WE REACH FORT LARNED
"Now, men," said old Tom as we gathered around the mess box for
breakfast next morning, "we want to get an early start for we've got a
big drive before us. It's only about thirty-eight miles from here to
Fort Larned, but that's too much to do with a load in one day; an' we
can't divide the distance equally because there's no water anywhere
nigh the half-way p'int. By takin' the river road we could get water to
camp at the half-way station, but that route, by way of the mouth of
Pawnee Fork, would take us four miles out of our way, an' part of it's
a sandy, heavy road for the team. So I've concluded it'll be best for
us to go the main road by Pawnee Rock an' camp at Ash Creek. That'll
make about twenty-nine miles for to-day's drive, an' then we'll only
have nine miles to-morrow mornin' to knock off to reach the fort. We
can easy do that by the middle of the forenoon, an' have the rest of
the day to look up some old acquaintances there an' make some inquiries
about the best p'int over on Walnut to locate our winter camp an' how
best to get there. Ef French Dave, the interpreter, is at Larned he'll
tell us all we want to know about it. If Wild Bill was here, he'd go
right along an' guide us to a snug place for our camp, 'cause he knows
every foot o' the ground. It's all open prairie from Pawnee to Walnut,
an' once we get across Pawnee Fork we can't miss it ef we just follow
the buffalo trails."
We rolled out from Big Bend by sunrise, made a short stop at Rath's
ranch to renew old acquaintance with Charley, and in the evening camped
at the crossing of Ash Creek, a small stream with a little timber along
its banks.
We reached Fort Larned by ten o'clock next morning. I left Tom and Jack
to inquire for mail, while I went to the adjutant's office to report
our arrival and destination; after which I rejoined the outfit at the
sutler's.
"Well, now, men," said old Tom, gathering up the mail matter and
putting it away in the wagon, "we must first hunt a camp, an' then
we can spend the rest of the day reading our papers an' letters an'
rounding up old acquaintances about the garrison an' getting ready to
go on to Walnut Creek in the mornin'. I'm told that we can get pretty
good grass by crossin' the creek here an' going half a mile up on the
other side. We'll go an' make camp an' eat dinner, an' then, leaving
one man to take care o' camp, the others can come back and take in the
garrison."
A little crowd of idlers had gathered around our team. A soldier
volunteered to guide us to a good crossing and camp, and we soon had
our animals turned out and tent pitched, and, while Tom and Jack were
getting the dinner, at their request I overhauled first the letters and
then the papers, reading to my comrades the most interesting items as I
came to them.
The papers and magazines were full of exciting and interesting news
concerning the progress of the war, then just getting under good
headway. Of letters we got but few, the most interesting of which to
me was one from the girl I had left behind me and another from the old
storekeeper and postmaster back at the camp where we had encountered
the jayhawkers.
The storekeeper informed us that no inquiry had been made for the black
horse, and he did not think it likely that there would be as he had
learned that Tucker and his gang had stolen many of their best horses
from over the border in Missouri and the black horse was probably one
of them.
He also informed us that, following out the plan suggested by Tom,
his neighbor had trailed the jayhawkers to their new camp down on the
Neosho River, near Emporia; that a few days after we left a company of
cavalry had arrived from Fort Leavenworth, in answer to the letter he
had written to the commander of the department, looking for the gang
of outlaws, and the man who had followed them and located their camp
guided the soldiers to the jayhawkers' new layout, where the cavalrymen
succeeded in surrounding and capturing the whole gang and taking them
as prisoners to Fort Leavenworth.
"Well, who's going to mind camp, an' who's going over to the fort?"
said Jack when dinner was over.
"We'll draw straws for it," said Tom decisively. "Peck, you prepare the
straws, two long ones an' a short one, an' the man who gets the short
one stays."
I did as directed. Tom and Jack drew the long straws, and I got left.
"Well, rack out now, you fellows, and I'll have a good time reading the
papers while you're gone," said I, trying to console myself for the
lonesome afternoon I expected to have.
But I was not left alone long, for presently a couple of strolling
soldiers from the garrison dropped in, and we passed some time in
exchanging information, I giving them the latest news from the
settlements, and they telling the gossip of Fort Larned and vicinity.
