Three Years on the Plains Part 11

Many of the Sioux now actually believe that their nation is more powerful than the United States, and Red Cloud a greater warrior than Grant, Sherman, or Sheridan. One of Red Cloud's party said, "If you are so strong and have so many warriors, why did you not keep your forts on the Powder River?" The delegation to Washington will go back and tell the people not how many men, women, and children they saw, as evidence of our power and greatness, but how many horses, soldiers, guns, and corn they saw. For thus they estimate the power and glory of a nation.

Red Cloud won great glory among all the Indians on the plains by his skill in manoeuvring in getting us to give up four hundred miles of rich territory, pulling down three forts, and retiring back to the Platte River. No chief since King Philip or Red Jacket has achieved such a feat and a reputation as Red Cloud.

On account of repeated acts of hostility on the part of the Sioux, the government refused to trade with them at the posts, or have traders sent among them. They need powder and lead, etc., but it would be used to kill our people instead of game,--they allege it is needed, for now it is more scarce.

Red Cloud came into Laramie and Fetterman several times to get leave to trade, but at last he said "he'd go to the Great Father at Washington, and not treat with understrappers, with whom he will in future have nothing to do." About the middle of April he left his hunting-grounds, and on the 24th appeared on the north bank of Platte, opposite Fort Fetterman. With him were some warriors, squaws, and children. They marched down to the ferry in state, singing their song of welcome, and shouted across that they were in a hurry! They were halted there till next day, and the warriors allowed to come over unarmed.

Colonel Chambers, commanding, received them at headquarters. A long smoke all round followed, and then Red Cloud rose up and in a loud voice invoked the countenance and favor of the Great Spirit on his mission, shook hands with all the officers present, and went up to the council-table to have a long talk, as he had come a long way, and wanted to trade.

He said, "I have been treating with you since 1851, and no good has come of it. Our treaties do not last, and now I want to go and see the Great Father, and make a treaty that will last. Tell the Great Father I am here and desire to see him, and take fifty of my people with me to see him. I will wait for his reply at my camp beyond the river."

Colonel Chambers said he would "_blow the Great Father a message on his hollow wire_, and repeat all the chief had said to him," which quite pleased Red Cloud. He said, "I have waited for the soldiers to leave my country, and I want things settled."

The colonel intimated that the Father was at that time very far away at the East, and it might be many "sleeps" before he could hear from him, and as soon as the Father blew back words by the telegraph, he would send word to the chief's camp and let him know. He then asked to trade, and was allowed to buy tobacco and flour for robes left with the commissary, but nothing else.

He then spoke of his prisoner, John Richaud, and his wish to take him to Washington for a pardon. Also, that Richaud had some property in the fort locked up, which he wanted a chief to take care of. Colonel C---- said he would not do that without orders from his chief (General Augur) at Omaha. This was satisfactory, and the chief sat down.

Speeches then were made by Man-afraid-of-his-Horses and Red Horse, and the council broke up.

Soon as it was known at Washington, and a consultation was had with General Sherman and Secretary of War Belknap, the President sent word that he would be glad to see the chief, and would send a guide to show him the way to the Great Father's wigwam. This message came the 12th May, and the Indians started on the 14th. A great dance was celebrated among the tribe of Ogallallas, and repeated at Fort Laramie for the officers and families.

To this point Red Cloud's son and wife came, but they returned with the others to their hunting-grounds in the Sioux country.

When the party under General Smith left the post in ambulances, etc., some felt "sea-sick," never having rode in a wagon before!

Once on the cars, it was kept as quiet as possible. At Fremont, forty-seven miles from Omaha, it had leaked out, and much excitement prevailed there, as it was reported that the p.a.w.nees, the old and inveterate enemies of the Sioux, were coming in from their reservation (near there), and would attack the train and kill the Sioux chiefs. A number of them were there when the train came along, but they kept very quiet. One or two of the p.a.w.nees went up and shook hands with their old enemies (with whom a deadly feud has existed for years), but they were closely watched by General Smith, lest a stab should be given with their knives. Although the Sioux chiefs were told of the danger, they were "as cool about it as a cuc.u.mber." They looked at their knives being all right, and that was all. Of course all along their route they were objects of curiosity to everybody; and had the government declined to have them go (as it was said at first they would), a war would have followed soon after!

PERILOUS ADVENTURE--PURSUIT OF A HORSE-THIEF.

A young man named Frank Hunter, born in Ma.s.sachusetts, migrated to the Indian country, and was very successfully employed as a government detective in "Camp Carling," between Cheyenne and Fort Russell. In the winter of 1868, a bold robbery was committed by a man employed in taking care of horses by Major J. D. Woolley, the post-trader at Fort Russell.

