"I don't waste _my_ powder on dead ducks."
He had better have left that word unsaid, for it ruined him. It woke
Colonel John Forney up to the very highest pitch of his fighting "Injun,"
or, as they say in Pennsylvania, his "Dutch." He had always been to that
hour a genial man, like most politicians, a little too much given to the
social glass. But from that date of the dead duck he became "total
abstinence," and concentrated all his faculties and found all his
excitement in vengeance hot and strong, without a grain of sugar. In
which I gladly sympathised and aided, for I detested Johnson as a
renegade Copperhead, or rather venomous toad to the South, who wished
with all his soul to undo Lincoln's work and bring in the Confederacy.
And I believe, on my life and soul, that if John Forney had not defeated
him, we should have had such disasters as are now inconceivable, the
least of them being a renewal of the war. Johnson had renegaded from the
Confederacy because, being only a tailor, he had ranked as a "low white,"
or something despised even by "quality" negroes. The Southern
aristocracy humbugged him by promising that if he would betray the Union
he should be regarded as one of themselves, by which very shallow cheat
he was--as a snob would be--easily caught, and in due time cast off.
I had been but a few weeks on the _Press_, and all was going on well,
when one morning the Colonel abruptly asked me if I could start in the
morning for Fort Riley, of which all I knew was that it constituted an
extreme frontier station in Kansas. There was to be a Kansas Pacific
railway laid out, and a large party of railroad men intended to go as far
as the last surveyor's camp. Of course, a few editors had been invited
to write up the road, and these in turn sent some one in their place. I
knew at once that I should have something like the last year's wild life
over again, and I was delighted. I borrowed John Forney's revolver,
provided an agate-point and "manifold paper" for duplicate letters to our
"two papers, both daily," and at the appointed hour was at the railway
station. There had been provided for us the director's car, a very large
and extremely comfortable vehicle, with abundance of velvet "settees" or
divan sofas, with an immense stock of lobster-salad, cold croquettes,
game, with "wines of every fineness," and excellent waiters. The
excursion, indeed, cost 1,000 pounds; but it was made to pay, and that to
great profit.
We were all a very genial, congenial party of easy-going geniuses. There
was Hassard, the "day editor" of the _New York Tribune_, who had been
with me on the _Cyclopaedia_, and to whom I was much attached, for he was
a gentlemanly scholar, and withal had seen enough of life on the
_Tribune_ to hold his own with any man; and Captain William Colton, who
had been with me in Tennessee; Robert Lamborn, who had studied science in
Germany, and was now a railroad man, and many more who are recorded in my
pamphlet, "Three Thousand Miles in a Railway Car," and my old associate,
Caspar Souder, of the _Bulletin_. This excursion was destined, in
connection with this pamphlet, to have a marvellous effect on my future
life.
In every town where we paused--and our pauses were frequent, as we
travelled very much on the "go-as-you-please" plan--we were received by
the authorities with honour and speeches and invited to dinners or
drinks. Our conductors were courtesy itself. One afternoon one of them
on a rough bit of road said, "Gentlemen, whenever you wish to open a
bottle of champagne, please to pull the cord and stop the train. You can
then drink without spilling your wine."
So we went to Chicago and St. Louis, where we were entertained by Mr.
Blow, and where I became acquainted with his daughter Susan. She was
then a beautiful blonde, and, as I soon found, very intelligent and
cultured. She was long years afterwards busy in founding philanthropic
schools in St. Petersburg, Russia, when I was there--a singularly noble
woman. However, at this time neither of us dreamed of the school-keeping
which we were to experience in later years. At this soiree, and indeed
for the excursion the next day, we had as a guest Mr. Walter, of the
London _Times_.
The next day we had a special train and an excursion of ladies and
gentlemen to visit the marvellous Knob or Iron Mountain. This is an
immense conical hill with a deep surrounding dale, beyond which rise
other hills all of nearly solid iron. Returning that evening in the
train, a very strange event took place. There was with us a genial,
pleasant, larky young fellow, one of the famous family of the MacCooks.
When the war came on he was at college--went into the army, fought
hard--rose to be captain, and then after the peace went back to the
college and finished his studies. This was the "event." We were telling
stories of dreams; when it came to my turn I said:--
"In 1860 I had never been in Ohio, nor did I know anything about it. One
night--it was at Reading, Pennsylvania--I fell asleep, I dreamed that I
_woke up_, rose from the bed, went to the match-box, struck a light, and
while it burned observed the room, which was just the same as when I had
retired. The match went out. I lit another, when what was my amazement
to observe that _everything in the room had changed its colour to a rich
brown_! Looking about me, I saw on a kind of _etagere_ scores of half-
burned candles in candlesticks, as if there had been a ball. I lighted
nearly all of them. Hearing a sound as of sweeping and the knocking of a
broom-handle without, I went into the next room, which was the hall where
the dance had been held. A very stupid fellow was sweeping it out. I
asked him where I was. He could not reply intelligently. There came
into the hall a bustling, pleasant woman, rather small, who I saw at a
glance was the housekeeper. She said something to the man as to the
room's being dark. I remarked that there was light enough in my room,
for I had lit all the candles. She cried, laughing, 'What extravagance!'
