Part 3

The great Carlyle declares that if a person possess a quality in a high degree, whether that quality be mental or physical, he is unconscious of the fact; but if he be deficient in any quality, either moral or physical, he is always conscious of the deficiency; and, seeming to act on the supposition that what he feels so distinctly, he fears others might perceive, he is constantly hedging: therefore, a dishonest man is always talking about his honesty, and a coward about his bravery. All the men of our company behaved well but one, and that one was "the Colonel." I cannot refrain from recalling an incident connected with him. I have mentioned the unmarried lady who was accompanying her sister to her Western home. She was sitting in the wagon with the reins in her hand and a pistol in her lap, during all the excitement and uproar. As I passed up and down the train, I saw the Colonel, either at the rear or on the side of the wagons, away from the yelling Indians. The last time I passed the wagon, the Colonel stuck his head out from the opposite side and asked, "What are you going to do, Captain?" I said, "Fight, sir, if necessary." The young lady, looking at him, exclaimed: "Yes, sir; fight if necessary. Get on the other side of the wagon; be a man!" Although the Colonel subsequently, by his conduct at Shell Creek, partially redeemed his reputation, yet the insinuating jeers of the men, as to which was the safer side of the wagon, kept him in hot water, and, taking my advice, he left the train after the passage of Shell Creek, at the first opportunity. It was a good riddance, for a coward driven to bay, and constantly wounded by the shafts of ridicule, is dangerous.

Our toll having been paid and the excitement having abated, we resumed our journey across the Loup Fork valley and over the slightly elevated high land that separate its waters from the Platte. We descended from this high land by an easy grade, and made an early camp. Wood, water and grass were abundant.

We knew that a large ox-train, consisting of forty wagons or more and known as the Hopkins train, would cross the Loup Fork the next morning. There were quite a number of women and children in the train; hence our gallantry, as well as our bravery, prompted assistance. Further, we had concluded that it was wise to travel in larger bodies through the country of the Pawnees. According to our estimate, this train would arrive at the danger point, or toll gate, between ten and eleven o'clock a. m. Thirty of us volunteered to go back, to assist in case of difficulty. We were mostly mounted and ready for the start, when we saw a horseman rapidly approaching us, and we rode out to meet him. He told us that the Hopkins train had been attacked by the Indians, that two of his company had been seriously, if not mortally, wounded; and he asked for a doctor. The doctor was with us and readily consented to go, after returning to the wagon for instruments and medicine he might need. The rest of dashed up the gentle slope--hurry-scurry, pell-mell. At the top we slackened our speed for observation. We saw that the Indians had abandoned the conflict and were hurrying to the river, on the further side of which was their village. The occasional puff and report of a white man's rifle, at long and ineffective range, no doubt quickened their speed. We struck out on an acute angle to cut them off from the river, but failed. Those in boats had either reached or were near the other shore, some three or four hundred yards away; those in the water swam with the current and were practically out of danger: the boys, however, took some shots at the retreating heads. I think no Indian was killed or wounded by the shooting, but some of the boys were of a different opinion. We were at the river bank but a short time; but before we left it, the lame chief and his two subalterns, mentioned above, came down to the opposite shore, raised their hands to show that they had no weapons, then jumped into a canoe and rapidly crossed the river to us. They asked permission to go up with us to see their dead and to care for their wounded. The chief said five Indians were dead and many wounded. We saw but three dead and two slightly wounded. Two white men were wounded--one with a flint-headed arrow in the chest, the other shot with a large ball through the fleshy part of the thigh close to the bone. Although the arrow-head had entered the chest cavity, it had not pierced any vital organ, and recovery was rapid; the other wound was of a complex character, which I cannot mention, and was dangerous if not mortal. This man was slowly recovering, however, while he remained with us and under the doctor's assiduous care. What the final result was I never knew. The wounded having been attended to, the train was soon on the move for our camp. After a consultation held that evening, it was agreed that we should travel together through the Pawnee country, and that I should have general control of our united forces.

Shell Creek, which was full five days' travel ahead, was said to be one of the boundary lines separating the country of the Pawnees from that of the Sioux. Notices stuck up along the road warned us to look out for the Pawnees at Shell Creek. It was their last toll-collecting station. This fact and their difficulty with the Hopkins train put us on our guard. From what we saw of the action of the Indians, there were manifest indications, that they were collecting at Shell Creek. We saw every day on the opposite side of the river, long lines of them journeying towards that point. In the afternoon of the fifth day after our union, we arrived on the plain, through which the creek had cut its way to the Platte River. We made a corral with our wagons, some seventy-five or eighty rods from the creek.

