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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44032 ***
 
 [Illustration: They Crossed the Gila at Flood Tide (page 188).]
 
@@ -5077,361 +5046,4 @@ Page 205: ‘Azotic’ not known in this context.
 
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+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44032 ***</div>
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-Project Gutenberg's Thirty Years on the Frontier, by Robert McReynolds
-
-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: Thirty Years on the Frontier
-
-Author: Robert McReynolds
-
-Release Date: October 25, 2013 [EBook #44032]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ASCII
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THIRTY YEARS ON THE FRONTIER ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Fred Salzer, Greg Bergquist 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: They Crossed the Gila at Flood Tide (page 188).]
-
-
-
-
-  _Thirty Years on
-  The Frontier_
-
-  ....BY....
-  ROBERT McREYNOLDS,
-
-  AUTHOR OF
-
-  "_Rodney Wilkes_," "_The Luxury of Poverty_," "_A
-  Modern Jean Valjean_," "_Facts and Fancies_."
-
-  [Illustration]
-
-  EL PASO PUBLISHING CO.
-  COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO.
-  1906
-
-
-  _Copyright by_
-  ROBERT MCREYNOLDS.
-  1906.
-
-
-
-
-  TO
-  LOUIS TALIAFERRO,
-  _Colorado Springs,
-  Colorado_.
-
-
-
-
-CONTENTS
-
-
-  CHAPTER.                             PAGE.
-
-  I. In Days of Innocence                  1
-
-  II. Out for a Fortune                    9
-
-  III. Black Hills Days                   16
-
-  IV. The Custer Massacre                 21
-
-  V. The Shadow Scout                     31
-
-  VI. Indian Fight in Colorado            39
-
-  VII. A Cow Boy Duel                     47
-
-  VIII. Pleasant Halfacre's Revenge       53
-
-  IX. Capturing Wild Horses               63
-
-  X. An Expedition That Failed            72
-
-  XI. Across the Palm Desert              79
-
-  XII. The Last Stand of a Dying Race     87
-
-  XIII. The Tragedy of the Lost Mine      98
-
-  XIV. The Land of the Fair God          107
-
-  XV. Outlawry in Oklahoma               115
-
-  XVI. A New Land of Canaan              125
-
-  XVII. Told Around the Camp Fire        134
-
-  XVIII. The Lone Grave on the Mesa      141
-
-  XIX. Under the Black Flag              148
-
-  XX. In Cuban Jungles                   156
-
-  XXI. Emulous of Washington             164
-
-  XXII. On the Round Up                  169
-
-  XXIII. The Egypt of America            179
-
-  XXIV. In the Dome of the Sky           190
-
-  XXV. Where Nature is at her Best       197
-
-  XXVI. When the West was New            207
-
-
-
-
-Thirty Years on the Frontier
-
-
-
-
-I.
-
-IN DAYS OF INNOCENCE.
-
-
-In the following pages I shall tell of much personal experience as well
-as important incidents which have come under my observation during
-thirty years on the frontier. As a cowboy, miner and pioneer, I have
-participated in many exciting events, none of which, however, caused me
-the prolonged grief that a certain bombshell affair did when I was a
-boy, resulting in a newspaper experience and habit of telling things,
-and eventually led to my coming West.
-
-My grandfather's plantation in Kentucky and nearly opposite the town of
-Newburgh, on the Indiana side, was as much my home as was my mother's.
-She being a widow and having my brother and sister to care for, as well
-as myself, felt a relief from the responsibility of looking after me
-when I was at my grandfather's home.
-
-The plantation faced the Ohio River, the wooded part of which had been a
-camping ground for rebel soldiers, until they were driven out by the
-shells of a Yankee gunboat. While hunting pecans in these woods one day,
-I stumbled on to an unexploded bombshell, and, boylike, I wanted to see
-the thing go off. However, I was afraid to touch it until I had
-counseled with the Woods boys, whose father was a renter of a small
-tract of ground below the plantation. That night the three of us met and
-decided to explode the shell the following Sunday morning, after the
-folks had gone to church. I feigned a headache when grandmother wanted
-to take me in the carriage with them to church, but when I was satisfied
-they were well down the road, I hurried to the strip of forest a mile
-away, where the Woods boys were waiting. They had come in a rickety old
-buggy drawn by a white mule. It was in autumn and as the leaves were dry
-on the ground, we were afraid to kindle a fire, and decided to take the
-shell near the tobacco barn, around which we could hide and watch it go
-off. Neither of the boys would handle it, so I lifted it into the buggy;
-then they were afraid to ride with it, and it was left to me to lead the
-mule to the tobacco barn. I hitched the animal to a sapling near the
-barn, while the other boys gathered up some kindling, and we made a pile
-of old fence posts, and when I had laid the shell upon the log heap, we
-lit the kindling with a match and all ran behind the barn, forgetting
-all about the mule. The wood was dry and was soon all aflame. Every
-little while one of us would peek around the corner to see if the thing
-was not about ready to explode. We were getting impatient, when the mule
-gave a great "hee haw" that called our attention to his peril. It was
-his last "hee haw," for in a second more the bomb exploded with a
-deafening noise, and fragments of the shell screamed like a panther in
-the air. We ran around to see the result of the explosion, and behold!
-it had spread that mule all over the side of the barn.
-
-The things my grandfather said and did to me when he returned from
-church does not concern the public. But when he had finished, I was
-fully convinced that I was all to blame, and that I owed Mr. Woods $150
-for his demolished mule.
-
-Then followed long lectures from my mother and grandmother, and to add
-to my discomfiture was Mr. Woods' lamentations and his expressed regrets
-that it was not me, instead of his mule, that was blown up.
-
-I was the owner of an old musket with which I spent most of my time
-hunting rabbits, using small slugs of lead for shot, which I chopped up
-with a hatchet. Two weeks before the bombshell episode, I had found a
-musket-ball, and I concluded to try a man's load in the gun on my next
-rabbit; I poured in a full charge of powder, but when I came to ram the
-ball home, it would go only half way down the barrel. I was afraid to
-shoot then, lest the gun might burst, and as I could neither get the
-ball out or farther down, I laid the barrel between two logs, tied a
-string to the trigger, and got behind a stump and pulled it off.
-
-A few minutes later while I was examining my gun, grandfather came
-running out of the potato patch to find who was shooting at him.
-However, he was so thankful that matters were not worse, that I got off
-with a slight reprimand.
-
-But this Sunday capped the climax. A council of my kinfolks was held
-that night, and decided that neither man nor beast was safe on that
-plantation if I remained. Their final verdict was that I should be sent
-to my mother's home in Newburgh, and there to learn the printer's trade,
-attend Frederick Dickerman's night school, be made to pay for the mule,
-and my musket confiscated. I was paid $3 a week as printer's devil to
-start with, one dollar of which I might spend for my clothes, fifty
-cents for tuition in the night school, one dollar and twenty-five cents
-for the mule debt, and the other twenty-five cents I might spend.
-
-Grandfather was very careful to see that I saved the mule money, and I
-used to think he took a special delight in collecting it from mother, to
-whom I paid it every week.
-
-It took me nearly three years in that printing office to get out of
-debt. I was now eighteen years of age.
-
-Life in the printing office was too monotonous; I wanted a more exciting
-scene of action. I used to watch the great river steamers come and go,
-and wondered if I could hold any kind of a position on one of them,
-except carrying freight, when by accident one day there came an
-opportunity. The steamer "Dick Johnson" was lying at the wharf loading
-hogsheads of tobacco, when the freight clerk was injured by a fall of
-the stage plank. The captain wanted someone to take his place, and my
-schoolmaster recommended me. Here was a chance to put in practice the
-bookkeeping I had studied under him. It was what I wanted--I could now
-get a glimpse of the outside world.
-
-The position on the "Dick Johnson" was a stepping-stone, for in another
-year I was the mate of the steamer "Rapidan," plying between Florence,
-Alabama, and Evansville, Indiana, and had thirty negroes under my
-control.
-
-It was historic country through which we passed. The trees on the
-islands near Pittsburgh Landing yet showed signs of shot and shell fired
-by federal gunboats. Ofttimes some passenger who had been a participant
-on one side or the other at Shiloh, would entertain his listeners for
-hours with stories of the fight, until some of us younger officers
-became imbued with the war spirit.
-
-The autumn of 1875 had come when yellow fever broke out aboard our boat,
-and we lay in quarantine two miles below Savannah, Tennessee, for a
-month. I stayed with the boat until we were released, and then went to
-my home in Newburgh, ill with malarial fever.
-
-Stories of rich gold finds in the Northwest had been circulated through
-the newspapers, and one day I resolved to try my luck. The things we
-believe we are doing for the last time, always cause a pang of sorrow,
-and as I packed my valise on Sunday afternoon to leave forever the home
-of childhood, my feelings can be better imagined than described. My
-grandparents came over from their Kentucky home to bid me good-bye. When
-I was ready to start, grandfather took from his pocket a roll of bills,
-and placing them in my hands, said: "Here, Mackey, is your mule money,
-and I have added interest enough to make the sum total $500. I paid Mr.
-Woods for his mule, but I wanted to teach you a lesson. Profit by it,
-and make good use of the money, and say, Mackey, whatever you do in
-life, never insult a blind man, never strike a cripple and never marry a
-fool."
-
-It was the last time I ever saw the noble old guardian of my youth. The
-first two of his parting injunctions I have religiously obeyed.
-
-
-
-
-II.
-
-OUT FOR A FORTUNE.
-
-
-My first view of the Nebraska plains was the next morning after leaving
-Omaha, and I thought I never saw anything half so grand. The February
-sun threw its beams aslant the mighty sea of plain over which so many
-white covered wagons had toiled on their way to the then wild regions of
-the West.
-
-Small herds of buffalo and antelope were frequently seen from the car
-windows; the passengers fired at them and often wounded an antelope,
-which limped away in a vain attempt to join its mates. That night we
-witnessed the mighty spectacle of the plains on fire. The huge, billowy
-waves of flame leaped high against a darkened sky, and swept with hiss
-and roar along the banks of the shallow Platte. The emigrant train upon
-which I was aboard was crowded with people of all sorts. Many of them
-were homeseekers on their way to Oregon and California, while not a few
-adventurers like myself were bound for the Black Hills. A young man who
-went under the name of Soapy Wyatte, was working the train on a
-three-card monte game, and was very successful until he cheated a couple
-of ranchmen out of quite a sum of money. Then they organized the other
-losers, and were in the act of hanging him with the bell rope when he
-disgorged his ill-gotten gains and paid back the money. Men of his class
-were plentiful, but as a rule they were careful not to cheat the
-frontiersman, for when they did they usually got the worst of it.
-
-Cheyenne at that time was a typical frontier town. Gambling houses,
-saloons and dance halls were open continuously, night and day. Unlucky
-indeed was the tenderfoot who fell into their snare. I soon secured
-transportation with a mule-train for Deadwood. There were thirty-three
-of us in the party. The wagons were heavily loaded with freight and the
-trail was in frightful condition; we ofttimes were compelled to walk.
-
-I had bought a heavy pair of boots for the trip, but the sticky alkali
-mud made them so heavy that I soon cut off the tops. The next thing, I
-put my Winchester rifle and revolver in the wagon and then trudged along
-the best I could. The Sioux Indians were on the warpath and it was
-dangerous to get far away from the wagon train. Almost every freighter
-we met warned us against Red Canon. The stage drivers reported "hold
-ups" and murders by organized bands of road agents. This kept us on the
-alert. At night there was a detail of eight, to divide up the night in
-standing guard. These men were selected from the most experienced
-plainsmen, of whom there were quite a number with us.
-
-We were eight days out from Cheyenne, and several inches of snow had
-fallen during the night, but the sun rose clear on the biting cold of
-the morning. Suddenly we heard shots ahead. "Indians! Indians!" shouted
-one driver to another and then the wagons were quickly formed in a
-circle, the mules being unhitched and brought to the center of the
-circle.
-
-Then for the first time I saw the hideous forms of a band of half-naked
-savages mounted on their ponies in the distance. They were galloping in
-a circle around us, yelling their war cry, "Hi-yi, Hip-yi, yi." They
-fell from their horses before the deadly aim of our men; their bullets
-came like the angry hum of hornets about our heads. Their numbers
-increased from over the foothills, whence they first came. There was a
-look of desperation upon the faces of our men, such as pen can not
-describe. James Morgan, who was standing near me in the act of reloading
-his Winchester, suddenly fell nerveless to the ground. Our captain's
-voice rang out now and then, "Be careful there, boys; take good aim
-before you fire." Two Indians circled nearer than the others. They were
-lying on their horses' necks and firing at us while they were at full
-gallop. I took aim at one and fired; others must have done so at the
-same time, for both of them fell from their horses. The fight lasted
-perhaps an hour, when the Indians withdrew to the hills. One of our men
-lay dead and two were wounded. I went to where the two Indians had
-fallen. There lay their forms, cold and stiff in death. The sunbeams
-were slanting over those snow covered hills. I felt an unaccountable
-terror as I looked upon them and the crimson snow which their life blood
-had stained. The raw north wind seemed to pierce my very heart. Night
-was coming on, and with it all the horrors of uncertainty. I lingered
-about the spot for some time, with a dreadful fascination mingled with
-terror. Human life had perished there; human souls had gone into the
-uncertainty of an unknown beyond. With my brain reeling with excitement
-of the day and sickened in heart, I returned to our wagons, where some
-of us walked outside the circle throughout the long watches of that
-wintry night.
-
-When the morning sun rose clear above the snow-covered hills, we wrapped
-the body of the dead teamster in his blankets, and again took up the
-toilsome drive. The Indians had retired from the fight, probably for the
-reason that they saw another outfit of wagons coming far down on the
-plain. The wagons overtook us about 9 o'clock, and after that we had no
-more trouble with Indians.
-
-Deadwood, at that time, was like all the frontier mining towns. Saloons,
-gambling houses and dance halls comprised the business of the place.
-The gulch was dotted with miners' cabins and dug-outs. There were a few
-stores, restaurants, and a bank, but as yet the town had not started a
-"regular" graveyard. The news of our fight soon spread up and down the
-gulch and many were the willing hands that offered their services in the
-burial of James Morgan, our teamster. They dug his grave on the
-hillside, where afterwards more than five thousand men were buried. They
-either fell from the deadly pneumonia, or from the bullets of each other
-in quarrels. When Morgan's grave was ready to be filled, some one
-suggested that a chapter from the Bible should be read, but none of us
-knew where to ask for one, in all Deadwood. Presently a boy said, "I
-will find one," and he soon returned with a young lady, who proved to be
-his sister. He handed the book to our bronzed captain of the mule train;
-he shook his head. Then someone asked her to read it. When she began,
-those grim frontiersmen bared their heads, and I fancied I saw the tears
-gather on more than one bronzed cheek as she knelt upon the frozen clay
-and offered up a prayer for the dead teamster's soul.
-
-The adventurous spirits from far and wide were flocking to this new
-Eldorado. Wild Bill, the famous scout, Captain Jack Crawford, Texas
-Jack, and other equally noted scouts and Indian fighters, were there.
-They sought gold and adventure alike, only for the pleasure it would
-bring.
-
-
-
-
-III.
-
-BLACK HILLS DAYS.
-
-
-I knew Doc Kinnie was not a civil engineer, but he had a plan which
-looked good, and as I was almost broke, I consented to help him work it.
-There was a horseshoe bend in the creek which might be drained for
-placer mining by tunneling through in a narrow place. I talked up the
-project with some of the boys, and they agreed to dig the tunnel while
-Doc did the civil engineering. Day after day they dug and blasted rock,
-while Doc stood around looking wise and encouraging the work. In about a
-month they were practically through to the other side of the creek. Then
-they began to call for Doc's measurements and calculations. "Never mind,
-you are not through yet," he would say, "I will let you know when to
-stop digging."
-
-"But we can hear the water rushing," they would say.
-
-[Illustration: General George A. Custer (page 21).]
-
-"You fellows can't tell anything about it. Sounds of rushing water are
-always carried a long distance by rocks."
-
-"But we are not in the rocks now, we are in a clay bank."
-
-"Clay does the same thing; keep on digging."
-
-Two days later and there was a commotion at the lower end of the tunnel,
-when a full head of water came rushing out, bearing with it men,
-wheelbarrows and shovels. They were nearly drowned, and half frozen,
-when they scrambled out of the creek. Mad as hornets, they sought their
-civil engineer, but he was nowhere to be found. The work was done.
-The prospects were good. When their clothes were dried and they had
-eaten dinner, they laughed over the incident and pardoned Doc's
-miscalculation. With pan and rocker, we now began to work the dry
-horseshoe bend. Nuggets weighing an ounce, and from that on down to the
-size of a pin head, were found. The fellows were honest, and made an
-even divide all around at the cleanup each night. In two months we had
-taken out over $6,000, and then sold the claim to a placer mining
-company for $18,000 in cash--$3,000 apiece for the six of us. In two
-months we were all broke; the money had gone into wildcat speculation in
-mines. But who cared? Were the hills not full of gold, and all to be had
-for the digging?
-
-I joined a party who went thirty miles to the northwest in search of new
-diggings, and the most that came of it was a laughable incident.
-
-The great hills rose on every side, frowning darkly in the dense forest
-of pine. Our voices echoed from rock to rock, as we sat one noon-day
-about our campfire, talking of possible finds, when, bareheaded, with
-hair disheveled, blood flowing from a wound in his face, and a wildcat
-held to his chest in close embrace, Mark Witherspoon rushed into camp,
-yelling at the top of his voice. He was prospecting in a ravine a mile
-distant, when he saw something waving in the underbrush. Thinking it was
-mountain grouse, he advanced in hope of getting a shot, when a huge
-wildcat sprang at his throat.
-
-As the forepaws of the animal struck his chest, he let fall his gun, and
-hugged the beast with all his strength to his chest with both arms. The
-head of the wildcat was drawn slightly backward by the tense pressure
-of his arms upon its back, while the claws were rendered practically
-powerless by the close embrace. So quick had been Witherspoon's action
-at the start, that he received only a slight wound on the face. In this
-predicament, he started on a run for the camp. He did not dare to let go
-and the wildcat wouldn't, so both held fast. The cat glared up fiercely
-at him with its yellow eyes, while its hot breath came into his face at
-every leap. Whenever the vicious beast made the slightest struggle,
-Witherspoon hugged the tighter, fearing at every step he might stumble
-and the deadly teeth be fixed in his throat.
-
-In this manner he reached camp, and it was some seconds before he could
-make us understand that the cat was terribly alive, and that he was not
-holding it because he wanted to, or racing for the sake of the exercise.
-Finally one of the men despatched the animal with his revolver, and, to
-Witherspoon's inexpressible relief, the dead beast dropped from his
-arms. Before the boys got through telling the story afterwards, they
-made it out that Witherspoon had run nine miles with the wildcat.
-
-Soon after our return to Deadwood, a man in an almost fainting condition
-came into town and announced that his companion had either been killed
-or captured by the Indians. A party was organized and was led by Wild
-Bill. It was not long before we came upon a scene that told what the
-poor fellow's fate had been, much plainer than words are able to
-portray. We found his blackened trunk fastened to a tree with rawhide
-thongs, while all around were evidences of the great torture which had
-been inflicted ere the fagots had been lighted.
-
-When brought face to face with this, I stowed two cartridges safely away
-in my vest pocket, resolved to suicide rather than to fall into the
-hands of such miscreants. Then came the news of the Custer massacre. For
-many days afterward we patrolled the mountain tops, and kept bivouac
-fires lighted by night, as signals.
-
-
-
-
-IV.
-
-THE CUSTER MASSACRE.
-
-
-The arrival at Fort Lincoln, on the Missouri River, of a party of
-Indians in 1874, who offered gold dust for sale, was the beginning of
-the cause that led to the great Sioux war in 1876, in which General
-Custer and his devoted soldiers were massacred on the Little Big Horn
-River on the 25th day of June of that year.
-
-The gold which the Indians brought to Fort Lincoln, they said came from
-the Black Hills, where the gulches abounded with the yellow dust. The
-consequent rush of white men into that region was, in fact, a violation
-of the treaty of 1867, when Congress sent out four civilians and three
-army officers as peace commissioners, who gave to the old Dakota tribes,
-as the Sioux were then called, the vast area of land bounded on the
-south by Nebraska, on the east by the Missouri River, on the west by
-the 104th Meridian, and on the north by the 46th Parallel. They had the
-absolute pledge of the United States that they should be protected in
-the peaceable possession of the country set aside for them. This
-territory was as large as the state of Michigan, and of its interior
-little or nothing was known except to a few hardy traders and trappers
-prior to 1874.
-
-With the advent of the gold seekers in 1875 the Indians saw that the
-greedy encroachments of the white man were but faintly resisted by the
-United States government, and that sooner or later it meant the total
-occupation of their country, and their own annihilation, and so with the
-traditional wrongs of their forefathers ever in mind, they determined to
-make a stand for their rights.
-
-The scene of General Terry's campaign against these Indians lay between
-the Big Horn and Powder Rivers, and extended from the Big Horn Mountains
-northerly to beyond the Yellowstone River. A region barren and desolate,
-volcanic, broken and ofttimes almost impassable, jagged and precipitous
-cliffs, narrow and deep arroyas filled with massive boulders, alkali
-water for miles, vegetation of cactus and sagebrush--all these represent
-feebly the country where Custer was to contend against the most
-powerful, warlike and best armed body of savages on the American
-continent.
-
-An army in this trackless waste was at that time at the mercy of guides
-and scouts. The sun rose in the east and shone all day upon a vast
-expanse of sagebrush and grass and as it set in the west cast its dull
-rays into a thousand ravines that neither man nor beast could cross;
-to go north or south could only be decided by personal effort. An
-insignificant turn to the wrong side of a little knoll or buffalo wallow
-would ofttimes lead the scout into ravine after ravine, or over bluff
-after bluff, until at last he would stand on the edge of a yawning
-canon, hundreds of feet in depth and with perpendicular walls. Nothing
-was left for him to do but to retrace his steps and find an accessible
-route.
-
-Custer had been ordered by General Terry to proceed with his command,
-numbering 28 officers and 747 soldiers, up the Rosebud River, and if the
-trail of the Indians was not found at a given point, to then follow the
-course of the Little Big Horn. These instructions were followed, and on
-the 24th of June he turned westerly toward the Little Big Horn, where a
-large Indian village was discovered some fifteen miles distant. The
-trail they were on led down the stream at a point south of the villages.
-Major Reno with three companies was ordered to follow the trail, cross
-the stream and charge down its north bank, while Captain F. W. Benteen
-was sent with three companies to make a detour south of Reno.
-
-The point where the little armies separated, many of their men never to
-meet again, the river wound its silvery course for miles in the narrow
-valley as far as the eye could reach; its banks were fringed with the
-elm and cottonwood, whose foliage hid from view a thousand Indian tepees
-beyond the river. Sharp eyes had noted the advancing columns, and quick
-brains had already begun to plan their destruction.
-
-That night the three divisions made a silent bivouac beneath the stars
-which must have looked down like pitying eyes.
-
-In the grey light of the morning, and with noiseless call to boots and
-saddles, they were stealing on toward the foe.
-
-Reno proceeded to the river and crossed it, charged down its west banks
-and met with little resistance at first. Soon, however, he was attacked
-by such numbers that he was obliged to dismount his men, shelter his
-horses in a strip of woods and fight on foot. Finally, finding he would
-soon be surrounded, he again mounted his men, charged the enemy and
-recrossing the river, took a naturally fortified position on the top of
-a bluff.
-
-Benteen, returning from his detour, discovered his position and drove
-away the Indians and joined him. Soon the mule train was also within his
-lines, making seven companies under his command.
-
-Reno engaged the Indians soon after noon on the 25th and did some hard
-fighting until the evening of the 26th, when the enemy withdrew. After
-congratulations with their reinforcements the question uppermost in
-every mind was: "Where is Custer?"
-
-They had heard heavy firing on the afternoon of the 25th and saw the
-black cloud of smoke settle like a pall over the valley, but Reno had
-his wounded to care for, and to have gone to the relief of Custer would
-have left them to be butchered. Neither could he divide his command, for
-such a course would have been suicidal.
-
-Meanwhile the supply steamer, Far West, with General Terry on board,
-steamed up the Yellowstone on June 23rd and overtook Gibbon's troops
-near the mouth of the Big Horn on the morning of the 24th. At 5 o'clock
-on the morning of the 25th, Gibbon's column was marching over a country
-so rugged as to tax the endurance of the men to the utmost, and the
-infantry halted for the night, meantime General Terry pushed ahead with
-the cavalry and a light mountain battery. On the morning of the 26th,
-some Crow Indians reported to General Terry that a great fight had been
-going on the day before, and later scouts reported that a dense, heavy
-smoke was resting over the southern horizon far ahead, and in a short
-time it became visible to all.
-
-So broken was the country and progress became so difficult that it was
-not until the morning of the 27th that Terry's relief column found the
-trail of Custer.
-
-They had passed cautiously through a dense grove of trees and the head
-of the column entered upon a beautiful level meadow about a mile in
-width extending along the west side of the stream and skirted east and
-west by high bluffs. It was apparent at sight that this meadow had been
-the site of an immense Indian village and showed signs of hasty
-abandonment. Hundreds of lodge poles with finely dressed buffalo robes,
-dried meats, utensils and Indian trinkets were left behind. In a large
-tepee still standing were the stiffened forms of ten dead Indians. Every
-step of the march from here on showed signs of a desperate struggle. The
-dead bodies of Indian horses were seen; here and there were cavalry
-equipments, and soon the bodies of dead troopers, beside their frantic
-and still struggling, wounded horses gave evidence of a disastrous
-battle, and farther on was revealed a scene calculated to appall the
-stoutest heart. Here was a skirmish line marked by rows of slain with
-heaps of empty cartridge shells before them, and their officers lay dead
-just behind them. Still farther on men lay in winrows, their faces still
-drawn with the awful desperation of a struggle unto death; pulseless
-hands still clasped blood-stained sabres. Near the highest point of the
-hill lay the body of General Custer. There was a cordon of his brave
-defenders dead about him; his long hair was clotted with blood, while a
-great wound in his breast told how the brave soul had gone somewhere out
-into the wide waste and hush of eternity. Near him lay the body of his
-brother, Captain Custer, and some distance away another brother, Boston
-Custer, and his nephew, Armstrong Reed, a youth of 19. All were scalped
-except General Custer and Mark Kellogg, a correspondent of the New York
-Herald.
-
-When the fight was at the hardest a Crow Indian with Custer wrapped
-himself in a dead Sioux Indian's blanket and made his escape; as he left
-the field he saw the squaws and Indian children rifling the dead of
-their trinkets and going about with their stone battle axes beating out
-the brains of the wounded; they danced about over the dead and dying,
-mutilating their bodies and singing the wild, weird strains of their
-battle songs.
-
-When the welcome news of relief came to Reno's besieged command, strong
-men wept like children.
-
-Among the first of his men to search among the fallen for a dead friend
-was one Charles Wilson, a blue-eyed, beardless trooper, a mere boy whose
-heart seemed to fairly break as he contemplated what must have been the
-awful death of his comrades. The man he was seeking was Jim Bristow, a
-tall, dark private whose last words to the young trooper were:
-
-"Charley, my hour has come. We shall ride into this fight and you will
-come back alone. I want you to promise to take a little trouble for me
-when I am gone. You will find her face here in this locket upon my
-breast. I had thought to some day make her my wife, and that thought has
-gladdened my lonely life. Write to her, Charley, and tell her where is
-my resting place and that my spirit will wait for hers in that
-borderland twixt heaven and earth."
-
-The boy answered, and his voice was low with pain. Just then the bugle
-sounded, and for an instant eye met eye and hand touched hand, and Jim
-Bristow rode away with Custer's column. This was the man young Wilson
-was searching for. The dead were so frightfully mutilated, their bodies
-bloated, blackened and swollen by the hot rays of the sun that they were
-buried as speedily as possible, on June 28th. Major Reno and the
-survivors of his regiment performed the last sad rites over their
-comrades and then a general retreat to the mouth of the Big Horn River
-was ordered.
-
-
-
-
-V.
-
-THE SHADOW SCOUT.
-
-
-The bugle notes had died away, the cloud of battle smoke lifted from the
-valley and peaceful starlight shone over the rugged hills when a shadow
-crept out of a deep ravine and skulked into the valley of death and
-began dealing out retribution. Chief Dull Knife had much to say about it
-when he surrendered. He spoke in whispers when he referred to it, and he
-looked suddenly around, as if he feared it was softly stealing upon him
-to stab him in the back. Chief Gall's braves had something to say about
-it when they surrendered, and when white men asked them who or what the
-shadow was, they shook their heads and whispered:
-
-"We kill 'em all, but yet there is one left. It is a white man; there is
-blood on his face and clothing; he carries a sabre and two revolvers,
-and the night wind blows his long black hair over his shoulders. It is a
-spirit sent by the Great Manitou to watch over the graves of the white
-soldiers."
-
-White men saw the shadow, hunters, trappers and scouts who built their
-camp fires near that valley, through which the big mountain wolf skulked
-and prowled all night long, had felt the mysterious presence of the
-shadow or had seen it. They fled from their blankets at its soft step,
-and they had fired at it, and seen it glide off unharmed.
