Water At Last.—"Yes, Sah, Take Him, Sah."—Drinking Horse-blood.—They
Had Given Up to Die.—Rees said, "Find Carr."—He was Lying in the
Shade of His Horse.—It was Rees and the Three Men.—We Ignited
Soap-balls.—Twenty Years in Prison.—We are All Here.—We Gathered Up
Some Horses.—Last Great Slaughter of the Buffalo.—Our Kangaroo Court,
Always in Session.—Judge ("Wild Bill") Kress On the Bench.
"Yes, Al, we are all right."
Soon we came to where we could see down into the depression where the
briny salt lake was in front and two miles east of the Casa Amarilla
proper.
"Well," said Al, "if my tongue was not so thick I'd whistle and sing a
song." Turning his horse to the left he said, "Let's go this way and
strike the upper water-hole." I said "No." The Casa Amarilla and the
upper water-hole were less than a mile apart, but I was afraid we might
miss the upper one by going too far west, and we parted. We were then
three miles from water. After I had ridden down from the plateau into
the basin and had rounded a little point ahead, our stone pyramid and
flag came into view on the bluff above the spring.
As I rounded the point my horse worked his ears and gave vent to a
low whinny. He had scented the water, and he started into a trot, and
finally broke into a gallop of his own accord. He was a headstrong
animal, and when we were near the water-hole, which was about twelve
feet over, I did not have strength enough to stop him. He surged into
the water, groaning as if he were dying. I dismounted in the water
to loosen the cinches. He had been so long without water and was so
gaunt, he looked like a wasp. As he got more hollow, from time to time,
I would tighten the rear cinch to keep the saddle from chafing his back.
Loosening both cinches entirely, and taking off the bridle, when I had
to jerk with what strength I had to get his mouth out of the water, I
let him drink until I thought he should have no more at that time; but
I had to strike him over the head with the bridle-bits before I could
drive him out of and away from the water.
As he turned suddenly the saddle fell off into the water and splashed
water up into my face. I think no mortal ever experienced more sudden
relief from intense suffering, both in body and mind, than I did at
that time. I drank moderately of the water, and bathed my face and
hands. The horse came back into the water and drank till he was tight
as a drum. Then he went out a little way and began nibbling the grass,
what little grass there was, near by, when a negro soldier came out
of the draw from the upper water-hole. He had seven canteens full of
water. He was one of the party that had started for the Laguna Plata
the evening before, and getting lost from the others during the night,
his horse had brought him to the upper water-hole, where he arrived
about noon that day.
He told me there were two other white men at the water-hole, or big
Dripping Spring proper. One got there a little after he did, and the
other one had just come. I was quite sure the last one must be Al.
Waite.
I asked him if he had heard the first one's name?
"Yes; the man who just came called him Dick." So that accounted for
Dick Wilkinson.
I said to the darky: "You give me that big U. S. horse; I'll take those
canteens and go back on the trail."
He said, "Yes, sah! Take him, sah!" Which I would have done anyway.
Taking off my belt and pointing to my Creedmoor, I said, "I'll take
your carbine. Give me your belt," which he did. Then I was immediately
off on the back track.
I had barely started when I saw two men approaching from the salt lake.
Turning and meeting them, I found it was Rees and Foley. They had
struck too far east, and were coming back. They told me to hurry to
Louie Keyes, Cornett and Squirrel-eye. They had given up the struggle.
I hurried ahead, and about a mile and a half from there I met John
Mathias afoot. I offered him water. He said: "No, I know where the
water is. Go on; hurry to the other boys; Carr has wandered off. You
get to Keyes, Cornett, and Emery first. They are east of the route,
about two and one-half miles back."
Hurrying on a half-mile, I met the rest, except the three or four
alluded to. I left three canteens of water with them. They said: "Burn
the earth, Cook, to reach Keyes, Cornett and Squirrel-eye. You will see
their horses, two of them, by going this way," they pointing out the
course.