A few small flags of different colors were floating from the top of the bank descending to the creek, indicating that the Indians were there. I called for seventy-five volunteers to go with me to the crossing. I am glad to say that the Colonel promptly stepped forward; and more than the requisite number offered to go. Where the road crosses Shell Creek valley, if it is proper so to call it, it is from fifteen to twenty feet below the general face of the country, the valley not being over four or five rods in width. It is a small stream, but its shallow waters flow over a bed of treacherous quick sand. The earlier immigrants had cut down the nearly perpendicular bank so as to make the descent and ascent practicable, to and from, the narrow valley. They had also, from the nearby timber in the valley of the Platte River, obtained stringers, placed them across the creek, and covered them with heavy split or hewn cottonwood puncheons.

I formed my volunteers in a line, open order, and facing the crossing. In this order we marched quite rapidly towards the creek until we were eight or ten rods away, when an order of double quick was given,--we dashed down to the bank, and found from seventy-five to a hundred Indians, all armed, at different points along the bank and near the crossing. We covered them with our rifles and shotguns. There was an ominous silence for a short time. They soon arose, however, and all but two crossed the creek and went to a bald knoll a short distance below the crossing. One or two started to come up to us, but we waved them off. The puncheons had been removed from the stringers and thrown into an irregular pile on the further side of the creek. Two Indians stood upon the pile. I asked for two young men to go down to replace the puncheons. Quite a number volunteered. I selected one standing near me, and another called Brad. Both were stalwart and muscular. Brad was a great boaster, but a noted exception to Carlyle's rule. He was as courageous as a lion. The puncheons were thick, water-soaked and heavy. One of the two Indians standing upon them departed as Brad and his companion approached; the other, silent and sullen, maintained his position on the pile, and when Brad took hold of the end of a puncheon he walked down to that end, thus compelling Brad to lift him as well as the puncheon. Someone said "hit him, Brad." I thought the order a proper one; so I said nothing. Brad, who was great in a power emanating from the shoulder and culminating in the knuckles of the hand, struck, with all his force, the Indian on the point of the jaw; the Indian fell to the ground a limpid heap, and did not recover until nearly all of the puncheons had been replaced. When he arose his face was covered with blood from either the effect of the blow or his fall. He walked slowly towards the knoll where the other Indians were, and his appearance among them created quite a sensation and uproar. It was manifest that there was no unity of purpose, or action among them. As soon as the bridge was repaired we crossed over with four-fifths of the men; the other one-fifth went back to help bring up the train, and to assist in the crossing if necessary. I left the command with the doctor, and as the evening was fast approaching I selected a camp about one-half of a mile beyond the crossing, where grass, water and wood were plentiful. The first lieutenant superintended the camping. When I returned I found that the doctor had "the lame chief" and two other younger chiefs as prisoners. They had crossed the line marked out by him, and he retained them as hostages. The lame chief was somewhat reconciled to his lot, but the young men were taciturn and sullen. The lame chief knew English and talked it sufficiently well for us to understand him. I told him that we would give them plenty to eat, with blankets upon which they could sleep, and that we would part as friends in the morning. I told him further that if the Indians attacked us that night he and the two young chiefs would be killed. I told him that he could control the Indians, and that we required him to do it. All of this was said to him in a most positive and emphatic manner, and he communicated it to the younger chiefs. I asked him what so many Indians, all armed, had come away from their villages and to the boundary of their country for? He said the Indians had no bad feelings towards the horse-train, but they had come to make the cow-train pay for the killed and wounded in the fight at Loup Fork. He said that they did not expect to find us with the cowtrain. Certain it is, that every circumstance pointed to the conclusion that had not our train been present, the Hopkins train would have been compelled to contribute largely, or would have had another fight more disastrous, perhaps, than the first. The night was made hideous by the almost constant yelling of the Indians. I remained up until eleven, when I retired, worn out and with an acute attack of neuralgic head-ache. After a time I slept or dozed, notwithstanding the uproar. The doctor also had gone to his wagon. The first lieutenant was in command. About three o'clock he came to my wagon, and requested me to get up; he feared, he said, an attack. The Indians, he informed me, were already approaching us. I found that the warriors had left the strip of timber on the river and were within one hundred yards of our picket-line. I went around the camp and found nearly everyone awake and up. I then went with the lame chief and his guard to the picket-line. I told him to tell the Indians, that they must not come any nearer. The chief began to speak immediately and continued to talk for two minutes or more; and while we did not understand what he said, the tumult ceased, and from thence on, comparative quiet prevailed. In the morning we gave our hostages a good breakfast and presented them with a cow brute so lame that it could not travel farther. I saw it killed. An Indian with a strong, and to me almost inflexible bow, threw himself on his back, holding the steel or iron-pointed arrow with both hands against the string of the bow, and with his feet springing it sent the arrow deep into the heart of the animal, which fell at his feet. This was the first exhibition I had ever seen of the power of the bow as a weapon and life-extinguisher. At short range, with a cool nerve, with a full quiver, a person thus armed would be a dangerous foe.

