Three Years on the Plains Part 8

INDIANS MAKING SIGNALS.

The Indians can make signals to the distance of eight or ten miles to their confederates. This is done in two ways: first, by lighting one or more fires; secondly, by flashing the sunlight by small mirrors from one bluff to another. Thus, by day or by night, they can communicate at great distances. They have "field-gla.s.ses" also.

If an Indian is benighted on the plains, he can make himself quite comfortable, where a white man would perish in the winter with cold. He will gather some buffalo chips, and strike a fire with a flint, sitting close to it, and throwing his blanket around him in shape of a tent, and let the smoke go out of a hole at the top. He thus looks at night like a stump on fire.

MERCIFUL INDIANS.

A poor old German was traveling in Colorado with his wagon, when he was set upon by a lot of Indians. They drew their bows to shoot him, when he dropped upon his knees and began to pray vehemently. "Oh," said he, "mine goot friends, please don't shoot me! I'm joost the best friends what you have got. I never killed not n.o.body, and please don't shoot a poor fellow like me." The Indians did not understand a word he said, but he acted in such a ludicrous manner, they thought he was crazy, and so they let him pa.s.s unharmed. They seemed to have a sense of the ludicrous, as they went off laughing at the poor Dutchman quite heartily.

A SCENE AT NORTH PLATTE.

After the treaty with the Indians at Fort Laramie, in 1868, the Peace Commission adjourned, part to go with General Sherman to New Mexico, a part to meet at Fort Rice, Dakota, with General Terry, part to go up to Fort Bridger, in Wyoming, with General Augur, and another with Commissioner Taylor at North Platte, Nebraska, to meet different tribes not present at Laramie. There I went to see Spotted Tail's band, and learn all I could of Indian life. Spotted Tail was off on the Republican River, in Kansas, hunting buffalo with White Bear and Man-who-owns-his-Horses, nephew of Spotted Tail. Mr. Goodell, of Chicago, was there, to see if he could not induce the Indians to undertake the weaving of blankets and shawls, etc. by hand-looms, such as are in use in the Ohio Penitentiary. I went with him to hear what they would say. Rolled up in a blanket were specimens of woolen yarn of bright colors, and a piece of cloth partly woven, and he had a picture of a girl sitting at the loom in the act of weaving. Around us gathered all the young squaws, who expressed great delight at the whole thing and seemed to comprehend it; while young Indian lads stood at a distance and only gave a grunt of qualified satisfaction, or reservation. I should think there would be no difficulty in introducing such work, as the squaws will readily labor on anything that promises to add to their comfort or adornment of their persons.

Then quite an amusing incident occurred, which I must relate, though the joke was upon myself, or my friend, Mr. G----. Seeing a tall young squaw standing in front of her tent, I said, "Let us go and see what she is doing." She had made her morning toilet, and was very prettily dressed in gay colors, with a long red shawl on, coming down to her feet. I should say the entrance to the tepees or tents is through a hole hidden by a round hoop, covered with deer-skin, hanging by a string only, so as to be thrust aside easily when one wants to enter.

I said to her, "Me wa-se-na-cha-wa-kon!" That is to say, I am a medicine-man, or minister of the Great Spirit. "Wa-kon" means Great Spirit. Looking first at me, then at Mr. G----, she raised her finger and said, "Me no want." Then she turned and rushed into her tent,--shot in like a prairie-dog into his hole,--leaving us to feel rather silly by being so suddenly "cut" by a young beauty on the plains. I said, "Mr. G----, she evidently don't like your good looks or mine," and we walked off quite mortified. The interpreter explained her conduct, saying she was not "sick," and therefore did not want any "charm" to make her well.

Here I saw an Indian child, five years old, dressed in a most elegant suit of buckskin, embroidered with beads and horse-hair of various colors. The frock came below the knees, with a handsome fringe at the bottom, and underneath the little fellow wore leggins and moccasins. I never saw any child dressed so beautiful or looking like a little prince, as he was, of the tribe. I would have given fifty dollars for the "outfit," if I had a child to wear it. How is it that these rude children of nature can do such beautiful bead-work,--all of the figures as regular as if laid out by geometrical rule,--or as perfect as any lady could make the figures of an afghan?

This station of the Union Pacific Railroad is just beyond the crossing of the Platte River, of half a mile in width.

It is an important little place of a few hundred people, on account of the machine-shops and round-house for locomotives, and as one of the main points where Indians cross from Dakota to the Republican River when on hunting expeditions. Hence a company of soldiers are stationed here to protect the railroad and the long bridge just east of the town.

All along the road, at each station, are troops also for protection, who usually "turn out," range in file, and "present arms" as the train approaches.

Here we met a white man named Pratt,--that is to say, if he were washed in the river he would look white,--who said that he had lived with the tribe for sixteen years, and had nine (half-breed) children, and they were more filthy and squalid than those of any other lodge.

A squaw had died here, and was buried as usual, by elevating the body upon upright poles. A stock of food was left with her at night, to eat on the way to the other country. But lo! in the morning she came down and ate it all up, saying to her friends, "She wanted to see her aunt before departing." She lived a week longer, and died, as it was supposed, again. It is said that her friends got tired of such fooling, and being determined to end the matter, adopted the white man's mode of covering her up in the ground! Again she rose up and preferred some new request; but thinking the old enchantress had stayed long enough this side the hunting grounds, they forced her down and laid sufficient turf upon her to keep her quiet for a long last sleep.

Among the p.a.w.nees at Columbus, on the reservation near the railroad, an Indian trader makes a good thing out of the poor fellows in this way:

For instance, the Indian Bureau pays off the tribe twice a year. In the spring, blankets, etc.; these are worth at least three dollars each.

