At the zenith of his influence and wealth, during the War of the Rebellion, when New Mexico was isolated and almost independent of care or thought by the government at Washington, he lived in a sort of barbaric splendour, akin to that of the nobles of England at the time of the Norman conquest.
The thousands of arable acres comprised in the many fertile valleys of his immense estate were farmed in a primitive, feudal sort of way, by native Mexicans principally, under the system of peonage then existing in the Territory. He employed about five hundred men, and they were as much his thralls as were Gurth and Wamba of Cedric of Rotherwood, only they wore no engraved collars around their necks bearing their names and that of their master. Maxwell was not a hard governor, and his people really loved him, as he was ever their friend and adviser.
His house was a palace when compared with the prevailing style of architecture in that country, and cost an immense sum of money. It was large and roomy, purely American in its construction, but the manner of conducting it was strictly Mexican, varying between the customs of the higher and lower classes of that curious people.
Some of its apartments were elaborately furnished, others devoid of everything except a table for card-playing and a game’s complement of chairs. The principal room, an extended rectangular affair, which might properly have been termed the Baronial Hall, was almost bare except for a few chairs, a couple of tables, and an antiquated bureau. There Maxwell received his friends, transacted business with his vassals, and held high carnival at times.
I have slept on its hardwood floor, rolled up in my blanket, with the mighty men of the Ute nation lying heads and points all around me, as close as they could possibly crowd, after a day’s fatiguing hunt in the mountains. I have sat there in the long winter evenings, when the great room was lighted only by the cheerful blaze of the crackling logs roaring up the huge throats of its two fireplaces built diagonally across opposite corners, watching Maxwell, Kit Carson, and half a dozen chiefs silently interchange ideas in the wonderful sign language, until the glimmer of Aurora announced the advent of another day. But not a sound had been uttered during the protracted hours, save an occasional grunt of satisfaction on the part of the Indians, or when we white men exchanged a sentence.
Frequently Maxwell and Carson would play the game of seven-up for hours at a time, seated at one of the tables. Kit was usually the victor, for he was the greatest expert in that old and popular pastime I have ever met. Maxwell was an inveterate gambler, but not by any means in a professional sense; he indulged in the hazard of the cards simply for the amusement it afforded him in his rough life of ease, and he could very well afford the losses which the pleasure sometimes entailed. His special penchant, however, was betting on a horse race, and his own stud comprised some of the fleetest animals in the Territory. Had he lived in England he might have ruled the turf, but many jobs were put up on him by unscrupulous jockeys, by which he was outrageously defrauded of immense sums.
He was fond of cards, as I have said, both of the purely American game of poker, and also of old sledge, but rarely played except with personal friends, and never without stakes. He always exacted the last cent he had won, though the next morning, perhaps, he would present or loan his unsuccessful opponent of the night before five hundred or a thousand dollars, if he needed it; an immensely greater sum, in all probability, than had been gained in the game.
The kitchen and dining-rooms of his princely establishment were detached from the main residence. There was one of the latter for the male portion of his retinue and guests of that sex, and another for the female, as, in accordance with the severe, and to us strange, Mexican etiquette, men rarely saw a woman about the premises, though there were many. Only the quick rustle of a skirt, or a hurried view of a reboso, as its wearer flashed for an instant before some window or half-open door, told of their presence.
The greater portion of his table-service was solid silver, and at his hospitable board there were rarely any vacant chairs. Covers were laid daily for about thirty persons; for he had always many guests, invited or forced upon him in consequence of his proverbial munificence, or by the peculiar location of his manor-house which stood upon a magnificently shaded plateau at the foot of mighty mountains, a short distance from a ford on the Old Trail. As there were no bridges over the uncertain streams of the great overland route in those days, the ponderous Concord coaches, with their ever-full burden of passengers, were frequently water-bound, and Maxwell’s the only asylum from the storm and flood; consequently he entertained many.
At all times, and in all seasons, the group of buildings, houses, stables, mill, store, and their surrounding grounds, were a constant resort and loafing-place of Indians. From the superannuated chiefs, who revelled lazily during the sunny hours in the shady peacefulness of the broad porches; the young men of the tribe, who gazed with covetous eyes upon the sleek-skinned, blooded colts sporting in the spacious corrals; the squaws, fascinated by the gaudy calicoes, bright ribbons, and glittering strings of beads on the counters or shelves of the large store, to the half-naked, chubby little pappooses around the kitchen doors, waiting with expectant mouths for some delicious morsel of refuse to be thrown to them–all assumed, in bearing and manner, a vested right of proprietorship in their agreeable environment.
To this motley group, always under his feet, as it were, Maxwell was ever passively gracious, although they were battening in idleness on his prodigal bounty from year to year.
His retinue of servants, necessarily large, was made up of a heterogeneous mixture of Indians, Mexicans, and half-breeds. The kitchens were presided over by dusky maidens under the tutelage of experienced old crones, and its precincts were sacred to them; but the dining-rooms were forbidden to women during the hours of meals, which were served by boys.
Maxwell was rarely, as far as my observation extended, without a large amount of money in his possession. He had no safe, however, his only place of temporary deposit for the accumulated cash being the bottom drawer of the old bureau in the large room to which I have referred, which was the most antiquated concern of common pine imaginable. There were only two other drawers in this old-fashioned piece of furniture, and neither of them possessed a lock. The third, or lower, the one that contained the money, did, but it was absolutely worthless, being one of the cheapest pattern and affording not the slightest security; besides, the drawers above it could be pulled out, exposing the treasure immediately beneath to the cupidity of any one.
I have frequently seen as much as thirty thousand dollars–gold, silver, greenbacks, and government checks–at one time in that novel depository. Occasionally these large sums remained there for several days, yet there was never any extra precaution taken to prevent its abstraction; doors were always open and the room free of access to every one, as usual.
I once suggested to Maxwell the propriety of purchasing a safe for the better security of his money, but he only smiled, while a strange, resolute look flashed from his dark eyes, as he said: “God help the man who attempted to rob me and I knew him!”
The sources of his wealth were his cattle, sheep, and the products of his area of cultivated acres–barley, oats, and corn principally– which he disposed of to the quartermaster and commissary departments of the army, in the large military district of New Mexico. His wool-clip must have been enormous, too; but I doubt whether he could have told the number of animals that furnished it or the aggregate of his vast herds. He had a thousand horses, ten thousand cattle, and forty thousand sheep at the time I knew him well, according to the best estimates of his Mexican relatives.
He also possessed a large and perfectly appointed gristmill, which was a great source of revenue, for wheat was one of the staple crops of his many farms.
Maxwell was fond of travelling all over the Territory, his equipages comprising everything in the shape of a vehicle, through all their varieties, from the most plainly constructed buckboard to the lumbering, but comfortable and expensive, Concord coach, mounted on thorough braces instead of springs, and drawn by four or six horses. He was perfectly reckless in his driving, dashing through streams, over irrigating ditches, stones, and stumps like a veritable Jehu, regardless of consequences, but, as is usually the fortune of such precipitate horsemen, rarely coming to grief.
The headquarters of the Ute agency were established at Maxwell’s Ranch in early days, and the government detailed a company of cavalry to camp there, more, however, to impress the plains tribes who roamed along the Old Trail east of the Raton Range, than for any effect on the Utes, whom Maxwell could always control, and who regarded him as a father.
On the 4th of July, 1867, Maxwell, who owned an antiquated and rusty six-pound field howitzer, suggested to the captain of the troop stationed there the propriety of celebrating the day. So the old piece was dragged from its place under a clump of elms, where it had been hidden in the grass and weeds ever since the Mexican War probably, and brought near the house. The captain and Maxwell acted the role of gunners, the former at the muzzle, the latter at the breech; the discharge was premature, blowing out the captain’s eye and taking off his arm, while Maxwell escaped with a shattered thumb. As soon as the accident occurred, a sergeant was despatched to Fort Union on one of the fastest horses on the ranch, the faithful animal falling dead the moment he stopped in front of the surgeon’s quarters, having made the journey of fifty-five miles in little more than four hours.
The surgeon left the post immediately, arriving at Maxwell’s late that night, but in time to save the officer’s life, after which he dressed Maxwell’s apparently inconsiderable wound. In a few days, however, the thumb grew angry-looking; it would not yield to the doctor’s careful treatment, so he reluctantly decided that amputation was necessary. After an operation was determined upon, I prevailed upon Maxwell to come to the fort and remain with me, inviting Kit Carson at the same time, that he might assist in catering to the amusement of my suffering guest. Maxwell and Carson arrived at my quarters late in the day, after a tedious ride in the big coach, and the surgeon, in order to allow a prolonged rest on account of Maxwell’s feverish condition, postponed the operation until the following evening.
The next night, as soon as it grew dark–we waited for coolness, as the days were excessively hot–the necessary preliminaries were arranged, and when everything was ready the surgeon commenced. Maxwell declined the anaesthetic prepared for him, and sitting in a common office chair put out his hand, while Carson and myself stood on opposite sides, each holding an ordinary kerosene lamp. In a few seconds the operation was concluded, and after the silver-wire ligatures were twisted in their places, I offered Maxwell, who had not as yet permitted a single sigh to escape his lips, half a tumblerful of whiskey; but before I had fairly put it to his mouth, he fell over, having fainted dead away, while great beads of perspiration stood on his forehead, indicative of the pain he had suffered, as the amputation of the thumb, the surgeon told us then, was as bad as that of a leg.
He returned to his ranch as soon as the surgeon pronounced him well, and Carson to his home in Taos. I saw the latter but once more at Maxwell’s; but he was en route to visit me at Fort Harker, in Kansas, when he was taken ill at Fort Lyon, where he died.
A boy’s will is the wind’s will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.
How true it now seems to me, as the recollections of my boyish days, when I read of the exploits of Kit Carson, crowd upon my memory! I firmly believed him to be at least ten feet tall, carrying a rifle so heavy that, like Bruce’s sword, it required two men to lift it. I imagined he drank out of nothing smaller than a river, and picked the carcass of a whole buffalo as easily as a lady does the wing of a quail. Ten years later I made the acquaintance of the foremost frontiersman, and found him a delicate, reticent, under-sized, wiry man, as perfectly the opposite of the type my childish brain had created as it is possible to conceive.
At Fort Union our mail arrived every morning by coach over the Trail, generally pulling up at the sutler’s store, whose proprietor was postmaster, about daylight. While Maxwell and Kit were my guests, I sauntered down after breakfast one morning to get my mail, and while waiting for the letters to be distributed, happened to glance at some papers lying on the counter, among which I saw a new periodical –the _Day’s Doings_, I think it was–that had a full-page illustration of a scene in a forest. In the foreground stood a gigantic figure dressed in the traditional buckskin; on one arm rested an immense rifle; his other arm was around the waist of the conventional female of such sensational journals, while in front, lying prone upon the ground, were half a dozen Indians, evidently slain by the singular hero in defending the impossibly attired female. The legend related how all this had been effected by the famous Kit Carson. I purchased the paper, returned with it to my room, and after showing it to several officers who had called upon Maxwell, I handed it to Kit. He wiped his spectacles, studied the picture intently for a few seconds, turned round, and said: “Gentlemen, that thar may be true, but I hain’t got no recollection of it.”
