THE MEET ON THE ROSEBUD.
That General Crook's command, now designated as the "Big Horn and
Yellowstone Expedition," started upon its campaign in the best
possible spirits and under favoring skies, no one who saw us that
bright August morning could have doubted. Unhappily, there was no one
to see, no one to cheer or applaud, and, once having cut loose from
our wagons and their guards, there was not a soul to mark our
progress, unless it were some lurking scout in distant lair, who
trusted to his intimate knowledge of the country and to his pony's
fleetness to keep himself out of our clutches. Once fairly in the
valley of the Prairie Dog, we had a good look at our array. The Fifth
Cavalry in long column were bringing up the rear on this our first
day's march from Goose Creek; our packers and their lively little
mules jogging briskly along upon our right flank, while the space
between us and the rolling foot-hills on the left was thickly covered
with our Crow allies. The Shoshones were ahead somewhere, and we
proceeded to scrape acquaintance with these wild warriors of the far
northwest, whom we were now meeting for the first time. Organized in
1855, our regiment had seen its first Indian service on the broad
plains of Texas, and was thoroughly well known among the Comanches,
Kiowas, and Lipans when the great war of the rebellion broke out.
In those days, with Sidney Johnston, Robert E. Lee, Earl Van Dorn,
Kirby Smith, Fitz Hugh Lee, and a dozen others who became notorious
in the rebel army as its representative officers, our regiment had
been not inaptly styled "Jeff. Davis's Own." But it outgrew the
baleful title during the war, and has lost almost every trace of its
ante-bellum _personnel_. Two of its most distinguished captains of
to-day--Montgomery and "Jack" Hayes--it is true acquired their earliest
military experience in its ranks under those very officers. But, while
they are all the better as cavalrymen for that fact, they are none the
less determined in their loyalty, and both fought in many a wild charge
during the rebellion, defending their flag against the very men who had
taught them the use of their sabres. In that stern baptism of blood the
Fifth became regenerate, and after stirring service in the Army of the
Potomac during the war, and throughout the South during reconstruction
days, the regiment once more drifted out on the plains, was introduced
to the Cheyennes and Sioux in the winter of 1868-9, became very much at
home among the Apaches of Arizona from 1871 to 1875, and now we found
ourselves, after a long march across country from the Pacific slope,
scraping acquaintance with the redoubtable "Crows" of the Yellowstone
valley, the life-long enemies of the Sioux.
Riding "at ease," the men talk, laugh, and sing if they want to. All
that is required is that they shall not lounge in the saddle, and that
they keep accurately their distance, and ride at a steady walk. The
Crows are scattered along the entire length of our left flank, but a
band of some fifteen or twenty chiefs and headmen keep alongside the
headquarters party at the front of column. There rides General Carr with
his adjutant, the surgeon, the non-commissioned staff, and orderlies,
and, of course, the standard-bearer, who, as previously explained, has a
signal flag for this campaign, and it is this which attracts the
aborigine.
These Crows are fine-looking warriors, and fine horsemen too; but to see
them riding along at ease, their ponies apparently gliding over the
ground in their quick, cat-like walk, their position in the saddle seems
neither graceful nor secure. This knot on our left is full of the most
favorable specimens, and they all ride alike. Every man's blanket is so
disposed that it covers him from the back of his head, folds across his
breast, leaving the arms free play in a manner only an Indian can
accomplish, and then is tucked in about his thighs and knees so as to
give him complete protection. One or two younger bucks have discarded
their blankets for the day, and ride about in dingy calico shirts or old
cavalry jackets. One or two also appear in cavalry trousers instead of
the native breech-clout and legging. But the moment that Indian
dismounts you notice two points in which he is diametrically opposed to
the customs of his white brother: first, that he mounts and dismounts on
the right (off) side of his horse; second, that he carefully cuts out
and throws away that portion of a pair of trousers which with us is
regarded as indispensable. He rides hunched up in his saddle, with a
stirrup so short that his knees are way out to the front and bent in an
acute angle. The stirrup itself is something like the shoe of a lady's
side-saddle, and he thrusts his moccasined foot in full length. He
carries in his right hand a wooden handle a foot long, to which three or
four thongs of deerskin are attached, and with this scourge-like
implement he keeps up an incessant shower of light flaps upon his pony's
flank, rarely striking him heavily, and nothing will convince him that
under that system the pony will not cover more miles in a day at a walk
or lope than any horse in America. His horse equipments are of the most
primitive description--a light wooden frame-work or tree, with high,
narrow pommel and cantle, much shorter in the seat than ours, the whole
covered with hide, stitched with thongs and fastened on with a horsehair
girth, constitute his saddle. Any old piece of blanket or coffee-sack
answers for saddle cloth, and his bridle is the simplest thing in the
world, a single head-piece, a light snaffle bit, and a rein, sometimes
gayly ornamented, completes the arrangement. But at full speed the worst
horseman among them will dash up hill or down, through tortuous and
rocky stream-beds, everywhere that a goat would go, and he looks upon
our boldest rider as a poor specimen.
