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THE RANCHE ON THE OXHIDE
* * * * *
OFFICERS OF THE NATIONAL COUNCIL
Honorary President, THE HON. WOODROW WILSON
Honorary Vice-President, HON. WILLIAM H. TAFT
Honorary Vice-President, COLONEL THEODORE ROOSEVELT
President, COLIN H. LIVINGSTON, Washington, D. C.
Vice-President, B. L. DULANEY, Bristol, Tenn.
Vice-President, MILTON A. McRAE, Detroit, Mich.
Vice-President, DAVID STARR JORDAN, Stanford University, Cal.
Vice-President, F. L. SEELY, Asheville, N. C.
Vice-President, A. STAMFORD WHITE, Chicago, Ill.
Chief Scout, ERNEST THOMPSON SETON, Greenwich, Connecticut
National Scout Commissioner, DANIEL CARTER BEARD, Flushing N. Y.
NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS
BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA
THE FIFTH AVENUE BUILDING, 200 FIFTH AVENUE
TELEPHONE GRAMERCY 545
NEW YORK CITY
FINANCE COMMITTEE
John Sherman Hoyt, Chairman
August Belmont
George D. Pratt
Mortimer L. Schiff
H. Rogers Winthrop
GEORGE D. PRATT
Treasurer
JAMES E. WEST
Chief Scout Executive
ADDITIONAL MEMBERS OF THE EXECUTIVE BOARD
Ernest P. Bicknell
Robert Garrett
Lee F. Hanmer
John Sherman Hoyt
Charles C. Jackson
Prof. Jeremiah W. Jenks
William D. Murray
Dr. Charles P. Neill
George D. Porter
Frank Presbrey
Edgar M. Robinson
Mortimer L. Schiff
Lorillard Spencer
Seth Sprague Terry
July 31st, 1913.
TO THE PUBLIC:--
In the execution of its purpose to give educational value and moral
worth to the recreational activities of the boyhood of America, the
leaders of the Boy Scout Movement quickly learned that to effectively
carry out its program, the boy must be influenced not only in his
out-of-door life but also in the diversions of his other leisure
moments. It is at such times that the boy is captured by the tales of
daring enterprises and adventurous good times. What now is needful is
not that his taste should be thwarted but trained. There should
constantly be presented to him the books the boy likes best, yet always
the books that will be best for the boy. As a matter of fact, however,
the boy's taste is being constantly vitiated and exploited by the great
mass of cheap juvenile literature.
To help anxiously concerned parents and educators to meet this grave
peril, the Library Commission of the Boy Scouts of America has been
organised. EVERY BOY'S LIBRARY is the result of their labors. All the
books chosen have been approved by them. The Commission is composed of
the following members: George F. Bowerman, Librarian, Public Library of
the District of Columbia, Washington, D. C.; Harrison W. Graver,
Librarian, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Pa.; Claude G. Leland,
Superintendent, Bureau of Libraries, Board of Education, New York City:
Edward F. Stevens, Librarian, Pratt Institute Free Library, Brooklyn,
New York; together with the Editorial Board of our Movement William D.
Murray, George D. Pratt and Frank Presbrey, with Franklin K. Mathiews,
Chief Scout Librarian, as Secretary.
"DO A GOOD TURN DAILY."
In selecting the books, the Commission has chosen only such as are of
interest to boys, the first twenty-five being either works of fiction or
stirring stories of adventurous experiences. In later lists, books of a
more serious sort will be included. It is hoped that as many as
twenty-five may be added to the Library each year.
Thanks are due the several publishers who have helped to inaugurate this
new department of our work. Without their co-operation in making
available for popular priced editions some of the best books ever
published for boys, the promotion of EVERY BOY'S LIBRARY would have been
impossible.
We wish, too, to express our heartiest gratitude to the Library
Commission, who, without compensation, have placed their vast experience
and immense resources at the service of our Movement.
