Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters Part 37

But they found disappointment. Their route was cut by a wide, open valley covered only with stones and cactus. They dared not stand up; they might yet be seen. It was two miles across, and they hitched along, on their knees and on hands and knees, every foot of the way, while the rocks and cactus tortured them.

Here, where the brush grew high, Kit stopped and appeared to be relieved.

"Put on yore shoes, boy. We're out of the trap and we can make better time."

Hurrah! Lieutenant Beale laid his hand to his belt. What!

"I've lost my shoes, Kit."

"So've I. That's mean, but we can't help it. Come on. We've a long way yit; we daren't line in direct. Thar'll be more o' those patrols watchin' the trails into San Diego."

They hastened as best they might, on a circuit to avoid the trails.

The country was rough and rolling. When day dawned, they left the mesas and kept to the dense brush of the canyons; were almost lost, so crooked their path; but the Indian guided them, and constantly sniffed for the salty air from the ocean. In the middle of the day they rested; their soles, knees, and hands were raw, and body and limb burned with the cactus; their throats were parched for lack of water.

At evening they smelled the ocean. The Indian said that they were within twelve miles of San Diego. From a high point they might have seen the glimmer of the Pacific. Kit Carson spoke.

"We'd better divide up, I think. Then one of us will get through.

That's safer than travelin' together. Lieutenant, you head off to southward; amigo (that to the Indian boy, in Spanish), you go on straight; I'll take around north'ard, whar the _Mexicanos_ probably are thickest to close the Los Angeles trail. Whoever gets in fust will report without wastin' any time."

"All right, sir," agreed the lieutenant.

"Bueno (Good)," muttered the Indian, nodding.

It was understood. The lieutenant and Kit shook hands; and they three separated, to steal swiftly away in the waning twilight.

At San Diego, Commodore Stockton had landed sailors and marines to reinforce the American Riflemen in San Diego. He was building Fort Stockton, to command the town. The frigate _Congress_ and the sloop-of-war _Portsmouth_ swung at anchor in the narrow channel of the harbor.

He had learned of the plight of General Kearny, and was just starting a relief column upon a night march for the hill, when at nine o'clock one of his sentries challenged a dark figure laboring in.

"Halt! Who goes there?"

"Amigo, amigo (Friend, friend)!"

'Twas the Indian boy. He had arrived first. The sentry called the sergeant of the guard, the sergeant of the guard took the boy to the officer of the guard, and the officer took him at once to the commodore.

The Indian was still telling his story in breathless Spanish, when another of the couriers arrived--carried by two marines. He was Lieutenant Beale, unable to walk.

Away trudged the relief party; the Indian and the lieutenant were placed in bed and the surgeon was summoned. The lieutenant had grown delirious--babbled and tossed and moaned. His boy lay twitching with pain and weariness, but uttered never a sound.

Where was Kit Carson? He staggered in about three o'clock in the morning. Had been obliged to wander and hide before he struck a way through. He had chosen for himself the longest and the hardest route.

That was like him, and that was proper for the oldest and the most experienced. Now he, too, needed a surgeon. The bandy-legged, long-bodied, toughly-sinewed little Kit Carson who had faced many a sc.r.a.pe and "scrimmage" on plains and mountains, was "all in."

After this night we do not know what became of the Indian. His name never was recorded; he has been forgotten; all of which is a pity, because he risked his life to serve a new people and a new flag.

In the morning Lieutenant Beale was transferred aboard the _Congress_, and placed in the sick-bay. He was invalided for more than a year--did not really recover until after he resigned from the navy in 1852; he rose to be brigadier general in the Civil War, was United States minister to Vienna in 1876, and while ranching on two hundred and seventy-six thousand acres of land in California died, aged seventy-one, in 1893.

Through several days the surgeon thought that he would have to cut off Kit Carson's feet. But he saved them, and the plucky Kit marched north to Los Angeles with the rescued Kearny column.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE HOTTEST CHASE ON RECORD (1864)

TWO IN AN ARMY WAGON

When in the eastern part of the United States the Civil War flamed up, another war broke out in the western part. The Indians of the Plains saw their chance. While the white men, who had been busy forcing peace upon the red men, were foolishly killing each other, the red men saw themselves free to strike, and clean the buffalo country.

So the Sioux, the Cheyennes, the Kiowas and many of the Arapahos arose, to close the wagon trails, plunder the stage stations, drive out the settlers, and save the buffalo.