The Crows are affably disposed to-day, and we have no especial
difficulty in fraternizing. Plug tobacco will go a long way as a medium
of introduction anywhere west of the Missouri, and if you give one
Indian a piece as big as a postage-stamp, the whole tribe will come in
to claim acquaintance. A very pretty tobacco-pouch of Sioux manufacture
which hung always at the pommel of my saddle, and the heavily beaded
buckskin riding-breeches which I wore, seemed to attract their notice,
and one of them finally managed to communicate through a half-breed
interpreter a query as to whether I had killed the Sioux chief who had
owned them. Finding that I had never killed a Sioux in my life, the
disdainful warrior dropped me as no longer a desirable acquaintance; and
even the fact that the breeches were a valuable present from no less a
hero than Buffalo Bill failed to make a favorable impression. Following
him were a pair of bright-looking young squaws whose sole occupation in
life seemed to consist in ministering to the various wants of his sulky
chiefship. Riding astride, just as the men do, these ladies were equally
at home on pony-back, and they "herded" his spare "mounts" and drove his
pack animals with consummate skill. A tiny pappoose hung on the back of
one of them, and gazed over her shoulder with solemn, speculative eyes
at the long files of soldiers on their tall horses. At that tender age
it was in no way compromising his dignity to display an interest in what
was going on around him. Later in life he would lose caste as a warrior
if he ventured to display wonderment at sight of a flying-machine. For
several hours we rode side by side with our strange companions. We had
no hesitancy in watching them with eager curiosity, and they were as
intent on "picking up points" about us, only they did it furtively.
Gradually we were drawing nearer the swift "Deje Agie," as the Crows
call the Tongue River. The valley down which we were moving sank deeper
among the bold bluffs on either side. Something impeded the march of the
column ahead; the pack trains on our right were "doubling up," and every
mule, with that strict attention to business characteristic of the
species, had buried its nose in the rich buffalo grass, making up for
lost time. "Halt!" and "Dismount!" rang out from the trumpets. Every
trooper slips the heavy curb bit from his horse's mouth and leads him
right or left off the trail that he may profit by even a moment's rest
to crop the fresh bunches in which that herbage grows.
The morning has passed without notable incident. No alarm has come from
the scouts in front or flank. We are so far in rear to-day that we miss
our friends Cody and Chips, who hitherto were _our_ scouts and no one
else's. Now they are part and parcel of the squad attached to General
Crook's headquarters, of which Major Stanton is the putative chief. We
miss our fire-eater of a paymaster--the only one of his corps, I fancy,
who would rather undergo the privations of such a campaign and take
actual part in its engagements, than sit at a comfortable desk at home
and criticise its movements. At noon we come suddenly upon the rushing
Tongue, and fording, breast deep, cross to the northern shore. We emerge
at the very base of steep rocky heights, push round a ledge that shuts
out the northward prospect from our sight, find the river recoiling from
a palisade of rock on the east, and tearing back across our
path, ford it again and struggle along under the cliffs on its right
bank a few minutes, balancing ourselves, it almost seems, upon a trail
barely wide enough for one horseman. What a place for ambuscade or
surprise!
[Illustration: CROOK'S COLUMN ON TONGUE RIVER.]
