THE WILD DENIZENS OF THE PLAINS.THE WILD DENIZENS OF THE PLAINS.
There, on a patch of bottom grass, half a dozen elk were feeding; a short distance away, a small herd of wild horses drank from the brook; while in a ravine immediately in front of us, three cayotes were attempting to capture a jackass-rabbit. What a wealth of animal life this valley had opened to us. From our own level the table-lands stretched away in alldirections until striking its grassy waves against the horizon, with not a shrub, tree, or beast to relieve the clearly-cut outlines. Casting our eyes upward, the bright blue sky, clear of every vestige of clouds, arched down until resting on our prairie floor, and not even a bird soared in the air to charm the profound space with the eloquence of life. Casting our eyes downward, the earth was all astir with the activity of its brute creation.
Before we could make any effort at capture, the elk and horses winded us and fled away toward the opposite ridges, where stalking them would have been exceedingly difficult, if not impossible. Leading the mustangs was a large black stallion, which kept its position by pacing while the others ran. Buffalo Bill said this was an escaped American horse which had fled to solitude with the rider's blood upon his saddle. We noted the statement as one for future elucidation at our camp-fire. The rabbit chase in the ravine continued, and we watched it unseen for several minutes. The wolves were endeavoring to surround their victim, and cut in ahead of it whenever he attempted to get out of the ravine. Although such odds were against him, the rabbit had thus far succeeded by superior speed and quick dodging in evading his enemies; but escape was hopeless, as he was hemmed in and becoming exhausted. These tireless wolves, cowardly creatures though they are, might worry to death an elephant. A few shots terminated this scene, driving off the wolves, but killing the rabbit for whose protection they were fired. The Professor remarked that this was like a lawyer's rescue.He sometimes frightens away the persecutors, but the charges generally kill the client.
For the benefit of those of my readers who have never seen a member of that unfortunate rabbit family which has been christened by such a humiliating given name, I would state that the species is remarkable for its very long ears, and very long legs. If the reader, being a married man, desires a pictorial representation of this animal, let him draw a donkey a foot high on the wall, and if his wife does not interrupt by drawing a broomstick, he may be satisfied that his work is well done, and a life-size jackass-rabbit will stand out before him.
A mile from the scene of this adventure Silver Creek joined the Saline, and at the junction it was determined to make our camp. We descended among heavy "brakes," staying our loaded wagons with ropes from behind. Immense quarries of the soft, white limestone rose from the valley's bed to the level of the plains above, and the rains of centuries had fashioned out pillars and arches, giving them the appearance of ancient ruins staring down upon us. Mr. Colon picked up a fine moss agate and the Professor a Kansas diamond. Under the surface of the former were several figures of bushes and trees, outlined as distinctly as the images one sees blown into glass. The diamond was as large as a hazel nut and as clear as a drop of pure water, so that, notwithstanding its size, ordinary print could be easily read through it. Had it possessed a hardness corresponding with its beauty, the Professor couldhave enriched with it half a dozen scientific institutions. Such stones now command a fair market value among travelers, and are generally mounted in rich settings as souvenirs of their trips.
A picturesque group of some half-dozen oaks offered a good camping spot, and around it the wagons were placed for the night in a half-circle, the ends of the crescent resting each side of us upon the creek. The rule of the plains is, "In time of peace prepare for war."
Northward from us, and distant perhaps fifty yards, rippled the clear waters of the Saline, which was then at a low stage. High above it was the table-land of the plains, and the edge of this, as far as we could trace it, was dotted with the dark forms of countless buffalo. So distant as to appear diminutive, their moving seemed like crawling, and the back-ground of light grass gave them much the appearance of bees upon a board. They were crowding up to the very edge of the valley of the Saline, from whence, as we were told, they extended back to the Solomon, thence to the Republican, and at intervals all the way northward to the remote regions of the Upper Missouri.
Could the venerable Uncle Samuel go up in a balloon and take a thousand miles' view of his western stock region, he would perceive that his goodly herds of bison, some millions in number, feeding between the snows of the North and the flowers of the South, were waxing fat and multiplying. This latter fact might somewhat surprise him, when he discovered around his herd a steady line of fire and heard its continual snapping. The unsophisticated old gentleman wouldsee train after train of railroad cars rustling over the plains, every window smoking with the bombardment like the port-holes of a man-of-war. He would see Upper Missouri steamers often paddling in a river black with the crossing herds, and pouring wanton showers of bullets into their shaggy backs. To the south Indians on horseback, to the north Indians on snow shoes, would meet his astonished gaze, and around the outskirts of the vast range his white children on a variety of conveyances, and all, savage and civilized alike, thirsting for buffalo blood. That the buffalo, in spite of all this, does apparently continue to increase, shows that the old and rheumatic ones, the veteran bulls which in bands and singly circle around the inner herds of cows and calves, are the ones that most commonly fall the easy victims to the hunters. Their day has passed, and powder and ball but give the wolves their bones to pick a little earlier.
Such were the thoughts that revolved in my mind while sitting upon one of the wagons, and dividing my attention between the tent pitching going on under the trees and the shaggy thousands which, feeding against the horizon, seemed to grow larger as the sun went down behind them and they stood out in deepening relief in the long autumn twilight. These solitudes made me think of Du Chaillu on the African deserts when night set in, and I wondered if the brute denizens there could be more interesting than those which surrounded us. Had a lion roared, I doubt whether it would have struck me as unnatural, although it might have induced a speedy change ofbase. It begets a peculiar feeling in one's mind, I thought, when the lower brutes surround him and his fellow-creature alone is absent. Animal organizations are every-where, blood throbbing and limbs moving, and yet the world is as solitary to him as if the planet had been sent whirling into space and no living being upon it except himself. A handkerchief, a hat, any thing which his brother man may have worn, yields more of companionship than all the life around him.
And now, through the trees, we saw several of our men running with their weapons in hand, and immediately afterward heard the rapid reports of their revolvers and rifles from the creek just below, followed by the fluttering, noisy exit of turkeys from among the trees. Some flew away, but most of them were running, and, in their fright, passed directly among the wagons. One old gobbler, with a fine glossy tuft hanging at his breast, had a hard time of it in running the gauntlet of our camp-followers, narrrowly escaping death by a frying pan hurled from the vigorous grasp of Shamus.
This class of our game birds is noted the continent over for its wildness and cunning, these qualities furnishing old hunters with material for numberless yarns, as they gather around the camp-fires and weave their fancies into connected sequence. Thus it has become a matter of veritable history that knowing gobblers sometimes examine the tracks that hunters have left to see which way they are going.
On Silver Creek the turkeys were very tame, and before it became too dark for shooting our party hadkilled twelve. Muggs and Sachem had combined their forces and devoted their joint attention to one of them sitting stupidly on a limb, where it received a bombardment of five minutes' duration before coming down. Our Briton explained that "the bird was unable to fly away, you see, because I 'it 'im at my first shot." To this statement Sachem stoutly demurred upon two grounds: First, that Muggs' gun had gone off prematurely, the time in question, and barely missed one of his English shoes; and, second, that the turkey showed but one bullet mark, and that wound was necessarily fatal, as it had carried away most of the head! A compromise was finally effected, and we were much edified by seeing the two coming into camp with the bird between them, sharing mutually its honors.