The Commission invites suggestions as to future books to be included in
the Library. Librarians, teachers, parents, and all others interested in
welfare work for boys, can render a unique service by forwarding to
National Headquarters lists of such books as in their judgment would be
suitable for EVERY BOY'S LIBRARY.
Signed
[Illustration: James E West]
Chief Scout Executive.
* * * * *
THE RANCHE ON THE OXHIDE
[Illustration: "The most indescribable antics were gone through."
_Page 290._ _Frontispiece._]
Every Boy's Library--Boy Scout Edition
THE RANCHE ON THE OXHIDE
A Story of Boys' and Girls' Life on the Frontier
by
HENRY INMAN
Late Captain United States Army
Brevet Lieutenant Colonel
Author of
The Old Santa Fé Trail
Illustrated by Charles Bradford Hudson
[Illustration]
New York
Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers
(Macmillan's Standard Library)
Copyright, 1898,
By The Macmillan Company.
Set up and electrotyped. Published July, 1898. Reprinted
December, 1905; December, 1908; October, 1909; June, 1911.
New edition September, 1906; August, September, 1911; March,
June, 1912; July, 1913.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
To My Grandson
GEORGE INMAN SEITZ
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
TAKING UP A "CLAIM" IN KANSAS--THE TRAIL FROM
LEAVENWORTH--ANIMALS SEEN EN ROUTE--PRAIRIE
CHICKENS--BUILDING THE CABIN--THE COSY
SITTING-ROOM--ANIMALS FOUND IN THE TIMBER AND ON THE
PRAIRIE--WHY THE CREEK WAS NAMED "OXHIDE" Page 1
CHAPTER II
THE HOUSE IS FINISHED--BUILDING CORRALS--THE HOUNDS--THEIR
FIGHT WITH A LYNX--ITS HIDE GIVEN TO GERTRUDE--THE
IMMENSE HERD OF BUFFALO--CAPTURE FOUR CALVES--GET THEIR
PONIES IN A STRANGE MANNER--BREAKING THEM Page 13
CHAPTER III
THE BOYS GO FISHING FOR THE FIRST TIME--AN IDEA SUDDENLY
STRIKES ROB--ROB'S QUEST AND LUCK--THE ISLAND OF
WILLOWS--ROB'S BIG CAT--JOE'S TUSSLE WITH A PANTHER
CUB--KILLS HIM--IS WOUNDED--SKINS THE ANIMAL, AND GETS
HOME AT LAST--GIVES THE BEAUTIFUL ROBE TO HIS MOTHER Page 29
CHAPTER IV
BOY AND GIRL LIFE AT ERROLSTRATH RANCHE--THEIR PETS--THE
GIRLS ENCOUNTER A BIG PRAIRIE WOLF--JOE TO THE
RESCUE--DEATH OF THE FEROCIOUS BEAST Page 48
CHAPTER V
THE FRIENDLY PAWNEES CAMP ON THE OXHIDE--OLD "YELLOW
CALF," THE CHIEF--JOE IS NAMED "THE WHITE PANTHER"--JOE
GOES HUNTING WITH THE BAND--HE LEARNS THE
LANGUAGE--HUNTING WITH THE BOYS OF THE TRIBE Page 62
CHAPTER VI
THE STORY OF THE MASSACRE ON SPILLMAN CREEK--SCOUTS GO TO
THE RESCUE--JOE AND ROB TALK OVER THE HORRID WORK OF THE
SAVAGES--THE DOG SOLDIERS--CHARLEY BENT--PLACE OF
RENDEZVOUS--PARTY STARTS OUT--JOE'S OPINION IS ASKED Page 71
