RELIEF FOR BEECHER'S ISLAND (1868)
AND A RATTLE-SNAKE IN THE WAY
The Plains Indians--the Sioux, the Cheyennes, the Arapahos, the Kiowas,
the Comanches--had fought hard, during the war of the white men in the
East, to clear their hunting grounds; but when in 1866 the Civil War
had ended they found that the Americans were pressing forward more
strongly than ever.
Two iron roads were being surveyed through the buffalo country; new
gold fields, in Montana, were being opened and a white man's
wagon-road, protected by forts, was being laid out to reach them by a
short cut through Wyoming.
With two thousand of his Oglala Sioux, Chief Red Cloud undertook to
close this wagon-road; and close it he did. He beleaguered new Fort
Phil Kearney in northern Wyoming, wiped out one detachment of
eighty-one men, attacked other detachments, cut off the supplies from
all the forts, stood firmly in the path; and in 1868 the United States
Government agreed to withdraw all soldiers and leave the country to the
Sioux.[1]
But the iron trails continued. There were the Union Pacific in the
north, the Kansas Pacific on the south. The first drove its stakes and
laid its rails along the great white wagon-road of the Oregon Trail and
the Overland Trail, which already had split the buffalo herds. The
Sioux and the Northern Cheyennes fought it in Nebraska, they fought it
in Wyoming; until in 1868 it still had not been stopped, it was lunging
on straight for the mountains, and in the treaty that promised him the
hunting grounds north of it Chief Red Cloud also promised to let it
alone.
The Cheyennes, their allies from the Sioux and the Arapahos, made no
such promise regarding the Kansas Pacific. The Union Pacific "thunder
wagons" had divided the buffalo into the northern and the southern
herds; now the southern herd was to be divided again. A line of forts
was creeping on; the soldiers were increasing; and the "thunder wagons"
were to travel back and forth between the Missouri River and Denver,
frightening the buffalo that grazed in central Kansas, and bringing in
hunters to kill them.
"If the road does not stop," said Chief Roman Nose of the Cheyennes, "I
shall be the white man's enemy forever."
By the fall of 1868 the rails had reached four hundred and twelve
miles, almost clear across northern Kansas, to Fort Wallace near the
border of Colorado. Every mile of the last two hundred and more had
been a fight; wellnigh every mile of these same had been stained red;
all western Kansas was a battle ground, upon which settlers, soldiers,
surveyors and track-builders gave up their lives. The Cheyennes lost
heavily, but they showed no signs of quitting. They were getting worse.
At the end of August General Phil Sheridan, who commanded the Military
Division of the Missouri, directed Major George A. Forsythe of the
Ninth Cavalry to enlist fifty scouts and ride against the
Indians--fight them in their own way. He left Fort Wallace on the
morning of August 29; struck a broad Indian trail leading northward;
early in the morning of September 17 was surprised by six hundred
Cheyennes, Sioux and Arapahos, and was forced to entrench upon a little
island in the Arikaree River of eastern Colorado not far from the
Nebraska line; and here he stood off the charges of the Indian
horsemen--five hundred at once.
All that day the fight was waged. Major Forsythe was wounded three
times; Lieutenant Beecher was killed; Surgeon Mooers was dying; all the
horses were dead; horse-flesh was the only food and the enemy had
ringed the island with rifle-fire.
This evening volunteers were called for, to steal through the deadly
circle and carry messages to Fort Wallace, one hundred miles south.
There was no lack of men eager to try; Scouts "Pet" Trudeau and "Mack"
Stillwell were chosen.
Scout Trudeau was a grown man, but Jack Stillwell was only nineteen,
and boyish looking. Nevertheless, he, too, was a man. He knew Indians
and he knew the plains; he was able to give a good account of himself.
Scout Trudeau asked no better comrade on the danger trail.
They prepared to leave in the dark. At midnight they shook hands with
their officer and their nearest fellows. With a piece of horse-flesh
for food, with revolvers at belts and carbines in hand, and their boots
slung from their necks, in their stockinged feet they quietly vanished,
wrapped in their blankets so as to look as much like Indians as
possible.
At first Trudeau led, because he was the older; toward the end Jack
Stillwell led, because he proved to be the stronger. As they crossed
from the little island to the dry bottom of the river-bed, they turned
and walked backward. On the sand their stockinged feet made tracks
like moccasin tracks, all pointing for the island. The Indians would
not know that anybody had escaped.
Quiet reigned all around, except for the yapping of the coyotes. But
they two were well aware that the camps of six hundred warriors were
scattered everywhere, resting only until daylight.