We had not been out of sight of herds of buffalo since we had entered
the range till we crossed Pawnee Fork, but here, near the fort, where
they had probably been hunted more than elsewhere, they were scarce,
though this was about the centre of their range east and west. The
soldiers said that a few miles out in any direction we would find them
numerous again.
To my comrades and me the country about Fort Larned was familiar
ground. As already stated, our company--K of the old First Cavalry,
afterward changed to Fourth Cavalry--had built and occupied the
original military post, called "Camp Alert," in the adjoining bend
of the creek, below Fort Larned, in the fall of '59, when the Kiowas
were on the war-path. During that winter we had been stationed there,
escorting the Santa Fé mails and giving what protection we could to
travel on the roads to New Mexico and the Pike's Peak gold region. By
the following spring (1860), the War Department had ordered a permanent
post established at or near "Camp Alert," to be called Fort Larned.
This post was built by the two companies of Second Infantry that were
sent to relieve us, while we, joining Major Sedgwick's command from
Fort Riley, went on the Kiowa expedition.
My two years of hard service along the Arkansas gave me an interest in
everything that had happened in this part of the country, and I kept my
soldier visitors plied with questions about persons and events until
the approach of sunset warned them to return to the post to prepare for
dress parade.
Tom and Jack remained at the garrison till after dress parade and then
joined me in time for the supper which I had prepared.
In narrating the results of his inquiries at the post Tom said:
"As we had all been pretty well acquainted with Weisselbaum when he
used to keep the little store in Ogden, near Fort Riley, before he got
to be sutler of this post, I thought I would first call on him an'
renew old acquaintance. When I tried to remind him who I was an' the
many times I had been in his store at Ogden an' bought goods of him he
couldn't remember me at all. An' then I asked him if he remembered Jack
an' Peck, tellin' him that you was both here with me an' the object of
our trip an' so forth, but he couldn't recall either of us an' looked
at me kind of suspicious like, as though he was afraid I was goin' to
ask him to credit me for a plug of tobacco or something of that kind.
"To set him straight on that point I called for a couple of cigars, an'
in paying for 'em I managed to show several greenbacks, an', my, what a
change come over his countenance when he saw that money! The sight of
them greenbacks at once refreshed his recollection.
"He suggested that we should leave our surplus money in his safe, and I
believe it's a good scheme, for we'll have no use for money over on the
Walnut, where we're going, an' we might lose it. Peck might go over to
the store now, takin' Jack along for a witness, an' deposit our money
with the sutler an' take a receipt for it; an' if we have occasion to
draw any of it out at any time it can be entered on the back of the
receipt. Savvy?"
We "savvied" and agreed to Tom's plan.
"Weisselbaum told me," continued the old man, "where to find 'French
Dave,' an' Dave told me that it's all plain sailing an' about twenty
miles from here over to Walnut in the nearest direction, straight
north; an' there'll be no rough ground to get over except the head of
Ash Creek, an' there ain't much there. He says by bearin' a little to
the west of north we'll miss the breaks of Ash Creek an' strike Walnut
about the mouth of a little creek putting into Walnut from the south,
where there's a snug place for a well-sheltered winter camp, with
timber on the north an' west; an' I think that's just about the kind of
a layout we want to find."
"What does Dave say about the Kiowas?" I asked.
"He says they're peaceable so far, 'but always keep your eye skinned,'
sez he, 'whenever Satank or Satanta, with their bands, come around.'
But of course we knew that."
Jack and I hurried over to the sutler's store, where we were very
affably received by Weisselbaum, who shook us warmly by the hands and
now had no difficulty in remembering us. We made our deposit, took his
receipt, and returned to camp. After reporting to Tom the result of our
trip, Jack remarked:
"Well, I don't know of any surer winnin' game than a post sutler's job.
It'll beat four aces an' a six-shooter."
"Right you are, my lad," chipped in Tom. "It's a sure shot--dead open
an' shut. Better'n a goldmine, for there's little risk an' small
loss compared with the profits; for the post sutler on the frontier
just rakes in the money of officers, soldiers, citizens, Injuns,
an' everybody. Besides havin' a monopoly of all trade on the post
reservation, he generally has the inside track on forage contracts an'
the like."