I passed a delightful two weeks with Maxwell, late in the summer of 1867, at the time that the excitement over the discovery of gold on his ranch had just commenced, and adventurers were beginning to congregate in the hills and gulches from everywhere. The discovery of the precious metal on his estate was the first cause of his financial embarrassment. It was the ruin also of many other prominent men in New Mexico, who expended their entire fortune in the construction of an immense ditch, forty miles in length–from the Little Canadian or Red River–to supply the placer diggings in the Moreno valley with water, when the melted snow of Old Baldy range had exhausted itself in the late summer. The scheme was a stupendous failure; its ruins may be seen to-day in the deserted valleys, a monument to man’s engineering skill, but the wreck of his hopes.
For some years previous to the discovery of gold in the mountains and gulches of Maxwell’s Ranch, it was known that copper existed in the region; several shafts had been sunk and tunnels driven in various places, and gold had been found from time to time, but was kept a secret for many months. Its presence was at last revealed to Maxwell by a party of his own miners, who were boring into the heart of Old Baldy for a copper lead that had cropped out and was then lost.
Of course, to keep the knowledge of the discovery of gold from the world is an impossibility; such was the case in this instance, and soon commenced that squatter immigration out of which, after the ranch was sold and Maxwell died, grew that litigation which has resulted in favour of the company who purchased from or through the first owners after Maxwell’s death.
He was a representative man of the border of the same class as his compeers–“wild-civilized men,” to borrow an expressive term from John Burroughs–of strong local attachments, and overflowing with the milk of human kindness. To such as he there was an unconquerable infatuation in life on the remote plains and in the solitude of the mountains. There was never anything of the desperado in their character, while the adventurers who at times have made the far West infamous, since the advent of the railroad, were bad men originally.
Occasionally such men turn up everywhere, and become a terror to the community, but they are always wound up sooner or later; they die with their boots on; Western graveyards are full of them.
Maxwell, under contract with the Interior Department, furnished live beeves to the Ute nation, the issue of which was made weekly from his own vast herds. The cattle, as wild as those from the Texas prairies, were driven by his herders into an immense enclosed field, and there turned loose to be slaughtered by the savages.
Once when at the ranch I told Maxwell I should like to have a horse to witness the novel sight. He immediately ordered a Mexican groom to procure one; but I did not see the peculiar smile that lighted up his face, as he whispered something to the man which I did not catch. Presently the groom returned leading a magnificent gray, which I mounted, Maxwell suggesting that I should ride down to the large field and wait there until the herd arrived. I entered the great corral, patting my horse on the neck now and then, to make him familiar with my touch, and attempted to converse with some of the chiefs, who were dressed in their best, painted as if for the war-path, gaily bedecked with feathers and armed with rifles and gaudily appointed bows and arrows; but I did not succeed very well in drawing them from their normal reticence. The squaws, a hundred of them, were sitting on the ground, their knives in hand ready for the labour which is the fate of their sex in all savage tribes, while their lords’ portion of the impending business was to end with the more manly efforts of the chase.
Suddenly a great cloud of dust rose on the trail from the mountains, and on came the maddened animals, fairly shaking the earth with their mighty tread. As soon as the gate was closed behind them, and uttering a characteristic yell that was blood-curdling in its ferocity, the Indians charged upon the now doubly frightened herd, and commenced to discharge their rifles, regardless of the presence of any one but themselves. My horse became paralyzed for an instant and stood poised on his hind legs, like the steed represented in that old lithographic print of Napoleon crossing the Alps; then taking the bit in his teeth, he rushed aimlessly into the midst of the flying herd, while the bullets from the guns of the excited savages rained around my head. I had always boasted of my equestrian accomplishments–I was never thrown but once in my life, and that was years afterward–but in this instance it taxed all my powers to keep my seat. In less than twenty minutes the last beef had fallen; and the warriors, inflated with the pride of their achievement, rode silently out of the field, leaving the squaws to cut up and carry away the meat to their lodges, more than three miles distant, which they soon accomplished, to the last quivering morsel.
As I rode leisurely back to the house, I saw Maxwell and Kit standing on the broad porch, their sides actually shaking with laughter at my discomfiture, they having been watching me from the very moment the herd entered the corral. It appeared that the horse Maxwell ordered the groom to bring me was a recent importation from St. Louis, had never before seen an Indian, and was as unused to the prairies and mountains as a street-car mule. Kit said that my mount reminded him of one that his antagonist in a duel rode a great many years ago when he was young. If the animal had not been such “a fourth-of-July” brute, his opponent would in all probability have finished him, as he was a splendid shot; but Kit fortunately escaped, the bullet merely grazing him under the ear, leaving a scar which he then showed me.
One night Kit Carson, Maxwell, and I were up in the Raton Mountains above the Old Trail, and having lingered too long, were caught above the clouds against our will, darkness having overtaken us before we were ready to descend into the valley. It was dangerous to undertake the trip over such a precipitous and rocky trail, so we were compelled to make the best of our situation. It was awfully cold, and as we had brought no blankets, we dared not go to sleep for fear our fire might go out, and we should freeze. We therefore determined to make a night of it by telling yarns, smoking our pipes, and walking around at times. After sitting awhile, Maxwell pointed toward the Spanish Peaks, whose snow-white tops cast a diffused light in the heavens above them, and remarked that in the deep canyon which separates them, he had had one of the “closest calls” of his life, willingly complying when I asked him to tell us the story.
“It was in 1847. I came down from Taos with a party to go to the Cimarron crossing of the Santa Fe Trail to pick up a large herd of horses for the United States Quartermaster’s Department. We succeeded in gathering about a hundred and started back with them, letting them graze slowly along, as we were in no hurry. When we arrived at the foot-hills north of Bent’s Fort, we came suddenly upon the trail of a large war-band of Utes, none of whom we saw, but from subsequent developments the savages must have discovered us days before we reached the mountains. I knew we were not strong enough to cope with the whole Ute nation, and concluded the best thing for us to do under the ticklish circumstances was to make a detour, and put them off our trail. So we turned abruptly down the Arkansas, intending to try and get to Taos in that direction, more than one hundred and fifty miles around. It appeared afterward that the Indians had been following us all the way. When we found this out, some of the men believed they were another party, and not the same whose trail we came upon when we turned down the river, but I always insisted they were. When we arrived within a few days’ drive of Taos, we were ambushed in one of the narrow passes of the range, and had the bloodiest fight with the Utes on record. There were thirteen of us, all told, and two little children whom we were escorting to their friends at Taos, having received them at the Cimarron crossing.
“While we were quietly taking our breakfast one morning, and getting ready to pull out for the day’s march, perfectly unsuspicious of the proximity of any Indians, they dashed in upon us, and in less than a minute stampeded all our stock–loose animals as well as those we were riding. While part of the savages were employed in running off the animals, fifty of their most noted warriors, splendidly mounted and horribly painted, rushed into the camp, around the fire of which the men and the little children were peacefully sitting, and, discharging their guns as they rode up, killed one man and wounded another.
“Terribly surprised as we were, it did not turn the heads of the old mountaineers, and I immediately told them to make a break for a clump of timber near by, and that we would fight them as long as one of us could stand up. There we fought and fought against fearful odds, until all were wounded except two. The little children were captured at the beginning of the trouble and carried off at once. After a while the savages got tired of the hard work, and, as is frequently the case, went away of their own free will; but they left us in a terrible plight. All were sore, stiff, and weak from their many wounds; on foot, and without any food or ammunition to procure game with, having exhausted our supply in the awfully unequal battle; besides, we were miles from home, with every prospect of starving to death.
“We could not remain where we were, so as soon as darkness came on, we started out to walk to some settlement. We dared not show ourselves by daylight, and all through the long hours when the sun was up, we were obliged to hide in the brush and ravines until night overtook us again, and we could start on our painful march.
“We had absolutely nothing to eat, and our wounds began to fester, so that we could hardly move at all. We should undoubtedly have perished, if, on the third day, a band of friendly Indians of another tribe had not gone to Taos and reported the fight to the commanding officer of the troops there. These Indians had heard of our trouble with the Utes, and knowing how strong they were, and our weakness, surmised our condition, and so hastened to convey the bad news.
“A company of dragoons was immediately sent to our rescue, under the guidance of Dick Wooton, who was and has ever been a warm personal friend of mine. They came upon us about forty miles from Taos, and never were we more surprised; we had become so starved and emaciated that we had abandoned all hope of escaping what seemed to be our inevitable fate.
“When the troops found us, we had only a few rags, our clothes having been completely stripped from our bodies while struggling through the heavy underbrush on our trail, and we were so far exhausted that we could not stand on our feet. One more day, and we would have been laid out.
“The little children were, fortunately, saved from the horror of that terrible march after the fight, as the Indians carried them to their winter camp, where, if not absolutely happy, they were under shelter and fed; escaping the starvation which would certainly have been their fate if they had remained with us. They were eventually ransomed for a cash payment by the government, and altogether had not been very harshly treated.”
CHAPTER XIX.
BENT’S FORTS.
The famous Bent brothers, William, George, Robert, and Charles, were French-Canadian hunters and trappers, and had been employed almost from boyhood, in the early days of the border, by the American Fur Company in the mountains of the Northwest.
In 1826, almost immediately after the transference of the fur trade to the valley of the Arkansas, when the commerce of the prairies was fairly initiated, the three Bents and Ceran St. Vrain, also a French-Canadian and trapper, settled on the Upper Arkansas, where they erected a stockade. It was, of course, a rude affair, formed of long stakes or pickets driven into the ground, after the Mexican style known as jacal. The sides were then ceiled and roofed, and it served its purpose of a trading-post. This primitive fort was situated on the left or north bank of the river, about halfway between Pueblo and Canyon City, those beautiful mountain towns of to-day.
Two years afterward, in 1828, the proprietors of the primitive stockade in the remote wilderness found it necessary to move closer to the great hunting-grounds lower down the valley. There, about twelve miles northeast of the now thriving town of Las Animas, the Bents commenced the construction of a relatively large and more imposing-looking structure than the first. The principal material used in the new building, or rather in its walls, was adobe, or sun-dried brick, so common even to-day in New Mexican architecture. Four years elapsed before the new fort was completed, during which period its owners, like other trappers, lived in tents or teepees fashioned of buffalo-skins, after the manner of the Indians.
When at last the new station was completed, it was named Fort William, in honour of Colonel William Bent, who was the leader of the family and the most active trader among the four partners in the concern. The colonel frequently made long trips to the remote villages of the Arapahoes, Cheyennes, Kiowas, and Comanches, which were situated far to the south and east, on the Canadian River and its large tributaries. His miscellaneous assortment of merchandise he transported upon pack-mules to the Indian rendezvous, bringing back to the fort the valuable furs he had exchanged for the goods so eagerly coveted by the savages. It was while on one of his trading expeditions to the Cheyenne nation that the colonel married a young squaw of that tribe, the daughter of the principal chief.