We got an early start the next morning. We bade our hostages good-bye without regret, and entered onto the land of the Sioux with hopeful satisfaction. We journeyed full twenty miles that day, and camped on a treeless plain with good water and plenty of grass, but no wood save buffalo chips. This want of wood was to continue for hundreds of miles. It was amusing at first, to see the ladies handle the buffalo chips. They literaly cooked with their gloves on. But the principle announced by the poet soon asserted itself:

"Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, As to be hated, needs but to be seen; Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace."

I do not mean to say that they embraced this fuel; only that they used it as they would other fuel--simply obeying a law of necessity and enduring it.

This morning we parted from the Hopkins train, got an early start and made a late camp over twenty miles away.

Early in the commencement of our jurney to the sunset land, I organized a hunting party of four good shots, two of whom I was personally acquainted with and knew that they were well qualified for their position; the other two were chosen on the recommendation of their acquaintances and friends. This selection turned out to be not only harmonious, but a fit and proper one. They organized by the election of the doctor and myself as alternate captains, expecting that one of us would accompany them on each day's hunt. The work was exciting, with a dash of danger in it, and was arduous. Heretofore there had been no opportunity for the proof of their skill. This day, having determined from our guide-book where to camp, I accompanied them to the hills. Shortly after noon the hunters came across a small herd of buffalo in a gully where there was a little pool of seepage water, and succeeded in killing two--one a yearling, the other a barren cow. I was not in at the killing, but I succeeded soon after in ending the swift-bounding career of a fine antelope. We cut the meat from the carcass of the two buffalo and placed it in sacks or rather strong saddle-bags made for that purpose. The bones, neck and horns, save tongue, as well as the hide, were left to be more thoroughly cleaned and devoured by wolves, the ever-ready scavengers of the plains. My trophy of this day's hunt, minus the head and neck, was strapped to the saddle of my horse, and thus by her, grudgingly, borne into camp; but she became accustomed to such work, and protested only at the stinging tightness of the cinch. This was our first ration of fresh meat since crossing the Missouri River. The meat was a treat, fat, juicy and tender. Two days after this the hunters, accompanied by the doctor, at an early hour started for the hills. They returned in the early evening, each with an antelope on his saddle. They saw plenty of buffalo, but could not approach them sufficiently near to get an effective shot. The meat of the antelope, while not as rich and juicy as that of the buffalo, is in the spring of the year, when the grass is green, sweet and tender. It is of much finer grain than that of the buffalo; and the animal is more select in his appetite, eating only the finer grass, with a delicate flavoring of the finest sage, which in many cases was quite distinguishable. I remember that not many years ago the choicest beeves were steers fattened on the rich and luxuriant bunch-grass of the hills, which a week or ten days before marketing were driven to and herded in the valleys where the small sage abounds. They ate it not as a matter of first choice, but of necessity. Such beef, to the epicures, was the realization of a long-felt want.

The work of the hunters was strenuous, and as a partial compensation for their longer hours, and the beneficent results of the successful work by them, they were excused from guard-duty in the night. To this all agreed.

