DOWN THE ARKANSAS
In the summer of 1846 the wild and lonely banks of the Upper Arkansas
beheld for the first time the passage of an army. General Kearny, on his
march to Santa Fe, adopted this route in preference to the old trail of
the Cimarron. When we came down the main body of the troops had already
passed on; Price’s Missouri regiment, however, was still on the way,
having left the frontier much later than the rest; and about this time
we began to meet them moving along the trail, one or two companies at
a time. No men ever embarked upon a military expedition with a greater
love for the work before them than the Missourians; but if discipline
and subordination be the criterion of merit, these soldiers were
worthless indeed. Yet when their exploits have rung through all America,
it would be absurd to deny that they were excellent irregular troops.
Their victories were gained in the teeth of every established precedent
of warfare; they were owing to a singular combination of military
qualities in the men themselves. Without discipline or a spirit of
subordination, they knew how to keep their ranks and act as one man.
Doniphan’s regiment marched through New Mexico more like a band of free
companions than like the paid soldiers of a modern government. When
General Taylor complimented Doniphan on his success at Sacramento and
elsewhere, the colonel’s reply very well illustrates the relations which
subsisted between the officers and men of his command:
“I don’t know anything of the maneuvers. The boys kept coming to me,
to let them charge; and when I saw a good opportunity, I told them they
might go. They were off like a shot, and that’s all I know about it.”
The backwoods lawyer was better fitted to conciliate the good-will than
to command the obedience of his men. There were many serving under him,
who both from character and education could better have held command
than he.
At the battle of Sacramento his frontiersmen fought under every possible
disadvantage. The Mexicans had chosen their own position; they were
drawn up across the valley that led to their native city of Chihuahua;
their whole front was covered by intrenchments and defended by batteries
of heavy cannon; they outnumbered the invaders five to one. An eagle
flew over the Americans, and a deep murmur rose along their lines. The
enemy’s batteries opened; long they remained under fire, but when at
length the word was given, they shouted and ran forward. In one of the
divisions, when midway to the enemy, a drunken officer ordered a halt;
the exasperated men hesitated to obey.
“Forward, boys!” cried a private from the ranks; and the Americans,
rushing like tigers upon the enemy, bounded over the breastwork. Four
hundred Mexicans were slain upon the spot and the rest fled, scattering
over the plain like sheep. The standards, cannon, and baggage were
taken, and among the rest a wagon laden with cords, which the Mexicans,
in the fullness of their confidence, had made ready for tying the
American prisoners.
Doniphan’s volunteers, who gained this victory, passed up with the main
army; but Price’s soldiers, whom we now met, were men from the same
neighborhood, precisely similar in character, manner, and appearance.
One forenoon, as we were descending upon a very wide meadow, where
we meant to rest for an hour or two, we saw a dark body of horsemen
approaching at a distance. In order to find water, we were obliged to
turn aside to the river bank, a full half mile from the trail. Here we
put up a kind of awning, and spreading buffalo robes on the ground, Shaw
and I sat down to smoke beneath it.
“We are going to catch it now,” said Shaw; “look at those fellows,
there’ll be no peace for us here.”
And in good truth about half the volunteers had straggled away from the
line of march, and were riding over the meadow toward us.
“How are you?” said the first who came up, alighting from his horse and
throwing himself upon the ground. The rest followed close, and a score
of them soon gathered about us, some lying at full length and some
sitting on horseback. They all belonged to a company raised in St.
Louis. There were some ruffian faces among them, and some haggard with
debauchery; but on the whole they were extremely good-looking men,
superior beyond measure to the ordinary rank and file of an army. Except
that they were booted to the knees, they wore their belts and military
trappings over the ordinary dress of citizens. Besides their swords and
holster pistols, they carried slung from their saddles the excellent
Springfield carbines, loaded at the breech. They inquired the character
of our party, and were anxious to know the prospect of killing buffalo,
and the chance that their horses would stand the journey to Santa Fe.
All this was well enough, but a moment after a worse visitation came
upon us.
