meate to eat, & told me a story. “Brother,” says he, “itt is a thing to
be admired to goe afar to travell. You must know that tho I am olde, I
have always loved ye ffrench for their goodness, but they should have
given us to kill ye Algonkins. We should not warre against ye ffrench,
butt trade with them for Castors, who are better for traffic than ye
Dutch. I was once a Captayne of 13 men against ye Altignaonan-ton & ye
ffrench. We stayed 3 whole winters among ye Ennemy, butt in ye daytime
durst not marche nor stay out of ye deep forest. We killed many, butt
there weare devils who took my son up in ye air so I could never again
get him back. These devils weare as bigg as horriniacs, [moose] & ye
little blue birds which attend upon them, said itt was time for us to go
back to our people, which being resolved to do, we came back, butt nott
of a fear of ye Ennemy. Our warre song grew still on our lipps, as ye
snow falling in ye forest. I have nott any more warred to the North,
until I was told by ye spirits to go to ye ffrench & recover my son. My
friend, I have dreamed you weare my son;” and henceforth I was not
hurted nor starved for food.
We proceeded thro rivers & lakes & thro forests where I was made to
support burdens. When we weare come to ye village of ye Iriquoits we lay
in ye woods because that they would nott go into ye village in ye night
time.
The following day we weare marched into ye brough [borough] of ye
Iriquoits. When we came in fight we heard nothing butt outcryes from one
side, as from ye other. Then came a mighty host of people & payd great
heed to ye ffrench dogg, which was ledd bye 2 men while roundabout his
neck was a girdle of porcelaine. They tormented ye poore Hurrons with
violence, butt about me was hung a long piece of porcelaine--ye girdle
of my captor, & he stood against me. In ye meanwhile, many of ye
village came about us, among which a goode olde woman & a boy with a
hattchett came neere me. Ye olde woman covered me, & ye boy took me by
my hand and led mee out of ye companie. What comforted me was that I had
escaped ye blowes. They brought me into ye village where ye olde woman
fhowed me kindness. She took me into her cottage, & gave me to eat, butt
my great terror took my stum-ack away from me. I had stayed an hour when
a great companie came to see me, of olde men with pipes in their mouths.
For a time they sat about, when they did lead me to another cabbin,
where they smoked & made me apprehend they should throw me into ye fyre.
Butt itt proved otherwise, for ye olde woman followed me, speaking
aloud, whome they answered with a loud _ho,_ then shee tooke her girdle,
and about me she tyed itt, so brought me to her cottage & made me to
sitt downe. Then she gott me Indian corne toasted, & took away ye paint
ye fellows had stuck to my face. A maide greased & combed my haire, & ye
olde woman danced and sung, while my father bourned tobacco on a stone.
They gave me a blew coverlitt, stockings, and shoes. I layed with her
son & did what I could to get familiarity with them, and I suffered no
wrong, yet I was in a terror, for ye fatal songs came from ye poore
Hurrons. Ye olde man inquired whether I was Afferony, a ffrench. I
affured him no, faying I was Panugaga, that is of their nation, for
which he was pleased.
[Illustration: 19 THE OMEN OF THE LITTLE BLUE BIRDS]
My father feasted 200 men. My sisters made me clean for that purpose,
and greased my haire. They tyed me with 2 necklaces of porcelaine &
garters of ye same. My father gave me a hattchett in my hand.
My father made a speech, showing many demonstrations of vallor, broak a
kettle of cagamite with a hattchett. So they sung, as is their usual
custom. Ye banquette being over, all cryed to me “Shagon, Orimha”--that
is “be hearty!” Every one withdrew to his quarters.
Here follows a long account of his daily life among the Indians, his
hunting and observations, which our space forbids. He had become
meanwhile more familiar with the language. He goes on:
My father came into ye cabbin from ye grand castle & he sat him downe to
smoke. He said ye Elders had approved after much debate, & that ye
ffrench dogg was not a witch, but ye great warrior Mahongui, gone
before, whose spirit had rose up into ye ffrench dogg & had spyed ye
ffrench. Att ye council even soe ye dogg had walked into ye centre of ye
great cabbin, there saying loudly to ye Elders what he was & that he
must be heard. His voice must be obeyed. His was not ye mocking cryes of
a witch from under an olde snake-skin, butt a chief come from Paradise
to comfort his own people. My father asked me if I was agreed. I said
that witches did not battile as openly as ye dogg, butt doe their evil
in ye dark.
