Part 3 (1/2)
The Crows are affably disposed to-day, and we have no especial difficulty in fraternizing. Plug tobacco will go a long way as a medium of introduction anywhere west of the Missouri, and if you give one Indian a piece as big as a postage-stamp, the whole tribe will come in to claim acquaintance. A very pretty tobacco-pouch of Sioux manufacture which hung always at the pommel of my saddle, and the heavily beaded buckskin riding-breeches which I wore, seemed to attract their notice, and one of them finally managed to communicate through a half-breed interpreter a query as to whether I had killed the Sioux chief who had owned them. Finding that I had never killed a Sioux in my life, the disdainful warrior dropped me as no longer a desirable acquaintance; and even the fact that the breeches were a valuable present from no less a hero than Buffalo Bill failed to make a favorable impression. Following him were a pair of bright-looking young squaws whose sole occupation in life seemed to consist in ministering to the various wants of his sulky chiefs.h.i.+p. Riding astride, just as the men do, these ladies were equally at home on pony-back, and they ”herded” his spare ”mounts” and drove his pack animals with consummate skill. A tiny pappoose hung on the back of one of them, and gazed over her shoulder with solemn, speculative eyes at the long files of soldiers on their tall horses. At that tender age it was in no way compromising his dignity to display an interest in what was going on around him. Later in life he would lose caste as a warrior if he ventured to display wonderment at sight of a flying-machine. For several hours we rode side by side with our strange companions. We had no hesitancy in watching them with eager curiosity, and they were as intent on ”picking up points” about us, only they did it furtively.
Gradually we were drawing nearer the swift ”Deje Agie,” as the Crows call the Tongue River. The valley down which we were moving sank deeper among the bold bluffs on either side. Something impeded the march of the column ahead; the pack trains on our right were ”doubling up,” and every mule, with that strict attention to business characteristic of the species, had buried its nose in the rich buffalo gra.s.s, making up for lost time. ”Halt!” and ”Dismount!” rang out from the trumpets. Every trooper slips the heavy curb bit from his horse's mouth and leads him right or left off the trail that he may profit by even a moment's rest to crop the fresh bunches in which that herbage grows.
The morning has pa.s.sed without notable incident. No alarm has come from the scouts in front or flank. We are so far in rear to-day that we miss our friends Cody and Chips, who hitherto were _our_ scouts and no one else's. Now they are part and parcel of the squad attached to General Crook's headquarters, of which Major Stanton is the putative chief. We miss our fire-eater of a paymaster--the only one of his corps, I fancy, who would rather undergo the privations of such a campaign and take actual part in its engagements, than sit at a comfortable desk at home and criticise its movements. At noon we come suddenly upon the rus.h.i.+ng Tongue, and fording, breast deep, cross to the northern sh.o.r.e. We emerge at the very base of steep rocky heights, push round a ledge that shuts out the northward prospect from our sight, find the river recoiling from a palisade of rock on the east, and tearing back across our path, ford it again and struggle along under the cliffs on its right bank a few minutes, balancing ourselves, it almost seems, upon a trail barely wide enough for one horseman. What a place for ambuscade or surprise!
[Ill.u.s.tration: CROOK'S COLUMN ON TONGUE RIVER.]
We can see no flankers or scouts, but feel confident that our general has not shoved the nose of his column into such a trap without rigid reconnoissance. So we push unconcernedly along. Once more the green, foam-crested torrent sweeps across our line of march from the left, and we ride in, our horses snorting and plunging over the slippery boulders on the bottom, the eager waves das.h.i.+ng up about our knees. Once more we wind around a projecting elbow of bluff, and as the head of our column, which has halted to permit the companies to close up, straightens out in motion again, we enter a beautiful glade. The river, beating in foam against the high, precipitous rocks on the eastern bank, broke in tiny, peaceful wavelets upon the gra.s.sy sh.o.r.es and slopes of the western side; the great hills rolled away to the left; groves of timber sprang up in our front, and through their leafy tops the white smoke of many a camp-fire was curling; the horses of the Second and Third, strongly guarded, were already moving out to graze on the foot-hills. An aide-de-camp rides to General Carr with orders to ”bivouac right here; we march no further to-day.” We ride left into line, unsaddle, and detail our guards. Captain Payne, with Company ”F,” is a.s.signed the duty of protecting camp from surprise, and he and his men hasten off to surrounding hill-tops and crests from which they can view the approaches, and at two p.m. we proceed to make ourselves comfortable.
