lasso, and Paint was given to all sorts of malicious dodging; perhaps
I have not worked myself into a profuse perspiration with vexation a
hundred and one times, in vain attempts to trap him.
“Not being able to catch my horse this morning, I hung my saddle on
a wagon and walked, talking to the loquacious Canadians, whose songs
and stories were most acceptable. They are a queer mixture, anyhow,
these Canadians; rain or shine, hungry or satisfied, they are the
same garrulous, careless fellows; generally caroling in honor of some
brunette Vide Poche, or St. Louis Creole beauty, or lauding, in the
words of their ancestry, the soft skies and grateful wine of La Belle
France, occasionally uttering a _sacré_, or _enfant de garce_, but
suffering no cloud of ill humor to overshadow them but for a moment.
While walking with a languid step, cheering up their slow oxen, a song
would burst out from one end of the train to the other, producing a
most charming effect.”
The train was now approaching the buffalo range, and before long
several buffalo were seen. Now, too, they had reached a country
where “_bois de vaches_”--buffalo chips--were used for fuel, and the
collecting of this was a part of the daily work after camp was made.
More and more buffalo were seen, and before long we hear of the plain
literally covered with them, and now, as buffalo were killed more
often, Garrard is introduced to a prairie dish which no one will ever
eat again. He says: “The men ate the liver raw, with a slight dash of
gall by way of zest, which, served _à la Indian_, was not very tempting
to cloyed appetites; but to hungry men, not at all squeamish, raw,
warm liver, with raw marrow, was quite palatable.
“It would not do,” he continues, “for small hunting parties to build
fires to cook with; for, in this hostile Indian country, a smoke would
bring inquiring friends. Speaking of hostile Indians, reminds me of a
question related by one of our men: at a party, in a Missouri frontier
settlement, a lady asked a mountaineer, fresh from the Platte, ‘if
hostile Indians are as savage as those who serve on foot!’
“Returning to camp the prairie was black with the herds; and, a good
chance presenting itself, I struck spurs into Paint, directing him
toward fourteen or fifteen of the nearest, distant eight or nine
hundred yards. We (Paint and I) soon neared them, giving me a flying
view of their unwieldy proportions, and, when within fifteen feet
of the nearest I raised my rifle half way to the face and fired.
Reloading, still in hot pursuit (tough work to load on a full run), I
followed, though without catching up. One feels a delightfully wild
sensation when in pursuit of a band of buffalo, on a fleet horse, with
a good rifle, and without a hat, the winds playing around the flushed
brow, when with hair streaming, the rider nears the frightened herd,
and, with a shout of exultation, discharges his rifle. I returned to
the party highly gratified with my first, though unsuccessful, chase,
but Mr. St. Vrain put a slight damper to my ardor, by simply remarking--
“‘The next time you “run meat” don’t let the horse go in a trot and
yourself in a gallop’ (I had, in my eagerness, leaned forward in the
saddle, and a stumble of the horse would have pitched me over his
head); by which well-timed and laconic advice, I afterward profited.”
From this time on there was much chasing of buffalo, but little killing
of them, except by the old hands. The young ones, of course, neither
knew how to shoot nor where to shoot, and our author naïvely remarks,
after one of his chases: “To look at a buffalo, one would think that
they could not run with such rapidity; but, let him try to follow with
an ordinary horse, and he is soon undeceived.”
During the efforts of the greenhorns to kill buffalo this incident
occurred: “Mr. Chadwick (of St. Louis, on his first trip, like several
of us, for pleasure), seeing a partially blind bull, concluded to ‘make
meat’ of him; crawling up close, the buffalo scented him and pitched
about every way, too blind to travel straight or fast. Chad fired; the
mad animal, directed by the rifle report, charged. How they did ‘lick
it’ over the ground! He pursued, yelling, half in excitement, half in
fear, till they were close to the wagons, where the pursuer changed
tack, only to be shot by one of the teamsters with a nor’-west fusil.”