One morning in December the stable-door was left open, and soon found out that the man and two valuable horses were missing. One of them belonged to Lieutenant Wanless, of the 2d United States Cavalry (who was East at the time on leave); this was the fastest pacing horse in the territory, and for which he had refused a high price in money. The other belonged to the major, and was of considerable value. The matter of catching the thief and horses was given into Mr. Hunter's hands, with instructions to spare no pains or expense in securing the thief, who had hired out on purpose to steal the fast nag. The following I copied from the detective's journal, and verified the facts from other sources.

Mr. Hunter started out to Colorado with ten cavalrymen and Lieutenant Belden on the road to Denver _via_ Boulder City, to prevent the thief (who went by the name of Durant) from getting into the mountains, and so on to New Mexico. This trip proved fruitless. The alternative that suggested itself was that the thief had gone another road, towards the Smoky-Hill route. The first tidings revealed the fact to them, at the South Platte River, that the inferior horse had been disposed of near G.o.dfrey's ranch on the Platte, where the writer's horse and a beautiful Cheyenne pony had been taken by horse-thieves in the preceding summer.

The thief, hard pushed for money, had sold Mr. Woolley's horse to a man here named Perkins, who paid thirty-five dollars, while he was worth two hundred dollars. This he placed out of the way, some thirty miles off, thinking him safe from discovery.

Here the utmost caution and strategy were necessary to recover this horse they had secreted, and find out what road the rogues took with the thoroughbred animal. But it was done. The detective came back to Cheyenne with his escort and left it there. Then, on one of Wells, Fargo & Co.'s fast coaches, he embarked for Denver City. A heavy snow-storm set in and impeded the way. Thus the thief had nine days the start.

From Denver he made the best of his way--after being detained five days by the storm--for Sheridan, in Kansas, which was reached in five more days' time,--the trip being made usually by railroad in forty-eight hours. At Sheridan the cars were blockaded with snow, and quite a number of gentlemen were snow-bound, among them the members of Congress from New Mexico and Kansas. The detective proposed to these honorable gents the pleasure of a tramp as far as Fort Hays, only one hundred and thirty-five miles! All agreed, and the party set out, though the snow was very deep.

The expedition proved to be one of much interest; but the pursuit of the thief being the main object before us, we find the detective arrived at Fort Harker, Kansas, and in communication with a gentleman named Stone, who had seen the famous pacer, and had tried to buy him of the supposed owner; and from him the detective learned that the horse was near at hand, only twenty miles farther east, at a place called "Saline," on a small river, in Kansas. From this place the thief intended to convey the horse to Aurora, Illinois (his native town), to match him there with another, and thus to obtain a large sum of money for his thieving wickedness.

Arrived in Saline, Mr. Hunter lost no time in putting himself in communication with the sheriff there, who seemed to Mr. Hunter not to be entirely reliable; indeed, from a careful survey of faces of the loungers in the bar-room of the one-horse town of border settlers, the sheriff appeared to be hand-in-glove with the thief, so he concluded that his only chance of any help in the matter could come from the landlord and the telegraph operator,--the latter having sent messages from the rogue to Aurora, while detained there by the depth of snow.

But no time was to be lost, and a desperate effort must be made.

Mr. Hunter went into the bar-room with the sheriff, after breakfast, and a crowd was sitting around the stove. The rogue was sent for with a message that "a gentleman wished to speak with him." He came into the room presently, picking his teeth, and putting on an a.s.sumed air of indifference; he looked at the detective with a coolness quite refreshing, as he stepped up to the bar and called for cigars, saying, "Gentlemen, who'll have a smoke? I don't see any _gentleman_ here that I know, besides myself."

"How are you, Ned?" said Mr. Hunter. "You don't know me?"

"Gentlemen," replied he, "on my honor, before G.o.d, I never saw this man before in my life! This is a put-up game of a man named Stone, to bilk me out of my fast horse; and (putting his hand on his six-shooter in his belt) no man shall get this horse, which I bought, or me either, alive."

The detective with great presence of mind a.s.sured him that his game was up; that the first motion he made of resistance he was a dead man! Then drawing a pair of manacles from his pocket, he soon clasped them on his prisoner's wrists, and relieved the rogue of his pistols, handing them over to the barkeeper for safety. He was taken to his room to pick up his traps, until the horse could be saddled up to return.

By this time a reaction had taken place among the crowd, who seemed to sympathize with the thief, and some exclaimed against taking him, and for all they knew, he might be innocent. Here was a new danger not expected. If these fifteen or twenty hard-looking customers should take it into their heads to vote the man guiltless, there was an end to justice, and the detective might find himself suspended from the nearest cottonwood limb of a tree, dangling like Mohammed's coffin, between heaven and earth! But as good luck would have it, the irons pressed tightly and painfully on the wrists of the captive, and he cried from his room, "Hunter! oh, Hunter! come and loose these cursed irons,--they're killing me!"

