the Tongue River, leaving our wagons behind, but taking with us a large
pack train. We marched down the Tongue River for two days, thence in a
westerly direction over to the Rosebud, where we struck the main Indian
trail leading down this stream. From the size of the trail, which appeared
to be about four days old, we estimated that there must have been in the
neighborhood of seven thousand Indians in the war party.
For two or three days we pushed on, but we did not seem to gain much on
the Indians, as they were evidently making about the same marches that we
were. On the fourth or fifth morning of our pursuit, I rode ahead of the
command about ten miles, and mounting a hill, I scanned the country far
and wide with my field glass, and discovered a column of dust rising about
ten miles farther down the creek, and soon I noticed a body of men
marching toward me that at first I believed to be the Indians of whom we
were in pursuit; but subsequently they proved to be General Terry's
command. I sent back word to that effect to General Crook by a scout who
had accompanied me, but after he had departed I observed a band of Indians
on the opposite side of the creek, and also another party directly in
front of me. This led me to believe that I had made a mistake. But shortly
afterward my attention was attracted by the appearance of a body of
soldiers who were forming into a skirmish line and then I became convinced
that it was General Terry's command, after all, and that the redskins whom
I had seen were some of his friendly Indian scouts, who had mistaken me
for a Sioux, and fled back to their command terribly excited, shouting,
"The Sioux are coming!"
General Terry at once came to the post, and ordered the Seventh Cavalry to
form line of battle across the Rosebud; he also ordered up his artillery
and had them prepare for action, doubtless dreading another "Custer
massacre." I afterward learned that the Indian had seen the dust raised by
General Crook's forces, and had reported that the Sioux were coming.
These manoeuvers I witnessed from my position with considerable
amusement, thinking the command must be badly demoralized when one man
could cause a whole army to form line of battle and prepare for action.
Having enjoyed the situation to my heart's content, I galloped down toward
the skirmish line, waving my hat, and when within about one hundred yards
of the troops, Colonel Weir, of the Seventh Cavalry, galloped out and met
me. He recognized me at once, and accompanied me inside the line; then he
sang out: "Boys, here's Buffalo Bill. Some of you old soldiers know him;
give him a cheer!" Thereupon the regiment gave three rousing cheers, and
it was followed up all along the line.
Colonel Weir presented me to General Terry, and in answer to his question
I informed him that the alarm of Indians had been a false one, as the dust
seen by his scouts was caused by General Crook's troops. General Terry
thereupon rode forward to meet General Crook, and I accompanied him at his
request. That night both commands went into camp on the Rosebud. General
Terry had his wagon train with him, and everything to make life
comfortable on an Indian campaign. He had large wall tents and portable
beds to sleep in, and commodious hospital tents for dining rooms. His camp
looked very comfortable and attractive, and presented a great contrast to
that of General Crook, who had for his headquarters only one small fly
tent, and whose cooking utensils consisted of a quart cup--in which he
made his coffee himself--and a stick upon which he broiled his bacon. When
I compared the two camps, I came to the conclusion that General Crook was
an Indian-fighter; for it was evident that he had learned that to follow
and fight Indians a body of men must travel lightly, and not be detained
by a wagon train or heavy luggage of any kind.
That evening General Terry ordered General Miles to take his regiment, the
Fifth Infantry, and return by a forced march to Yellowstone, and proceed
down the river by steamboat to the mouth of the Powder River, to intercept
the Indians, in case they attempted to cross the Yellowstone. General
Miles made a forced march that night of thirty-five miles, which was
splendid traveling for an infantry regiment through a mountainous country.
Generals Crook and Terry spent that evening and the next day in council,
and on the following morning both commands moved out on the Indian trail.
Although General Terry was the senior officer, he did not assume command
of both expeditions, but left General Crook in command of his own troops,
although they operated together. We crossed the Tongue River to Powder
River, and proceeded down the latter stream to a point twenty miles from
its junction with the Yellowstone, where the Indian trail turned to the
southeast in the direction of the Black Hills. The two commands now being
nearly out of supplies, the trail was abandoned, and the troops kept on
down Powder River to its confluence with the Yellowstone, and remained
there several days. Here we met General Miles, who reported that no
Indians had as yet crossed the Yellowstone. Several steamboats soon
arrived with a large quantity of supplies, and once more the "Boys in
Blue" were made happy.
