The Prairie Schooner Part 8

Beyond Fort Collins and Livermore the country was as new as an unexplored country could be. Trout leaped at play along the narrow but fast-running streams, and if a sportsman had ever cast his lines in these places he must have been a red man or some daring white hunter who preceded the stage of development now under way and who left no record of his doings.

It took several weeks to chop and dig a road through this wilderness and set up in an open s.p.a.ce a couple of sawmill outfits we had with us. Then it required a couple of months of chopping, hauling and sawing of logs, and loading of the green and heavy lumber upon our Murphy wagons. The lumber was unloaded in Cheyenne a month later; some of it was quite dry, but in much smaller quant.i.ties than would have been delivered had the owners been willing to wait for it to dry where cut.

But Cheyenne was in a hurry, and the boomers couldn't wait, consequently many of the green joists in the new buildings shrunk and there were several collapses.

CHAPTER XIV

THE INDIAN AND THE TROUSERS.

When the first clothing was issued to the Sioux and Cheyenne Indians at Red Cloud Agency the scene was better than a circus. If I am not mistaken Carl Schurz was secretary of the interior, and after a conference with some of the big chiefs it was decided to attempt to abolish the breech-clout. The "Great Father" at Washington, represented by members of Congress and some of the Pennsylvania Quakers and others, discovered that Uncle Sam had a warehouse full of discarded or out of date army coats and trousers, and it was decided to give these to certain tribes of Indians as part payment for lands that were needed for white settlement.

The Indians were gathered by hundreds from far and wide the day of issue at Red Cloud, and Agent McGillicuddy addressed them in their own tongue, telling them the light blue trousers and coats were the same kind worn by the brave men who fought heroic battles for their Great Father. His words were received in silence, and after he had finished several chiefs held a pow-wow, after which one of their number presented himself at the delivery window of the big warehouse and received a coat and a pair of trousers. Several white men helped him to adjust the trousers and coat, and when he was fully rigged he started to walk toward his group of red-skinned and breech-clouted companions.

As though the stage had been set and every player had learned his part, the show began. The up to this time silent Indians jumped into the air and made a demonstration of guying that would be a credit to any baseball crowd that ever sat in the bleachers at the Polo Grounds. They danced and cavorted, they yelled and keeled over, and laughed. The squaws and papooses thought it the greatest joke, and partic.i.p.ated in the hilarity. Finally the buck who wore the first suit managed to get it off and resumed his breech-clout.

This first attempt was a failure; but Mr. McGillicuddy was a resourceful man and was implicitly trusted, especially by the leading men of the Sioux nation, and he finally tried another plan which after a year or two succeeded to some extent. He engaged several bucks to help him at the agency warehouse, paying them in extra amounts of sugar, tobacco and bacon, but insisted that while they were on duty they must be dressed in the white man's garb, and finally he had a large number of bucks who were willing to forego the jibes of their friends for the extra allowances.

Sooner or later these Indians began to circulate around among others of the tribe in a lordly manner, and in the end it was not necessary to bribe any of them, except the youngsters of Sitting Bull's band, to wear clothing.

At first the Indians insisted in cutting out entirely the seat of the trousers.

When the first beef on the hoof was issued at Red Cloud, a four-year-old steer was allotted twice a month to the head of each tepee in the tribe.

It was "cut out" from the herd by a cowboy and turned over to the Indians forming the tepee, or family, to do with as they pleased, and what they pleased to do would not have the approval of a humane society.

Always the animal was as wild as a buffalo, and if he did not immediately start a small stampede on his own account a few bloodcurdling yells from the Indians did the business. Selecting the easiest path of escape the frightened steer made a dash, followed by the bucks on their saddleless ponies. Some of the Indians had long spears, all had bows and arrows, and some had guns, ranging in make from an old Spencer rifle to a modern Winchester, although there were few of these.

Most of their weapons were bows and arrows and spears. The latter were thrown with great accuracy, and fatal thrusts were never made until the steer had become exhausted. The arrows were also used, perhaps for an hour, as weapons of torture and shot with no other purpose into the fleshy part of the steer than to increase his speed. The Indians could have killed their steer at any time by a shot placed under the shoulder.

But the idea was to torture the beast and perhaps encourage him to turn and fight for his life, which he often did when surrounded in a ravine.

This was Indian sport, and was indulged in for some time before the Agency authorities required the government's wards to use civilized methods.

Usually when a steer had been chased up hill and down vale for an hour, or until it was worn out, the Indians planned to round up the chase close to their tepee where a final shot with arrow or bullet put an end to the animal's misery. Then the squaws swarmed about the carca.s.s with their skinning knives. The hide, always badly damaged by the spears and arrows, was removed in a workmanlike manner and carefully put away for tanning later on. The flesh of the steer was taken away and the feast began in a few minutes. Much of the meat was dried or "jerked."

CHAPTER XV

THERE'S A REASON: THIS IS IT!--CONCLUSION.

And now let me answer questions that have no doubt arisen in the minds of the readers who have waded through these chapters. "Why isn't this record presented in the regulation way--as a novel with a love story running through it;" or, "What is the moral?"