[Illustration: 20 YE SPIRIT DOG STRODE FROM YE DARKNESS]
These wild men are sore beset with witches and devils--more than
Christians, as they deserve to be, for they are of Satan's own
belonging.
My father dreamed att night, & sang about itt, making ye fire to bourne
in our cabbin. We satt to listen. He had mett ye ffrench dogg in ye
forest path bye night--he standing accross his way, & ye forest was
light from ye dogg's eyes, who spake to my father saying, “I belong to
ye dead folks--my hattchett is rust--my bow is mould--I can no longer
battile with our Ennemy, butt I hover over you in warre--I direct your
arrows to their breasts--I smoothe ye little dry sticks & wett ye leaves
under ye shoes--I draw ye morning mist accross to shield you--I carry ye
'Kohes' back and fore to bring your terror--I fling aside ye foeman's
bulletts--go back and be strong in council.”
My father even in ye night drew ye Elders in ye grand cabbin. He said
what he had seen and heard. Even then the great ffrench dogg gott from
ye darkness of ye cabbin, & strode into ye fyre. He roared enough to
blow downe caftles in his might & they knew he was saying what he had
told unto my father.
A great Captayne sent another night, & had ye Elders for to gather at ye
grande cabbin. He had been paddling his boat upon ye river when ye dogg
of Mahongui had walked out on ye watter thro ye mist. He was taller than
ye forest. So he spake, saying “Mahongui says--go tell ye people of ye
Panugaga, itt is time for warre--ye corne is gathered--ye deer has
changed his coat--there are no more Hurrons for me to eat. What is a
Panugaga village with no captyves? Ye young men will talk as women doe,
& ye Elders will grow content to watch a snow-bird hopp. Mahongui says
itt is time.”
Again att ye council fyre ye spirit dogg strode from ye darkness & said
itt was time. Ye tobacco was bourned by ye Priests. In ye smoke ye
Elders beheld ye Spirit of Mahongui. “Panugaga--Warre.”
Soe my father saw ye ghost of ye departed one. He smoked long bye our
cabbin fyre. He sang his battile song. I asked him to goe myself, even
with a hattchett, as I too was Panugaga. Butt he would in no wise
listen. “You are nott meet,” he says, “you sayest that your God is
above. How will you make me believe that he is as goode as your black
coats say? They doe lie & you see ye contrary; ffor first of all, ye Sun
bournes us often, ye rain wetts us, ye winde makes us have shipwrake, ye
thunder, ye lightening bournes & kills us, & all comes from above, & you
say that itt is goode to be there. For my part, I will nott go there.
Contrary they say that ye reprobates & guilty goeth downe & bourne.
They are mistaken; all is goode heare. Do nott you see that itt is ye
Earthe that nourishes all living creatures--ye waiter, ye fishes, & ye
yus, and that corne & all other fruits come up, & that all things are
nott soe contrary to us as that from above? Ye devils live in ye air &
they took my son. When you see that ye Earthe is our Mother, then you
will see that all things on itt are goode. Ye Earthe was made for ye
Panugaga, & ye souls of our warriors help us against our Ennemy. Ye
ffrench dogg is Mahongui's spirit. He tells us to goe to warre against
ye ffrench. Would a ffrench dogg doe that? You are nott yett Panugaga to
follow your father in warre.”
THE ESSENTIALS AT FORT ADOBE
THE Indian suns himself before the door of his tepee, dreaming of the
past. For a long time now he has eaten of the white man's lotos--the
bimonthly beef-issue. I looked on him and wondered at the new things.
The buffalo, the warpath, all are gone. What of the cavalrymen over at
Adobe--his Nemesis in the stirring days--are they, too, lounging in
barracks, since his lordship no longer leads them trooping over the
burning flats by day and through the ragged hills by night? I will go
and see.
The blistered faces of men, the gaunt horses dragging stiffly along to
the cruel spurring, the dirty lack-lustre of campaigning--that, of
course, is no more. Will it be parades, and those soul-deadening “fours
right” and “column left” affairs? Oh, my dear, let us hope not.
Nothing is so necessary in the manufacture of soldiers, sure enough, but
it is not hard to learn, and once a soldier knows it I can never
understand why it should be drilled into him until it hurts. Besides,
from another point of view, soldiers in rows and in lines do not compose
well in pictures. I always feel, after seeing infantry drill in an
armory, like Kipling's light-house keeper, who went insane looking at
the cracks between the boards--they were all so horribly alike.