One evening, while we were in camp on the Yellowstone at the mouth of
Powder River, I was informed that the commanding officer had selected
Louis Richard, a half-breed, and myself to accompany General Miles on a
scouting expedition on the steamer _Far West_, down the Yellowstone as far
as Glendive Creek. We were to ride on the pilot house and keep a sharp
lookout on both sides of the river for Indian trails that might have
crossed the stream. The idea of scouting on a steamboat was indeed a novel
one to me, and I anticipated a pleasant trip.
At daylight next morning we reported on board the steamer to General
Miles, who had with him four or five companies of his regiment. We were
somewhat surprised when he asked us where our horses were, as we had not
supposed that horses would be needed if the scouting was to be done on the
steamer. He said we might need them before we got back, and thereupon we
had the animals brought on board. In a few minutes we were booming down
the river at the rate of about twenty miles an hour.
The steamer _Far West_ was commanded by Captain Grant Marsh, whom I found
to be an interesting character. I had often heard of him, for he was, and
is yet, one of the best-known river captains in the country. He it was
who, with his steamer _Far West_, transported the wounded men from the
battle of the Little Big Horn to Fort Abraham Lincoln on the Missouri
River, and on that trip he made the fastest steamboat time on record. He
was a skillful and experienced pilot, handling his boat with remarkable
dexterity.
While Richard and myself were at our stations on the pilot house, the
steamer, with a full head of steam, went flying past islands, around
bends, over sand bars, at a rate that was exhilarating. Presently I
thought I could see horses grazing in a distant bend of the river, and I
reported the fact to General Miles, who asked Captain Marsh if he could
land the boat near a large tree which he pointed out to him. "Yes, sir; I
can land her there, and make her climb the tree if necessary," said he.
On reaching the spot designated, General Miles ordered two companies
ashore, while Richard and myself were instructed to take our horses off
the boat and push out as rapidly as possible to see if there were Indians
in the vicinity. While we were getting ashore, Captain Marsh remarked that
if there were only a good heavy dew on the grass he would shoot the
steamer ashore, and take us on the scout without the trouble of leaving
the boat.
It was a false alarm, however, as the objects we had seen proved to be
Indian graves. Quite a large number of braves, who had probably been
killed in some battle, were laid on scaffolds, according to the Indian
custom, and some of their clothing had been torn from the bodies by the
wolves and was waving in the air.
On arriving at Glendive Creek we found that Colonel Rice and his company
of the Fifth Infantry, who had been sent there by General Miles, had built
quite a good little fort with their trowel-bayonets, a weapon which
Colonel Rice was the inventor of, and which is, by the way, a very useful
implement of war, as it can be used for a shovel in throwing up
intrenchments, and can be profitably utilized in several other ways. On
the day previous to our arrival Colonel Rice had a fight with a party of
Indians, and had killed two or three of them at long range with his Rodman
cannon.
The _Far West_ was to remain at Glendive overnight, and General Miles
wished to send dispatches back to General Terry at once. At his request I
took the dispatches, and rode seventy-five miles that night through the
bad lands of the Yellowstone, and reached General Terry's camp next
morning, after having nearly broken my neck a dozen times or more.
There being but little prospect of any more fighting, I determined to go
East as soon as possible to engage in other pursuits. So I started down
the river on the steamer _Yellowstone_, _en route_ to Fort Beaufort. On
the same morning Generals Terry and Crook pulled out for Powder River, to
take up the old Indian trail which we had left.
The steamer had proceeded down the stream about twenty miles when it was
met by another boat on its way up the river, having on board General
Whistler and some fresh troops for General Terry's command. Both boats
landed, and I met several old friends among the soldiers.