I did not take time to hear all the truth, but made my horse fairly
fly, and soon I was beside them. They were lying down, side by side,
having been very methodical about it. They were lying on their backs,
facing the east. They had written their names and had them fastened
to their saddles. I dismounted and tied my horse to the neck-rope of
Cornett's horse, which stood there, a melancholy wreck of what I knew
he had been. Each man had his face covered with a towel.
Charles Emery's horse had been killed and its blood drunk by the three
men. They had severed his jugular vein and used their tin-cup in which
to catch the blood. The dead horse was lying about twenty feet from
the men. I got down upon my knees at their heads and lifted the towel
from Cornett's face. His eyes were closed, apparently in death. Then
I opened a canteen of water; saturated one of the towels, and began
rubbing their faces alternately.
Squirrel-eye was in the middle, and was the first to respond. Dried
blood was on their lips and mustaches. Their lower jaws had dropped.
Louie's tongue was swollen and protruding. It was not death. They
were all in a comatose condition. The first murmur came from Emery;
but it was only a mutter. I opened all their shirt collars, took off
their cartridge-belts, pulled off two pairs of boots and took off the
other one's shoes. I began to talk loudly to them. I said anything and
everything I thought would arouse them.
Now, let the infidel laugh; but, feeling my utter helplessness, I said,
"Oh, God, help me to save these men's lives." I dashed water in their
faces and on their chests. I raised Keyes up to a sitting posture; but
his head dropped to one side, and I began to think he was a "goner,"
sure.
Just then Emery raised himself up of his own accord and said, "Where
am I?" I placed Keyes back into a reclining position, and, holding the
canteen to Emery's mouth, said, "Squirrel-eye, _drink_! there is lots
of water; we must hurry." I talked loudly. At the first swallow he
clutched the canteen with both hands, and would have drained it of all
the water had I allowed him to do so. His consciousness came to him
when I said, "Now, help me with the other boys."
Just then Rees came to us, and asked: "Did you find Carr?"
I said, "No, Sol.; I've not had time yet."
Just then Cornett arose to his full height and said, "Oh! God, how long
is this to last?"
Rees got him to drink some water.
Two of the canteens were nearly exhausted, when Rees said: "John, for
God's sake try to find Carr; my own horse is about done up and that
Government horse will carry you like the wind. I'll attend to the boys
and get them to the water-hole."
Anticipating where Carr was from what Mathias had told me about where
he last saw him, I rode west for several miles around the Casa Amarilla.
The plains were wavy or slightly undulating or rolling. I hurried on.
After going some three miles I saw to my right, and about one mile west
of the upper water-hole, a riderless horse. Having left my glasses
on my own saddle, that was all I could make out. I hurried on to the
horse, and on near approach I saw that it was "Prince."
Carr was lying on the shady side of him, but the sun was nearly down.
I dismounted, threw the rein of the horse I was riding over the
saddle-horn on Prince, went around to the side Carr was on, and said
to him: "Well, you're making it into camp, I see." I was holding the
canteen in my hand. He raised himself up to a sitting position and
said, "It's Cook's voice, but I can't see you." I put one hand upon his
brow and the canteen to his lips, when he, too, with the first swallow,
seized the canteen with both hands.
After a good long drink, I took it from him, he letting go reluctantly.
I wet his head, washed his face, trickled some water down his neck,
and gave him another drink from the canteen. I saturated Sam's
pocket-handkerchief with the little water that remained and moistened
Prince's nostrils and lips with it; then said: "Now, Sam, get on your
horse and let's go to camp, for there is lots to do."
I helped him to mount and got him to the upper water-hole. To my great
surprise there were our pack animals, except the two head we had with
us in the morning.