“How are you, strangers? whar are you going and whar are you from?” said
a fellow, who came trotting up with an old straw hat on his head. He was
dressed in the coarsest brown homespun cloth. His face was rather sallow
from fever-and-ague, and his tall figure, though strong and sinewy was
quite thin, and had besides an angular look, which, together with his
boorish seat on horseback, gave him an appearance anything but graceful.
Plenty more of the same stamp were close behind him. Their company
was raised in one of the frontier counties, and we soon had abundant
evidence of their rustic breeding; dozens of them came crowding round,
pushing between our first visitors and staring at us with unabashed
faces.
“Are you the captain?” asked one fellow.
“What’s your business out here?” asked another.
“Whar do you live when you’re at home?” said a third.
“I reckon you’re traders,” surmised a fourth; and to crown the whole,
one of them came confidentially to my side and inquired in a low voice,
“What’s your partner’s name?”
As each newcomer repeated the same questions, the nuisance became
intolerable. Our military visitors were soon disgusted at the concise
nature of our replies, and we could overhear them muttering curses
against us. While we sat smoking, not in the best imaginable humor, Tete
Rouge’s tongue was never idle. He never forgot his military character,
and during the whole interview he was incessantly busy among his
fellow-soldiers. At length we placed him on the ground before us, and
told him that he might play the part of spokesman for the whole. Tete
Rouge was delighted, and we soon had the satisfaction of seeing him talk
and gabble at such a rate that the torrent of questions was in a great
measure diverted from us. A little while after, to our amazement, we saw
a large cannon with four horses come lumbering up behind the crowd; and
the driver, who was perched on one of the animals, stretching his neck
so as to look over the rest of the men, called out:
“Whar are you from, and what’s your business?”
The captain of one of the companies was among our visitors, drawn by
the same curiosity that had attracted his men. Unless their faces belied
them, not a few in the crowd might with great advantage have changed
places with their commander.
“Well, men,” said he, lazily rising from the ground where he had been
lounging, “it’s getting late, I reckon we had better be moving.”
“I shan’t start yet anyhow,” said one fellow, who was lying half asleep
with his head resting on his arm.
“Don’t be in a hurry, captain,” added the lieutenant.
“Well, have it your own way, we’ll wait a while longer,” replied the
obsequious commander.
At length however our visitors went straggling away as they had come,
and we, to our great relief, were left alone again.
No one can deny the intrepid bravery of these men, their intelligence
and the bold frankness of their character, free from all that is mean
and sordid. Yet for the moment the extreme roughness of their manners
half inclines one to forget their heroic qualities. Most of them seem
without the least perception of delicacy or propriety, though among them
individuals may be found in whose manners there is a plain courtesy,
while their features bespeak a gallant spirit equal to any enterprise.
No one was more relieved than Delorier by the departure of the
volunteers; for dinner was getting colder every moment. He spread a
well-whitened buffalo hide upon the grass, placed in the middle the
juicy hump of a fat cow, ranged around it the tin plates and cups,
and then acquainted us that all was ready. Tete Rouge, with his usual
alacrity on such occasions, was the first to take his seat. In his
former capacity of steamboat clerk, he had learned to prefix the
honorary MISTER to everybody’s name, whether of high or low degree; so
Jim Gurney was Mr. Gurney, Henry was Mr. Henry, and even Delorier, for
the first time in his life, heard himself addressed as Mr. Delorier.
This did not prevent his conceiving a violent enmity against Tete Rouge,
who, in his futile though praiseworthy attempts to make himself
useful used always to intermeddle with cooking the dinners. Delorier’s
disposition knew no medium between smiles and sunshine and a downright
tornado of wrath; he said nothing to Tete Rouge, but his wrongs rankled
in his breast. Tete Rouge had taken his place at dinner; it was his
happiest moment; he sat enveloped in the old buffalo coat, sleeves
turned up in preparation for the work, and his short legs crossed on the
grass before him; he had a cup of coffee by his side and his knife ready
in his hand and while he looked upon the fat hump ribs, his eyes dilated
with anticipation. Delorier sat just opposite to him, and the rest of us
by this time had taken our seats.
“How is this, Delorier? You haven’t given us bread enough.”