William Bent for his day and time was an exceptionally good man. His integrity, his truthfulness on all occasions, and his remarkable courage endeared him to the red and white man alike, and Fort William prospered wonderfully under his careful and just management. Both his brothers and St. Vrain had taken up their residence in Taos, and upon the colonel devolved the entire charge of the busy establishment. It soon became the most popular rendezvous of the mountaineers and trappers, and in its immediate vicinity several tribes of Indians took up their temporary encampment.
In 1852 Fort William was destroyed under the following strange circumstances: It appears that the United States desired to purchase it. Colonel Bent had decided upon a price–sixteen thousand dollars– but the representatives of the War Department offered only twelve thousand, which, of course, Bent refused. Negotiations were still pending, when the colonel, growing tired of the red-tape and circumlocution of the authorities, and while in a mad mood, removed all his valuables from the structure, excepting some barrels of gunpowder, and then deliberately set fire to the old landmark. When the flames reached the powder, there was an explosion which threw down portions of the walls, but did not wholly destroy them. The remains of the once noted buildings stand to-day, melancholy relics of a past epoch.
In the same year the indefatigable and indomitable colonel determined upon erecting a much more important structure. He selected a site on the same side of the Arkansas, in the locality known as Big Timbers. Regarding this new venture, Colonel or Judge Moore of Las Animas, a son-in-law of William Bent, tells in a letter to the author of the history of Colorado the following facts:–
Leaving ten men in camp to get out stone for the new post, Colonel Bent took a part of his outfit and went to a Kiowa village, about two hundred miles southwest, and remained there all winter, trading with the Kiowas and Comanches. In the spring of 1853 he returned to Big Timbers, when the construction of the new post was begun, and the work continued until completed in the summer of 1854; and it was used as a trading-post until the owner leased it to the government in the autumn of 1859. Colonel Sedgwick had been sent out to fight the Kiowas that year, and in the fall a large quantity of commissary stores had been sent him. Colonel Bent then moved up the river to a point just above the mouth of the Purgatoire, and built several rooms of cottonwood pickets, and there spent the winter. In the spring of 1860, Colonel Sedgwick began the construction of officers’ buildings, company quarters, corrals, and stables, all of stone, and named the place Fort Wise, in honour of Governor Wise of Virginia. In 1861 the name was changed to Fort Lyon, in honour of General Lyon, who was killed at the battle of Wilson Creek, Missouri. In the spring of 1866, the Arkansas River overflowed its banks, swept up into the fort, and, undermining the walls, rendered it untenable for military purposes. The camp was moved to a point twenty miles below, and the new Fort Lyon established. The old post was repaired, and used as a stage station by Barlow, Sanderson, and Company, who ran a mail, express, and passenger line between Kansas City and Santa Fe.
The contiguous region to Fort William was in the early days a famous hunting-ground. It abounded in nearly every variety of animal indigenous to the mountains and plains, among which were the panther –the so-called California lion of to-day–the lynx, erroneously termed wild cat, white wolf, prairie wolf, silver-gray fox, prairie fox, antelope, buffalo, gray, grizzly and cinnamon bears, together with the common brown and black species, the red deer and the black-tail, the latter the finest venison in the world. Of birds there were wild turkeys, quail, and grouse, besides an endless variety of the smaller-sized families, not regarded as belonging to the domain of game in a hunter’s sense. It was a veritable paradise, too, for the trappers. Its numerous streams and creeks were famous for beaver, otter, and mink.
Scarcely an acre of the surrounding area within the radius of hundreds of miles but has been the scene of many deadly encounters with the wily red man, stories of which are still current among the few old mountaineers yet living.
The fort was six hundred and fifty miles west of Fort Leavenworth, in latitude thirty-eight degrees and two minutes north, and longitude one hundred and three degrees and three minutes west, from Greenwich. The exterior walls of the fort, whose figure was that of a parallelogram, were fifteen feet high and four feet thick. It was a hundred and thirty-five feet wide and divided into various compartments. On the northwest and southeast corners were hexagonal bastions, in which were mounted a number of cannon. The walls of the building served as the walls of the rooms, all of which faced inwards on a plaza, after the general style of Mexican architecture. The roofs of the rooms were made of poles, on which was a heavy layer of dirt, as in the houses of native Mexicans to-day. The fort possessed a billiard table, that visitors might amuse themselves, and in the office was a small telescope with a fair range of seven miles.
The occupants of the far-away establishment, in its palmy days (for years it was the only building between Council Grove and the mountains), were traders, Indians, hunters, and French trappers, who were the employees of the great fur companies. Many of the latter had Indian wives. Later, after a stage line had been put in operation across the plains to Santa Fe, the fort was relegated to a mere station for the overland route, and with the march of civilization in its course westward, the trappers, hunters, and traders vanished from the once famous rendezvous.
The walls were loopholed for musketry, and the entrance to the plaza, or corral, was guarded by large wooden gates. During the war with Mexico, the fort was headquarters for the commissary department, and many supplies were stored there, though the troops camped below on the beautiful river-bottom. In the centre of the corral, in the early days when the place was a rendezvous of the trappers, a large buffalo-robe press was erected. When the writer first saw the famous fort, now over a third of a century ago, one of the cannon, that burst in firing a salute to General Kearney, could be seen half buried in the dirt of the plaza.
By barometrical measurements taken by the engineer officers of the army at different times, the height of Bent’s Fort above the ocean level is approximately eight thousand nine hundred and fifty-eight feet, and the fall of the Arkansas River from the fort to the great bend of that stream, about three hundred and eleven miles east, is seven feet and four-tenths per mile.
It was in a relatively fair state of preservation thirty-three years ago, but now not a vestige of it remains, excepting perhaps a mound of dirt, the disintegration of the mud bricks of which the historical structure was built.
The Indians whose villages were located a few miles below the fort, or at least the chief men of the various tribes, passed much of their time within the shelter of the famous structure. They were bountifully fed, and everything they needed furnished them. This was purely from policy, however; for if their wishes were not gratified, their hunters would not bring in their furs to trade. The principal chiefs never failed to be present when a meal was announced as ready, and however scarce provisions might be, the Indians must be fed.
The first farm in the fertile and now valuable lands of the valley of the Rio de las Animas[60] was opened by the Bents. The area selected for cultivation was in the beautiful bottom between the fort and the ford, a strip about a mile in length, and from one hundred and fifty to six hundred feet in width. Nothing could be grown without irrigation, and to that end an acequia, as the Mexicans call the ditch through which the water flows, was constructed, and a crop put in. Before the enterprising projectors of the scheme could reap a harvest, the hostile savages dashed in and destroyed everything.
Uncle John Smith was one of the principal traders back in the ’30’s, and he was very successful, perhaps because he was undoubtedly the most perfect master of the Cheyenne language at that time in the whole mountain region.
Among those who frequently came to the fort were Kit Carson, L. B. Maxwell, Uncle Dick Wooton, Baptiste Brown, Jim Bridger, Old Bill Williams, James Beckwourth, Shawnee Spiebuck, Shawnee Jake –the latter two, noted Indian trappers–besides a host of others.
The majority of the old trappers, to a stranger, until he knew their peculiar characteristics, were seemingly of an unsociable disposition. It was an erroneous idea, however; for they were the most genial companions imaginable, generous to a fault, and to fall into one of their camps was indeed a lucky thing for the lost traveller. Everything the host had was at his guest’s disposal, and though coffee and sugar were the dearest of his luxuries, often purchased with a whole season’s trapping, the black fluid was offered with genuine free-heartedness, and the last plug of tobacco placed at the disposition of his chance visitor, as though it could be picked up on the ground anywhere.
Goods brought by the traders to the rendezvous for sale to the trappers and hunters, although of the most inferior quality, were sold at enormously high prices.
Coffee, by the pint-cup, which was the usual measure for everything, cost from a dollar and twenty cents to three dollars; tobacco a dollar and a half a plug; alcohol from two dollars to five dollars a pint; gunpowder one dollar and sixty cents a pint-cup, and all other articles at proportionably exorbitant rates.
The annual gatherings of the trappers at the rendezvous were often the scene of bloody duels; for over their cups and cards no men were more quarrelsome than the old-time mountaineers. Rifles at twenty paces settled all difficulties, and, as may be imagined, the fall of one or the other of the combatants was certain, or, as sometimes happened, both fell at the word “Fire!”
The trapper’s visits to the Mexican settlements, or to the lodges of a tribe of Indians, for the purpose of trading, often resulted in his returning to his quiet camp with a woman to grace his solitary home, the loving and lonely couple as devoted to each other in the midst of blood-thirsty enemies, howling wolves, and panthers, as if they were in some quiet country village.
The easy manners of the harum-scarum, reckless trappers at the rendezvous, and the simple, unsuspecting hearts of those nymphs of the mountains, the squaws, caused their husbands to be very jealous of the attentions bestowed upon them by strangers. Often serious difficulties arose, in the course of which the poor wife received a severe whipping with the knot of a lariat, or no very light lodge-poling at the hands of her imperious sovereign. Sometimes the affair ended in a more tragical way than a mere beating, not infrequently the gallant paying the penalty of his interference with his life.
Garrard, a traveller on the great plains and in the Rocky Mountains half a century ago, from whose excellent diary I have frequently quoted, passed many days and nights at Bent’s Fort fifty years ago, and his quaint description of life there in that remote period of the extreme frontier is very amusing. Its truth has often been confirmed by Uncle John Smith, who was my guide and interpreter in the Indian expedition of 1868-69, only two decades after Garrard’s experience.
Rosalie, a half-breed French and Indian squaw, wife of the carpenter, and Charlotte, the culinary divinity, were, as a Missouri teamster remarked, “the only female women here.” They were nightly led to the floor to trip the light fantastic toe, and swung rudely or gently in the mazes of the contra-dance, but such a medley of steps is seldom seen out of the mountains–the halting, irregular march of the war-dance, the slipping gallopade, the boisterous pitching of the Missouri backwoodsman, and the more nice gyrations of the Frenchman; for all, irrespective of rank, age, or colour, went pell-mell into the excitement, in a manner that would have rendered a leveller of aristocracies and select companies frantic with delight. And the airs assumed by the fair ones, more particularly Charlotte, who took pattern from life in the States, were amusing. She acted her part to perfection; she was the centre of attraction, the belle of the evening. She treated the suitors for the pleasure of the next set with becoming ease and suavity of manner; she knew her worth, and managed accordingly. When the favoured gallant stood by her side waiting for the rudely scraped tune from a screeching fiddle, satisfaction, joy, and triumph over his rivals were pictured on his radiant face.
James Hobbs, of whom I have already spoken, once gave me a graphic description of the annual feast of the Comanches, Cheyennes, and Arapahoes, which always took place at Big Timbers, near Fort William.
Hobbs was married to the daughter of Old Wolf, the chief of the Comanches, a really beautiful Indian girl, with whom he lived faithfully many years. In the early summer of 1835, he went with his father-in-law and the rest of the tribe to the great feast of that season. He stated that on that occasion there were forty thousand Indians assembled, and consequently large hunting parties were sent out daily to procure food for such a vast host. The entertainment was kept up for fifteen days, enlivened by horse races, foot races, and playing ball. In these races the tribes would bet their horses on the result, the Comanches generally winning, for they are the best riders in the world. By the time the feast was ended, the Arapahoes and Cheyennes usually found themselves afoot, but Old Wolf, who was a generous fellow, always gave them back enough animals to get home with.