-
-It was not a shadow of sentiment, but a being who sought vengeance for
-the butchery of the little band of heroes, for the brave comrades who
-grouped themselves about the noble Custer and fought to the death.
-
-When the soldiers moved out of the valley, leaving so many graves behind
-them, the wolves rushed out from canon, ravine and den, to dig up the
-fresh earth and mutilate the dead. The shadow was there--a solitary,
-mysterious and vigilant sentinel to guard those sacred mounds. It
-screamed and gestured at the fierce beasts, it fired upon them with
-rifle and revolver and struck them with bright, keen sabre. The wolves
-ran here and there, from grave to grave, gnashing their teeth in anger,
-but the shadow closely pursued them. They formed in groups in the
-midnight darkness and waited for the shadow to tire out and fall asleep
-or go away, but it paced up and down over the graves, vigilant and
-unwearied, and daylight came to hurry the wild beasts to their lairs
-till another night.
-
-[Illustration: Gathering Up the Dead at Wounded Knee (page 37).]
-
-Hunters and scouts had seen the sentinel-beat among the graves in the
-light of noon-day, when men could not be mistaken. The path ran from
-grave to grave, winding about to take in every one, and then it ran to
-the river and disappeared in a ledge of rocks. Scouts said it was a path
-beaten by human feet. The Indians said that a shadow or spirit alone
-could remain in that lonely spot, having only the company of wild beasts
-and the graves of the lonely dead.
-
-Once when Red Cloud and a trusty few were scouting to learn the
-whereabouts of their white foes, they encamped in the valley for the
-night. The shadow stole among them as they slept, and when the fierce
-scream aroused the band from their slumbers, five of the red men had
-been murdered, each throat slashed across with a keen blade. The shadow
-stood and jeered at the living, who huddled together like frightened
-children. When they fled for their lives it pursued them with drawn
-saber, and one of them had a scar on his shoulder to prove he had been
-struck with a blade. Next day when a full band of Indians rode into the
-valley to solve the mystery and secure revenge, they saw no living
-thing. The bodies of the dead warriors were cut and hacked and gashed.
-Five of the poor cavalrymen whose brains had been beaten out had been
-revenged.
-
-Before the crown of a single grave had sunk down, Crazy Horse started to
-cross the valley at midnight with his lodges. The shadow confronted his
-band and mocked them, and as the red men hurried along in the darkness,
-vividly recalling the mad charge of the cavalry, the strange shadow
-skulked along with the column and fired shot after shot into the band.
-They fired at it and rushed out to capture it, but it disappeared, as
-shadows do. Two squaws, a child or two, an old man and two warriors fell
-by the bullets which the shadow fired. From that time the red men
-avoided the valley as white men avoid a pest. They would not cross it
-or skirt it, even at high noon when the sunshine beat down upon the
-graves.
-
-Texas Jack, the famous scout in the employ of the army, and a companion,
-in the late autumn of 1876 crossed the lonely battleground and halted
-long enough to see that the graves had not been disturbed. They saw the
-path of the sentinel leading from grave to grave. They saw the skeletons
-of the red men slain by the shadow. They saw the shadow itself. They
-were leaving the valley when their ears were greeted by a wild laugh,
-and from a bed of rank grass and dry weeds a quarter of a mile away they
-saw the shadow beckon them to come forward. The shadow was a man--a
-tall, gaunt, heavy bearded and long-haired human being dressed in rags
-that once had been an army uniform. He held up in the air and shook
-at them a carbine and a sabre, and when they galloped away, he sent a
-leaden ball whistling over their heads.
-
-This was the last time this trooper was seen alive, no doubt he was
-bereft of reason, and believed himself called upon to avenge his
-comrades and so lurked in the valley, living like the wild beasts
-around him and missing no chance to strike a blow.
-
-Some years later, when peace was restored and Crow Dog with his son and
-two warriors were hunting buffalo on the Little Big Horn, they were
-themselves pursued by a hostile party of Crow Indians. They took refuge
-among the shelving rocks along the river. Far into the deep recesses,
-where the waves and winds for centuries had hollowed out a chamber, they
-found a skeleton. By its side lay a carbine, two revolvers and a long
-cavalry sabre; about the neck was a delicately wrought chain with a gold
-locket attached. This and some other trinkets they carried away. After a
-lapse of fourteen years from the time Custer and his soldiers fell,
-these same Sioux Indians were again on the war path in the Bad Lands of
-South Dakota. Custer's old regiment was there, too. Many of them had
-fought with Reno and Benteen on that fateful 25th of June, and by the
-chance of war it was a part of their command under Colonel Forsythe who
-fought the battle of Wounded Knee. Among them was Charles Wilson, the
-beardless boy, who rode away with Reno, whilst his friend Jim Bristow
-followed Custer. No longer a boy, but a bronzed and bearded soldier who
-had stood the chance of fate in many an Indian fight.
-
-After the battle, when they were gathering up the dead Indians frozen
-stiff by a four days' blizzard which raged with wild fury over the
-plain, there was found about the neck of a young warrior a locket and
-chain. Wilson curiously examined the trophy and found upon opening it,
-the photograph of Jim Bristow on one side and upon the other the sweet
-face of the girl who had promised to be his wife. The young brave from
-whose neck the locket was taken was found to be the son of Crow Dog, who
-had married into Big Foot's band, and this blood-stained bauble, which
-had at last found its way into the hands of Bristow's friend as he had
-intended when they parted, and all the circumstances connected with it,
-revealed at last the identity of the shadow-scout who kept the midnight
-vigils over the graves of Custer's heroic dead; who when the chill
-blasts of the northern winter had come, had crept into his lair among
-the rocks and far from the cottage where the voice of love had pleaded
-so long for his return, with the smoke of battle still before his eyes,
-and with the shouts and shots of that dreadful day still ringing in his
-ears, had died alone.
-
-Wilson stood by my side a week later as a heavy army wagon rolled into
-Pine Ridge agency bearing the body of Sitting Bull, the great war
-chief, who had directed and led the fight on Custer's men. When the
-wagon halted, Wilson drew the canvas cover from the dead chief's form
-and gazed long at the bronzed, cruel face, which even in death, was
-magnificent in the strong drawn lines of unrelenting hatred. There was
-a cold glint of light in Wilson's eye as he took one last satisfied
-look at this dead monster of the plains and turned away to keep his
-word given fourteen years before to his comrade--Jim Bristow--the last
-survivor of that awful massacre on the Little Big Horn.
-
-
-
-
-VI.
-
-INDIAN FIGHT IN COLORADO.
-
-
-Old "Daddy" Stephenson sat in the shade of the ranch house, squinting
-his one eye toward the north, the other eye having been shot out a few
-years before. His squaw was boiling the leg of an antelope in a pot that
-swung under a tripod of sticks nearby, when "Doc" Kinnie and Charley
-Hayes rode up.
-
-"Here's yer Injun," shouted "Doc," as he untied his lariat from a
-blanket and let the bloody head of an Indian roll on the ground near
-Stephenson's feet.
-
-The old squaw came over, took a look, and, uttering a long, doleful
-sound like the cry of a wounded wolf, ran inside and grabbing her
-blanket, started for the hills, chanting a dismal wail peculiar to her
-people when in distress.
-
-"You fellows have played billy hell; you've killed my brother-in-law,"
-calmly remarked Stephenson as he refilled his pipe and again cast his
-one eye toward the north.
-
-"And the best thing you can do is to hit the trail while you are wearing
-your scalps," he continued after a pause of several minutes.
-
-At that moment the old man's half Indian boy and myself came up from the
-corral.
-
-This incident furnished the cause for an ugly Indian fight which
-occurred on Rock creek, northeastern Colorado, on June 12, 1877.
-
-"Doc" Kinnie, Charley Hayes and myself had come from Deadwood to
-Cheyenne as an escort for a stage coach carrying the Wells-Fargo
-express, when Stephenson offered us better pay to work on his cattle
-ranch.
-
-Four days before the incident of the bloody head, Stephenson had missed
-seven head of cattle and had struck the trail of one Indian who had
-driven them off. He rode to the ranch house in high rage and offered
-Kinnie and Hayes one hundred dollars if they would recover the cattle
-and kill the Indian. In five minutes they were in their saddles riding
-to the point where Stephenson indicated the trail. I did not join them,
-as Stephenson insisted that two were enough. Kinnie and Hayes had no
-difficulty in following the trail of the stolen cattle and were close
-on them the next evening. Not caring for a night attack they went into
-camp, eating their bacon raw rather than make a fire. They were in their
-saddles at the first grey streak of dawn and within an hour came upon
-two Indians eating their morning meal in a canon, while the missing
-cattle were grazing five hundred yards beyond.
-
-[Illustration: =Charles Hayes, "Doc" Kinnie, Robert McReynolds=.
-
-After the Fight (page 40).]
-
-It was a complete surprise to the Indians, and in the melee that
-followed one of them was killed and the other made his escape. It then
-became a question of how best to prove to Stephenson that they had
-killed the Indian without the burden of taking him back.
-
-Kinnie, who had been a medical student in Ohio before a certain escapade
-had caused him to emigrate to the west, suggested the amputation of the
-dead Indian's head as the handiest way, and also suggested that they
-keep quiet as to the Indian who got away, lest the old man should only
-want to pay one-half of the promised reward.
-
-Hayes stood guard while Kinnie cut and twisted the Indian's neck until
-the head separated from the body. He then rolled it in the Indian's
-blanket and carried it on the pommel of his saddle until the afternoon,
-when he rolled the ghastly trophy out on the ground in front of
-Stephenson and his squaw wife.
-
-"Seems to me if I had your kind of relations I would pay a better price
-and get them all killed off," said Hayes, as he returned from the
-corral.
-
-This remark nettled Stephenson, who smoked his pipe awhile in silence.
-He then grew angry, ordered the three of us to hit the trail for Fort
-Morgan at once, saying that two thousand Cheyenne Indians would be down
-upon us as soon as his squaw could communicate with them. This we
-refused to do, as neither Kinnie nor Hayes, nor their horses were in
-condition for flight, besides the old man had not settled and we rightly
-guessed that he would like to get out of paying the one hundred dollars,
-as well as preserve his good standing with the Indians.
-
-Later in the evening he was caught hiding a quantity of Winchester
-cartridges. That settled him. We knew then he wanted to see us slain,
-while he would endeavor to lay blame upon us. In five minutes he was
-bound hand and foot and laid upon a corner in the ranch house upon some
-blankets. The Indian boy was also bound and thrown into another corner
-for safe keeping. The log ranch house was then loop-holed and our horses
-were brought inside, also a quantity of hay, wood and water.
-
-We were prepared for a siege. Kinnie and Hayes lay down to sleep, while
-I kept the first watch of the night. All light was extinguished and I
-constantly went from loop-hole to loop-hole, peering into the darkness
-for the approaching foe, while the old man lay upon his blankets,
-swearing like the old sinner he was. I lay down for some sleep in the
-after part of the night, leaving the others to watch.
-
-It was daylight when I was awakened by rifle shots. They came from a
-hill upon whose crest rode forty Cheyenne warriors, bedecked in feathers
-and war paint and stripped for battle.
-
-We made no reply to their shots, but led them to believe by our silence
-that the ranch house was deserted.
-
-After pow-wowing for an hour, six of them began advancing cautiously. We
-waited they were within a hundred feet of the house, when our rifles
-emptied three of the saddles, and two more were riderless before the
-sixth retreating Indian reached the main party, which by that time was
-in commotion and had begun a circling ride around the ranch house to
-prevent our escape.
-
-For the remainder of the day they kept well out of reach of our rifles,
-but when night had gathered they stole away their dead and wounded under
-cover of darkness. The next morning there was no sign of them. We were
-not to be caught, however, by such a ruse, having played the same game
-ourselves the morning before. We felt sure they would be reinforced
-within two days with an overwhelming force that could easily storm the
-house and tear it down over our heads.
-
-Our only hope was to get away, and we held a council of war in whispers.
-The old man and boy had been released at intervals to relieve the pain
-of the cords, but not a word was said to them of our plans. When
-darkness again came we saddled our horses, stored a quantity of
-provisions in our blankets, strapped them behind our saddles and filled
-our canteens with water.
-
-The Indian boy was then liberated and given these instructions:
-
-"Creep along the banks of the creek until you come to the lone
-cottonwood tree, one and one-half miles distant, then fire six shots
-from a revolver. This will draw the Indians to you, when you can explain
-that we have compelled you to do this. If you fail to fire the shots we
-will kill the old man and charge through the Indian lines anyway."
-
-This command was delivered to the boy in a manner calculated to impress
-him with the earnestness of the threat, although it was not our
-intention to harm Stephenson, and yet the muzzle of a Winchester close
-to his head caused him to earnestly implore the boy to faithfully do as
-he was told.
-
-From then the minutes dragged like hours. We watched anxiously from our
-loop-holes for the flash from the young Indian's revolver. Twenty
-minutes passed, then thirty, and no shot was fired. Was he playing us
-false, or had he been captured by the Cheyennes, who in turn might set a
-trap for us. Thirty-six minutes passed, then a spark flashed in the
-distance and we counted six shots. This was the critical moment and
-every ear was listening for the sounds of horses' hoofs. A few moments
-later we heard them, as they came out of the ravines. We saw them, too,
-as they skirted along the dim sky line. We waited a few minutes to give
-them time to reach the cottonwood tree and then led our horses out and
-rode rapidly away to the northwest, knowing that the clatter of our
-horses' hoofs would mingle with those of the Indian ponies and might
-readily be taken for those of their own horsemen.
-
-Our rifles were in our saddle holsters and our heavy revolvers were in
-our hands, as we rode in silence. Kinnie was in the lead, while Hayes
-and I rode behind side by side. Not a word was spoken for more than five
-hours, until day was breaking, and by the red glow of the eastern sky we
-saw away down the plains the camp fires and white tents of a troop of
-cavalry from Fort Morgan. Kinnie burst out into a long, hearty peal of
-laughter.
-
-"What the deuce has struck you now?" asked Hayes.
-
-"I forgot to give daddy any change back," he replied, as he held up a
-well-filled pocketbook.
-
-
-
-
-VII.
-
-A COWBOY DUEL.
-
-
-Tom Rawlins rolled out of his blankets from under the chuck wagon with
-the remark, "I suppose a man shouldn't be late at his own funeral," and
-walking over to the camp-fire, lit his pipe by the glowing embers.
-
-Day was breaking, and by a solemn compact entered into with "Kid"
-Anderson the night before, he would be dead at sunrise.
-
-A month before they had exchanged shots in a dance house in Ogallala,
-after quarreling about a woman. The two cowboys met in North Platte the
-day before, for the first time since the affair, and each swore the
-other should die.
-
-Many of us who were friends of the two men divided into factions and
-crowded about the principals. The declaration of war having been made on
-both sides, neither could withdraw without losing caste, as such was the
-custom in the 70's among the wild fellows of the plains, who put a
-cheap estimate on human life. Rawlins had seen four years' service in
-the Confederate army, and at the close of the war had followed General
-Joe Shelby into Mexico and fought under the banner of Maxmilian. When
-Bazaine withdrew the French troops he secured his discharge and returned
-to Texas wearing the honorable scars of battle. "Kid" Anderson was
-inured to the life on the plains from his youth and had been in many an
-ugly Indian fight.
-
-Someone suggested a duel, and no Indian ever conceived a more fiendish
-plan. Two Colt revolvers with handles exactly alike, one loaded, the
-other unloaded, were placed under a blanket with handles protruding. A
-silver dollar was tossed into the air, heads to win, tails to lose. The
-winner was to have the choice of the revolvers. If he drew the loaded
-one, he had the right to shoot the loser, who was to stand ten paces
-away with the unloaded weapon in his hand. Rawlins won the choice of
-revolvers and drew the empty one.
-
-Anderson then spent a month's wages buying drinks for the boys, and
-kindly gave Rawlins until sunrise the next morning to live. Rawlins
-accepted his fate with stoicism and returned to camp, rolled in his
-blankets and slept soundly. Inured to danger for years, he knew sooner
-or later the end would come, and so gave himself but little concern
-about it.
-
-It was the spring round up and there were fifteen outfits in camp within
-two miles of North Platte, and the round up would begin as soon as two
-more outfits arrived.
-
-The news of the plan and chance of fate by which Rawlins was to lose his
-life had spread from one camp-fire to another during the night, and
-created an intense excitement.
-
-Rawlins was standing by the fire, when I. P. Olive, one of the largest
-owners on the range, rode up.
-
-"Look here, Rawlins, suppose you had won, would you shoot Anderson down
-like a dog this morning?"
-
-"Certainly I would," he replied, "and he would not be the first dog I
-have killed, either."
-
-"This thing cannot go on," said Olive, decisively. "If you men have got
-to kill each other you must do it in a civilized fashion. Your plan is
-too cold-blooded; it has given the shivers to the entire camp." He then
-rode over to the "Double Bar" camp, where Anderson lay sleeping.
-
-"Get up from there, you wild ass of the plains," he shouted. "Rawlins is
-waiting to be killed. Are you going to do it?"
-
-Anderson was on his feet in an instant, facing Olive in the dim light of
-the camp-fire.
-
-"It is none of your business what I intend to do!" and his yellow eyes
-gleamed dangerously as his hand stole to the handle of his sixshooter.
-Olive was a dangerous man himself and had a record of killing four men
-in Texas. He saw danger in the manner he had approached Anderson, and
-using a more conciliatory tone, said:
-
-"Give Rawlins a show for his life and we will all think the more of you
-for it."
-
-Finding the sentiment of others who joined in with Olive strong against
-him, Anderson yielded to a change. This time the principals were to meet
-upon the plain a mile from camp, mounted and armed with revolvers. They
-were to fight within a circle of one hundred yards, outside of which
-they might retreat, reload and return to the combat.
-
-It was a beautiful morning, all balm and bloom and verdure. The face of
-the sky was placid and benignant. The sun rose like a great golden disc
-on the purple and pearl of the distant sky line and clouds, airy and
-gossamer, floated away to the west.
-
-The men stole away from camp in twos and threes, and were gathering on a
-knoll that overlooked the battle ground, while Rawlins and Anderson were
-selecting their horses from the remudas. Rawlins chose a Texas mustang,
-fleet of foot and supple as an Arab. Anderson chose a stocky built
-animal and appeared altogether indifferent as to any of his qualities.
-The two men were stationed at the edge of the circle formed of lariats
-with their backs toward each other.
-
-Olive gave the word, "Ready!" The men grasped their bridle reins tightly
-and settled themselves in their stirrups.
-
-"Wheel!" The trained horses turned as if upon pivots.
-
-"Fire!" rang out Olive's clear voice of command.
-
-Anderson rode forward a few paces and stopped. Rawlins dug his spurs
-into his animal's side, and came on with a rush, firing his revolver as
-he came. Four shots sped harmlessly over the plain.
-
-The men were within a few feet of each other when Anderson fired his
-first shot. Rawlins reeled in his saddle a second, grasped the pommel,
-and bringing down his revolver sent a bullet through the brain of
-Anderson.
-
-Both men fell from their horses, and there were two dead faces in the
-grass.
-
-The horses dashed wildly away, with blood upon their trappings and sleek
-hides.
-
-Two graves were dug, and the funeral was over before the sun had dried
-the dew upon the grass.
-
-There was a girl in Nebraska without a lover, and a widowed mother in
-Texas without a son.
-
-
-
-
-VIII.
-
-PLEASANT HALFACRE'S REVENGE.
-
-
-I was with a party of cowboys twenty-five miles west of Ogallala,
-Nebraska, in 1878, when a huge iron box was found in the sands of the
-Platte River by one of our party, which recalled a tradition of tragedy
-and revenge, unequaled in the annals of the west.
-
-In one of those great bends of the Ohio River, opposite Three Mile
-Island and below the town of Newburgh, in Southern Indiana, there lived
-some forty years ago, a man who furnished cause for which his neighbors
-with one accord, joined in deporting him.
-
-Pleasant Halfacre occupied a cabin in a small clearing, which opened on
-the south, facing the bayou which separated the island from the mainland
-on the Indiana side. On all other sides for a mile or more was a dense
-forest, where great hickory, pecan and beech trees furnished the winter
-provender for the grey squirrels, raccoons and opossums. In some places
-the woodland was low and swampy; there were great ponds where the water
-lilies grew and in winter the wild duck and brant paused long in their
-southern flight to feed. The bayou abounded in catfish and silvery
-perch.
-
-In this little oasis in a desert of toilers, Halfacre had lived for
-nearly a quarter of a century. His wife, a big buxom woman, was the
-mother of eight tow-headed children who, when anyone chanced to come,
-acted like scared squirrels. They would scamper away into the woods and
-coyly peep at the stranger from behind big trees, while the dogs kept up
-an incessant barking.
-
-In summer, the woman and children would cultivate the small clearing
-with hoes, while Plez would catch catfish and sometimes work in the
-harvest field a few days for some neighbor. This he did only when dire
-necessity compelled. The very sight of an agricultural implement, he
-declared, would make him sweat. The man loved nature and in his
-simplicity, would go into raptures over the coloring of the gorgeous
-sunset, or wade about the ponds for hours for water lilies, or the
-great blue, bell-shaped flowers which grew upon the wild flag and
-calimus stalks.
-
-He would bedeck his ragged garments with these flowers and, with a
-string of catfish, would emerge, a gorgeous spectacle, from the forest
-on his way to the Evansville market.
-
-In winter his children would gather pecans and hickory nuts, while he
-would take the dogs and hunt raccoons and opossums, the meat of which
-furnished the family food, while the pelts brought a small price at the
-market.
-
-In all the forty years of his life, Halfacre had not been twenty miles
-away from his home. He could neither read nor write and the world to him
-ended at the blue rim of the northern horizon beyond the cypress hills.
-The man was totally devoid of any sense of responsibility, either to his
-Creator, his neighbors or himself. Once when the good preacher, who held
-services at the "Epworth meeting house" twice a month, reproved him for
-some misdemeanor by threatening him with the hereafter, he replied, "The
-devil can't inflict any more punishment on me than I can stand, if he
-does, he will kill me." With this logic to soothe his conscience, and
-his love of idleness thoroughly gratified, Halfacre was very well
-contented.
-
-For a long time the neighbors, for many miles around, had been missing
-articles of small value, the loss of which caused much delay in their
-work as well as vexation and annoyance.
-
-A farmer would be all ready to go to market and when he came to hitch
-up, he would find the coupling bolt to his wagon gone, or perhaps the
-singletree would be missing; or if ploughing in the field he would take
-the horses out to where he had left the plow the night before and find
-that the clevis or some bolts had been stolen. The good matrons would
-have their dinner horns or bells taken away at night. Nothing of any
-considerable value was stolen and no organized search was made until one
-day, Farmer Beasley was floating down the bayou in a dinkey boat when he
-came upon one of Plez Halfacre's children sitting on the bank eating
-mush and milk out of the blue flowered shaving mug which old Tippecanoe
-Harrison had presented to his grandfather, while another one of the
-Halfacre children sat upon a log, making a paw-paw whistle with his
-ancestor's razor.
-
-This was too much for Farmer Beasley. He turned the dinkey boat around,
-paddled back to Newburgh and swore out a search warrant for the Halfacre
-cabin.
-
-In the loft they found a collection of articles which was a wonder to
-behold. There were grindstones, iron wedges for splitting rails, harrow
-teeth and a miscellaneous lot of plunder, enough to start a second hand
-store.
-
-The word was passed and the next day the farmers began to assemble. They
-came by the score; some in wagons bringing the entire family and their
-dinners, and the day was spent identifying stolen articles.
-
-Meantime, while all this was going on Pleasant Halfacre sat to one side,
-looking the very picture of dejection. A council was held and it was
-decided that if they sent Plez to jail, the county would have to support
-his family, and as taxes were already high, it was decided to deport
-him, his family and chattels.
-
-Nearby, a house boat was found, which the owner offered to sell for
-twenty dollars. It was purchased and Halfacre, his family and effects
-were placed aboard and warned never to return, whereupon the boat was
-shoved out into the stream.
-
-It was a sad blow and one the least expected. "To leave the cabin and go
-away where he should never again see the water lilies, out into the
-world where he just didn't know nobody." This was the burden of his
-lamentations as he sat upon the bow of the boat and wept.
-
-Some of the women cried softly when they saw such evidence of his grief
-and love of home, humble and poverty stricken as it was, and they rode
-home in silence, wishing to forget the scene of the grief stricken man,
-who had said the birds would never sing so sweetly to him again.
-
-When the word went around a day or two later, that Plez and his family
-were again living in the cabin, there was a general sigh of relief, and
-when the preacher spoke of forgiving "Those who trespass against us,"
-there were some heartfelt Amens that went up from the holy corner of the
-"Epworth Church."
-
-Winter had come and the Halfacres were discussed by the good dames who
-gathered at each others homes at quilting parties, and many were the
-articles of outgrown clothing that were sent to the destitute cabin.
-
-There was a January thaw and the ice in the river was breaking up, when
-one morning in the grey dawn a barge came drifting down the stream amid
-the cakes of ice that were piling high upon the head of the island. A
-man was standing upon the deck, frantically calling for help, for it was
-certain the barge would be crushed in the great pack of ice when it
-struck the head of the island.
-
-A crowd had followed along the shore, but none seemed to know what to do
-or to have the courage to venture to the man's rescue.
-
-Suddenly Plez Halfacre was seen to launch a skiff from among a clump of
-willows and standing on the bow, fought his way through the ice floes
-with an oar, rescued the man from his perilous position and landed
-safely below the head of the island.
-
-The barge was lost and Plez became the hero of the hour.
-
-The rescued man proved to be a wealthy coal mine owner from the
-neighborhood of Cannelton, and in his gratitude some days later he
-presented Halfacre with a cheque for $5,000.
-
-Again a pressure of the neighborhood was brought to bear, and Halfacre
-emigrated to the west. He started alone with his family from Omaha in a
-prairie schooner, intending to settle in the neighborhood of Denver.
-When twenty-five miles west of Ogallala he left his family in camp one
-afternoon and wandered some miles away over the plain in search of
-antelope.
-
-When he returned some hours later he found his wife and children slain
-by the Indians and their mutilated bodies lying about the smoldering
-ruins of his wagon. The horses had been driven away.
-
-Wild with grief and rage, he did the best he could in burying his dead,
-and then made his way back to Omaha. He met with much sympathy from the
-pioneers along the route, but for this he seemed to care but little. He
-went about in a gloomy, abstracted way that caused people to say he was
-losing his mind.
-
-One day he appeared at a blacksmith shop in Omaha, and ordered a big
-wagon box made of plow steel, which he paid for in advance. When it was
-completed he loaded it upon a wagon and covered it with a white cover,
-until it looked like an ordinary prairie schooner. Into this he loaded
-a barrel for water and provisions enough to last for six months. He also
-stored in the iron box, a large quantity of ammunition, with two or
-three rifles and revolvers. The sides, bottom and top of the box were
-loopholed, protected with iron slides.
-
-When all was ready he purchased horses and drove to the place near the
-Platte river, where his family had been slain. Here he picketed his
-horses and deliberately built a camp-fire. He did not have long to wait
-for results. The Indians saw the smoke, and seeing only one man, they
-swept down upon his camp. He waited until they were reasonably near and
-went inside his iron box. When they came to within a few yards, he
-opened fire from the loop-holes, killing a number of them before they
-retreated. The Indians could not make out the situation, and that night
-they crept through the grass and tried to kindle a fire beneath his
-wagon. Halfacre was alert, and shot them from the bottom loop holes.
-After two or three assaults, in which they lost many of their number,
-the Indians went away and ever afterwards avoided the place, as they
-believed it protected by evil spirits.
-
-Halfacre lived in his wagon for more than a year, making incursions into
-the Indian camps at night, where his rifle dealt death.
-
-To the Indians, he was an avenging spirit and they spoke of him in
-whispers. His remains were found some miles away, long afterwards by
-soldiers, who believed he had frozen to death in a blizzard. The rusted
-relic on the banks of the Platte River, slowly disappearing beneath the
-quicksands, was the only memento left of the tragedies there enacted.
-
-
-
-
-IX.
-
-CAPTURING WILD HORSES.
-
-
-Lying upon the plain with his shoulder dislocated and his foot tangled
-up in a lariat, O. E. Kimsey held the head of his fallen horse close to
-the ground, in No Man's Land, for four hours, to prevent him from rising
-and dragging him to certain death.
-
-We had gone to No Man's Land, now Beaver county, Oklahoma, in 1887, to
-capture wild mustangs, to be sold to the ranchmen of Kansas and
-Colorado. We had become separated in our search for them. Kimsey was far
-out on the plain when his horse stumbled into a coyote hole and as he
-fell beneath the horse his shoulder was dislocated. In a moment he
-realized that his foot was tangled in his lariat, which hung from the
-pommel of his saddle, with one end tightly fastened there. The horse
-attempted to rise, but to allow him to do so would mean being dragged to
-death.
-
-Kimsey threw his uninjured arm over the horse's head and held him down.
-To call for help was useless in that barren and uninhabited plain, and
-he could do nothing else but hold the horse's head close to the ground.
