THE TRAIL AND THE CHASE.
A shot in the dead of night from an outpost in the heart of the Indian
country is something that soon ceases to be either exciting or of great
interest, but the first that is heard on the campaign makes the pulses
bound. Men sprang to their feet, horses pawed and snorted, and the
sergeant of the guard and myself made rapid time to the point from which
the alarm had come. There was the sentinel alone, unharmed, but
perturbed in spirit. To the question, somewhat sternly put, "Who fired
that shot?" he replies, with evident chagrin, "I did, sir; somethin' was
crawlin' right up that holler, an' I challenged an' he didn't answer,
an' I fired; but danged if I know what it was." Before there is time to
say a word of rebuke, plainly enough in the bright moonlight something
_does_ come crawling up out of a "hollow" two hundred yards
away--something of a yellow or reddish brown, on four legs, with a long,
smooth, sneaking shamble that carries the quadruped rapidly over the
ground, then changes to an ungainly lope, which takes him to a safe
distance in six seconds; and there the creature turns, squats on his
haunches, and coolly surveys us. Turning away in silent indignation, as
I get almost out of earshot it is some comfort to hear the sergeant's
pithy commentary, "Ye wall-eyed gutter-snipe, your grandmother would ha'
known that was nothin' but a cayote."
Then follows the inevitable volley of chaff with which the Paddy greets
every blunder on the part of his fellow-soldiers, and for a few minutes
the silent bivouac is rollicking with fun. That some recent attempt has
been made to instruct the troopers of Company "C" in the _finesse_ of
sentry duty is apparent from the shouted query, "Hi, Sullivan, if it was
_two_ cayotes would you advance the saynior or the junior wid the
countersign?" at which there is a roar, and Lieutenant Keyes visibly
blushes. In half an hour all is quiet again. Officers and men, we watch
turn and turn about during the night, undisturbed, save at 3 o'clock the
outlying sentries report that they distinctly heard the rapid beat of
many hoofs dying away towards the west.
We are astir at the first gray of dawn, rolling our blankets and
promptly saddling, for we must ride well down the Cheyenne and find the
Mini Pusa, the dry north fork, before breakfast can be attended to. No
stirring trumpet marks our reveille. We mount in silence, and like
shadowy spectres ride away northward in the broadening valley. The stars
are not yet paling in the west, but Bat's quick eye detects fresh
hoof-prints not two hours old in the springy soil of the hillside, half
a mile out from camp. Sure enough. They had prowled around us during the
night, longing for our scalps, but not daring to attack. Only a few
venturesome spies had galloped down to take observations, and had then
ridden away to join their brothers in arms, and plot our destruction. We
laughed as we shook our bridle-reins and jogged along, thinking how
confounded they would be when they caught sight of our main body, who,
with General Carr at their head, would be along by noon. A six-mile ride
brought us into the belt of cottonwoods and willows along the bed of the
stream, but the South Cheyenne had sunk out of sight. Broad reaches of
streaked and rippled sand wound through the timber, clearly showing
where, earlier in the season, a rapid, sweeping torrent had borne great
logs and heaps of brushwood upon its tawny breast; but it had dwindled
away to nothing, and our thirsty horses looked reproachfully at their
masters as, dismounting, we ploughed up the yielding sand, in hopes of
finding the needed water beneath. This is one of the dismal
peculiarities of the streams of the Far West. On the 1st of May we would
have found that valley barely fordable; on the 25th of June it was as
dry as a bone.
Mounting again, and scattering through the timber "down stream," a shout
from Major Stanton had the effect of the trumpet rally on skirmish
drill.
Our party came together with eager haste, and found him under a steep
bank, shaded by willows, his horse fetlock deep in what remained of a
once deep pool; and two or three at a time our chargers slaked their
thirst. It was poor water--warm, soapy, alkaline--but better than none
at all.
Just before noon we were clambering up the hills on the northeast of the
Mini Pusa. Our orders were to proceed with the utmost caution on nearing
the trail. General Sheridan had clearly indicated that it must cross the
valley of the South Cheyenne some distance west of the Beaver, and very
near its confluence with the Mini Pusa. Stanton and I, with our
field-glasses in hand, were toiling up through the yielding, sandy soil
with Little Bat; Lieutenant Keyes and the escort, leading their horses,
following. Once at the top of the ridge we felt sure of seeing the
country to the eastward, and hardly had Bat reached the crest and peered
cautiously over than he made a quick gesture which called the major and
myself to his side. He pointed to the southeast, and, sweeping our
glasses in that direction, we plainly saw the broad, beaten track. It
looked like a great highway, deserted and silent, and it led from the
thick timber in the Cheyenne valley straight to the southeast up the
distant slope, and disappeared over the dim, misty range of hills in the
direction of the Red Cloud and Spotted Tail reservations.