Let me ask such readers to follow me a little farther.

On March 22d, 1873, a description of a certain boy who left his Wisconsin home to buffet with the world on his own responsibility would have read as follows:

Age, 16 years, 6 mos. and 7 days. Weight 109 pounds; black hair, black eyes, smooth, pale face; well dressed; had, after paying for one handbag, a Derringer revolver (pop-gun) and a few knick-knacks, $85.00 in cash (a large sum for a youth of his age in those days).

Carried trip pa.s.s from Milwaukee to Council Bluffs, Iowa, via the Chicago & Northwestern Railway, personally given to him by Marvin Hughitt, then superintendent; also letter of introduction from E.

J. Cuyler, to S. H. H. Clark, general manager of the Union Pacific Railroad at Omaha, recommending him as a worthy boy looking for a railroad office job, also requesting transportation favors.

This description takes no account of a deep-seated cough, occasional flashes of red in the pale face, and a fear expressed by friends that he was taking a desperate means of escaping the fate that had overtaken his dear mother but four months previously. It takes no account of his life up to the time of his departure on the long journey, not yet ended; though in the natural order of worldly things, the day is near at hand.

I might add that he had been a "call boy" at a big railroad terminal, had advanced to a desk as a way-bill clerk, and when advised to seek a dry climate and there live out-of-doors, was earning a man's wage.

We will pa.s.s over briefly an encounter with one of the best men that ever lived--S. H. H. Clark--in his office at Omaha. When asked for a pa.s.s to Sherman, Wyoming, he said gruffly:

"Haven't you got any money?"

This was the reply:

"Yes, sir, and I'll pay my fare, too, if you don't want to give me a pa.s.s."

"Well," he said, turning to look out of a window, "maybe I'll give you an order for a half-fare ticket," which brought forth this:

"I don't want to be impolite, Mr. Clark, because you are a friend of good friends of mine--Mr. Hughitt and Mr. Cuyler--but I must say you don't know me as well as you might--I'm no half-fare fellow. Good-bye."

And then Mr. Clark laughed, and said he was not in earnest and gave the pa.s.s freely and willingly.

There was a nice chat after that between the pale-faced youth and the big railroader, during which The Boy discovered that Mr. Clark liked his nerve but questioned his physical ability to stand the rough knocks that were coming.

Later, after a season in a division railroad office The Boy, carried away with the spirit of adventure that was everywhere about him, and carrying out a plan he had made to live in the open, went to Cheyenne, signed up with a bull-train, and began the life of out-of-doors. The "train" was loaded and ready to leave Camp Carlin, at Fort Russell, for Fort Laramie on the North Platte, but it was for a while impossible to employ men enough to drive the teams. There had been an outbreak among the Sioux, and things looked dark when The Boy asked for a job driving bulls; and when he was hired by Nate Williams, the Missourian wagon boss, it was almost a joke to Nate, who said afterward that he took one chance in a million when he employed The Boy and took him to camp. Both The Boy and Nate won on the long shot.

A year later The Boy was driving a lead team, looked after the manifests, kept the accounts, and shirked no duty, fair weather or foul.

All this time the pale and flushed cheeks were giving place to bronze, the thin arms and skinny legs were toughening and filling out, and the cough had disappeared--weight after first year, 155.

Before leaving Camp Carlin on this first trip The Boy had time to write home and receive a reply. He told a relative what he had done, and the reply was a stinging rebuke and almost a final farewell, for the relative said nothing good could possibly result from quitting a job with a railroad paying $100 a month and taking one as a teamster at the same figure--"and you nothing but a sickly boy." But the relative was wrong, although excusable.

And now, after all the evidence is in, we find that the "sickly"

youngster is still in the land of the living, past three score years, and with some prospects of another score!

The letter left a sore spot, and The Boy foolishly decided that he was cut off. So he did not write again for nearly two years.

The middle of the second winter found him at Fort Fetterman, living in a dug-out in the embankment of a creek bottom, waiting for the springtime when he could again use his stout lungs in shouting at his bulls, but his strong arms were not idle the while, for he chopped cottonwood, box elder and pine logs for the Fetterman commissary.

In those days there was naught but military law, and the civilians were under more or less surveillance, and it was customary for them to report at given periods to the sergeant who sat in the adjutant's adobe office in the fort.

On one of those occasions The Boy's attention was directed to a bulletin board upon which was tacked a card carrying the caption in big black types:

"INFORMATION WANTED"

Under this was The Boy's name, a detailed description of him when he left Cheyenne, and the statement that "anyone knowing his whereabouts will confer a favor upon his anxious father and sister and receive a reward if word is sent to Thomas Jefferson, a friend of the family at Sherman, Wyoming Territory," to whom an appeal had been made. It was stated in the notice that he "weighs about 100 pounds, has black hair, black eyes, and is pale and sickly."

At this time The Boy weighed nearly 170, was brown as a berry, had muscles of an athlete, and in no wise resembled the description. He had no difficulty in convincing the sergeant that while the name was similar to his own it evidently was the description of a tenderfoot, and he was no tenderfoot--not then.