Great numbers of turkeys seemed to inhabit the creek, all along which we heard them, at dark, flying up to their roosts. This induced a number of our party to visit a large oak scarcely a hundred yards from camp, which one of our men had marked as a favorite resort. Proceeding with the utmost caution, under the dim shadows of approaching night, we presently stood beneath the roost. Clearly defined between us and the sky were the limbs, and clustering thickly over them, like apples left in fall upon a leafless tree, we could descry large black balls, indicating to our hunger-stimulated imaginations as many prospective turkey roasts. For this special occasion our only two shot guns had been brought forth from the cases, the remainder of the party being furnished with Spencer and Henry rifles.
We had been instructed each to select our bird, and fire at the word to be given by the guide. How loud and sharp the clicking of the locks sounded, in the stillness of that jungle on the plains, as six barrels pointed upward, but their aim made all unsteady by the thumping of as many palpitating hearts. Then, in a low tone, came the words—and they seemed hoarsely loud in the painful silence around us—"Ready! Take careful aim!" "Hold!" cried the Professor, in a sudden outburst of enthusiasm; "Gentlemen, you see above us thirty fine specimens of that noblest of all American birds, the turkey. Wisely has it been said that, instead of the eagle, the turkey should have been our National"—"Fire!" cried the guide, in an agony, as the Professor, having dropped his gun, was rising to his feet, and the turkeys, alarmed by his eloquence, were preparing for flight.
And fire we did. A half dozen tongues of flame shot upward, and the roar of our unmasked battery reverberated over the solitude. The rustling and fluttering among the tree tops was terrific, and showers of twigs and bark rained down upon us. Every one of us knew that his shot had told, yet for some reason, perhaps owing to the superior cunning of the birds, none fell at our feet. Before regaining the wagon, however, we found fluttering on our path a fine fat one with a shattered second joint. It was claimed by Sachem, on the ground that in his aiming he had made legs a speciality, not wishing to injure the breasts.
Later in the season, when the birds had become much wilder, I often shot them, both running andflying. They are very hard to kill, and a sorely wounded one will often astonish the hunter by running long distances, or hiding where it seems impossible. The fall through the air, or sudden stop from full speed when running, are alike exciting spectacles. And the big body, with red throat and dark plume, luscious even to look at, is fit game to excite the pride of any sportsman.
The modes of hunting the wild turkey are numerous.[2]Mounted on a swift pony it is not difficult to run one down, as may be done in half an hour, the birds, when pushed, seeking the open prairie and its ravines at once. On foot, with a dog, they can easily be started from cover, and generally rise with a tremendous commotion among the bushes, when they may be brought down with coarse shot. Another method of turkey shooting, and one that became quite a favorite of mine, was to steal out from camp in the gray of early morning—so early that only the tops of the trees were visible against the sky—provided with a rifle and shot gun both. When the birds have once been hunted, extreme caution is necessary to get within seventy yards of them. Upon a high bough, in the gloom, the old gobbler appears twice his real size, looking as long as a rail. Try the rifle first, and, two chances out of three, there is a miss. Then, as the great wings spread suddenly, like dark sails against the sky, and the big body, launched from the bough, shakes the tree top as if a wind was passing through it, catch your shot gun,and fire. In the dim light, and at long distance, it takes a quick and true eye to call from the ground that welcome resound which tells of game fallen.
Under the big oaks, meanwhile, our camp fire burned brightly, and Shamus was developing the mysteries of his art. Roast turkey and broiled antelope tempt the pampered appetites of dyspeptic city men, but here in the wilderness, their fresh juices, hissing from beds of glowing coals, filled the air with a fragrance that to us was sweeter than roses. Tired enough, after an all day's ride, and hungry as bears from twelve hours fasting, we sucked in the odors of the cooking meat, as a sort of aërial soup, while the Dobeen stood an aproned king of grease and turkey, with basting spoon for scepter, and with it kept motioning back the hungry hordes that skirmished along his borders.
Two mess chests had been placed a few feet apart, with the tail-boards of our wagons connecting them, and over this was spread a linen table cloth, white plates, clean napkins, and bright knives, with salt, pepper, and butter. All were in their accustomed places. This our first meal on the plains looked more like an aristocratic pic-nic than a supper in the territory of the buffaloes. But the picture was too bright to last, and ere many days neither napkins nor cloth could have been made available as flags of truce.
It is one of those threadbare truisms, adorning all hunting stories of every age and clime, that hunger is the best seasoning. We had an excess of it on hand just then, and would willingly have shared it with the dyspeptic, baldheaded young men of Fifth Avenue. The turkey we found fat and very rich inflavor, and the antelope steaks more delicate than venison. Condensed milk supplied well the place of the usual lacteal, and was an improvement on the city article, inasmuch as we knew exactly what quantity and quality of water went into it. We were obliged to economize, however, respecting this part of our supplies. The following entry in our log-book, by Sachem, under date of the day preceding this, will explain the reason: "Two cans of milk stolen, probably by the Cheyennes. Consider the article more reliable for families than city stump-tail, requiring neither milking or feeding, and never kicking the bucket, or causing infants to do so. Had no idea that a taste of it would develop such a talent for hooking."
A CAMP-FIRE SCENE—VAGABONDIZING—THE BLACK PACER OF THE PLAINS—SOME ADVICE FROM BUFFALO BILL ABOUT INDIAN FIGHTING—LO'S ABHORRENCE OF LONG RANGE—HIS DREAD OF CANNON—AN IRISH GOBLIN—SACHEM'S "SONG OF SHAMUS."
A CAMP-FIRE SCENE—VAGABONDIZING—THE BLACK PACER OF THE PLAINS—SOME ADVICE FROM BUFFALO BILL ABOUT INDIAN FIGHTING—LO'S ABHORRENCE OF LONG RANGE—HIS DREAD OF CANNON—AN IRISH GOBLIN—SACHEM'S "SONG OF SHAMUS."
How vividly, when one is fairly embarked in any new enterprise, do the events of the first night impress one's imagination, and how indelibly do they fix themselves in the memory! Inside our tents all was clean and cheery, but as none of us were disposed to seek them before a late hour, we spent the evening around our camp-fires. Excitement, for the time, had overmastered our sense of fatigue. The Professor's notes were out, and, with his feet to the fire and a box for a desk, he looked more like the Arkansas traveler writing home, than the learned savan committing to paper the latest secrets wrung from nature. The remainder of our party were scattered promiscuously around the fire, some seated on logs and boxes, the others outstretched upon the grass.
Tammany Sachem was the first to break the silence. "Fellow citizens," he exclaimed, "let's vagabondize!" Now, with our alderman, vagabondizing meant story telling, an accomplishment which we consider the especial forte of vagabonds.
We all hailed this proposition gladly, for Buffalo Bill, stretched there before the fire, had much of plainlore stored in his active brain that we wished to draw out, and we at once seized the opportunity to ask about the black pacer we had seen during the afternoon, and his weird story of the bloody saddle.