The game of ball was played with crooked sticks, and is very much like the American boys’ “shinny.” The participants are dressed in a simple breech-cloth and moccasins. It is played with great enthusiasm and affords much amusement.
At these annual feasts a council of the great chiefs of the three tribes is always held, and at the one during the season referred to, Hobbs said the Cheyenne chiefs wanted Old Wolf to visit Bent’s Fort, where he had never been. Upon the arrival of the delegation there, it was heartily welcomed by all the famous men who happened to be at the place, among whom were Kit Carson, Old John Smith, and several noted trappers. Whiskey occupied a prominent place in the rejoicing, and “I found it hard work,” said Hobbs, “to stand the many toasts drank to my good health.” The whole party, including Old Wolf and his companion the Cheyenne chief, got very much elated, and every person in the fort smelt whiskey, if they did not get their feet tangled with it.
About midnight a messenger came inside, reporting that a thousand Comanche warriors were gathering around the fort. They demanded their leaders, fearing treachery, and desired to know why their chief had not returned. Hobbs went out and explained that he was safe; but they insisted on seeing him, so he and Hobbs showed themselves to the assembled Indians, and Old Wolf made a speech, telling them that he and the Cheyenne chief were among good friends to the Indians, and presents would be given to them the next morning. The warriors were pacified with these assurances, though they did not leave the vicinity of the fort.
It was at this time that Hobbs was ransomed by Colonel Bent, who gave Old Wolf, for him, six yards of red flannel, a pound of tobacco, and an ounce of beads.
The chief was taken in charge by a lieutenant, who showed him all over the fort, letting him see the rifle port-holes, and explaining how the place could stand a siege against a thousand Indians. Finally, he was taken out on the parapet, where there was a six-pounder at each angle. The old savage inquired how they could shoot such a thing, and at Hobbs’ request, a blank cartridge was put in the piece and fired. Old Wolf sprang back in amazement, and the Indians on the outside, under the walls, knowing nothing of what was going on, ran away as fast as their legs could carry them, convinced that their chief must be dead now and their own safety dependent upon flight. Old Wolf and Hobbs sprang upon the wall and signalled and shouted to them, and they returned, asking in great astonishment what kind of a monstrous gun it was.
About noon trading commenced. The Indians wished to come into the fort, but Bent would not let any enter but the chiefs. At the back door the colonel displayed his goods, and the Indians brought forward their ponies, buffalo-robes, deer and other skins, which they traded for tobacco, beads, calico, flannel, knives, spoons, whistles, jews’-harps, etc.
Whiskey was sold to them the first day, but as it caused several fights among them before night, Bent stopped its sale, at Hobbs’ suggestion and with Old Wolf’s consent. Indians, when they get drunk, do not waste time by fighting with fists, like white men, but use knives and tomahawks; so that a general scrimmage is a serious affair. Two or three deaths resulted the first day, and there would have been many more if the sale of whiskey had not been stopped.
The trading continued for eight days, and Colonel Bent reaped a rich harvest of what he could turn into gold at St. Louis. Old Wolf slept in the fort each night except one during that time, and every time his warriors aroused him about twelve o’clock and compelled him to show himself on the walls to satisfy them of his safety.
About a hundred trappers were in the employ of Bent and his partners. Sometimes one-half of the company were off on a hunt, leaving but a small force at the fort for its protection, but with the small battery there its defence was considered sufficient.
One day a trapping party, consisting of Kit Carson, “Peg-leg” Smith, and James Hobbs, together with some Shawnee Indians, all under the lead of Carson, started out from Bent’s Fort for the Picketwire to trap beaver.
Grizzlies were very abundant in that region then, and one of the party, named McIntire, having killed an elk the evening before, said to Hobbs that they might stand a good chance to find a grizzly by the elk he had shot but had not brought in. Hobbs said that he was willing to go with him, but as McIntire was a very green man in the mountains, Hobbs had some doubts of depending on him in case of an attack by a grizzly bear.
The two men left for the ravine in which McIntire had killed the elk very early in the morning, taking with them tomahawks, hunting-knives, rifles, and a good dog. On arriving at the ravine, Hobbs told McIntire to cross over to the other side and climb the hill, but on no account to go down into the ravine, as a grizzly is more dangerous when he has a man on the downhill side. Hobbs then went to where he thought the elk might be if he had died by the bank of the stream; but as soon as he came near the water, he saw that a large grizzly had got there before him, having scented the animal, and was already making his breakfast.
The bear was in thick, scrubby oak brush, and Hobbs, making his dog lie down, crawled behind a rock to get a favourable shot at the beast. He drew a bead on him and fired, but the bear only snarled at the wound made by the ball and started tearing through the brush, biting furiously at it as he went. Hobbs reloaded his rifle carefully, and as quickly as he could, in order to get a second shot; but, to his amazement, he saw the bear rushing down the ravine chasing McIntire, who was only about ten feet in advance of the enraged beast, running for his life, and making as much noise as a mad bull. He was terribly scared, and Hobbs hastened to his rescue, first sending his dog ahead.
Just as the dog reached the bear, McIntire darted behind a tree and flung his hat in the bear’s face, at the same time sticking his rifle toward him. The old grizzly seized the muzzle of the gun in his teeth, and, as it was loaded and cocked, it either went off accidentally or otherwise and blew the bear’s head open, just as the dog had fastened on his hindquarters. Hobbs ran to the assistance of his comrade with all haste, but he was out of danger and had sat down a few rods away, with his face as white as a sheet, a badly frightened man.
After that fearful scare, McIntire would cook or do anything, but said he never intended to make a business of bear-hunting; he had only wished for one adventure, and this one had satisfied him.
CHAPTER XX.
PAWNEE ROCK.
That portion of the great central plains which radiates from Pawnee Rock, including the Big Bend of the Arkansas, thirteen miles distant, where that river makes a sudden sweep to the southeast, and the beautiful valley of the Walnut, in all its vast area of more than a million square acres, was from time immemorial a sort of debatable land, occupied by none of the Indian tribes, but claimed by all to hunt in; for it was a famous pasturage of the buffalo.
None of the various bands had the temerity to attempt its permanent occupancy; for whenever hostile tribes met there, which was of frequent occurrence, in their annual hunt for their winter’s supply of meat, a bloody battle was certain to ensue. The region referred to has been the scene of more sanguinary conflicts between the different Indians of the plains, perhaps, than any other portion of the continent. Particularly was it the arena of war to the death, when the Pawnees met their hereditary enemies, the Cheyennes.
Pawnee Rock was a spot well calculated by nature to form, as it has done, an important rendezvous and ambuscade for the prowling savages of the prairies, and often afforded them, especially the once powerful and murderous Pawnees whose name it perpetuates, a pleasant little retreat or eyrie from which to watch the passing Santa Fe traders, and dash down upon them like hawks, to carry off their plunder and their scalps.
Through this once dangerous region, close to the silent Arkansas, and running under the very shadow of the rock, the Old Trail wound its course. Now, at this point, it is the actual road-bed of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad, so strangely are the past and present transcontinental highways connected here.
Who, among bearded and grizzled old fellows like myself, has forgotten that most sensational of all the miserably executed illustrations in the geographies of fifty years ago, “The Santa Fe Traders attacked by Indians”? The picture located the scene of the fight at Pawnee Rock, which formed a sort of nondescript shadow in the background of a crudely drawn representation of the dangers of the Trail.
If this once giant sentinel[61] of the plains might speak, what a story it could tell of the events that have happened on the beautiful prairie stretching out for miles at its feet!
In the early fall, when the rock was wrapped in the soft amber haze which is a distinguishing characteristic of the incomparable Indian summer on the plains; or in the spring, when the mirage weaves its mysterious shapes, it loomed up in the landscape as if it were a huge mountain, and to the inexperienced eye appeared as if it were the abrupt ending of a well-defined range. But when the frost came, and the mists were dispelled; when the thin fringe of timber on the Walnut, a few miles distant, had doffed its emerald mantle, and the grass had grown yellow and rusty, then in the golden sunlight of winter, the rock sank down to its normal proportions, and cut the clear blue of the sky with sharply marked lines.
In the days when the Santa Fe trade was at its height, the Pawnees were the most formidable tribe on the eastern central plains, and the freighters and trappers rarely escaped a skirmish with them either at the crossing of the Walnut, Pawnee Rock, the Fork of the Pawnee, or at Little and Big Coon creeks. To-day what is left of the historic hill looks down only upon peaceful homes and fruitful fields, whereas for hundreds of years it witnessed nothing but battle and death, and almost every yard of brown sod at its base covered a skeleton. In place of the horrid yell of the infuriated savage, as he wrenched off the reeking scalp of his victim, the whistle of the locomotive and the pleasant whirr of the reaping-machine is heard; where the death-cry of the painted warrior rang mournfully over the silent prairie, the waving grain is singing in beautiful rhythm as it bows to the summer breeze.
Pawnee Rock received its name in a baptism of blood, but there are many versions as to the time and sponsors. It was there that Kit Carson killed his first Indian, and from that fight, as he told me himself, the broken mass of red sandstone was given its distinctive title.
It was late in the spring of 1826; Kit was then a mere boy, only seventeen years old, and as green as any boy of his age who had never been forty miles from the place where he was born. Colonel Ceran St. Vrain, then a prominent agent of one of the great fur companies, was fitting out an expedition destined for the far-off Rocky Mountains, the members of which, all trappers, were to obtain the skins of the buffalo, beaver, otter, mink, and other valuable fur-bearing animals that then roamed in immense numbers on the vast plains or in the hills, and were also to trade with the various tribes of Indians on the borders of Mexico.
Carson joined this expedition, which was composed of twenty-six mule wagons, some loose stock, and forty-two men. The boy was hired to help drive the extra animals, hunt game, stand guard, and to make himself generally useful, which, of course, included fighting Indians if any were met with on the long route.
The expedition left Fort Osage one bright morning in May in excellent spirits, and in a few hours turned abruptly to the west on the broad Trail to the mountains. The great plains in those early days were solitary and desolate beyond the power of description; the Arkansas River sluggishly followed the tortuous windings of its treeless banks with a placidness that was awful in its very silence; and whoso traced the wanderings of that stream with no companion but his own thoughts, realized in all its intensity the depth of solitude from which Robinson Crusoe suffered on his lonely island. Illimitable as the ocean, the weary waste stretched away until lost in the purple of the horizon, and the mirage created weird pictures in the landscape, distorted distances and objects which continually annoyed and deceived. Despite its loneliness, however, there was then, and ever has been for many men, an infatuation for those majestic prairies that once experienced is never lost, and it came to the boyish heart of Kit, who left them but with life, and full of years.