CHAPTER VII
ARRIVAL OF CAVALRY ON THE ELKHORN--A DEER HUNT--WHAT THE
SCOUTS SAW--THE STORY OF THE TWO LITTLE GIRLS--THE DEAD
AND WOUNDED--MEN HIDDEN IN THE BRUSH--AN INDIAN
LEGEND--ARRIVAL OF THE INFANTRY--THE DEER HUNT IN THE
MORNING--DEATH OF THE DEER Page 98
CHAPTER VIII
MR. TUCKER PASSES THE NIGHT AT ERROLSTRATH--HE TELLS SOME
STORIES OF HUNTING BIG GAME IN THE ROCKY
MOUNTAINS--SAGACITY OF THE FEMALE BIGHORN--THE AMERICAN
COUGAR--THE BEAR AND THE PANTHER--THE RABBIT HUNT--HOW
THE BOYS TRAINED THEIR HOUNDS Page 118
CHAPTER IX
INDIAN RAIDS--KATE IS MISSING--"BUFFALO BILL'S"
OPINION--"BUFFALO BILL" FINDS HER LITTLE BASKET--THE
SOLDIERS RETURN TO THE FORT WITHOUT FINDING HER--GRIEF
OF THE FAMILY Page 137
CHAPTER X
HOW KATE WAS CAPTURED BY THE INDIANS--THE BAND RIDE
RAPIDLY SOUTHWARD--AT THE INDIAN VILLAGE--HER
DETERMINATION TO ESCAPE--TEACHES THE SQUAWS--IS TREATED
KINDLY Page 147
CHAPTER XI
THANKSGIVING DAY AT ERROLSTRATH--KATE'S RETURN--CUSTER'S
BATTLE WITH "BLACK KETTLE"--KATE TELLS HER STORY--THE
ORIGIN OF INDIAN CORN--A WOLF HUNT WITH GENERAL
CUSTER--A WOLF STORY BY THE COLONEL Page 156
CHAPTER XII
A WOLF HUNT--TWO SNAKE STORIES--TERRIBLE STRUGGLE WITH A
MOUNTAIN WOLF--A MAIL RIDER EATEN--THE OLD TRAPPER'S
EXPERIENCE WITH FOUR OF THE FIERCE BEASTS Page 193
CHAPTER XIII
JOE, ROB, AND THE OLD TRAPPER--GENERAL CUSTER ARRIVES AT
THE RENDEZVOUS--THE WOLF DENS--FIRST TUSSLE BETWEEN THE
HOUNDS AND A WOLF--CINCH'S GREAT BATTLE Page 211
CHAPTER XIV
A WILD TURKEY HUNT--THE TRIP TO MUD CREEK--THE TURKEY
ROOST--THE SHOOTING BEGINS--COUNTING THE NUMBER
KILLED--JOE SELLS TURKEYS Page 222
CHAPTER XV
HOW THE ROBIN CAME TO KANSAS--MOCKING-BIRDS--EATEN BY
SNAKES--JOE LOSES HIS TAME ELK--THE LAST OF THE
WOLVES--FINDING THE QUAIL'S NEST--JOE BUILDS A CAGE FOR
THEM--RAISING CHICKENS Page 229
CHAPTER XVI
THE PAWNEES RETURN--ANTELOPE HUNT WITH THE INDIANS--JOE
MISSES--WHITE WOLF--TALK OF A WILD HORSE HUNT--THE
SAND-HILL CRANES--THEIR WEIRD COTILLION Page 246
CHAPTER XVII
WILD HORSES--JOE SLEEPS IN WHITE WOLF'S TENT--CAMP ON THE
WALNUT--WOLVES AND LYNXES--KILL AN ELK--THE
CHASE--CAPTURE OF THE BLACK STALLION--WHITE WOLF'S
SKILL--BREAKING THE HORSES Page 256
CHAPTER XVIII
THE LAST HERD OF BUFFALO--THE STAMPEDE--THE SOLDIERS IN
FULL CHASE--JOE GETS TWO COWS--HAULING IN THE
MEAT--RATTLESNAKES Page 272
CHAPTER XIX
THE INDIAN HORSE-RACE--KATE'S PONY WINS--THE TRADE WITH
THE PAWNEES--THE DANCES AT NIGHT--THE INDIANS SAY GOOD
BY TO THE FAMILY--NOBLE ACTION OF WHITE WOLF Page 281
CHAPTER XX
CONCLUSION
RETROSPECTIVE--THE OLD TRAPPER PASSES AWAY--MR. AND MRS.
