I mentioned in a former epistle, that this is the extreme outpost on
the Western Frontier, and built, like several others, in the heart of
the Indian country. There is no finer tract of lands in North America,
or, perhaps, in the world, than that vast space of prairie country,
which lies in the vicinity of this post, embracing it on all sides.
This garrison, like many others on the frontiers, is avowedly placed
here for the purpose of protecting our frontier inhabitants from the
incursions of Indians; and also for the purpose of preserving the peace
amongst the different hostile tribes, who seem continually to wage, and
glory in, their deadly wars. How far these feeble garrisons, which are
generally but half manned, have been, or will be, able to intimidate
and controul the warlike ardour of these restless and revengeful
spirits; or how far they will be able in desperate necessity, to
protect the lives and property of the honest pioneer, is yet to be
tested.
They have doubtless been designed with the best views, to effect
the most humane objects, though I very much doubt the benefits that
are anticipated to flow from them, unless a more efficient number
of men are stationed in them than I have generally found; enough to
promise protection to the Indian, and then to _ensure_ it; instead of
promising, and leaving them to seek it in their own way at last, and
when they are least prepared to do it.
When I speak of this post as being on the _Lower Missouri_, I do not
wish to convey the idea that I am down near the sea-coast, at the mouth
of the river, or near it; I only mean that I am on the lower part of
the Missouri, yet 600 miles above its junction with the Mississippi,
and near 2000 from the Gulf of Mexico, into which the Mississippi
discharges its waters.
In this delightful Cantonment there are generally stationed six or
seven companies of infantry, and ten or fifteen officers; several
of whom have their wives and daughters with them, forming a very
pleasant little community, who are almost continually together in
social enjoyment of the peculiar amusements and pleasures of this
wild country. Of these pastimes they have many, such as riding on
horseback or in carriages over the beautiful green fields of the
prairies, picking strawberries and wild plums—deer chasing—grouse
shooting—horse-racing, and other amusements of the garrison, in which
they are almost constantly engaged; enjoying life to a very high
degree.
In these delightful amusements, and with these pleasing companions, I
have been for a while participating with great satisfaction; I have
joined several times in the deer-hunts, and more frequently in grouse
shooting, which constitutes the principal amusement of this place.
This delicious bird, which is found in great abundance in nearly all
the North American prairies, and most generally called the Prairie Hen,
is, from what I can learn, very much like the English grouse, or heath
hen, both in size, in colour, and in habits. They make their appearance
in these parts in the months of August and September, from the higher
latitudes, where they go in the early part of the summer, to raise
their broods. This is the season for the best sport amongst them; and
the whole garrison, in fact are almost subsisted on them at this time,
owing to the facility with which they are killed.
I was lucky enough the other day, with one of the officers of the
garrison, to gain the enviable distinction of having brought in
together seventy-five of these fine birds, which we killed in one
afternoon; and although I am quite ashamed to confess the manner in
which we killed the greater part of them, I am not so professed a
sportsman as to induce me to conceal the fact. We had a fine pointer,
and had legitimately followed the sportsman’s style for a part of the
afternoon; but seeing the prairies on fire several miles ahead of us,
and the wind driving the fire gradually towards us, we found these
poor birds driven before its long line, which seemed to extend from
horizon to horizon, and they were flying in swarms or flocks that
would at times almost fill the air. They generally flew half a mile or
so, and lit down again in the grass, where they would sit until the
fire was close upon them, and then they would rise again. We observed
by watching their motions, that they lit in great numbers in every
solitary tree; and we placed ourselves near each of these trees in
turn, and shot them down as they settled in them; sometimes killing
five or six at a shot, by getting a range upon them.
In this way we retreated for miles before the flames, in the midst of
the flocks, and keeping company with them where they were carried along
in advance of the fire, in accumulating numbers; many of which had been
driven along for many miles. We murdered the poor birds in this way,
until we had as many as we could well carry, and laid our course back
to the Fort, where we got much credit for our great shooting, and where
we were mutually pledged to keep the secret.