"Now, gentlemen," said Hunter, "you see whether he knows me or not." To the prisoner he said, "I'll loosen them if you'll tell all about it."

He came in and said, "Yes, I stole the horse; I'm a thief, and that man is a detective of the government from Cheyenne."

Of course, here all danger should end, and my story cease. But the truth is, something new turned up very often to embarra.s.s the journey back to Cheyenne. After leaving Fort Harker, a new dodge was attempted, but different from the one that Paddy essayed when he greased the horse's mouth to save the oats. Leaving the culprit in irons at Fort Harker, the detective proceeded on to Fort Ellsworth, Kansas, from which place he started in the morning with his horse, in high hopes of reaching Cheyenne in a few days.

But alas for the vanity of human hopes and expectations! Having ridden about fifteen miles, the horse came to a sudden pause, and acted like one afflicted with spring-halt. Stopping at a ranch near by, after a careful examination, it was found that some precious villains had tied some silk cords on his legs underneath the fetlocks, thoroughly crippling him, so he could hardly move a limb. They hoped to lame the horse till he could be stolen again! But it was not successful. This journey of seventeen hundred miles cost the sum of six hundred dollars.

But the horses were valued at fifteen hundred dollars, and it was right to put a stop, if possible, to the crime so common in the West of stealing horses, and one which subjects the culprit to a ball in his body, if needful to recapture stolen stock, and all say it is just and right, as a man's horse there may, in some cases, be "his life."

But the fellow while in limbo sawed off the chain and ball from his leg and escaped. He, moreover, had the impudence to write a saucy letter to Mr. Hunter, telling him "that the caged bird had flown, and the probability of their never meeting again!"

The rascal had been a soldier in the army, deserting several times, and re-enlisting under a new name each time, at different posts in the western country.

HANGING HORSE-THIEVES.

It seems awful when we hear of the "Vigilance committees" in new countries. They are a body of men combining together, in a secret society, to rid the community of vile men, who rob, steal, and commit murder, just as easy as lying, and all for a few dollars. I say it seems awful to hear of their sentencing individuals to be hung by the neck to the telegraph-poles, often with only a single hour's notice, without a trial by jury. But it is done in new towns such as Julesburg was, where people would not be safe without some such action.

California began it, and other places found it necessary.

At Cheyenne, when it was full of these horse-thieves and gamblers, I was called upon to bury "a gentleman" (as he was called), who had died suddenly, they said, at the "Beauvais House." I went down from the fort in February, and as the day was pleasant, crowds of young men were gathered in front of the house, and the street was full of carriages.

It seems the dead man was the proprietor of the hotel, and it did not bear a very good reputation. Harris had formerly a partner named Martin, with whom he had a quarrel one evening, and Harris ordered his former partner to leave,--shutting the door upon him. Then Martin turned and shot three b.a.l.l.s through the panel of the door, one of which hit Harris, and of which he died in about twelve hours. This produced a great excitement, and called out the crowd at the funeral. The person in charge asked me to step out on the balcony and address the people in the street. But I declined, and said I would speak to the young men, as I felt it my duty to do, in the parlor and hall. I remarked to them "that the deceased was past our praise or blame. But it was my duty to warn them at this time, when no man's life was safe, to think of the shortness and uncertainty of human life! Here, away from good examples you once had at home, you are in much danger. You and I think that we will die on a sick-bed, with dear friends around us; but you nor I will die just when or where we expect to. Some of you _have learned to say your prayers at your mother's knee_, but you forget, or are ashamed to do so now. Oh, be warned, my friends, to seek Christ and his favor, and He will take care of you, etc."

I could see many faces intent on what I had to say, and among them was a little dwarf belonging to the house, as an errand-boy. He covered up his face with his hands, sitting upon a low stool, and perhaps his mind wandered back to the humble cottage where he was born, and a mother's smile was his best beacon of goodness: he had not forgotten! For when I came back from the graveyard, he said, "Parson, I thought a good deal about what you said, indeed I did, _and it's true, every word of it, you bet_!"

Martin was tried by a court, and got clear. But he was fool enough to go round the saloons right away, boasting that he would serve out several more before breakfast. Then the vigilantes got hold of him that night, and hung him to the telegraph-poles near Cheyenne, till he was dead.

Sam Dugan was in our military prison at Fort Russell, for the crime of stealing horses. He was released upon a writ of _habeas corpus_ from Colorado and taken to Denver, where members of the vigilance committee took him from jail outside the city in an express-wagon, and fastening a rope around his neck, and throwing it over a limb of a large cottonwood-tree, they hung him up; leaving the body suspended for twenty-four hours.

He confessed to have stolen many horses, and to have murdered at least six men in his life on the plains.

Most of these hardened villains die as brave men; but Dugan they said whined like a child. He was really afraid to die, because of his great wickedness.

AN INDIAN FIGHT AT SWEEt.w.a.tER MINES.