At this Delorier’s placid face flew instantly into a paroxysm of
contortions. He grinned with wrath, chattered, gesticulated, and hurled
forth a volley of incoherent words in broken English at the astonished
Tete Rouge. It was just possible to make out that he was accusing him
of having stolen and eaten four large cakes which had been laid by for
dinner. Tete Rouge, utterly confounded at this sudden attack, stared at
Delorier for a moment in dumb amazement, with mouth and eyes wide open.
At last he found speech, and protested that the accusation was false;
and that he could not conceive how he had offended Mr. Delorier, or
provoked him to use such ungentlemanly expressions. The tempest of words
raged with such fury that nothing else could be heard. But Tete Rouge,
from his greater command of English, had a manifest advantage over
Delorier, who after sputtering and grimacing for a while, found his
words quite inadequate to the expression of his wrath. He jumped up
and vanished, jerking out between his teeth one furious sacre enfant de
grace, a Canadian title of honor, made doubly emphatic by being usually
applied together with a cut of the whip to refractory mules and horses.
The next morning we saw an old buffalo escorting his cow with two small
calves over the prairie. Close behind came four or five large white
wolves, sneaking stealthily through the long meadow-grass, and watching
for the moment when one of the children should chance to lag behind his
parents. The old bull kept well on his guard, and faced about now and
then to keep the prowling ruffians at a distance.
As we approached our nooning place, we saw five or six buffalo standing
at the very summit of a tall bluff. Trotting forward to the spot where
we meant to stop, I flung off my saddle and turned my horse loose. By
making a circuit under cover of some rising ground, I reached the foot
of the bluff unnoticed, and climbed up its steep side. Lying under the
brow of the declivity, I prepared to fire at the buffalo, who stood on
the flat surface about not five yards distant. Perhaps I was too hasty,
for the gleaming rifle-barrel leveled over the edge caught their notice;
they turned and ran. Close as they were, it was impossible to kill them
when in that position, and stepping upon the summit I pursued them over
the high arid tableland. It was extremely rugged and broken; a great
sandy ravine was channeled through it, with smaller ravines entering on
each side like tributary streams. The buffalo scattered, and I soon lost
sight of most of them as they scuttled away through the sandy chasms; a
bull and a cow alone kept in view. For a while they ran along the edge
of the great ravine, appearing and disappearing as they dived into some
chasm and again emerged from it. At last they stretched out upon the
broad prairie, a plain nearly flat and almost devoid of verdure, for
every short grass-blade was dried and shriveled by the glaring sun. Now
and then the old bull would face toward me; whenever he did so I fell
to the ground and lay motionless. In this manner I chased them for about
two miles, until at length I heard in front a deep hoarse bellowing. A
moment after a band of about a hundred bulls, before hidden by a slight
swell of the plain, came at once into view. The fugitives ran toward
them. Instead of mingling with the band, as I expected, they passed
directly through, and continued their flight. At this I gave up the
chase, and kneeling down, crawled to within gunshot of the bulls, and
with panting breath and trickling brow sat down on the ground to watch
them; my presence did not disturb them in the least. They were not
feeding, for, indeed, there was nothing to eat; but they seemed to
have chosen the parched and scorching desert as the scene of their
amusements. Some were rolling on the ground amid a cloud of dust;
others, with a hoarse rumbling bellow, were butting their large heads
together, while many stood motionless, as if quite inanimate. Except
their monstrous growth of tangled grizzly mane, they had no hair; for
their old coat had fallen off in the spring, and their new one had not
as yet appeared. Sometimes an old bull would step forward, and gaze at
me with a grim and stupid countenance; then he would turn and butt his
next neighbor; then he would lie down and roll over in the dirt, kicking
his hoofs in the air. When satisfied with this amusement he would jerk
his head and shoulders upward, and resting on his forelegs stare at me
in this position, half blinded by his mane, and his face covered with
dirt; then up he would spring upon all-fours, and shake his dusty sides;
turning half round, he would stand with his beard touching the ground,
in an attitude of profound abstraction, as if reflecting on his puerile
conduct. “You are too ugly to live,” thought I; and aiming at the
ugliest, I shot three of them in succession. The rest were not at all
discomposed at this; they kept on bellowing and butting and rolling
on the ground as before. Henry Chatillon always cautioned us to keep
perfectly quiet in the presence of a wounded buffalo, for any movement
is apt to excite him to make an attack; so I sat still upon the ground,
loading and firing with as little motion as possible. While I was
thus employed, a spectator made his appearance; a little antelope came
running up with remarkable gentleness to within fifty yards; and there
it stood, its slender neck arched, its small horns thrown back, and its
large dark eyes gazing on me with a look of eager curiosity. By the side
of the shaggy and brutish monsters before me, it seemed like some lovely
young girl wandering near a den of robbers or a nest of bearded pirates.
