Pony Tracks Part 2

And morning finds you in the saddle. It always does. I don't know how it is--a habit of life, I suppose. Mornings ought to find me cosily ensconced in a good bed, but in retrospect they seem always to be in the saddle, with a good prospect of all day ahead, and evening finds me with a chunk of bull meat and without blankets, until one fine day we come to our wagons, our Sibleys, and the little luxuries of the mess chest.

The next morning I announced my intention of going to Pine Ridge Agency, which is twenty-five miles away. Mr. Thompson, two scouts, and a Swedish teamster are to go in for provisions and messages. Mr.

Thompson got in the wagon. I expressed my astonishment at this and the fact that he had no carbines, as we expected to go through the hostile pickets and camp. He said, "If I can't talk them Injuns out of killin'

me, I reckon I'll have to go." I trotted along with Red-Bear and Hairy-Arm, and a mile and a half ahead went the courier, Wells. Poor man! in two hours he lay bleeding in the road, with a bullet through the hips, and called two days for water before he "struck the long trail to the kingdom come," as the cowboys phrase it.

We could see two black columns of smoke, which we did not understand.

After we had gone eight or ten miles, and were just crossing a ravine, we saw a Sioux buck on a little hill just ahead, out of pistol-shot.

He immediately rode the "danger signal." Red-Bear turned his horse in the "peace sign," and advanced. We drove over the ravine, and halted.

I dismounted. Six young Brule Sioux rose out of the ground, and rode up to Red-Bear, and the hills were full of pickets to the right and left. We waited to hear the result of Red-Bear's conversation, when he presently came back and spoke to Thompson in Cheyenne. I looked at him; his eyes were snapping, and his facial muscles twitched frightfully. This was unusual, and I knew that things were not well.

"Red-Bear says we will have to go back," explained Thompson; and turning to Red-Bear he requested that two Sioux might come closer, and talk with us. Things looked ominous to me, not understanding Cheyenne, which was being talked. "This is a bad hole, and I reckon our cake is dough right here," said Thompson.

Hairy-Arm's face was impa.s.sive, but his dark eyes wandered from Brule to Brule with devilish calculation. Two young bucks came up, and one asked Thompson for tobacco, whereat he was handed a package of Durham by Thompson, which was not returned.

"It's lucky for me that tobacco ain't a million dollars," sighed Thompson.

Another little buck slipped up behind me, whereat Mr. Thompson gave me a warning look. Turning, I advanced on him quickly (I wanted to be as near as possible, not being armed), and holding out my hand, said, "How, colah?" He did not like to take it, but he did, and I was saved the trouble of further action.

"We'll never get this wagon turned around," suggested Mr. Thompson, as the teamster whipped up; but we did. And as we commenced our movement on Casey's camp, Mr. Thompson said, "Go slow now; don't run, or they'll sure shoot."

"Gemme gun," said the little scout Red-Bear, and we all got our arms from the wagon.

There was no suspense now. Things had begun to happen. A little faster, yet faster, we go up the little banks of the _coulee_, and, ye G.o.ds! what!--five fully armed, well-mounted cowboys--a regular rescue scene from Buffalo Bill's show.

"Go back!" shouted Thompson.

Bang! bang! bang! and the bullets whistle around and kick up the dust.

Away we go.

Four bucks start over the hills to our right to flank us. Red-Bear talked loudly in Cheyenne.

Thompson repeated, "Red-Bear says if any one is. .h.i.t, get off in the gra.s.s and lie down; we must all hang together."

We all yelled, "We will."

A well-mounted man rode like mad ahead of the laboring team horses to carry the news to the scout camp. The cowboys, being well mounted, could easily have gotten away, but they stuck like true blues.

Here is where the great beauty of American character comes out.

Nothing can be taken seriously by men used to danger. Above the pounding of the horses and the rattle of the wagon and through the dust came the cowboy song from the lips of Mr. Thompson:

"Roll your tail, And roll her high; We'll all be angels By-and-by."

[Ill.u.s.tration: A RUN TO THE SCOUT CAMP]

We deployed on the flanks of the wagon so that the team horses might not be shot, which would have stopped the whole outfit, and we did ten miles at a record-breaking gallop. We struck the scout camp in a blaze of excitement. The Cheyennes were in war-paint, and the ponies' tails were tied up and full of feathers. Had the Sioux materialized at that time, Mr. Casey would have had his orders broken right there.

After a lull in the proceedings, Mr. Thompson confided to me that "the next time I go to war in a wagon it will put the drinks on me"; and he saddled Piegan, and patted his neck in a way which showed his gratification at the change in transport. We pulled out again for the lower country, and as our scouts had seen the dust of Colonel Sanford's command, we presently joined them.

Any remarks made to Mr. Thompson on the tobacco subject are taken seriously, and he has intimated to me a quiet yearning for a shot at "the particular slit-mouthed Brule who got away with that Durham."

How we awoke next morning with the sleet freezing in our faces, and how we made camp in the blizzard, and borrowed Sibley stoves of the soldiers, and how we were at last comfortable, and spent New-Year's Eve in a proper manner, is of little interest.

I was awakened at a late hour that night by Captain Baldwin, of General Miles's staff, and told to saddle up for a night's ride to Pine Ridge. This was the end of my experience with Lieutenant Casey and his gallant corps. We shook hands cheerily in the dim candle-light of the tepee, and agreeing to meet in New York at some not distant day, I stepped out from the Sibley, mounted, and rode away in the night.