The absence of Wilkinson the night before was now accounted for. He had
awakened before the shooting in the night, and, missing the pack-mules
and his own horse, he went out away from the main crowd, and, lying
flat upon his belly, he skylighted one of the mules moving off toward
the Casa Amarilla; and he followed, passed by it looking for more,
until he got to the lead of all, except his own horse, which he could
not get up to, nor would his horse stop at his call. Knowing what
animal instinct was, and as they were all going the same direction, one
after another, he waited until the last one had passed him, when he
followed in the rear. That took him to the big Dripping Spring at the
Casa Amarilla.
He had killed a large buck antelope, and skinned him shot-pouch
fashion. Turning the hide back like a stocking, he had tight-laced up
both ends, and, filling the hide full of water through the opening of
one of the front legs, closed it by tying a rawhide thong around it.
He got forty-two quarts of water. While he was filling the hide, Waite
went down to where I had struck the water, and finding Mathias, Foley,
and the darky soldier there, and the rest of the party except Rees and
the three men who had "thrown up the sponge," he explained to them
about the pack outfit, and that he and Dick would start immediately for
the relief of Harvey and those who were with him.
Mathias and the darky went back up to the Dripping Springs, leaving
Foley to state matters to the others upon their arrival. It was now
dark. Dick and Al. started across the country to find the footmen if
possible. I rode down the draw to the Casa water-hole, where the main
party had arrived. Getting the three canteens, I started for Rees and
the three other men.
Soon it began to thunder in the southwest. The lightning was flashing
in the south and west near the horizon. After I had gone some distance,
it became quite dark. Fearing I would miss finding the men, I fired the
carbine. I soon saw the flash and heard the report of a gun a half-mile
or so to my left. Turning that way, I would fire now and again, and get
an answer.
It was Rees and the three men, Rees walking and Emery riding Rees's
horse. They were all burning with thirst; and soon the four men had
drunk the contents of the canteens.
The deep rumbling, muttering thunder was now almost continuous. The sky
was overcast with heavy black clouds. The vivid, forked lightning was
"cavorting" high above the horizon. We necessarily moved very slowly
between lightning intervals, on account of the inky darkness.
On top of the Casa bluff, at short intervals, a streak of blaze
would go up thirty or forty feet high and fall back to the ground.
"Soap-balls," said Squirrel-eye, who had been raised in Texas. And so
they were. There was a soap-root growing profusely in all this region,
with which the Mexicans washed their clothes. From the top of its stalk
grew a round, fuzzy ball about four inches in diameter, which would
ignite at the touch of a burning match. They were something like the
turpentine balls, which the boys of my generation used to sport with
on Fourth of July nights. And this lurid blaze could be seen for many
miles at night.
When we got within speaking distance that well-known clarion voice
of John Mathias told us with vim, to "follow up the draw." He added:
"We've got a coon cook, and he has a supper ready of antelope, bread
and coffee."
Mathias was a man whose countenance had but one expression. It never
changed. He always looked as if dire misfortune had suddenly overtaken
him. Yet withal he was the most affable, sociable, and humorous man
in our company. He was always turning the sublime to the ridiculous.
But when others were in distress he was tender-hearted. His help was
free, and he was kind and generous. We had no sooner reached camp when
his solicitation for the welfare of Harvey, Kress, Perry, and Williams
cropped out.
The violent thunder had abated, and the air was perfectly still, when
Mathias said: "Now, boys, after you all eat, let's all string out from
here southwest toward where we left the boys, those in front with the
canteens keeping within speaking distance of one another, and we will
throw up burning soap-balls to signal them in if they are on the move."
Some of the men could not eat at all. Those who did, were not
ravenously hungry. It was water, _water_, WATER, they wanted first.
Leaving the darky soldier and Louie Keyes, whose vitality was at a
low ebb, we all filed out on the yarner, and with two men holding the
four corners of a blanket, to hold soap-balls in, dark though it was
we gathered many a one, over a hundred, by shuffling and scuffling our
feet along and around.
