CHAPTER XI

WE REACH FORT LARNED

"Now, men," said old Tom as we gathered around the mess box for breakfast next morning, "we want to get an early start for we've got a big drive before us. It's only about thirty-eight miles from here to Fort Larned, but that's too much to do with a load in one day; an' we can't divide the distance equally because there's no water anywhere nigh the half-way p'int. By takin' the river road we could get water to camp at the half-way station, but that route, by way of the mouth of Pawnee Fork, would take us four miles out of our way, an' part of it's a sandy, heavy road for the team. So I've concluded it'll be best for us to go the main road by Pawnee Rock an' camp at Ash Creek. That'll make about twenty-nine miles for to-day's drive, an' then we'll only have nine miles to-morrow mornin' to knock off to reach the fort. We can easy do that by the middle of the forenoon, an' have the rest of the day to look up some old acquaintances there an' make some inquiries about the best p'int over on Walnut to locate our winter camp an' how best to get there. Ef French Dave, the interpreter, is at Larned he'll tell us all we want to know about it. If Wild Bill was here, he'd go right along an' guide us to a snug place for our camp, 'cause he knows every foot o' the ground. It's all open prairie from Pawnee to Walnut, an' once we get across Pawnee Fork we can't miss it ef we just follow the buffalo trails."

We rolled out from Big Bend by sunrise, made a short stop at Rath's ranch to renew old acquaintance with Charley, and in the evening camped at the crossing of Ash Creek, a small stream with a little timber along its banks.

We reached Fort Larned by ten o'clock next morning. I left Tom and Jack to inquire for mail, while I went to the adjutant's office to report our arrival and destination; after which I rejoined the outfit at the sutler's.

"Well, now, men," said old Tom, gathering up the mail matter and putting it away in the wagon, "we must first hunt a camp, an' then we can spend the rest of the day reading our papers an' letters an' rounding up old acquaintances about the garrison an' getting ready to go on to Walnut Creek in the mornin'. I'm told that we can get pretty good grass by crossin' the creek here an' going half a mile up on the other side. We'll go an' make camp an' eat dinner, an' then, leaving one man to take care o' camp, the others can come back and take in the garrison."

A little crowd of idlers had gathered around our team. A soldier volunteered to guide us to a good crossing and camp, and we soon had our animals turned out and tent pitched, and, while Tom and Jack were getting the dinner, at their request I overhauled first the letters and then the papers, reading to my comrades the most interesting items as I came to them.

The papers and magazines were full of exciting and interesting news concerning the progress of the war, then just getting under good headway. Of letters we got but few, the most interesting of which to me was one from the girl I had left behind me and another from the old storekeeper and postmaster back at the camp where we had encountered the jayhawkers.

The storekeeper informed us that no inquiry had been made for the black horse, and he did not think it likely that there would be as he had learned that Tucker and his gang had stolen many of their best horses from over the border in Missouri and the black horse was probably one of them.

He also informed us that, following out the plan suggested by Tom, his neighbor had trailed the jayhawkers to their new camp down on the Neosho River, near Emporia; that a few days after we left a company of cavalry had arrived from Fort Leavenworth, in answer to the letter he had written to the commander of the department, looking for the gang of outlaws, and the man who had followed them and located their camp guided the soldiers to the jayhawkers' new layout, where the cavalrymen succeeded in surrounding and capturing the whole gang and taking them as prisoners to Fort Leavenworth.

"Well, who's going to mind camp, an' who's going over to the fort?" said Jack when dinner was over.

"We'll draw straws for it," said Tom decisively. "Peck, you prepare the straws, two long ones an' a short one, an' the man who gets the short one stays."

I did as directed. Tom and Jack drew the long straws, and I got left.

"Well, rack out now, you fellows, and I'll have a good time reading the papers while you're gone," said I, trying to console myself for the lonesome afternoon I expected to have.

But I was not left alone long, for presently a couple of strolling soldiers from the garrison dropped in, and we passed some time in exchanging information, I giving them the latest news from the settlements, and they telling the gossip of Fort Larned and vicinity.