The buffalo looked uglier than ever. “Here goes for another of you,”
thought I, feeling in my pouch for a percussion cap. Not a percussion
cap was there. My good rifle was useless as an old iron bar. One of the
wounded bulls had not yet fallen, and I waited for some time, hoping
every moment that his strength would fail him. He still stood firm,
looking grimly at me, and disregarding Henry’s advice I rose and walked
away. Many of the bulls turned and looked at me, but the wounded brute
made no attack. I soon came upon a deep ravine which would give me
shelter in case of emergency; so I turned round and threw a stone at
the bulls. They received it with the utmost indifference. Feeling myself
insulted at their refusal to be frightened, I swung my hat, shouted, and
made a show of running toward them; at this they crowded together and
galloped off, leaving their dead and wounded upon the field. As I moved
toward the camp I saw the last survivor totter and fall dead. My speed
in returning was wonderfully quickened by the reflection that the
Pawnees were abroad, and that I was defenseless in case of meeting with
an enemy. I saw no living thing, however, except two or three squalid
old bulls scrambling among the sand-hills that flanked the great ravine.
When I reached camp the party was nearly ready for the afternoon move.
We encamped that evening at a short distance from the river bank. About
midnight, as we all lay asleep on the ground, the man nearest to me
gently reaching out his hand, touched my shoulder, and cautioned me at
the same time not to move. It was bright starlight. Opening my eyes and
slightly turning I saw a large white wolf moving stealthily around the
embers of our fire, with his nose close to the ground. Disengaging my
hand from the blanket, I drew the cover from my rifle, which lay close
at my side; the motion alarmed the wolf, and with long leaps he bounded
out of the camp. Jumping up, I fired after him when he was about thirty
yards distant; the melancholy hum of the bullet sounded far away through
the night. At the sharp report, so suddenly breaking upon the stillness,
all the men sprang up.
“You’ve killed him,” said one of them.
“No, I haven’t,” said I; “there he goes, running along the river.
“Then there’s two of them. Don’t you see that one lying out yonder?”
We went to it, and instead of a dead white wolf found the bleached skull
of a buffalo. I had missed my mark, and what was worse, had grossly
violated a standing law of the prairie. When in a dangerous part of
the country, it is considered highly imprudent to fire a gun after
encamping, lest the report should reach the ears of the Indians.
The horses were saddled in the morning, and the last man had lighted his
pipe at the dying ashes of the fire. The beauty of the day enlivened us
all. Even Ellis felt its influence, and occasionally made a remark as we
rode along, and Jim Gurney told endless stories of his cruisings in the
United States service. The buffalo were abundant, and at length a large
band of them went running up the hills on the left.
“Do you see them buffalo?” said Ellis, “now I’ll bet any man I’ll go and
kill one with my yager.”
And leaving his horse to follow on with the party, he strode up the hill
after them. Henry looked at us with his peculiar humorous expression,
and proposed that we should follow Ellis to see how he would kill a fat
cow. As soon as he was out of sight we rode up the hill after him, and
waited behind a little ridge till we heard the report of the unfailing
yager. Mounting to the top, we saw Ellis clutching his favorite weapon
with both hands, and staring after the buffalo, who one and all were
galloping off at full speed. As we descended the hill we saw the party
straggling along the trail below. When we joined them, another scene
of amateur hunting awaited us. I forgot to say that when we met the
volunteers Tete Rouge had obtained a horse from one of them, in exchange
for his mule, whom he feared and detested. The horse he christened
James. James, though not worth so much as the mule, was a large and
strong animal. Tete Rouge was very proud of his new acquisition, and
suddenly became ambitious to run a buffalo with him. At his request,
I lent him my pistols, though not without great misgivings, since
when Tete Rouge hunted buffalo the pursuer was in more danger than the
pursued. He hung the holsters at his saddle bow; and now, as we passed
along, a band of bulls left their grazing in the meadow and galloped in
a long file across the trail in front.