From Bill's narrative we gathered the following: Something over a year before the era of our expedition a train of government wagons left Fort Hays destined for Fort Harker, and the Indians being troublesome, some twenty soldiers were sent in the wagons, as a guard. A few hours later there passed through Hays City a man from the mountains riding a powerful black stallion, while his family, consisting of a young wife and her brother, occupied a covered wagon which followed close behind. The stranger determined to take advantage of the protection afforded by the government train, and the little party pushed out after it over the plains. The day was a sultry one in midsummer, the sun pouring down its flood of heat on the desolate surface of the expanse that spread away on all sides. The long train, a full mile from front to rear, dragged its slow length sluggishly along, the mules sleepily following the trail, while the teamsters and soldiers dozed in the covered wagons. A driver, who happened to be awake, saw in the distance a beautiful mirage, and in it, as he looked, strange objects, like mounted men, were bobbing up and down. But then he had often seen weeds and other small objects similarly transformed, by these wonderful illusions of the plains, and even he forgot the bobbing shadows and dozed away again on his seat.
But there was danger near. Stealthily out of the mirage, and bending low in their saddles, rode apainted band of savages, hiding their advance in a ravine. Their purpose was to strike and cut off the rear of the train, the length of which promised unusual success to their undertaking, as the white men were too much scattered to oppose any resistance to a sudden onset. At length, nearly the entire train had filed by, and the foremost of the last half dozen wagons approached the ravine. At the signal, out from it burst the troop of red horsemen, and crossed the road like a dash of dust from the hand of a hurricane, every savage spreading his blanket and uttering the war whoop. The startled teams fled in stampede over the plains, dragging the wagons after them. Some of the drivers were thrown out and others jumped. Two or three were killed, and by the time the other teams and the guards had taken the alarm, and turned back for a rescue, the savages had cut the traces of the frightened mules, and were on the return with them to their distant villages. Instead of stopping the animals to release them from the wagons, the Indians urged them to wilder speed, and leaning from their saddles, cut the fastenings at full run. Among the booty taken, was a valuable race horse and fifteen hundred dollars in greenbacks, belonging to an officer who was on his way from New Mexico to the East.
Meanwhile, our friend, the owner of the black pacer, with his outfit, was moving quietly along two or three miles in the rear, entirely unaware of affairs at the front. Some of the savages, while escaping with the booty, espied him, and coveting the noble animal which he rode, they made a detour and surprised him as he sat jogging along a hundred yards or soahead of the wagon containing his wife and brother-in-law. Though mortally wounded at their first volley, with the desperate effort of a dying man he clung to the saddle for a hundred yards or more, and then rolled upon the prairie a lifeless corpse. Frantic with terror, the horse dashed through the circle of Indians that surrounded him, and fled. The savages, probably fearing longer delay, did not pursue, nor even attack the wagon, and the black pacer was not seen again for some months, when at length some hunters discovered him, freed from saddle and bridle, the leader of the wild herd.
Buffalo Bill gave us quite an insight into some of the mysteries of plain craft. When you are alone, and a party of Indians are discovered, never let them approach you. If in the saddle, and escape or concealment is impossible, dismount, and motion them back with your gun. It shows coolness, and these fellows never like to get within rifle range, when a firm hand is at the trigger. If there is any water near, try and reach it, for then, if worst comes to worst, you can stand a siege. The savages of the plains are always anxious to get at close quarters before developing hostility. Unless very greatly in the majority, and with some unusual incentive to attack, they will not approach a rifle guard. Were they as well supplied with breech-loading guns as with pistols, the case would be different, of course. Bill was the hero of many Indian battles, and had fought savages in all ways and at all hours, on horseback and on foot, at night and in daytime alike.
As an amusing illustration of the savage abhorrenceof long-range guns, I beg the reader's indulgence for introducing an anecdote which I afterward heard narrated by an officer who participated in the affair. Major A—— was sent out from Fort Hays with a company of men on an Indian scout, and, when near a tributary of the south fork of the Solomon, the savages appeared in force, and a fight commenced, which continued until dark. Several soldiers were wounded and two killed. As the Indians were evidently increasing in numbers, after nightfall a squad was dispatched to the fort for ambulances and reinforcements. Only six men could be spared, and these were sent off with a light field-piece in charge. Soon after crossing the Saline, a strong band of Indians was discovered half a mile off reconnoitering. A shell was sent screaming toward them, but the aim was too high, and it burst a short distance beyond them. Nevertheless, the effect was instantaneous; the savages vanished, nor stood upon the order of their going. During the next ten miles this scene was repeated three times, the stand-point on each occasion being removed further and further away. The last shot was a remarkably long one, and the shell burst directly in their faces. Not only did they disappear for good, but the whole investing force, on receiving their report, fled likewise.
Talking thus about Indians, under the gloom of the trees, seemed in some unaccountable way to suggest the idea of witches to the mind of Pythagoras. Perhaps, in accordance with his pet theory of development, he was cogitating whether, ages ago, the red man's family horse might not have been a broomstick.At any rate, he suddenly gave a new turn to the conversation by asking Shamus why, when the dogs pointed the witch-hazel during our quail hunt at Topeka, he had affirmed that the canine race could see spirits and witches which to mortal eyes were invisible. Now, the Dobeen had been bred on an Irish moor, where the whole air is woven, like a Gobelin tapestry, full of dreams of the marvelous, and where whenever an unusual object is noticed by moonlight, the frightened peasant, instead of stopping a moment to investigate the cause, rushes shivering to his hut to tell of the fearfulphookashe has seen. He was very superstitious, and we had often been amused at his evasions, when, as sometimes happened, his faith conflicted with our commands. The time might be near when such peculiarities would prove troublesome instead of amusing, and it was well, therefore, that we should get a peep at the foundations of our cook's faith, and perhaps that portion of it which related to our friends, the dogs, would be especially entertaining. Moreover, we had had so much of the red man that we were glad to welcome an Irish witch to our first camp-fire. Dobeen's narrative was substantially as follows, though I can not attempt to clothe it in his exact language, and still less in the rich brogue which yet clung to him after years of ups and downs in "Ameriky."
"Dogs can study out many things better than men can," said Shamus, in his most impressive manner. "Before I left old Ireland for America, I had a dashing beast, with as much wit as any boy in the country. He could poach a rabbit and steal a bird from underthe gamekeeper's nose, an' give the swatest howl of warnin' whenever a bailiff came into them parts."
Sachem suggested that these were rather remarkable habits for a dog connected with the great house of Dobeen.
"But yez must know he was only a pup when my fortunes went by," responded Shamus, "and he learnt these tricks afterward. Ah, but he was a smart chap! Couldn't he smell bailiffs afore ever they came near, an' see all the witches and ghosts, too, by second sight! He wouldn't never go near the O'Shea's house, that had a haunted room, though pretty Mary, the house-girl, often coaxed at him with the nicest bits of meat."
Sachem thought that perhaps the animal's second sight might have shown him that stray shot from pretty Mary's master, aimed at a vagabond, might perhaps hit the vagabond's dog.
"I wasn't a vagabond them times," retorted Shamus, quickly, yet with entire good humor, "and sorry for it I am that the name could ever belong to me since. And please, Mr. Sachem, don't be after interruptin' again. Some people wonder why the dogs bark at the new moon an' howl under the windows afore a death. In the one matter, your honors, they see the witches on a broomstick, ridin' roun' the sky, an' gatherin' ripe moon-beams for their death-mixtures an' brain blights. Many a man in our grandfathers' time—yes, an' now-a-days too—sleepin' under the full moon, has had his brains addled by the unwholesome powder falling from the witches' aprons. Wise men call it comet dust. And why shouldn't adog that has grown up to mind his duty of watchin' the family, howl when he sees Death sittin' on the window sill, a starin' within, and preparin' to snatch some darlint away? Ah, but their second sight is a wonderful gift though!
