IN THE SIOUX CAMP
At a late hour in the evening, or rather at an early hour in the
morning of the day that preceded the battle of Fort Phil Kearney, all
was silent and still in Red Cloud's camp, which was located a few
miles from the stockade. The Indians had kept up their dancing and
shouting until almost ready to drop with fatigue, pluming themselves on
victories won in bygone days, and panting for new scalps to be added to
those already gained, by the utter annihilation of the soldiers of the
Fort. At last they went into their tepees to dream of the triumph which
Red Cloud promised them should be theirs before many suns had passed
away. The wiping away of the Fort and the utter cleaning out of all the
power of the whites, was looked upon as a certain thing by the Sioux,
and all they waited for was an opportunity to use the power which they
were thought to possess. And why should not the whites be cleaned out?
They had come into that country without an invitation, were spreading
themselves all through it, and now they proposed to build a road
through their best hunting ground, which meant the thinning out of the
buffalo--their only means of subsistence. All they asked of the whites
was to go away and let them alone; but it seemed that the more land the
whites had, the more they wanted. No place was safe for the Indian. His
limits were growing smaller and smaller every day, and very soon he
would find that he had no land he could call his own. Something must be
done if they thought to lay their bones among their fathers', and the
only way to do it was to declare battle and go upon the warpath. This
was what the Sioux tribe and some of the Cheyennes had proposed to do.
When Indians are settled in their winter camp, and so far away from
enemies of every description that there is no danger of being
assaulted by them, it is the noisiest place that can be found on
earth. Their days are passed in loitering around the fire, but the
evenings are given over to pleasure. It is then that the dancers and
story-tellers are in their element, and the noise of the tom-tom drowns
all other sounds, except the whooping and yelling. It had been so in
this camp until the day that the renegade chiefs, as Red Cloud called
them, had signed a lease for that road; but the moment that happened,
the winter camp had been changed into a war camp, and all the men in it
were bent upon obtaining scalps and plunder. Then the social dancers
and story-tellers were out of place, and no performance of any kind
was indulged in except the scalp dance. The scalps were old, they had
done duty over and over again, but that did not hinder them from being
brought out whenever a warrior deemed it necessary. It happened so on
this night, and the braves, having grown weary of telling what they
meant to do when the soldiers came out to fight them, had passed into
their lodges and gone to sleep.
The only two who did not care for slumber were a couple of youthful
braves who sat on the ground outside of a tepee, talking over events
which might occur at any moment; and what seemed strange, these
Indians talked in whispers and in the ENGLISH language and seemed to
understand one another very readily. They had been so long unused to
the Sioux language that they conversed in a foreign tongue as eagerly
as white boys. It will be enough to say that one of them was Winged
Arrow, and the other was a classmate of his, who had been to Carlisle
with him. It was plain that, although they were Indians born and bred,
they did not at all like the way that things were going. Obeying their
fathers, they promptly left school and came home to join in the Indian
outbreak, which they were assured was to be the final struggle to
retain their lands and game as their fathers bequeathed it to them;
and now that they were here to help "clean out" the whites and restore
everything to the Indians as it was years ago, the only thing they saw
toward accomplishing that object was the destruction of a little Fort,
garrisoned by three hundred men, which alone stood in their way. Of
course it was easy enough to capture the Fort, but what should be the
next move on their part? Indians don't like to be killed any better
than white men, and that something would happen before that Fort was
taken was easy enough to be seen.
It will be observed too, that in their brief conversation which took
place before they went to their tepees, the Indians did not address
each other by the names that the tribes had given them. One was John
Turner and the other was Reuben Robinson--the names by which they had
been known at Carlisle. One was named after the janitor, as we have
said, and the other was called after the gardener, a white man who
thought the Indians were just about perfect. The boys called each
other Jack and Rube, and to have heard them talk, any one who could not
see them would have thought they were white boys sure enough.
"Say, Rube, you know that this thing don't look right to me," said John
Turner (Winged Arrow), who sat with his elbows resting on his knees and
his eyes fastened on the ground, "Here we have come all these miles to
help the Indians in a hopeless war. I don't care a cent whether I come
out of it or not."
"That is just the way I think, Jack," replied Rube. "We have lived
among the white people for almost eight years, and yet we must turn
around and kill them. I tell you I shall think of the old gardener
every time I pull on them. That Lieutenant of yours is all right,
because you gave him that letter. I wish I could find somebody to
assist in the same way."
"I had to take my chances. I was roaming around just to see what the
soldiers were doing, and I ran onto this fellow when I least expected
it. He is a brave boy too, and I hope he will stay in the Fort."
So it seemed that Reuben had some "medicine" which he wanted to give
to a soldier, under the impression that it would save the soldier's
life should he chance to be wounded and fall into the hands of the
Sioux. The boys had made this up between them while they were on the
cars coming to their home. Each one had the letter their fathers
had sent them, and they resolved that those letters should be their
"medicine"--that if either of them were found upon a dead soldier he
would be safe from mutilation; and if upon a wounded man, he should
be taken and treated in their rude way until he was well, and then be
released and free to return to his friends. It was as little as they
could do to pay the white men for all the kindness they had received at
their hands while attending school. This was proposed to John Turner's
father, then a prominent Medicine Man in the tribe, and after some
hesitation he agreed to it.