Having entered the dry channel of the river, they did another wise
thing. They crossed it, instead of keeping on down; and crawling, they
stuck to the high ground, even the tops of the bare ridges, instead of
taking to the ravines and washes.
"Never do what the enemy expects you to do," is a military maxim,
although rather hard to follow in modern fighting. The natural trail
for scouts through the lines would be by the river bottom, and by other
low ground out of sight. The Indians, Scout Stillwell learned
afterward from chiefs themselves, were watching all the river channel
and all the ravines, this night. The two scouts fooled them, and found
the ridge trails thinly guarded. Those Indians not on guard were
sleeping out of the breeze.
Through every yard of their crawl the hearts of the two scouts were in
their throats. To creep amidst the dark, this way, with Indians
before, behind, on right, on left--who knew where?--was nerve-racking.
When the stars began to pale only two miles had been covered. Slow
work, careful work, fearful work! Now for a hiding-place. They would
be seen instantly by daylight.
They cautiously slipped on, for a little arroyo or dried wash, bordered
by brittle weeds. Even this might be occupied ahead of them. If it
was, then that meant death or capture--and capture meant death also, by
torture in revenge for warriors slain. They had agreed to fight to the
last cartridge, and then to use their last cartridge on themselves
after destroying their message.
Cautiously, cautiously they harked and peered; they gently parted the
weeds and wormed in, closing the weeds behind them again. The arroyo
was empty. In the first tinge of gray they crouched under the high
bank overhung by the weeds, to wait.
The night had passed, and here they were, abroad in the very thick of
the Indians, to face a day of unknown perils. It was to be a long,
long day.
The stars faded; the sky brightened; squads of Indians galloped by, to
the fight. The sun rose, flooding the world above the arroyo.
Gun-shots spatted dully--fast and faster; the fight at the island was
on.
From hour to hour they listened, hoping that the shots would not cease.
While the firing continued, the island was holding out. The firing did
continue, and that nerved their hearts afresh. Their comrades were
bravely battling while depending upon them.
The arroyo grew stifling hot. They had no water, and saved their
horse-beef for an emergency. They had been tired when they
started--already had fought one whole day through, on slim rations.
But they dared not move on. When they ventured to peep over the edge
of the arroyo, they saw an Indian camp of women and old men in plain
view--could catch the voices, now and then. The country was an open
country; nothing could stir above its surface without being sighted.
Finally the sun set, the dusk gathered, and in darkness again they
crept out. A full day gone, only two miles gained in a day and half a
night--two miles in one hundred! But the island was still held by
their comrades.
They put on their boots, and to-night they made better headway. Twice
they had to flatten and muffle their breathing, for parties of Indians
rode almost upon them. The country seemed to be alarmed; Indians were
riding back and forth constantly. All the landmarks were shrouded and
changed; they headed south and easterly by the stars--and at daybreak
were obliged to hide in a hurry, for they somehow were running right
into the main village of the Cheyennes!
They had come ten miles from their arroyo, and were at the South
Republican River in western Kansas. This time they crawled along under
the river bank, and into the tall coarse grass of a bayou that bordered
the river. They could see the village; they could hear the squaws
chanting the mourning songs for dead warriors, and might watch them
carrying bodies to the scaffolds.
Had that village known two white scouts were so near--! Why, once
during the day a party of warriors watered their horses not thirty feet
from where Scouts Trudeau and Stillwell were lying; and time after time
other war parties crossed and recrossed the river here. It was a ford.
The second long day passed. In the darkness of the third night out
they crossed the river themselves, and side-stepping the village and
its wolfish dogs struck south once more. They had to dodge
night-roving Indians, as before, but they traveled steadily; there was
no sign, by any of the Indians they met, that the island had been
taken. This gave hope, still.
"We're getting through, Jack," spoke Scout Trudeau, toward morning.
"But we'll have to do better. Will you risk day travel with me, so we
can finish up. There are anxious hearts, back yonder; and by this time
the boys are suffering something fearful."
"I'm game, 'Pet.'"
So they did not stop, with daylight. Keeping to the coulees or washes,
and the draws, and the stream beds, they zigzagged on. They had
counted upon the Indians all being attracted in to the island, by this
time; but they had counted too soon.
About eight o'clock, while they were crossing a high rolling prairie,
Scout Trudeau suddenly dropped. Scout Stillwell imitated--did not
hesitate an instant.
"Don't move! Don't breathe! Look yonder!"
A long file of mounted Indians had emerged around the base of a low
hill not a mile away, off to the north-west, and were coming on.
"We'll have to cache ourselves in a hurry."
The table-land was bare and level. For a moment their hearts sank.