General Whistler, upon learning that General Terry had left the
Yellowstone, asked me to carry to him some important dispatches from
General Sheridan, and although I objected, he insisted upon my performing
this duty, saying that it would only detain me a few hours longer; as an
extra inducement he offered me the use of his own thoroughbred horse,
which was on the boat. I finally consented to go, and was soon speeding
over the rough and hilly country toward Powder River, and delivered the
dispatches to General Terry the same evening. General Whistler's horse,
although a good animal, was not used to such hard riding, and was far more
exhausted by the journey than I was.
After I had taken a lunch, General Terry asked me if I would carry some
dispatches back to General Whistler, and I replied that I would. Captain
Smith, General Terry's aid-de-camp, offered me his horse for the trip, and
it proved to be an excellent animal; for I rode him that same night forty
miles over the bad lands in four hours, and reached General Whistler's
steamboat at one o'clock. During my absence the Indians had made their
appearance on the different hills of the vicinity, and the troops from the
boat had had several skirmishes with them. When General Whistler had
finished reading the dispatches, he said: "Cody, I want to send some
information to General Terry concerning the Indians who have been
skirmishing around here all day. I have been trying all the evening long
to induce some one to carry my dispatches to him, but no one seems willing
to undertake the trip, and I have got to fall back on you. It is asking a
great deal, I know, as you have just ridden eighty miles; but it is a case
of necessity, and if you'll go, Cody, I'll see that you are well paid for
it."
"Never mind about the pay," said I, "but get your dispatches ready and
I'll start at once."
In a few minutes he handed me the package, and, mounting the same horse
which I had ridden from General Terry's camp, I struck out for my
destination. It was two o'clock in the morning when I left the boat, and
at eight o'clock I rode into General Terry's camp, just as he was about to
march, having made one hundred and twenty miles in twenty-two hours.
General Terry, after reading the dispatches, halted his command, and then
rode on and overtook General Crook, with whom he held a council; the
result was that Crook's command moved on in the direction which they had
been pursuing, while Terry's forces marched back to the Yellowstone and
crossed the river on steamboats. At the urgent request of General Terry I
accompanied the command on a scout in the direction of the Dry Fork of the
Missouri, where it was expected we would strike some Indians.
The first march out from the Yellowstone was made in the night, as we
wished to get into the hills without being discovered by the Sioux scouts.
After marching three days a little to the east of north, we reached the
buffalo range and discovered fresh signs of Indians, who had evidently
been killing buffaloes. General Terry now called on me to carry
dispatches to Colonel Rice, who was still encamped at the mouth of
Glendive Creek, on the Yellowstone--distant about eighty miles from us.
Night had set in with a storm, and a drizzling rain was falling when, at
ten o'clock, I started on this ride through a section of country with
which I was entirely unacquainted. I traveled through the darkness a
distance of about thirty-five miles, and at daylight I rode into a
secluded spot at the head of a ravine where stood a bunch of ash trees,
and there I concluded to remain till night, for I considered it a
dangerous undertaking to cross the wide prairies in broad
daylight--especially as my horse was a poor one. I accordingly unsaddled
my animal and ate a hearty breakfast of bacon and hardtack which I had
stored in the saddle pockets; then, after taking a smoke, I lay down to
sleep, with my saddle for a pillow. In a few minutes I was in the land of
dreams.
After sleeping some time--I cannot tell how long--I was suddenly awakened
by a roaring, rumbling sound. I instantly seized my gun, sprang to my
horse, and hurriedly secreted him in the brush. Then I climbed up the
steep side of the bank and cautiously looked over the summit; in the
distance I saw a large herd of buffaloes which were being chased and fired
at by twenty or thirty Indians. Occasionally a buffalo would drop out of
the herd, but the Indians kept on until they had killed ten or fifteen.
Then they turned back and began to cut up the game.
[Illustration: IN THE DISTANCE I SAW A LARGE HERD OF BUFFALOES WHICH WERE
BEING CHASED AND FIRED AT BY TWENTY OR THIRTY INDIANS.]
