Jack's private cook, and his unknown
-antecedents, he conjures the Mexicans and damns the Texans, which
-latter refuse to take him seriously and kill him, as they would a
-"proper" man. Charlie Jim, in return, entertains ideas of Texans which
-he secretes, except when they dine with Jack, when he may be heard to
-mutter, "Cake and pie no good for puncher, make him fat and lazy"; and
-when he crosses the _patio_ and they fling a rope over his foot, he
-becomes livid, and breaks out, "Damn puncher; damn rope; rope man all
-same horse; damn puncher; no good that way."
-
-The _patron_ has the state apartment, and no one goes there with his
-hat on; but the relations with his people are those of a father and
-children. An old gray man approaches; they touch the left arm with the
-right--an abbreviated hug; say "Buenos dias, patron!" "Buenos dias,
-Don Sabino!" and they shake hands. A California saddle stands on a
-rack by the desk, and the latter is littered with photographs of men
-in London clothes and women in French dresses, the latter singularly
-out of character with their surroundings. The old _criada_ squats
-silently by the fireplace, her head enveloped in her blue _rebozo_,
-and deftly rolls her cigarette. She alone, and one white bull-dog, can
-come and go without restraint.
-
-The _administrador_, which is Mr. Tom Bailey, of Texas, moves about in
-the discharge of his responsibilities, and they are universal;
-anything and everything is his work, from the negotiation for the sale
-of five thousand head of cattle to the "busting" of a bronco which no
-one else can "crawl."
-
-The clerk is in the store, with his pink boy's face, a pencil behind
-his ear, and a big sombrero, trying to look as though he had lived in
-these wilds longer than at San Francisco, which he finds an impossible
-part. He has acquired the language and the disregard of time
-necessary to one who would sell a real's worth of cotton cloth to a
-Mexican.
-
-[Illustration: THE ADMINISTRADOR OF SAN JOSÉ DE BAVICORA]
-
-The forge in the blacksmith's shop is going, and one puncher is
-cutting another puncher's hair in the sunlight; ponies are being
-lugged in on the end of lariats, and thrown down, tied fast, and left
-in a convulsive heap, ready to be shod at the disposition of their
-riders.
-
-On the roof of the house are two or three men looking and pointing to
-the little black specks on the plain far away, which are the cattle
-going into the _lagunas_ to drink.
-
-The second _patio_, or the larger one, is entered by a narrow passage,
-and here you find horses and saddles and punchers coming and going,
-saddling and unsaddling their horses, and being bucked about or
-dragged on a rope. In the little doorways to the rooms of the men
-stand women in calico dresses and blue cotton _rebozos_, while the
-dogs and pigs lie about, and little brown _vaqueros_ are ripening in
-the sun. In the rooms you find pottery, stone _metates_ for grinding
-the corn, a fireplace, a symbol of the Catholic Church, some
-_serapes_, some rope, and buckskin. The people sit on a mat on the
-floor, and make cigarettes out of native tobacco and corn-husks, or
-rolled _tortillas_; they laugh and chat in low tones, and altogether
-occupy the tiniest mental world, hardly larger than the _patio_, and
-not venturing beyond the little mud town of Temozachic, forty miles
-over the hills. Physically the men vacillate between the most intense
-excitement and a comatose state of idleness, where all is quiet and
-slothful, in contrast to the mad whirl of the roaring _rodeo_.
-
-In the haciendas of old Mexico one will find the law and custom of the
-feudal days. All the laws of Mexico are in protection of the
-land-owner. The master is without restraint, and the man lives
-dependent on his caprice. The _patron_ of Bavicora, for instance,
-leases land to a Mexican, and it is one of the arrangements that he
-shall drive the ranch coach to Chihuahua when it goes. All lessees of
-land are obliged to follow the _patron_ to war, and, indeed, since the
-common enemy, the Apache, in these parts is as like to harry the
-little as the great, it is exactly to his interest to wage the war.
-Then, too, comes the responsibility of the _patron_ to his people. He
-must feed them in the famine, he must arbitrate their disputes, and he
-must lead them at all times. If through improvidence their work-cattle
-die or give out, he must restock them, so that they may continue the
-cultivation of the land, all of which is not altogether profitable in
-a financial way, as we of the North may think, where all business is
-done on the "hold you responsible, sir," basis.
-
-The _vaqueros_ make their own saddles and _reatas_; only the iron
-saddle-rings, the rifles, and the knives come from the _patron_, and
-where he gets them God alone knows, and the puncher never cares. No
-doctor attends the sick or disabled, old women's nursing standing
-between life and death. The Creator in His providence has arranged it
-so that simple folks are rarely sick, and a sprained ankle, a bad
-bruise from a steer's horn or a pitching horse, are soon remedied by
-rest and a good constitution. At times instant and awful death
-overtakes the puncher--a horse in a gopher-hole, a mad steer, a chill
-with a knife, a blue hole where the .45 went in, a quicksand closing
-overhead, and a cross on a hill-side are all.
-
-Never is a door closed. Why they were put up I failed to discover. For
-days I tried faithfully to keep mine shut, but every one coming or
-going left it open, so that I gave it up in despair. There are only
-two windows in the ranch of San José de Bavicora, one in our chamber
-and one in the blacksmith's shop, both opening into the court. In
-fact, I found those were the only two windows in the state, outside of
-the big city. The Mexicans find that their enemies are prone to shoot
-through these apertures, and so they have accustomed themselves to do
-without them, which is as it should be, since it removes the
-temptation.
-
-[Illustration: A HAIR-CUT À LA PUNCHER]
-
-One night the _patron_ gave a _baile_. The _vaqueros_ all came with
-their girls, and a string band rendered music with a very dancy swing.
-I sat in a corner and observed the man who wears the big hat and who
-throws the rawhide as he cavorted about with his girl, and the way
-they dug up the dust out of the dirt floor soon put me to coughing.
-"Candles shed their soft lustre--and tallow" down the backs of our
-necks, and the band scraped and thrummed away in a most serious
-manner. One man had a harp, two had primitive fiddles, and one a
-guitar. One old fiddler was the leader, and as he bowed his head on
-his instrument I could not keep my eyes off him. He had come from
-Sonora, and was very old; he looked as though he had had his share of
-a very rough life; he was never handsome as a boy, I am sure, but the
-weather and starvation and time had blown him and crumbled him into a
-ruin which resembled the pre-existing ape from which the races sprang.
-If he had never committed murder, it was for lack of opportunity; and
-Sonora is a long travel from Plymouth Rock.
-
-Tom Bailey, the foreman, came round to me, his eyes dancing, and his
-shock of hair standing up like a Circassian beauty's, and pointing, he
-said, "Thar's a woman who's prettier than a speckled pup; put your
-twine on her." Then, as master of ceremonies, he straightened up and
-sang out over the fiddles and noise: "Dance, thar, you fellers, or
-you'll git the gout."
-
-In an adjoining room there was a very heavy jug of strong-water, and
-thither the men repaired to pick up, so that as the night wore on
-their brains began to whirl after their legs, and they whooped at
-times in a way to put one's nerves on edge. The band scraped the
-harder and the dance waxed fast, the spurs clinked, and _bang, bang,
-bang_ went the Winchester rifles in the _patio_, while the chorus
-"Viva el patron" rang around the room--the Old Guard was in action.
-
-We sat in our room one evening when in filed the _vaqueros_ and asked
-to be allowed to sing for the _patron_. They sat on my bed and on the
-floor, while we occupied the other; they had their hats in their
-hands, and their black, dreamy eyes were diverted as though overcome
-by the magnificence of the apartment. They hemmed and coughed, until
-finally one man, who was evidently the leader, pulled himself together
-and began, in a high falsetto, to sing; after two or three words the
-rest caught on, and they got through the line, when they stopped; thus
-was one leading and the others following to the end of the line. It
-was strange, wild music--a sort of general impression of a boys' choir
-with a wild discordance, each man giving up his soul as he felt moved.
-The refrain always ended, for want of breath, in a low, expiring howl,
-leaving the audience in suspense; but quickly they get at it again,
-and the rise of the tenor chorus continues. The songs are largely
-about love and women and doves and flowers, in all of which nonsense
-punchers take only a perfunctory interest in real life.
-
-These are the amusements--although the puncher is always roping for
-practice, and everything is fair game for his skill; hence dogs, pigs,
-and men have become as expert in dodging the rope as the _vaqueros_
-are in throwing it. A mounted man, in passing, will always throw his
-rope at one sitting in a doorway, and then try to get away before he
-can retaliate by jerking his own rope over his head. I have seen a man
-repair to the roof and watch a doorway through which he expected some
-comrade to pass shortly, and watch for an hour to be ready to drop his
-noose about his shoulders.
-
-[Illustration: THE MUSIC AT THE "BAILE"]
-
-The ranch fare is very limited, and at intervals men are sent to bring
-back a steer from the water-holes, which is dragged to the front door
-and there slaughtered. A day of feasting ensues, and the doorways and
-the gutter-pipes and the corral fences are festooned with the beef
-left to dry in the sun.
-
-There is the serious side of the life. The Apache is an evil which
-Mexicans have come to regard as they do the meteoric hail, the
-lightning, the drought, and any other horror not to be averted. They
-quarrel between themselves over land and stock, and there are a great
-many men out in the mountains who are proscribed by the government.
-Indeed, while we journeyed on the road and were stopping one night in
-a little mud town, we were startled by a fusillade of shots, and in
-the morning were informed that two men had been killed the night
-before, and various others wounded. At another time a Mexican, with
-his followers, had invaded our apartment and expressed a disposition
-to kill Jack, but he found Jack was willing to play his game, and gave
-up the enterprise. On the ranch the men had discovered some dead stock
-which had been killed with a knife. Men were detailed to roam the
-country in search of fresh trails of these cattle-killers. I asked the
-foreman what would happen in case they found a trail which could be
-followed, and he said, "Why, we would follow it until we came up, and
-then kill them." If a man is to "hold down" a big ranch in Northern
-Mexico he has got to be "all man," because it is "a man's job," as
-Mr. Bailey, of Los Ojos, said--and he knows.
-
-Jack himself is the motive force of the enterprise, and he disturbs
-the quiet of this waste of sunshine by his presence for about six
-months in the year. With his strong spirit, the embodiment of
-generations of pioneers, he faces the Apache, the marauder, the
-financial risks. He spurs his listless people on to toil, he permeates
-every detail, he storms, and greater men than he have sworn like
-troopers under less provocation than he has at times; but he has
-snatched from the wolf and the Indian the fair land of Bavicora, to
-make it fruitful to his generation.
-
-There lies the hacienda San José de Bavicora, gray and silent on the
-great plain, with the mountain standing guard against intruders, and
-over it the great blue dome of the sky, untroubled by clouds, except
-little flecks of vapor which stand, lost in immensity, burning bright
-like opals, as though discouraged from seeking the mountains or the
-sea whence they came. The marvellous color of the country beckons to
-the painter; its simple, natural life entrances the blond barbarian,
-with his fevered brain; and the gaudy _vaquero_ and his trappings and
-his pony are the actors on this noble stage. But one must be
-appreciative of it all, or he will find a week of rail and a week of
-stage and a week of horseback all too far for one to travel to see a
-shadow across the moon.
-
-
-
-
-A RODEO AT LOS OJOS
-
-
-The sun beat down on the dry grass, and the punchers were squatting
-about in groups in front of the straggling log and _adobe_ buildings
-which constituted the outlying ranch of Los Ojos.
-
-Mr. Johnnie Bell, the _capitan_ in charge, was walking about in his
-heavy _chaparras_, a slouch hat, and a white "biled" shirt. He was
-chewing his long yellow mustache, and gazing across the great plain of
-Bavicora with set and squinting eyes. He passed us and repassed us,
-still gazing out, and in his long Texas drawl said, "Thar's them San
-Miguel fellers."
-
-I looked, but I could not see any San Miguel fellows in the wide
-expanse of land.
-
-"Hyar, crawl some horses, and we'll go out and meet 'em," continued
-Mr. Bell; and, suiting the action, we mounted our horses and followed
-him. After a time I made out tiny specks in the atmospheric wave which
-rises from the heated land, and in half an hour could plainly make out
-a cavalcade of horsemen. Presently breaking into a gallop, which
-movement was imitated by the other party, we bore down upon each
-other, and only stopped when near enough to shake hands, the half-wild
-ponies darting about and rearing under the excitement. Greetings were
-exchanged in Spanish, and the peculiar shoulder tap, or abbreviated
-embrace, was indulged in. Doubtless a part of our outfit was as
-strange to Governor Terraza's men--for he is the _patron_ of San
-Miguel--as they were to us.
-
-My imagination had never before pictured anything so wild as these
-leather-clad _vaqueros_. As they removed their hats to greet Jack,
-their unkempt locks blew over their faces, back off their foreheads,
-in the greatest disorder. They were clad in terra-cotta buckskin,
-elaborately trimmed with white leather, and around their lower legs
-wore heavy cowhide as a sort of legging. They were fully armed, and
-with their jingling spurs, their flapping ropes and buckskin strings,
-and with their gay _serapes_ tied behind their saddles, they were as
-impressive a cavalcade of desert-scamperers as it has been my fortune
-to see. Slowly we rode back to the corrals, where they dismounted.
-
-Shortly, and unobserved by us until at hand, we heard the clatter of
-hoofs, and, leaving in their wake a cloud of dust, a dozen punchers
-from another outfit bore down upon us as we stood under the _ramada_
-of the ranch-house, and pulling up with a jerk, which threw the ponies
-on their haunches, the men dismounted and approached, to be welcomed
-by the master of the _rodeo_.
-
-A few short orders were given, and three mounted men started down to
-the springs, and, after charging about, we could see that they had
-roped a steer, which they led, bawling and resisting, to the ranch,
-where it was quickly thrown and slaughtered. Turning it on its back,
-after the manner of the old buffalo-hunters, it was quickly disrobed
-and cut up into hundreds of small pieces, which is the method
-practised by the Mexican butchers, and distributed to the men.
-
-In Mexico it is the custom for the man who gives the "round-up" to
-supply fresh beef to the visiting cow-men; and on this occasion it
-seemed that the pigs, chickens, and dogs were also embraced in the
-bounty of the _patron_, for I noticed one piece which hung immediately
-in front of my quarters had two chickens roosting on the top of it,
-and a pig and a dog tugging vigorously at the bottom.
-
-[Illustration: COMING TO THE RODEO]
-
-The horse herds were moved in from the _llano_ and rounded up in the
-corral, from which the punchers selected their mounts by roping, and
-as the sun was westering they disappeared, in obedience to orders, to
-all points of the compass. The men took positions back in the hills
-and far out on the plain; there, building a little fire, they cook
-their beef, and, enveloped in their _serapes_, spend the night. At
-early dawn they converge on the ranch, driving before them such stock
-as they may.
-
-In the morning we could see from the ranch-house a great semicircle of
-gray on the yellow plains. It was the thousands of cattle coming to
-the _rodeo_. In an hour more we could plainly see the cattle, and
-behind them the _vaqueros_ dashing about, waving their _serapes_.
-Gradually they converged on the _rodeo_ ground, and, enveloped in a
-great cloud of dust and with hollow bellowings, like the low pedals of
-a great organ, they begin to mill, or turn about a common centre,
-until gradually quieted by the enveloping cloud of horsemen. The
-_patron_ and the captains of the neighboring ranches, after an
-exchange of long-winded Spanish formalities, and accompanied by
-ourselves, rode slowly from the ranch to the herd, and, entering it,
-passed through and through and around in solemn procession. The cattle
-part before the horsemen, and the dust rises so as to obscure to
-unaccustomed eyes all but the silhouettes of the moving thousands.
-This is an important function in a cow country, since it enables the
-owners or their men to estimate what numbers of the stock belong to
-them, to observe the brands, and to inquire as to the condition of the
-animals and the numbers of calves and "mavericks" and to settle any
-dispute which may arise therefrom.
-
-All controversy, if there be any, having been adjusted, a part of the
-punchers move slowly into the herd, while the rest patrol the outside,
-and hold it. Then a movement soon begins. You see a figure dash at
-about full speed through an apparently impenetrable mass of cattle;
-the stock becomes uneasy and moves about, gradually beginning the
-milling process, but the men select the cattle bearing their brand,
-and course them through the herd; all becomes confusion, and the
-cattle simply seek to escape from the ever-recurring horsemen. Here
-one sees the matchless horsemanship of the punchers. Their little
-ponies, trained to the business, respond to the slightest pressure.
-The cattle make every attempt to escape, dodging in and out and
-crowding among their kind; but right on their quarter, gradually
-forcing them to the edge of the herd, keeps the puncher, until
-finally, as a last effort, the cow and the calf rush through the
-supporting line, when, after a terrific race, she is turned into
-another herd, and is called "the cut."
-
-One who finds pleasure in action can here see the most surprising
-manifestations of it. A huge bull, wild with fright, breaks from the
-herd, with lowered head and whitened eye, and goes charging off
-indifferent to what or whom he may encounter, with the little pony
-pattering in his wake. The cattle run at times with nearly the
-intensity of action of a deer, and whip and spur are applied
-mercilessly to the little horse. The process of "tailing" is indulged
-in, although it is a dangerous practice for the man, and reprehensible
-from its brutality to the cattle. A man will pursue a bull at top
-speed, will reach over and grasp the tail of the animal, bring it to
-his saddle, throw his right leg over the tail, and swing his horse
-suddenly to the left, which throws the bull rolling over and over.
-That this method has its value I have seen in the case of pursuing
-"mavericks," where an unsuccessful throw was made with the rope, and
-the animal was about to enter the thick timber; it would be impossible
-to coil the rope again, and an escape would follow but for the
-wonderful dexterity of these men in this accomplishment. The little
-calves become separated from their mothers, and go bleating about;
-their mothers respond by bellows, until pandemonium seems to reign.
-The dust is blinding, and the puncher becomes grimy and soiled; the
-horses lather; and in the excitement the desperate men do deeds which
-convince you of their faith that "a man can't die till his time
-comes." At times a bull is found so skilled in these contests that he
-cannot be displaced from the herd; it is then necessary to rope him
-and drag him to the point desired; and I noticed punchers ride behind
-recalcitrant bulls and, reaching over, spur them. I also saw two men
-throw simultaneously for an immense creature, when, to my great
-astonishment, he turned tail over head and rolled on the ground. They
-had both sat back on their ropes together.
-
-[Illustration: WAVING SERAPE TO DRIVE CATTLE]
-
-The whole scene was inspiring to a degree, and well merited Mr.
-Yorick's observation that "it is the sport of kings; the image of war,
-with twenty-five per cent. of its danger."
-
-Fresh horses are saddled from time to time, but before high noon the
-work is done, and the various "cut-offs" are herded in different
-directions. By this time the dust had risen until lost in the sky
-above, and as the various bands of cowboys rode slowly back to the
-ranch, I observed their demoralized condition. The economy _per force_
-of the Mexican people prompts them to put no more cotton into a shirt
-than is absolutely necessary, with the consequence that, in these
-cases, their shirts had pulled out from their belts and their
-_serapes_, and were flapping in the wind; their mustaches and their
-hair were perfectly solid with dust, and one could not tell a bay
-horse from a black.
-
-Now come the cigarettes and the broiling of beef. The bosses were
-invited to sit at our table, and as the work of cutting and branding
-had yet to be done, no time was taken for ablutions. Opposite me sat a
-certain individual who, as he engulfed his food, presented a grimy
-waste of visage only broken by the rolling of his eyes and the
-snapping of his teeth.
-
-We then proceeded to the corrals, which were made in stockaded form
-from gnarled and many-shaped posts set on an end. The cows and calves
-were bunched on one side in fearful expectancy. A fire was built just
-outside of the bars, and the branding-irons set on. Into the corrals
-went the punchers, with their ropes coiled in their hands. Selecting
-their victims, they threw their ropes, and, after pulling and tugging,
-a bull calf would come out of the bunch, whereat two men would set
-upon him and "rastle" him to the ground. It is a strange mixture of
-humor and pathos, this mutilation of calves--humorous when the calf
-throws the man, and pathetic when the man throws the calf.
-Occasionally an old cow takes an unusual interest in her offspring,
-and charges boldly into their midst. Those men who cannot escape soon
-enough throw dust in her eyes, or put their hats over her horns. And
-in this case there were some big steers which had been "cut out" for
-purposes of work at the plough and turned in with the young stock; one
-old grizzled veteran manifested an interest in the proceedings, and
-walked boldly from the bunch, with his head in the air and bellowing;
-a wild scurry ensued, and hats and _serapes_ were thrown to confuse
-him. But over all this the punchers only laugh, and go at it again. In
-corral roping they try to catch the calf by the front feet, and in
-this they become so expert that they rarely miss. As I sat on the
-fence, one of the foremen, in play, threw and caught my legs as they
-dangled.
-
-[Illustration: TAILING A BULL]
-
-When the work is done and the cattle are again turned into the herd,
-the men repair to the _casa_ and indulge in games and pranks. We had
-shooting-matches and hundred-yard dashes; but I think no records were
-broken, since punchers on foot are odd fish. They walk as though they
-expected every moment to sit down. Their knees work outward, and they
-have a decided "hitch" in their gait; but once let them get a foot in
-a stirrup and a grasp on the horn of the saddle, and a dynamite
-cartridge alone could expel them from their seat. When loping over the
-plain the puncher is the epitome of equine grace, and if he desires to
-look behind him he simply shifts his whole body to one side and lets
-the horse go as he pleases. In the pursuit of cattle at a _rodeo_ he
-leans forward in his saddle, and with his arms elevated to his
-shoulders he "plugs" in his spurs and makes his pony fairly sail.
-While going at this tremendous speed he turns his pony almost in his
-stride, and no matter how a bull may twist and swerve about, he is at
-his tail as true as a magnet to the pole. The Mexican punchers all use
-the "ring bit," and it is a fearful contrivance. Their saddle-trees
-are very short, and as straight and quite as shapeless as a "saw-buck
-pack-saddle." The horn is as big as a dinner plate, and taken
-altogether it is inferior to the California tree. It is very hard on
-horses' backs, and not at all comfortable for a rider who is not
-accustomed to it.
-
-They all use hemp ropes which are imported from some of the southern
-states of the republic, and carry a lariat of hair which they make
-themselves. They work for from eight to twelve dollars a month in
-Mexican coin, and live on the most simple diet imaginable. They are
-mostly _peoned_, or in hopeless debt to their _patrons_, who go after
-any man who deserts the range and bring him back by force. A puncher
-buys nothing but his gorgeous buckskin clothes, and his big
-silver-mounted straw hat, his spurs, his riata, and his _cincha_
-rings. He makes his _teguas_ or buckskin boots, his heavy leggings,
-his saddle, and the _patron_ furnishes his arms. On the round-up,
-which lasts about half of the year, he is furnished beef, and also
-kills game. The balance of the year he is kept in an outlying camp to
-turn stock back on the range. These camps are often the most simple
-things, consisting of a pack containing his "grub," his saddle, and
-_serape_, all lying under a tree, which does duty as a house. He
-carries a flint and steel, and has a piece of sheet-iron for a stove,
-and a piece of pottery for boiling things in. This part of their lives
-is passed in a long siesta, and a man of the North who has a local
-reputation as a lazy man should see a Mexican puncher loaf, in order
-to comprehend that he could never achieve distinction in the land
-where _poco tiempo_ means forever. Such is the life of the _vaquero_,
-a brave fellow, a fatalist, with less wants than the pony he rides, a
-rather thoughtless man, who lacks many virtues, but when he mounts his
-horse or casts his riata all men must bow and call him master.
-
-The _baile_, the song, the man with the guitar--and under all this
-_dolce far niente_ are their little hates and bickerings, as thin as
-cigarette smoke and as enduring as time. They reverence their parents,
-they honor their _patron_, and love their _compadre_. They are grave,
-and grave even when gay; they eat little, they think less, they
-meet death calmly, and it's a terrible scoundrel who goes to hell from
-Mexico.
-
-[Illustration: JOHNNIE BELL OF LOS OJOS]
-
-The Anglo-American foremen are another type entirely. They have all
-the rude virtues. The intelligence which is never lacking and the
-perfect courage which never fails are found in such men as Tom Bailey
-and Johnnie Bell--two Texans who are the superiors of any cow-men I
-have ever seen. I have seen them chase the "mavericks" at top speed
-over a country so difficult that a man could hardly pass on foot out
-of a walk. On one occasion Mr. Bailey, in hot pursuit of a bull,
-leaped a tremendous fallen log at top speed, and in the next instant
-"tailed" and threw the bull as it was about to enter the timber. Bell
-can ride a pony at a gallop while standing up on his saddle, and while
-Cossacks do this trick they are enabled to accomplish it easily from
-the superior adaptability of their saddles to the purpose. In my
-association with these men of the frontier I have come to greatly
-respect their moral fibre and their character. Modern civilization, in
-the process of educating men beyond their capacity, often succeeds in
-vulgarizing them; but these natural men possess minds which, though
-lacking all embellishment, are chaste and simple, and utterly devoid
-of a certain flippancy which passes for smartness in situations where
-life is not so real. The fact that a man bolts his food or uses his
-table-knife as though it were a deadly weapon counts very little in
-the game these men play in their lonely range life. They are not
-complicated, these children of nature, and they never think one thing
-and say another. Mr. Bell was wont to squat against a fireplace--_à
-la_ Indian--and dissect the peculiarities of the audience in a most
-ingenuous way. It never gave offence either, because so guileless. Mr.
-Bailey, after listening carefully to a theological tilt, observed
-that "he believed he'd be religious if he knowed how."
-
-The jokes and pleasantries of the American puncher are so close to
-nature often, and so generously veneered with heart-rending profanity,
-as to exclude their becoming classic. The cow-men are good friends and
-virulent haters, and, if justified in their own minds, would shoot a
-man instantly, and regret the necessity, but not the shooting,
-afterwards.
-
-Among the dry, saturnine faces of the cow punchers of the Sierra Madre
-was one which beamed with human instincts, which seemed to say,
-"Welcome, stranger!" He was the first impression my companion and
-myself had of Mexico, and as broad as are its plains and as high its
-mountains, yet looms up William on a higher pinnacle of remembrance.
-
-We crawled out of a Pullman in the early morning at Chihuahua, and
-fell into the hands of a little black man, with telescopic pantaloons,
-a big sombrero with the edges rolled up, and a grin on his
-good-humored face like a yawning _barranca_.
-
-"Is you frens of Mista Jack's?"
-
-"We are."
-
-"Gimme your checks. Come dis way," he said; and without knowing why we
-should hand ourselves and our property over to this uncouth personage,
-we did it, and from thence on over the deserts and in the mountains,
-while shivering in the snow by night and by day, there was Jack's man
-to bandage our wounds, lend us tobacco when no one else had any, to
-tuck in our blankets, to amuse us, to comfort us in distress, to
-advise and admonish, until the last _adios_ were waved from the train
-as it again bore us to the border-land.
-
-On our departure from Chihuahua to meet Jack out in the mountains
-the stage was overloaded, but a proposition to leave William behind
-was beaten on the first ballot; it was well vindicated, for without
-William the expedition would have been a "march from Moscow." There
-was only one man in the party with a sort of bass-relief notion that
-he could handle the Spanish language, and the relief was a very slight
-one--almost imperceptible--the politeness of the people only keeping
-him from being mobbed. But William could speak German, English, and
-Spanish, separately, or all at once.
-
-[Illustration: WILLIAM IN ACTION]
-
-William was so black that he would make a dark hole in the night, and
-the top of his head was not over four and a half feet above the soles
-of his shoes. His legs were all out of drawing, but forty-five winters
-had not passed over him without leaving a mind which, in its sphere of
-life, was agile, resourceful, and eminently capable of grappling with
-any complication which might arise. He had personal relations of
-various kinds with every man, woman, and child whom we met in Mexico.
-He had been thirty years a cook in a cow camp, and could evolve
-banquets from the meat on a bull's tail, and was wont to say, "I don'
-know so much 'bout dese yar stoves, but gie me a camp-fire an' I can
-make de bes' thing yo' ever threw your lip ober."
-
-When in camp, with his little cast-off English tourist cap on one side
-of his head, a short black pipe tipped at the other angle to balance
-the effect, and two or three stripes of white corn-meal across his
-visage, he would move round the camp-fire like a cub bear around a
-huckleberry bush, and in a low, authoritative voice have the Mexicans
-all in action, one hurrying after water, another after wood, some
-making _tortillas_, or cutting up venison, grinding coffee between two
-stones, dusting bedding, or anything else. The British Field-Marshal
-air was lost in a second when he addressed "Mister Willie" or "Mister
-Jack," and no fawning courtier of the Grand Monarch could purr so low.
-
-On our coach ride to Bavicora, William would seem to go up to any
-ranch-house on the road, when the sun was getting low, and after ten
-minutes' conversation with the grave Don who owned it, he would turn
-to us with a wink, and say: "Come right in, gemmen. Dis ranch is
-yours." Sure enough, it was. Whether he played us for major-generals
-or governors of states I shall never know, but certainly we were
-treated as such.
-
-On one occasion William had gotten out to get a hat blown off by the
-wind, and when he came up to view the wreck of the turn-over of the
-great Concord coach, and saw the mules going off down the hill with
-the front wheels, the ground littered with boxes and débris, and the
-men all lying about, groaning or fainting in agony, William scratched
-his wool, and with just a suspicion of humor on his face he ventured,
-"If I'd been hyar, I would be in two places 'fore now, shuah," which
-was some consolation to William, if not to us.
-
-In Chihuahua we found William was in need of a clean shirt, and we had
-got one for him in a shop. He had selected one with a power of color
-enough to make the sun stand still, and with great glass diamonds in
-it. We admonished him that when he got to the ranch the punchers would
-take it away from him.
-
-"No, sah; I'll take it off 'fore I get thar."
-
-William had his commercial instincts developed in a reasonable degree,
-for he was always trying to trade a silver watch, of the Captain
-Cuttle kind, with the Mexicans. When asked what time it was, William
-would look at the sun and then deftly cant the watch around, the
-hands of which swung like compasses, and he would show you the time
-within fifteen minutes of right, which little discrepancy could never
-affect the value of a watch in the land of _mañana_.
-
-[Illustration: MOUNTING A WILD ONE]
-
-That he possessed tact I have shown, for he was the only man at
-Bavicora whose relations with the _patron_ and the smallest, dirtiest
-Indian "kid," were easy and natural. Jack said of his popularity, "He
-stands 'way in with the Chinese cook; gets the warm corner behind the
-stove." He also had courage, for didn't he serve out the ammunition in
-Texas when his "outfit" was in a life-and-death tussle with the
-Comanches? did he not hold a starving crowd of Mexican teamsters off
-the grub-wagon until the boys came back?
-
-There was only one feature of Western life with which William could
-not assimilate, and that was the horse. He had trusted a bronco too
-far on some remote occasion, which accounted partially for the kinks
-in his legs; but after he had recovered fully his health he had pinned
-his faith to _burros_, and forgotten the glories of the true cavalier.
-
-"No, sah, Mister Jack, I don' care for to ride dat horse. He's a good
-horse, but I jes hit de flat for a few miles 'fore I rides him," he
-was wont to say when the cowboys gave themselves over to an
-irresponsible desire to see a horse kill a man. He would then go about
-his duties, uttering gulps of suppressed laughter, after the negro
-manner, safe in the knowledge that the _burro_ he affected could "pack
-his freight."
-
-One morning I was taking a bath out of our wash-basin, and William,
-who was watching me and the coffee-pot at the same time, observed that
-"if one of dese people down hyar was to do dat dere, dere'd be a
-funeral 'fo' twelve o'clock."
-
-William never admitted any social affinity with Mexicans, and as to
-his own people he was wont to say: "Never have went with people of my
-own color. Why, you go to Brazos to-day, and dey tell you dere was
-Bill, he go home come night, an' de balance of 'em be looking troo de
-grates in de morning." So William lives happily in the "small social
-puddle," and always reckons to "treat any friends of Mister Jack's
-right." So if you would know William, you must do it through Jack.
-
-It was on rare occasions that William, as master of ceremonies,
-committed any indiscretion, but one occurred in the town of Guerrero.
-We had gotten in rather late, and William was sent about the town to
-have some one serve supper for us. We were all very busy when William
-"blew in" with a great sputtering, and said, "Is yous ready for
-dinner, gemmen?" "Yes, William," we answered, whereat William ran off.
-After waiting a long time, and being very hungry, we concluded to go
-and "rustle" for ourselves, since William did not come back and had
-not told us where he had gone. After we had found and eaten a dinner,
-William turned up, gloomy and dispirited. We inquired as to his mood.
-"I do declar', gemmen, I done forget dat you didn't know where I had
-ordered dat dinner; but dere's de dinner an' nobody to eat it, an' I's
-got to leave dis town 'fore sunup, pay for it, or die." Unless some
-one had advanced the money, William's two other alternatives would
-have been painful.
-
-The romance in William's life even could not be made mournful, but it
-was the "mos' trouble" he ever had, and it runs like this: Some years
-since William had saved up four hundred dollars, and he had a girl
-back in Brazos to whom he had pinned his faith. He had concluded to
-assume responsibilities, and to create a business in a little mud
-town down the big road. He had it arranged to start a travellers'
-eating-house; he had contracted for a stove and some furniture; and at
-about that time his dishonest employer had left Mexico for parts
-unknown, with all his money. The stove and furniture were yet to be
-paid for, so William entered into hopeless bankruptcy, lost his girl,
-and then, attaching himself to Jack, he bravely set to again in life's
-battle. But I was glad to know that he had again conquered, for before
-I left I overheard a serious conversation between William and the
-_patron_. William was cleaning a frying-pan by the camp-fire light,
-and the _patron_ was sitting enveloped in his _serape_ on the other
-side.
-
-[Illustration: A MODERN SANCHO PANZA]
-
-"Mist' Jack, I's got a girl. She's a Mexican."
-
-"Why, William, how about that girl up in the Brazos?" inquired the
-_patron_, in surprise.
-
-"Don't care about her now. Got a new girl."
-
-"Well, I suppose you can have her, if you can win her," replied the
-_patron_.
-
-"Can I, sah? Well, den, I's win her already, sah--dar!" chuckled
-William.
-
-"Oh! very well, then, William, I will give you a wagon, with two
-yellow ponies, to go down and get her; but I don't want you to come
-back to Bavicora with an empty wagon."
-
-"No, sah; I won't, sah," pleasedly responded the lover.
-
-"Does that suit you, then?" asked the _patron_.
-
-"Yes, sah; but, sah, wonder, sah, might I have the two old whites?"
-
-"All right! You can have the two old white ponies;" and, after a
-pause, "I will give you that old _adobe_ up in La Pinta, and two
-speckled steers; and I don't want you to come down to the ranch except
-on _baile_ nights, and I want you to slide in then just as quiet as
-any other outsider," said the _patron_, who was testing William's
-loyalty to the girl.
-
-"All right! I'll do that."
-
-"William, do you know that no true Mexican girl will marry a man who
-don't know how to ride a charger?" continued the _patron_, after a
-while.
-
-"Yes; I's been thinking of dat; but dar's dat Timborello, he's a good
-horse what a man can 'pend on," replied William, as he scoured at the
-pan in a very wearing way.
-
-"He's yours, William; and now all you have got to do is to win the
-girl."
-
-After that William was as gay as a robin in the spring; and as I write
-this I suppose William is riding over the pass in the mountains,
-sitting on a board across his wagon, with his Mexican bride by his
-side, singing out between the puffs of his black pipe, "Go on, dar,
-you muchacos; specks we ever get to Bavicora dis yar gait?"
-
-
-
-
-IN THE SIERRA MADRE WITH THE PUNCHERS
-
-
-On a chill, black morning the cabins of Los Ojos gave up their inmates
-at an early hour. The ponies, mules, and _burros_ were herded up, and
-stood shivering in an angle, while about them walked the men,
-carefully coiling their hair lariats, and watching for an opportunity
-to jerk them over the heads of the selected ones. The _patron's_ black
-pet walked up to him, but the mounts of my companion and self sneaked
-about with an evident desire not to participate in the present
-service. Old _Cokomorachie_ and Jim were finally led forth, protesting
-after the manner of their kind. I carefully adjusted my Whitman's
-officer-tree over a wealth of saddle blanketing, and slung my
-Winchester 45-70 and my field-glasses to it. The punchers, both white
-and brown, and two or three women, regarded my new-fangled saddle with
-amused glances; indeed, Mr. Bell's Mexican wife laughed at it
-outright, and Tom Bailey called it "a damn rim-fire." Another humorist
-thought that "it would give the chickens the pip if they got onto it";
-all of which I took good-humoredly, since this was not the first time
-"your Uncle Samuel" had been away from home; and after some days, when
-a lot of men were carefully leading sore-backed horses over the
-mountains, I had cause to remark further on the subject. A Mexican
-cow-saddle is a double-barrelled affair; it will eat a hole into a
-horse's spine and a pair of leather breeches at the same time. If one
-could ask "Old Jim" about that saddle of mine, I think he would give
-it an autograph recommend, for he finished the trip with the hide of
-his back all there.
-
-[Illustration: MY COMRADE]
-
-Leaving the "burro men" to haul and pull at their patient beasts as
-they bound on their loads, our outfit "pulled out" on what promised to
-be plenty of travelling. We were to do the rounds of the ranch,
-explore the mountains, penetrate to the old Apache strongholds, shoot
-game, find cliff-dwellers' villages, and I expect the dark minds of
-the punchers hoped for a sight at the ever-burning fire which should
-discover the lost mine of Tiopa. We were also promised a fight with
-the "Kid" if we "cut his trail"; and if he "cut ours," we may never
-live to regret it. Some tame Indians, just in from a hunt in the Rio
-Chico, had seen three fires, but they had "rolled their tails"[4] for
-Bavicora so promptly that they had not ascertained whether they
-were Apache or not. The same men we were in the company of had run the
-"Kid's" band in to the States only two months before, but on our trip
-that very elusive and very "bad Injun" was not encountered. Much as I
-should like to see him, I have no regrets, since it is extremely
-likely that he would have seen me first.
-
-[Footnote 4: Cowboy for travelling rapidly.]
-
-[Illustration: ON THE MOUNTAINS]
-
-Our little band was composed of the _patron_, Don Gilberto; my
-travelling companion from New York city, who had never before been
-west of the Elysian Fields of New Jersey; Bailey and Bell, ranch
-foremen, and as dauntless spirits as ever the Texas border nurtured;
-the ranch bookkeeper, a young man "short" on experiences and "long" on
-hope; Epitacio, an Indian hunter, since outlawed; William, the colored
-cook; four buckskin Mexican punchers; an old man who was useless for
-practical purposes, but who was said to be "funny" in Spanish; and two
-burro men. We were that day to go to the farthest outlying ranch,
-called the Casa Camadra, and then to stop for a short hunt and to give
-the punchers time to "gentle" some steers for work-cattle. The puncher
-method of doing this is beautifully simple, for any animal undergoing
-this is gentle or dead after it. After scouring the plain for antelope
-until late, we followed up a creek towards the cabin where we expected
-to find the punchers and the burro men with their loads of creature
-comforts, and as we rode in it was raining a cold sleet. The little
-log-cabin was low, small, and wonderfully picturesque. It was a
-typical "shack," such as one used to see in the Northwest when the
-hunters were there. Out in the rain sat two punchers, enveloped in
-their _serapes_, engaged in watching a half-dozen big steers eat
-grass. Inside of the cabin was William by a good fire in a most
-original fireplace, glowing with heat and pride over his corn-cakes
-and "marrow-gut." Between various cigarettes, the last drink of
-_tequela_, and the drying of our clothes, we passed the time until
-William had put the "grub" on a pack-saddle blanket and said, "Now,
-gemmen, fly in."
-
-"Fly in" is vulgar, but it is also literal, for we did that: we did
-not dine--we flew in. The expression and the food were both good.
-Outside, the cold rain had turned into a wet snow, and we all crowded
-into the little place and squatted or lay about on the floor. With
-fingers and hunting-knives we carved and tore at the mountain of beef.
-The punchers consume enormous quantities of meat, and when satiated
-they bring forth their corn-husks and tobacco-pouches, and roll their
-long, thin cigarettes, which burn until they draw their _serapes_
-about their heads and sink back in dreamless sleep. It is all
-beautifully primitive, and as I rise on my elbow to look across the
-blanketed forms packed like mackerel in a cask, to hear their heavy
-breathing, and see the fire glow, and hear the wind howl outside, I
-think how little it takes to make men happy. Tom Bailey and Johnnie
-Bell, the ranch foremen, had faces which would have been in character
-under a steel head-piece at Cressy, while the wildest blood of Spain,
-Morocco, and the American Indian ran in the veins of the punchers; and
-all these men were untainted by the enfeebling influences of luxury
-and modern life. A chunk of beef, a cigarette, an enveloping _serape_,
-with the Sierras for a bedroom, were the utmost of their needs.
-
-The sunlight streamed down the big chimney, and William's
-"Good-mo'nin', sah," brought back my senses. Beyond his silhouette, as
-he crouched before the fireplace, I could hear the sputtering of the
-broiling steak. I repaired to the brook and smashed the ice for a
-rub-down. It was still drizzling, and the landscape lay under a heavy
-fog. Outside the cabin lay the dead body of a skinned wolf, and
-about a small fire crouched the punchers.
-
-[Illustration: THE CASA CAMADRA]
-
-Breakfast over, the men rode off by twos into the fog, and as Tom
-Bailey and I jogged along together we reasoned that if we were to
-strike the point of the mountains and then keep well in the timber we
-might catch a bunch of antelope which we had "jumped" the day before
-on the plain below. So all day long we rode over the wet rocks, under
-the drip and drizzle of the mountain pines, up hill and down dale, and
-never "cut a sign." It was our luck; for on riding up to the "shack"
-we saw the bodies of deer, antelope, a big gray wolf, and the skin of
-a mountain-lion. We were requested to view the game, and encouraged to
-comment on it; but Tom and I sought a dark corner of the cabin to
-consume our coffee and cigarettes in silence.
-
-At the Casa Camadra are two other log-houses, and in them live some
-squalid, yellow-hided humans who are to farm a little stretch of
-bottom-land this year. They require work-steers to do their ploughing,
-and Mr. Bell has brought up half a dozen vicious old "stags," which
-are both truculent and swift of foot. The Mexicans insist that they
-are not able to handle them; and Mr. Bell orders his punchers into
-action. I strolled out to the corrals to see the bulls "gentled."
-After a lot of riding and yelling they were herded and dragged into
-the enclosure, where they huddled while seven punchers sat on their
-ponies at the gate. I was standing at one corner of the corral, near
-the men, when out from the midst of the steers walked a big black
-bull, which raised its head and gazed directly at me. The bull had
-never before in his stupid life observed a man on foot, and I
-comprehended immediately what he would do next, so I "led out" for the
-casa at a rate of speed which the boys afterwards never grew weary of
-commending. No spangled _torero_ of the bull-ring ever put more heart
-and soul into his running than did I in my great-coat and long
-hunting-spurs. The bull made a "fo'lorn hope" for the gate, and the
-gallant punchers melted away before the charge.
-
-The diversion of the punchers made the retreat of the infantry
-possible, and from an intrenched position I saw the bulls tear over
-the hill, with the punchers "rolling their tails" behind. After an
-hour of swearing and hauling and bellowing, the six cattle were lugged
-back to the pen, and the bars put up. The punchers came around to
-congratulate me on my rapid recovery from a sprained ankle, when they
-happened to observe the cattle again scouring off for the open
-country. Then there was a grunting of ponies as the spurs went in,
-some hoarse oaths, and for a third time they tore away after the
-"gentle work-oxen." The steers had taken the bars in their stride.
-Another hour's chase, and this time the animals were thrown down,
-trussed up like turkeys for the baking, and tied to posts, where they
-lay to kick and bellow the night through in impotent rage. The
-punchers coiled their ropes, lit their cigarettes, and rode off in the
-gathering gloom. The morning following the steers were let up, and
-though wet and chilled, they still roared defiance. For agricultural
-purposes a Mexican "stag" would be as valuable as a rhinoceros or a
-Bengal tiger, and I await with interest the report of the death-rate
-at the Casa Camadra during spring ploughing.
-
-In the handling of these savage animals the punchers are brave to
-recklessness, but this is partly because it seems so. In reality they
-have a thorough knowledge of bull nature, and can tell when and where
-he is going to strike as quickly as a boxer who knows by the "skim on
-the eye" of his opponent. But still they go boldly into the corral
-with the maddened brutes, seeming to pay no heed to the imminent
-possibilities of a trip to the moon. They toss their ropes and catch
-the bull's feet, they skilfully avoid his rush, and in a spirit of
-bravado they touch the horns, pat him on the back, or twist his tail.
-
-[Illustration: SHOOTING IN THE SIERRA MADRE]
-
-After hunting for another day, with more success, we packed up and
-"pulled out" up the Varras Creek towards the mountains, leaving the
-last house behind us. Beyond was the unknown country. For many miles
-it had been ridden by some of the punchers, but the country is large,
-covered with vast mountain ranges, with wastes of stony foot-hills at
-the bases, while _barrancas_ yawn at your feet, and for a great many
-years the policy of the Apaches has been not to encourage immigration.
-In 1860 a heavy band of Mexican prospectors undertook to penetrate
-this part in the quest of Tiopa, but they were driven out. It is now
-possible for strong outfits to travel its wilds with only a small
-chance of encountering Apache renegades, but very few have attempted
-it as yet. It is so remote that prospectors for silver or gold could
-hardly work a mine if they found one, and for other purposes it has
-little value. The most magnificent pine timber covers its slopes, but
-it would take a syndicate to deliver one log at the railroad. As we
-wound our way up the Varras Creek we passed beetling crags and huge
-pillars of porphyry rock cut into fantastic shapes by water and frost,
-resplendent in color, and admirably adapted for the pot-hunting of
-humans as affected by gentry temporarily stopping at San Carlos.
-
-In a dell in the forest we espied some "mavericks," or unbranded
-stock. The punchers are ever alert for a beef without half its ears
-gone and a big HF burned in its flank, and immediately they perceive
-one they tighten their _cincha_, slip the rope from the pommel, put
-their hats on the back of their heads, and "light out." A cow was
-soon caught, after desperate riding over rocks and fallen timber,
-thrown down, and "hog-tied," which means all four feet together. A
-little fire is built, and one side of a _cincha_ ring is heated
-red-hot, with which a rawhide artist paints HF in the sizzling flesh,
-while the cow kicks and bawls. She is then unbound, and when she gets
-back on her feet the _vaqueros_ stand about, _serape_ in hand, after
-the bull-fighter method, and provoke her to charge. She charges, while
-they avoid her by agile springs and a flaunting of their rags. They
-laugh, and cry "Bravo toro!" until she, having overcome her
-indignation at their rudeness, sets off down the cañon with her tail
-in the air.
-
-Thus we journeyed day by day over the hills and up the cañons, camping
-by night under the pines in mountain glades or deep ravines, where the
-sun sets at four o'clock, while it is light above. The moon was in the
-full and the nights were frosty, and many times we awoke to think it
-morning when only our heads had become uncovered by the blankets and
-the big white moon shone fair upon us. Getting up in the night to poke
-the fire and thaw the stiffening out of one's legs is called by the
-boys "playing freeze-out," and we all participate in the game. A
-cigarette at two o'clock in the morning, with one's back to the fire,
-while the moon looks down on you, your comrades breathing about you, a
-wolf howling mournfully from a neighboring hill, the mountains
-towering on every side, and the tall pines painting inky shadows
-across the ghostly grass, is a mild sensation and rather pleasant.
-Some of the men are on foot, from soring their horses' backs, and
-their buckskin boots are wearing out, so they sit about the fire and
-stitch. We are all very dirty, and I no longer take comfort in
-watching the cook who makes the bread, for fear I may be tempted to
-ask him if he will not wash his hands, whereat the boys may indicate
-that I am a "dude," and will look down on me. The flour is nearly
-gone, and shortly it will not matter whether the cook's hands are
-rusty or not. The coffee and sugar promise to hold out. When William
-can no longer serve "bull gravy" with his fried meat I shall have many
-regrets, but they are swamped by the probabilities of a tobacco
-famine, which is imminent. We get deer every day, but to one not used
-to a strictly meat diet it begins to pall. The Indian hunter takes the
-stomach of a deer, fills it with meat, and deposits it under the
-coals. We roast it in slices and chunks, but I like it better when
-"jerked" brown, as it then affords somewhat more mystery to a taste
-already jaded with venison. In travelling with pack-animals it is the
-custom to make a day's march before halting, and a day's march ends
-about four o'clock, or when water is found. Ten hours' march will
-loosen one's cartridge-belt five or six holes, for venison and coffee
-is not a strong food. By 12 P.M. we acquire a wolfish yearning for the
-"flesh-pots," but that shortly is relieved by the contraction of the
-stomach, or three or four quarts of mountain water will afford some
-relief. By nightfall one can "fly into" a venison steak, while
-cigarettes, coffee, and a desire to lie down restore one's equanimity.
-
-[Illustration: THE INDIAN'S STORY]
-
-We have passed some small ranges and worm our way down bottomless
-pits, but at last there rises ahead the main range of the Sierra
-Madre. From the depths of a great _barranca_ we begin the climb. Never
-have I seen hills as sideling as these. It is terrible work for one
-not used to mountain-climbing and the short allowance of air one finds
-to subsist on. The feeling of exhaustion is almost impossible to
-overcome. The horses are thin, and Old Jim is developing more ribs
-than good condition calls for, so I walk to ease the old fellow. There
-are snow fields to cross, which intensifies the action. The journey is
-enlivened at times by shots at deer, and the rifles echo around the
-mountains, but being long shots they are misses. We passed the
-_cordon_ of the mountains, and stopped on a knife-like ridge where the
-melting snows under one's foot ran east and west to the two great
-oceans. The climb from here over the main range was a bellows-bursting
-affair, but as we pulled on to the high _mesa_ our drooping nerves
-were stiffened by shots, and presently deer came bounding down the
-ravine to our left. Jack made a bully flying shot, and the stricken
-deer rolled many yards, until caught by a fallen log. My companion,
-who was in advance, had fired into some deer, and had shot a buck
-which was lying down, and he was much puffed up with pride over this
-achievement in still-hunting. From there on we passed through the most
-wonderful natural deer park. The animals did not fear man, and stood
-to be fired at, though the open timber and absence of underbrush made
-the shots long-range ones. After killing all we could carry, we sat
-down to wait for the _burro_ train.
-
-That night we camped on a jutting crag, with the water running in the
-_barranca_ two hundred feet below us. For a hundred miles the mountain
-and plain lay at our feet--a place more for an eagle's eyrie than a
-camp for a caravan. The night set very cold, and from out in space the
-moon threw its mellow light down upon us. Before the camp-fire our
-Indian hunter told the story of the killing of Victoria's band, where
-he had been among the victors, and as he threw his _serape_ down, and
-standing forth with the firelight playing on his harsh features, he
-swayed his body and waved his hands, while with hoarse voice and in
-a strange language he gave the movement of the fight. The legend of
-the lost mine of Tiopa was narrated by a _vaquero_ in the quiet manner
-of one whose memory goes far back, and to whom it is all real--about
-the Jesuits, the iron door over the mouth of the mine, its richness,
-the secrecy enjoined by the fathers on the people when they fled
-before the Apache devils, and how there is always a light to be kept
-burning at its entrance to guide them back. It was a grand theatre and
-an eerie scene.
-
-[Illustration: THE CLIFF-DWELLINGS]
-
-On the other side of the mountain we found the trail most difficult. I
-would never have believed that a horse could traverse it. To say that
-it was steep is commonplace, and yet I cannot be believed if I say
-that it was perpendicular; but a man could toss his hat a mile at any
-moment if he pleased. Then, underfoot, it was all loose lava rock, and
-the little ponies had to jump and dance over the bowlders. When we had
-finally arrived on a grassy _mesa_ I concluded that if ever again I
-did the like of that, it would most certainly be the result of a
-tremendous error in my calculations. The pack-train was here detached
-and sent to water, but we followed Jack to see his "discovery." After
-miles of travel through the dry, yellow grass we came out on a high
-bluff with a _barranca_ at its foot, the bottom of which we could not
-see. On the overhanging wall opposite were Jack's cliff-dwellings,
-perched like dove-cots against the precipice. It was only a quarter of
-a mile to them, but it took two days to get there, so we did not go.
-There are also holes in the cliffs, and underground passages. The
-paths up to them are washed away, but Jack and some of his men have
-invaded the silent village. They climbed up with lariats, and he was
-let down over the cliff, but they found nothing left but dust and
-cobwebs.
-
-We could not get down to water, and as our horses were thirsty and
-foot-sore, we "mogged along." On our ride we "cut the trail" of a big
-band of mustangs, or wild horses, but did not see them, and by late
-afternoon we found the camp, and William busy above his fire. After
-hunting down the valley for a few days for "burro deer" and wild
-turkey, we found that the tobacco was promptly giving out, according
-to calculations, and, being all inveterate smokers, we "made trail
-fast" for the Neuearachie ranch. Our ponies were jaded and sore; but
-having "roped" a stray pony two days before, which was now fresh, the
-lightest _vaquero_ was put on his back, and sent hot-foot in the night
-to the ranch for tobacco. He made the long ride and returned at noon
-the next day on a fresh mount, having been thirty-six hours in the
-saddle. This fellow was a rather remarkable man, as it was he who, on
-the beginning of the trip, had brought some important mail to us one
-hundred and seventy miles, and after riding down two ponies he
-followed our trail on foot through the mountains, and overtook us as
-we sat resting on a log in the woods.
-
-How we at last pulled into the ranch at Neuearachie, with its log
-buildings and irrigated fields, and how we "swooped down" on Mr. John
-Bailey, and ate up all his eggs and bread and butter at the first
-onset, I will not weary you with, but I believe that a man should for
-one month of the year live on the roots of the grass, in order to
-understand for the eleven following that so-called necessities are
-luxuries in reality. Not that I would indiscriminately recommend such
-a dietary abasement as ours, yet will I insist that it has killed less
-men than gluttony, and should you ever make the Sierra trails with the
-punchers, you will get rather less than more.