"The name of my dog, your honors, was Goblin, an' he came to us in a queer sort of way, just like a goblin should. There was a hard storm along the coast, an' the next mornin' a broken yawl drifted in, half full of water, with a dead man washin' about in it, an' a half-drowned pup squattin' on the back seat. Me an' my cousin buried the man, an' the other beast I brought up. May be there was somethin' in this distress that he got into so young that he couldn't outgrow. Even the priest used to notice it, and say the poor creature had a sort of touch of the melancholy; an' sure, he never was a joyful dog. Smart an' true he was, but, faith, he wasn't never happy; yez might pat him to pieces, an' get never a wag of the tail for it. He delighted in wakes and buryins, an' when a neighborin' gamekeeper died, he howled for a whole day an' a night, though the man had shot at him twenty times. Mighty few men, your honors, with a dozen slugs in their skin, would have stood on the edge of a man's grave that shot them, an' mourned when the earth rattled on the box the way Goblin, poor beast, did then. Ah, nobody knows what dogs can see with their wonderful second sight. That beast thought an' studied out things better than half the men ye'll find; an' it's my belief that dogs did so before, an' they have done it since, an' they always will."
"You are right, Dobeen," said the Professor. "Put a wise dog, and a foolish, vicious master together. The brute exhibits more tenderness and thoughtfulness than the man. In the latter, even the mantle of our largest charity is insufficient to cover his multitude of sins, while the skin of his faithful animal wraps nothing but honest virtue. The dog, having once suffered from poison, avoids tempting pieces of meat thenceforward, when proffered by strange hands, but the man steeps his brain in poison again and again—or as often as he can lay hold of it. While grasping the deadly thing, he sees, stretching out from the bar room door, a down grade road, with open graves at the end, and frightened madmen, chased by the blue devils and murder and misery, rushing madly toward them. These swallow their victims, as the hatches of a prison ship do the galley slave, and close upon them to give them up only when the jailer, the angel of the resurrection, shall unlock the tombs, and calls their occupants to judgment. Does the sight appall and bring him to his senses? No, he crowds among the terrors, and takes to his bosom the same venomous serpent that he has seen sting so many thousands to death before him. And yet people give to the brute's wisdom the name of instinct, and call man's madness wisdom."
"But, your honors," interposed Dobeen, "I shall be after losing my dog entirely, unless yez lave off interruptin' me, an' let me finish my story."
"Go on, Shamus, go on!" we all cried with one breath.
"Well, then, when Goblin came to me in his infancy, he wore a silver collar with his name all beautifullyengraved on it. May be the dead man in the boat had been bringing him from some strange land to the childer at home, and thinking how the odd name would please them all, when the shadows were darting around his hearth. And so Goblin howled his way through the world, till one full moon eve, when every bog was shinin' as if the peat was silver. Such times, any way in old Ireland, your honors, the air is full of unwholesome spirits. This was good as a wake for Goblin, and I can just hear him now the way he cried and howled that night! He kept both eyes fixed on the moon, and no mortal man, livin' or dead, will ever know what he saw, but when he howled out worse nor common that night, it meant, may be, that some witch, uglier than the rest, had just whisked across the shinin' sky. Just at midnight, I was waked out of a swate sleep by the quietness without, the way a miller is when his mill stops. I looked out of the window at the dog where he sat, an', faith, the dog wasn't there at all! Just then I heard a despairin' sort of howl, away up in the air above the trees, an' by that token I knew the witches had Goblin. Next mornin', one of the lads livin' convanient to us told me he had heard the same cry in the middle of the night, the cry, your honors, of the poor beast as the witches carried him off. Afore the week was out, Goblin's collar was found on the gamekeeper's grave; that was all—not a hair else of him was ever seen in old Ireland."
As Shamus concluded his veracious narrative he looked around upon us with an air of triumph, as if satisfied that even Sachem dare not now dispute the second sight of the canine race.
That worthy took occasion to declare on the instant, however, that the nearest neighbor was fully justified in playing the witch. If any thing could destroy the happiness of human beings, as well as of the broom-riding beldams, it would be the howling of worthless curs at night. He himself had often been in at the death of vagabond cats and dogs engaged in moon-worship. The outbursts of Goblin had simply been silenced in an outburst of popular indignation.
SMASHING A CHEYENNE BLACK KETTLE.SMASHING A CHEYENNE BLACK KETTLE.
A FIRE SCENE—A GLIMPSE OF THE SOUTH—'COON HUNTING IN MISSISSIPPI—VOICES IN THE SOLITUDE—FRIENDS OR FOES—A STARTLING SERENADE—PANIC IN CAMP—CAYOTES AND THEIR HABITS—WORRYING A BUFFALO BULL—THE SECOND DAY—DAUB, OUR ARTIST—HE MAKES HIS MARK.
A FIRE SCENE—A GLIMPSE OF THE SOUTH—'COON HUNTING IN MISSISSIPPI—VOICES IN THE SOLITUDE—FRIENDS OR FOES—A STARTLING SERENADE—PANIC IN CAMP—CAYOTES AND THEIR HABITS—WORRYING A BUFFALO BULL—THE SECOND DAY—DAUB, OUR ARTIST—HE MAKES HIS MARK.
Our fire scene was evidently no novelty to the Mexicans, whose lives had been spent in camping out, and who, with one cheap blanket each, for mattress and covering, slept soundly under the wagons. Across their dark, expressionless faces the flames threw fitful gleams of light, which were as unheeded as the flashes with which the Nineteenth Century endeavors to penetrate the gloom which shrouds them as a nation. While the world moves on, the degenerate descendants of Montezuma sleep.
In the valley bordering our little skirt of trees we could hear the horses cropping the short, juicy buffalo grass, and trailing their lariat ropes around a circle, of which the pin was the center. Semi-Colon lay on the grass close to his father, who occupied a cracker-box seat in this tableau, the amiable son at little intervals raising his head to indorse, in his peculiar dissyllabic way, what the positive parent said. Looking at the group around me, and thinking of our evening turkey hunt, memory carried me back to thelast time I had been among the trees after dark, with gun in hand, which was at the South, away down in Mississippi, just after the war.
It was a lazy time, those November days. Large flocks of swans filled the air above, with their flute-like notes, and thousands of sand-hill cranes circled far up toward the sun, their bodies looking like distant bees, as from dizzy heights they croaked their approbation of the rich crops beneath them. Ducks passed like charges of grape shot, sending back shrill whistles from their wings, as they dived down into the standing corn.
As night came on, the moon went up in a great rush of light, like the reflector of a railroad train mounting the sky. Soon every shadow is driven from the woods, and then the horns are tooted, the dogs howl, and away go gangs of woolly heads, old and young, in pursuit of Messrs. 'Possum and 'Coon. In vain the sly tree-fox doubles around stumps, and leaving tempting persimmon and oaks full of plumpest acorns, at the warning noise, seeks refuge among huge cypresses. On go the hunters—big dogs, little dogs, bear-teasers, and deer-hounds, sprinkled with darkeys—crashing through cane and underbrush, the human portion of the party laughing and yelling as if a tempest had stolen them ages ago from Babel, and just discharged them in pursuit of that particular 'coon.
The voice of the Professor suddenly called me back to the present, and I found myself chilled by the wet grass, as if my body had been wandering with themind in that land of cotton, and was unprepared for the northern air.