We can see no flankers or scouts, but feel confident that our general
has not shoved the nose of his column into such a trap without rigid
reconnoissance. So we push unconcernedly along. Once more the green,
foam-crested torrent sweeps across our line of march from the left, and
we ride in, our horses snorting and plunging over the slippery boulders
on the bottom, the eager waves dashing up about our knees. Once more we
wind around a projecting elbow of bluff, and as the head of our column,
which has halted to permit the companies to close up, straightens out in
motion again, we enter a beautiful glade. The river, beating in foam
against the high, precipitous rocks on the eastern bank, broke in tiny,
peaceful wavelets upon the grassy shores and slopes of the western side;
the great hills rolled away to the left; groves of timber sprang up in
our front, and through their leafy tops the white smoke of many a
camp-fire was curling; the horses of the Second and Third, strongly
guarded, were already moving out to graze on the foot-hills. An
aide-de-camp rides to General Carr with orders to "bivouac right here;
we march no further to-day." We ride left into line, unsaddle, and
detail our guards. Captain Payne, with Company "F," is assigned the duty
of protecting camp from surprise, and he and his men hasten off to
surrounding hill-tops and crests from which they can view the
approaches, and at two p.m. we proceed to make ourselves comfortable.
We have no huts and only one blanket apiece, but who cares? The August
sun is bright and cheery; the air is fresh and clear; the smoke rises,
mast-like, high in the skies until it meets the upland breeze that,
sweeping down from the Big Horn range behind us, has cleared away the
pall of smoke our Indian foes had but yesterday hung before our eyes,
and left the valley of the Tongue thus far green and undefiled. We have
come but twenty miles, are fresh and vigorous; but the advance reports
no signs yet, and Crook halts us so that we may have an early start
to-morrow.
We smoke our pipes and doze through the afternoon, stretched at length
under the shady trees, and at evening stroll around among the
camp-fires, calling on brother officers of other regiments whom we
haven't met before in years. But early enough we roll ourselves in our
blankets, and, with heads pillowed on turf or saddle, sleep undisturbed
till dawn.
August 6th breaks clear and cloudless. Long before the sun can peer in
upon us in our deep nook in the valley, we have had our dip in the cold
stream, and our steaming and hugely relished breakfast, stowed our
tinnikins and pannikins on the pack mules, and wait expectant of "Boots
and saddles!" Again the infantry lead the way, and not until seven do we
hear the welcome "Mount!" and follow in their tracks. By this time the
sun is pouring down upon us; by nine his rays are scorching, and the
dust rises in clouds from the crowded trail. The gorge grows deeper and
deeper, the bluffs bolder and more precipitous; we can see nothing but
precipice on either side, and, lashed and tormented, the Deje Agie winds
a tortuous course between. We cross it again and again--each time it
grows deeper and stronger. The trail is so crooked we never see more
than a quarter of a mile ahead. At noon we overtake the infantry,
phlegmatically stripping off shoes, stockings, and all garments "below
the belt," for the eleventh time since they left camp, preparatory to
another plunge through the stream; and a tall, red-headed Irishman
starts a laugh with his quizzical "Fellers, did e'er a one of yez iver
cross on a bridge?"
At two o'clock, after the thirteenth crossing since seven a.m., we again
receive orders to halt, unsaddle, and bivouac. Captain Leib and Company
"M" mount guard, and with twenty-two miles more to our credit, and with
the thick smoke of forest fires drifting overhead, we repeat the
performance of yesterday afternoon and night, and wonder when we are to
see those Indians.
Reveille and the dawn of the seventh come together. We wake stiff and
cold in the keen morning air, but thaw out rapidly under the genial
influence of the huge tins of coffee promptly supplied. At six we descry
the infantry and the pack trains clambering up the heights to the
northwest and disappearing from view over the timbered crests. At seven
we again mount and ride down stream a few hundred yards, then turn sharp
to the left and up a broad winding ravine along a beaten trail--buffalo
and Indian, of great antiquity. Mile after mile we push along up
grade--we of the Fifth well to the front to-day and in view of the
scouts and advance most of the time. The woods are thick along the
slopes, the grass that was rich and abundant in the valley of the Tongue
is becoming sparse. Up we go--the ascent seems interminable. Once in a
while we catch glimpses of smoke masses overhead and drifting across the
face of distant ridges. At last we see knots of horsemen gathering on a
high ridge a mile in front; half an hour's active climbing, mostly afoot
and leading our horses, brings us close under them. "Halt" is sounded,
and General Carr and I go up to join the party on the crest.