-
-
-
-
-BLACK WATER AND SHALLOWS
-
-
-The morning broke gray and lowering, and the clouds rolled in heavy
-masses across the sky. I was sitting out on a log washing a shirt, and
-not distinguishing myself as a laundryman either, for one shirt will
-become excessively dirty in a week, and no canoeist can have more than
-that, as will be seen when you consider that he has to carry
-everything which he owns on his back. My guide had packed up our
-little "kit" and deposited it skilfully in the _Necoochee_--a
-sixteen-foot canoe of the Rice Lake pattern.
-
-We were about to start on a cruise down a river which the lumbermen
-said could not be "run," as it was shallow and rocky. We could find no
-one who had been down it, and so, not knowing anything about it, we
-regarded it as a pleasant prospect. "Harrison," being a professional
-guide and hunter, had mostly come in contact with people--or "sports,"
-as he called them--who had no sooner entered the woods than they were
-overcome with a desire to slay. No fatigue or exertion was too great
-when the grand purpose was to kill the deer and despoil the trout
-streams, but to go wandering aimlessly down a stream which by general
-consent was impracticable for boats, and then out into the clearings
-where the mountain-spring was left behind, and where logs and
-mill-dams and agriculturists took the place of the deer and the trout,
-was a scheme which never quite got straightened out in his mind. With
-many misgivings, and a very clear impression that I was mentally
-deranged, "Has" allowed that "we're all aboard."
-
-We pushed out into the big lake and paddled. As we skirted the shores
-the wind howled through the giant hemlocks, and the ripples ran away
-into white-caps on the far shore. As I wielded my double-blade paddle
-and instinctively enjoyed the wildness of the day, I also indulged in
-a conscious calculation of how long it would take my shirt to dry on
-my back. It is such a pity to mix a damp shirt up with the wild storm,
-as it hurries over the dark woods and the black water, that I felt
-misgivings; but, to be perfectly accurate, they divided my attention,
-and, after all, man is only noble by fits and starts.
-
-We soon reached the head of the river, and a water-storage dam and a
-mile of impassable rapids made a "carry" or "portage" necessary.
-Slinging our packs and taking the seventy-pound canoe on our
-shoulders, we started down the trail. The torture of this sort of
-thing is as exquisitely perfect in its way as any ever devised. A
-trunk-porter in a summer hotel simply does for a few seconds what we
-do by the hour, and as for reconciling this to an idea of physical
-enjoyment, it cannot be done. It's a subtle mental process altogether
-indefinable; but your enthusiast is a person who would lose all if he
-reasoned any, and to suffer like an anchorite is always a part of a
-sportsman's programme. The person who tilts back in a chair on the
-veranda of a summer hotel, while he smokes cigars and gazes vacantly
-into space, is your only true philosopher; but he is not a sportsman.
-The woods and the fields and the broad roll of the ocean do not beckon
-to him to come out among them. He detests all their sensations, and
-believes nothing holy except the dinner-hour, and with his bad
-appetite that too is flat, stale, and unprofitable. A real sportsman,
-of the nature-loving type, must go tramping or paddling or riding
-about over the waste places of the earth, with his dinner in his
-pocket. He is alive to the terrible strain of the "carry," and to the
-quiet pipe when the day is done. The camp-fire contemplation, the
-beautiful quiet of the misty morning on the still water, enrapture
-him, and his eye dilates, his nerves tingle, and he is in a
-conflagration of ecstasy. When he is going--going--faster--faster into
-the boil of the waters, he hears the roar and boom ahead, and the
-black rocks crop up in thickening masses to dispute his way. He is
-fighting a game battle with the elements, and they are remorseless. He
-may break his leg or lose his life in the tip-over which is imminent,
-but the fool is happy--let him die.
-
-[Illustration: THE PORTAGE.]
-
-But we were left on the "carry," and it is with a little thrill of joy
-and the largest sigh of relief possible when we again settle the boat
-in the water. Now you should understand why it is better to have one
-shirt and wash it often. My "canoe kit" is the best arranged and the
-most perfect in the world, as no other canoeist will possibly admit,
-but which is nevertheless a fact. One blanket, a light shelter-tent, a
-cooking outfit, which folds up in a sort of Japanese way, a light axe,
-two canvas packs, and tea, bacon, and flour. This does not make long
-reading, but it makes a load for a man when it's all packed up, and a
-canoeist's baggage must be cut to the strength of his back. It is a
-great piece of confidence in which I will indulge you when I caution
-you not to pick out invalids for canoe companions. If a _burro_ would
-take kindly to backwoods navigation, I should enjoy the society of
-one, though it would not be in the nature of a _burro_ to swing an
-axe, as indeed there are many fine gentlemen who cannot do a good job
-at that; and if one at least of the party cannot, the camp-fires will
-go out early at nights, and it is more than probable that the
-companions will have less than twenty toes between them at the end of
-the cruise.
-
-All these arrangements being perfected, you are ready to go ahead, and
-in the wilderness you have only one anxiety, and that is about the
-"grub." If the canoe turn over, the tea, the sugar, and the flour will
-mix up with the surrounding elements, and only the bacon will remain
-to nourish you until you strike the clearings, and there are few men
-this side 70° north latitude who will gormandize on that alone.
-
-The long still water is the mental side of canoeing, as the rapid is
-the life and movement. The dark woods tower on either side, and the
-clear banks, full to their fat sides, fringed with trailing vines and
-drooping ferns, have not the impoverished look of civilized rivers.
-The dark water wells along, and the branches droop to kiss it. In
-front the gray sky is answered back by the water reflection, and the
-trees lie out as though hung in the air, forming a gateway, always
-receding. Here and there an old monarch of the forest has succumbed to
-the last blow and fallen across the stream. It reaches out ever so far
-with its giant stems, and the first branch had started sixty feet from
-the ground. You may have to chop a way through, or you may force your
-canoe through the limbs and gather a crowd of little broken branches
-to escort you along the stream. The original forest tree has a
-character all its own, and I never see one but I think of the artist
-who drew second-growth timber and called it "the forest primeval." The
-quietness of the woods, with all their solemnity, permitting no bright
-or overdressed plant to obtrude itself, is rudely shocked by the
-garish painted thing as the yellow polished _Necoochee_ glides
-among them. The water-rat dives with a tremendous splash as he sees
-the big monster glide by his sedge home. The kingfisher springs away
-from his perch on the dead top with loud chatterings when we glide
-into his notice. The crane takes off from his grassy "set back" in a
-deliberate manner, as though embarking on a tour to Japan, a thing not
-to be hurriedly done. The mink eyes you from his sunken log, and,
-grinning in his most savage little manner, leaps away. These have all
-been disturbed in their wild homes as they were about to lunch off the
-handiest trout, and no doubt they hate us in their liveliest manner;
-but the poor trout under the boat compensate us with their thanks. The
-mud-turtle is making his way up-stream, as we can tell by the row of
-bubbles which arise in his wake; and the "skaters," as I call the
-little insects which go skipping about like a lawyer's point in an
-argument, part as we go by. The mosquitoes, those desperate little
-villains who dispute your happiness in the woods, are there, but they
-smell the tar and oil of our war-paint, and can only hum in their
-anger. A stick cracks in the brush, and with all the dash and
-confidence of a city girl as she steps from her front door, a little
-spotted fawn walks out on a sedge bank from among the alders. He does
-not notice us, but in his stupid little way looks out the freshest
-water-grass, and the hunter in the stern of the boat cuts his paddle
-through the water, and the canoe glides silently up until right under
-his nose. We are still and silent. The little thing raises its head
-and looks us full in the eye, and then continues to feed as before. I
-talk to him quietly, and say, "Little man, do not come near the ponds
-or the rivers, for you will not live to have five prongs on your
-antlers if any one but such good people as we see you." He looks up,
-and seems to say, "You are noisy, but I do not care." "Now run; and
-if you ever see anything in the forest which resembles us, run for
-your life"; and with a bound the little innocent has regained the dark
-aisles of the woods. You loll back on your pack, your pipe going
-lazily; your hat is off; you moralize, and think thoughts which have
-dignity. You drink in the spell of the forest, and dream of the birch
-barks and the red warriors who did the same thing a couple of
-centuries since. But as thoughts vary so much in individuals, and have
-but an indirect bearing on canoeing, I will proceed without them.
-The low swamp, with its soft timber, gives place to hills and beech
-ridges, and the old lord of the forest for these last hundred years
-towers up majestically. The smaller trees fight for the sunlight, and
-thus the ceaseless war of nature goes on quietly, silently, and alone.
-The miserable "witch-hoppel" leads its lusty plebeian life, satisfied
-to spring its half-dozen leaves, and not dreaming to some day become
-an oak. The gentle sigh of the forest, the hum of insects, and the
-chatter and peal of the birds have gone into harmony with a long,
-deep, swelling sound, becoming louder and louder, until finally it
-drowns all else.
-
-[Illustration: BLACK WATER]
-
-[Illustration: THE FAWN]
-
-[Illustration: BREAKING A JAM.]
-
-The canoe now glides more rapidly. The pipe is laid one side. The
-paddle is grasped firmly, and with a firm eye I regard the "grub" pack
-which sits up in the bow, and resolve to die if necessary in order
-that it may not sink if we turn over. The river turns, and the ominous
-growl of the rapids is at hand.
-
-"Hold her--hold her now--to the right of the big rock; then swing to
-the far shore: if we go to the right, we are gone."
-
-"All right; let her stern come round," and we drop away.
-
-No talking now, but with every nerve and muscle tense, and your eye on
-the boil of the water, you rush along. You back water and paddle, the
-stern swings, she hangs for an instant, she falls in the current, and
-with a mad rush you take it like a hunting-man a six-bar gate. Now
-paddle, paddle, paddle. It looks bad--we cannot make it--yes--all
-right, and we are on the far shore, with the shallows on the other
-side. This little episode was successful, but, as you well know, it
-cannot last. The next rift, and with a bump she is hung upon a sunken
-rock, and--jump! jump!--we both flounder overboard in any way
-possible, so it is well and quickly done. One man loses his hold, the
-other swings the boat off, and, kicking and splashing for a foothold,
-the demoralized outfit shoots along. At last one is found, and then at
-a favorable rock we embark again.
-
-You are now wet, but the tea and sugar are safe, so it's a small
-matter. A jam of logs and tops is "hung up" on a particularly nasty
-place, and you have a time getting the boat around it. You walk on
-rotten tops while the knots stick up beneath you like sabres. "Has"
-floats calmly out to sea, as it were, on a detached log which he is
-cutting, and with a hopeless look of despair he totters, while I yell,
-"Save the axe, ---- you--save the axe!" and over he goes, only to get
-wet and very disgusted, both of which will wear off in time. For a
-mile the water is so shallow that the boat will not run loaded, and we
-lead her along as we wade, now falling in over our heads, sliding on
-slippery stones, hurting our feet, wondering why we had come at all.
-The boat gets loose, and my heart stands still as the whole boat-load
-of blankets and grub with our pipes and tobacco started off for the
-settlements--or "drifting to thunder," as Bret Harte said of Chiquita.
-There was rather a lively and enthusiastic pursuit instituted then,
-the details of which are forgotten, as my mind was focussed on the
-grub-pack, but we got her. About this time the soles let go on my
-tennis shoes, and my only pair of trousers gave way. These things,
-however, become such mere details as to be scarcely noticed when you
-have travelled since sunrise up to your waist in water, and are tired,
-footsore, and hungry. It is time to go ashore and camp.
-
-You scrape away a rod square of dirt, chunks, witch-hoppel, and dead
-leaves, and make a fire. You dry your clothes while you wear the
-blanket and the guide the shelter-tent, and to a casual observer it
-would look as though the savage had come again; but he would detect a
-difference, because a white man in a blanket is about as inspiring a
-sight as an Indian with a plug-hat.
-
-[Illustration: HUNG UP]
-
-Finally the coffee boils, the tent is up, and the bough bed laid down.
-You lean against the dead log and swap lies with the guide; and the
-greatest hunters I have ever known have all been magnificent liars.
-The two go together. I should suspect a man who was deficient. Since
-no one ever believes hunters' yarns, it has come to be a pleasurable
-pastime, in which a man who has not hunted considerably can't lie
-properly without offending the intelligence of that part of his
-audience who have.
-
-The morning comes too soon, and after you are packed up and the boat
-loaded, if you are in a bad part of the river you do this: you put
-away your pipe, and with a grimace and a shudder you step out into the
-river up to your neck and get wet. The morning is cold, and I, for
-one, would not allow a man who was perfectly dry to get into my boat,
-for fear he might have some trepidation about getting out promptly if
-the boat was "hung up" on a rock; and in the woods all nature is
-subservient to the "grub."
-
-Hour after hour we waded along. A few rods of still water and "Has"
-would cut off large chews of tobacco, and become wonderfully cynical
-as to the caprices of the river. The still water ends around the next
-point. You charge the thing nobly, but end up in the water up to your
-neck with the "grub" safe, and a mile or so more of wading in
-prospect.
-
-Then the river narrows, and goes tumbling off down a dark cañon cut
-through the rocks. We go ashore and "scout the place," and then begin
-to let the boat down on a line. We hug the black sides like ants,
-while the water goes to soapsuds at our feet. The boat bobs and
-rocks, and is nearly upset in a place where we cannot follow it
-through. We must take it up a ledge about thirty feet high, and after
-puffing and blowing and feats of maniacal strength, we at last have it
-again in the water. After some days of this thing we found from a
-statistician we had dropped 1100 feet in about fifty-one miles, and
-with the well-known propensity of water to flow downhill, it can be
-seen that difficulties were encountered. You cannot carry a boat in
-the forest, and you will discover enough reasons why in a five-minute
-trail to make their enumeration tiresome. The zest of the whole thing
-lies in not knowing the difficulties beforehand, and then, if properly
-equipped, a man who sits at a desk the year through can find no
-happier days than he will in his canoe when the still waters run
-through the dark forests and the rapid boils below.
-
-
-
-
-COACHING IN CHIHUAHUA
-
-
-That coaching is a grand sport I cannot deny, for I know almost
-nothing of it beyond an impression that there is a tremendous amount
-of mystery connected with its rites. As a sport I have never
-participated in it, but while travelling the waste places of the earth
-I have used it as a means on occasion. I never will again. There is no
-place to which I desire to go badly enough to go in a coach, and such
-points of interest as are inaccessible except by coach are off my
-trail. I am not in the least superstitious, and am prone to scout such
-tendencies; but I'm a Jonah in a stage-coach, and that is not a
-superstition, but a fact amply proven by many trials. I remember as a
-boy in Montana having been so hopelessly mixed up with a sage-bush on
-a dark night when the stage overturned that it left an impression on
-me. Later in life I was travelling in Arizona, and we were bowling
-along about ten miles an hour down a great "hog-back" to the plains
-below. A "swing mule" tripped up a "lead mule," and the stage--with
-myself on the box--ran over the whole six, and when the driver and I
-separated ourselves from the mules, shreds of harness, splinters,
-hair, hide, cargo, and cactus plants I began to formulate the
-intelligence that stage-coaching was dangerous.
-
-While riding in an army ambulance with Major Viele, of the First
-Cavalry, and the late Lieutenant Clark, of the Tenth, the brake-beam
-broke on the descent of a hill, and we only hit the ground in the
-high places for about a mile. I will not insist that every man can
-hold his breath for five consecutive minutes, but I did it. Thereupon
-I formulated vows and pledges. But like the weak creature I am, I
-ignored all this and got into one at Chihuahua last winter, and first
-and last did five hundred miles of jolting, with all the incident and
-the regulation accident which goes to make up that sort of thing.
-Now I like to think that I have been through it all, and am alive and
-unmaimed; and I take a great deal of comfort in knowing that, however
-I may meet my end, a stage-coach will be in no way connected with it.
-
-[Illustration: A COACHERO]
-
-[Illustration: THE START]
-
-On the trip out we had mules. They were black and diminutive. To me a
-Mexican mule seems to be the Chinaman of the dumb animals. They are
-enduring beyond comprehension, and they have minds which are patient,
-yet alert and full of guile. The Mexican _coacheros_ have their mules
-trained, as bankers do their depositors in our land. They back up
-against a wall and stand in line while one by one they are harnessed.
-In the early morning I liked to see the lantern-light glorify the
-little black creatures against the adobe wall, and hear the big
-_coachero_ talk to his beasts in that easy, familiar way and with that
-mutual comprehension which is lost to those of the human race who have
-progressed beyond the natural state. This coachman was an enormous
-man--big, bony, and with Sullivanesque shoulders, gorilla hands, and a
-blue-black buccaneer beard; and but for a merry brown eye and a mouth
-set in perpetual readiness to grin he would have belonged to the
-"mild-mannered" class, to which, as a matter of fact, he did not. It
-is written in the lease of his land that he shall drive the Bavicora
-ranche coach--it's fief-service, it's feudal, and it carries one back.
-If the little mules and ponies did not stand in the exact six feet of
-ground where he wanted them, he grabbed hold of them and moved them
-over to the place without a word, and after being located they never
-moved until he yanked or lifted them to their place at the pole. The
-guards were Mexican Indians--hair cut _à la Cosaques_, big straw hats,
-_serapes_, and munitions of war. William, whose ancestors had
-emigrated from the Congo region before the war, was to cook. He was
-also guide, philosopher, and friend to Mr. H. and myself in this
-strange land, and he made all things possible by his tact and zeal in
-our behalf. William knows every one in the State of Chihuahua, and he
-is constantly telling us of the standing and glittering position of
-the inhabitants of the mud huts which we pass, until it sounds like
-that ghastly array of intelligence with which a society reporter
-quickens the social dead in a Sunday newspaper.
-
-At night we stay at the different ranches, and, rolling ourselves up
-in our blankets, we lie down on the mud floors to sleep. It's not so
-bad after one becomes used to it, albeit the skin wears off one's
-femur joint. The Mexican hen is as conscientious here as elsewhere,
-and we eat eggs. The Mexican coffee is always excellent in quality,
-but the people make it up into a nerve-jerking dose, which will stand
-hot-water in quantities. Nearly all travellers are favorably impressed
-with the _frejoles_ and _tortillas_ of the country. The beans are
-good, but as old General Taylor once said, "They killed more men than
-did bullets in the Mexican War." Of the _tortillas_ I will say, as my
-philosophical friend, Mr. Poultney Bigelow, says of the black bread of
-the Russian soldier, "It's a good strong food to march and fight on,"
-which can in no way be a recommendation of its palatability.
-
-The coach starts by gray dawn, and we are aroused at an early hour.
-The white men take sponge-baths in a wash-basin, and the native who
-stands about deep in the folds of his _serape_ fails utterly to
-comprehend. He evidently thinks a lot, but he doesn't say anything. I
-suppose it seems like "clay-eating" or penitent mutilations to
-him--not exactly insanity, but a curious custom, at any rate. On the
-return trip we have a half-broken team of buckskin broncos, which have
-to be "hooked up" with great stealth. And when the coachman had
-climbed quietly on to the box and we were inside, the guards let go of
-the team, and the coachman cracked his whip, while we looked out of
-the window and held our breath. Then there were Horse Pyrotechniques!
-Ground and Lofty Tumbling! Greatest Show on Earth! for about a minute,
-when we made a start down the big road--or didn't, as the case might
-be. After the first round we often had to get out, and, two ponies
-having got themselves into the same collar, we would then rearrange
-them for better luck next time.
-
-[Illustration: MORNING TOILET]
-
-In Mexico they drive four mules abreast in the lead and two on the
-pole, which seems to be an excellent way. Mexican coachmen generally
-keep "belting" their stock and yelling "_Underlay-nula!_" which is
-both picturesque and unintelligible. Our man was, however, better
-educated. Forty or fifty miles is a day's journey, but the exact
-distance is so dependent on the roads, the load, and the desire to
-"get thar" that it varies greatly.
-
-We pass the Guerrero stage as it bowls along, and hundreds of heavy,
-creeking ox-carts, as they draw slowly over the yellow landscape, with
-their freight to and from the mines. Bunches of sorrowful _burros_,
-with corn, wood, pottery, and hay, part as we sweep along through and
-by them.
-
-We have the inspiring vista of Chihuahua before us all the time. It is
-massive in its proportions and opalescent in color. There are torquois
-hills, dazzling yellow foregrounds--the palette of the "rainbow
-school" is everywhere. There are little mud houses, ranches, and dirty
-little adobe towns to pass, which you must admire, though you may not
-like them. Gaunt cattle wander in their search for grass and water,
-and women squat by the riverbed engaged in washing or filling their
-_ollas_.
-
-The people are enchanting. It is like reading the Bible to look at
-them, because it is so unreal; yet there they are before one, strange
-and mysterious, and, like other things which appeal to one's
-imagination, it would be a sad thing if one were to understand them.
-One is tempted to think that the people of our Northern races know too
-much for their own good. It seems remorseless, but it is so. When I
-heard the poor Mexican asked why he thought it had not rained in
-eighteen months, he said, "Because God wills it, I suppose;" we were
-edified by the way they shifted the responsibility which Farmer Dunn
-in our part of the world so cheerfully assumes.
-
-One afternoon we were on a down-grade, going along at a fair pace,
-when a wheel struck a stone, placed there by some freighter to block
-his load. It heaved the coach, pulled out the king-pin, and let the
-big Concord down and over on its side. The mules went on with the
-front wheels, pulling Jack off the box, while we who were on top
-described a graceful parabolic curve and landed with three dull thuds.
-I was caught under the coach by one leg and held there. A guard inside
-made all haste to crawl out through a window, and after a bit I was
-released. We were all pretty badly bruised up, and Mr. H. had his foot
-broken. The mules were recovered, however, the coach righted, and we
-were again off. We made the town of Tamochica that night, and the
-town-folks were kind and attentive. They made crutches, heated water,
-and sent a man to the creek to catch leeches to put on our wounds. Two
-men were shot in a house near by during the night, and for a few
-minutes there was a lively fusillade of pistol shots. It was evident
-that life in Tamochica would spoil a man's taste for anything quiet,
-and so as soon as we could move we did it.
-
-We passed an old church, and were shown two Jesuits who had been dead
-over a hundred years. They were wonderfully preserved, and were
-dressed in full regalia. I wondered by what embalmer's art it had been
-accomplished.
-
-[Illustration: HARNESSING MULES]
-
-A guard of punchers met us to conduct us over a mountain-pass. They
-were dressed in terra-cotta buckskin trimmed with white leather, and
-were armed for the largest game in the country. The Bavicora coach has
-never been robbed, and it is never going to be--or, at least that is
-the intention of the I-F folks. One man can rob a stage-coach as
-easily as he could a box of sardines, but with outriders before and
-behind it takes a large party, and even then they will leave a "hot
-trail" behind them.
-
-One morning as I was lolling out of the window I noticed the wheel of
-the coach pass over a long, blue Roman candle. I thought it was
-curious that a long, blue Roman candle should be lying out there on
-the plains, when with a sudden sickening it flashed upon me--"giant
-powder!" The coach was stopped, and we got out. The road was full of
-the sticks of this high explosive. A man was coming down the road
-leading a _burro_ and picking up the things, and he explained that
-they had dropped out of a package from his bull-wagon as he passed the
-night before. We didn't run over any more pieces. If the stick had
-gone off there would have been a little cloud of dust on the Guerrero
-road, and, I hope, some regrets in various parts of the world. The
-incident cannot be made startling, but it put the occupants of the
-Bavicora coach in a quiet train of reflection that makes a man
-religious.
-
-Now, as I ponder over the last stage-coach ride which I shall ever
-take on this earth, I am conscious that it was pleasant, instructive,
-and full of incident. All that might have happened did not, but enough
-did to satiate my taste.
-
-
-
-
-STUBBLE AND SLOUGH IN DAKOTA
-
-
-Now I am conscious that all my life I have seen men who owned
-shot-guns and setter-dogs, and that these persons were wont at
-intervals to disappear from their usual haunts with this
-paraphernalia. Without thinking, I felt that they went to slay little
-birds, and for them I entertained a good-natured contempt. It came
-about in this wise that I acquired familiarity with "mark," and
-"hie-on," and "No. 6 vis No. 4's": by telegram I was invited to make
-one of a party in Chicago, bound West on a hunting expedition. It
-being one of my periods of unrest, I promptly packed up my Winchester,
-boots, saddle, and blankets, wired "All right--next train," and
-crawled into the "Limited" at Forty-second Street.
-
-"West" is to me a generic term for that country in the United States
-which lies beyond the high plains, and this will account for my
-surprise when I walked into the private car at the St. Paul depot in
-Chicago and met my friends contesting the rights of occupancy with
-numerous setter-dogs, while all about were shot-gun cases and boxes
-labelled "Ammunition." After greetings I stepped to the station
-platform and mingled with the crowd--disgusted, and disposed to
-desert.
-
-A genial young soldier who appreciated the curves in my character
-followed me out, and explained, in the full flush of his joyous
-anticipation, that we were going to North Dakota to shoot ducks and
-prairie chicken, and that it would be the jolliest sort of a time;
-besides, it was a party of good friends. I hesitated, yielded, and
-enlisted for the enterprise. Feeling now that I was this far it would
-be good to go on and learn what there was in the form of sport which
-charmed so many men whose taste I respected in other matters, and once
-embarked I summoned my enthusiasm, and tried to "step high, wide, and
-handsome," as the horsemen say.
-
-[Illustration: A DAKOTA CHICKEN-WAGON]
-
-The happiness of a hunting-party is like that of a wedding, so
-important is it that true love shall rule. The _pièce de résistance_
-of our car was two old generals, who called each other by an
-abbreviation of their first names, and interrupted conversations by
-recalling to each other's memory where some acres of men were slain.
-"A little more of the roast beef, please--yes, that was where I was
-shot in this side;" and at night, when quiet reigned and we sought
-sleep, there would be a waving of the curtains, and a voice, "Oh, say,
-Blank, do you remember that time my horse was hit with the
-twelve-pounder?" and it banished dreams. There was a phlebotomist from
-Pittsburg who had shot all over the earth. He was a thorough
-sportsman, with a code of rules as complicated as the common-law, and
-he "made up tough" in his canvas shooting-clothes. There was a young
-and distinguished officer of the regular army who had hunted men,
-which excused him in the paltry undertaking before him; and, finally,
-three young men who were adding the accumulated knowledge of Harvard
-to their natural endowments. For myself, I did not see how jack-boots,
-spurs, and a Winchester would lend themselves to the stubble and
-slough of Dakota, but a collection was taken, and by the time we
-arrived in Valley City, Dakota, I was armed, if not accoutred, in the
-style affected by double-barrel men. All I now needed was an
-education, and between the Doctor, who explained, expostulated, and
-swore, and a great many "clean misses," I wore on to the high-school
-stage. Like the obliging person who was asked if he played on the
-violin, I said to myself, "I don't know, but I'll try."
-
-[Illustration: ON THE EDGE OF A SLOUGH]
-
-In the early morning three teams drove up where our car was
-side-tracked, and we embarked in them. The shot-gun man affects
-buck-colored canvas clothes, with many pockets, and carries his
-cartridges in his shirt fronts, like a Circassian Cossack. He also
-takes the shells out of his gun before he climbs into a wagon, or he
-immediately becomes an object of derision and dread, or, what's worse,
-suddenly friendless and alone. He also refrains from pointing his gun
-at any fellow-sportsman, and if he inadvertently does it, he receives
-a fusillade such as an Irish drill-sergeant throws into a recruit when
-he does amiss. This day was cool and with a wind blowing, and the poor
-dogs leaped in delirious joy when let out from their boxes, in which
-they had travelled all the way from Chicago. After running the wire
-edge off their nerves they were gotten to range inside a township
-site, and we jogged along. The first thing which interested me was to
-hear the Doctor indicate to the driver that he did not care to
-participate in the driver's knowledge of hunting, and that in order to
-save mental wear he only had to drive the team, and stand fast when we
-got out, in order that from the one motionless spot on the prairie sea
-we could "mark down" the birds.
-
-The immensity of the wheat-fields in Dakota is astonishing to a
-stranger. They begin on the edge of town, and we drive all day and are
-never out of them, and on either side they stretch away as far as
-one's eye can travel. The wheat had been cut and "shocked," which left
-a stubble some eight inches high. The farm-houses are far apart, and,
-indeed, not often in sight, but as the threshing was in progress, we
-saw many groups of men and horses, and the great steam-threshers
-blowing clouds of black smoke, and the flying straw as it was belched
-from the bowels of the monsters.
-
-[Illustration: A CONFERENCE IN THE MUD]
-
-During the heat of the day the chickens lie in the cover of the grass
-at the sides of the fields, or in the rank growth of some slough-hole,
-but at early morning and evening they feed in the wheat stubble. As we
-ride along, the dogs range out in front, now leaping gracefully along,
-now stopping and carrying their noses in the air to detect some scent,
-and finally--"There's a point! Stop, driver!" and we pile out,
-breaking our guns and shoving in the cartridges.
-
-"No hurry--no hurry," says the Doctor; "the dog will stay there a
-month." But, fired with the anticipations, we move briskly up. "You
-take the right and I'll take the left. Don't fire over the dog," adds
-the portly sportsman, with an admonishing frown. We go more slowly,
-and suddenly, with a "whir," up get two chickens and go sailing off.
-Bang! bang! The Doctor bags his and I miss mine. We load and advance,
-when up comes the remainder of the covey, and the bewildering plenty
-of the flying objects rattles me. The Doctor shoots well, and indeed
-prairie-chickens are not difficult, but I am discouraged. As the great
-sportsman Mr. Soapy Sponge used to say, "I'm a good shooter, but a bad
-hitter." It was in this distressful time that I remembered the words
-of the old hunter who had charge of my early education in .45
-calibres, which ran, "Take yer time, sonny, and always see your hind
-sight," and by dint of doing this I soon improved to a satisfactory
-extent. The walking over the stubble is good exercise, and it becomes
-fascinating to watch the well-trained Llewellyn setters "make game,"
-or stand pointing with their tails wagging violently in the nervous
-thrill of their excitement, then the shooting, and the marking down of
-the birds who escape the fire, that we may go to them for another
-"flush." With care and patience one can bag at last the whole covey.
-
-At noon we met the other wagons in a green swale, and had lunch, and,
-seated in a row under the shadow side of a straw stack, we plucked
-chickens, while the phlebotomist did the necessary surgery to prepare
-them for the cook. At three o'clock the soldier, a couple of
-residents, and myself started together for the evening shooting. We
-banged away at a thousand-yards range at some teal on a big marsh, but
-later gave it up, and confined ourselves to chicken. In the midst of a
-covey and a lot of banging I heard the Captain uttering distressful
-cries. His gun was leaning on a wheat "shock," and he was clawing
-himself wildly. "Come, help me--I am being eaten alive." Sure enough
-he was, for in Dakota there is a little insect which is like a winged
-ant, and they go in swarms, and their bite is sharp and painful. I
-attempted his rescue, and was attacked in turn, so that we ended by a
-precipitous retreat, leaving the covey of chickens and their
-protectors, the ants, on the field.
-
-[Illustration: "DON'T SHOOT!"]
-
-We next pushed a covey of grouse into some standing oats, and were
-tempted to go in a short way, but some farmers who were threshing on
-the neighboring hill blew the engine whistle and made a "sortie,"
-whereat we bolted. At a slough which we were tramping through to kick
-up some birds "marked down," one suddenly got up under our feet and
-flew directly over the Captain, who yelled "Don't shoot!" as he
-dropped to the ground. It was a well--considered thing to do, since a
-flying bird looks bigger than a man to an excited and enthusiastic
-sportsman. We walked along through the stubble until the red sunset no
-longer gave sufficient light, and then got into our wagon to do the
-fourteen miles to our car and supper. Late at night we reached our
-car, and from it could hear "the sound of revelry." The cook did big
-Chicago beefsteaks by the half-dozen, for an all day's tramp is a
-sauce which tells.
-
-After some days at this place we were hauled up to Devil's Lake, on
-the Great Northern road, which locality is without doubt the best for
-duck-shooting in Dakota. We were driven some sixteen miles to a spur
-of the lake, where we found a settler. There were hundreds of teal in
-the water back of his cabin, and as we took position well up the wind
-and fired, they got up in clouds, and we had five minutes of shooting
-which was gluttony. We gave the "bag" to the old settler, and the
-Doctor admonished him to "fry them," which I have no doubt he did.
-
-It was six miles to a pond said to be the best evening shooting about
-there, and we drove over. There we met our other two teams and another
-party of sportsmen. The shallow water was long and deeply fringed with
-rank marsh grass. Having no wading-boots can make no difference to a
-sportsman whose soul is great, so I floundered in and got comfortably
-wet. After shooting two or three mud-hens, under the impression that
-they were ducks, the Doctor came along, and with a pained expression
-he carefully explained what became of people who did not know a teal
-from a mud-hen, and said further that he would let it pass this time.
-As the sun sank, the flight of ducks began, and from the far corners
-of the marsh I saw puffs of smoke and heard the dull slump of a
-report.
-
-"Mark--left," came a voice from where the young Harvard man with the
-peach complexion and the cream hair had ensconced himself in the
-grass, and, sure enough, a flight was coming towards my lair. I waited
-until it was nearly over, when I rose up and missed two fine shots,
-while the Harvard man scored. The birds fell well out in the pond, and
-he waded out to retrieve them.
-
-As I stood there the soft ooze of the marsh gradually swallowed me,
-and when in answer to the warning "mark" of my fellows I squatted down
-in the black water to my middle, and only held my gun and cartridges
-up, I began to realize that when a teal-duck is coming down wind you
-have got to aim somewhere into the space ahead of it, hoping to make a
-connection between your load of shot and the bird. This I did, and
-after a time got my first birds. The air was now full of flying
-birds--mallards, spoon-bills, pintails, red-heads, butter-balls,
-gadwalls, widgeon, and canvas-backs--and the shooting was fast and
-furious. It was a perfect revelry of slaughter. "Mark--mark."
-Bang--bang. "What's the matter of that shot?" The sun has set, and no
-longer bathes the landscape in its golden light, and yet I sit in the
-water and mud and indulge this pleasurable taste for gore, wondering
-why it is so ecstatic, or if my companions will not give over shooting
-presently. There is little probability of that, however. Only darkness
-can end the miseries of the poor little teal coming home to their
-marsh, and yet with all my sentimental emotions of sympathy I deplore
-a miss. If slough-shooting has a drawback, it is its lack of
-action--it is a calm, deliberate shedding of blood, and a wounding of
-many birds, who die in the marshes, or become easy prey for the hawks,
-and it's as cold-blooded as sitting in water can make it.
-
-[Illustration: "MARK--LEFT"]
-
-[Illustration: "MARK!"]
-
-We give over at last, and the fortunates change their wet clothes,
-while those who have no change sit on the seat knee-deep in dead birds
-and shiver while we rattle homeward. Our driver gets himself lost, and
-we bring up against a wire fence. Very late at night we struck the
-railroad, and counted telegraph poles and travelled east until the
-lights of the town twinkled through the gloom. Once in the car, we
-find the creature comfort which reconciles one to life, and we vote
-the day a red-letter one. The goose-shooting came later than our
-visit, but the people tell marvellous tales of their numbers. They
-employ special guns in their pursuit, which are No. 4 gauge,
-single-barrelled, and very long. They throw buckshot point-blank two
-hundred yards, and are, indeed, curious-looking arms. The
-chicken-shooting is not laborious, since one rides in a wagon, and a
-one-lunged, wooden-legged man is as good as a four-mile athlete at it.
-He must know setter-dogs, who are nearly as complicated as women in
-their temper and ways; he must have a nose for cover, and he can be
-taught to shoot; he can keep statistics if he desires, but his first
-few experiences behind the dogs will not tempt him to do that unless
-his modesty is highly developed. If he become a shot-gun enthusiast he
-will discover a most surprising number of fellows--doctors, lawyers,
-butchers, farmers, and Indians not taxed--all willing to go with him
-or to be interested in his tales.
-
-[Illustration: TROOPING HOMEWARD IN THE AFTER-GLOW]
-
-The car was to be attached to an express train bound west that night,
-to my intense satisfaction, and I crawled into the upper berth to
-dream of bad-lands elk, soldiers, cowboys, and only in the haze of
-fleeting consciousness could I distinguish a voice--
-
-"Remington, I hope you are not going to fall out of that upper berth
-again to-night."
-
-
-
-
-POLICING THE YELLOWSTONE
-
-
-"Captain Anderson--he's the superintendent, you know--started to-day
-for the south of the Park; some trouble, I believe, down there. A
-scout thought the buffalo were being disturbed," said Lieutenant
-Lindsley to me at the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel, near the entrance to
-the Park.
-
-"That's unfortunate. Can I overtake him?"
-
-"It's nearly four o'clock, but as I am going down to our camp at the
-Lower Geyser Basin, we can start now, and by travelling at night we
-can catch him before he pulls out in the morning, I think," said the
-yellow-leg.
-
-So putting our belongings into a double surry, we started hot-foot
-through the Wonderland, leaving a band of Dakota chicken-shooters
-standing on the steps waving their adieux. It verified all my
-predictions--men who shoot chickens belong in a stage-coach--they are
-a "scrubby wagon outfit," as the cowboys say.
-
-Posed on the trestled road, I looked back at the Golden Gate Pass. It
-is one of those marvellous vistas of mountain scenery utterly beyond
-the pen or brush of any man. Paint cannot touch it, and words are
-wasted. War, storms at sea, and mountain scenery are bigger than any
-expression little man has ever developed. Mr. Thomas Moran made a
-famous stagger at this pass in his painting; and great as is the
-painting, when I contemplated the pass itself I marvelled at the
-courage of the man who dared the deed. But as the stages of the Park
-Company run over this road, every tourist sees its grandeur, and
-bangs away with his kodak.
-
-As we pulled up in front of the tents of the rest camp, one of those
-mountain thunder-storms set in, and it was as though the New York fire
-department had concentrated its nozzles on the earth. The place was
-presided over by a classic Irishman by the name of Larry, who speedily
-got a roaring-hot beefsteak and some coffee on the table, and then
-busied himself conducting growing pools of rain-water out of the tent.
-Larry is justly famous on the road for his _bonhomie_ and Celtic wit.
-
-At an early hour we arose and departed--the pale moon shining through
-the mist of the valley, while around us rose the ghostly pines. We
-cowered under our great-coats, chilled through, and saddened at
-remembrances of the warm blankets which we had been compelled to roll
-out of at this unseemly hour. At 7.30 we broke into one of those
-beautiful natural parks, the Lower Geyser Basin, with the sun shining
-on the river and the grass, and spotting the row of tents belonging to
-D Troop, Sixth United States Cavalry. Captain Scott met us at the
-door, a bluff old trooper in field rig and a welcoming smile. After
-breakfast a soldier brought up Pat Rooney. Pat was a horse from the
-ground up; he came from Missouri, but he was a true Irishman
-nevertheless, as one could tell from his ragged hips, long drooping
-quarters, and a liberal show of white in his eye, which seemed to say
-to me, "Aisy, now, and I'm a dray-horse; but spare the brad, or I'll
-put ye on yer back in the bloomin' dust, I will." The saddle was put
-on, and I waited, until presently along came the superintendent, with
-his scout Burgess, three soldiers, and nine pack-mules with their
-creaking _aparejos_, and their general air of malicious mischief.
-
-Pointing to a range of formidable-looking hills, the captain said,
-"We will pull in about there," and we mounted and trotted off down the
-road. What a man really needs when he does the back stretches of the
-Yellowstone Park is a boat and a balloon, but cavalrymen ride horses
-in deference to traditions. My mount, Pat, was as big as a stable
-door, and as light as a puff-ball on his pins. As Mr. Buckram said,
-"The 'eight of a 'oss as nothing to do with 'is size," but Patrick was
-a horse a man needed two legs for. Besides, he had a mouth like a
-bull, as does every other animal that wears that impossible bit which
-Uncle Sam gives his cavalry. We got along swimmingly, and, indeed, I
-feel considerable gratitude to Pat for the two or three thousand times
-he saved my life on the trip by his agility and sureness of foot.
-
-[Illustration: BURGESS, NEARLY FORTY-FIVE YEARS A SCOUT]
-
-Burgess, the scout, was a fine little piece of a man, who had served
-the government with credit for over thirty years. He had breasted the
-high divide in a dozen places, had Apache bullets whistle around and
-through him, and withal was modest about it. He was a quiet person,
-with his instinct of locality as well developed as an Indian's, and
-contented with life, since he only wanted one thing--a war. I think he
-travelled by scent, since it would have been simple enough to have
-gone over easier places; but Burgess despised ease, and where the
-fallen timber was thickest and the slopes 60°, there you would find
-Burgess and his tight little pony picking along.
-
-Both Captains Anderson and Scott have a pronounced weakness for
-geysers, and were always stopping at every little steam-jet to examine
-it. I suppose they feel a personal responsibility in having them go
-regularly; one can almost imagine a telegram to "turn on more steam."
-They rode recklessly over the geyser formation, to my discomfort,
-because it is very thin and hazardous, and to break through is to be
-boiled. One instinctively objects to that form of cooking. The most
-gorgeous colors are observed in this geyser formation; in fact, I have
-never seen nature so generous in this respect elsewhere. I wondered
-that the pack-mules did not walk into the sissing holes, but I suspect
-a mule is a bit of a geologist in his way, and as most of them have
-been in the government service for thirty or forty years, they have
-learned how to conserve their well-being. There is a tradition that
-one was considerably overdone once in a geyser-hole, so they may have
-taken warning. Who can understand a mule? The packer leads the old
-bell-mare off to a feeding-ground, and the whole bunch of mules go
-racing after her, and chains wouldn't hold them. The old bell-mare
-takes across a nasty chasm or a dirty slough-hole, and as the tinkle
-of the little cow-bell is losing itself in the timber beyond, one
-after another they put their ears forward and follow on.
-
-[Illustration: THE BELL-MARE OVER A BAD PLACE]
-
-We passed up a cleft in the hills, and were swallowed up in the pine
-and cedar forest. Presently the cleft ended, and nothing but good
-honest climbing was in front. There began my first experience in
-riding over the fallen timber, which obstructs all the northwestern
-Rocky Mountains. Once up in British Columbia I did it, but had trails,
-and I childishly imagined that there must also be trails wherever men
-wanted to go. Crisscross and all about lay the great peeled logs, and
-travel was slow, toilsome, and with anything but horses trained to it
-would have been impossible.
-
-A good horse or mule, once accustomed, makes little of it, but on the
-steep down grades the situation is complicated by fallen logs, which
-it is necessary to "bucket" over, and then stop dead on an incline of
-50°, with a couple of miles of tumble if he fails. The timber grew
-thicker, and when Burgess would get us in a hopeless sort of place,
-Captain A. would sing out to Captain S., "Burgess is on the trail
-now"; and when it was fairly good going, "Now he is off." But nothing
-could rattle Mr. Burgess, and he continued calmly on his journey, the
-destination of which, it seemed, could be nothing short of the moon.
-Finally we found ourselves seemingly so inextricably tangled up that
-even Burgess had to scratch his head. One mule was hung up hopelessly,
-while the rest crowded around us into the _chevaux-de-frise_ of logs,
-and merrily wound through the labyrinth the old Sixth Cavalry "gag,"
-"Here's where we trot."
-
-To complete the effect of this passage it began to rain, and shortly
-to pelt us with hailstones, so we stopped under some trees to let it
-pass, and two people who should know better dismounted and got their
-saddles wet, while another, more wise in his generation, sat tight,
-and was rewarded later for his display of intelligence. By-and-by, wet
-and tired of fallen timber, we came into the Little Fire-hole Basin,
-and found buffalo signs in abundance. We were in great hopes of seeing
-some of these animals, but I may as well add that only one was seen on
-the trip, though there was fresh spoor, and they were undoubtedly
-about. We found no pony tracks either, which was more to the soldiers'
-liking, since they are intrusted with the protection of the Park
-against poachers.
-
-In this way squads are sent over the Park, and instructed not to
-follow the regular trails, but to go to the most unfrequented places,
-so that they may at any time happen on a malicious person, and perhaps
-be able to do as one scout did--photograph the miscreant with his own
-camera.
-
-After a good day's march we made camp by a little lake, and picketed
-our horses, while the mules ran loose around the bell-mare. Our
-appetites had been sharpened by a nine hours' fast, when a soldier
-called us to the "commissaries" which were spread out on a pack
-canvas. It was the usual military "grub," and no hungry man can find
-fault with that.
-
-"Any man who can't eat bacon can't fight," as Captain Scott said; so
-if any reader wants to be a soldier he must have a mania for bacon, it
-seems. "This is the stuff that makes soldiers brave," he added, as the
-coffee-pot came around, and we fell to, and left a dreary waste of
-empty tins for the cook to pick up. We lighted our pipes after the
-banquet on the grass, and walked down to the shore of the beautiful
-pond, which seemed so strangely situated up there on the very crest of
-the continental divide. There are only three seasons in these
-altitudes, which the boys divide into July, August, and Winter, and
-the nights are always chilly. An inch or two of snow may fall even in
-mid-summer. In winter the snow covers the ground to a great depth, as
-we can tell by the trees. Nothing grows but rather stunted fir and
-pine and a little grass of the most hardy variety. The rounds of the
-Park are then made by mounting the cavalry on the _ski_, or Norwegian
-snow-shoe, and with its aid men travel the desolate snow-clad
-wilderness from one "shack" to another. Small squads of three or four
-men are quartered in these remote recesses of the savage mountains,
-and remain for eight months on a stretch. The camps are provisioned
-for the arctic siege, and what is stranger yet is that soldiers rather
-like it, and freely apply for this detached service. There is little
-of the "pomp and vanity" in this soldiering, and it shows good spirit
-on the part of the enlisted men. They are dressed in fur caps,
-California blanket coats, leggings, and moccasins--a strange uniform
-for a cavalryman, and also quite a commentary on what are commonly
-called the vicissitudes of the service.
-
-[Illustration: DOWN THE MOUNTAIN]
-
-[Illustration: GETTING GRUB]
-
-In the early morning our tent was pulled down, and our bedding packed
-off almost before we had disentangled ourselves from its sheltering
-folds. The well-trained troopers went about their task of breaking
-camp with method and address. Burgess and a young soldier pulled a
-reluctant strawberry-blond mule out of the line of pack-animals, and
-throwing a blind over his face, proceeded to lay the blanket and
-adjust the _aparejo_. With a heave the _cincha_ is hauled tight, and
-the load laid on, while the expert throws the "diamond hitch," and the
-mule and pack are integral parts. This packing of nine mules was
-accomplished with great rapidity, and laying our saddles carefully, we
-mounted and followed the scouts off down the trail in single file on a
-toilsome march which would probably not end until three or four
-o'clock in the afternoon. We wound around the spurs of hills, and then
-across a marsh, with its yielding treacherous bottom, where the horses
-floundered, and one mule went down and made the mud and water fly in
-his struggles, while my apprehensions rose to fever-pitch as I
-recognized my grip-sack on his load, and not likely to be benefited by
-the operation. At the head-waters of these rivers--and it may be said
-that this little purling brook is really the source of the Missouri
-itself, although not so described--there is abundance of soggy marsh,
-which makes travel extremely difficult. In one place Captain
-Anderson's horse went belly-deep on a concealed quag made by a stream
-coming out of the side of the hill, and rolling back, fell heavily on
-the captain, and for a time it was rather a question whether the horse
-would get out or not; but by dint of exertion he regained firm ground.
-When a big strong horse gets into a slough the dorsal action is
-terrific, and it is often necessary to dismount quickly to aid him
-out. We crossed the great divide of the continent at a place where the
-slope was astonishingly steep and the fallen timber thickly strewn. It
-was as thoroughly experimental travelling as I have ever seen,
-unless possibly over a lava-rock formation which I essayed last winter
-on the western slope of the Sierra Madre, in Chihuahua; and yet there
-is a fascination about being balanced on those balloonlike heights,
-where a misstep means the end of horse and rider. I was glad enough,
-though, when we struck the parklike levels of the Pitchstone plateau
-as the scene of our further progression. If one has never travelled
-horseback over the Rocky Mountains there is a new and distinct
-sensation before him quite as vigorous as his first six-barred gate,
-or his first yacht-race with the quarter-rail awash.
-
-[Illustration: WORKING UP THE DIVIDE]
-
-All through the Park were seen hundreds of wild-geese, so tame that
-they would hardly fly from us. It was a great temptation to shoot, but
-the doughty captain said he would run me off the reservation at a
-turkey-trot if I did shoot, and since I believed him I could restrain
-myself. The streams and marshes were full of beaver-dams, and the
-little mud-and-stick houses rose from the pools, while here and there
-we saw the purl of the quiet water as they glided about. This part is
-exactly as primitive as when the lonely trapper Coulter made his
-famous journey through it, and one cannot but wonder what must have
-been his astonishment at the unnatural steaming and boiling of the
-geysers, which made the Park known from his descriptions as "Coulter's
-Hell."
-
-From the breast of the mountains overlooking the great Shoshonee Lake
-there opened up the most tremendous sight as the waters stretched away
-in their blue placidity to the timbered hills. The way down to the
-shores was the steepest place I have ever seen horses and mules
-attempt. In one place, where the two steep sides of the cañon dipped
-together, it was cut by a nasty seam some six feet deep, which we had
-to "bucket over" and maintain a footing on the other side. After
-finding myself safely over, I watched the shower of pack-mules come
-sliding down and take the jump. One mule was so far overbalanced that
-for a moment I thought he would lose his centre of gravity, which had
-been in his front feet, but he sprang across to the opposite slope and
-was safe. Horses trained to this work do marvels, and old Pat was a
-"topper" at the business. I gave him his head, and he justified my
-trust by negotiating all the details without a miss. On a sandy
-"siding" he spread his feet and slid with an avalanche of detached
-hill-side. Old Pat's ears stuck out in front in an anxious way, as if
-to say, "If we hit anything solid, I'll stop"; while from behind came
-the cheery voice of Captain Scott, "Here's where we trot."
-
-On the shores of the Shoshonee we camped, and walked over to the
-famous Union Geysers, which began to boil and sputter, apparently for
-our especial benefit. In a few minutes two jets of boiling water shot
-a hundred feet in air, and came down in rain on the other side, while
-a rainbow formed across it. The roar of the great geysers was
-awe-inspiring; it was like the exhaust of a thousand locomotives, and
-Mr. Burgess nudged me and remarked, "Hell's right under here."
-
-Near the geysers, hidden away in a depression, we found a pool of
-water of a beautiful and curious green, while not twenty feet from it
-was one of a sulphur yellow. There was a big elk track in the soft mud
-leading into it, but no counter track coming out. There had been a
-woodland tragedy there.
-
-The utility of a geyser-hole is not its least attraction to a
-traveller who has a day's accumulation of dust and sweat on him. I
-found one near the camp which ran into a little mountain stream, and
-made a tepid bath, of which I availed myself, and also got a cup of
-hot water, by the aid of which I "policed my face," as the soldiers
-call shaving.
-
-[Illustration: BURGESS FINDING A FORD]
-
-The next day we encountered one of those great spongy mountain
-meadows, which we were forced to skirt on the rocky timber-strewn
-hill-sides, until finally we ventured into it. We curved and zigzagged
-through its treacherous mazes, fording and recrossing the stream in
-search of solid ground. Burgess's little gray pony put his foot
-forward in a gingerly way, and when satisfied, plunged in and
-floundered through. The pony had a positive genius for morasses. We
-followed him into the mud, or plunged off the steep sides into the
-roaring river, and, to my intense satisfaction, at last struck a good
-pony trail. "Now Burgess is off the trail!" we cried, whereat the
-modest little scout grinned cheerfully. From here on it was "fair and
-easy," until we came to the regular stage-road, to travel on which it
-seemed to us a luxury.
-
-This expedition is typical of the manner of policing the Park, and it
-is generally monotonous, toilsome, and uneventful work; and the
-usefulness of such a _chevau-chée_ is that it leaves the track of the
-cavalry horse-shoe in the most remote parts of the preserve, where the
-poacher or interloper can see it, and become apprehensive in
-consequence of the dangers which attend his operations. That an old
-trapper might work quietly there for a long time I do not doubt, if he
-only visited his line of traps in the early morning or late evening
-and was careful of his trail, but such damage as he could do would be
-trivial. Two regiments could not entirely prevent poaching in the
-mountain wastes of the great reservation, but two troops are
-successful enough at the task. It is a great game-preserve and
-breeding-ground, and, if not disturbed, must always give an overflow
-into Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho, which will make big game shooting
-there for years to come. The unreasoning antipathy or malicious
-disregard of the American pioneer for game-laws and game-preservation
-is somewhat excusable, but the lines of the pioneer are now cast in
-new places, and his days of lawless _abandon_ are done. The regulation
-for the punishment of Park offenders is inadequate, and should be made
-more severe. The Park is also full of beasts of prey, the bear being
-very numerous. A fine grizzly was trapped by some of the
-superintendent's men and shipped to the Smithsonian Institution while
-I was there. Near the Fountain Hotel one evening a young army surgeon
-and myself walked up to within one hundred and fifty yards of a big
-grizzly, who was not disposed to run off. Being unarmed, we concluded
-that our point of view was close enough, and as the bear seemed to
-feel the same way about it, we parted.
-
-Americans have a national treasure in the Yellowstone Park, and they
-should guard it jealously. Nature has made her wildest patterns here,
-has brought the boiling waters from her greatest depths to the peaks
-which bear eternal snow, and set her masterpiece with pools like
-jewels. Let us respect her moods, and let the beasts she nurtures in
-her bosom live, and when the man from Oshkosh writes his name with a
-blue pencil on her sacred face, let him spend six months where the
-scenery is circumscribed and entirely artificial.
-
-
-
-
-A MODEL SQUADRON
-
-
-I am not quite sure that I should not say "The Model Colonel," since
-every one knows men and horses are much alike when they have first
-passed under the eye of the recruiting officer and the remount board,
-and every one knows that colonels are very unlike, so that a model
-squadron or a model troop is certain to owe its superiority to its
-commander; but as we are observing the product in this instance, let
-the title stand as above stated.