"Gentlemen"—this was what the voice said—"we are now one thousand and five hundred miles from Washington City, latitude 39, longitude 99. Stick a pin there on the map, and you will find that we have got well out on the spot that geographers have been pleased to call desert. Does it look like one? Tell me, gentlemen, had you rather discount your manhood among the stumps of New England than loan it at a premium to the rich banks of these streams?"
The Professor came to an abrupt pause, for borne to us on the still air was that most unmistakable of all sounds, the human voice. The note of one bird at a distance may be mistaken for another, and the cry of a brute, when faintly heard, lose its distinguishing tones. But once let man lift up his voice in the solitude, and all nature knows that the lord of animal creation is abroad. There are many sounds which resemble the human voice, just as there are many objects which, indistinctly seen, the hunter's eye may misinterpret as birds. But when a flock of birds does cross his vision, however far away, he never mistakes them for any thing else. The first may have excited suspicion, the latter resolves at once into certainty.
We listened attentively and anxiously. It might very naturally be supposed that, after leaving the abodes of his fellows, and going far out into the solitary places of Nature, man would rejoice to catch the sounds which told him that others of his race were near, but this, like many other things, is modified bycircumstances. On the plains the first question asked is, "Are they friends or foes?" No one being able to answer, the breeze and general probabilities are inquired of, and until the eyes pass verdict the moments are laden with suspense. Even in times of peace the hunter, if possible, avoids the savage bands which flit back and forth across Buffalo Land; for, if he saves his life, he is apt to lose an inconvenient amount of provisions, at least, at their hands.
Our guide speedily informed us that Indians never make any noise when in camp, which was gratifying intelligence. All further suspense was shortly relieved by the appearance down the valley of muskets glittering in the moon-light. The bearers proved to be two soldiers, who stated that some officers, with a small force of cavalry, were in camp a mile below us, being out for the purpose of obtaining buffalo meat, and having as guests two or three gentlemen from St. Louis, desirous of seeing the sport. They had heard our late heavy firing, and sent to know what was the matter. We gave the soldiers a late paper to carry back, and with many regrets that our fatigue was too great to think of accompanying them for a neighborly call, we bade them good-night, and saw them disappear down the valley.
At the Professor's suggestion, preparations were now made for retiring, and we sought our tent and blankets. In a few brief moments, the others of the party were blowing, in nasal trumpetings, the praises of Morpheus. I could not sleep, however; for each bone had its own individual ache, and was tellinghow tired it was. Pulling up a tent-pin, I looked out under the canvas.
On a log by the fire sat Shamus, his head between his hands, gazing at the coals, and droning a low tune. Occasionally, he would make a dash at some fire-brand, with a stick which he used as a poker, and break it into fragments, or toss it nervously to one side. Whether this was because it resolved itself into a fire-sprite winking at him, or some unhappy memory glowed out of the coals, I tried to tempt sleep by conjecturing.
Off at a little distance, I could see one of our men standing guard near the horses, and once or twice my excited fancy thought it detected shadows creeping toward him. A little beyond, nervously stretching his lariat rope, while walking in a circle around the pin, was Mr. Colon's Iron Billy. His clean head erect, and fine nose taking the breeze, the intelligent animal appeared restless, and I could not help thinking that he saw or smelt something unusual, away in the darkness. What if the bottom grass was full of creeping savages?
The crescent moon, just rising over the divide, was scarred by many cloud lines, and as yet gave no light. The sensation which had stolen over me was becoming disagreeable, when far off, at some ford down the creek, I heard animals splashing through water, and concluded that Billy's nervousness was caused by crossing buffaloes. The horse had an established reputation as a watch, his former owner having assured us that neither Indian nor wild beast could approach camp without Billy giving the alarm.
Presently, Dobeen resumed his droning, which had been suspended for a few moments, this time singing some snatches from an old Irish ballad. The last words were just dying away, when I started to my feet in horror. What an infernal chorus filled the air! Each point of the compass was represented, and we were wrapped around with a discordant, fiendish cordon of sound. Bursting upon us with a deep mocking cry, it ended abruptly in a wild "Ha-ha!" It was such a chorus as pours through Hades, when some poet opens, for an instant, the gate of the damned. Our poor Irishman, at the first sound, had fallen from the log as if shot, but had suddenly sprung to his feet, and was now performing a terror-dance behind the fire with a club. For a moment, I, too, had taken the outburst for the war-whoop of savages, but was saved from a panic by seeing through the gloom the figure of the sentinel still at his post, and the next instant the voice of the guide was lifted, with the re-assuring intelligence—"Only cayotes, gentlemen, only cayotes!"
Mr. Sachem and Mr. Muggs had been lying close behind me in their blankets. The former had given a terrified snort, and then both lay motionless. After the alarm, Sachem admitted that he was frightened. Had always heard that people shot over instead of under the mark in battle. Was resolved to lay low. Had no high views about such things. Muggs had not thought it worth while to get up. Knew they were wolves. Had heard more hextraordinary 'owls before he came to the blarsted country.
But where was the doctor? Echo answered,"Where?" "Hallo, Doctor!" cried the guide, and a voice from the woods, which was not echo, answered, "Coming!" Again Buffalo Bill lifted his voice in the solitude, and again came an answer, this time in a form of query, "Is it developed, my boy? If so, classify it." And we answered that the birth in the air had developed into wolves, and been classified as thecanis latrans, noisy and harmless.
Finding that this new lesson in natural history had taken away all desire for sleep, I finished the study by the fire, with our guide for a tutor.
The cayote (pronounced Kī-o-te), in its habits, is a villainous cross between a jackal and a wolf, feasting on any kind of animal food obtainable, even unearthing corpses negligently buried. With the large gray wolf, the cayotes follow the herds of bison, generally skulking along their outskirts, and feeding upon the wounded and outcasts. These latter are the old bulls which, gaunt and stiff from age and spotted all over with scars, are driven out of the herd by the stout and jealous youngsters. Feeding alone, and weak with the burden of years upon his immense shoulders, the old bull is surrounded by the hungry pack. But they dare not attack. One blow of that ponderous head, with the weight of that shaggy hump behind it, is still capable of knocking down a horse. The veteran could fling his adversaries as nearly over the moon as the cow ever jumped, if they only gave him a chance. Like a grim old castle, he stands there more than a match for any direct assault of the army around.
MIDNIGHT SERENADE ON THE PLAINS.MIDNIGHT SERENADE ON THE PLAINS.
With the tact of our modern generals, a line of investmentis at once formed, and a system of worrying adopted. No rest now for the old bull. He can not lie down, or the beasts of prey will swarm upon him. Again and again he charges the foe, each time clearing a passage readily, but only to have it close again almost instantly. In these resultless sorties the garrison is fast using up its material of war. The ammunition is getting short which fires the old warrior, and sends the black horns, like a battering-ram, right and left among his foes. As long as he keeps his feet he lives, though hemmed in closely by the snapping and snarling multitude. The tenacity of one of these patriarchs is wonderful. For a whole life-time chief of the brutes on his native plains, he has grown up surrounded by wolves. Not fearing them himself, he has easily defended the cows and calves. An attempted siege would once have been but sport to him, and it seems difficult for the brain in the thick skull to understand that Time, like a vampire, has been sucking the juices from his joints and the blood from his veins.