-Night was coming on and he saw the hungry coyotes gathering. His
-strength was failing as the hours dragged by. He had almost lost all
-hope when he thought he heard the tramp of a horse's hoofs, and he
-shouted loud and long. He was right. I was in search of him and came to
-his rescue.
-
-Our trip lasted five months, and in capturing the wild mustangs we
-followed a different plan from the Texas hunters. The latter pursued the
-horses night and day, using relays of mounts, until the horses were
-exhausted, when they were driven into a corral.
-
-We had started early in the spring, in time to reach the wild horse
-country just as the first grass was covering the plains with green.
-
-The mustangs were then gaunt and thin from the hardships of winter and
-the new grass was not nutritious enough to strengthen them quickly.
-
-A boy kept camp for us while Kimsey and I followed the horses. A spring
-wagon, under which we could sleep at night, was filled with provisions
-and grain. A dozen of the best saddle horses that could be found, that
-were selected for fleetness and endurance, were a part of the outfit.
-There was no hurrah and wild pursuit when the horses first came in
-sight. We rode toward them leisurely and took precautions to alarm them
-as little as possible. At first it was difficult to approach closer than
-three or four miles. Each band was led by a stallion that circled round
-and round. Sometimes there were three or four stallions with a band of
-twenty or thirty mares and their foals. Generally, however, each band
-consisted of five to a dozen mares and a stallion. The moment we
-appeared the horses would begin to move. If they were followed close
-they would break into a gallop, keeping on the ridges from which they
-could view the surrounding country.
-
-I know of nothing more fascinating than a band of moving wild horses.
-Their manes and tails are quite long and add grace to their movements as
-they sweep along in the wind. At a distance a tenderfoot imagines a wild
-horse to be a majestic animal, large in size, beautiful in color, clean
-of limb and fleet of foot. At close range they are a disappointment,
-especially in the spring when their coats are rough. They have great
-endurance, some of them being able to carry a man 70 miles between suns,
-and their recuperative power is wonderful.
-
-We pursued the largest band we could find, but, use the best precaution
-we could, the horses would take fright at first and run for ten or
-twelve miles before stopping. We tried to keep in sight of them if
-possible, and always made it a point to be close to them at sundown, as
-they sought water, and if not disturbed would remain near the spot all
-night. If startled they would move, and before morning would be many
-miles away. They were on the move at the first streak of dawn. After we
-followed them two or three days the mustangs grew less wary, and we
-began teaching them to drive.
-
-A characteristic of the wild horse is that if an attempt is made to ride
-to the right of them, for the purpose of turning them to the left, they
-will invariably bolt to the right, and run directly across the path of
-their pursuers.
-
-It requires much time and patience to teach them to run in the opposite
-direction. We won our first point when we taught the horses to be
-driven. We then began driving them in a circle, which at first had a
-large circumference. As the horses grew weaker from want of rest and
-food, the circle grew smaller until its diameter did not exceed a
-quarter of a mile. Meantime, we were using relays of fresh horses. Then
-they were taught another lesson. A long lariat was stretched on the
-ground, and in the path of the horses. Wild mustangs are very sagacious
-and quick to suspect a trap. The rope always frightened them greatly at
-first, but in time they grew accustomed to it, and could be driven
-across it. We were now ready for business. The lariat was strongly
-anchored in the ground by tying it to a buried log. The best horses were
-now brought out and saddled. Riding as swiftly as possible, we started
-the wild horses moving in a circle and kept after them until our own
-horses were exhausted. The boy then took our place and maintained the
-swift pace, while we saddled fresh horses. Before a great while a colt
-would give out and drift, toward the center of the circle where it
-would be joined by its mother.
-
-A band of wild horses will not desert one another and there was no
-longer any fear that the running horses would bolt from the circle in
-which they were moving. In the free end of the lariat a big running
-noose had been tied. As the circle grew smaller the horses would begin
-running over the noose. The boy kept close watch and gave a strong pull
-on the lariat when he saw that a horse had stepped into the noose. The
-horse would fall, snared by the foot. A heavy log chain about three feet
-long was fastened to one of its forelegs with a leather and the horse
-turned loose. The animal would spring to its feet and start away at a
-breakneck speed, only to turn a somersault, caught by the swinging chain
-encircling its forelegs.
-
-When half a dozen horses had been caught in this manner the others would
-begin shying away from the noose, which was then abandoned for the time
-being. Then we would coil our lariats and ride straight into the midst
-of the band and rope them until the band was scattered.
-
-The captured horses were then rounded up, and the lesson of teaching the
-others to pass over the rope was resumed. After a time, when their fear
-had abated, they would again pass over the rope without hesitancy. In
-this manner we caught one hundred and nine the first season. The work
-grew more difficult as the summer advanced; the grass was better, giving
-greater strength to the wild mustangs, while our own had become worn and
-thin with hard service. The captured horses soon became accustomed to
-being driven and herded and it was not difficult to move them across the
-plains to Kansas and Colorado, where they were sold. Kimsey usually
-selected the best ones and broke them to the saddle, an exciting and
-dangerous business.
-
-Wild horses gave much trouble to ranchmen in those days. Tame horses are
-quick to follow wild ones away, but a wild horse never voluntarily
-forsakes the freedom of the plains for the corn fodder of the corral.
-The wild stallions are constantly seeking to increase their harem of
-mares. On the plains they do it through their ability as fighters and
-their superior generalship over weaker stallions. They resort to extreme
-violence in adding tame mares to their bands. I have seen a wild
-stallion gallop up to a herd of domestic horses, select a mare, and then
-begin maneuvering to drive her away. Sometimes the mare is lying down
-and refuses to get up. The stallion throws back his ears and breaks for
-her at full speed. If she does not move he seizes her with his teeth and
-bites her so violently that she is glad to spring to her feet. Once
-moving, she is lost, as the stallion keeps close behind, biting and
-pawing at her until she is driven into his band, when all of them gallop
-away. In time they drive away many horses, and in the old days ranchmen
-often united and killed wild stallions as they killed wolves. The
-stallions are constantly fighting among themselves, but as a rule
-without great injury to each other. Domestic stallions fight to the
-death, but the wild ones seem to know when they are worsted and the
-weaker ones run away. There were usually about as many wild stallions as
-mares, and as each successful stallion had from six to a dozen mares,
-there were necessarily a number of stallions who were freebooters on the
-plains. These were mostly old stallions, grown weak with age, and young
-ones not old enough to win their fights. I have seen as many as
-seventy-five such stallions in a band.
-
-It was November when Kimsey and I sat in the Albany Hotel in Denver and
-divided almost $3,000 as the profits of our season's work.
-
-"Where to now, Kimsey?" I asked. "I go to San Antonio for the winter;
-and you?" "To the C. C. Ranch, on the Cimarron," I replied.
-
-
-
-
-X.
-
-AN EXPEDITION THAT FAILED.
-
-
-Five men sat about a table in an upper room of the Coates House in
-Kansas City. The names of several of them I omit, as they will sleep
-easier. Upon the table was a plate of shining gold nuggets of a value of
-$1,600. Charley Cole, the owner, was a miner from the northwest.
-
-He had met the party the day before, and offered to show them where the
-nuggets came from for $2,000, saying his reason for so doing was that he
-wanted to clean up and go to the Transvaal, then the Mecca of the
-gold-seeker.
-
-This incident was in June, 188--. Around that table a party was
-organized, but with the understanding that no money should be paid
-until the gold was found to our satisfaction, and with the further
-understanding that if Cole was deceiving us with the idea of leading us
-into a bandit trap to secure our money, he should be the first man shot.
-
-To this he agreed and the next day the party was increased to six by a
-young doctor. Ten days later we were in Rawlins, Wyoming, where horses
-and a general outfit were purchased and the journey to the Wind River
-country in the Shoshone Indian reservation was begun.
-
-July had come and the plains and valleys were beautiful in billowy
-green. Cole, always in the lead, headed west of Lander. There was
-nothing I could see about the man to indicate that he was other than he
-represented, although several of the party whispered suspicions as, day
-by day, we penetrated the wild and almost uninhabited country.
-
-We entered the reservation at a point about thirty miles west of Lander,
-which town we had purposely avoided, not wishing to incite others to a
-gold hunt.
-
-We broke camp and were riding down a beautiful valley one morning, when
-we came upon some antelope. I wounded one, and as it was getting away I
-spurred my horse after the antelope on the run. My horse stumbled into a
-badger hole, and the next thing I remember distinctly was the awful
-pain as the doctor of our party was setting my broken ankle.
-
-My horse was also lame, but later in the day I made out to ride him five
-miles to the camp of some Shoshone Indians.
-
-The pain in my limb was so great I could go no further, and as the
-Indians were friendly and hospitable, I begged to be left in their camp.
-A bed was made for me upon the ground in one of the tepees, and after
-giving me surgical attention, and leaving me such comforts as we
-carried, the party proceeded, at my request, for I knew it would be
-weeks before I could travel, and even then I would be a hindrance.
-
-I felt secure from the kindly attention I had received from the Indians,
-who seemed desirous in many ways of alleviating my sufferings. Knowing
-that the Indian despises any manifestation of pain, I managed never to
-utter a groan, or show distress in my face, no matter how excruciating
-was Nature's process of healing.
-
-After three or four days an Indian cut away the doctor's splints and
-bound my limb in a huge pack of wet clay. From that moment the pain
-grew less, and as I felt more like talking, the Indians would gather in
-the tepee and sit about like children. I made pictures to amuse them,
-taught them the game of mumbledy-peg, and in various ways won their
-simple affections.
-
-The days had been dragging wearily, when the monotony was broken by an
-Indian wedding. Bright Eyes, a damsel of no exceeding beauty, was of
-that age when the consent of her father could be secured for her
-marriage for a consideration of ponies.
-
-Several young bucks had been staking their ropes for the catch, each
-hoping he would be the fortunate one in securing her for a partner. Some
-of them had offered as high as nine ponies. But Wah-ne-a-tah, which
-means in English, "it is hurting him," came forward with a dozen ponies
-and secured the prize. A beef from the Agency had been secured and
-roasted, as well as other things good to the palate of a hungry Indian.
-At about 4 o'clock the bride was taken to a tepee set apart from the
-others, where some twenty squaw attendants dressed her out in a "rig"
-that for decoration resembled a general or an admiral's uniform.
-
-Not wishing to get married at this time, she kept her attendants in
-tears by her lamentations. Some one in Lander had sold her father an old
-hearse as being just the thing for a family carriage. The top had been
-taken off, but the plumes remained, and into it she was loaded. The
-horses were gaily decorated and an Indian walked at the head of each
-horse. As she took her seat in the carriage, I obtained the first good
-view of the bride. A description of her dress is impossible, but it was
-a curious mixture of every color imaginable. She had proceeded but a
-little way down the valley, when at breakneck speed came a buck and
-three squaws who were running to the bride. The first squaw to reach the
-bride was to receive her raiment, the second a pony and the third a
-blanket. The bride was escorted to a tepee belonging to a relative of
-the groom. Here she was placed on a blanket and wrapped up until no part
-of her was visible and then carried to the tepee set apart for the happy
-couple. Arriving there she was unwrapped in the presence of the guests
-and her clothing immediately claimed by the squaw who came out best in
-the race. The bride was re-dressed, the groom summoned and seated on the
-blanket beside her. They were now married in the eyes of the Indians.
-Then came a feast, participated in only by the happy couple and the
-guests departed to the general feast.
-
-Three weeks had passed when one day an officer of the Indian police came
-to our camp and through him I learned of Cole's former camp on a
-tributary of Wind River, and he said the gulches and sands of the stream
-were plentifully besprinkled with nuggets, that the reason white men
-were not there in multitudes was they were kept away by the Indian
-police.
-
-He said that Cole was permitted to stay because he furnished the Indians
-with whisky. This Cole doubtless made from drugs.
-
-At the end of another week my party returned without Cole. They came
-hastily and seemed in a hurry to get away. I asked if they found gold.
-They replied, "Yes, plenty of it, but Cole's treachery has defeated
-every plan." Beyond this they would say nothing.
-
-As I was in no condition to accompany them and was as comfortable as
-circumstances would permit, they left me in the Indian camp. Here I
-remained for a month longer, when Red Jacket and Spotted Horse rode with
-me to Rawlins. Two truer hearts I never expect to find among any race. I
-had our photographs taken and made them presents, as well as sending a
-flour sack of candies back to the camp. When our train rolled away they
-stood on the platform and watched us out of sight.
-
-The mystery of the fate of Cole was cleared some years later when I
-called on one of the parties in Kansas City. It seems they reached
-Cole's cabin in the wilds of the Wind River country and that he showed
-them fine placer mines, and that after a few days he produced a vile
-decoction of whisky which he and a younger member of the party drank. A
-quarrel between the two men, crazed with the drink, ensued, in which
-Cole was killed.
-
-
-
-
-XI.
-
-ACROSS THE PALM DESERT.
-
-
-An ancient fight--as ancient as the time dividing the bird from the
-serpent, a fight thousands of times repeated in the lonely places of the
-earth each year, but which man seldom sees, was witnessed by Mark
-Witherspoon and myself on the borders of the Palm Desert in California,
-where we had come in the search for gold. It was a struggle to the
-finish between an eagle and a big rattlesnake. Death was the referee, as
-he is in all the contests waged under nature's code of fang and claw.
-
-There are two things men may not know, so it is said: "The way of the
-serpent upon the rock; the eagle soaring in the sky." Each has a
-wonderful power which man does not understand--does not understand any
-more than he does why they always fight when they meet and that they
-always should and will, so long as there are serpents upon the rocks
-and eagles soaring in the sky. If there were no eagles, the rattlesnakes
-would have no enemy in the sky or upon the earth, save man, to fear. The
-eagle likewise has no fear of anything, unless it be the glistening
-yellow and brown poisonous creature of the rocks--the rattler.
-
-Thus it lives forever--the death feud of the eagle of the Montezumas and
-the serpent father of the Moki's--the rattler.
-
-How it began I did not see. I was standing near the top of a big stony
-crag that glistened in the bright light looking over the vast opens and
-great basins of the Palm Desert which we were to cross, when my
-attention was attracted by the flop of something striking the sands a
-hundred feet away. I could not see what it was, but a moment later I saw
-an eagle swoop down and rise slowly, holding within its mailed claws, a
-snake. The big bird soared up a hundred feet or more and shook the snake
-loose, which fell twisting and coiling with a distinctly audible
-"flop"--the noise that first attracted my attention. Again and again the
-bird swooped, arose with the serpent and dropped it, while
-Witherspoon drew closer and closer to watch.
-
-[Illustration: Truer hearts I never expect to find (page 78).]
-
-Then the eagle--a young one, as we could tell by its size and
-plumage--struck and failed to rise. Witherspoon was now close enough to
-see everything that happened.
-
-The young bird had almost exhausted itself in its struggles with the
-snake, and may, too, have been bitten by it. At any rate, it was upon
-the sands, its wings slightly spread, as if from the heat--its mouth
-open. The snake was recovering from its jolting fall, and slowly
-gathering its coils.
-
-It rested a moment in position, and then struck the eagle, the fangs
-entering the corner of the bird's mouth, in the soft tissues at the base
-of the beak.
-
-The eagle recovered from the shock, stood motionless a few seconds,
-while the rattler watched as only a rattler can, and spreading out its
-wings, toppled over.
-
-Then the man--man who hates serpents as the eagle does--put forth his
-hand, using a power more wonderful than that of either. There was a puff
-of white smoke in the clear air and the report of a pistol rang among
-the glistening wind-polished rocks, and the snake was a mangled,
-bright, still thing that the ants began to gather about.
-
-"It was unjust maybe," remarked Witherspoon. "The snake had won
-fairly--he was entitled to go his way, a terror for all the furry little
-bright things hereabouts." "But I couldn't help it." "Someway that
-slaying by poison, even if it is done in the open, doesn't seem fair."
-"Then, too, a man hates to see the emblem of his country's armies and
-navies, the triumphant eagle of thunderbolts, lying in the sunshine
-dead, and that by a serpent."
-
-We had purchased a mustang in San Luis Obispo and loaded him with our
-stock of flour, bacon, frying pans, blankets, etc., and was resting on
-the borders of the Palm Desert, which we intended to cross the next
-morning, to the Mexican dry diggings, in the foothills of the Sierra
-Nevada Mountains, when the battle between the eagle and rattler
-furnished the topic of conversation all the afternoon. From San Luis
-Obispo we had taken the trail that led over the mountains and through
-the beautiful Santa Margarita Valley. Of all the places I have ever
-seen, I think this valley came the nearest to being an earthly
-paradise. It is seven miles in length, five in breadth, and is walled on
-all sides, except a narrow pass, by the lofty Santa Lucia Mountains.
-Through the center of the valley flows the headwaters of the Salanis
-River. Giant live oak trees studded the valley at almost regular
-intervals, as if they had been planted by the hand of man. The earth was
-a carpet of green verdure, with splashes of the yellow wild mustard and
-varied hues of the many different semi-tropical flowers. Two days after
-passing through this Eden, we began our toilsome march across an arm of
-the Palm Desert. When we reached the diggings we found a group of motley
-Mexicans, who good naturedly swarmed about us and showed us a camping
-place near a spring, but its waters were so impregnated with sulphates
-of magnesia and sodium, that we found it impossible to use it. We moved
-our camp about a mile further up the canon, near the quarters of a
-sheep herder, where we found good water and were free from the Mexicans.
-They taught us, however, the art of dry washing the gold from the loose
-earth of the placer claim which we had staked off. Here, for more than
-three months, we toiled. When our supplies run short, we sent for more
-by the man who came once a week to bring provisions and look after his
-interests on the sheep ranch. I always pitied that sheep herder. He had
-several hundred to care for, and their continual bleating sounded
-dismally in the solitude of the mountains, and when he lighted his
-bivouac fire at night, it always seemed like a signal of distress.
-
-From the red earth we gathered the golden grains, and when the stars
-came out at night, and the mountains took on their shadowy gloom, we
-talked of home two thousand miles away, and often wondered at the enigma
-of creation. Then came a time when by exposure to the damp and dews, and
-living upon poor food, we both began to fall sick. Medicine was out of
-the question, and so with our precious packet of gold dust upon our
-persons, we loaded our mustang with our camp equipments and took up our
-march toward San Luis Obispo.
-
-It was in the early dawn of the morning when we started across the arm
-of the Palm Desert. The sun rose like a ball of fire in a cloudless sky
-and heated the sands until they parched and blistered our faces. By
-noon our water supply was exhausted, and soon after I threw away the
-Winchester which I carried, for I could no longer bear the burden. If it
-has not been found by some weary pilgrim it lies there today with its
-barrel as bright in that rainless valley as it was when I threw it down.
-
-We walked in silence all that torrid afternoon. The poor mustang crept
-along, led by Mark, while we, with bloodshot eyes and fevered brains,
-could but feebly keep in sight the jutting mountain spur where we would
-find a haven of rest.
-
-Exhausted, I sat down in the scant shade of a desert palm. Its sparse
-branches rattled in the hot wind like dried sunflower stalks, and then,
-in my imagination, I stood a few feet away and saw myself lying dead on
-the sands, with face drawn and withered and dead eyes staring at the
-skies.
-
-I roused myself from the horrible dream and walked on. It was long after
-the sun had dipped beyond the mountain crest, and the Palm Desert was
-shrouded in the gloom of night, that we reached a pool of clear water,
-fed by a generous spring. We drank of its waters and bathed our fevered
-brows, and lay down in the warm sands to awake ever and anon in fitful
-dreams. It seemed I was buried in the stone coffins of Egypt, where I
-lay for a thousand years in torrid heat, with unquenchable thirst.
-Whenever I awoke, I drew myself to the edge of the pool, drank deeply of
-its refreshing waters, and fell asleep again, repeating the same thing
-perhaps twenty times during the night.
-
-How soon we forget our troubles, and oh, how soon we forget that we have
-passed through the valley of the shadow, and that a merciful God has
-watched over our destinies. Within a week after this, when Mark and I
-came so near perishing on the Palm Desert, we had purchased new summer
-clothes and were sitting about the best hotel in San Luis Obispo,
-smoking fine cigars and playing the part of high-toned young gentlemen
-generally.
-
-
-
-
-XII.
-
-THE LAST STAND OF A DYING RACE.
-
-
-The battle of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, occurred December 29, 1890. It
-was the last stand of a dying race, the last Indian battle fought on the
-soil of the United States.
-
-Whatever views I may have held at the time, and whatever part I may have
-taken in the engagement is mitigated by previous experiences and
-circumstances; but with time there comes a belief that somebody
-grievously erred.
-
-Nearly every nation in its decline has looked for the coming of a
-Redeemer to lead them back to the glory and valor of former days. This
-has been especially true of the Indian races. The few remaining Aztec
-tribes yet look for the coming of Montezuma, while the Indians in
-the mountains of Peru believe that Huascar will again appear and
-re-establish the magnificent empire of which the mailed heels of a
-conquering Pizarro host clanked the dying knell nearly four centuries
-ago.
-
-In the autumn of 1890 there appeared in an Indian village in Nevada a
-man who was strange to them and to the neighboring tribes. He told them
-a wondrous story. He had come from a far-off land beyond the setting
-sun, and was sent by the Great Spirit to rescue the redmen from the
-oppression of the paleface, to restore to them their hunting grounds and
-to populate the plains once more with the buffalo and the antelope. He
-taught them a new form of the death dance and made a garment, decorated
-it with hieroglyphics and blessed it, and said that it would turn the
-bullets of the white man. They received his tale with great rejoicing
-and started immediately to carry the tidings to the tribes on the plains
-to the east. Great enthusiasm among the Indians marked the progress of
-the march across the country, and when he reached the Rosebud Agency in
-South Dakota, so exaggerated were the wondrous stories that preceded
-him, he was fairly worshipped as a deity. Chiefs Red Cloud, Crow Dog and
-Two Strikes brought him before the Great Council at Pine Ridge
-Agency, some fifty miles distant from Rosebud.
-
-[Illustration: Battlefield at Wounded Knee (page 87).]
-
-For more than three months after his arrival thousands of the Sioux
-warriors kept up the ghost dance almost nightly. The quantities of
-unbleached domestic that they were purchasing at the agency stores and
-making up into "ghost shirts," together with the ammunition they were
-known to be hoarding convinced the agency authorities at Pine Ridge that
-an outbreak was imminent. A call was made for United States troops, but
-before any considerable number arrived hostilities had begun. A cattle
-herder was killed and a large herd of cattle belonging to the government
-was driven into the bad-lands. The same night Chief Red Cloud, who had
-become almost blind in his extreme old age, was taken forcibly from his
-home near the Pine Ridge agency building and made to lead the hostile
-attack on the Jesuit Mission some four miles distant. A desultory
-firing was kept up on the agency for some nights afterward, when a
-reinforcement of troops arrived and the hostiles withdrew to the natural
-fortresses of the bad-lands.
-
-Chief American Horse appears to have doubted the divine origin of the
-Indian Messiah, and held in check some six or seven thousand of his
-people encamped on a creek near the agency. In the meantime General
-Miles arrived with a strong force of cavalry and artillery. Batteries
-were trained on the tepees of the Brule Sioux under American Horse, and
-they were ordered not to congregate, which order was respected up to the
-close of the campaign.
-
-Rumors of Indian depredations were of every day occurrence. Settlers
-were fleeing from their homes and seeking refuge in the villages. So
-great was the terror in northwestern Nebraska that General John M.
-Thayer, then governor, ordered out the entire force of the National
-Guard, numbering about two thousand men, under Brigadier General Leonard
-W. Colby, to protect the Nebraska frontier.
-
-The main body of hostiles was safely intrenched in the bad-lands and was
-only awaiting the springtime, when grass would furnish provender for
-their ponies; when they intended to begin their work of destruction on
-the white settlements.
-
-Up to this time no Indian had been killed or wounded, although there
-was some heavy firing done in defense of the mission and the agency.
-This fact tended to strengthen their belief in the invulnerability of
-the ghost shirt which, by this time, was worn by all the warriors. So
-great was their faith in the efficacy of this garment to turn the
-bullets of their white foe, that Big Foot and a band of about four
-hundred ventured to leave the stronghold and commit some petty
-depredations within thirty miles of Pine Ridge.
-
-General Miles promptly dispatched Colonel Forsythe and a troop of two
-companies of the Seventh Cavalry to subdue them. It will be remembered
-that the Seventh was General Custer's old regiment that met the Indians
-on the Little Big Horn on that memorable 25th of June, 1876, when every
-man taking part in the engagement was massacred by this _same tribe of
-Sioux Indians_ which this detachment under Colonel Forsythe was seeking.
-On the evening of the twenty-eighth of December, Colonel Forsythe came
-upon Big Foot's band. No resistance was offered at the time, although
-the demeanor of the braves foreboded the terrible tragedy soon to
-follow. The Indians were escorted some miles distant and ordered to go
-into camp on the banks of Wounded Knee Creek, which flows through a
-wide, open valley skirted for miles on either side by high, sandy bluffs
-and scant growth of fir, cedar and pine. The Indians were made to pitch
-their tepees in a semi-circle and park their wagons and ponies behind
-them. The soldiers formed in a triangle in front of the semi-circle with
-a Hotchkiss gun under command of Sergeant Wingate in the center of the
-triangle. The men stood by their guns throughout the bitter cold of the
-Dakota night, while the Indians were comfortably wrapped in their
-blankets within the shelter of the tepees. As the first rays of the sun
-were slanting across the bleak and cheerless plain, the shrill notes of
-a bugle rang out on the frosty air. It was the signal to arouse the
-Indian camp. They came from their tepees with blankets swathed about
-them, and desperation was stamped upon their faces. Big Foot, who was
-ill with pneumonia, was first carried out and laid upon a bed of fur in
-front of his tepee, and then two hundred and fifty braves seated
-themselves in rows about him. Through an interpreter they were ordered
-by Captain Wallace to lay down their arms. They were armed mostly with
-Winchesters which were concealed beneath the blankets about them.
-Suddenly the medicine man of the tribe sprang to his feet and threw a
-handful of dirt into the air. It was a signal, and in another instant
-the death-like shrieks--the Sioux war-cry, "Hi-yi-hip-yi!" echoed up and
-down the valley, and the blaze of two hundred Winchesters sent their
-deadly missiles into the faces of the soldiers not over thirty feet
-away. There was an instant of hush--then a crash of musketry, and the
-last Sioux Indian battle was on! There were wavering ranks of blue as
-men fell to the ground wounded or dying; frantic horses dashed riderless
-over the plain; forms in red blankets were running hither and thither as
-the deadly triangle poured a withering crossfire into the struggling
-mass about the tepees. There were swift retreats of small parties,
-followed by swifter pursuit of horsemen. Indians were shot right and
-left as the mellow cadence of the bugle said, "Fire at will." Squaws
-were dashing right and left, attempting to stab the soldiers with their
-long, copper-handled scalping knives; boys kneeled on the ground and
-coolly fired rifles at the soldiers. They, too, were shot, and
-meanwhile the terrible Hotchkiss gun boomed death. Small fleeing parties
-gained the sand bluffs and shot the pursuing soldiers. A wagon, drawn by
-two ponies and loaded with bucks and squaws who were trying to get away,
-was struck by a six-inch shell and literally blown to pieces. Brave
-Captain Wallace was killed with a blow from a stone battle-ax as he was
-entering a tepee.
-
-The field of carnage is a dreadful sight. The mind shrinks from
-contemplating it. Human life has there passed away. Agony and suffering
-is everywhere. Gloom is on men's faces and dark frowns on their brows.
-One wishes it were effaced from memory, for in years to come one must
-see in fancy and hear again in fitful slumber the dying shrieks and
-piteous cries of agony.
-
-That evening the sun set behind a bank of crimson clouds. Sickening
-odors came from the smouldering tepees. Stark faces, stiffening in
-death, were turned to the skies. There, too, were the wounded with the
-dew of death already upon their brows. Strong lines were drawn upon the
-faces of the dead that told of the awful desperation of the soul at the
-moment they fell. Weapons were clutched in pulseless hands, and piteous
-was the sight of the struggling, wounded horses in their vain attempt to
-join their mates in the wild chase among the hills. Amid these scenes
-could be heard the prattle of childish voices about the Indian tepees.
-In the tenderness of their years and the savagery of their nature they
-were unable to comprehend the awfulness of the hour. When darkness came
-over the scene like a pall, the booming gun had ceased, but the plains
-were aglow with the lurid fires in the high grass--a weird and fantastic
-scene. Two hours later and the crimson clouds, which at sunset had
-portended evil, burst into fury, and a blizzard, with icy winds and
-drifting snows, raged as if to aid the soldiers in their determination
-that no living thing should survive the day.
-
-When, four days later, the winds had spent their fury, and General Colby
-was riding over the field with his party, a cry was heard from a
-snow-bank that covered the dead bodies of some squaws. A soldier
-dismounted and found an Indian pappoose tied to its dead mother's back,
-and clasped in the child's arms was a soiled, little rag doll which the
-baby fought to retain. General Colby immediately had the little waif
-cared for and afterwards adopted her. The Indians named her "Ziutka
-Lanuni," which in the white man's tongue means "Lost Bird." She is now
-living at the home of Mrs. L. W. Colby in Washington, D. C., a beautiful
-Indian girl, well educated, speaking the tongue of the white man, for
-she never had the opportunity to learn the language of her people.