The prairies burning form some of the most beautiful scenes that are to
be witnessed in this country, and also some of the most sublime. Every
acre of these vast prairies (being covered for hundreds and hundreds of
miles, with a crop of grass, which dies and dries in the fall) burns
over during the fall or early in the spring, leaving the ground of a
black and doleful colour.
There are many modes by which the fire is communicated to them, both
by white men and by Indians—_par accident_; and yet many more where
it is voluntarily done for the purpose of getting a fresh crop of
grass, for the grazing of their horses, and also for easier travelling
during the next summer, when there will be no old grass to lie upon the
prairies, entangling the feet of man and horse, as they are passing
over them.
Over the elevated lands and prairie bluffs, where the grass is thin
and short, the fire slowly creeps with a feeble flame, which one can
easily step over (+plate+ 127); where the wild animals often rest in
their lairs until the flames almost burn their noses, when they will
reluctantly rise, and leap over it, and trot off amongst the cinders,
where the fire has past and left the ground as black as jet. These
scenes at night become indescribably beautiful, when their flames are
seen at many miles distance, creeping over the sides and tops of the
bluffs, appearing to be sparkling and brilliant chains of liquid fire
(the hills being lost to the view), hanging suspended in graceful
festoons from the skies.
But there is yet another character of burning prairies (+plate+ 128),
that requires another Letter, and a different pen to describe—the war,
or hell of fires! where the grass is seven or eight feet high, as is
often the case for many miles together, on the Missouri bottoms; and
the flames are driven forward by the hurricanes, which often sweep
over the vast prairies of this denuded country. There are many of
these meadows on the Missouri, the Platte, and the Arkansas, of many
miles in breadth, which are perfectly level, with a waving grass, so
high, that we are obliged to stand erect in our stirrups, in order to
look over its waving tops, as we are riding through it. The fire in
these, before such a wind, travels at an immense and frightful rate,
and often destroys, on their fleetest horses, parties of Indians,
who are so unlucky as to be overtaken by it; not that it travels as
fast as a horse at full speed, but that the high grass is filled with
wild pea-vines and other impediments, which render it necessary for
the rider to guide his horse in the zig-zag paths of the deers and
buffaloes, retarding his progress, until he is overtaken by the dense
column of smoke that is swept before the fire—alarming the horse, which
stops and stands terrified and immutable, till the burning grass which
is wafted in the wind, falls about him, kindling up in a moment a
thousand new fires, which are instantly wrapped in the swelling flood
of smoke that is moving on like a black thunder-cloud, rolling on the
earth, with its lightning’s glare, and its thunder rumbling as it goes.
* * * * * * * * When Ba’tiste, and Bogard, and I, and Patrick Raymond
(who like Bogard had been a free trapper in the Rocky Mountains), and
Pah-me-o-ne-qua (the red thunder), our guide back from a neighbouring
village, were jogging along on the summit of an elevated bluff,
overlooking an immense valley of high grass, through which we were
about to lay our course.—— * * * * * * * * *
“Well, then, you say you have seen the prairies on fire?” Yes. “You
have seen the fire on the mountains, and beheld it feebly creeping over
the grassy hills of the North, where the toad and the timid snail were
pacing from its approach—all this you have seen, and who has not? But
who has seen the vivid lightnings, and heard the roaring thunder of
the rolling conflagration which sweeps over the _deep-clad_ prairies
of the West? Who has dashed, on his wild horse, through an ocean of
grass, with the raging tempest at his back, rolling over the land
its swelling waves of liquid fire?” What! “Aye, even so. Ask the red
savage of the wilds what is awful and sublime—Ask him where the Great
Spirit has mixed up all the elements of death, and if he does not blow
them over the land in a storm of fire? Ask him what foe he has met,
that regarded not his frightening yells, or his sinewy bow? Ask these
lords of the land, who vauntingly challenge the thunder and lightning
of Heaven—whether there is not one foe that travels over their land,
too swift for their feet, and too mighty for their strength—at whose
approach their stout hearts sicken, and their strong-armed courage
withers to nothing? Ask him _again_ (if he is sullen, and his eyes set
in their sockets)—‘Hush!————sh!————sh!’—(he will tell you, with a soul
too proud to confess—his head sunk on his breast, and his hand over his
mouth)—‘that’s _medicine_!’” * * * * * * * * * * * *
I said to my comrades, as we were about to descend from the towering
bluffs into the prairie—“We will take that buffalo trail, where the
travelling herds have slashed down the high grass, and making for that
blue point, rising, as you can just discern, above this ocean of grass;
a good day’s work will bring us over this vast meadow before sunset.”
