CHAPTER VII.TRAIL OF INDIAN PONY TRACKS—DESPERATE ENCOUNTER—HARD TO MAKE THE SCOUTS BELIEVE HIS STORY.
TRAIL OF INDIAN PONY TRACKS—DESPERATE ENCOUNTER—HARD TO MAKE THE SCOUTS BELIEVE HIS STORY.
ONE of the most daring acts in the history of this daring man was committed in Western Nebraska in 1866. From boyhood days, he had been noted as a hunter, and during the years which he spent in the scouting service, his splendid marksmanship and extraordinary achievements in the pursuit of game earned for him the reputation of being the best hunter west of the Missouri River. His success in that line was phenomenal and elicited expressions of surprise from all who had a knowledge of his work, and from those who were told of it.
Killing buffalo was not regarded by Creede, or by any of the hunters, as the best evidence of skill in marksmanship or in hunting. Any one who could ride a horse and fire a rifle or revolver could kill those clumsy, shaggy animals much easier than they could pursue and kill the ordinary steers on the western ranges to-day. In fact, the range steer is a far more dangerous animal when enraged than was the buffalo, for it possesses greater activity, and is more fleet of foot. The men who have gained notoriety on account of the number of buffalo they have killed are looked upon with quiet contempt by the true hunters of the plains and mountains, who justly claim that hunting excellence can only be shown in the still hunt, where tact and skill are required to approach within shooting distance of the elk, deer or antelope, andproficient marksmanship is necessary to kill it. When buffalo were plenty on the western plains, it was not at all unusual for women to ride after and kill them, and incur little, if any, risk of personal danger. Miss Emma Woodruff, a school teacher on Wood River in the sixties, and who afterwards married a telegraph operator at Wood River Station, became quite noted as a buffalo hunter, and regarded it but as an ordinary achievement to mount her pony and kill one of the shaggy monsters. The long-haired showmen who infest the country and tell thrilling stories of their desperate adventures and narrow escapes while hunting the buffalo, draw largely upon their imagination for bait to throw out to the gullible. No one in a dozen of them ever reached the west bank of the Missouri River. Every frontier man will agree that theso-called scouts, cowboys and Indian fighters who pose in dime museums, dime novels or behind theatrical foot-lights, are in nearly every instance the most shameless frauds, whose long hair and unlimited “gall” make them heroes in unexperienced eyes. Since the death of Kit Carson, but one long-haired man has earned a reputation as a scout, and while he was once, for a brief season, allured into the dramatic business, and now gives platform entertainments when his duties will permit him to do so, he is not a showman, but is yet in Government employ. He is a trusted secret agent of the Department of Justice, and is engaged in a calling almost as dangerous as was his scouting service—that of running down the desperate men who are engaged in selling liquor to Indians. Long hair is the exception and not the rule among scouts, and acowboy who permits his locks to cluster over his shoulders is laughed at by his fellow knights of the saddle and classed as a crank.
You shall read this story as it fell from Creede’s own lips when I pressed him to tell it to me. It was this incident which first gained from him the full confidence and unstinted admiration of the Indian scouts:
“Game, through some cause, was very scarce near our camp, and one day I saddled my favorite horse and rode southward, determined to get meat of some kind before returning. I went about fifteen miles from camp, and after hunting some four or five hours without success, made up my mind the game had all left the country. I started to return by a circuitous route, desiring to cover as large a scope of country as possible, and get some meat if it wasat all to be found. After traveling perhaps an hour through the sand-hills, I came upon a fresh trail of pony tracks, and I knew the tracks were made by Indian ponies, and hostile Indians, too, for none of our scouts were away from camp. I determined to follow the trail and ascertain if the ponies all bore riders, and, if possible, to get close enough unobserved to see from the appearance of the Indians who they were, and if it was a hunting or war party. They were headed in the direction in which I desired to go, and after tightening up my saddle cinches and looking to see if my pistols were in order, I took the trail. I judged from the trail that there were about twenty-five or thirty Indians in the party, and I soon learned that my estimate was a nearly correct one.
Man on a horse waving his hat
“When I reached the top of the firstlittle hill ahead of me, I came in full view of the party not more than a quarter of a mile distant. They saw me at the same time, as I knew from the confusion in their ranks. I tell you, in a case of that kind, one wants to do some quick thinking, and if ever a man jogged his brain for a scheme to get out of an ugly scrape, I did right then and there. If I tried to run, I knew they would scatter and get me, and in less time than it takes me to tell it, I had made my plan and started to putit into execution. I saw that my only chance, though a desperate one, would be to make them believe I was ahead of a party in their pursuit, and taking off my hat, I made frantic motions to the rear, as if hurrying up a body of troops, and then, putting spurs to my horse, dashed right toward them, and when close enough, began firing at them with my rifle. The scheme worked beautifully, for without firing a shot, they seemed to become terror-stricken and fled on through the hills. The course lay through low sand-hills which often concealed them from view, but I pressed on, firing at every chance. I chased them for fully three miles; two of them died and I captured three ponies which fell behind, and then left the trail and made for camp. I found it hard to make the scouts believe my story, and some of them quiteplainly hinted that I had found the ponies in the hills and had seen no Indians. I saw at once that they doubted me, and determined to convince them of the truth of what I had told them. The next morning I took a dozen or more of them and went back to the scene of the chase, and we were not long in finding all the coyotes had left of the two bodies.
“That affair firmly established my reputation with the scouts, and ever after they fully relied on my judgment as a war chief. Through all our future operations, they trusted me implicitly, and would follow me any place I chose to lead them.”