-
-The model squadron aforesaid is quartered across the Potomac from
-Washington in Fort Meyer, which is the only purely cavalry post in the
-country. Everywhere else the troops are mixed, and the commandant may
-be of any arm of the service. Here they are all cavalry, with cavalry
-officers and cavalry ideas, and are not hindered by dismounted
-theories, or pick-and-shovel work, or any of the hundreds of things
-which hamper equally good "yellow legs" in other posts. There are many
-passable misdemeanors in this post, but only one crime, and that is
-bad riding. There is little dismounted work, and any soldier can have
-his horse out on a pass, so long as he does not abuse the privilege;
-and when he does, it's plenty of walking falls to his lot.
-
-There is a large brick riding-hall of approved pattern, which enables
-the men to do their work in all weathers. The four troops now
-quartered there are from the First, Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth
-regiments, which creates a good-natured rivalry, very conducive to
-thorough work. It is the opinion of General Henry that one old troop
-should always be left at this post as a pace-setter for the newly
-transferred ones, which seems reasonable.
-
-[Illustration: GENERAL GUY V. HENRY, SEVENTH UNITED STATES CAVALRY]
-
-Now to tell what the preparatory discipline is to the magnificent
-riding which can be seen any morning by spectators who are "game for a
-journey" to the fort by ten o'clock, I must say that General Guy V.
-Henry is a flaming fire of cavalry enthusiasm. He has one idea--a
-great broad expanse of principle--ever so simple in itself, but it is
-basic, and nothing can become so complicated that he cannot revert to
-his simple idea and by it regulate the whole. It is the individual
-training of the horse and rider. One bad rider or one unbroken horse
-can disarrange the whole troop movement, and "woe to him" who is not
-up to concert pitch! "Who is the scoundrel, the lummux, humph?" and
-the colonel, who is a brevet-brigadier-general, strides up and down,
-and fire comes from his nostrils. "Prefer charges against him,
-captain!" and the worst befalls. The unfortunate trooper has committed
-the highest crime which the commandant of Fort Meyer knows--he cannot
-ride.
-
-A soldier becomes a rider by being bucketed about on a bareback horse,
-or he dies. The process is simple, the tanbark soft, and none have
-died up to date, but all have attained the other alternative. This is
-unimportant; but the horse--it is to his education that the oceans of
-patience and the mountains of intelligence are brought to bear. It is
-all in the books if any one cares to go into it. It is the gathering
-of the horse; it is the legs carried to the rear of the girths; it is
-the perfect hand and the instant compliance of the horse with the
-signs as indicated by the rider; it is the backing, the passaging, the
-leading with either foot, and the pivoting on the front legs; it is
-the throwing of horses, the acquisition of gaits, and the nice
-bitting; it is one hundred little struggles with the brute until he
-comes to understand and to know that he must do his duty. It all looks
-beautifully simple, but in practice we know that while it is not
-difficult to teach a horse, it is quite another matter to unteach him,
-so in these horses at least no mistakes have been made. After all
-this, one fine sunny Friday morning the people drove out from
-Washington in their traps and filed into the galleries and sat
-down--fair women and brave men; of the former we are sure, and of the
-latter we trust. The colonel blew a whistle--ye gods, what a sacrilege
-against all the traditions of this dear old United States army!--and
-in rode Captain Bomus's troop of the First Plungers, which I cannot
-but love, since I am an honorary member of their officers' mess, and
-fondly remember the fellows who are now sniffing alkali dust down in
-Arizona. They were riding with blankets and surcingles, and did their
-part of a drill, the sequence of which I have forgotten, since it was
-divided with the three other troops--Captain Bell's, of the Seventh,
-Captain Hughes's, of the Ninth, and Captain Fountain's, of the Eighth.
-I felt a strong personal interest in some of these men, for memory
-took me back to a night's ride in Dakota with a patrol of the Ninth,
-when they were all wrapped in buffalo-skin overcoats, with white frost
-on their lapels; the horses' noses wore icicles, and the dry snow
-creaked under the tread of the hoofs as we rode over the starlit plain
-and through the black shadows of the _coulees_. I had pounded along
-also through the dust in the wake of this troop of the Eighth when it
-wasn't so cold, but was equally uncomfortable.
-
-[Illustration: RIDING SITTING ON LEGS]
-
-[Illustration: OVER THE HURDLE BACK TO BACK]
-
-The sharp commands of the captain soon put the troop in motion, and
-they trotted along with a cadenced tread, every man a part of his
-horse; they broke into fours and wheeled to the right about, then into
-line and wound themselves up in the "spiral," and unwound again, and
-soon brought order out of a mess, and the regular canter was ever the
-same. Then low hurdles were strung across the hall, and by column of
-fours the troop went over, never breaking the formation; to the rear
-they turned and back again; finally they took the obstacle in line,
-and every horse rose as though impelled by the same mechanism. As if
-this was not enough, every second man was dismounted and put on double
-with a comrade, not with his breast to his comrade's back, but back to
-back, and then in line the odd cavalcade charged the hurdles, and took
-them every one. It was not an individual bucketing of one horse after
-another, but all in line and all together. After this what could there
-be more to test the "glue" in these troopers' seats? There was more,
-however, and in this wise: The saddles were put on, but without any
-girths, and all the movements were gone through with again, ending up
-with a charge down the hall, and bringing up against the wall of the
-spectators' stand at a sharp "halt," which would have unseated a
-monkey from a trick-mule.
-
-The horses were all thrown by pulling their heads about, and one
-cavalryman amused himself by jumping over his prostrate mount. They
-rode "at will," and stood upon their knees on their horses' backs. One
-big animal resented carrying double, and did something which in Texas
-would be called "pitching," but it was scarcely a genuine sample,
-since the grinning soldiers made little of it.
-
-The troop of the Ninth executed a "left backward turn" with beautiful
-precision, and this difficult undertaking will serve to give one an
-idea of the training of the mounts.
-
-Gymnastics of all sorts were indulged in, even to the extent of
-turning summersaults over four horses from a spring-board. A citizen
-near me, whose mind had probably wandered back to Barnum and Bailey,
-said:
-
-[Illustration: THROWING A HORSE]
-
-"But what's this got to do with soldiers; is it not highly flavored
-with circus?"
-
-I could offer no excuse except the tradition that cavalrymen are
-supposed to ride well. All the men were young and in first-rate
-physical fix, and seemed to enjoy the thing--all except one old first
-sergeant, who had been time-expired these half-dozen times, whose skin
-was so full of bullet-holes that it wouldn't hold blood, and who had
-entered this new régime with many protests:
-
-"O'me nau circus ape; I can't be leppin' around afther the likes av
-thim!" whereat the powers arranged it so that the old veteran got a
-job looking after plug tobacco, tomato-cans, tinned beef, and other
-"commissaries," upon which he viewed the situation more cheerfully.
-
-The drill was tremendously entertaining to the ladies and gentlemen in
-the gallery, and they clapped their hands and went bustling into their
-traps and off down the road to the general's house, where Madam the
-General gave a breakfast, and the women no doubt asked the second
-lieutenants deliciously foolish questions about their art. The
-gentlemen, some of whom are Congressmen and other exalted governmental
-functionaries, felt proud of the cavalry, and went home with a
-determination to combat any one hostile to cavalry legislation, if a
-bold front and firm purpose could stay the desecrating hand.
-
-But all this work is primary and elementary. The second degree is
-administered in field-work, comprising experimental marches, and those
-who know General Henry by reputation will not forget his hundred-mile
-march with the Ninth Cavalry at Pine Ridge, and those who know him
-personally will become acquainted with his theory that a cavalry
-command in good condition, with proper feeds, should make fifty miles
-a day, with a maximum on the road of ten hours a day, moving at the
-rate of five miles an hour in cavalry halts, the gaits being walk,
-trot, and leading, with a day's rest each week, to be continued
-indefinitely. And knowing all this, they will be sure that the model
-squadron wears out a good many horseshoes in a season.
-
-[Illustration: OVER THE HURDLES IN LINE]
-
-The "Cossack outposts" are another feature much insisted on, and,
-strange to say, this arrangement was first invented in America,
-despite its name (see Wagner's _Outposts_), and is an improvement on
-picket posts in a ratio of 240 to 324. Another movement is the "form
-square," which is an adaptation of the "Indian circle," it being a
-movement from a centre to a circle, and useful when escorting wagons
-or when surprised. The non-commissioned officers are sent on
-reconnoissance, on patrols, and are required to make maps, which are
-submitted to an inspector.
-
-Another scheme which I have never seen was the linking of a troop of
-horses, formed in a circle, to one another, by hooking the regular
-cavalry links from one horse's bridle to the next one's halter ring,
-and then leaving them in charge of one man. I also saw the new cavalry
-bit for the first time. It is commended by all who use it, and I saw
-no horses boring on it or in the least uppish about going against it,
-and I never remember a horse who would not do either the one or the
-other to the old trap which was formerly worn.
-
-Two other curious movements indulged in by this squadron are the
-firing over horses while they are lying down; and, riding double--the
-man faced to the rear draws his pistol, and while moving to the rear
-keeps shooting. It might be useful during a slow retreat, and could be
-done with the carbine equally well.
-
-This whole enterprise at Fort Meyer is vastly encouraging. As one
-officer said, "We take no credit for it, since others could do the
-same if they had riding-halls and cavalry officers in command." But
-there are cavalry officers and there are cavalry officers, and it is
-not every day one is born. For thirty-five years has the old general
-sat in a McClellan saddle, and the tremendous enthusiasm of newly
-joined "sub" still remains. The very thought of a wagon arouses his
-indignation, and every day the mules are brought into the riding-hall,
-and the men initiated into the intricacies of the "diamond hitch." It
-takes a past-master to pack a mule in twenty-two seconds, however, and
-I saw that feat accomplished in General Henry's command.
-
-It is a grand thing for the young men to have this practical training
-by these old veterans of the civil war and the alkali plains before
-they go on the retired list. It is well for a young man to know enough
-not to unsaddle a sweating troop of horses in a broiling sun, and to
-learn that it makes sore backs; and it is quite important if men can
-cook rations, and not go up to the sky-line of a hill when scouting,
-and rival the statue of "Liberty Enlightening the World," when it is
-clearly their business to throw what light they have behind them and
-not before. It takes experience to put the sole of a boot back on the
-upper, when it has fetched loose, with four horseshoe nails, and it is
-not every man that knows that the place to intrench is on the edge of
-a cut bank, near water, if one expects ever to get out of a round-up.
-No one can figure that a recruit will know how many people passed over
-the road before him, or which way they were going, and it takes a long
-head and good nerves not to pull a trigger unless the sight is dark on
-the object when the fight may last all day and probably all night; but
-all these things are not taught in school. If a horse under him is
-weakening on a long march in an enemy's country, it is an ignorant
-fool who uses a spur instead of good sense. That's the time to unload
-a few dollars' worth of government property. But who can understand
-the value of a rubber blanket, fifty rounds of ammunition, and a
-pocket full of grub, with a feed of grain in the bag, but one who has
-tried it? There are lots of dead soldiers who would have learned these
-lessons if they had been older. In my opinion, the tremendous box of
-tricks which Uncle Sam's horses are supposed to carry has put more men
-afoot than will ever be admitted; but at least the old boot has gone,
-though there is yet room for an intelligent hand with a jack-plane to
-shave off that cavalry pack. I am inclined to take what every one
-tells me is a "cranky" view on this subject, but let it stand until
-the next hard campaign, and I hope to be able to be more lucid. Horses
-are horses, and horses are not made of wood, iron, or by rule of
-thumb.
-
-To revert to Fort Meyer: it is altogether refreshing; it is worth any
-one's while to go there and see four troops of cavalry which cannot be
-beaten, and it is positively exhilarating to meet their creator, a
-thoroughly typical United States cavalry officer, and I'm bound to say
-his successor in command has had a hard pace set for him.
-
-
-
-
-THE AFFAIR OF THE --TH OF JULY
-
-
-The following is a letter from a young military aide-de-camp who was
-in position to see a great deal of the great riots in Chicago.
-
-_Chicago, July -- 18--_
-
-MY DEAR FRIEND,--In your last you ask me to give you my experiences in
-the affair of the other day here in Chicago, and although I played but
-a small part, yet I do not mind adding my little quota to the volumes
-of matter already written on the subject. To begin with, we at
-headquarters had known for sometime that the turbulent elements were
-organizing an opposition to Federal authority, and indeed after the
-demoralization of the police power in the affairs of Monday and
-Tuesday, the general issued his proclamation putting the city under
-martial law. The people were ordered to keep within their own doors,
-under penalty of shooting or drum-head court-martial, after seven
-o'clock in the evening, and it was also explained that any domicile
-harboring an active enemy was to be reduced by the sharpest means at
-command. The reinforcements arrived on Tuesday, and militia and police
-were embodied in our command. I had been out on a patrol with a troop
-of the Third Cavalry late in the afternoon, and I reported to the
-general that there was an ominous lull in the city, and that I feared
-the enemy were to take some active measures. We had tried,
-unsuccessfully, to locate the rifles looted from the gun-stores, and
-also to find anything like a rendezvous of insurgents. The better
-class of people had nearly all left the city, and what remained were
-guarding their business property. Chicago streets, usually so teeming
-with human life, were almost deserted. No smoke came from the big
-chimneys, and the shops were shuttered and boarded up. A great many
-honest people of small means were much put to it to obtain food, and I
-cannot but tell you how I saw some of the troopers divide their
-rations with the citizens. At the time we had no intimation of the
-serious turn affairs would take on, but the remark of the general's,
-that "every soldier will die right in his tracks," had gone the rounds
-of the camps, and nerved the men to face the music. I was eating my
-dinner in the Chicago Club when I thought I heard rifle-shots. This
-was about nine o'clock, and the moon was shining on the Lake Front,
-although the side streets were dark, since the lights were out all
-over the city. In a minute more a squad of cavalry swept up the street
-at full gallop. They were heading for the general's tent, and I
-grabbed my cap and ran down-stairs three steps at a time. As I made my
-way along Michigan Avenue I could hear carbine-shots over in the city,
-and shortly all the bugles giving "The Assembly."
-
-I got to headquarters, and met old Hewer of the Seventh, and it was
-his troops which had come in; he told me they were then standing off a
-mob, which was returning the fire down in the city.
-
-I got an order from the general to deliver to the lower section of the
-camp, and getting on my "wheel" (which is better for this work than a
-horse), I pulled out. I delivered my order to Colonel Loftowne, and
-then waited to observe things, as I was to report back to
-headquarters. Rawball's battery went into "action front," two
-sections to a street. They were loaded, and then down on the next
-corner came the order through the still night to fire. A terrific
-flash illuminated the black square, and then with a howl down the long
-street went the 2-3/4 inch, and far down in the darkness I could see
-her explode; then all was silent. The signal-rockets were going from
-the top of the Auditorium, and I saw the answering upward sweep of the
-balls of fire as they were replied to farther down the street. We were
-on the extreme right, which was below the Art Building, and were
-ordered to move for an attack on the streets of the city _en échelon_.
-The guns limbered up, and, escorted by two companies of infantry, we
-passed into the dim light. At the corner of Wabash Avenue we halted.
-
-Four or five blocks down we could both hear and see rifle-firing,
-evidently directed on our camp, and also a great crowd. At this
-juncture we heard a most awful explosion, dull and not like a
-rifle-canon. "Dynamite!" we all exclaimed in a breath.
-
-"Cut the fuse to zero! Fire!" And with a terrific crash the missile
-sped on its way. "I think that street will be clear for a spell,"
-drawled the captain, in his delicious old Georgia manner, as he got
-his guns in motion. We could hear the occasional boom of a 3-inch and
-the loud grinding of the Gatlings, and we knew it was enfilading our
-fire. The rifle-fire was silenced down the city, and the mob, as we
-judged by the noise, was running away. Over in the direction of the
-post-office we then heard rifle-shots.
-
-"That's that outpost of the Twenty-seventh guarding the building," we
-said to each other. It fairly crackled now--"giving 'em hot stuff."
-
-"Halt!" came the command, and the men stopped. "We will wait here for
-orders."
-
-"What do you suppose that report was?" we asked each other as we stood
-on the curbing.
-
-"It must have been dynamite. I know the sound of this ordnance too
-well to be mistaken," commented the captain of artillery. "What's
-that? Hark!" as a clatter sounded on the pavement in our rear. "It's a
-horse coming at full speed. Spread out, men, and stop him." And, sure
-enough, a frightened cavalry horse came charging into the midst of the
-infantry, and was only stopped after he had knocked down two men.
-
-"He only has a halter on; he's got away from the picket line; here,
-boys--here comes another." This one in turn was stopped, and two more
-which followed directly. Detailed men were sent back with the horses,
-while I went also to make my report. As I sped on ahead I was startled
-by a shot, and with a sputter I heard the bullet go to pieces at my
-feet. I looked around, and from the dark of a window came a flash and
-another sputter.
-
-"D---- him, he is firing at me," I ejaculated, and I made the pedals
-fly. I had no idea of stopping, but I thought I could remember the
-building; and thinks I, "I am not after game, but whoever you are,
-I'll hunt you up, my lad."
-
-At headquarters everything was bustle.
-
-"Some one exploded a big dynamite bomb right in the street, in front
-of the Fifth Infantry camp," said Captain Moss to me, "and killed four
-men and wounded a dozen more. Some of the cavalry horses broke away
-from the picket lines and stampeded," he went on.
-
-The hospital tents were ablaze with light, and I knew that the
-surgeons were at their grewsome work.
-
-I reported for orders, and shortly was given one to deliver at my old
-post. Back I sped, and came near tumbling into a big hole, which I
-knew had been made by the dynamite bomb. I will go down another street
-and cross over, so as to avoid that fellow who potted at me, I
-reasoned; but before I turned off I saw the two infantrymen and the
-four old cavalry horses coming along.
-
-"Oh, lieutenant," they called, and I went up to them. "We saw that
-fellow shoot at you, and McPherson held the horses and I slipped down
-the dark side of the street and located him. He stuck his head out of
-the window, and I rested across a door-post and let him have it."
-
-"Did you hit him?"
-
-"Well, you kin bet! He came out of that window like a turkey out of a
-pine-tree. A little slow at first, but kerflop at last."
-
-So I took the street of my late enemy, and had a look at a dark object
-which lay on the sidewalk under the house I had located. In response
-to the order I bore, the infantry advanced to develop any opposition
-which there might be. Men were thrown out in front, and the heavy body
-marched in rear. We had proceeded this way for some blocks with no
-sound but the dropping rifle-fire some quarter of a mile to our left
-and behind us, when we began to find men huddled in doorways, who were
-promptly taken prisoners and disarmed, and sent to the rear. Some bore
-rifles and all had revolvers, and a hard-looking set they were. The
-artillery fire had demoralized them, and whatever they were to have
-done they had abandoned after the first shell had gone shrieking and
-crashing down the street.
-
-"They'll get a drum-head in the morning, and it won't sit ten
-minutes," mused an officer. "I suppose they are anarchists. Well, they
-ought to like this; this is a sort of anarchy. It's the best we have
-got in our shop."
-
-These words were scarcely spoken before a blinding flash lit up the
-street as lightning might. A tremendous report followed, and I was
-knocked down right over my bicycle, which I was trundling. I was up in
-an instant, and with a ringing clash an object had fallen at my feet
-and struck my leg a smart blow, which pained me considerably. I
-reached down and picked up a Springfield rifle barrel without lock or
-stock. A dynamite cartridge had been exploded in our front. The
-infantry hesitated for a moment. Many men had been flung on their
-backs by the force of the concussion. "Forward!" was the command, and
-dropping my bicycle, I followed the dark figures of the infantry as
-they made their way down the sides of the streets. Half a block ahead
-was a great hole in the pavement, and the sidewalk was littered with
-cobble-stones and débris from the walls of the surrounding buildings.
-The bomb had been exploded over the advance-guard, and had destroyed
-it utterly. Which building had it come from? We stood in the doorways,
-and held our breath and waited. A stone dropped in the street with a
-crash. A tiny light appeared in one of the upper windows of a tall
-narrow office building. It disappeared instantly, and all was dark.
-Two men put their heads out of the window. "See-e!" I hissed, as a
-soldier drew up his rifle. All was quiet. The two heads peered down
-the street, and then whispered together, when shortly we caught the
-hollow echo of the words, "D---- 'em, they don't want any more."
-
-"Now run for it," said the captain in command, who was a big fellow,
-and we all scampered off down the street to our main body. What we had
-discovered was reported to the battery commander. He swore a great
-oath.
-
-"Bring that gun up here to this side; boost her on to the sidewalk.
-Come, get hold here, you fellows; lend us a hand; run her along a
-little; train her on that doorway. Now fire!" And then, in a high
-voice, "Captain, let your men cover that house with rifle-fire, and
-detail some men to break into a store and get inflammables."
-
-The big gun went with a deafening crash, and the doorway was in
-slivers. A dropping rifle-fire rained into the windows. Crash went the
-big gun after a minute, but the building was dark and silent, as
-though holding their sputtering toys in contempt.
-
-"I'm going to burn that building. Send a man to call out the fire
-department!" roared the old captain, who had now lost all his
-drawling, and was bellowing like a bull. After a time infantrymen came
-along with their arms full of bottles and cans of kerosene, and I know
-not what else. They had broken into a drug-store, and told the
-proprietor, who was found there in the darkness with his three clerks,
-to give them the most inflammable substances at his command.
-
-The squad of infantry formed on the side of the street occupied by the
-ill-fated house, and as the big gun crashed and the rifle-fire
-redoubled, they dashed down the street and swarmed into the building.
-
-"Keep up that rifle-fire!" howled the senior officer. It was bang!
-bang! bang! for a full minute, when a flash of light lit up the
-doorway, and with a rush out came the squad, and made its way to us on
-the run.
-
-"We have fired the elevator shaft," said a young officer, breathing
-heavily with excitement. The doorway was very light now, and shortly
-the second-story windows over it showed yellow. Windows farther up the
-tall building began to redden and then to glow brightly. It was ten
-minutes now since the first gleam of fire, and the rifles had ceased.
-The building was now ablaze. A huge roaring was heard, and the black
-smoke poured from the hall windows, while the side windows were yet
-dark. A harsh yelling came from the window where I had seen the little
-match struck, and the thick black smoke eddied around and hid it all.
-
-"By sections--forward--trot--march," and with a dash we moved forward
-past the roaring furnace and down into the darkness below.
-
-"My orders were to move forward," muttered the old captain, as he bit
-at a plug of tobacco.
-
-It was now nearly twelve o'clock, and I could hear a great deal of
-small-arm firing down the city on my left in front, and also the boom
-of cannon away on the other side of town. Shortly a note was handed me
-by an adjutant, and I was to go to a command on a street nearly in
-front of headquarters. I sped along, and shortly met men by twos and
-threes, wounded men going to camp, and two fellows sitting on the
-curbing. "Where is Captain B----'s command, my men?"
-
-"Right on down the street--me bunkie's got it," was all I heard as I
-shot along.
-
-The rifle-fire grew, and the crash of a Hotchkiss came at intervals.
-Then I made out a small infantry reserve, and then the guns. I found
-the captain, and delivered my note.
-
-"Wait by me," said the captain, as he went into a doorway and read the
-order by scratching matches on his pantaloons, and the Hotchkiss
-nearly broke my ear-drums. "Wait a minute or so," said the captain, as
-he crushed the note into his trousers-pocket.
-
-I waited, and a "kid" of the reserves, whom I knew, greeted me and
-explained. "They are in the depot, and we are going to carry it by
-storm in a minute."
-
-Again the Hotchkiss went, and "Come on!" rang the order as the men
-moved forward. It was the captain, and he wanted me to "wait a
-minute," so, thinks I, I will wait near him; and pulling my bicycle
-into a dark doorway, I waited along by the captain, near the head of
-the procession. As we moved out from the protection of the street the
-report of a Hotchkiss nearly threw me from my pins, and then we ran
-silently under a rather hot fire from the windows and doorways. I
-heard the balls strike--a dull slap--and a man stumbled forward ahead
-of me and dropped. I sprang over him, and was soon out of fire, and
-with the little column passed through the big doorway under which I
-had so often passed with my gripsack and on the _qui vive_ for a
-hansom-cab driver. There was a tremendous rattle of fire, the bullets
-struck the stonework viciously; the hollow pat sounded, and men sank
-reeling and lay prone under my feet. We piled in and returned the
-fire. It was all smoke now; nothing distinguishable. "Come on!" came a
-voice which interlarded itself with the reports, and we went on
-wildly. We were now out of the smoke, and then I saw, by the light of
-a fire, figures running. A man fired in our faces. He was sitting up;
-a bayonet went into him, and he rolled over, clutching his breast with
-his hands. "The house is on fire!" came the cry, and the infantry
-continued to discharge on the retreating figures. A great flash
-lighted everything, and as my senses returned, it came over me "that
-was a bomb." I passed my hand over my eyes. The building was on fire.
-I could see men lying around me breathing heavily and groaning. I got
-up; a voice said, "Get these men out of here!" "Get these men out of
-here!" I echoed, as I grabbed a big Irish sergeant, and supporting him
-under the arms, I strove forward. The living soldiers took hold of the
-dead and wounded comrades, and bore them back through the smoke and
-into the street. The station was now on fire, and every one was
-highly excited, for these bombs made strange work, and were very
-demoralizing. They did no particular good to the enemy beyond that
-point, since they did not stop our advance, and they also demoralized
-the enemy quite as much as ourselves. There seemed to be no further
-opposition to the troops. I went back to head-quarters, got my horse,
-and received permission to go with a detachment of cavalry. We pulled
-out up Michigan Avenue. We were to scout and make a junction with
-stock-yard troops out to the south of the city or in Washington Park.
-The moon was going down, and there was no sound but the clattering of
-the troops and the jingle of the sabres. We passed a large squad of
-police, with their lanterns, moving out south to protect private
-residences and arrest prowlers. Ahead of us we heard three
-revolver-shots, and galloping forward, we were hailed by a voice from
-a window. "They have been trying to break into my house, catch them;
-they are running up the street." The road here was very wide, with two
-rows of trees in the centre and narrow grass-plots.
-
-"Come on!" shouted the captain, and spurring up, we moved forward.
-
-"There they are, captain: can't you see them?" spoke the old first
-sergeant, as he drove his horse forward to the captain's side.
-
-We rode over the grass-plot, and, sure enough, forms were seen to run
-up the steps of houses and behind shrubbery.
-
-"Dismount!--shoot them down!" came the command, and the men sprang
-forward with a rush. A revolver flashed, and was followed by a dozen
-carbine-balls, and from the blackness of a high front stoop rolled a
-figure grunting and gasping. Shot after shot rang through the
-darkness, and the troopers routed the vermin from step and shrubbery,
-until shortly it ceased.
-
-"Captain, here is Foltz--he's been shot; and McInerny--he's shot too."
-
-I sprang up the steps of a great stone mansion and pounded on the door
-with the butt of my six-shooter. A window was raised and a head peered
-out. "What do you want?"
-
-"We are United States cavalry, and we have two wounded men. Open your
-doors; we want you to put them to bed," and the window went down with
-a bang. Shortly the bolts were drawn, the door opened, and an old
-gentleman with white hair and carrying a lamp appeared.
-
-"Certainly; bring them right in, captain," said the old gentleman, and
-the two men were carefully lifted and borne in by their comrades. I
-helped to carry one man up-stairs, and to take off his great boots and
-to strip him.
-
-"Is there a doctor near here, sir?" I asked.
-
-"Right across the street; will I send my man?"
-
-"Yes, and a-running, too," replied a comrade, who was stanching the
-blood on the man's chest with a bed-sheet.
-
-We laid the man out, and I paused to note the splendor of the
-apartment, and to think it none too good for a brave soldier. The
-doctor came shortly, and I left the house. The troop was mounted and
-moved on. From a mansion across the street came a shot and loud
-shouting. We rode up and dismounted. There was a light in the front
-room and the door was open. The captain sprang up the steps, followed
-by ten or twelve men. As we entered we saw a half-dozen of the most
-vicious-looking wretches I have ever seen. They were evidently drunk,
-and did not comprehend the import of our presence. One man raised a
-champagne-bottle and threatened the captain. A carbine flashed--the
-report was almost deafening--and the drunken man dropped the bottle,
-threw up his hand, turned half round, and sank with a thud.
-
-"Take these men out and shoot them, sergeant." And the now thoroughly
-terrorized revellers, to the number of six, were dragged, swearing and
-beseeching, to the pavement, and I heard shots.
-
-The room we were in was magnificent, but in the utmost disorder. The
-floor was strewn with broken bottles, vases, and bric-à-brac.
-
-A form appeared in the door. It was a woman. She was speechless with
-terror, and her eyes stared, and her hands were clutched. We removed
-our hats, and the woman closed her eyes slowly.
-
-"Look out, captain, she's going to faint!" I cried.
-
-The captain slapped his hat on with a crush.
-
-"That's what she's going to do," he said, as he stood like a
-football-rusher before the ball is put in play.
-
-"Grab her!" I shouted; and, with a bound, the captain made a high
-tackle just as the lady became limp. Out in the hall I jumped, and
-yelled, "Oh, you people up-stairs there, come down; come running; the
-lady has fainted; we are soldiers; come down; come down; come down,
-somebody!" And from the upper darkness a white-robed figure glided
-past me into the lighted room.
-
-"Oh, I'm so glad!" she said, as she swept up to the rather engaging
-scene of the beautiful woman and the captain, who was "not glad,"
-judging from his disconcerted air; and to make a story short, we left
-the house.
-
-As we mounted we could see the darkness beginning to gray, and knew
-that morning would come shortly.
-
-"It's been a nasty night's work, but if it once comes daylight I'll
-leave nothing of these rioters but their horrible memory," mused the
-old captain.
-
-"There is a glow in the sky off there--don't you see?" I added.
-
-"Fire! Oh, I've expected that."
-
-As the light grayed I could see the doors of majestic residences open,
-windows broken, and débris trailing down the steps.
-
-"Looted."
-
-"There are people ahead--trot!" said the captain, half turning in his
-saddle. The bray of the trumpet was followed by the jingle of the
-forward movement.
-
-The captain pulled off to the side and shouted, "No prisoners, men--no
-prisoners!" And the column swept along.
-
-We could make out more human forms, all running by the side of the
-road. There were more and more fugitives as we drew nearer.
-
-"Come on," sang out the first lieutenant, as he put his horse into a
-gallop and drew his six-shooter; and shortly we were among them,
-scattering them like chaff and firing revolver-shots into them. Up the
-side streets they went, scampering, terrorized.
-
-"I guess they will keep that gait for a mile," said the lieutenant, as
-he turned grinning to me. "That is the outfit which has been looting
-down Michigan Avenue. I wish the light would come, and we'll give 'em
-hot stuff."
-
-At Washington Park we dismounted, and shortly were joined by B Troop
-from Hordon's command. They told us they had been fighting all night,
-and that the stockyards and many buildings were on fire. They had
-encountered opposition, which seemed to be armed and to have some
-organization, but, laughing, he said, "They couldn't stand the 'hot
-stuff.'"
-
-After this we made the ride back. It was now light, and as we rode
-slowly, men dismounted at intervals, and did some pretty work at
-rather long ranges with the carbines. The enemy would see us coming,
-and start to run up side streets, and then, riding forward, we
-dismounted and potted at them, I saw a corporal "get a man" who was
-running upwards of six blocks away--it was luck, of course. The police
-were now seen posted along at intervals, and were going into houses to
-tell the people of the order to remain in-doors for twenty-four hours
-more, which was the latest from headquarters, and I suppose was
-intended to give the police and troops an opportunity to seek out
-armed insurgents.
-
-I got back to camp, dismounted, and, being hungry, bethought me of the
-Auditorium for breakfast. I didn't think, after the pounding the hotel
-had gotten in the early evening previous, that they would come out
-strong on an early breakfast, but they did fairly well. You remember
-Ed Kennedy, the popular clerk there--well, he was shot and badly
-wounded while behind the desk, after the bomb drew our fire. He will
-get around all right, I am told.
-
-I saw some of the execution of those hundreds of prisoners next day,
-but I didn't care to see much. They piled them on flat-cars as though
-they had been cordwood, and buried them out in the country somewhere.
-Most of them were hobos, anarchists, and toughs of the worst type, and
-I think they "left their country for their country's good." Chicago is
-thoroughly worked up now, and if they keep with the present attention
-to detail, they will have a fine population left. The good citizens
-have a monster vigilance committee, and I am afraid will do many
-things which are not entirely just, but it is the reaction from
-lawlessness, and cannot be helped. They have been terribly exasperated
-by the rioting and license of the past. Of course, my dear friend, all
-this never really happened, but it all might very easily have happened
-if the mob had continued to monkey with the military buzz-saw.
-
-Yours faithfully, JACK.
-
-[Illustration: "WE WERE NOW OUT OF THE SMOKE"]
-
-
-
-
-THE COLONEL OF THE FIRST CYCLE INFANTRY
-
-
-"You certainly are a tough outfit, colonel--you and your night-hawks
-of the First Bikes--and I am not sure you could not have us cavalrymen
-going to bed with our boots on, if we were on the other side," said
-Major Ladigo, as he bit at the end of a fresh cigar.
-
-"Yes--bless me--Pedal's outfit might come into camp on top of yours,
-Ladigo, and where would my guns be then? I can't have my gunners
-sitting on their trails all day and all night too," sighed the big
-gunner, from the other end of the tent.
-
-"It was good work," continued the old brigadier--"here, boy, pass
-those glasses--and I have always thought well of the possibilities of
-that machine in a certain sort of military operations. I don't think
-you can chase Apaches with it--in fact, the only way to chase Apaches
-is to agree to pay about $500 a head for them; and, also, I don't
-think, Colonel Pedal--with all due respect for your enthusiasm--that
-you could ever become of all-absorbing interest in great operations
-between organized armies, but I do not want to commit myself since you
-seem to accomplish such feats in these days. If we had not had a
-really progressive man at the head of the army you would not have had
-this opportunity; but now, Pedal, all these fellows want to hear about
-your outfit, and especially how you conducted that affair at North
-Colville--they all want to know--go ahead now--we have plenty of time
-to listen," and Colonel Pedal of the First Bikes twirled his forage
-cap in his two hands and grinned pleasantly.
-
-"Well--it was simple enough," he said.
-
-"Oh yes--it's simple now, but how did you get at it?" was the remark
-of encouragement from somewhere.
-
-"Oh, well, you know, when I had organized and drilled this regiment,
-the people up at headquarters used me in a fussy way as orderlies,
-messengers, and in light outpost work, until my outfit was scattered
-all over this country, and that was not my idea at all. I knew by long
-experiment that bicycles were perfectly mobile in any country not
-strictly mountainous, and my idea was that I could fight my outfit in
-a new way; but fight it, that was my idea--and march it, too. I wanted
-a few holes in that flag, and so I used to go up and labor with the
-general. I pleaded and begged to be turned loose. So one afternoon the
-general sent for me, and I went to headquarters.
-
-"He said that a big band of insurgents were gathering and organizing
-up at North Colville, and that he wanted them destroyed or dispersed,
-and asked me if I could do it without asking for supports. I knew the
-old man had all he could do to open the communications to the west,
-and that he was going to give the bikes a try to prove what they were
-good for, so I said 'Yes, sir,' right away, though I did not know the
-situation thoroughly; but I wanted a job of that sort, and I was in
-for it. So he gave me orders to that effect, and after some inquiries
-I left him. Through spies he knew of this condition, and that all the
-communications were cut except the marine cable, which he laid in the
-bed of the Kaween River to Northport, and that was thirty miles from
-North Colville. I knew that all those upper counties were in a state
-of insurgency, and my orders were to destroy the rendezvous at North
-Colville and to then retreat; so my chief concern was to get through
-the country without being stopped or engaged seriously by intervening
-bodies of the enemy which I might encounter, and says I to myself,
-says I, 'Old man, show 'em what bikes are good for.' Pardon me if I
-become enthusiastic. I started down to my command, fell in my men,
-with two days' rations and one hundred and fifty rounds. I made my
-inspection, for, of course, you know, bike soldiers have a very
-complicated equipment; what with bombs, telegraphic apparatus, tools,
-and the extra parts of wheels, one must look well to his inspection.
-They have the Rice equipment--combined cartridge-belts and
-garment--which enables them to carry almost anything on the
-shoulder-belt. At five o'clock we pulled out, and at dark found
-ourselves at our extreme outposts, as I had calculated. I did not want
-the enemy to see me, as I was afraid of the telegraph, but as I
-proceeded I tapped the wires and cut them again and again. In fact, I
-cut wires all night, for fear that they might not have been destroyed,
-or that they might have been repaired. I ran smoothly through little
-hamlets, and knew that I could not be overtaken. I made a slight
-detour around villages of any size, such as Wooddale, Rockville, and
-Freeport, for fear that the insurgents might be in force enough to
-detain me. Back of Wellsville I got awfully tangled up in a woods,
-and, in short, was lost; but I jumped an old cit. out of his cosey
-bed, put a .45 on the cabin of his intellect, a flash-lantern in his
-two eyes, and he looked sufficiently honest and intelligent to show us
-the road, which he did, and we were not detained long.
-
-"I felt fear of Emmittstowne, as I had information that the insurgents
-were in force there. We picked up a man on the road who seemed to be
-one of our sympathizers, and he informed us that there were pickets
-all along the road which we were travelling, and also mounted
-patrols. He said that there were a terrible lot of insurgents in
-Emmittstowne, but mostly drunk.
-
-[Illustration: OFFICER AND MEN--FIRST CYCLE INFANTRY]
-
-"Captain Bidewell, who was in command of the advance, did a rather
-clever piece of work here. He suspected that he would find a picket at
-a certain place, and sent a dismounted squad on either side of the
-road, which was bounded by meadow land with stone-walls, brush, and
-trees on either side, and he himself walked down the road with two
-men. They talked loudly, as though drunk, and sure enough, were
-shortly held up by the picket. They surrendered and expostulated in a
-loud voice, and offered their captors a bottle of whiskey. The advance
-closed in on them and even got in their rear, and, of course, held up
-the picket without a shot. A six-shooter argument used on these people
-shortly disclosed the conditions, and we advanced."
-
-"Say, colonel, I know that Bidewell; he is organizing a bike regiment
-out West now--met him as I came through," interpolated a medical
-major.
-
-"Yes--nice fellow--held the ten-mile record for two years before this
-trouble," replied Pedal; "but, as I was saying--
-
-"Here is _How!_ gentlemen!
-
-"Well, to continue--to show you a curious phase of bicycling--my
-advance ran a picket farther along the road and were fired on, but,
-bless me, they had gone through so quickly and silently that they were
-not hurt, and the sergeant, who was very wise, dismounted and blew his
-whistle for us to advance. Bidewell dismounted and immediately
-advanced, and the picket, hearing his men smashing brush, retreated,
-and the sergeant turned a pistol loose in their faces and bellowed for
-them to go out in the road, throw up their hands, and surrender, which
-they did. You see, Colonel Ladigo, it is very hard to estimate bike
-forces in the night, they go so silently--they simply flit; and when
-you first notice them you wonder how many have gone before. A sleepy
-picket is waked up by a lot of bellowing and shots and smashing of
-brush, and he doesn't know anything, especially if the row is half in
-his rear. Well, the shooting must have aroused the village of
-Emmittstowne, and I made up my mind to run right into the town. The
-moon was rising, and we could see fairly well; but first I tried a
-little ruse with the captured picket. We advanced down the road a
-piece, and the men ensconced themselves in the brush, while one of the
-captured men stood in the middle of the road. We heard quite a party
-coming up the road rapidly, and the picket called out to them that it
-was nothing--that they had fired at some shadows, and that they might
-go back. Two men actually advanced to him, but he insisted that all
-was right, and that they might return; in fact, he protested too much,
-since he knew that he was lying for his life, and that the date of his
-demise was fixed at the instant he told the truth. We gave the town
-half an hour to settle down, and then started on a down
-grade--coasting silently. All was still. There were lights in a few
-saloons, and a half-dozen men, who were immediately held up and
-disarmed. There was evidence of a great many people in the village,
-since wagons and horses stood about, and tents and huts were
-everywhere except on the main street. I stopped in front of the hotel,
-and, do you know, my column got three-quarters of the way through the
-town before we were discovered. My column is three-quarters of a mile
-long, you must remember, and that was very fortunate. Some one fired a
-shot from a darkened window of the hotel, and I ordered my men to use
-their revolvers. A man can shoot a revolver with great accuracy from
-a wheel, as it glides so smoothly. Well, there was a deuce of a
-popping, and it must have fairly riddled the town. The fire was
-shortly returned, but in a desultory way which did not seem to do any
-damage, and shortly the tail of the column passed down the street. I
-had set the hotel on fire before we left, and I really do not think
-that those fellows know what really happened there yet. I immediately
-cut the telegraph line, and now had nothing to interfere with my march
-to North Colville. I had two bikes ruined by shots, and abandoned the
-riders; but they made their way to our lines later. As we proceeded
-the country grew more flat, and we made the pedals spin; at times we
-overtook night prowlers--tramps, for the most part--and one rather
-large party of drunken insurgents, all of whom we disarmed and left
-tied to trees and fences along the road. Do you know, Ladigo, that one
-cannot hear my whole regiment on a road until it is right on top of
-you. I have frequently seen men ride a bicycle right up beside a man,
-who never heard a word until ordered to throw up his hands."
-
-"Oh yes, Pedal, I'd like to catch your outfit at the foot of a long
-hill; I would fire yellow-legs into you in a way you would despise,"
-interpolated the impetuous cavalryman, as he blew smoke at the
-ridge-pole and slapped his one leg over the other in a satisfied way.
-
-"Yes, you might, Ladigo; but I'm going to spend my life trying not to
-let you catch me at the foot of a long hill, and if you do, you will
-find about one hundred bicycles piled up in the road, and it makes bad
-travelling for horses, especially with unshaken infantry pointing at
-you from behind. Well, in this case, Ladigo, I did not have any of
-your enterprising yellow-legs to bother me. As I was saying, we went
-along swimmingly until we struck Cat-tail Creek, and found the bridge
-burned. It was rather chilly, but I knew there was no help for it, so
-we got out our air-cushions and did our little swimming drill right
-there."
-
-"What are your air-cushions?" inquired the medical officer with the
-long pipe.
-
-"They are made of rubber, and blow up, and will sustain five
-equipments, and weigh fourteen pounds. Every five men have one,"
-explained Pedal.
-
-"Oh, I see--a quaint scheme!"
-
-"Yes; bikes are perfectly mobile," continued Pedal, with satisfaction.
-"As I was saying--oh yes, we got over the river all right, but--" and
-here he glanced apprehensively at Ladigo--"but I forgot to mention
-that we lost fifteen bicycles in the passage."
-
-"Ha-ha! oh yes--there are your dismounted men," and Colonel Ladigo
-beamed.
-
-"I think horses would have stuck in the mud of Cattail Creek, Ladigo;
-fact is, horses are not perfectly mobile. I also neglected to mention
-that the bicycles were all fished up and joined us later. We halted on
-a hill off the road an hour before gray dawn, to wait for the command
-to close up and to eat. There are always bikes which break down, and
-it takes a little time to repair them; and men will fall and injure
-themselves more or less. But within an hour I had my command all up
-except five men, having marched nearly seventy miles in eleven hours,
-had one engagement, crossed a river. And now, Colonel Ladigo, was that
-not good work?"
-
-"Oh yes, Pedal, quite good--quite good; could do it myself, though,"
-and the soul of a cavalryman was bound to assert itself.
-
-"Undoubtedly you could, but not next day." And Pedal lit a cigar,
-conscious that he had Ladigo downed, but not finally suppressed.
-
-[Illustration: AMBULANCE CORPS--FIRST CYCLE INFANTRY]
-
-"My men down the road took in a cavalry patrol without a
-shot--actually took in a cavalry--"
-
-"Hump--hump!" snorted Ladigo; "cavalry forsooth--a lot of d---- jays
-on plough-teams; cavalry, sir--"
-
-"Here--here, Ladigo, come down," expostulated the assembled officers,
-and Ladigo relapsed.
-
-"Well, after a reconnoissance and information from the patrol, I found
-that there were over five thousand men rendezvoused there, partly
-organized, and armed with all sorts of guns. Old Middle was in
-command--you remember Middle, formerly of the Twenty-seventh Infantry,
-cashiered at Fort Verde in '82."
-
-He was known to the men present, and a few sniffs and the remark that
-"he was bad medicine" was all that greeted the memory of Middle.
-
-"From the patrol I found where their camps and lines and outworks to
-cover the roads were, and also that it was but a quarter of a mile
-across a wood-lot to the road which I had intended to retire by, which
-ran southeast towards Spearfish and Hallam Junction, so I trundled my
-bikes over to it, and laid them in a column formation off the road,
-and left them under guard. I formed my command and turned some fellows
-out of some rifle-pits, which were designed to protect the road, and
-it was growing light. We charged into the town, which had been alarmed
-by our fire directed at the men in the pits. The first thing we struck
-was a long line of temporary camps, of what was probably a regiment,
-which was on the other side of a railroad embankment; but they were in
-a panic and offered us no resistance, while we advanced, rapidly
-firing, and nearly destroyed them. As we entered the town I took one
-battalion and directed it against the car-shops, which were full of
-stores and troops: these men we also nearly destroyed; and, having set
-fire to the shops, I entered the main part of the town, and as we
-advanced I had it also fired. From my right I heard heavy firing, and
-knew that the other command had encountered opposition; and turning to
-my right I struck a second railroad embankment, swarming behind with
-men who were standing off the advance of the other battalion. I
-enfiladed them, and they retired precipitously. From the net-work of
-railroad embankments farther up the flats north of Colville I could
-see masses of men forming. They began firing at me from a great
-distance, but we were protected by the railroad fill and did not mind
-it; while our sharpshooters, with their arms of longer range, annoyed
-the enemy quite a little, and kept up his demoralization. A great many
-men had gotten away from the town when I had attacked the car-shops,
-and I was in fear lest they might form in my rear under the cover of
-the burning town, so I had my wounded removed rapidly to the hill
-where my bikes were left, and then retreated rapidly under the cover
-of the smoke. The enemy were left so completely in the air that they
-advanced slowly, while from the cover of the brush on the upper edge
-of a field I held them in play for an hour while my wounded got a good
-start. At last they seemed to form, and approached to my right, going
-around the smoke of the burning town, and as they outnumbered me four
-to one, they would speedily have outflanked me. I began the retreat as
-I had intended. I had thirty-eight badly wounded men who had to be
-carried in blankets, fifty-six slightly wounded who would be trundled
-on bicycles, and had left eighteen dead on the field."
-
-"I say, colonel, how do you remove wounded men on bicycles?" asked
-some one.
-
-"It is simple when you see it, but rather difficult to explain. If you
-will come down some day I will be glad to show you a wounded drill,
-and then you can see for yourself. By cutting sticks and tying a
-blanket or shelter-tent a desperately wounded man can be laid prone
-between two bicycles, or if slightly hurt he can be trundled or even
-ridden double with a comrade, while one man can move two and even
-three bicycles. Oh, I tell you, the bike is a great contrivance once
-you come to understand it," proceeded the Colonel of Cycle Infantry.
-
-"I should like to have fought those fellows a little harder, but I was
-sixty miles inside of their lines, and I knew that to prolong the
-affair would mean that they would be heavily reinforced, and besides
-this was my first expedition. I had already destroyed the bigger half
-of the enemy and burned the town, and I did not apprehend a vigorous
-pursuit. What to do with my wounded was now on my mind. The country to
-the east of North Colville is very broken, wild, and sparsely
-inhabited. It had become necessary to abandon my wounded. I selected a
-point over twelve miles from our battle-ground, far back from the
-unfrequented road, in a very wild spot in the hills, and left every
-man not able to travel there, with all our rations and two medical
-officers, with ten men as a detail for the camp. My trail of course
-continued, and they were never suspected. Coming to the valley of the
-Spearfish I halted and slept my command until sundown, and then
-started for our lines. On the way I rode into and demoralized a
-half-dozen bands of armed insurgents, and struck our lines at five
-o'clock in the morning."
-
-"What became of your wounded up there, colonel?" asked the medical
-officer with the long pipe.
-
-"The evening following Captain Barhandle with fifty men started and
-made a successful march to their relief, and left two more medical
-officers and a lot of medical stores and rations, and came back three
-days after. The camp was never discovered, and was relieved when the
-general here made his first expedition into Wood County. They had
-protected themselves from prowlers by waylaying the roads, and had a
-dozen prisoners in camp, together with a half-dozen milch cows. My
-bike men are excellent foragers, since they have been so much on
-outpost duty."
-
-"Suppose, Colonel Pedal, you were forced to abandon your bicycles,
-what would you do?"
-
-"We had a detachment on a scout the other day who were pressed into
-some bad country and had to abandon their machines, which they did by
-sinking them in Dead Creek, and the next day we went out and recovered
-them. If it is desired to utterly destroy them, it can be done in an
-instant by stepping on the wheel and 'buckling' it, or if you remove
-the chain, it is useless to any one but yourself," explained the
-colonel.
-
-"Now, colonel, do you consider that you can move your men successfully
-in a hilly or mountainous country?" inquired Ladigo.
-
-"In all candor, no--not to a good advantage. I can march uphill as
-fast as infantry, and go down at limited-express speed; but I really
-want a rather flat country with lots of roads. I am not particular as
-to the quality of the roads, so there are enough of them. I can move
-through snow which has been tracked down by teams; I can fly on the
-ice; and when it is muddy there is always an inch or so beside the
-road which is not muddy, and that is enough for me. A favorable place
-for a bicycle is along a railroad track--going in the centre or at one
-side. When suddenly attacked, my men can get out of the road like a
-covey of quail, and a bicycle can be trundled across the worst
-possible country as fast as a man can travel, for you see all the
-weight of the man's gun and pack are on the wheel, which runs without
-any appreciable resistance, and all bike men know how to throw a
-bicycle over a fence with ease, and my average march is eighty miles
-a day. Ladigo, remember--eighty miles a day. No kind of roads, no
-conditions of weather, or anything but superior force can stop my
-command for an instant, sir;" and the colonel of cavalry rose and
-added, "Colonel Pedal, will you have a drink with me?"
-
-
-
-
-A MERRY CHRISTMAS IN A SIBLEY TEPEE
-
-
-"Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die." Not a good excuse,
-but it has been sufficient on many occasions to be true. The soldier
-on campaign passes life easily. He holds it in no strong grip, and the
-Merry Christmas evening is as liable to be spent in the saddle in
-fierce contact with the blizzard as in his cosey tepee with his
-comrades and his scant cheer. The jug containing the spirits of the
-occasion may have been gotten from a town fifty miles away on the
-railroad. It is certainly not the distillation of the summer sunlight,
-and is probably "tough" enough stuff to mingle naturally with its
-surroundings; but if one "drinks no more than a sponge" he may not
-have the jaded, retrospective feeling and the moral mending on the day
-to come. To sit on a camp chest, and to try and forget that the
-soldier's quart cup is not filled with best in the market, and then to
-enter into the full appreciation of the picturesque occasion, is to
-forget that long marches, "bull meat," and sleepless, freezing nights
-are in the background. Pleasant hours sit so nicely in their
-complemental surrounding of hard ones, since everything in the world
-is relative. As to the eating in a cavalry camp on campaign, it is not
-overdone, for beans and coffee and bacon and bacon and coffee and
-beans come round with sufficient regularity to forestall all
-gormandizing. The drinking is not the prominent feature either, but
-helps to soften the asperities of a Dakota blizzard which is raging on
-the other side of the "ducking."
-
-[Illustration: THE TOAST: "MERRY CHRISTMAS!"]
-
-The Sibley tent weaves and moans and tugs frantically at its pegs. The
-Sibley stove sighs like a furnace while the cruel wind seeks out the
-holes and crevices. The soldiers sit in their camp drawing-room
-buttoned up to the chin in their big canvas overcoats, and the muskrat
-caps are not removed. The freemasonry of the army makes strong
-friendships, and soldiers are all good fellows, that being a part of
-their business. There are just enough exceptions to prove the rule.
-The cold, bloodless, compound-interest snarler is not in the army, and
-if he were he would be as cheerless on a damp evening as he would in a
-fight. One man is from Arizona, another from Washington, and the rest
-from the other corners of Uncle Sam's tract of land. They have met
-before, and memory after memory comes up with its laughter and pathos
-of the old campaigns. One by one the "shoulder-straps" crawl in
-through the hole in the tepee. And, mind you, they do not walk in like
-a stage hero, with dash and abandon and head in the air; they
-prostrate themselves like a Turk at prayer, and come crawling. If they
-raise the flap ever so much, and bring company of the Dakota winds,
-they are met with a howl of protests. After gaining erectness, they
-brush the snow from their clothes, borrow a tin cup, and say, "How!
-how!"
-
-The chief of scouts buttons up to his eyes, and must go look after his
-"Inguns"; the officer of the day comes in to make his papers, and if
-he keeps the flying jokes out of his statistics, he does well enough.
-The second lieutenant, fresh from West Point, doesn't hesitate
-to address the grizzled colonel of twenty campaigns--nay, he
-may even deign to advise him on the art of war; but that is
-unsatisfactory--the advising of colonels--because the colonel's advice
-to the sub has always to be acted upon, whereas the sub's advice to
-the colonel is mostly nullified by the great powers of discretion
-which are vested in the superior rank. The life-study of a sub should
-be to appear like the cuckoo-bird in a German clock--at the proper
-moment; and when he appears at wrong intervals, he is repaired.
-Colonels are terrible creatures, with vast powers for promoting
-happiness or inflicting misery. If he will lend the moderating
-influence of his presence, it is well; but if he sends his man around
-to "present his compliments, and say that the d---- row will
-immediately cease," his wishes if not his personality are generally
-respected.
-
-It is never a late evening, such a one as this; it's just a few stolen
-moments from the "demnition grind." The last arrival may be a
-youngster just in from patrol, who explains that he just "cut the
-trail of forty or fifty Sioux five miles below, on the crossing of the
-White River;" and you may hear the bugle, and the bugle may blow quick
-and often, and if the bugle does mingle its notes with the howling of
-the blizzard, you will discover that the occasion is not one of
-merriment. But let us hope that it will not blow.
