RATTLESNAKES AND REDSKINS.
The night-herder's song awoke me at four a. m.--the first streak of
day--and I didn't have time to pull on my boots before the bulls were
inside the corral; so, in bare feet, I yoked my fourteen head and then
proceeded to pull on the cowhides, roll up my blankets and throw them on
my trail wagon. Due to the haste--for nearly everyone else in the outfit
was ready to "pull out" in response to the assistant wagon boss'
order--I proceeded to pull on the left boot without the usual
precautions. My fingers were in the straps as I sat on the ground,[1]
and in another minute my toes would have been in the boot. But the
rattler that had spent the night in it stuck out his head. I shook him
out, first calling my pard to come with his whip.
[Footnote 1: This was in the center of a prairie dog town covering
perhaps twenty acres; and the "town" was inhabited not only by these
marmots but rabbits, owls and rattlesnakes, apparently living in perfect
peace and harmony in the same burrows.]
* * * * *
After the rattler was dead I plucked off eleven beautifully graduated
white rattles and a black button, later on adding them to a hatband of
several hundred which I had sewn together, using silk thread and a
cambric needle. The other boot was tenantless.
The blankets, in a neat roll secured by a heavy leather strap, were
thrown on top of the freight in the trailer, and away we went for a dry
camp in the bad lands, where we spent six hours of the middle of the day
hiding under our wagons to escape the hot rays of the sun.
A late afternoon start ended at nine p. m., in a moonlit camp on a creek
that ran swiftly through chalk-like bluffs--perhaps the headwaters of
the Niobrara river. In those days none but a geographer or a government
surveyor knew the names of many of the waterways, if they had names. It
had been a hard drive through deep sand most of the way, and after the
bulls had been relieved of their yokes and the chains that held the
teams together, all hands raced for the water, both for internal and
external purposes.
Our night camp was on a flat between the bluffs and a few yards from the
stream in a most inviting spot, the edge of the crooked channel being
lined with stunted and gnarled box-elder, while farther back were a few
dozen dead and gaunt cottonwoods. Some small bushes grew in clumps here
and there, but our camp commanded a good view, even in the night, of the
country for a mile in at least two directions--north and south.
Though tired, it was too nice a night even in this wilderness to go to
bed; for a youngster who had acquired two revolvers, a Winchester
rifle, a butcher knife and other weapons believed the crumpled grass he
had seen at the edge of the creek indicated the presence not far away of
others of the human family, and he intended to find out about it. He had
confided this suspicion to one other youth of the outfit, and as the
supper camp-fire died down to a bed of coals and a cool wind began to
fan the hot earth these boys stole out of camp, waded the creek, and
carefully examined the earth up and down its margin until they came upon
a distinct moccasin, pony and lodge pole trail. They followed it along
the bottoms for two miles to a jutting bluff where around the corner
they saw six tepees, near which were picketed several ponies.
All was silent as the boys, concealed in a safe spot, viewed the scene.
Then there was a sound, low at first, like the crooning of a mother to a
babe, which grew louder and louder, until finally there emerged from one
of the tepees a big buck who stood silently for a full minute,
listening. He wore nothing but a breech-clout, and over his shoulder
hung a buckskin strap upon which was attached the arrows for the big bow
held in his hand. He did wear a bonnet and it consisted principally of
feathers that looked exactly like some of the creations worn by women of
the present day.
When he had located the sound he moved toward the hiding boys but
stopped at the nearest tepee. The crooning grew to a lamentation. Then
other tepees showed signs of life, and in a few moments bucks, squaws
and papooses were running hither and thither in a bewildering way. But
the boys remained silent, for there was no sign of a movement of camp
and not an indication that there was an outside alarm. Then what could
it be? What was all this fuss about? The lamentations became louder and
louder and the excitement apparently greater.
Finally a number of squaws who had gone to the creek bottom appeared in
the center of the little camp. They carried bundles of green willows,
dozens of large hard-head boulders and rawhide receptacles filled with
water; also a bundle of dry faggots.
After the stones had been piled in a neat heap a fire was built upon
them which was allowed to burn briskly for half an hour. Then the coals
and ashes were brushed off and a tent-like covering put over a quickly
woven basket-like structure that had been built over the stones. Then
the water was dashed upon the stones and the steam began to ascend.
Presently out from a tepee came a squaw with a bundle which she gently
shoved under the elkskin covered cauldron of steam.
"Say," said one of the boys, "are you on?"
"Sure enough," the other whispered, "they are giving that kid a Turkish
bath."
And that's what they were doing; but it wasn't Turkish-just Injun.
Returning to camp the boys proceeded to slip into their blankets
quietly, say nothing about what they had seen, and go to sleep. They
believed the straggling band of Arapahoes were not on the war-path and
had work for the "medicine-man"--the big buck they first saw come out of
his tepee.
You have no idea how cautiously the boys went about getting the blankets
off the wagon so as not to disturb the boss, a man they feared. So they
moved noiselessly.
One threw his roll of blankets from the top of the trailer and the other
caught the bundle and proceeded to flatten it out into a comfortable bed
when he heard a familiar noise, and forgetting that they were to be
silent, the youth on the ground yelled:
"Look out--a rattler!"
It woke up the whole camp. The snake had occupied the blankets from four
a. m., at least, until this time--midnight. Perhaps he had slept with
the boy until four a. m.; I think he did; anyway, he had rolled him up
and put him where found.