-
-A few days after the battle the great Sioux chief, Sitting Bull, was
-slain by the Indian police. The news of the battle spread among the
-hostile Indians. They learned that the much prized ghost shirt was no
-protection against the white man's bullets, and the closing scene of
-this drama occurred some weeks later when the hills about Pine Ridge
-agency fairly swarmed with returning hostiles.
-
-No conquered general in the history of the world ever met the conqueror
-with haughtier mien than did Two Strikes, the untutored savage, chief of
-the hostile band, when he made his formal surrender to General Miles.
-Followed by half a dozen lesser chiefs, he strode majestically toward
-the agency school building in front of which stood General Miles and
-aides waiting to receive him. His magnificent form was erect, his head,
-proudly decked with the eagle feather, was thrown slightly back, while
-every muscle of his face was as tense as steel. His warrior robes were
-draped about his shoulders, while his arms were folded across a carbine
-upon his breast. With measured tread he approached and halted in front
-of General Miles and met the mild blue eye of that warrior with black,
-piercing eyes that fairly blazed fire. Steadily the two men gazed at
-each other for more than a minute. The muscles of the Indian's face
-twitched and the proud lips essayed to speak--as though he would hurl a
-torrent of defiance and hatred into the conqueror's face. With one swift
-movement he laid the carbine at the general's feet, stood erect another
-instant gazing with defiant eyes--and strode away to join his people.
-
-[Illustration: After the Blizzard at Wounded Knee (page 95).]
-
-
-
-
-XIII.
-
-THE TRAGEDY OF THE LOST MINE.
-
-
-In 1879, Capt. Charles Watt and Irwin Baker built a cabin in a gulch
-some miles distant from where Cripple Creek now stands. Baker had in his
-possession samples of very rich gold-bearing ore which he claimed to
-have brought from Arizona, where he and a Mexican had been driven out by
-Indians, as their reservation at that time extended over that region of
-country. The Mexican afterwards died of wounds received in the fight,
-and Baker was the sole possessor of the secret of the mine. He would sit
-for hours and tell how they had dug the white quartz which was threaded
-and beaded with strings of gold, and hoarded vast quantities of it under
-a great shelving rock which bore evidence of having at one time been the
-home of the Cliff Dwellers. And how he had carefully made a map of the
-country and intended when the Indian troubles were over to hire a
-sufficient force of men and burros to go there and bring away enough of
-the treasure to fix him in comfortable circumstances for the rest of his
-life. He often spoke of the map which he kept carefully concealed among
-his effects, which consisted of a valise and some mining tools.
-
-In the fall of 1879 Baker concluded to make a trip to Leadville, which
-was then in the height of prosperity, and taking his rifle, blankets,
-and a few days' rations, set out on foot. He reached Leadville safely,
-and a few days later died of pneumonia. As no one claimed the few
-chattels, including the valise, which Baker left behind, Captain Watt as
-a matter of course took them. He searched everywhere for the map by
-which Baker set so much store, and not finding it, concluded it was
-concealed about his clothing and had been doubtless buried with him. And
-so years passed on, but the straight story the man had so often told
-around the cabin fire in the silence of night, was never forgotten by
-Watt, who, in the lonely hours among the towering peaks of the Rocky
-Mountains, had thought of it a thousand times.
-
-But one day, the hand of Fate and Chance took a part.
-
-Captain Watt needed a strip of leather. There was none to be found.
-Finally, his eye rested upon the old valise which had once been the
-property of Irwin Baker, which had tumbled about prospectors' cabins for
-the last ten years. It was worn out, but the sides would make the strip
-of leather the captain wanted. The first slash of his knife revealed
-between the outside and the lining a folded sheet of paper, yellowed
-with age, and a closer examination proved it to be the carefully
-prepared map which Irwin Baker had concealed ten years before. The lines
-were drawn with the skill of a civil engineer, and the places so plainly
-marked that a party instantly formed, believed they would have no
-difficulty in going straight to the lost mine.
-
-Three others, myself and Captain Baker staked our time and money on the
-venture, and another month found us in the country called Coconino in
-Arizona through which the Colorado River crosses with many a curve and
-twist. It lies in the northern part of the great Colorado plateau and
-west of the Moqui country.
-
-John Bowden, a young civil engineer, was one of our party. He had
-studied at Ann Arbor and also at the University of Minnesota. His field
-work covered about five years prior to joining us. He was not familiar
-with the Southwest, its climate and peculiar topography, but others of
-the party were, and in view of his knowledge of civil engineering he was
-considered a valuable man to us.
-
-The sun shines in Coconino. It hangs day after day above Lava Butte, the
-Painted Desert, Shinumo Altar, and the Black Falls, as if it were a
-destroying angel, not the kindly orb that flashes in the northern belt,
-but a consuming, terrifying demon of the desert wastes from which there
-is no escape. Those who toil in the city's ways think the sun is hot,
-that the humidity is deadly, that pain such as theirs is unknown. They
-have never looked up to the solar star from the buttes of Coconino.
-There, blazing through the century-dried air all that is inhuman in
-stellar heat feeds upon the brain, the senses of man, until he staggers
-over the sands and falls to death.
-
-Our party had made its way north of Mesa Butte, carrying provisions and
-water, making slow progress, enduring extraordinary discomforts. It was
-after we had camped at the Little Colorado on the south bank, that
-Bowden and I, acting upon the advice of Captain Watt, made some advance
-explorations to determine how best we should approach Lava Butte, which,
-according to Baker's map, was the key to the route to the lost mine.
-
-We left one morning before sunrise and headed due north for the Painted
-Desert. We carried with our horses a two days' supply of water and
-provisions. It was impossible after ten o'clock in the morning to
-advance farther in the heat. We camped in the swale of a dry arroya,
-making such shade as we could, and waited for the coming of the late
-afternoon, when we might press on a little more. Bowden attempted some
-observations, but found that his sight was affected and that he must
-rest. In the evening and before we halted for the night, Lava Butte was
-in sight. After supper, Bowden said he would walk a distance under the
-stars; and that he would return to the camp within an hour.
-
-He had not returned by midnight, and I dared not leave the horses and
-search for him, but I fired my rifle as a signal at short intervals
-throughout the night. The next day I tried to find him, firing my rifle
-now and then, until I had burned the last cartridge, and then I made a
-fire of dried cactus stalks, in hopes that the smoke would attract his
-attention, but all this failed. The water supply began to run short, the
-horses were suffering, and Bowden did not appear. I then headed back for
-camp on the Little Colorado, intending to follow our trail in the sands,
-but the hot winds had swept over the desert and obliterated most of
-them. I had depended upon Bowden's qualities as an engineer and had not
-taken as close an observation as I would otherwise. However, I
-remembered my experience in the Palm Desert of years before, and so
-urged my horse along through the torrid heat, always heading for a
-jutting butte where I thought our camp to be. At noon my horse died, and
-I lay in the shade of some rocks, giving myself up for lost, when, as
-the sun was going down and the shadows were creeping over the desert, I
-descried the relief party from our camp that was searching for us.
-
-Bowden's body was found five miles from the camp he and I had made. He
-had walked in the night through the dead land, where, in starlight or
-sunlight, all things look alike. But there is so much white and so much
-grey, that to distinguish one object from another, to remember it, to
-say, "I will come back to this," is not possible. So when Bowden started
-to retrace his steps, he did not know where he was. The plain was all
-north, south, east and west.
-
-He quite evidently had sat down and tried to collect his thoughts, for
-there were marks in the waste indicating the various positions he had
-taken. He had a small bottle of water with him, but no food.
-
-No sound swept the plain. Bowden may have thought he was entombed in
-some vast charnel-house of the ages to which Time had brought Nature's
-remains and left them without burial. He was on the crest of one-time
-vast lava beds, a spot where fearful fires once raged beneath his feet.
-Here the last great battle of the peaks of the continent had probably
-been fought with thunderbolt and flame hurled from the bowels of the
-earth. And he was alone. Not even the wretched lizards of the lava
-region were moving. He called. No voice answered. He walked, but it was
-in a circle, and he came back time and time again to his starting point.
-He waited for the dawn--one hope that the sun's light might give him a
-trace of the camp. He saw the shade of the night grow deeper and deeper,
-and then the driving of this blackness back from the east and the coming
-there of a cold line of grey and then an insolent one of red and a
-savage yellow with that, and then, with one leap, the sun.
-
-He must have scanned the plain, but there was no sight of camp. He
-called, he laughed, he cried. He drank his water to the last drop in the
-little bottle. He walked and ran. He returned to the spot where he had
-first become bewildered. He was hot and then cold, and the sun rose
-higher and higher; grew more pitiless with every advance. The white heat
-beat down on him; it rose in sheets before him. Now the lizards and the
-mean, creeping things came out, but they passed him by. They could wait.
-Others had preceded him. After a long time, Bowden threw his hands high
-in the air, far up to the sun god that was calling to him, although
-beating him down. He fell flat on his face, and there he slept his last
-sleep in the land where the sun shines forever and forever.
-
-A week later and Captain Watt died of gastritis, and our party returned
-to Flagstaff and abandoned the search for the lost mine.
-
-
-
-
-XIV.
-
-THE LAND OF THE FAIR GOD.
-
-
-Captain David L. Payne was a born frontiersman. He left his home in
-Grant County, Indiana, in 1856, at the age of 20 years. He started west
-to fight the Mormons, and got as far as Doniphan County, Kansas. Here he
-found plenty of excitement and joined the Free Soil party. Five years
-later, when the border was aflame with fire and steel, he was among the
-first to enlist in the Union army. He served with distinction throughout
-the war. In 1865 he was honorably discharged at Ft. Leavenworth, with
-the rank of major. After this he went to Pueblo de Taos, New Mexico, and
-joined a party under Kit Carson, in an expedition against the Apaches.
-And after this he was known as the "Cimarron Scout."
-
-I first met him in the Black Hills in 1876. He was then talking of
-Oklahoma, called by the Indians The Land of the Fair God. He claimed
-that the government had no title to the land. The next I noticed of him
-was in 1880, when he organized a band of raiders to invade Oklahoma and
-open it for settlement. His first company was thirteen strong. They went
-as far south as Fort Russell, on the Cimarron, leaving Arkansas City,
-April 30. They were captured and taken out by United States soldiers.
-But the brave pioneer was not to be daunted. His followers increased and
-they hovered upon the banks of the Arkansas River, awaiting the action
-of a dilatory congress at Washington until the country was thrown open
-to settlement, April 22, 1889.
-
-Payne was like many other pioneers. He saw the land of promise, but
-dared not enter therein and live. Fate reserved this boon for others,
-while death decreed the brave soul should explore another bourne than
-this. While sitting at a breakfast table in Wellington, Kansas,
-December, 1884, he suddenly expired. Others may have felt as much
-interest in the opening of Oklahoma as Payne, but certainly none others
-devoted so much time and energy to the accomplishment of this work as
-he. He began the movement at a time when it was very unpopular, hence
-was the object of much unfavorable criticism and abuse, but he did not
-allow this to daunt him, and continued to surround himself with a class
-of followers who had the nerve to stand for the right.
-
-On the opening day the people came. They represented every part of the
-Union--from the granite hills of Maine to the flowery borders of
-California, and from the northern lakes to the gulf. They formed one of
-the most cosmopolitan communities ever assembled in the United States,
-and as if by common consent all sectional prejudices were laid aside in
-one common interest of beginning life anew. When the shadows of night
-fell around and about them on that memorable day, Guthrie, the
-territorial capital, was a tented city. The rush for lands and lots was
-over; and men sat quietly about their bivouac fires discussing the
-exciting events of the day. It was a triumph for American manhood and
-education; that the day passed off peaceably, and a triumph for which
-Oklahomans may well feel proud when the turbulence of the times are
-considered. Practically there was no law save that administered by the
-United States military, until the organic act was effected, May 2, 1890,
-when Geo. W. Steele was appointed governor.
-
-At the first session of the Territorial Legislature, a bill was
-introduced to remove the capital to Oklahoma City. When it was about to
-be placed upon its passage Arthur Daniels, the Speaker of the House,
-seized the bill and started on a run for the Santa Fe depot, where a
-special engine was waiting. Nearly all the members of the legislature
-started in pursuit, firing their revolvers at the fleeing speaker. He
-safely eluded them; and as the term of the legislature expired by law
-that night, the capital was saved to Guthrie.
-
-Hammers and saws could be heard night and day. Men were building a city.
-In an incredible short space of time, palatial residences, business
-blocks and church spires rose upon what, a short time since, had been a
-barren plain. They had added another dot on the map.
-
-The administration of Governor Steele was soon followed by the
-appointment of Governor A. J. Seay, an heroic figure on the federal side
-during the war of the rebellion, an able and kindly man whom history
-will revere. He was just the man for the times, for he always had a
-pleasant word or sound advice when occasion offered. He had the happy
-faculty of always looking at the bright side of life, and when speaking
-invariably put his audience in a good humor, as at the close of his term
-of office, in an address he said he always took an interest in the
-scriptural saying, "If a man die, shall he live again?" The crowd saw
-the point and gave a cheer for the retiring old hero so beloved by all.
-
-About this time E. D. Nix was appointed United States marshal of the
-Territory. To Marshal Nix and his faithful deputies belong the credit of
-the suppression of outlawry in Oklahoma. At the time he was appointed in
-May, 1903, the country was overrun by a banditti that rivaled the noted
-James and Younger brothers, in Missouri. There was no safety for life or
-property outside the larger towns. Trains were held up, banks were
-looted, stores robbed, and travelers were murdered upon the highway.
-
-To the young marshal, then only thirty years of age, it meant a long and
-bitter fight ahead, costing the lives of ninety-one deputy marshals,
-and over one and one-half million dollars to the government.
-
-It was a fight to the death, but the young marshal was equal to the
-emergency, and the emergency confronted him. One by one the desperate
-bands were either captured or went down beneath the unerring aim of the
-faithful deputies; who were all skilled frontiersmen.
-
-These men were inured to hardships, many had been on the cattle trails,
-and had burned cartridges in more than one Indian fight, some had been
-marshals of Abilene, Dodge City and other frontier towns in their days
-of lawlessness.
-
-The time will come when men will paint them, write verses about them, as
-they deserve to be written about. These men who bared their breasts to
-outlaw's bullets, as did deputies Bill Tighlman, W. W. Painter, John
-Hixon, Heck Thomas, Ed Kelley, Chris Madson, Wm. Banks, Frank Canton,
-John Hale, Frank Rhinehart and many others and to the heroic dead, such
-as Tom Houston, Lafe Shadley, Dick Speed, Jim Masterson and nearly a
-hundred others who fell as nobly as any soldier upon the battlefield in
-country's cause, for it was in country's cause in which they fell.
-The graves of these dead heroes should be decorated, as they will be in
-time when Oklahomans stop long enough in their monied pursuits to give
-thought to services rendered by these noble lives.
-
-[Illustration: Chief Big Foot (page 91).]
-
-A bushwhacking war was waged by the outlaws for more than three years.
-As soon as one leader bit the dust there was another to take his place.
-They were in bands of from ten to twenty and had their rendezvous in the
-dark forests of the Chickasaw Indian nation, the Grand River hills of
-the Osage Indian country or the Glass Mountains in the extreme west of
-Oklahoma. Often they would meet at a given point, do some daring act of
-train robbery, then scatter like quails with an agreed place of meeting;
-perhaps a hundred and fifty miles away. They were like the Insurgents of
-Cuba. No organized force could reach them. They knew every bridle path
-in the woods, or trail on the plains. Nothing prevailed but an Indian
-mode of warfare; but by long perseverance Marshal Nix's force conquered.
-
-Bill Dalton was killed, Bill Doolin, Arkansan Tom, Tulsa Jack, George
-Newcomb, and Buck Weightman, alias, "Red Rock," all noted outlaw
-leaders in time bit the dust, while Bill Raidler fell "bleeding at every
-pore" from a shotgun in the hands of Marshal Heck Thomas.
-
-Tearing open his shirt and looking at his bleeding breast as full of
-small holes as the lid of a pepper box, Raidler exclaimed, "Heck you
-damned scoundrel, haven't you any more respect for me; than to shoot me
-with bird shot," "Only used them for packing, my dear boy, only packing,
-you will find plenty of buck shot among them," said Heck, as he slipped
-the cold steel cuffs on Raidler's wrists.
-
-
-
-
-XV.
-
-OUTLAWRY IN OKLAHOMA.
-
-
-Bill Doolin, noted outlaw, was in the United States jail in Guthrie,
-Oklahoma. A chill, drizzling rain was falling and the night was dark.
-The half breed Indians and white border ruffians who had been his
-companions in the jail for the last two months, had grown tired of their
-card playing and had sullenly slunk off to their dirty bunks. Doolin had
-a cell of his own, but it had not yet been locked for the night and he
-had the freedom of the "bull pen." Near the front of the large room was
-a partition of steel bars. Outside this partition was a stove, near
-which a deputy marshal sat reading a novel. Another deputy was pacing
-the floor. Doolin was thinking of a night like this when he and his men
-lay in waiting at Red Rock for the Santa Fe express. How the chill
-rain dripped from their broad hats as they held a final whispered
-conversation just before the glaring eye of the headlight of the
-express flashed on them for an instant as the train rounded a curve,
-then the shrill whistle. How he blessed the dark night, and how he
-cursed the mud, for it would leave a trail, easy for the deputy marshals
-to follow.
-
-It was action now, the panting engine had stopped at the water tank, the
-fireman had drawn down the great nozzle of the water pipe and was
-filling his tender. He struck the signal match across the butt of his
-revolver. Another instant and his men was swarming over the tender with
-revolvers at the heads of engineer and fireman. No time to lose.
-Uncouple the express car. All aboard, and the frightened engineer is
-compelled to run his engine five miles farther on and slow up at a creek
-crossing, where there are other men and horses. A demand is made of the
-express messenger to open his car, his answer is a bullet through the
-door. Then Raidler crawls under the car and begins sending Winchester
-bullets through the bottom of the car at random. One of the bullets
-strikes the brave messenger in the head. They hear him fall with a
-groan. Quick, the dynamite, an explosion and the door of the express
-car is blown open. The pockets of the dead messenger are rifled, the key
-to the Wells-Fargo express box is found and next the iron chest is open.
-No time to count the big packages of currency and sealed bags of gold
-now. To the horses, and then to the Glass Mountains. For this and other
-crimes, death or imprisonment for life now awaited him. Oh, why did he
-let Bill Tighlman take him single handed at Eureka Springs where he
-thought he was safe in masquerading as an honest farmer from Texas.
-
-A sudden pause in his thoughts, an idea struck Doolin, people knew they
-had gotten over $100,000 from the express company, and that money ought
-to be somewhere.
-
-Doolin took a card from his pocket and a pencil and drew a map. Walking
-over to the iron grating he motioned to the guard.
-
-"My heart hurts me tonight," he said, "and I am afraid I am going to
-die. I wouldn't mind all this so much if it wasn't for my boy with his
-mother over in the Osage nation, but I hate to see that boy go the way I
-have. If I could find a good man I'd make him my boys' guardian and fix
-him for life."
-
-The guard stopped and came over to the iron grating.
-
-"It is like this," continued Doolin. "I have got $30,000 in gold for
-some good man who will bring that boy up in the way he should go and be
-a father to him, get him interested in some profession, and make a man
-of him. I am done for sure and I believe I am going to die tonight, oh,
-how my heart hurts, why not you get my money and be a father to my boy,
-I believe you would do the honest thing by him, then I could die
-easier."
-
-The guard looked over at his companion to see if he had heard. No, he
-was still reading the novel. He looked at Doolin and nodded. Then he
-drew close to the iron bars.
-
-Doolin whispered, "I will trust you," and drew from his pocket the card
-on which he had drawn a map.
-
-"Now stand close," he said, "and see if you can understand this,--here
-is the Bear Creek road in Pawnee county, here the ford, here a rock, ten
-feet to the south of this rock dig three feet and there is $30,000."
-
-The guard did not quite understand and drew closer to the bars and took
-the card.
-
-While he was waiting, a long thin hand reached through the grating to
-the handle of his six shooter and in a second he was peering down the
-muzzle of his own revolver in the hands of Bill Doolin.
-
-"Keep perfectly quiet," said the outlaw, "you know me, open that bull
-pen door very quietly."
-
-The guard silently obeyed. "Step in," said Doolin, the guard stepped
-inside. The next thing and he with the novel was staring into the quick
-blue eye of Doolin and the ugly thing he held cocked in his hand.
-
-"This way boys," said Doolin, and the two guards followed him to his
-cell. When they were inside he locked the door, then he called for their
-cartridge belts and the revolver, which he with the novel still had
-about him.
-
-In five minutes he was inside a heavy rain coat, had the guards'
-midnight lunches stored in its pockets, a heavy Winchester in his hands
-and a hundred rounds of ammunition belted about him. Out into the night,
-and on to the street where some belated revelers' horses were tied. He
-gathered up the reins of a fleet mustang and mounting into the
-saddle--"Richard was himself again."
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-For two years, I had been in the government secret service. I had no
-visible means of support except that of a newspaper correspondent. My
-reports for Marshal Nix's office always went by a circuitous route, lest
-I be discovered, to have had my business known would have meant death.
-Even Marshal Nix never knew the real source of much information which
-reached his office.
-
-I thought the outlaws were making a rendezvous at the little town of
-Ingrim, and I determined to see for myself. Going to the office of the
-Daily Leader, I secured a job at very poor pay to write up some towns in
-Oklahoma. Suddenly, under pretext of an affection in the head I became
-quite deaf. I knew better than go to the town of Ingrim first, lest I
-might excite suspicion. So I began at Tecumseh some thirty miles from
-Ingrim. I stayed in the town a week, solicited subscriptions and wrote
-up the prospects of the place, said many flattering things of the
-business men in my write-up, and when the papers came, I distributed
-them. The people were pleased with my work, but some complained at
-having to talk so loud to make me understand.
-
-When I finished with Tecumseh, I rode with the mail carrier over to
-Ingrim. Sure enough here were my outlaws. They loafed about the only
-hotel and saloon, but were always on the alert. I appeared to take no
-notice of anything, but kept boreing people to subscribe for my paper,
-interviewing merchants and writing up the town. The merchants, I
-discovered were glad to have the outlaws there, for they spent money
-like water, they paid big prices for their cartridges and bought heavy
-supplies of canned goods, which they sent away to be cached in the woods
-and hills for a time of need.
-
-One day I was sitting alone on the hotel veranda reading, when I heard a
-man say to another, "I am going to see if that dam cuss is deaf or not."
-I heard his cat like step approaching, and then, click, click, he cocked
-his revolver at the back of my head.
-
-It was a trying moment, but I did not move, I did not dare to, for had I
-quickly turned my head, I would have betrayed myself and lost my life.
-
-When he was satisfied that I was deaf as a door nail, he invited me to
-drink. I excused myself, and I heard him tell the other man that I did
-not have the sense of a muskrat.
-
-When I left town I owed the hotel man for my last days board, which I
-promised to send to him, I did this for effect, and went in an opposite
-direction from Guthrie.
-
-Three days later and two emigrant wagons with farmer like men driving
-the teams came down the long red road that leads from the north into
-Ingrim.
-
-An outlaw outrider saw them and rode casually down the road. He engaged
-the driver of the first wagon in conversation a moment, and riding to
-the side of the wagon he lifted the edge of the cover with his rifle,
-and there saw six armed deputy marshals on the hay inside. The outlaw
-wheeled his horse and rode furiously back to the village, waving his
-broad white hat as a signal.
-
-The marshals hurried from the wagons and the battle was on.
-
-Twenty minutes of sharp fighting and the outlaws were fleeing from the
-town on swift horses leaving one of their wounded behind, while the
-wagons that brought the marshals, carried four of their number back to
-Guthrie dead.
-
-Almost at the same hour that afternoon, another tragedy was being
-enacted in the dark forests of the Osage Indian Nation. Deputy Heck
-Thomas had tracked Bill Doolin to his lair. He was sleeping under a rude
-shelter of branches in the forest, when the breaking of a twig awoke
-him. He saw Heck Thomas alone; not fifty feet away, and knew it was a
-duel to the death.
-
-Leaping behind a barricade of logs he opened fire on Thomas who had
-sought the shelter of a tree. The duel lasted an hour, each jeering the
-other. Thomas held his hat to one side of the tree and when Doolin sent
-a bullet through it, he sank apparently helpless to the ground. A long
-silence followed. Doolin again jeered the marshal. There was no answer.
-He came from behind his barricade to see the effect of his shot, and
-received a bullet through the brain.
-
-It is worthy of mention here that when a company of Rough Riders for the
-Spanish war was organized in Oklahoma, a son of Marshal Tighlman and a
-son of Heck Thomas were among the first to enlist, and afterwards
-stormed the heights of San Juan hill with Colonel Roosevelt.
-
-
-
-
-XVI.
-
-A NEW LAND OF CANAAN.
-
-
-It was September of 1893. The Cherokee Strip, a large area of country in
-the Indian Territory, was about to be offered for settlement.
-
-Guthrie, Oklahoma, was at this time filled with homeseekers who were
-camped about on vacant lots, in their wagons. They were men of good
-intentions. There was also a horde of gamblers and petty thieves who
-swarmed like ravening wolves scenting their prey. Saloons and gambling
-houses were open day and night, and many a poor fellow fell into the
-hands of these legalized bandits--to awaken from the effects of drugged
-liquor and find themselves robbed of every dollar they possessed, and
-their families without a day's provisions ahead.
-
-Never was there an American town where morals were at a lower ebb than
-Guthrie was at that time. Street quarrels were frequent, and men shot
-each other down in cold blood for trivial offenses. There were contests
-over claims in Oklahoma proper, and it was no uncommon thing for a
-witness to be shot down after he had finished testifying in the land
-office. Or perhaps he was called to his door at midnight to stop a
-bullet, or was shot through a window while sitting at home with his
-family.
-
-Highway robbery, burglary, thieving, perjury, gambling and
-whisky-drinking ran riot. Courtesans and harlots, with painted faces and
-tinseled dresses, plied their arts of conquest in open day; while city
-officials, not to be outdone in the practices of the hour, took all
-manner of bribes from all manner of men. This state of immorality
-generated a stench over the town that all the perfume of Arabia the
-Blest could not sweeten.
-
-The Dalton gang of bandits was robbing Santa Fe trains in the Cherokee
-Strip, while more than one hundred and fifty United States marshals were
-searching for outlaws. When one was found, however, he was usually shot
-first and the warrant for his arrest read to the corpse.
-
-The men assembled at Guthrie at this time were from all quarters of the
-United States, and represented almost every nationality. As one rider
-dashed up the street on a very fine horse, a gust of wind lifted his
-sombrero and landed it near where I stood. I picked it up and was in the
-act of handing it to him when he exclaimed: "Hello, Bob, you here!"
-
-"Yes," I replied, scanning his face for an instant before recognizing
-him. Then the face came back to me with pleasant memories. He was my old
-friend--Mark Witherspoon. The reunion was, indeed, pleasant to both of
-us, and it was late that night before we retired to our respective
-abodes.
-
-Mark had jostled about from pillar to post, in all parts of the world;
-he had been in the mining camps of Australia and on the Rand in South
-Africa; he had grown rich several times and lost all again and again,
-and now he wanted an Oklahoma farm where, he concluded, he would settle
-down and live quietly. Just as though wild and impulsive natures like
-his could ever be content with a simple farming life. We agreed to make
-the run together and, if possible locate our farms beside each other.
-
-When the opening day came, a blazing southern sun beat down upon the
-heads of more than one hundred thousand men drawn upon the line that
-marked the border of the new El Dorado. Most of the country on the
-southern border lay in high ridges, or in valleys and deep ravines,
-which, in some places, were 100 feet in depth, with precipitous ledges
-of rock on either side. The country was but sparsely covered with timber
-and nearly void of water at this season of the year. The few streams
-were impregnated with a mineral poison which had an evil effect for
-a long time on the systems of those who drank the water. Yet these
-men--many of whom had pioneered the plains of Nebraska and Kansas--were
-forced, by the conditions of the times, to seek new homes in this wild
-waste. For more than a year, more than 20,000 families had lived like
-rats in dugouts along the banks of the Arkansas River, to the north.
-To say they lived is a mistake--they only existed. Parched corn and
-potatoes comprised the daily diet of hundreds. The winter of 1892 had
-been unusually severe for that section, and scant clothing and a lack of
-fuel added to the bitter suffering, while innumerable mounds of yellow
-earth stood silent monuments to those who braved the vicissitudes of
-the frontier in the hope of gaining homes.
-
-In this new promised land there were some seventy Indian allotments to
-be made. These were located by government officials near townsites, for
-personal selfish purposes.
-
-Then came an order from the Secretary of the Interior that all who would
-file on lands must register. That caused men to form in ranks miles
-long, to await their turn to register. It caused delay, and filled the
-pockets of government officials who, for pay, gave preference to the men
-of money. For days these men stood in line--a blazing sun above, and
-treeless, waterless plains about. Many sickened and were carried away to
-die, and, when the merciful night came, the others lay down on the bare,
-hard ground, to dream of happy homes--and shiver in the chill autumn
-darkness. The towns were platted by government employees. These plats
-contained false reservations for parks, and were sold to the men in line
-at a dollar each.