[Illustration: BUFFALO HERD NEAR LAKE JESSIE, UPPER MISSOURI RIVER]
It is natural enough that the boy author, while travelling for the
first time through the buffalo range, should think and write chiefly
about buffalo, yet he finds time to tell of the prairie-dog towns
through which they passed, and of the odd ways of the dogs and the
curious apparent companionship or at least co-habitation of the snakes
and the prairie owls with them. As they passed through this region
north of the Arkansas in the hot, dry weather of the early fall, they
suffered sometimes from thirst. The first grave passed by the train
aroused melancholy and sympathetic feelings in the boy’s heart.
One day Garrard went out hunting with Mr. St. Vrain and another, and
a band of buffalo were discovered on their way to water. Here Garrard
first found himself near a wounded bull, and the picture that he
paints of the monster is a true and a striking one. “Mr. St. Vrain,
dismounting, took his rifle, and soon was on the ‘approach,’ leaving
us cached behind a rise of the ground to await the gun report. We laid
down with our blankets, which we always carried strapped to the saddle,
and, with backs to the wind, talked in a low tone, until hearing Mr.
St. Vrain’s gun, when we remounted. Again and again the rifle was
heard, in hasty succession, and hastening to him, we found a fat cow
stretched, and a wounded male limping slowly off. The animals were tied
to the horns of our cow; and, with butcher knives, we divested the body
of its fine coat; but, finding myself a ‘green hand,’ at least not an
adept, in the mysteries of prairie butchering, I mounted Paint for the
wounded fellow, who had settled himself, with his fore legs doubled
under him, three hundred yards from us. Mine was a high pommeled,
Mexican saddle, with wooden stirrups; and, when once seated, it was no
easy matter to be dislodged. Paint went up within twenty yards of the
growling, wounded, gore-covered bull, and there stood trembling, and
imparting some of his fear to myself.
“With long, shaggy, dirt-matted, and tangled locks falling over his
glaring, diabolical eyes, blood streaming from nose and mouth, he
made the most ferocious looking object it is possible to conceive;
and, if nurses could portray to obstinate children in true colors the
description of a mad buffalo bull, the oft-repeated ‘bugaboo’ would
soon be an obsolete idea.
“While looking with considerable trepidation on the vanquished monarch
of the Pawnee plains, he started to his feet; and, with a jump,
materially lessened the distance between us, which so scared Paint that
he reared backward, nearly sliding myself and gun over his tail; and
before the bridle rein could be tightened, ran some rods; but, turning
his head, and setting the rowels of my spurs in his flanks, I dashed up
within thirty feet of the bull; and at the crack of the gun, the ‘poor
buffler’ dropped his head, his skin convulsively shook, his dark eyes,
no longer fired with malignancy, rolled back in the sockets, and his
spirit departed for the region of perpetual verdure and running waters,
beyond the reach of white man’s rifle or the keen lance of the prairie
warrior.”
And then the picture with which he closes the chapter covering the
march through the buffalo range! How boyish, and yet how charming and
how true it is!
“Good humor reigned triumphant throughout camp. Canadian songs of mirth
filled the air; and at every mess fire, pieces of meat were cooking _en
appolas_; that is, on a stick sharpened, with alternate fat and lean
meat, making a delicious roast. Among others, _boudins_ were roasting
without any previous culinary operation, but the tying of both ends, to
prevent the fat, as it was liquified, from wasting; and when pronounced
‘good’ by the hungry, impatient judges, it was taken off the hot
coals, puffed up with the heat and fat, the steam escaping from little
punctures, and coiled on the ground, or a not particularly clean saddle
blanket, looking for all the world like a dead snake.
“The fortunate owner shouts, ‘Hyar’s the doin’s, and hyar’s the ’coon
as _savys_ “poor bull” from “fat cow”; freeze into it, boys!’ And
all fall to, with ready knives, cutting off savory pieces of this
exquisitely appetizing prairie production.
“At our mess fire there was a whole side of ribs roasted. When browned
thoroughly we handled the long bones, and as the generous fat dripped
on our clothes, we heeded it not, our minds wrapped up with the one
absorbing thought of satisfying our relentless appetites; progressing
in the work of demolition, our eyes closed with ineffable bliss. Talk
of an emperor’s table--why, they could imagine nothing half so good!
The meal ended, the pipe lent its aid to complete our happiness, and,
at night we retired to the comfortable blankets, wanting nothing,
caring for nothing.”