We have no huts and only one blanket apiece, but who cares? The August sun is bright and cheery; the air is fresh and clear; the smoke rises, mast-like, high in the skies until it meets the upland breeze that, sweeping down from the Big Horn range behind us, has cleared away the pall of smoke our Indian foes had but yesterday hung before our eyes, and left the valley of the Tongue thus far green and undefiled. We have come but twenty miles, are fresh and vigorous; but the advance reports no signs yet, and Crook halts us so that we may have an early start to-morrow.
We smoke our pipes and doze through the afternoon, stretched at length under the shady trees, and at evening stroll around among the camp-fires, calling on brother officers of other regiments whom we haven't met before in years. But early enough we roll ourselves in our blankets, and, with heads pillowed on turf or saddle, sleep undisturbed till dawn.
August 6th breaks clear and cloudless. Long before the sun can peer in upon us in our deep nook in the valley, we have had our dip in the cold stream, and our steaming and hugely relished breakfast, stowed our tinnikins and pannikins on the pack mules, and wait expectant of ”Boots and saddles!” Again the infantry lead the way, and not until seven do we hear the welcome ”Mount!” and follow in their tracks. By this time the sun is pouring down upon us; by nine his rays are scorching, and the dust rises in clouds from the crowded trail. The gorge grows deeper and deeper, the bluffs bolder and more precipitous; we can see nothing but precipice on either side, and, lashed and tormented, the Deje Agie winds a tortuous course between. We cross it again and again--each time it grows deeper and stronger. The trail is so crooked we never see more than a quarter of a mile ahead. At noon we overtake the infantry, phlegmatically stripping off shoes, stockings, and all garments ”below the belt,” for the eleventh time since they left camp, preparatory to another plunge through the stream; and a tall, red-headed Irishman starts a laugh with his quizzical ”Fellers, did e'er a one of yez iver cross on a bridge?”
At two o'clock, after the thirteenth crossing since seven a.m., we again receive orders to halt, unsaddle, and bivouac. Captain Leib and Company ”M” mount guard, and with twenty-two miles more to our credit, and with the thick smoke of forest fires drifting overhead, we repeat the performance of yesterday afternoon and night, and wonder when we are to see those Indians.
Reveille and the dawn of the seventh come together. We wake stiff and cold in the keen morning air, but thaw out rapidly under the genial influence of the huge tins of coffee promptly supplied. At six we descry the infantry and the pack trains clambering up the heights to the northwest and disappearing from view over the timbered crests. At seven we again mount and ride down stream a few hundred yards, then turn sharp to the left and up a broad winding ravine along a beaten trail--buffalo and Indian, of great antiquity. Mile after mile we push along up grade--we of the Fifth well to the front to-day and in view of the scouts and advance most of the time. The woods are thick along the slopes, the gra.s.s that was rich and abundant in the valley of the Tongue is becoming spa.r.s.e. Up we go--the ascent seems interminable. Once in a while we catch glimpses of smoke ma.s.ses overhead and drifting across the face of distant ridges. At last we see knots of hors.e.m.e.n gathering on a high ridge a mile in front; half an hour's active climbing, mostly afoot and leading our horses, brings us close under them. ”Halt” is sounded, and General Carr and I go up to join the party on the crest.
We pause on the very summit of the great divide between the Tongue and the Rosebud, and far to south, north, and west the tumbling sea of ravine and upland, valleys that dip out of sight, mountains that are lost in fleecy clouds, all are spread before us. The view is glorious.