On the second day after the doctor's debut as a hunter, I accompanied the hunters to the hills. We did not find game plentiful, but we occasionally caught the glimpse of an antelope bounding away out of range. The day was excessively hot. Late in the afternoon, however, the hunters started a large buffalo bull from the channel of a dry creek, he ran up the channel towards me; and as he attempted to pass me a few rods away, I fired and struck him in the heart, and he staggered, lunged and fell. This was my first buffalo, and I was, of course, elated with my luck. The hunters would probably have killed him had it not been for my fortunate intervention, for they were in close pursuit on the higher plateau on either side, and were fast converging towards him. He could have scarcely run in safety, the gauntlet of four such expert riflemen. As it was, however, the honor was mine. The pelt or robe was large and very fine, but we were compelled to leave it and the stripped bones to be devoured by the waiting wolves. From thence on until we crossed the Rocky Mountains, we had a liberal supply of fresh meat, consisting of antelope, buffalo, a few deer, three elk, one brown bear, and one bighorn Rocky Mountain sheep, or goat.

So far as travel was concerned, each day was but the tiresome repetition of the preceding one, with very slight variations. When we arrived at Fort Laramie we stopped for some three or four hours. We crossed the river and made a friendly visit to the officers of the fort. We found them to be true American soldiers and gentlemen. The commandant told us that he had heard of the Pawnee difficulty, and had sent an officer and a squad of soldiers to enquire into the affair. He was very anxious to hear from us a statement of the whole matter. I gave him as full a statement as I was able to, and both of us were of the opinion that it was precipitated by the want of proper discipline and control of the men in the train. This may not be very flattering to the white men, but it is the truth, notwithstanding.

I am not a military man, but I was not impressed with the idea that Laramie, surrounded as it is by an amphitheatre of commanding hills, was a fit site for a fort. As against an enemy with modern artillery, I thought it to be hopelessly defenceless. As against Indians it possibly might do. But then, I knew nothing of Plevna, similarly situated, and so heroically defended by the Turks against a superior and well-equipped Russian army.

Leaving Fort Laramie, we now entered the Black Hills country. After a two-days' journey in the hills, finding grass, water and wood in great abundance, we concluded to rest for two days for laundry and recuperative purposes. Our horses began to show the effects of the journey, and the want of their accustomed food. No animal has the power of endurance of man, unless it may be the wolf, "whose long gallop," says the poet, "can tire the hounds' deep hate and hunter's fire."

On the first day of our rest I accompanied the hunters into the hills for game. About three miles from camp, on a wooded side-hill, they came across a band of fifteen or more of elk and succeeded in killing three of them. I was not in at the killing, but caught a distant view of the noble antlered monarchs of the forest, as they sped away to deeper and safer retreats in the depths of the woods. As we did not kill for the love of slaughter, but for food, we declared the day's hunt a success, and prepared our meat for transportation to the camp, in the usual manner. I have killed quite a number of elk since that time in the mountains of Oregon, but I have never seen one larger than one of those, although I have seen much larger and finer antlers than adorned the heads of any of them. The purpose of the antlers, in my judgment, is not to furnish the animal a weapon in fight, but as a protection to his shoulders as he dashes through the brush in flight from an enemy or in pursuit of his mate. When he moves swiftly he elevates his nose until his face is nearly in a line with his back; the antlers, extending back on each side of the shoulders, thus affording them protection. The bucks always lead in such flights, and to a certain extent open the way; hence the females have no need, or not so much need, of such protection. Somewhat disappointed with my failure to get a shot at an elk on the preceding day, I again accompanied the hunters. We made a wide circuit through the hills, some of which were covered with timber, while others were bald. That it was a country abounding in game was manifest in the signs appearing everywhere. We saw a few antelope in full flight and out of range; we also startled from his sylvan couch a black-tailed buck, being the first of the deer kind seen in our journey. One of the hunters sent a ball after him as he bounded through the brush and timber, but, unscathed, he dashed on. As the day was fast waning we turned our horses' heads campward, and commenced the ascent of quite a high hill to take an observation of our latitude and longitude, and also to determine the exact location of our camp and the best route to it. The western side of this hill was covered with brush and fallen and dead timber. While we were standing on the top viewing the topography of the surrounding country, a large cinnamon bear, affrighted by our presence, started from his lair, and in all probability his patrimonial jungle, and dashed at a furious speed down through the brush and over the logs and rocks of this steep side-hill. We emptied our rifles at him as he plunged downward at such headlong speed. But one ball struck him and that broke his right shoulder, much diminishing his speed and almost entirely destroying his climbing powers. We soon came upon him at the foot of the hill in a bad humor, but we quickly ended his career. He was in fine condition; his estimated weight was from 275 to 300 pounds. We removed the pelt, with his feet, and took them into camp as a matter of curiosity; we also took the meat into camp, but it was not much relished. The hide as well as most of the meat was given to begging Indians.