was riding over the field with his party, a cry was heard from a
snow-bank that covered the dead bodies of some squaws. A soldier
dismounted and found an Indian pappoose tied to its dead mother’s back,
and clasped in the child’s arms was a soiled, little rag doll which the
baby fought to retain. General Colby immediately had the little waif
cared for and afterwards adopted her. The Indians named her “Ziutka
Lanuni,” which in the white man’s tongue means “Lost Bird.” She is now
living at the home of Mrs. L. W. Colby in Washington, D. C., a beautiful
Indian girl, well educated, speaking the tongue of the white man, for
she never had the opportunity to learn the language of her people.
A few days after the battle the great Sioux chief, Sitting Bull, was
slain by the Indian police. The news of the battle spread among the
hostile Indians. They learned that the much prized ghost shirt was no
protection against the white man’s bullets, and the closing scene of
this drama occurred some weeks later when the hills about Pine Ridge
agency fairly swarmed with returning hostiles.
No conquered general in the history of the world ever met the conqueror
with haughtier mien than did Two Strikes, the untutored savage, chief of
the hostile band, when he made his formal surrender to General Miles.
Followed by half a dozen lesser chiefs, he strode majestically toward
the agency school building in front of which stood General Miles and
aides waiting to receive him. His magnificent form was erect, his head,
proudly decked with the eagle feather, was thrown slightly back, while
every muscle of his face was as tense as steel. His warrior robes were
draped about his shoulders, while his arms were folded across a carbine
upon his breast. With measured tread he approached and halted in front
of General Miles and met the mild blue eye of that warrior with black,
piercing eyes that fairly blazed fire. Steadily the two men gazed at
each other for more than a minute. The muscles of the Indian’s face
twitched and the proud lips essayed to speak--as though he would hurl a
torrent of defiance and hatred into the conqueror’s face. With one swift
movement he laid the carbine at the general’s feet, stood erect another
instant gazing with defiant eyes--and strode away to join his people.
[Illustration: After the Blizzard at Wounded Knee (page 95).]
XIII.
THE TRAGEDY OF THE LOST MINE.
In 1879, Capt. Charles Watt and Irwin Baker built a cabin in a gulch
some miles distant from where Cripple Creek now stands. Baker had in his
possession samples of very rich gold-bearing ore which he claimed to
have brought from Arizona, where he and a Mexican had been driven out by
Indians, as their reservation at that time extended over that region of
country. The Mexican afterwards died of wounds received in the fight,
and Baker was the sole possessor of the secret of the mine. He would sit
for hours and tell how they had dug the white quartz which was threaded
and beaded with strings of gold, and hoarded vast quantities of it under
a great shelving rock which bore evidence of having at one time been the
home of the Cliff Dwellers. And how he had carefully made a map of the
country and intended when the Indian troubles were over to hire a
sufficient force of men and burros to go there and bring away enough of
the treasure to fix him in comfortable circumstances for the rest of his
life. He often spoke of the map which he kept carefully concealed among
his effects, which consisted of a valise and some mining tools.
In the fall of 1879 Baker concluded to make a trip to Leadville, which
was then in the height of prosperity, and taking his rifle, blankets,
and a few days’ rations, set out on foot. He reached Leadville safely,
and a few days later died of pneumonia. As no one claimed the few
chattels, including the valise, which Baker left behind, Captain Watt as
a matter of course took them. He searched everywhere for the map by
which Baker set so much store, and not finding it, concluded it was
concealed about his clothing and had been doubtless buried with him. And
so years passed on, but the straight story the man had so often told
around the cabin fire in the silence of night, was never forgotten by
Watt, who, in the lonely hours among the towering peaks of the Rocky
Mountains, had thought of it a thousand times.
But one day, the hand of Fate and Chance took a part.
Captain Watt needed a strip of leather. There was none to be found.
Finally, his eye rested upon the old valise which had once been the
property of Irwin Baker, which had tumbled about prospectors’ cabins for
the last ten years. It was worn out, but the sides would make the strip
of leather the captain wanted. The first slash of his knife revealed
between the outside and the lining a folded sheet of paper, yellowed
with age, and a closer examination proved it to be the carefully
prepared map which Irwin Baker had concealed ten years before. The lines
were drawn with the skill of a civil engineer, and the places so plainly
marked that a party instantly formed, believed they would have no
difficulty in going straight to the lost mine.