-
-The toasts go around, and you use your tobacco in a miserly way,
-because you can't get any more, since only to-day you have offered a
-dollar for a small plug to a trooper, and he had refused to negotiate,
-although he had pared off a small piece as a gift, and intimated that
-generosity could go no further. Then you go to your tepee, half a mile
-down the creek at the scout camp, and you stumble through the
-snow-laden willows and face the cutting blast, while the clash and
-"Halt!" of the sentinel stop you here and there. You pull off your
-boots and crawl into your blankets quickly before the infernal Sibley
-stove gives its sigh as the last departing spark goes up the chimney,
-and leaves the winds and drifting snows to bellow and scream over the
-wild wastes.
-
-
-
-
-BEAR-CHASING IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS
-
-
-Mr. Montague Stevens is an Englishman who for the most part attends to
-the rounding-up of his cattle, which are scattered over the
-northwestern quarter of New Mexico; but he does not let that interfere
-with the time which all Englishmen set duly apart to be devoted to
-sport. His door-yard is some hundreds of miles of mountain wilderness
-and desolate mesa--a more gorgeous preserve than any king ever dreamed
-of possessing for his pleasure--with its plains dotted with antelope,
-and its mountains filled with cougar, deer, bear, and wild turkeys.
-The white race has given up the contest with nature in those
-parts, and it has reverted to the bear, the Navajo, and Mr.
-Stevens--land-grants, corrals, cabins, brands, and all else.
-
-General Miles was conducting a military observation of the country,
-which is bound to be the scene of any war which the Apaches or Navajos
-may make; and after a very long day's march, during which we had found
-but one water, and that was a pool of rain-water, stirred into mud and
-full of alkali, where we had to let our horses into the muddy stuff at
-the ends of our lariats, we had at last found a little rivulet and
-some green grass. The coffee-pot bubbled and the frying-pan hissed,
-while I smoked and listened to a big escort-wagon driver, who was
-repairing his lash, and saying, softly, "Been drivin' a bloody lot of
-burros for thirty years, and don't know enough to keep a whip out
-of a wheel; guess I'll go to jack-punchin', 'nen I kin use a dry
-club."
-
-[Illustration: WATERING HORSES]
-
-Far down the valley a little cloud of dust gleamed up against the gray
-of the mountains, and presently the tireless stride of a pony shone
-darkly in its luminous midst. Nearer and nearer it grew--the flying
-tail, the regular beating of the hoofs, the swaying figure of the
-rider, and the left sleeve of the horseman's coat flapping
-purposelessly about. He crossed the brook with a splash, trotted, and,
-with a jerk, pulled up in our midst. Mr. Stevens is a tall, thin young
-man, very much bronzed, and with the set, serious face of an
-Englishman. He wore corduroy clothes, and let himself out of his
-saddle with one hand, which he also presented in greeting, the other
-having been sacrificed to his own shot-gun on some previous occasion.
-Mr. Stevens brought with him an enthusiasm for bear which speedily
-enveloped the senses of our party, and even crowded out from the mind
-of General Miles the nobler game which he had affected for thirty
-years.
-
-The steady cultivation of one subject for some days is bound to
-develop a great deal of information, and it is with difficulty that I
-refrain from herein setting down facts which can doubtless be found in
-any good encyclopædia of natural history; but the men in the mountains
-never depart from the consideration of that and one other subject,
-which is brands, and have reached some strange conclusions--the
-strangest being that the true Rocky Mountain grizzly is only seen once
-in a man's lifetime, and that the biggest one they ever heard of
-leaves his tracks in this district, and costs Mr. Stevens, roughly
-estimating, about $416 a year to support, since that about covers the
-cattle he kills.
-
-At break of day the officers, cavalrymen, escort-wagons, and
-pack-train toiled up the Cañon Largo to Mr. Stevens's camp, which was
-reached in good time, and consisted of a regular ranchman's
-grub-wagon, a great many more dogs of more varieties than I could
-possibly count, a big Texan, who was cook, and a professional
-bear-hunter by the name of Cooper, who had recently departed from his
-wonted game for a larger kind, with the result that, after the final
-deal, a companion had passed a .45 through Mr. Cooper's face and
-filled it with powder, and brought him nigh unto death, so that even
-now Mr. Cooper's head was swathed in bandages, and his mind piled with
-regrets that he had on at the time an overcoat, which prevented him
-from drawing his gun with his usual precision. Our introduction to the
-outfit was ushered in by a most magnificent free-for-all dog-fight;
-and when we had carefully torn the snarling, yelling, biting mass
-apart by the hind-legs and staked them out to surrounding trees, we
-had time to watch Mr. Cooper draw diagrams of bear-paws in the dust
-with a stick. These tracks he had just discovered up the Cañon Largo,
-and he averred that the bear was a grizzly, and weighed 1800 pounds,
-and that he had been there two years, and that all the boys had hunted
-him, but that he was a sad old rascal.
-
-After lunch we pulled on up the cañon and camped. The tents were
-pitched and the cooks busy, when I noticed three cowboys down the
-stream and across the cañon, who were alternately leading their horses
-and stooping down in earnest consultation over some tracks on the
-ground. We walked over to them. There were Mr. Cooper, whose only
-visible eye rolled ominously, and Dan, the S. U. foreman, with another
-puncher.
-
-"He's usin' here," said Cooper. "That's his track, and there's his
-work," pointing up the hill-side, where lay the body of a
-five-year-old cow. We drew near her, and there was the tale of a
-mighty struggle, all written out more eloquently than pen can do.
-There were the deep furrows of the first grapple at the top; there was
-the broad trail down the steep hill for fifty yards, with the stones
-turned over, and the dust marked with horn and hoof and claw; and
-there was the stump which had broken the roll down hill. The cow had
-her neck broken and turned under her body; her shoulder was torn from
-the body, her leg broken, and her side eaten into; and there were
-Bruin's big telltale footprints, rivalling in size a Gladstone bag, as
-he had made his way down to the stream to quench his thirst and
-continue up the cañon. The cow was yet warm--not two hours dead.
-
-[Illustration: "DO YOU THINK THIS PONY IS GOING TO BUCK?"]
-
-"We must pull out of here; he will come back to-night," said Cooper.
-And we all turned to with a will and struck the tents, while the cooks
-threw their tins, bags, and boxes into the wagons, whereat we moved
-off down wind for three miles, up a spur of the cañon, where we again
-camped. We stood around the fires and allowed Mr. Cooper to fill our
-minds with hope. "He'll shore come back; he's usin' here; an' cow
-outfits--why, he don't consider a cow outfit nothin'. He's been right
-on top of cow outfits since he's been in these parts, and thet two
-years gone now, when he begun to work this yer range, and do the work
-you see done yonder. In the mornin' we'll strike his trail, and if we
-can git to him you'll shore see a bar-fight."
-
-We turned in, and during the night I was awakened twice--once by a
-most terrific baying of all the dogs, who would not be quieted, and
-later by a fine rain beating in my face. The night was dark, and we
-were very much afraid the rain would kill the scent. We were up long
-before daylight, and drank our coffee and ate our meat, and as soon as
-"we could see a dog a hundred yards," which is the bear-hunter's
-receipt, we moved off down the creek. We found that the cow had been
-turned over twice, but not eaten--evidently Bruin had his suspicions.
-The dogs cut his trail again and again. He had run within sight of our
-camp, had wandered across the valley hither and yon, but the faithful
-old hounds would not "go away." Dan sat on his pony and blew his old
-cow's horn, and yelled: "Hooick! hooick! get down on him, Rocks;
-hooick! hooick!" But Rocks could not get down on him, and then we knew
-that the rain had killed the scent. We circled a half-mile out, but
-the dogs were still; and then we followed up the Cañon Largo for
-miles, and into the big mountain, through juniper thickets and over
-malpais, up and down the most terrible places, for we knew that the
-bear's bed-ground is always up in the most rugged peaks, where the
-rimrock overhangs in serried battlements, tier on tier. But no bear.
-
-[Illustration: DAN AND ROCKS]
-
-Rocks, the forward hound, grew weary of hunting for things which were
-not, and retired to the rear to pay court to a lady friend; and Dan
-had to rope Rocks, and with some irritation he started his pony, and
-Rocks kept the pace by dint of legging it, and by the help of a tow
-from 900 pounds of horse-flesh. Poor Rocks! He understood his
-business; but in consequence of not being able to explain to the men
-what fools they were, he suffered.
-
-The hot mid-day sun of New Mexico soon kills the scent, and we were
-forced to give over for the day. A cavalry sergeant shot three deer,
-but we, in our superior purpose, had learned to despise deer. Later I
-made a good two-hundred-yard centre on an antelope, and though I had
-not been fortunate enough in years to get an antelope, the whole
-sensation was flat in view of this new ambition.
-
-On the following morning we went again to our dead cow, but nothing
-except the jackals had been at the bear's prey, for the wily old
-fellow had evidently scented our camp, and concluded that we were not
-a cow outfit, whereat he had discreetly "pulled his freight."
-
-We sat on our horses in a circle, and raised our voices. In
-consideration of the short time at our disposal, we concluded that we
-could be satisfied with taking 1800 pounds of bear on the instalment
-plan. The first instalment was a very big piece of meat, but was--I am
-going to confess--presented to us in the nature of a gift; but the
-whole thing was so curious I will go into it.
-
-We hunted for two days without success, unless I include deer and
-antelope; but during the time I saw two things which interested me.
-The first was a revelation of the perfect understanding which a
-mountain cow-pony has of the manner in which to negotiate the
-difficulties of the country which is his home.
-
-Dan, the foreman, was the huntsman. He was a shrewd-eyed, little,
-square-built man, always very much preoccupied with the matter in
-hand. He wore a sombrero modelled into much character by weather and
-time, a corduroy coat, and those enormous New-Mexican "chaps," and he
-sounded a cow-horn for his dogs, and alternately yelped in a most
-amusing way. So odd was this yelp that it caught the soldiers, and
-around their camp-fire at night you could hear the mimicking shouts of
-"Oh, Rocks! eh-h-h! hooick! get down on him, Rocks; tohoot! tohoot!"
-We were sitting about on our horses in a little _sienneca_, while Dan
-was walking about, leading his pony and looking after his dogs.
-
-When very near me he found it necessary to cross an _arróyo_ which
-was about five feet deep and with perfectly perpendicular banks.
-Without hesitation he jumped down into it, and with a light bound his
-pony followed. At the opposite side Dan put up his arms on the bank
-and clawed his way up, and, still paying no attention to his pony, he
-continued on. Without faltering in the least, the little horse put his
-fore-feet on the bank, clawed at it once, twice, jumped, scratched,
-clawed, and, for all the world like a cat getting into the fork of a
-tree, he was on the bank and following Dan.
-
-[Illustration: A DANGEROUS PLACE]
-
-Later in the day, when going to our camp, we followed one of Dan's
-short-cuts through the mountains, and the cowboys on their mountain
-ponies rode over a place which made the breath come short to the
-officers and men behind; not that they could not cross themselves,
-being on foot, but that the cavalry horses could they had their solemn
-doubts, and no one but an evil brute desires to lead a game animal
-where he may lose his life. Not being a geologist, I will have to say
-it was a blue clay in process of rock formation, and in wet times held
-a mountain torrent. The slope was quite seventy degrees. The approach
-was loose dirt and malpais, which ran off down the gulch in small
-avalanches under our feet. While crossing, the horses literally stood
-on their toes to claw out a footing. A slip would have sent them,
-belly up, down the toboggan-slide, with a drop into an unknown depth
-at the end. I had often heard the cavalry axiom "that a horse can go
-anywhere a man can if the man will not use his hands," and a little
-recruit murmured it to reassure himself. I passed, with the loss of a
-quarter of the skin on my left hand, and later asked a quaint old
-veteran of four enlistments if he thought it was a bad place, and he
-said, "It's lizards, not harses, what ought to go thar."
-
-Riding over the rough mountains all day sows poppyseeds in a man's
-head, and when the big medical officer opens your tent-flaps in the
-morning, and fills the walls with his roars to "Get up! it's four
-o'clock," it is with groans that you obey. You also forego washing,
-because you are nearly frozen stiff, and you go out and stand around
-the fire with your companions, who are all cheerfully miserable as
-they shiver and chaff each other. It seems we do not live this life on
-a cold, calculating plane of existence, but on different lines, the
-variation of which is the chief delight of the discriminating, and I
-must record a distinct pleasure in elbowing fellows around a camp-fire
-when it is dark and cold and wet, and when you know that they are
-oftener in bed than out of it at such hours. You drink your quart of
-coffee, eat your slice of venison, and then regard your horse with
-some trepidation, since he is all of a tremble, has a hump on his
-back, and is evidently of a mind to "pitch."
-
-The eastern sky grows pale, and the irrepressible Dan begins to "honk"
-on his horn, and the cavalcade moves off through the grease-wood,
-which sticks up thickly from the ground like millions of Omaha
-war-bonnets.
-
-The advance consists of six or eight big blood-hounds, which range out
-in front, with Dan and Mr. Cooper to blow the horn, look out for "bear
-sign," and to swear gently but firmly when the younger dogs take
-recent deer trails under consideration. Three hundred yards behind
-come Scotch stag-hounds, a big yellow mastiff, fox-terriers, and one
-or two dogs which would not classify in a bench-show, and over these
-Mr. Stevens holds a guiding hand, while in a disordered band come
-General Miles, his son, three army officers, myself, and seven
-orderlies of the Second Cavalry. All this made a picture, but, like
-all Western canvases, too big for a frame. The sun broke in a golden
-flash over the hills, and streaked the plain with gold and gray
-greens. The spirit of the thing is not hunting but the chase of the
-bear, taking one's mind back to the buffalo, or the nobles of the
-Middle Ages, who made their "image of war" with bigger game than red
-foxes.
-
-[Illustration: "GONE AWAY"]
-
-Leaving the plain we wound up a dry creek, and noted that the small
-oaks had been bitten and clawed down by bear to get at the acorns. The
-hounds gave tongue, but could not get away until we had come to a
-small glade in the forest, where they grew wildly excited. Mr. Cooper
-here showed us a very large bear track, and also a smaller one, with
-those of two cubs by its side. With a wild burst the dogs went away up
-a cañon, the blood went into our heads, and our heels into the horses,
-and a desperate scramble began. It is the sensation we have travelled
-so long to feel. Dan and Cooper sailed off through the brush and over
-the stones like two old crows, with their coat-tails flapping like
-wings. We follow at a gallop in single file up the narrow, dry
-watercourse. The creek ends, and we take to the steep hill-sides,
-while the loose stones rattle from under the flying hoofs. The rains
-have cut deep furrows on their way to the bed of the cañon, and your
-horse scratches and scrambles for a foothold. A low, gnarled branch
-bangs you across the face, and then your breath fairly stops as you
-see a horse go into the air and disappear over a big log, fallen down
-a hill of seventy degrees' slope. The "take-off and landing" is
-yielding dust, but the blood in your head puts the spur in your horse,
-and over you go. If you miss, it is a 200-foot roll, with a 1200-pound
-horse on top of you. But the pace soon tells, and you see nothing but
-good honest climbing ahead of you. The trail of the yelling dogs goes
-straight up, amid scraggly cedar and juniper, with loose malpais
-underfoot. We arrive at the top only to see Cooper and Dan disappear
-over a precipice after the dogs, but here we stop. Bears always seek
-the very highest peaks, and it is better to be there before them if
-possible. A grizzly can run downhill quicker than a horse, and all
-hunters try to get above them, since if they are big and fat they
-climb slowly; besides, the mountain-tops are more or less flat and
-devoid of underbrush, which makes good running for a horse. We
-scatter out along the cordon of the range. The bag doing on the
-rimrock of the mountain-tops, where the bear tries to throw off the
-dogs, makes it quite impossible to follow them at speed, so that you
-must separate and take your chances of heading the chase.
-
-[Illustration: TIMBER-TOPPING IN THE ROCKIES]
-
-I selected Captain Mickler--the immaculate, the polo-player, the
-epitome of staff form, the trappiest trooper in the Dandy Fifth--and,
-together with two orderlies, we started. Mickler was mounted on a
-cow-pony, which measured one chain three links from muzzle to
-coupling. Mickler had on English riding-togs--this is not saying that
-the pony could not run, or that Mickler was not humorous. But it was
-no new experience for him, this pulling a pony and coaxing him to
-attempt breakneck experiments, for he told me casually that he had led
-barefooted cavalrymen over these hills in pursuit of Apaches at a date
-in history when I was carefully conjugating Latin verbs.
-
-We were making our way down a bad formation when we heard the dogs,
-and presently three shots. A strayed cavalry orderly had, much to his
-disturbance of mind, beheld a big silver-tip bearing down on him, jaws
-skinned, ears back, and red-eyed, and he had promptly removed himself
-to a proper distance, where he dismounted. The bear and dogs were much
-exhausted, but the dogs swarmed around the bear, thus preventing a
-shot. But Bruin stopped at intervals to fight the dogs, and the
-soldier fired, but without effect. If men do not come up with the dogs
-in order to encourage them, many will draw off, since the work of
-chasing and fighting a bear without water for hours is very trying.
-Only hounds can be depended on, as the tongues of other dogs thicken,
-and they soon droop when long without water. Some of the dogs may
-have followed the bear with cubs, but if they did we never heard of
-them. The one now running was an enormous silver-tip, and could not
-"tree." The shots of the trooper diverted the bear, which now took off
-down a deep cañon next to the one we were in, and presently we heard
-him no more. After an hour's weary travelling down the winding way we
-came out on the plain, and found a small cow outfit belonging to Mr.
-Stevens, and under a tree lay our dead silver-tip, while a half-dozen
-punchers squatted about it. It appeared that three of them had been
-working up in the foot-hills when they heard the dogs, and shortly
-discovered the bear. Having no guns, and being on fairly good ground,
-they coiled their _riatas_ and prepared to do battle.
-
-The silver-tip was badly blown, and the three dogs which had stayed
-with him were so tired that they sat up at a respectful distance and
-panted and lolled. The first rope went over Bruin's head and one paw.
-There lies the danger. But instantly number two flew straight to the
-mark, and the ponies surged, while Bruin stretched out with a roar. A
-third rope got his other hind-leg, and the puncher dismounted and tied
-it to a tree. The roaring, biting, clawing mass of hair was
-practically helpless, but to kill him was an undertaking.
-
-"Why didn't you brand him and turn him loose?" I asked of the cowboy.
-
-"Well," said the puncher, in his Texan drawl, "we could have branded
-him all right, but we might have needed some help in turning him
-loose."
-
-They pelted him with malpais, and finally stuck a knife into a vital
-part, and then, loading him on a pony, they brought him in. It was a
-daring performance, but was regarded by the "punchers" as a great
-joke.
-
-Mickler and I rode into camp, thinking on the savagery of man. One
-never heard of a bear which travelled all the way from New Mexico to
-Chicago to kill a man, and yet a man will go 3000 miles to kill a
-bear--not for love or fear or hate or meat; for what, then? But
-Mickler and I had not killed a bear, so we were easy.
-
-[Illustration: THE BEAR AT BAY]
-
-One by one the tired hunters and dogs struggled into camp all
-disappointed, except the dogs, which could not tell us what had
-befallen them since morning. The day following the dogs started a big
-black bear, which made a good run up a bad place in the hills, but
-with the hunters scrambling after in full cry. The bear treed for the
-dogs, but on sighting the horsemen he threw himself backward from the
-trunk and fell fifteen feet among the dogs, which latter piled into
-him _en masse_, the little fox-terriers being particularly aggressive.
-It was a tremendous shake-up of black hair and pups of all colors; but
-the pace was too fast for Bruin, and he sought a new tree. One little
-foxie had been rolled over, and had quite a job getting his bellows
-mended. This time the bear sat on a limb very high up, and General
-Miles put a .50-calibre ball through his brain, which brought him down
-with a tremendous thump, when the pups again flew into him, and
-"wooled him," as the cowboys put it, to their hearts' content.
-
-While our bear-hunting is not the thing we are most proud of, yet the
-method is the most sportsmanlike, since nothing but the most desperate
-riding will bring one up with the bear in the awful country which they
-affect. The anticipation of having a big silver-tip assume the
-aggressive at any moment is inspiriting. Indeed, they often do; for
-only shortly before one had sprung from a thicket on to the
-hind-quarters of one of Mr. Stevens's cowboy's ponies, and it was only
-by the most desperate work on the part of his companion, who rode up
-close and shot the bear with his six-shooter, that saved his
-comrade's life. The horse was killed. When one thinks of the enormous
-strength of the silver-tip, which can overpower the mightiest steer,
-and bend and break its neck or tear its shoulder from its body at a
-stroke, one is able to say, "Do not hunt a bear unless thy skin is not
-dear to thee." Then the dogs must be especially trained to run bear,
-since the country abounds in deer, and it is difficult to train dogs
-to ignore their sight and scent. The cowboys account for the number
-of the bear in their country from the fact that it is the old Apache
-and Navajo range, and the incoherent mind of the savage was impressed
-with the rugged mass of fur and the grinning jaws of the monster which
-crossed his path, and he was awed by the dangers of the
-encounter--arrow against claw. He came to respect the apparition, and
-he did not know that life is only sacred when in the image of the
-Creator. He did not discriminate as to the value of life, but with his
-respect for death there grew the speculation, which to him became a
-truth, that the fearsome beast was of the other world, and bore the
-lost souls of the tribe. He was a vampire; he was sacred. O Bear!
-
-[Illustration: THE FINALE]
-
-[Illustration: THE RETURN OF THE HUNTERS]
-
-THE END
-
-
-
-
-Transcriber's Notes:
-
-
-Archaic and inconsistent punctuation and spelling retained.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
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+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41011 ***</div>
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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Pony Tracks, by Frederic Remington
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
-
-
-Title: Pony Tracks
-
-Author: Frederic Remington
-
-Release Date: October 10, 2012 [EBook #41011]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ASCII
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PONY TRACKS ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Greg Bergquist, Matthew Wheaton and the Online
-Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
-file was produced from images generously made available
-by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
-
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-
-
-[Illustration: THE LAST STAND]
-
-
-
-
-    PONY TRACKS
-
-    _WRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED BY_
-
-    FREDERIC REMINGTON
-
-
-    NEW YORK
-
-    HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
-
-    FRANKLIN SQUARE
-
-
-    Copyright, 1895, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
-
-    _All rights reserved._
-
-
-    THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO THE FELLOWS WHO
-    RODE THE PONIES THAT MADE THE TRACKS
-
-
-    BY THE AUTHOR
-
-
-
-
-    CONTENTS
-
-
-    CHASING A MAJOR-GENERAL
-    LIEUTENANT CASEY'S LAST SCOUT
-    THE SIOUX OUTBREAK IN SOUTH DAKOTA
-    AN OUTPOST OF CIVILIZATION
-    A RODEO AT LOS OJOS
-    IN THE SIERRA MADRE WITH THE PUNCHERS
-    BLACK WATER AND SHALLOWS
-    COACHING IN CHIHUAHUA
-    STUBBLE AND SLOUGH IN DAKOTA
-    POLICING THE YELLOWSTONE
-    A MODEL SQUADRON
-    THE AFFAIR OF THE --TH OF JULY
-    THE COLONEL OF THE FIRST CYCLE INFANTRY
-    A MERRY CHRISTMAS IN A SIBLEY TEPEE
-    BEAR-CHASING IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS
-
-
-
-
-    ILLUSTRATIONS
-
-
-    THE LAST STAND
-    GENERAL MILES AND HIS ESCORT
-    THE SUPPLY TRAIN
-    UNITED STATES CAVALRY IN WINTER RIG
-    UNITED STATES INFANTRY IN WINTER RIG
-    CHIS-CHIS-CHASH SCOUT ON THE FLANKS
-    "TWO GHOSTS I SAW"
-    WATCHING THE DUST OF THE HOSTILES
-    THE HOTCHKISS GUN
-    A RUN TO THE SCOUT CAMP
-    IN THE TRENCHES
-    THE ADVANCE GUARD--A MILITARY SACRIFICE
-    THE HACIENDA SAN JOSE DE BAVICORA
-    EL PATRON
-    THE ADMINISTRADOR OF SAN JOSE DE BAVICORA
-    A HAIR-CUT A LA PUNCHER
-    THE MUSIC AT THE "BAILLE"
-    COMING TO THE RODEO
-    WAVING SERAPE TO DRIVE CATTLE
-    TAILING A BULL
-    JOHNNIE BELL OF LOS OJOS
-    WILLIAM IN ACTION
-    MOUNTING A WILD ONE
-    A MODERN SANCHO PANZA
-    MY COMRADE
-    ON THE MOUNTAINS
-    THE CASA CAMADRA
-    SHOOTING IN THE SIERRA MADRE
-    THE INDIAN'S STORY
-    THE CLIFF-DWELLINGS
-    THE PORTAGE
-    BLACK WATER
-    THE FAWN
-    BREAKING A JAM
-    HUNG UP
-    A COACHERO
-    THE START
-    MORNING TOILET
-    HARNESSING MULES
-    A DAKOTA CHICKEN-WAGON
-    ON THE EDGE OF A SLOUGH
-    A CONFERENCE IN THE MUD
-    "DON'T SHOOT!"
-    "MARK--LEFT"
-    "MARK!"
-    TROOPING HOMEWARD IN THE AFTER-GLOW
-    BURGESS, NEARLY FORTY-FIVE YEARS A SCOUT
-    THE BELL-MARE OVER A BAD PLACE
-    DOWN THE MOUNTAIN
-    GETTING GRUB
-    WORKING ON THE DIVIDE
-    BURGESS FINDING A FORD
-    GENERAL GUY V. HENRY, SEVENTH UNITED STATES CAVALRY
-    RIDING SITTING ON LEGS
-    OVER THE HURDLE BACK TO BACK
-    THROWING A HORSE
-    OVER THE HURDLES IN LINE
-    "WE WERE NOW OUT OF THE SMOKE"
-    OFFICER AND MEN--FIRST CYCLE INFANTRY
-    AMBULANCE CORPS--FIRST CYCLE INFANTRY
-    THE TOAST: "MERRY CHRISTMAS!"
-    WATERING HORSES
-    "DO YOU THINK THIS PONY IS GOING TO BUCK?"
-    DAN AND ROCKS
-    A DANGEROUS PLACE
-    "GONE AWAY"
-    TIMBER-TOPPING IN THE ROCKIES
-    THE BEAR AT BAY
-    THE FINALE
-    THE RETURN OF THE HUNTERS
-
-
-
-
-PONY TRACKS
-
-
-
-
-CHASING A MAJOR-GENERAL
-
-
-The car had been side-tracked at Fort Keough, and on the following
-morning the porter shook me, and announced that it was five o'clock.
-An hour later I stepped out on the rear platform, and observed that
-the sun would rise shortly, but that meanwhile the air was chill, and
-that the bald, square-topped hills of the "bad lands" cut rather hard
-against the gray of the morning. Presently a trooper galloped up with
-three led horses, which he tied to a stake. I inspected them, and saw
-that one had a "cow saddle," which I recognized as an experiment
-suggested by the general. The animal bearing it had a threatening
-look, and I expected a repetition of a performance of a few days
-before, when I had chased the general for over three hours, making in
-all twenty-eight miles.
-
-Before accepting an invitation to accompany an Indian commission into
-the Northwest I had asked the general quietly if this was a
-"horseback" or a "wagon outfit." He had assured me that he was not a
-"wagon man," and I indeed had heard before that he was not. There is
-always a distinction in the army between wagon men and men who go
-without wagons by transporting their supplies on pack animals. The
-wagon men have always acquired more reputation as travellers than
-Indian fighters. In a trip to the Pine Ridge Agency I had discovered
-that General Miles was not committed to any strained theory of how
-mounted men should be moved. Any settled purpose he might have about
-his movements were all locked up in a desperate desire to "get thar."
-Being a little late in leaving a point on the railroad, I rode along
-with Lieutenant Guilfoil, of the Ninth, and we moved at a gentle trot.
-Presently we met a citizen in a wagon, and he, upon observing the
-lieutenant in uniform, pulled up his team and excitedly inquired,
-
-"What's the matter, Mr. Soldier?"
-
-Guilfoil said nothing was the matter that he knew of.
-
-"Who be you uns after?"
-
-"No one," replied the lieutenant.
-
-"Well, I just saw a man go whirling up this 'ere valley with a soldier
-tearin' after him fit to kill" (that was the general's orderly), "and
-then comes a lot more soldiers just a-smokin', and I sort of wondered
-what the man had done."
-
-We laughed, and remarked that the general must be riding pretty hard.
-Other citizens we met inquired if that man was a lunatic or a
-criminal. The idea of the soldiers pursuing a man in citizen's clothes
-furthered the idea, but we assured them that it was only General Miles
-going somewhere.
-
-All of these episodes opened my eyes to the fact that if I followed
-General Miles I would have to do some riding such as I had rarely done
-before. In coming back to the railroad we left the Pine Ridge Agency
-in the evening without supper, and I was careful to get an even start.
-My horse teetered and wanted to gallop, but I knew that the
-twenty-eight miles would have to be done at full speed, so I tried to
-get him down to a fast trot, which gait I knew would last better; but
-in the process of calming him down to a trot I lost sight of the
-general and his orderly as they went tearing like mad over a hill
-against the last gleam of the sunset. I rode at a very rapid trot over
-the hills in the moonlight for over three hours, but I never saw the
-general again until I met him at dinner. Then I further concluded that
-if I followed the general I would have no time to regait my horses,
-but must take them as I found them, gallop or trot. So on this cool
-morning at Keough I took observations of the horses which were tied to
-the post, with my mind full of misgivings.
-
-[Illustration: GENERAL MILES AND HIS ESCORT]
-
-Patter, patter, patter--clank, clank, clank; up comes the company of
-Cheyenne scouts who are to escort the general--fine-looking, tall
-young men, with long hair, and mounted on small Indian ponies. They
-were dressed and accoutred as United States soldiers, and they fill
-the eye of a military man until nothing is lacking. Now the general
-steps out of the car and hands the commission into a six-mule
-ambulance. I am given a horse, and, mounting, we move off over the
-plain and into the hills. The sun comes streaming over the landscape,
-and the general is thinking about this old trail, and how years before
-he had ploughed his way through the blinding snow to the Lame Deer
-fight. I am secretly wishing that it would occupy his mind more fully,
-so that my breakfast might settle at the gentle gait we are going, but
-shortly he says, "It's sixty miles, and we must move along." We break
-into a gallop. The landscape is gilded by the morning sun, and the
-cool of the October air makes it a perfect thing, but there are
-elements in the affair which complicate its perfection. The "bad
-lands" are rough, and the general goes down a hill with even more
-rapidity than up it. The horses are not the perfect animals of the
-bridle-path, but poor old cavalry brutes, procured by the government
-under the old contract system, by which the government pays something
-like $125 for a $60 horse. This could be remedied by allowing the
-officers of each regiment to buy their own horses; but in our army
-nothing is remedied, because a lot of nice old gentlemen in Washington
-are too conservative to do anything but eat and sleep. There is a bit
-of human nature at the bottom of our army organization, and where is
-the man who can change that? Men who were the very jewels of the
-profession years ago have reached in due time the upper grades of
-rank, and occupy the bureaus of the department. These men who have
-acquired rank, years, and discretion naturally do nothing, and with
-sedate gravity insist that no one else shall do anything. The
-ambitious young men have to wait patiently for their retirement, and
-in process of waiting they, too, become old and conservative. Old
-soldiers are pardonable rubbish, since soldiers, like other men, must
-age and decay, the only distinction being that youthful vigor is of
-prime importance to a soldier, while in the case of the citizen any
-abatement of vigor is rewarded by being shelved. What to do with old
-soldiers is a problem which I will hand over to the economists as
-being beyond my depth. But to return to the going downhill. General
-Miles has acquired his knowledge of riding from wild Indians, and wild
-Indians go uphill and downhill as a matter of course at whatever gait
-they happen to be travelling. He would make his horse climb a tree
-with equal gravity if he was bound that way. The general has known
-Indians to ride for two days and a night at a rapid gallop, and it
-never occurs to him that he cannot do anything which any one else can;
-so he spurs along, and we go cutting around the _coulies_ and bluffs
-like frightened antelopes or mad creatures. The escort strings out
-behind. This is observed with a grim humor by the general, who desires
-nothing so much as to leave his escort far in the rear. He turns in
-his saddle, and seeing the dust of the escort far behind, says:
-"Shake up the young men a little; do 'em good. They get sleepy;" and
-away we go.
-
-It is over thirty miles to the first relay station, or courier's camp,
-and another problem looms up. The general's weight is over two hundred
-pounds, and I confess to two hundred and fifteen avoirdupois, and, as
-I have before remarked, my horse was not an Irish hunter, so my musing
-took a serious vein. It is all very well for a major-general to ride
-down a cavalry horse, but if such an accident were to happen to me,
-then my friends in the cavalry would crown me with thorns. Two hundred
-and fifteen pounds requires a great deal more careful attention than a
-one-hundred-and-forty-pound wasp-waisted cavalryman. What the latter
-can do with impunity would put me on foot--a thing that happened some
-ten years since in this very State of Montana, and a thing I have
-treasured in mind, and will not have repeated. So I brought the old
-horse down to a trot, and a good round trot eats up a road in short
-order. Your galloper draws away from you, but if the road is long
-enough, you find that you are at his heels.
-
-After a good day's ride of something like sixty miles, we met a troop
-of the Eighth Cavalry near its camp on the Tongue River, and the
-general is escorted in. The escorts draw into line, salute, and the
-general is duly deposited in a big Sibley tent; and I go away on the
-arms of some "cavalry kids" (as young lieutenants are called) to a
-hole in the ground (a dugout) where they are quartered. On the
-following morning I am duly admonished that if my whereabouts could
-have been ascertained on the previous evening, the expedition would
-have continued to the camp of the First Cavalry. I do not think the
-general was unduly severe, desiring simply to shift the
-responsibility of the procrastination on to other shoulders, and
-meanwhile being content to have things as they were. I was privately
-thanked by the citizen members of the commission for the delay I had
-caused, since they had a well-grounded conviction that sixty miles a
-day in an army ambulance was trouble enough. After some sarcasm by a
-jolly young sub, to the effect that "if one wants to call a citizen
-out of a tent, one must ring a dinner-bell," we were again mounted and
-on the way. I was badly mounted that day, but able to participate in
-the wild charge of forty-five miles to the Lame Deer camp, near the
-Cheyenne Agency. The fifty Cheyenne scouts and a troop of the Eighth
-were in escort.
-
-By a happy combination I was able to add greatly to my equestrian
-knowledge on this ride. It happened in this way; but I must explain.
-Some years ago I had occasion to ride a stock saddle (the cowboy
-article), and with all the positiveness of immature years, I held all
-other trees and all other methods of riding in a magnificent contempt.
-Later on I had to be convinced that a great many young cavalry
-officers in our service were the most daring and perfect riders, and
-that the McClelland saddle was the proper thing. I even elaborated a
-theory in explanation of all this, which I had duly shattered for me
-when I came East and frequented a New York riding-academy, where a
-smiling professor of the art assured me that cowboys and soldiers were
-the worst possible riders. Indeed, the sneers of the polite European
-were so superlative that I dared not even doubt his statements. Of
-course I never quite understood how my old champions of the cattle
-range and the war trail could pick things off the ground while in full
-career, or ride like mad over the cut banks and bowlders, if they were
-such desperately bad riders; and I never was able to completely
-understand why my European master could hardly turn in his saddle
-without tumbling off. But still he reduced me to submission, and I
-ceased even to doubt. I changed my style of riding, in deference to a
-public sentiment, and got my legs tucked up under my chin, and learned
-to loose my seat at every alternate footfall, and in time acquired a
-balance which was as secure as a pumpkin on the side of a barrel. Thus
-equipped with all this knowledge and my own saddle, I went out to the
-Northwest with the purpose of introducing a little revolution in
-cavalry riding. Things went swimmingly for a time. The interpreters
-and scouts watched my riding with mingled pity and scorn, but I knew
-they were unenlightened, and in no way to be regarded seriously. The
-general was duly amused by my teetering, and suggested to the smiling
-escort officers that "he has lived so long abroad, you know," etc.,
-all of which I did not mind, for my faith in the eternal art of the
-thing was complete. Now to tell how I discovered that I was riding a
-seat which was no seat at all, and was only retained by a series of
-happy accidents, I will continue. While at the head of the column,
-where I could see the deep ruts in the road and the bowlders, and
-could dodge the prairie-dog holes, it was simple enough; but my horse
-being a very clumsy galloper, and beginning to blow under the pace, I
-began to pull up, calculating to get a sharp trot, and overhaul the
-column when it slowed down. The column of soldiers dashed by, and the
-great cloud of dust rose up behind them which always follows a herd of
-animals in the West. Being no longer able to see, the only thing to do
-under the circumstances was to give my horse his head, and resign
-myself to the chances of a gopher hole, if it was foreordained that my
-horse should find one. True to his instincts, my old cavalry horse
-plunged into the ranks. You cannot keep a troop horse out of the
-ranks. They know their place, and seek it with the exactitude of
-water. If the cavalry tactics are ever changed, the present race of
-horses will have to be sold, because, while you can teach a horse
-anything, you cannot unteach him.
-
-[Illustration: THE SUPPLY TRAIN]
-
-In front I could see two silhouettes of soldiers tearing along, and
-behind could hear the heavy pounding of the troop horses, the clank of
-arms, the snorts and heavy breathings. I could hardly see my horse's
-head, to say nothing of the ground in front. Here is where the perfect
-grip with the thighs is wanted, and here is where the man who is
-bundled up like a ball on his horse's back is in imminent danger of
-breaking his neck. I felt like a pack on a government mule, and only
-wished I had some one to "throw the diamond hitch over me." The
-inequalities of the road make your horse plunge and go staggering
-sidewise, or down on his knees, and it is not at all an unusual thing
-for a cavalryman to upset entirely, though nothing short of a total
-turn-over will separate a veteran soldier from his horse. After a few
-miles of these vicissitudes I gained the head of the column, and when
-the pace slackened I turned the whole thing over in my mind, and a
-great light seemed to shine through the whole subject. For a smooth
-road and a trotting horse, that European riding-master was right; but
-when you put a man in the dust or smoke, over the rocks and cut banks,
-on the "bucking" horse, or where he must handle his weapons or his
-_vieta_, he must have a seat on his mount as tight as a stamp on an
-envelope, and not go washing around like a shot in a bottle. In a park
-or on a country road, where a man has nothing to do but give his
-undivided attention to sticking on his saddle, it has its advantages.
-An Indian or a cowboy could take the average park rider off from his
-horse, scalp him, hang him on a bush, and never break a gallop. I
-do not wish to seem intolerant, because I will say that the most
-beautiful horse and the most perfect horseman I have ever seen was the
-bay gelding Partisan and his rider in the high-school class at the
-recent Horse Show in New York; but I do insist that no one shall for a
-moment imagine that the American style of riding is not the firmest of
-all seats.
-
-[Illustration: UNITED STATES CAVALRY IN WINTER RIG]
-
-With a repetition of the military forms, we reached the cavalry camp
-on the Lame Deer Creek. This is an old battle-ground of the
-general's--his last fight with the Cheyennes, where, as the general
-puts it, we "kicked them out of their blankets in the early morning."
-These Indians recognize him as their conqueror, and were allied with
-him in the Nez Perce campaign. One old chief pointed to the stars on
-his shoulder-strap, and charged him to remember that they helped to
-put them there.
-
-That night was very cold, and I slept badly, so at an early hour I
-rolled out of my blankets and crawled into my clothes. I stepped out
-of my tent, and saw that the stars were yet visible and the light of
-the morning warming up to chase the gray shadows over the western
-hills. Three tight little cavalry soldiers came out on the parade, and
-blew three bugles as hard as ever they could to an unappreciative
-audience of sleepy soldiers and solemn hills. I walked down past the
-officers' row, and shook the kinks out of my stiffened knees.
-Everything was as quietly dismal as only a sleeping camp can be. The
-Sibley containing General Miles showed no signs of life, and until he
-arose this little military solar system would not revolve. I bethought
-me of the irregulars. They were down in the river bottom--Lieutenant
-Casey and his Indian scouts. I knew that Casey had commanded Indian
-scouts until his temper was as refined as beaten gold, so I thought it
-safer to arouse him than any one else, and, walking down, I scratched
-at his tent--which is equivalent to knocking--and received a rather
-loud and surly inquiry as to what I wanted. My sensitive nature was so
-shocked by this that, like the bad actor, I had hopes for no more
-generous gift than a cigarette. I was let into the Sibley, and saw the
-ground covered with blanketed forms. One of the swathed forms sat up,
-and the captain allowed he wanted to get up in the night, but that
-ever since Lieutenant Blank had shot at the orderly he was afraid to
-move about in the gloom. Lieutenant B. sat up and denied the
-impeachment. Another officer arose and made some extended remarks on
-the unseemly disturbance at this unseasonable hour. To pass over these
-inequalities of life, I will say that the military process of
-stiffening a man's backbone and reducing his mind to a logarithm
-breeds a homogeneous class whom we all know. They have small waists,
-and their clothes fit them; they are punctilious; they respect forms,
-and always do the dignified and proper thing at the particular
-instant, and never display their individuality except on two
-occasions: one is the field of battle and the other is before
-breakfast. Some bright fellow will one day tell in print the droll
-stock anecdotes of the United States army, and you'll all agree that
-they are good. They are better, though, if you sit in a Sibley on a
-cold morning while the orderly boils the coffee; and are more
-fortunate if you have Ned Casey to embellish what he calls the
-international complications which arose from the bombardment of Canada
-with paving-stones by a drunken recruit at Detroit.
-
-After the commission had talked to a ring of drowsy old chiefs, and
-the general had reminded them that he had thrashed them once, and was
-perfectly willing to do it again if they did not keep in the middle of
-the big road, the commission was loaded into the ambulances.
-
-[Illustration: UNITED STATES INFANTRY IN WINTER RIG]
-
-The driver clucked and whistled and snapped his whip as a preliminary
-which always precedes the concerted movement of six mules, and we
-started. This time I found that I had a mount that was "a horse from
-the ground up," as they phrase it in the red-blooded West. Well it was
-so, for at the relay camp I had issued to me a sorrel ruin which in
-the pristine vigor of its fifth year would not have commanded the
-value of a tin cup. After doing a mile of song and dance on this poor
-beast I dismounted, and shifting my saddle back to my led horse of the
-morning, which was led by a Crow scout, made the sixty-mile march of
-that day on the noble animal. Poor old chap, fit for a king, good for
-all day and the next, would bring six hundred dollars in the New York
-Horse Exchange, but condemned to pack a trooper in the ranks until a
-penurious government condemns and sells him to a man who, nine times
-out of ten, by the law of God, ought not to be intrusted with the
-keeping of the meanest of his creatures, to say nothing of his noblest
-work--a horse. "Such is life," is the salve a good soldier puts on his
-wounds.
-
-During the day we went all over the battle-field of the Little Big
-Horn. I heard a good deal of professional criticism, and it is my
-settled conviction that had Reno and Benteen gone in and fought as
-hard as they were commanded to do, Custer would have won his fight,
-and to-day be a major-general. The military moral of that affair for
-young soldiers is that when in doubt about what to do it is always
-safe to go in and fight "till you drop," remembering that, however a
-citizen may regard the proposition, a soldier cannot afford to be
-anything else than a "dead lion."
-
-We were nearing the Crow Agency and Fort Custer, and it is against all
-my better impulses, and with trepidation at the impropriety of
-unveiling the truth, that I disclose the fact that the general would
-halt the column at a convenient distance from a post, and would then
-exchange his travel-worn garb for glittering niceties of a
-major-general's uniform. The command then advanced into the fort. The
-guns bellowed and the cavalry swung into line, while numerous officers
-gathered, in all the perfection of neat-fitting uniforms, to receive
-him. At this time the writer eliminated himself from the ceremonial,
-and from some point of vantage proceeded to pull up his boots so as to
-cover as much as possible the gaping wounds in his riding-trousers,
-and tried vainly to make a shooting-jacket fit like an officer's
-blouse, while he dealt his hat sundry thumps in a vain endeaver to
-give it a more rakish appearance. He was then introduced and
-apologized for in turn. To this day he hopes the mantle of charity was
-broad enough to cover his case.
-
-What a contrast between soldiers in field and soldiers in garrison!
-Natty and trim--as straight as a sapling, with few words and no
-gestures--quite unlike those of two days, or rather nights, ago, when
-the cold froze them out of their blankets, and they sat around the
-camp-fires pounding tin cans and singing the Indian medicine song with
-a good Irish accent. Very funny that affair--the mixture of Cheyenne
-and Donnybrook is a strange noise.
-
-The last stage from Custer to the railroad is thirty-five miles and a
-half, which we did with two relays, the latter half of it in the
-night. There was no escort--only two orderlies and the general--and I
-pattered along through the gloom. The clouds hung over the earth in a
-dense blanket, and the road was as dim as a Florentine fresco; but
-night nor cold nor heat can bring General Miles to a walk, and the
-wild charge in the dark was, as an experience, a complete thing. You
-cannot see; you whirl through a canyon cut in the mud; you plough
-through the sage-brush and over the rocks clatter and bang. The
-general is certainly a grim old fellow--one of the kind that make
-sparks fly when he strikes an obstacle. I could well believe the old
-Fifth Infantryman who said "he's put many a corn on a dough-boy's
-foot," and it's a red-letter day for any one else that keeps at his
-horse's heels. You may ride into a hole, over a precipice, to
-perdition, if it's your luck on this night, but is not the general in
-front? You follow the general--that's the grand idea--that is the
-military idea. If the United States army was strung out in line with
-its general ahead, and if he should ride out into the broad Atlantic
-and swim to sea, the whole United States army would follow along, for
-that's the idea, you know.
-
-But for the headlong plunge of an orderly, we passed through all
-right, with due thankfulness on my part, and got to our car at the
-siding, much to the gratification of the Chicago colored man in
-charge, who found life at Custer Station a horrid blank. Two hundred
-and forty-eight miles in thirty-six hours and a half, and sixty miles
-of it on one horse, was not bad riding, considering everything. Not
-enough to make a man famous or lame, but enough for the time being.
-
-
-
-
-LIEUTENANT CASEY'S LAST SCOUT
-
-ON THE HOSTILE FLANKS WITH THE CHIS-CHIS-CHASH
-
-
-The train bearing the Cheyenne scout corps pulled into Rapid City
-somewhat late. It is possible you may think that it was a train of
-Pullman palace cars, but you would be mistaken, for it was a freight
-train, with the horses in tight box-cars, the bacon and
-Chis-chis-chash[1] on flat gravel cars, and Lieutenants Casey and
-Getty in the caboose. Evidently the element of haste was woven into
-this movement. We were glad to meet again. Expansive smiles lit up the
-brown features of the Indian scouts as they recognized me. Old
-Wolf-Voice came around in his large, patronizing way and said,
-"How?--what you do out here?" Wolf-Voice was a magnificent type of the
-Indian, with a grand face, a tremendous physique, and enough
-self-containment for a High-Church bishop. High-Walking nudged
-Stump-Horn and whispered in his ear, and they both smiled as they
-looked at me. Lieutenant Casey walked out in the road and talked with
-General Miles, who sat on his beautiful sorrel horse, while two scouts
-and a young "horse-pusher"[2] from St. Louis helped me to load one
-strawberry-roan horse, branded "52" on the nigh front foot, into a
-box-car with a scrawny lot of little ponies, who showed the hard
-scouting of the last month in their lank quarters.
-
-[Footnote 1: The name the Cheyennes apply to themselves.]
-
-[Footnote 2: Boy who travels with horses on the cars.]
-
-The quartermaster came down and asked Lieutenant Casey for a
-memorandum of his outfit, which was "70 horses, 49 Indian scouts, 1
-interpreter, 2 white officers, 1000 pounds of bacon, so many crackers,
-2000 pounds forage, 5 Sibley tents, and 1 citizen," all of which the
-quartermaster put down in a little book. You are not allowed by United
-States quartermasters to have an exaggerated estimate of your own
-importance. Bacon and forage and citizens all go down in the same
-column, with the only distinction that the bacon and forage outnumber
-you.
-
-We were pulled down the road a few miles to the town of Hermoso, and
-there, in the moonlight, the baggage was unloaded and the wild little
-ponies frightened out of the cars, down a chute, into the stock
-corrals. The Sibleys were pitched, and a crowd of curious citizens,
-who came down to feast their eyes on the Chis-chis-chash, were
-dissipated when a rather frugal dinner was prepared. This was
-Christmas night, and rather a cheerless one, since, in the haste of
-departure, the Sibley stoves had been forgotten. We never had stoves
-again until the gallant Leavenworth battalion came to the rescue with
-their surplus, and in the cold, frosty nights in the foot-hills there
-can be no personal happiness where there are no stoves. We brewed a
-little mess of hot stuff in a soldier's tin cup, and, in the words of
-Private Mulvaney, we drank to the occasion, "three fingers--standing
-up!"
-
-The good that comes in the ill wind where stoves are lacking is that
-you can get men up in the morning. Sun-worship must have originated in
-circumstances of this kind. The feeling of thankfulness at the sight
-of the golden rays permeates your soul, and your very bones are made
-glad.
-
-A few ounces of bacon, some of those accursed crackers which are made
-to withstand fire, water, and weevil, a quart of coffee blacker than
-evil, then down come the Sibleys, the blankets are rolled and the
-saddles adjusted, and bidding _adios_ to the First Infantry (which
-came in during the night), we trot off down the road.
-
-These, then, are the Cheyenne scouts. Well, I am glad I know the fact,
-but I never can reconcile the trim-looking scout corps of Keogh with
-these strange-looking objects. Erstwhile their ponies were fat, and
-cavorted around when falling in ranks; now they paddle along in the
-humblest kind of a business-like jog-trot. The new overcoats of the
-corps metamorphose the scouts into something between Russian Cossacks
-and Black Crooks. Saddle pockets bulge out, and a thousand and one
-little alterations in accoutrement grow up in the field which are
-frowned down in garrison. The men have scouted hard for a month, and
-have lost two nights' sleep, so at the halts for the wagons they lop
-down in the dust of the road, and sleep, while the little ponies stand
-over them, ears down, heads hanging, eyes shut, and one hind foot
-drawn up on its toe. Nothing can look so dejected as a pony, and
-doubtless few things have more reason to feel so. A short march of
-twenty-five miles passes us through the Seventeenth Infantry camp
-under Colonel Offley, and down to the Cheyenne River, where we camp
-for the night. There is another corps of Cheyenne scouts somewhere
-here on the river, under Lieutenant L. H. Struthers, of the First
-Infantry, and we expect to join them. On the other side of the
-Cheyenne rise the tangled masses of the famous Bad Lands--seamed and
-serrated, gray here, the golden sunset flashing there, with dark
-recesses giving back a frightful gloom--a place for stratagem and
-murder, with nothing to witness its mysteries but the cold blue winter
-sky. Yet we are going there. It is full of savage Sioux. The sun goes
-down. I am glad to cease thinking about it.
-
-[Illustration: CHIS-CHIS-CHASH SCOUT ON THE FLANKS]
-
-It is such a mere detail that I will not waste time on it, but this
-freezing out of your blankets four or five times every night, and this
-having to go out and coax a cooking fire into a cheerful spirit, can
-occupy a man's mind so that any words not depraved do not seem of any
-consequence. During one of the early hours I happened to sleep, and in
-this interval Mr. Struthers came into our tepee. He had been on a
-night's ride to the colonel for orders, and in passing, dropped in for
-a chat with Casey. When about to go, he said,
-
-"Oh, by-the-way, I met Remington."
-
-"Do you want to renew the acquaintance?" replied Casey.
-
-"Why--how--why--yes."
-
-"Well, he's there, on the other side of this tent." And Mr. Struthers
-passed out in the gloom, and his muttered expressions of astonishment
-were presently lost in the distance. I had ridden and camped with Mr.
-Struthers a few days since in the up country, while on the way to "the
-galloping Sixth."
-
-The next day we passed down the river, and soon saw what to
-inexperienced eyes might be dark gray rocks on the top of yellow
-hills. They were the pickets of the Cheyennes, and presently we saw
-the tepees and the ponies, and then we rode into camp. The men from
-Tongue River greeted the men from Pine Ridge--the relatives and
-friends--with _ki-yis_ of delight. The corps from Pine Ridge was
-organized from the Cheyennes on that reservation, and was as yet only
-partially disciplined, and in no way to be compared with Casey's Old
-Guard from Tongue River. Some two nights before, the Sioux had fired
-into their camp, and they had skirmished with the enemy. The vermilion
-of the war-path was on every countenance, and, through sympathy, I saw
-that our men too had gone into this style of decorative art; for faces
-which had previously been fresh and clean now passed my vision
-streaked and daubed into preternatural ferocity.
-
-It grew late and later, and yet Lieutenant Struthers did not return
-from his scouting of the day. We were alarmed, and wondered and hoped;
-for scouting through the Bad Lands to the stronghold was dangerous, to
-state it mildly. A few shots would not be heard twelve miles away in
-the hills. We pictured black objects lying prone on the sand as we
-scouted next day--little masses of clay which had been men and horses,
-but would then be as silent as the bare hillocks about them.
-
-"Ki-yi-yip--a-ou!" and a patter in the gloom.
-
-"That's Struthers." We fall over each other as we pile out of the hole
-in the Sibley, and find Struthers and Lieutenant Byrom, of the Eighth
-Cavalry, all safe and sound.
-
-"We have been on the stronghold; they are all gone; rustle some
-coffee," are words in the darkness; and we crawl back into the tent,
-where presently the big, honest, jolly eyes of Mr. Struthers look over
-a quart cup, and we are happy. Byrom was a fine little cavalryman, and
-I have good reason to know that for impudent daring of that
-desperately quiet kind he is distinguished in places where all men are
-brave.
-
-Away goes the courier to the colonel for orders, and after a time back
-he comes--a wild dash of twelve miles in the dark, and of little
-moment here, but a life memory to an unaccustomed one.