All the while we were busily gathering them, one man would light and
toss the blazing ball as high as he could throw it, and in the light of
a blazing ball as it was ascending and descending, we would see others
and skip toward them by this light. We kept from one to as many as five
soap-balls in the air at once. These brightly burning blazing balls
were fine night signals.
Loud thunder and bright lightning could be heard and seen, then
continuous, deep roaring thunder like the sound of artillery which
was not far distant, could be distinctly heard. Then to the south and
southwest we heard a deafening and I may say an appalling roar that
lasted, it seemed, for at least three minutes. The sound was like the
rushing of a mighty torrent.
When it ceased the stillness of the tomb prevailed for a while. We all
returned to camp, and _to sleep_.
Not a drop of rain fell where we were. But the next morning when the
second relief party went out they found the earth deluged six miles
south of our camp, and rode through one basin where the water was
belly-deep to their horses. They said the rain strip was two miles
wide; and one mile south of it they found our boys; Waite and Wilkinson
had found them early in the morning. They had traveled on about seven
miles after they had found the bottle of brandy, and they were in
earnest when they declared that had it not been for that stimulant they
would have succumbed.
Another thing helped them: they held a bullet in their mouths, which
caused the saliva to flow, which kept the mouth moist and they did not
experience that dry, hot, hacking sensation in their throats that we
did.
But when found they were very weak. Hudson was delirious. On the
evening of the 30th of July they arrived in camp, where we remained
three days resting and recuperating from this disaster. Benson was the
only man of our party not present.
Hosea and the negro soldiers that went with him to Laguna Plata, with
the exception of the colored soldier with us, found the lake near
morning of the 29th.
At this lake occurred an act on the part of the mulatto sergeant which
was a disgrace to manhood, and purchased the sergeant a home in the
military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, for a period of twenty
years at hard labor, when he should have been shot, as Mathias said,
with all the buffalo-guns on the range. This sergeant refused to go
back to the relief of his officers and comrades, and ordered his squad
_not to return_. But one did disobey him, and followed Hosea with
forty-four canteens full of water, and they struck the back track.
Faithful Hosea returned to where he found the previous night's halt;
found that the soldiers had taken one course, we another. He followed
the soldiers until he felt assured they would get to the Double Lakes
or Laguna Sabinas. He thought they could not miss both, as they were
nearly in sight of them then. Hosea turned and crossed that thirty
miles of trackless waste to the Casa Amarilla, and found us the morning
of the 31st.
The sergeant and his men put back to Fort Concho; and we hunters went
east to our old battle-ground at the head of Thompson's cañon, where we
found Benson, who had left the soldiers, after traveling half the day
of the 29th, and when night came on he lost his horse and had walked
the rest of the way, he being ninety-six hours without water. When
we came to where he was he was as crazy as a bug. It was three weeks
before his mind was thoroughly restored.
Here we found our missing pack-mules. Now we were all together, not
losing a man, after undergoing one of the most horrifying experiences
that ever fell to mortals' lot on land. We read of horrors of the sea,
where castaways resorted to cannibalism when they became frenzied,
where seemingly there was nothing else could be done and live. But here
in this great "Lone Star State," with water all around us, was a party
of strong men who became demoralized by thirst, which, together with
intense heat, will weaken the body and impair the mental faculties far
quicker than hunger or any other calamity that can happen to man.
The soldiers first found Laguna Rica, then the Double Lakes, where
Captain Lee was encamped at the time; but in covering the vast distance
from where they left us they had killed and drank the blood from
twenty-two of their horses; and yet five of them died on the route. So
Lieutenant Ward told us when he went out from Fort Concho afterward,
with a part of his company, and buried the dead.
For twenty miles this route was strewn with carbines, cartridge-belts,
blankets, hats, blouses, pants, and cooking utensils, dead horses and
mules, so that one object or a number of objects could be seen from one
to another.
