CHATO.
CHATO.
CHATO.
Among our Crows were said to be some very distinguished warriors; one of these pointed out to me had performed during the preceding winter the daring feat of stealing in alone upon a Sioux village and getting a fine pony, which he tied loosely to a stake outside; then he crept back, lifted up the flap of one of the lodges, and called gently to the sleepers, who, unsuspecting, answered the grunt, which awakened them, and thus betrayed just where the men were lying; the Crow took aim coolly and blew the head off of one of the Sioux, slipped down through the village, untied and mounted his pony, and was away like the wind before the astonished enemy could tell from the screaming and jabbering squaws what was the matter.
All through the next day, June 15, 1876, camp was a beehive of busy preparation. Colonel Chambers had succeeded in finding one hundred and seventy-five infantrymen who could ride, or were anxious to try, so as to see the whole trip through in proper shape. These were mounted upon mules from the wagon and pack trains, and the first hour’s experience with the reluctant Rosinantes equalled the best exhibition ever given by Barnum. Tom Moore organized a small detachment of packers who had had any amount of experience; two of them—Young and Delaney—had been with the English in India, in the wars with the Sikhs and Rohillas, and knew as much as most people do about campaigning and all its hardships and dangers. The medical staff was kept busy examining men unfit to go to the front, but it was remarkable that the men ordered to remain behind did so under protest. The wagons were parked in a great corral, itself a sort of fortification against which the Sioux would not heedlessly rush. Within this corral racks made of willow branches supported loads of wild meat, drying in the sun: deer and antelope venison, buffalo, elk, and grizzly-bear meat, the last two killed by a hunting party from the pack-train the previous day.
The preparations which our savage allies were making were no less noticeable: in both Snake and Crow camps could be seen squads of young warriors looking after their rifles, which, by the way, among the Shoshones, I forgot to mention, were of the latest model—calibre .45—and kept with scrupulous care in regular gun-racks. Some were sharpening lances or adorning them with feathers and paint; others were making “coup” sticks, which are long willow branches about twelve feet from end to end,stripped of leaves and bark, and having each some distinctive mark, in the way of feathers, bells, fur, paint, or bright-colored cloth or flannel. These serve a singular purpose: the great object of the Shoshones, Crows, Cheyennes, and Dakotas in making war is to set the enemy afoot. This done, his destruction is rendered more easy if not more certain. Ponies are also the wealth of the conquerors; hence, in dividing the spoil, each man claims the animals first struck by his “coup” stick.
With the Snakes were three white men—Cosgrove, Yarnell, and Eckles—all Texans; and one French-Canadian half-breed, named Luisant. Cosgrove, the leading spirit, was, during the Rebellion, a captain in the 32d Texas Cavalry, C. S. A., and showed he had not forgotten the lessons of the war by the appearance of discipline and good order evinced by his command, who, in this respect, were somewhat ahead of the Crows. We were informed that on the march over from Wind River, the Snakes, during one afternoon, killed one hundred and seventy-five buffaloes on the eastern slope of the Owl Creek Mountains. In the early hours of the afternoon the Crows had a foot-race, for twenty cartridges a side; the running was quite good for the distance of one hundred and fifty yards.
At sunset we buried Private Nelson, who had died the previous night. The funeral cortege was decidedly imposing, because, as on all former occasions of the same nature, all officers and men not engaged on other duty made it a point to be present at the grave of every dead comrade; the noise of the parting volleys brought our savages up on a gallop, persuaded that the Sioux were making a demonstration against some part of our lines; they dashed up to the side of the grave, and there they sat motionless upon their ponies, feathers nodding in the breeze, and lances gleaming in the sun. Some of them wore as many as four rings in each ear, the entire cartilage being perforated from apex to base.