Tired out at length, the old bull begins to totter, and his knees to shake from sheer exhaustion. His shakiness is as fatal as that of a Wall Street bull. As he lies down the wolves are upon him. They are clinging to the shaggy form, like blood-hounds, before it has even sunk to the sod, and the victim never rises again.
The cayotes are very cowardly, and when carcasses are plenty, sleep during the day in their holes, which are generally dug into the sides of some ravine. If found during the hours of light, it is usually skulkingin the hollows near their burrows. They have a decidedly disagreeable penchant for serenading travelers' camps at night, so that our late experience, the guide assured me, was by no means uncommon. They will steal in from all directions, and sit quietly down on their haunches in a circle of investment. Not a sound or sign of their coming do they make, and, if on guard, one may imagine that every foot of the country immediately surrounding is visible, and utterly devoid of any animate object. All at once, as if their tails were connected by a telegraphic wire, and they had all been set going by electricity, the whole line gives voice. The initial note is the only one agreed upon. After striking that in concert, each particular cayote goes it on his own account, and the effect is so diabolical that I could readily excuse Shamus for thinking that the dismal pit had opened.
At this point Dobeen approached and cut off my further gleaning of wolf lore. The corners of his mouth seemed still inclined to twitch, showing that the shock had not yet worn off. He was chilled by the night, he said, and did not feel very well, and craved our honors' permission to sleep at our feet in the tent. Consent was given, and as he left us he turned to announce his belief that animals with such voices must have big throats.
It was not yet light, next morning, when our camp was all astir again. Drowsiness has no abiding place with an expedition like ours upon the plains. Should he be found lurking anywhere among the blankets, a bucket of water, from some hand, routs him at once and for the whole trip. Even Sachem, who usuallyhugged Morpheus so long and late, might that morning have been seen among the earliest of us washing in the waters of the creek.
We were all in excellent spirits, and with appetites for breakfast that would have done no discredit to a pack of hungry wolves. No sign of the sun was yet visible, save a scarcely perceptible grayish tinge diffusing itself slowly through the darkness, and the lifting of a light fog along the creek upon which we were encamped. Although sufficiently novel to most of our party, the scene was quite dreary, and we longed, amid the gloom and chill, for the appearance of the sun, and breakfast. By the way, I have noticed that with excursion parties, whether sporting or scientific, enthusiasm rises and sets with the sun. The gray period between darkness and dawn is an excellent time for holding council. The mind, no less than the body, seems to find it the coolest hour of the twenty-four, and shrinks back from uncertain advances.
Added to the discomforts usually attendant upon camp-life were our stiff joints. The first day upon horseback is twelve hours of pleasant excitement, with a fair share of wonder that so delightful a recreation is not indulged in more generally. The next twenty-four hours are spent in wondering whether those limbs which furnish one the means of locomotion are still connected with the stiffened body, or utterly riven from it; and, if the whole truth must be told, the saddle has also left its scars.
As the edge of the plateau overlooking the river became visible in the growing light, we saw, as on the evening previous, multitudes of buffalo feedingthere, and after breakfast a council of war was held. I am somewhat ashamed to record that it voted no hunting that day. To find the noblest of American game some of us had come half away across the continent, and now, in sight of it, the tide of enthusiasm which had swept us forward hitherto stood suddenly still. Not because it was about to ebb, but simply in obedience to certain signals of distress flying from the various barks, and which it was utterly impossible for any of us to conceal.
For mounting a horse was entirely out of the question for that day. Not one of us could have swung himself into saddle for any less motive than a race with death. Our steps were slow and painful, and we felt as if, at this period of life's voyage, every timber of our several crafts had been pounded separately upon some of the hidden rocks of ocean. It was absolutely necessary to go into dock for repairs, and the valley promised to be a pleasant harbor.
It was a truly melancholy spectacle to behold Sachem and Muggs. The liveliest and the gayest ones yesterday, but to-day the gravest of the grave. That rotund form, which always doubted his own or other people's emotions, was the walking embodiment of woe, and for once evidently clear of all doubt upon one subject, at least. Muggs was even free to confess that, for general results, yesterday's rough riding exceeded "a 'unt with the 'ounds." Our animals were also quite stiff, but the hostlers attributed this not so much to their yesterday's service as to their long ride in the cars. They had not yet got their "land legs" fully on again. It was soothing toour pride, if not to our feelings, to reflect that perhaps some of our soreness was the result of their first day's stiffness.
A beaver colony near us, and a great abundance of turkeys, offered lessons in natural history of no small interest, and within reach of lame students. The valley gave an entomological invitation to Mr. Colon, and the great ledges, with their possibilities of valuable fossils, attracted the Professor.
Sitting on a wagon tongue, and applying liniment to an abraded shin, might have been seen Pythagoras, M. D., whose daily life, since leaving Topeka, had been a series of struggles with the brute he rode. His belief in the transition of souls into horses was growing upon him. He felt that he was combating the spirit of a deceased prize-fighter, which used its hoofs as fists, landing blows right and left. Doctor David called these "spiritual manifestations." A favorite habit of the animal was what is known as brushing flies from the ear with the hind foot, and often, as the owner was about to mount, this species of front kick would upset him. The equine's disposition, it must be said, had not been improved by the immense saddle-bags with which the Doctor had surmounted him when on the march. Originally, these contained a small amount of medicine, but this had all been ground to powder under the weight of sundry stones and bones, gathered in the furtherance of the great theory of development.
As the sun got well up in the heavens, staying in camp became monotonous, and we hobbled off in different directions, to examine the surroundings. OurMexicans climbed to the plains above, taking their rusty muskets along to kill buffalo. Our guide went down to the hunting camp below us, intending to return to Hays with the officers, home duties requiring his attention. One of our hostlers, familiar with the country, was to be our pilot in future.
Back of our camp lay the castellated rocks which had attracted our notice the previous evening, and over which Daub, our artist, now became intensely enthusiastic. He wandered back and forth in front of them, his soul in his eyes, and these upturned to the bluffs. And thus we left him.
"Genius is struggling hard for utterance there," said the Professor impressively. "That young man will make his mark; see if he doesn't." Alas, how little we thought he would do it so soon.
An hour later, returning that way, we descried our artist high up on the face of the rocks, perched on a jutting fragment, and clinging to a stunted cedar with one hand, while with the other he plied his brush. Fully forty feet intervened between him and the earth.
"What devotion!" cried the Professor.
"Beautiful spirit," said Mr. Colon, "how soon it commences to climb."
"That young man will develop," said Dr. Pythagoras.
A few feet more, and the artist and his work were fully revealed. He had developed. A cry of agony came from the Professor's lips; for there in large yellow lines, half blotting out a beautiful stone, our eyes beheld the diabolical letters, S O Z.
He never finished the word. The Professor seized a rifle, and brought it to a level with the artist's paint pot. "Come down, you rascal!" he cried. "How dare you deface one of nature's castles with a patent name?" Would he have fired? I think he would. But the man of genius caught his eye, and comprehending the situation, cried, with face whiter than the chalk before him, "O, don't!"
"Add the 'odont', you villain," screamed the Professor, "and I'll—I'll fire!"
With our first returning wagon, the artist went back to Hays, but his work, alas! remains, and perhaps—who knows?—some future generation may yet point to that wall and tell how SOZ, king of an extinct people, once held dominion over the beautiful valley.