With those two officers and their colored soldiers was big raw-boned
Barney Howard, black as a crow, and as kinky-wooled as his Congo Basin
progenitors. He was the true _hero_ of the occasion. After his own
horse had been sacrificed, he said to the officers and men, "It would
take worser dan dis for me to drap." And when Lieutenant Cooper handed
him his watch and money that he had with him he asked Barney to give
them to his (Cooper's) wife, if he (Barney) got through. Barney tied
them up in the silk handkerchief that Mrs. Cooper had monogrammed, and
said:
"I'll carry dese for you, sah, till we git to watah, for you isn't
gwine to peter out and worry dat pooh little black-eyed woman, is you?
No, sah, dat talk am all nonsense."
He threw military discipline aside and told Captain Nolan he ought to
be ashamed of himself to set a whining patten (pattern) befo' his men.
He would walk around among his weak, discouraged comrades, and tell
them of the good things in store for them in the future. I had a long
talk with this ebony-colored child of Ham, afterward, at Fort Concho.
He was cut out for a regular, and it is but fair to presume that he
climbed the San Juan hill, doing his duty in his capacity equally as
well as Theodore Roosevelt did in his.
After recuperating, the soldiers went to Concho, and Captain Lee back
to Fort Griffin.
* * * * *
What about the Indians?
That is another story, part of which was a revelation to us. They knew
where we hunters were from day to day, and through an interpreter at
Fort Sill, the next June, I listened to Cuatro Plumas's (Four Feathers)
statement. He was born at the Big Springs of the Colorado.
They knew that Quinnie was coming to them. He was born at the south end
of Laguna Sabinas, on the Staked Plains. One of the runners met Quinnie
at the old camp they were in when they killed Sewall, and they told
him where we were. After we had killed and wounded so many of them in
March, they said they would never fight the hunters again, in a body.
The lesson of the Adobe Walls, and that of the Casa Amarilla, as they
called the place where we fought them in March, had taught them to not
go up against the long-range guns that the hunters carried; and that
they would just dodge and elude us until we got weary of the chase.
Quinnie knew perfectly well, when he was observed coming straight to
us, where we were, soldiers and all. He also knew where the Indians
were camped, which was in the Blue sand-hills, not to exceed seven
miles from where we finally abandoned the trail. He would never have
thought of coming to our camp if the soldiers had not been with us,
fearing we would seize him and under penalty of death make him take us
to the Indians, which we surely would have done had it not been for
Captain Nolan.
Quinnie expected us to follow him when he left our camp at the head of
the Colorado. He would accomplish two purposes in coming out of his way
some forty miles in all, to reach our camp and then get back again to
the Indians: one was, "To show his commission and orders, thus hoping
to allay the vengeance of the hunters, and check the movement of the
soldiers against their camp;" the other was, "To get us as far south as
possible, when he would, under cover of night, turn and hurry to the
sand-hills and get the hostile Indians moving for Fort Sill, with us
too far away to overtake them."
But we did not follow him. In the end we really did worse. Quinnie was
supplied with a pair of army field-glasses from Fort Sill, and from
their point of observance in the sand-hills they noted our approach
on the 28th; and in the early evening they were all moving east,
keeping in the basins of the sand-hills. When they saw our command
turn toward the Laguna Plata, following the water party, they halted
and camped. They saw as separate the morning of the 29th, and watched
us all the forenoon. Then, on the evening of the 29th, they started to
run the gauntlet between us, and, some of them knowing these plains
from childhood, they could safely anticipate where each party was
that night; and keeping a course as far from us hunters as possible,
and crossing Nolan's trail well in his rear, they got through to the
eastern breaks of the Staked Plains without being seen, and hurried on
to Fort Sill as fast as they could.
They left nearly 200 head of horses and mules in the sand-hills. They
camped one day, the 30th, in the rough broken country northeast, a
little way from the old first camp, where Freed and his party first
fought them. They left more than one hundred head of stock here in
these breaks. They were so scared and in such a hurry they were afraid
to take time to gather them up. In fact, they lost more or less stock
until they got across Red river into the Indian Territory.
