We spent many hours of the night in getting the rocks to the depot for

shipment to Topeka, the few inhabitants of Bavaria assisting us. Soon

after a westward train came along, and we were again in motion toward

the home of the buffalo.

Before we slept the Professor gave us the following information: The

vast plateau lying east of the Rocky Mountains, and which we were now

approaching, was once covered by a series of great fresh-water lakes. At

an early period these must have been connected with the sea, their

waters then being quite salty, as is abundantly demonstrated by the

remains of marine shells. During the time of the continental elevation

these lakes were raised above the sea level, and their size very much

diminished. Over the new land thus created, and surrounding these

beautiful sheets of water, spread a vegetation at once so beautiful and

so rich in growth that earth has now absolutely nothing with which to

compare it. Amid these lovely pastures roved large herds of elephants,

with the mastodon, rhinoceros, horse, and elk, while the streams and

lakes abounded with fish. But the drainage toward the distant ocean

continued, the water area diminished, the hot winds of the dry land

drank up what remained of the lakes, and, in process of time, lo! the

great grass-covered plains that we wander over delightedly to-day. What

folly to suppose that such a land, so peculiarly fitted for man's

enjoyment, should remain, through a long period of time, tenanted simply

by brutes, and be given up to the human race only after its delightful

characteristics had been entirely removed.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE "GREAT AMERICAN DESERT"--ITS FOSSIL WEALTH--AN ILLUSION

DISPELLED--FIRES ACCORDING TO NOVELS AND ACCORDING TO

FACT--SENSATIONAL HEROES AND HEROINES--PRAIRIE DOGS AND THEIR

HABITS--HAWK AND DOG AND HAWK AND CAT.

Next morning, as the first gray darts of dawn fell against our windows,

Mr. Colon lifted up a sleepy head and gazed out. Then came that quick

jerk into an upright position which one assumes when startled suddenly

from a drowsy state to one of intense interest. The motion caused a

similar one on the part of each of us, as if a sort of jumping-jack set

of string nerves ran up our backs, and a man under the cars had pulled

them all simultaneously.

We were on the great earth-ocean; upon either side, until striking

against the shores of the horizon, the billows of buffalo-grass rolled

away. It seemed as if the Mighty Ruler had looked upon these waters when

the world was young, and said to them, "Ye waves, teeming with life, be

ye earth, and remain in form as now, until the planet which bears you

dissolves!" And so, frozen into stillness at the instant, what were then

billows of water now stretch away billows of land into what seems to the

traveler infinite distance, with the same long roll lapping against and

upon distant _buttes_ that the Atlantic has to-day in lashing its

rock-ribbed coasts; and whenever man's busy industry cleaves asunder the

surface, the depths, like those of ocean, give back their monsters and

rare shells. Huge saurians, locked for a thousand centuries in their

vice-like prison, rise up, not as of old to bask lazily in the sun, but

to gape with huge jaws at the demons of lightning and steam rushing

past, and to crack the stiff backs of savans with their forty feet of

tail.

To the south of us, and distant several miles, was the line, scarcely

visible, of the Smoky Hill, treeless and desolate; on the north, the

upper Saline, equally barren. As difficult to distinguish as two brown

threads dividing a brown carpet, they might have been easily overlooked,

had we not known the streams were there, and, with the aid of our

glasses, sought for their ill-defined banks.

A curve in the road brought us suddenly and sharply face to face with

the sun, just rising in the far-away east, and flashing its ruddy light

over the vast plain around us. Its bright red rim first appeared,

followed almost immediately by its round face, for all the world like a

jolly old jack tar, with his broad brim coming above deck. It reminded

me on the instant of our brackish friend, Captain Walrus; and in

imagination I dreamily pictured, as coming after him, with the

broadening daylight, a troop of Alaskans, their sleds laden with

blubber.

The air was singularly clear and bracing, producing an effect upon a

pair of healthy lungs like that felt on first reaching the sea-beach

from a residence inland. An illusion which had followed many of us from

boyhood was utterly dissipated by the early dawn in this strange land.

This was not the fact that the "great American desert" of our

school-days is not a desert at all, for this we had known for years; it

related to those floods of flame and stifling smoke with which

sensational writers of western novels are wont to sweep, as with a besom

of destruction, the whole of prairie-land once at least in every story.

Young America, wasting uncounted gallons of midnight oil in the perusal

of peppery tales of border life, little suspects how slight the

foundation upon which his favorite author has reared the whole vast

superstructure of thrilling adventure.

The scene of these heart-rending narratives is usually laid in a

boundless plain covered with tall grass, and the _dramatis personae_ are

an indefinite number of buffalo and Indians, a painfully definite one of

emigrants, two persons unhappy enough to possess a beautiful daughter,

and a lover still more unhappy in endeavoring to acquire title, a

rascally half-breed burning to prevent the latter feat, and a rare old

plainsman specially brought into existence to "sarcumvent" him.

[Illustration: _BUREAU OF ILLUSTRATION. BUFFALO_

FIRE ON THE PLAINS, ACCORDING TO NOVELS.]

[Illustration: _BUREAU OF ILLUSTRATION_

FIRE ON THE PLAINS, AS IT IS.]

At the most critical juncture the "waving sea of grass" usually takes

fire, in an unaccountable manner--perhaps from the hot condition of the

combatants, or the quantities of burning love and revenge which are

recklessly scattered about. Multitudes of frightened buffalo and gay

gazelles make the ground shake in getting out of the way, and the flames

go to licking the clouds, while the emigrants go to licking the

Indians. Although the fire can not be put out, one or the other, or

possibly both, of the combatants are "put out" in short order.

Should the miserable parents succeed in getting their daughter safely

through this peril, it is only because she is reserved for a further

laceration of our feelings. The half-breed soon gets her, and the lover

and rare old plainsman get on his track immediately afterward. And so on

_ad libitum_.

We beg pardon for condensing into our sunrise reflections the material

for a novel, such as has often run well through three hundred pages, and

furnished with competencies half as many bill-posters. It is unpleasant

to have one's traditionary heroes and heroines all knocked into pi

before breakfast. It makes one crusty. Possibly, it may be their proper

desert, but, if so, could be better digested after dinner.

The whole story would fail if the fire did, as novelists never like to

have their heroines left out in the cold. But it is as impossible for

flames as it is for human beings to exist on air alone. It is scarcely

less so for them to feed, as they are supposed to do, on such scanty

grass. The truth is, that what the bison, with his close-cropping teeth,

is enabled to grow fat on, makes but poor material for a first-class

conflagration.

The grass which covers the great plains of the Far West is more like

brown moss than what its name implies. Perhaps as good an idea of it as

is possible to any one who has never seen it, may be obtained by

imagining a great buffalo robe covering the ground. The hair would be

about the color and nearly the length of the grass, at the season in

question. In the spring the plains are fresh and green, but the grass

cures rapidly on the stalk, and before the end of July is brown and

ripe. It will then burn readily, but the fire is like that eating along

a carpet, and by no means terrifying to either man or brute. The only

occasion when it could possibly prove dangerous is when it reaches, as

it sometimes does, some of the narrow valleys where the tall grass of

the bottom grows; but even then, a run of a hundred yards will take one

to buffalo grass and safety. This latter fact we learned from actual

experience, later on our trip.

What a wild land we were in! A few puffs of a locomotive had transferred

us from civilization to solitude itself. This was the "great American

desert" which so caught our boyish eyes, in the days of our school

geography and the long ago. A mysterious land with its wonderful record

of savages and scouts, battles and hunts. We had a vague idea then that

a sphynx and half a score of pyramids were located somewhere upon it,

the sand covering its whole surface, when not engaged in some sort of

simoon performance above. No trains of camels, with wonderful patience

and marvelous internal reservoirs of water, dragged their weary way

along, it was true; yet that animal's first cousin, the American mule,

was there in numbers, as hardy and as useful as the other. Many an

eastern mother, in the days of the gold fever, took down her boys

discarded atlas, and finding the space on the continent marked "Great

American Desert," followed with tearful eyes the course of the emigrant

trains, and tried to fix the spot where the dear bones of her first-born

lay bleaching.

As a people, we are better acquainted with the wastes of Egypt than with

some parts of our own land. The plains have been considered the abode of

hunger, thirst, and violence, and most of our party expected to meet

these geniuses on the threshold of their domain, and, while Shamus

should fight the first two with his skillet and camp-kettles to war

against the third with rifle and hunting-knife.

But in the scene around us there was nothing terrifying in the least

degree. The sun had risen with a clear highway before him, and no clouds

to entangle his chariot wheels. He was mellow at this early hour, and

scattered down his light and warmth liberally. Wherever the soil was

turned up by the track, we discovered it to be strong and deep, and

capable of producing abundant crops of resin weeds and sunflowers, which

with farmers is a written certificate, in the "language of flowers," of

good character.

We thundered through many thriving cities of prairie dogs, the

inhabitants of which seemed all out of doors, and engaged in

tail-bearing from house to house. The principal occupations of this

animal appears to be two; first, barking like a squirrel, and second,

jerking the caudal appendage, which operations synchronize with

remarkable exactitude. One single cord seems to operate both extremities

of the little body at once. It could no more open its mouth without

twitching its tail, than a single-thread Jack could bow its head without

lifting its legs. Those nearest would look pertly at us for a moment,

and then dive head foremost into their holes. The tail would hardly

disappear before the head would take its place and, peering out,

scrutinize us with twinkling eyes, and chatter away in concert with its

neighbors, with an effect which reminded me of a forest of monkeys

suddenly disturbed.

Sachem declared that they must all be females, for no sooner had one

been frightened into the house than it poked its head out again to see

what was the matter. "That sex would risk life at any time to know what

was up."

The professor, with a more practical turn, told us some of the quaint

little animal's habits. "Why it is called a dog," said he, "I do not

know. Neither in bark, form, or life, is there any resemblance. It is

carnivorous, herbivorous, and abstemious from water, requiring no other

fluids than those obtained by eating roots. Its villages are often far

removed from water, and when tamed it never seems to desire the latter,

though it may acquire a taste for milk. It partakes of meats and

vegetables with apparently equal relish. It is easily captured by

pouring two or three buckets of water down the hole, when it emerges

looking somewhat like a half-drowned rat. The prairie dog is the head of

the original 'happy family.' It was formerly affirmed, even in works of

natural history, that a miniature evidence of the millennium existed in

the home of this little animal. There the rattlesnake, the owl, and the

dog were supposed to lie down together, and such is still the general

belief. It was known that the bird and the reptile lived in these

villages with the dog, and science set them down as honored guests,

instead of robbers and murderers, as they really are."

On our trip we frequently killed snakes in these villages which were

distended with dogs recently swallowed. The owls feed on the younger

members of the household, and the old dogs, except when lingering for

love of their young, are not long in abandoning a habitation when snakes

and owls take possession of it. The latter having two votes, and the

owner but one (female suffrage not being acknowledged among the brutes),

it is a "happy family," on democratic principles of the strictest sort.

We have also repeatedly noticed the dogs busily engaged in filling up a

hole quite to the mouth with dirt, and have been led to believe that in

this manner they occasionally revenge themselves upon their enemies,

perhaps when the latter are gorged with tender puppies, by burying them

alive. An old scout once told us that this filling up process occurred

whenever one of their community was dead in his house, but as the

statement was only conjectural, we prefer the other theory.