Late in October the train met with the advance guard of a party of
Cheyenne warriors, then on the warpath for scalps and horses against
the Pawnee nation. These were the first really wild Indians that
Garrard had seen, and their picturesqueness and unusual appearance
greatly interested him. In those days the Cheyennes had never been
at war with the white people, and they were on terms of especial
friendliness with Bent and St. Vrain, from whose trading posts they
obtained their supplies. A little later, on the way to Bent’s Fort,
they passed a Cheyenne medicine lodge, with its sweat-house, and later
still Indian graves on scaffolds which rested on the horizontal limbs
of the cottonwood trees. A day or two after this they reached Fort
William, or Bent’s Fort, where they met William Bent, in his day one of
the best-known men of the southern plains. A few days were spent there,
and then came the most interesting adventure that the boy had had.
Early in November he started for the Cheyenne village with John Smith,
who, with his wife, his little boy Jack, and a Canadian, were setting
out for the village to trade for robes.
John Smith is believed to have been the first white man ever to learn
the Cheyenne language, so as to be able to interpret it into English.
When he made his appearance on the plains we do not know, but he
was there in the ’30’s, and for many years was employed by Bent and
St. Vrain to follow the Indians about and trade with them for robes.
Early in his life on the plains he had married a Cheyenne woman and
established intimate relations with the tribe, among whom he remained
for many years. He was present in the camp of the Cheyennes during the
Chivington massacre at Sand Creek, in 1864, at which time his son,
Jack, the child mentioned by Garrard in this volume, was killed by the
soldiers, being shot in the back by a soldier who saw his shadow on the
lodge skins and fired at it. It is said that John Smith himself came
very near being killed, and had a hard time in talking the Colorado
soldiers out of killing him. He has a son now living at Pine Ridge.
The small party journeyed on toward the village, and while Pierre, the
Canadian, drove the wagon, and the woman and her child rode in silence,
Smith and Garrard kept up a lively conversation. Smith was anxious to
learn all about the “States” and life there, while Garrard replied to
him with inquiries about Indians and their ways. And so, day after
day, they journeyed over the plain until the cone-shaped lodges of the
village came in sight, to be reached a few hours later. Riding into
the camp, they halted at the lodge of one of the principal men, and
unsaddling and unpacking their animals there, entered it with their
goods, and according to custom established themselves in the back
part, which was at once given up to them by the host. And now began an
entirely new life for Garrard--a life into which he threw himself with
the whole-hearted enthusiasm of a healthy lad, and which he thoroughly
enjoyed. The days and evenings in the camp; the moving from place to
place over the prairie; the misfortunes which happened to the men
unaccustomed to such life, are all described. Vivid glimpses of the
marching Indian column are given in the following paragraphs:
“The young squaws take much care of their dress and horse equipments;
they dashed furiously past on wild steeds, astride of the high-pommeled
saddles. A fancifully colored cover, worked with beads or porcupine
quills, making a flashy, striking appearance, extended from withers to
rump of the horse, while the riders evinced an admirable daring, worthy
of Amazons. Their dresses were made of buckskin, high at the neck,
short sleeves, or rather none at all, fitting loosely, and reaching
obliquely to the knee, giving a relieved, Diana look to the costume;
the edges scalloped, worked with beads, and fringed. From the knee,
downward, the limb was encased in a tightly fitting leggin, terminating
in a neat moccasin--both handsomely worked with beads. On the arms
were bracelets of brass, which glittered and reflected in the radiant,
morning sun, adding much to their attractions. In their pierced ears,
shells from the Pacific shore, were pendant; and, to complete the
picture of savage taste and profusion, their fine complexions were
eclipsed by a coat of flaming vermillion.
“Many of the largest dogs were packed with a small quantity of meat,
or something not easily injured. They looked queerly, trotting
industriously under their burdens; and, judging from a small stock of
canine physiological information, not a little of the wolf was in their
composition. These dogs are extremely muscular and are compactly built.
“We crossed the river on our way to the new camp. The alarm manifested
by the _ki-kun_ (children) in the lodge-pole drays, as they dipped in
the water, was amusing; the little fellows, holding their breaths, not
daring to cry, looked imploringly at their inexorable mothers, and were
encouraged by words of approbation from their stern fathers. Regaining
the grassy bottom, we once more went in a fast walk.