The result was the great Indian war of 1864. The Government hastily sent what troops it could--mainly Volunteer cavalry and infantry, a.s.signed to fight the Western Indians instead of the Southern soldiers.

Thus two wars were being waged at once.

The white Americans had extended their towns and ranches clear across the continent. Through Kansas and Nebraska there were ranches scattered clear to the Colorado mountains. Denver was growing into a city. Beyond the mountains the Mormons had built another city at the Great Salt Lake. The Overland Stage was making daily trips over the trail between the Missouri River and California. Another well-traveled stage and emigrant trail ran from the Missouri River through central Kansas, south of the Overland Trail, to Denver. And the freight wagons for New Mexico plied between Leavenworth and Kansas City, and Santa Fe, over the old Santa Fe Trail.

There were yet no railroads across the plains. But the Union Pacific of the Government's Pacific Railway was surveyed out of Omaha, for Salt Lake City and beyond; and its Kansas Division, known as the Kansas Pacific, was starting up the Kansas River, for Denver. To protect the wagon route through Kansas, and the advance of the railroad (which was following the stage road), the Government located a line of military posts; the same as upon the Overland Trail farther north, in Nebraska and westward.

The first was Fort Riley, just outside of Junction City, where the Republican River joined the Kansas River. Beyond, there was Salina; and Ellsworth on the Smoky Hill River; and southward, to guard the Santa Fe Trail over which huge quant.i.ties of Government supplies for the Southwest were being hauled, there were Camp Zarah at Walnut Creek of the Arkansas River, Fort Larned up the Arkansas, and so forth.

Many of the posts were only camps or cantonments, and received their fort name later.

In November, 1864, Captain Henry Booth started from Fort Riley to inspect the posts south to the Arkansas River in Colorado. Lieutenant Hallowell was his companion. They had planned to travel comfortably in Lieutenant Hallowell's light spring wagon instead of in a heavy jouncing army ambulance--a hack arrangement with seats along the sides and a stiff oiled-cloth top.

Lieutenant Hallowell had a canvas or wagon-sheet cover fitted over his wagon: stretched tightly upon bows and puckered to enclose the rear end with the exception of a hole in the middle there about the size of one's head. Now the spring wagon looked like a small prairie-schooner or emigrant outfit.

Captain Booth obtained from the quarter-master department the best span of Missouri mules at the fort. He and the lieutenant would do their own driving, and be independent. Whereupon, provisioned for the trip, they gaily set out, in the frosty morning, escorted by a mounted detachment of Kansas United States Volunteers under Lieutenant Van Antwerp.

This was particularly Kiowa and Cheyenne country, as soon as they left the Kansas River; and if any Indians were more dreaded than the boldly riding, hard fighting Cheyennes, those were the never quitting Kiowas.[1]

They and their allies the Comanches were the guardians of the Santa Fe Trail. The Kiowas ranged the farthest north and fought the soldiers on the Leavenworth cut-off or Government road which entered from the Kansas River.

Going down, on this road, Captain Booth and Lieutenant Hallowell had no trouble at all. They arrived safely at Camp Zarah, without having sighted a sign of Indians. The captain inspected the post. The next morning he directed his escort to ride on; he and Lieutenant Hallowell would catch them in about half an hour.

But it was nearer three hours later when the wagon rattled over the log corduroy bridge across Walnut Creek, on the road for the Arkansas River and Fort Larned, west up-stream.

They had the road all to themselves. The escort were out of sight, but probably would wait for them; and anyway they felt no fear as they jounced over the rutty, frozen road. They rather looked forward to shooting buffalo from the wagon with their revolvers. The mules were lively; Lieutenant Hallowell drove (he was an expert with the "ribbons"); the captain helped him with the whip; and they caroled songs together.

After a time the lieutenant changed his tune, to remark:

"What's the matter with the buffalo? They're grazing wide of the road to-day. That looks as though Injuns were about."

This was Captain Booth's first season on the plains, so he only laughed easily.

"Oh, pshaw! They say back at Zarah that there hasn't been an Injun seen from the trail in ten days. I fancy our escort scared the buffalo. Now like as not we won't get a shot."

"Just the same, it's queer the buffalo are all out yonder in the open instead of grazing on the river bottoms. If any Injuns are at hand, they'd be hiding along the river."

"Oh, pshaw!" laughed the captain. "We're safe enough. I'll get you back to Lizzie. Don't you worry yourself."