Three others, myself and Captain Baker staked our time and money on the
venture, and another month found us in the country called Coconino in
Arizona through which the Colorado River crosses with many a curve and
twist. It lies in the northern part of the great Colorado plateau and
west of the Moqui country.
John Bowden, a young civil engineer, was one of our party. He had
studied at Ann Arbor and also at the University of Minnesota. His field
work covered about five years prior to joining us. He was not familiar
with the Southwest, its climate and peculiar topography, but others of
the party were, and in view of his knowledge of civil engineering he was
considered a valuable man to us.
The sun shines in Coconino. It hangs day after day above Lava Butte, the
Painted Desert, Shinumo Altar, and the Black Falls, as if it were a
destroying angel, not the kindly orb that flashes in the northern belt,
but a consuming, terrifying demon of the desert wastes from which there
is no escape. Those who toil in the city’s ways think the sun is hot,
that the humidity is deadly, that pain such as theirs is unknown. They
have never looked up to the solar star from the buttes of Coconino.
There, blazing through the century-dried air all that is inhuman in
stellar heat feeds upon the brain, the senses of man, until he staggers
over the sands and falls to death.
Our party had made its way north of Mesa Butte, carrying provisions and
water, making slow progress, enduring extraordinary discomforts. It was
after we had camped at the Little Colorado on the south bank, that
Bowden and I, acting upon the advice of Captain Watt, made some advance
explorations to determine how best we should approach Lava Butte, which,
according to Baker’s map, was the key to the route to the lost mine.
We left one morning before sunrise and headed due north for the Painted
Desert. We carried with our horses a two days’ supply of water and
provisions. It was impossible after ten o’clock in the morning to
advance farther in the heat. We camped in the swale of a dry arroya,
making such shade as we could, and waited for the coming of the late
afternoon, when we might press on a little more. Bowden attempted some
observations, but found that his sight was affected and that he must
rest. In the evening and before we halted for the night, Lava Butte was
in sight. After supper, Bowden said he would walk a distance under the
stars; and that he would return to the camp within an hour.
He had not returned by midnight, and I dared not leave the horses and
search for him, but I fired my rifle as a signal at short intervals
throughout the night. The next day I tried to find him, firing my rifle
now and then, until I had burned the last cartridge, and then I made a
fire of dried cactus stalks, in hopes that the smoke would attract his
attention, but all this failed. The water supply began to run short, the
horses were suffering, and Bowden did not appear. I then headed back for
camp on the Little Colorado, intending to follow our trail in the sands,
but the hot winds had swept over the desert and obliterated most of
them. I had depended upon Bowden’s qualities as an engineer and had not
taken as close an observation as I would otherwise. However, I
remembered my experience in the Palm Desert of years before, and so
urged my horse along through the torrid heat, always heading for a
jutting butte where I thought our camp to be. At noon my horse died, and
I lay in the shade of some rocks, giving myself up for lost, when, as
the sun was going down and the shadows were creeping over the desert, I
descried the relief party from our camp that was searching for us.
Bowden’s body was found five miles from the camp he and I had made. He
had walked in the night through the dead land, where, in starlight or
sunlight, all things look alike. But there is so much white and so much
grey, that to distinguish one object from another, to remember it, to
say, “I will come back to this,” is not possible. So when Bowden started
to retrace his steps, he did not know where he was. The plain was all
north, south, east and west.
He quite evidently had sat down and tried to collect his thoughts, for
there were marks in the waste indicating the various positions he had
taken. He had a small bottle of water with him, but no food.
No sound swept the plain. Bowden may have thought he was entombed in
some vast charnel-house of the ages to which Time had brought Nature’s
remains and left them without burial. He was on the crest of one-time
vast lava beds, a spot where fearful fires once raged beneath his feet.
Here the last great battle of the peaks of the continent had probably
been fought with thunderbolt and flame hurled from the bowels of the
earth. And he was alone. Not even the wretched lizards of the lava
region were moving. He called. No voice answered. He walked, but it was
in a circle, and he came back time and time again to his starting point.