The Indians sell these blankets for a double handful of coffee and sugar. Then they buy them back in the fall with money and buffalo meat, which they sell to the trader at six cents the pound. He then cures the meat and sells it back to them for twenty-five cents the pound; thus making nine per cent. on it. Some one, it is said, complained to the government about it, and they sent a new agent to them; but the p.a.w.nees had confidence in the old agent or trader named Platt, and they stoutly refused to trade with the new man!

ACROSS THE PLAINS.

When Vice-President Colfax and Horace Greeley, and Governor Bross of Illinois, made the journey overland to California, about twelve years since, they went all the way by stage from the Missouri River to Denver, Colorado, to Salt Lake, etc., through the mountains of the Sierra Nevada. It took them about thirty days to go. Mr. Greeley said he "could think of these plains (called in your maps the 'Great American Desert') as fit for nothing but to fill up between commercial cities!" But he was partly mistaken, as his friends are now planting a colony (named Greeley) of intelligent settlers on the Cach-le-pow-dre Creek, south of Cheyenne, fifty-five miles toward Denver, where ninety thousand acres of land have been secured for tillage, and where saw-mills and stores and dwellings are to be erected. The success of this enterprise has led to another one. The railroad _has projected civilization one hundred years ahead_, opening up a highway for commerce from New York to the "Golden Gate," to Asia, Africa, and China, which will astonish the world and divert the course of trade to the Pacific coast.

But you are interested mainly, I see, in reading about the incidents which attended the opening up of this great national highway.

The dangers attending the building of the road were sometimes very great, as the Indians saw very plainly that it was the white man's encroachment on his hunting-grounds. And when even the telegraph-poles were being put up, long before, the Indians imagined that the government was thus putting them up to fence off their hunting-grounds, so they could not get any more buffalo! And once, after I came to Fort Sedgwick, the wires were said to be "down," and no communication could be had with other posts in the upper country. It was feared that the Indians had been tampering with the wires, and torn them down. But the operators went out under an escort of soldiers to see what the difficulty was. They came back again in a couple of days, and reported that the Indians had not meddled with the wires at all. But it seemed that some buffaloes in a large drove had taken the privilege of scratching their rumps against the poles, and thus tore them down; and getting their horns entangled in the wires, the wild creatures had carried off about four miles of telegraph-wire!

WHY DOES NOT THE INDIAN MEDDLE WITH THE TELEGRAPH?

It is said that the pioneer company over the plains got together several chiefs and explained as well as they could the _modus operandi_ of obtaining electricity from the clouds, and making it useful in conveying intelligence to great distances. This was hard for them to believe, because they are superst.i.tious, and attribute all phenomena they do not fully understand to _conjuration_ or _charms_, such as their medicine-man practices. However, they concluded to put the matter to a test.

So it was that two princ.i.p.al Indians, about one hundred miles apart, agreed to send a message over the lines on a given day, and then they would travel toward each other as fast as they could to see if the message (known only to themselves and the operator) should be correct.

Of course it proved as we would expect, and they were satisfied. This intelligence has spread from one tribe to another, and they, believing that it is somehow (as it is in truth) connected with the Great Spirit who controls the winds and the storms; hence they do not meddle with it.

PLUM CREEK Ma.s.sACRE.

But it is not to be supposed that the Indians quietly submitted to the building of the railroad through their country.

The most formidable obstacle which was met with in building the road occurred in 1866, by the throwing off the track a train of cars at Plum Creek, near the Platte River, two hundred and thirty miles west of Omaha.

The Indians were led on by a half-breed, and probably one or more scalawag whites were engaged in this diabolical act, as one was found among the killed with his face painted black and wearing Indian clothing. Some one having a fertile imagination made a picture of this scene, and I saw it copied in Philadelphia for some wall-paper to ornament hotel dining-rooms. Speaking to some ladies there about the delightful trip to California over the Pacific Railroad, one exclaimed, "I would like to visit California, but oh, my! I never could venture on the danger. Just look at the picture in the window, corner Chestnut Street and Broad. The horrid Indians have thrown the cars off the track, and killing all the pa.s.sengers!" I explained to her that it was a fancy sketch entirely, gotten up for a bar-room wall-paper, and that it was ridiculous and false; for the picture was made to show the locomotive off the rail, and the Indians riding round the cars in white shirt sleeves and bright-red, flaring neckties, like gay cavaliers or brigands!

p.a.w.nEE INDIANS--YELLOW SUN AND BLUE HAWK.

Both these Indians declare themselves innocent of the crime of murder.

I visited Omaha in the fall of 1869, where they were lodged in jail awaiting their trial. Just before I came one of them had escaped, and gone back to the p.a.w.nee reservation, near Columbus. Here the sheriff and soldiers found him with his squaw, decked out in all their style of paint and ornament, ready for the sacrifice. He was ready and willing to be slain _among_ his own people, but to go back and suffer the ignominy of being hung up by the neck till dead was more than he could bear. If the Indian dies in this way, all believe they cannot enter into the happy hunting-grounds.

They were supposed to have murdered Edward McMurty, near Grand Island, Nebraska, in June, 1868.

After being shut up in a filthy jail about two years, they were acquitted. This was a sample of the way we dispense justice in our courts of law.

A TRIP TO FORT LARAMIE.

This post was established a great many years since by the American Fur Company, to trade with the Indians, buying furs and peltries of them in return for various articles of merchandise, such as tobacco, sugar, coffee, blankets, calico, beads, etc. Mr. John Jacob Astor, the millionaire of New York, made his great wealth by dealing in furs with the Indians.

It is related of an agent of the company that while weighing the furs, he would place his foot on the scales and call it a pound! Of course he could keep it on as long as he chose, and the Indians would be none the wiser. It is a good story, but in nowise related to Mr. Astor, who was reputed to be honest, and at one time very poor.