I answered, 'My dear little woman, what does a candle or two signify to
you? Now please tell me where I am. Last night I went to sleep in
Reading, Pennsylvania. Where am I now?' She replied (and of this word I
was not sure), 'In _Columbus_, Ohio.' I asked if there was any prominent
man in the place who was acquainted with Philadelphia, and who might aid
me to return. She reflected, and said that Judge _Duer_ and his two
daughters (of whom I had never heard) had just returned from the East."
Here MacCook interrupted me eagerly: "You were not in Columbus, but in
_Dayton_, Ohio. And it was not Judge Duer, but Judge _Duey_, with his
two daughters, who was that summer in the East." I went on:--
"I left the room and went into the hall. I came to the front door. Far
down below me I saw a winding river and a steamboat."
Here MacCook spoke again: "That was _surely_ Dayton. I know the house
and the view. But it could not have been Columbus." I went on:--
"I went downstairs too far by mistake into the cellar. There I found a
man sawing wood. I went up again. [Pray observe that a year _after_,
when I went West, this very incident occurred one morning in Cincinnati,
Ohio.] I found in the bar-room three respectable-looking men. I told
them my story. One said to the others, 'He is always the same old
fellow!' I stared at him in amazement. He held out one hand and moved
the other as if fiddling. Monotonous creaking sounds followed, and I
gradually awoke. The same sounds continued, but they were caused by the
grasshoppers and tree-toads, who pipe monotonously all night long in
America."
Nothing ever came of the dream, but it all occurred _exactly_ as I
describe it. I have had several quite as strange. Immediately after I
had finished my narration, some one, alluding to our party, asked if
there was any one present who could sing "Hans Breitmann's Barty," and I
astonished them not a little by proclaiming that I was the author, and by
singing it.
We went on to Leavenworth, where we had a dinner at the hotel which was
worthy of Paris. We had, for example, prairie pullets or half-grown
grouse, wild turkeys and tender venison. Thence to Fort Riley, and so on
in waggons to the last surveyor's camp. I forget where it was on the
route that we stopped over-night at a fort, where I found some old
friends and made new ones. A young officer--Lieutenant Brown, I
think--gave me a bed in his cabin. His ceiling was made of canvas. For
weeks he had heard a great rattlesnake moving about on it. One day he
had made a hole in the ceiling and put into it a great fierce tom-cat.
The cat "went for" the snake and there was an awful row. After a time
the cat came out looking like a devil with every hair on end, made
straight for the prairie, and was never heard of again. Neither was the
snake. They had finished one another. On another occasion, when sitting
in a similar cabin, my gentle hostess, an officer's wife, whom I had
known a few years before as a beauty in society, remarked that she had
two large rattlesnakes in her ceiling, and that if we would be silent we
might hear them crawling about. They could not be taken out without
rebuilding the roof.
Captain Colton had just recovered from a very bad attack of fever and
ague, and, being young, had the enormous appetite which follows weeks of
quinine. I saw him this day eat a full meal of beefsteaks, and then
immediately after devour another, at Brown's, of buffalo-meat. The air
of the Plains causes incredible hunger. We all played a good knife and
fork.
About twilight-tide there came in a very gentlemanly Catholic priest. I
was told that he was a roving missionary. He led a charmed life, for he
went to visit the wildest tribes, and was everywhere respected. I
conversed with him in French. After a while he spread his blanket, lay
down on the floor and slept till morning, when he read his prayers and
departed.
The next day the fort square was full of Kaw Indians, all in savage
array, about to depart for their autumnal buffalo-hunt. I met one
venerable heathen with his wife and babe, with whom I made genial
acquaintance. I asked the wife the name for a whip; she replied
_B'meergashee_; a pony was _shoonga_, the nose _hin_, and a woman _shimmy-
shindy_! I bought his whip for a dollar. The squaw generously offered
to throw in the baby, which I declined, and we all laughed and parted.