After leaving the old battle-ground, where we found Benson, we followed
down Thompson's cañon at easy stages, and when we were near the mouth
of the cañon we ran onto a large surveying party. At sight of us they
fortified in a hurry, the best they could. When we were within a
quarter of a mile of them, we sent a truce ahead, and soon there were
joyful greetings. They saw the Indians during the 30th, and were about
to leave for Fort Griffin, on account of their close proximity, but
seeing the next morning that they were gone and their horses scattered
in every direction, they concluded to remain close in camp, awaiting
developments. And when they first saw us coming down the valley of the
Thompson Fork of the Brazos, they thought and feared we were Indians.
Their story of the Indians' scattered horses interested us
considerably. We passed on out into the region where they were to be
found. We went into camp below where the Indians had stopped over on
the 30th, and went to work scouring the country over for horses. The
next day we gathered in 136 head. Poor old "Keno" was there! His back
on each side was raw and swollen, the top of his withers was bruised
and chafed raw. When John Mathias saw him, and as I was using a lot
of words about it, which I refrain from using here, he said: "It just
makes a fellow feel like he wanted to scalp the Chairman of the Indian
Rights Association."
None of us had ever seen the most of this stock. The big spotted horse
belonging to George Williams, that one of the Indian warriors had
caught, mounted, and rode through Rath, when the Rath raid was made,
was even in worse condition than "Keno." Billy Devins's, Freed's, and
the two Englishmen's stock were all here, and some belonging to other
hunters, who were not members of the Forlorn Hope, were also identified.
That evening we held a council. We looked over the descriptions in the
"bills of sale" the ranchmen had given us. It was decided to divide the
party, one-half taking the Indians' back trail for the sand-hills, the
other half to take the stock, follow the Indians' trail to the north
prong of the Salt Fork of the Brazos, thereby hoping to pick up more
stock that the Indians might have left behind them, then turn and go to
Rath and there await the return of the party that would go back to the
sand-hills. Some of us were eager to go back, more from curiosity than
otherwise; and we did so.
The next morning we were up by daylight. Breakfast was over and the
division of the party about to be made. Harvey said:
"Now, boys, fix it up among yourselves which end of the trail you
will take. I won't make the division. Some of you want to go back to
the sand-hills. For myself, I am feeling badly. The last few days'
work have been hard on me. You boys have readily performed every duty
I have imposed upon you ever since we left Rath, and I now hand the
responsibility over to you for the future."
"No, no," we told him, one and all of the same voice; "you make the
detail. We will stay organized until the stock question is settled. You
take one-third of the men then and go to Rath's Store. Take all the
extra stock along and wait for us to come in."
He took Carr, Keyes, Cornett, Squirrel-eye, the two Englishmen, the
negro soldier, the Boston boy, and poor Benson, whom we had to watch to
keep him from wandering off; as he would keep saying, "I must go and
find the boys." Had he suffered during his ninety-six hours of thirst?
I was one of the party who went to the sand-hills.
We separated, all three parties leaving camp at once, with "So-long to
you," and "So-long to you," calling back to each other by name. "Don't
let the Quohadas get those horses again." "Yes, and look out for the
pale-face rustlers, too, Harvey." This last was an admonition with a
meaning. For the cattle-men along the border had given us the names of
a few professional horsethieves.
We were two days going back to the sand-hills. We followed the trail
the Indians had made in their flight for Fort Sill. When we got fairly
out of the breaks and on top of the "yarner," we met Tonkawa Johnson
and his five scouts. From him we learned the condition of Nolan's
command. Johnson had been sent out to hunt for that part of Nolan's
missing pack train which was finally found at Laguna Rica.
We entered the Blue sand-hills where the Indians left them. After
following the trail about seven miles we came to the place where they
had lived since Captain Lee captured their camp at Laguna Plata. We
passed by horses, mules and ponies for two miles before we came to the
camp. We stayed in these sand-hills for three days. We went out to
where we had abandoned the trail on the evening of the 28th of July.