I saddled my horse and tied him to a small tree where I could reach him
conveniently in case the Indians should discover me by finding my trail
and following it. I then crawled carefully back to the summit of the
bluff, and in a concealed position watched the Indians for two hours,
during which time they were occupied in cutting up the buffaloes and
packing the meat on their ponies. When they had finished this work they
rode off in the direction whence they had come.
I waited till nightfall before resuming my journey, and then I bore off to
the east for several miles, and by making a semicircle to avoid the
Indians, I got back on my original course, and then pushed on rapidly to
Colonel Rice's camp, which I reached just at daylight.
Colonel Rice had been fighting Indians almost every day since he had been
encamped at this point, and he was very anxious to notify General Terry of
the fact. Of course I was requested to carry his dispatches. After
remaining at Glendive a single day, I started back to find General Terry,
and on the third day I overhauled him at the head of Deer Creek, while on
his way to Colonel Rice's camp. He was not, however, going in the right
direction, but bearing too far to the east, and so I informed him. He then
asked me to guide the command, and I did so.
On arriving at Glendive I bade good-by to the General and his officers,
and took passage on the _Far West_, which was on her way down the
Missouri. At Bismarck I left the steamer and proceeded to Rochester, New
York, where I met my family.
THE LIFE OF BUFFALO BILL
I
THE LITTLE BOY OF THE PRAIRIE
Once when Buffalo Bill was a tiny boy of seven or eight his father's
family were camping on their way to Kansas. It happened that both his
father and the guide were away from the little camp in search of food. It
was at night and young Bill Cody was asleep. He was suddenly awakened by
hearing a noise, and saw an Indian in the act of untying and leading away
his own pet pony. The boy jumped up, grasped his rifle, and said,
"What are you doing with my horse?"
The Indian did not seem to be much disturbed at the little fellow's
appearance, and said he would swap horses. Little Bill said he would not
swap. The Indian only laughed at him. Then the boy held his gun ready,
and said again that he would not swap; and in the end the big Indian,
after watching him keenly for a few minutes, quietly mounted his old pony
and rode away. This is a good example of the nerve and courage which have
made him as a grown man the best plainsman in our history.
Every boy, perhaps every man, loves to read about the days of Indian
fights, the camping along the trails, the crossing of the plains in
prairie schooners, and the wild life that belonged to what was once called
the Great American Desert--which now contains thousands of farms and
hundreds of cities. It was a hard life; but it was so full of real
adventure, of actual danger, that it had its own interest to those who
lived it. And although it is gone now forever, it will always remain the
most interesting part of American history to the boys of our country.
That was the time when a man saved his own life day by day, absolutely and
solely because he had greater courage or quicker wit than his opponent,
whether that opponent was an Indian, a stage robber, a flood, a prairie
fire, or any other form of danger. To understand those days and the
events and episodes as they occurred to the men who lived them, one must
first get into one's mind the country they lived in and traveled over. It
was a flat land stretching thousands of miles across the middle of the
United States from the Missouri River to California, with here and there a
huge range of mountains running north and south, guarded on either side by
long lines of foothills. Sometimes there were stretches of forest;
generally there was nothing but the flat plains covered with a rough wild
grass. Between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada there were the
alkali plains, unfit for human habitation. All this country was inhabited
by Indians who had been gradually driven westward from the Atlantic coast,
who had been treated badly by white men, and who had become a fierce race
of fighters and hunters. They considered the white man their natural prey.
Whenever they saw a "pale face" it was fair and right in their minds to
try to get his scalp; for hundreds of stories had been handed down from
their fathers and grandfathers of the way in which the white man had
killed their people and driven them from the land that had been theirs for
centuries.
Over this country--a distance of two thousand miles--the buffaloes and the
Indians roamed, and no white man had a home. There were no cities. There
were practically no towns. The white man gradually moving west had got as
far as the western counties of Arkansas, Missouri, and Iowa in 1850; the
white men had settled the Pacific coast in California; there were no
railroads; there was no way to communicate between the Missouri River and
California, except on horseback or by driving huge wagons across these
wild plains.
