Buffalo Land Part 8

All had extremely uninviting countenances, any one of which would have sufficed to hang three ordinary men, and a common villainy made them as much alike as forty-six nutmegs. White Wolf alone differed in appearance. He was stoutly built, as well as tall and straight, with broad features, the bronze of his complexion merging almost into white, and he smiled pleasantly and readily. The others were no more able to smile than Satan himself, the expression which their faces a.s.sumed when attempting it being simply diabolical. Dobeen was so startled by one who tried that contortion on and asked for "tobac," that he retreated in disorder from the council-chamber.

White Wolf and the more important members of his band took the chairs proffered them, and sat in a circle, the Professor, Sachem, and two leading citizens of Hays being sandwiched in at proper intervals. The object of the gathering was gravely announced to be that the Indians might smoke the pipe of peace with the towns-people. As war was a chronic pa.s.sion with these wild hors.e.m.e.n of the plains, none of them had ever been near the place in friendly mood before, and the novelty of the occasion, therefore, brought the entire population around the building.

The postmaster of Hays, Mr. Hall, had once traded among the Cheyennes and, understanding their sign-language, acted as interpreter. This curious race has two distinct ways of conversing--one by mouth, in a singularly unmusical dialect, and the other by motions or signs with the hands. The latter is that most generally understood and employed by scouts and traders.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PIPE OF PEACE--THE PROFESSOR'S DILEMMA.]

One of the Indians now took from a sack a red-clay pipe, with a ridiculously long bowl and longer shank, and inserted into it a three-foot stem, profusely ornamented with bra.s.s tacks and a ta.s.sel of painted horse hair. This was handed to White Wolf, together with a small bag of tobacco, in which the Killikinnick leaves had been previously crumbled and mixed. These were a bright red, evidently used for their fragrance, as they only weakened the tobacco without adding any particular flavor. We were struck with the Indian mode of smoking.

The chief took a few quick whiffs, emitting the fumes with a hoa.r.s.e blowing like a miniature steam-engine. He then pa.s.sed it, mouth-piece down so that the saliva might escape, and it commenced a slow journey around the circle. When it reached our worthy professor he found himself in a sore dilemma. No smoke had ever curled along the roof of his mouth, or made a chimney of his geological nose. For an instant the philosopher hesitated; then, reflecting that pa.s.sing the pipe would be worse than choking over it, the excellent man put the stem to his mouth and gave a pull which must have filled the remotest corner of his lungs with Killikinnick. Gasping amid the stifling cloud, it poured from both mouth and nose, and called on the way at his stomach, which gave unmistakable symptoms of distress. We feared that he would be forced to forsake the council, but, with an effort worthy of the occasion and himself, he kept his seat, and opening wide his mouth, waited patiently until the fiend of smoke had withdrawn from his interior its trailing garments.

The council disappointed us. In White Wolf we had found as fine-looking an Indian as ever murdered and stole upon his native continent. His people were first in war, first to break peace, and the last to keep it, their excuse being that the white man trespa.s.sed on their hunting grounds. We had rather expected that burly form to rise from his seat, and, with flashing eyes, utter then and there a flood of aboriginal eloquence: "White man, your people live where the sun rises, ours where it sets. When did you ever come to us hungry and be fed, or clothed and go away so," and so on _ad infinitum_. Instead of all this there was a tremendous smoking and grunting, more like a farmer's fumigation of hogs than one of those pipe-of-peace councils which I had so often studied on canvas and in books. I have often regretted since that our aborigines can not read. If they could only learn from the white man's literature what they ought to be, the contrast between it and what they really are would be so violent that it might make an impression, even upon an Indian.

For a happy mingling of lies and truth our "big talk" could hardly be excelled. A reporter could have taken down the proceedings somewhat as follows:

SCENE--Six Indians and as many white men in a ring. Postmaster Hall in the center, acting as interpreter.

_Indian_--"Cheyenne love white man much (lie). Forty-six warriors all hungry (truth). Us good Indians" (lie). And so on, alternately.

_Pale Brother_--"White man love Cheyenne. Got lots of food, but no whisky" (the latter a lie which almost choked the speaker).

It would not interest the reader to know all the repet.i.tions or nonsense uttered, and we spare him the infliction of even attempting to tell him.

The Indians had for their object food, and they got it. The whites had for their object permanent peace, and did not get it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _BUREAU OF ILl.u.s.tRATION BUFFALO_

WHITE WOLF AT HOME.

"The red man is n.o.ble, big injun is me."]

