six. Still no signal to bring in the herds. But Merritt, Carr, and Royall are born and bred cavalrymen, and well know the value of every mouthful of the rich dew-laden grass before the march begins. We are exchanging good-byes with the quartermasters and the unhappy creatures who are to remain behind, adding our closing messages to the letters we leave for dear ones in distant homes, when the cheery notes ring out from brigade headquarters and are taken up, repeated along the line by the regimental trumpeters. Far out on the slopes our horses answer with eager hoof and neigh; with springy steps the men hasten out to bridle their steeds, and, vaulting on their backs, ride in by companies to the line. The bustle of saddling, the snap of buckle and whip of cinch, succeeds, then "Lead into line" is heard from the sergeant's lips. Officers ride slowly along their commands, carefully scrutinizing each horse and man. Blanket, poncho, overcoat, side-line, lariat, and picket-pin, canteen and haversack, each has its appropriate place and must be in no other. Each trooper in turn displays his "thimble belt" and extra pocket package, to show that he has the prescribed one hundred rounds. The adjutant, riding along the line, receives the report of each captain and transfers it to his note-book. Away down the valley we see the Second and Third already in motion, filing off around the bluffs. Then General Carr's chief trumpeter raises his clarion to his lips. "Mount," rings out upon the air, and with the sound twenty officers and five hundred and fifteen men swing into saddle. Ten minutes more and we are winding across the divide towards Prairie Dog Creek on the east. The Third and Second, a mile to our left, are marching northeastward on the trail of the infantry. We fill our lungs with deep draughts of the rare, bracing mountain breeze, take a last glance at the grand crags and buttresses of rock to the southward, then with faces eagerly set towards the rolling smoke-wreaths that mark the track of the savage foe in the valley of the "Deje Agie," we close our columns, shake free our bridle reins, and press steadily forward. "Our wild campaign has begun."
CHAPTER VI.
THE MEET ON THE ROSEBUD
That General Crook's command, now designated as the "Big Horn and Yellowstone Expedition," started upon its campaign in the best possible spirits and under favoring skies, no one who saw us that bright August morning could have doubted. Unhappily, there was no one to see, no one to cheer or applaud, and, once having cut loose from our wagons and their guards, there was not a soul to mark our progress, unless it were some lurking scout in distant lair, who trusted to his intimate knowledge of the country and to his pony's fleetness to keep himself out of our clutches. Once fairly in the valley of the Prairie Dog, we had a good look at our array. The Fifth Cavalry in long column were bringing up the rear on this our first day's march from Goose Creek; our packers and their lively little mules jogging briskly along upon our right flank, while the space between us and the rolling foot-hills on the left was thickly covered with our Crow allies. The Shoshones were ahead somewhere, and we proceeded to scrape acquaintance with these wild warriors of the far northwest, whom we were now meeting for the first time. Organized in 1855, our regiment had seen its first Indian service on the broad plains of Texas, and was thoroughly well known among the Comanches, Kiowas, and Lipans when the great war of the rebellion broke out. In those days, with Sidney Johnston, Robert E. Lee, Earl Van Dorn, Kirby Smith, Fitz Hugh Lee, and a dozen others who became notorious in the rebel army as its representative officers, our regiment had been not inaptly styled "Jeff. Davis's Own." But it outgrew the baleful title during the war, and has lost almost every trace of its ante-bellum personnel. Two of its most distinguished captains of to-day – Montgomery and "Jack" Hayes – it is true acquired their earliest military experience in its ranks under those very officers. But, while they are all the better as cavalrymen for that fact, they are none the less determined in their loyalty, and both fought in many a wild charge during the rebellion, defending their flag against the very men who had taught them the use of their sabres. In that stern baptism of blood the Fifth became regenerate, and after stirring service in the Army of the Potomac during the war, and throughout the South during reconstruction days, the regiment once more drifted out on the plains, was introduced to the Cheyennes and Sioux in the winter of 1868-9, became very much at home among the Apaches of Arizona from 1871 to 1875, and now we found ourselves, after a long march across country from the Pacific slope, scraping acquaintance with the redoubtable "Crows" of the Yellowstone valley, the life-long enemies of the Sioux.
Riding "at ease," the men talk, laugh, and sing if they want to. All that is required is that they shall not lounge in the saddle, and that they keep accurately their distance, and ride at a steady walk. The Crows are scattered along the entire length of our left flank, but a band of some fifteen or twenty chiefs and headmen keep alongside the headquarters party at the front of column. There rides General Carr with his adjutant, the surgeon, the non-commissioned staff, and orderlies, and, of course, the standard-bearer, who, as previously explained, has a signal flag for this campaign, and it is this which attracts the aborigine.
These Crows are fine-looking warriors, and fine horsemen too; but to see them riding along at ease, their ponies apparently gliding over the ground in their quick, cat-like walk, their position in the saddle seems neither graceful nor secure. This knot on our left is full of the most favorable specimens, and they all ride alike. Every man's blanket is so disposed that it covers him from the back of his head, folds across his breast, leaving the arms free play in a manner only an Indian can accomplish, and then is tucked in about his thighs and knees so as to give him complete protection. One or two younger bucks have discarded their blankets for the day, and ride about in dingy calico shirts or old cavalry jackets. One or two also appear in cavalry trousers instead of the native breech-clout and legging. But the moment that Indian dismounts you notice two points in which he is diametrically opposed to the customs of his white brother: first, that he mounts and dismounts on the right (off) side of his horse; second, that he carefully cuts out and throws away that portion of a pair of trousers which with us is regarded as indispensable. He rides hunched up in his saddle, with a stirrup so short that his knees are way out to the front and bent in an acute angle. The stirrup itself is something like the shoe of a lady's side-saddle, and he thrusts his moccasined foot in full length. He carries in his right hand a wooden handle a foot long, to which three or four thongs of deerskin are attached, and with this scourge-like implement he keeps up an incessant shower of light flaps upon his pony's flank, rarely striking him heavily, and nothing will convince him that under that system the pony will not cover more miles in a day at a walk or lope than any horse in America. His horse equipments are of the most primitive description – a light wooden frame-work or tree, with high, narrow pommel and cantle, much shorter in the seat than ours, the whole covered with hide, stitched with thongs and fastened on with a horsehair girth, constitute his saddle. Any old piece of blanket or coffee-sack answers for saddle cloth, and his bridle is the simplest thing in the world, a single head-piece, a light snaffle bit, and a rein, sometimes gayly ornamented, completes the arrangement. But at full speed the worst horseman among them will dash up hill or down, through tortuous and rocky stream-beds, everywhere that a goat would go, and he looks upon our boldest rider as a poor specimen.
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 chiefship. 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