Then Adobe is away out West in the blistering dust, with no towns of any
importance near it. I can understand why men might become listless when
they are at field-work, with the full knowledge that nothing but their
brothers are looking at them save the hawks and coyotes. It is different
from Meyer, with its traps full of Congressmen and girls, both of whom
are much on the minds of cavalrymen.
In due course I was bedded down at Adobe by my old friend the Captain,
and then lay thinking of this cavalry business. It is a subject which
thought does not simplify, but, like other great things, makes it
complicate and recede from its votaries. To know essential details from
unessential details is the study in all arts. Details there must be;
they are the small things that make the big things. To apply this
general order of things to this arm of the service kept me awake. There
is first the riding--simple enough if they catch you young. There are
bits, saddles, and cavalry packs. I know men who have not spoken to each
other in years because they disagree about these. There are the sore
backs and colics--that is a profession in itself. There are judgment of
pace, the battle tactics, the use of three very different weapons; there
is a world of history in this, in forty languages. Then an ever-varying
_terrain_ tops all. There are other things not confined to cavalry, but
regarded by all soldiers. The crowning peculiarity of cavalry is the
rapidity of its movement, whereby a commander can lose the carefully
built up reputation of years in about the time it takes a school-boy to
eat a marsh-mallow. After all, it is surely a hard profession--a very
blind trail to fame. I am glad I am not a cavalryman; still, it is the
happiest kind of fun to look on when you are not responsible; but it
needs some cultivation to understand and appreciate.
I remember a dear friend who had a taste for out-of-doors. He penetrated
deeply into the interior not long since to see these same troopers do a
line of heroics, with a band of Bannocks to support the role. The
Indians could not finally be got on the centre of the stage, but made
hot-foot for the agency. My friend could not see any good in all this,
nor was he satisfied with the first act even. He must needs have a
climax, and that not forthcoming, he loaded his disgust into a trunk
line and brought it back to his club corner here in New York. He there
narrated the failure of his first night; said the soldiers were not even
dusty as advertised; damned the Indians keenly, and swore at the West by
all his gods.
There was a time when I, too, regarded not the sketches in this art, but
yearned for the finished product. That, however, is not exhibited
generally over once in a generation.
At Adobe there are only eight troops--not enough to make a German
nurse-girl turn her head in the street, and my friend from New York,
with his Napoleonic largeness, would scoff out loud. But he and the
nurse do not understand the significance; they have not the eyes to see.
A starboard or a port horseshoe would be all one to them, and a crease
in the saddle-blanket the smallest thing in the world, yet it might
spoil a horse.
When the trumpets went in the morning I was sorry I had thought at all.
It was not light yet, and I clung to my pillow. Already this cavalry has
too much energy for my taste.
“If you want to see anything, you want to lead out,” said the Captain,
as he pounded me with a boot.
[Illustration: 21 THE ADVANCE]
“Say, Captain, I suppose Colonel Hamilton issues this order to get up at
this hour, doesn't he?”
“He does.”
“Well, he has to obey his own order, then, doesn't he?”
“He does.”
I took a good long stretch and yawn, and what I said about Colonel
Hamilton I will not commit to print, out of respect to the Colonel. Then
I got up.
This bitterness of bed-parting passes. The Captain said he would put a
“cook's police” under arrest for appearing in my make-up; but all these
details will be forgotten, and whatever happens at this hour should be
forgiven. I had just come from the North, where I had been sauntering
over the territory of Montana with some Indians and a wild man from
Virginia, getting up before light--tightening up on coffee and bacon for
twelve hours in the saddle to prepare for more bacon and coffee; but at
Adobe I had hoped for, even if I did not expect, some repose.
In the east there was a fine green coming over the sky. No one out of
the painter guild would have admitted it was green, even on the rack,
but what I mean is that you could not approach it in any other way. A
nice little adjutant went jangling by on a hard-trotting thoroughbred,
his shoulders high and his seat low. My old disease began to take
possession of me; I could fairly feel the microbes generate. Another
officer comes clattering, with his orderly following after. The fever
has me. We mount, and we are off, all going to stables.
Out from the corrals swarm the troopers, leading their unwilling mounts.