He waited for the dawn--one hope that the sun’s light might give him a
trace of the camp. He saw the shade of the night grow deeper and deeper,
and then the driving of this blackness back from the east and the coming
there of a cold line of grey and then an insolent one of red and a
savage yellow with that, and then, with one leap, the sun.
He must have scanned the plain, but there was no sight of camp. He
called, he laughed, he cried. He drank his water to the last drop in the
little bottle. He walked and ran. He returned to the spot where he had
first become bewildered. He was hot and then cold, and the sun rose
higher and higher; grew more pitiless with every advance. The white heat
beat down on him; it rose in sheets before him. Now the lizards and the
mean, creeping things came out, but they passed him by. They could wait.
Others had preceded him. After a long time, Bowden threw his hands high
in the air, far up to the sun god that was calling to him, although
beating him down. He fell flat on his face, and there he slept his last
sleep in the land where the sun shines forever and forever.
A week later and Captain Watt died of gastritis, and our party returned
to Flagstaff and abandoned the search for the lost mine.
XIV.
THE LAND OF THE FAIR GOD.
Captain David L. Payne was a born frontiersman. He left his home in
Grant County, Indiana, in 1856, at the age of 20 years. He started west
to fight the Mormons, and got as far as Doniphan County, Kansas. Here he
found plenty of excitement and joined the Free Soil party. Five years
later, when the border was aflame with fire and steel, he was among the
first to enlist in the Union army. He served with distinction throughout
the war. In 1865 he was honorably discharged at Ft. Leavenworth, with
the rank of major. After this he went to Pueblo de Taos, New Mexico, and
joined a party under Kit Carson, in an expedition against the Apaches.
And after this he was known as the “Cimarron Scout.”
I first met him in the Black Hills in 1876. He was then talking of
Oklahoma, called by the Indians The Land of the Fair God. He claimed
that the government had no title to the land. The next I noticed of him
was in 1880, when he organized a band of raiders to invade Oklahoma and
open it for settlement. His first company was thirteen strong. They went
as far south as Fort Russell, on the Cimarron, leaving Arkansas City,
April 30. They were captured and taken out by United States soldiers.
But the brave pioneer was not to be daunted. His followers increased and
they hovered upon the banks of the Arkansas River, awaiting the action
of a dilatory congress at Washington until the country was thrown open
to settlement, April 22, 1889.
Payne was like many other pioneers. He saw the land of promise, but
dared not enter therein and live. Fate reserved this boon for others,
while death decreed the brave soul should explore another bourne than
this. While sitting at a breakfast table in Wellington, Kansas,
December, 1884, he suddenly expired. Others may have felt as much
interest in the opening of Oklahoma as Payne, but certainly none others
devoted so much time and energy to the accomplishment of this work as
he. He began the movement at a time when it was very unpopular, hence
was the object of much unfavorable criticism and abuse, but he did not
allow this to daunt him, and continued to surround himself with a class
of followers who had the nerve to stand for the right.
On the opening day the people came. They represented every part of the
Union--from the granite hills of Maine to the flowery borders of
California, and from the northern lakes to the gulf. They formed one of
the most cosmopolitan communities ever assembled in the United States,
and as if by common consent all sectional prejudices were laid aside in
one common interest of beginning life anew. When the shadows of night
fell around and about them on that memorable day, Guthrie, the
territorial capital, was a tented city. The rush for lands and lots was
over; and men sat quietly about their bivouac fires discussing the
exciting events of the day. It was a triumph for American manhood and
education; that the day passed off peaceably, and a triumph for which
Oklahomans may well feel proud when the turbulence of the times are
considered. Practically there was no law save that administered by the
United States military, until the organic act was effected, May 2, 1890,
when Geo. W. Steele was appointed governor.
At the first session of the Territorial Legislature, a bill was
introduced to remove the capital to Oklahoma City. When it was about to
be placed upon its passage Arthur Daniels, the Speaker of the House,
seized the bill and started on a run for the Santa Fe depot, where a
special engine was waiting. Nearly all the members of the legislature
started in pursuit, firing their revolvers at the fleeing speaker. He
safely eluded them; and as the term of the legislature expired by law
that night, the capital was saved to Guthrie.
Hammers and saws could be heard night and day. Men were building a city.