Seven miles on an air line would have led us to their camp. Twice that
distance was the trail we abandoned, the trail leading past their camp
on the north some five miles, and looping back again. We could not but
admire their strategy. We rounded up in these sand-hills 107 head of
stock, and drove them to Rath, where the other boys who had followed
the Indian trail to the Brazos had arrived two days before us.
We placed all the stock in one herd, and sent out word in every
direction for the hunters to come and get their stock. Rath boarded
us at the restaurant until we got our outfits rigged up for the fall
and winter hunt. In September we scattered over the range from the
South Concho to the Pease river, as secure in our camps as if we were
in a quiet and peaceful Quaker neighborhood, so far as Indians were
concerned.
* * * * *
The summer of 1877 is on record as being the last of the Comanches in
the rôle of raiders and scalpers; and we hunters were justly entitled
to credit in winding up the Indian trouble in the great State of Texas,
so far as the Kiowas and Comanches were concerned. Those Indians had
been a standing menace to the settlement of 90,000 square miles of
territory in Texas and New Mexico.
And to-day, 1907, it is a pleasing thought to the few surviving hunters
of the old Southwest to know that the entire country of the then
vast unsettled region is now dotted over with thousands of peaceful,
prosperous homes.
I pulled out of Rath September 21st for the head of North Concho; and
that winter hunted along the eastern edge of, and on, the Staked Plains.
The last great slaughter of the buffaloes was during the months of
December, 1877, and January, 1878, more than one hundred thousand
buffalo-hides being taken by the army of hunters during that fall and
winter. That winter and spring many families came onto the range and
selected their future homes, and killed buffaloes for hides and meat.
More meat was cured that winter than the three previous years all put
together.
In the spring of 1877 but few buffalo went north of Red river. The last
big band of these fast-diminishing animals that I ever saw was ten
miles south of the Mustang Spring, going southwest. They never came
north again. And I afterward learned that the remnant of the main herd
that were not killed crossed the Rio Grande and took to the hills of
Chihuahua in old Mexico. This last view was in February, 1878. During
the rest of the time that I was on the range, the hunters could only
see a few isolated bands of buffaloes. And if one heard of a herd which
contained fifty head he would not only look, but be surprised.
In May the hunters were leaving the range. Some went to the San Juan
mines, some to the Black Hills, and some "back to the States," as they
would say.
Many picked out one of the many fine locations that he had had an eye
on for a year, two years, or three years, as the case might be, and he
would settle down to ranching. In a few years, personally I lost track
of them. _But in memory, never._
Speaking of the members who took part in the battle of March 18th,
1877, and were also members of the Forlorn Hope: I can now look back
in my evening of life, with very many pleasant recollections. It was
the most democratic body of men imaginable. Different in religious
views, politics, financial standing, and in the social scale of
life, yet, as the phrase goes, all "common as old boots." There were
men with a classical education; some there were who could not read,
write, or cipher; but they could name the brands and could tell you
the peculiarities of the owners from the Rio Grande to the Red river.
One of the Englishmen, as we called the two whose camp was literally
destroyed, and who were with us in the Casa Amarilla fight, also a
member of the "Forlorn Hope," was not wholly English, for Scotch blood
flowed in his veins. He was a poet. He never told the author, but it
came to him second-hand, that Harry Burns, the Scotch-Englishman, was a
descendant of Bobbie Burns, the famous Scotch poet. His verses composed
and published in the Dodge City _Times_, addressed to the "hunters"
after the ninety days' scout, and which are reproduced in this book,
are timely, and surely will be appreciated by the hunters of those days.