-
-"We go on the stronghold in the morning," says Casey; "and now to
-bed." A bed consists of two blankets spread on the ground, and all the
-personal property not otherwise appropriated piled on top. A luxury,
-mind you, is this; later it was much more simple, consisting of earth
-for a mattress and the sky for a counterpane.
-
-The sun is not up when in comes the horse herd. My strawberry roan
-goes sneaking about in the frosty willows, and after sundry
-well-studied manoeuvres I get a grip on the lariat, and am lugged
-and jerked over the brush until "52 on the nigh front foot" consents
-to stand still. I saddle up, but have lost my gun. I entreat Mr.
-Thompson, the interpreter, to help me find it. Mr. Thompson is a man
-who began fighting for the Union in East Tennessee about thirty years
-long gone, and he has continued to engage in that work up to date. Mr.
-Thompson has formed a character which is not as round as a ball, but
-much more the shape of horn-silver in its native state. He is humorous
-by turns, and early in my acquaintance he undertook the cultivation of
-my mind in the art of war as practised on the frontier. On this
-occasion he at last found my Springfield, and handed it to me with the
-admonition "that in times like these one warrior can't look after
-another warrior's gun."
-
-The wagons were to go--well, I never knew where, but they went off
-over the hills, and I never saw them again for some miserable days and
-dreary nights. Five Pine Ridge Cheyennes and Mr. Wolf-Voice were my
-party, and we filed away. At Battle Creek we watered, and crossed the
-Cheyenne a mile above. My horse was smooth shod, and the river frozen
-half-way over, so we slid around on the ice, and jumped into the icy
-waters, got wet, crawled out, slid around some more, and finally
-landed. Mr. Wolf-Voice looked me over, and smilingly said, "Me think
-you no like 'em"; wherein his conclusion was eminently correct. Who
-does like to have a mass of ice freeze on him when naturally the
-weather is cold enough to satisfy a walrus?
-
-It was twelve miles through the defiles of the Bad Lands to the blue
-ridge of the high mesa where the hostiles had lived. The trail was
-strewn with dead cattle, some of them having never been touched with a
-knife. Here and there a dead pony, ridden to a stand-still and left
-nerveless on the trail. No words of mine can describe these Bad Lands.
-They are somewhat as Dore pictured hell. One set of buttes, with cones
-and minarets, gives place in the next mile to natural freaks of a
-different variety, never dreamed of by mortal man. It is the action of
-water on clay; there are ashes, or what looks like them. The painter's
-whole palette is in one bluff. A year's study of these colors by Mr.
-Bierstadt, Professor Marsh, and Mr. Notman might possibly convey to
-the Eastern mind an idea; so we'll amble along after Mr. Wolf-Voice,
-and leave that subject intact.
-
-"Hark!" My little party stops suddenly, and we all listen. I feel
-stupid.
-
-"You hear 'em?" says Wolf-Voice, in a stage-whisper.
-
-"Hear what?" I say.
-
-"Shots."
-
-Then we all get out our guns and go galloping like mad. I can't
-imagine why, but I spur my horse and perform equestrian feats which in
-an ordinary frame of mind I should regard as insane. Down a narrow
-trail we go, with the gravel flying, and through a _coulee_, up a
-little hill, on top of which we stop to listen, and then away we go.
-The blue wall grows nearer, and at last we are under it. A few
-cotton-wood trees, some frozen water, a little cleft on the bluffs,
-and I see a trail winding upward. I know these warriors are going
-up there, but I can't understand precisely how. It is not the first
-perilous trail I have contemplated; but there are dead cattle lying at
-the bottom which had fallen off and been killed in the ascent. We
-dismount and start up. It tells on your wind, and tries the leg
-muscles. Up a steep place a horse wants to go fast, and you have to
-keep him from running over you. A bend in the trail where the running
-water has frozen seems impassable. I jump across it, and then pull the
-bridle and say, "Come on, boy!" If I were the horse I would balk, but
-the noble animal will try it. A leap, a plunging, and with a terrible
-scrabble we are all right. Farther up, and the incline is certainly
-eighty-five degrees. My horse looses his front feet, but a jerk at the
-headstall brings him down, and he plunges past me to be caught by an
-Indian at the top of the trail. For a moment we breathe, and then
-mount.
-
-[Illustration: "TWO GHOSTS I SAW"]
-
-Before us is a great flat plain blackened by fire, and with the grass
-still burning. Away in the distance, in the shimmer of the air waves,
-are figures.
-
-"Maybe so dey Sioux," says Wolf-Voice. And we gallop towards them.
-
-"What will you do if they are?" I ask.
-
-"Stand 'em off," replies the war-dog.
-
-Half an hour's ride showed them to be some of our Cheyennes. All about
-the plain were strewn the remains of dead cattle (heads and horns,
-half-butchered carcasses, and withal a rather impressive smell),
-coyotes, and ravens--all very like war. These Brules must have lived
-well. There were lodge poles, old fires, and a series of rifle pits
-across the neck of land which the Sioux had proposed to defend;
-medicine poles, and near them the sacrifices, among which was food
-dedicated to the Great Spirit, but eventually consumed by the less
-exalted members of Casey's command. I vandalized a stone pipe and a
-rawhide stirrup.
-
-The less curious members of our band had gone south, and Wolf-Voice
-and I rode along together. We discussed war, and I remember two of
-Wolf-Voice's opinions. Speaking of infantry and their method of
-fighting, he said:
-
-"Dese walk-a-heap soldiers dey dig hole--get in--shoot heap--Injun
-can't do nothin' wid 'em--can't kill 'em--can't do nothin' but jes go
-'way."
-
-Then, explaining why the Sioux had shown bad generalship in selecting
-their position, he turned in his saddle, and said, "De big guns he
-knock 'em rifle pit, den de calavy lun pas' in column--Injun no stop
-calavy--kill 'em heap, but no stop 'em--den de walk-a-heap dey come
-too, and de Sioux dey go ober de bluffs." And with wild enthusiasm he
-added, "De Sioux dey go to hell!" That prospect seemed to delight Mr.
-Wolf-Voice immensely.
-
-It was a weary ride over the black and smoking plain. A queer mirage
-was said by my Indian to be the Cheyenne scouts coming after us. Black
-figures of animals walking slowly along were "starving bronchos
-abandoned by the hostiles."
-
-"Cowboy he catch 'em," said Wolf-Voice.
-
-I explained that Colonel Offley had orders not to allow any citizens
-to cross the Cheyenne River.
-
-"Cowboy he go give um dam; he come alle samee."
-
-And I thought Wolf-Voice was probably right.
-
-On the southern edge of the bluffs of the mesa we halted, and found
-water for man and beast. The command gradually concentrated, and for
-half an hour we stood on the high points scanning the great flats
-below, and located the dust of the retiring hostile column and the
-back lying scouts. Lieutenant Casey had positive orders not to bring
-on an engagement, and only desired to hang on their flanks, so as to
-keep Miles familiar with the hostile movements. A courier started on
-his lonely ride back with a note for the major-general. Our scouts
-were flying about far down the valley, and we filed off after them.
-Presently a little column of dust follows a flying horseman towards
-us. On, on he comes. The scouts grow uneasy; wild creatures they are,
-with the suspicion of a red deer and the stealth of a panther.
-
-[Illustration: WATCHING THE DUST OF THE HOSTILES]
-
-The Sioux have fired on our scouts. Off we go at a trot, scattering
-out, unslinging our guns, and the air full of fight. I ride by Casey,
-and see he is troubled. The orders in his pocket do not call for a
-fight. Can he hold these wild warriors?
-
-"Struthers, we have got to hold these men," said Casey, in a tone of
-voice which was full of meaning. To shorten the story, our men were at
-last gotten into ranks, and details made to cover the advance. The
-hostiles were evidently much excited. Little clouds of dust whirling
-hither and thither showed where the opposing scouts were shadowing
-each other. The sun was waning, and yet we spurred our weary horses on
-towards the enemy. Poor beasts! no food and too much exercise since
-daylight.
-
-The Cheyennes were uneasy, and not at all pleased with this scheme of
-action. What could they know about the orders in Lieutenant Casey's
-pocket, prompted by a commanding general thinking of a thousand and
-one interests, and with telegrams from Washington directing the
-avoidance of an Indian war?
-
-Old-soldier Thompson even, with all his intelligence and knowledge of
-things, felt the wild Berserker battle valor, which he smothered with
-difficulty, and confined himself to potent remarks and spurring of
-old Piegan. He said: "This is a new kind of war. Them Injuns don't
-understand it, and to tell you the truth, I don't nuther. The Injuns
-say they have come all the way from Tongue River, and are going back
-poor. Can't get Sioux horses, can't kill Sioux," and in peroration he
-confirmed his old impression that "this is a new kind of war"; and
-then relapsed into reveries of what things used to be before General
-Miles invented this new kind of war.
-
-In our immediate front was a heavy body of Sioux scouts. Lieutenant
-Casey was ahead. Men broke from our ranks, but were held with
-difficulty by Struthers and Getty. Back comes Casey at a gallop. He
-sees the crisis, and with his hand on his six-shooter, says, "I will
-shoot the first man through the head who falls out of the ranks." A
-mutiny is imminent in the Pine Ridge contingent, but the diplomat
-Struthers brings order at last, and we file off down the hills to the
-left, and stop by a stream, while Casey goes back and meets a body of
-Sioux on a high hill for a powwow. I watched through a glass, and the
-sun went down as they talked. We had orders not to remove our saddles,
-and stood in the line nervously expecting anything imaginable to
-happen. The daring of Casey in this case is simply an instance of a
-hundred such, and the last one cost him his life. By his prompt
-measures with his own men, and by his courage in going among the Sioux
-to powwow, he averted a bloody battle, and obeyed his orders. There
-was one man between two banks of savage warriors who were fairly
-frothing at the mouth--a soldier; the sun will never shine upon a
-better.
-
-At last, after an interminable time, he came away. Far away to the
-right are two of our scouts driving two beeves. We see the bright
-blaze of the six-shooters, the steers tumble, and hunger is no longer
-one of our woes.
-
-[Illustration: THE HOTCHKISS GUN]
-
-The tired horses are unsaddled, to eat and drink and roll. We lay dry
-cotton-wood limbs on the fires, heavy pickets are told off, and our
-"bull meat" is cooked in the primitive style. Old Wolf-Voice and
-another scout are swinging six ribs on a piece of rawhide over a fire,
-and later he brings me a rib and a little bit of coffee from a roll in
-his handkerchief. I thought him a "brick," and mystified him by
-telling him so.
-
-Three or four Brules are let in through our pickets, and come "wagging
-their tails," as Two-Moons says, but adding, "Don't you trust the
-Sioux." They protest their good intentions, borrow tobacco, and say
-Lieutenant Casey can send in a wagon for commissaries to Pine Ridge,
-and also that I can go through their lines with it. Were there ever
-greater liars on earth?
-
-I sat near the fire and looked intently at one human brute opposite, a
-perfect animal, so far as I could see. Never was there a face so
-replete with human depravity, stolid, ferocious, arrogant, and all the
-rest--ghost-shirt, war-paint, feathers, and arms. As a picture,
-perfect; as a reality, horrible. Presently they go away, and we
-prepare for the night. This preparing for the night is a rather simple
-process. I have stolen my saddle blanket from my poor horse, and, with
-this laid on the ground, I try my saddle in four or five different
-positions in its capacity of pillow. The inventor of the Whitman tree
-never considered this possible use of his handiwork, or he might have
-done better. I next button the lower three buttons of my overcoat, and
-thus wrapped "I lie down to pleasant dreams"--of rheumatism.
-
-An hour later and the fires go down. Black forms pass like uneasy
-spirits, and presently you find yourself thrashing around in the
-underbrush across the river after branches to feed that insatiable
-fire. One comrade breaks through the ice and gets wet, and inelegant
-remarks come from the shadowy blackness under the river-banks. I think
-a man shouldn't use such language even under such circumstances, but I
-also think very few men wouldn't. A chilling wind now adds to the
-misery of the situation, and the heat of the fire goes off in a cloud
-of sparks to the No Man's Land across the river. After smoking a pipe
-for two hours your mouth is raw and your nervous system shattered, so
-nothing is left but to sit calmly down and just suffer. You can hate
-the Chinese on the other side of the world, who are now enjoying the
-rays of the sun.
-
-And morning finds you in the saddle. It always does. I don't know how
-it is--a habit of life, I suppose. Mornings ought to find me cosily
-ensconced in a good bed, but in retrospect they seem always to be in
-the saddle, with a good prospect of all day ahead, and evening finds
-me with a chunk of bull meat and without blankets, until one fine day
-we come to our wagons, our Sibleys, and the little luxuries of the
-mess chest.
-
-The next morning I announced my intention of going to Pine Ridge
-Agency, which is twenty-five miles away. Mr. Thompson, two scouts, and
-a Swedish teamster are to go in for provisions and messages. Mr.
-Thompson got in the wagon. I expressed my astonishment at this and the
-fact that he had no carbines, as we expected to go through the hostile
-pickets and camp. He said, "If I can't talk them Injuns out of killin'
-me, I reckon I'll have to go." I trotted along with Red-Bear and
-Hairy-Arm, and a mile and a half ahead went the courier, Wells. Poor
-man! in two hours he lay bleeding in the road, with a bullet through
-the hips, and called two days for water before he "struck the long
-trail to the kingdom come," as the cowboys phrase it.
-
-We could see two black columns of smoke, which we did not understand.
-After we had gone eight or ten miles, and were just crossing a ravine,
-we saw a Sioux buck on a little hill just ahead, out of pistol-shot.
-He immediately rode the "danger signal." Red-Bear turned his horse in
-the "peace sign," and advanced. We drove over the ravine, and halted.
-I dismounted. Six young Brule Sioux rose out of the ground, and rode
-up to Red-Bear, and the hills were full of pickets to the right and
-left. We waited to hear the result of Red-Bear's conversation, when he
-presently came back and spoke to Thompson in Cheyenne. I looked at
-him; his eyes were snapping, and his facial muscles twitched
-frightfully. This was unusual, and I knew that things were not well.
-
-"Red-Bear says we will have to go back," explained Thompson; and
-turning to Red-Bear he requested that two Sioux might come closer, and
-talk with us. Things looked ominous to me, not understanding Cheyenne,
-which was being talked. "This is a bad hole, and I reckon our cake is
-dough right here," said Thompson.
-
-Hairy-Arm's face was impassive, but his dark eyes wandered from Brule
-to Brule with devilish calculation. Two young bucks came up, and one
-asked Thompson for tobacco, whereat he was handed a package of Durham
-by Thompson, which was not returned.
-
-"It's lucky for me that tobacco ain't a million dollars," sighed
-Thompson.
-
-Another little buck slipped up behind me, whereat Mr. Thompson gave me
-a warning look. Turning, I advanced on him quickly (I wanted to be as
-near as possible, not being armed), and holding out my hand, said,
-"How, colah?" He did not like to take it, but he did, and I was saved
-the trouble of further action.
-
-"We'll never get this wagon turned around," suggested Mr. Thompson, as
-the teamster whipped up; but we did. And as we commenced our movement
-on Casey's camp, Mr. Thompson said, "Go slow now; don't run, or
-they'll sure shoot."
-
-"Gemme gun," said the little scout Red-Bear, and we all got our arms
-from the wagon.
-
-There was no suspense now. Things had begun to happen. A little
-faster, yet faster, we go up the little banks of the _coulee_, and, ye
-gods! what!--five fully armed, well-mounted cowboys--a regular rescue
-scene from Buffalo Bill's show.
-
-"Go back!" shouted Thompson.
-
-Bang! bang! bang! and the bullets whistle around and kick up the dust.
-Away we go.
-
-Four bucks start over the hills to our right to flank us. Red-Bear
-talked loudly in Cheyenne.
-
-Thompson repeated, "Red-Bear says if any one is hit, get off in the
-grass and lie down; we must all hang together."
-
-We all yelled, "We will."
-
-A well-mounted man rode like mad ahead of the laboring team horses to
-carry the news to the scout camp. The cowboys, being well mounted,
-could easily have gotten away, but they stuck like true blues.
-
-Here is where the great beauty of American character comes out.
-Nothing can be taken seriously by men used to danger. Above the
-pounding of the horses and the rattle of the wagon and through the
-dust came the cowboy song from the lips of Mr. Thompson:
-
-    "Roll your tail,
-    And roll her high;
-    We'll all be angels
-    By-and-by."
-
-[Illustration: A RUN TO THE SCOUT CAMP]
-
-We deployed on the flanks of the wagon so that the team horses might
-not be shot, which would have stopped the whole outfit, and we did ten
-miles at a record-breaking gallop. We struck the scout camp in a blaze
-of excitement. The Cheyennes were in war-paint, and the ponies' tails
-were tied up and full of feathers. Had the Sioux materialized at that
-time, Mr. Casey would have had his orders broken right there.
-
-After a lull in the proceedings, Mr. Thompson confided to me that "the
-next time I go to war in a wagon it will put the drinks on me"; and he
-saddled Piegan, and patted his neck in a way which showed his
-gratification at the change in transport. We pulled out again for the
-lower country, and as our scouts had seen the dust of Colonel
-Sanford's command, we presently joined them.
-
-Any remarks made to Mr. Thompson on the tobacco subject are taken
-seriously, and he has intimated to me a quiet yearning for a shot at
-"the particular slit-mouthed Brule who got away with that Durham."
-
-How we awoke next morning with the sleet freezing in our faces, and
-how we made camp in the blizzard, and borrowed Sibley stoves of the
-soldiers, and how we were at last comfortable, and spent New-Year's
-Eve in a proper manner, is of little interest.
-
-I was awakened at a late hour that night by Captain Baldwin, of
-General Miles's staff, and told to saddle up for a night's ride to
-Pine Ridge. This was the end of my experience with Lieutenant Casey
-and his gallant corps. We shook hands cheerily in the dim candle-light
-of the tepee, and agreeing to meet in New York at some not distant
-day, I stepped out from the Sibley, mounted, and rode away in the
-night.
-
-Three days later I had eaten my breakfast on the dining-car, and had
-settled down to a cigar and a Chicago morning paper. The big leads at
-the top of the column said, "Lieutenant E. W. Casey Shot." Casey shot!
-I look again. Yes; despatches from head-quarters--a fact beyond
-question.
-
-A nasty little Brule Sioux had made his _coup_, and shot away the life
-of a man who would have gained his stars in modern war as naturally as
-most of his fellows would their eagles. He had shot away the life of
-an accomplished man; the best friend the Indians had; a man who did
-not know "fear"; a young man beloved by his comrades, respected by his
-generals and by the Secretary of War. The squaws of another race will
-sing the death-song of their benefactor, and woe to the Sioux if the
-Northern Cheyennes get a chance to _coup_!
-
-"Try to avoid bloodshed," comes over the wires from Washington. "Poor
-savages!" comes the plaintive wail of the sentimentalist from his
-place of security; but who is to weep for the men who hold up a row of
-brass buttons for any hater of the United States to fire a gun at? Are
-the squaws of another race to do the mourning for American soldiers?
-Are the men of another race to hope for vengeance? Bah!
-
-I sometimes think Americans lack a virtue which the military races of
-Europe possess. Possibly they may never need it. I hope not. American
-soldiers of our frontier days have learned not to expect sympathy in
-the East, but where one like Casey goes down there are many places
-where Sorrow will spread her dusky pinions and the light grow dim.
-
-
-
-
-THE SIOUX OUTBREAK IN SOUTH DAKOTA
-
-
-We discussed the vague reports of the Wounded Knee fight in the upper
-camps of the cordon, and old hands said it could be no ordinary affair
-because of the large casualty. Two days after I rode into the Pine
-Ridge Agency, very hungry and nearly frozen to death, having ridden
-with Captain Baldwin, of the staff, and a Mr. Miller all night long. I
-had to look after a poor horse, and see that he was groomed and fed,
-which require considerable tact and "hustling" in a busy camp. Then
-came my breakfast. That struck me as a serious matter at the time.
-There were wagons and soldiers--the burial party going to the Wounded
-Knee to do its solemn duty. I wanted to go very much. I stopped to
-think; in short, I hesitated, and of course was "lost," for after
-breakfast they had gone. Why did I not follow them? Well, my natural
-prudence had been considerably strengthened a few days previously by a
-half-hour's interview with six painted Brule Sioux, who seemed to be
-in command of the situation. To briefly end the matter, the burial
-party was fired on, and my confidence in my own good judgment was
-vindicated to my own satisfaction.
-
-I rode over to the camp of the Seventh United States Cavalry, and met
-all the officers, both wounded and well, and a great many of the men.
-They told me their stories in that inimitable way which is studied art
-with warriors. To appreciate brevity you must go to a soldier. He
-shrugs his shoulders, and points to the bridge of his nose, which has
-had a piece cut out by a bullet, and says, "Rather close, but don't
-amount to much." An inch more, and some youngster would have had his
-promotion.
-
-I shall not here tell the story of the Seventh Cavalry fight with Big
-Foot's band of Sioux on the Wounded Knee; that has been done in the
-daily papers; but I will recount some small-talk current in the Sibley
-tepees, or the "white man's war tents," as the Indians call them.
-
-Lying on his back, with a bullet through the body, Lieutenant Mann
-grew stern when he got to the critical point in his story. "I saw
-three or four young bucks drop their blankets, and I saw that they
-were armed. 'Be ready to fire, men; there is trouble.' There was an
-instant, and then we heard sounds of firing in the centre of the
-Indians. 'Fire!' I shouted, and we poured it into them."
-
-"Oh yes, Mann, but the trouble began when the old medicine-man threw
-the dust in the air. That is the old Indian signal of 'defiance,' and
-no sooner had he done that act than those bucks stripped and went into
-action. Just before that some one told me that if we didn't stop that
-old man's talk he would make trouble. He said that the white men's
-bullets would not go through the ghost shirts."
-
-Said another officer, "The way those Sioux worked those Winchesters
-was beautiful." Which criticism, you can see, was professional.
-
-Added another, "One man was hit early in the firing, but he continued
-to pump his Winchester; but growing weaker and weaker, and sinking
-down gradually, his shots went higher and higher, until his last went
-straight up in the air."
-
-[Illustration: IN THE TRENCHES]
-
-"Those Indians were plumb crazy. Now, for instance, did you notice
-that before they fired they raised their arms to heaven? That was
-devotional."
-
-"Yes, captain, but they got over their devotional mood after the
-shooting was over," remonstrated a cynic. "When I passed over the
-field after the fight one young warrior who was near to his death
-asked me to take him over to the medicine-man's side, that he might
-die with his knife in the old conjurer's heart. He had seen that the
-medicine was bad, and his faith in the ghost shirt had vanished. There
-was no doubt but that every buck there thought that no bullet could
-touch him."
-
-"Well," said an officer, whose pipe was working into a reflective
-mood, "there is one thing which I learned, and that is that you can
-bet that the private soldier in the United States army will fight.
-He'll fight from the drop of the hat anywhere and in any place, and
-he'll fight till you call _time_. I never in my life saw Springfield
-carbines worked so industriously as at that place. I noticed one young
-fellow, and his gun seemed to just blaze all the while. Poor chap!
-he's mustered out for good."
-
-I saw the scout who had his nose cut off. He came in to get shaved.
-His face was covered with strips of court-plaster, and when informed
-that it would be better for him to forego the pleasure of a shave, he
-reluctantly consented. He had ridden all day and been in the second
-day's fight with his nose held on by a few strips of plaster, and he
-did not see just why he could not be shaved; but after being talked to
-earnestly by a half-dozen friends he succumbed.
-
-"What became of the man who did that?" I asked of him.
-
-He tapped his Winchester and said, "Oh, I got him all right!"
-
-I went into the hospital tents and saw the poor fellows lying on the
-cots, a little pale in the face, and with a drawn look about the mouth
-and eyes. That is the serious part of soldiering. No excitement, no
-crowd of cheering comrades, no shots and yells and din of battle. A
-few watchful doctors and Red Cross stewards with bottles and bandages,
-and the grim spectre of the universal enemy hovering over all, and
-ready to dart down on any man on the cots who lay quieter and whose
-face was more pale than his fellows.
-
-I saw the Red Cross ambulances draw up in line, and watched the
-wounded being loaded into them. I saw poor Garlington. His blond
-mustache twitched under the process of moving, and he looked like a
-man whose mustache wouldn't twitch unnecessarily. Lieutenant
-Hawthorne, who was desperately shot in the groin while working the
-little Hotchkiss cannon, turned his eyes as they moved Garlington from
-the next cot, and then waited patiently for his own turn.
-
-I was talking with old Captain Capron, who commanded the battery at
-the fight--a grim old fellow, with a red-lined cape overcoat, and
-nerve enough for a hundred-ton gun. He said: "When Hawthorne was shot
-the gun was worked by Corporal Weimert, while Private Hertzog carried
-Hawthorne from the field and then returned to his gun. The Indians
-redoubled their fire on the men at the gun, but it seemed only to
-inspire the corporal to renewed efforts. Oh, my battery was well
-served," continued the captain, as he put his hands behind his back
-and looked far away.
-
-This professional interest in the military process of killing men
-sometimes rasps a citizen's nerves. To the captain everything else was
-a side note of little consequence so long as his guns had been worked
-to his entire satisfaction. That was the point.
-
-[Illustration: THE ADVANCE GUARD--A MILITARY SACRIFICE]
-
-At the mention of the name of Captain Wallace, the Sibley became so
-quiet that you could hear the stove draw and the wind wail about the
-little canvas town. It was always "Poor Wallace!" and "He died like a
-soldier, with his empty six-shooter in his right hand, shot through
-the body, and with two jagged wounds in his head."
-
-I accosted a soldier who was leaning on a crutch while he carried a
-little bundle in his right hand. "You bet I'm glad to get out in the
-sunlight; that old hospital tent was getting mighty tiresome."
-
-"Where was I shot?" He pointed to his hip. "Only a flesh wound; this
-is my third wound. My time is out in a few days; but I'm going to
-re-enlist, and I hope I'll get back here before this trouble is over.
-I want to get square with these Injuns." You see, there was
-considerable human nature in this man's composition.
-
-The ambulance went off down the road, and the burial party came back.
-The dead were for the time forgotten, and the wounded were left to
-fight their own battles with stitches and fevers and suppuration. The
-living toiled in the trenches, or stood out their long term on the
-pickets, where the moon looked down on the frosty landscape, and the
-cold wind from the north searched for the crevices in their blankets.
-
-
-
-
-AN OUTPOST OF CIVILIZATION
-
-
-The hacienda San Jose de Bavicora lies northwest from Chihuahua 225 of
-the longest miles on the map. The miles run up long hills and dive
-into rocky canyons; they stretch over never-ending burnt plains, and
-across the beds of tortuous rivers thick with scorching sand. And
-there are three ways to make this travel. Some go on foot--which is
-best, if one has time--like the Tahuramaras; others take it ponyback,
-after the Mexican manner; and persons with no time and a great deal of
-money go in a coach. At first thought this last would seem to be the
-best, but the Guerrero stage has never failed to tip over, and the
-company make you sign away your natural rights, and almost your
-immortal soul, before they will allow you to embark. So it is not the
-best way at all, if I may judge from my own experience. We had a coach
-which seemed to choose the steepest hill on the route, where it then
-struck a stone, which heaved the coach, pulled out the king-pin, and
-what I remember of the occurrence is full of sprains and aches and
-general gloom. Guerrero, too, is only three-fourths of the way to
-Bavicora, and you can only go there if Don Gilberto, the _patron_ of
-the hacienda--or, if you know him well enough, "Jack"--will take you
-in the ranch coach.
-
-After bumping over the stones all day for five days, through a
-blinding dust, we were glad enough when we suddenly came out of the
-tall timber in the mountain pass and espied the great yellow plain
-of Bavicora stretching to the blue hills of the Sierra. In an hour's
-ride more, through a chill wind, we were at the ranch. We pulled up at
-the entrance, which was garnished by a bunch of cow-punchers, who
-regarded us curiously as we pulled our aching bodies and bandaged
-limbs from the Concord and limped into the _patio_.
-
-[Illustration: THE HACIENDA SAN JOSE DE BAVICORA]
-
-To us was assigned the room of honor, and after shaking ourselves down
-on a good bed, with mattress and sheeting, we recovered our
-cheerfulness. A hot toddy, a roaring fireplace, completed the effect.
-The floor was strewn with bear and wolf skin rugs; it had pictures and
-draperies on the walls, and in a corner a wash-basin and pitcher--so
-rare in these parts--was set on a stand, grandly suggestive of the
-refinements of luxury we had attained to. I do not wish to convey the
-impression that Mexicans do not wash, because there are brooks enough
-in Mexico if they want to use them, but wash-basins are the
-advance-guards of progress, and we had been on the outposts since
-leaving Chihuahua.
-
-Jack's man William had been ever-present, and administered to our
-slightest wish; his cheerful "Good-mo'nin', gemmen," as he lit the
-fire, recalled us to life, and after a rub-down I went out to look at
-the situation.
-
-Jack's ranch is a great straggling square of mud walls enclosing two
-_patios_, with adobe corrals and out-buildings, all obviously
-constructed for the purposes of defence. It was built in 1770 by the
-Jesuits, and while the English and Dutch were fighting for the
-possession of the Mohawk Valley, Bavicora was an outpost of
-civilization, as it is to-day. Locked in a strange language, on
-parchment stored in vaults in Spain, are the records of this
-enterprise. In 1840 the good fathers were murdered by the Apaches, the
-country devasted and deserted, and the cattle and horses hurried to
-the mountain lairs of the Apache devils. The place lay idle and
-unreclaimed for years, threatening to crumble back to the dust of
-which it was made. Near by are curious mounds on the banks of a dry
-_arroyo_. The punchers have dug down into these ruins, and found adobe
-walls, mud plasterings, skeletons, and bits of woven goods. They call
-them the "Montezumas." All this was to be changed. In 1882 an American
-cowboy--which was Jack--accompanied by two companions, penetrated
-south from Arizona, and as he looked from the mountains over the fair
-plain of Bavicora, he said, "I will take this." The Apaches were on
-every hand; the country was terrorized to the gates of Chihuahua. The
-stout heart of the pioneer was not disturbed, and he made his word
-good. By purchase he acquired the plain, and so much more that you
-could not ride round it in two weeks. He moved in with his hardy
-punchers, and fixed up Bavicora so it would be habitable. He chased
-the Indians off his ranch whenever he "cut their sign." After a while
-the Mexican _vaqueros_ from below overcame their terror, when they saw
-the American hold his own with the Apache devils, and by twos and
-threes and half-dozens they came up to take service, and now there are
-two hundred who lean on Jack and call him _patron_. They work for him
-and they follow him on the Apache trail, knowing he will never run
-away, believing in his beneficence and trusting to his courage.
-
-I sat on a mud-bank and worked away at a sketch of the yellow sunlit
-walls of the mud-ranch, with the great plain running away like the
-ocean into a violet streak under the blue line of the Pena Blanca. In
-the rear rises a curious broken formation of hills like millions of
-ruins of Rhine castles. The _lobos_[3] howl by night, and the
-Apache is expected to come at any instant. The old _criada_ or
-serving-woman who makes the beds saw her husband killed at the front
-door, and every man who goes out of the _patio_ has a large assortment
-of the most improved artillery on his person. Old carts with heavy
-wooden wheels like millstones stand about. Brown people with big straw
-hats and gay _serapes_ lean lazily against the gray walls. Little pigs
-carry on the contest with nature, game-chickens strut, and clumsy
-puppies tumble over each other in joyful play; _burros_ stand about
-sleepily, only indicating life by suggestive movements of their great
-ears, while at intervals a pony, bearing its lithe rider, steps from
-the gate, and, breaking into an easy and graceful lope, goes away into
-the waste of land.
-
-[Footnote 3: Wolves.]
-
-[Illustration: EL PATRON]
-
-I rose to go inside, and while I gazed I grew exalted in the
-impression that here, in the year of 1893, I had rediscovered a Fort
-Laramie after Mr. Parkman's well-known description. The foreman, Tom
-Bailey, was dressed in store clothes, and our room had bedsteads and a
-wash-basin; otherwise it answered very well. One room was piled high
-with dried meat, and the great stomachs of oxen filled with tallow;
-another room is a store full of goods--calicoes, buckskin, _riatas_,
-yellow leather shoes, guns, and other quaint plunder adapted to the
-needs of a people who sit on the ground and live on meat and
-corn-meal.
-
-"Charlie Jim," the Chinese cook, has a big room with a stove in it,
-and he and the stove are a never-ending wonder to all the folks, and
-the fame of both has gone across the mountains to Sonora and to the
-south. Charlie is an autocrat in his curious Chinese way, and by the
-dignity of his position as Mr. Jack's private cook, and his unknown
-antecedents, he conjures the Mexicans and damns the Texans, which
-latter refuse to take him seriously and kill him, as they would a
-"proper" man. Charlie Jim, in return, entertains ideas of Texans which
-he secretes, except when they dine with Jack, when he may be heard to
-mutter, "Cake and pie no good for puncher, make him fat and lazy"; and
-when he crosses the _patio_ and they fling a rope over his foot, he
-becomes livid, and breaks out, "Damn puncher; damn rope; rope man all
-same horse; damn puncher; no good that way."
-
-The _patron_ has the state apartment, and no one goes there with his
-hat on; but the relations with his people are those of a father and
-children. An old gray man approaches; they touch the left arm with the
-right--an abbreviated hug; say "Buenos dias, patron!" "Buenos dias,
-Don Sabino!" and they shake hands. A California saddle stands on a
-rack by the desk, and the latter is littered with photographs of men
-in London clothes and women in French dresses, the latter singularly
-out of character with their surroundings. The old _criada_ squats
-silently by the fireplace, her head enveloped in her blue _rebozo_,
-and deftly rolls her cigarette. She alone, and one white bull-dog, can
-come and go without restraint.
-
-The _administrador_, which is Mr. Tom Bailey, of Texas, moves about in
-the discharge of his responsibilities, and they are universal;
-anything and everything is his work, from the negotiation for the sale
-of five thousand head of cattle to the "busting" of a bronco which no
-one else can "crawl."
-
-The clerk is in the store, with his pink boy's face, a pencil behind
-his ear, and a big sombrero, trying to look as though he had lived in
-these wilds longer than at San Francisco, which he finds an impossible
-part. He has acquired the language and the disregard of time
-necessary to one who would sell a real's worth of cotton cloth to a
-Mexican.
-
-[Illustration: THE ADMINISTRADOR OF SAN JOSE DE BAVICORA]
-
-The forge in the blacksmith's shop is going, and one puncher is
-cutting another puncher's hair in the sunlight; ponies are being
-lugged in on the end of lariats, and thrown down, tied fast, and left
-in a convulsive heap, ready to be shod at the disposition of their
-riders.
-
-On the roof of the house are two or three men looking and pointing to
-the little black specks on the plain far away, which are the cattle
-going into the _lagunas_ to drink.
-
-The second _patio_, or the larger one, is entered by a narrow passage,
-and here you find horses and saddles and punchers coming and going,
-saddling and unsaddling their horses, and being bucked about or
-dragged on a rope. In the little doorways to the rooms of the men
-stand women in calico dresses and blue cotton _rebozos_, while the
-dogs and pigs lie about, and little brown _vaqueros_ are ripening in
-the sun. In the rooms you find pottery, stone _metates_ for grinding
-the corn, a fireplace, a symbol of the Catholic Church, some
-_serapes_, some rope, and buckskin. The people sit on a mat on the
-floor, and make cigarettes out of native tobacco and corn-husks, or
-rolled _tortillas_; they laugh and chat in low tones, and altogether
-occupy the tiniest mental world, hardly larger than the _patio_, and
-not venturing beyond the little mud town of Temozachic, forty miles
-over the hills. Physically the men vacillate between the most intense
-excitement and a comatose state of idleness, where all is quiet and
-slothful, in contrast to the mad whirl of the roaring _rodeo_.
-
-In the haciendas of old Mexico one will find the law and custom of the
-feudal days. All the laws of Mexico are in protection of the
-land-owner. The master is without restraint, and the man lives
-dependent on his caprice. The _patron_ of Bavicora, for instance,
-leases land to a Mexican, and it is one of the arrangements that he
-shall drive the ranch coach to Chihuahua when it goes. All lessees of
-land are obliged to follow the _patron_ to war, and, indeed, since the
-common enemy, the Apache, in these parts is as like to harry the
-little as the great, it is exactly to his interest to wage the war.
-Then, too, comes the responsibility of the _patron_ to his people. He
-must feed them in the famine, he must arbitrate their disputes, and he
-must lead them at all times. If through improvidence their work-cattle
-die or give out, he must restock them, so that they may continue the
-cultivation of the land, all of which is not altogether profitable in
-a financial way, as we of the North may think, where all business is
-done on the "hold you responsible, sir," basis.
-
-The _vaqueros_ make their own saddles and _reatas_; only the iron
-saddle-rings, the rifles, and the knives come from the _patron_, and
-where he gets them God alone knows, and the puncher never cares. No
-doctor attends the sick or disabled, old women's nursing standing
-between life and death. The Creator in His providence has arranged it
-so that simple folks are rarely sick, and a sprained ankle, a bad
-bruise from a steer's horn or a pitching horse, are soon remedied by
-rest and a good constitution. At times instant and awful death
-overtakes the puncher--a horse in a gopher-hole, a mad steer, a chill
-with a knife, a blue hole where the .45 went in, a quicksand closing
-overhead, and a cross on a hill-side are all.
-
-Never is a door closed. Why they were put up I failed to discover. For
-days I tried faithfully to keep mine shut, but every one coming or
-going left it open, so that I gave it up in despair. There are only
-two windows in the ranch of San Jose de Bavicora, one in our chamber
-and one in the blacksmith's shop, both opening into the court. In
-fact, I found those were the only two windows in the state, outside of
-the big city. The Mexicans find that their enemies are prone to shoot
-through these apertures, and so they have accustomed themselves to do
-without them, which is as it should be, since it removes the
-temptation.
-
-[Illustration: A HAIR-CUT A LA PUNCHER]
-
-One night the _patron_ gave a _baile_. The _vaqueros_ all came with
-their girls, and a string band rendered music with a very dancy swing.
-I sat in a corner and observed the man who wears the big hat and who
-throws the rawhide as he cavorted about with his girl, and the way
-they dug up the dust out of the dirt floor soon put me to coughing.
-"Candles shed their soft lustre--and tallow" down the backs of our
-necks, and the band scraped and thrummed away in a most serious
-manner. One man had a harp, two had primitive fiddles, and one a
-guitar. One old fiddler was the leader, and as he bowed his head on
-his instrument I could not keep my eyes off him. He had come from
-Sonora, and was very old; he looked as though he had had his share of
-a very rough life; he was never handsome as a boy, I am sure, but the
-weather and starvation and time had blown him and crumbled him into a
-ruin which resembled the pre-existing ape from which the races sprang.
-If he had never committed murder, it was for lack of opportunity; and
-Sonora is a long travel from Plymouth Rock.
-
-Tom Bailey, the foreman, came round to me, his eyes dancing, and his
-shock of hair standing up like a Circassian beauty's, and pointing, he
-said, "Thar's a woman who's prettier than a speckled pup; put your
-twine on her." Then, as master of ceremonies, he straightened up and
-sang out over the fiddles and noise: "Dance, thar, you fellers, or
-you'll git the gout."
-
-In an adjoining room there was a very heavy jug of strong-water, and
-thither the men repaired to pick up, so that as the night wore on
-their brains began to whirl after their legs, and they whooped at
-times in a way to put one's nerves on edge. The band scraped the
-harder and the dance waxed fast, the spurs clinked, and _bang, bang,
-bang_ went the Winchester rifles in the _patio_, while the chorus
-"Viva el patron" rang around the room--the Old Guard was in action.
-
-We sat in our room one evening when in filed the _vaqueros_ and asked
-to be allowed to sing for the _patron_. They sat on my bed and on the
-floor, while we occupied the other; they had their hats in their
-hands, and their black, dreamy eyes were diverted as though overcome
-by the magnificence of the apartment. They hemmed and coughed, until
-finally one man, who was evidently the leader, pulled himself together
-and began, in a high falsetto, to sing; after two or three words the
-rest caught on, and they got through the line, when they stopped; thus
-was one leading and the others following to the end of the line. It
-was strange, wild music--a sort of general impression of a boys' choir
-with a wild discordance, each man giving up his soul as he felt moved.
-The refrain always ended, for want of breath, in a low, expiring howl,
-leaving the audience in suspense; but quickly they get at it again,
-and the rise of the tenor chorus continues. The songs are largely
-about love and women and doves and flowers, in all of which nonsense
-punchers take only a perfunctory interest in real life.
-
-These are the amusements--although the puncher is always roping for
-practice, and everything is fair game for his skill; hence dogs, pigs,
-and men have become as expert in dodging the rope as the _vaqueros_
-are in throwing it. A mounted man, in passing, will always throw his
-rope at one sitting in a doorway, and then try to get away before he
-can retaliate by jerking his own rope over his head. I have seen a man
-repair to the roof and watch a doorway through which he expected some
-comrade to pass shortly, and watch for an hour to be ready to drop his
-noose about his shoulders.
-
-[Illustration: THE MUSIC AT THE "BAILE"]
-
-The ranch fare is very limited, and at intervals men are sent to bring
-back a steer from the water-holes, which is dragged to the front door
-and there slaughtered. A day of feasting ensues, and the doorways and
-the gutter-pipes and the corral fences are festooned with the beef
-left to dry in the sun.
-
-There is the serious side of the life. The Apache is an evil which
-Mexicans have come to regard as they do the meteoric hail, the
-lightning, the drought, and any other horror not to be averted. They
-quarrel between themselves over land and stock, and there are a great
-many men out in the mountains who are proscribed by the government.
-Indeed, while we journeyed on the road and were stopping one night in
-a little mud town, we were startled by a fusillade of shots, and in
-the morning were informed that two men had been killed the night
-before, and various others wounded. At another time a Mexican, with
-his followers, had invaded our apartment and expressed a disposition
-to kill Jack, but he found Jack was willing to play his game, and gave
-up the enterprise. On the ranch the men had discovered some dead stock
-which had been killed with a knife. Men were detailed to roam the
-country in search of fresh trails of these cattle-killers. I asked the
-foreman what would happen in case they found a trail which could be
-followed, and he said, "Why, we would follow it until we came up, and
-then kill them." If a man is to "hold down" a big ranch in Northern
-Mexico he has got to be "all man," because it is "a man's job," as
-Mr. Bailey, of Los Ojos, said--and he knows.
-
-Jack himself is the motive force of the enterprise, and he disturbs
-the quiet of this waste of sunshine by his presence for about six
-months in the year. With his strong spirit, the embodiment of
-generations of pioneers, he faces the Apache, the marauder, the
-financial risks. He spurs his listless people on to toil, he permeates
-every detail, he storms, and greater men than he have sworn like
-troopers under less provocation than he has at times; but he has
-snatched from the wolf and the Indian the fair land of Bavicora, to
-make it fruitful to his generation.
-
-There lies the hacienda San Jose de Bavicora, gray and silent on the
-great plain, with the mountain standing guard against intruders, and
-over it the great blue dome of the sky, untroubled by clouds, except
-little flecks of vapor which stand, lost in immensity, burning bright
-like opals, as though discouraged from seeking the mountains or the
-sea whence they came. The marvellous color of the country beckons to
-the painter; its simple, natural life entrances the blond barbarian,
-with his fevered brain; and the gaudy _vaquero_ and his trappings and
-his pony are the actors on this noble stage. But one must be
-appreciative of it all, or he will find a week of rail and a week of
-stage and a week of horseback all too far for one to travel to see a
-shadow across the moon.
-
-
-
-
-A RODEO AT LOS OJOS
-
-
-The sun beat down on the dry grass, and the punchers were squatting
-about in groups in front of the straggling log and _adobe_ buildings
-which constituted the outlying ranch of Los Ojos.
-
-Mr. Johnnie Bell, the _capitan_ in charge, was walking about in his
-heavy _chaparras_, a slouch hat, and a white "biled" shirt. He was
-chewing his long yellow mustache, and gazing across the great plain of
-Bavicora with set and squinting eyes. He passed us and repassed us,
-still gazing out, and in his long Texas drawl said, "Thar's them San
-Miguel fellers."
-
-I looked, but I could not see any San Miguel fellows in the wide
-expanse of land.
-
-"Hyar, crawl some horses, and we'll go out and meet 'em," continued
-Mr. Bell; and, suiting the action, we mounted our horses and followed
-him. After a time I made out tiny specks in the atmospheric wave which
-rises from the heated land, and in half an hour could plainly make out
-a cavalcade of horsemen. Presently breaking into a gallop, which
-movement was imitated by the other party, we bore down upon each
-other, and only stopped when near enough to shake hands, the half-wild
-ponies darting about and rearing under the excitement. Greetings were
-exchanged in Spanish, and the peculiar shoulder tap, or abbreviated
-embrace, was indulged in. Doubtless a part of our outfit was as
-strange to Governor Terraza's men--for he is the _patron_ of San
-Miguel--as they were to us.
-
-My imagination had never before pictured anything so wild as these
-leather-clad _vaqueros_. As they removed their hats to greet Jack,
-their unkempt locks blew over their faces, back off their foreheads,
-in the greatest disorder. They were clad in terra-cotta buckskin,
-elaborately trimmed with white leather, and around their lower legs
-wore heavy cowhide as a sort of legging. They were fully armed, and
-with their jingling spurs, their flapping ropes and buckskin strings,
-and with their gay _serapes_ tied behind their saddles, they were as
-impressive a cavalcade of desert-scamperers as it has been my fortune
-to see. Slowly we rode back to the corrals, where they dismounted.
-
-Shortly, and unobserved by us until at hand, we heard the clatter of
-hoofs, and, leaving in their wake a cloud of dust, a dozen punchers
-from another outfit bore down upon us as we stood under the _ramada_
-of the ranch-house, and pulling up with a jerk, which threw the ponies
-on their haunches, the men dismounted and approached, to be welcomed
-by the master of the _rodeo_.
-
-A few short orders were given, and three mounted men started down to
-the springs, and, after charging about, we could see that they had
-roped a steer, which they led, bawling and resisting, to the ranch,
-where it was quickly thrown and slaughtered. Turning it on its back,
-after the manner of the old buffalo-hunters, it was quickly disrobed
-and cut up into hundreds of small pieces, which is the method
-practised by the Mexican butchers, and distributed to the men.
-
-In Mexico it is the custom for the man who gives the "round-up" to
-supply fresh beef to the visiting cow-men; and on this occasion it
-seemed that the pigs, chickens, and dogs were also embraced in the
-bounty of the _patron_, for I noticed one piece which hung immediately
-in front of my quarters had two chickens roosting on the top of it,
-and a pig and a dog tugging vigorously at the bottom.
-
-[Illustration: COMING TO THE RODEO]
-
-The horse herds were moved in from the _llano_ and rounded up in the
-corral, from which the punchers selected their mounts by roping, and
-as the sun was westering they disappeared, in obedience to orders, to
-all points of the compass. The men took positions back in the hills
-and far out on the plain; there, building a little fire, they cook
-their beef, and, enveloped in their _serapes_, spend the night. At
-early dawn they converge on the ranch, driving before them such stock
-as they may.
-
-In the morning we could see from the ranch-house a great semicircle of
-gray on the yellow plains. It was the thousands of cattle coming to
-the _rodeo_. In an hour more we could plainly see the cattle, and
-behind them the _vaqueros_ dashing about, waving their _serapes_.
-Gradually they converged on the _rodeo_ ground, and, enveloped in a
-great cloud of dust and with hollow bellowings, like the low pedals of
-a great organ, they begin to mill, or turn about a common centre,
-until gradually quieted by the enveloping cloud of horsemen. The
-_patron_ and the captains of the neighboring ranches, after an
-exchange of long-winded Spanish formalities, and accompanied by
-ourselves, rode slowly from the ranch to the herd, and, entering it,
-passed through and through and around in solemn procession. The cattle
-part before the horsemen, and the dust rises so as to obscure to
-unaccustomed eyes all but the silhouettes of the moving thousands.
-This is an important function in a cow country, since it enables the
-owners or their men to estimate what numbers of the stock belong to
-them, to observe the brands, and to inquire as to the condition of the
-animals and the numbers of calves and "mavericks" and to settle any
-dispute which may arise therefrom.
-
-All controversy, if there be any, having been adjusted, a part of the
-punchers move slowly into the herd, while the rest patrol the outside,
-and hold it. Then a movement soon begins. You see a figure dash at
-about full speed through an apparently impenetrable mass of cattle;
-the stock becomes uneasy and moves about, gradually beginning the
-milling process, but the men select the cattle bearing their brand,
-and course them through the herd; all becomes confusion, and the
-cattle simply seek to escape from the ever-recurring horsemen. Here
-one sees the matchless horsemanship of the punchers. Their little
-ponies, trained to the business, respond to the slightest pressure.
-The cattle make every attempt to escape, dodging in and out and
-crowding among their kind; but right on their quarter, gradually
-forcing them to the edge of the herd, keeps the puncher, until
-finally, as a last effort, the cow and the calf rush through the
-supporting line, when, after a terrific race, she is turned into
-another herd, and is called "the cut."
-
-One who finds pleasure in action can here see the most surprising
-manifestations of it. A huge bull, wild with fright, breaks from the
-herd, with lowered head and whitened eye, and goes charging off
-indifferent to what or whom he may encounter, with the little pony
-pattering in his wake. The cattle run at times with nearly the
-intensity of action of a deer, and whip and spur are applied
-mercilessly to the little horse. The process of "tailing" is indulged
-in, although it is a dangerous practice for the man, and reprehensible
-from its brutality to the cattle. A man will pursue a bull at top
-speed, will reach over and grasp the tail of the animal, bring it to
-his saddle, throw his right leg over the tail, and swing his horse
-suddenly to the left, which throws the bull rolling over and over.
-That this method has its value I have seen in the case of pursuing
-"mavericks," where an unsuccessful throw was made with the rope, and
-the animal was about to enter the thick timber; it would be impossible
-to coil the rope again, and an escape would follow but for the
-wonderful dexterity of these men in this accomplishment. The little
-calves become separated from their mothers, and go bleating about;
-their mothers respond by bellows, until pandemonium seems to reign.
-The dust is blinding, and the puncher becomes grimy and soiled; the
-horses lather; and in the excitement the desperate men do deeds which
-convince you of their faith that "a man can't die till his time
-comes." At times a bull is found so skilled in these contests that he
-cannot be displaced from the herd; it is then necessary to rope him
-and drag him to the point desired; and I noticed punchers ride behind
-recalcitrant bulls and, reaching over, spur them. I also saw two men
-throw simultaneously for an immense creature, when, to my great
-astonishment, he turned tail over head and rolled on the ground. They
-had both sat back on their ropes together.
-
-[Illustration: WAVING SERAPE TO DRIVE CATTLE]
-
-The whole scene was inspiring to a degree, and well merited Mr.
-Yorick's observation that "it is the sport of kings; the image of war,
-with twenty-five per cent. of its danger."
-
-Fresh horses are saddled from time to time, but before high noon the
-work is done, and the various "cut-offs" are herded in different
-directions. By this time the dust had risen until lost in the sky
-above, and as the various bands of cowboys rode slowly back to the
-ranch, I observed their demoralized condition. The economy _per force_
-of the Mexican people prompts them to put no more cotton into a shirt
-than is absolutely necessary, with the consequence that, in these
-cases, their shirts had pulled out from their belts and their
-_serapes_, and were flapping in the wind; their mustaches and their
-hair were perfectly solid with dust, and one could not tell a bay
-horse from a black.
-
-Now come the cigarettes and the broiling of beef. The bosses were
-invited to sit at our table, and as the work of cutting and branding
-had yet to be done, no time was taken for ablutions. Opposite me sat a
-certain individual who, as he engulfed his food, presented a grimy
-waste of visage only broken by the rolling of his eyes and the
-snapping of his teeth.
-
-We then proceeded to the corrals, which were made in stockaded form
-from gnarled and many-shaped posts set on an end. The cows and calves
-were bunched on one side in fearful expectancy. A fire was built just
-outside of the bars, and the branding-irons set on. Into the corrals
-went the punchers, with their ropes coiled in their hands. Selecting
-their victims, they threw their ropes, and, after pulling and tugging,
-a bull calf would come out of the bunch, whereat two men would set
-upon him and "rastle" him to the ground. It is a strange mixture of
-humor and pathos, this mutilation of calves--humorous when the calf
-throws the man, and pathetic when the man throws the calf.
-Occasionally an old cow takes an unusual interest in her offspring,
-and charges boldly into their midst. Those men who cannot escape soon
-enough throw dust in her eyes, or put their hats over her horns. And
-in this case there were some big steers which had been "cut out" for
-purposes of work at the plough and turned in with the young stock; one
-old grizzled veteran manifested an interest in the proceedings, and
-walked boldly from the bunch, with his head in the air and bellowing;
-a wild scurry ensued, and hats and _serapes_ were thrown to confuse
-him. But over all this the punchers only laugh, and go at it again. In
-corral roping they try to catch the calf by the front feet, and in
-this they become so expert that they rarely miss. As I sat on the
-fence, one of the foremen, in play, threw and caught my legs as they
-dangled.
-
-[Illustration: TAILING A BULL]
-
-When the work is done and the cattle are again turned into the herd,
-the men repair to the _casa_ and indulge in games and pranks. We had
-shooting-matches and hundred-yard dashes; but I think no records were
-broken, since punchers on foot are odd fish. They walk as though they
-expected every moment to sit down. Their knees work outward, and they
-have a decided "hitch" in their gait; but once let them get a foot in
-a stirrup and a grasp on the horn of the saddle, and a dynamite
-cartridge alone could expel them from their seat. When loping over the
-plain the puncher is the epitome of equine grace, and if he desires to
-look behind him he simply shifts his whole body to one side and lets
-the horse go as he pleases. In the pursuit of cattle at a _rodeo_ he
-leans forward in his saddle, and with his arms elevated to his
-shoulders he "plugs" in his spurs and makes his pony fairly sail.