"Do you mind old Rich, the sutler at Fort Leavenworth?" asked Jack,
"an' the dead oodles of money he rakes in all the time? An' he's been
sutler there so long, too, he must be as rich as the Rothschilds.
A queer duck is old Rich," he continued reflectively, "or 'Kernel'
Rich, I should have said, for when you call him 'Kernel,' specially if
you salute him along with it, it pleases him all over an' raises his
opinion of himself about five hundred per cent."
"Yes," replied Tom, "I remember one time when several of us soldiers
were a-standing around old Rich's store door, an' among the lot was
Bob Chambers, of F Company. You know Bob always had his cheek with
him. Well, while we were a-talking, Bill Shutts come out of the store
a-grumbling an' a-cussing. 'What's the matter, Shutts?' asked Bob.
'Why, I'm expectin' a letter from home,' says Bill, 'an' when I asked
that old galoot if there was a letter for me, the old fellow wouldn't
look--never even asked me my name--but just says, crabbed like, says
he: "No, nothin' for you." 'Now,' says Bill, 'I'll bet two dollars an'
sixty-five cents that there's a letter in there right now for William
Shutts, Esquire, from Dresden, O., but I can't get it.'
"'Why, man,' says Bob Chambers, 'where've you been all this time that
you ain't got acquainted with that estimable old gentleman, Kernel
Rich? You ain't onto the combination, that's all. Now, I'll bet you the
drinks for the crowd, down at old mother Bangs's, that I'll go in the
store an' ask the kernel for a letter, an' although I ain't expecting
one, an' would be surprised if I got one, the old kernel'll rush flying
'round behind the counter a-trying to find me a letter. Now, lemme show
you how it's done,' sez Bob, a-buttonin' up his jacket an' a-cockin'
his fatigue cap up on three hairs.
"We all followed him into the store to see the performance. The old
kernel was pacin' the floor. By a 'left-front-into-line' movement Bob
swung himself into position in front of the kernel, halted, come to
'attention,' bringing his heels together with a crack, an' raised his
right hand to the peak of his cap as he asked: 'Kernel, is there any
letter in the office for me, sir?'
"Well, say--you ought to have seen the smile that come over old Rich's
phiz as he fell all over himself getting 'round behind the counter,
asking as he went: 'What's the name, my man?' 'Robert Chambers, of F
Company, sir,' says Bob, still standing to 'attention.'
"Well, sir, the old kernel shuffled those letters over two or three
times a-tryin' his level best to dig up one for Chambers, an'
seemed awfully sorry when he had to say, as he put them back in the
pigeonhole: 'No, nothing for you to-day, Chambers.' An' he was so sorry
to disappoint Bob that he reached over on the shelf an' handed out a
plug of tobacco, as he added, sort of regretful-like: 'But there's some
of the best navy tobacco you ever smacked your lips over.' 'No doubt
of it, kernel, for when you recommend a thing it's bound to be first
class, but unfortunately I'm dead broke,' says Chambers. 'Oh, take it
along,' says the old man, as he pushed the plug across the counter;
'you can hand me the money next pay-day.' An' he was so pleased with
Bob's blarney that he never even chalked it down to him; an' I'm dead
sure that Chambers didn't remind him of it when pay-day come, for Bob
wasn't built that way.
"As we started out of the store, Bob says over his shoulder like for
old Rich to hear, 'Kernel Rich is one of the finest old gentlemen I
ever knew.'
"When we got outside the store door again, Bill Shutts remarked, as he
gazed at Chambers in honest admiration 'Well, old pard, if I had your
cheek I'd never work another lick.' 'It's all done by a slight turn of
the wrist, as the magician says,' said Bob; 'anybody can do it that
knows how. Now, let me tell you how to get that letter of yours. Just
go over to the quarters an' wash your face an' hands for a disguise,
black your boots, button up your jacket, brace up, an' look brave; and
then go back to the store--by that time the old man's forgot you ever
asked for a letter--then execute a flank movement on him, like I did;
be sure to salute an' call him kernel, an' you'll get a letter if he
has to write you one.'
"An' by following Bob's advice Bill got his letter; an' it tickled him
so't he called us together, an' we went down to old mother Bangs's, an'
he set up the drinks on it, 'cause he said that trick that Bob learnt
him was worth a whole lot, if not more."