in fact, every inch a soldier, except that he wore no uniform.
WAR-PATH AND BIVOUAC
The General saluted me curtly, and I handed him the letter of introduction which I had procured in Chicago from General Sheridan, who then commanded the Military Division of the Missouri. Having read it, Crook smiled and said, " You had better go to Fort Sidney or Fort Russell, where the expedition is now being formed. You will need an animal, and can purchase one, perhaps, at Cheyenne. Can you ride and shoot well?"
"I can ride fairly, General. As for shooting, I don't know. I'd engage, however, to hit a hay-stack at two hundred yards."
He laughed and said, "Very well. We'll have some tough times, I think. I am going with my aide, Mr. Bourke, to the agencies to get some friendly Indians to go with us. I fear we'll have to rely upon the Crows and Snakes, because the Sioux, Cheyennes and Arapahoes are disaffected, and all may join the hostiles. However, I'll be at Fort Fetterman about the middle of the month. You can make messing arrangements with some officer going out from Fort Russell. You had better be with the cavalry."
I thanked the General, and proceeded to my hotel. Next morning found me en route, over the Union Pacific road, to Cheyenne. The weather had greatly improved, but, after passing the line of what may be called Eastern Nebraska, nothing could beautify the landscape. Monotonous flats, and equally monotonous swells, almost devoid of trees, and covered only partially by short, sickly-looking grass, made up the main body of the " scenery." In those days the herds of antelope still roamed at will over the plains of Nebraska
OR THE CONQUEST OF THE SIOUX
and Wyoming, and even the buffalo had not been driven entirely from the valley of the Platte; but there was about the country, even under the bright May sunshine, a look of savage desolation. It has improved somewhat since 1876, but not enough to make any person mistake the region between North Platte and Cheyenne for the Garden of Eden. The prairie dogs abounded by the million, and the mean-looking coyote made the dismal waste resonant, particularly at night, with his lugubrious howls.
That night I stood for a long time on the rear platform of the Pullman car, and watched the moonbeams play upon the rippled surface of the shallow and eccentric Platte. I thought of all the labor, and all the blood, it had cost to build the railroad, and to settle the country even as sparsely as it was then settled; for along that river, but a few years previously, the buffalo grazed by myriads, and the wild Indians chased them on their fleet ponies, occasionally varying their amusement by raiding an immigrant train, or attacking a small party of railroad builders. The very ground over which the train traveled slowly, on an upgrade toward the Rocky Mountains, had been soaked with the best blood of the innocent and the brave, the air around had rung with the shrieks of dishonored maids and matrons, and with the death groans of victims tortured at the stake. Nathless the moonlight, the region appeared to me as a "dark and bloody ground," once peopled by human demons, and then by pioneers, whose lives must have been as bleak and lonesome as the country which they inhabited. Filled with such thoughts, I retired to rest.
WAR-PATH AND BIVOUAC
"We're nearing Sidney, sah," said the colored porter, as he pulled aside the curtain of my berth. I sprang up immediately, and had barely dressed myself, when the train came to a halt at the station. The platform was crowded with citizens and soldiers, the barracks of the latter being quite close to the town. Nearly all the military wore the yellow facings of the cavalry. I was particularly struck by the appearance of one officer—a first lieutenant and evidently a foreigner. He wore his kepi low on his forehead, and, beneath it, his hooked nose overhung a blonde moustache of generous proportions. His eyes were light blue; his cheeks yellow and rather sunken. He was about the middle stature and wore huge dragoon boots. Thick smoke from an enormous pipe rose upon the morning air, and he paced up and down like a caged tiger. I breakfasted at the railroad restaurant, and, as the train was in no hurry to get away, I had a chance to say a few words to the warrior already described.
"Has your regiment got the route for the front yet, lieutenant?" I inquired.
"Some of it," he replied in a thick German accent, without removing his pipe. "Our battalion should have it already, but 'tis always the vay, Got tamn the luck! 'tis alvays the vay!"
"I guess 'twill be all right in a day or two, lieutenant!" I remarked.
"Vell, may be so, but they're always slighting the 3d Cavalry, at headquarters. Ve ought to have moved a Veek ago. "
OR THE CONQUEST OF THE SIOUX
"I saw General Crook at Omaha, and he said he would be at Fetterman by the 15th."
"You don't zay so? Then ve get off. Veil, dat is good. Are you in the army ?"
"No; I am going out as correspondent for the Chicago Times."
"Veil, I am so glad to meet von. My name is Von Leutwitz. The train is going. Good-bye. We shall meet again."
We did meet again, and, to anticipate somewhat, under circumstances the reverse of pleasant for the gallant, but unfortunate, lieutenant, who, after having campaigned over Europe and America, and having fought in, perhaps, a hundred pitched battles, lost his leg at Slim Buttes fight on the following 9th of September.
The train proceeded slowly, toiling laboriously up the ever-increasing grade toward Cheyenne, through a still bare and dismal landscape. Early in the afternoon we passed the long snow sheds, and, emerging from them, beheld toward the southwest, the distant summits of Long's and Gray's peaks of the Rocky mountains. Less than an hour brought us to Cheyenne, which is only three miles from Fort D. A. Russell, my immediate objective point. As at Sidney, the railroad platform was crowded with soldiers and citizens, many of the latter prospectors driven from the southern passes of the Black Hills of Dakota, by the hostile Indians. I "put up" at an inviting hotel, and was greatly interested in the conversation around me. All spoke of "the Hills," of the Indian hostilities, and of the probable result of the contemplated military expedition.
WAR-PATH AND BIVOUAC
As I was well acquainted in Cheyenne, I had little difficulty in making myself at home., Nobody seemed to know when the expedition would start, but all felt confident that there would be "music in the air" before the June roses came into bloom. At a book store, with the proprietor of which I was on friendly terms, I was introduced to Col. Guy V. Henry, of the 3d Cavalry. He was, then, a very fine-looking, although slight and somewhat pale, officer, and, what was still better, he was well up in all things concerning the projected Indian campaign.
"We will march from this railroad in two columns," said he. "One will form at Medicine Bow, ninety miles or so westward, and will cross the North Platte Paver at Fort Fetterman. The other will march from Fort Russell to Fort Laramie, cross the North Platte there, and march by the left bank, so as to join the other column in front of Fetterman. This I have heard not officially, but on sufficiently good authority. From Fetterman we will march north until we strike the Indians. That is about the programme."
I asked the colonel's advice in regard to procuring a horse, and was soon in possession of a very fine animal, which subsequently met with a tragical fate in the wild recesses of the Big Horn mountains. Colonel Henry's "mess" being full, a circumstance that he and I mutually regretted, I made arrangements with a captain of the 3d Cavalry to join his, and, having thus provided for the campaign, I set about enjoying, myself as best I could until the hour for marching would strike. Cheyenne, in 1876, still
OR THE CONQUEST OF THE SIOUX
preserved most of the characteristics of a crude frontier