General Sheridan was right. Sitting in his distant office in Chicago, he
was so thoroughly informed that he could order out his cavalry to search
through a region hitherto known only to the Sioux, and tell them just
where they would find the highway by which the vast hordes of hostiles
under Sitting Bull were receiving daily reinforcements and welcome
supplies of ammunition from the agencies three and four hundred miles to
the southeast.
This was the traffic which General Carr and the Fifth Cavalry were
ordered to break up; and here, just at noon, our little band of three
officers and forty men, far in the advance, had struck the trail, as
General Sheridan predicted. Keeping horses and men well under cover, we
crept to a farther ridge, and from there our glasses commanded a grand
sweep of country: the valley of the South Cheyenne for fifty miles to
the southeastward, until the stream itself was lost in the tortuous
canyon of the Southern Black Hills; the great, towering range of the
Black Hills themselves forty miles to the eastward, and the lone peak
far to the northeast that the Sioux called (phonetically spelling)
Heengha Kahga. The earliest maps simplified that into "Inyan Kara," and
now the school-children of Deadwood talk glibly of the big hill that,
higher than Harney's or Custer's Peak, their geography terms the "Indian
Carry." Why can't we keep the original names?
Once thoroughly satisfied of our proximity to the trail, Major Stanton
directed the escort to retrace its steps to the thick timber along the
Mini Pusa, where it would be out of sight, while he and I, with our
powerful binoculars, kept watch upon the Indian highway. The afternoon
was hot and cloudless; not a breath of air stirred the clumps of
sage-bush, the only vegetation along the bluffs and slopes. The
atmosphere was dazzlingly clear, and objects were visible to us through
our glasses that we knew to be miles away. The signal smokes to the
west, and our front of the day before, had disappeared; not a living
thing was in sight. Our men and horses were hidden among the dense
cottonwoods a mile behind us, but, though invisible to us, we well knew
that trusty eyes were keeping watch for the first signal from the
hillside.
Three--four o'clock came, and not a soul had appeared upon the Indian
trail. Away over the intervening ridge to the rear we could see the
valley of Old Woman's Fork, down which we had come the day previous, and
our glasses detected, by an hour after noon, clouds of dust rising high
in air, harbingers of the march of General Carr and the main body. At
last the major closed his glasses with a disgusted snap and the remark,
"I don't believe there's an Indian stirring to-day."
Not in our sight--not within our hearing, perhaps. The blessed Sabbath
stillness falls on all within our ken; our steeds are blinking, our men
are drowsing in the leafy shades below. Only the rising dust, miles to
the southward, reveals the coming of comrade soldiery. Far to the
northwest, a single dark speck, floating against the blue of heaven,
attracts the lingering inspection of my field-glass. Eagle or buzzard, I
do not know. The slow, circling, stately flight in ascending spiral
carries him beyond our vision, but from his altitude the snow-capped
peaks of the Big Horn range are clearly visible, and on this still
Sabbath afternoon those mighty peaks are looking down upon a scene of
carnage, strife, and slaughter that, a week hence, told only by curt
official despatches, will thrill a continent with horror. Even as we
watch there on the slopes by the Mini Pusa, Stanton and I, grumbling at
our want of luck in not sighting an Indian, many a true and trusted
comrade, many an old cadet friend of boyish days, many a stalwart
soldier is biting the dust along the Little Horn, and the names of
Custer and his men are dropping from the muster-rolls. The heroes of a
still mightier struggle, the victors of an immortal defence of national
honor, are falling fast till all are gone, victims of a thankless
warfare.
No wonder the Indians have no time to bother with us. We bivouac in
undisturbed serenity that night, and join our regiment in the Cheyenne
valley at noon next day without so much as an adventure. That night
Company "I" is thrown forward to scout the trail, while the regiment
camps out of sight among the cottonwoods, and for the next week we
keenly watch the neighborhood, all the companies making thorough scouts
in each direction, but finding nothing of consequence. Small parties of
Indians are chased, but easily escape, and there isn't a doubt that the
reservation Indians know of our whereabouts, and so avoid us.