Three days later I had eaten my breakfast on the dining-car, and had settled down to a cigar and a Chicago morning paper. The big leads at the top of the column said, "Lieutenant E. W. Casey Shot." Casey shot!

I look again. Yes; despatches from head-quarters--a fact beyond question.

A nasty little Brule Sioux had made his _coup_, and shot away the life of a man who would have gained his stars in modern war as naturally as most of his fellows would their eagles. He had shot away the life of an accomplished man; the best friend the Indians had; a man who did not know "fear"; a young man beloved by his comrades, respected by his generals and by the Secretary of War. The squaws of another race will sing the death-song of their benefactor, and woe to the Sioux if the Northern Cheyennes get a chance to _coup_!

"Try to avoid bloodshed," comes over the wires from Washington. "Poor savages!" comes the plaintive wail of the sentimentalist from his place of security; but who is to weep for the men who hold up a row of bra.s.s b.u.t.tons for any hater of the United States to fire a gun at? Are the squaws of another race to do the mourning for American soldiers?

Are the men of another race to hope for vengeance? Bah!

I sometimes think Americans lack a virtue which the military races of Europe possess. Possibly they may never need it. I hope not. American soldiers of our frontier days have learned not to expect sympathy in the East, but where one like Casey goes down there are many places where Sorrow will spread her dusky pinions and the light grow dim.

THE SIOUX OUTBREAK IN SOUTH DAKOTA

We discussed the vague reports of the Wounded Knee fight in the upper camps of the cordon, and old hands said it could be no ordinary affair because of the large casualty. Two days after I rode into the Pine Ridge Agency, very hungry and nearly frozen to death, having ridden with Captain Baldwin, of the staff, and a Mr. Miller all night long. I had to look after a poor horse, and see that he was groomed and fed, which require considerable tact and "hustling" in a busy camp. Then came my breakfast. That struck me as a serious matter at the time.

There were wagons and soldiers--the burial party going to the Wounded Knee to do its solemn duty. I wanted to go very much. I stopped to think; in short, I hesitated, and of course was "lost," for after breakfast they had gone. Why did I not follow them? Well, my natural prudence had been considerably strengthened a few days previously by a half-hour's interview with six painted Brule Sioux, who seemed to be in command of the situation. To briefly end the matter, the burial party was fired on, and my confidence in my own good judgment was vindicated to my own satisfaction.

I rode over to the camp of the Seventh United States Cavalry, and met all the officers, both wounded and well, and a great many of the men.

They told me their stories in that inimitable way which is studied art with warriors. To appreciate brevity you must go to a soldier. He shrugs his shoulders, and points to the bridge of his nose, which has had a piece cut out by a bullet, and says, "Rather close, but don't amount to much." An inch more, and some youngster would have had his promotion.

I shall not here tell the story of the Seventh Cavalry fight with Big Foot's band of Sioux on the Wounded Knee; that has been done in the daily papers; but I will recount some small-talk current in the Sibley tepees, or the "white man's war tents," as the Indians call them.

Lying on his back, with a bullet through the body, Lieutenant Mann grew stern when he got to the critical point in his story. "I saw three or four young bucks drop their blankets, and I saw that they were armed. 'Be ready to fire, men; there is trouble.' There was an instant, and then we heard sounds of firing in the centre of the Indians. 'Fire!' I shouted, and we poured it into them."

"Oh yes, Mann, but the trouble began when the old medicine-man threw the dust in the air. That is the old Indian signal of 'defiance,' and no sooner had he done that act than those bucks stripped and went into action. Just before that some one told me that if we didn't stop that old man's talk he would make trouble. He said that the white men's bullets would not go through the ghost shirts."

Said another officer, "The way those Sioux worked those Winchesters was beautiful." Which criticism, you can see, was professional.

Added another, "One man was. .h.i.t early in the firing, but he continued to pump his Winchester; but growing weaker and weaker, and sinking down gradually, his shots went higher and higher, until his last went straight up in the air."

[Ill.u.s.tration: IN THE TRENCHES]

"Those Indians were plumb crazy. Now, for instance, did you notice that before they fired they raised their arms to heaven? That was devotional."

"Yes, captain, but they got over their devotional mood after the shooting was over," remonstrated a cynic. "When I pa.s.sed over the field after the fight one young warrior who was near to his death asked me to take him over to the medicine-man's side, that he might die with his knife in the old conjurer's heart. He had seen that the medicine was bad, and his faith in the ghost shirt had vanished. There was no doubt but that every buck there thought that no bullet could touch him."

"Well," said an officer, whose pipe was working into a reflective mood, "there is one thing which I learned, and that is that you can bet that the private soldier in the United States army will fight.

He'll fight from the drop of the hat anywhere and in any place, and he'll fight till you call _time_. I never in my life saw Springfield carbines worked so industriously as at that place. I noticed one young fellow, and his gun seemed to just blaze all the while. Poor chap!

he's mustered out for good."

I saw the scout who had his nose cut off. He came in to get shaved.

His face was covered with strips of court-plaster, and when informed that it would be better for him to forego the pleasure of a shave, he reluctantly consented. He had ridden all day and been in the second day's fight with his nose held on by a few strips of plaster, and he did not see just why he could not be shaved; but after being talked to earnestly by a half-dozen friends he succ.u.mbed.