Mortimer N. Kress ("Wild Bill").—His Heroic Example at the Battle
of Casa Amarilla.—His Unselfish Generosity.—His Sublime Fortitude
in the Hour of Distress.—He Stood as a Buffer Between Savagery and
Civilization.—He is Geography Itself.
SOME OF "WILD BILL'S" RECOLLECTIONS.
[Illustration: MORTIMER N. KRESS.
(Wild Bill.)]
[Illustration: ALENE KRESS.]
The author visited him at his home in Nebraska, in the spring of
1907. The noted hunter, Indian fighter, and scout, Sol. Rees, took me
from Jennings, Kansas, to the home of Kress, near Hastings, Nebr.,
generously defraying the expenses. The three of us separated in
Texas in the spring of 1878; and after twenty-nine years of neither
hearing from nor seeing each other, we held a reunion of the "Forlorn
Hope;" and it did my heart good to once more meet this big, generous,
warm-hearted plainsman of the old days. As I looked in the face of the
man who stood as a buffer between the settlers and wild Indians on
the frontier of Nebraska and the western border of Texas, my thoughts
went back to two particular incidents of the many thrilling ones I had
passed through in company with him.
The first was at the hunters' fight with the Indians on the 18th of
March, 1877, already described. All through that fierce fight, he
kept a level head and used a dangerous gun. He tore away the mask and
showed the real mettle and fiber of his composition. When there would
be a lull in the fight, or a change of base was made, Kress kept those
within his hearing livened up by his dry humor and seemingly total
indifference to his surroundings.
Then again on the 27th, 28th and 29th of July, already alluded to, he
divided up a six-pound powder-can of water as generously as though a
river were flowing near by; and men of his type suffered and moved on.
How thankful I felt while at his home, so beautifully located on the
banks of the sparkling waters of the Little Blue, to see my comrade
living in a manor-house, his cribs and granaries groaning with the 1906
harvest, and surrounded by a community that fairly pay him reverence.
For they know enough of his past life and the sacrifices he made, to
help make it possible for his neighbors to have the peaceful, happy
homes that surround this once "Wild Bill." In the country where he
resides he was the first settler on the Little Blue, having homesteaded
in 1869. He has identified himself with that particular region for
thirty-nine years; and has seen the passing of the overland stage line,
the Indian, and the buffalo.
And he is far better equipped to write "The Border and the Buffalo,"
than myself. He is a native of Pennsylvania; soldiered four years
during the Rebellion, in the First Pennsylvania Cavalry. I was closely
identified with him from 1875 to 1878, in Texas, in a common cause,
viz., "The destruction of the buffalo, and settling the wild Indian
question," which had the approval of all frontier army officers,
regardless of the fact that Ernest Thompson Seton said "the hunters
were the dregs of the border towns."
While talking with Kress at his home in regard to his experience on the
29th and 30th of July, 1877, when we became demoralized for want of
water, I learned that he and Jim Harvey, our citizen captain, were in
very poor health when we left the Double Lakes on the 27th. Here is his
own statement:
"I dissent from your version of Captain Nolan setting his compass for
the Double Lakes. That is what he talked of; but he tried to go
northeast. I had quite a talk with Lieutenant Cooper that morning.
Their bugler had been across there the summer before. There were four
wagons in the outfit; and that bugler convinced Cooper and Nolan that
he could strike the trail and follow it to the Casa Amarilla, Yellow
House Springs. I told the lieutenant it would be impossible, as the
new grass had grown since then and the best of trailers would fail to
find it. But they started north of northeast, while the lieutenant and
I stood talking. I soon drew his attention to the bugler circling to
the east, and remarked that 'he could not follow any course; that his
officers should pay no attention to him, but strike a course of their
own.' And I added: 'As for me, I am going northeast.' While we were
yet talking, the command was going due east. The lieutenant remarked
that they were 'like a lot of sheep without a leader or herder.' During
this time my horse started off toward the troops, and I walked four
miles before I overtook him. Benson caught him for me, as he had left
you boys and gone to the soldiers. By this time the soldiers were
going southeast. I tried to get Benson to go with me toward the Casa
Amarilla, but he said he was going east. Poor fellow! He had a worse
time than any of us.
"I started back, cutting off the angle. When I met Jim Harvey, about
four miles from where I left Benson, he told me that Perry and George
Williams were back near the place where we dry-camped the night before,
and he could not get them to walk. He asked me to go back with him and
we would try to get them through in the evening. So back we went. I led
my horse. Harvey, Perry, and George had each lost his horse during the
night. We made a shade for the boys by digging holes in the ground
with our butcher-knives, setting the stock of each big-fifty in the
holes, then guying the muzzles with my lariat. We then put blankets on
top and had a good shade for them. I think it was now near noon, and
very hot.