-
-When we reached the line, a mighty caravan was there waiting, stretching
-as far as the eye could see, east and west, to the dim horizon on
-either side. Men were there with their families; in white covered
-wagons, in light running rigs and on horseback. Among them were the
-broad-hatted, swarthy fellows from the pampas and chaparalls of Texas.
-They were there from the deserts of New Mexico and Arizona. Old soldiers
-in the tattered blue of the Grand Army of the Republic were among the
-strugglers for homes. Just in front of all was another line, composed of
-the troops who were there to see that all kept back of the starting mark
-until the signal should be given. The gleam of the rifle could be seen
-in both lines. It was a thrilling scene; one upon which no man could
-look without mingled feelings of admiration and pity.
-
-The signal for many to start to the eternal promised land came as the
-weary hours wore along. Worn with fatigue and exposure, and fainting
-from sunstroke and thirst, many fell from frantic horses that went
-dashing riderless over the plains. An officer rode down the line and
-halted near the railroad tracks. It was near noon, and an eager man took
-the action as a signal. There was a flash, a report. The man lay still
-in the sun-baked dust; a drunken soldier had taken a life and desolated
-a home. Some revolvers gleamed in the hands of angry Texans and in
-another moment the soldier lay writhing in the dust.
-
-Just then an officer waved his sabre and the signal guns boomed down the
-line. Like a mighty tidal wave the dense mass of men, horses and wagons
-swayed for an instant and then went on with a rush. There were cries and
-shouts--and oaths and blasphemy from the drunken soldiers. The noise of
-rumbling wagons and the clatter of horses' hoofs sounded like the
-distant roar of cannonading. On surged the swaying line, horsemen
-dashing out in front here and there. Every little distance was to be
-found the wreck of a wagon that had been crushed in the rush. Other
-wagons were stalled in ravines, horses dropped from exhaustion, throwing
-their riders, who lay in gullies or on the rocky sides of the mountain
-ridges, with mangled limbs, begging for a drop of water. But the mad
-fever of the rush was on all and little heed was paid to suffering.
-
-Our horses were in fine condition and were fleet of foot and ere long we
-were in the lead, in a wild race with the wind. We sighted a stream of
-clear running water, whose banks were fringed with trees, and a valley
-which stretched out for miles to the north. We reached a grove and found
-the cornerstone that marked the dividing line of two sections. We fired
-our Winchesters as a signal to the others that those claims were taken,
-and immediately commenced throwing up earth to show that improvements
-were under way. Then, tired out with the excitement of the day, we sat
-down under the trees to rest and talk it all over, and, in the late
-afternoon, fell asleep from sheer exhaustion.
-
-It was dark when Mark suddenly awoke and aroused me with the shout: "Get
-up, for your life, get up! The plains are on fire!"
-
-I was on my feet in an instant. The southern sky was aglow. Great
-tongues of flame were leaping through the inky blackness of the night,
-with a hiss and roar that sounded like the coming of a storm. We
-hurriedly mounted our frantic horses and rode swiftly into the northern
-darkness--whither, we knew not; our only thought was to distance the
-fire far enough to give us a chance to burn a space about us and thus
-find safety.
-
-Suddenly I felt a falling sensation. Then there were pains in my head
-and mysterious, dreadful aches in my legs. Visions flitted before
-apparently unseeing eyes and at last I came to realize that I was lying
-on a cot in a tent. Mark came in and I asked him where I was.
-
-"Never mind now," he said gently. Tomorrow came, and the next day, and
-still another, but Mark remained silent. Gradually my mind became normal
-and I distinctly recalled the last moments of consciousness; the prairie
-fire, the wild ride to safety. Mark then added the closing chapter. My
-horse had plunged into a rocky canon, fully 20 feet in depth. His horse
-had scented the danger and had reared, saving him from my fate. He
-back-fired the grass, and, in its light, saw me lying at the bottom of
-the canon. Tenderly he cared for me during the night and in the morning
-got a doctor, who set the broken limb, and here I was convalescing.
-
-
-
-
-XVII.
-
-TOLD AROUND THE CAMPFIRE.
-
-
-"You knew Cora Belle Fellows, that white girl at Cheyenne Agency, South
-Dakota, who married a buck Indian, eh, Bill?"
-
-"Yep," Bill Hawkins answered, "and I know what the results were, too.
-
-"About a year after she had left a fashionable seminary in New York
-state and came among the redskins to teach them manners and the like,
-she surprised and shocked everybody by announcing her marriage to
-Chaska, a full blood Sioux, twenty-one years of age. Then her troubles
-began. She was frowned upon by both whites and Indians. She went with
-Chaska to his tepee and lived upon the coarse chuck furnished by Uncle
-Sam.
-
-"Her escapade was commented upon by all the newspapers of the country at
-the time, and a museum man of Chicago induced her and Chaska to place
-themselves upon exhibition. For two years she was inspected by the
-public, which in the meantime had made her presents until she had a
-carload of furniture.
-
-"Then she concluded to go back to the Agency and make a farmer out of
-Chaska, and so with the money earned in the museum, she and her Indian
-lord returned. She purchased land some miles from the Agency and built a
-house.
-
-"The agent and myself rode out there about six months after they had
-gone to housekeeping. We were both curious to know how they were getting
-along.
-
-"It was a sight for your whiskers. Outside sat nearly all her furniture.
-The covers of plush had been ripped off for Indian horse trappings, the
-wood was stained and weather cracked.
-
-"The house was without doors, worn blankets being hung instead. The
-floors were cold and bare. In a corner upon an old mattress lay Cora
-Belle Fellows or Mrs. Chaska. An old squaw sat by her side, crooning
-some lingo over her new born kid. She did not want to talk and we went
-away. Chaska soon after left her and took a wife from his own tribe,
-leaving her to live in a tepee about the Agency like any other squaw,
-feeding on Uncle Sam's grub.
-
-"You might as well have tried to shove butter down a wildcat's neck with
-a hot awl as to have tried to talk that gal out of marrying the buck."
-
-"Marrying is bad business, anyway, unless they are both hooked up
-right," observed the cook. "There is old Ben Berkley living over on the
-Cottonwood. He was pretty well fixed before he married that widder. She
-was a spiritualist or something of the sort, and used to go off in
-trances and have white lights coming around until she scared old Ben
-nearly to death. She was always running over the country telling
-people's future and leaving Ben at home to cook. He took to drinking and
-one day got the D. T.'s and thought a freight engine was chasing him up
-and down the alleys of the town, and he finally crawled under a barn to
-keep out of its way, when the boys rescued him. After that he would not
-drink any more, but poured the licker in his boots and would get as full
-as a tick by absorption.
-
-"His wife had brought to the ranch a measley water Spaniel, which Ben
-used to amuse himself with by throwing cobs and sticks into the river
-and teaching the dog to swim in and get them and bring them back to him,
-not thinking of the great blessing it was finally to be to him.
-
-"Ben had been blasting out a hole for a cyclone cellar with sticks of
-gun-cotton, when his wife took it into her head that she wanted a mess
-of fish.
-
-"'No time to fish,' said Ben. 'Take a stick of that dynamite and go down
-to the creek where the water is still and blow out a mess for yourself.'
-
-"His wife took the cartridge and lit the fuse, then gave the thing a
-toss into the creek. The dog was there and thinking she was playing with
-him, swam in and got the cartridge and came running up the bank to give
-it to her. Then she started to run over the plowed ground, yelling at
-the top of her voice, 'Drap it, Tige! Drap it!' There was an explosion
-and a hole in the ground big enough to bury a horse. The dog had gone up
-higher than Elijah, while Mrs. Berkley was laying in a furrow with one
-leg injured by the cartridge. In a day or two the leg swelled up and old
-Ben sent for the cross-roads doctor, who decided that the injured leg
-would have to come off.
-
-"The doctor went to town the next day to get some tools, and was so glad
-over getting a job that he filled up on cactus whiskey and came back and
-cut off the wrong leg. The sore leg got well afterwards, but, Gee-whiz!
-It tickled old Ben nearly to death, for she has to stay at home now."
-
-"Story sounds fishy to me," remarked Ned Antler.
-
-"Billy Bolton nearly lost his life for using that word," said Hank Pool.
-"You all know Billy runs a paper over at Woodward, on the Panhandle
-trail.
-
-"There had been a hold-up in town, and Jim Belden was accused of it.
-After the trial before a justice of the peace, Belden was acquitted. In
-commenting on the affair in his paper the next day, Billy said Belden's
-story which secured his release sounded fishy. Belden was a bad man. He
-saddled his broncho, filled his saddle pockets with grub, and his skin
-full of whiskey and went over to Billy's printing office. He hitched the
-broncho in front, and with the paper in one hand and his Winchester in
-the other he went in and asked Billy what he meant by saying his story
-was fishy. Billy was taken by surprise, for he saw that Belden meant to
-kill him, as he was all ready to hit the trail.
-
-"'Fishy,' says Billy. 'Aha, fishy, fishy. Why that's a compliment, my
-dear boy. Saint Peter used to fish and said so many good things that
-people used to call his sayings fishy. It was a favorite expression with
-Aristotle and Socrates, when they addressed Napoleon the Great, to say,
-'I hope your royal majesty will speak some imperial fishy things today.'
-It is--ah, ahah, sort of an international e pluribus unum expression, a
-general sort of a non compos mentis, as it were, you understand.'
-
-"'Oh, well, if that's all,' said Belden, 'it's all right, but I wouldn't
-use the word often if I were you, for some of the boys might not be as
-well posted as I am. Much obliged, Billy. I was just passing and thought
-I would subscribe for the paper for a year. Here is $2.00. Mail it to me
-at Lampassas."
-
-"Bolton got off light," said Tom Tyler. "Over at Las Vegas two years ago
-a sheep man called 'Doc' Kinnie a liar and before the fellow could think
-twice Doc had his ear sliced off, and he went around afterwards using
-it for a beer check. He would call up the house and pay for the drinks
-with the sheepman's ear; he always redeemed it, though, for fear the
-owner would buy it back." "Cut it out, boys, cut it out, get to roost in
-your blankets," said the boss. "We hit the trail at 5 o'clock in the
-morning and make the drive to Cimarron by noon."
-
-An hour later, the fire had smouldered to embers, the stars twinkled in
-the great dark blue dome of the sky, a soft south breeze fanned the
-Oklahoma plains and all was silent, save the tramp of horses' hoofs as
-the outriders circled the herd of bedded cattle.
-
-
-
-
-XVIII.
-
-THE LONE GRAVE ON THE MESA.
-
-
-High upon the mesa northwest of Colorado City, Colo., and near the old
-cemetery used by the pioneers of the early sixties, there is a lonely
-grave, around which clings a romance of the early days, which is
-recalled by the phenomena which many persons say they have witnessed
-when passing at night.
-
-As the story goes, Marie Tinville, the beautiful daughter of Victor
-Tinville lived with her parents in a cabin near Colorado City, in 1863.
-About that time Leon Murat, a dashing young fellow of about 20 years
-came out from St. Louis and found employment on her father's ranch. It
-was a case of love at first sight, intensified by isolated conditions
-and an almost constant companionship.
-
-The cabin stood near the now famous Garden of the Gods, and many were
-the evenings the young people wandered among the towering rocks in the
-wondrous bright moonlight of that region, and talked of love, while the
-shadows of Pike's Peak shrouded the dreamy valley.
-
-Love's young dream was rudely awakened one day in the autumn of 1864, by
-the call to arms to join Colonel Chivington in his campaign against the
-hostile Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians, who were then murdering the
-settlers of Colorado.
-
-Men were needed, and Leon was brave. He kissed his sweetheart good-bye
-and rode away with that avenging column of horsemen who fought the
-battle of Sand Creek in Colorado, November 29, 1864.
-
-Murat's command did nearly three months' campaigning over the dry,
-heated plains before any effective work was accomplished.
-
-Early in November a mounted column of 650 Colorado volunteers of Colonel
-Shoup's Third Regiment, 175 of the First Regiment and a few mounted
-Mexicans, formed the fighting force under Colonel Chivington. A large
-band of Indians was located on the banks of Sand Creek, about forty
-miles north of where Ft. Lyons now stands and near the village of Kit
-Carson.
-
-Bent's Fort, a rude frontier structure of palisades, stood some miles
-below Ft. Lyons. It was to this point that Colonel Chivington led his
-men when he learned that Black Kettle and White Antelope with some three
-thousand braves, were encamped upon the banks of Sand Creek.
-
-The column made prisoners of all whom they met, lest word should reach
-the Indians that they were pushing forward to the attack. At Bent's Fort
-a halt was made to rest riders and horses. On the night of the 28th the
-column headed for the encampment on Sand Creek, taking as a guide, a
-half breed son of Colonel Bent, and carrying in their rear a small brass
-cannon and ammunition wagon.
-
-The night was cold and a bleak wind blew from the north. With jingle of
-spur and clank of sabre the column rode fours abreast through the
-darkness. The Indian guide led them through a shallow lake in the hope
-that the ammunition might become wet. When about half way through the
-lake Murat's horse floundered and wet him completely in the icy waters.
-The column rode on while Anthony Bott remained to assist him. After
-dividing his own dry clothing with Murat the two started to find the
-trail of the flying column in the darkness. They were favored both by
-their knowledge of the plains and the instinct of their horses, but for
-five hours they were alone in the darkness of a hostile country.
-
-They came up with their command in the grey dawn of the morning as they
-were forming for battle behind a ridge that overlooked the Indian camp.
-Here Colonel Chivington divided his men, sending a column of twos in
-opposite directions so as to surround the camp. The Indians were in
-their tepees when the cannon sent a crash of iron into their midst. The
-battle was on. Chief White Antelope came rushing from his tepee
-brandishing a rifle, urging on his followers. The encircling horsemen
-closing in on them emptied their rifles and revolvers into the confused
-mass of Indians.
-
-Indian depredations had been so numerous in Colorado and the atrocities
-so cruel, that the men, many of whom had been victims of Indian raids
-and had lost their all, their families or friends being butchered, gave
-no quarter, and when the battle ended they felt even more justified when
-there was found within the tepees a number of scalps recently torn from
-the heads of white women and children. Nearly 1,000 Indians were killed
-when the firing ceased, and a crimson tide ebbed into the creek and
-reddened its waters with blood.
-
-A squaw and a boy were found hiding in the tall grass. Murat shot the
-squaw and captured the boy. Bott bought the young Indian, intending to
-bring him up in civilization. The boy was standing by his side when, an
-hour later a pistol shot rang out from a group of men some yards away
-and the young Indian fell dead. Bott was angered, and drawing his own
-revolver, offered one hundred dollars to anyone who would point out the
-man who fired the shot. No one would tell.
-
-Murat with a companion was trying to capture some of the Indians' horses
-far out on the plain, when one of Black Kettle's fleeing Indians rose
-from behind a hillock and shot him dead. White Antelope was killed,
-while a large number of Indians under Black Kettle escaped by scattering
-like quail over the plain and hiding in the grass.
-
-While the battle was raging the families of many of the soldiers from
-Colorado City had gathered in the Anway Fort at that place, and a
-telepathic wave of horror spread over all. Many were praying and
-weeping, and all seemed to feel that a dreadful thing was being enacted
-in which their loved ones were taking part.
-
-When the news of the battle reached the fort and the death of young
-Murat was announced, Marie Tinville fell in a swoon, after which her
-mind was a blank. From that time on her decline was rapid and in a few
-months she was laid in the lonely grave upon the mesa.
-
-After that stories were told of strange things. A white light was seen
-about the grave, which vanished on close approach. Once old Ben Jordan
-an antelope hunter, came to town at night, his long hair fairly on end,
-saying that a white light had risen in front of him near the grave, out
-of which protruded a naked arm. The incredulous asked him what he had
-been drinking, but he stuck to the story as long as he lived.
-
-George Birdsall, a young man of Colorado City, had heard the story and
-thought it all a joke. He recently went out one night to investigate.
-He saw no white light, but felt a peculiar rush of cold air and a touch
-upon the cheek as soft as if some one had gently kissed him.
-
-
-
-
-XIX.
-
-UNDER THE BLACK FLAG.
-
-
-As the sun went down below the rolling glassy waters of the gulf of
-Mexico, I sat on the hatchway steps of the little steamer Dauntless,
-fully realizing for the first time that perhaps before morning I would
-be swinging to the yard-arm of a Spanish man-of-war.
-
-I was sick, anyway, and the abominable mixture of whiskey and garlic
-which Mark Witherspoon had given me as a preventive against yellow
-fever, had made the contemplation worse.
-
-The Dauntless was loaded with arms and munitions of war for the Cuban
-Insurgents and if the Spaniards caught us we would doubtless share the
-fate of the crew of the Virginius at Santiago de Cuba in 1873.
-
-I had credentials as a newspaper correspondent, but Mark Witherspoon and
-I had duly enlisted at Tampa, Florida, in the cause of Cuban liberty,
-and we were assigned to the third division of Garcia's army under
-command of General Ruloff.
-
-Our little vessel hugged the Florida Keys for more than a week. Meantime
-we were reinforced by small parties of twos and threes, who came in open
-boats by night. The stores of rifles, ammunition and dynamite came by
-small sailing craft. We now numbered thirty-seven men. Eight of us were
-Americans, two were Germans and the others were Cubans from Tampa and
-Key West.
-
-On the night we were ready to start the distinguishing lights of a
-revenue cutter were seen, so we lay close in a little cove and banked
-the fires in our furnace until four o'clock the next afternoon, when we
-slipped out and put for the high seas, headed straight for the coast of
-Cuba. When night fairly set in, there came small squalls and a drizzling
-rain. We had no signal lights out and every sound was muffled, even the
-funnel was so protected that not a spark could escape. All night long
-everybody was most keenly alert, and it was towards daylight that the
-irregular mountain lines of Cuba could be discerned, standing in shadowy
-relief against a darkened sky. On entering a little landlocked harbor
-we signaled with flash lanterns and were soon answered from the shore.
-Nearly a hundred insurgents met us, and the work of unloading quickly
-began. During the morning we were reinforced by nearly a hundred more
-Cubans who brought ponies and pack mules. As soon as we were unloaded
-our vessel hoisted the Danish flag and with all possible speed put out
-for the high seas. Her hull was well down on the horizon when we took up
-our march inland. Our route lay over tortuous mountain trails over which
-our ponies climbed with the agility of goats. The trail was often
-dangerous in the extreme, for the slip of a pony's hoof would have sent
-both horse and rider hundreds of feet below. We had taken trails unknown
-to the Spanish soldiery.
-
-When about fifty miles in the interior, we reached a plateau and here
-found encamped some eight hundred men under General Ruloff. From the
-very first I had but little confidence in him. He was a Polish Jew, well
-educated in military tactics, but unfitted to conduct a guerrilla
-warfare with men like us who were virtually fighting under the black
-flag.
-
-Subsequent events proved this, for at the fight of Santo Esperitu we
-left our improvised hospital unguarded, and Captain Sandoval cut to our
-rear and captured it and after destroying much of our valuable stores,
-put every sick man to death.
-
-Our rendezvous lay in the province of Puerto Principe and our line of
-action westward. After the fight at Santo Esperitu we never massed in
-action, but divided into companies of about one hundred, free to run or
-fight as our commander ordered.
-
-Our detachment captured Captain Sandoval and a party of his men, and in
-view of his inhuman treatment of our prisoners, he was promptly shot.
-Sandoval went to his death as all other cowardly butchers do, trembling
-like a leaf in the wind.
-
-We were ordered by Ruloff to burn all azucaderos (sugar mills) and to
-blow up with dynamite all railroad culverts and bridges and to destroy
-all telegraph lines. Our division frequently made rapid raids, always
-gaining ground westward. The division to which we were attached raided
-the town of San Lazaro which was defended by a small body of Spaniards.
-We routed them and captured some two hundred Mauser rifles and a large
-quantity of ammunition and other military stores. Our commander then
-ordered the execution of the alcalde (mayor) for having betrayed a
-number of insurgent sympathizers, causing them to be shot, and their
-families to be driven through the streets, beaten with sticks.
-
-Early in November we were encamped near Nuevitas where we had lain
-inactive for several days. One afternoon scouts had reported an
-advancing column and we had chosen for our ambuscade the ruins of a
-stone building, now overgrown with vines and nearly hidden from view by
-a cactus thicket.
-
-There was a hushed stillness in the dark forest that lay beyond the long
-yellow road, and in the cane fields that stretched away for leagues to
-our right. To the left the San de Cubitas mountains, with their covering
-of dense tropical vegetation, rose dark and silent. A lookout had
-climbed a tall cebra tree and was watching with a field glass. He
-suddenly gave the signal. Then the men were told in whispers each to
-select a man and to fire at a given order. The Cuban sun blazed hotly
-down that day. The air was close and stifling in our position behind the
-cactus thicket and our hearts beat quick and fast in those moments of
-waiting. There was the low rumble of horses hoofs, a cloud of yellow
-dust arose from down the road, and soon the Spanish column was almost
-abreast the 150 rifles that pointed from behind the stone wall. I peered
-over the sights of my Winchester and drew a bead on the breast of a
-young officer. He was chatting gaily with a companion and as he turned
-his face revealed a handsome countenance. It was a boyish face with the
-dawn of manhood just settling upon the brow. Thoughts crowded each other
-in my mind just then: Perhaps the young man was a conscript, not here by
-his own choice to imperil his young life, and I, whom he had never
-wronged, an unsuspected foe, safely hid in the cactus thicket behind the
-stone wall, about to send his soul into eternity. I lowered my aim from
-his breast to his horse just behind the shoulder. The order came to
-fire. The trigger that would have pulled like a ton weight a second
-before pulled easily now. And so all through those dreadful volleys that
-we poured into the struggling ranks. For firing into a mass of men is a
-different thing from that of firing upon one man singly. When the smoke
-of battle cleared away more than forty of the routed Spanish column lay
-dead or wounded in the road. I went to the place where the young
-trooper's horse had fallen and there lay the young officer pinioned
-underneath with a broken leg. I felt that I wanted to help him. I knew
-from the look on his manly face that in private life he would have been
-my friend, but to show a kindly feeling at that time would have made me
-a suspect among my comrades in arms. Their machetes flashed in the
-sunlight and their strokes falling swift and fast reddened the soil of
-Puerto Principe. Mark and I stood silent, helpless spectators of the
-horrors of war and revenge, wreaked by men, who in the remembrance of
-wrongs and outrage, were lost to any feeling of common humanity. There
-was only one act of kindness which I dared perform. In the pocket of his
-blood-stained blouse I found a letter. It was from his mother in
-Seville, and bore a mother's love and sister's prayer for his safe
-return. When I afterwards landed at Galveston, I sent it to his home,
-with an account of how he died upon the battlefield.
-
-The blazing sun was yet high when we were in our saddles and moving
-away. I saw a vulture circling above the battlefield, one, two, then a
-dozen, then a score. These black-winged scavengers had scented death,
-and there let contemplation end. Night comes suddenly in the tropics,
-when the sun dips beyond the sea, but here and there in the valley were
-lights, lantern like at first, spreading soon like a long prairie fire.
-They were in the cane fields which our men were firing, and as the
-flames swept on, the bursting stalks sounded like a battle with light
-revolvers. It lit the night, and its glare and gloom added mystery to
-the dark forest beyond the road. Morning came and we were safely
-encamped amid the hills. The birds sang merrily and the sun dried the
-dew upon the tall, rank grass, and when it came roll call, two names
-were stricken off. They had reported the day before to the Great
-Commander of the great beyond.
-
-
-
-
-XX.
-
-IN CUBAN JUNGLES.
-
-
-Spies brought news of an encampment of Spanish infantry a day's march
-ahead. All was hustle in the Cuban insurgent camp. Twenty-eight Texans
-who had recently joined our command were allowed the privilege of
-leading our column to the attack. That day we followed circuitous
-mountain trails and encamped at night in the heart of a dense forest
-through whose trailing vines we made our way along the bridle paths. By
-4 o'clock in the morning we were again in the saddle. There was no blare
-of trumpet or beat of drums to announce our coming as our column of
-horsemen stole from out the silent forest and wound along the road like
-a great creeping serpent to strike death.
-
-The Spanish camp was beyond a small stream through which we were to
-charge. Halting a mile beyond their picket lines, saddle girths were
-tightened, weapons were looked to, and we formed in a column of fours.
-Americans to the front, and ready for the charge. Ten stalwart Cubans
-were selected to form the skirmish line two hundred yards in advance and
-engage the enemy when they reached the banks of the stream. The column
-was then to charge at a gallop and use the revolver and machete.
-
-The first rays of the sun were gilding the mountain crests and awakening
-the flamingoes around the lagoons when a Spanish sentry's rifle told the
-moment of action had come.
-
-On pressed our column at double quick, while the increased firing ahead
-warned us that the Spanish camp was aroused. There was the heavy rattle
-of Mauser rifles, followed by the sharper report of Winchesters as our
-advance guard reached the stream and drew aside to let our column pass.
-
-The little river flowed from the mountains and plunged over rock and
-cliff in wild tumult. Below the ford which we were crossing there were
-falls and as the Spaniards fired a volley that struck our column midway
-in the stream, they emptied many saddles, while wounded men were
-carried down to watery graves.
-
-The Spaniards threw a double cordon of infantry at bayonet charge
-against our cavalry, but the Texans' revolvers opened a gap and the
-column rode through the demoralized camp, doing its fearful work. On the
-column plunged, fire leaping from the deadly revolvers on either side.
-When beyond the Spanish camp, the bugle sounded wheel, and back we rode
-among the panic stricken soldiers, dealing death until they broke in
-confusion, and gained the cover of the forest. We halted long enough to
-gather up our wounded and burn the supply train. An hour later and we
-were in full retreat to our rendezvous in the San de Cubitas mountains.
-One evening Mark and I started for the vicinity of an azucadero, where
-we knew there was a patch of sweet potatoes. The night was dark, damp
-and chilly, and the road lay through a clearing of tall palms whose
-white trunks stood like ghostly sentinels. The silence was unbroken save
-by the sound of horses' hoofs, the croaking of frogs and the distant
-baying of dogs about some negro casa. We did not suppose there was a
-Spaniard within fifty miles of us, and as we rode our ponies silently
-along a horseman suddenly appeared in front of us, and in clear
-Castilian tones shouted: "Quien vive!" "Cuba Libre!" cried Mark, drawing
-his machete and spurring his horse forward. At the same instant I
-discharged my revolver full in the sentinel's face. We wheeled our
-horses and rode quickly into the clearing, knowing better than to
-retreat by the road we came. It was well we did not, for soon a body of
-Spanish cavalry came tearing down the road, firing a volley ahead at
-random. We rode on through the clearing, being now cut off from our
-command. At length we came to a creek whose banks were steep and fringed
-on either side by trees, from whose branches hung a network of tangled
-vines and creepers. The water flowed sluggishly, as most streams in Cuba
-do. We determined to cross the creek at once, knowing that with the
-first streak of dawn we would be tracked, for we had left an easy trail
-in the soft soil. We used our machetes with great difficulty to cut a
-path through the vines, and when we reached the water's edge swam our
-ponies across and cut our way through on the opposite bank where we lay
-down to await developments of the morning. Both of us must have fallen
-asleep, for we were startled by a loud grito alto from the other side of
-the creek. Peering through the bushes we saw a Spanish trooper
-gesticulating to a party of cavalry in the rear. In another second there
-was the simultaneous report of our two Winchesters and the trooper
-rolled from his horse. We hurriedly mounted our ponies amid the
-fusillade of bullets from the approaching squad of cavalry, and spurring
-our horses toward a cane field, we were soon hidden. A little later we
-abandoned our horses and started them off in another direction with a
-lashing, thinking thereby to gain time and elude our pursuers. Then we
-started for the azucadero. It was our first intention to fire it,
-thinking its flames would attract the attention of our command and bring
-us relief. But as we came out of the cane field we saw a body of
-troopers crossing a bridge which spanned the creek. We did not think
-they saw us, and in our haste to find a hiding place we ran around the
-building to a well which supplied the boilers. Leaping on a platform we
-found a lot of empty sugar hogsheads standing on end near a lot of
-filled ones. We quickly rolled an empty beside them and turned the open
-end down, getting under it. The troopers had seen us and tracked us
-straight to the well. They supposed we had descended by means of the
-pump pipe and hidden our bodies in the water, for they began hurling
-stones in the water and with a mixture of Spanish oaths called us "Perro
-Americano" (dog American). Satisfied with their work of exterminating us
-in the well, they rode away.
-
-Meanwhile we were couched in close quarters, with our revolvers tightly
-clenched, determined to sell out as dearly as possible. When they had
-gone, Mark whispered, "I am badly shot," indicating the spot by placing
-his hand upon his abdomen. The morning wore away and our situation was
-becoming unbearable. We were cramped and almost suffocated. Mark had
-swooned away twice in the agony of pain. Fortunately we had filled our
-canteens from the brackish waters of the creek, which alleviated our
-sufferings some. Yet it was past noon before we ventured out. I helped
-Mark inside the azucadero, where he laid down upon a pile of cane
-refuse, while I examined his wound. One look was enough. The contents
-of the abdomen were oozing out through the wound, and I knew that was a
-fatal sign. I carried a pocket case containing a few medicines for an
-emergency, among which was some morphine. I gave him an eighth grain
-tablet which relieved him some, but at times his pain grew so great that
-he begged me to shoot him.