I went to the camp, and there the whole party, seeing my curious whip,
went at the Kaws to buy theirs. Bank-bills were our only currency then,
and the Indians knew there were such things as counterfeits. They
consulted together, eyed us carefully, and then every man as he received
his dollar brought it to me for approval. By chance I knew the Pawnee
word for "good" (_Washitaw_), and they also knew it. Then came a strange
wild scene. I spoke to the chief, and pointing to my whip said,
"_B'meergashee_" and indicating a woman and a pony, repeated, "_Shimmy-
shindy_, _shoonga-hin_," intimating that its use was to chastise women
and ponies by hitting them on the nose. Great was the amazement and
delight of the Kaws, who roared with laughter, and their chief curiously
inquired, "_You_ Kaw?" To which I replied, "_O_, _nitchee_, _me_ Kaw,
_washita_ good Injun me." He at once embraced me with frantic joy, as
did the others, to the great amazement of my friends. A wild circular
dance was at once improvised to celebrate my reception into the tribe; at
which our driver Brigham dryly remarked that he didn't wonder they were
glad to get me, for I was the first Injun ever seen in that tribe with a
whole shirt on him. This was the order of proceedings:--I stood in the
centre and sang wildly the following song, which was a great favourite
with our party, and all joining in the chorus:--
I slew the chief of the Muscolgee;
I burnt his squaw at the blasted tree!
By the hind-legs I tied up the cur,
He had no time to fondle on her.
_Chorus_.
Hoo! hoo! hoo! the Muscolgee!
Wah, wah, wah! the blasted tree!
A faggot from the blasted tree
Fired the lodge of the Muscolgee;
His sinews served to string my bow
When bent to lay his brethren low.
_Chorus_.
Hoo! hoo! hoo! the Muscolgee!
Wah, wah, wah! the blasted tree!
I stripped his skull all naked and bare,
And here's his skull with a tuft of hair!
His heart is in the eagle's maw,
His bloody bones the wolf doth gnaw.
_Chorus_.
Hoo! hoo! hoo! the Muscolgee!
Wah, wah, wah! the blasted tree!
The Indians yelled and drummed at the Reception Dance. "Now you good
Kaw--Good Injun you be--all same me," said the chief. Hassard and
Lamborn cracked time with their whips, and, in short, we made a grand
circular row; truly it was a wondrous striking scene! From that day I
was called the Kaw chief, even by Hassard in his letters to the
_Tribune_, in which he mentioned that in scenes of excitement I rode and
whooped like a savage. It _may_ be so--_I_ never noticed it; perhaps he
exaggerated, but I must admit that I do like Indians, and they like me.
We took ambulances or strong covered army-waggons and pushed on. We were
now well out on the plains. All day long we passed prairie-dog villages
and saw antelopes bounding afar. At night we stopped at the hotel _Alla
Fresca_, or slept in the open air. It was perfectly delightful, though
in November. Far in the distance many prairie fires stretched like miles
of blazing serpents over the distance. I thought of the innumerable camp-
fires before the battle of Gettysburg, and determined that the two were
among the most wonderful sights of my life. We rose very early in the
morning, by grey light, and after a drink of whisky pushed on. I may
here mention that from 1863 for six years I very rarely indeed tasted any
intoxicant.
So we went on till we reached the last surveyor's camp. We had not been
there half an hour before a man came in declaring that he had just saved
his scalp, having seen a party of Apaches in their war-paint, but luckily
hid himself before they discovered him. It was evident that we had now
got beyond civilisation. Already, on the way, we had seen ranches which
had been recently burned by the Indians, who had killed their inmates.
One man, observing my Kaw whip, casually remarked that as I was fond of
curiosities he was sorry that he had not kept six arrows which he had
lately pulled out of a man whom he had found lying dead in the road, and
who had just been shot by the Indians.
Within this same hour after our arrival there came in a Lieutenant
Hesselberger, bringing with him a Mrs. Box and her two daughters, one
about sixteen and the other twelve. The Indians had on the Texas
frontier murdered and scalped her husband before her eyes, burned their
home, and carried the three into captivity, where for six months they
were daily subjected to such _incredible_ outrages and cruelty that it
was simply a miracle that they survived. As it was, they looked exactly
like corpses. Lieutenant Hesselberger, with bravery beyond belief,
having heard of these captives, went alone to the Indians to ransom them.
Firstly, they fired guns unexpectedly close to his head, and finding that
he did not start, brought out the captives and subjected them to the
extremes of gross abuse before his eyes, and repeatedly knocked them down
with clubs, all of which he affected to disregard. At last the price was
agreed on and he took them away.
In after years, when I described all this in London to Stanley, the
African explorer, he said, "Strange! I, too, was there that very day,
and saw those women, and wrote an account of it to the _New York
Herald_." I daresay that I met and talked to him at the time among those
whom we saw.
Not far from our camp there was a large and well-populated beaver-dam,
which I studied with great interest. It was more like a well regulated
town than is many a western mining village. I do not wonder that Indians
regard _Quahbeet_, the beaver, as a human being in disguise. N.B.--The
beaver always, when he cuts a stick, sharpens it like a lead-pencil--which
indicates an artistic nature.