We entered the trail, and slowly progressed on our way, being obliged
to follow the winding paths of the buffaloes, for the grass was higher
than the backs of our horses. Soon after we entered, my Indian guide
dismounted slowly from his horse, and lying prostrate on the ground,
with his face in the dirt, he _cried_, and was talking to the Spirits
of the brave—“For,” said he, “over this beautiful plain dwells the
Spirit of fire! he rides in yonder cloud—his face blackens with rage
at the sound of the trampling hoofs—the _fire-bow_ is in his hand—he
draws it across the path of the Indian, and quicker than lightning, a
thousand flames rise to destroy him; such is the talk of my fathers,
and the ground is whitened with their bones. It was here,” said he,
“that the brave son of Wah-chee-ton, and the strong-armed warriors of
his band, just twelve moons since, licked the fire from the blazing
wand of that great magician. Their pointed spears were drawn upon the
backs of the treacherous Sioux, whose swifter-flying horses led them,
in vain, to the midst of this valley of death. A circular cloud sprang
up from the prairie around them! it was raised, and their doom was
fixed by the Spirit of fire! It was on this vast plain of _fire-grass_
that waves over our heads, that the swift foot of Mah-to-ga was laid.
It is here, also, that the fleet-bounding wild horse mingles his bones
with the red man; and the eagle’s wing is melted as he darts over
its surface. Friends! it is the season of fire; and I fear, from the
smell of the wind, that the Spirit is awake!”
[Illustration: 128]
[Illustration: 127]
Pah-me-o-ne-qua said no more, but mounted his wild horse, and waving
his hand, his red shoulders were seen rapidly vanishing as he glided
through the thick mazes of waving grass. We were on his trail, and
busily traced him until the midday-sun had brought us to the ground,
with our refreshments spread before us. He partook of them not, but
stood like a statue, while his black eyes, in sullen silence, swept the
horizon round; and then, with a deep-drawn sigh, he gracefully sunk to
the earth, and laid with his face to the ground. Our buffalo _tongues_
and pemican, and marrow-fat, were spread before us; and we were in the
full enjoyment of these dainties of the Western world, when, quicker
than the frightened elk, our Indian friend sprang upon his feet! His
eyes skimmed again slowly over the prairies’ surface, and he laid
himself as before on the ground.
“Red Thunder seems sullen to-day,” said Bogard—“he startles at every
rush of the wind, and scowls at the whole world that is about him.”
“There’s a rare chap for you—a fellow who would shake his fist at
Heaven, when he is at home; and here, in a _grass-patch_, must make his
_fire-medicine_ for a _circumstance_ that he could easily leave at a
shake of his horse’s heels.”
“Not sae sure o’ that, my hooney, though we’ll not be making too
lightly of the matter, nor either be frightened at the mon’s strange
octions. But, Bogard, I’ll tell ye in a ’ord (and thot’s enough),
there’s something more than odds in all this ‘_medicine_.’ If this
mon’s a fool, he was born out of his own country, that’s all—and if
the divil iver gits him, he must take him cowld, for he is too swift
and too wide-awake to be taken alive—you understond thot, I suppouse?
But, to come to the plain matter—supposin that the Fire Spirit (and I
go for somewhat of witchcraft), I say supposin that this _Fire Spirit_
should jist impty his pipe on tother side of this prairie, and strike
up a bit of a blaze in this high grass, and send it packing across in
this direction, before sich a death of a wind as this is! By the _bull
barley_, I’ll bet you’d be after ‘_making medicine_,’ and taking a bit
of it, too, to get rid of the racket.”