-
-We could hear distant firing during the afternoon, but the sounds were
-growing fainter and we knew our command was retreating. When night came
-on I gave Mark another tablet of morphine and lay down for some rest.
-The dreadful chill that always follows a gunshot wound had set in, but I
-had no blankets or other coverings with which to lessen his sufferings.
-Thoroughly exhausted myself, I soon fell asleep, and when I awoke late
-in the night, I was alone with the dead. For me to bury him was
-impossible, and I could not think of leaving him there a prey to the
-vultures. So I did what I should have wanted him to do for me had our
-places been reversed. Sorrowfully I left him alone in the now burning
-azucadero and while the flames of his funeral pyre were lighting the
-night, I started for the sea.
-
-That day I fell in with a party of insurgents who were on their way to
-the coast to meet another filibustering vessel. As malaria and the
-effects of climate were telling heavily upon me, they kindly gave me aid
-in boarding the craft, by which I afterwards landed at the docks at New
-Orleans, feeling that I had done my share in the cause of Cuban
-liberty.
-
-
-
-
-XXI.
-
-EMULOUS OF WASHINGTON.
-
-
-"I don't know that I can tell you fellows about the first dollar I ever
-earned," said W. P. Epperson, the pioneer editor of the Colorado
-City--------, "but I do know the first and last lie I ever told."
-
-"You ought to remember, seeing that it has not been over twenty
-minutes," said George Geiger.
-
-"Twenty minutes be smashed!" yelled Epperson, reaching for his gun,
-"it's been twenty years this summer. My first lie was a trivial one
-about fishing, and the last happened in this way."
-
-"Twenty years, did you say?" interrupted the hired man with an
-incredulous look.
-
-"That's what I mean," and the veteran editor took another chew of Battle
-Ax, while a halo of white settled down about his head.
-
-"In the autumn of 1885," he continued, "I stepped off a Union Pacific
-train at Silver Creek, Nebraska, and after a good supper I determined
-to drive across the country to Osceola, a distance of thirty miles. The
-driver of the livery rig was about the most handsomely attired imitation
-of a cow boy I had ever seen. He wore a new suit of corduroy with a
-broad sombrero and high-heeled boots with ornamented red tops, also a
-bright blue shirt and a rattlesnake skin necktie. I had him sized up for
-a green country boy from Indiana or Illinois who had seen but little of
-frontier life, and he confirmed my suspicions a little later as we were
-crossing the Platte River bridge by saying, 'I suppose if you knew what
-my business had been you would hesitate to ride with me alone on the
-plains at night.'
-
-"It was getting dark and we were crossing a wide stretch of the then
-desolate plain that lay between the Platte River and Osceola. I was
-enjoying a cigar and felt at peace with all the world, when a devilish
-thought struck me, and I asked, 'What has been your business?'
-
-"'Well, sir,' he replied, 'I have been a cow boy.'
-
-"'The deuce you have,' said I, 'Shake, old man, you are a fellow after
-my own heart, and since you have been so kind to tell me your business,
-I will let you know who I am. I, sir, am Doc Middleton.'
-
-"The fellow almost fell from his seat in surprise. Doc Middleton was the
-notorious outlaw whose depredations had become so terrorizing to the
-settlers of Nebraska that the State had offered a reward of $5,000 for
-his capture, dead or alive. I enjoyed the joke I was playing all the
-more when I saw the effect of my speech.
-
-"'Just now,' I continued, 'I am trying to get away from a sheriff's
-posse; that is why I am making the cut across the country. They may
-overtake us, and if they do, there will be some heavy shooting.'
-
-"'With this I drew a big Colt revolver from my overcoat pocket and I
-said I had two more like it in my valise. I also told him if they
-overtook us he must get down by the dashboard and drive for dear life,
-that he might get shot in the back, but that would be cow boy's luck.
-
-By this time he was nervous and began looking backwards as he whipped
-the ponies up at a lively gait. I did not pretend to notice it and so
-kept up my lying.
-
-"'The first man I ever killed,' I told him, 'was a one-eyed man in Utah,
-who called me a liar, and I threw his body over a cliff, and my
-conscience hurt me for full half an hour afterwards. After that I soon
-got so I loved to blow a man's head off just to see his brains fly.'
-
-"It had grown quite dark, and having nothing better to do, I told him
-all the bloody stories I could think of and claimed them as my own
-experience until I became tired of the foolishness and lapsed into
-silence. We had made about half our journey and were passing a farm
-house set in a dense grove of trees. There were lights in the house and
-the young man broke the silence by asking, 'Please, dear Mister Doc
-Middleton, may I go in and get a drink of water? I think I have got a
-fever in my throat.'
-
-"'Certainly, my boy, certainly,' I replied taking the lines. He slid off
-the rig and ran to the house, while I sat there like a fool holding the
-horses. About twenty minutes passed and he did not return. Then I
-noticed the lights in the house had been extinguished. I called loudly
-for the young man to return, and when it flashed over my mind that to
-him I was the outlaw Doc Middleton, and he might warn the farmer of my
-presence, who might even then be waiting to get a shot at me, I yelled
-again for him in fear, louder than before, but there was no response.
-The more I thought of my predicament, the more nervous I became, until
-the cold sweat stood out like beads on my face.
-
-"I could stand it no longer, and seizing the whip, I cut the horses a
-lash and crouched down by the dashboard just as I had been instructing
-the young man to do. In the sudden dash, the horses broke one of the
-buggy springs, and I wandered on the plains until morning, for I had
-missed the Osceola road. It cost me $2 to have the spring mended and $5
-to send a man back to Silver Creek with the rig, to say nothing of being
-scared within an inch of my life."
-
-
-
-
-XXII.
-
-ON THE ROUND UP.
-
-
-The round-up of today differs in no essential particular from that of
-former years, excepting in the number of cattle rounded up and the
-number of men and horses required in its working.
-
-In 1900 I spent some months on a ranch in northern Colorado, where there
-are still large bunches of cattle.
-
-For some days prior to the start the foreman had been busy preparing the
-wagon, rounding up saddle horses, hiring men and making final
-arrangements for the start.
-
-When the day arrived everything was in a state of activity and as
-evening approached the corral was filled with horses. Each "waddie" was
-tolled off his string of mounts. Ten to each man, and after the summer
-on rich buffalo grass every horse was in a state that boded no good for
-the unaccustomed rider.
-
-That night we ate our suppers at the chuck wagon at the round-up camp,
-after which the boys sat around a chip fire, telling stories and
-smoking.
-
-The cowboy story differs from any I have ever heard, both in
-extravagance of statement and manner of telling. They relate to anything
-and everything that has ever come under his acute observation.
-
-"I always had an especial desire to make governors my associates," said
-"Beaut" Bowers, "so with a view to a pleasant acquaintance I once called
-upon Governor Waite, presenting the compliments of Governor Rentfrow of
-Oklahoma and several other governors, none of whom had sent any
-compliments, but then they are so cheap I thought I could give him a few
-without their missing them.
-
-"I had heard that he wanted to ride to his bridle bits in blood and I
-wanted to get into the swim, although I would rather it was beer.
-
-"It was the governor's day to be out of sorts, and he did not seem
-inclined to talk. I wanted to talk and resolved to break the ice of his
-reserve in some manner. So when he asked how the people of Oklahoma
-stood the panic, I told him we had not felt it in the least. He seemed
-surprised at this and asked, "Why not!" I replied we were all too poor
-to own anything and had got beyond expecting it. "Well, poor people have
-to live; how do they manage for some money?" I told him when silver was
-demonetized we took to catching Keeley graduates and scraping the
-chloride of gold off them with a case-knife and had done fairly well.
-
-"The old man stared at me and asked me if I had wheels in my head too.
-Everybody had been saying the old governor had wheels in his head until
-I believe he was afraid to pick his ears lest a cog clip the end of his
-finger off.
-
-"I had recently been on Zack Mulhall's ranch in Oklahoma, where the
-Reverend Buchanan used to come and talk Populism to the boys until I got
-tired of it one night and stole his false teeth where he put them to
-soak in a tin cup. There was a lot of socialism too, in his talk that
-didn't go down, for on that ranch the first fellow up of a morning got
-the best socks, and that made me fall out with the idea of community of
-interests. But to humor the governor I spoke of the widespreading
-revolutionary sentiment in Texas and Oklahoma and hinted that they had
-their eyes turned eagerly on his movements, as it was their hope he
-might devise some way to lead the country out of the silver difficulty.
-He then showed me a letter from President Diaz, of Mexico. It suggested
-another pan-American congress in the interests of silver. "It's no use,
-though," he said, "the last assembly of the kind amounted to nothing.
-Eastern influences would soon retard any movement of the sort.'
-
-"'If we are to continually be the back dooryard of the east,' I replied,
-'the sooner we secede from it the better.'
-
-"Here was a long pause, the old man looking at me intently to see if the
-wheels in my head were working, and I tried at the same time to discover
-if the machinery in his was all right.
-
-"Seeing the point of vantage I continued: 'Divide the country from the
-Mississippi River, establish a new republic with our own capital, make
-Galveston our New York, with a national railroad to that point; coin our
-gold and silver, make banks a public trust, with any betrayal of it
-punishable as high treason. If we are going into revolution we must
-have something like this for our object, otherwise we will only
-terminate in anarchy. As governor of Colorado call for a delegation of
-representative citizens from other states to meet here in convention and
-start the ball rolling.'
-
-"I delivered this sentiment in round, strong terms, while the governor
-listened, apparently pleased.
-
-"You will see all you want to of revolution before two years,' he
-quietly said, 'it is coming sure as fate and were I your age I would win
-fame and fortune by--'
-
-"At this moment an unfortunate affair happened. An Indian had given me a
-white bulldog. That dog had more sense than half the people and I loved
-him like a brother. One day the dog got too close to the heels of a
-heifer and she kicked one eye out. He felt so bad over it that I wrote
-to an eye doctor to send me a glass eye for my dog. He wrote back that
-he did not deal in dogs' eyes, but sent me a bright blue human eye. One
-of the boys and I managed to fix it in and the dog was very proud of it,
-only it fit so tight he could not wink. He would lay for hours asleep
-with the glass eye staring with an expression of strangled innocence
-confronting the murderer. Where I went that dog went also, and all
-through the conversation with Governor Waite my dog lay on the floor
-asleep, but that glass eye kept staring at the governor's dog until he
-took it for an insult and came over to our part of the room for a scrap.
-
-"In the melee of separating the dogs the governor jabbed his thumb in
-that glass eye and nearly cut it off. That made him so mad he would not
-talk any more and I may have to wander on through eternity guessing what
-he would have said. My dog felt so humiliated that he went home by the
-back alleys."
-
-Other stories followed, relating to horses and daring deeds of their
-riders. It seemed like we had only slept a few moments when we were
-awakened by the call of the boss, "roll out," "roll out." In a short
-time every man of the twenty-five was on his feet, rolling up his bed
-and throwing it in a pile ready to be loaded on the wagon. All gladly
-answered to the call, "Chuck's ready!"
-
-Each man took a plate and tin cup, knife, fork and spoon, and went to
-the Dutch ovens, where everything was cooked and helped himself. The
-breakfast consisted of bacon, potatoes, warm bread and black coffee.
-Seated on the ground Turk fashion, with plate on knees and cup by side,
-we ate our hearty meal.
-
-After breakfast the bed wagon was loaded with its freight. The chuck
-wagon which was driven by the cook and drawn by six horses, pulled out
-for the next camp, followed by the wrangler with the bunch of unused
-saddle horses. Orders were given to the riders, the place of the next
-camp appointed. The range was divided into circles, beginning at the old
-camp and ending at the new. Riding the outside is the hardest of all.
-The boys took turns at this as each must use his best horse, start first
-and get in last. It is his business to round up all the cattle on the
-limits of the range and throw them toward the center, where they will be
-taken up by the next man and so on until the whole is bunched together
-and driven to camp. Here they were held in a bunch until the foreman
-with his chosen riding men and trained cut horses went into the bunch
-and cut out the beef cattle and calves that had escaped branding and ear
-marking.
-
-The beef cattle were then cut into a bunch by themselves and held by
-some of the men. After the beeves were out the calves were branded. The
-calves were roped from horseback, generally by both hind feet, then
-another rope was thrown over the head and the calf stretched out. Thus
-held by two horses the hot branding iron was applied. This required only
-a moment and "doggy" was on his feet making for the main bunch. So the
-work proceeded until the whole bunch had been worked.
-
-The beef cattle were driven along with the wagons and night herded until
-five train loads had been gathered.
-
-The unused saddle horses were herded and kept with the camp. They were
-brought to the wagons each morning by the wrangler. For a corral to
-catch the horses in, two long ropes were stretched out in the form of a
-triangle, using the wagon as one side, into which the bunch was driven.
-Each man then roped his horse for the day. A different horse is used
-each day, so that one horse is used only once in about eight or ten
-days, according to the number of horses a man has on his string.
-
-I rode the outside one day with "Beaut" Bowers. We chose our stoutest
-horses, cinched on our hulls and rode in a steady lope from 5 o'clock
-in the morning until 2 o'clock in the afternoon.
-
-[Illustration: Pueblo de Taos (page 181).]
-
-When a bunch of cattle was found we started them in toward the center on
-a full run. We took our slickers from behind our saddles and waved the
-cattle into a run, which carried them within the next rider's circle.
-
-The cowboys are master hands at yelling, and cattle run at sight of a
-man on horseback much faster when he begins to yell.
-
-Two or more men went on watch at sundown to keep the cattle from
-straying. Later in the evening the cattle become quiet and bed down. If
-the night is still and nothing happens to disturb them, they will remain
-quiet all night. The stampede is one of the worst things that can
-happen, even now in these days of wire fences.
-
-If the cattle are only a little scared they may be easily quieted,
-though sometimes they break away and the men on guard have to ride at
-break-neck speed through the night, over ground that is dangerous even
-in the day time. More than one fellow has met with a broken limb or ribs
-from such a mad ride.
-
-When the cattle break away in this manner the men ride alongside of the
-bunch and gradually work up the leaders and sometimes even throw their
-horses over against them in an attempt to get them to "milling"--that
-is, get them to running in a circle. Once this is accomplished, the
-rest is more easy. The bunch is kept milling until exhausted, when they
-gradually slow down, and at last, after perhaps hours of hard riding,
-quiet down. Through the rest of the night they need close watching; they
-are nervous and may break away again. When the cattle become restless at
-night the boys sing and whistle and walk slowly around and around the
-bunch. The sound of the human voice seems to have a soothing effect on
-them.
-
-When we had gathered five train loads of beef they were driven to the
-railroad station, where car after car was loaded.
-
-
-
-
-XXIII.
-
-THE EGYPT OF AMERICA.
-
-
-Once I made a horseback ride from Trinidad, Colorado, to El Paso,
-following the old trail over the Glorietta mountains to Pueblo de Taos
-and thence by easy stages to El Paso, Texas, my object being to prospect
-for placer mines.
-
-It is a wild, weird scene, when after crossing the Glorietta range, one
-finds himself in this storied valley of the Rio Grande, New Mexico, that
-mysterious land of sunshine, of eternal silence and (may I say) eternal
-sadness. Sunlight paints the landscapes in rarest tints of blues and
-greys, heightened by vermillion and bright ochre colorings on cliff and
-crag, whose silence of ages is broken only by the rumble of the train,
-to relapse again into its wonted quietude. The land has been asleep for
-over three hundred years, while the world's progress has been going on
-about her. Once she was aroused when the cattle men came from over the
-range and stocked her valleys, but the cattle did not do well. Then she
-laid down for another nap. These valleys are those of sadness like unto
-fabled regions of the hereafter, wherein ungodly spirits are destined to
-roam forever in isolation from kindred beings. Sad-eyed Mexicans lean
-against the sunny side of their adobe huts--they are always leaning
-against something, as though their weak anatomies would not stand alone.
-They are poor, very poor, but proud. Let a stranger go to their casas
-and their hospitality is never wanting. A frugal meal of corn, beans and
-chile is divided with as free a hand as a minister's benediction.
-Sad-eyed sheep graze upon the scant vegetation of hill and valley, while
-the mournful, philosophic donkey does the work of the land,--and perhaps
-the thinking, too. When the shadows of night fall and the mountain range
-stands in dark relief against the sky the eye can trace the outlines of
-grotesque faces formed by irregular peaks and curves. Many of them have
-traditions old as the Sphinx, for the semi-civilization of the Aztecs
-that once inhabited this land dates hundreds of years before Cabeza de
-Vaca explored these valleys of the Pecos and Rio Grande. The sacred
-fires of the Aztecs have died out in the ashes of the past, yet there
-are those living who still look for the coming of Montezuma. It seems
-that every race of people in their decline look for the coming of a
-redeemer. This belief is kept alive by the Pueblo Indians of these
-valleys, who bow to the sun from their housetops as he shines from over
-the mountain range at early morn. Like the men of Mars Hill, they
-believe in "the unknown God," whose name is too holy to be spoken. They
-hold sacred all animals living in or near water, which in this dry
-climate is the greatest blessing.
-
-At Taos they have a tradition that at the flood a few faithful Pueblos
-gathered upon a mountain top and waited long and in vain for the waters
-to subside. At last a youth of royal blood and a beautiful virgin
-decorated with brilliant feathers, were let down from the cliff as an
-offering to the angry Deity. The waters soon fell, and the youth and
-maiden were transformed into statues of stone. With all the silence and
-sadness of this region, contentment seems to reign supreme, and if some
-genius with the pen of Washington Irving will study the simple ways of
-these Mexican people and write of their traditions he will do mankind a
-service and make himself famous.
-
-Swiftly flows the Rio Grande along its shallow banks, from whence here
-and there runs an irrigating ditch which waters a patch of corn or
-vineyard, near the adobe houses which are scattered thickly along the
-banks of the river, from the Sangre de Christo mountains to the Mexican
-sea. Here for over three hundred years a semi-Spanish civilization has
-existed in a sweet contentment to which the Anglo-Saxon race was born a
-stranger. Here is the Egypt of America, teeming with the traditions of a
-simple people, content almost with breath alone.
-
-The old mission of Las Cruces was among the first built by the Jesuits
-in this valley. Behind its altar were two crude paintings of Santo
-Domingo and Santa Rita, and between them the statuettes of the Virgin
-and St. Joseph. Beneath the whole was a painting, the scene of which the
-artist had located somewhere on the borderland between heaven and hell.
-Gilded saints were flying off in one direction while great horned toads
-and scorpions were pulling dark browed Mexicans and Indians into a sea
-of flames. At this mission was held the first Auto de Fa in New Mexico.
-An Apache chief had been made a prisoner and was set to work herding
-sheep. One day he lost one and the holy father said: "Son of the
-infidel, what did you do with that sheep?"
-
-"I lost it," replied the Apache, "but you may take it out of my pay."
-
-"Pay! what pay, you sacrilegious toad?"
-
-"Why, out of my daily lashes."
-
-"Holy saints protect us!" exclaimed the padre. "Theft, disbelief and the
-church itself defied! We will have Judaism here next. Away with him to
-the faggot fires."
-
-Then, as the flames crept around the Apache chained to a stone post, he
-repented and the father baptised him and agreed to meet him up yonder,
-but did not offer to put out the fire. As about two hundred and fifty
-years have passed since then, they have perhaps met and adjusted their
-differences by this time.
-
-Cruel as these old religious zealots may have been at times, they did a
-world of good, for they semi-civilized the natives.
-
-Beside the yellow waters of the Rio Grande and near the Sierra Blanco
-range, lies El Paso. Its streets were busy with traffic, and tall
-buildings rose majestically on either side. But the wind sweeps through
-the mountain pass and the dust storms darken the sky for days at a time.
-Like all other desert regions the chief boast of its inhabitants is
-climate and "this exceptionally bad weather only known heretofore to the
-oldest settler" grows irksome when one has heard it five hundred times
-in like regions. Around and about El Paso for three hundred miles north,
-south, east, and west, is desert, and to those who have never seen a
-desert country it is surprising how all conditions of life are changed.
-These conditions are harder than in humid countries. In our northern
-land between Canada and the Gulf, that which sustains life grows in
-abundance and few people there are who know what it is to be hungry. But
-here in El Paso there are many of the poorer classes who actually suffer
-for something to eat.
-
-Within thirty minutes the entire scene had changed. I had crossed the
-river and was in El Paso del Norte, on the Mexican side of the Rio
-Grande. Narrow lane-like streets, white adobe buildings with heavily
-grated windows make the stranger feel that he has intruded on a
-convention of county jails. In half an hour I had gone backward three
-centuries. Silent, dark-browed figures walked the streets with Spanish
-cloak or serape wound majestically around them, donkeys laden with wood,
-peddlers with hogskins filled with pulque, strangely attired Mexicans,
-all formed a weird street scene not soon to be forgotten.
-
-[Illustration: We Saw Smoke Signals (page 187).]
-
-It was on the plaza here that General Bonito Juarez camped his little
-force of 150 men while he went to Washington to appeal to this
-government to enforce the Monroe doctrine in the midst of our own
-rebellion. When the American ultimatum went forth to France, Napoleon
-III withdrew his French troops. Then Juarez marched on to the City of
-Mexico gathering strength as he went. The unfortunate Maximilian fell
-into his hands and was executed on the "Cerra de las Campus" (The Hill
-of the Bells), near Queretaro on the 19th of June, 1867. General Bonito
-Juarez was a full blooded Aztec whom Fate seems to have ordained to
-bring about the political regeneration of his country.
-
-It was a gala day in El Paso del Norte. A company of Rurales from the
-interior was to contest in a shooting match with the Carbine Rifles and
-bets were running high. Both sides did some good shooting at 500 yards
-and the Carbine Rifles won. Bets were paid freely and everybody was in a
-good humor.
-
-I had formed the acquaintance of Captain Esperanza Provincio and at his
-invitation I fired a few shots, hitting the bull's eye each time with
-one of the Mexican carbines.
-
-This excited everybody's attention and soon some Americans offered to
-bet that I could beat any man they had in their company shooting at 500
-yards. The bets were taken and I was pitted against six crack shots
-belonging to the Carbine Rifles. I won in every instance and received a
-neat sum for my skill from my American friends who had won the Mexicans'
-money. Captain Provincio, not to be outdone in generosity, caused a
-handsome silver medal to be made which he afterwards presented to me
-with the compliments of his company.
-
-The Military Band from Chihuahua discoursed sweet music in the plaza
-that night to a large crowd of citizens from both towns.
-
-The Mexican plaza is the national chimney corner, where at evening a
-band plays wild, weird strains of martial music, and the young gather
-about the old to hear tales of daring and valor. It is the plaza where
-the traditions are kept alive and where the young are taught that the
-very acme of glory in life is the battlefield.
-
-The soft effects of moonlight, the plaza with its green trees,
-fountains, and sauntering of senors and senoritas in the presence of the
-silvertoned bells of an old cathedral and the weird strains of martial
-music, form the pleasant remembrances of El Paso del Norte, since named
-Juarez.
-
-In company with a Mexican miner named Martenez I rode westward along the
-Mexican border for two days, and thence toward the northwest to Gila
-River, when one morning we saw to the southward a column of smoke
-ascending. We knew it to be Indian signals and so rode our bronchos into
-a clump of bushes on the river banks in order to be out of sight.
-
-On scanning the plain with my field glass I saw a column of dust rising
-far to the north like a pillar of smoke and rightly guessed it to be
-caused by a body of horsemen. From the speed they were making, I judged
-they were either pursuers or being pursued. In either event, we felt
-fairly safe, as our bronchos were in good condition, were splendid
-animals, and as we had used them well of late, we believed we could
-outdistance them if they proved to be hostile Indians. Nearer the cloud
-of dust approached and the closer I looked with my field glass until I
-discovered they were Apaches making all haste to reach the mountains.
-They crossed the Gila River, which was at flood tide, five hundred yards
-from where we were concealed and disappeared in the direction from
-whence we saw the smoke signals. We had made up our minds to remain in
-our hiding places until night, when I saw another dust cloud in the same
-direction as the first, and in a little while I made out that the dust
-was raised by a party of scouts and rode out to meet them. They were led
-by Captain Jack Crawford and were in pursuit of the murderous band of
-Apaches who had been killing ranchmen in the upper country.
-
-The scouts continued on the pursuit, while we rode away in the direction
-of Silver City.
-
-It was that band of marauding Apaches which we saw crossing the Gila
-River that furnished the cause for the Geronimo war, which broke out
-soon afterwards. It was not until March, in 1886, that General Crook
-captured Geronimo and his band of Chiricahua Apaches, who escaped from
-him while they were being taken to Ft. Bowie. The chief and band were
-recaptured by General Nelson A. Miles in Mexico some months afterwards
-and sent to Fort Pickens, Florida. Geronimo and fourteen of his band
-were afterwards taken to Ft. Sill, Indian Territory. Here the cunning
-old Chief spent most of his time playing monte with the soldiers.
-
-
-
-
-XXIV.
-
-IN THE DOME OF THE SKY.
-
-
-There are three ways of reaching the summit of Pike's Peak--walking,
-riding a burro, or seated comfortably in one of the coaches of the Cog
-Road.
-
-It was three o'clock in the afternoon when the car was pulled out of the
-yards at the foot of the Peak. The strongly-built little engine puffed
-like a living thing, obedient to the task of drawing its heavy load. The
-wheels moved rapidly, and we ascended the steepest mountain railroad in
-the world. It wound about the mountain sides in little curves, climbing,
-always climbing higher and higher, until we shuddered at the dizzy
-heights as we looked down into the great yawning chasms thousands of
-feet below.
-
-The air grew cooler in the deep mountain defiles densely wooded with
-fir, pine, cedar and quaking asp. A great fire once swept up these
-gorges and burned away the fir and pine in patches; in their place came
-the quaking asp, growing here and there in thickets.
-
-Along the slopes and in the dells, wild flowers grew with the luxuriant
-profusion of a semi-tropical clime. There were columbines and tiger
-lilies growing at an altitude of ten thousand feet.
-
-Nature has done some queer things in the mighty rocks which stand
-sentinel guard along the route.
-
-One great boulder is named the Hooded Monk, because of its resemblance
-to the human head in a monk's cowl. There is a Gog and Magog. The
-Sphynx, the Lone Fisherman, and many other images of man, bird and
-beast, wrought by nature's hand in stone.
-
-We glided by one of the loveliest glens in all the mountains; it was
-called Shady Springs. Here the oriole, the raven and the big blue jay of
-the mountains have builded their nests and take their morning baths in
-waters clear as crystal from a spring that gushed from fern and moss
-covered banks.
-
-Farther on to the right a stream plunges in wild, mad swirl of clear
-waters and dashing from rock to rock in foamy white, forms Echo Falls.
-An elephant's head in bass relief was here to be seen wrought in stone.
-
-We rounded Cameron's Cone and Sheep Mountain and soon began the ascent
-of the "Big Hill," which has a rise of 1,300 feet to the mile.
-
-Nearing timber line, the road ahead appears to be almost at an angle of
-45 degrees.
-
-Higher and higher; the great chasm below grew almost a mile deeper. On
-one side there were masses of square rock which looked like they were
-broken by human hands. Here, far above timber line, a variety of wild
-flowers blossomed, while among the rocks lived some of the strangest
-little animals, the whistling marmot, a fur animal about the size of an
-overgrown cat, and the peka, which has the legs of a rabbit and the head
-of a mountain rat; there were also minks, weasels, porcupines and
-mountain rats.
-
-At the summit was where the magnificence of the great panorama burst
-upon our view. Northward, away down on the bluish haze of the horizon,
-rose the Arapahoe peaks--Long and Grey's Peak, with their white summits
-glistening in the setting sun. Northwest, Mt. Massive and Mt. Sheridan
-were outlined against the clear blue sky, while the green sward of the
-famous South Park, a hundred miles distant, lay between. College Range,
-Mt. Yale, Mt. Princeton, Mt. Ouray and Cavenaugh reared their rugged
-heads far to the west, while green mountain ranges of lesser note lay
-half way between them.
-
-Far to the southwest, far as the eye could reach, faintly outlined
-against the sky, rose the snowy peaks of the Sangre de Christo and
-Sierra Blanco Mountains on the other side of the grand San Luis Valley.
-
-Looking to the south, were the Spanish Peaks and range of Greenhorn
-Mountains, and a little to the southeast rose the snow-capped Gloriettas
-on the borders of New Mexico.
-
-To the east, lay the mighty plains, stretching away to where the blue of
-the sky blended in coppery tones with the billowy green.
-
-There were dark spots here and there that were dense forests of pine.
-The cloud banners hung above, in all the gorgeous colors of sunset in
-crimson, purple and gold.
-
-A dark shadow crept out upon the plain toward the east, like the finger
-of a mighty giant. It moved rapidly along, covering the yellow sand
-lines that mark the course of old river beds, and finally, this shadow
-of Pike's Peak was covered by the shadows of other mountains lower down,
-until the plain was shrouded in the sable garb of eventide.
-
-But westward, the gold and crimson of the sky lingered long above the
-distant peak of Mt. Ouray. The purple haze grew denser, and the silence
-of the hour was made more solemn by the mountains standing out in dark
-silhouette as the shadows of the night grew deeper and denser.