There was not much variation in the eternal sameness of things during the first two weeks, as the little train moved day after day through the wilderness of grass, its ever-rattling wheels only intensifying the surrounding monotony. Occasionally, however, a herd of buffalo was discovered in the distance, their brown, shaggy sides contrasting with the never-ending sea of verdure around them. Then young Kit, and two or three others of the party who were detailed to supply the teamsters and trappers with meat, would ride out after them on the best of the extra horses which were always kept saddled and tied together behind the last wagon for services of this kind. Kit, who was already an excellent horseman and a splendid shot with the rifle, would soon overtake them, and topple one after another of their huge fat carcasses over on the prairie until half a dozen or more were lying dead. The tender humps, tongues, and other choice portions were then cut out and put in a wagon which had by that time reached them from the train, and the expedition rolled on.
So they marched for about three weeks, when they arrived at the crossing of the Walnut, where they saw the first signs of Indians. They had halted for that day; the mules were unharnessed, the camp-fires lighted, and the men just about to indulge in their refreshing coffee, when suddenly half a dozen Pawnees, mounted on their ponies, hideously painted and uttering the most demoniacal yells, rushed out of the tall grass on the river-bottom, where they had been ambushed, and swinging their buffalo-robes, attempted to stampede the herd picketed near the camp. The whole party were on their feet in an instant with rifles in hand, and all the savages got for their trouble were a few well-deserved shots as they hurriedly scampered back to the river and over into the sand hills on the other side, soon to be out of sight.
The expedition travelled sixteen miles next day, and camped at Pawnee Rock, where, after the experience of the evening before, every precaution was taken to prevent a surprise by the savages. The wagons were formed into a corral, so that the animals could be secured in the event of a prolonged fight; the guards were drilled by the colonel, and every man slept with his rifle for a bed-fellow, for the old trappers knew that the Indians would never remain satisfied with their defeat on the Walnut, but would seize the first favourable opportunity to renew their attack.
At dark the sentinels were placed in position, and to young Kit fell the important post immediately in front of the south face of the Rock, nearly two hundred yards from the corral; the others being at prominent points on top, and on the open prairie on either side. All who were not on duty had long since been snoring heavily, rolled up in their blankets and buffalo-robes, when at about half-past eleven, one of the guard gave the alarm, “Indians!” and ran the mules that were nearest him into the corral. In a moment the whole company turned out at the report of a rifle ringing on the clear night air, coming from the direction of the rock. The men had gathered at the opening to the corral, waiting for developments, when Kit came running in, and as soon as he was near enough, the colonel asked him whether he had seen any Indians. “Yes,” Kit replied, “I killed one of the red devils; I saw him fall!”
The alarm proved to be false; there was no further disturbance that night, so the party returned to their beds, and the sentinels to their several posts, Kit of course to his place in front of the Rock.
Early the next morning, before breakfast even, all were so anxious to see Kit’s dead Indian, that they went out en masse to where he was still stationed, and instead of finding a painted Pawnee, as was expected, they found the boy’s riding mule dead, shot right through the head.
Kit felt terribly mortified over his ridiculous blunder, and it was a long time before he heard the last of his midnight adventure and his raid on his own mule. But he always liked to tell the “balance of the story,” as he termed it, and this is his version: “I had not slept any the night before, for I stayed awake watching to get a shot at the Pawnees that tried to stampede our animals, expecting they would return; and I hadn’t caught a wink all day, as I was out buffalo hunting, so I was awfully tired and sleepy when we arrived at Pawnee Rock that evening, and when I was posted at my place at night, I must have gone to sleep leaning against the rocks; at any rate, I was wide enough awake when the cry of Indians was given by one of the guard. I had picketed my mule about twenty steps from where I stood, and I presume he had been lying down; all I remember is that the first thing I saw after the alarm was something rising up out of the grass, which I thought was an Indian. I pulled the trigger; it was a centre shot, and I don’t believe the mule ever kicked after he was hit!”
The next morning about daylight, a band of Pawnees attacked the train in earnest, and kept the little command busy all that day, the next night, and until the following midnight, nearly three whole days, the mules all the time being shut in the corral without food or water. At midnight of the second day the colonel ordered the men to hitch up and attempt to drive on to the crossing of Pawnee Fork, thirteen miles distant.[62] They succeeded in getting there, fighting their way without the loss of any of their men or animals. The Trail crossed the creek in the shape of a horseshoe, or rather, in consequence of the double bend of the stream as it empties into the Arkansas, the road crossed it twice. In making this passage, dangerous on account of its crookedness, Kit said many of the wagons were badly mashed up; for the mules were so thirsty that their drivers could not control them. The train was hardly strung out on the opposite bank when the Indians poured in a volley of bullets and a shower of arrows from both sides of the Trail; but before they could load and fire again, a terrific charge was on them, led by Colonel St. Vrain and Carson. It required only a few moments more to clean out the persistent savages, and the train went on. During the whole fight the little party lost four men killed and seven wounded, and eleven mules killed (not counting Kit’s), and twenty badly wounded.
A great many years ago, very early in the days of the trade with New Mexico, seven Americans were surprised by a large band of Pawnees in the vicinity of the Rock and were compelled to retreat to it for safety. There, without water, and with but a small quantity of provisions, they were besieged by their blood-thirsty foes for two days, when a party of traders coming on the Trail relieved them from their perilous situation and the presence of their enemy. There were several graves on its summit when I first saw Pawnee Rock; but whether they contained the bones of savages or those of white men, I do not know.
Carson related to me another terrible fight that took place at the rock, when he first became a trapper. He was not a participant, but knew the parties well. About twenty-nine years ago, Kit, Jack Henderson, who was agent for the Ute Indians, Lucien B. Maxwell, General Carleton and myself were camped halfway up the rugged sides of Old Baldy, in the Raton Range. The night was intensely cold, although in midsummer, and we were huddled around a little fire of pine knots, more than seven thousand feet above the level of the sea, close to the snow limit.
Kit, or “the General,” as every one called him, was in a good humour for talking, and we naturally took advantage of this to draw him out; for usually he was the most reticent of men in relating his own exploits. A casual remark made by Maxwell opened Carson’s mouth, and he said he remembered one of the “worst difficults” a man ever got into.[63] So he made a fresh corn-shuck cigarette, and related the following; but the names of the old trappers who were the principals in the fight I have unfortunately forgotten.
Two men had been trapping in the Powder River country during one winter with unusually good luck, and they got an early start with their furs, which they were going to take to Weston, on the Missouri, one of the principal trading points in those days. They walked the whole distance, driving their pack-mules before them, and experienced no trouble until they struck the Arkansas valley at Pawnee Rock. There they were intercepted by a war-party of about sixty Pawnees. Both of the trappers were notoriously brave and both dead shots. Before they arrived at the rock, to which they were finally driven, they killed two of the Indians, and had not themselves received a scratch. They had plenty of powder, a pouch full of balls each, and two good rifles. They also had a couple of jack-rabbits for food in case of a siege, and the perpendicular walls of the front of the rock made them a natural fortification, an almost impregnable one against Indians.
They succeeded in securely picketing their animals at the side of the rock, where they could protect them by their unerring rifles from being stampeded. After the Pawnees had “treed” the two trappers on the rock, they picked up their dead, and packed them off to their camp at the mouth of a little ravine a short distance away. In a few moments back they all came, mounted on fast ponies, with their war-paint and other fixings on, ready to renew the fight. They commenced to circle around the place, coming closer, Indian fashion, every time, until they got within easy rifle-range, when they slung themselves on the opposite sides of their horses, and in that position opened fire. Their arrows fell like a hailstorm, but as good luck would have it, none of them struck, and the balls from their rifles were wild, as the Indians in those days were not very good shots; the rifle was a new weapon to them. The trappers at first were afraid the savages would surely try to kill the mules, but soon reflected that the Indians believed they had the “dead-wood” on them, and the mules would come handy after they had been scalped; so they felt satisfied their animals were safe for a while anyhow. The men were taking in all the chances, however; both kept their eyes skinned, and whenever one of them saw a stray leg or head, he drew a bead on it and when he pulled the trigger, its owner tumbled over with a yell of rage from his companions.
Whenever the savages attempted to carry off their dead,[64] the two trappers took advantage of the opportunity, and poured in their shots every time with telling effect.
By this time night had fallen, and the Indians did not seem anxious to renew the fight after dark; but they kept their mounted patrols on every side of the rock, at a respectable distance from such dead shots, watching to prevent the escape of the besieged. As they were hungry, one of the men went down under cover of the darkness to get a few buffalo-chips with which to cook their rabbit, and to change the animals to where they could get fresh grass. He returned safely to the summit of the rock, where a little fire was made and their supper prepared. They had to go without water all the time, and so did the mules; the men did not mind the want of it themselves, but they could not help pitying their poor animals that had had none since they left camp early that morning. It was no use to worry, though; the nearest water was at the river, and it would have been certain death to have attempted to go there unless the savages cleared out, and from all appearances they had no idea of doing that.
What gave the trappers more cause for alarm than anything else, was the fear that the Indians would fire the prairie in the morning, and endeavour to smoke them out or burn them up. The grass was in just the condition to make a lively blaze, and they might escape the flames, and then they might not. It can well be imagined how eagerly they watched for the dawn of another day, perhaps the last for them.
The first gray streaks of light had hardly peeped above the horizon, when, with an infernal yell, the Indians broke for the rock, and the trappers were certain that some new project had entered their heads. The wind was springing up pretty freshly, and nature seemed to conspire with the red devils, if they really meant to burn the trappers out; and from the movements of the savages, that was what they expected. The Indians kept at a respectful distance from the range of the trappers’ rifles, who chafed because they could not stop some of the infernal yelling with a few well-directed bullets, but they had to choke their rage, and watch events closely. During a temporary lull in hostilities, one of the trappers took occasion to crawl down to where the mules were, and shift them to the west side of the rock, where the wall was the highest; so that the flame and smoke might possibly pass by them without so much danger as where they were picketed before. He had just succeeded in doing this, and, tearing up the long grass for several yards around the animals, was in the act of going back, when his partner yelled out to him: “Look out! D—n ’em, they’ve fired the prairie!” He was back on the top of the rock in another moment, and took in at a glance what was coming.
The spectacle for a short interval was indescribably grand; the sun was shining with all the power of its rays on the huge clouds of smoke as they rolled down from the north, tinting them a glorious crimson. The two trappers had barely time to get under the shelter of a large projecting point of the rocky wall, when the wind and smoke swept down to the ground, and instantly they were enveloped in the darkness of midnight. They could not discern a single object; neither Indians, horses, the prairie, nor the sun; and what a terrible wind!
The trappers stood breathless, clinging to the projections of rock, and did not realize the fire was so near them until they were struck in the face by pieces of burning buffalo-chips that were carried toward them with the rapidity of the awful wind. They were now badly scared, for it seemed as if they were to be suffocated. They were saved, however, almost miraculously; the sheet of flame passed them twenty yards away, as the wind fortunately shifted at the moment the fire reached the foot of the rock. The darkness was so intense that they did not discover the flame; they only knew that they were saved as the clear sky greeted them from behind the dense smoke-cloud.