“The different colored horses, the young Indian beaux, the bold,
bewildering belles, and the newness of the scene were gratifying in
the extreme to my unaccustomed senses. After a ride of two hours we
stopped, and the chiefs, fastening their horses, collected in circles,
to smoke the pipe and talk, letting their squaws unpack the animals,
pitch the lodges, build fires, arrange the robes, and, when all was
ready, these ‘lords of creation’ dispersed to their several homes to
wait until their patient and enduring spouses prepared some food. I was
provoked, nay, angry, to see the lazy, overgrown men, do nothing to
help their wives; and, when the young women pulled off their bracelets
and finery, to chop wood, the cup of my wrath was full to overflowing,
and, in a fit of honest indignation, I pronounced them ungallant and
savage in the true sense of the word. A wife, here, is, indeed, a
helpmeet.”
Bravery, endurance, and hardihood were in those days a part of the
education of each Indian boy, and here is a glimpse of the training
received by a baby, which should fit him for the hardships that each
warrior must endure. This was the grandson of the Vip-po-nah, a boy six
or seven months old:
“Every morning, his mother washed him in cold water, and sent him out
to the air to make him hardy; he would come in, perfectly nude, from
his airing, about half frozen. How he would laugh and brighten up, as
he felt the warmth of the fire! Being a boy, the parents have great
hopes of him as a brave and chief (the acme of Indian greatness); his
father dotes upon him, holding him in his arms, singing in a low tone,
and in various ways, showing his extreme affection.”
One of the subjects discussed by Garrard and John Smith before they
reached the Cheyenne village was prairie foods. Smith spoke of the
excellence of dog meat, while Garrard declared that it must be
horrible, saying that buffalo meat was unquestionably the most delicate
food in this or any other country. Smith agreed that buffalo was the
best, but that dog meat was the next, and offered to bet that he would
make Garrard eat dog meat in the village and make him declare that
it was good. How John Smith carried out his threat is told in the
following paragraphs:
“One evening we were in our places--I was lying on a pile of outspread
robes, watching the blaze, as it illumined the lodge, which gave the
yellow hue of the skins of which it was made, a still brighter tinge;
and, following with my eye, the thin blue smoke, coursing, in fantastic
shapes, through the opening at the top of the cone; my thoughts
carrying me momentarily everywhere; now home; now enjoying some choice
edible, or, seated by a pleasant friend, conversing; in short, my mind,
like the harp in Alexander’s feast, the chords of which, touched by
the magic hand of memory, or flight of fancy, alternately depressed,
or elevated me in feeling. Greenwood and Smith, sitting up, held in
‘durance vile’ the ever present pipe. Their unusual laughter attracted
my attention, but, not divining the cause I joined in the conversation.
It was now quite late, and feeling hungry, I asked what was on the fire.
“‘Terrapins!’ promptly replied Smith.
“‘Terrapins?’ echoed I, in surprise, at the name. ‘Terrapins! How do
you cook them?’
“‘You know them hard-shell land terrapin?’
“‘Yes.’
“‘Well! the squaws go out to the sand buttes and bring the critters in
and cook ’em in the shell alive--those stewin’ thar ar cleaned first.
Howsomever, they’re darned good!’
“‘Yes, hos, an’ that’s a fact, wagh!’ chimed in Greenwood.
“I listened, of course, with much interest to their account of the
savage dish, and waited, with impatience for a taste of that, the
recital of whose merits sharpened my already keen appetite. When the
squaw transferred the contents of the kettle to a wooden bowl, and
passed it on to us, our butcher knives were in immediate requisition.
Taking a piece, with hungry avidity, which Smith handed me, without
thought, as to what part of the terrapin it was, I ate it with much
gusto, calling ‘for more.’ It was extremely good, and I spoke of the
delicacy of the meat, and answered all their questions as to its
excellency in the affirmative, even to the extent of a panegyric on
the whole turtle species. After fully committing myself, Smith looked
at me a while in silence, the corners of his mouth gradually making
preparations for a laugh, and asked:
“‘Well, hos! how do you like dogmeat?’ and then such hearty guffaws
were never heard. The stupefaction into which I was thrown by the
revolting announcement, only increased their merriment, which soon was
resolved into yells of delight at my discomfiture.