The horses are saying, “Damn the Colonel!” One of them comes in arching
bounds; he is saying worse of the Colonel, or maybe only cussing out his
own recruit for pulling his _cincha_ too tight. They form troop lines in
column, while the Captains throw open eyes over the things which would
not interest my friend from New York or the German nurse-girl.
The two forward troops are the enemy, and are distinguished by wearing
brown canvas stable-frocks. These shortly move out through the post, and
are seen no more.
Now comes the sun. By the shades of Knickerbocker's _History of New
York_ I seem now to have gotten at the beginning; but patience, the sun
is no detail out in the arid country. It does more things than blister
your nose. It is the despair of the painter as it colors the minarets of
the Bad Lands which abound around Adobe, and it dries up the company
gardens if they don't watch the _acequias_ mighty sharp. To one just out
of bed it excuses existence. I find I begin to soften towards the
Colonel. In fact, it is possible that he is entirely right about having
his old trumpets blown around garrison at this hour, though it took the
Captain's boot to prove it shortly since.
[Illustration: 22 HORSE GYMNASTICS]
The command moves out, trotting quickly through the blinding clouds of
dust. The landscape seems to get right up and mingle with the
excitement. The supple, well-trained horses lose the scintillation on
their coats, while Uncle Sam's blue is growing mauve very rapidly. But
there is a useful look about the men, and the horses show condition
after their long practice march just finished. Horses much used to go
under saddle have well-developed quarters and strong stifle action. Fact
is, nothing looks like a horse with a harness on. That is a job for
mules, and these should have a labor organization and monopolize it.
The problem of the morning was that we as an advance were to drive the
two troops which had gone on ahead. These in turn were to represent a
rapidly retiring rear-guard. This training is more that troops may be
handled with expedition, and that the men may gather the thing, rather
than that officers should do brilliant things, which they might
undertake on their own responsibility in time of war, such as pushing
rapidly by on one flank and cutting out a rear-guard.
Grevious and very much to be commiserated is the task of the feeling
historian who writes of these paper wars. He may see possibilities or
calamities which do not signify. The morning orders provide against
genius, and who will be able to estimate the surgical possibilities of
blank cartridges? The sergeant-major cautioned me not to indicate by my
actions what I saw as we rode to the top of a commanding hill. The enemy
had abandoned the stream because their retreat would have been exposed
to fire. They made a stand back in the hills. The advance felt the
stream quickly, and passed, fanning out to develop. The left flank
caught their fire, whereat the centre and right came around at top
speed. But this is getting so serious.
The scene was crowded with little pictures, all happening
quickly--little dots of horsemen gliding quickly along the yellow
landscape, leaving long trails of steely dust in their wake. A scout
comes trotting along, his face set in an expectant way, carbine
advanced. A man on a horse is a vigorous, forceful thing to look at. It
embodies the liveliness of nature in its most attractive form,
especially when a gun and sabre are attached.
[Illustration: 23 JUMPING ON A HORSE]
When both living equations are young, full of oats and bacon, imbued
with military ideas, and trained to the hour, it always seems to me that
the ghost of a tragedy stalks at their side. This is why the polo-player
does not qualify sentimentally. But what is one man beside two troops
which come shortly in two solid chunks, with horses snorting and sending
the dry landscape in a dusty pall for a quarter of a mile in the rear?
It is good--ah! it is worth any one's while; but stop and think, what if
we could magnify that? Tut, tut! as I said before, that only happens
once in a generation. Adobe doesn't dream; it simply does its morning's
work.
The rear-guard have popped at our advance, which exchanges with them.
Their fire grows slack, and from our vantage we can see them mount
quickly and flee.
After two hours of this we shake hands with the hostiles and trot home
to breakfast.
These active, hard-riding, straight-shooting, open-order men are doing
real work, and are not being stupefied by drill-ground routine, or
rendered listless by file-closer prompting or sleepy reiteration.
By the time the command dismounts in front of stables we turn longingly
to the thoughts of breakfast. Every one has completely forgiven the
Colonel, though I have no doubt he will be equally unpopular to-morrow
morning.
But what do I see--am I faint? No; it has happened again. It looks as
though I saw a soldier jump over a horse. I moved on him.
“Did I see you--” I began.
“Oh yes, sir--you see,” returned a little soldier, who ran with the
mincing steps of an athlete towards his horse, and landed standing uip
on his hind quarters, whereupon he settled down quietly into his saddle.