Then they noted a patch of tall, stiff yellowed weeds growing from an
old buffalo wallow. In the wet season the buffalo had rolled in the
mud here, until they had scooped a little hollow; the hollow had formed
a shallow water-hole; the rains had collected and sunk in, and provided
moisture for the weeds long after the surrounding soil had dried.
It was the only cover in sight, and for it they crawled.
The Indians came straight on. Had they seen? If so, goodby to life
and to the message.
The two scouts had intended to break the weeds and cloak themselves
with the stems--a camouflage of old days and new. The screen was very
thin, for concealment on all sides. But the Indians granted no time.
Trudeau and young Jack might only squirm into the very middle. An old
buffalo carcass was here. It had not been disturbed. Scraps of
brittle hide still clung to its frame-work of ribs. All that they
might do was to crawl close to the frame-work and lie beside it.
The Indians halted before reaching the wallow; they could see that it
contained no water. But presently one of their young men rode forward,
surveying the landscape; posted himself not one hundred yards from the
wallow, and there he sat, on his horse, like a sentry.
The two scouts hugged the ground; it was white with alkali, and as
seemed to them they were clearly outlined, through the yellow weeds.
Then an alarming thing happened. The buffalo carcass had not been the
only occupant of the wallow. Jack nudged Scout Trudeau, and pointed
with his thumb. A king rattle-snake, over four feet long and as thick
as their arm, was gliding for them, and the carcass.
His head was up, his tongue shot in and out; possibly the carcass was
his tipi--at any rate, they had annoyed him, and he was declaring war.
Now what to do? If they waited, he would keep on coming! Horrors! If
they moved, he would coil, and rattle. They dared not shoot; they
dared not wait--could not stand having him crawl under them or over
them, and perhaps strike; they dared not let him _rattle_.
A rattle-snake does not rattle for nothing. The Indian sentinel would
hear, would gaze, would be curious, would suspect, would approach; and
then--death to two scouts, despair for the island.
Fascinated, they watched the great, yellowish blotched snake. He
loitered, basked, his tongue played, his fangs showed, he came on,
little by little. Oh, if he would only veer off! But he was
determined. What an ugly, obstinate brute! What an abominable trick!
And yonder, still sat the vigilant Indian.
They waited until the snake was within six feet. They could fairly
smell his musky odor, and he was growing angrier and angrier--was
likely to coil and rattle, any moment. They were at their wits' end,
their nerve almost breaking, what with the menace of the snake and the
menace of the Indian look-out, at the same time.
Jack Stillwell solved the problem. He was chewing tobacco.
"Sh! I'll fix him," he whispered.
He slightly raised--at the movement the snake coiled, rattle sticking
up in the center, head poised, tongue licking wickedly. And aiming his
best, Jack spat.
The stream spurted truly. It drenched the beady-eyed, flat-iron head,
flooded the swaying neck and spattered the thick scaly coils. With a
writhe and a hiss the blinded snake threshed to one side and burrowed
for shelter. Jack chuckled and shook. He had cleared the decks of one
enemy.
Nearly at the same time the Indian look-out rode away, following the
retiring band. That was a great relief. Between the snake and the
Indian scout Trudeau and Stillwell had experienced, as the record says,
the most terrible half-hour of their lives.
The collapse of the danger left them both weak. They now had found out
that it was not yet safe to travel by day; so they stayed here in the
wallow, with the buffalo carcass for company, till evening. In this
next night's journey poor Trudeau broke. The strain was proving too
much. They had eaten nothing since leaving the island, they had
crawled for miles, had traveled by night, through the midst of the
Indians, for fifty miles; had escaped again and again only by the
sheerest good fortune. He broke, and young Jack had all that he could
do, for a time, to keep him from seeing imaginary forms and running
amuck over the plain, or else killing himself.
Toward morning he succeeded in quieting him, making him drink heartily
from a stream and swallow some of the horse-beef. They pushed on. It
was a foggy day, and they did not stop. Jack now had to furnish the
brains and the strength, and do the bracing. But he was equal to it;
he selected the trail and helped his staggering partner. Neither was
braver than the other, but one had more reserve power.
At noon they were within twenty miles of Fort Wallace. That fourth
evening after dusk they were challenged by the post sentry, and
tottered on in with their message from the island in the Arikaree, one
hundred miles to the northward.
Jack Stillwell went with the relief column from the fort. Scout
Trudeau could not; he was exhausted. He never did recover, and the
next spring he died; he had given his life to save the lives of others.
Scout Stillwell followed many another danger trail, until the Indian
wars upon his plains were over; then he became a lawyer and a judge,
and in 1902 answered the last roll-call.
[1] See "Red Cloud Stands in the Way," in "Boys' Book of Indian
Warriors."