-While going at this tremendous speed he turns his pony almost in his
-stride, and no matter how a bull may twist and swerve about, he is at
-his tail as true as a magnet to the pole. The Mexican punchers all use
-the "ring bit," and it is a fearful contrivance. Their saddle-trees
-are very short, and as straight and quite as shapeless as a "saw-buck
-pack-saddle." The horn is as big as a dinner plate, and taken
-altogether it is inferior to the California tree. It is very hard on
-horses' backs, and not at all comfortable for a rider who is not
-accustomed to it.
-
-They all use hemp ropes which are imported from some of the southern
-states of the republic, and carry a lariat of hair which they make
-themselves. They work for from eight to twelve dollars a month in
-Mexican coin, and live on the most simple diet imaginable. They are
-mostly _peoned_, or in hopeless debt to their _patrons_, who go after
-any man who deserts the range and bring him back by force. A puncher
-buys nothing but his gorgeous buckskin clothes, and his big
-silver-mounted straw hat, his spurs, his riata, and his _cincha_
-rings. He makes his _teguas_ or buckskin boots, his heavy leggings,
-his saddle, and the _patron_ furnishes his arms. On the round-up,
-which lasts about half of the year, he is furnished beef, and also
-kills game. The balance of the year he is kept in an outlying camp to
-turn stock back on the range. These camps are often the most simple
-things, consisting of a pack containing his "grub," his saddle, and
-_serape_, all lying under a tree, which does duty as a house. He
-carries a flint and steel, and has a piece of sheet-iron for a stove,
-and a piece of pottery for boiling things in. This part of their lives
-is passed in a long siesta, and a man of the North who has a local
-reputation as a lazy man should see a Mexican puncher loaf, in order
-to comprehend that he could never achieve distinction in the land
-where _poco tiempo_ means forever. Such is the life of the _vaquero_,
-a brave fellow, a fatalist, with less wants than the pony he rides, a
-rather thoughtless man, who lacks many virtues, but when he mounts his
-horse or casts his riata all men must bow and call him master.
-
-The _baile_, the song, the man with the guitar--and under all this
-_dolce far niente_ are their little hates and bickerings, as thin as
-cigarette smoke and as enduring as time. They reverence their parents,
-they honor their _patron_, and love their _compadre_. They are grave,
-and grave even when gay; they eat little, they think less, they
-meet death calmly, and it's a terrible scoundrel who goes to hell from
-Mexico.
-
-[Illustration: JOHNNIE BELL OF LOS OJOS]
-
-The Anglo-American foremen are another type entirely. They have all
-the rude virtues. The intelligence which is never lacking and the
-perfect courage which never fails are found in such men as Tom Bailey
-and Johnnie Bell--two Texans who are the superiors of any cow-men I
-have ever seen. I have seen them chase the "mavericks" at top speed
-over a country so difficult that a man could hardly pass on foot out
-of a walk. On one occasion Mr. Bailey, in hot pursuit of a bull,
-leaped a tremendous fallen log at top speed, and in the next instant
-"tailed" and threw the bull as it was about to enter the timber. Bell
-can ride a pony at a gallop while standing up on his saddle, and while
-Cossacks do this trick they are enabled to accomplish it easily from
-the superior adaptability of their saddles to the purpose. In my
-association with these men of the frontier I have come to greatly
-respect their moral fibre and their character. Modern civilization, in
-the process of educating men beyond their capacity, often succeeds in
-vulgarizing them; but these natural men possess minds which, though
-lacking all embellishment, are chaste and simple, and utterly devoid
-of a certain flippancy which passes for smartness in situations where
-life is not so real. The fact that a man bolts his food or uses his
-table-knife as though it were a deadly weapon counts very little in
-the game these men play in their lonely range life. They are not
-complicated, these children of nature, and they never think one thing
-and say another. Mr. Bell was wont to squat against a fireplace--_a
-la_ Indian--and dissect the peculiarities of the audience in a most
-ingenuous way. It never gave offence either, because so guileless. Mr.
-Bailey, after listening carefully to a theological tilt, observed
-that "he believed he'd be religious if he knowed how."
-
-The jokes and pleasantries of the American puncher are so close to
-nature often, and so generously veneered with heart-rending profanity,
-as to exclude their becoming classic. The cow-men are good friends and
-virulent haters, and, if justified in their own minds, would shoot a
-man instantly, and regret the necessity, but not the shooting,
-afterwards.
-
-Among the dry, saturnine faces of the cow punchers of the Sierra Madre
-was one which beamed with human instincts, which seemed to say,
-"Welcome, stranger!" He was the first impression my companion and
-myself had of Mexico, and as broad as are its plains and as high its
-mountains, yet looms up William on a higher pinnacle of remembrance.
-
-We crawled out of a Pullman in the early morning at Chihuahua, and
-fell into the hands of a little black man, with telescopic pantaloons,
-a big sombrero with the edges rolled up, and a grin on his
-good-humored face like a yawning _barranca_.
-
-"Is you frens of Mista Jack's?"
-
-"We are."
-
-"Gimme your checks. Come dis way," he said; and without knowing why we
-should hand ourselves and our property over to this uncouth personage,
-we did it, and from thence on over the deserts and in the mountains,
-while shivering in the snow by night and by day, there was Jack's man
-to bandage our wounds, lend us tobacco when no one else had any, to
-tuck in our blankets, to amuse us, to comfort us in distress, to
-advise and admonish, until the last _adios_ were waved from the train
-as it again bore us to the border-land.
-
-On our departure from Chihuahua to meet Jack out in the mountains
-the stage was overloaded, but a proposition to leave William behind
-was beaten on the first ballot; it was well vindicated, for without
-William the expedition would have been a "march from Moscow." There
-was only one man in the party with a sort of bass-relief notion that
-he could handle the Spanish language, and the relief was a very slight
-one--almost imperceptible--the politeness of the people only keeping
-him from being mobbed. But William could speak German, English, and
-Spanish, separately, or all at once.
-
-[Illustration: WILLIAM IN ACTION]
-
-William was so black that he would make a dark hole in the night, and
-the top of his head was not over four and a half feet above the soles
-of his shoes. His legs were all out of drawing, but forty-five winters
-had not passed over him without leaving a mind which, in its sphere of
-life, was agile, resourceful, and eminently capable of grappling with
-any complication which might arise. He had personal relations of
-various kinds with every man, woman, and child whom we met in Mexico.
-He had been thirty years a cook in a cow camp, and could evolve
-banquets from the meat on a bull's tail, and was wont to say, "I don'
-know so much 'bout dese yar stoves, but gie me a camp-fire an' I can
-make de bes' thing yo' ever threw your lip ober."
-
-When in camp, with his little cast-off English tourist cap on one side
-of his head, a short black pipe tipped at the other angle to balance
-the effect, and two or three stripes of white corn-meal across his
-visage, he would move round the camp-fire like a cub bear around a
-huckleberry bush, and in a low, authoritative voice have the Mexicans
-all in action, one hurrying after water, another after wood, some
-making _tortillas_, or cutting up venison, grinding coffee between two
-stones, dusting bedding, or anything else. The British Field-Marshal
-air was lost in a second when he addressed "Mister Willie" or "Mister
-Jack," and no fawning courtier of the Grand Monarch could purr so low.
-
-On our coach ride to Bavicora, William would seem to go up to any
-ranch-house on the road, when the sun was getting low, and after ten
-minutes' conversation with the grave Don who owned it, he would turn
-to us with a wink, and say: "Come right in, gemmen. Dis ranch is
-yours." Sure enough, it was. Whether he played us for major-generals
-or governors of states I shall never know, but certainly we were
-treated as such.
-
-On one occasion William had gotten out to get a hat blown off by the
-wind, and when he came up to view the wreck of the turn-over of the
-great Concord coach, and saw the mules going off down the hill with
-the front wheels, the ground littered with boxes and debris, and the
-men all lying about, groaning or fainting in agony, William scratched
-his wool, and with just a suspicion of humor on his face he ventured,
-"If I'd been hyar, I would be in two places 'fore now, shuah," which
-was some consolation to William, if not to us.
-
-In Chihuahua we found William was in need of a clean shirt, and we had
-got one for him in a shop. He had selected one with a power of color
-enough to make the sun stand still, and with great glass diamonds in
-it. We admonished him that when he got to the ranch the punchers would
-take it away from him.
-
-"No, sah; I'll take it off 'fore I get thar."
-
-William had his commercial instincts developed in a reasonable degree,
-for he was always trying to trade a silver watch, of the Captain
-Cuttle kind, with the Mexicans. When asked what time it was, William
-would look at the sun and then deftly cant the watch around, the
-hands of which swung like compasses, and he would show you the time
-within fifteen minutes of right, which little discrepancy could never
-affect the value of a watch in the land of _manana_.
-
-[Illustration: MOUNTING A WILD ONE]
-
-That he possessed tact I have shown, for he was the only man at
-Bavicora whose relations with the _patron_ and the smallest, dirtiest
-Indian "kid," were easy and natural. Jack said of his popularity, "He
-stands 'way in with the Chinese cook; gets the warm corner behind the
-stove." He also had courage, for didn't he serve out the ammunition in
-Texas when his "outfit" was in a life-and-death tussle with the
-Comanches? did he not hold a starving crowd of Mexican teamsters off
-the grub-wagon until the boys came back?
-
-There was only one feature of Western life with which William could
-not assimilate, and that was the horse. He had trusted a bronco too
-far on some remote occasion, which accounted partially for the kinks
-in his legs; but after he had recovered fully his health he had pinned
-his faith to _burros_, and forgotten the glories of the true cavalier.
-
-"No, sah, Mister Jack, I don' care for to ride dat horse. He's a good
-horse, but I jes hit de flat for a few miles 'fore I rides him," he
-was wont to say when the cowboys gave themselves over to an
-irresponsible desire to see a horse kill a man. He would then go about
-his duties, uttering gulps of suppressed laughter, after the negro
-manner, safe in the knowledge that the _burro_ he affected could "pack
-his freight."
-
-One morning I was taking a bath out of our wash-basin, and William,
-who was watching me and the coffee-pot at the same time, observed that
-"if one of dese people down hyar was to do dat dere, dere'd be a
-funeral 'fo' twelve o'clock."
-
-William never admitted any social affinity with Mexicans, and as to
-his own people he was wont to say: "Never have went with people of my
-own color. Why, you go to Brazos to-day, and dey tell you dere was
-Bill, he go home come night, an' de balance of 'em be looking troo de
-grates in de morning." So William lives happily in the "small social
-puddle," and always reckons to "treat any friends of Mister Jack's
-right." So if you would know William, you must do it through Jack.
-
-It was on rare occasions that William, as master of ceremonies,
-committed any indiscretion, but one occurred in the town of Guerrero.
-We had gotten in rather late, and William was sent about the town to
-have some one serve supper for us. We were all very busy when William
-"blew in" with a great sputtering, and said, "Is yous ready for
-dinner, gemmen?" "Yes, William," we answered, whereat William ran off.
-After waiting a long time, and being very hungry, we concluded to go
-and "rustle" for ourselves, since William did not come back and had
-not told us where he had gone. After we had found and eaten a dinner,
-William turned up, gloomy and dispirited. We inquired as to his mood.
-"I do declar', gemmen, I done forget dat you didn't know where I had
-ordered dat dinner; but dere's de dinner an' nobody to eat it, an' I's
-got to leave dis town 'fore sunup, pay for it, or die." Unless some
-one had advanced the money, William's two other alternatives would
-have been painful.
-
-The romance in William's life even could not be made mournful, but it
-was the "mos' trouble" he ever had, and it runs like this: Some years
-since William had saved up four hundred dollars, and he had a girl
-back in Brazos to whom he had pinned his faith. He had concluded to
-assume responsibilities, and to create a business in a little mud
-town down the big road. He had it arranged to start a travellers'
-eating-house; he had contracted for a stove and some furniture; and at
-about that time his dishonest employer had left Mexico for parts
-unknown, with all his money. The stove and furniture were yet to be
-paid for, so William entered into hopeless bankruptcy, lost his girl,
-and then, attaching himself to Jack, he bravely set to again in life's
-battle. But I was glad to know that he had again conquered, for before
-I left I overheard a serious conversation between William and the
-_patron_. William was cleaning a frying-pan by the camp-fire light,
-and the _patron_ was sitting enveloped in his _serape_ on the other
-side.
-
-[Illustration: A MODERN SANCHO PANZA]
-
-"Mist' Jack, I's got a girl. She's a Mexican."
-
-"Why, William, how about that girl up in the Brazos?" inquired the
-_patron_, in surprise.
-
-"Don't care about her now. Got a new girl."
-
-"Well, I suppose you can have her, if you can win her," replied the
-_patron_.
-
-"Can I, sah? Well, den, I's win her already, sah--dar!" chuckled
-William.
-
-"Oh! very well, then, William, I will give you a wagon, with two
-yellow ponies, to go down and get her; but I don't want you to come
-back to Bavicora with an empty wagon."
-
-"No, sah; I won't, sah," pleasedly responded the lover.
-
-"Does that suit you, then?" asked the _patron_.
-
-"Yes, sah; but, sah, wonder, sah, might I have the two old whites?"
-
-"All right! You can have the two old white ponies;" and, after a
-pause, "I will give you that old _adobe_ up in La Pinta, and two
-speckled steers; and I don't want you to come down to the ranch except
-on _baile_ nights, and I want you to slide in then just as quiet as
-any other outsider," said the _patron_, who was testing William's
-loyalty to the girl.
-
-"All right! I'll do that."
-
-"William, do you know that no true Mexican girl will marry a man who
-don't know how to ride a charger?" continued the _patron_, after a
-while.
-
-"Yes; I's been thinking of dat; but dar's dat Timborello, he's a good
-horse what a man can 'pend on," replied William, as he scoured at the
-pan in a very wearing way.
-
-"He's yours, William; and now all you have got to do is to win the
-girl."
-
-After that William was as gay as a robin in the spring; and as I write
-this I suppose William is riding over the pass in the mountains,
-sitting on a board across his wagon, with his Mexican bride by his
-side, singing out between the puffs of his black pipe, "Go on, dar,
-you muchacos; specks we ever get to Bavicora dis yar gait?"
-
-
-
-
-IN THE SIERRA MADRE WITH THE PUNCHERS
-
-
-On a chill, black morning the cabins of Los Ojos gave up their inmates
-at an early hour. The ponies, mules, and _burros_ were herded up, and
-stood shivering in an angle, while about them walked the men,
-carefully coiling their hair lariats, and watching for an opportunity
-to jerk them over the heads of the selected ones. The _patron's_ black
-pet walked up to him, but the mounts of my companion and self sneaked
-about with an evident desire not to participate in the present
-service. Old _Cokomorachie_ and Jim were finally led forth, protesting
-after the manner of their kind. I carefully adjusted my Whitman's
-officer-tree over a wealth of saddle blanketing, and slung my
-Winchester 45-70 and my field-glasses to it. The punchers, both white
-and brown, and two or three women, regarded my new-fangled saddle with
-amused glances; indeed, Mr. Bell's Mexican wife laughed at it
-outright, and Tom Bailey called it "a damn rim-fire." Another humorist
-thought that "it would give the chickens the pip if they got onto it";
-all of which I took good-humoredly, since this was not the first time
-"your Uncle Samuel" had been away from home; and after some days, when
-a lot of men were carefully leading sore-backed horses over the
-mountains, I had cause to remark further on the subject. A Mexican
-cow-saddle is a double-barrelled affair; it will eat a hole into a
-horse's spine and a pair of leather breeches at the same time. If one
-could ask "Old Jim" about that saddle of mine, I think he would give
-it an autograph recommend, for he finished the trip with the hide of
-his back all there.
-
-[Illustration: MY COMRADE]
-
-Leaving the "burro men" to haul and pull at their patient beasts as
-they bound on their loads, our outfit "pulled out" on what promised to
-be plenty of travelling. We were to do the rounds of the ranch,
-explore the mountains, penetrate to the old Apache strongholds, shoot
-game, find cliff-dwellers' villages, and I expect the dark minds of
-the punchers hoped for a sight at the ever-burning fire which should
-discover the lost mine of Tiopa. We were also promised a fight with
-the "Kid" if we "cut his trail"; and if he "cut ours," we may never
-live to regret it. Some tame Indians, just in from a hunt in the Rio
-Chico, had seen three fires, but they had "rolled their tails"[4] for
-Bavicora so promptly that they had not ascertained whether they
-were Apache or not. The same men we were in the company of had run the
-"Kid's" band in to the States only two months before, but on our trip
-that very elusive and very "bad Injun" was not encountered. Much as I
-should like to see him, I have no regrets, since it is extremely
-likely that he would have seen me first.
-
-[Footnote 4: Cowboy for travelling rapidly.]
-
-[Illustration: ON THE MOUNTAINS]
-
-Our little band was composed of the _patron_, Don Gilberto; my
-travelling companion from New York city, who had never before been
-west of the Elysian Fields of New Jersey; Bailey and Bell, ranch
-foremen, and as dauntless spirits as ever the Texas border nurtured;
-the ranch bookkeeper, a young man "short" on experiences and "long" on
-hope; Epitacio, an Indian hunter, since outlawed; William, the colored
-cook; four buckskin Mexican punchers; an old man who was useless for
-practical purposes, but who was said to be "funny" in Spanish; and two
-burro men. We were that day to go to the farthest outlying ranch,
-called the Casa Camadra, and then to stop for a short hunt and to give
-the punchers time to "gentle" some steers for work-cattle. The puncher
-method of doing this is beautifully simple, for any animal undergoing
-this is gentle or dead after it. After scouring the plain for antelope
-until late, we followed up a creek towards the cabin where we expected
-to find the punchers and the burro men with their loads of creature
-comforts, and as we rode in it was raining a cold sleet. The little
-log-cabin was low, small, and wonderfully picturesque. It was a
-typical "shack," such as one used to see in the Northwest when the
-hunters were there. Out in the rain sat two punchers, enveloped in
-their _serapes_, engaged in watching a half-dozen big steers eat
-grass. Inside of the cabin was William by a good fire in a most
-original fireplace, glowing with heat and pride over his corn-cakes
-and "marrow-gut." Between various cigarettes, the last drink of
-_tequela_, and the drying of our clothes, we passed the time until
-William had put the "grub" on a pack-saddle blanket and said, "Now,
-gemmen, fly in."
-
-"Fly in" is vulgar, but it is also literal, for we did that: we did
-not dine--we flew in. The expression and the food were both good.
-Outside, the cold rain had turned into a wet snow, and we all crowded
-into the little place and squatted or lay about on the floor. With
-fingers and hunting-knives we carved and tore at the mountain of beef.
-The punchers consume enormous quantities of meat, and when satiated
-they bring forth their corn-husks and tobacco-pouches, and roll their
-long, thin cigarettes, which burn until they draw their _serapes_
-about their heads and sink back in dreamless sleep. It is all
-beautifully primitive, and as I rise on my elbow to look across the
-blanketed forms packed like mackerel in a cask, to hear their heavy
-breathing, and see the fire glow, and hear the wind howl outside, I
-think how little it takes to make men happy. Tom Bailey and Johnnie
-Bell, the ranch foremen, had faces which would have been in character
-under a steel head-piece at Cressy, while the wildest blood of Spain,
-Morocco, and the American Indian ran in the veins of the punchers; and
-all these men were untainted by the enfeebling influences of luxury
-and modern life. A chunk of beef, a cigarette, an enveloping _serape_,
-with the Sierras for a bedroom, were the utmost of their needs.
-
-The sunlight streamed down the big chimney, and William's
-"Good-mo'nin', sah," brought back my senses. Beyond his silhouette, as
-he crouched before the fireplace, I could hear the sputtering of the
-broiling steak. I repaired to the brook and smashed the ice for a
-rub-down. It was still drizzling, and the landscape lay under a heavy
-fog. Outside the cabin lay the dead body of a skinned wolf, and
-about a small fire crouched the punchers.
-
-[Illustration: THE CASA CAMADRA]
-
-Breakfast over, the men rode off by twos into the fog, and as Tom
-Bailey and I jogged along together we reasoned that if we were to
-strike the point of the mountains and then keep well in the timber we
-might catch a bunch of antelope which we had "jumped" the day before
-on the plain below. So all day long we rode over the wet rocks, under
-the drip and drizzle of the mountain pines, up hill and down dale, and
-never "cut a sign." It was our luck; for on riding up to the "shack"
-we saw the bodies of deer, antelope, a big gray wolf, and the skin of
-a mountain-lion. We were requested to view the game, and encouraged to
-comment on it; but Tom and I sought a dark corner of the cabin to
-consume our coffee and cigarettes in silence.
-
-At the Casa Camadra are two other log-houses, and in them live some
-squalid, yellow-hided humans who are to farm a little stretch of
-bottom-land this year. They require work-steers to do their ploughing,
-and Mr. Bell has brought up half a dozen vicious old "stags," which
-are both truculent and swift of foot. The Mexicans insist that they
-are not able to handle them; and Mr. Bell orders his punchers into
-action. I strolled out to the corrals to see the bulls "gentled."
-After a lot of riding and yelling they were herded and dragged into
-the enclosure, where they huddled while seven punchers sat on their
-ponies at the gate. I was standing at one corner of the corral, near
-the men, when out from the midst of the steers walked a big black
-bull, which raised its head and gazed directly at me. The bull had
-never before in his stupid life observed a man on foot, and I
-comprehended immediately what he would do next, so I "led out" for the
-casa at a rate of speed which the boys afterwards never grew weary of
-commending. No spangled _torero_ of the bull-ring ever put more heart
-and soul into his running than did I in my great-coat and long
-hunting-spurs. The bull made a "fo'lorn hope" for the gate, and the
-gallant punchers melted away before the charge.
-
-The diversion of the punchers made the retreat of the infantry
-possible, and from an intrenched position I saw the bulls tear over
-the hill, with the punchers "rolling their tails" behind. After an
-hour of swearing and hauling and bellowing, the six cattle were lugged
-back to the pen, and the bars put up. The punchers came around to
-congratulate me on my rapid recovery from a sprained ankle, when they
-happened to observe the cattle again scouring off for the open
-country. Then there was a grunting of ponies as the spurs went in,
-some hoarse oaths, and for a third time they tore away after the
-"gentle work-oxen." The steers had taken the bars in their stride.
-Another hour's chase, and this time the animals were thrown down,
-trussed up like turkeys for the baking, and tied to posts, where they
-lay to kick and bellow the night through in impotent rage. The
-punchers coiled their ropes, lit their cigarettes, and rode off in the
-gathering gloom. The morning following the steers were let up, and
-though wet and chilled, they still roared defiance. For agricultural
-purposes a Mexican "stag" would be as valuable as a rhinoceros or a
-Bengal tiger, and I await with interest the report of the death-rate
-at the Casa Camadra during spring ploughing.
-
-In the handling of these savage animals the punchers are brave to
-recklessness, but this is partly because it seems so. In reality they
-have a thorough knowledge of bull nature, and can tell when and where
-he is going to strike as quickly as a boxer who knows by the "skim on
-the eye" of his opponent. But still they go boldly into the corral
-with the maddened brutes, seeming to pay no heed to the imminent
-possibilities of a trip to the moon. They toss their ropes and catch
-the bull's feet, they skilfully avoid his rush, and in a spirit of
-bravado they touch the horns, pat him on the back, or twist his tail.
-
-[Illustration: SHOOTING IN THE SIERRA MADRE]
-
-After hunting for another day, with more success, we packed up and
-"pulled out" up the Varras Creek towards the mountains, leaving the
-last house behind us. Beyond was the unknown country. For many miles
-it had been ridden by some of the punchers, but the country is large,
-covered with vast mountain ranges, with wastes of stony foot-hills at
-the bases, while _barrancas_ yawn at your feet, and for a great many
-years the policy of the Apaches has been not to encourage immigration.
-In 1860 a heavy band of Mexican prospectors undertook to penetrate
-this part in the quest of Tiopa, but they were driven out. It is now
-possible for strong outfits to travel its wilds with only a small
-chance of encountering Apache renegades, but very few have attempted
-it as yet. It is so remote that prospectors for silver or gold could
-hardly work a mine if they found one, and for other purposes it has
-little value. The most magnificent pine timber covers its slopes, but
-it would take a syndicate to deliver one log at the railroad. As we
-wound our way up the Varras Creek we passed beetling crags and huge
-pillars of porphyry rock cut into fantastic shapes by water and frost,
-resplendent in color, and admirably adapted for the pot-hunting of
-humans as affected by gentry temporarily stopping at San Carlos.
-
-In a dell in the forest we espied some "mavericks," or unbranded
-stock. The punchers are ever alert for a beef without half its ears
-gone and a big HF burned in its flank, and immediately they perceive
-one they tighten their _cincha_, slip the rope from the pommel, put
-their hats on the back of their heads, and "light out." A cow was
-soon caught, after desperate riding over rocks and fallen timber,
-thrown down, and "hog-tied," which means all four feet together. A
-little fire is built, and one side of a _cincha_ ring is heated
-red-hot, with which a rawhide artist paints HF in the sizzling flesh,
-while the cow kicks and bawls. She is then unbound, and when she gets
-back on her feet the _vaqueros_ stand about, _serape_ in hand, after
-the bull-fighter method, and provoke her to charge. She charges, while
-they avoid her by agile springs and a flaunting of their rags. They
-laugh, and cry "Bravo toro!" until she, having overcome her
-indignation at their rudeness, sets off down the canyon with her tail
-in the air.
-
-Thus we journeyed day by day over the hills and up the canyons, camping
-by night under the pines in mountain glades or deep ravines, where the
-sun sets at four o'clock, while it is light above. The moon was in the
-full and the nights were frosty, and many times we awoke to think it
-morning when only our heads had become uncovered by the blankets and
-the big white moon shone fair upon us. Getting up in the night to poke
-the fire and thaw the stiffening out of one's legs is called by the
-boys "playing freeze-out," and we all participate in the game. A
-cigarette at two o'clock in the morning, with one's back to the fire,
-while the moon looks down on you, your comrades breathing about you, a
-wolf howling mournfully from a neighboring hill, the mountains
-towering on every side, and the tall pines painting inky shadows
-across the ghostly grass, is a mild sensation and rather pleasant.
-Some of the men are on foot, from soring their horses' backs, and
-their buckskin boots are wearing out, so they sit about the fire and
-stitch. We are all very dirty, and I no longer take comfort in
-watching the cook who makes the bread, for fear I may be tempted to
-ask him if he will not wash his hands, whereat the boys may indicate
-that I am a "dude," and will look down on me. The flour is nearly
-gone, and shortly it will not matter whether the cook's hands are
-rusty or not. The coffee and sugar promise to hold out. When William
-can no longer serve "bull gravy" with his fried meat I shall have many
-regrets, but they are swamped by the probabilities of a tobacco
-famine, which is imminent. We get deer every day, but to one not used
-to a strictly meat diet it begins to pall. The Indian hunter takes the
-stomach of a deer, fills it with meat, and deposits it under the
-coals. We roast it in slices and chunks, but I like it better when
-"jerked" brown, as it then affords somewhat more mystery to a taste
-already jaded with venison. In travelling with pack-animals it is the
-custom to make a day's march before halting, and a day's march ends
-about four o'clock, or when water is found. Ten hours' march will
-loosen one's cartridge-belt five or six holes, for venison and coffee
-is not a strong food. By 12 P.M. we acquire a wolfish yearning for the
-"flesh-pots," but that shortly is relieved by the contraction of the
-stomach, or three or four quarts of mountain water will afford some
-relief. By nightfall one can "fly into" a venison steak, while
-cigarettes, coffee, and a desire to lie down restore one's equanimity.
-
-[Illustration: THE INDIAN'S STORY]
-
-We have passed some small ranges and worm our way down bottomless
-pits, but at last there rises ahead the main range of the Sierra
-Madre. From the depths of a great _barranca_ we begin the climb. Never
-have I seen hills as sideling as these. It is terrible work for one
-not used to mountain-climbing and the short allowance of air one finds
-to subsist on. The feeling of exhaustion is almost impossible to
-overcome. The horses are thin, and Old Jim is developing more ribs
-than good condition calls for, so I walk to ease the old fellow. There
-are snow fields to cross, which intensifies the action. The journey is
-enlivened at times by shots at deer, and the rifles echo around the
-mountains, but being long shots they are misses. We passed the
-_cordon_ of the mountains, and stopped on a knife-like ridge where the
-melting snows under one's foot ran east and west to the two great
-oceans. The climb from here over the main range was a bellows-bursting
-affair, but as we pulled on to the high _mesa_ our drooping nerves
-were stiffened by shots, and presently deer came bounding down the
-ravine to our left. Jack made a bully flying shot, and the stricken
-deer rolled many yards, until caught by a fallen log. My companion,
-who was in advance, had fired into some deer, and had shot a buck
-which was lying down, and he was much puffed up with pride over this
-achievement in still-hunting. From there on we passed through the most
-wonderful natural deer park. The animals did not fear man, and stood
-to be fired at, though the open timber and absence of underbrush made
-the shots long-range ones. After killing all we could carry, we sat
-down to wait for the _burro_ train.
-
-That night we camped on a jutting crag, with the water running in the
-_barranca_ two hundred feet below us. For a hundred miles the mountain
-and plain lay at our feet--a place more for an eagle's eyrie than a
-camp for a caravan. The night set very cold, and from out in space the
-moon threw its mellow light down upon us. Before the camp-fire our
-Indian hunter told the story of the killing of Victoria's band, where
-he had been among the victors, and as he threw his _serape_ down, and
-standing forth with the firelight playing on his harsh features, he
-swayed his body and waved his hands, while with hoarse voice and in
-a strange language he gave the movement of the fight. The legend of
-the lost mine of Tiopa was narrated by a _vaquero_ in the quiet manner
-of one whose memory goes far back, and to whom it is all real--about
-the Jesuits, the iron door over the mouth of the mine, its richness,
-the secrecy enjoined by the fathers on the people when they fled
-before the Apache devils, and how there is always a light to be kept
-burning at its entrance to guide them back. It was a grand theatre and
-an eerie scene.
-
-[Illustration: THE CLIFF-DWELLINGS]
-
-On the other side of the mountain we found the trail most difficult. I
-would never have believed that a horse could traverse it. To say that
-it was steep is commonplace, and yet I cannot be believed if I say
-that it was perpendicular; but a man could toss his hat a mile at any
-moment if he pleased. Then, underfoot, it was all loose lava rock, and
-the little ponies had to jump and dance over the bowlders. When we had
-finally arrived on a grassy _mesa_ I concluded that if ever again I
-did the like of that, it would most certainly be the result of a
-tremendous error in my calculations. The pack-train was here detached
-and sent to water, but we followed Jack to see his "discovery." After
-miles of travel through the dry, yellow grass we came out on a high
-bluff with a _barranca_ at its foot, the bottom of which we could not
-see. On the overhanging wall opposite were Jack's cliff-dwellings,
-perched like dove-cots against the precipice. It was only a quarter of
-a mile to them, but it took two days to get there, so we did not go.
-There are also holes in the cliffs, and underground passages. The
-paths up to them are washed away, but Jack and some of his men have
-invaded the silent village. They climbed up with lariats, and he was
-let down over the cliff, but they found nothing left but dust and
-cobwebs.
-
-We could not get down to water, and as our horses were thirsty and
-foot-sore, we "mogged along." On our ride we "cut the trail" of a big
-band of mustangs, or wild horses, but did not see them, and by late
-afternoon we found the camp, and William busy above his fire. After
-hunting down the valley for a few days for "burro deer" and wild
-turkey, we found that the tobacco was promptly giving out, according
-to calculations, and, being all inveterate smokers, we "made trail
-fast" for the Neuearachie ranch. Our ponies were jaded and sore; but
-having "roped" a stray pony two days before, which was now fresh, the
-lightest _vaquero_ was put on his back, and sent hot-foot in the night
-to the ranch for tobacco. He made the long ride and returned at noon
-the next day on a fresh mount, having been thirty-six hours in the
-saddle. This fellow was a rather remarkable man, as it was he who, on
-the beginning of the trip, had brought some important mail to us one
-hundred and seventy miles, and after riding down two ponies he
-followed our trail on foot through the mountains, and overtook us as
-we sat resting on a log in the woods.
-
-How we at last pulled into the ranch at Neuearachie, with its log
-buildings and irrigated fields, and how we "swooped down" on Mr. John
-Bailey, and ate up all his eggs and bread and butter at the first
-onset, I will not weary you with, but I believe that a man should for
-one month of the year live on the roots of the grass, in order to
-understand for the eleven following that so-called necessities are
-luxuries in reality. Not that I would indiscriminately recommend such
-a dietary abasement as ours, yet will I insist that it has killed less
-men than gluttony, and should you ever make the Sierra trails with the
-punchers, you will get rather less than more.
-
-
-
-
-BLACK WATER AND SHALLOWS
-
-
-The morning broke gray and lowering, and the clouds rolled in heavy
-masses across the sky. I was sitting out on a log washing a shirt, and
-not distinguishing myself as a laundryman either, for one shirt will
-become excessively dirty in a week, and no canoeist can have more than
-that, as will be seen when you consider that he has to carry
-everything which he owns on his back. My guide had packed up our
-little "kit" and deposited it skilfully in the _Necoochee_--a
-sixteen-foot canoe of the Rice Lake pattern.
-
-We were about to start on a cruise down a river which the lumbermen
-said could not be "run," as it was shallow and rocky. We could find no
-one who had been down it, and so, not knowing anything about it, we
-regarded it as a pleasant prospect. "Harrison," being a professional
-guide and hunter, had mostly come in contact with people--or "sports,"
-as he called them--who had no sooner entered the woods than they were
-overcome with a desire to slay. No fatigue or exertion was too great
-when the grand purpose was to kill the deer and despoil the trout
-streams, but to go wandering aimlessly down a stream which by general
-consent was impracticable for boats, and then out into the clearings
-where the mountain-spring was left behind, and where logs and
-mill-dams and agriculturists took the place of the deer and the trout,
-was a scheme which never quite got straightened out in his mind. With
-many misgivings, and a very clear impression that I was mentally
-deranged, "Has" allowed that "we're all aboard."
-
-We pushed out into the big lake and paddled. As we skirted the shores
-the wind howled through the giant hemlocks, and the ripples ran away
-into white-caps on the far shore. As I wielded my double-blade paddle
-and instinctively enjoyed the wildness of the day, I also indulged in
-a conscious calculation of how long it would take my shirt to dry on
-my back. It is such a pity to mix a damp shirt up with the wild storm,
-as it hurries over the dark woods and the black water, that I felt
-misgivings; but, to be perfectly accurate, they divided my attention,
-and, after all, man is only noble by fits and starts.
-
-We soon reached the head of the river, and a water-storage dam and a
-mile of impassable rapids made a "carry" or "portage" necessary.
-Slinging our packs and taking the seventy-pound canoe on our
-shoulders, we started down the trail. The torture of this sort of
-thing is as exquisitely perfect in its way as any ever devised. A
-trunk-porter in a summer hotel simply does for a few seconds what we
-do by the hour, and as for reconciling this to an idea of physical
-enjoyment, it cannot be done. It's a subtle mental process altogether
-indefinable; but your enthusiast is a person who would lose all if he
-reasoned any, and to suffer like an anchorite is always a part of a
-sportsman's programme. The person who tilts back in a chair on the
-veranda of a summer hotel, while he smokes cigars and gazes vacantly
-into space, is your only true philosopher; but he is not a sportsman.
-The woods and the fields and the broad roll of the ocean do not beckon
-to him to come out among them. He detests all their sensations, and
-believes nothing holy except the dinner-hour, and with his bad
-appetite that too is flat, stale, and unprofitable. A real sportsman,
-of the nature-loving type, must go tramping or paddling or riding
-about over the waste places of the earth, with his dinner in his
-pocket. He is alive to the terrible strain of the "carry," and to the
-quiet pipe when the day is done. The camp-fire contemplation, the
-beautiful quiet of the misty morning on the still water, enrapture
-him, and his eye dilates, his nerves tingle, and he is in a
-conflagration of ecstasy. When he is going--going--faster--faster into
-the boil of the waters, he hears the roar and boom ahead, and the
-black rocks crop up in thickening masses to dispute his way. He is
-fighting a game battle with the elements, and they are remorseless. He
-may break his leg or lose his life in the tip-over which is imminent,
-but the fool is happy--let him die.
-
-[Illustration: THE PORTAGE.]
-
-But we were left on the "carry," and it is with a little thrill of joy
-and the largest sigh of relief possible when we again settle the boat
-in the water. Now you should understand why it is better to have one
-shirt and wash it often. My "canoe kit" is the best arranged and the
-most perfect in the world, as no other canoeist will possibly admit,
-but which is nevertheless a fact. One blanket, a light shelter-tent, a
-cooking outfit, which folds up in a sort of Japanese way, a light axe,
-two canvas packs, and tea, bacon, and flour. This does not make long
-reading, but it makes a load for a man when it's all packed up, and a
-canoeist's baggage must be cut to the strength of his back. It is a
-great piece of confidence in which I will indulge you when I caution
-you not to pick out invalids for canoe companions. If a _burro_ would
-take kindly to backwoods navigation, I should enjoy the society of
-one, though it would not be in the nature of a _burro_ to swing an
-axe, as indeed there are many fine gentlemen who cannot do a good job
-at that; and if one at least of the party cannot, the camp-fires will
-go out early at nights, and it is more than probable that the
-companions will have less than twenty toes between them at the end of
-the cruise.
-
-All these arrangements being perfected, you are ready to go ahead, and
-in the wilderness you have only one anxiety, and that is about the
-"grub." If the canoe turn over, the tea, the sugar, and the flour will
-mix up with the surrounding elements, and only the bacon will remain
-to nourish you until you strike the clearings, and there are few men
-this side 70 deg. north latitude who will gormandize on that alone.
-
-The long still water is the mental side of canoeing, as the rapid is
-the life and movement. The dark woods tower on either side, and the
-clear banks, full to their fat sides, fringed with trailing vines and
-drooping ferns, have not the impoverished look of civilized rivers.
-The dark water wells along, and the branches droop to kiss it. In
-front the gray sky is answered back by the water reflection, and the
-trees lie out as though hung in the air, forming a gateway, always
-receding. Here and there an old monarch of the forest has succumbed to
-the last blow and fallen across the stream. It reaches out ever so far
-with its giant stems, and the first branch had started sixty feet from
-the ground. You may have to chop a way through, or you may force your
-canoe through the limbs and gather a crowd of little broken branches
-to escort you along the stream. The original forest tree has a
-character all its own, and I never see one but I think of the artist
-who drew second-growth timber and called it "the forest primeval." The
-quietness of the woods, with all their solemnity, permitting no bright
-or overdressed plant to obtrude itself, is rudely shocked by the
-garish painted thing as the yellow polished _Necoochee_ glides
-among them. The water-rat dives with a tremendous splash as he sees
-the big monster glide by his sedge home. The kingfisher springs away
-from his perch on the dead top with loud chatterings when we glide
-into his notice. The crane takes off from his grassy "set back" in a
-deliberate manner, as though embarking on a tour to Japan, a thing not
-to be hurriedly done. The mink eyes you from his sunken log, and,
-grinning in his most savage little manner, leaps away. These have all
-been disturbed in their wild homes as they were about to lunch off the
-handiest trout, and no doubt they hate us in their liveliest manner;
-but the poor trout under the boat compensate us with their thanks. The
-mud-turtle is making his way up-stream, as we can tell by the row of
-bubbles which arise in his wake; and the "skaters," as I call the
-little insects which go skipping about like a lawyer's point in an
-argument, part as we go by. The mosquitoes, those desperate little
-villains who dispute your happiness in the woods, are there, but they
-smell the tar and oil of our war-paint, and can only hum in their
-anger. A stick cracks in the brush, and with all the dash and
-confidence of a city girl as she steps from her front door, a little
-spotted fawn walks out on a sedge bank from among the alders. He does
-not notice us, but in his stupid little way looks out the freshest
-water-grass, and the hunter in the stern of the boat cuts his paddle
-through the water, and the canoe glides silently up until right under
-his nose. We are still and silent. The little thing raises its head
-and looks us full in the eye, and then continues to feed as before. I
-talk to him quietly, and say, "Little man, do not come near the ponds
-or the rivers, for you will not live to have five prongs on your
-antlers if any one but such good people as we see you." He looks up,
-and seems to say, "You are noisy, but I do not care." "Now run; and
-if you ever see anything in the forest which resembles us, run for
-your life"; and with a bound the little innocent has regained the dark
-aisles of the woods. You loll back on your pack, your pipe going
-lazily; your hat is off; you moralize, and think thoughts which have
-dignity. You drink in the spell of the forest, and dream of the birch
-barks and the red warriors who did the same thing a couple of
-centuries since. But as thoughts vary so much in individuals, and have
-but an indirect bearing on canoeing, I will proceed without them.
-The low swamp, with its soft timber, gives place to hills and beech
-ridges, and the old lord of the forest for these last hundred years
-towers up majestically. The smaller trees fight for the sunlight, and
-thus the ceaseless war of nature goes on quietly, silently, and alone.
-The miserable "witch-hoppel" leads its lusty plebeian life, satisfied
-to spring its half-dozen leaves, and not dreaming to some day become
-an oak. The gentle sigh of the forest, the hum of insects, and the
-chatter and peal of the birds have gone into harmony with a long,
-deep, swelling sound, becoming louder and louder, until finally it
-drowns all else.
-
-[Illustration: BLACK WATER]
-
-[Illustration: THE FAWN]
-
-[Illustration: BREAKING A JAM.]
-
-The canoe now glides more rapidly. The pipe is laid one side. The
-paddle is grasped firmly, and with a firm eye I regard the "grub" pack
-which sits up in the bow, and resolve to die if necessary in order
-that it may not sink if we turn over. The river turns, and the ominous
-growl of the rapids is at hand.
-
-"Hold her--hold her now--to the right of the big rock; then swing to
-the far shore: if we go to the right, we are gone."
-
-"All right; let her stern come round," and we drop away.
-
-No talking now, but with every nerve and muscle tense, and your eye on
-the boil of the water, you rush along. You back water and paddle, the
-stern swings, she hangs for an instant, she falls in the current, and
-with a mad rush you take it like a hunting-man a six-bar gate. Now
-paddle, paddle, paddle. It looks bad--we cannot make it--yes--all
-right, and we are on the far shore, with the shallows on the other
-side. This little episode was successful, but, as you well know, it
-cannot last. The next rift, and with a bump she is hung upon a sunken
-rock, and--jump! jump!--we both flounder overboard in any way
-possible, so it is well and quickly done. One man loses his hold, the
-other swings the boat off, and, kicking and splashing for a foothold,
-the demoralized outfit shoots along. At last one is found, and then at
-a favorable rock we embark again.
-
-You are now wet, but the tea and sugar are safe, so it's a small
-matter. A jam of logs and tops is "hung up" on a particularly nasty
-place, and you have a time getting the boat around it. You walk on
-rotten tops while the knots stick up beneath you like sabres. "Has"
-floats calmly out to sea, as it were, on a detached log which he is
-cutting, and with a hopeless look of despair he totters, while I yell,
-"Save the axe, ---- you--save the axe!" and over he goes, only to get
-wet and very disgusted, both of which will wear off in time. For a
-mile the water is so shallow that the boat will not run loaded, and we
-lead her along as we wade, now falling in over our heads, sliding on
-slippery stones, hurting our feet, wondering why we had come at all.
-The boat gets loose, and my heart stands still as the whole boat-load
-of blankets and grub with our pipes and tobacco started off for the
-settlements--or "drifting to thunder," as Bret Harte said of Chiquita.
-There was rather a lively and enthusiastic pursuit instituted then,
-the details of which are forgotten, as my mind was focussed on the
-grub-pack, but we got her. About this time the soles let go on my
-tennis shoes, and my only pair of trousers gave way. These things,
-however, become such mere details as to be scarcely noticed when you
-have travelled since sunrise up to your waist in water, and are tired,
-footsore, and hungry. It is time to go ashore and camp.
-
-You scrape away a rod square of dirt, chunks, witch-hoppel, and dead
-leaves, and make a fire. You dry your clothes while you wear the
-blanket and the guide the shelter-tent, and to a casual observer it
-would look as though the savage had come again; but he would detect a
-difference, because a white man in a blanket is about as inspiring a
-sight as an Indian with a plug-hat.
-
-[Illustration: HUNG UP]
-
-Finally the coffee boils, the tent is up, and the bough bed laid down.
-You lean against the dead log and swap lies with the guide; and the
-greatest hunters I have ever known have all been magnificent liars.
-The two go together. I should suspect a man who was deficient. Since
-no one ever believes hunters' yarns, it has come to be a pleasurable
-pastime, in which a man who has not hunted considerably can't lie
-properly without offending the intelligence of that part of his
-audience who have.
-
-The morning comes too soon, and after you are packed up and the boat
-loaded, if you are in a bad part of the river you do this: you put
-away your pipe, and with a grimace and a shudder you step out into the
-river up to your neck and get wet. The morning is cold, and I, for
-one, would not allow a man who was perfectly dry to get into my boat,
-for fear he might have some trepidation about getting out promptly if
-the boat was "hung up" on a rock; and in the woods all nature is
-subservient to the "grub."
-
-Hour after hour we waded along. A few rods of still water and "Has"
-would cut off large chews of tobacco, and become wonderfully cynical
-as to the caprices of the river. The still water ends around the next
-point. You charge the thing nobly, but end up in the water up to your
-neck with the "grub" safe, and a mile or so more of wading in
-prospect.
-
-Then the river narrows, and goes tumbling off down a dark canyon cut
-through the rocks. We go ashore and "scout the place," and then begin
-to let the boat down on a line. We hug the black sides like ants,
-while the water goes to soapsuds at our feet. The boat bobs and
-rocks, and is nearly upset in a place where we cannot follow it
-through. We must take it up a ledge about thirty feet high, and after
-puffing and blowing and feats of maniacal strength, we at last have it
-again in the water. After some days of this thing we found from a
-statistician we had dropped 1100 feet in about fifty-one miles, and
-with the well-known propensity of water to flow downhill, it can be
-seen that difficulties were encountered. You cannot carry a boat in
-the forest, and you will discover enough reasons why in a five-minute
-trail to make their enumeration tiresome. The zest of the whole thing
-lies in not knowing the difficulties beforehand, and then, if properly
-equipped, a man who sits at a desk the year through can find no
-happier days than he will in his canoe when the still waters run
-through the dark forests and the rapid boils below.
-
-
-
-
-COACHING IN CHIHUAHUA
-
-
-That coaching is a grand sport I cannot deny, for I know almost
-nothing of it beyond an impression that there is a tremendous amount
-of mystery connected with its rites. As a sport I have never
-participated in it, but while travelling the waste places of the earth
-I have used it as a means on occasion. I never will again. There is no
-place to which I desire to go badly enough to go in a coach, and such
-points of interest as are inaccessible except by coach are off my
-trail. I am not in the least superstitious, and am prone to scout such
-tendencies; but I'm a Jonah in a stage-coach, and that is not a
-superstition, but a fact amply proven by many trials. I remember as a
-boy in Montana having been so hopelessly mixed up with a sage-bush on
-a dark night when the stage overturned that it left an impression on
-me. Later in life I was travelling in Arizona, and we were bowling
-along about ten miles an hour down a great "hog-back" to the plains
-below. A "swing mule" tripped up a "lead mule," and the stage--with
-myself on the box--ran over the whole six, and when the driver and I
-separated ourselves from the mules, shreds of harness, splinters,
-hair, hide, cargo, and cactus plants I began to formulate the
-intelligence that stage-coaching was dangerous.
-
-While riding in an army ambulance with Major Viele, of the First
-Cavalry, and the late Lieutenant Clark, of the Tenth, the brake-beam
-broke on the descent of a hill, and we only hit the ground in the
-high places for about a mile. I will not insist that every man can
-hold his breath for five consecutive minutes, but I did it. Thereupon
-I formulated vows and pledges. But like the weak creature I am, I
-ignored all this and got into one at Chihuahua last winter, and first
-and last did five hundred miles of jolting, with all the incident and
-the regulation accident which goes to make up that sort of thing.
-Now I like to think that I have been through it all, and am alive and
-unmaimed; and I take a great deal of comfort in knowing that, however
-I may meet my end, a stage-coach will be in no way connected with it.
-
-[Illustration: A COACHERO]
-
-[Illustration: THE START]
-
-On the trip out we had mules. They were black and diminutive. To me a
-Mexican mule seems to be the Chinaman of the dumb animals. They are
-enduring beyond comprehension, and they have minds which are patient,
-yet alert and full of guile. The Mexican _coacheros_ have their mules
-trained, as bankers do their depositors in our land. They back up
-against a wall and stand in line while one by one they are harnessed.
-In the early morning I liked to see the lantern-light glorify the
-little black creatures against the adobe wall, and hear the big
-_coachero_ talk to his beasts in that easy, familiar way and with that
-mutual comprehension which is lost to those of the human race who have
-progressed beyond the natural state. This coachman was an enormous
-man--big, bony, and with Sullivanesque shoulders, gorilla hands, and a
-blue-black buccaneer beard; and but for a merry brown eye and a mouth
-set in perpetual readiness to grin he would have belonged to the
-"mild-mannered" class, to which, as a matter of fact, he did not. It
-is written in the lease of his land that he shall drive the Bavicora
-ranche coach--it's fief-service, it's feudal, and it carries one back.
-If the little mules and ponies did not stand in the exact six feet of
-ground where he wanted them, he grabbed hold of them and moved them
-over to the place without a word, and after being located they never
-moved until he yanked or lifted them to their place at the pole. The
-guards were Mexican Indians--hair cut _a la Cosaques_, big straw hats,
-_serapes_, and munitions of war. William, whose ancestors had
-emigrated from the Congo region before the war, was to cook. He was
-also guide, philosopher, and friend to Mr. H. and myself in this
-strange land, and he made all things possible by his tact and zeal in
-our behalf. William knows every one in the State of Chihuahua, and he
-is constantly telling us of the standing and glittering position of
-the inhabitants of the mud huts which we pass, until it sounds like
-that ghastly array of intelligence with which a society reporter
-quickens the social dead in a Sunday newspaper.
-
-At night we stay at the different ranches, and, rolling ourselves up
-in our blankets, we lie down on the mud floors to sleep. It's not so
-bad after one becomes used to it, albeit the skin wears off one's
-femur joint. The Mexican hen is as conscientious here as elsewhere,
-and we eat eggs. The Mexican coffee is always excellent in quality,
-but the people make it up into a nerve-jerking dose, which will stand
-hot-water in quantities. Nearly all travellers are favorably impressed
-with the _frejoles_ and _tortillas_ of the country. The beans are
-good, but as old General Taylor once said, "They killed more men than
-did bullets in the Mexican War." Of the _tortillas_ I will say, as my
-philosophical friend, Mr. Poultney Bigelow, says of the black bread of
-the Russian soldier, "It's a good strong food to march and fight on,"
-which can in no way be a recommendation of its palatability.
-
-The coach starts by gray dawn, and we are aroused at an early hour.
-The white men take sponge-baths in a wash-basin, and the native who
-stands about deep in the folds of his _serape_ fails utterly to
-comprehend. He evidently thinks a lot, but he doesn't say anything. I
-suppose it seems like "clay-eating" or penitent mutilations to
-him--not exactly insanity, but a curious custom, at any rate. On the
-return trip we have a half-broken team of buckskin broncos, which have
-to be "hooked up" with great stealth. And when the coachman had
-climbed quietly on to the box and we were inside, the guards let go of
-the team, and the coachman cracked his whip, while we looked out of
-the window and held our breath. Then there were Horse Pyrotechniques!
-Ground and Lofty Tumbling! Greatest Show on Earth! for about a minute,
-when we made a start down the big road--or didn't, as the case might
-be. After the first round we often had to get out, and, two ponies
-having got themselves into the same collar, we would then rearrange
-them for better luck next time.
-
-[Illustration: MORNING TOILET]
-
-In Mexico they drive four mules abreast in the lead and two on the
-pole, which seems to be an excellent way. Mexican coachmen generally
-keep "belting" their stock and yelling "_Underlay-nula!_" which is
-both picturesque and unintelligible. Our man was, however, better
-educated. Forty or fifty miles is a day's journey, but the exact
-distance is so dependent on the roads, the load, and the desire to
-"get thar" that it varies greatly.
-
-We pass the Guerrero stage as it bowls along, and hundreds of heavy,
-creeking ox-carts, as they draw slowly over the yellow landscape, with
-their freight to and from the mines. Bunches of sorrowful _burros_,
-with corn, wood, pottery, and hay, part as we sweep along through and
-by them.
-
-We have the inspiring vista of Chihuahua before us all the time. It is
-massive in its proportions and opalescent in color. There are torquois
-hills, dazzling yellow foregrounds--the palette of the "rainbow
-school" is everywhere. There are little mud houses, ranches, and dirty
-little adobe towns to pass, which you must admire, though you may not
-like them. Gaunt cattle wander in their search for grass and water,
-and women squat by the riverbed engaged in washing or filling their
-_ollas_.
-
-The people are enchanting. It is like reading the Bible to look at
-them, because it is so unreal; yet there they are before one, strange
-and mysterious, and, like other things which appeal to one's
-imagination, it would be a sad thing if one were to understand them.
-One is tempted to think that the people of our Northern races know too
-much for their own good. It seems remorseless, but it is so. When I
-heard the poor Mexican asked why he thought it had not rained in
-eighteen months, he said, "Because God wills it, I suppose;" we were
-edified by the way they shifted the responsibility which Farmer Dunn
-in our part of the world so cheerfully assumes.
-
-One afternoon we were on a down-grade, going along at a fair pace,
-when a wheel struck a stone, placed there by some freighter to block
-his load. It heaved the coach, pulled out the king-pin, and let the
-big Concord down and over on its side. The mules went on with the
-front wheels, pulling Jack off the box, while we who were on top
-described a graceful parabolic curve and landed with three dull thuds.