We pause on the very summit of the great divide between the Tongue and
the Rosebud, and far to south, north, and west the tumbling sea of
ravine and upland, valleys that dip out of sight, mountains that are
lost in fleecy clouds, all are spread before us. The view is glorious.
We look right down into the canyon of the Rosebud, yet it must be six to
eight miles away, and how far down we cannot judge. From every valley
north and west rolling clouds of smoke rise towards and blacken the
heavens. Somewhere over on those opposite bluffs General Crook had his
big fight with the Sioux on the 17th of June, but not a Sioux is in
sight.
It takes us three good hours to get down into the valley, and here we
receive in grim silence the orders to go into bivouac parallel to the
stream, facing west. The Indians have burned off every blade of grass
their ponies left undevoured along the narrow gorge, and for miles below
us the scouts report it even worse. "The whole Sioux nation has been in
camp hereabouts not two weeks ago," says one rugged frontiersman, "and
I've been nigh onto ten mile down stream and didn't reach the end of the
village." The ground is strewn with abandoned lodge-poles, and covered
with relics of Indian occupancy too unmistakable to be pleasant.
The Third and Second Cavalry file into position on the eastern bank
parallel with our line, and all the pickets go out at once--Captain
Hayes, with Company "G," covering our front.
The situation is romantic, but disagreeable. Some of us sleep rather
restlessly that night, and one and all welcome the dawn of the 8th. It
is more than chilly in the keen morning air, but we march northward in a
thick, smoky haze that utterly obscures the landscape. We can see but a
short fifty yards in any direction, and the deeper we ride into it the
thicker and more suffocating it becomes. Four or five miles down stream,
still riding through the lately occupied camps, we bump up against the
rear of the column ahead. An aide leads us off to the left, and informs
General Carr that there is good grazing in some little breaks and
ravines--to unsaddle and give the horses a chance while we wait for
reports from the scouts. Here we "loaf" through the entire day, when
suddenly the signal to saddle and mount startles us at six p.m., just as
we were thinking of going to sleep. We march very rapidly, six, seven,
ten miles, and then darkness sets in. Thicker darkness I never
encountered. Men pull out their pipes and whiff away at them till the
glow of their sparks looks like a long trail of tiny furnace fires, and
gives us a clue to follow. No one but an Indian who has lived among
these valleys all his life can be guiding us to-night. At nine o'clock
the men are singing darky melodies and Irish songs; and it is not until
10.30 that we file past bivouac fires lighted in a deep bend of the
stream, grope our way out to an invisible front, and, fairly hobbling
and half-lariating our horses, throw ourselves down by them to sleep.
Captain Rodgers is notified that he and Company "A" are "for guard;"
and, for a man who cannot or will not swear, Rodgers manages to express
his disgust appropriately.
A slight sprinkling of rain comes on at daybreak, and we see the
infantry hurrying off northward through the misty light. We soon follow
down the right bank, the Fifth Cavalry leading the column of horse.
Stanton tells us that a large body of Sioux are not more than four days
ahead--were here in force not four days ago. It is easy to see that we
are on the trail of an immense number of Indians--eight to ten
thousand--but we judge it to be a fortnight old. At 9.15 a cold, driving
rain sets in, and whirls in our faces as we march. At two p.m. we
bivouac again, and begin to growl at this will-o'-the-wisp business. The
night, for August, is bitter cold. Ice forms on the shallow pools close
to shore, and Captain Adam, who commands the guard, declares that the
thermometer was at zero at daybreak. "What thermometer?" is the
question. "Vell, any thermometer as was tam fool enough to get
here--_un'stand_?" is our veteran's characteristic reply, and it puts us
in better humor. Stiff and cold when we march at seven o'clock on the
10th, we have not long to suffer from that cause. A bright sun pours
down in recompense. We march five miles, halt, and graze awhile; then
push on again along a broad, beaten trail over which countless hordes of
ponies must have recently passed. Thick clouds of dust rise high above
the bluffs on either side; the valley opens out wide and rolling east
and west. Here the Indian flight has been so rapid that the work of
destruction is incomplete, and the grass is excellent in many a spot.
