starting, we carefully overhauled our entire outfit. For a long, busy day nothing was thought of save the cleaning of guns, the oiling of straps, and the examination of saddles, with sundry additions to wardrobe and larder. Shamus became a mighty man among grocery-keepers, and could scarcely have been more popular had he been an Indian supply agent. The inventory which he gave us of his purchases comprised twelve cans of condensed milk, with coffee, tea, and sugar, in proportion; several pounds each of butter, bacon, and crackers; a few loaves of bread, two sacks of flour, some pickles, and a sufficient number of tin-plates, cups, and spoons. To these he subsequently added a half-dozen hams and something like fifty yards of Bologna sausage, which he told us were for use when we should tire of fresh meat. Sachem entered protest, declaring that sausage and ham, in a country full of game, reflected upon us.
"LOOKED LIKE THE END OF A TAIL."
THE RARE OLD PLAINSMAN OF THE NOVELS.
Of course, we found use for every item of the above, and especially for the Bologna. If one can feel satisfied in his own mind as to what portion of the brute creation is entering into him, a half-yard of Bologna, tied to the saddle, stays the stomach wonderfully on an all day's ride. It is so handy to reach it, while trotting along, and with one's hunting-knife cut off a few inches for immediate consumption. Semi-Colon, however, who was a youth of delicate stomach, sickened on his ration one day, because he found something in it which, he said, looked like the end of a tail. It is a debatable question, to my mind, whether Satan, among his many ways of entering into man, does not occasionally do so in the folds of Bologna sausage. Certain it is that, after such repast, one often feels like Old Nick, and woe be to the man at any time who is at all dyspeptic. All the forces of one's gastric juices may then prove insufficient to wage successful battle with the evil genius which rends him.
Our outfit, as regards transportation, consisted of the animals heretofore mentioned, and two teams which we hired at Hays, for the baggage and commissary supplies.
The evening before our departure we rode over to the fort and called upon General Sheridan. "Little Phil" had pitched his camp on the bank of Big Creek, a short distance below the fort, preferring a soldier's life in the tent to the more comfortable officer's quarters. This we thought eminently characteristic of the man. He is an accumulation of tremendous energy in small compass, a sort of embodied nitro-glycerine, but dangerous only to his enemies. Famous principally as a cavalry leader, because Providence flung him into the saddle and started him off at a gallop, had his destiny been infantry, he would have led it to victory on the run. And now, officer after officer having got sadly tangled in the Indian web, which was weaving its strong threads over so fair a portion of our land, Sheridan was sent forward to cut his way through it.
The camp was a pretty picture with its line of white tents, the timber along the creek for a background, and the solemn, apparently illimitable plains stretching away to the horizon in front. Taken altogether, it looked more like the comfortable nooning spot of a cavalry scout than the quarters of a famous General. Our chieftain stood in front of the center tent, with a few staff-officers lounging near by, his short, thick-set figure and firm head giving us somehow the idea of a small, sinewy lion.
We found the General thoroughly conversant with the difficult task to which he had been called. "Place the Indians on reservations," he said, "under their own chiefs, with an honest white superintendency. Let the civil law reign on the reservation, military law away from it, every Indian found by the troops off from his proper limits to be treated as an outlaw." It seemed to me that in a few brief sentences this mapped out a successful Indian policy, part of which indeed has since been adopted, and the remainder may yet be.
When speaking of late savageries on the plains the eyes of "Little Phil" glittered wickedly. In one case, on Spillman's Creek, a band of Cheyennes had thrust a rusty sword into the body of a woman with child, piercing alike mother and offspring, and, giving it a fiendish twist, left the weapon in her body, the poor woman being found by our soldiers yet living.
"I believe it possible," said Sheridan, "at once and forever to stop these terrible crimes." As he spoke, however, we saw what he apparently did not, a long string of red tape, of which one end was pinned to his official coat-tail, while the other remained in the hands of the Department at Washington. Soon after, as Sheridan pushed forward, the Washington end twitched vigorously. He managed, however, with his right arm, Custer, to deal a sledge-hammer blow, which broke to fragments the Cheyenne Black-kettle and his band. Whether or not that band had been guilty of the recent murders, the property of the slain was found in their possession, and the terrible punishment caused the residue of the tribe to sue for peace. It was the first time for years that the war spirit had placed any horrors at their doors, and that one terrible lesson prepared the savage mind for the advent of peace commissioners.
Our brief conference ended, the General bade us good day, and wished us a pleasant experience. Scarcely had we got beyond his tents, however, when we were overtaken by a decidedly unpleasant one. On their way to water, a troop of mules stampeded, and passing us in a cloud of dust, our brutes took bits in their teeth, and joined company. Happily, the run was a short one to the creek, where those of us who had not fallen off before managed to do so then. Poor Gripe was the only person injured, suffering the fracture of a rib, which necessitated his return to Topeka, so that we did not see him again until some months afterward, when we met him on the Solomon.
CHAPTER X
HAYS CITY BY LAMP-LIGHT—THE SANTA FE TRADE—BULL-WHACKERS—MEXICANS—SABBATH ON THE PLAINS—THE DARK AGES—WILD BILL AND BUFFALO BILL—OFF FOR THE SALINE—DOBEEN'S GHOST-STORY—AN ADVENTURE WITH INDIANS—MEXICAN CANNONADE—A RUNAWAY.
Hays City by lamp-light was remarkably lively and not very moral. The streets blazed with the reflection from saloons, and a glance within showed floors crowded with dancers, the gaily dressed women striving to hide with ribbons and paint the terrible lines which that grim artist, Dissipation, loves to draw upon such faces. With a heartless humor he daubs the noses of the sterner sex a cherry red, but paints under the once bright eyes of woman a shade dark as the night in the cave of despair. To the music of violin and stamping of feet, the dance went on, and we saw in the giddy maze old men who must have been pirouetting on the very edge of their graves.
Being then the depot for the great Santa Fe trade, the town was crowded with Mexicans and speculators. Large warehouses along the track were stored with wool awaiting shipment east, and with merchandise to be taken back with the returning wagons. These latter are of immense size, and, from this circumstance, are sometimes called "prairie schooners;" and, in truth, when a train of them is winding its way over the plains, the white covers flecking its surface like sails, the sight is not unlike a fleet coming into port. Oxen and mules are both used. When the former, the drivers rejoice in the title of "bull-whackers," and the crack of their whips, as loud as the report of a rifle, is something tremendous.
On the day of our arrival at Hays City, one of these festive individuals noticed Dobeen gazing, with open mouth, and back towards him, at some object across the street, and took the opportunity to crack his lash within an inch of the Irishman's spine. The effect was ludicrous; Shamus came in on the run to have a ball extracted from his back!
These Mexicans who come through with the ox-trains are a very degraded race, dark, dirty, and dismal. In appearance, they much resemble animated bundles of rags, walking off with heads of charcoal. Personal bravery is not one of their striking characteristics; indeed, they often run away when to stand still would seem to an American the only safe course possible. We were desirous of sending back to Hays City some of the proceeds of our excursion for shipment to friends at St. Louis and Chicago, and therefore hired two of the Mexican teamsters to go as far as the Saline, and return with the fruits of our prowess. For this service, which