While we were this day steaming through one village an incident occurred

showing that these animals have yet another active enemy. Startled by

the cars, the dogs were scampering in all directions, when a powerful

chicken-hawk shot down among them with such wonderful rapidity of flight

that his shadow, which fell like that from a flying fragment of cloud,

scarcely seemed to reach the earth before him. Some hundreds of the

little brown fellows were running for dear life, and plunging wildly

into their holes without any manifestations of their usual curiosity.

The hawk's shadow fell on one fat, burgher-like dog, perhaps the mayor

of the town, and in an instant the robber of the air was over him and

the talons fastened in his back. Then the bird of prey beat heavily with

its pinions, rising a few feet, but, finding the prize too heavy, came

down. He was evidently frightened at the noise of the cars and we hoped

the prisoner would escape. But the bird, clutching firmly for an instant

the animal in its talons, drew back his head to give force to the blow,

and down clashed the hooked beak into one of the victim's eyes. A sharp

pull, and the eyeball was plucked out. Back went the beak a second time,

and the remaining eye was torn from its socket, and the sightless body

was then left squirming on the ground, while the hawk flew hastily away

a short distance, evidently to return when we had passed on. It was

pitiful to see the dog raise up on its haunches and for an instant sit

facing us with its empty sockets, then make two or three short runs to

find a path, in its sudden darkness, to some hole of refuge, but

fruitlessly, of course.

A few days afterward, at Hays City, we witnessed an affair in which the

air-pirate got worsted. While sitting before the office of the village

doctor, a powerful hawk pounced upon his favorite kitten, which lay

asleep on the grass, and started off with it. The two had reached an

elevation of fifty feet, when puss recovered from her surprise and went

to work for liberty. She had always been especially addicted to dining

on birds, and the sensation of being carried off by one excited the

feline mind to astonishment and wrath. Twisting herself like a weasel

her claws came uppermost, and to our straining gaze there was a sight

presented very much as if a feather-bed had been ripped open. The

surprised hawk had evidently received new light on the subject; it let

go on the instant, and went off with the appearance of a badly plucked

goose, while the cat came safely to earth and sought the nearest way

home.

CHAPTER IX.

WE SEE BUFFALO--ARRIVAL AT HAYS--GENERAL SHERIDAN AT THE

FORT--INDIAN MURDERS--BLOOD-CHRISTENING OF THE PACIFIC

RAILROAD--SURPRISED BY A BUFFALO HERD--A BUFFALO BULL IN A

QUANDARY--GENTLE ZEPHYRS--HOW A CIRCUS WENT OFF--BOLOGNA TO LEAN

ON--A CALL UPON SHERIDAN.

As we passed out of the dog village, the engine gave several short,

sharp whistles, and numberless heads were at once thrust out to

ascertain the cause. "Buffalo!" was the cry, and with this there was a

rush to the windows for a view of the noblest of American game. Even

sleepy elderly gentlemen jostled rudely, and Sachem forgot his liver so

far as to crowd into a favorable position beside a young woman.

"There they go!" "Oh, my, what monsters!" "What beards!" "What horns!"

"Beats a steeplechase!" "Uncanny beasts, lookin' and gangin' like Nick!"

"Sure, they're going home from a divil's wake!" and similar ejaculations

filled the car, as they do a race-stand when the horses are off. Two

huge bulls had crossed just ahead of the engine, and one of them,

apparently deeming escape impossible, was standing at bay close to the

track, head down for a charge. He was furious with terror, the hissing

steam and cow-catcher having been close at his heels for a hundred

yards. As we flew past he was immediately under our windows, and we were

obliged to look down to get a view of his immense body, with the back

curving up gradually from the tail into an uncouth hump over the fore

shoulders.

These two solitary old fellows were the only buffalo we saw from the

train, the herds at large having not yet commenced their southern

journey. At certain seasons, however, they cover the plains on each side

of the road for fifty or sixty miles in countless multitudes. These wild

cattle of Uncle Samuel's, if called upon, could supply the whole Yankee

nation with meat for an indefinite period.

About noon we arrived at Hays City, two hundred and eighty miles from

the eastern border of the State, and eighty miles out upon the plains. A

stream tolerably well timbered, known as Big Creek, runs along the

southern edge of the town, and just across it lies Fort Hays, town and

fort being less than a mile apart.

The post possessed considerable military importance, being the base of

operations for the Indian country. We found Sheridan there, an officer

who won his fame gallantly and on the gallop. During the summer our red

brethren had been gathering a harvest of scalps, and, in return, our

army was now preparing to gather in the gentle savage.

We had read accounts in the newspapers, some time before, of the capture

of Fort Wallace and of attacks on military posts. Such stories were not

only untrue, but exceedingly ridiculous as well. Lo is not sound on the

assault question. His chivalrous soul warms, however, when some forlorn

Fenian, with spade on shoulder and thoughts far off with Biddy in

Erin's Isle, crosses his vision. Being satisfied that Patrick has no

arms, his only defense being utter harmlessness, and well knowing that

the sight of a painted skin, rendered sleek by boiled dog's meat, will

make him frantic with terror, the soul of the noble savage expands. No

more shall the spade, held so jauntily, throw Kansas soil on the bed of

the Pacific Railroad; and the scalp, yet tingling with the boiling of

incipient Fenian revolutions underneath, on the pole of a distant wigwam

will soon gladden the eyes of the traditionally beautiful Indian bride,

as with dirty hands she throws tender puppies into the pot for her

warrior's feast. The savage hand, crimson since childhood, descends with

defiant ring upon the tawny breast, and, with a cry of, "Me big Indian,

ha, whoop!" down sweeps Lo upon the defenseless Hibernian. A startled

stare, a shriek of wild agony, a hurried prayer to "our Mary mother,"

and Erin's son christens those far-off points of the Pacific Railroad

with his blood. A rapid circle of hunting-knife and the scalp is lifted,

a few twangs of the bow fills the body with arrows, there is a rapid

vault into the saddle, and a mutilated corpse, with feathered tips, like

pins in a cushion, dotting its surface, alone remains to tell the tale

of horror.

[Illustration: "And Erin's son christens those far-off points of the

Pacific Railroad with his blood."]

Blood had been every-where on the railroad, which reached across the

plains like a steel serpent spotted with red. There was now a cessation

of hostilities, and Indian agents were reported to be on the way from

Washington to pacify the tribes. As they had been a long time in coming,

the inference was irresistible that the popping of champagne corks was

a much more pleasant experience than that of Indian guns would have

been. The harvest of scalps had reached high noon some time before. Far

off, south of the Arkansas, the savages had their home, and from thence,

like baleful will-o'-the-wisps, they would suddenly flash out, and then

flash back when pursued, and be lost in those remote regions. Lately,

United States troops have been so placed that the Indian villages may be

struck, if necessary, and retaliation had; and this, together with the

pacificatory efforts of the Quaker agents, is doing much to bring about

a condition of things which promises permanent peace.

Here our party was at Hays, the objective point of our journey, and our

base of operations against the treasures of the past and present, which

alike covered the country around. This little town is in the midst of

the great buffalo range. Away upon every side of it stretch those vast

plains where the short, crisp grass curls to the ridges, like an

African's kinky hair to his skull. Bison and wild horse, antelope and

wolf, for weeks were now to be our neighbors, appearing and vanishing

over the great expanse like large and small piratical crafts on an

ocean. We were kindly received at the Big Creek Land Company's office,

on the outskirts of the town, and there deposited our guns and baggage.

Our horses were expected on the morrow.

Twilight found us, after a busy afternoon, sitting around the office

door, with that tired feeling which a traveler has when mind and body

are equally exhausted. Our very tongues were silent, those useful

members having wagged until even they were grateful for the rest. The

hour of dusk, of all others, is the time for musing, and almost

involuntarily our minds wandered back a twelve-month, when the plains

were a solitude. No railroad, no houses, no tokens of civilization save

only a few solitary posts, garrisoned with corporal's guards, and

surrounded by red fiends thirsty for blood. Such was the picture then;

now, the clangor of a city echoed through Big Creek Valley.

While wondering at the change, away on the hills to our right there rose

a thundering tread, like the marching of a mighty multitude. Shamus, who

sat directly facing the hill, saw something which chilled the Dobeen

blood, and caused that noble Irishman to plunge behind us. Mr. Colon,

who had given a startled turn of the head over his right shoulder,

exclaimed, "Bless me, what's that?" The glance of Muggs froze that

Briton so completely that he failed to tell us of ever having seen a

more "hextraordinary thing in Hingland." I am in doubt whether even our

grave professor did not imagine for the moment that the mammalian age

was taking a tilt at us.

Gathering twilight had magnified what in broad day would have been an

apparition sufficiently startling to any new arrival in Buffalo Land. A

long line of black, shaggy forms was standing on the crest and looking

down upon us. It had come forward like the rush of a hungry wave, and

now remained as one uplifted, dark and motionless. In bold relief

against the horizon stood an array of colossal figures, all bristling

with sharp points, which at first sight seemed lances, but at the

second resolved into horns. Then it dawned upon our minds that a herd of

the great American bison stood before us. What a grateful reduction of

lumps in more than one throat, and how the air ran riot in lately

congealed lungs!

Dobeen declared he thought the professor's "ghosts of the centuries" had

been looking down upon us.

One old fellow, evidently a leader in Buffalo Land, with long

patriarchial beard and shaggy forehead, remained in front, his head

upraised. His whole attitude bespoke intense astonishment. For years

this had been their favorite path between Arkansas and the Platte. Big

Creek's green valley had given succulent grasses to old and young of the

bison tribe from time immemorial. Every hollow had its traditions of

fierce wolf fights and Indian ambuscades, and many a stout bull could

remember the exact spot where his charge had rescued a mother and her

young from the hungry teeth of starving timber wolves. Every wallow,

tree, and sheltering ravine were sacred in the traditions of Buffalo

Land. The petrified bones of ancestors who fell to sleep there a

thousand years before testified to purity of bison blood and pedigree.

Now all this was changed. Rushing toward their loved valley, they found

themselves in the suburbs of a town. Yells of red man and wolf were

never so horrible as that of the demon flashing along the valley's bed.

A great iron path lay at their feet, barring them back into the

wilderness. Slowly the shaggy monarch shook his head, as if in doubt

whether this were a vision or not; then whirling suddenly, perhaps

indignantly, he turned away and disappeared behind the ridge, and the

bison multitude followed.

Our horses arrived the next morning all safe, excepting a few skin

bruises, the steed Cynocephalus, however, being a trifle stiffer than

usual, from the motion of the cars. When they were trotted out for

inspection, by some hostlers whom we had hired that morning for our

trip, the inhabitants must have considered the sight the next best thing

to a circus.

Apropos of circuses, we learned that one had exhibited for the first and

only time on the plains a few months before. In that country, dear

reader, AEolus has a habit of loafing around with some of his sacks in

which young whirlwinds are put up ready for use. One of these is liable

to be shaken out at any moment, and the first intimation afforded you

that the spirit which feeds on trees and fences is loose, is when it

snatches your hat, and begins flinging dust and pebbles in your eyes.

But to return to our circus performance. For awhile all passed off

admirably. The big tent swallowed the multitude, and it in turn

swallowed the jokes of the clown, older, of course, than himself. In the

customary little tent the living skeleton embodied Sidney Smith's wish

and sat cooling in his bones, while the learned pig and monkey danced to

the melodious accompaniment of the hand-organ.

[Illustration: _BUREAU OF ILLUSTRATION_

GENTLE ZEPHYRS--"GOING OFF WITHOUT A DRAWBACK.]

Suddenly there was a clatter of poles, and two canvass clouds flew out

of sight like balloons. The living skeleton found himself on a distant

ridge, with the wind whistling among his ribs, while the monkey

performed somersaults which would have astonished the original

Cynocephalus. The pig meanwhile found refuge behind the organ, which the

hurricane, with a better ear for music than man, refused to turn.

"Mademoiselle Zavenowski, the beautiful leading equestrienne of the

world," just preparing to jump through a hoop, went through her own with

a whirl, and stood upon the plains feeding the hungry storm with her

charms. The graceful young rider, lately perforating hearts with the

kisses she flung at them, in a trice had become a maiden of fifty,

noticeably the worse for wear.

An eye-witness, in describing the scene to us, said the circus went off

without a single drawback. It was as if a ton of gunpowder had been

fired under the ring. Just as the clown was rubbing his leg, as the

result of calling the sensitive ring-master a fool (a sham suffering,

though for truth's sake), there was a sharp crack, and the establishment

dissolved. High in air went hats and bonnets, like fragments shot out of

a volcano. The spirits of zephyr-land carried off uncounted hundreds of

tiles, both military and civil, and we desire to place it upon record

that should a future missionary, in some remote northern tribe, find

traditions of a time when the sky rained hats, they may all be accounted

for on purely scientific grounds.

Much property was lost, but no lives. The immediate results were a

bankrupt showman and a run on liniments and sticking-plaster.

Our first hunt was to be on the Saline, which comes down from the west

about fifteen miles north of Hays City.

Before starting, we carefully overhauled our entire outfit. For a long,

busy day nothing was thought of save the cleaning of guns, the oiling of

straps, and the examination of saddles, with sundry additions to

wardrobe and larder. Shamus became a mighty man among grocery-keepers,

and could scarcely have been more popular had he been an Indian supply

agent. The inventory which he gave us of his purchases comprised twelve

cans of condensed milk, with coffee, tea, and sugar, in proportion;

several pounds each of butter, bacon, and crackers; a few loaves of

bread, two sacks of flour, some pickles, and a sufficient number of

tin-plates, cups, and spoons. To these he subsequently added a

half-dozen hams and something like fifty yards of Bologna sausage, which

he told us were for use when we should tire of fresh meat. Sachem

entered protest, declaring that sausage and ham, in a country full of

game, reflected upon us.

[Illustration: _BUREAU OF ILLUSTRATION BUFFALO NY_

"LOOKED LIKE THE END OF A TAIL."]

[Illustration: THE RARE OLD PLAINSMAN OF THE NOVELS.]

Of course, we found use for every item of the above, and especially for

the Bologna. If one can feel satisfied in his own mind as to what

portion of the brute creation is entering into him, a half-yard of

Bologna, tied to the saddle, stays the stomach wonderfully on an all

day's ride. It is so handy to reach it, while trotting along, and with

one's hunting-knife cut off a few inches for immediate consumption.

Semi-Colon, however, who was a youth of delicate stomach, sickened on

his ration one day, because he found something in it which, he said,

looked like the end of a tail. It is a debatable question, to my mind,

whether Satan, among his many ways of entering into man, does not

occasionally do so in the folds of Bologna sausage. Certain it is that,

after such repast, one often feels like Old Nick, and woe be to the man

at any time who is at all dyspeptic. All the forces of one's gastric

juices may then prove insufficient to wage successful battle with the

evil genius which rends him.

Our outfit, as regards transportation, consisted of the animals

heretofore mentioned, and two teams which we hired at Hays, for the

baggage and commissary supplies.

The evening before our departure we rode over to the fort and called

upon General Sheridan. "Little Phil" had pitched his camp on the bank of

Big Creek, a short distance below the fort, preferring a soldier's life

in the tent to the more comfortable officer's quarters. This we thought

eminently characteristic of the man. He is an accumulation of tremendous

energy in small compass, a sort of embodied nitro-glycerine, but

dangerous only to his enemies. Famous principally as a cavalry leader,

because Providence flung him into the saddle and started him off at a

gallop, had his destiny been infantry, he would have led it to victory

on the run. And now, officer after officer having got sadly tangled in

the Indian web, which was weaving its strong threads over so fair a

portion of our land, Sheridan was sent forward to cut his way through

it.

The camp was a pretty picture with its line of white tents, the timber

along the creek for a background, and the solemn, apparently illimitable

plains stretching away to the horizon in front. Taken altogether, it

looked more like the comfortable nooning spot of a cavalry scout than

the quarters of a famous General. Our chieftain stood in front of the

center tent, with a few staff-officers lounging near by, his short,

thick-set figure and firm head giving us somehow the idea of a small,

sinewy lion.

We found the General thoroughly conversant with the difficult task to

which he had been called. "Place the Indians on reservations," he said,

"under their own chiefs, with an honest white superintendency. Let the

civil law reign on the reservation, military law away from it, every

Indian found by the troops off from his proper limits to be treated as

an outlaw." It seemed to me that in a few brief sentences this mapped

out a successful Indian policy, part of which indeed has since been

adopted, and the remainder may yet be.

When speaking of late savageries on the plains the eyes of "Little Phil"

glittered wickedly. In one case, on Spillman's Creek, a band of

Cheyennes had thrust a rusty sword into the body of a woman with child,

piercing alike mother and offspring, and, giving it a fiendish twist,

left the weapon in her body, the poor woman being found by our soldiers

yet living.

"I believe it possible," said Sheridan, "at once and forever to stop

these terrible crimes." As he spoke, however, we saw what he apparently

did not, a long string of red tape, of which one end was pinned to his

official coat-tail, while the other remained in the hands of the

Department at Washington. Soon after, as Sheridan pushed forward, the

Washington end twitched vigorously. He managed, however, with his right

arm, Custer, to deal a sledge-hammer blow, which broke to fragments the

Cheyenne Black-kettle and his band. Whether or not that band had been

guilty of the recent murders, the property of the slain was found in

their possession, and the terrible punishment caused the residue of the

tribe to sue for peace. It was the first time for years that the war

spirit had placed any horrors at their doors, and that one terrible

lesson prepared the savage mind for the advent of peace commissioners.

Our brief conference ended, the General bade us good day, and wished us

a pleasant experience. Scarcely had we got beyond his tents, however,

when we were overtaken by a decidedly unpleasant one. On their way to

water, a troop of mules stampeded, and passing us in a cloud of dust,

our brutes took bits in their teeth, and joined company. Happily, the

run was a short one to the creek, where those of us who had not fallen

off before managed to do so then. Poor Gripe was the only person

injured, suffering the fracture of a rib, which necessitated his return

to Topeka, so that we did not see him again until some months afterward,

when we met him on the Solomon.

CHAPTER X.

HAYS CITY BY LAMP-LIGHT--THE SANTA FE

TRADE--BULL-WHACKERS--MEXICANS--SABBATH ON THE PLAINS--THE DARK

AGES--WILD BILL AND BUFFALO BILL--OFF FOR THE SALINE--DOBEEN'S

GHOST-STORY--AN ADVENTURE WITH INDIANS--MEXICAN CANNONADE--A

RUNAWAY.

Hays City by lamp-light was remarkably lively and not very moral. The

streets blazed with the reflection from saloons, and a glance within

showed floors crowded with dancers, the gaily dressed women striving to

hide with ribbons and paint the terrible lines which that grim artist,

Dissipation, loves to draw upon such faces. With a heartless humor he

daubs the noses of the sterner sex a cherry red, but paints under the

once bright eyes of woman a shade dark as the night in the cave of

despair. To the music of violin and stamping of feet, the dance went on,

and we saw in the giddy maze old men who must have been pirouetting on

the very edge of their graves.

Being then the depot for the great Santa Fe trade, the town was crowded

with Mexicans and speculators. Large warehouses along the track were

stored with wool awaiting shipment east, and with merchandise to be

taken back with the returning wagons. These latter are of immense size,

and, from this circumstance, are sometimes called "prairie schooners;"

and, in truth, when a train of them is winding its way over the plains,

the white covers flecking its surface like sails, the sight is not

unlike a fleet coming into port. Oxen and mules are both used. When the

former, the drivers rejoice in the title of "bull-whackers," and the

crack of their whips, as loud as the report of a rifle, is something

tremendous.

On the day of our arrival at Hays City, one of these festive individuals

noticed Dobeen gazing, with open mouth, and back towards him, at some

object across the street, and took the opportunity to crack his lash

within an inch of the Irishman's spine. The effect was ludicrous; Shamus

came in on the run to have a ball extracted from his back!

These Mexicans who come through with the ox-trains are a very degraded

race, dark, dirty, and dismal. In appearance, they much resemble

animated bundles of rags, walking off with heads of charcoal. Personal

bravery is not one of their striking characteristics; indeed, they often

run away when to stand still would seem to an American the only safe

course possible. We were desirous of sending back to Hays City some of

the proceeds of our excursion for shipment to friends at St. Louis and

Chicago, and therefore hired two of the Mexican teamsters to go as far

as the Saline, and return with the fruits of our prowess. For this

service, which would occupy about four days, they were to receive

twenty-five dollars each.

The morrow was Sunday, and came to us, as nine-tenths of the mornings on

the plains did afterward, clear and bracing. Compared with the previous

evening, the little town was very quiet. There was no stir in the

streets, although later in the morning a few of the last night's

carousers came out of doors, rubbing their sleepy eyes, and slunk around

town for the remainder of the day. All nature was calm and beautiful; it

almost seemed as if we might hear the chime of Sabbath bells float to us

from somewhere in the depths around.

One of our sea legends recites that ship wrecked bells, fallen from the

society of men to that of mermaids, are straightway hung on coral

steeples, where, when storms roar around the rocks above, they toll for

the deaths of the mariners. Was it impossible, we mused, that ancient

mariners, with whole cargoes of bells, went down on this inland sea

centuries before Rome howled? The earth around us might be as full of

musical tongues as of saurians, and only awaiting the savan's spade and

sympathetic touch to give their dumb eloquence voice. If the people of

those days were navigators, surely they might also have been men of

metal. In the far-away past existed numerous arts which baffle modern

ingenuity. Stones were lifted at sight of which our engineers stand

dismayed. Bodies were embalmed with a skill and perfection which our

medical faculty admire, but have scarcely even essayed to imitate. Is it

impossible that vessels plowed this ancient ocean with a speed which

would have left our Cunarders out of sight? If human spirits freed from

earth take cognizance of following generations, how those old captains

must have laughed when Fulton boarded his wheezing experiment to paddle

up the Hudson! And if our doctor's Darwinian-Pythagorean theory were

correct, Fulton's spirit might have brought the crude idea from some

ancient stoker.

But while we were thus speculating and giving free reins to Fancy's most

erratic moods, the chaplain arrived from the fort, and mounting the

freight platform, read the Episcopal morning service. A crowd gathered

around, and a voice from the past whispering in their ears, a few bowed

their heads during prayer. A drunkard went brawling by, with a sidelong

glance and the leering look of eyes whose watery lids seemed making vain

efforts to quench the fiery balls. How it grated on one's feelings! In a

land so eloquent with voices of the mighty past, it seemed as if even

instinct would cause the knee to bow in homage before its Maker.

Monday was our day of final preparation, and we commenced it by making

the acquaintance of those two celebrated characters, Wild Bill and

Buffalo Bill, or, more correctly, William Hickock and William Cody. The

former was acting as sheriff of the town, and the latter we engaged as

our guide to the Saline.

Wild Bill made his _entree_ into one court of the temple of fame some

years since through Harper's Magazine. Since then his name has become a

household word to residents along the Kansas frontier. We found him very

quiet and gentlemanly, and not at all the reckless fellow we had

supposed. His form won our admiration--the shoulders of a Hercules with

the waist of a girl. Much has been written about Wild Bill that is pure

fiction. I do not believe, for example, that he could hit a nickel

across the street with a pistol-ball, any more than an Indian could do

so with an arrow. These feats belong to romance. Bill is wonderfully

handy with his pistols, however. He then carried two of them, and while

we were at Hays snuffed a man's life out with one; but this was done in

his capacity of officer. Two rowdies devoted their energies to brewing a

riot, and defied arrest until, at Bill's first shot, one fell dead, and

the other threw up his arms in token of submission. During his life time

Bill has probably killed his baker's dozen of men, but he has never, I

believe, been known as the aggressor. To the people of Hays he was a

valuable officer, making arrests when and where none other dare attempt

it. His power lies in the wonderful quickness with which he draws a

pistol and takes his aim. These first shots, however, can not always

last. "They that take the sword shall perish with the sword;" and living

as he does by the pistol, Bill will certainly die by it, unless he

abandons the frontier.

[Illustration: BUFFALO BILL--FROM A PHOTOGRAPH.]

[Illustration: _BUREAU OF ILLUSTRATION_

WILD BILL--FROM A PHOTOGRAPH.]

Only a short time after we left Hays two soldiers attempted his life.

Attacked unexpectedly, Bill was knocked down and the muzzle of a musket

placed against his forehead, but before it could be discharged the ready

pistol was drawn and the two soldiers fell down, one dead, the other

badly wounded. Their companions clamored for revenge, and Bill changed

his base. He afterward became marshal of the town of Abilene, where he

signalized himself by carrying a refractory councilman on his shoulders

to the council-chamber. A few months later some drunken Texans

attempted a riot, and one of them, a noted gambler, commenced firing on

the marshal. The latter returned the fire, shooting not only the

gambler, but one of his own friends, who, in the gloom of the evening,

was hurrying to his aid. Bill paid the expenses of the latter's funeral,

which on the frontier is considered the proper and delicate way of

consoling the widow whenever such little accidents occur.

The Professor took occasion, before parting with Wild William, to

administer some excellent advice, urging him especially, if he wished to

die in his bed, to abandon the pistol and seize upon the plow-share. His

reputation as Union scout, guide for the Indian country, and sheriff of

frontier towns, our leader said, was a sufficient competency of fame to

justify his retirement upon it. In this opinion the public will

certainly coincide.

Buffalo Bill was to be our guide. He informed us that Wild Bill was his

cousin. Cody is spare and wiry in figure, admirably versed in plain

lore, and altogether the best guide I ever saw. The mysterious plain is

a book that he knows by heart. He crossed it twice as teamster, while a

mere boy, and has spent the greater part of his life on it since. He led

us over its surface on starless nights, when the shadow of the blackness

above hid our horses and the earth, and though many a time with no trail

to follow and on the very mid-ocean of the expanse, he never made a

failure. Buffalo Bill has since figured in one of Buntline's Indian

romances. We award him the credit of being a good scout and most

excellent guide; but the fact that he can slaughter buffalo is by no

means remarkable, since the American bison is dangerous game only to

amateurs.

We were off early on Tuesday morning for the Saline, our course toward

which lay before us a little west of north, the citizens turning out to

see us start. We had just parted from Gripe, who went East on the first

train to get his ribs healed. "To think, gentlemen," said he, "that I

should have escaped rebel bullets and Indian atrocities, only to have my

ribs cracked at last by a stampede of mules!" Poor Gripe's farewell

reminded me strongly of the old saying about the ruling passion strong

in death. As he stood on the platform, with one hand against his aching

side, he could not refrain from waving a courtly adieu with the other,

and bowing himself from our presence, into the car, as if leaving the

stage after a political speech.

We were sorry to lose our friend, and this, together with the thought of

the weeks of uncertainties and anxieties which lay before us, made our

exit from Hays rather a solemn affair. Even Tammany Sachem's face was

ironed out so completely that not a smile wrinkled it. Dobeen had loaded

one wagon with culinary weapons, and now sat among his pots and pans,

evidently ill at ease and wishing himself doing any thing else rather

than about to plunge further into the wilderness.

When about to mount Cynocephalus, Semi's feelings were wounded by a

depraved urchin who suggested, "You'd better fust knock that fly off,

Boss. Both on ye 'll be too much for the hoss!" Fortunately, perhaps,

for our feelings, the remainder of the inhabitants were so civil that

further criticisms on our outfit, though they may have been ripe at

their tongues' end, were carefully repressed.

Moving out over the divide above town the Professor noticed the general

depression of the party, and forthwith began philosophising.

"My friends," said he, "had the feelings which explorers suffer, when

fairly launched, been allowed to be present during the days of

preparation, science and discovery would be in their infancy. Enthusiasm

bridges the first obstacles to an undertaking, but others roll on and

block the explorer's path, and the spirit which has got him into the

difficulty momentarily deserts him. If properly courted, however, she

returns, and meanwhile the traveler is afforded the opportunity of

looking, through matter-of-fact spectacles, along his future journey.

What he thought pebbles reveal themselves as hills, and what he had

marked on his chart as hills develop into mountains. These he must

recognize and examine with all the resolution he can summon, and he will

be the more able to climb them from expecting to do so. Right here is

the critical point in his journey. Numerous cross-roads branch off--some

right, others left, but all with a brighter prospect down them. Perhaps

on one, a wife and children stand at the door of their home, beckoning

him. The garden that his own hand planted blooms in a background of

flowers, while the path he has now chosen sparkles with winter snow. He

knows, however, that beyond these, perhaps amid sterile mountains, are

the precious diamonds he seeks.

"It is wise that, where these roads branch off--some to castles of

indolence, others to comfortable homes and moderate exertion--the man

should be left alone for a time and allowed to survey the rough path

before him, with all the blinding glamour of enthusiasm subdued by the

light of truth, and with a full knowledge of all the stumbling blocks

which lie before him. If he then thumbs the edge of his hunting-knife,

examines his Henry rifle, and presses forward, the metal is there, and

from that time onward you may at any time learn of his whereabouts by

inquiring at the temple of fame."

Sachem interrupted the Professor to remonstrate at the girding of loins

being left out. He had always been used to the girding in similar

discourses, and considered that loins were in much more general use than

Henry rifles.

And now Shamus, from his perch on the pans, suddenly broke in: "Faith,

Professor, your enthusiasm once brought me sore trouble. It got me into

a haunted house, when the clock was strikin' midnight, and my legs were

sore put to it to get me out fast enough. Ye see, I bet a pig with my

next cousin that I would stay all night in an old house full of spirits.

The master and his house-keeper had been murdered in the tenantry riots,

and the boys that did the business, they swung for it soon afterward.

And now, there was a regular barricadin' and attackin' going on those

nights ever since. While I was lookin' at the old clock, and thinkin' of

the pig I'd drag home in the morning, I must have dramed a little. He

was as likely a pig as yez ever saw, and I was listenin' proudly to his

swate cries as I carried him from the sty, and feelin' full enough of

enthusiasm to stay there a hundred years. Just then there was a rustlin'

in front, and I opened my eyes wide, and there stood the old

house-keeper leanin' against the shaky clock, with her ear to its yellow

face, and lookin' straight behind me to where I could feel the master

was sittin'. There was an awful light in her eyes, and I thought I heard

her say--any way, I knew she was sayin' it--'Hark, Sir Donald, they're

comin', but the soldiers will be here, too, at twelve.' An' then there

was a sort of shudder in the old clock and it commenced a wheezin' an'

bangin' away, a tryin' to get through the strokes of twelve, as it did

twenty years before. But it hadn't got out half, when I heard the crowd

outside scrapin' against the window sill. An' then there come a report,

and the room was filled with smoke, an' somethin' hit the back of my

head. How I got out I don't know, but when I come to myself I was

running for dear life across the common. I have the scar of the ghost's

bullet ever since. See here, yez can see it for yourselves." And taking

off his cap, Shamus showed us a bald spot about the size of a silver

dollar on the back of his cranium.

"And what became of the pig?" asked Mr. Colon quietly.

"Faith, an' my cousin carried him home next morning," replied Shamus,

with a regretful sigh; "and lady Dobeen, bless her sowl, never forgot

to tell me of that to her dying day. We were needin' the bacon them

times."

Sachem, who delighted to spoil our cook's stories, declared that, to

gain a pig, it was worth the cousin's while to fire an old musket

through the window over a drunken Irishman inside. Still that did not

excuse him for his carelessness; he should have seen that the wad flew

higher.

What Dobeen's answer might have been will never be known; for, just at

that moment, the attention of the entire party was suddenly directed to

a dark mass of moving objects away off upon our right, a mile distant at

least, and to our untrained eyes entirely unrecognizable. The Mexicans,

however, pronounced them buffaloes. Whether thinking to vindicate his

reputation for personal courage, or whether simply from love of

excitement, is not exactly clear, but Dobeen eagerly requested

permission to pursue them, and as he would, _ex officio_, be debarred

the pleasure of future sport, consent was given. This was done the more

readily, because we knew that Shamus, while as inexperienced in the

chase as any of us, was also a wretched rider; for, although constantly

boasting of the tournaments he had been engaged in, we all indorsed

Sachem's opinion, that, if ever connected with such an affair at all, it

must have been in holding a horse, not riding one.

It was worthy of note that every one of the party was as eager for the

chase as Shamus, and yet that personage was allowed to ride off alone.

Mr. Colon, it is true, essayed to join his company, but after going a

hundred yards or so, suddenly changed his mind and came back. Our

maiden efforts in buffalo hunting promised such modesty as to refuse a

public appearance, unless together.

Our cook had been instructed by the guide to avail himself of the

ravines, and after getting as near the herd as possible, then spur

rapidly up to it. He went off at a gallop, his solid body flying clear

of the saddle whenever the donkey's feet struck ground, and soon

disappeared in a ravine which seemed to promise a winding way almost

into the very midst of the herd. We watched intently for his

reappearance. In such periods of suspense the minutes seem strangely

long, creeping as slowly toward their allotted three-score as they do

when one, at a sickbed vigil, listens for the funeral chimes of the

clock, telling when the minutes are buried in the hours.

At length, in the far away distance, we descried Shamus, disdaining

further concealment, riding gallantly out of the ravine for a charge. A

few moments more and game and hunter were face to face, and we held our

breath, expecting to see the dark cloud dash away with our bloodthirsty

cook at its skirts. "As I am alive," suddenly ejaculated Muggs,

"Dobeen's coming this way, at a bloody good run, and the buffalo after

him!" We could scarcely believe our eyes, but, sure enough, it was a

clear case of pursuer and pursued, with the appropriate positions

entirely reversed. Shamus seemed imitating that famous hunter who

brought home his bear-meat alive, preceding it by only half a coat-tail.

But the game before us was changing in appearance most wonderfully. It

seemed bristling with unusually long horns, and as we looked the dark

cloud suddenly spread out into a fan-like shape, and we all cried,

simultaneously, "Indians!"

There they were, a party of our red brethren bearing rapidly down upon

us in pursuit of Dobeen, whose arms and legs were playing like flails on

his donkey's sides, with an appeal for speed which had evidently called

into action all the reserves of that true conservative.

Our party would have sold out their interest in the plains for a

bagatelle. Our whole outfit had whirled, like a weather-cock, and was

pointing back to Hays. The Mexicans were already dodging in and out

among their oxen, and firing their old muskets furiously, although the

foe was yet a fair cannon-shot away. Shamus could not well have been in

more danger from foes behind than he was from friends before; indeed, he

afterward said that asking deliverance from the latter made him almost

forget the former.

[Illustration: _BUREAU OF ILLUSTRATION_

OUR HORSES RUN AWAY WITH US.]

The horses of both Sachem and Muggs ran away, taking a straight line for

the distant town. This caused a general stampede on the part of all the

other horses, much to the regret of their riders, who were thus cruelly

prevented from a proper display of latent prowess in rendering

protection to the wagons and our cook. From the former came a steady

cannonade. Squirming like eels among their oxen, the Mexicans fired from

under the animals' bellies, astride the tongue, from anywhere, indeed,

that furnished a barricade between the distant Indians and themselves.

It is one of the remarkable tactics of this remarkable people, in

military emergencies, that when they can not put distance between them

and the enemy, they must substitute _something_ else. A single trooper,

on an open plain, could send a small army of them scampering off, but

let them get behind a barricade, and they will continue banging away

with their old muskets until either the weapon bursts or ammunition

gives out. It is surprising how harmless their fusillades generally are.

If Mexican powder is used, it goes off like a mixture of lamp-black and

nitro-glycerine, with a premonitory fiz and then a fearful concussion,

leaving a smell of burnt oil in the air which overcomes for a moment the

natural aroma of the warriors themselves.

But while we were still being run away with by our spirited animals,

another change occurred in the situation equally as unexpected as the

first. The Indians had stopped running about the time that we commenced,

and now stood in a dusky line something less than half a mile off,

making signs to us. Shamus evidently considered it a horrible

incantation for his scalp, and every time he looked backward plied with

renewed fervor at his donkey's ribs. Our guide, who had stayed with the

wagons and exerted himself to silence the Mexican batteries, motioned us

to return, which we were finally enabled to do by virtue of steady

pulling upon one rein and coming back in half circles.

By the time our cook reached us, out of breath and perspiring terribly,

two savages had ridden out from their band, weaponless, and were now

gesturing a wish to communicate. The Professor and our guide rode to

meet them, apparently unarmed; but with characteristic exhibition of the

white man's subtlety, the tail-pocket of the philosopher's coat held a

pistol in reserve, and the guide, I have no doubt, was equally well

provided.

CHAPTER XI.

WHITE WOLF, THE CHEYENNE CHIEF--HUNGRY INDIANS--RETURN TO HAYS--A

CHEYENNE WAR PARTY--THE PIPE OF PEACE--THE COUNCIL CHAMBER--WHITE

WOLF'S SPEECH, AS RENDERED BY SACHEM--THE WHITE MAN'S WIGWAM.

About midway between our party and the dusky group that stood watching

us the four embassadors met. The Indians proved to be a band of

Cheyennes, under White Wolf, or, as he is more frequently called,

Medicine Wolf, out on the war-path against the Pawnees. The Wolf was a

fine-looking man, six feet four in height, straight as an arrow, and

developed like a giant. Being a chief, he possessed the regalia and

warranty deed of one, consisting of a ragged military coat without any

tail, and a dirty letter from some Indian agent, with a lie in it over

which even a Cheyenne must have smiled, telling how White Wolf loved the

whites. Perhaps he did; his namesake loves spring lamb.

Our guide was an indifferent interpreter, but had no difficulty in

understanding that the Indians were hungry and wished something to eat.

In all my experience from that day to this I have never found an Indian

who was not hungry, except once. The exception was an old fellow who,

although enough of an Indian to be habitually drunk, was so degenerate a

specimen in other respects as to be somewhat dyspeptic. His stomach had

repudiated, after receiving a deposit from a trader of one hundred

pickled oysters, and had temporarily closed its doors. His stock of

gastric juices seemed to have been well-nigh bankrupted by a fifty

years' discounting of jerked buffalo. The one hundred tons of this

compound which the noble warrior had dissolved would have exhausted the

liquid of a tannery. Let these savages of the plains meet a white man,

whenever or wherever they may, their first demand is always for meat and

drink, followed not unfrequently by another for his scalp. The victim

may have but a day's rations, and be a hundred miles from any station

where more can be obtained, but his all is taken as greedily and

remorselessly as if he commanded a commissary train.

The Professor and our guide motioned White Wolf and his companion to

wait, and rode back to us for the purpose of casting up our account of

ways and means. The only chance of balancing it seemed to be by sight

draft on Shamus' wagon or an entry of war. We dare not refuse them and

go on; they would be sure to dog our steps, and at the first convenient

opportunity attack and probably murder us. Shamus, with recovered

courage, stoutly protested against a raid upon his department. "To

think," he expostulated, "of the swate sausage and ham bein' used to wad

such painted carcasses as them divils!" The guide suggested as the best

alternative that we should invite the Indians to return with us to Hays.

We caught at the idea and adopted it immediately; and while the guide

rode back as the bearer of our invitation, we "stood to arms," awaiting

the result with silent but ill-concealed solicitude.

Should the Indians consider it an attempt to trap them, our bones might

have an opportunity to rest in some neighboring ravine until the ready

spades of some future geological expedition should disturb them, and we

be at once reconstructed into some rare species of ancient ape or

specimens of extinct salamanders. Or, if happily resurrected at a

somewhat earlier period, might not some enterprising Barnum of the

twentieth century place on our bones the seal of centuries, and lay them

with the mummies in his showcases? Our expedition was partly intended

for diving into the past, but not quite so deep or so permanent a dive

as that. What wonder that incipient ague-chills played up and down and

all about our spinal column, as we reflected how completely we were

dependent on the caprice of those Native Americans sitting out there, in

half-naked dignity, on their tough ponies? Or that we gazed anxiously at

the huge chief as he sat, silent and motionless, awaiting the approach

of our guide?

Our ideas of the savage had been so thoroughly Cooperised during

boyhood, that when our guide approached the Wolf, and, with a gesture to

the south, invited him back to Hays, I was prepared to see the tall form

straighten in the saddle, and pictured to my imagination some such

specimen of untutored eloquence as this:

"Pale-face, the blood of the Cheyenne burns quick. He meets you trailing

like a serpent across his war-path, seeking to steal treasures from the

red man's land. He asks food, and you tell him to come into your trap

and get it. Pale-faces, remove your hats; noble Cheyennes, remove their

scalps!"

Nothing of this kind occurred, however. Our guide informed us that the

bold savage simply fastened one button of his tailless coat, grunted out

"Ugh!" in a satisfied way, and motioned his band to follow. This they

did, and we were soon retracing our steps to Hays; by the guide's

advice, making the savages keep a fair distance behind us.

The roofs of Hays glistened across the plains, as they say those of

Damascus do in the East. We had formed a boy's romantic acquaintance

with that land, where the sun burns and the simooms frolic, and once

were quite enamored of its wild Bedouins of the desert. Our manhood was

now experiencing the sensation of seeing a tribe fiercer than their

eastern brethren, not exactly at our doors, because we had none, but

following very closely at our heels.

As our strange cavalcade re-entered the town the people stopped to gaze

a moment, and then came out to meet us. News flew to the fort, and some

of the officers rode over. The Land Company's office was selected for a

council room, the Cheyennes tying their ponies to the stage corral near.

The Indians were a strange-looking crew. Sachem declared them all women,

and Dobeen affirmed that they looked more like a covey of witches than

warriors. With their long hair divided in the middle, and falling,

sometimes in braids and again loosely, over their shoulders, and their

blankets hanging around them, they did really look much like the

traditional squaw who so kindly assists one in cutting his eye-teeth at

Niagara Falls, with her sharp practice and cheap bead-work. Their faces

were as smooth as a woman's, without the least trace of either mustache

or whiskers; so that, altogether, when we essayed to pick out some

females, we got completely "mixed up," and were at length forced to the

conclusion that the majestic White Wolf was traveling over the plains

with a copper-colored harem.

Cooper having told us that the Indian term of reproach is to be or to

look like a woman, we avoided offense and the "arrows of outrageous

fortune" which an Indian is so dexterous in using, and gained the

information desired by addressing a direct inquiry to White Wolf,

through the interpreter, whether he had any squaws along. He replied by

holding up two fingers and pointing out the couple thus designated. We

tried to find, first in their features and then in their clothing, some

distinguishing characteristic but found it impossible; so that when they

changed positions an instant afterward, I was entirely at a loss to

recognize them again.

All had extremely uninviting countenances, any one of which would have

sufficed to hang three ordinary men, and a common villainy made them as

much alike as forty-six nutmegs. White Wolf alone differed in

appearance. He was stoutly built, as well as tall and straight, with

broad features, the bronze of his complexion merging almost into white,

and he smiled pleasantly and readily. The others were no more able to

smile than Satan himself, the expression which their faces assumed when

attempting it being simply diabolical. Dobeen was so startled by one

who tried that contortion on and asked for "tobac," that he retreated in

disorder from the council-chamber.

White Wolf and the more important members of his band took the chairs

proffered them, and sat in a circle, the Professor, Sachem, and two

leading citizens of Hays being sandwiched in at proper intervals. The

object of the gathering was gravely announced to be that the Indians

might smoke the pipe of peace with the towns-people. As war was a

chronic passion with these wild horsemen of the plains, none of them had

ever been near the place in friendly mood before, and the novelty of the

occasion, therefore, brought the entire population around the building.

The postmaster of Hays, Mr. Hall, had once traded among the Cheyennes

and, understanding their sign-language, acted as interpreter. This

curious race has two distinct ways of conversing--one by mouth, in a

singularly unmusical dialect, and the other by motions or signs with the

hands. The latter is that most generally understood and employed by

scouts and traders.

[Illustration: THE PIPE OF PEACE--THE PROFESSOR'S DILEMMA.]

One of the Indians now took from a sack a red-clay pipe, with a

ridiculously long bowl and longer shank, and inserted into it a

three-foot stem, profusely ornamented with brass tacks and a tassel of

painted horse hair. This was handed to White Wolf, together with a small

bag of tobacco, in which the Killikinnick leaves had been previously

crumbled and mixed. These were a bright red, evidently used for their

fragrance, as they only weakened the tobacco without adding any

particular flavor. We were struck with the Indian mode of smoking.

The chief took a few quick whiffs, emitting the fumes with a hoarse

blowing like a miniature steam-engine. He then passed it, mouth-piece

down so that the saliva might escape, and it commenced a slow journey

around the circle. When it reached our worthy professor he found himself

in a sore dilemma. No smoke had ever curled along the roof of his mouth,

or made a chimney of his geological nose. For an instant the philosopher

hesitated; then, reflecting that passing the pipe would be worse than

choking over it, the excellent man put the stem to his mouth and gave a

pull which must have filled the remotest corner of his lungs with

Killikinnick. Gasping amid the stifling cloud, it poured from both mouth

and nose, and called on the way at his stomach, which gave unmistakable

symptoms of distress. We feared that he would be forced to forsake the

council, but, with an effort worthy of the occasion and himself, he kept

his seat, and opening wide his mouth, waited patiently until the fiend

of smoke had withdrawn from his interior its trailing garments.

The council disappointed us. In White Wolf we had found as fine-looking

an Indian as ever murdered and stole upon his native continent. His

people were first in war, first to break peace, and the last to keep it,

their excuse being that the white man trespassed on their hunting

grounds. We had rather expected that burly form to rise from his seat,

and, with flashing eyes, utter then and there a flood of aboriginal

eloquence: "White man, your people live where the sun rises, ours where

it sets. When did you ever come to us hungry and be fed, or clothed and

go away so," and so on _ad infinitum_. Instead of all this there was a

tremendous smoking and grunting, more like a farmer's fumigation of hogs

than one of those pipe-of-peace councils which I had so often studied on

canvas and in books. I have often regretted since that our aborigines

can not read. If they could only learn from the white man's literature

what they ought to be, the contrast between it and what they really are

would be so violent that it might make an impression, even upon an

Indian.

For a happy mingling of lies and truth our "big talk" could hardly be

excelled. A reporter could have taken down the proceedings somewhat as

follows:

SCENE--Six Indians and as many white men in a ring. Postmaster Hall in

the center, acting as interpreter.

_Indian_--"Cheyenne love white man much (lie). Forty-six warriors all

hungry (truth). Us good Indians" (lie). And so on, alternately.

_Pale Brother_--"White man love Cheyenne. Got lots of food, but no

whisky" (the latter a lie which almost choked the speaker).

It would not interest the reader to know all the repetitions or nonsense

uttered, and we spare him the infliction of even attempting to tell him.

The Indians had for their object food, and they got it. The whites had

for their object permanent peace, and did not get it.

[Illustration: _BUREAU OF ILLUSTRATION BUFFALO_

WHITE WOLF AT HOME.

"The red man is noble, big injun is me."]

In due time the council broke up, and in an incredibly short time

thereafter many of the Indians were reeling drunk. That White Wolf

did not become equally so was owing altogether to his being a man of

iron constitution. Any thing but metal, it seemed to me, must have been

burnt out by the fiery draughts which we saw the noble chief take down.

A tin cupful of "whisk," such as would have made the cork in a bottle

tight, was tossed off without a wink.

Sachem, who took notes, rendered White Wolf's speech at the council in

verse, as follows:

White brother, have pity; the White Wolf is poor,

The skin of his belly is shrunk to his back;

A gallon of whisky is good for a cure,

If followed by plenty of "bacon and tack."

The red man is noble, big Injun is me:

Like berries all crimson and ready to pick,

The scalps on my pole are a heap good to see--

Good medicine they when poor Injun is sick.

The red man is truth, and the white one is lies;

The first suffers wrong at hand of the other;

The way they skin us is good for sore eyes,

The way we skin them astonishing, rather.

They rob us of guns and offer us plows,

And tell us to farm it, to go into corn;

We're good to raise hair, and good to raise rows,

And good to raise essence of corn--in a horn.

Go back to your cities and leave us our home,

Or off with your scalp and that remnant of shirt;

Go, let the poor Injun in happiness roam,

And live on his buffalo, puppies, and dirt.

Two or three of the Indians mounted their ponies and took a race through

the streets. The animals were thin, despondent brutes, but as wiry as if

their hides were stuffed, like patent mattresses, full of springs. The

Indians, as is their universal custom, mounted from the right side,

instead of the left as we do. At the lower end of the street they got as

nearly in line as their inebriated condition would permit, and when the

word was given set off toward us with frightful shouts, which made the

ponies scamper like so many frightened cats.

The animal which came out ahead had no rider to claim the honors, that

blanketed jockey having fallen off midway. He was now sitting on his

hams, looking the wrong way down the track, and evidently adding up the

"book" which he had made for the race. As he soon arose, with a

dissatisfied grunt, we thought his figures probably read about as

follows:

Given--A gallon of Hays whisky in the saddle, and a race-horse under it.

Endeavor to divide the latter by a rawhide whip, and the result is a

sore-headed Indian, who stands forfeit to his peers for "the drinks."

As we wandered back to the council-chamber, the scene there had changed

somewhat. White Wolf had been transformed into a cavalry colonel, and

was strutting around with two gilt eagles on his broad shoulders,

looking fully as important as many a real colonel whom we have caught in

his pin feathers and, withal, much more of the hero. Our warrior had

seen some of the officers from the fort strolling around, and

straightway fell to coveting his neighbors' straps, which observing,

Sachem at once purchased from a store the emblems of power and pinned

them upon him. He whispered to us that when White Wolf took his first

step as a colonel, it had been accompanied by a snort of pain, the

unlucky slipping of a pin having evidently conveyed to the chief the

idea that one of the eagles had grasped his shoulder in its talons.

The chief modestly requested similar honors for his "papoose," and that

individual was treated to the straps of a captain. A different

application of strap, it occurred to me, would have seemed more proper

upon the six feet of unpromising humanity which appeared above the

"papoose's" moccasins.

It had been a matter of surprise to us how the Indians could make such

inferior looking stock as theirs capable of such speed and extraordinary

journeys; but it ceased to excite our wonder after an examination of

their whips. These ingenious instruments of torture have handles, which

in form and size resemble a policeman's club. To one end are attached

some thongs of thick leather, half a yard in length, and to the other a

loop of the same material, just large enough to go over the hand and

bind slightly on the wrist. Dangling from the latter, the handle can be

instantly grasped, and the body of thongs brought down on the pony's

skin, with a crack like a flail on the sheaves, and the result is what

Sachem called an astonishing "shelling out" of speed.

We explained to White Wolf that Tammany Sachem was one of many great

chiefs who had a mighty wigwam in the big city of the pale-faces, far

away toward the rising sun; that they were all good men, and never lied

like the chiefs of the Cheyennes, or took any thing belonging to others;

and that their women, instead of carrying heavy burdens, spent all their

time in distributing the money and goods of the big wigwam to the needy.

White Wolf signified, through the interpreter, that such a wigwam was

too good for earth, and ought to be pitched on the happy hunting grounds

as soon as possible.

Sachem thought the savage meant to be sarcastic.

CHAPTER XII.

ARMS OF A WAR PARTY--A DONKEY PRESENT--EATING POWERS OF THE

NOMADS--SATANTA, HIS CRIMES AND PUNISHMENT--RUNNING OFF WITH A

GOVERNMENT HERD--DAUB, OUR ARTIST--ANTELOPE CHASE BY A GREYHOUND.

At our request White Wolf and two of his braves gave us a display of

their skill--or rather, their strength--in the use of their bows,

shooting their arrows at a stake sixty yards off. The efforts were what

would be called good "line shots," although missing the slender stick.

We then essayed a trial with the chief's bow, which was an exceedingly

stout hickory wrapped in sinew, but we found that more practiced

strength than ours was required even to bend it. Some amusement was

created when the first of our party took up the bow, by the haste with

which a small and unusually ugly Indian retreated from the foreground as

if fearing that an arrow might be accidentally sent through his blanket.

Among the stock which the savages had brought with them was a

long-eared, diminutive brute, scarcely higher than a table, and

apparently forming the connecting link between a jackass rabbit and a

donkey. This animal White Wolf seemed extremely anxious to present to

the Professor, but it was politely declined, by the advice of the

interpreter, who explained to us that a return gift of the donkey's

weight in sugar and coffee would be expected. Notwithstanding the

stringency of the law forbidding the sale of whisky and ammunitions to

the Indians, the savages found little difficulty in filling themselves

with fire-water, and also got a little powder. White Wolf went off with

his pocket full of cartridges in exchange for some Indian commodities,

but the cunning pale face rendered them of little value by selecting

ammunition a size too small for the gun.

The eating powers of these nomads are marvelous. We saw the chief,

inside of two hours, devour three hearty dinners, one of which was

gotten up from our own larder and was both good and plentiful. As he did

full justice to every invitation to eat and drink, we concluded that he

would continue to accept during the whole afternoon, if the opportunity

were only offered him. What a capital minister to England was here

wasting his gastric juices on the desert air! If Great Britain should

continue her hesitation to digest our Alabama claims, the wolf at their

door would digest enough roast beef to bring them to terms or

starvation. Sugar, coffee, spices, pickles, sardines, ham, and many

another luxury of civilization, were alike welcome at the capacious

portal of the untutored savage. Dobeen discovered him eating a can of

our condensed milk under the impression that it was a sweet porridge.

Their entertainment at the town being concluded, the Indians were

conducted over to the fort and some rations given them. They manifested

an especial fondness for sugar, but took any thing they could get, their

ponies proving capable of carrying an unlimited number of sacks. It

seemed as difficult to overload these animals as it is a Broadway

omnibus; and their riders, perhaps in order to avoid being top heavy,

took freight for the inside whenever opportunity offered. As they came

back through the town, we all turned out to see them off. The band

promised us peace, notwithstanding which it was no small satisfaction to

discover that they were poorly armed. Bows and arrows were the only

weapons which all possessed, and while a few had revolvers, the chief

alone sported a rifle, a rusty-looking old breech-loader.

As our late cavalry escort rode off, their attitudes plainly bespoke

that they had been raiding upon more than the flesh-pots of Egypt. Sons

of the sandy-complexioned desert, we saw several of them kiss their

mother before they got out of sight. The most serious question with us

now was whether or not these red gormandizers had been uttering peace

notes not properly indorsed by their hearts. The trouble is that when

one discovers a circulation of this kind, his own ceases about the same

instant, and his bones become a fixed investment in the fertile soil of

the plains.

One of the officers of the fort told us an amusing instance of the

impudent treachery of which the western Indians of to-day are sometimes

guilty. A year or two before, when Hancock commanded the Department and

was encamped near Fort Dodge, on the Arkansas, Satanta and his band of

Kiowas came in. This chief has always been known as very hostile to the

whites, usually being the first of his tribe to commence hostilities. He

was the very embodiment of treachery, ferocity, and bravado.

Phrenologically considered, his head must have been a cranial marvel,

and the bumps on it mapping out the kingdom of evil a sort of Rocky

Mountain chain towering over the more peaceful valleys around. Viewed

from the towering peaks of combativeness and acquisitiveness the

territory of his past would reveal to the phrenologist an untold number

of government mules, fenced in by sutler's stores, while bending over

the bloody trail leading back almost to his bark cradle, would be the

shades of many mothers and wives, searching among the wrecks of emigrant

trains for flesh of their flesh and bone of their bone.

Satanta was long a name on the plains to hate and abhor. He was an

abject beggar in the pale faces' camp and a demon on their trail. On the

occasion in question he came to Gen. Hancock with protestations of

friendship, and, although these were not believed, he was treated

precisely as if they had been. To gratify his love of finery an old

military coat with general's stars, said to be one that Hancock himself

had cast off, was presented him. By some means he also acquired a bugle,

and the garrison were greatly amused for the remainder of the day by

seeing Satanta galloping back and forth before his band, blowing his

bugle and parading his coat, the warriors all cheering the old

cut-throat and proud as himself of the display. The way he handled that

bugle, however, before the next morning was by no means so amusing.

Some time before dawn the sleepy garrison were aroused by the thunders

of a stock stampede, and out of the darkness came the clatter of hoofs,

as Satanta and his band departed for the south with a goodly herd of

government mules and horses. Pursuit was commenced at once, with the

hope of cutting them off before they could get the stock across the

Arkansas, then somewhat swollen. Just as the troops reached the bank of

that stream, a major-general's uniform was seen going out of the water

upon the other side. Notwithstanding its high rank fire was instantly

opened upon it, but ineffectually. The savage turned a moment, blew a

shrill, defiant blast upon his bugle, and galloped off in safety. Too

much promotion made him mad. As a simple chief, he might have stolen

some straggling teams; as a major-general, he appropriated a whole herd.

During the next eighteen months, Satanta had several encounters with the

troops, generally wearing the major-general's coat and blowing his

bugle. His last exploit, which brought the long hesitating sword of

justice upon his head, is too fresh and too painful to be soon

forgotten. A few months ago the savage chief was living with his people

on a reserve in the Indian Territory and being fed by the government.

Gathering a few of his warriors he stole forth, and, crossing the Texas

border, surprised a wagon train, murdered the teamsters, and drove off

the mules. Fortunately, Gen. Sherman, in his examination of frontier

posts, happened to be near the scene of murder, and at once ordered

troops in pursuit. They were still trailing the marauders when Satanta

returned to the reservation at Fort Sill, and with bold effrontery

begotten of long immunity, actually boasted of the crime before the

Quaker agent. "I did it," said he, "and if any other chief says it was

him, tell him he lies. I am the man." Gen. Sherman had just arrived, and

when Satanta, with a number of minor chiefs who were with him on the

raid, came into the fort to trade and visit, they were seized and bound,

and started for Texas under a strong guard, to be tried by the

authorities there. On the way one of the Indians in some manner loosened

his bands, and seizing the musket of the guard nearest him, shot the

soldier in the shoulder, but before he could do further harm the other

guards fired, and the savage rolled from the wagon down upon the plain,

apparently dead. The body was afterward found close by the road-side in

a position which showed that after falling the savage had enough of

vitality left to enable him to crawl with bloody hands for several

yards. Finding the life-tide ebbing fast, he had then placed his body in

position toward the rising sun, composed his arms by his side and, with

Indian stoicism, yielded up his breath. The remainder of the party,

including Satanta, were brought safely to Texas, tried, and sentenced to

be hanged.

Our adventure with White Wolf and his band obliged us, of course, to

pass another night in Hays. We spent a most pleasant hour during the

evening in the office of Dr. John Moore, an old resident of Plattsburg,

N. Y., who assisted us materially in selecting medical stores, and who

by his genial disposition endeared himself to our entire party, so that

when we heard of his sad fate soon afterward, it seemed as if death had

crouched by our own camp-fire. Should the Indians become troublesome,

there was some talk at the fort, he now informed us, of organizing a

company for operations against them, composed of buffalo hunters and

scouts under the lead of regular officers, and in this case it was his

purpose to accompany it in the capacity of a surgeon. As good guns were

difficult to obtain there, and we had some extra weapons, one of our

party loaned the doctor an improved Henry rifle and holster revolvers.

Before we again heard of him, he had crossed that shadowy line which

winds between the tombs and habitations of men, and his name was added

to the drearily long list which bears for its heading--"Killed by

Indians."

Commencing with those first entries after the Mayflower introduced our

fathers to savage audience, and chiseling separately each name on a

marble milestone, the white witnesses would girdle the earth.

Sunrise next morning saw us again moving northward, fully determined

that no body of Indians, unless comprising the whole Cheyenne nation,

should force us back again. We had met the red man on his native heath

and familiarity had bred contempt. All were in excellent spirits and

felt the braver, perhaps, because our late visitors had assured us that

their tribe was on the war-path against the Pawnees, and meant only

peace with the whites.

Our party left Hays the second time with quite an acquisition. On the

eve of starting we had been approached by an artist, who begged

permission to accompany us. We assented on the instant. An artist was,

of all others, the thing we needed. How interesting it would be to have

the thrilling incidents of the coming months sketched by our artist on

the spot. "Daub" was a fine-looking fellow, with peaked hat, peaked

beard, and peaked mustache; in short, was of the genuine artist cut, of

the kind that are always sitting around on the stones in romantic places

and getting married to heiresses.

During the day we saw many varieties of the cactus, some of them very

beautiful. As we had no regular botanist with our expedition, Mr. Colon

developed a taste in that direction, and secured and deposited several

fine specimens which were carefully laid away in Shamus' wagon. It was

not long before that excellent Irishman gave a prolonged howl, the cause

of which he did not vouchsafe to tell us, but as we saw him cautiously

rubbing his pantaloons we surmised that he had rolled or sat down upon a

choice variety. The remainder of the plants he must, with still greater

caution, have dropped overboard, as none could subsequently be found for

boxing. If the truth must be said, I was not at all sorry for it. I had

lent a hand in obtaining an unusually large cactus, but the loan was

returned in such damaged condition that I lost all interest at once. The

minute needles which nature has scattered over these plants will pierce

a glove readily, and burrow in the flesh like trichina. The cactus may

be set down as Dame Nature's pin-cushions.

Endless prairie-dog villages covered the country, and occasionally

cayotes, about the size of setters, with brushy, fox-like tails, started

out of ravines and ran off with a hang-dog sort of look, stopping

occasionally to see if they were being pursued. Our guide ran one of

these down with his horse and it was almost with sympathy that we

watched the tired wolf, when he found running useless, dodging between

the horse's legs, rendering the rider's aim false. It was finally

dispatched by a greyhound. The latter deserved his name only from

courtesy of species, as his color was inky black. He belonged to one of

our hostlers, who got him from a Mexican train-master, and was a

wonderful fighter. I saw him afterward in combats with not only the

cayote, but the large timber wolf, and in every instance he came off the

victor. On one occasion, I remember, he whipped the combined curs of a

railroad tie camp, making every antagonist take to his heels. Very

nearly as high as a table, with powerful chest and immense spring, the

hound's movements were like flashes of light. He danced round and over

his foe, his fangs clicking like a steel trap, first on one side and now

on the other, and again, ere his enemy had closed its jaws on the shadow

in front, he was at the rear. I have seen a gray wolf bleeding and

helpless, and the hound untouched, after a half hour's combat.

On the north fork of Big Creek we frightened a dozen antelopes out of

the brakes, and had a fine opportunity of witnessing a chase by the

hound which alone was worth a journey to the plains to see. I remember

having been very much interested, when a boy, in reading accounts of

gazelle hunting in the Orient, where hawks and dogs are both used. The

former pounce down from the air on the fleet-footed victim's head,

compelling it to stop every few moments to shake its unwelcome passenger

off, and the dogs are thus enabled to overtake it. This always seemed to

me a cowardly sort of sport. The harmless victim of the chase, who can

not touch the earth without its turning tell-tale to the keen-scented

pursuer, should not be robbed of his only refuge, speed, or the pursuit

becomes butchery.

The American antelope upon our plains is what the gazelle is upon those

of Africa. Timid and fleet, it often detects and avoids danger to which

its powerful neighbor, the buffalo, falls a victim. The group which we

had frightened bounded away with an elasticity as if nature had

furnished them hoofs and joints of rubber. There was no apparent effort

in their motion, and we imagined larger powers in reserve than really

existed. As the greyhound slowly gained upon them, we noticed this, and

the Professor thereupon delivered what Sachem aptly styled a running

discourse.

"Gentlemen, poetry of motion, perhaps by poetical license, gives

exaggerated ideas of force. A smooth-running engine, though taxed to its

utmost capacity, seems capable of accomplishing more, while its wheezing

neighbor, groaning and straining as if on the verge of dissolution, has

abundant powers in reserve. Some Hercules may lift a weight on which a

straw more would seem to him large enough to sustain the traditional

drowning man. The feat marks itself by a life-long backache, but, if he

has performed it gracefully, he bears with it a reputation for a

fabulous reserve of power, the exhibition seeming but the safety valve

to his supposed giant forces struggling for expression."

Our learned friend seldom found us less attentive than then. All the

wagons were stopped, and from every elevation upon them we looked out

over the solitudes at the race going on before us. Pursuer and pursued

were pitting against each other the same quality--speed. There was no

lying in ambush or taking unawares. The fleetest-footed of game was

flying before the swiftest of dogs. There could be no trailing, as these

hounds run only by sight. What a straining of muscles! The low ridge

barely lifting the animals against the horizon, their legs, from

rapidity of motion, were invisible, and the bodies, for a short space,

seemed floating in air. It was one short, black line, running rapidly

into twelve gray ones, these latter resolving occasionally into as many

balls of white cotton, when the puffy, rabbit-like tails of the

antelopes were turned toward us. Two of the best mounted horsemen from

our party had started with the chase, but seemed scarcely moving, so

rapidly were they left behind.

Twice we thought the hound had closed, but instantly succeeding views

showed daylight still between, although the narrow strip was being

blotted out with the same regular certainty with which the dark slide of

the magic lantern seizes the figures on the wall. Down into a ravine,

and out of sight they passed, and we were fearing the _finale_ would be

hidden, when they came into view on the opposite side and pressed up the

bank. The bounds of the hound were magnificent, and we all gave a cry of

admiration, as with a splendid effort he launched himself like a black

ball upon the herd. In an instant after we saw him hurled back and

taking a very unvictor-like roll down the hill. He quickly recovered,

however, and fastened on an antelope which seemed lagging behind. His

first selection, the leader of the herd, had proved an unfortunate one,

and he bore a bruise for some time where the buck had struck him with

his horns.

The second seizure turned out to be a doe, and was quite dead when we

reached it. The victor was lying along side, looking very much as if one

antelope hunt a day was sufficient for even a greyhound. We noticed that

the hair was rubbed off from the doe's sides by its struggles, and on

passing our hands over the neck found that its coarse coat parted from

the skin at a slight touch. This peculiarity in the antelope is very

marked. In a subsequent hunt I once saw a wounded buck plunge forward,

roll along the ground for a few feet, and then run off with the bare

skin along his entire side showing just where he had struck the earth.

One of our party produced a knife, and the animal was bled and the

entrails taken out. We seemed destined to have a mishap with every

adventure, and had already learned to expect such sequences, the only

question being whose turn should come next. This time it proved to be

Semi-Colon's. We were a mile from the wagons, and Semi's horse, being

considered the most thoroughly broken, was nominated to bear the game to

them. To this proceeding Cynocephalus seemed in nowise indisposed,

quietly submitting to the management of one of the hostlers and our

guide, as they lashed the antelope across his back, securing it to the

rear of the large Texas saddle with the powerful straps which always

hang there for purposes of this kind. This accomplished, Semi climbed

into the saddle, gave a click and a kick, and set his steed in motion.

That eccentric assemblage of bones made one spasmodic step forward,

which brought the bloody, hairy carcass with a swing against his loins.

What a change that touch produced! Those wasted nostrils emitted a

terrific snort, the stiff stump-tail jerked upward like the lever of a

locomotive, and with a dart Cynocephalus was off across the plains. He

probably imagined that some beast of prey had coveted his spare-ribs,

and was whetting its teeth on the vantage-ground of his backbone.