In due time the council broke up, and in an incredibly short time thereafter many of the Indians were reeling drunk. That White Wolf did not become equally so was owing altogether to his being a man of iron const.i.tution. Any thing but metal, it seemed to me, must have been burnt out by the fiery draughts which we saw the n.o.ble chief take down.

A tin cupful of "whisk," such as would have made the cork in a bottle tight, was tossed off without a wink.

Sachem, who took notes, rendered White Wolf's speech at the council in verse, as follows:

White brother, have pity; the White Wolf is poor, The skin of his belly is shrunk to his back; A gallon of whisky is good for a cure, If followed by plenty of "bacon and tack."

The red man is n.o.ble, big Injun is me: Like berries all crimson and ready to pick, The scalps on my pole are a heap good to see-- Good medicine they when poor Injun is sick.

The red man is truth, and the white one is lies; The first suffers wrong at hand of the other; The way they skin us is good for sore eyes, The way we skin them astonishing, rather.

They rob us of guns and offer us plows, And tell us to farm it, to go into corn; We're good to raise hair, and good to raise rows, And good to raise essence of corn--in a horn.

Go back to your cities and leave us our home, Or off with your scalp and that remnant of shirt; Go, let the poor Injun in happiness roam, And live on his buffalo, puppies, and dirt.

Two or three of the Indians mounted their ponies and took a race through the streets. The animals were thin, despondent brutes, but as wiry as if their hides were stuffed, like patent mattresses, full of springs. The Indians, as is their universal custom, mounted from the right side, instead of the left as we do. At the lower end of the street they got as nearly in line as their inebriated condition would permit, and when the word was given set off toward us with frightful shouts, which made the ponies scamper like so many frightened cats.

The animal which came out ahead had no rider to claim the honors, that blanketed jockey having fallen off midway. He was now sitting on his hams, looking the wrong way down the track, and evidently adding up the "book" which he had made for the race. As he soon arose, with a dissatisfied grunt, we thought his figures probably read about as follows:

Given--A gallon of Hays whisky in the saddle, and a race-horse under it.

Endeavor to divide the latter by a rawhide whip, and the result is a sore-headed Indian, who stands forfeit to his peers for "the drinks."

As we wandered back to the council-chamber, the scene there had changed somewhat. White Wolf had been transformed into a cavalry colonel, and was strutting around with two gilt eagles on his broad shoulders, looking fully as important as many a real colonel whom we have caught in his pin feathers and, withal, much more of the hero. Our warrior had seen some of the officers from the fort strolling around, and straightway fell to coveting his neighbors' straps, which observing, Sachem at once purchased from a store the emblems of power and pinned them upon him. He whispered to us that when White Wolf took his first step as a colonel, it had been accompanied by a snort of pain, the unlucky slipping of a pin having evidently conveyed to the chief the idea that one of the eagles had grasped his shoulder in its talons.

The chief modestly requested similar honors for his "papoose," and that individual was treated to the straps of a captain. A different application of strap, it occurred to me, would have seemed more proper upon the six feet of unpromising humanity which appeared above the "papoose's" moccasins.

It had been a matter of surprise to us how the Indians could make such inferior looking stock as theirs capable of such speed and extraordinary journeys; but it ceased to excite our wonder after an examination of their whips. These ingenious instruments of torture have handles, which in form and size resemble a policeman's club. To one end are attached some thongs of thick leather, half a yard in length, and to the other a loop of the same material, just large enough to go over the hand and bind slightly on the wrist. Dangling from the latter, the handle can be instantly grasped, and the body of thongs brought down on the pony's skin, with a crack like a flail on the sheaves, and the result is what Sachem called an astonishing "sh.e.l.ling out" of speed.

We explained to White Wolf that Tammany Sachem was one of many great chiefs who had a mighty wigwam in the big city of the pale-faces, far away toward the rising sun; that they were all good men, and never lied like the chiefs of the Cheyennes, or took any thing belonging to others; and that their women, instead of carrying heavy burdens, spent all their time in distributing the money and goods of the big wigwam to the needy.

White Wolf signified, through the interpreter, that such a wigwam was too good for earth, and ought to be pitched on the happy hunting grounds as soon as possible.

Sachem thought the savage meant to be sarcastic.

CHAPTER XII.

ARMS OF A WAR PARTY--A DONKEY PRESENT--EATING POWERS OF THE NOMADS--SATANTA, HIS CRIMES AND PUNISHMENT--RUNNING OFF WITH A GOVERNMENT HERD--DAUB, OUR ARTIST--ANTELOPE CHASE BY A GREYHOUND.