We had not been out of sight of herds of buffalo since we had entered the range till we crossed Pawnee Fork, but here, near the fort, where they had probably been hunted more than elsewhere, they were scarce, though this was about the centre of their range east and west. The soldiers said that a few miles out in any direction we would find them numerous again.

To my comrades and me the country about Fort Larned was familiar ground. As already stated, our company--K of the old First Cavalry, afterward changed to Fourth Cavalry--had built and occupied the original military post, called "Camp Alert," in the adjoining bend of the creek, below Fort Larned, in the fall of '59, when the Kiowas were on the war-path. During that winter we had been stationed there, escorting the Santa Fé mails and giving what protection we could to travel on the roads to New Mexico and the Pike's Peak gold region. By the following spring (1860), the War Department had ordered a permanent post established at or near "Camp Alert," to be called Fort Larned. This post was built by the two companies of Second Infantry that were sent to relieve us, while we, joining Major Sedgwick's command from Fort Riley, went on the Kiowa expedition.

My two years of hard service along the Arkansas gave me an interest in everything that had happened in this part of the country, and I kept my soldier visitors plied with questions about persons and events until the approach of sunset warned them to return to the post to prepare for dress parade.

Tom and Jack remained at the garrison till after dress parade and then joined me in time for the supper which I had prepared.

In narrating the results of his inquiries at the post Tom said:

"As we had all been pretty well acquainted with Weisselbaum when he used to keep the little store in Ogden, near Fort Riley, before he got to be sutler of this post, I thought I would first call on him an' renew old acquaintance. When I tried to remind him who I was an' the many times I had been in his store at Ogden an' bought goods of him he couldn't remember me at all. An' then I asked him if he remembered Jack an' Peck, tellin' him that you was both here with me an' the object of our trip an' so forth, but he couldn't recall either of us an' looked at me kind of suspicious like, as though he was afraid I was goin' to ask him to credit me for a plug of tobacco or something of that kind.

"To set him straight on that point I called for a couple of cigars, an' in paying for 'em I managed to show several greenbacks, an', my, what a change come over his countenance when he saw that money! The sight of them greenbacks at once refreshed his recollection.

"He suggested that we should leave our surplus money in his safe, and I believe it's a good scheme, for we'll have no use for money over on the Walnut, where we're going, an' we might lose it. Peck might go over to the store now, takin' Jack along for a witness, an' deposit our money with the sutler an' take a receipt for it; an' if we have occasion to draw any of it out at any time it can be entered on the back of the receipt. Savvy?"

We "savvied" and agreed to Tom's plan.

"Weisselbaum told me," continued the old man, "where to find 'French Dave,' an' Dave told me that it's all plain sailing an' about twenty miles from here over to Walnut in the nearest direction, straight north; an' there'll be no rough ground to get over except the head of Ash Creek, an' there ain't much there. He says by bearin' a little to the west of north we'll miss the breaks of Ash Creek an' strike Walnut about the mouth of a little creek putting into Walnut from the south, where there's a snug place for a well-sheltered winter camp, with timber on the north an' west; an' I think that's just about the kind of a layout we want to find."

"What does Dave say about the Kiowas?" I asked.

"He says they're peaceable so far, 'but always keep your eye skinned,' sez he, 'whenever Satank or Satanta, with their bands, come around.' But of course we knew that."

Jack and I hurried over to the sutler's store, where we were very affably received by Weisselbaum, who shook us warmly by the hands and now had no difficulty in remembering us. We made our deposit, took his receipt, and returned to camp. After reporting to Tom the result of our trip, Jack remarked:

"Well, I don't know of any surer winnin' game than a post sutler's job. It'll beat four aces an' a six-shooter."

"Right you are, my lad," chipped in Tom. "It's a sure shot--dead open an' shut. Better'n a goldmine, for there's little risk an' small loss compared with the profits; for the post sutler on the frontier just rakes in the money of officers, soldiers, citizens, Injuns, an' everybody. Besides havin' a monopoly of all trade on the post reservation, he generally has the inside track on forage contracts an' the like."