“Yes, but you see, Patrick——”
“Neever mind thot (not wishin to distarb you); and suppouse the blowin
wind was coming fast ahead, jist blowin about our ears a warld of smoke
and chokin us to dith, and we were dancin about a _Varginny reel_ among
these little paths, where the divil would we be by the time we got to
that bluff, for it’s now fool of a distance? Givin you time to spake,
I would say a word more (askin your pardon), I know by the expression
of your face, mon, you neever have seen the world on fire yet, and
therefore you know nothin at all of a _hurly burly_ of this kind—did
ye?—did ye iver see (and I jist want to know), did ye iver see the
fire in high-grass, runnin with a strong wind, about five mile and the
half, and thin hear it strike into a _slash_ of _dry_ cane brake!! I
would jist ax you that? By thuneder you niver have—for your eyes would
jist stick out of your head at the thought of it! Did ye iver look
way into the backside of Mr. Maelzel’s Moscow, and see the flashin
flames a runnin up; and then hear the poppin of the _militia fire_ jist
afterwards? then you have jist a touch of it! ye’re jist beginnin—ye
may talk about fires—but this is sich a _baste of a fire_! Ask _Jack
Sanford_, he’s a chop that can tall you all aboot it. Not wishin
to distarb you, I would say a word more—and that is this—If I were
advisin, I would say that we are gettin too far into this imbustible
meadow; for the grass is dry, and the wind is too strong to make a
light matter of, at this sason of the year; an now I’ll jist tell ye
how M‘Kenzie and I were sarved in this very place about two years ago;
and he’s a worldly chop, and niver aslape, my word for that————hollo,
what’s that!”
_Red Thunder_ was on his feet!—his long arm was stretched over the
grass, and his blazing eye-balls starting from their sockets! “White
man (said he), see ye that small cloud lifting itself from the prairie?
he rises! the hoofs of our horses have waked him! The _Fire Spirit_ is
awake—this wind is from his nostrils, and his face is this way!” No
more—but his swift horse darted under him, and he gracefully slid over
the waving grass as it was bent by the wind. Our viands were left, and
we were swift on his trail. The extraordinary leaps of his wild horse,
occasionally raised his red shoulders to view, and he sank again in the
waving billows of grass. The tremulous wind was hurrying by us fast,
and on it was borne the agitated wing of the soaring eagle. His neck
was stretched for the towering bluff, and the thrilling screams of his
voice told the secret that was behind him. Our horses were swift, and
we struggled hard, yet hope was feeble, for the bluff was yet _blue_,
and nature nearly exhausted! The sunshine was _dying_, and a cool
shadow advancing over the plain. Not daring to look back, we strained
every nerve. The roar of a distant cataract seemed gradually advancing
on us—the winds increased, the howling tempest was maddening behind
us—and the swift-winged _beetle_ and _heath hens_, instinctively drew
their straight lines over our heads. The fleet-bounding antelope passed
us also; and the _still swifter_ long-legged hare, who leaves but a
shadow as he flies! Here was no time for thought—but I recollect the
heavens were overcast—the distant thunder was heard—the lightning’s
glare was reddening the scene—and the smell that came on the winds
struck terror to my soul! * * * * The piercing yell of my savage guide
at this moment came back upon the winds—his robe was seen waving in the
air, and his foaming horse leaping up the towering bluff.
Our breath and our sinews, in this last struggle for life, were just
enough to bring us to its summit. We had risen from a _sea of fire_!
“Great God! (I exclaimed) how sublime to gaze into that valley, where
the elements of nature are so strangely convulsed!” Ask not the poet or
painter how it looked, for they can tell you not; but ask the _naked
savage_, and watch the electric twinge of his manly nerves and muscles,
as he pronounces the lengthened “hush——sh————” his hand on his mouth,
and his glaring eye-balls looking you to the very soul!
I beheld beneath me an immense cloud of black smoke, which extended
from one extremity of this vast plain to the other, and seemed
majestically to roll over its surface in a bed of liquid fire; and
above this mighty desolation, as it rolled along, the whitened smoke,
pale with terror, was streaming and rising up in magnificent cliffs to
heaven!
I stood _secure_, but tremblingly, and heard the maddening wind, which
hurled this _monster_ o’er the land—I heard the roaring thunder, and
saw its thousand lightnings flash; and then I saw _behind_, the black
and smoking desolation of this _storm_ of _fire_!
LETTER—No. 34.