At our request White Wolf and two of his braves gave us a display of their skill--or rather, their strength--in the use of their bows, shooting their arrows at a stake sixty yards off. The efforts were what would be called good "line shots," although missing the slender stick.

We then essayed a trial with the chief's bow, which was an exceedingly stout hickory wrapped in sinew, but we found that more practiced strength than ours was required even to bend it. Some amus.e.m.e.nt was created when the first of our party took up the bow, by the haste with which a small and unusually ugly Indian retreated from the foreground as if fearing that an arrow might be accidentally sent through his blanket.

Among the stock which the savages had brought with them was a long-eared, diminutive brute, scarcely higher than a table, and apparently forming the connecting link between a jacka.s.s rabbit and a donkey. This animal White Wolf seemed extremely anxious to present to the Professor, but it was politely declined, by the advice of the interpreter, who explained to us that a return gift of the donkey's weight in sugar and coffee would be expected. Notwithstanding the stringency of the law forbidding the sale of whisky and ammunitions to the Indians, the savages found little difficulty in filling themselves with fire-water, and also got a little powder. White Wolf went off with his pocket full of cartridges in exchange for some Indian commodities, but the cunning pale face rendered them of little value by selecting ammunition a size too small for the gun.

The eating powers of these nomads are marvelous. We saw the chief, inside of two hours, devour three hearty dinners, one of which was gotten up from our own larder and was both good and plentiful. As he did full justice to every invitation to eat and drink, we concluded that he would continue to accept during the whole afternoon, if the opportunity were only offered him. What a capital minister to England was here wasting his gastric juices on the desert air! If Great Britain should continue her hesitation to digest our Alabama claims, the wolf at their door would digest enough roast beef to bring them to terms or starvation. Sugar, coffee, spices, pickles, sardines, ham, and many another luxury of civilization, were alike welcome at the capacious portal of the untutored savage. Dobeen discovered him eating a can of our condensed milk under the impression that it was a sweet porridge.

Their entertainment at the town being concluded, the Indians were conducted over to the fort and some rations given them. They manifested an especial fondness for sugar, but took any thing they could get, their ponies proving capable of carrying an unlimited number of sacks. It seemed as difficult to overload these animals as it is a Broadway omnibus; and their riders, perhaps in order to avoid being top heavy, took freight for the inside whenever opportunity offered. As they came back through the town, we all turned out to see them off. The band promised us peace, notwithstanding which it was no small satisfaction to discover that they were poorly armed. Bows and arrows were the only weapons which all possessed, and while a few had revolvers, the chief alone sported a rifle, a rusty-looking old breech-loader.

As our late cavalry escort rode off, their att.i.tudes plainly bespoke that they had been raiding upon more than the flesh-pots of Egypt. Sons of the sandy-complexioned desert, we saw several of them kiss their mother before they got out of sight. The most serious question with us now was whether or not these red gormandizers had been uttering peace notes not properly indorsed by their hearts. The trouble is that when one discovers a circulation of this kind, his own ceases about the same instant, and his bones become a fixed investment in the fertile soil of the plains.

One of the officers of the fort told us an amusing instance of the impudent treachery of which the western Indians of to-day are sometimes guilty. A year or two before, when Hanc.o.c.k commanded the Department and was encamped near Fort Dodge, on the Arkansas, Satanta and his band of Kiowas came in. This chief has always been known as very hostile to the whites, usually being the first of his tribe to commence hostilities. He was the very embodiment of treachery, ferocity, and bravado.

Phrenologically considered, his head must have been a cranial marvel, and the b.u.mps on it mapping out the kingdom of evil a sort of Rocky Mountain chain towering over the more peaceful valleys around. Viewed from the towering peaks of combativeness and acquisitiveness the territory of his past would reveal to the phrenologist an untold number of government mules, fenced in by sutler's stores, while bending over the b.l.o.o.d.y trail leading back almost to his bark cradle, would be the shades of many mothers and wives, searching among the wrecks of emigrant trains for flesh of their flesh and bone of their bone.

Satanta was long a name on the plains to hate and abhor. He was an abject beggar in the pale faces' camp and a demon on their trail. On the occasion in question he came to Gen. Hanc.o.c.k with protestations of friendship, and, although these were not believed, he was treated precisely as if they had been. To gratify his love of finery an old military coat with general's stars, said to be one that Hanc.o.c.k himself had cast off, was presented him. By some means he also acquired a bugle, and the garrison were greatly amused for the remainder of the day by seeing Satanta galloping back and forth before his band, blowing his bugle and parading his coat, the warriors all cheering the old cut-throat and proud as himself of the display. The way he handled that bugle, however, before the next morning was by no means so amusing.