In an incredible short space of time, palatial residences, business
blocks and church spires rose upon what, a short time since, had been a
barren plain. They had added another dot on the map.
The administration of Governor Steele was soon followed by the
appointment of Governor A. J. Seay, an heroic figure on the federal side
during the war of the rebellion, an able and kindly man whom history
will revere. He was just the man for the times, for he always had a
pleasant word or sound advice when occasion offered. He had the happy
faculty of always looking at the bright side of life, and when speaking
invariably put his audience in a good humor, as at the close of his term
of office, in an address he said he always took an interest in the
scriptural saying, “If a man die, shall he live again?” The crowd saw
the point and gave a cheer for the retiring old hero so beloved by all.
About this time E. D. Nix was appointed United States marshal of the
Territory. To Marshal Nix and his faithful deputies belong the credit of
the suppression of outlawry in Oklahoma. At the time he was appointed in
May, 1903, the country was overrun by a banditti that rivaled the noted
James and Younger brothers, in Missouri. There was no safety for life or
property outside the larger towns. Trains were held up, banks were
looted, stores robbed, and travelers were murdered upon the highway.
To the young marshal, then only thirty years of age, it meant a long and
bitter fight ahead, costing the lives of ninety-one deputy marshals,
and over one and one-half million dollars to the government.
It was a fight to the death, but the young marshal was equal to the
emergency, and the emergency confronted him. One by one the desperate
bands were either captured or went down beneath the unerring aim of the
faithful deputies; who were all skilled frontiersmen.
These men were inured to hardships, many had been on the cattle trails,
and had burned cartridges in more than one Indian fight, some had been
marshals of Abilene, Dodge City and other frontier towns in their days
of lawlessness.
The time will come when men will paint them, write verses about them, as
they deserve to be written about. These men who bared their breasts to
outlaw’s bullets, as did deputies Bill Tighlman, W. W. Painter, John
Hixon, Heck Thomas, Ed Kelley, Chris Madson, Wm. Banks, Frank Canton,
John Hale, Frank Rhinehart and many others and to the heroic dead, such
as Tom Houston, Lafe Shadley, Dick Speed, Jim Masterson and nearly a
hundred others who fell as nobly as any soldier upon the battlefield in
country’s cause, for it was in country’s cause in which they fell.
The graves of these dead heroes should be decorated, as they will be in
time when Oklahomans stop long enough in their monied pursuits to give
thought to services rendered by these noble lives.
[Illustration: Chief Big Foot (page 91).]
A bushwhacking war was waged by the outlaws for more than three years.
As soon as one leader bit the dust there was another to take his place.
They were in bands of from ten to twenty and had their rendezvous in the
dark forests of the Chickasaw Indian nation, the Grand River hills of
the Osage Indian country or the Glass Mountains in the extreme west of
Oklahoma. Often they would meet at a given point, do some daring act of
train robbery, then scatter like quails with an agreed place of meeting;
perhaps a hundred and fifty miles away. They were like the Insurgents of
Cuba. No organized force could reach them. They knew every bridle path
in the woods, or trail on the plains. Nothing prevailed but an Indian
mode of warfare; but by long perseverance Marshal Nix’s force conquered.
Bill Dalton was killed, Bill Doolin, Arkansan Tom, Tulsa Jack, George
Newcomb, and Buck Weightman, alias, “Red Rock,” all noted outlaw
leaders in time bit the dust, while Bill Raidler fell “bleeding at every
pore” from a shotgun in the hands of Marshal Heck Thomas.
Tearing open his shirt and looking at his bleeding breast as full of
small holes as the lid of a pepper box, Raidler exclaimed, “Heck you
damned scoundrel, haven’t you any more respect for me; than to shoot me
with bird shot,” “Only used them for packing, my dear boy, only packing,
you will find plenty of buck shot among them,” said Heck, as he slipped
the cold steel cuffs on Raidler’s wrists.
XV.
OUTLAWRY IN OKLAHOMA.
Bill Doolin, noted outlaw, was in the United States jail in Guthrie,
Oklahoma. A chill, drizzling rain was falling and the night was dark.