Two of the Indians and their horses were caught in their own trap, and perished miserably. They had attempted to reach the east side of the rock, so as to steal around to the other side where the mules were, and either cut them loose or crawl up on the trappers while bewildered in the smoke and kill them, if they were not already dead. But they had proceeded only a few rods on their little expedition, when the terrible darkness of the smoke-cloud overtook them and soon the flames, from which there was no possible escape.
All the game on the prairie which the fire swept over was killed too. Only a few buffalo were visible in that region before the fire, but even they were killed. The path of the flames, as was discovered by the caravans that passed over the Trail a few days afterward, was marked with the crisp and blackened carcasses of wolves, coyotes, turkeys, grouse, and every variety of small birds indigenous to the region. Indeed, it seemed as if no living thing it had met escaped its fury. The fire assumed such gigantic proportions, and moved with such rapidity before the wind, that even the Arkansas River did not check its path for a moment; it was carried as readily across as if the stream had not been in its way.
The first thought of the trappers on the rock was for their poor mules. One crawled to where they were, and found them badly singed, but not seriously injured. The men began to brighten up again when they knew that their means of transportation were relatively all right, and themselves also, and they took fresh courage, beginning to believe they should get out of their bad scrape after all.
In the meantime the Indians, with the exception of three or four left to guard the rock, so as to prevent the trappers from getting away, had gone back to their camp in the ravine, and were evidently concocting some new scheme for the discomfort of the besieged trappers. The latter waited patiently two or three hours for the development of events, snatching a little sleep by turns, which they needed much; for both were worn out by their constant watching. At last when the sun was about three hours high, the Indians commenced their infernal howling again, and then the trappers knew they had decided upon something; so they were on the alert in a moment to discover what it was, and euchre them if possible.
The devils this time had tied all their ponies together, covered them with branches of trees that they had gone up on the Walnut for, packed some lodge-skins on these, and then, driving the living breastworks before them, moved toward the rock. They proceeded cautiously but surely, and matters began to look very serious for the trappers. As the strange cavalcade approached, a trapper raised his rifle, and a masked pony tumbled over on the scorched sod dead. As one of the Indians ran to cut him loose, the other trapper took him off his feet by a well-directed shot; he never uttered a groan. The besieged now saw their only salvation was to kill the ponies and so demoralize the Indians that they would have to abandon such tactics, and quicker than I can tell it, they had stretched four more out on the prairie, and made it so hot for the savages that they ran out of range and began to hold a council of war.
Finding that their plan would not work–for as the last pony was shot, the rest stampeded and were running wild over the prairie–the Indians soon went back to their camp again, and the trappers now had a few spare moments in which to take an account of stock. They discovered, much to their chagrin, that they had used up all their ammunition except three or four loads, and despair hovered over them once more.
The Indians did not reappear that evening, and the cause was apparent; for in the distance could be seen a long line of wagons, one of the large American caravans en route to Santa Fe. The savages had seen it before the trappers, and had cleared out. When the train arrived opposite the rock, the relieved men came down from their little fortress, joined the caravan, and camped with the Americans that night on the Walnut. While they were resting around their camp-fire, smoking and telling of their terrible experience on the top of the rock, the Indians could be heard chanting the death-song while they were burying their warriors under the blackened sod of the prairie.
I witnessed a spirited encounter between a small band of Cheyennes and Pawnees in the fall of 1867. It occurred on the open prairie north of the mouth of the Walnut, and not a great distance from Pawnee Rock. Both tribes were hunting buffalo, and when they, by accident, discovered the presence of each other, with a yell that fairly shook the sand dunes on the Arkansas, they rushed at once into the shock of battle.
That night, in a timbered bend of the Walnut, the victors had a grand dance, in which scalps, ears, and fingers of their enemies, suspended by strings to long poles, were important accessories to their weird orgies around their huge camp-fires.[65]
One of the most horrible massacres in the history of the Trail occurred at Little Cow Creek in the summer of 1864. In July of that year a government caravan, loaded with military stores for Fort Union in New Mexico, left Fort Leavenworth for the long and dangerous journey of more than seven hundred miles over the great plains, which that season were infested by Indians to a degree almost without precedent in the annals of freight traffic.
The train was owned by a Mr. H. C. Barret, a contractor with the quartermaster’s department; but he declined to take the chances of the trip unless the government would lease the outfit in its entirety, or give him an indemnifying bond as assurance against any loss. The chief quartermaster executed the bond as demanded, and Barret hired his teamsters for the hazardous journey; but he found it a difficult matter to induce men to go out that season.
Among those whom he persuaded to enter his employ was a mere boy, named McGee, who came wandering into Leavenworth a few weeks before the train was ready to leave, seeking work of any description. His parents had died on their way to Kansas, and on his arrival at Westport Landing, the emigrant outfit that had extended to him shelter and protection in his utter loneliness was disbanded; so the youthful orphan was thrown on his own resources. At that time the Indians of the great plains, especially along the line of the Santa Fe Trail, were very hostile, and continually harassing the freight caravans and stage-coaches of the overland route. Companies of men were enlisting and being mustered into the United States service to go out after the savages, and young Robert McGee volunteered with hundreds of others for the dangerous duty. The government needed men badly, but McGee’s youth militated against him, and he was below the required stature; so he was rejected by the mustering officer.
Mr. Barret, in hunting for teamsters to drive his caravan, came across McGee, who, supposing that he was hiring as a government employee, accepted Mr. Barret’s offer.
By the last day of June the caravan was all ready, and on the morning of the next day, July 1, the wagons rolled out of the fort, escorted by a company of United States troops, from the volunteers referred to.
The caravan wound its weary way over the lonesome Trail with nothing to relieve the monotony save a few skirmishes with the Indians; but no casualties occurred in these insignificant battles, the savages being afraid to venture too near on account of the presence of the military escort.
On the 18th of July, the caravan arrived in the vicinity of Fort Larned. There it was supposed that the proximity of that military post would be a sufficient guarantee from any attack of the savages; so the men of the train became careless, and as the day was excessively hot, they went into camp early in the afternoon, the escort remaining in bivouac about a mile in the rear of the train.
About five o’clock, a hundred and fifty painted savages, under the command of Little Turtle of the Brule Sioux, swooped down on the unsuspecting caravan while the men were enjoying their evening meal. Not a moment was given them to rally to the defence of their lives, and of all belonging to the outfit, with the exception of one boy, not a soul came out alive.
The teamsters were every one of them shot dead and their bodies horribly mutilated. After their successful raid, the savages destroyed everything they found in the wagons, tearing the covers into shreds, throwing the flour on the trail, and winding up by burning everything that was combustible.
On the same day the commanding officer of Fort Larned had learned from some of his scouts that the Brule Sioux were on the war-path, and the chief of the scouts with a handful of soldiers was sent out to reconnoitre. They soon struck the trail of Little Turtle and followed it to the scene of the massacre on Cow Creek, arriving there only two hours after the savages had finished their devilish work. Dead men were lying about in the short buffalo-grass which had been stained and matted by their flowing blood, and the agonized posture of their bodies told far more forcibly than any language the tortures which had come before a welcome death. All had been scalped; all had been mutilated in that nameless manner which seems to delight the brutal instincts of the North American savage.
Moving slowly from one to the other of the lifeless forms which still showed the agony of their death-throes, the chief of the scouts came across the bodies of two boys, both of whom had been scalped and shockingly wounded, besides being mutilated, yet, strange to say, both of them were alive. As tenderly as the men could lift them, they were conveyed at once back to Fort Larned and given in charge of the post surgeon. One of the boys died in a few hours after his arrival in the hospital, but the other, Robert McGee, slowly regained his strength, and came out of the ordeal in fairly good health.
The story of the massacre was related by young McGee, after he was able to talk, while in the hospital at the fort; for he had not lost consciousness during the suffering to which he was subjected by the savages.
He was compelled to witness the tortures inflicted on his wounded and captive companions, after which he was dragged into the presence of the chief, Little Turtle, who determined that he would kill the boy with his own hands. He shot him in the back with his own revolver, having first knocked him down with a lance handle. He then drove two arrows through the unfortunate boy’s body, fastening him to the ground, and stooping over his prostrate form ran his knife around his head, lifting sixty-four square inches of his scalp, trimming it off just behind his ears.
Believing him dead by that time, Little Turtle abandoned his victim; but the other savages, as they went by his supposed corpse, could not resist their infernal delight in blood, so they thrust their knives into him, and bored great holes in his body with their lances.
After the savages had done all that their devilish ingenuity could contrive, they exultingly rode away, yelling as they bore off the reeking scalps of their victims, and drove away the hundreds of mules they had captured.
When the tragedy was ended, the soldiers, who had from their vantage-ground witnessed the whole diabolical transaction, came up to the bloody camp by order of their commander, to learn whether the teamsters had driven away their assailants, and saw too late what their cowardice had allowed to take place. The officer in command of the escort was dismissed the service, as he could not give any satisfactory reason for not going to the rescue of the caravan he had been ordered to guard.
CHAPTER XXI.
FOOLING STAGE ROBBERS.
The Wagon Mound, so called from its resemblance to a covered army-wagon, is a rocky mesa forty miles from Point of Rocks, westwardly. The stretch of the Trail from the latter to the mound has been the scene of some desperate encounters, only exceeded in number and sanguinary results by those which have occurred in the region of Pawnee Rock, the crossing of the Walnut, Pawnee Fork, and Cow Creek.
One of the most remarkable stories of this Wagon Mound country dealt with the nerve and bravery exhibited by John L. Hatcher in defence of his life, and those of the men in his caravan, about 1858.
Hatcher was a noted trader and merchant of New Mexico. He was also celebrated as an Indian fighter, and his name was a terror to the savages who infested the settlements of New Mexico and raided the Trail.
He left Taos, where he then resided, in the summer, with his caravan loaded with furs and pelts destined for Westport Landing; to be forwarded from there to St. Louis, the only market for furs in the far West. His train was a small one, comprising about fifteen wagons and handled by about as many men, including himself. At the date of his adventure the Indians were believed to be at peace with everybody; a false idea, as Hatcher well knew, for there never was such a condition of affairs as absolute immunity from their attacks. While it might be true that the old men refrained for a time from starting out on the war-path, there were ever the vastly greater number of restless young warriors who had not yet earned their eagle feathers, who could not be controlled by their chiefs, and who were always engaged in marauding, either among the border settlements or along the line of the Trail.
When Hatcher was approaching the immediate vicinity of Wagon Mound,[66] with his train strung out in single column, to his great astonishment there suddenly charged on him from over the hill about three hundred savages, all feather-bedecked and painted in the highest style of Indian art. As they rode toward the caravan, they gave the sign of peace, which Hatcher accepted for the time as true, although he knew them well. However, he invited the head men to some refreshment, as was usual on such occasions in those days, throwing a blanket on the ground, on which sugar in abundance was served out. The sweet-toothed warriors helped themselves liberally, and affected much delight at the way they were being treated; but Hatcher, with his knowledge of the savage character, was firm in the belief that they came for no other purpose than to rob the caravan and kill him and his men.