BISON MEAT—A STRANGE ARRIVAL—THE SYDNEY FAMILY—THE HOME IN THE VALLEY—THE SOLOMON MASSACRE—THE MURDER OF THE FATHER AND THE CHILD—THE SETTLERS' FLIGHT—INCIDENTS—OUR QUEEN OF THE PLAINS—THE PROFESSOR INTERESTED—IRISH MARY—DOBEEN HAPPY—THE HEROINE OF ROMANCE—SACHEM'S BATH BY MOONLIGHT—THE BEAVER COLONY.
BISON MEAT—A STRANGE ARRIVAL—THE SYDNEY FAMILY—THE HOME IN THE VALLEY—THE SOLOMON MASSACRE—THE MURDER OF THE FATHER AND THE CHILD—THE SETTLERS' FLIGHT—INCIDENTS—OUR QUEEN OF THE PLAINS—THE PROFESSOR INTERESTED—IRISH MARY—DOBEEN HAPPY—THE HEROINE OF ROMANCE—SACHEM'S BATH BY MOONLIGHT—THE BEAVER COLONY.
At noon we were all in camp again, fully prepared to do justice to the ample dinner of buffalo, antelope, and turkey which we found awaiting us. The Mexicans brought in the quarter of an old bull, and, according to their own story, had committed terrible slaughter on the plain above; but, as we had already learned to balance a Mexican account by a deduction of nine-tenths for over-drafts, we felt that we saw before us the result of their day's hunt. This our first taste of bison, gave us highly exaggerated ideas of that animal's endurance. The entire flesh was surprisingly elastic—indeed, a very clever imitation of India rubber. It recoiled from our teeth with a spring, and just then I should scarcely have been surprised had I seen those buffalo which were feeding in the distance, go bounding off like immense foot-balls. My opinion in regard to buffalo meat afterward underwent a great change, but not until I had tasted the flesh of the cows and calves. Shamus, on this occasion, had devoted his culinary energiesespecially to the turkeys, and they were well worthy such attention. Their fat forms, nicely browned, would have tempted the veriest dyspeptic.
Just as we rose from dinner, a covered emigrant wagon was discovered approaching us, coming down the valley right on our trail. From the fact that we were off the route of overland travel, our first conjecture was that it was from Hays, with a party of hunters, or possibly with Tenacious Gripe, so far recovered as to be rejoining us. We assumed an attitude of dignified interest, prepared to develop it into friendship, or "don't want to know you" style, as occasion might require. A hale, elderly man was the driver, now walking beside his oxen. The outfit halted before our astonished camp, and as it did so two women, genuine spirits of calico and long hair, lifted a corner of the wagon cover and looked out. Both were apparently young, but one face was thin, and had that peculiar expression of being old before its time which is far more desolate than age. The other countenance was certainly good-looking and interesting—quite different, indeed, from those usually seen peeping out of emigrant wagons. Introductions are short and decisive on the plains. We liked their looks, and invited them to stop; they liked ours, and accepted. I think the Professor's dignified attitude and scholarly bearing stood us in good stead as references.
Another female developed as the wagon gave forth its load—this time a bouncing Irish girl, rosy-cheeked and active, evidently the family servant. At this latter apparition Shamus dropped one of our platters,but quickly recovering himself, began to put forth wonderful exertions to prepare a second dinner, the new comers having consented, after some hesitation, to become our guests during the nooning hour.
Before proceeding to give the reader the history of this interesting family, I ought, perhaps, to say that I do so with their express permission, the only disguise being that, at his request, the father will here be designated by his Christian name, Sydney.
These people, after an absence of about a year, were now returning from Elizabeth City, a recently-started mining town in New Mexico, to their former home, about forty miles east of our present camp, which they had left the preceding season under circumstances that were sad, indeed. About three years before, the family, then consisting of Mr. Sydney and wife, and their two daughters, had moved from Ohio to Kansas and settled on a tributary of the Solomon. Availing himself of the homestead law, Mr. Sydney took a tract of one hundred and sixty acres, and commenced improving it. One of the daughters soon married a young man to whom she had been betrothed at the East, and who at once set earnestly to work to make for himself and young wife a home in the new land. The houses of the father and the child were but half a mile apart, and, no timber intervening, each could be plainly seen from the other. For a time this little colony of two families was very happy. Having had the first choice, their farms were well situated, embracing both river and valley, and their herds, provided with rich and unlimited range, increased rapidly. Soon rumors came from below that a railroad,on its way to the Rocky Mountains, would shortly wind its way up the Solomon Valley, bringing civilization to that whole region, and daily mails within a few miles of their doors.
The second year of prosperity had nearly ended, when one morning a man from the settlements above dashed rapidly past Mr. Sydney's house, turning in his saddle to cry that the Cheyennes had been murdering people up the river, and were now sweeping on close behind him. The message of horror was scarcely ended when the dusky cloud appeared in sight, rioting in its tempest of death down the valley. Midway between home and the house of her daughter, Mrs. Sydney was overtaken by the yelling demons. In vain the agonized husband pressed forward to the rescue, firing rapidly with his carbine. She was killed before his eyes, but not scalped, the Indians evidently considering delay dangerous.
It is a fact that speaks volumes in illustration of the mingled ferocity and cowardice that characterize the wild Indians of to-day that, in all that terrible Solomon massacre, not a single armed man who used his weapon was harmed, nor was one house attacked. The victims were composed entirely of the surprised and the defenseless, overtaken at their work and on the roads.
Passing the dead body of the mother, the Cheyennes, on their wiry ponies, swept onward, like demon centaurs, toward the home of the daughter. Sitting by our fire at evening, with that dreary, fixed look which one never forgets who has once seen it, the young woman told us the story of her childlesswidowhood. Her face was one of those which, smitten by sorrow, are stricken until death. Once evidently comely, the smiles and warm flush had died out from it forever—just as in the lapse of centuries the colors fade from a painting. Though scarcely twenty-five, her youth was but an image of the past. She told her story in that mechanical, absent sort of manner which showed that no morning had followed the evening of that desolate day. She was still living with her dead.
"The Lord gave me then a cup so bitter," she said, "that its sting drove a mother's joy from my heart forever. I have been at peace since, because, among the dregs, I found that God had placed a diamond for me to wear when I was wedded to him. Even then I did not rebel and reproach my Maker, but I sunk down with one loud cry, and it went right along to the great white throne up there, with the spirits of my husband and my babe. I thought I could see them in the air, like two white doves flitting upward, bearing with them, as part of our sacrifice, the cry that I gave, when my heart-strings seemed to snap, and I knew that I was a widow and childless. Perhaps I was crazed for a moment, or—I do not know—perhaps my spirit really did go with them part of the way. The neighbors found me there for dead, and I remained cold, till they brought in my dear babe, my poor, mutilated babe, and placed him on my breast. His warm blood must have woke me, and I sat up, and saw them bringing John's body to lay it by me. And then the whole scene came before me again, and it seemed so stamped into my very brain, that shuttingmy eyes left me more alone with my murdered ones and the murderers. And I just dragged myself where I could look at the setting sun, and tried with its bright glare to burn the scene from off my vision, so that, if I went mad, there wouldn't be any memory of it left. For mad people have their memories and suffer from them, and they know it, and the very fact that they know it keeps them mad. I went through it all.