The half breed Indians and white border ruffians who had been his
companions in the jail for the last two months, had grown tired of their
card playing and had sullenly slunk off to their dirty bunks. Doolin had
a cell of his own, but it had not yet been locked for the night and he
had the freedom of the “bull pen.” Near the front of the large room was
a partition of steel bars. Outside this partition was a stove, near
which a deputy marshal sat reading a novel. Another deputy was pacing
the floor. Doolin was thinking of a night like this when he and his men
lay in waiting at Red Rock for the Santa Fe express. How the chill
rain dripped from their broad hats as they held a final whispered
conversation just before the glaring eye of the headlight of the
express flashed on them for an instant as the train rounded a curve,
then the shrill whistle. How he blessed the dark night, and how he
cursed the mud, for it would leave a trail, easy for the deputy marshals
to follow.
It was action now, the panting engine had stopped at the water tank, the
fireman had drawn down the great nozzle of the water pipe and was
filling his tender. He struck the signal match across the butt of his
revolver. Another instant and his men was swarming over the tender with
revolvers at the heads of engineer and fireman. No time to lose.
Uncouple the express car. All aboard, and the frightened engineer is
compelled to run his engine five miles farther on and slow up at a creek
crossing, where there are other men and horses. A demand is made of the
express messenger to open his car, his answer is a bullet through the
door. Then Raidler crawls under the car and begins sending Winchester
bullets through the bottom of the car at random. One of the bullets
strikes the brave messenger in the head. They hear him fall with a
groan. Quick, the dynamite, an explosion and the door of the express
car is blown open. The pockets of the dead messenger are rifled, the key
to the Wells-Fargo express box is found and next the iron chest is open.
No time to count the big packages of currency and sealed bags of gold
now. To the horses, and then to the Glass Mountains. For this and other
crimes, death or imprisonment for life now awaited him. Oh, why did he
let Bill Tighlman take him single handed at Eureka Springs where he
thought he was safe in masquerading as an honest farmer from Texas.
A sudden pause in his thoughts, an idea struck Doolin, people knew they
had gotten over $100,000 from the express company, and that money ought
to be somewhere.
Doolin took a card from his pocket and a pencil and drew a map. Walking
over to the iron grating he motioned to the guard.
“My heart hurts me tonight,” he said, “and I am afraid I am going to
die. I wouldn’t mind all this so much if it wasn’t for my boy with his
mother over in the Osage nation, but I hate to see that boy go the way I
have. If I could find a good man I’d make him my boys’ guardian and fix
him for life.”
The guard stopped and came over to the iron grating.
“It is like this,” continued Doolin. “I have got $30,000 in gold for
some good man who will bring that boy up in the way he should go and be
a father to him, get him interested in some profession, and make a man
of him. I am done for sure and I believe I am going to die tonight, oh,
how my heart hurts, why not you get my money and be a father to my boy,
I believe you would do the honest thing by him, then I could die
easier.”
The guard looked over at his companion to see if he had heard. No, he
was still reading the novel. He looked at Doolin and nodded. Then he
drew close to the iron bars.
Doolin whispered, “I will trust you,” and drew from his pocket the card
on which he had drawn a map.
“Now stand close,” he said, “and see if you can understand this,--here
is the Bear Creek road in Pawnee county, here the ford, here a rock, ten
feet to the south of this rock dig three feet and there is $30,000.”
The guard did not quite understand and drew closer to the bars and took
the card.
While he was waiting, a long thin hand reached through the grating to
the handle of his six shooter and in a second he was peering down the
muzzle of his own revolver in the hands of Bill Doolin.
“Keep perfectly quiet,” said the outlaw, “you know me, open that bull
pen door very quietly.”
The guard silently obeyed. “Step in,” said Doolin, the guard stepped
inside. The next thing and he with the novel was staring into the quick
blue eye of Doolin and the ugly thing he held cocked in his hand.
“This way boys,” said Doolin, and the two guards followed him to his
cell. When they were inside he locked the door, then he called for their
cartridge belts and the revolver, which he with the novel still had
about him.
In five minutes he was inside a heavy rain coat, had the guards’
midnight lunches stored in its pockets, a heavy Winchester in his hands
and a hundred rounds of ammunition belted about him. Out into the night,
and on to the street where some belated revelers’ horses were tied. He
gathered up the reins of a fleet mustang and mounting into the
saddle--“Richard was himself again.”
* * * * *