They were Comanches, and one of the most noted chiefs of the tribe was in command of the band, with some inferior chiefs under him. I think it was Old Wolf, a very old man then, whose raids into Texas had made his name a terror to the Mexicans living on the border.
While the chiefs were eating their saccharine lunch, Hatcher was losing no time in forming his wagons into a corral, but he told his friends afterward that he had no idea that either he or any of his men would escape; only fifteen or sixteen men against over three hundred merciless savages, and those the worst on the continent, and a small corral–the chances were totally hopeless! Nothing but a desperate action could avail, and maybe not even that.[67] Hatcher, after the other head men had finished eating, asked the old chief to send his young warriors away over the hill. They were all sitting close to one of the wagons, Old Wolf, in fact, leaning against the wheel resting on his blanket, with Hatcher next him on his right. Hatcher was so earnest in his appeal to have the young men sent away, that both the venerable villain and his other chiefs rose and were standing. Without a moment’s notice or the slightest warning, Hatcher reached with his left hand and grabbed Old Wolf by his scalp-lock, and with his right drew his butcher-knife from its scabbard and thrust it at the throat of the chief. All this was done in an instant, as quick as lightning; no one had time to move. The situation was remarkable. The little, wiry man, surrounded by eight or nine of the most renowned warriors of the dreaded Comanches, stood firm; everybody was breathless; not a word did the savages say. Hatcher then said again to Old Wolf, in the most determined manner: “Send your young men over the hill at once, or I’ll kill you right where you are!” holding on to the hair of the savage with his left hand and keeping the knife at his throat.
The other Indians did not dare to make a move; they knew what kind of a man Hatcher was; they knew he would do as he had said, and that if they attempted a rescue he would kill their favourite chief in a second.
Old Wolf shook his head defiantly in the negative. Hatcher repeated his order, getting madder all the time: “Send your young men over the hill; I tell you!” Old Wolf was still stubborn; he shook his head again. Hatcher gave him another chance: “Send your young men over the hill, I tell you, or I’ll scalp you alive as you are!” Again the chief shook his head. Then Hatcher, still holding on the hair of his stubborn victim, commenced to make an incision in the head of Old Wolf, for the determined man was bound to carry out his threat; but he began very slowly.
As the chief felt the blood trickle down his forehead, he weakened. He ordered his next in command to send the young men over the hill and out of sight. The order was repeated immediately to the warriors, who were astonished spectators of the strange scene, and they quickly mounted their horses and rode away over the hill as fast as they could thump their animals’ sides with their legs, leaving only five or six chiefs with Old Wolf and Hatcher.
Hatcher held on like grim death to the old chief’s head, and immediately ordered his men to throw the robes out of the wagons as quickly as they could, and get inside themselves. This was promptly obeyed, and when they were all under the cover of the wagon sheets, Hatcher let go of his victim’s hair, and, with a last kick, told him and his friends that they could leave. They went off, and did not return.
Some laughable incidents have enlivened the generally sanguinary history of the Old Santa Fe Trail, but they were very serious at the time to those who were the actors, and their ludicrousness came after all was over.
In the late summer of 1866, a thieving band of Apaches came into the vicinity of Fort Union, New Mexico, and after carefully reconnoitring the whole region and getting at the manner in which the stock belonging to the fort was herded, they secreted themselves in the Turkey Mountains overlooking the entire reservation, and lay in wait for several days, watching for a favourable moment to make a raid into the valley and drive off the herd.
Selecting an occasion when the guard was weak and not very alert, they in broad daylight crawled under the cover of a hill, and, mounting their horses, dashed out with the most unearthly yells and down among the animals that were quietly grazing close to the fort, which terrified these so greatly that they broke away from the herders, and started at their best gait toward the mountains, closely followed by the savages.
The astonished soldiers used every effort to avert the evident loss of their charge, and many shots were exchanged in the running fight that ensued; but the Indians were too strong for them, and they were forced to abandon the chase.
Among the herders was a bugler boy, who was remarkable for his bravery in the skirmish and for his untiring endeavours to turn the animals back toward the fort, but all without avail; on they went, with the savages, close to their heels, giving vent to the most vociferous shouts of exultation, and directing the most obscene and insulting gesticulations to the soldiers that were after them.
While this exciting contest for the mastery was going on, an old Apache chief dashed in the rear of the bold bugler boy, and could, without doubt, easily have killed the little fellow; but instead of doing this, from some idea of a good joke, or for some other incomprehensible reason, his natural blood-thirsty instinct was changed, and he merely knocked the bugler’s hat from his head with the flat of his hand, and at the same time encouragingly stroked his hair, as much as to say: “You are a brave boy,” and then rode off without doing him any harm.
Thirty years ago last August, I was riding from Fort Larned to Fort Union, New Mexico, in the overland coach. I had one of my clerks with me; we were the only passengers, and arrived at Fort Dodge, which was the commencement of the “long route,” at midnight. There we changed drivers, and at the break of day were some twenty-four miles on our lonely journey. The coach was rattling along at a breakneck gait, and I saw that something was evidently wrong. Looking out of one of the doors, I noticed that our Jehu was in a beastly state of intoxication. It was a most dangerous portion of the Trail; the Indians were not in the best of humours, and an attack was not at all improbable before we arrived at the next station, Fort Lyon.
I said to my clerk that something must be done; so I ordered the driver to halt, which he did willingly, got out, and found that, notwithstanding his drunken mood, he was very affable and disposed to be full of fun. I suggested that he get inside the coach and lie down to sleep off his potations, to which he readily assented, while I and my clerk, after snugly fixing him on the cushions, got on the boot, I taking the lines, he seizing an old trace-chain, with which he pounded the mules along; for we felt ourselves in a ticklish predicament should we come across any of the brigands of the plains, on that lonely route, with the animals to look out for, and only two of us to do the fighting.
Suddenly we saw sitting on the bank of the Arkansas River, about a dozen rods from the Trail, an antiquated-looking savage with his war-bonnet on, and armed with a long lance and his bow and arrows. We did not care a cent for him, but I thought he might be one of the tribe’s runners, lying in wait to discover the condition of the coach–whether it had an escort, and how many were riding in it, and that then he would go and tell how ridiculously small the outfit was, and swoop down on us with a band of his colleagues, that were hidden somewhere in the sand hills south of the river. He rose as we came near, and made the sign, after he had given vent to a series of “How’s!” that he wanted to talk; but we were not anxious for any general conversation with his savage majesty just then, so my clerk applied the trace-chain more vigorously to the tired mules, in order to get as many miles between him and the coach as we could before he could get over into the sand hills and back.
It was, fortunately, a false alarm; the old warrior perhaps had no intentions of disturbing us. We arrived at Fort Lyon in good season, with our valorous driver absolutely sobered, requesting me to say nothing about his accident, which, of course, I did not.
As has been stated, the caravans bound for Santa Fe and the various forts along the line of the Old Trail did not leave the eastern end of the route until the grass on the plains, on which the animals depended solely for subsistence the whole way, grew sufficiently to sustain them, which was usually about the middle of May. But a great many years ago, one of the high officials of the quartermaster’s department at Washington, who had never been for a moment on duty on the frontier in his life, found a good deal of fault with what he thought the dilatoriness of the officer in charge at Fort Leavenworth, who controlled the question of transportation for the several forts scattered all over the West, for not getting the freight caravans started earlier, which the functionary at the capital said must and should be done. He insisted that they must leave the Missouri River by the middle of April, a month earlier than usual, and came out himself to superintend the matter. He made the contracts accordingly, easily finding contractors that suited him. He then wrote to headquarters in a triumphant manner that he had revolutionized the whole system of army transportation of supplies to the military posts. Delighted with his success, he rode out about the second week of May to Salt Creek, only three miles from the fort, and, very much to his astonishment, found his teams, which he had believed to be on the way to Santa Fe a month ago, snugly encamped. They had “started,” just as was agreed.
There are, or rather were, hundreds of stories current thirty-five years ago of stage-coach adventures on the Trail; a volume could be filled with them, but I must confine myself to a few.
John Chisholm was a famous ranchman a long while ago, who had so many cattle that it was said he did not know their number himself. At one time he had a large contract to furnish beef to an Indian agency in Arizona; he had just delivered an immense herd there, and very wisely, after receiving his cash for them, sent most of it on to Santa Fe in advance of his own journey. When he arrived there, he started for the Missouri River with a thousand dollars and sufficient small change to meet his current expenses on the road.
The very first night out from Santa Fe, the coach was halted by a band of men who had been watching Chisholm’s movements from the time he left the agency in Arizona. The instant the stage came to a standstill, Chisholm divined what it meant, and had time to thrust a roll of money down one of the legs of his trousers before the door was thrown back and he was ordered to fork over what he had.
He invited the robbers to search him, and to take what they might find, but said he was not in a financial condition at that juncture to turn over much. The thieves found his watch, took that, and then began to search him. As luck would have it, they entirely missed the roll that was down his leg, and discovered but a two-dollar bill in his vest. When he told them it was all he had to buy grub on the road, one of the robbers handed him a silver dollar, remarking as he did so: “That a man who was mean enough to travel with only two dollars ought to starve, but he would give him the dollar just to let him know that he was dealing with gentlemen!”
One of the essentials to the comfort of the average soldier is tobacco. He must have it; he would sooner forego any component part of his ration than give it up.
In November, 1865, a detachment of Company L, of the Eleventh Kansas Volunteers, and of the Second Colorado were ordered from Fort Larned to Fort Lyon on a scouting expedition along the line of the Trail, the savages having been very active in their raids on the freight caravans.
In a short time their tobacco began to run low, and as there was no settlement of any kind between the two military posts, there was no chance to replenish their stock. One night, while encamped on the Arkansas, the only piece that was left in the whole command, about half a plug, was unfortunately lost, and there was dismay in the camp when the fact was announced. Hours were spent in searching for the missing treasure. The next morning the march was delayed for some time, while further diligent search was instituted by all hands, but without result, and the command set out on its weary tramp, as disconsolate as may well be imagined by those who are victims to the habit of chewing the weed.
Arriving at Fort Lyon, to their greater discomfort it was learned that the sutler at that post was entirely out of the coveted article, and the troops began their return journey more disconsolate than ever. Dry leaves, grass, and even small bits of twigs, were chewed as a substitute, until, reaching the spot where they had lost the part of a plug, they determined to remain there that night and begin a more vigorous hunt for the missing piece. Just before dark their efforts were rewarded; one of the men found it, and such a scramble occurred for even the smallest nibble at it! Enormous prices were given for a single chew. It opened at one dollar for a mere sliver, rose to five, and closed at ten dollars when the last morsel was left.
CHAPTER XXII.
A DESPERATE RIDE.
In the Rocky Mountains and on the great plains along the line of the Old Trail are many rude and widely separated graves. The sequestered little valleys, the lonely gulches, and the broad prairies through which the highway to New Mexico wound its course, hide the bones of hundreds of whom the world will never have any more knowledge. The number of these solitary, and almost obliterated mounds is small when compared with the vast multitude in the cemeteries of our towns, though if the host of those whose bones are mouldering under the short buffalo-grass and tall blue-stem of the prairies between the Missouri and the mountains were tabulated, the list would be appalling. Their aggregate will never be known; for the once remote region of the mid-continent, like the ocean, rarely gave up its victims. Lives went out there as goes an expiring candle, suddenly, swiftly, and silently; no record was kept of time or place. All those who thus died are graveless and monumentless, the great circle of the heavens is the dome of their sepulchre, and the recurring blossoms of springtime their only epitaph.
