FORT LEAVENWORTH
On the next morning we rode to Fort Leavenworth. Colonel, now General,
Kearny, to whom I had had the honor of an introduction when at St.
Louis, was just arrived, and received us at his headquarters with the
high-bred courtesy habitual to him. Fort Leavenworth is in fact no fort,
being without defensive works, except two block-houses. No rumors of
war had as yet disturbed its tranquillity. In the square grassy area,
surrounded by barracks and the quarters of the officers, the men were
passing and repassing, or lounging among the trees; although not many
weeks afterward it presented a different scene; for here the very
off-scourings of the frontier were congregated, to be marshaled for the
expedition against Santa Fe.
Passing through the garrison, we rode toward the Kickapoo village, five
or six miles beyond. The path, a rather dubious and uncertain one, led
us along the ridge of high bluffs that bordered the Missouri; and by
looking to the right or to the left, we could enjoy a strange contrast
of opposite scenery. On the left stretched the prairie, rising into
swells and undulations, thickly sprinkled with groves, or gracefully
expanding into wide grassy basins of miles in extent; while its
curvatures, swelling against the horizon, were often surmounted by lines
of sunny woods; a scene to which the freshness of the season and the
peculiar mellowness of the atmosphere gave additional softness. Below
us, on the right, was a tract of ragged and broken woods. We could look
down on the summits of the trees, some living and some dead; some erect,
others leaning at every angle, and others still piled in masses together
by the passage of a hurricane. Beyond their extreme verge, the turbid
waters of the Missouri were discernible through the boughs, rolling
powerfully along at the foot of the woody declivities of its farther
bank.
The path soon after led inland; and as we crossed an open meadow we saw
a cluster of buildings on a rising ground before us, with a crowd of
people surrounding them. They were the storehouse, cottage, and stables
of the Kickapoo trader’s establishment. Just at that moment, as it
chanced, he was beset with half the Indians of the settlement. They had
tied their wretched, neglected little ponies by dozens along the fences
and outhouses, and were either lounging about the place, or crowding
into the trading house. Here were faces of various colors; red, green,
white, and black, curiously intermingled and disposed over the visage
in a variety of patterns. Calico shirts, red and blue blankets, brass
ear-rings, wampum necklaces, appeared in profusion. The trader was a
blue-eyed open-faced man who neither in his manners nor his appearance
betrayed any of the roughness of the frontier; though just at present he
was obliged to keep a lynx eye on his suspicious customers, who, men
and women, were climbing on his counter and seating themselves among his
boxes and bales.
The village itself was not far off, and sufficiently illustrated the
condition of its unfortunate and self-abandoned occupants. Fancy to
yourself a little swift stream, working its devious way down a woody
valley; sometimes wholly hidden under logs and fallen trees, sometimes
issuing forth and spreading into a broad, clear pool; and on its banks
in little nooks cleared away among the trees, miniature log-houses
in utter ruin and neglect. A labyrinth of narrow, obstructed paths
connected these habitations one with another. Sometimes we met a stray
calf, a pig or a pony, belonging to some of the villagers, who usually
lay in the sun in front of their dwellings, and looked on us with cold,
suspicious eyes as we approached. Farther on, in place of the log-huts
of the Kickapoos, we found the pukwi lodges of their neighbors, the
Pottawattamies, whose condition seemed no better than theirs.
Growing tired at last, and exhausted by the excessive heat and
sultriness of the day, we returned to our friend, the trader. By this
time the crowd around him had dispersed, and left him at leisure. He
invited us to his cottage, a little white-and-green building, in
the style of the old French settlements; and ushered us into a neat,
well-furnished room. The blinds were closed, and the heat and glare
of the sun excluded; the room was as cool as a cavern. It was neatly
carpeted too and furnished in a manner that we hardly expected on the
frontier. The sofas, chairs, tables, and a well-filled bookcase would
not have disgraced an Eastern city; though there were one or two little
tokens that indicated the rather questionable civilization of the
region. A pistol, loaded and capped, lay on the mantelpiece; and through
the glass of the bookcase, peeping above the works of John Milton
glittered the handle of a very mischievous-looking knife.
Our host went out, and returned with iced water, glasses, and a bottle
of excellent claret; a refreshment most welcome in the extreme heat of
the day; and soon after appeared a merry, laughing woman, who must have
been, a year of two before, a very rich and luxuriant specimen of Creole
beauty. She came to say that lunch was ready in the next room. Our
hostess evidently lived on the sunny side of life, and troubled herself
with none of its cares. She sat down and entertained us while we were
at table with anecdotes of fishing parties, frolics, and the officers
at the fort. Taking leave at length of the hospitable trader and his
friend, we rode back to the garrison.
Shaw passed on to the camp, while I remained to call upon Colonel
Kearny. I found him still at table. There sat our friend the captain,
in the same remarkable habiliments in which we saw him at Westport; the
black pipe, however, being for the present laid aside. He dangled
his little cap in his hand and talked of steeple-chases, touching
occasionally upon his anticipated exploits in buffalo-hunting. There,
too, was R., somewhat more elegantly attired. For the last time we
tasted the luxuries of civilization, and drank adieus to it in wine good
enough to make us almost regret the leave-taking. Then, mounting,
we rode together to the camp, where everything was in readiness for
departure on the morrow.