Some time before dawn the sleepy garrison were aroused by the thunders of a stock stampede, and out of the darkness came the clatter of hoofs, as Satanta and his band departed for the south with a goodly herd of government mules and horses. Pursuit was commenced at once, with the hope of cutting them off before they could get the stock across the Arkansas, then somewhat swollen. Just as the troops reached the bank of that stream, a major-general's uniform was seen going out of the water upon the other side. Notwithstanding its high rank fire was instantly opened upon it, but ineffectually. The savage turned a moment, blew a shrill, defiant blast upon his bugle, and galloped off in safety. Too much promotion made him mad. As a simple chief, he might have stolen some straggling teams; as a major-general, he appropriated a whole herd.

During the next eighteen months, Satanta had several encounters with the troops, generally wearing the major-general's coat and blowing his bugle. His last exploit, which brought the long hesitating sword of justice upon his head, is too fresh and too painful to be soon forgotten. A few months ago the savage chief was living with his people on a reserve in the Indian Territory and being fed by the government.

Gathering a few of his warriors he stole forth, and, crossing the Texas border, surprised a wagon train, murdered the teamsters, and drove off the mules. Fortunately, Gen. Sherman, in his examination of frontier posts, happened to be near the scene of murder, and at once ordered troops in pursuit. They were still trailing the marauders when Satanta returned to the reservation at Fort Sill, and with bold effrontery begotten of long immunity, actually boasted of the crime before the Quaker agent. "I did it," said he, "and if any other chief says it was him, tell him he lies. I am the man." Gen. Sherman had just arrived, and when Satanta, with a number of minor chiefs who were with him on the raid, came into the fort to trade and visit, they were seized and bound, and started for Texas under a strong guard, to be tried by the authorities there. On the way one of the Indians in some manner loosened his bands, and seizing the musket of the guard nearest him, shot the soldier in the shoulder, but before he could do further harm the other guards fired, and the savage rolled from the wagon down upon the plain, apparently dead. The body was afterward found close by the road-side in a position which showed that after falling the savage had enough of vitality left to enable him to crawl with b.l.o.o.d.y hands for several yards. Finding the life-tide ebbing fast, he had then placed his body in position toward the rising sun, composed his arms by his side and, with Indian stoicism, yielded up his breath. The remainder of the party, including Satanta, were brought safely to Texas, tried, and sentenced to be hanged.

Our adventure with White Wolf and his band obliged us, of course, to pa.s.s another night in Hays. We spent a most pleasant hour during the evening in the office of Dr. John Moore, an old resident of Plattsburg, N. Y., who a.s.sisted us materially in selecting medical stores, and who by his genial disposition endeared himself to our entire party, so that when we heard of his sad fate soon afterward, it seemed as if death had crouched by our own camp-fire. Should the Indians become troublesome, there was some talk at the fort, he now informed us, of organizing a company for operations against them, composed of buffalo hunters and scouts under the lead of regular officers, and in this case it was his purpose to accompany it in the capacity of a surgeon. As good guns were difficult to obtain there, and we had some extra weapons, one of our party loaned the doctor an improved Henry rifle and holster revolvers.

Before we again heard of him, he had crossed that shadowy line which winds between the tombs and habitations of men, and his name was added to the drearily long list which bears for its heading--"Killed by Indians."

Commencing with those first entries after the Mayflower introduced our fathers to savage audience, and chiseling separately each name on a marble milestone, the white witnesses would girdle the earth.

Sunrise next morning saw us again moving northward, fully determined that no body of Indians, unless comprising the whole Cheyenne nation, should force us back again. We had met the red man on his native heath and familiarity had bred contempt. All were in excellent spirits and felt the braver, perhaps, because our late visitors had a.s.sured us that their tribe was on the war-path against the p.a.w.nees, and meant only peace with the whites.

Our party left Hays the second time with quite an acquisition. On the eve of starting we had been approached by an artist, who begged permission to accompany us. We a.s.sented on the instant. An artist was, of all others, the thing we needed. How interesting it would be to have the thrilling incidents of the coming months sketched by our artist on the spot. "Daub" was a fine-looking fellow, with peaked hat, peaked beard, and peaked mustache; in short, was of the genuine artist cut, of the kind that are always sitting around on the stones in romantic places and getting married to heiresses.