THOMPSON ARE DEAD--GENERAL CUSTER AND COLONEL KEOGH ARE
KILLED--ERROLSTRATH BELONGS TO JOE AND ROB Page 295
THE RANCHE ON THE OXHIDE
CHAPTER I
TAKING UP A "CLAIM" IN KANSAS--THE TRAIL FROM
LEAVENWORTH--ANIMALS SEEN EN ROUTE--PRAIRIE
CHICKENS--BUILDING THE CABIN--THE COSY
SITTING-ROOM--ANIMALS FOUND IN THE TIMBER AND ON THE
PRAIRIE--WHY THE CREEK WAS NAMED "OXHIDE"
IN 1865-66, immigrants began to rush into the new state of Kansas which
had just been admitted into the Union. A large majority of the early
settlers were old soldiers who had served faithfully during the war for
the preservation of their country. To these veterans the Government, by
Act of Congress, made certain concessions, whereby they could take up
"claims" of a hundred and sixty acres of the public land under easier
regulations than other citizens who had not helped their country in the
hour of her extreme danger.
Many of them, however, were forced to go out on the extreme frontier, as
the eastern portion of the state was already well settled. On the remote
border several tribes of Indians, notably the Cheyennes, Kiowas,
Comanches, and Arapahoes, still held almost undisputed possession, and
they were violently opposed to the white man's encroachment upon their
ancestral hunting-grounds, from which he drove away the big game upon
which they depended for the subsistence of themselves and their
families. Consequently, these savages became very hostile as they
witnessed, day after day, the arrival of hundreds of white settlers who
squatted on the best land, felled the trees on the margin of the streams
to build their log-cabins, and ploughed up the ground to plant crops.
Late in the fall of 1866, Robert Thompson, a veteran of one of the
Vermont regiments, having read in his village newspaper such glowing
accounts of the advantages offered by Kansas to the immigrant, decided
to leave his ancestral homestead among the barren hills of the Green
Mountain State, and take up a claim in the far West. The family,
consisting of father, mother, Joseph, Robert, Gertrude, and Kate, after
a journey by railroad and steamboat without incident worth recording,
arrived at Leavenworth on the Missouri River, the general rendezvous in
those early days for all who intended to cross the great plains, through
which a railroad was then an idle dream. In that rough, but busy town,
Mr. Thompson purchased two six-mule teams, two white-covered wagons
called "prairie schooners," together with sufficient provisions to last
a month, by which time he thought he should find a suitable location on
the vast plains whither he was going.
A few cooking-utensils of the simplest character, together with a
double-barrelled shot-gun and a Spencer rifle, constituted the entire
outfit necessary for their lonely trip of perhaps three hundred miles,
before they could hope to find unoccupied land on which to settle.
One Monday morning, bright and early, the teams pulled out of the town,
Mr. Thompson driving in the lead, and Joe, who was the elder of the
boys, in the other. Gertrude rode with her father and mother, and Kate
and Rob with their brother Joe. Their course ran over the broad trail
to the Rocky Mountains, on which were then hauled by government
caravans, all the supplies for the military posts in the Indian country.