Others began to gyrate over and under their horses in a dizzy way. Some
had taken their saddles off and now sat on their horses' bellies, while
the big dog-like animals lay on their backs, with their feet in the air.
It was circus business, or what they call “short and long horse”
work--some not understandable phrase. Every one does it. While I am not
unaccustomed to looking at cavalry, I am being perpetually surprised by
the lengths to which our cavalry is carrying thus Cossack drill. It is
beginning to be nothing short of marvellous.
In the old days this thing was not known. Between building mud or log
forts, working on the bull-train, marching or fighting, a man and a gun
made a soldier; but it takes an education along with this now before he
can qualify.
[Illustration: 24 A TAME HORSE]
The regular work at Adobe went on during the day--guard mount, orders,
inspection, and routine.
At the club I was asked, “Going out this afternoon with us?”
“Yes, he is going; his horse will be up at 4.30; he wants to see this
cavalry,” answered my friend the Captain for me.
“Yes; it's fine moonlight. The Colonel is going to do an attack on
Cossack posts out in the hills,” said the adjutant.
So at five o'clock we again sallied out in the dust, the men in the
ranks next me silhouetting one after the other more dimly until they
disappeared in the enveloping cloud. They were cheerful, laughing and
wondering one to another if Captain Garrard, the enemy, would get in on
their pickets. He was regarded in the ranks as a sharp fellow, one to be
well looked after.
At the line of hills where the Colonel stopped, the various troops were
told off in their positions, while the long cool shadows of evening
stole over the land, and the pale moon began to grow bolder over on the
left flank.
I sat on a hill with a sergeant who knew history and horses. He
remembered “Pansy,” which had served sixteen years in the troop--and a
first-rate old horse then; but a damned inspector with no soul came
browsing around one day and condemned that old horse. Government got a
measly ten dollars--or something like that. This ran along for a time;
when one day they were trooping up some lonely valley, and, behold,
there stood “Pansy,” as thin as a snake, tied by a wickieup. He greeted
the troop with joyful neighs. The soldiers asked the Captain to be
allowed to shoot him, but of course he said no. I could not learn if he
winked when he said it. The column wound over the hill, a carbine rang
from its rear, and “Pansy” lay down in the dust without a kick. Death is
better than an Indian for a horse. The thing was not noticed at the
time, but made a world of fuss afterwards, though how it all came out
the sergeant did not develop, nor was it necessary.
Night settled down on the quiet hills, and the dark spots of pickets
showed dimly on the gray surface of the land. The Colonel inspected his
line, and found everybody alert and possessed of a good working
knowledge of picket duties at night--one of the most difficult duties
enlisted men have to perform. It is astonishing how short is the
distance at which we can see a picket even in this bright night on the
open hills.
I sat on my horse by a sergeant at a point in the line where I suspected
the attack would come. The sergeant thought he saw figures moving in a
dry bottom before us. I could not see. A column of dust off to the left
indicated troops, but we thought it a ruse of Garrard's. My sergeant,
though, had really seen the enemy, and said, softly, “They are coming.”
[Illustration: 25 THE PURSUIT]
The bottom twinkled and popped with savage little yellow winks; bang!
went a rifle in my ear; “whew!” snorted my big horse; and our picket
went to the supports clattering.
The shots and yells followed fast. The Colonel had withdrawn the
supports towards the post rapidly, leaving his picket-line in the air--a
thing which happens in war; but he did not lose much of that line, I
should say.
It was an interesting drill. Pestiferous little man disturbed nature,
and it all seemed so absurd out there on those quiet gray hills. It made
me feel, as I slowed down and gazed at the vastness of things, like a
superior sort of bug. In the middle distance several hundred troops are
of no more proportion than an old cow bawling through the hills after
her wolf-eaten calf. If my mental vision were not distorted I should
never have seen the manoeuvre at all--only the moon and the land doing
what they have done before for so long a time.
We reached Adobe rather late, when I found that the day's work had done
wonders for my appetite. I reminded the Captain that I had broken his
bread but once that day.
“It is enough for a Ninth Cavalry man,” he observed. However, I
out-flanked this brutal disregard for established customs, but it was
“cold.”
In the morning I resisted the Captain's boot, and protested that I must
be let alone; which being so, I appeared groomed and breakfasted at a
Christian hour, fully persuaded that as between an Indian and a Ninth
Cavalry man I should elect to be an Indian.