Another hunter, a "Prodigal Son," also composed a few verses when he
was leaving western Kansas to hunt in Texas. The words were sung all
over the range with as much vim as the old-time "John Brown's Body." It
had a very catchy tune, and with the melody from the hunters' voices it
was beautiful and soul-inspiring to me. One stanza and the chorus is
all that I can now recall of it. It ran thus:
"I love these wild flowers, in this fair land of ours,
I love to hear the wild curlew scream
On the cliffs of white rock, where the antelope flock,
To graze on the herbage so green.
CHORUS.
"O, give me a home, where the buffalo roam,
Where the deer and the antelope play,
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word
And the sky is not cloudy all day."
We were camped at the Casa Amarilla on the Fourth of July. We made a
flag from a part of a blue shirt; the red stripes from a red shirt, the
white stripes from a flour-sack. We used the tin-foil from around our
plug tobacco for stars. Our standard was a tepee-pole. We planted it
on top of the pyramid which we made, twelve feet high, from the stones
from the old Indian fort. After the flag was hoisted, it floated about
twenty-five feet above the ground.
One of the boys said, "It's a little trick, ain't it?" Then he added,
"But it's got a mighty big meaning."
"Yes," said another; "I fit agin it wunst, but it's sacred now; I love
it. It's got a portion of my old red shirt in its folds."
We delivered patriotic orations; declaimed some of Daniel Webster's
and Henry Clay's speeches to Congress. We belabored King George in
particular, and Great Britain in general, much to the delight of the
two Englishmen, whom we had told in advance that "present company was
excepted"; but that all Englishmen not present would "catch fits."
We had a code of etiquette, and woe to the man that violated it. There
was a kangaroo court always in session, with Judge Kress (Wild Bill)
on the bench. Men were even tried for imaginary offenses, and always
found "guilty." The sentence was to go out a given number of steps from
camp and bring in buffalo-chips to cook with. All those dry hot days
there was not the semblance of ill-feeling one toward another. Some had
singular peculiarities, but they were all by common consent passed by.
I remained in Texas until the fall of 1879; helped to organize Wheeler
county in the Panhandle, it being the first county organized in that
part of Texas. From Texas I went to Chautauqua county, Kansas, and
from there to Fort Berthold, in the Dakota Territory; was in the U. S.
Indian service, serving as Superintendent of Indian farming; was there
during the Sioux Indian Messiah craze, the winter Sitting Bull was
killed.
I first saw Sitting Bull, that crafty old Medicine-man, in the winter
of 1885, when he came to visit the Mandan, Gros Ventre, and Arickaree
Indians. He was then paving the way to get into their good graces in
order to get those friendly tribes to violate their peace compact
with the Government. While living in Dakota Mrs. Cook was one of the
unfortunate victims of the great blizzard of January, 1888. She lay in
a snow-drift two nights and one day, over forty hours, and from the
effects of this experience, her feet were badly frozen, so much so that
she had to undergo a partial amputation of both feet. And when the
wounds healed she suffered so with chilblains that I was compelled to
take her to the Cascade mountain region of Oregon, where we now reside.
[Illustration: ALICE V. COOK.]
Having no living children of our own, we took to raise, as best we
could, an orphan child of an Confederate ex-soldier. When we took
him, he was four years old. He is now (1907) near fourteen years of
age, a manly little man. His father had been one of Robert E. Lee's
veterans, enlisting in Virginia in 1861, and surrendering at Appomattox
in 1865, having been continuously in the service four years, fighting
for the principles that _his_ conscience told him were right. He has
the distinction of being one of the victims of the "Petersburg Mine
Explosion." He was thrown many feet into the air, and fell back into
the crater unharmed.
And if I am the only Union ex-soldier who has cared as best we could
for the baby-boy of one of General Lee's valiant soldiers, I will
feel it is a distinction that Mrs. Cook and myself can take great
consolation in.
John Crump was the name of the Confederate soldier spoken of. I never
changed his son's name, but left it by his father's request—John Nelson
Crump. The Crumps were a credit to the State of Virginia.
[Illustration: JOHN NELSON CRUMP.]