“A revulsion of opinion, and dogmeat too, ensued, for I could feel the
‘pup’ crawling up my throat; but saying to myself--‘that it was good
under the name of terrapin,’ ‘that a rose under any other name would
smell as sweet,’ and that it would be prejudice to stop, I broke the
shackles of deep-rooted antipathy to the canine breed, and, putting a
choice morceau on top of that already swallowed, ever after remained
a stanch defender and admirer of dogmeat. The conversation held with
Smith, the second day of our acquaintance, was brought to mind, and I
acknowledged that ‘dog’ was next in order to buffalo.”
Life in the Cheyenne camp went on interestingly. Garrard began to make
a vocabulary of the Cheyenne language, and soon to speak it in a broken
fashion which caused his auditors to shriek with laughter. He watched
them at the sign language, amused them with games and the few books
which he possessed, went to feasts, noted the odd implements and ways
of his camp mates, and set down all that happened, together with his
boyish reflections on the incidents.
The discipline practised by John Smith on his son Jack will bear
repeating. It seems that the child had taken to crying one night, much
to the annoyance of four or five chiefs who had come to the lodge
to talk and smoke. “In vain did the mother shake and scold him with
the severest Cheyenne words, until Smith, provoked beyond endurance,
took the squalling youngster in hands; he ‘shu-ed’ and shouted, and
swore, but Jack had gone too far to be easily pacified. He then
sent for a bucket of water from the river, and poured cupfull after
cupfull on Jack, who stamped and screamed, and bit, in his puny rage.
Notwithstanding, the icy stream slowly descended until the bucket
was emptied, another was sent for, and again and again the cup was
replenished and emptied on the blubbering youth. At last, exhausted
with exertion, and completely cooled down, he received the remaining
water in silence, and, with a few words of admonition, was delivered
over to his mother, in whose arms he stifled his sobs, until his
heart-breaking grief and cares were drowned in sleep. What a devilish
mixture Indian and American blood is!”
Garrard was a healthy, natural boy, and with all a boy’s love of fun.
He mingled readily and naturally in the sports and amusements of the
young people of the Cheyenne camp and heartily enjoyed it. In those
days the white trader in the Indian camp was regarded as a great man,
and was treated with respect, to retain which he carried himself with
much dignity. But Garrard cared nothing for this respect, and made no
effort to preserve this dignity. He danced and sang with the boys and
girls, and the women were astonished to find a white person so careless
of appearances, though they liked him all the better for it.
On one occasion in the winter there was much excitement in the Cheyenne
camp. A war-party was returning, and all the men, women, and children
blackened their faces and went out to meet them. The returning warriors
advanced in triumph, for they had three scalps, borne on slender
willow wands, and hanging from each scalp was a single tuft of hair
which told that they were Pawnees. Now there was great rejoicing in
the camp, and many dances to celebrate the victory and to rejoice
over the triumph that the tribe had made over its enemies. “The drum,
at night, sent forth its monotony of hollow sound, and our Mexican,
Pedro, and I, directed by the booming, entered a lodge, vacated for
the purpose, full of young men and squaws, following one another in a
continuous circle, keeping the left knee stiff, and bending the right
with a half-forward, half-negative step, as if they wanted to go on
and could not, accompanying it, every time the right foot was raised,
with an energetic, broken song, which, dying away, was again and again
sounded--hay-a-hay, hay-a-hay, they went--laying the emphasis on the
first syllable. A drum, similar to, though larger than, a tamborine,
covered with parfleche, was beat upon with a stick, producing with the
voices a sound not altogether disagreeable....
“During the day, the young men, except the dancers, piled up dry logs
in a level, open space near, for a grand demonstration. At night,
when it was fired, I folded my blanket over my shoulders, _comme les
sauvages_, and went out. The faces of many girls were brilliant with
vermillion; others were blacked, their robes, leggins and skin dresses,
glittering with beads and porcupine quill work. Rings and bracelets
of shining brass encircled their taper arms and fingers, and shells
dangled from their ears. Indeed, all the finery collectable was piled
on in barbarous profusion, though a few, in good taste or through
poverty, wore a single band, and but few rings; and with jetty hair,
parted in the middle, from the forehead to the neck, terminating in
two handsome braids....