-I was caught under the coach by one leg and held there. A guard inside
-made all haste to crawl out through a window, and after a bit I was
-released. We were all pretty badly bruised up, and Mr. H. had his foot
-broken. The mules were recovered, however, the coach righted, and we
-were again off. We made the town of Tamochica that night, and the
-town-folks were kind and attentive. They made crutches, heated water,
-and sent a man to the creek to catch leeches to put on our wounds. Two
-men were shot in a house near by during the night, and for a few
-minutes there was a lively fusillade of pistol shots. It was evident
-that life in Tamochica would spoil a man's taste for anything quiet,
-and so as soon as we could move we did it.
-
-We passed an old church, and were shown two Jesuits who had been dead
-over a hundred years. They were wonderfully preserved, and were
-dressed in full regalia. I wondered by what embalmer's art it had been
-accomplished.
-
-[Illustration: HARNESSING MULES]
-
-A guard of punchers met us to conduct us over a mountain-pass. They
-were dressed in terra-cotta buckskin trimmed with white leather, and
-were armed for the largest game in the country. The Bavicora coach has
-never been robbed, and it is never going to be--or, at least that is
-the intention of the I-F folks. One man can rob a stage-coach as
-easily as he could a box of sardines, but with outriders before and
-behind it takes a large party, and even then they will leave a "hot
-trail" behind them.
-
-One morning as I was lolling out of the window I noticed the wheel of
-the coach pass over a long, blue Roman candle. I thought it was
-curious that a long, blue Roman candle should be lying out there on
-the plains, when with a sudden sickening it flashed upon me--"giant
-powder!" The coach was stopped, and we got out. The road was full of
-the sticks of this high explosive. A man was coming down the road
-leading a _burro_ and picking up the things, and he explained that
-they had dropped out of a package from his bull-wagon as he passed the
-night before. We didn't run over any more pieces. If the stick had
-gone off there would have been a little cloud of dust on the Guerrero
-road, and, I hope, some regrets in various parts of the world. The
-incident cannot be made startling, but it put the occupants of the
-Bavicora coach in a quiet train of reflection that makes a man
-religious.
-
-Now, as I ponder over the last stage-coach ride which I shall ever
-take on this earth, I am conscious that it was pleasant, instructive,
-and full of incident. All that might have happened did not, but enough
-did to satiate my taste.
-
-
-
-
-STUBBLE AND SLOUGH IN DAKOTA
-
-
-Now I am conscious that all my life I have seen men who owned
-shot-guns and setter-dogs, and that these persons were wont at
-intervals to disappear from their usual haunts with this
-paraphernalia. Without thinking, I felt that they went to slay little
-birds, and for them I entertained a good-natured contempt. It came
-about in this wise that I acquired familiarity with "mark," and
-"hie-on," and "No. 6 vis No. 4's": by telegram I was invited to make
-one of a party in Chicago, bound West on a hunting expedition. It
-being one of my periods of unrest, I promptly packed up my Winchester,
-boots, saddle, and blankets, wired "All right--next train," and
-crawled into the "Limited" at Forty-second Street.
-
-"West" is to me a generic term for that country in the United States
-which lies beyond the high plains, and this will account for my
-surprise when I walked into the private car at the St. Paul depot in
-Chicago and met my friends contesting the rights of occupancy with
-numerous setter-dogs, while all about were shot-gun cases and boxes
-labelled "Ammunition." After greetings I stepped to the station
-platform and mingled with the crowd--disgusted, and disposed to
-desert.
-
-A genial young soldier who appreciated the curves in my character
-followed me out, and explained, in the full flush of his joyous
-anticipation, that we were going to North Dakota to shoot ducks and
-prairie chicken, and that it would be the jolliest sort of a time;
-besides, it was a party of good friends. I hesitated, yielded, and
-enlisted for the enterprise. Feeling now that I was this far it would
-be good to go on and learn what there was in the form of sport which
-charmed so many men whose taste I respected in other matters, and once
-embarked I summoned my enthusiasm, and tried to "step high, wide, and
-handsome," as the horsemen say.
-
-[Illustration: A DAKOTA CHICKEN-WAGON]
-
-The happiness of a hunting-party is like that of a wedding, so
-important is it that true love shall rule. The _piece de resistance_
-of our car was two old generals, who called each other by an
-abbreviation of their first names, and interrupted conversations by
-recalling to each other's memory where some acres of men were slain.
-"A little more of the roast beef, please--yes, that was where I was
-shot in this side;" and at night, when quiet reigned and we sought
-sleep, there would be a waving of the curtains, and a voice, "Oh, say,
-Blank, do you remember that time my horse was hit with the
-twelve-pounder?" and it banished dreams. There was a phlebotomist from
-Pittsburg who had shot all over the earth. He was a thorough
-sportsman, with a code of rules as complicated as the common-law, and
-he "made up tough" in his canvas shooting-clothes. There was a young
-and distinguished officer of the regular army who had hunted men,
-which excused him in the paltry undertaking before him; and, finally,
-three young men who were adding the accumulated knowledge of Harvard
-to their natural endowments. For myself, I did not see how jack-boots,
-spurs, and a Winchester would lend themselves to the stubble and
-slough of Dakota, but a collection was taken, and by the time we
-arrived in Valley City, Dakota, I was armed, if not accoutred, in the
-style affected by double-barrel men. All I now needed was an
-education, and between the Doctor, who explained, expostulated, and
-swore, and a great many "clean misses," I wore on to the high-school
-stage. Like the obliging person who was asked if he played on the
-violin, I said to myself, "I don't know, but I'll try."
-
-[Illustration: ON THE EDGE OF A SLOUGH]
-
-In the early morning three teams drove up where our car was
-side-tracked, and we embarked in them. The shot-gun man affects
-buck-colored canvas clothes, with many pockets, and carries his
-cartridges in his shirt fronts, like a Circassian Cossack. He also
-takes the shells out of his gun before he climbs into a wagon, or he
-immediately becomes an object of derision and dread, or, what's worse,
-suddenly friendless and alone. He also refrains from pointing his gun
-at any fellow-sportsman, and if he inadvertently does it, he receives
-a fusillade such as an Irish drill-sergeant throws into a recruit when
-he does amiss. This day was cool and with a wind blowing, and the poor
-dogs leaped in delirious joy when let out from their boxes, in which
-they had travelled all the way from Chicago. After running the wire
-edge off their nerves they were gotten to range inside a township
-site, and we jogged along. The first thing which interested me was to
-hear the Doctor indicate to the driver that he did not care to
-participate in the driver's knowledge of hunting, and that in order to
-save mental wear he only had to drive the team, and stand fast when we
-got out, in order that from the one motionless spot on the prairie sea
-we could "mark down" the birds.
-
-The immensity of the wheat-fields in Dakota is astonishing to a
-stranger. They begin on the edge of town, and we drive all day and are
-never out of them, and on either side they stretch away as far as
-one's eye can travel. The wheat had been cut and "shocked," which left
-a stubble some eight inches high. The farm-houses are far apart, and,
-indeed, not often in sight, but as the threshing was in progress, we
-saw many groups of men and horses, and the great steam-threshers
-blowing clouds of black smoke, and the flying straw as it was belched
-from the bowels of the monsters.
-
-[Illustration: A CONFERENCE IN THE MUD]
-
-During the heat of the day the chickens lie in the cover of the grass
-at the sides of the fields, or in the rank growth of some slough-hole,
-but at early morning and evening they feed in the wheat stubble. As we
-ride along, the dogs range out in front, now leaping gracefully along,
-now stopping and carrying their noses in the air to detect some scent,
-and finally--"There's a point! Stop, driver!" and we pile out,
-breaking our guns and shoving in the cartridges.
-
-"No hurry--no hurry," says the Doctor; "the dog will stay there a
-month." But, fired with the anticipations, we move briskly up. "You
-take the right and I'll take the left. Don't fire over the dog," adds
-the portly sportsman, with an admonishing frown. We go more slowly,
-and suddenly, with a "whir," up get two chickens and go sailing off.
-Bang! bang! The Doctor bags his and I miss mine. We load and advance,
-when up comes the remainder of the covey, and the bewildering plenty
-of the flying objects rattles me. The Doctor shoots well, and indeed
-prairie-chickens are not difficult, but I am discouraged. As the great
-sportsman Mr. Soapy Sponge used to say, "I'm a good shooter, but a bad
-hitter." It was in this distressful time that I remembered the words
-of the old hunter who had charge of my early education in .45
-calibres, which ran, "Take yer time, sonny, and always see your hind
-sight," and by dint of doing this I soon improved to a satisfactory
-extent. The walking over the stubble is good exercise, and it becomes
-fascinating to watch the well-trained Llewellyn setters "make game,"
-or stand pointing with their tails wagging violently in the nervous
-thrill of their excitement, then the shooting, and the marking down of
-the birds who escape the fire, that we may go to them for another
-"flush." With care and patience one can bag at last the whole covey.
-
-At noon we met the other wagons in a green swale, and had lunch, and,
-seated in a row under the shadow side of a straw stack, we plucked
-chickens, while the phlebotomist did the necessary surgery to prepare
-them for the cook. At three o'clock the soldier, a couple of
-residents, and myself started together for the evening shooting. We
-banged away at a thousand-yards range at some teal on a big marsh, but
-later gave it up, and confined ourselves to chicken. In the midst of a
-covey and a lot of banging I heard the Captain uttering distressful
-cries. His gun was leaning on a wheat "shock," and he was clawing
-himself wildly. "Come, help me--I am being eaten alive." Sure enough
-he was, for in Dakota there is a little insect which is like a winged
-ant, and they go in swarms, and their bite is sharp and painful. I
-attempted his rescue, and was attacked in turn, so that we ended by a
-precipitous retreat, leaving the covey of chickens and their
-protectors, the ants, on the field.
-
-[Illustration: "DON'T SHOOT!"]
-
-We next pushed a covey of grouse into some standing oats, and were
-tempted to go in a short way, but some farmers who were threshing on
-the neighboring hill blew the engine whistle and made a "sortie,"
-whereat we bolted. At a slough which we were tramping through to kick
-up some birds "marked down," one suddenly got up under our feet and
-flew directly over the Captain, who yelled "Don't shoot!" as he
-dropped to the ground. It was a well--considered thing to do, since a
-flying bird looks bigger than a man to an excited and enthusiastic
-sportsman. We walked along through the stubble until the red sunset no
-longer gave sufficient light, and then got into our wagon to do the
-fourteen miles to our car and supper. Late at night we reached our
-car, and from it could hear "the sound of revelry." The cook did big
-Chicago beefsteaks by the half-dozen, for an all day's tramp is a
-sauce which tells.
-
-After some days at this place we were hauled up to Devil's Lake, on
-the Great Northern road, which locality is without doubt the best for
-duck-shooting in Dakota. We were driven some sixteen miles to a spur
-of the lake, where we found a settler. There were hundreds of teal in
-the water back of his cabin, and as we took position well up the wind
-and fired, they got up in clouds, and we had five minutes of shooting
-which was gluttony. We gave the "bag" to the old settler, and the
-Doctor admonished him to "fry them," which I have no doubt he did.
-
-It was six miles to a pond said to be the best evening shooting about
-there, and we drove over. There we met our other two teams and another
-party of sportsmen. The shallow water was long and deeply fringed with
-rank marsh grass. Having no wading-boots can make no difference to a
-sportsman whose soul is great, so I floundered in and got comfortably
-wet. After shooting two or three mud-hens, under the impression that
-they were ducks, the Doctor came along, and with a pained expression
-he carefully explained what became of people who did not know a teal
-from a mud-hen, and said further that he would let it pass this time.
-As the sun sank, the flight of ducks began, and from the far corners
-of the marsh I saw puffs of smoke and heard the dull slump of a
-report.
-
-"Mark--left," came a voice from where the young Harvard man with the
-peach complexion and the cream hair had ensconced himself in the
-grass, and, sure enough, a flight was coming towards my lair. I waited
-until it was nearly over, when I rose up and missed two fine shots,
-while the Harvard man scored. The birds fell well out in the pond, and
-he waded out to retrieve them.
-
-As I stood there the soft ooze of the marsh gradually swallowed me,
-and when in answer to the warning "mark" of my fellows I squatted down
-in the black water to my middle, and only held my gun and cartridges
-up, I began to realize that when a teal-duck is coming down wind you
-have got to aim somewhere into the space ahead of it, hoping to make a
-connection between your load of shot and the bird. This I did, and
-after a time got my first birds. The air was now full of flying
-birds--mallards, spoon-bills, pintails, red-heads, butter-balls,
-gadwalls, widgeon, and canvas-backs--and the shooting was fast and
-furious. It was a perfect revelry of slaughter. "Mark--mark."
-Bang--bang. "What's the matter of that shot?" The sun has set, and no
-longer bathes the landscape in its golden light, and yet I sit in the
-water and mud and indulge this pleasurable taste for gore, wondering
-why it is so ecstatic, or if my companions will not give over shooting
-presently. There is little probability of that, however. Only darkness
-can end the miseries of the poor little teal coming home to their
-marsh, and yet with all my sentimental emotions of sympathy I deplore
-a miss. If slough-shooting has a drawback, it is its lack of
-action--it is a calm, deliberate shedding of blood, and a wounding of
-many birds, who die in the marshes, or become easy prey for the hawks,
-and it's as cold-blooded as sitting in water can make it.
-
-[Illustration: "MARK--LEFT"]
-
-[Illustration: "MARK!"]
-
-We give over at last, and the fortunates change their wet clothes,
-while those who have no change sit on the seat knee-deep in dead birds
-and shiver while we rattle homeward. Our driver gets himself lost, and
-we bring up against a wire fence. Very late at night we struck the
-railroad, and counted telegraph poles and travelled east until the
-lights of the town twinkled through the gloom. Once in the car, we
-find the creature comfort which reconciles one to life, and we vote
-the day a red-letter one. The goose-shooting came later than our
-visit, but the people tell marvellous tales of their numbers. They
-employ special guns in their pursuit, which are No. 4 gauge,
-single-barrelled, and very long. They throw buckshot point-blank two
-hundred yards, and are, indeed, curious-looking arms. The
-chicken-shooting is not laborious, since one rides in a wagon, and a
-one-lunged, wooden-legged man is as good as a four-mile athlete at it.
-He must know setter-dogs, who are nearly as complicated as women in
-their temper and ways; he must have a nose for cover, and he can be
-taught to shoot; he can keep statistics if he desires, but his first
-few experiences behind the dogs will not tempt him to do that unless
-his modesty is highly developed. If he become a shot-gun enthusiast he
-will discover a most surprising number of fellows--doctors, lawyers,
-butchers, farmers, and Indians not taxed--all willing to go with him
-or to be interested in his tales.
-
-[Illustration: TROOPING HOMEWARD IN THE AFTER-GLOW]
-
-The car was to be attached to an express train bound west that night,
-to my intense satisfaction, and I crawled into the upper berth to
-dream of bad-lands elk, soldiers, cowboys, and only in the haze of
-fleeting consciousness could I distinguish a voice--
-
-"Remington, I hope you are not going to fall out of that upper berth
-again to-night."
-
-
-
-
-POLICING THE YELLOWSTONE
-
-
-"Captain Anderson--he's the superintendent, you know--started to-day
-for the south of the Park; some trouble, I believe, down there. A
-scout thought the buffalo were being disturbed," said Lieutenant
-Lindsley to me at the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel, near the entrance to
-the Park.
-
-"That's unfortunate. Can I overtake him?"
-
-"It's nearly four o'clock, but as I am going down to our camp at the
-Lower Geyser Basin, we can start now, and by travelling at night we
-can catch him before he pulls out in the morning, I think," said the
-yellow-leg.
-
-So putting our belongings into a double surry, we started hot-foot
-through the Wonderland, leaving a band of Dakota chicken-shooters
-standing on the steps waving their adieux. It verified all my
-predictions--men who shoot chickens belong in a stage-coach--they are
-a "scrubby wagon outfit," as the cowboys say.
-
-Posed on the trestled road, I looked back at the Golden Gate Pass. It
-is one of those marvellous vistas of mountain scenery utterly beyond
-the pen or brush of any man. Paint cannot touch it, and words are
-wasted. War, storms at sea, and mountain scenery are bigger than any
-expression little man has ever developed. Mr. Thomas Moran made a
-famous stagger at this pass in his painting; and great as is the
-painting, when I contemplated the pass itself I marvelled at the
-courage of the man who dared the deed. But as the stages of the Park
-Company run over this road, every tourist sees its grandeur, and
-bangs away with his kodak.
-
-As we pulled up in front of the tents of the rest camp, one of those
-mountain thunder-storms set in, and it was as though the New York fire
-department had concentrated its nozzles on the earth. The place was
-presided over by a classic Irishman by the name of Larry, who speedily
-got a roaring-hot beefsteak and some coffee on the table, and then
-busied himself conducting growing pools of rain-water out of the tent.
-Larry is justly famous on the road for his _bonhomie_ and Celtic wit.
-
-At an early hour we arose and departed--the pale moon shining through
-the mist of the valley, while around us rose the ghostly pines. We
-cowered under our great-coats, chilled through, and saddened at
-remembrances of the warm blankets which we had been compelled to roll
-out of at this unseemly hour. At 7.30 we broke into one of those
-beautiful natural parks, the Lower Geyser Basin, with the sun shining
-on the river and the grass, and spotting the row of tents belonging to
-D Troop, Sixth United States Cavalry. Captain Scott met us at the
-door, a bluff old trooper in field rig and a welcoming smile. After
-breakfast a soldier brought up Pat Rooney. Pat was a horse from the
-ground up; he came from Missouri, but he was a true Irishman
-nevertheless, as one could tell from his ragged hips, long drooping
-quarters, and a liberal show of white in his eye, which seemed to say
-to me, "Aisy, now, and I'm a dray-horse; but spare the brad, or I'll
-put ye on yer back in the bloomin' dust, I will." The saddle was put
-on, and I waited, until presently along came the superintendent, with
-his scout Burgess, three soldiers, and nine pack-mules with their
-creaking _aparejos_, and their general air of malicious mischief.
-
-Pointing to a range of formidable-looking hills, the captain said,
-"We will pull in about there," and we mounted and trotted off down the
-road. What a man really needs when he does the back stretches of the
-Yellowstone Park is a boat and a balloon, but cavalrymen ride horses
-in deference to traditions. My mount, Pat, was as big as a stable
-door, and as light as a puff-ball on his pins. As Mr. Buckram said,
-"The 'eight of a 'oss as nothing to do with 'is size," but Patrick was
-a horse a man needed two legs for. Besides, he had a mouth like a
-bull, as does every other animal that wears that impossible bit which
-Uncle Sam gives his cavalry. We got along swimmingly, and, indeed, I
-feel considerable gratitude to Pat for the two or three thousand times
-he saved my life on the trip by his agility and sureness of foot.
-
-[Illustration: BURGESS, NEARLY FORTY-FIVE YEARS A SCOUT]
-
-Burgess, the scout, was a fine little piece of a man, who had served
-the government with credit for over thirty years. He had breasted the
-high divide in a dozen places, had Apache bullets whistle around and
-through him, and withal was modest about it. He was a quiet person,
-with his instinct of locality as well developed as an Indian's, and
-contented with life, since he only wanted one thing--a war. I think he
-travelled by scent, since it would have been simple enough to have
-gone over easier places; but Burgess despised ease, and where the
-fallen timber was thickest and the slopes 60 deg., there you would find
-Burgess and his tight little pony picking along.
-
-Both Captains Anderson and Scott have a pronounced weakness for
-geysers, and were always stopping at every little steam-jet to examine
-it. I suppose they feel a personal responsibility in having them go
-regularly; one can almost imagine a telegram to "turn on more steam."
-They rode recklessly over the geyser formation, to my discomfort,
-because it is very thin and hazardous, and to break through is to be
-boiled. One instinctively objects to that form of cooking. The most
-gorgeous colors are observed in this geyser formation; in fact, I have
-never seen nature so generous in this respect elsewhere. I wondered
-that the pack-mules did not walk into the sissing holes, but I suspect
-a mule is a bit of a geologist in his way, and as most of them have
-been in the government service for thirty or forty years, they have
-learned how to conserve their well-being. There is a tradition that
-one was considerably overdone once in a geyser-hole, so they may have
-taken warning. Who can understand a mule? The packer leads the old
-bell-mare off to a feeding-ground, and the whole bunch of mules go
-racing after her, and chains wouldn't hold them. The old bell-mare
-takes across a nasty chasm or a dirty slough-hole, and as the tinkle
-of the little cow-bell is losing itself in the timber beyond, one
-after another they put their ears forward and follow on.
-
-[Illustration: THE BELL-MARE OVER A BAD PLACE]
-
-We passed up a cleft in the hills, and were swallowed up in the pine
-and cedar forest. Presently the cleft ended, and nothing but good
-honest climbing was in front. There began my first experience in
-riding over the fallen timber, which obstructs all the northwestern
-Rocky Mountains. Once up in British Columbia I did it, but had trails,
-and I childishly imagined that there must also be trails wherever men
-wanted to go. Crisscross and all about lay the great peeled logs, and
-travel was slow, toilsome, and with anything but horses trained to it
-would have been impossible.
-
-A good horse or mule, once accustomed, makes little of it, but on the
-steep down grades the situation is complicated by fallen logs, which
-it is necessary to "bucket" over, and then stop dead on an incline of
-50 deg., with a couple of miles of tumble if he fails. The timber grew
-thicker, and when Burgess would get us in a hopeless sort of place,
-Captain A. would sing out to Captain S., "Burgess is on the trail
-now"; and when it was fairly good going, "Now he is off." But nothing
-could rattle Mr. Burgess, and he continued calmly on his journey, the
-destination of which, it seemed, could be nothing short of the moon.
-Finally we found ourselves seemingly so inextricably tangled up that
-even Burgess had to scratch his head. One mule was hung up hopelessly,
-while the rest crowded around us into the _chevaux-de-frise_ of logs,
-and merrily wound through the labyrinth the old Sixth Cavalry "gag,"
-"Here's where we trot."
-
-To complete the effect of this passage it began to rain, and shortly
-to pelt us with hailstones, so we stopped under some trees to let it
-pass, and two people who should know better dismounted and got their
-saddles wet, while another, more wise in his generation, sat tight,
-and was rewarded later for his display of intelligence. By-and-by, wet
-and tired of fallen timber, we came into the Little Fire-hole Basin,
-and found buffalo signs in abundance. We were in great hopes of seeing
-some of these animals, but I may as well add that only one was seen on
-the trip, though there was fresh spoor, and they were undoubtedly
-about. We found no pony tracks either, which was more to the soldiers'
-liking, since they are intrusted with the protection of the Park
-against poachers.
-
-In this way squads are sent over the Park, and instructed not to
-follow the regular trails, but to go to the most unfrequented places,
-so that they may at any time happen on a malicious person, and perhaps
-be able to do as one scout did--photograph the miscreant with his own
-camera.
-
-After a good day's march we made camp by a little lake, and picketed
-our horses, while the mules ran loose around the bell-mare. Our
-appetites had been sharpened by a nine hours' fast, when a soldier
-called us to the "commissaries" which were spread out on a pack
-canvas. It was the usual military "grub," and no hungry man can find
-fault with that.
-
-"Any man who can't eat bacon can't fight," as Captain Scott said; so
-if any reader wants to be a soldier he must have a mania for bacon, it
-seems. "This is the stuff that makes soldiers brave," he added, as the
-coffee-pot came around, and we fell to, and left a dreary waste of
-empty tins for the cook to pick up. We lighted our pipes after the
-banquet on the grass, and walked down to the shore of the beautiful
-pond, which seemed so strangely situated up there on the very crest of
-the continental divide. There are only three seasons in these
-altitudes, which the boys divide into July, August, and Winter, and
-the nights are always chilly. An inch or two of snow may fall even in
-mid-summer. In winter the snow covers the ground to a great depth, as
-we can tell by the trees. Nothing grows but rather stunted fir and
-pine and a little grass of the most hardy variety. The rounds of the
-Park are then made by mounting the cavalry on the _ski_, or Norwegian
-snow-shoe, and with its aid men travel the desolate snow-clad
-wilderness from one "shack" to another. Small squads of three or four
-men are quartered in these remote recesses of the savage mountains,
-and remain for eight months on a stretch. The camps are provisioned
-for the arctic siege, and what is stranger yet is that soldiers rather
-like it, and freely apply for this detached service. There is little
-of the "pomp and vanity" in this soldiering, and it shows good spirit
-on the part of the enlisted men. They are dressed in fur caps,
-California blanket coats, leggings, and moccasins--a strange uniform
-for a cavalryman, and also quite a commentary on what are commonly
-called the vicissitudes of the service.
-
-[Illustration: DOWN THE MOUNTAIN]
-
-[Illustration: GETTING GRUB]
-
-In the early morning our tent was pulled down, and our bedding packed
-off almost before we had disentangled ourselves from its sheltering
-folds. The well-trained troopers went about their task of breaking
-camp with method and address. Burgess and a young soldier pulled a
-reluctant strawberry-blond mule out of the line of pack-animals, and
-throwing a blind over his face, proceeded to lay the blanket and
-adjust the _aparejo_. With a heave the _cincha_ is hauled tight, and
-the load laid on, while the expert throws the "diamond hitch," and the
-mule and pack are integral parts. This packing of nine mules was
-accomplished with great rapidity, and laying our saddles carefully, we
-mounted and followed the scouts off down the trail in single file on a
-toilsome march which would probably not end until three or four
-o'clock in the afternoon. We wound around the spurs of hills, and then
-across a marsh, with its yielding treacherous bottom, where the horses
-floundered, and one mule went down and made the mud and water fly in
-his struggles, while my apprehensions rose to fever-pitch as I
-recognized my grip-sack on his load, and not likely to be benefited by
-the operation. At the head-waters of these rivers--and it may be said
-that this little purling brook is really the source of the Missouri
-itself, although not so described--there is abundance of soggy marsh,
-which makes travel extremely difficult. In one place Captain
-Anderson's horse went belly-deep on a concealed quag made by a stream
-coming out of the side of the hill, and rolling back, fell heavily on
-the captain, and for a time it was rather a question whether the horse
-would get out or not; but by dint of exertion he regained firm ground.
-When a big strong horse gets into a slough the dorsal action is
-terrific, and it is often necessary to dismount quickly to aid him
-out. We crossed the great divide of the continent at a place where the
-slope was astonishingly steep and the fallen timber thickly strewn. It
-was as thoroughly experimental travelling as I have ever seen,
-unless possibly over a lava-rock formation which I essayed last winter
-on the western slope of the Sierra Madre, in Chihuahua; and yet there
-is a fascination about being balanced on those balloonlike heights,
-where a misstep means the end of horse and rider. I was glad enough,
-though, when we struck the parklike levels of the Pitchstone plateau
-as the scene of our further progression. If one has never travelled
-horseback over the Rocky Mountains there is a new and distinct
-sensation before him quite as vigorous as his first six-barred gate,
-or his first yacht-race with the quarter-rail awash.
-
-[Illustration: WORKING UP THE DIVIDE]
-
-All through the Park were seen hundreds of wild-geese, so tame that
-they would hardly fly from us. It was a great temptation to shoot, but
-the doughty captain said he would run me off the reservation at a
-turkey-trot if I did shoot, and since I believed him I could restrain
-myself. The streams and marshes were full of beaver-dams, and the
-little mud-and-stick houses rose from the pools, while here and there
-we saw the purl of the quiet water as they glided about. This part is
-exactly as primitive as when the lonely trapper Coulter made his
-famous journey through it, and one cannot but wonder what must have
-been his astonishment at the unnatural steaming and boiling of the
-geysers, which made the Park known from his descriptions as "Coulter's
-Hell."
-
-From the breast of the mountains overlooking the great Shoshonee Lake
-there opened up the most tremendous sight as the waters stretched away
-in their blue placidity to the timbered hills. The way down to the
-shores was the steepest place I have ever seen horses and mules
-attempt. In one place, where the two steep sides of the canyon dipped
-together, it was cut by a nasty seam some six feet deep, which we had
-to "bucket over" and maintain a footing on the other side. After
-finding myself safely over, I watched the shower of pack-mules come
-sliding down and take the jump. One mule was so far overbalanced that
-for a moment I thought he would lose his centre of gravity, which had
-been in his front feet, but he sprang across to the opposite slope and
-was safe. Horses trained to this work do marvels, and old Pat was a
-"topper" at the business. I gave him his head, and he justified my
-trust by negotiating all the details without a miss. On a sandy
-"siding" he spread his feet and slid with an avalanche of detached
-hill-side. Old Pat's ears stuck out in front in an anxious way, as if
-to say, "If we hit anything solid, I'll stop"; while from behind came
-the cheery voice of Captain Scott, "Here's where we trot."
-
-On the shores of the Shoshonee we camped, and walked over to the
-famous Union Geysers, which began to boil and sputter, apparently for
-our especial benefit. In a few minutes two jets of boiling water shot
-a hundred feet in air, and came down in rain on the other side, while
-a rainbow formed across it. The roar of the great geysers was
-awe-inspiring; it was like the exhaust of a thousand locomotives, and
-Mr. Burgess nudged me and remarked, "Hell's right under here."
-
-Near the geysers, hidden away in a depression, we found a pool of
-water of a beautiful and curious green, while not twenty feet from it
-was one of a sulphur yellow. There was a big elk track in the soft mud
-leading into it, but no counter track coming out. There had been a
-woodland tragedy there.
-
-The utility of a geyser-hole is not its least attraction to a
-traveller who has a day's accumulation of dust and sweat on him. I
-found one near the camp which ran into a little mountain stream, and
-made a tepid bath, of which I availed myself, and also got a cup of
-hot water, by the aid of which I "policed my face," as the soldiers
-call shaving.
-
-[Illustration: BURGESS FINDING A FORD]
-
-The next day we encountered one of those great spongy mountain
-meadows, which we were forced to skirt on the rocky timber-strewn
-hill-sides, until finally we ventured into it. We curved and zigzagged
-through its treacherous mazes, fording and recrossing the stream in
-search of solid ground. Burgess's little gray pony put his foot
-forward in a gingerly way, and when satisfied, plunged in and
-floundered through. The pony had a positive genius for morasses. We
-followed him into the mud, or plunged off the steep sides into the
-roaring river, and, to my intense satisfaction, at last struck a good
-pony trail. "Now Burgess is off the trail!" we cried, whereat the
-modest little scout grinned cheerfully. From here on it was "fair and
-easy," until we came to the regular stage-road, to travel on which it
-seemed to us a luxury.
-
-This expedition is typical of the manner of policing the Park, and it
-is generally monotonous, toilsome, and uneventful work; and the
-usefulness of such a _chevau-chee_ is that it leaves the track of the
-cavalry horse-shoe in the most remote parts of the preserve, where the
-poacher or interloper can see it, and become apprehensive in
-consequence of the dangers which attend his operations. That an old
-trapper might work quietly there for a long time I do not doubt, if he
-only visited his line of traps in the early morning or late evening
-and was careful of his trail, but such damage as he could do would be
-trivial. Two regiments could not entirely prevent poaching in the
-mountain wastes of the great reservation, but two troops are
-successful enough at the task. It is a great game-preserve and
-breeding-ground, and, if not disturbed, must always give an overflow
-into Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho, which will make big game shooting
-there for years to come. The unreasoning antipathy or malicious
-disregard of the American pioneer for game-laws and game-preservation
-is somewhat excusable, but the lines of the pioneer are now cast in
-new places, and his days of lawless _abandon_ are done. The regulation
-for the punishment of Park offenders is inadequate, and should be made
-more severe. The Park is also full of beasts of prey, the bear being
-very numerous. A fine grizzly was trapped by some of the
-superintendent's men and shipped to the Smithsonian Institution while
-I was there. Near the Fountain Hotel one evening a young army surgeon
-and myself walked up to within one hundred and fifty yards of a big
-grizzly, who was not disposed to run off. Being unarmed, we concluded
-that our point of view was close enough, and as the bear seemed to
-feel the same way about it, we parted.
-
-Americans have a national treasure in the Yellowstone Park, and they
-should guard it jealously. Nature has made her wildest patterns here,
-has brought the boiling waters from her greatest depths to the peaks
-which bear eternal snow, and set her masterpiece with pools like
-jewels. Let us respect her moods, and let the beasts she nurtures in
-her bosom live, and when the man from Oshkosh writes his name with a
-blue pencil on her sacred face, let him spend six months where the
-scenery is circumscribed and entirely artificial.
-
-
-
-
-A MODEL SQUADRON
-
-
-I am not quite sure that I should not say "The Model Colonel," since
-every one knows men and horses are much alike when they have first
-passed under the eye of the recruiting officer and the remount board,
-and every one knows that colonels are very unlike, so that a model
-squadron or a model troop is certain to owe its superiority to its
-commander; but as we are observing the product in this instance, let
-the title stand as above stated.
-
-The model squadron aforesaid is quartered across the Potomac from
-Washington in Fort Meyer, which is the only purely cavalry post in the
-country. Everywhere else the troops are mixed, and the commandant may
-be of any arm of the service. Here they are all cavalry, with cavalry
-officers and cavalry ideas, and are not hindered by dismounted
-theories, or pick-and-shovel work, or any of the hundreds of things
-which hamper equally good "yellow legs" in other posts. There are many
-passable misdemeanors in this post, but only one crime, and that is
-bad riding. There is little dismounted work, and any soldier can have
-his horse out on a pass, so long as he does not abuse the privilege;
-and when he does, it's plenty of walking falls to his lot.
-
-There is a large brick riding-hall of approved pattern, which enables
-the men to do their work in all weathers. The four troops now
-quartered there are from the First, Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth
-regiments, which creates a good-natured rivalry, very conducive to
-thorough work. It is the opinion of General Henry that one old troop
-should always be left at this post as a pace-setter for the newly
-transferred ones, which seems reasonable.
-
-[Illustration: GENERAL GUY V. HENRY, SEVENTH UNITED STATES CAVALRY]
-
-Now to tell what the preparatory discipline is to the magnificent
-riding which can be seen any morning by spectators who are "game for a
-journey" to the fort by ten o'clock, I must say that General Guy V.
-Henry is a flaming fire of cavalry enthusiasm. He has one idea--a
-great broad expanse of principle--ever so simple in itself, but it is
-basic, and nothing can become so complicated that he cannot revert to
-his simple idea and by it regulate the whole. It is the individual
-training of the horse and rider. One bad rider or one unbroken horse
-can disarrange the whole troop movement, and "woe to him" who is not
-up to concert pitch! "Who is the scoundrel, the lummux, humph?" and
-the colonel, who is a brevet-brigadier-general, strides up and down,
-and fire comes from his nostrils. "Prefer charges against him,
-captain!" and the worst befalls. The unfortunate trooper has committed
-the highest crime which the commandant of Fort Meyer knows--he cannot
-ride.
-
-A soldier becomes a rider by being bucketed about on a bareback horse,
-or he dies. The process is simple, the tanbark soft, and none have
-died up to date, but all have attained the other alternative. This is
-unimportant; but the horse--it is to his education that the oceans of
-patience and the mountains of intelligence are brought to bear. It is
-all in the books if any one cares to go into it. It is the gathering
-of the horse; it is the legs carried to the rear of the girths; it is
-the perfect hand and the instant compliance of the horse with the
-signs as indicated by the rider; it is the backing, the passaging, the
-leading with either foot, and the pivoting on the front legs; it is
-the throwing of horses, the acquisition of gaits, and the nice
-bitting; it is one hundred little struggles with the brute until he
-comes to understand and to know that he must do his duty. It all looks
-beautifully simple, but in practice we know that while it is not
-difficult to teach a horse, it is quite another matter to unteach him,
-so in these horses at least no mistakes have been made. After all
-this, one fine sunny Friday morning the people drove out from
-Washington in their traps and filed into the galleries and sat
-down--fair women and brave men; of the former we are sure, and of the
-latter we trust. The colonel blew a whistle--ye gods, what a sacrilege
-against all the traditions of this dear old United States army!--and
-in rode Captain Bomus's troop of the First Plungers, which I cannot
-but love, since I am an honorary member of their officers' mess, and
-fondly remember the fellows who are now sniffing alkali dust down in
-Arizona. They were riding with blankets and surcingles, and did their
-part of a drill, the sequence of which I have forgotten, since it was
-divided with the three other troops--Captain Bell's, of the Seventh,
-Captain Hughes's, of the Ninth, and Captain Fountain's, of the Eighth.
-I felt a strong personal interest in some of these men, for memory
-took me back to a night's ride in Dakota with a patrol of the Ninth,
-when they were all wrapped in buffalo-skin overcoats, with white frost
-on their lapels; the horses' noses wore icicles, and the dry snow
-creaked under the tread of the hoofs as we rode over the starlit plain
-and through the black shadows of the _coulees_. I had pounded along
-also through the dust in the wake of this troop of the Eighth when it
-wasn't so cold, but was equally uncomfortable.
-
-[Illustration: RIDING SITTING ON LEGS]
-
-[Illustration: OVER THE HURDLE BACK TO BACK]
-
-The sharp commands of the captain soon put the troop in motion, and
-they trotted along with a cadenced tread, every man a part of his
-horse; they broke into fours and wheeled to the right about, then into
-line and wound themselves up in the "spiral," and unwound again, and
-soon brought order out of a mess, and the regular canter was ever the
-same. Then low hurdles were strung across the hall, and by column of
-fours the troop went over, never breaking the formation; to the rear
-they turned and back again; finally they took the obstacle in line,
-and every horse rose as though impelled by the same mechanism. As if
-this was not enough, every second man was dismounted and put on double
-with a comrade, not with his breast to his comrade's back, but back to
-back, and then in line the odd cavalcade charged the hurdles, and took
-them every one. It was not an individual bucketing of one horse after
-another, but all in line and all together. After this what could there
-be more to test the "glue" in these troopers' seats? There was more,
-however, and in this wise: The saddles were put on, but without any
-girths, and all the movements were gone through with again, ending up
-with a charge down the hall, and bringing up against the wall of the
-spectators' stand at a sharp "halt," which would have unseated a
-monkey from a trick-mule.
-
-The horses were all thrown by pulling their heads about, and one
-cavalryman amused himself by jumping over his prostrate mount. They
-rode "at will," and stood upon their knees on their horses' backs. One
-big animal resented carrying double, and did something which in Texas
-would be called "pitching," but it was scarcely a genuine sample,
-since the grinning soldiers made little of it.
-
-The troop of the Ninth executed a "left backward turn" with beautiful
-precision, and this difficult undertaking will serve to give one an
-idea of the training of the mounts.
-
-Gymnastics of all sorts were indulged in, even to the extent of
-turning summersaults over four horses from a spring-board. A citizen
-near me, whose mind had probably wandered back to Barnum and Bailey,
-said:
-
-[Illustration: THROWING A HORSE]
-
-"But what's this got to do with soldiers; is it not highly flavored
-with circus?"
-
-I could offer no excuse except the tradition that cavalrymen are
-supposed to ride well. All the men were young and in first-rate
-physical fix, and seemed to enjoy the thing--all except one old first
-sergeant, who had been time-expired these half-dozen times, whose skin
-was so full of bullet-holes that it wouldn't hold blood, and who had
-entered this new regime with many protests:
-
-"O'me nau circus ape; I can't be leppin' around afther the likes av
-thim!" whereat the powers arranged it so that the old veteran got a
-job looking after plug tobacco, tomato-cans, tinned beef, and other
-"commissaries," upon which he viewed the situation more cheerfully.
-
-The drill was tremendously entertaining to the ladies and gentlemen in
-the gallery, and they clapped their hands and went bustling into their
-traps and off down the road to the general's house, where Madam the
-General gave a breakfast, and the women no doubt asked the second
-lieutenants deliciously foolish questions about their art. The
-gentlemen, some of whom are Congressmen and other exalted governmental
-functionaries, felt proud of the cavalry, and went home with a
-determination to combat any one hostile to cavalry legislation, if a
-bold front and firm purpose could stay the desecrating hand.
-
-But all this work is primary and elementary. The second degree is
-administered in field-work, comprising experimental marches, and those
-who know General Henry by reputation will not forget his hundred-mile
-march with the Ninth Cavalry at Pine Ridge, and those who know him
-personally will become acquainted with his theory that a cavalry
-command in good condition, with proper feeds, should make fifty miles
-a day, with a maximum on the road of ten hours a day, moving at the
-rate of five miles an hour in cavalry halts, the gaits being walk,
-trot, and leading, with a day's rest each week, to be continued
-indefinitely. And knowing all this, they will be sure that the model
-squadron wears out a good many horseshoes in a season.
-
-[Illustration: OVER THE HURDLES IN LINE]
-
-The "Cossack outposts" are another feature much insisted on, and,
-strange to say, this arrangement was first invented in America,
-despite its name (see Wagner's _Outposts_), and is an improvement on
-picket posts in a ratio of 240 to 324. Another movement is the "form
-square," which is an adaptation of the "Indian circle," it being a
-movement from a centre to a circle, and useful when escorting wagons
-or when surprised. The non-commissioned officers are sent on
-reconnoissance, on patrols, and are required to make maps, which are
-submitted to an inspector.
-
-Another scheme which I have never seen was the linking of a troop of
-horses, formed in a circle, to one another, by hooking the regular
-cavalry links from one horse's bridle to the next one's halter ring,
-and then leaving them in charge of one man. I also saw the new cavalry
-bit for the first time. It is commended by all who use it, and I saw
-no horses boring on it or in the least uppish about going against it,
-and I never remember a horse who would not do either the one or the
-other to the old trap which was formerly worn.
-
-Two other curious movements indulged in by this squadron are the
-firing over horses while they are lying down; and, riding double--the
-man faced to the rear draws his pistol, and while moving to the rear
-keeps shooting. It might be useful during a slow retreat, and could be
-done with the carbine equally well.
-
-This whole enterprise at Fort Meyer is vastly encouraging. As one
-officer said, "We take no credit for it, since others could do the
-same if they had riding-halls and cavalry officers in command." But
-there are cavalry officers and there are cavalry officers, and it is
-not every day one is born. For thirty-five years has the old general
-sat in a McClellan saddle, and the tremendous enthusiasm of newly
-joined "sub" still remains. The very thought of a wagon arouses his
-indignation, and every day the mules are brought into the riding-hall,
-and the men initiated into the intricacies of the "diamond hitch." It
-takes a past-master to pack a mule in twenty-two seconds, however, and
-I saw that feat accomplished in General Henry's command.
-
-It is a grand thing for the young men to have this practical training
-by these old veterans of the civil war and the alkali plains before
-they go on the retired list. It is well for a young man to know enough
-not to unsaddle a sweating troop of horses in a broiling sun, and to
-learn that it makes sore backs; and it is quite important if men can
-cook rations, and not go up to the sky-line of a hill when scouting,
-and rival the statue of "Liberty Enlightening the World," when it is
-clearly their business to throw what light they have behind them and
-not before. It takes experience to put the sole of a boot back on the
-upper, when it has fetched loose, with four horseshoe nails, and it is
-not every man that knows that the place to intrench is on the edge of
-a cut bank, near water, if one expects ever to get out of a round-up.
-No one can figure that a recruit will know how many people passed over
-the road before him, or which way they were going, and it takes a long
-head and good nerves not to pull a trigger unless the sight is dark on
-the object when the fight may last all day and probably all night; but
-all these things are not taught in school. If a horse under him is
-weakening on a long march in an enemy's country, it is an ignorant
-fool who uses a spur instead of good sense. That's the time to unload
-a few dollars' worth of government property. But who can understand
-the value of a rubber blanket, fifty rounds of ammunition, and a
-pocket full of grub, with a feed of grain in the bag, but one who has
-tried it? There are lots of dead soldiers who would have learned these
-lessons if they had been older. In my opinion, the tremendous box of
-tricks which Uncle Sam's horses are supposed to carry has put more men
-afoot than will ever be admitted; but at least the old boot has gone,
-though there is yet room for an intelligent hand with a jack-plane to
-shave off that cavalry pack. I am inclined to take what every one
-tells me is a "cranky" view on this subject, but let it stand until
-the next hard campaign, and I hope to be able to be more lucid. Horses
-are horses, and horses are not made of wood, iron, or by rule of
-thumb.
-
-To revert to Fort Meyer: it is altogether refreshing; it is worth any
-one's while to go there and see four troops of cavalry which cannot be
-beaten, and it is positively exhilarating to meet their creator, a
-thoroughly typical United States cavalry officer, and I'm bound to say
-his successor in command has had a hard pace set for him.
-
-
-
-
-THE AFFAIR OF THE --TH OF JULY
-
-
-The following is a letter from a young military aide-de-camp who was
-in position to see a great deal of the great riots in Chicago.
-
-_Chicago, July -- 18--_
-
-MY DEAR FRIEND,--In your last you ask me to give you my experiences in
-the affair of the other day here in Chicago, and although I played but
-a small part, yet I do not mind adding my little quota to the volumes
-of matter already written on the subject. To begin with, we at
-headquarters had known for sometime that the turbulent elements were
-organizing an opposition to Federal authority, and indeed after the
-demoralization of the police power in the affairs of Monday and
-Tuesday, the general issued his proclamation putting the city under
-martial law. The people were ordered to keep within their own doors,
-under penalty of shooting or drum-head court-martial, after seven
-o'clock in the evening, and it was also explained that any domicile
-harboring an active enemy was to be reduced by the sharpest means at
-command. The reinforcements arrived on Tuesday, and militia and police
-were embodied in our command. I had been out on a patrol with a troop
-of the Third Cavalry late in the afternoon, and I reported to the
-general that there was an ominous lull in the city, and that I feared
-the enemy were to take some active measures. We had tried,
-unsuccessfully, to locate the rifles looted from the gun-stores, and
-also to find anything like a rendezvous of insurgents. The better
-class of people had nearly all left the city, and what remained were
-guarding their business property. Chicago streets, usually so teeming
-with human life, were almost deserted. No smoke came from the big
-chimneys, and the shops were shuttered and boarded up. A great many
-honest people of small means were much put to it to obtain food, and I
-cannot but tell you how I saw some of the troopers divide their
-rations with the citizens. At the time we had no intimation of the
-serious turn affairs would take on, but the remark of the general's,
-that "every soldier will die right in his tracks," had gone the rounds
-of the camps, and nerved the men to face the music. I was eating my
-dinner in the Chicago Club when I thought I heard rifle-shots. This
-was about nine o'clock, and the moon was shining on the Lake Front,
-although the side streets were dark, since the lights were out all
-over the city. In a minute more a squad of cavalry swept up the street
-at full gallop. They were heading for the general's tent, and I
-grabbed my cap and ran down-stairs three steps at a time. As I made my
-way along Michigan Avenue I could hear carbine-shots over in the city,
-and shortly all the bugles giving "The Assembly."
-
-I got to headquarters, and met old Hewer of the Seventh, and it was
-his troops which had come in; he told me they were then standing off a
-mob, which was returning the fire down in the city.
-
-I got an order from the general to deliver to the lower section of the
-camp, and getting on my "wheel" (which is better for this work than a
-horse), I pulled out. I delivered my order to Colonel Loftowne, and
-then waited to observe things, as I was to report back to
-headquarters. Rawball's battery went into "action front," two
-sections to a street. They were loaded, and then down on the next
-corner came the order through the still night to fire. A terrific
-flash illuminated the black square, and then with a howl down the long
-street went the 2-3/4 inch, and far down in the darkness I could see
-her explode; then all was silent. The signal-rockets were going from
-the top of the Auditorium, and I saw the answering upward sweep of the
-balls of fire as they were replied to farther down the street. We were
-on the extreme right, which was below the Art Building, and were
-ordered to move for an attack on the streets of the city _en echelon_.
-The guns limbered up, and, escorted by two companies of infantry, we
-passed into the dim light. At the corner of Wabash Avenue we halted.
-
-Four or five blocks down we could both hear and see rifle-firing,
-evidently directed on our camp, and also a great crowd. At this
-juncture we heard a most awful explosion, dull and not like a
-rifle-canyon. "Dynamite!" we all exclaimed in a breath.
-
-"Cut the fuse to zero! Fire!" And with a terrific crash the missile
-sped on its way. "I think that street will be clear for a spell,"
-drawled the captain, in his delicious old Georgia manner, as he got
-his guns in motion. We could hear the occasional boom of a 3-inch and
-the loud grinding of the Gatlings, and we knew it was enfilading our
-fire. The rifle-fire was silenced down the city, and the mob, as we
-judged by the noise, was running away. Over in the direction of the
-post-office we then heard rifle-shots.
-
-"That's that outpost of the Twenty-seventh guarding the building," we
-said to each other. It fairly crackled now--"giving 'em hot stuff."
-
-"Halt!" came the command, and the men stopped. "We will wait here for
-orders."
-
-"What do you suppose that report was?" we asked each other as we stood
-on the curbing.
-
-"It must have been dynamite. I know the sound of this ordnance too
-well to be mistaken," commented the captain of artillery. "What's
-that? Hark!" as a clatter sounded on the pavement in our rear. "It's a
-horse coming at full speed. Spread out, men, and stop him." And, sure
-enough, a frightened cavalry horse came charging into the midst of the
-infantry, and was only stopped after he had knocked down two men.
-
-"He only has a halter on; he's got away from the picket line; here,
-boys--here comes another." This one in turn was stopped, and two more
-which followed directly. Detailed men were sent back with the horses,
-while I went also to make my report. As I sped on ahead I was startled
-by a shot, and with a sputter I heard the bullet go to pieces at my
-feet. I looked around, and from the dark of a window came a flash and
-another sputter.
-
-"D---- him, he is firing at me," I ejaculated, and I made the pedals
-fly. I had no idea of stopping, but I thought I could remember the
-building; and thinks I, "I am not after game, but whoever you are,
-I'll hunt you up, my lad."
-
-At headquarters everything was bustle.
-
-"Some one exploded a big dynamite bomb right in the street, in front
-of the Fifth Infantry camp," said Captain Moss to me, "and killed four
-men and wounded a dozen more. Some of the cavalry horses broke away
-from the picket lines and stampeded," he went on.
-
-The hospital tents were ablaze with light, and I knew that the
-surgeons were at their grewsome work.
-
-I reported for orders, and shortly was given one to deliver at my old
-post. Back I sped, and came near tumbling into a big hole, which I
-knew had been made by the dynamite bomb. I will go down another street
-and cross over, so as to avoid that fellow who potted at me, I
-reasoned; but before I turned off I saw the two infantrymen and the
-four old cavalry horses coming along.
-
-"Oh, lieutenant," they called, and I went up to them. "We saw that
-fellow shoot at you, and McPherson held the horses and I slipped down
-the dark side of the street and located him. He stuck his head out of
-the window, and I rested across a door-post and let him have it."
-
-"Did you hit him?"
-
-"Well, you kin bet! He came out of that window like a turkey out of a
-pine-tree. A little slow at first, but kerflop at last."
-
-So I took the street of my late enemy, and had a look at a dark object
-which lay on the sidewalk under the house I had located. In response
-to the order I bore, the infantry advanced to develop any opposition
-which there might be. Men were thrown out in front, and the heavy body
-marched in rear. We had proceeded this way for some blocks with no
-sound but the dropping rifle-fire some quarter of a mile to our left
-and behind us, when we began to find men huddled in doorways, who were
-promptly taken prisoners and disarmed, and sent to the rear. Some bore
-rifles and all had revolvers, and a hard-looking set they were. The
-artillery fire had demoralized them, and whatever they were to have
-done they had abandoned after the first shell had gone shrieking and
-crashing down the street.
-
-"They'll get a drum-head in the morning, and it won't sit ten
-minutes," mused an officer. "I suppose they are anarchists. Well, they
-ought to like this; this is a sort of anarchy. It's the best we have
-got in our shop."
-
-These words were scarcely spoken before a blinding flash lit up the
-street as lightning might. A tremendous report followed, and I was
-knocked down right over my bicycle, which I was trundling. I was up in
-an instant, and with a ringing clash an object had fallen at my feet
-and struck my leg a smart blow, which pained me considerably. I
-reached down and picked up a Springfield rifle barrel without lock or
-stock. A dynamite cartridge had been exploded in our front. The
-infantry hesitated for a moment. Many men had been flung on their
-backs by the force of the concussion. "Forward!" was the command, and
-dropping my bicycle, I followed the dark figures of the infantry as
-they made their way down the sides of the streets. Half a block ahead
-was a great hole in the pavement, and the sidewalk was littered with
-cobble-stones and debris from the walls of the surrounding buildings.
-The bomb had been exploded over the advance-guard, and had destroyed
-it utterly. Which building had it come from? We stood in the doorways,
-and held our breath and waited. A stone dropped in the street with a
-crash. A tiny light appeared in one of the upper windows of a tall
-narrow office building. It disappeared instantly, and all was dark.
-Two men put their heads out of the window. "See-e!" I hissed, as a
-soldier drew up his rifle. All was quiet. The two heads peered down
-the street, and then whispered together, when shortly we caught the
-hollow echo of the words, "D---- 'em, they don't want any more."
-
-"Now run for it," said the captain in command, who was a big fellow,
-and we all scampered off down the street to our main body. What we had
-discovered was reported to the battery commander. He swore a great
-oath.
-
-"Bring that gun up here to this side; boost her on to the sidewalk.
-Come, get hold here, you fellows; lend us a hand; run her along a
-little; train her on that doorway. Now fire!" And then, in a high
-voice, "Captain, let your men cover that house with rifle-fire, and
-detail some men to break into a store and get inflammables."
-
-The big gun went with a deafening crash, and the doorway was in
-slivers. A dropping rifle-fire rained into the windows. Crash went the
-big gun after a minute, but the building was dark and silent, as
-though holding their sputtering toys in contempt.
-
-"I'm going to burn that building. Send a man to call out the fire
-department!" roared the old captain, who had now lost all his
-drawling, and was bellowing like a bull. After a time infantrymen came
-along with their arms full of bottles and cans of kerosene, and I know
-not what else. They had broken into a drug-store, and told the
-proprietor, who was found there in the darkness with his three clerks,
-to give them the most inflammable substances at his command.
-
-The squad of infantry formed on the side of the street occupied by the
-ill-fated house, and as the big gun crashed and the rifle-fire
-redoubled, they dashed down the street and swarmed into the building.
-
-"Keep up that rifle-fire!" howled the senior officer. It was bang!
-bang! bang! for a full minute, when a flash of light lit up the
-doorway, and with a rush out came the squad, and made its way to us on
-the run.