We look right down into the canon of the Rosebud, yet it must be six to eight miles away, and how far down we cannot judge. From every valley north and west rolling clouds of smoke rise towards and blacken the heavens. Somewhere over on those opposite bluffs General Crook had his big fight with the Sioux on the 17th of June, but not a Sioux is in sight.
It takes us three good hours to get down into the valley, and here we receive in grim silence the orders to go into bivouac parallel to the stream, facing west. The Indians have burned off every blade of gra.s.s their ponies left undevoured along the narrow gorge, and for miles below us the scouts report it even worse. ”The whole Sioux nation has been in camp hereabouts not two weeks ago,” says one rugged frontiersman, ”and I've been nigh onto ten mile down stream and didn't reach the end of the village.” The ground is strewn with abandoned lodge-poles, and covered with relics of Indian occupancy too unmistakable to be pleasant.
The Third and Second Cavalry file into position on the eastern bank parallel with our line, and all the pickets go out at once--Captain Hayes, with Company ”G,” covering our front.
The situation is romantic, but disagreeable. Some of us sleep rather restlessly that night, and one and all welcome the dawn of the 8th. It is more than chilly in the keen morning air, but we march northward in a thick, smoky haze that utterly obscures the landscape. We can see but a short fifty yards in any direction, and the deeper we ride into it the thicker and more suffocating it becomes. Four or five miles down stream, still riding through the lately occupied camps, we b.u.mp up against the rear of the column ahead. An aide leads us off to the left, and informs General Carr that there is good grazing in some little breaks and ravines--to unsaddle and give the horses a chance while we wait for reports from the scouts. Here we ”loaf” through the entire day, when suddenly the signal to saddle and mount startles us at six p.m., just as we were thinking of going to sleep. We march very rapidly, six, seven, ten miles, and then darkness sets in. Thicker darkness I never encountered. Men pull out their pipes and whiff away at them till the glow of their sparks looks like a long trail of tiny furnace fires, and gives us a clue to follow. No one but an Indian who has lived among these valleys all his life can be guiding us to-night. At nine o'clock the men are singing darky melodies and Irish songs; and it is not until 10.30 that we file past bivouac fires lighted in a deep bend of the stream, grope our way out to an invisible front, and, fairly hobbling and half-lariating our horses, throw ourselves down by them to sleep.
Captain Rodgers is notified that he and Company ”A” are ”for guard;”
and, for a man who cannot or will not swear, Rodgers manages to express his disgust appropriately.
A slight sprinkling of rain comes on at daybreak, and we see the infantry hurrying off northward through the misty light. We soon follow down the right bank, the Fifth Cavalry leading the column of horse.
Stanton tells us that a large body of Sioux are not more than four days ahead--were here in force not four days ago. It is easy to see that we are on the trail of an immense number of Indians--eight to ten thousand--but we judge it to be a fortnight old. At 9.15 a cold, driving rain sets in, and whirls in our faces as we march. At two p.m. we bivouac again, and begin to growl at this will-o'-the-wisp business. The night, for August, is bitter cold. Ice forms on the shallow pools close to sh.o.r.e, and Captain Adam, who commands the guard, declares that the thermometer was at zero at daybreak. ”What thermometer?” is the question. ”Vell, any thermometer as was tam fool enough to get here--_un'stand_?” is our veteran's characteristic reply, and it puts us in better humor. Stiff and cold when we march at seven o'clock on the 10th, we have not long to suffer from that cause. A bright sun pours down in recompense. We march five miles, halt, and graze awhile; then push on again along a broad, beaten trail over which countless hordes of ponies must have recently pa.s.sed. Thick clouds of dust rise high above the bluffs on either side; the valley opens out wide and rolling east and west. Here the Indian flight has been so rapid that the work of destruction is incomplete, and the gra.s.s is excellent in many a spot.