Their route for the first two weeks passed through deep forests
extending for a long distance from the bank of the great river. The
whole family were charmed with the new and strange scenes they passed as
they rode slowly on day after day, scenes so different in their details
from those to which they had been used in the staid old region they had
left so far behind them. The boys and girls, particularly, were in a
constant state of excitement. They marvelled at the immense trees as
they passed through groups of great elms and giant cottonwoods. The
gnarled trunks were vine-covered clear to their topmost branches by the
magnificent Virginia creeper, or woodbine, as it is called, the most
beautiful of the American ivies, and which grows in its greatest
luxuriance west of the Missouri River. On the ends of the huge limbs of
the lofty trees as they branched over the trail, the red squirrels sat,
peeping saucily at the travellers as they drove under them, and the
blue jay, the noisiest of birds, screeched as he darted like lightning
through the dark foliage. The blue jay is the shark of the air; he
kills, without any discrimination, all the young fledglings he can find
in their nests while their parents are absent. Although his plumage is
magnificent in its cerulean hue as the sun glints upon it, and he has a
very sweet note when sitting quietly on the limbs of the oak, which he
loves, yet his awful screaming as he flies--and he is ever on the
wing--is far from pleasant to ears not trained to listen to his harsh
voice.
Occasionally a gaunt, hungry wolf--they are always hungry--would skulk
out of the timber and then run across the trail, with his tail wrapped
closely between his legs. He would just show a mouth full of great white
teeth for a moment, as he sneaked cowardly off, the rattle of the wagons
having, perhaps, disturbed his slumbers on some ledge of rock near the
road.
Prairie chickens, or pinnated grouse, were seen in large flocks as soon
as the open country was reached. They were far from wild in those days;
you could approach near enough always to get a good shot at them, for
civilization was to them almost as strange an experience as it was to
those beasts and birds on Robinson Crusoe's island. Joe was already
quite proficient with the shot-gun, and he often handed the lines to
Rob, and stopping the team, got out and walked ahead of the wagons to
stalk a flock of the beautiful game, which had been frightened away from
their feeding-ground by the rattle of the teams. For a long time grouse
was a part of every meal until the party became really tired of them.
Mrs. Thompson was a famous cook, and they were served up in a variety of
ways, but the favorite style of all the family was to have them broiled
before the camp-fire on peeled willow twigs. Rob always regarded it as
part of his duty to procure these twigs, as he was the handiest with a
jack-knife or hatchet.
The weeks passed pleasantly for the children, but the old folks were
becoming very anxious to settle somewhere, for the winter, as they
thought, would soon be coming on. They did not know then that that
season in Kansas is usually short, and that the three or four months
preceding it is the most delightful time of the whole year. So after
travelling nearly two months on the broad trail to the mountains,
examining a piece of land here and another there, they camped early one
afternoon on the bank of Oxhide Creek, in what is now Ellsworth County,
and so delighted were they all with the charming spot, that they made up
their minds to seek no further.
Their "claim," as the possession of the public land is called, included
a beautiful bend of the little stream which flowed through the one
hundred and sixty acres to which they were entitled by being the first
to settle on it. They discovered in the very centre of a group of elms
and cottonwoods a large spring of deliciously cool water, and the trees
which hid it from view were more than a century old. The magnificent
pool for untold ages had evidently been a favorite resort of the
antelope and buffalo, if one could so judge from the quantity of the
bones of those animals that were constantly ploughed up near by when the
ground was cultivated. No doubt that the big prairie wolf and the
cowardly little coyote hidden in the long grass and underbrush
surrounding the spring got many a kid and calf whose incautious mothers
had strayed from the protection of the herd to quench their thirst.
The beautiful creek flowed at the base of a range of low, rocky hills,
while two miles northward ran a magnificent stretch of level prairie,
beyond which ran the Smoky Hill River.