It was now resolved that a number of our party should go into the Smoky
Hill country to attend a very great Indian council, while the rest
returned home. So I joined the adventurers. The meeting was not held,
for I believe the Indians went to war. But we rode on. One morning I
saw afar a few black specks, and thought they were cattle. And so they
were, but the free cattle of the plains, or buffaloes. That evening, as
we were out of meat, Colton and others went out to hunt them, and had a
fine chase, but got nothing.
The next morning Colton kindly gave me his chance--that is, he resigned
to me a splendid black horse used to the business--and most of us went to
the field. After a while, or a four miles' run, we came up with a
number. There was a fine cow singled out and shot at, and I succeeded in
putting a ball in just behind the shoulder. Among us all she became
beef, and an expert hunter with us, whose business it was to supply the
camp with meat, skinned and butchered her and cooked a meal for us on the
spot. The beef was deliciously tender and well flavoured.
Now, before this cooking, in the excitement of the chase, I had ridden on
like an Indian, as Hassard said in his letter, whooping like one all
alone after the buffalo, and in my joy forgot to shake the spent
cartridge out of my Spenser seven-shooter carbine. All at once I found
myself right in the herd, close by a monstrous bull, whose height at the
instant when he turned on me to gore me seemed to be about a hundred and
fifty feet. But my horse was used to this, and swerved with incredible
tact and swiftness, while I held on. I then had a perfectly close shot,
not six feet off, under the shoulder, and I raised the carbine and pulled
trigger, when it--_ticked_! I had forgotten the dead cartridge, and was
not used to the arm which I carried. I think that I swore, and if I did
not I am sorry for it. Before I could arrange my charge the buffaloes
were far away.
{Stairs of rock: p329.jpg}
However, we had got our cow, and that was more than we really needed. At
any rate, I had shot a buffalo and had a stupendous run. And here I must
mention that while racing and whooping, I executed the most insanely
foolish thing I ever did in all my life, which astonished the hunter and
all present to the utmost. I was at the top of a declivity from which
there descended a flight of natural stairs of rock, but every one very
broad, like the above sketch.
And being inspired by the devil, and my horse not objecting at all, I
clattered down over it at full speed _a la_ Putnam. I have heard that
Indians do this very boldly, declaring that it is perfectly safe if the
rider is not afraid, and I am quite sure that mine must have been an
Indian horse. I hope that no one will think that I have put forward or
made too much of these trifling boyish tricks of recklessness. They are
of daily occurrence in the Wild West among men who like excitement, and
had Robert Hunt been among us there would have been fun indeed.
So we turned homewards, for the Indian Conference had proved a failure.
We had for our driver a man named Brigham, to whom I had taken a great
liking. He had lived as a trader among the wildest Indians, spoke
Spanish fluently, and knew the whole Western frontier like his pocket.
The day after we had seen Mrs. Box come in, I was praising the braveness
of Lieutenant Hesselberger in venturing to rescue her.
"It isn't all bravery at all," said Brigham. "He's brave as a panther,
but there's more in it than _that_. There is about one man in a hundred,
and not more, who can go among the most God-forsaken devils of Injuns and
never get hurt. The Injuns take to them at a glance and love 'em. _I'm_
such a man, and I've proved it often enough, God knows! Lieutenant
Hesselberger is one, and," he added abruptly, "Mr. Leland, _you're_
another."
"What makes you think so?" I said, greatly surprised.
"'Cause I've watched you. You've got Injun ways that you don't know of.
Didn't I notice the other day, when the gentlemen were buying the whips
from the Kaws, that every Injun took a squint, and then came straight to
_you_? Why didn't they go to one of the other gentlemen? Because
they've got an instinct like a dog for their friends, and for such as
_we_."
We were coming to Fort Harker. I forget how it all came about, but we
found ourselves afoot, with a mile or two to walk, carrying our guns,
carpet-bags, and _petites bagages_, while about fifty yards ahead or more
there was Brigham driving on merrily to the fort, under the impression
that we had secured other conveyance.
Captain Colton fired his carbine. It made about as much noise as a
percussion-cap, and the wind was from Brigham toward us. Carried away by
an impulse, I caught Colonel Lamborn's light rifle out of his hand.
"Great God!" he cried, "you don't mean to shoot at him?"
"If you'll insure the mules," I said, "I will the driver." My
calculation was to send a bullet so near to Brigham that he could hear it
whizz, but not to touch him. It was not so dangerous as the shot I had
fired over Sam Fox, and the "spirit" was on me!
But I did _not_ know that in the covered waggon sat Hassard talking with
Brigham, their faces being, as Hassard declared, just about six inches
apart. I fired, and the bullet passed just between their noses!