"You are bound to whip the whites anyway," said John, in arguing the
case with him.
"Oh, yes, we are bound to whip them," said the Medicine Man.
"Well, then, what difference will it make by saving one or two lives?
Let the letters save two lives, one a civilian and the other a soldier,
and when that is done we will turn upon the whites and stay by you as
long as one of them is left alive."
The Medicine Man finally agreed to this and it was so published in the
village; and although some of the warriors looked daggers at them and
said that any white man who fell into their hands should be punished to
the full extent of Indian law, we have seen that Winged Arrow's letter
once served its purpose.
"Those people must have wood pretty soon or they will freeze and starve
to death," said Reuben. "Are you going out when the time comes?"
"I must. I must make the Indians believe that I am with them heart and
soul. But there is one thing about it, Rube: I shall think that every
soldier has some medicine about him, and not any of them will fall by
my bullets."
"That is the way I shall do also. I really wish that this matter could
be settled without a war. But every time we get a reservation fixed
out to suit us, you will see some white man that wants some of it. Why
can't they go away and let us alone?"
"That is not the white man's way of doing business. He wants to raise
cattle, or he wants to dig for gold, or he wants some place to put his
family, and the first thing we know he has the whole country. If Red
Cloud should fail in his movement, and it looks to me now as though he
were going to, it will be all up with us. You and I belong to a doomed
race. The Indian will not survive the buffalo, and when he goes it is
good-by to us."
"I am afraid that is so," said Reuben, getting upon his feet, "and I
cannot find it in my heart to fight those white people either. All
we have we owe to them. I remember what hard work I had to write a
composition in English. Do you remember it?"
"I believe I do, and with what labor I tried to put my words in
English, so that some one would not laugh at me. I shall always
remember John Turner for that. He stood by me and helped me whenever I
failed, and that is one thing that makes me as good an English scholar
as I am to-day."
Reuben had evidently no more to say on the subject. Following an
Indian's way, he turned and left John without uttering another word
and went into his tepee, while John sat there on the ground occupied
with his own thoughts. The hours flew by and yet he sat there without
moving, and when at last the streaks of dawn appeared in the East he
saw three Indians silently leave their lodges and take their way out
over the prairie. These were the lookouts who had been appointed the
night before to go and watch the soldiers and see that none of them
left the Fort. On the summit of the nearest swell one of them sat down,
drew his blanket over his head and the other two kept on out of sight.
"Those poor fellows do not know that every move they make is known here
in camp," said Winged Arrow, slowly rising to an upright position. "As
long as they stay there inside their stockade, they are all right; but
the moment they organize a train to come out and get wood, that will be
the last of some of them."
Winged Arrow, as we shall continue to call him, did not forget one
practice he had learned among the whites, and that was to wash his
hands and face. He always felt better for that, and he could not
imagine why the Indians neglected it. This done, a pocket comb which he
drew from some receptacle about him was brought into play, and before
the Medicine Man appeared at his door, Winged Arrow was ready for
anything that was to be done.
One who had seen the Medicine Man as he appeared before Winged Arrow
at that moment would have wondered at his claiming that man for his
father. Winged Arrow was an ideal Indian. His frank and open face,
always destitute of paint, was one which could not be seen without a
desire to take two looks at it, and he was tall and as athletic as if
he had been to a training school all his life; but the man who opened
the door of his tepee and stepped out was exactly his reverse in these
respects. He was tall, as the majority of Indians were, but he was bent
almost half over, as if he were suffering from that Indian complaint,
rheumatism, and his face, that had been daubed with paint the night
before, was fearful to look upon. But for all that, he seemed to think
a good deal of Winged Arrow, and his commands went far and were
studiously obeyed by all the members of the tribe. Giving Winged Arrow
his letter as medicine was proof of his popularity with the tribe. A
grunt by way of greeting was all that passed between them. The Medicine
Man kept on his way, and Winged Arrow went into the tepee to get his
breakfast.
The Indians are very different from white men in regard to their
meals, each one breaking his fast whenever he feels the craving of his
appetite. A pot, generally filled with meat and water, is placed on one
side of the tepee, accompanied, if the man of the house be tolerably
well off in the world, by a package of parfleche, which contains the
Indian bread. If the bread is not there, the meat will do as well.
A pile of ashes in the middle of the lodge tells where the meat is
put to boil, and whenever an Indian is hungry he rakes together the
buffalo chips, starts a blaze and puts on the pot; and when he gets too
hungry to stand it any longer, he attacks the meat and eats until he
is satisfied. Winged Arrow had all this to do himself, for it was too
early for the women to be astir. As he sat waiting for his breakfast to
be cooked, his thoughts wandered away to the school at Carlisle, and he
wondered how many teachers there would have been willing to join him in
his repast.
"There is not one," soliloquized the young savage. "Every one of them
would turn up his nose at such a breakfast as this. And yet I am here
to fight just for keeping my people in this position. Oh, why did not
the whites stay in their own country?"
The smoke of the fire began to penetrate the tepee, until it was so
thick as to be unbearable to any but an Indian. Winged Arrow waited
until the meat was done and then, drawing his knife, proceeded to make
as good a breakfast as he could out of boiled beef.