-
-"We have fired the elevator shaft," said a young officer, breathing
-heavily with excitement. The doorway was very light now, and shortly
-the second-story windows over it showed yellow. Windows farther up the
-tall building began to redden and then to glow brightly. It was ten
-minutes now since the first gleam of fire, and the rifles had ceased.
-The building was now ablaze. A huge roaring was heard, and the black
-smoke poured from the hall windows, while the side windows were yet
-dark. A harsh yelling came from the window where I had seen the little
-match struck, and the thick black smoke eddied around and hid it all.
-
-"By sections--forward--trot--march," and with a dash we moved forward
-past the roaring furnace and down into the darkness below.
-
-"My orders were to move forward," muttered the old captain, as he bit
-at a plug of tobacco.
-
-It was now nearly twelve o'clock, and I could hear a great deal of
-small-arm firing down the city on my left in front, and also the boom
-of cannon away on the other side of town. Shortly a note was handed me
-by an adjutant, and I was to go to a command on a street nearly in
-front of headquarters. I sped along, and shortly met men by twos and
-threes, wounded men going to camp, and two fellows sitting on the
-curbing. "Where is Captain B----'s command, my men?"
-
-"Right on down the street--me bunkie's got it," was all I heard as I
-shot along.
-
-The rifle-fire grew, and the crash of a Hotchkiss came at intervals.
-Then I made out a small infantry reserve, and then the guns. I found
-the captain, and delivered my note.
-
-"Wait by me," said the captain, as he went into a doorway and read the
-order by scratching matches on his pantaloons, and the Hotchkiss
-nearly broke my ear-drums. "Wait a minute or so," said the captain, as
-he crushed the note into his trousers-pocket.
-
-I waited, and a "kid" of the reserves, whom I knew, greeted me and
-explained. "They are in the depot, and we are going to carry it by
-storm in a minute."
-
-Again the Hotchkiss went, and "Come on!" rang the order as the men
-moved forward. It was the captain, and he wanted me to "wait a
-minute," so, thinks I, I will wait near him; and pulling my bicycle
-into a dark doorway, I waited along by the captain, near the head of
-the procession. As we moved out from the protection of the street the
-report of a Hotchkiss nearly threw me from my pins, and then we ran
-silently under a rather hot fire from the windows and doorways. I
-heard the balls strike--a dull slap--and a man stumbled forward ahead
-of me and dropped. I sprang over him, and was soon out of fire, and
-with the little column passed through the big doorway under which I
-had so often passed with my gripsack and on the _qui vive_ for a
-hansom-cab driver. There was a tremendous rattle of fire, the bullets
-struck the stonework viciously; the hollow pat sounded, and men sank
-reeling and lay prone under my feet. We piled in and returned the
-fire. It was all smoke now; nothing distinguishable. "Come on!" came a
-voice which interlarded itself with the reports, and we went on
-wildly. We were now out of the smoke, and then I saw, by the light of
-a fire, figures running. A man fired in our faces. He was sitting up;
-a bayonet went into him, and he rolled over, clutching his breast with
-his hands. "The house is on fire!" came the cry, and the infantry
-continued to discharge on the retreating figures. A great flash
-lighted everything, and as my senses returned, it came over me "that
-was a bomb." I passed my hand over my eyes. The building was on fire.
-I could see men lying around me breathing heavily and groaning. I got
-up; a voice said, "Get these men out of here!" "Get these men out of
-here!" I echoed, as I grabbed a big Irish sergeant, and supporting him
-under the arms, I strove forward. The living soldiers took hold of the
-dead and wounded comrades, and bore them back through the smoke and
-into the street. The station was now on fire, and every one was
-highly excited, for these bombs made strange work, and were very
-demoralizing. They did no particular good to the enemy beyond that
-point, since they did not stop our advance, and they also demoralized
-the enemy quite as much as ourselves. There seemed to be no further
-opposition to the troops. I went back to head-quarters, got my horse,
-and received permission to go with a detachment of cavalry. We pulled
-out up Michigan Avenue. We were to scout and make a junction with
-stock-yard troops out to the south of the city or in Washington Park.
-The moon was going down, and there was no sound but the clattering of
-the troops and the jingle of the sabres. We passed a large squad of
-police, with their lanterns, moving out south to protect private
-residences and arrest prowlers. Ahead of us we heard three
-revolver-shots, and galloping forward, we were hailed by a voice from
-a window. "They have been trying to break into my house, catch them;
-they are running up the street." The road here was very wide, with two
-rows of trees in the centre and narrow grass-plots.
-
-"Come on!" shouted the captain, and spurring up, we moved forward.
-
-"There they are, captain: can't you see them?" spoke the old first
-sergeant, as he drove his horse forward to the captain's side.
-
-We rode over the grass-plot, and, sure enough, forms were seen to run
-up the steps of houses and behind shrubbery.
-
-"Dismount!--shoot them down!" came the command, and the men sprang
-forward with a rush. A revolver flashed, and was followed by a dozen
-carbine-balls, and from the blackness of a high front stoop rolled a
-figure grunting and gasping. Shot after shot rang through the
-darkness, and the troopers routed the vermin from step and shrubbery,
-until shortly it ceased.
-
-"Captain, here is Foltz--he's been shot; and McInerny--he's shot too."
-
-I sprang up the steps of a great stone mansion and pounded on the door
-with the butt of my six-shooter. A window was raised and a head peered
-out. "What do you want?"
-
-"We are United States cavalry, and we have two wounded men. Open your
-doors; we want you to put them to bed," and the window went down with
-a bang. Shortly the bolts were drawn, the door opened, and an old
-gentleman with white hair and carrying a lamp appeared.
-
-"Certainly; bring them right in, captain," said the old gentleman, and
-the two men were carefully lifted and borne in by their comrades. I
-helped to carry one man up-stairs, and to take off his great boots and
-to strip him.
-
-"Is there a doctor near here, sir?" I asked.
-
-"Right across the street; will I send my man?"
-
-"Yes, and a-running, too," replied a comrade, who was stanching the
-blood on the man's chest with a bed-sheet.
-
-We laid the man out, and I paused to note the splendor of the
-apartment, and to think it none too good for a brave soldier. The
-doctor came shortly, and I left the house. The troop was mounted and
-moved on. From a mansion across the street came a shot and loud
-shouting. We rode up and dismounted. There was a light in the front
-room and the door was open. The captain sprang up the steps, followed
-by ten or twelve men. As we entered we saw a half-dozen of the most
-vicious-looking wretches I have ever seen. They were evidently drunk,
-and did not comprehend the import of our presence. One man raised a
-champagne-bottle and threatened the captain. A carbine flashed--the
-report was almost deafening--and the drunken man dropped the bottle,
-threw up his hand, turned half round, and sank with a thud.
-
-"Take these men out and shoot them, sergeant." And the now thoroughly
-terrorized revellers, to the number of six, were dragged, swearing and
-beseeching, to the pavement, and I heard shots.
-
-The room we were in was magnificent, but in the utmost disorder. The
-floor was strewn with broken bottles, vases, and bric-a-brac.
-
-A form appeared in the door. It was a woman. She was speechless with
-terror, and her eyes stared, and her hands were clutched. We removed
-our hats, and the woman closed her eyes slowly.
-
-"Look out, captain, she's going to faint!" I cried.
-
-The captain slapped his hat on with a crush.
-
-"That's what she's going to do," he said, as he stood like a
-football-rusher before the ball is put in play.
-
-"Grab her!" I shouted; and, with a bound, the captain made a high
-tackle just as the lady became limp. Out in the hall I jumped, and
-yelled, "Oh, you people up-stairs there, come down; come running; the
-lady has fainted; we are soldiers; come down; come down; come down,
-somebody!" And from the upper darkness a white-robed figure glided
-past me into the lighted room.
-
-"Oh, I'm so glad!" she said, as she swept up to the rather engaging
-scene of the beautiful woman and the captain, who was "not glad,"
-judging from his disconcerted air; and to make a story short, we left
-the house.
-
-As we mounted we could see the darkness beginning to gray, and knew
-that morning would come shortly.
-
-"It's been a nasty night's work, but if it once comes daylight I'll
-leave nothing of these rioters but their horrible memory," mused the
-old captain.
-
-"There is a glow in the sky off there--don't you see?" I added.
-
-"Fire! Oh, I've expected that."
-
-As the light grayed I could see the doors of majestic residences open,
-windows broken, and debris trailing down the steps.
-
-"Looted."
-
-"There are people ahead--trot!" said the captain, half turning in his
-saddle. The bray of the trumpet was followed by the jingle of the
-forward movement.
-
-The captain pulled off to the side and shouted, "No prisoners, men--no
-prisoners!" And the column swept along.
-
-We could make out more human forms, all running by the side of the
-road. There were more and more fugitives as we drew nearer.
-
-"Come on," sang out the first lieutenant, as he put his horse into a
-gallop and drew his six-shooter; and shortly we were among them,
-scattering them like chaff and firing revolver-shots into them. Up the
-side streets they went, scampering, terrorized.
-
-"I guess they will keep that gait for a mile," said the lieutenant, as
-he turned grinning to me. "That is the outfit which has been looting
-down Michigan Avenue. I wish the light would come, and we'll give 'em
-hot stuff."
-
-At Washington Park we dismounted, and shortly were joined by B Troop
-from Hordon's command. They told us they had been fighting all night,
-and that the stockyards and many buildings were on fire. They had
-encountered opposition, which seemed to be armed and to have some
-organization, but, laughing, he said, "They couldn't stand the 'hot
-stuff.'"
-
-After this we made the ride back. It was now light, and as we rode
-slowly, men dismounted at intervals, and did some pretty work at
-rather long ranges with the carbines. The enemy would see us coming,
-and start to run up side streets, and then, riding forward, we
-dismounted and potted at them, I saw a corporal "get a man" who was
-running upwards of six blocks away--it was luck, of course. The police
-were now seen posted along at intervals, and were going into houses to
-tell the people of the order to remain in-doors for twenty-four hours
-more, which was the latest from headquarters, and I suppose was
-intended to give the police and troops an opportunity to seek out
-armed insurgents.
-
-I got back to camp, dismounted, and, being hungry, bethought me of the
-Auditorium for breakfast. I didn't think, after the pounding the hotel
-had gotten in the early evening previous, that they would come out
-strong on an early breakfast, but they did fairly well. You remember
-Ed Kennedy, the popular clerk there--well, he was shot and badly
-wounded while behind the desk, after the bomb drew our fire. He will
-get around all right, I am told.
-
-I saw some of the execution of those hundreds of prisoners next day,
-but I didn't care to see much. They piled them on flat-cars as though
-they had been cordwood, and buried them out in the country somewhere.
-Most of them were hobos, anarchists, and toughs of the worst type, and
-I think they "left their country for their country's good." Chicago is
-thoroughly worked up now, and if they keep with the present attention
-to detail, they will have a fine population left. The good citizens
-have a monster vigilance committee, and I am afraid will do many
-things which are not entirely just, but it is the reaction from
-lawlessness, and cannot be helped. They have been terribly exasperated
-by the rioting and license of the past. Of course, my dear friend, all
-this never really happened, but it all might very easily have happened
-if the mob had continued to monkey with the military buzz-saw.
-
-Yours faithfully, JACK.
-
-[Illustration: "WE WERE NOW OUT OF THE SMOKE"]
-
-
-
-
-THE COLONEL OF THE FIRST CYCLE INFANTRY
-
-
-"You certainly are a tough outfit, colonel--you and your night-hawks
-of the First Bikes--and I am not sure you could not have us cavalrymen
-going to bed with our boots on, if we were on the other side," said
-Major Ladigo, as he bit at the end of a fresh cigar.
-
-"Yes--bless me--Pedal's outfit might come into camp on top of yours,
-Ladigo, and where would my guns be then? I can't have my gunners
-sitting on their trails all day and all night too," sighed the big
-gunner, from the other end of the tent.
-
-"It was good work," continued the old brigadier--"here, boy, pass
-those glasses--and I have always thought well of the possibilities of
-that machine in a certain sort of military operations. I don't think
-you can chase Apaches with it--in fact, the only way to chase Apaches
-is to agree to pay about $500 a head for them; and, also, I don't
-think, Colonel Pedal--with all due respect for your enthusiasm--that
-you could ever become of all-absorbing interest in great operations
-between organized armies, but I do not want to commit myself since you
-seem to accomplish such feats in these days. If we had not had a
-really progressive man at the head of the army you would not have had
-this opportunity; but now, Pedal, all these fellows want to hear about
-your outfit, and especially how you conducted that affair at North
-Colville--they all want to know--go ahead now--we have plenty of time
-to listen," and Colonel Pedal of the First Bikes twirled his forage
-cap in his two hands and grinned pleasantly.
-
-"Well--it was simple enough," he said.
-
-"Oh yes--it's simple now, but how did you get at it?" was the remark
-of encouragement from somewhere.
-
-"Oh, well, you know, when I had organized and drilled this regiment,
-the people up at headquarters used me in a fussy way as orderlies,
-messengers, and in light outpost work, until my outfit was scattered
-all over this country, and that was not my idea at all. I knew by long
-experiment that bicycles were perfectly mobile in any country not
-strictly mountainous, and my idea was that I could fight my outfit in
-a new way; but fight it, that was my idea--and march it, too. I wanted
-a few holes in that flag, and so I used to go up and labor with the
-general. I pleaded and begged to be turned loose. So one afternoon the
-general sent for me, and I went to headquarters.
-
-"He said that a big band of insurgents were gathering and organizing
-up at North Colville, and that he wanted them destroyed or dispersed,
-and asked me if I could do it without asking for supports. I knew the
-old man had all he could do to open the communications to the west,
-and that he was going to give the bikes a try to prove what they were
-good for, so I said 'Yes, sir,' right away, though I did not know the
-situation thoroughly; but I wanted a job of that sort, and I was in
-for it. So he gave me orders to that effect, and after some inquiries
-I left him. Through spies he knew of this condition, and that all the
-communications were cut except the marine cable, which he laid in the
-bed of the Kaween River to Northport, and that was thirty miles from
-North Colville. I knew that all those upper counties were in a state
-of insurgency, and my orders were to destroy the rendezvous at North
-Colville and to then retreat; so my chief concern was to get through
-the country without being stopped or engaged seriously by intervening
-bodies of the enemy which I might encounter, and says I to myself,
-says I, 'Old man, show 'em what bikes are good for.' Pardon me if I
-become enthusiastic. I started down to my command, fell in my men,
-with two days' rations and one hundred and fifty rounds. I made my
-inspection, for, of course, you know, bike soldiers have a very
-complicated equipment; what with bombs, telegraphic apparatus, tools,
-and the extra parts of wheels, one must look well to his inspection.
-They have the Rice equipment--combined cartridge-belts and
-garment--which enables them to carry almost anything on the
-shoulder-belt. At five o'clock we pulled out, and at dark found
-ourselves at our extreme outposts, as I had calculated. I did not want
-the enemy to see me, as I was afraid of the telegraph, but as I
-proceeded I tapped the wires and cut them again and again. In fact, I
-cut wires all night, for fear that they might not have been destroyed,
-or that they might have been repaired. I ran smoothly through little
-hamlets, and knew that I could not be overtaken. I made a slight
-detour around villages of any size, such as Wooddale, Rockville, and
-Freeport, for fear that the insurgents might be in force enough to
-detain me. Back of Wellsville I got awfully tangled up in a woods,
-and, in short, was lost; but I jumped an old cit. out of his cosey
-bed, put a .45 on the cabin of his intellect, a flash-lantern in his
-two eyes, and he looked sufficiently honest and intelligent to show us
-the road, which he did, and we were not detained long.
-
-"I felt fear of Emmittstowne, as I had information that the insurgents
-were in force there. We picked up a man on the road who seemed to be
-one of our sympathizers, and he informed us that there were pickets
-all along the road which we were travelling, and also mounted
-patrols. He said that there were a terrible lot of insurgents in
-Emmittstowne, but mostly drunk.
-
-[Illustration: OFFICER AND MEN--FIRST CYCLE INFANTRY]
-
-"Captain Bidewell, who was in command of the advance, did a rather
-clever piece of work here. He suspected that he would find a picket at
-a certain place, and sent a dismounted squad on either side of the
-road, which was bounded by meadow land with stone-walls, brush, and
-trees on either side, and he himself walked down the road with two
-men. They talked loudly, as though drunk, and sure enough, were
-shortly held up by the picket. They surrendered and expostulated in a
-loud voice, and offered their captors a bottle of whiskey. The advance
-closed in on them and even got in their rear, and, of course, held up
-the picket without a shot. A six-shooter argument used on these people
-shortly disclosed the conditions, and we advanced."
-
-"Say, colonel, I know that Bidewell; he is organizing a bike regiment
-out West now--met him as I came through," interpolated a medical
-major.
-
-"Yes--nice fellow--held the ten-mile record for two years before this
-trouble," replied Pedal; "but, as I was saying--
-
-"Here is _How!_ gentlemen!
-
-"Well, to continue--to show you a curious phase of bicycling--my
-advance ran a picket farther along the road and were fired on, but,
-bless me, they had gone through so quickly and silently that they were
-not hurt, and the sergeant, who was very wise, dismounted and blew his
-whistle for us to advance. Bidewell dismounted and immediately
-advanced, and the picket, hearing his men smashing brush, retreated,
-and the sergeant turned a pistol loose in their faces and bellowed for
-them to go out in the road, throw up their hands, and surrender, which
-they did. You see, Colonel Ladigo, it is very hard to estimate bike
-forces in the night, they go so silently--they simply flit; and when
-you first notice them you wonder how many have gone before. A sleepy
-picket is waked up by a lot of bellowing and shots and smashing of
-brush, and he doesn't know anything, especially if the row is half in
-his rear. Well, the shooting must have aroused the village of
-Emmittstowne, and I made up my mind to run right into the town. The
-moon was rising, and we could see fairly well; but first I tried a
-little ruse with the captured picket. We advanced down the road a
-piece, and the men ensconced themselves in the brush, while one of the
-captured men stood in the middle of the road. We heard quite a party
-coming up the road rapidly, and the picket called out to them that it
-was nothing--that they had fired at some shadows, and that they might
-go back. Two men actually advanced to him, but he insisted that all
-was right, and that they might return; in fact, he protested too much,
-since he knew that he was lying for his life, and that the date of his
-demise was fixed at the instant he told the truth. We gave the town
-half an hour to settle down, and then started on a down
-grade--coasting silently. All was still. There were lights in a few
-saloons, and a half-dozen men, who were immediately held up and
-disarmed. There was evidence of a great many people in the village,
-since wagons and horses stood about, and tents and huts were
-everywhere except on the main street. I stopped in front of the hotel,
-and, do you know, my column got three-quarters of the way through the
-town before we were discovered. My column is three-quarters of a mile
-long, you must remember, and that was very fortunate. Some one fired a
-shot from a darkened window of the hotel, and I ordered my men to use
-their revolvers. A man can shoot a revolver with great accuracy from
-a wheel, as it glides so smoothly. Well, there was a deuce of a
-popping, and it must have fairly riddled the town. The fire was
-shortly returned, but in a desultory way which did not seem to do any
-damage, and shortly the tail of the column passed down the street. I
-had set the hotel on fire before we left, and I really do not think
-that those fellows know what really happened there yet. I immediately
-cut the telegraph line, and now had nothing to interfere with my march
-to North Colville. I had two bikes ruined by shots, and abandoned the
-riders; but they made their way to our lines later. As we proceeded
-the country grew more flat, and we made the pedals spin; at times we
-overtook night prowlers--tramps, for the most part--and one rather
-large party of drunken insurgents, all of whom we disarmed and left
-tied to trees and fences along the road. Do you know, Ladigo, that one
-cannot hear my whole regiment on a road until it is right on top of
-you. I have frequently seen men ride a bicycle right up beside a man,
-who never heard a word until ordered to throw up his hands."
-
-"Oh yes, Pedal, I'd like to catch your outfit at the foot of a long
-hill; I would fire yellow-legs into you in a way you would despise,"
-interpolated the impetuous cavalryman, as he blew smoke at the
-ridge-pole and slapped his one leg over the other in a satisfied way.
-
-"Yes, you might, Ladigo; but I'm going to spend my life trying not to
-let you catch me at the foot of a long hill, and if you do, you will
-find about one hundred bicycles piled up in the road, and it makes bad
-travelling for horses, especially with unshaken infantry pointing at
-you from behind. Well, in this case, Ladigo, I did not have any of
-your enterprising yellow-legs to bother me. As I was saying, we went
-along swimmingly until we struck Cat-tail Creek, and found the bridge
-burned. It was rather chilly, but I knew there was no help for it, so
-we got out our air-cushions and did our little swimming drill right
-there."
-
-"What are your air-cushions?" inquired the medical officer with the
-long pipe.
-
-"They are made of rubber, and blow up, and will sustain five
-equipments, and weigh fourteen pounds. Every five men have one,"
-explained Pedal.
-
-"Oh, I see--a quaint scheme!"
-
-"Yes; bikes are perfectly mobile," continued Pedal, with satisfaction.
-"As I was saying--oh yes, we got over the river all right, but--" and
-here he glanced apprehensively at Ladigo--"but I forgot to mention
-that we lost fifteen bicycles in the passage."
-
-"Ha-ha! oh yes--there are your dismounted men," and Colonel Ladigo
-beamed.
-
-"I think horses would have stuck in the mud of Cattail Creek, Ladigo;
-fact is, horses are not perfectly mobile. I also neglected to mention
-that the bicycles were all fished up and joined us later. We halted on
-a hill off the road an hour before gray dawn, to wait for the command
-to close up and to eat. There are always bikes which break down, and
-it takes a little time to repair them; and men will fall and injure
-themselves more or less. But within an hour I had my command all up
-except five men, having marched nearly seventy miles in eleven hours,
-had one engagement, crossed a river. And now, Colonel Ladigo, was that
-not good work?"
-
-"Oh yes, Pedal, quite good--quite good; could do it myself, though,"
-and the soul of a cavalryman was bound to assert itself.
-
-"Undoubtedly you could, but not next day." And Pedal lit a cigar,
-conscious that he had Ladigo downed, but not finally suppressed.
-
-[Illustration: AMBULANCE CORPS--FIRST CYCLE INFANTRY]
-
-"My men down the road took in a cavalry patrol without a
-shot--actually took in a cavalry--"
-
-"Hump--hump!" snorted Ladigo; "cavalry forsooth--a lot of d---- jays
-on plough-teams; cavalry, sir--"
-
-"Here--here, Ladigo, come down," expostulated the assembled officers,
-and Ladigo relapsed.
-
-"Well, after a reconnoissance and information from the patrol, I found
-that there were over five thousand men rendezvoused there, partly
-organized, and armed with all sorts of guns. Old Middle was in
-command--you remember Middle, formerly of the Twenty-seventh Infantry,
-cashiered at Fort Verde in '82."
-
-He was known to the men present, and a few sniffs and the remark that
-"he was bad medicine" was all that greeted the memory of Middle.
-
-"From the patrol I found where their camps and lines and outworks to
-cover the roads were, and also that it was but a quarter of a mile
-across a wood-lot to the road which I had intended to retire by, which
-ran southeast towards Spearfish and Hallam Junction, so I trundled my
-bikes over to it, and laid them in a column formation off the road,
-and left them under guard. I formed my command and turned some fellows
-out of some rifle-pits, which were designed to protect the road, and
-it was growing light. We charged into the town, which had been alarmed
-by our fire directed at the men in the pits. The first thing we struck
-was a long line of temporary camps, of what was probably a regiment,
-which was on the other side of a railroad embankment; but they were in
-a panic and offered us no resistance, while we advanced, rapidly
-firing, and nearly destroyed them. As we entered the town I took one
-battalion and directed it against the car-shops, which were full of
-stores and troops: these men we also nearly destroyed; and, having set
-fire to the shops, I entered the main part of the town, and as we
-advanced I had it also fired. From my right I heard heavy firing, and
-knew that the other command had encountered opposition; and turning to
-my right I struck a second railroad embankment, swarming behind with
-men who were standing off the advance of the other battalion. I
-enfiladed them, and they retired precipitously. From the net-work of
-railroad embankments farther up the flats north of Colville I could
-see masses of men forming. They began firing at me from a great
-distance, but we were protected by the railroad fill and did not mind
-it; while our sharpshooters, with their arms of longer range, annoyed
-the enemy quite a little, and kept up his demoralization. A great many
-men had gotten away from the town when I had attacked the car-shops,
-and I was in fear lest they might form in my rear under the cover of
-the burning town, so I had my wounded removed rapidly to the hill
-where my bikes were left, and then retreated rapidly under the cover
-of the smoke. The enemy were left so completely in the air that they
-advanced slowly, while from the cover of the brush on the upper edge
-of a field I held them in play for an hour while my wounded got a good
-start. At last they seemed to form, and approached to my right, going
-around the smoke of the burning town, and as they outnumbered me four
-to one, they would speedily have outflanked me. I began the retreat as
-I had intended. I had thirty-eight badly wounded men who had to be
-carried in blankets, fifty-six slightly wounded who would be trundled
-on bicycles, and had left eighteen dead on the field."
-
-"I say, colonel, how do you remove wounded men on bicycles?" asked
-some one.
-
-"It is simple when you see it, but rather difficult to explain. If you
-will come down some day I will be glad to show you a wounded drill,
-and then you can see for yourself. By cutting sticks and tying a
-blanket or shelter-tent a desperately wounded man can be laid prone
-between two bicycles, or if slightly hurt he can be trundled or even
-ridden double with a comrade, while one man can move two and even
-three bicycles. Oh, I tell you, the bike is a great contrivance once
-you come to understand it," proceeded the Colonel of Cycle Infantry.
-
-"I should like to have fought those fellows a little harder, but I was
-sixty miles inside of their lines, and I knew that to prolong the
-affair would mean that they would be heavily reinforced, and besides
-this was my first expedition. I had already destroyed the bigger half
-of the enemy and burned the town, and I did not apprehend a vigorous
-pursuit. What to do with my wounded was now on my mind. The country to
-the east of North Colville is very broken, wild, and sparsely
-inhabited. It had become necessary to abandon my wounded. I selected a
-point over twelve miles from our battle-ground, far back from the
-unfrequented road, in a very wild spot in the hills, and left every
-man not able to travel there, with all our rations and two medical
-officers, with ten men as a detail for the camp. My trail of course
-continued, and they were never suspected. Coming to the valley of the
-Spearfish I halted and slept my command until sundown, and then
-started for our lines. On the way I rode into and demoralized a
-half-dozen bands of armed insurgents, and struck our lines at five
-o'clock in the morning."
-
-"What became of your wounded up there, colonel?" asked the medical
-officer with the long pipe.
-
-"The evening following Captain Barhandle with fifty men started and
-made a successful march to their relief, and left two more medical
-officers and a lot of medical stores and rations, and came back three
-days after. The camp was never discovered, and was relieved when the
-general here made his first expedition into Wood County. They had
-protected themselves from prowlers by waylaying the roads, and had a
-dozen prisoners in camp, together with a half-dozen milch cows. My
-bike men are excellent foragers, since they have been so much on
-outpost duty."
-
-"Suppose, Colonel Pedal, you were forced to abandon your bicycles,
-what would you do?"
-
-"We had a detachment on a scout the other day who were pressed into
-some bad country and had to abandon their machines, which they did by
-sinking them in Dead Creek, and the next day we went out and recovered
-them. If it is desired to utterly destroy them, it can be done in an
-instant by stepping on the wheel and 'buckling' it, or if you remove
-the chain, it is useless to any one but yourself," explained the
-colonel.
-
-"Now, colonel, do you consider that you can move your men successfully
-in a hilly or mountainous country?" inquired Ladigo.
-
-"In all candor, no--not to a good advantage. I can march uphill as
-fast as infantry, and go down at limited-express speed; but I really
-want a rather flat country with lots of roads. I am not particular as
-to the quality of the roads, so there are enough of them. I can move
-through snow which has been tracked down by teams; I can fly on the
-ice; and when it is muddy there is always an inch or so beside the
-road which is not muddy, and that is enough for me. A favorable place
-for a bicycle is along a railroad track--going in the centre or at one
-side. When suddenly attacked, my men can get out of the road like a
-covey of quail, and a bicycle can be trundled across the worst
-possible country as fast as a man can travel, for you see all the
-weight of the man's gun and pack are on the wheel, which runs without
-any appreciable resistance, and all bike men know how to throw a
-bicycle over a fence with ease, and my average march is eighty miles
-a day. Ladigo, remember--eighty miles a day. No kind of roads, no
-conditions of weather, or anything but superior force can stop my
-command for an instant, sir;" and the colonel of cavalry rose and
-added, "Colonel Pedal, will you have a drink with me?"
-
-
-
-
-A MERRY CHRISTMAS IN A SIBLEY TEPEE
-
-
-"Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die." Not a good excuse,
-but it has been sufficient on many occasions to be true. The soldier
-on campaign passes life easily. He holds it in no strong grip, and the
-Merry Christmas evening is as liable to be spent in the saddle in
-fierce contact with the blizzard as in his cosey tepee with his
-comrades and his scant cheer. The jug containing the spirits of the
-occasion may have been gotten from a town fifty miles away on the
-railroad. It is certainly not the distillation of the summer sunlight,
-and is probably "tough" enough stuff to mingle naturally with its
-surroundings; but if one "drinks no more than a sponge" he may not
-have the jaded, retrospective feeling and the moral mending on the day
-to come. To sit on a camp chest, and to try and forget that the
-soldier's quart cup is not filled with best in the market, and then to
-enter into the full appreciation of the picturesque occasion, is to
-forget that long marches, "bull meat," and sleepless, freezing nights
-are in the background. Pleasant hours sit so nicely in their
-complemental surrounding of hard ones, since everything in the world
-is relative. As to the eating in a cavalry camp on campaign, it is not
-overdone, for beans and coffee and bacon and bacon and coffee and
-beans come round with sufficient regularity to forestall all
-gormandizing. The drinking is not the prominent feature either, but
-helps to soften the asperities of a Dakota blizzard which is raging on
-the other side of the "ducking."
-
-[Illustration: THE TOAST: "MERRY CHRISTMAS!"]
-
-The Sibley tent weaves and moans and tugs frantically at its pegs. The
-Sibley stove sighs like a furnace while the cruel wind seeks out the
-holes and crevices. The soldiers sit in their camp drawing-room
-buttoned up to the chin in their big canvas overcoats, and the muskrat
-caps are not removed. The freemasonry of the army makes strong
-friendships, and soldiers are all good fellows, that being a part of
-their business. There are just enough exceptions to prove the rule.
-The cold, bloodless, compound-interest snarler is not in the army, and
-if he were he would be as cheerless on a damp evening as he would in a
-fight. One man is from Arizona, another from Washington, and the rest
-from the other corners of Uncle Sam's tract of land. They have met
-before, and memory after memory comes up with its laughter and pathos
-of the old campaigns. One by one the "shoulder-straps" crawl in
-through the hole in the tepee. And, mind you, they do not walk in like
-a stage hero, with dash and abandon and head in the air; they
-prostrate themselves like a Turk at prayer, and come crawling. If they
-raise the flap ever so much, and bring company of the Dakota winds,
-they are met with a howl of protests. After gaining erectness, they
-brush the snow from their clothes, borrow a tin cup, and say, "How!
-how!"
-
-The chief of scouts buttons up to his eyes, and must go look after his
-"Inguns"; the officer of the day comes in to make his papers, and if
-he keeps the flying jokes out of his statistics, he does well enough.
-The second lieutenant, fresh from West Point, doesn't hesitate
-to address the grizzled colonel of twenty campaigns--nay, he
-may even deign to advise him on the art of war; but that is
-unsatisfactory--the advising of colonels--because the colonel's advice
-to the sub has always to be acted upon, whereas the sub's advice to
-the colonel is mostly nullified by the great powers of discretion
-which are vested in the superior rank. The life-study of a sub should
-be to appear like the cuckoo-bird in a German clock--at the proper
-moment; and when he appears at wrong intervals, he is repaired.
-Colonels are terrible creatures, with vast powers for promoting
-happiness or inflicting misery. If he will lend the moderating
-influence of his presence, it is well; but if he sends his man around
-to "present his compliments, and say that the d---- row will
-immediately cease," his wishes if not his personality are generally
-respected.
-
-It is never a late evening, such a one as this; it's just a few stolen
-moments from the "demnition grind." The last arrival may be a
-youngster just in from patrol, who explains that he just "cut the
-trail of forty or fifty Sioux five miles below, on the crossing of the
-White River;" and you may hear the bugle, and the bugle may blow quick
-and often, and if the bugle does mingle its notes with the howling of
-the blizzard, you will discover that the occasion is not one of
-merriment. But let us hope that it will not blow.
-
-The toasts go around, and you use your tobacco in a miserly way,
-because you can't get any more, since only to-day you have offered a
-dollar for a small plug to a trooper, and he had refused to negotiate,
-although he had pared off a small piece as a gift, and intimated that
-generosity could go no further. Then you go to your tepee, half a mile
-down the creek at the scout camp, and you stumble through the
-snow-laden willows and face the cutting blast, while the clash and
-"Halt!" of the sentinel stop you here and there. You pull off your
-boots and crawl into your blankets quickly before the infernal Sibley
-stove gives its sigh as the last departing spark goes up the chimney,
-and leaves the winds and drifting snows to bellow and scream over the
-wild wastes.
-
-
-
-
-BEAR-CHASING IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS
-
-
-Mr. Montague Stevens is an Englishman who for the most part attends to
-the rounding-up of his cattle, which are scattered over the
-northwestern quarter of New Mexico; but he does not let that interfere
-with the time which all Englishmen set duly apart to be devoted to
-sport. His door-yard is some hundreds of miles of mountain wilderness
-and desolate mesa--a more gorgeous preserve than any king ever dreamed
-of possessing for his pleasure--with its plains dotted with antelope,
-and its mountains filled with cougar, deer, bear, and wild turkeys.
-The white race has given up the contest with nature in those
-parts, and it has reverted to the bear, the Navajo, and Mr.
-Stevens--land-grants, corrals, cabins, brands, and all else.
-
-General Miles was conducting a military observation of the country,
-which is bound to be the scene of any war which the Apaches or Navajos
-may make; and after a very long day's march, during which we had found
-but one water, and that was a pool of rain-water, stirred into mud and
-full of alkali, where we had to let our horses into the muddy stuff at
-the ends of our lariats, we had at last found a little rivulet and
-some green grass. The coffee-pot bubbled and the frying-pan hissed,
-while I smoked and listened to a big escort-wagon driver, who was
-repairing his lash, and saying, softly, "Been drivin' a bloody lot of
-burros for thirty years, and don't know enough to keep a whip out
-of a wheel; guess I'll go to jack-punchin', 'nen I kin use a dry
-club."
-
-[Illustration: WATERING HORSES]
-
-Far down the valley a little cloud of dust gleamed up against the gray
-of the mountains, and presently the tireless stride of a pony shone
-darkly in its luminous midst. Nearer and nearer it grew--the flying
-tail, the regular beating of the hoofs, the swaying figure of the
-rider, and the left sleeve of the horseman's coat flapping
-purposelessly about. He crossed the brook with a splash, trotted, and,
-with a jerk, pulled up in our midst. Mr. Stevens is a tall, thin young
-man, very much bronzed, and with the set, serious face of an
-Englishman. He wore corduroy clothes, and let himself out of his
-saddle with one hand, which he also presented in greeting, the other
-having been sacrificed to his own shot-gun on some previous occasion.
-Mr. Stevens brought with him an enthusiasm for bear which speedily
-enveloped the senses of our party, and even crowded out from the mind
-of General Miles the nobler game which he had affected for thirty
-years.
-
-The steady cultivation of one subject for some days is bound to
-develop a great deal of information, and it is with difficulty that I
-refrain from herein setting down facts which can doubtless be found in
-any good encyclopaedia of natural history; but the men in the mountains
-never depart from the consideration of that and one other subject,
-which is brands, and have reached some strange conclusions--the
-strangest being that the true Rocky Mountain grizzly is only seen once
-in a man's lifetime, and that the biggest one they ever heard of
-leaves his tracks in this district, and costs Mr. Stevens, roughly
-estimating, about $416 a year to support, since that about covers the
-cattle he kills.
-
-At break of day the officers, cavalrymen, escort-wagons, and
-pack-train toiled up the Canyon Largo to Mr. Stevens's camp, which was
-reached in good time, and consisted of a regular ranchman's
-grub-wagon, a great many more dogs of more varieties than I could
-possibly count, a big Texan, who was cook, and a professional
-bear-hunter by the name of Cooper, who had recently departed from his
-wonted game for a larger kind, with the result that, after the final
-deal, a companion had passed a .45 through Mr. Cooper's face and
-filled it with powder, and brought him nigh unto death, so that even
-now Mr. Cooper's head was swathed in bandages, and his mind piled with
-regrets that he had on at the time an overcoat, which prevented him
-from drawing his gun with his usual precision. Our introduction to the
-outfit was ushered in by a most magnificent free-for-all dog-fight;
-and when we had carefully torn the snarling, yelling, biting mass
-apart by the hind-legs and staked them out to surrounding trees, we
-had time to watch Mr. Cooper draw diagrams of bear-paws in the dust
-with a stick. These tracks he had just discovered up the Canyon Largo,
-and he averred that the bear was a grizzly, and weighed 1800 pounds,
-and that he had been there two years, and that all the boys had hunted
-him, but that he was a sad old rascal.
-
-After lunch we pulled on up the canyon and camped. The tents were
-pitched and the cooks busy, when I noticed three cowboys down the
-stream and across the canyon, who were alternately leading their horses
-and stooping down in earnest consultation over some tracks on the
-ground. We walked over to them. There were Mr. Cooper, whose only
-visible eye rolled ominously, and Dan, the S. U. foreman, with another
-puncher.
-
-"He's usin' here," said Cooper. "That's his track, and there's his
-work," pointing up the hill-side, where lay the body of a
-five-year-old cow. We drew near her, and there was the tale of a
-mighty struggle, all written out more eloquently than pen can do.
-There were the deep furrows of the first grapple at the top; there was
-the broad trail down the steep hill for fifty yards, with the stones
-turned over, and the dust marked with horn and hoof and claw; and
-there was the stump which had broken the roll down hill. The cow had
-her neck broken and turned under her body; her shoulder was torn from
-the body, her leg broken, and her side eaten into; and there were
-Bruin's big telltale footprints, rivalling in size a Gladstone bag, as
-he had made his way down to the stream to quench his thirst and
-continue up the canyon. The cow was yet warm--not two hours dead.
-
-[Illustration: "DO YOU THINK THIS PONY IS GOING TO BUCK?"]
-
-"We must pull out of here; he will come back to-night," said Cooper.
-And we all turned to with a will and struck the tents, while the cooks
-threw their tins, bags, and boxes into the wagons, whereat we moved
-off down wind for three miles, up a spur of the canyon, where we again
-camped. We stood around the fires and allowed Mr. Cooper to fill our
-minds with hope. "He'll shore come back; he's usin' here; an' cow
-outfits--why, he don't consider a cow outfit nothin'. He's been right
-on top of cow outfits since he's been in these parts, and thet two
-years gone now, when he begun to work this yer range, and do the work
-you see done yonder. In the mornin' we'll strike his trail, and if we
-can git to him you'll shore see a bar-fight."
-
-We turned in, and during the night I was awakened twice--once by a
-most terrific baying of all the dogs, who would not be quieted, and
-later by a fine rain beating in my face. The night was dark, and we
-were very much afraid the rain would kill the scent. We were up long
-before daylight, and drank our coffee and ate our meat, and as soon as
-"we could see a dog a hundred yards," which is the bear-hunter's
-receipt, we moved off down the creek. We found that the cow had been
-turned over twice, but not eaten--evidently Bruin had his suspicions.
-The dogs cut his trail again and again. He had run within sight of our
-camp, had wandered across the valley hither and yon, but the faithful
-old hounds would not "go away." Dan sat on his pony and blew his old
-cow's horn, and yelled: "Hooick! hooick! get down on him, Rocks;
-hooick! hooick!" But Rocks could not get down on him, and then we knew
-that the rain had killed the scent. We circled a half-mile out, but
-the dogs were still; and then we followed up the Canyon Largo for
-miles, and into the big mountain, through juniper thickets and over
-malpais, up and down the most terrible places, for we knew that the
-bear's bed-ground is always up in the most rugged peaks, where the
-rimrock overhangs in serried battlements, tier on tier. But no bear.
-
-[Illustration: DAN AND ROCKS]
-
-Rocks, the forward hound, grew weary of hunting for things which were
-not, and retired to the rear to pay court to a lady friend; and Dan
-had to rope Rocks, and with some irritation he started his pony, and
-Rocks kept the pace by dint of legging it, and by the help of a tow
-from 900 pounds of horse-flesh. Poor Rocks! He understood his
-business; but in consequence of not being able to explain to the men
-what fools they were, he suffered.
-
-The hot mid-day sun of New Mexico soon kills the scent, and we were
-forced to give over for the day. A cavalry sergeant shot three deer,
-but we, in our superior purpose, had learned to despise deer. Later I
-made a good two-hundred-yard centre on an antelope, and though I had
-not been fortunate enough in years to get an antelope, the whole
-sensation was flat in view of this new ambition.
-
-On the following morning we went again to our dead cow, but nothing
-except the jackals had been at the bear's prey, for the wily old
-fellow had evidently scented our camp, and concluded that we were not
-a cow outfit, whereat he had discreetly "pulled his freight."
-
-We sat on our horses in a circle, and raised our voices. In
-consideration of the short time at our disposal, we concluded that we
-could be satisfied with taking 1800 pounds of bear on the instalment
-plan. The first instalment was a very big piece of meat, but was--I am
-going to confess--presented to us in the nature of a gift; but the
-whole thing was so curious I will go into it.
-
-We hunted for two days without success, unless I include deer and
-antelope; but during the time I saw two things which interested me.
-The first was a revelation of the perfect understanding which a
-mountain cow-pony has of the manner in which to negotiate the
-difficulties of the country which is his home.
-
-Dan, the foreman, was the huntsman. He was a shrewd-eyed, little,
-square-built man, always very much preoccupied with the matter in
-hand. He wore a sombrero modelled into much character by weather and
-time, a corduroy coat, and those enormous New-Mexican "chaps," and he
-sounded a cow-horn for his dogs, and alternately yelped in a most
-amusing way. So odd was this yelp that it caught the soldiers, and
-around their camp-fire at night you could hear the mimicking shouts of
-"Oh, Rocks! eh-h-h! hooick! get down on him, Rocks; tohoot! tohoot!"
-We were sitting about on our horses in a little _sienneca_, while Dan
-was walking about, leading his pony and looking after his dogs.
-
-When very near me he found it necessary to cross an _arroyo_ which
-was about five feet deep and with perfectly perpendicular banks.
-Without hesitation he jumped down into it, and with a light bound his
-pony followed. At the opposite side Dan put up his arms on the bank
-and clawed his way up, and, still paying no attention to his pony, he
-continued on. Without faltering in the least, the little horse put his
-fore-feet on the bank, clawed at it once, twice, jumped, scratched,
-clawed, and, for all the world like a cat getting into the fork of a
-tree, he was on the bank and following Dan.
-
-[Illustration: A DANGEROUS PLACE]
-
-Later in the day, when going to our camp, we followed one of Dan's
-short-cuts through the mountains, and the cowboys on their mountain
-ponies rode over a place which made the breath come short to the
-officers and men behind; not that they could not cross themselves,
-being on foot, but that the cavalry horses could they had their solemn
-doubts, and no one but an evil brute desires to lead a game animal
-where he may lose his life. Not being a geologist, I will have to say
-it was a blue clay in process of rock formation, and in wet times held
-a mountain torrent. The slope was quite seventy degrees. The approach
-was loose dirt and malpais, which ran off down the gulch in small
-avalanches under our feet. While crossing, the horses literally stood
-on their toes to claw out a footing. A slip would have sent them,
-belly up, down the toboggan-slide, with a drop into an unknown depth
-at the end. I had often heard the cavalry axiom "that a horse can go
-anywhere a man can if the man will not use his hands," and a little
-recruit murmured it to reassure himself. I passed, with the loss of a
-quarter of the skin on my left hand, and later asked a quaint old
-veteran of four enlistments if he thought it was a bad place, and he
-said, "It's lizards, not harses, what ought to go thar."
-
-Riding over the rough mountains all day sows poppyseeds in a man's
-head, and when the big medical officer opens your tent-flaps in the
-morning, and fills the walls with his roars to "Get up! it's four
-o'clock," it is with groans that you obey. You also forego washing,
-because you are nearly frozen stiff, and you go out and stand around
-the fire with your companions, who are all cheerfully miserable as
-they shiver and chaff each other. It seems we do not live this life on
-a cold, calculating plane of existence, but on different lines, the
-variation of which is the chief delight of the discriminating, and I
-must record a distinct pleasure in elbowing fellows around a camp-fire
-when it is dark and cold and wet, and when you know that they are
-oftener in bed than out of it at such hours. You drink your quart of
-coffee, eat your slice of venison, and then regard your horse with
-some trepidation, since he is all of a tremble, has a hump on his
-back, and is evidently of a mind to "pitch."
-
-The eastern sky grows pale, and the irrepressible Dan begins to "honk"
-on his horn, and the cavalcade moves off through the grease-wood,
-which sticks up thickly from the ground like millions of Omaha
-war-bonnets.
-
-The advance consists of six or eight big blood-hounds, which range out
-in front, with Dan and Mr. Cooper to blow the horn, look out for "bear
-sign," and to swear gently but firmly when the younger dogs take
-recent deer trails under consideration. Three hundred yards behind
-come Scotch stag-hounds, a big yellow mastiff, fox-terriers, and one
-or two dogs which would not classify in a bench-show, and over these
-Mr. Stevens holds a guiding hand, while in a disordered band come
-General Miles, his son, three army officers, myself, and seven
-orderlies of the Second Cavalry. All this made a picture, but, like
-all Western canvases, too big for a frame. The sun broke in a golden
-flash over the hills, and streaked the plain with gold and gray
-greens. The spirit of the thing is not hunting but the chase of the
-bear, taking one's mind back to the buffalo, or the nobles of the
-Middle Ages, who made their "image of war" with bigger game than red
-foxes.
-
-[Illustration: "GONE AWAY"]
-
-Leaving the plain we wound up a dry creek, and noted that the small
-oaks had been bitten and clawed down by bear to get at the acorns. The
-hounds gave tongue, but could not get away until we had come to a
-small glade in the forest, where they grew wildly excited. Mr. Cooper
-here showed us a very large bear track, and also a smaller one, with
-those of two cubs by its side. With a wild burst the dogs went away up
-a canyon, the blood went into our heads, and our heels into the horses,
-and a desperate scramble began. It is the sensation we have travelled
-so long to feel. Dan and Cooper sailed off through the brush and over
-the stones like two old crows, with their coat-tails flapping like
-wings. We follow at a gallop in single file up the narrow, dry
-watercourse. The creek ends, and we take to the steep hill-sides,
-while the loose stones rattle from under the flying hoofs. The rains
-have cut deep furrows on their way to the bed of the canyon, and your
-horse scratches and scrambles for a foothold. A low, gnarled branch
-bangs you across the face, and then your breath fairly stops as you
-see a horse go into the air and disappear over a big log, fallen down
-a hill of seventy degrees' slope. The "take-off and landing" is
-yielding dust, but the blood in your head puts the spur in your horse,
-and over you go. If you miss, it is a 200-foot roll, with a 1200-pound
-horse on top of you. But the pace soon tells, and you see nothing but
-good honest climbing ahead of you. The trail of the yelling dogs goes
-straight up, amid scraggly cedar and juniper, with loose malpais
-underfoot. We arrive at the top only to see Cooper and Dan disappear
-over a precipice after the dogs, but here we stop. Bears always seek
-the very highest peaks, and it is better to be there before them if
-possible. A grizzly can run downhill quicker than a horse, and all
-hunters try to get above them, since if they are big and fat they
-climb slowly; besides, the mountain-tops are more or less flat and
-devoid of underbrush, which makes good running for a horse. We
-scatter out along the cordon of the range. The bag doing on the
-rimrock of the mountain-tops, where the bear tries to throw off the
-dogs, makes it quite impossible to follow them at speed, so that you
-must separate and take your chances of heading the chase.
-
-[Illustration: TIMBER-TOPPING IN THE ROCKIES]
-
-I selected Captain Mickler--the immaculate, the polo-player, the
-epitome of staff form, the trappiest trooper in the Dandy Fifth--and,
-together with two orderlies, we started. Mickler was mounted on a
-cow-pony, which measured one chain three links from muzzle to
-coupling. Mickler had on English riding-togs--this is not saying that
-the pony could not run, or that Mickler was not humorous. But it was
-no new experience for him, this pulling a pony and coaxing him to
-attempt breakneck experiments, for he told me casually that he had led
-barefooted cavalrymen over these hills in pursuit of Apaches at a date
-in history when I was carefully conjugating Latin verbs.
-
-We were making our way down a bad formation when we heard the dogs,
-and presently three shots. A strayed cavalry orderly had, much to his
-disturbance of mind, beheld a big silver-tip bearing down on him, jaws
-skinned, ears back, and red-eyed, and he had promptly removed himself
-to a proper distance, where he dismounted. The bear and dogs were much
-exhausted, but the dogs swarmed around the bear, thus preventing a
-shot. But Bruin stopped at intervals to fight the dogs, and the
-soldier fired, but without effect. If men do not come up with the dogs
-in order to encourage them, many will draw off, since the work of
-chasing and fighting a bear without water for hours is very trying.
-Only hounds can be depended on, as the tongues of other dogs thicken,
-and they soon droop when long without water. Some of the dogs may
-have followed the bear with cubs, but if they did we never heard of
-them. The one now running was an enormous silver-tip, and could not
-"tree." The shots of the trooper diverted the bear, which now took off
-down a deep canyon next to the one we were in, and presently we heard
-him no more. After an hour's weary travelling down the winding way we
-came out on the plain, and found a small cow outfit belonging to Mr.
-Stevens, and under a tree lay our dead silver-tip, while a half-dozen
-punchers squatted about it. It appeared that three of them had been
-working up in the foot-hills when they heard the dogs, and shortly
-discovered the bear. Having no guns, and being on fairly good ground,
-they coiled their _riatas_ and prepared to do battle.
-
-The silver-tip was badly blown, and the three dogs which had stayed
-with him were so tired that they sat up at a respectful distance and
-panted and lolled. The first rope went over Bruin's head and one paw.
-There lies the danger. But instantly number two flew straight to the
-mark, and the ponies surged, while Bruin stretched out with a roar. A
-third rope got his other hind-leg, and the puncher dismounted and tied
-it to a tree. The roaring, biting, clawing mass of hair was
-practically helpless, but to kill him was an undertaking.
-
-"Why didn't you brand him and turn him loose?" I asked of the cowboy.
-
-"Well," said the puncher, in his Texan drawl, "we could have branded
-him all right, but we might have needed some help in turning him
-loose."
-
-They pelted him with malpais, and finally stuck a knife into a vital
-part, and then, loading him on a pony, they brought him in. It was a
-daring performance, but was regarded by the "punchers" as a great
-joke.
-
-Mickler and I rode into camp, thinking on the savagery of man. One
-never heard of a bear which travelled all the way from New Mexico to
-Chicago to kill a man, and yet a man will go 3000 miles to kill a
-bear--not for love or fear or hate or meat; for what, then? But
-Mickler and I had not killed a bear, so we were easy.
-
-[Illustration: THE BEAR AT BAY]
-
-One by one the tired hunters and dogs struggled into camp all
-disappointed, except the dogs, which could not tell us what had
-befallen them since morning. The day following the dogs started a big
-black bear, which made a good run up a bad place in the hills, but
-with the hunters scrambling after in full cry. The bear treed for the
-dogs, but on sighting the horsemen he threw himself backward from the
-trunk and fell fifteen feet among the dogs, which latter piled into
-him _en masse_, the little fox-terriers being particularly aggressive.
-It was a tremendous shake-up of black hair and pups of all colors; but
-the pace was too fast for Bruin, and he sought a new tree. One little
-foxie had been rolled over, and had quite a job getting his bellows
-mended. This time the bear sat on a limb very high up, and General
-Miles put a .50-calibre ball through his brain, which brought him down
-with a tremendous thump, when the pups again flew into him, and
-"wooled him," as the cowboys put it, to their hearts' content.
-
-While our bear-hunting is not the thing we are most proud of, yet the
-method is the most sportsmanlike, since nothing but the most desperate
-riding will bring one up with the bear in the awful country which they
-affect. The anticipation of having a big silver-tip assume the
-aggressive at any moment is inspiriting. Indeed, they often do; for
-only shortly before one had sprung from a thicket on to the
-hind-quarters of one of Mr. Stevens's cowboy's ponies, and it was only
-by the most desperate work on the part of his companion, who rode up
-close and shot the bear with his six-shooter, that saved his
-comrade's life. The horse was killed. When one thinks of the enormous
-strength of the silver-tip, which can overpower the mightiest steer,
-and bend and break its neck or tear its shoulder from its body at a
-stroke, one is able to say, "Do not hunt a bear unless thy skin is not
-dear to thee." Then the dogs must be especially trained to run bear,
-since the country abounds in deer, and it is difficult to train dogs
-to ignore their sight and scent. The cowboys account for the number
-of the bear in their country from the fact that it is the old Apache
-and Navajo range, and the incoherent mind of the savage was impressed
-with the rugged mass of fur and the grinning jaws of the monster which
-crossed his path, and he was awed by the dangers of the
-encounter--arrow against claw. He came to respect the apparition, and
-he did not know that life is only sacred when in the image of the
-Creator. He did not discriminate as to the value of life, but with his
-respect for death there grew the speculation, which to him became a
-truth, that the fearsome beast was of the other world, and bore the
-lost souls of the tribe. He was a vampire; he was sacred. O Bear!
-
-[Illustration: THE FINALE]
-
-[Illustration: THE RETURN OF THE HUNTERS]
-
-THE END
-
-
-
-
-Transcriber's Notes:
-
-
-Archaic and inconsistent punctuation and spelling retained.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
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