"The grandest country in the world for Indian and buffalo now," says
General Carr. "Two years hence it will be the grandest place for
cattle."
We of the Fifth are marching down the left or western bank of the
Rosebud to-day, somewhat independently as regards the rest of the
cavalry brigade, which, following the infantry, is away across the
valley, close under the slopes and hillsides towards the east. About
nine in the morning, while I am profiting by a ten-minute halt to jot in
my note-book some of the surrounding topographical features, my orderly
and myself climb to the top of the ridge on our left, from which a good
view of the country is to be had. Just here the valley runs northeast,
and we have been pursuing that general direction for the last day's
march; but right ahead, some two thousand yards, a tall bluff juts out
into the valley from the west. The river sweeps round its base in a
broad fringe of cottonwoods, and disappears from sight for six or eight
miles; then, over an intervening range, I see it again, away to the
north, making straight for what must be the valley of the Yellowstone.
Between that great bend of the river and the distant bluffs on the
eastern side, a broad plain, scorched and blistered by sun and Indian
fire, stretches away some two or three miles in width. This side of the
bend the slopes gradually near the stream, and the picture below me is a
very pretty one. Right under our ridge the Fifth Cavalry, in long
column, is just preparing to remount and move on. A mile away to the
eastward are our brethren of the Second and Third; a quarter of a mile
ahead of them, the compact battalion of infantry. Here and there groups
of horses, men, and a fluttering flag indicate the positions in march of
Generals Crook and Merritt. Half a mile in advance of all, those little
dots of horsemen are our scouts, while, anyhow and everywhere, in no
order whatsoever, our Crows and Shoshones are scattered along the column
on one flank, while the pack-mules kick up a thick dust on the other.
The cloud of dust, in fact, rises from the whole column, and extends way
back up the Rosebud, and even as I am wondering how far it can be seen,
my eye is attracted by just as thick a cloud around the point,
apparently coming up the valley. What the mischief can that be?
Answering our eager signals, General Carr comes hurriedly up the slope
and levels his glass. It is dust, sure enough, and lots of it. Nothing
but an immense concourse of four-footed animals could raise such a
cloud. "Forward!" is the order; "Indians or buffalo?" is the query.
"Ride over and report it to General Merritt," says my colonel to me. So
"Donnybrook" strikes a rapid lope, and we pick our way through the
cottonwoods, over the stream and up the low bank on the other side,
where the first thing that meets my eyes is a grand hullabaloo among the
Indians, our allies. They are whooping and yelling, throwing blankets
and superfluous clothing to the ground--stripping for a fight,
evidently--and darting to and fro in wild excitement. Beyond them the
troops are massing in close column behind some low bluffs, and, looking
back, I see the Fifth coming rapidly through the stream to join them.
Evidently my news is no news to General Merritt; but the message is
delivered all the same, and I get permission to gallop ahead towards the
scouts and see what's coming. I make for a bluff just on the edge of the
plain I have described, and, nearing it, can see farther and farther
around the great bend. Our scouts and Indians are dashing around in
circles, and cautiously approaching the turn. Another minute and I have
reached the bluff, and there get a grand view of the coming host.
Indians! I should say so--scores of them, darting about in equal
excitement to our own. But no Indians are they who keep in close column
along that fringe of trees; no Indians are they whose compact squadrons
are moving diagonally out across the broad plain, taking equal
intervals, then coming squarely towards us at a rapid trot. Then look!
Each company, as it comes forward, opens out like the fan of practised
coquette, and a sheaf of skirmishers is launched to the front.
Something in the snap and style of the whole movement stamps them at
once. There is no need of fluttering guidon and stirring trumpet-call to
identify them; I know the Seventh Cavalry at a glance, and swing my old
campaign hat in delighted welcome. Behind them are the solid regiments
of Miles and Gibbon, and long trains of wagons and supplies. It is
General Terry and his whole array, and our chiefs ride forward to greet
them. And then it is that the question is asked, in comical perplexity,
"Why, where on earth are the Indians?" Except our allies, none are in
sight. They have slipped away between us.