“Now’s your chance, Tete; come, let’s see you kill a bull.” Thus urged,
the hunter cried, “Get up!” and James, obedient to the signal, cantered
deliberately forward at an abominably uneasy gait. Tete Rouge, as we
contemplated him from behind; made a most remarkable figure. He still
wore the old buffalo coat; his blanket, which was tied in a loose bundle
behind his saddle, went jolting from one side to the other, and a large
tin canteen half full of water, which hung from his pommel, was jerked
about his leg in a manner which greatly embarrassed him.
“Let out your horse, man; lay on your whip!” we called out to him.
The buffalo were getting farther off at every instant. James, being
ambitious to mend his pace, tugged hard at the rein, and one of his
rider’s boots escaped from the stirrup.
“Woa! I say, woa!” cried Tete Rouge, in great perturbation, and after
much effort James’ progress was arrested. The hunter came trotting back
to the party, disgusted with buffalo running, and he was received with
overwhelming congratulations.
“Too good a chance to lose,” said Shaw, pointing to another band of
bulls on the left. We lashed our horses and galloped upon them. Shaw
killed one with each barrel of his gun. I separated another from the
herd and shot him. The small bullet of the rifled pistol, striking too
far back, did not immediately take effect, and the bull ran on with
unabated speed. Again and again I snapped the remaining pistol at him. I
primed it afresh three or four times, and each time it missed fire, for
the touch-hole was clogged up. Returning it to the holster, I began to
load the empty pistol, still galloping by the side of the bull. By this
time he was grown desperate. The foam flew from his jaws and his tongue
lolled out. Before the pistol was loaded he sprang upon me, and followed
up his attack with a furious rush. The only alternative was to run
away or be killed. I took to flight, and the bull, bristling with fury,
pursued me closely. The pistol was soon ready, and then looking back,
I saw his head five or six yards behind my horse’s tail. To fire at it
would be useless, for a bullet flattens against the adamantine skull of
a buffalo bull. Inclining my body to the left, I turned my horse in
that direction as sharply as his speed would permit. The bull, rushing
blindly on with great force and weight, did not turn so quickly. As I
looked back, his neck and shoulders were exposed to view; turning in the
saddle, I shot a bullet through them obliquely into his vitals. He
gave over the chase and soon fell to the ground. An English tourist
represents a situation like this as one of imminent danger; this is
a great mistake; the bull never pursues long, and the horse must
be wretched indeed that cannot keep out of his way for two or three
minutes.
We were now come to a part of the country where we were bound in common
prudence to use every possible precaution. We mounted guard at night,
each man standing in his turn; and no one ever slept without drawing
his rifle close to his side or folding it with him in his blanket. One
morning our vigilance was stimulated by our finding traces of a large
Comanche encampment. Fortunately for us, however, it had been abandoned
nearly a week. On the next evening we found the ashes of a recent fire,
which gave us at the time some uneasiness. At length we reached the
Caches, a place of dangerous repute; and it had a most dangerous
appearance, consisting of sand-hills everywhere broken by ravines and
deep chasms. Here we found the grave of Swan, killed at this place,
probably by the Pawnees, two or three weeks before. His remains, more
than once violated by the Indians and the wolves, were suffered at
length to remain undisturbed in their wild burial place.
For several days we met detached companies of Price’s regiment. Horses
would often break loose at night from their camps. One afternoon we
picked up three of these stragglers quietly grazing along the river.
After we came to camp that evening, Jim Gurney brought news that more of
them were in sight. It was nearly dark, and a cold, drizzling rain had
set in; but we all turned out, and after an hour’s chase nine horses
were caught and brought in. One of them was equipped with saddle and
bridle; pistols were hanging at the pommel of the saddle, a carbine was
slung at its side, and a blanket rolled up behind it. In the morning,
glorying in our valuable prize, we resumed our journey, and our
cavalcade presented a much more imposing appearance than ever before. We
kept on till the afternoon, when, far behind, three horsemen appeared
on the horizon. Coming on at a hand-gallop, they soon overtook us, and
claimed all the horses as belonging to themselves and others of their
company. They were of course given up, very much to the mortification of
Ellis and Jim Gurney.