"Do you mind old Rich, the sutler at Fort Leavenworth?" asked Jack, "an' the dead oodles of money he rakes in all the time? An' he's been sutler there so long, too, he must be as rich as the Rothschilds. A queer duck is old Rich," he continued reflectively, "or 'Kernel' Rich, I should have said, for when you call him 'Kernel,' specially if you salute him along with it, it pleases him all over an' raises his opinion of himself about five hundred per cent."

"Yes," replied Tom, "I remember one time when several of us soldiers were a-standing around old Rich's store door, an' among the lot was Bob Chambers, of F Company. You know Bob always had his cheek with him. Well, while we were a-talking, Bill Shutts come out of the store a-grumbling an' a-cussing. 'What's the matter, Shutts?' asked Bob. 'Why, I'm expectin' a letter from home,' says Bill, 'an' when I asked that old galoot if there was a letter for me, the old fellow wouldn't look--never even asked me my name--but just says, crabbed like, says he: "No, nothin' for you." 'Now,' says Bill, 'I'll bet two dollars an' sixty-five cents that there's a letter in there right now for William Shutts, Esquire, from Dresden, O., but I can't get it.'

"'Why, man,' says Bob Chambers, 'where've you been all this time that you ain't got acquainted with that estimable old gentleman, Kernel Rich? You ain't onto the combination, that's all. Now, I'll bet you the drinks for the crowd, down at old mother Bangs's, that I'll go in the store an' ask the kernel for a letter, an' although I ain't expecting one, an' would be surprised if I got one, the old kernel'll rush flying 'round behind the counter a-trying to find me a letter. Now, lemme show you how it's done,' sez Bob, a-buttonin' up his jacket an' a-cockin' his fatigue cap up on three hairs.

"We all followed him into the store to see the performance. The old kernel was pacin' the floor. By a 'left-front-into-line' movement Bob swung himself into position in front of the kernel, halted, come to 'attention,' bringing his heels together with a crack, an' raised his right hand to the peak of his cap as he asked: 'Kernel, is there any letter in the office for me, sir?'

"Well, say--you ought to have seen the smile that come over old Rich's phiz as he fell all over himself getting 'round behind the counter, asking as he went: 'What's the name, my man?' 'Robert Chambers, of F Company, sir,' says Bob, still standing to 'attention.'

"Well, sir, the old kernel shuffled those letters over two or three times a-tryin' his level best to dig up one for Chambers, an' seemed awfully sorry when he had to say, as he put them back in the pigeonhole: 'No, nothing for you to-day, Chambers.' An' he was so sorry to disappoint Bob that he reached over on the shelf an' handed out a plug of tobacco, as he added, sort of regretful-like: 'But there's some of the best navy tobacco you ever smacked your lips over.' 'No doubt of it, kernel, for when you recommend a thing it's bound to be first class, but unfortunately I'm dead broke,' says Chambers. 'Oh, take it along,' says the old man, as he pushed the plug across the counter; 'you can hand me the money next pay-day.' An' he was so pleased with Bob's blarney that he never even chalked it down to him; an' I'm dead sure that Chambers didn't remind him of it when pay-day come, for Bob wasn't built that way.

"As we started out of the store, Bob says over his shoulder like for old Rich to hear, 'Kernel Rich is one of the finest old gentlemen I ever knew.'

"When we got outside the store door again, Bill Shutts remarked, as he gazed at Chambers in honest admiration 'Well, old pard, if I had your cheek I'd never work another lick.' 'It's all done by a slight turn of the wrist, as the magician says,' said Bob; 'anybody can do it that knows how. Now, let me tell you how to get that letter of yours. Just go over to the quarters an' wash your face an' hands for a disguise, black your boots, button up your jacket, brace up, an' look brave; and then go back to the store--by that time the old man's forgot you ever asked for a letter--then execute a flank movement on him, like I did; be sure to salute an' call him kernel, an' you'll get a letter if he has to write you one.'

"An' by following Bob's advice Bill got his letter; an' it tickled him so't he called us together, an' we went down to old mother Bangs's, an' he set up the drinks on it, 'cause he said that trick that Bob learnt him was worth a whole lot, if not more."