To their ranche, as all homes in the far West are called, the Thompsons
gave the name of Errolstrath. It had no special significance; it was so
called merely because "Strath" in Scotch means a valley through which a
stream meanders. It comported perfectly with the situation of the place,
and "Errol" was added as a prefix for euphony's sake. In this
picturesque little valley Mr. Thompson, with the assistance of his boys,
began at once the construction of a rude but comfortable cabin,
fashioned partly out of logs and partly of stone. The house outside gave
no hint of the excellence of its interior, or the cosy rooms which a
refined taste and culture had felt to be as necessary on the remote
frontier as in the thickly settled East. The largest division of the
house was an apartment which served as the family sitting-room. In one
corner of this, they built diagonally across it, after the Mexican
style, an old-fashioned fireplace, patterned like one in the ancestral
homestead in Vermont. Up its cavernous throat you could see the sky,
and in the summer, when the full moon was at the zenith, a flood of
bright light would pour down on the broad hearth. In the winter evenings
the family gathered around the great blazing logs, whose yellow flames
roared like a tornado as they shot up the chimney. The mother sewed, the
girls were engaged with their studies, and the boys either listened to
their father as he told of some experience in his own youthful days,
played chess, or were busied with some other intellectual amusement.
This large room was also furnished with a small but well-selected
library. It was a source of much pleasure to the family, as the country
was not settled up very rapidly, and the members were thrown entirely
upon their own resources for amusements. The following spring and summer
many newcomers arrived and took up the choicest lands in the vicinity,
until there were several families within varying distances of
Errolstrath. Some were only three miles away, others twelve, but in that
region then, all were considered neighbors, no matter how far away.
The children had lots of fun, for the rare sport differed entirely from
that which their former home in the old East had furnished. The dense
timber which grew by the water of the Oxhide like a fringe, was the home
of the lynx, erroneously called the wild cat, squirrels, badgers, and
coons. The wolf and the little coyote had their dens in the great ledges
of rock that were piled up on the hilly sides of the valley. The great
prairie was often black with vast herds of buffalo, or bison, which
roamed over its velvety area at certain seasons. The timid antelope,
too, graceful as a flower, and gifted with a wonderful curiosity, could
be seen for many years after the Thompsons had settled on the creek.
They moved in great flocks, frequently numbering a thousand or more, but
now, like their immense shaggy congener, the buffalo, through the
wantonness of man, they have been almost annihilated.
Joe Thompson, the eldest child, about fourteen, was a rare boy, strongly
built, and possessed of a mind that was equal to his well-developed
body. He was a born leader, and became one of the most prominent men on
the frontier when the troublous times came with the savages, some years
after the family had settled on Oxhide Creek. Robert, the second son,
was a bright, active, muscular fellow, two years younger than Joe, but
he lacked that self-reliance, energy, and coolness in the presence of
danger which so strikingly characterized Joe. Gertrude and Kate were
respectively ten and seven years old, and were carefully instructed by
their estimable mother in all that should be known by a woman whose life
was destined, perhaps, to the isolation and hardships of the frontier.
They were both taught to cook a dinner, ride horseback, handle a pistol
if necessary, or entertain gracefully in the parlor. To employ a
metaphor, theirs was a versatility which "could pick up a needle or rive
an oak!" In some of her characteristics Gertrude resembled her brother
Joe; she was braver and cooler under trying circumstances than Kate, who
was more like Rob. Both were rare specimens of noble girlhood, and their
life on the ranche, as will be seen, was full of adventure and thrilling
experiences.
It may seem strange that a stream should be called Oxhide, but, like the
nomenclature of the Indians, the name of every locality out on the
great plains is based upon some incident connected with the scene or the
individual. As this is a true story, it will not be amiss to tell here
why the odd-sounding name was given to the creek on which the Thompsons
had settled. Some years before the country was sought after by
emigrants, the only travellers through it were the old-time trappers,
who caught the various fur-bearing animals on the margins of its waters,
and the miner destined for far-off Pike's Peak or California. A party
camping there one day, on their way to the Pacific coast, discovered a
yoke of oxen, or rather their desiccated hides and skeletons, fastened
by their chains to a tree, where they had literally starved to death. It
was supposed that they had belonged to some travellers like themselves,
on their way to the mines, who had been surprised and murdered by the
Indians. The savages must have run off the moment they had finished
their bloody work, without ever looking for or finding the poor animals.
Thus it was that the stream was given the name of Oxhide, which it bears
to this day.