-
-At such a time as this, one feels as though he stood upon the boundary
-of another world, while all about the wide white waste and hush of
-space, eternity and the infinite were calling to other glories, too
-great for the understanding of the human mind.
-
-Here, in the very dome of the skies, in this clear air, the bright
-worlds seem to hover over, while the vault is strewn with stars, like
-isles of light in the misty sea above our heads. The purity of the
-heavenly prospect awakens that eternal predisposition to melancholy,
-which dwells in the depth of the soul, and soon the spectacle absorbs us
-in a vague and indefinable reverie. It is then that thousands of
-questions spring up in our mind, and a thousand points of interrogation
-rise to our sight--the great enigma of creation.
-
-The harvest moon shed her yellow light over the distant plain, and
-gilded with a phosphorescent light the rocks and crags of the almost
-bottomless chasm below. The rocks took on fantastic shapes, while
-distant mountains rose in spectral form.
-
-I sat throughout the night, watching the ever changing panorama, the
-most wondrous ever spread out to the gaze of man.
-
-The moon and stars were bright above, while far down below storm clouds
-had formed where within their inky blackness the forked lightning played
-like so many fiery serpents.
-
-There were thunderous crashes in the wild rocky pit below, where huge
-rocks were shivered by lightning bolts, while echo, echoing back the
-thunders of heaven's artillery, would seem as though a legion of
-imprisoned Joshuas were reaching upward again for that sun which would
-stand still no more over the plains of Agalon.
-
-The shades of night grew deeper and then the blackness was driven back
-from the east by a flush of grey, gradually changing to a deep scarlet
-tinged with yellow and the sun burst above a dashing sea of clouds.
-There were purple and crimson waves below rising and falling in mighty
-billows. A shipless and shoreless ocean whose raging bosom claims no
-living thing.
-
-An hour more and this purple sea of clouds has drifted on forever from
-the sight of human eyes.
-
-The summer sun beamed once more upon the vast panorama. Far down upon
-the green mesa lay Lake Moraine, glistening in the morning light like a
-molten mass of silver.
-
-Smoke was seen to rise from Denver and Pueblo, both fully sixty miles
-away. Some smelters in Cripple Creek and Victor could be seen with the
-naked eye, while the streets of Colorado Springs were but sandy marks
-like a checkerboard upon the plain.
-
-I descended the peak on foot amid the beauteous scenes of green mountain
-defiles, where dashing waters sing eternal symphonies amid ferns and
-flowers, and the song of birds gladden the heart in their sweet echoes
-from rock to rock.
-
-
-
-
-XXV.
-
-WHERE NATURE IS AT HER BEST.
-
-
-If one would view the wondrous surroundings of Manitou, in all their
-grandeur, let him some bright morning stroll up the long yellow road
-that winds its serpentine course through Williams Canon. A little brook
-with waters cold and clear as crystal, dashes along its pebbly bed
-beside the road, murmuring as it were, a song of regret at leaving its
-enchanted home on its journey to the sea. The road is known as Temple
-Drive, named so because many towering rocks look, at first glance, like
-ruined temples of India or of Egypt along the Nile.
-
-At times the road narrows to barely carriage room between great high
-cliffs, and again abruptly brings the majestic panorama of the canon
-into view. High above, among the mountain crags is the Cathedral of St.
-Peter, like a massive ruin whose cornice, column and frescoed walls had
-fallen with decay ages past. A little farther and the Amphitheatre
-rises against the cliffs in hues of brown and yellow, with brighter
-streaks of golden ochre here and there, which fairly gleam and glisten
-in the morning sun. High above and in the background on either side are
-hills of emerald green, studded with cedar and pine, and dotted with
-flowers of gorgeous color and of form, found elsewhere only in Alpine
-lands. There are towering rocks that rise a thousand feet above the
-road, which resemble the ruins of a Moorish citadel. There are towers,
-mosques and temples, with turrets and battlements, needing only the
-white-robed figure of the Arab in turban to make one fancy himself
-suddenly transported to that enchanting and mysterious land of Sultan
-and slave. No sky of Tangiers was ever deeper, clearer or bluer, and no
-air of Geneva was ever purer or sweeter.
-
-The road makes a sharp turn and traverses backward nearly half a mile,
-then turns again and runs in its original direction, climbing the
-mountain side like a great yellow serpent resting its head a thousand
-feet among the crags, where eagles build their nests; the white and red
-painted building that marks the entrance to the Cave of the Winds, does
-duty as the serpent's head. From this dizzy point of sight, the great
-mountain gorge with its grey and brown rocks, and the sloping foothills
-of green that stretch away to where fair Manitou lies cradled in the
-valley, form a wondrous panorama.
-
-Eastward, down on the horizon, far as the eye can reach, stretch the
-mighty plains, westward the higher range of the eternal Rockies, and
-above all rises the snow-capped summit of Pike's Peak, about whose
-whitened crest float the fleecy clouds of the soft, still summer
-morning.
-
-At the entrance of the Cave of the Winds one follows the guide into the
-dark pathway that leads into the subterranean chambers, where at some
-remote period a wild mountain cataract has whirled and plunged its
-maddening waters, in swirl and maelstrom into the black abyss of
-the earth. One is so suddenly transported from the gladsome and
-awe-inspiring scenes without, that the lamp and figure of the guide
-become spectral, his voice sounds in hollow tones and is echoed back
-from cavernous depths as though titanic monsters were repeating his
-words.
-
-Knowing the cause, one bursts into a laugh, then the monsters laugh,
-too, long and loud, and still others take up the laugh, way down the
-black corridors, and high above in domes, as though all the imps of
-darkness were there to laugh at one in revenge for intrusion.
-
-The guide flashes a magnesium light and the pilgrim beholds the wonders
-of Curtain Hall, which nature has ornamented with strangely colored
-stalactites glistening here and there on the cavern walls, and again
-where they form a curtain of an intricate work and beauty as though
-wrought by maiden hands, amid scenes of love and apple blossoms. Mutely
-you follow the flaring lamp of the guide into the blackness of winding
-passages and across bridges that span bottomless pits opening into the
-very breast of the mountain, and when the magnesium light is again
-flashed, one sees the arching dome of the great canopy hall, its
-stalactite nymphs, Bed of Cauliflowers, Frescoed Ceiling, Lake Basin,
-Grandmother's Skillet, Bat's Wing, Prairie Dog Village and Fairy Scene;
-all presenting a picture weird and ghost-like in the moment of
-stillness, and heightened by the demoniacal, fiendish voices that
-repeat your every word.
-
-On through other crooked subterranean passages where other demons mock
-the sound of your footsteps, through what the guide calls Boston Avenue,
-one enters Diamond Hall. The lofty ceiling is decorated its entire
-length by graceful festoons and wreaths of coral and flowering
-alabaster. The walls sparkle and scintillate with the rainbow shades,
-thrown back from the myriad brilliants that stud these walls like
-diamonds set by hand in some antique mosaic work.
-
-In these regions of darkness you are led by the guide until the Hall of
-Beauty is lit up to your astonished gaze. Crystal flowers of the most
-delicate design and exquisite workmanship hang in festoons from every
-nook and corner. Sparkling incrustations that rival the beauty of Arctic
-frosts and glitter in the bright light are sparkling on every side. Most
-wondrous of all there are a million stalactite figures in miniature that
-appear to be in a pandemonium of outlandish contortions. Maybe, who
-knows, but what the goblin spirits once lived here and worked out
-curious things in translucent stone, further down the black passages of
-earth and caught a glimpse of our ancestors in some of the great halls
-of torture way down below, and so reproduced the scene as Jack Frost has
-been wont to paint the leaves of summer on our frosted window panes.
-
-The Magi of this dark abode, the guide in wide sombrero, black eyed and
-wearing a mustache fierce as a bandit of the Corsican isle, though
-harmless as a Kansas Populist, beckons on and leads the way. Here the
-Bridal Chamber, and there writhing reptiles, dancing devils, monkeys,
-beasts, birds in every form and riotous posture. Then as the weird
-wilderness is shut out in semi-darkness, one is inclined to ask of him
-with lamp and sombrero, "Mister, have I got 'em, or have you?"
-
-The light flashes on Crystal Palace, where gems and jewels bedeck the
-walls, where huge chrysanthemums or chestnut burrs stand out in bold
-relief in fadeless crystal flowers moulded from tinted rock, and all
-seem to mutely plead for recognition as we pass. These silent beauties
-hidden away under the mountain slopes, where the rays of sun can never
-reach, speak with the beauty of their creation, to the soul with as
-great a love and power as the violet in the sequestered glens.
-
-It is mysterious. It is strange. It is one of those unaccountable things
-in nature which no man can explain that here in the very bowels of the
-earth, human scenes have been reproduced and human passions portrayed.
-
-Here perhaps centuries before man's eyes gazed upon the scene, we find
-in moulded stone, the head of a buffalo, the skeleton of a mastodon, the
-drapery of a palace, the bride at the altar, the face of sorrow, the
-Nymphs of Love, War and Poetry are depicted upon these stones.
-
-Once more the light of day, the great chasm beneath, the turquoise skies
-above, and mighty plains beyond, brings one to the realm of the outer
-world.
-
-The spectral figure of an hour ago is a pleasant faced young man, who
-bids you follow the winding path that leads around the mountain side
-some three hundred yards and which ends at the entrance to the Grand
-Caverns.
-
-Desiring to see all, you meekly follow another guide through a dark
-labyrinth and find yourself in the mighty Rotunda of the Caverns. Here
-loyal hands have raised monuments to Lee, Grant and McKinley. They are
-built of fragments of stone cast by visitors to the memory of these
-heroes. The Imp, the guide, motions on; you are next within a mighty
-auditorium and as there comes upon you the awful silence and stillness
-of the hour, you hear musical notes, swelling and cadencing louder and
-louder until they break in thunderous tones within the cavernous depths,
-"Nearer, Nearer, My God to Thee." High above, mid the domes of the
-cavern, the light shows the organist to be playing upon the stalactites
-which Nature has attuned to the same chords as instruments made by human
-hands. These stalactites are of crystal, and have the same resonant
-sound as though they were of finely tempered glass. Up and down the
-corridors of the cave, through winding passages and circling galleries
-above, come echoes of "Nearer, My God to Thee," in waves and billows of
-sound, such as is only heard by artificial means in the Notre Dame of
-Paris.
-
-Round about somewhere, in one of the chambers, near the entrance, the
-visitor is shown a human skeleton, as it was found at the time of the
-discovery of the cave. It belonged perhaps to that race of men known as
-the Cliff Dwellers, who once upon a time, when the world was new, lived,
-loved and reared a race of men in this fair region of the west whom
-Saxby, a western poet, touches with his magic pen, and beautifies the
-tradition of them when he says,
-
-  "Dismantled towers and turrets broken,
-    Like grim war-worn braves who keep
-  A silent guard with grief unspoken
-    Watch o'er the graves, by the canon weep,
-  The nameless graves of a race forgotten
-    Whose deeds, whose words, whose fate are one
-  With the mist, long ages past, begotten of the sun."
-
-The sun is now casting his shadows toward the east. From this point of
-sight we see the Midland trains creeping from tunnels like monster
-creatures of the Azotic period crawling from their lair. There are green
-valleys below, and there is also a long serpentine road leading to this
-side of the mountain by which visitors again reach the pleasant shades
-of Manitou. Silence, and even sadness, abound in the green-clad
-mountains beyond. They speak in whispers to themselves and you can
-understand them if you will. They tell you in sweet, soft voices of the
-song of birds, the lullaby of mountain brooks, and by gentle winds that
-sing a song of peace through cedar, fir and pine, that the love of
-nature, is the love of nature's God.
-
-
-
-
-XXVI.
-
-WHEN THE WEST WAS NEW.
-
-
-Thirty years have passed since I first crossed the plains. The buffalo
-and antelope have disappeared and in their stead herds of cattle and
-sheep graze in countless thousands. Farms are tilled where raging fires
-swept the mighty plains in ungoverned fury; cities and towns rear
-their spires where once stood Indian tepees. The westward march of
-civilization has stretched across the continent and redeemed the desert.
-The soil has been made to yield its harvest and the eternal hills to
-give up their buried treasure. For the men who made the trails by which
-these things were done, life's shadows are falling toward the east.
-They braved the vicissitudes of the western wilderness as heroic as any
-soldier faced the battlefield; and the trails over which the pioneers
-slowly made their way across the desert wastes, were blazed with blood
-and fire. Women, too, on the frontier, volumes might be written of her
-sacrifices--Indians, poverty, years of patient toil, far from former
-home and friends, the luxuries of organized society denied, all for the
-purpose of earning a home and a competence for declining years.
-
-It was my good fortune to become personally acquainted with many early
-pioneers of the west and number them among my warmest friends, and as I
-recall to mind some of their heroic deeds I feel that these chapters
-would be incomplete without a personal mention of a few of them.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-Captain Jack Crawford, the poet scout, is one of those noble characters
-whose memory will live so long as records exist of the pioneers who
-braved the vicissitudes of the frontier and made possible our Western
-civilization of today. A man of broad mind, daring and brave and yet
-with all the sweet tenderness of a child of nature, he became great by
-achievements alone. Others have gained a temporary fame by dime novel
-writers. Captain Jack, in comparison with others, stands out as a
-diamond of the first water. He has helped to make more trails than any
-scout unless it was Kit Carson. That was before the war. During that
-struggle he was wounded three times in the service of his country. When
-the war closed he was for many years chief of scouts under General
-Custer. He laid out Leedville in the Black Hills in 1876, and was of
-great service to the government in the settlement of the Indian troubles
-which succeeded the Custer massacre.
-
-[Illustration: Captain Jack Crawford (page 208).]
-
-Captain Jack is one of the very few thrown together with the wild, rough
-element of the frontier who maintained a strictly moral character. I
-knew him in the "Hills" in 1876 and have known him ever since, and have
-always found him to be the same genial, whole-souled, brave Captain
-Jack.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-John McCoach, a pioneer of the sixties, was a among a party near the
-headwaters of Wind River, Wyoming, in August, 1866, who defeated a
-thousand warriors with the first Henri rifles used on the plains. The
-story is best told in Mr. McCoach's own language.
-
-"Our mule trains consisting of thirty-eight wagons and forty-two men,
-left Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in April, 1866, for Virginia City,
-Montana. We were all old soldiers and most of us had seen four years of
-war and, inured as we were to dangers, we cared but little for the
-hostile Indians of the plains.
-
-"When we reached Fort Laramie, a big council of Indians was in progress,
-Chiefs Red Cloud, Spotted Tail, American Horse and others of lesser note
-were there to demand guns and ammunition from the government, saying
-they needed them with which to hunt game. Officials of high rank from
-Washington were there to listen to them and among the newspaper
-correspondents was Henry M. Stanley, who had been sent out by the New
-York Herald.
-
-"After days of deliberation the Indians were refused the arms and they
-broke camp in bad humor.
-
-"Before allowing our party to proceed the commander of the fort had us
-lined up for an inspection of our arms which were a miscellaneous
-collection all the way from an old muzzle-loading rifle to a modern
-musket. He told us we were too poorly armed to proceed, when the wagon
-boss took him to some of the wagons and showed him 200 Henri rifles and
-abundant ammunition which we were freighting to gun dealers in Virginia
-City. He then allowed us to go.
-
-"I was herding the mules one afternoon near the headwaters of Wind
-River, when a party of Sioux Indians, led by Little Thunder, made a
-dash, intending to stampede the animals. One of them carried a rawhide
-bag containing some pebbles, which made a hideous noise. Despite their
-efforts, the mules broke for our camp of circled wagons. I tried to
-shoot the Indian with the rattle bag but missed. Then I dismounted and
-the next shot I cut the quiver of arrows from his back when he gave a
-long yell and throwing himself on the side of his pony, got away.
-
-"When I reached camp the rifles had been distributed. We were called
-from our slumbers the next morning at four o'clock and told to keep
-quiet and hold our fire.
-
-"With the first gray streak of dawn about one thousand warriors began to
-encircle us, riding at full speed and like a great serpent, drawing the
-coil closer about us with each revolution of the circle. Then the order
-came and forty-two blazing rifles with eighteen shots to each one dealt
-out death. Four years of war had taught the men the value of a steady
-nerve and deliberate aim and before the astonished Indians could retreat
-the plain was strewn with their dead and wounded.
-
-"These Indians had been at the Fort Laramie council and had seen us
-drawn up in line with our old assortment of guns for inspection and had
-counted on us being easy prey. They were the first Henri rifles used on
-the plains and caused the Indians to speak of us in whispers, as the
-white men who could load a gun once and then shoot all day. That morning
-we built our fires with arrows and cooked our breakfast. After that the
-Indians avoided us as though we were devouring monsters."
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-The experience of John McCoach's party in surprising Little Thunder's
-braves with their Henri rifles, calls to mind a story often told in
-Fort Laramie of how General W. S. Harney fooled these same Sioux Indians
-under Little Thunder a few years previous to their attack on the McCoach
-outfit. Jake Smith, a soldier with General Harney in the 60's thus
-relates the story:
-
-"General Harney established his headquarters in Leavenworth, Kansas.
-Little Thunder was at the head of the Sioux and sent word that he was
-willing either to fight or shake hands with the white soldier. Harney
-replied that if the Indian was without choice in the matter it might as
-well be fight; besides, as he remembered his orders, he was to whip some
-one. So Harney met Little Thunder and about a thousand war men on the
-North Platte in Nebraska. He whipped them good and some of the Indians'
-friends back East tried to make trouble for Harney because he had not
-had a long preliminary confab with Little Thunder. That Sioux band was a
-mild-mannered set long after Harney went back to Leavenworth.
-
-"It was after this fight that Harney threw the Society for the
-Protection of Western Savages into a particular frenzy. The wagon trail
-for Oregon and California led from Fort Leavenworth to Fort Kearney,
-Neb., then to Julesburg, in Colorado, from there to Fort Laramie,
-through old South Pass to Badger and then to Salt Lake. The trip by ox
-train took about one hundred days with good luck. I know of a party that
-was on the road 300 days, delayed by Indians and then snowbound. That
-wasn't a pleasant winter for a boy of 16.
-
-"Every now and then a band of Sioux would ride up to an ox train, kill
-if they felt like it and always drive away the stock. Soldiers would be
-sent out and have the pleasure of following the Indians' trail until the
-weather would make winter quarters necessary. Harney started from
-Leavenworth after one band, taking about 400 cavalrymen, or dragoons.
-The Indians loafed along ahead of him till they reached the mountains,
-and then Harney turned back. It was the old story, the Sioux said, and
-their scouts followed the soldiers until they were well into Kansas.
-Then the Sioux knew the country was clear for new operations.
-
-"Harney stopped on the Blue River in Northern Kansas near where
-Marysville now stands. A wagon train reached there from Leavenworth and
-Harney had all the freight unloaded--simply seized the train--then he
-put 400 soldiers into those wagons and in two were mountain guns. The
-great covers were pulled close and leaving a guard over the abandoned
-freight and horses, Harney started on his journey as a bull-whacker. Not
-a soldier or officer was permitted to put his head from under a cover in
-the day time, and only at night a few got leave to stretch their legs.
-All day they sat in those wagon beds, hot and dusty, playing cards,
-fighting and chewing tobacco for pastime.
-
-"There were twenty-six of those wagons and they trailed along as if they
-were carrying dead freight; no faster nor slower than the ordinary
-freighters, and making camp at the usual places, forming the usual
-corral of wagons and herding stock at night. The train reached Fort
-Kearny and slowly went across the South Platte to Julesburg. Occasional
-Indian signs made Harney have hope.
-
-"The outfit was seventy miles on the way to Laramie when the big day
-came, and it came quick. Behind them on the trail the men on the outside
-saw a war party--some say there were five hundred Indians in it. Even if
-they hadn't been painted the fact that they were without women
-or children would have told the story. The train made the usual
-preparations for an Indian attack, throwing the wagons into a circle, or
-more of an ellipse, and unhooking the five lead yokes to each wagon. A
-front wheel of each wagon touched a hind wheel of the one in front and
-the tongues were turned to the outside. At the front end of the corral
-an opening about fifteen feet wide was left, but at the rear the opening
-into the corral was about fifty feet wide. That, also, was according to
-the freighters' methods; after a night camp the cattle would be driven
-into the corral through the big end to be yoked for the day.
-
-"Harney didn't have time to drive his oxen into the corral, or else he
-didn't want to. Only the five yoke of leaders were unhooked and they
-were then chained to the front wheel of their wagon. The space in the
-corral was all clear for the Indians, whose method of attacking a wagon
-train was to rush into the corral and do their shooting. They were a
-happy lot of braves this day; the war band started for the train when
-the corral was forming; they spread out like a fan and then came
-together again and started for the big opening as hard as their war
-ponies could carry them. A whooping, variegated mob with no more clothes
-than the paint gave it fell into the corral and then real fun began.
-
-"Those soldiers, who had been sweating under canvas for a few weeks
-wanted excitement and revenge. The tarpaulins went up and they shot down
-into that mess of braves as fast as they could load. The two mountain
-guns completed the surprise and the bucks hardly fired a shot before
-their ponies were climbing over one another to get out the way they
-came. It was the only real Indian panic. When the last Sioux brave able
-to ride disappeared across the prairie there was a big mess to clean up.
-In those days the Indians needed school all the year around. However,
-one old buck, a little chief, seemed to be impressed. He was near a
-mountain gun when the fire opened. 'Harney is the man who shot wagons at
-us,' is the way he told about it years later.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-Charles S. Stroble, "Mountain Charley," known as the cowboy painter, was
-adopted by the Ute Indians at the age of nineteen. I have often heard
-him tell the following experience:
-
-"It was the most marvelous instance of daredevil bravery I ever
-witnessed. It happened in 1866 when I was living with the Utes west of
-the range in Middle Park, Colorado. They had adopted me a year or so
-before when I was twenty years of age. My name in Ute was Paghaghet,
-which means 'long-haired.'
-
-"It was at this time that the old feud between the Utes and Arapahoes
-was at its height. Our scouts found the Arapahoes coming in from North
-Park in the endeavor to surprise some of the Utes' hunting parties. Our
-runners having come in and informed us, we soon collected a war party
-and started north to intercept our enemies.
-
-"I was with the scouting party which went in advance, and I was the only
-white man in the entire tribe. We found the sign left by their scouts,
-and then concealed ourselves until our war party could come up. As soon
-as reinforcements arrived we deployed on either side of a gulch or
-canon, with our horses hidden away among the rocks and timber in charge
-of horse-holders.
-
-"We had not waited long when we sighted the advance of the Arapahoes
-down below us in the gulch. We were unnoticed, because we left no tracks
-in the gulch and had deployed some distance below.
-
-"When the main body of the enemy had passed our place of concealment we
-opened fire on them from each side of the gulch, and they, not knowing
-our numbers, were panic-stricken. They wheeled and came tumbling back up
-the gulch in great confusion, and all the time subjected to our fire. To
-be sure, they were returning the fire wherever they caught sight of us,
-but we had by far the best of them and peppered them hotly.
-
-"The Utes got about eight scalps, as the Arapahoes, although they
-carried their wounded with them in their flight, were in too big a hurry
-to look after the dead.
-
-"My Indian brother, Paah, or 'Black Tailed Deer," and Wangbich, the
-'Antelope,' were with me behind some sheltering rocks, and on each side
-of me. As the Arapahoes were scurrying away through the canon below we
-noticed particularly one fine-looking young buck, wearing a splendid
-war bonnet, which flaunted bravely in the breeze. This fellow was
-singled out by Paah. At the crack of his rifle the Arapahoe threw out
-his arms and fell backward from his pony and the pony galloped away.
-
-"Paah, elated at the success of his shot, dropped his rifle and plunged
-down the steep side of the canon, which ran up here at an angle of about
-forty-five degrees, the other Indians passing all the time and letting
-loose at him a fusillade of rifle shots and flights of arrows. At length
-Paah got to his dead Arapahoe, planted his foot on the back of the man's
-neck, grasped both scalplock and side braids, gave them a turn on his
-wrist and with the aid of his knife secured the full scalp.
-
-"Then seizing the war bonnet, he came tearing up the side of the gulch,
-his trophies in one hand and his knife held dagger wise in the other, to
-assist him in making the steep ascent.
-
-"The arrows and bullets flew thickly about him, but, marvelous to tell,
-he arrived on the little flat space back of us without a scratch. Waving
-his bloody spoils above his head he essayed to give the Ute yell of
-victory, but he was so exhausted that he was only able to let out a
-funny squeak as he fell prostrate to avoid the shots that were now
-pouring in our direction. Wangbich and I covered him the best we could
-by emptying our six-shooters at the Arapahoes, and he finally succeeded
-in crawling to shelter.
-
-"On the return of our war expedition to the principal village we
-celebrated our victory in royal style. The Utes from other villages kept
-pouring in, and there was dancing afternoon and night for many days.
-This chief village was located under some high rocks on the Grand river,
-near a hot spring. The principal feature of the celebration was a scalp
-parade, a gorgeous affair in which all kinds of silvered ornaments,
-feathered and beaded costumes were worn. I afterward painted this
-splendid scene as it appeared to me and the picture is now hanging in
-the Iroquois club in Chicago."
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-"Possibly my experience in the bullwhacking days across the plains,"
-says George P. Marvin, "does not materially differ from that of other
-men who piloted six yoke of cattle hitched to eighty hundred of freight
-across the desert. Yet there were many incidents connected with life
-upon the plains that have never been written.
-
-"There was scarcely a day passed but something occurred that would
-furnish material upon which the writer of romance could build an
-interesting book of adventures.
-
-"In the freighting days of the early '60's, the overland trail up the
-Platte River was a broad road 200 or more feet in width. This was
-reached from various Missouri River points, as a great trunk line of
-railroad is now supplied by feeders. From Leavenworth, Atchison and St.
-Joe, those freighters who went the northern route crossed the Blue River
-at Marysville, Kansas, Oketo and other points, and traveled up the
-Little Blue, crossing over the divide and striking the big road at
-Dogtown, ten miles east of Fort Kearney. From Nebraska City, which was
-the principal freighting point upon the river from '64 until the
-construction of the Union Pacific railroad. What was known as the Steam
-Wagon road was the great trail. This feeder struck the Platte at a point
-about forty miles east of Kearney. It derived its name from an attempt
-to draw freight wagons over it by the use of steam, after the manner of
-the traction engine of today.
-
-"My first trip across the plains was over this route, which crossed the
-Big Blue a few miles above the present town of Crete, Nebraska. At the
-Blue crossing we were 'organized,' a detachment of soldiers being there
-for that purpose, and no party of less than thirty men was permitted to
-pass. Under this organization, which was military in its character, we
-were required to remain together, to obey the orders of our 'captain,'
-and to use all possible precaution against the loss of our scalps and
-the freight and cattle in our care.
-
-"The daily routine of the freighter's life was to get up at the first
-peep of dawn, yoke up and if possible get 'strung out' ahead of other
-trains, for there was a continuous stretch of white covered wagons as
-far as the eye could reach.
-
-"With the first approach of day, the night herder would come to camp and
-call the wagon boss. He would get up, pound upon each wagon and call the
-men to 'turn out,' and would then mount his saddle mule and go out and
-assist in driving in the cattle.
-
-"The corral was made by arranging the wagons in a circular form, the
-front wheel of one wagon interlocking with the hind wheel of the one in
-front of it. Thus two half circles were formed with a gap at either end.
-Into this corral the cattle were driven and the night herder watched one
-gap and the wagon boss the other, while the men yoked up.
-
-"The first step in the direction of yoking up was to take your lead yoke
-upon your shoulder and hunt up your off leader. Having found your steer
-you put the bow around his neck and with the yoke fastened to him, lead
-him to the wagon, where he was fastened to the wheel by a chain. You
-then took the other bow and led your near leader with it to his place
-under the yoke. Your lead chain was then hooked to the yoke and laid
-over the back of the near leader, and the other cattle were hunted up
-and yoked in the same manner until the wheelers were reached. Having the
-cattle all yoked, you drove them all out, chained together, and hitched
-them to the wagon.
-
-"The first drive in the morning would probably be to 10 o'clock, or
-later, owing to the weather and distance between favorable camping
-grounds. Cattle were then unyoked and the men got their first meal of
-the day. The cattle were driven in and yoked for the second drive any
-time from 2 to 4 o'clock, the time of starting being governed by the
-heat, two drives of about five to seven hours each being made each day.
-The rate of travel was about two miles an hour, or from 20 to 25 miles a
-day, the condition of the roads and the heat governing.
-
-"This, then, was the regular daily routine, though the yoking up of
-cattle was often attended with difficulty. Many freighting trains
-started from the Missouri river with not more than two yoke of cattle in
-the six that comprised each team, that had ever worn a yoke before. Many
-had to be 'roped,' and not a few of the wildest, as the Texas and
-Cherokee varieties, were permitted to wear their yokes continually, for
-weeks.
-
-"While the bull-whacker's life was full of that adventure and romance
-that possessed its fascination, there were some very rough sides to it,
-though taking it all in all, it afforded an experience that few indeed
-would part with, and in after years there is nothing that I recall with
-more genuine pleasure than life in the camps upon the plains during the
-freighting days.