Late in the afternoon of July 1st, our new colonel, Wesley Merritt,
famous as a cavalry commander during the War of the Rebellion, arrives
and assumes the reins of government, relieving General Carr, who falls
back to second in command. We are all agog to see what will be our new
chief's first move. He is fresh from Sheridan's staff in Chicago, and is
doubtless primed with latest instructions and wishes of the
lieutenant-general. He is no stranger to us, nor we to him, and his
first move is characteristic. At dawn of day of the 2d, he marches us
four miles down stream to better grass and a point nearer the big trail;
sends Montgomery with his grays to scout over towards the Black Hills,
and Hayes and Bishop with Company "G" to lie along the trail itself--but
no Indian is sighted.
The sun is just rising on the morning of the 3d of July when my captain,
Mason, and I roll out of our blankets and set about the very simple
operations of a soldier's campaign toilet. The men are grooming their
horses; the tap of the curry-comb and the impatient pawing of hoofs is
music in the clear, crisp, bracing air. Our cook is just announcing
breakfast, and I am eagerly sniffing the aroma of coffee, when General
Merritt's orderly comes running through the trees. "Colonel Mason, the
general directs Company 'K' to get out as quickly as possible--Indians
coming up the valley!" "Saddle up, men! lively now!" is the order. We
jump into boots and spurs, whip the saddles from saplings and stumps,
rattle the bits between the teeth of our excited horses, sling carbines
over shoulder, poke fresh cartridges into revolver chambers, look well
to the broad horsehair "cinches," or girths. The men lead into line,
count fours, mount, and then, without a moment's pause, "Fours right,
trot," is the order, and Mason and I lead off at a spanking gait,
winding through the timber and suddenly shooting out upon the broad,
sandy surface of the dry stream-bed. There the first man we see is
Buffalo Bill, who swings his hat. "This way, colonel, this way," and
away we go on his tracks. "K" is a veteran company. Its soldiers are,
with few exceptions, on their second and third enlistments. Its captain
ranks all the line officers of the regiment, and admirably commanded it
during the war while the field officers were doing duty as generals of
volunteers. There is hardly a trace of nervousness even among the newest
comers, but this is the first chase of the campaign for us, and all are
eager and excited. Horses in rear struggle to rush to the front, and as
we sputter out of the sand and strike the grassy slopes beyond the
timber belt all break into a lope. Two or three scouts on a ridge five
hundred yards ahead are frantically signalling to us, and, bending to
the left again, we sweep around towards them, now at a gallop. Mason
sternly cautions some of the eager men who are pressing close behind us,
and, looking back, I see Sergeant Stauffer's bronzed face lighting up
with a grin I used to mark in the old Apache campaigns in Arizona, and
the veteran "Kelly" riding, as usual, all over his horse, but
desperately bent on being ahead when we reach the scene. Left hands
firmly grasp the already foaming reins, while throughout the column
carbines are "advanced" in the other.
"Here comes Company 'I,' fellers," is the muttered announcement from the
left and rear, and, glancing over my left shoulder, I see Kellogg with
his bays and Lieutenant Reilly swinging out along the slope to our left.
As we near the ridge and prepare to deploy, excitement is subdued but
intense--Buffalo Bill plunging along beside us on a strawberry roan,
sixteen hands high, gets a trifle of a lead, but we go tearing up the
crest in a compact body, reach it, rein up, amazed and disgusted--not an
Indian to be seen for two miles across the intervening "swale." Away to
the left, towards the Cheyenne, scouts are again excitedly beckoning,
and we move rapidly towards them, but slower now, for Mason will not
abuse his horses for a wild-goose chase. Ten minutes bring us thither.
Kellogg has joined forces with us, and the two companies are trotting in
parallel columns. Still no Indian; but the scouts are ahead down the
valley, and we follow for a brisk half-hour, and find ourselves plunging
through the timber ten miles east of camp. Another hour and we are
dashing along a high ridge parallel with the Black Hills, and there,
sure enough, are Indians, miles ahead, and streaking it for the Powder
River country as fast as their ponies can carry them. We have galloped
thirty miles in a big circle before catching sight of our chase, and our
horses are panting and wearied. Every now and then we pass pack-saddles
with fresh agency provisions, which they had dropped in their haste.
Once our scouts get near enough to exchange a shot or two, but at last
they fairly beat us out of sight, and we head for home, reach camp,
disgusted and empty-handed, about four p.m. Two "heavy weights" (Colonel
Leib's and Lieutenant Reilly's) horses drop dead under them, and the
first pursuit of the Fifth is over.