Any day, any moment, while the travelers were sitting in their great
wagons, they might see some little specks coming toward them across the
flat plain. Then came a scurrying to put the wagons in a circle with the
horses and mules, men and women, in the center. In a moment a band of
mounted Indians would rush down upon them; and unless they were ready
these wild red men would ride through the train between the wagons,
frighten the mules and horses, separate one wagon from another, and after
killing all the human beings, carry their goods away. Sometimes it
happened in the night. Sometimes it happened in the day. And as those who
were not ready were always killed, the result was that those who lived and
traveled across those plains were the keenest and shrewdest of their
kind--quicker and shrewder than the Indians themselves. Even if the
Indians did not appear, it took a good hunter to keep his little caravan
supplied with food. For the journey was a long one; there were many
breakdowns and delays; and in order to supply food for the company the
buffalo and deer of the plains had to be hunted and killed.
That was the country and the people between 1850 and 1860. After the rush
to California for gold, it became evident that there must be some regular
system of communication between the outskirts of civilization in the East,
and the outskirts of civilization in the West in California. It was just
at this time that the man who is known all over the world as Buffalo Bill
was born.
Buffalo Bill's father was named Isaac Cody. He lived on a farm in Scott
County, Iowa, near a town named Le Clair, and there William Frederick Cody
was born on the 26th of February, 1846.
When the California gold craze came in 1849, Isaac Cody, with thousands of
other people, made up his mind to go across the plains to California and
look for gold. But before he had much more than started he changed his
mind and moved toward Kansas, where he hoped to find some place to settle
on the frontier. Instead of taking his wife and children on such a
dangerous expedition he left them with his brother, Elijah Cody, in Platt
County, Missouri, and then started out in search of a new home. Finally,
when young William was only seven or eight years old, his father settled
near Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and here the boy grew up in the midst of
Indians and the wild life of the plains, and in the very thick of the
early fights that occurred between the Northerners and Southerners over
the question of slavery. It was a hard life and only those who were
naturally fitted for it lived through it. Even at the age of seven or
eight little Bill Cody naturally took to this sort of life. He loved
adventure. He loved stories of Indians, scouts, and desperadoes, and he
could fire a rifle pretty accurately almost as soon as he could carry one.
Finally the family settled in Salt Creek Valley in Kansas, which was on
the line of one of the two trails, or roads--if they could be called
roads--that stretched for two thousand miles or more across this waste of
plain and mountain to California.
Day after day little Bill Cody would go out with his father, taking his
rifle, to hunt, and he always had with him a famous dog named "Turk." The
boy, and in fact all the children, loved Turk. He was as much one of the
family as any of the children, and again and again gave warning of danger.
There are many instances in which the dog practically saved the lives of
at least one member of the family group. One day when Cody's two sisters
were walking some distance from their home they heard a snarl, and looking
up into a tree they saw a panther getting ready to spring upon them. Old
Turk, who was with them, was quite as well aware of the danger as they
were; and while they hid in the bushes, he sat in front of them and
grappled with the panther as it jumped to reach them. The whole incident
took place in a moment, and before they realized what had happened, they
saw their favorite dog in the act of being killed by the panther. Suddenly
off in the distance they heard their brother Bill's familiar whistle
calling his dog. Then on the instant, as they crouched there, expecting
every moment to see the fight end with the death of the dog, a rifle shot
rang out and the panther rolled over dead. That was a famous shot in
itself for a boy of less than eight years, for both animals were rolling
over and over in their fight, and it took not only nerve, but accurate
aim, to hit the one and avoid the other.
The family had scarcely got settled in their new home when the father, who
did not believe in slavery, got into discussions with other people of the
county who had been brought up to hold slaves. Those were hard, dangerous
men. They got angry quickly; they shot their pistols at one another
without much provocation, and they feared neither death nor anything else
because they were living in the midst of danger always. In one of these
excited discussions as to whether slaves should be held in the new State
of Kansas or not, Isaac Cody took a firm stand on his side, and was
thereupon notified that if he did not leave the country he would be shot.
He had to hide frequently in different parts of his own house at night
when a body of men would come to kill him, and for days and days he lived
in thickets near the house, his little son bringing him food every day.