Sometimes the traveller over the Old Trail will suddenly, in the most unexpected places, come across a little mound, perhaps covered with stones, under which lie the mouldering bones of some unfortunate adventurer. Above, now on a rude board, then on a detached rock, or maybe on the wall of a beetling canyon, he may frequently read, in crude pencilling or rougher carving, the legend of the dead man’s ending.
The line of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad, which practically runs over the Old Trail for nearly its whole length to the mountains, is a fertile field of isolated graves. The savage and soldier, the teamster and scout, the solitary trapper or hunter, and many others who have gone down to their death fighting with the relentless nomad of the plains, or have been otherwise ruthlessly cut off, mark with their last resting-places that well-worn pathway across the continent.
The tourist, looking from his car-window as he is whirled with the speed of a tornado toward the snow-capped peaks of the “Great Divide,” may see as he approaches Walnut Creek, three miles east of the town of Great Bend in Kansas, on the beautiful ranch of Hon. D. Heizer, not far from the stream, and close to the house, a series of graves, numbering, perhaps, a score. These have been most religiously cared for by the patriotic proprietor of the place during all the long years since 1864, as he believes them to be the last resting-place of soldiers who were once a portion of the garrison of Fort Zarah, the ruins of which (now a mere hole in the earth) are but a few hundred yards away, on the opposite side of the railroad track, plainly visible from the train.
The Walnut debouches into the Arkansas a short distance from where the railroad crosses the creek, and at this point, too, the trail from Fort Leavenworth merges into the Old Santa Fe. The broad pathway is very easily recognized here; for it runs over a hard, flinty, low divide, that has never been disturbed by the plough, and the traveller has only to cast his eyes in a northeasterly direction in order to see it plainly.
The creek is fairly well timbered to-day, as it has been ever since the first caravan crossed the clear water of the little stream. It was always a favourite place of ambush by the Indians, and many a conflict has occurred in the beautiful bottom bounded by a margin of trees on two sides, between the traders, trappers, troops, and the Indians, and also between the several tribes that were hereditary enemies, particularly the Pawnees and the Cheyennes. It is only about sixteen miles east of Pawnee Rock, and included in that region of debatable ground where no band of Indians dared establish a permanent village; for it was claimed by all the tribes, but really owned by none.
In 1864 the commerce of the great plains had reached enormous proportions, and immense caravans rolled day after day toward the blue hills which guard the portals of New Mexico, and the precious freight constantly tempted the wily savages to plunder.
To protect the caravans on their monotonous route through the “Desert,” as this portion of the plains was then termed, troops were stationed, a mere handful relatively, at intervals on the Trail, to escort the freighters and mail coaches over the most exposed and dangerous portions of the way.
On the bank of the Walnut, at this time, were stationed three hundred unassigned recruits of the Third Wisconsin Cavalry, under the command of Captain Conkey. This point was rightly regarded as one of the most important on the whole overland route; for near it passed the favourite highway of the Indians on their yearly migrations north and south, in the wake of the strange elliptical march of the buffalo far beyond the Platte, and back to the sunny knolls of the Canadian.
This primitive cantonment which grew rapidly in strategical importance, was two years later made quite formidable defensively, and named Fort Zarah, in memory of the youngest son of Major General Curtis, who was killed by guerillas somewhere south of Fort Scott, Kansas, while escorting General James G. Blunt, of frontier fame during the Civil War.
Captain Henry Booth, during the year above mentioned, was chief of cavalry and inspecting officer of the military district of the Upper Arkansas, the western geographical limits of which extended to the foot-hills of the mountains.
One day he received an order from the head-quarters of the department to make a special inspection of all the outposts on the Santa Fe Trail. He was stationed at Fort Riley at the time, and the evening the order arrived, active preparations were immediately commenced for his extended and hazardous trip across the plains. Lieutenant Hallowell, of the Ninth Wisconsin Battery, was to accompany him, and both officers went at once to their quarters, took down from the walls, where they had been hanging idly for weeks, their rifles and pistols, and carefully examined and brushed them up for possible service in the dreary Arkansas bottom. Camp-kettles, until late in the night, sizzled and sputtered over crackling log-fires; for their proposed ride beyond the settlements demanded cooked rations for many a weary day. All the preliminaries arranged, the question of the means of transportation was determined, and, curiously enough, it saved the lives of the two officers in the terrible gauntlet they were destined to run.
Hallowell was a famous whip, and prided himself upon the exceptionally fine turnout which he daily drove among the picturesque hills around the fort.
“Booth,” said he in the evening, “let’s not take a great lumbering ambulance on this trip; if you will get a good way-up team of mules from the quartermaster, we’ll use my light rig, and we’ll do our own driving.”
To this proposition Booth readily assented, procured the mules, and, as it turned out, they were a “good way-up team.”
Hallowell had a set of bows fitted to his light wagon, over which was thrown an army-wagon-sheet, drawn up behind with a cord, similar to those of the ordinary emigrant outfit to be seen daily on the roads of the Western prairies. A round hole was necessarily left in the rear end, serving the purpose of a lookout.
Two grip-sacks, containing their dress uniforms, a box of crackers and cheese, meat and sardines, together with a bottle of anti-snake bite, made up the principal freight for the long journey, and in the clear cold of the early morning they rolled out of the gates of the fort, escorted by Company L, of the Eleventh Kansas, commanded by Lieutenant Van Antwerp.
The company of one hundred mounted men acting as escort was too formidable a number for the Indians, and not a sign of one was seen as the dangerous flats of Plum Creek and the rolling country beyond were successively passed, and early in the afternoon the cantonment on Walnut Creek was reached. At this important outpost Captain Conkey’s command was living in a rude but comfortable sort of a way, in the simplest of dugouts, constructed along the right bank of the stream; the officers, a little more in accordance with military dignity, in tents a few rods in rear of the line of huts.
A stockade stable had been built, with a capacity for two hundred and fifty horses, and sufficient hay had been put up by the men in the fall to carry the animals through the winter.
Captain Conkey was a brusque but kind-hearted man, and with him were stationed other officers, one of whom was a son of Admiral Goldsborough. The morning after the arrival of the inspecting officers a rigid examination of all the appointments and belongings of the place was made, and, as an immense amount of property had accumulated for condemnation, when evening came the books and papers were still untouched; so that branch of the inspection had to be postponed until the next morning.
After dark, while sitting around the camp-fire, discussing the war, telling stories, etc., Captain Conkey said to Booth: “Captain, it won’t require more than half an hour in the morning to inspect the papers and finish up what you have to do; why don’t you start your escort out very early, so it won’t be obliged to trot after the ambulance, or you to poke along with it? You can then move out briskly and make time.”
Booth, acting upon what he thought at the time an excellent suggestion, in a few moments went over the creek to Lieutenant Van Antwerp’s camp, to tell him that he need not wait for the wagon in the morning, but to start out early, at half-past six, in advance.
According to instructions, the escort marched out of camp at daylight next morning, while Booth and Hallowell remained to finish their inspection. It was soon discovered, however, that either Captain Conkey had underrated the amount of work to be done, or misjudged the inspecting officers’ ability to complete it in a certain time; so almost three hours elapsed after the cavalry had departed before the task ended.
At last everything was closed up, much to Hallowell’s satisfaction, who had been chafing under the vexatious delay ever since the escort left. When all was in readiness, the little wagon drawn up in front of the commanding officer’s quarters, and farewells said, Hallowell suggested to Booth the propriety of taking a few of the troops stationed there to go with them until they overtook their own escort, which must now be several miles on the Trail to Fort Larned. Booth asked Captain Conkey what he thought of Hallowell’s suggestion. Captain Conkey replied: “Oh! there’s not the slightest danger; there hasn’t been an Indian seen around here for over ten days.”
If either Booth or Hallowell had been as well acquainted with the methods and character of the plains Indians then as they afterward became, they would have insisted upon an escort; but both were satisfied that Captain Conkey knew what he was talking about, so they concluded to push on.
Jumping into their wagon, Lieutenant Hallowell took the reins and away they went rattling over the old log bridge that used to span the Walnut at the crossing of the Old Santa Fe Trail, as light of heart as if riding to a dance.
The morning was bright and clear with a stiff breeze blowing from the northwest, and the Trail was frozen hard in places, which made it very rough, as it had been cut up by the travel of the heavily laden caravans when it was wet. Booth sat on the left side of Hallowell with the whip in his hand, now and then striking the mules, to keep up their speed. Hallowell started up a tune–he was a good singer–and Booth joined in as they rolled along, as oblivious of any danger as though they were in their quarters at Fort Riley.
After they had proceeded some distance, Hallowell remarked to Booth: “The buffalo are grazing a long way from the road to-day; a circumstance that I think bodes no good.” He had been on the plains the summer before, and was better acquainted with the Indians and their peculiarities than Captain Booth; but the latter replied that he thought it was because their escort had gone on ahead, and had probably frightened them off.
The next mile or two was passed, and still they saw no buffalo between the Trail and the Arkansas, though nothing more was said by either regarding the suspicious circumstance, and they rode rapidly on.
When they had gone about five or six miles from the Walnut, Booth, happening to glance toward the river, saw something that looked strangely like a flock of turkeys. He watched them intently for a moment, when the objects rose up and he discovered they were horsemen. He grasped Hallowell by the arm, directing his attention to them, and said, “What are they?” Hallowell gave a hasty look toward the point indicated, and replied, “Indians! by George!” and immediately turning the mules around on the Trail, started them back toward the cantonment on the Walnut at a full gallop.[68]
“Hold on!” said Booth to Hallowell when he understood the latter’s movement; “maybe it’s part of our escort.”
“No! no!” replied Hallowell. “I know they are Indians; I’ve seen too many of them to be mistaken.”
“Well,” rejoined Booth, “I’m going to know for certain”; so, stepping out on the foot-board, and with one hand holding on to the front bow, he looked back over the top of the wagon-sheet. They were Indians, sure enough; they had fully emerged from the ravine in which they had hidden, and while he was looking at them they were slipping off their buffalo robes from their shoulders, taking arrows out of their quivers, drawing up their spears, and making ready generally for a red-hot time.
While Booth was intently regarding the movements of the savages, Hallowell inquired of him: “They’re Indians, aren’t they, Booth?”
“Yes,” was Booth’s answer, “and they’re coming down on us like a whirlwind.”
“Then I shall never see poor Lizzie again!” said Hallowell. He had been married only a few weeks before starting out on this trip, and his young wife’s name came to his lips.
“Never mind Lizzie,” responded Booth; “let’s get out of here!” He was as badly frightened as Hallowell, but had no bride at Riley, and, as he tells it, “was selfishly thinking of himself only, and escape.”
In answer to Booth’s remark, Hallowell, in a firm, clear voice, said: