COLLEGE VACATIONS.
During one of the spring terms, when the birds taunted Chiquita with
their freedom, Jack and Hazel proposed, during the recess of two weeks,
that they all take a trip to the Indian Territory and visit the
Cherokees, Kiowas and Comanches, among whose tribes were many relatives
of Chiquita. Over a rough and dusty roadbed rolled a long train of
coaches bearing tourists, farmseekers and business men through banks of
smoke and clouds of cinders to the great farming lands of the west. At
Coffeyville Jack disembarked his party and in a comfortable "buckboard"
continued the journey. A couple of miles of dusty road between
sweltering hedges of osage orange led them to the boundary of the Indian
Territory. Along this in a never varying line for a hundred miles on the
north side stretched farm after farm, divided from the highway and each
other by thousands of miles of wire fencing. Bare cornfields and
treeless wastes spread forth uninviting landscape, marked at intervals
with the houses of the ambitious ranchmen, who, by preoccupation or
purchase, obtained title to the soil. Alkali dust smarted the nostrils,
and the glare of the noonday sun scorched the faces of travelers.
Plowmen, making ready for the season's planting, rested their teams as
the pleasure seekers stopped to inquire the road to California Creek.
To the south of the highway rolled a grass-covered prairie that seemed a
great poly-chromed rug of velvet. The hand of man had not chiseled the
virgin soil with plowshare, nor riveted its surface with post and rail.
A well defined road led zigzag over its undulating bosom until the
hideous regularity of section lines disappeared behind a friendly
stretch of upland. Cottonwood, elm and oak became frequent as they
entered the valley of the Verdigris and great stretches of forest-dotted
park enchanted the eye and gave rest to tiresome monotony of treeless
plain. Occasionally an unpretentious, unpainted shanty gave evidence of
man, and inquiry proved it to be the abiding place of one of the
precivilized occupants of unfettered expanse of the American continent,
the other a "squaw man," who had made matrimonial alliance with the
partially civilized companion.
"Jack," said Chiquita, after the inspection of one of these abodes of an
Indian, who had adopted some of the ways and customs of his white
brethren, "Cherokee once big Indian, now half man, half coyote; little
plow, little hunt, little eat--little good," and she curled her lip in
disdain as she contemplated the work of onwardness. Continuing the
conversation in the more polished language of a college student, "Did
not the Great Spirit, the one God of the Indians, put his people here in
this paradise--this continent of flower-carpeted, forest-grown hills and
vales, a people noble in thought, noble in dignified demeanor, with a
belief in a religion simple and effective? Among Indians are no infidels
or agnostics. All Indians believe in the Happy Hunting Ground and the
Great Spirit. Do you know, Jack, of any country where the native race,
indigenous to the land, compare with the noble red man as he was when
the first white settlers occupied America?"
"Possibly the Arabs or early Egyptians might compare more favorably than
any other nation that I know of," Jack replied.
"Yes, but Egypt and Arabia are of today, whereas the Indians are wards
of a great government, and your government has condemned the Indian to a
worse Siberia than that to which Nihilist was ever transported. Look;
there is a specimen of what a civilized government does to a native-born
American," pointing to a "half-breed" trying to plow with one steer
harnessed up like a horse.
"Hello!" Jack sang out to the man thus referred to.
As the buckboard stopped a few rods from the shack, called a "hoos," the
individual addressed pulled at his galluses and hat, then walked over to
the fence, which enclosed fifty acres of newly plowed ground, said,
"How?" and stood gaping at the travelers.
"Good morning," cheerily said Jack. "We are on our way to Pryor Creek
and then want to go into the Kiowa Reservation. Can you tell us anything
about the road?"
"Waal, I reckon yes. It's good goin' 'til yer git to the Verdigris. Thet
nigh ho'se (meaning horse, pronounced with long o and aspirate s) uster
belong to the 'Lazy L' outfit."
The answer was given in a drawling, sing-song tone, with full rests
between every third word, when the speaker stopped to pick up a stick to
whittle, to halloo at his steer or to show how straight he could
expectorate a small freshet of tobacco juice between his teeth at some
real or imaginary mark. His skin was a dirty soot color, and his raven
black eyes and straight hair emphasized his ghastly pallor. He was tall
and thin--built on the Arkansas plan of constructing ladders. His hips
and shoulder blades seemed to meet, giving his long, lank legs the
appearance of a man's head on jointed stilts. Jack made no reply to the
remark about the horse with the "Lazy L" brand, but inquired the
distance to the Verdigris.
"It's quite a patch. I reckon yer mought hev some 'navy' about yer
close; jess the same if yer moughten--thanks."
Jack had learned that a plug of tobacco had "open sesame" qualities
among certain species of human beings, and in his war bag were several
pounds cut into goodly sized pocket pieces. One of them he handed to the
"half-breed," who tore off a corner with his teeth, absentmindedly
putting the rest in his pocket. The "tip" had the desired effect, for
"Ladder Legs" recounted in the drawl of the Cherokee half-breeds, with
its characteristic aspirating, all the crooks, turns, fords and
distances to the Kiowa Reservation. In response to Jack's inquiry
regarding the limited cultivation of the land so near the Kansas border,
"Ladder Legs" vouchsafed this information:
"A 'squaw man' has little ambition, and a half-breed none. The
environments of Indian life make a 'States' man dejected and he soon
outgrows the infant ambition which prompted him to marry a squaw that he
might 'take up' land in the territory. A white man cannot live on the
Indians' ground except he marries a squaw or the daughter of a man who
has had tribal rights conferred upon him; then he becomes an Indian and
can have a fifty-acre pasture fenced, all the land he will cultivate,
and the 'range' for his stock to feed upon. You see that bend in the
river? Waal, a white man from the States married the widow of a
well-to-do Cherokee half-breed. He is educated and has grown-up
daughters almost as white as you be, and a nice house well furnished,
and he rents out a part of his land on shares to some 'niggers,' or
half-breeds, and they cultivate all the land he can put under fence.
Some day when this land is allotted he will own an immense tract."
"How about the range you spoke of?" asked Jack.
"The cattlemen up in the States supply a bunch of cattle to some
ranchman having a good range or lots of open country, well watered,
around his house. Probably the man has a lot of corn and wants to feed
the cattle over winter and take profit in so much increase of beef,
pound for pound, that these cattle gain. Nearly all of the ranchmen have
hogs to run with the cattle, so there is another source from which a
return is anticipated. Pays, did you ask? Sure; all get rich who will
work. But over there on California Creek was a young fellow who had a
snap of it if ever a man did. This young fellow married the daughter of
an Indian missionary, a preacher from up in Kansas, who rewrote the real
Bible in the Cherokee dialect, for which the tribe made him a
full-blooded Indian, as far as any rights in the nation were concerned.
After they were married they came down here with their fine duds and
bought a ranch over on the creek of a full-blood Cherokee. He lived
there about four years. He had friends up in one of the Missouri towns
in the livestock commission business and they had all kinds of cattle.
They started the young fellow with four thousand fine steers in the
spring, and told him to raise some corn for the next winter and feed the
first lot on the range, then they would send in another bunch for winter
care. Them there cattle drifted all the way to Texas, and do you suppose
the lazy dude would try to round 'em up? No, sirree. He was just too
nice. His hands were so soft he couldn't get a calf to the brandin' post
in a corral, let alone rope a steer and brand him in the open country.
The folks came down on him and he lost the ranch. His wife died and he
went to Honduras, or the Philippines, or somewhere. But this yere land
is all goin' to be allotted some day and then it is good-by to the
freedom which we get here now. Yes, civilization kicks up a heap of
dust. Good-by; stop and see me if you come back this way. Adios."
Chiquita seemed amazed to hear that an educated man from the civilized
States would let such a golden opportunity pass him by. Mile after mile
of the fairest cattle range was passed on their way into the Kiowa
Reservation.
The time had arrived when Chiquita must return to college. During her
visit to the old relatives who had married into the Territory tribes she
learned that a distant cousin of hers was to be shot for the murder of a
fellow Indian. The tribal council had tried him and sentenced him to
death six months before, but on the plea which he made for leave of
absence to go to his old home among the mountain Utes in Colorado to see
his mother and father before he died, they had respited him. The time
for his return expired at noon the very day that Chiquita was to start
back.
She learned the story about four hours before noon--the time for the
execution--and at once made her way to the council hall, where in solemn
silence waited the court and executioners. Chiquita pleaded that they
spare her cousin. The plea was made to deaf ears. He had dealt the death
blow to a Kiowa, and by their laws he had been tried and found guilty,
and by their law he must suffer death.
"Where is he, that I may see him?" asked Chiquita.
"He has not returned."
"He will come. A Ute does not fear the death that awaits him, even for a
crime," proudly asserted Chiquita. "The Great Manitou will send him
back. Has he not danced to Wakantanka with a buffalo skull hung to a
thong that passed through the flesh of his back? Will one who has danced
to the Sun be afraid to return to the Kiowa dogs? Polar Bear knows that
the Utes would drive him back from the Happy Hunting Ground and be
killed by them if he did not keep his promise to return. Polar Bear
knows there is no escape."
"Chiquita is wise in what she says. The Kiowas know that Polar Bear has
been a big brave and danced the awful Sun dance, but the hour is near at
hand, and no word that he comes. What have we to insure his return,
except the Indian's faith in the hereafter and that the Great Manitou
will punish him in the Happy Hunting Ground if he disobeys the Kiowa
Council and splits his heart with a lie when he promised to return?"
At this moment a shout was heard and a mounted runner quickly appeared,
his horse covered with flecks of foam and nostrils deeply blowing.
"Polar Bear comes. He runs like the deer of the plains, when we lived in
sight of the great mountains, the home of the Utes."
The council suspended all manifestations. The executioner examined his
rifle. Polar Bear entered and bowed his head, then looked aloft and
pointed to the sky.
"I am ready," was all he said.
The hour lacked ten minutes of the expired time. The executioner
motioned and Polar Bear followed. Under a large oak he took his stand,
stripped to the waist, a scarlet heart painted over his own. The
executioner took his place, a few steps away, sighted his rifle at the
painted heart, a puff of smoke, a sharp report, a gush of blood, and
Polar Bear had atoned for his crime. Chiquita turned to Jack and asked:
"Is there another nation in the world where their criminals return of
their own accord to suffer the death penalty?"
Most of the summer vacations of her college life Chiquita spent among
the forests, crags and parks on the Ute reservation or in her mountain
home near Middle Park. Hundreds of student friends visited her at the
latter place and were entertained for weeks in a royal manner, to their
great pleasure, a result which does not always follow the lavish
expenditure of money. Tents, tepees, lodges, log cabins and quaint
cottages were set apart for the use of the guests. A beautiful rustic
chapel improvised for religious services and a hall for indoor
entertainment were erected near the small hotel at the source of Rock
Creek, where a famous iron and soda spring bubbles forth its sparkling
waters of more than ordinary quality. The adjacent hills furnished
abundance of deer, and even bear, and the famous catches of trout
perpetuated the glory of a summer on Rock Creek as a lifelong realistic
dream. The most elaborate of Indian trappings adorned the various
abodes. Canoes silently sped along the surface of an artificial lake
made by repairing an old beaver dam, and in the corral Ute ponies,
Mexican burros or American-bred saddle horses, besides traps, brakes and
coaches presented a never-tiring array from which to select in order to
make pilgrimages into more distant territory.
A little garden furnished fresh vegetables, while the "ranch hack" made
trips to the nearest railway station for other provisions once a week.
Chiquita arranged for the pre-emption of this ranch on one of Jack's
early visits, but by reason of mineral springs being reserved by the
Government from operation of the land law, the property was abandoned in
later years.
In making her trips back and forth from the ranch on Rock Creek to the
college, Chiquita watched the marvelous growth of that great stretch of
country between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains with sinking
heart.
To Jack she confided her worst fears. "The Great Manitou of the Utes has
been conquered by the Great Spirit of the white man," she was wont to
remark as her knowledge of the Christian religion advanced.
In truth, Chiquita had ground for her fears. Leadville, with its never
ceasing output of silver which rolled in a continuous stream toward the
great manufacturing centers of the East, was welcomed by the idle, labor
seeking armies as the Mecca of the world. The prominent transportation
companies sent emissaries to all the great farming regions of Europe,
colonizing emigrants to enter the immense uncultivated sections
traversed by their respective charters in the attempt to make their
railways profitable. Train load after train load of hardy, well-to-do
Russians, Norwegians, Swedes and Germans rolled into the fertile
valleys, peopling the arid wastes and starting the building of villages,
towns and cities along the railway like unto tales of mythology. The
impetus of this gigantic, overwhelming land-grabbing aroused the
speculative world and money came forth from its hiding place to seek
investment. Mills began to work overtime. Products of all kinds were in
demand, for the comers to the new land had to be fed, clothed and
entertained. Prosperity ruled.
"Jack," said Chiquita, as the annual trip was made across the great
country to the mine near the close of her college career, "see the
effects of education and civilization in these immense cities where ten
years ago were unplowed lands, open prairie and treeless wastes. The
untutored savage must go; yes, there is but one result can ensue, and
while it makes me feel sad for my people yet I doubt not it is best for
humanity."