Occasionally the frightened animal would slack up and indulge in a fit

of kicking, looking back meanwhile with terror at the object fastened

upon his hide, then plunge frantically forward again. The antelope stuck

to the saddle for some time, but not so Semi-Colon. The first of these

irregular proceedings caused that young man, as Sachem expressed it, "to

get off upon his head." Cynocephalus finally burst his saddle-girths,

and we were obliged to furnish other transportation for our game.

Let me say, _en passant_, that I am trying to chronicle minutely the

events which befel our half-scientific, half-sporting, and somewhat

incongruous party on its trip through Buffalo Land; and, although my

readers may think us particularly unfortunate, we really suffered no

more than amateurs usually do. My object is to set up guide boards at

the dangerous places, that other travelers may avoid the pitfalls and

the perils into which we fell. And to every amateur hunter we beg to

offer this advice: Never tie dead game upon a strange horse unless you

owe the rider a grudge.

"Young men," said the Doctor, from his saddle, "you have seen a

beautiful illustration in the theory of development. The hound and the

antelope may have been originally an oyster and a worm. From their first

slow motion, when one only opened its jaws to seize the other, they have

progressed until the speed of to-day results. Should the hound ever

become wild, and pursuit and flight change to an every-day matter

instead of a holiday-sport, development would still continue. A

giraffe-like antelope, with the speed of the wind, would fly before a

hound the size of a stag." The Doctor's "clinic," as Sachem called it,

was suddenly cut short at this point by a struggle for mastery between

himself and the human spirit concealed in his horse.

"How much," exclaimed the Professor, when Pythagoras had at length come

off triumphant, and we again moved forward--"How much the race that we

have witnessed is like that we all run. Powerful and eager as the

greyhound, man sees flying before him, on the plain of life, an object

which he thirsts to grasp. Taxing every muscle in pursuit, panting after

it over the smooth country below the 40th mile-post, he crosses there

the ravine where rheumatism and straggling gray hairs lurk, and with

these clinging to him, starts up the hill of later life. Half-way to its

summit, on which the three-score stone marking the down-hill grade looks

uncomfortably like that over a tomb, he seizes the object of pursuit

only to be flung back by it bruised. If of the proper metal, he falls

but to rise again, and should the first wish be out of reach, fastens on

one of its companions. There is where blood tells. If the least taint of

cur is in it the first blow sends its recipient yelling to his kennel,

there to whine for the remainder of life over bruised ribs."

Muggs thought a single toss was sufficient, and retreat then only

prudence. If the bones on one side were broken, he saw no reason to

expose the other. Dying successful was only procuring meat for others to

enjoy.

The Professor was developing a remarkable talent for finding not only

the stones of the past written all over with a wonderful and

translatable history, but also the moral connected with each incident of

our journey. Had any of us broken our necks he would doubtless have

improved the occasion to draw a comparison and have made it the text of

a philosophic disquisition.

CHAPTER XIII.

CHARACTER OF THE PLAINS--BUFFALO BILL AND HIS HORSE BRIGHAM--THE

GUIDE AND SCOUT OF ROMANCE--CAYOTE VERSUS JACKASS-RABBIT--A

LAWYER-LIKE RESCUE--OUR CAMP ON SILVER CREEK--UNCLE SAM'S BUFFALO

HERDS--TURKEY SHOOTING--OUR FIRST MEAL ON THE PLAINS--A GAME

SUPPER.

Our trail was taking us west of north, and we expected to reach the

Saline about dusk and there encamp. The same strange evenness of country

surrounded us. Over its surface, smooth and firm as a race track, we

could drive a wagon or gallop a horse in any direction. Even the Bedouin

has no such field for cavalry practice--his footing being shifting sand,

while ours was the compact buffalo grass, so short that its existence at

all could scarcely have been detected a few yards away. Sachem said he

could think of no such cavalry field except that of his boyhood, when he

slipped into the parlor and pranced his rocking-horse over the soft

carpet; with which memory, he added, was coupled another, to the effect

that while thus skirmishing on dangerous ground, his cavalry was

attacked from the rear by heavy infantry and badly cut up.

Numerous buffalo trails crossed our path, running invariably north and

south. This is caused by the animals feeding from one stream to another,

the water courses following the dip of the country's surface from west

to east. Wallows were also very numerous, and we noticed as a

peculiarity of these, as well as the paths, that the grass killed by

treading and rolling does not renew itself when the spots are abandoned.

More than once on the Grand Prairie of Illinois I have seen these

wallows, made before the knowledge of the white man, still remaining

destitute of grass.

An old bull who has been rolling when the wallow is muddy, is an

interesting object. The clay plastered over and tangled in his shaggy

coat bakes in the sun very nearly white; and this it was, probably, that

gave rise to the early traditions of white buffalo.

Wherever on our route the rock cropped out along creeks or in ravines,

it was the white magnesia limestone, and so soft as to be easily cut.

Further west alternate pink and white veins occur, giving the stone a

very beautiful appearance. We frequently found on the rocks and in the

ravines deposits of very perfect shells, apparently those of oysters.

Sachem suggested that they marked the location of pre-historic

restaurants--the Delmonicos of the olden time, say fifty thousand years

before the Pharaohs were born. He thought it possible that some future

quarry-man might blast out an oyster-knife and money pot of quaint

coins.

Muggs thought this patch of our continent resembled Australia--"Not that

it is as rich, you know, but there's so much of it." He even became

enthusiastic enough to affirm that the land might be made profitable,

"if some Hinglish sheep and 'eifers were put on it, you see."

The Professor assured us that the country around was equal to the plains

of Lombardy in point of fertility, and as the soil was of great depth,

and rich in the proper mineral properties, it would undoubtedly become

before 1890 the great wheat-producing region of the world.

Our party fell into silence again, and, having nothing else to interest

me at the moment, I resumed my study, which this episode had

interrupted, of Buffalo Bill, our guide. Athletic and shrewd, he rode

ahead of us with sinews of iron and eye ever on the alert, clad in a

suit of buckskin. His mount was a tough roan pony which he had named

Brigham and of which he seemed very fond. Nevertheless, this fondness

did not prevent hard riding, and when I last saw Brigham, several months

afterward, he was a very sorry-looking animal, insomuch that I concluded

not to have his photograph taken as that of a model steed for Buffalo

Land, as I once contemplated doing.

It was extremely fortunate for us that we had secured Cody as guide. The

whole western country bordering on the plains, as we afterward learned,

from sorry experience, is infested with numberless charlatans, blazing

with all sorts of hunting and fighting titles, and ready at the rustle

of greenbacks to act as guides through a land they know nothing about.

These reprobates delight in telling thrilling tales of their escapes

from Indians, and are constantly chilling the blood of their shivering

party by pointing out spots where imaginary murders took place. Without

compasses they would be as hopelessly lost as needleless mariners. I

have my doubts if one-third of these terribly named bullies could tell,

on a pinch, where the north star is. Unless they chanced to strike one

of the Pacific lines which stretch across the plains, a party, under

their guidance, wishing to go west would be equally liable to get among

the Northern Siouxs or the Ku-Klux of Arkansas.

A thousand miles east Young America's cherished ideal of the frontier

scout and guide is an eagle-eyed giant, with a horse which obeys his

whistle, and breaks the neck of any Indian trying to steal him. In

addition to its wonderful master, the back of this model steed is

usually occupied by a rescued maiden. At risk of infringing on the

copyrights of thirty-six thousand of the latest Indian stories, we have

obtained from an artist on the spot an illustration of the last heroine

brought in and her rescuer, the rare old plainsman.[1]

[1] See illustration on page 137.

Cody had all the frontiersman's fondness for practical jokes, and

delighted in designating Mr. Colon as "Mr. Boston," as if accidentally

confounding the residence with the name. In one instance, with a cry of

"Come, Mr. Boston, here's a specimen!" he enticed the philanthropist

into the eager pursuit of a beautiful little animal through some rank

bottom grass, and brought the good man back in such a condition that we

unanimously insisted on his traveling to leeward for the rest of the

day.

While we thus journeyed, and, in traditional traveler's style, mused and

pondered, Shamus came running back to say that we were wanted in front.

"Such a goin' on in the ravine beyant as bates a witch's dance all

holly!" We saw that the forward wagons had halted and the men were

peering cautiously over the edge of the highland into the valley of

Silver Creek, which stream wound along below, entirely out of sight

until one came directly upon it. In this lonely land, the pages of whose

history Time had so often turned with bloody fingers, an event slight as

even this was startling. That hollow in the plain before us seemed to

yawn, as if awaking in sleepy horrors, and we noticed a general

tightening of reins and rattling of spurs. This maneuver was executed to

prevent our horses running away again and thus rendering us incapable of

supporting our advanced guard. If savages were around, our provisions

must be protected, and we at once dismounted and scattered among the

teams in such a way as to offer the most successful defense.

Our fears were groundless. In a few moments Cody came galloping back on

Brigham, and said briefly that we should lose a fine lesson in natural

history unless we hurried to the front. Truth compels me to say that we

did not hanker after a close acquaintance with Lo on the rampage; yet we

did earnestly desire to improve every opportunity of studying the other

inhabitants of the plains, and a few moments accordingly found our whole

party peering over the edge of the bluff into the valley below.

[Illustration: THE WILD DENIZENS OF THE PLAINS.]

There, on a patch of bottom grass, half a dozen elk were feeding; a

short distance away, a small herd of wild horses drank from the brook;

while in a ravine immediately in front of us, three cayotes were

attempting to capture a jackass-rabbit. What a wealth of animal life

this valley had opened to us. From our own level the table-lands

stretched away in all directions until striking its grassy waves

against the horizon, with not a shrub, tree, or beast to relieve the

clearly-cut outlines. Casting our eyes upward, the bright blue sky,

clear of every vestige of clouds, arched down until resting on our

prairie floor, and not even a bird soared in the air to charm the

profound space with the eloquence of life. Casting our eyes downward,

the earth was all astir with the activity of its brute creation.

Before we could make any effort at capture, the elk and horses winded us

and fled away toward the opposite ridges, where stalking them would have

been exceedingly difficult, if not impossible. Leading the mustangs was

a large black stallion, which kept its position by pacing while the

others ran. Buffalo Bill said this was an escaped American horse which

had fled to solitude with the rider's blood upon his saddle. We noted

the statement as one for future elucidation at our camp-fire. The rabbit

chase in the ravine continued, and we watched it unseen for several

minutes. The wolves were endeavoring to surround their victim, and cut

in ahead of it whenever he attempted to get out of the ravine. Although

such odds were against him, the rabbit had thus far succeeded by

superior speed and quick dodging in evading his enemies; but escape was

hopeless, as he was hemmed in and becoming exhausted. These tireless

wolves, cowardly creatures though they are, might worry to death an

elephant. A few shots terminated this scene, driving off the wolves, but

killing the rabbit for whose protection they were fired. The Professor

remarked that this was like a lawyer's rescue. He sometimes frightens

away the persecutors, but the charges generally kill the client.

For the benefit of those of my readers who have never seen a member of

that unfortunate rabbit family which has been christened by such a

humiliating given name, I would state that the species is remarkable for

its very long ears, and very long legs. If the reader, being a married

man, desires a pictorial representation of this animal, let him draw a

donkey a foot high on the wall, and if his wife does not interrupt by

drawing a broomstick, he may be satisfied that his work is well done,

and a life-size jackass-rabbit will stand out before him.