-
-"In an aggregation of men such as manned the prairie schooners of thirty
-odd years ago there were some very peculiar characters. This was
-especially true of those old 'Desert Tars,' who for the time made
-bullwacking a profession and who were never so happy as when swinging a
-twenty-foot whip over a string of steers.
-
-"These droll people bore nicknames suggested by characteristics or
-conditions, and there were few indeed who responded to any other name,
-in fact, I have been intimately associated with men about the camp fire
-for months and never knew their real name.
-
-"A tall, slender person might be known as 'Lengthy' or 'Slim'; a short,
-stout one as 'Shorty' or 'Stub-and-Twist.' We had in one of our trains
-'Kentuck,' who happened to hail from the Blue Grass State, also 'Sucker
-Ike,' who was from Illinois; 'Buckeye Bill' was from Ohio, while
-'Hawkeye Hank' was from Iowa. 'Hoosier Dave' was from Posey County,
-while 'Yank' hailed from the far east; 'Mormon Jack' was an old-time
-bullwhacker who used to pass himself off for a Mormon when it suited his
-convenience; 'Bishop Lee' also played Mormon when we were over in the
-Salt Lake Valley; the man with red or auburn hair was invariably called
-'Reddy,' 'Sandy' or 'Pinky,' while another whose facial architecture was
-of the Romanesque style would be called 'Nosey.'
-
-"These quaint characters would place a 'Wild West' comedy upon the
-boards without much acting. The costumes varied as much as their names.
-Some wore flannel shirts, some cotton of any and all colors, while
-others dressed in drilling jumpers. Their pants or overalls were held up
-by a belt, as suspenders were unknown. One character that was with us
-for a year or more, was a man called 'Scotty,' a native of Scotland, and
-a sailmaker by trade. He used to mend and patch his clothes and the
-clothes of the other boys, until it was difficult to tell the original
-goods. His strong point was 'foxing' clothes with canvas which he always
-carried for that purpose. He would take a new pair of pants and 'fox'
-them with white canvas, putting large patches over the knees, around
-the knees, around the pockets, in the seat and crotch, until they
-looked real artistic. He usually 'pinked' the edges of his patches or
-'foxing,' and I have known the boys to pay his as much as $5 for
-'foxing' a pair of heavy wool pants with duck.
-
-"By way of entertainment, every man could play a part. One could tell a
-good yarn, while another could sing a song, and all could play
-'freeze-out.'
-
-"The songs sang about the campfires were not such as are rendered by
-opera companies of the present day. In fact, they have gone into disuse
-since the men who sang them and the occasion that gave them birth, have
-passed into history.
-
-"Among the popular melodies of the time was 'Betsey from Pike.' The
-first verse ran like this:
-
-  "'Oh, do you remember sweet Betsey, from Pike,
-  Who traveled the mountains with her lover, Ike;
-  With one yoke of cattle, a large yellow dog,
-  One full shanghai rooster and one spotted hog.'
-
-Chorus--
-
-  "'Sing a Tu-ral Li-ural, Li-ural Li-a,
-  Sing a Tu-ral Li-ural, Li-ural, Li-a,
-  Sing a Tu-ral Li-ural, Li-ural, Li-a,
-  Why don't you sing Tu-ral, Li-ural Li-a.'
-
-"The chorus, when joined by twenty or more bullwhackers who always
-carried their lungs with them, was indeed thrilling, as was the last
-stanza, in fact every stanza from the first to the last.
-
-"The last verse ran like this:
-
-  "'The wagon broke down and the cattle all died,
-  That morning the last piece of bacon was fried.
-  Ike looked discouraged, and Betsey was mad,
-  The dog dropped his tail and looked wonderfully sad.'
-
-"Another popular air of the day was:
-
-  "'My name is Joe Bowers,
-    I had a brother Ike;
-  We came from old Missouri,
-    All the way from Pike,
-  Etc., Etc.'
-
-"A song sang by a California miner who went by the euphonious sobriquet
-of "Sluice Box," never failed to elicit encore. It was descriptive of
-his adversities and trials through the sluice mining country, and the
-last lines that I remember were:
-
-    "'I stole a dog, got whipped like hell,
-  And away I went for Marysville.
-    Then leave, ye miners, leave,
-  Oh, leave, ye miners, leave.'
-
-"Then the boys used to sandwich in Irish, German and negro melodies,
-besides drawing upon national and war songs. Among the latter, 'John
-Brown' and 'Dixie' were quite popular, but any song with a good, stiff
-chorus was the proper thing.
-
-"A parody on the 'Texas Ranger' was also a popular song, though not so
-lively and inspiring as the others, being lacking in a chorus. It was a
-sort of lament of a boy who at the age of eighteen ran away, 'joined Old
-Major's train,' and started for Laramie. They had a fight at Plum Creek,
-in which six of their men were killed by the Indians and buried in one
-grave. In his description of the fight he says:
-
-  "'We saw the Indians coming,
-    They came up with a yell,
-  My feeling that moment
-    No human tongue can tell.
-
-  "'I thought of my old mother,
-    In tears she said to me:
-  "To you they're all strangers;
-    You'd better stay with me."
-
-  "'I thought her old and childish,
-    Perhaps she did not know
-  My mind was fixed on driving,
-    And I was bound to go.'
-
-  "'We fought them full one hour
-    Before the fight was o'er,
-  And the like of dead Indians
-    I never saw before;'
-
-  "'And six as brave fellows
-    As ever came out West,
-  Were buried up at Plum-Creek,
-    Their souls in peace to rest."
-
-"In this connection I may say that less than thirty rods from the place
-where those six brave bullwhackers are buried, eleven others lie in one
-grave, killed by Indians.
-
-"The last time that I passed over the road at Plum Creek was in the
-spring of 1867. The railroad had been built beyond that point on the
-north side of the river, and the stage line had just been pulled off.
-
-"Bands of Indians were quite troublesome and as the little troop of
-soldiers stationed at Plum Creek had been removed, the station keeper
-had been frightened away, and the sole occupant of the place was a
-telegraph operator. I talked with him as we watched the Indians over on
-the hill and there was a picture of despair written upon his every
-feature. We told him that he ought not to stay and insisted upon his
-taking his traps and going with us. He wanted to, but felt it his duty
-to remain in charge of the telegraph office. I will never forget the
-parting with that man. He was a perfect stranger. I never saw him
-before, didn't even know his name, and our acquaintance only covered a
-few hours, but there was something terrible in the look of anxiety that
-he gave us as he refused to leave his post.
-
-"We were the last white men that that poor fellow ever looked upon. Even
-as our train pulled out the Indians were in sight upon the hills south
-of the station, and that evening they burned the station, and nothing
-was ever heard of the Plum Creek operator, who, knowing the fate that
-awaited him, remained at his post and was massacred by the merciless
-Sioux."
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-The frontier preacher had his share alike with others in hardship and
-adventure, as will be seen by the experience of the Rev. H. T. Davis.
-
-"We said to the authorities of our church: 'We would like to go west and
-spend our lives in laying the foundations and building up the church on
-the frontier.' The way was at once opened, and in July, 1858, we landed
-at Bellevue, Nebraska. This was our first field of labor. We had no
-church organization here at that time, so everything had to be made from
-the raw material. Notwithstanding this was the case, we really enjoyed
-the work.
-
-"We shall never forget the first Nebraska blizzard we encountered. The
-day before was beautiful almost like a summer day. Mrs. Davis had washed
-and hung out her clothes. We retired to rest, the soft balmy air, like a
-zephyr, was blowing from the south. About midnight the wind shifted to
-the north and it began to snow. In the morning the weather was freezing
-cold and the snow was piled in drifts many feet high around the house.
-We looked out and saw the clothes line but no clothes. We tried to find
-them, but in vain. They were gone. Not a shred was left save one or two
-small pieces. And we never saw or heard of them again. Our neighbors who
-were acquainted with Nebraska blizzards said: 'Your clothes were in
-Kansas long before morning.' Our wardrobe was not the most extensive,
-and we felt keenly the loss. Since then we have encountered many a
-blizzard, and we are never surprised at the awful havoc and devastation
-that follow in their wake.
-
-"Another thing that occurred that same winter we shall never forget.
-Although forty-one years have passed away since it took place, it stands
-out as vividly before us now as though it had happened but yesterday.
-The thought of that thrilling event even now causes our blood to tingle,
-our nerves to quiver, our heart to throb, and a lump to come into our
-throat, that produces anything but a pleasing sensation.
-
-"It was a race for life. We had friends in Omaha and we determined to
-go to visit them. The Missouri river is frozen over in the winter, and
-of course, is unnavigable. The whistle of the locomotive had never been
-heard on the prairies of Nebraska. The only way left for us to reach
-Omaha was by private conveyance. We procured a horse and sleigh for the
-purpose. After visiting a few days in Omaha we started home.
-
-"The day selected for our return was bright and clear. The snow was
-deep, and the weather bitter cold. The brilliant rays of the sun caused
-the snow in the road, on plain and hillside, to sparkle and glitter, and
-the whole country as far as the eye could extend shone like burnished
-silver. By my side, in the sleigh, sat my wife. It was our first winter
-in the territory. Everything was new and strange and wild, altogether
-different from anything we had ever seen before. The absence of timber
-made the snow-covered hills and plains appear dreary in the extreme, and
-created a feeling of loneliness that cannot be easily described.
-
-"After we had gone a few miles, looking back, my wife saw away in the
-distance an animal.
-
-"'What is that?' said she, somewhat agitated. I turned and looked. It
-was so far away I could not for the life of me distinguish just what it
-was. I replied: 'Oh, nothing but a dog from one of the farms by the
-wayside.'
-
-"But if it were only a dog I feared it. I never had any particular love
-for the canine race. And if that were only a dog my wife saw away in the
-distance I was extremely anxious to keep out of his way. So I urged my
-horse a little.
-
-"Reaching the top of the next hill my wife again looked back. Then she
-tucked the robe more closely about her. I looked into her face. She
-looked troubled and seemed quite nervous, but said nothing. I turned my
-head, and there in the road, away in the distance, I saw the same
-object. It seemed to be gaining on us. Again I urged my horse,
-encouraging him all I possibly could. A peculiar feeling instantly crept
-all over me. It was a strange sensation. My hand trembled and the whip
-quivered as I held it.
-
-"The fact had flashed over me that the object seen in the road behind us
-was not a dog but a buffalo wolf. The buffalo wolf of Nebraska was the
-same as the giant wolf of Oregon. It was the largest species of the gray
-wolf, and often attacked and killed buffaloes and on that account was
-called by trappers, Indian traders and the early pioneers of the west
-the 'buffalo wolf.' These wolves, when hungry, did not hesitate to
-attack man. They were large, strong, savage and dangerous in the
-extreme. I knew very well if it were one of these that had scented us
-out, and was on our trail, and should overtake us, there would be no
-hope whatever for our escape. The only hope of saving our lives was to
-reach the village before we were overtaken. Knowing how fleet of foot
-the wolf was, the hope seemed a forlorn one. I knew that not one
-moment's time could be lost--that my horse must be pushed to the last
-extremity of his strength. I tried to keep cool and not become
-frightened, but in vain. No one under such circumstances can keep from
-being frightened.
-
-"Silently we breathed a prayer to God for help. How natural it is to
-pray when in danger. Under such circumstances all men pray, believers in
-the Christian religion and unbelievers. All alike at times feel the
-need of supernatural help, and at such times call upon God for
-assistance. If at no other time, when in great danger, we pray--pray
-earnestly.
-
-"Seeing the wolf was rapidly gaining on us, I spoke sharply to my horse,
-and plied the whip anew. Faster and faster he flew over the hardened
-snow, and faster and faster our hearts beat with fear. The snow clods
-flew thick and fast from the hoofs of our flying steed. To these,
-however, we paid but little attention. Reaching the next rise, again we
-looked back, and to our surprise the wolf was nearer than ever. I felt
-that the only thing to do was to urge the horse until every nerve and
-muscle were taxed to their utmost tension. Our panting steed seemed to
-take in the situation, and if ever an animal made fast time it was our
-noble horse on that cold December day. Again my wife turned her anxious
-eyes toward our rapidly approaching foe and every time she looked back
-the trouble on her face deepened. She said nothing. Not a word was
-spoken. Her look, however, spoke volumes. My heart leaped into my
-throat, and I was too much frightened to speak.
-
-"Up one hill and down, then up another and down our galloping horse
-carried us. Again we turned our faces to the rear, and again were
-thrilled anew with fear. The wolf was only a short distance behind. The
-time had come when it seemed there must be a hand to hand grapple with
-the savage beast of prey. The top of the next hill was reached, and in
-full view, only a few rods away, rose the beautiful village of Bellevue.
-Descending the slope we looked back. The wolf had just reached the brow
-of the hill, and seeing the village, stopped for a moment, then turned
-aside. A moment afterwards our panting horse drove up to the parsonage
-and we were safe. A prayer of thanksgiving went up to God for
-deliverance.
-
-"Forty-one years have passed away since that eventful ride on the bleak
-prairies of Nebraska, but that race for life is as fresh on memory's
-page as if it had taken place but yesterday.
-
-"We have seen with our own eyes the buffalo path transformed into the
-public highway and the Indian trail to the railroad, with its fiery
-steed snuffing the breeze and sweeping with lightning speed from the
-Missouri River to the gold-washed shores of the Pacific."
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-One of the hottest, bloodiest little fights on American soil occurred at
-Beecher Island, seventeen miles south of Wray, Colorado, September 17,
-1868, which Thomas Murphy, of Corbin, Kansas, had the honor of selecting
-as the place of defense.
-
-Forsyth's Rough Riders, numbering fifty-four men, made as heroic a stand
-as the defenders of the Alamo, and from their rifle pits on the "Island
-of Death," in the Arickaree fork of the Republican River, defeated 1,000
-Cheyenne Indians, in which their chief, Roman Nose, was killed.
-
-At that time the Cheyennes were a devastating horde that swept over the
-plains of Kansas, Nebraska and Colorado. Major George A. Forsyth, who
-was with Sheridan on his ride from Winchester, and who has since become
-a general, was given permission by that general to organize a force
-against the marauding Indians. This he did, choosing a small body of
-picked men from plainsmen, hunters and ex-soldiers from Ft. Harker and
-Ft. Hayes.
-
-Mr. Murphy recently gave me the following account of the fight.
-
-On the 15th of September our little band of troopers arrived in the
-valley of the Arickaree and on the following morning at daybreak we were
-attacked by a rifle fire from the Indians, who had us almost surrounded.
-There was only one way out for retreat, but Major Forsyth shrewdly
-decided that it was done for the purpose of ambush, and instead of
-falling into the trap, took position on the small island in the river.
-We used our tin cups and plates to dig rifle pits in the sand. Our
-horses were hitched to the young cottonwoods on the island.
-
-Roman Nose apparently had us in a trap. His riflemen were posted on the
-banks on either side of the island and poured a galling fire into the
-rifle pits all that day. Lieutenant Frederick H. Beecher, a nephew of
-the illustrious Henry Ward Beecher, was killed at the side of Major
-Forsyth. Dr. Mooers was hit in the forehead and mortally wounded.
-Several of the most valuable scouts also fell and many were wounded.
-Toward the close of the day Major Forsyth was wounded near unto death,
-but when merciful night came he rallied the men and gave directions for
-the fight the next morning.
-
-At daybreak the second day Roman Nose led in person fully one thousand
-warriors on horseback, who rode up the shallow waters of the stream to
-attack the rifle pits. The charge was a magnificent one, but we poured
-volley after volley into their midst until Roman Nose fell and they
-retreated in confusion.
-
-A second charge was made at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, but there was no
-longer a great war chief in command and the Indians broke within two
-hundred yards of the rifle pits. At 6 o'clock at night they made another
-charge from all sides, but our men deliberately picked them off before
-they set foot on the island, until the waters of the river were red with
-blood. The place was a very hornet's nest to the Indians and they
-withdrew baffled.
-
-The casualties now amounted to twenty-three killed and wounded out
-of fifty-four men. Ammunition was running low and we were out of
-provisions, but there was plenty of horse meat, for our mounts had
-nearly all been killed. When darkness had settled down volunteers were
-called for to carry the news of our predicament to Fort Wallace. Peter
-Trudeau and Jack Stillwell volunteered. They skilfully ran the enemy's
-lines and brought relief seven days later.
-
-Meanwhile the sufferings of the men were terrible. The horse meat had
-become putrid and unfit to eat. The days were hot and the nights were
-cold, and there was no surgeon to alleviate the sufferings of the sick
-and wounded.
-
-Major Forsyth had given up hope of relief and begged us to leave him and
-cut our way out, but we said, "No, we have fought together, and if need
-be, we will die together." When relief came some of the men wept for
-joy.
-
-It was I who suggested the island as a place of defense at the first
-attack. It was seconded by Jack Stillwell.
-
-A reunion of Forsyth's men was held on the historic island September 17,
-1905, when a monument given by the state of Colorado and the state of
-Kansas was unveiled, bearing the names of all who participated in that
-famous fight.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-"It seems to me people were happier in Colorado City in early days than
-now," said J. B. Sims, a pioneer of the sixties.
-
-"At Christmas times we had shooting matches, a horse race or two, plenty
-of Tom and Jerry, and usually wound up the day with a dance at the Anway
-Fort and a supper at Smith and Baird's hotel. Often half a dozen
-families would arrange a friendly dinner at some neighbor's house, and
-the hotel men would make a big dinner and invite the ranchmen to come in
-and enjoy the festivities.
-
-"The pious people who were averse to horse-racing would generally pitch
-horseshoes and sometimes end the day in a big game of draw poker. There
-was not much money in circulation, and the betting on a horse race was
-commonly a sack of flour, a side of bacon or a shotgun.
-
-"No, we never hung the horsethieves on Christmas. Those festivities were
-held until the new year, so as to start the community off with good
-resolutions.
-
-"A premonition of danger warned me once of lurking hostile Indians on
-Cottonwood Creek on the morning of December 26, 1868, resulting in a
-preparation for battle that probably saved my life.
-
-"It was the day after Christmas. I was in the employ of the Beatty
-Brothers Cattle Company and was looking up some stray cattle near the
-head of the Cottonwood Creek, twenty miles north of Colorado City.
-
-"I had been riding through the timber and was about to emerge into the
-open when a premonition of danger came over me. The feeling was so
-strong that I loosened my Henri rifle from the saddle holster and looked
-to the two heavy Colt revolvers I carried about me.
-
-"Half an hour passed and while I had not yet seen anything, I could not
-shake off the feeling of approaching danger. Twenty minutes more and
-sure enough, from out of a ravine came about sixty Cheyenne and Arapahoe
-Indians in their war paint, riding rapidly toward me.
-
-"I instantly wheeled my horse and rode for a rocky butte about half a
-mile distant. My horse climbed the butte almost with the agility of a
-goat. As the bullets tore up the ground about us I led him behind some
-big rocks and then paid my respects to the advancing war party.
-
-"My Henri rifle carried eighteen shots. The repeating rifle being then
-unheard of by these Indians, was the greatest surprise they ever met. My
-first shot emptied a saddle, and then when they thought to rush me, two
-or three more went down. They could not understand the rapidity of my
-fire, and by the time I had emptied my rifle I had them on the run and
-out of range.
-
-"They advanced two or three times during the day and I became amused and
-allowed them to come within easy range, when I would turn loose as fast
-as I could work the rifle, and scatter them.
-
-"Late in the afternoon they gave me up as bad medicine and rode away
-toward Gomer's hill, where they killed a Mexican boy. They then swung
-back toward Palmer Lake and killed Mrs. Teeterman, who chanced to be
-alone on a ranch near the headwaters of Plumb Creek.
-
-"From that day I have never doubted the existence of an unseen power
-which may warn us of approaching danger."
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-Antelope Jack, bronzed and grey, a grim warrior of the early frontier
-days, who made his home in Colorado City off and on for many years,
-would respond to no other name, whatever it may have been.
-
-No one appeared to care much for old Jack, but Jack had a history that
-would have made him an idol in certain circles, for in 1874 he was one
-of the fourteen men who fought the Battle of Adobe Walls in northwest
-Texas, one of the fiercest fought on the plains.
-
-Long before Napoleon signed the Louisiana purchase treaty, and while all
-the vast territory lying south of it belonged to Mexico, a party of
-traders from Santa Fe established a fort in northwest Texas. It was of
-adobe or sun dried brick and had stood deserted in that arid region,
-almost intact, for perhaps more than one hundred years.
-
-In 1874, when the extermination of the buffalo had become a military
-necessity in order to deprive the Indian of his commissary on his
-marauding expeditions, a party of buffalo hunters took up headquarters
-in the adobe walls and it being in the heart of the buffalo country,
-others came, and it was soon made a trading post.
-
-The Comanches, Arapahoes and Apaches, ever jealous of their domain,
-formed a federation and proceeded against the settlements of northwest
-Texas and Kansas. A raid was planned on Adobe Walls. The time set for
-the attack was early dawn, when it was expected the men would be asleep.
-
-The men, not apprehensive of danger, were asleep with the doors open,
-but "Bat" Masterson rose early that morning and upon going to the stream
-for water, caught sight of the advancing horde.
-
-The men were quickly alarmed and the doors fastened. Two men asleep on
-the outside in wagons were killed.
-
-The Indians rode their ponies up to the heavy doors and threw them on
-their haunches against them. The men inside barricaded the doors with
-sacks of flour and fired through loopholes in the faces of the savages,
-who numbered about five hundred.
-
-The battle raged all day and dead Indians and ponies were piled up to
-within a few feet of the doors.
-
-One young brave, painted and bedecked with feathers, gained the roof and
-tore away the adobe covering until he could reach through with his
-revolver, which he fired at random below, filling the room with smoke.
-He was killed before he emptied his weapon. There were only fourteen
-guns of the defenders and at times every one had to be brought into
-action to resist the renewed attack against the doors.
-
-Finally the doors parted until there was a wide aperture on both sides
-through which the Indians fired as they rode past, or hurled their
-arrows and lances.
-
-Fixed ammunition was running low, but there was an abundance of powder,
-bullets and primers for reloading shells. Men were detailed for this
-work so that there was a volcano of fire belching from the fort all day.
-
-Meanwhile, Minimic, the medicine man of the tribes, who had planned the
-fight, rode at a safe distance, urging on the Indians, saying the
-medicine he had made was good and they could not fail.
-
-Finally, late in the day, his horse was hit by a sharpshooter and with
-this the Indians lost faith and withdrew.
-
-"I was only busy like the rest," was all Antelope Jack would say of his
-courage on that day.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-The massacre at the White River Indian agency in Colorado, and the
-ambuscade of Major Thornburg's command by Utes in 1879, was the last of
-the serious troubles with the Indians in Colorado.
-
-It was the cause, however, of a reign of terror on the plains, as it was
-thought to be the signal for a general uprising.
-
-When the news reached the C. C. Ranch on the Cimarron River, I was
-especially interested in the fate of E. W. Eskridge, an employe of the
-White River agency, who I would have joined within a short time, had the
-terrible affair resulting in his death not occurred.
-
-I have never met any of the soldiers under Major Thornburg's command,
-nor any settlers who were in the vicinity at the time, and the best
-account I have been able to get of the massacre is the following by an
-unknown writer:
-
-"The White River Utes had been ugly for some time, and had prepared for
-an outbreak. They committed many depredations among the settlers and
-cherished resentment against the agent, Mr. Meeker. Only an hour before
-the attack upon the agency by Chief Douglass and twenty braves Meeker
-dispatched a message to Major Thornburg, known to be en route, in which
-he said:
-
-"'Everything is quiet here and Douglass is flying the United States
-flag.'
-
-"At that hour Thornburg lay dead in Milk River canon, on the
-reservation. The writer was cruelly slain and mutilated within an hour,
-and the messenger, E. W. Eskridge, who carried the note, was shot down
-before he had proceeded two miles from the agency.
-
-"The attack on Thornburg was made at 10 o'clock on the morning of
-September 29. When the news reached Chief Douglass by courier he at once
-proceeded to execute his portion of the plot. He and his men went to
-the agency and began firing upon the employes, continuing until all were
-killed. The women, who were Mrs. Meeker, her daughter Josephine, Mrs.
-Price, wife of the agency blacksmith, and her little girl three years
-old, ran to the milkhouse and shut themselves in while the massacre went
-on. After the bloody work was completed the building was fired and they
-were forced out, to be taken captives.
-
-"Meeker's body was found a week later 200 yards from his house, with a
-logchain about his neck, one side of his head mashed and a barrel stave
-driven through his body. Eight other bodies were found near by and four
-more on the road to the agency. The Indians stole all movable goods and
-packing the plunder on ponies fled, taking with them the captives.
-Through the influence and peremptory intervention of Ouray, head chief
-of the Ute nation, and after troublesome negotiations, Chief Douglass
-surrendered the captives, who were taken to Ouray's home, on the
-Southern Ute reservation, and reached Denver in November.
-
-"Major Thornburg's command, consisting of one company of the Fourth
-Infantry, Troop E, Third Cavalry, and Troops D and F, Fifth Cavalry,
-left Fort Steele, Wyoming, on the Union Pacific railroad, and marched
-over the mountains toward the agency to aid in quelling the threatened
-outbreak, but the Utes struck before the troops reached their
-destination and also intercepted and ambushed the command.
-
-"When the troops reached Bear River, sixty-five miles from the agency,
-they were visited in camp by Chief Captain Jack and several braves, who
-were most friendly, and were entertained at supper by Major Thornburg.
-The object of this call was to size up the force and to learn the route
-to be taken by the troops the next day. They offered to guide the troops
-to the agency, but this was declined.
-
-"The next morning about 10 o'clock, while the troops were in a narrow
-canon at the crossing of Milk River, fire suddenly opened upon them from
-the bluffs on all sides. No Indians could be seen, but bullets poured
-and smoke puffed from behind the rocks. Major Thornburg was killed while
-in front of his men.
-
-"Troop D was half a mile in the rear of the other troops with the wagon
-train at the time of the attack, and Lieutenant J. V. S. Paddock, in
-command, at once formed his wagons into a barricade and the other troops
-fell back to the improvised breastworks, where for six days the soldiers
-were besieged and nearly all their animals killed. On the morning of
-October 2 Captain Dodge, with a troop of the Ninth Cavalry, colored, who
-had been on his way to the agency, reinforced the beleaguered men, but
-his force was not large enough to aid in repulsing the Utes. The first
-night Private Murphy of D troop volunteered to go through the lines for
-assistance. The heroic trooper made the ride to Rawlins, Wyo., a
-distance of 170 miles, in 24 hours, and telegraphed for help.
-
-"News of the plight of the Thornburg command reached Fort Russell on the
-morning of October 1, and General Wesley Merritt immediately ordered a
-relief expedition. Four troops of the Fifth Cavalry started at once to
-Rawlins by train, reaching there at 1 o'clock the next morning, where
-they were joined by four companies of the Fourth Infantry, and the
-troops began their long march to the relief of their comrades.
-
-"At dawn on the third day, with General Merritt ahead with the cavalry,
-the troops entered the valley of death and were greeted with cheers by
-the exhausted victims of treachery. The cowardly Utes withdrew when
-reinforcements arrived, and the troops were unable to follow them
-through the mountain trails.
-
-"On the road to Milk River the relief party came upon the remains of a
-wagon train which had been bound for the agency with supplies. All the
-men were murdered, stripped and partly burned. After General Merritt
-reached the agency Lieutenant W. B. Weir, of the ordnance department,
-while out on a scouting expedition, was surrounded by Utes and killed.
-
-"Of Major Thornburg's command thirteen were killed and forty-eight
-wounded.
-
-"Although the government made a long investigation of the Meeker and
-Thornburg massacres none of the leaders was ever punished. The only
-action taken was the removal of the White River Utes to a new
-reservation in Utah by an act of congress."
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-In conclusion, we do not have to go to the annals of the past, nor to
-distant shores to find heroes and heroines. They are in our midst today.
-A nobler band of men and women never graced this planet than many of the
-men and women who laid the foundations of the state and the church on
-the frontier of the west.
-
-Some of them lived in sod houses and dugouts, with barely enough to keep
-soul and body together, and for years had hard work to keep the wolf
-from the door. But they toiled on, undismayed by their hardships, and we
-today are reaping the reward of their toils and sufferings.
-
-
-THE END.
-
-
-
-
-TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
-
-Where the original work uses text in italics or bold face, this e-text
-uses _text_ and =text=, respectively. Small caps in the original work
-are represented here in all capitals.
-
-Illustrations that were located mid-paragraph in the original work were
-moved below the including paragraph.
-
-Page numbers in the illustration captions and table of contents are page
-numbers in the original work.
-
-This text has been preserved as in the original work, including archaic
-and inconsistent spelling, punctuation and grammar, except as noted
-below. All quotation marks are preserved as printed.
-
-Obvious printer's errors have been silently corrected.
-
-Page 130: 'chapparalls' changed to 'chaparalls'.
-
-Page 136: 'measley' changed to 'measly'.
-
-Page 165: 'devlish' changed to 'devilish'.
-
-Page 192: 'peka' possibly a coined word.
-
-Page 205: 'Azotic' not known in this context.
-
-
-
-
-
-End of Project Gutenberg's Thirty Years on the Frontier, by Robert McReynolds
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