"After a while George thought he could travel. So he and Harvey started
on. I tried to get Perry on my horse, but he was too much played out
to try to help himself. Great beads of cold sweat dropped from my brow
while I was trying to lift him onto my horse. After Harvey and George
had gone about a mile, George toppled over. Harvey went on, and met two
negro soldiers, who were returning from the Laguna Plata with water.
They gave Harvey one full canteen, rode on, and gave George one; then
came onto Perry and me. The soldiers, who had several canteens, divided
with us.
"About 3 P. M. we were all four together, the soldiers having passed
on seeking their command. As the shades of night came on, we dropped
to sleep. But it was a troubled one. Thirst ever haunted us. It was
_thirst_, water, thirst and water, until it was all gone, and still we
were all in a horrible condition. That same night along toward morning
it rained some, where we were, but the rain was heavier north and east
of us. We spread out the blanket and caught a few sips of water.
"At daylight I started on to look for water. I could hear a great
roaring to the north, while it was sprinkling where we were. I went
afoot, hoping to find a depression or lagoon containing water. I went
much farther than I thought, or had intended to go, and was on the
point of turning back, when I saw a lagoon with water in it about two
hundred yards from me. As I started toward it I looked. While looking
to the east a long way off I saw two men on horseback. I fired my
big-fifty gun, and at the same time, walked backward and forward. I
fired three shots before attracting their attention. I saw them stop,
then start toward me. When they came up it was Dick Wilkinson and Al.
Waite. They said: 'We could not hear your gun, but saw the smoke, we
are truly glad to see you alive. How and where are Harvey and the other
boys? You and Harvey concerned us the most, as you were both very sick
men when we left the Double Lakes.'
"I told them the others were O. K. They both dismounted, and we all
went down to the lagoon. They handed me a quart cup to drink from,
and I drank a-plenty. The boys emptied the water out of the green
antelope-hide they had been carrying all night, and refilled it with
rain-water, and we started back to where the other three men were. We
had not proceeded far when I said: 'Dick, ride on, and we will stay
here. There is no use of us all going over the ground twice.' So on he
went. Soon a shot was fired by the boys, who had become uneasy about
me. Dick heard it, and had no trouble in riding to them.
"When they got back to the lagoon and had quenched their thirst, it
commenced to rain, and there was quite a shower. Perry began grumbling
about getting so wet. This exasperated me so much that, weak as I was,
I threw him into the lagoon. We made some coffee here, and ate some
bread and antelope-meat which the relief boys had brought out. Then we
started on. I told Perry to ride my horse, and Jim Harvey and I walked
along together. As darkness was approaching we were nearing the Casa
Amarilla, when Perry, who was always in the rear, dismounted, and my
horse wandered away from him, and I never heard of him or the saddle
again. But Perry did get to camp. Now, Cook, you know the rest."
* * * * *
Yes, the author feels that he knows something of the entire proceedings
of the ninety days we were in that sun-baked region. And I then felt I
was in the company of a brave man.
Reader, he is to-day a living example of human fortitude. Chivalrous,
charitable, jovial, kind and considerate. He was geography itself,
having roamed over the country from the Big Horn to southern Texas, and
from the Missouri river to the Rocky Mountains.
The American Desert, as it was marked on the old maps, faded away
and became the homes of multiplied thousands under his personal
observation. Perhaps no man has seen a greater advance of civilization,
in the same length of time, than this old plainsman, whose picture,
together with his daughter Alene, will be found in this chapter.
BILL KRESS'S YEARNINGS FOR THE BUFFALO RANGE.
1. It comes to me often in silence,
When the firelight glimmers low,
And the black, uncertain shadows
Seem wraiths of long ago.
Always with a throb of heart-ache,
That thrills each pulsive vein,
Comes that old, unquiet longing,
For the "Buffalo Range" again.
2. I am sick of the din of cities,
And the faces cold and strange,
I feel the warmth and welcome
Where my yearning fancies range
Back to the old border homestead.
With an aching sense of pain,
I dream of that old chasing
On the Buffalo Range again.
3. Far out in the distant shadows
Is the buffalo crash and din,
And, slowly the cloudy shadows
Come drifting, drifting in;
Sobbing the night-wind murmurs
To the splash of the Texas rain;
Come back to me the memories
Of the Buffalo Hunt again.
4. To me those memories, "thus Muse,"
That never may die away.
It seems the hands of angels,
On a mystic harp at play,
Have touched with a yearning sadness
On a beautiful, broken strain,
To which is my fond heart yearning
For the Buffalo Chase again.