Our own horses now showed signs of fatigue, and we resolved to give them
half a day’s rest. We stopped at noon at a grassy spot by the river.
After dinner Shaw and Henry went out to hunt; and while the men lounged
about the camp, I lay down to read in the shadow of the cart. Looking
up, I saw a bull grazing alone on the prairie more than a mile distant.
I was tired of reading, and taking my rifle I walked toward him. As
I came near, I crawled upon the ground until I approached to within a
hundred yards; here I sat down upon the grass and waited till he should
turn himself into a proper position to receive his death-wound. He was
a grim old veteran. His loves and his battles were over for that season,
and now, gaunt and war-worn, he had withdrawn from the herd to graze by
himself and recruit his exhausted strength. He was miserably emaciated;
his mane was all in tatters; his hide was bare and rough as an
elephant’s, and covered with dried patches of the mud in which he had
been wallowing. He showed all his ribs whenever he moved. He looked like
some grizzly old ruffian grown gray in blood and violence, and scowling
on all the world from his misanthropic seclusion. The old savage looked
up when I first approached, and gave me a fierce stare; then he fell
to grazing again with an air of contemptuous indifference. The moment
after, as if suddenly recollecting himself, he threw up his head, faced
quickly about, and to my amazement came at a rapid trot directly toward
me. I was strongly impelled to get up and run, but this would have been
very dangerous. Sitting quite still I aimed, as he came on, at the
thin part of the skull above the nose. After he had passed over about
three-quarters of the distance between us, I was on the point of firing,
when, to my great satisfaction, he stopped short. I had full opportunity
of studying his countenance; his whole front was covered with a huge
mass of coarse matted hair, which hung so low that nothing but his two
forefeet were visible beneath it; his short thick horns were blunted and
split to the very roots in his various battles, and across his nose and
forehead were two or three large white scars, which gave him a grim and
at the same time a whimsical appearance. It seemed to me that he stood
there motionless for a full quarter of an hour, looking at me through
the tangled locks of his mane. For my part, I remained as quiet as he,
and looked quite as hard; I felt greatly inclined to come to term with
him. “My friend,” thought I, “if you’ll let me off, I’ll let you off.”
At length he seemed to have abandoned any hostile design. Very slowly
and deliberately he began to turn about; little by little his side came
into view, all be-plastered with mud. It was a tempting sight. I forgot
my prudent intentions, and fired my rifle; a pistol would have served at
that distance. Round spun old bull like a top, and away he galloped
over the prairie. He ran some distance, and even ascended a considerable
hill, before he lay down and died. After shooting another bull among the
hills, I went back to camp.
At noon, on the 14th of September, a very large Santa Fe caravan came
up. The plain was covered with the long files of their white-topped
wagons, the close black carriages in which the traders travel and sleep,
large droves of animals, and men on horseback and on foot. They all
stopped on the meadow near us. Our diminutive cart and handful of men
made but an insignificant figure by the side of their wide and bustling
camp. Tete Rouge went over to visit them, and soon came back with half
a dozen biscuits in one hand and a bottle of brandy in the other. I
inquired where he got them. “Oh,” said Tete Rouge, “I know some of the
traders. Dr. Dobbs is there besides.” I asked who Dr. Dobbs might be.
“One of our St. Louis doctors,” replied Tete Rouge. For two days past
I had been severely attacked by the same disorder which had so greatly
reduced my strength when at the mountains; at this time I was suffering
not a little from the sudden pain and weakness which it occasioned.
Tete Rouge, in answer to my inquiries, declared that Dr. Dobbs was
a physician of the first standing. Without at all believing him, I
resolved to consult this eminent practitioner. Walking over to the camp,
I found him lying sound asleep under one of the wagons. He offered in
his own person but an indifferent specimen of his skill, for it was five
months since I had seen so cadaverous a face.