”The grandest country in the world for Indian and buffalo now,” says General Carr. ”Two years hence it will be the grandest place for cattle.”
We of the Fifth are marching down the left or western bank of the Rosebud to-day, somewhat independently as regards the rest of the cavalry brigade, which, following the infantry, is away across the valley, close under the slopes and hillsides towards the east. About nine in the morning, while I am profiting by a ten-minute halt to jot in my note-book some of the surrounding topographical features, my orderly and myself climb to the top of the ridge on our left, from which a good view of the country is to be had. Just here the valley runs northeast, and we have been pursuing that general direction for the last day's march; but right ahead, some two thousand yards, a tall bluff juts out into the valley from the west. The river sweeps round its base in a broad fringe of cottonwoods, and disappears from sight for six or eight miles; then, over an intervening range, I see it again, away to the north, making straight for what must be the valley of the Yellowstone.
Between that great bend of the river and the distant bluffs on the eastern side, a broad plain, scorched and blistered by sun and Indian fire, stretches away some two or three miles in width. This side of the bend the slopes gradually near the stream, and the picture below me is a very pretty one. Right under our ridge the Fifth Cavalry, in long column, is just preparing to remount and move on. A mile away to the eastward are our brethren of the Second and Third; a quarter of a mile ahead of them, the compact battalion of infantry. Here and there groups of horses, men, and a fluttering flag indicate the positions in march of Generals Crook and Merritt. Half a mile in advance of all, those little dots of hors.e.m.e.n are our scouts, while, anyhow and everywhere, in no order whatsoever, our Crows and Shoshones are scattered along the column on one flank, while the pack-mules kick up a thick dust on the other.
The cloud of dust, in fact, rises from the whole column, and extends way back up the Rosebud, and even as I am wondering how far it can be seen, my eye is attracted by just as thick a cloud around the point, apparently coming up the valley. What the mischief can that be?
Answering our eager signals, General Carr comes hurriedly up the slope and levels his gla.s.s. It is dust, sure enough, and lots of it. Nothing but an immense concourse of four-footed animals could raise such a cloud. ”Forward!” is the order; ”Indians or buffalo?” is the query.
”Ride over and report it to General Merritt,” says my colonel to me. So ”Donnybrook” strikes a rapid lope, and we pick our way through the cottonwoods, over the stream and up the low bank on the other side, where the first thing that meets my eyes is a grand hullabaloo among the Indians, our allies. They are whooping and yelling, throwing blankets and superfluous clothing to the ground--stripping for a fight, evidently--and darting to and fro in wild excitement. Beyond them the troops are ma.s.sing in close column behind some low bluffs, and, looking back, I see the Fifth coming rapidly through the stream to join them.
Evidently my news is no news to General Merritt; but the message is delivered all the same, and I get permission to gallop ahead towards the scouts and see what's coming. I make for a bluff just on the edge of the plain I have described, and, nearing it, can see farther and farther around the great bend. Our scouts and Indians are das.h.i.+ng around in circles, and cautiously approaching the turn. Another minute and I have reached the bluff, and there get a grand view of the coming host.
Indians! I should say so--scores of them, darting about in equal excitement to our own. But no Indians are they who keep in close column along that fringe of trees; no Indians are they whose compact squadrons are moving diagonally out across the broad plain, taking equal intervals, then coming squarely towards us at a rapid trot. Then look!
Each company, as it comes forward, opens out like the fan of practised coquette, and a sheaf of skirmishers is launched to the front.
Something in the snap and style of the whole movement stamps them at once. There is no need of fluttering guidon and stirring trumpet-call to identify them; I know the Seventh Cavalry at a glance, and swing my old campaign hat in delighted welcome. Behind them are the solid regiments of Miles and Gibbon, and long trains of wagons and supplies. It is General Terry and his whole array, and our chiefs ride forward to greet them. And then it is that the question is asked, in comical perplexity, ”Why, where on earth are the Indians?” Except our allies, none are in sight. They have slipped away between us.
CHAPTER VII.