"A person dreaming is not rational, and yet may suffer so, and feel it too, as to shudder hours after waking up. There was John, running toward the house with our baby boy, and the savages yelling and whipping their ponies, trying to get between the open door and him. Alone, he could have saved himself. And our baby thought John was running for play, and was clapping his little hands and chirping at me as the savages closed around my husband. I had only time to pray five words, 'O God, save my husband!' and it did not seem an instant until I saw the poor body I loved so well lying on the ground, and they standing over, shooting their arrows into it. Baby was not killed, but thrown forward under one of the horses, and I had just taken a step or so toward him, when an Indian, who seemed to be the chief, lifted him by the dress to his saddle. I think his first intention was to carry him with them, but, seeing some of our neighbors hurrying toward us, they struck the baby with a hatchet, and hurled him to the ground. At the instant they struck him, he was looking back at me with his great blue eyes wide open and staring with fright."
And then the poor woman, having finished her story, began sobbing piteously.
The Solomon had numberless tales of these terrible massacres equally as harrowing as this, and I could fill pages of this volume with chapters of woe that terminated many a family's history. The result of these and other Indian atrocities is probably yet remembered throughout the entire country. Kansas well nigh rebelled against a government which left her unprotected. The War Department authorized vigorous measures, and the Governor of the State raised a regiment and at its head took the field. Through blows from Custar and Carr, the savages found out, at last, that the dogs of war which they let loose might return to bay at their own doors.
Two women from the Saline were carried into captivity by the Indians, and taken as wives by two of their chiefs. One day Carr, at the head of his troops, looked down into the valley upon the encampment of a band especially noted for its hostility, now lying in fancied security below him. The two white captives were in the wigwams. Suddenly, to the ears of the savages, came a murmur from the hill-side like the first whisper of a torrent.
Instantly, almost, it increased to a roar, and, as they sprung to their feet and rushed forth, the blue waves of vengeance dashed against the village, and broke in showers of leaden spray upon them. Mercy put no shield between them and that annihilating tempest. Every savage in the number was a fiend, and, as a band, they had long been the scourge of the border. Their hands were yet red with the blood of themassacres upon the Saline and Solomon, and white women toiled in the wigwams of their husbands' murderers. One of the captives, Mrs. Daley, was killed by the savages, to prevent rescue; the other was saved, and restored to her husband.
Somewhat later, two women from the Solomon were taken captive, one of them being a bride of but four months who had recently come out with her young husband from the State of New York. Custar seized some chiefs and, with noosed lariats dangling before their eyes, bade them send and have those prisoners brought in, or suffer the penalties. Indians have an unconquerable prejudice against being hung, as it prevents their spirits entering the happy hunting grounds, and the captives were promptly sent to Custar's camp. We afterward saw one of them, Mrs. Morgan, on the Solomon. What an agony must have been hers, as she came in sight of her old home, and the memory of her wrongs since leaving it, rose anew before her!
But to return to the history of our emigrants. After the murders, Mr. Sydney and his daughters abandoned their farms, and with the same wagon and oxen which two years before had brought the family out from Ohio, they started for the recently discovered mines in New Mexico. The journey was tedious, and, when at length arrived there, he found but little gold, and even less relief from his mighty sorrow. The old home, with its graves, beckoned him back, and thither he was now returning to spend his remaining days, unless, as he laconically stated, some one had "jumped the claim." Lest myreaders toward the rising sun should not clearly understand the old gentleman's meaning, I ought perhaps to explain that, under existing laws, a "Homesteader" can not be absent from his land over six months at any time, without forfeiting his title, and rendering it liable to occupancy by other parties. It was already two days over the allotted period, he said. But the oxen were thin, and he finally decided to rest with us until the next morning, and then push forward.
Flora, the younger daughter, was a blooming Western girl of a thoroughly practical turn, and a counselor on whose advice the father and sister evidently relied greatly. The Professor assured me confidentially that evening, and with much more than his wonted enthusiasm on such a subject, that she preferred the language of the rocks to that of fashion plates. She had even disputed one of his statements, he said, and vanquished him by producing the proof from a well-worn scientific work—one of a dozen books carefully wrapped up and stowed away with other goods in the wagon.
A novel accomplishment which the young lady possessed was that of being an excellent rifle shot, and it afforded us all considerable merriment when she challenged Muggs to a trial of skill, and, producing a target rifle, utterly defeated him. Such a woman as that, the Professor said, was safe on the frontier; she could fight her own way and clear her vicinity of savages, whenever necessary, as well as any of us.
We did not wish our emigrant maiden aught butwhat she was, and were well pleased with the romance of her visit. For the nonce, she was our queen; the rough ox-wagon was her throne, and the great plains her ample domain. In sober truth, she might justly challenge our esteem and admiration. Here was one of the gentler sex willing to make divorce of happiness, that she might minister to a half-crazed father and mourning sister, and who, for their sake, chose to wander through a country which might at any moment become to them the valley of the shadow of death. In the presence of such heroism, what right had we, though bruised and tired, to complain? No wonder the Professor took early occasion to tell us that she was a noble woman, an honor to her sex.
This emigrant wagon, with its wee bit of domestic life, was a pleasant object to all of us out there on the desert, with the single exception of Alderman Sachem. That worthy member of our party avoided its vicinity, as if a plague spot had there seized upon the valley. "I did think," he exclaimed, dividing glances that were quite the reverse of complimentary between the Professor and Shamus—"I did think that we had got out of the latitude of spooning. We haven't had a digestible mouthful since they came in sight. A love-struck Irishman can neither eat, himself, or let others."
But Shamus was too happy to heed the remark; for the first time since starting, he seemed perfectly contented. An Irish girl, the like of Mary, and devoted enough to follow her old master through such adversity, seemed Dobeen's beau ideal of the lovely and lovable in the sex. The valley became for himthe brightest spot upon earth. He would have been content there to court and cook, I think, during the remainder of his natural life. Mary was shy, and Shamus was bold, but it was quite apparent that both enjoyed the situation immensely.
Although the little party stayed but a day, their departure seemed to leave quite a void in the valley. The most noticeable results to us were some errors in cooking and a slackness in the prosecution of scientific investigations.
Mr. Sydney gave us a hearty invitation to visit him upon the Solomon, if our wanderings took us that way, and our prophetic souls, with a common instinct, told all of us that the Professor would recognize a call of science in that direction. By a look and a smile from a maiden, the Philosopher, deeply sunken in the primary formation, had been drawn to the surface of the modern, a result which fashionable society had more than once striven in vain to bring about. Miss Flora certainly bid fair to become a favorite pupil of his, were the opportunity only offered.
This maiden of the plains was a new character. The beautiful heroine mentioned in most Western novels as having penetrated the Indian country, is either the daughter of "once wealthy parents," or the heiress of a noble family and stolen by gypsies for reward or revenge. It was the first appearance that I could recall of a farmer's girl in a position where kidnapping Indians and a frantic lover could so easily appear, and by opportune conjunction weave the plot of a soul-harrowing romance.
Another evening in camp was spent in writing andstory-telling. The fire was getting low, when Sachem rose to his feet and called to Shamus. "Dobeen," said he, "your country folks are always handy with the sticks. Let's go for wood, and have a fire that will warm up the witches on their broomsticks and send them flying off to hug the clouds." We watched the pair go out of sight. Knowing well the habits of Tammany, we all felt sure that, though he might find the load, Irish shoulders would have to bear it back to camp.