His hat had fallen off, and his yellow hair was all in disorder; one of
his arms supplied the place of a pillow; his pantaloons were wrinkled
halfway up to his knees, and he was covered with little bits of grass
and straw, upon which he had rolled in his uneasy slumber. A Mexican
stood near, and I made him a sign that he should touch the doctor. Up
sprang the learned Dobbs, and, sitting upright, rubbed his eyes and
looked about him in great bewilderment. I regretted the necessity of
disturbing him, and said I had come to ask professional advice. “Your
system, sir, is in a disordered state,” said he solemnly, after a short
examination.
I inquired what might be the particular species of disorder.
“Evidently a morbid action of the liver,” replied the medical man; “I
will give you a prescription.”
Repairing to the back of one of the covered wagons, he scrambled in; for
a moment I could see nothing of him but his boots. At length he produced
a box which he had extracted from some dark recess within, and opening
it, he presented me with a folded paper of some size. “What is it?” said
I. “Calomel,” said the doctor.
Under the circumstances I would have taken almost anything. There was
not enough to do me much harm, and it might possibly do good; so at camp
that night I took the poison instead of supper.
That camp is worthy of notice. The traders warned us not to follow the
main trail along the river, “unless,” as one of them observed, “you want
to have your throats cut!” The river at this place makes a bend; and
a smaller trail, known as the Ridge-path, leads directly across the
prairie from point to point, a distance of sixty or seventy miles.
We followed this trail, and after traveling seven or eight miles, we
came to a small stream, where we encamped. Our position was not chosen
with much forethought or military skill. The water was in a deep hollow,
with steep, high banks; on the grassy bottom of this hollow we picketed
our horses, while we ourselves encamped upon the barren prairie just
above. The opportunity was admirable either for driving off our horses
or attacking us. After dark, as Tete Rouge was sitting at supper, we
observed him pointing with a face of speechless horror over the shoulder
of Henry, who was opposite to him. Aloof amid the darkness appeared
a gigantic black apparition; solemnly swaying to and fro, it advanced
steadily upon us. Henry, half vexed and half amused, jumped up, spread
out his arms, and shouted. The invader was an old buffalo bull, who with
characteristic stupidity, was walking directly into camp. It cost some
shouting and swinging of hats before we could bring him first to a halt
and then to a rapid retreat.
That night the moon was full and bright; but as the black clouds chased
rapidly over it, we were at one moment in light and at the next in
darkness. As the evening advanced, a thunderstorm came up; it struck us
with such violence that the tent would have been blown over if we had
not interposed the cart to break the force of the wind. At length it
subsided to a steady rain. I lay awake through nearly the whole night,
listening to its dull patter upon the canvas above. The moisture, which
filled the tent and trickled from everything in it, did not add to the
comfort of the situation. About twelve o’clock Shaw went out to stand
guard amid the rain and pitch darkness. Munroe, the most vigilant as
well as one of the bravest among us, was also on the alert. When about
two hours had passed, Shaw came silently in, and touching Henry, called
him in a low quick voice to come out. “What is it?” I asked. “Indians,
I believe,” whispered Shaw; “but lie still; I’ll call you if there’s a
fight.”
He and Henry went out together. I took the cover from my rifle, put a
fresh percussion cap upon it, and then, being in much pain, lay down
again. In about five minutes Shaw came in again. “All right,” he said,
as he lay down to sleep. Henry was now standing guard in his place. He
told me in the morning the particulars of the alarm. Munroe’ s watchful
eye discovered some dark objects down in the hollow, among the horses,
like men creeping on all fours. Lying flat on their faces, he and Shaw
crawled to the edge of the bank, and were soon convinced that what they
saw were Indians. Shaw silently withdrew to call Henry, and they all
lay watching in the same position. Henry’s eye is of the best on
the prairie. He detected after a while the true nature of the moving
objects; they were nothing but wolves creeping among the horses.
It is very singular that when picketed near a camp horses seldom show
any fear of such an intrusion. The wolves appear to have no other object
than that of gnawing the trail-ropes of raw hide by which the animals
are secured. Several times in the course of the journey my horse’s
trail-rope was bitten in two by these nocturnal visitors.