LONE WOLF’S OLD GUARD
Now it happened that Lone Wolf’s camp was on the line between the land of the Cheyennes and the home of his own people, the Kiowas, but he did not know this. He had lived there long, and the white man’s maps were as unimportant to him as they had been to the Cheyennes. When he moved there he considered it to be his—a gift direct from the Creator—with no prior rights to be overstepped.
But the Consolidated Cattle Company, having secured the right to enclose a vast pasture, cared nothing for any red man’s claim, provided they stood in with the government. A surveying party was sent out to run lines for fences.
Lone Wolf heard of these invaders while they were at work north of him, and learned in some mysterious way that they were to come down the Elk and cut through his camp. To his friend John, the interpreter, he sent these words:
“The white man must not try to build a fence across my land. I will fight if he does. Washington is not behind this thing. He would not build a fence through my lines without talking with me. I have sent to the agent of the Kiowas, he knows nothing about it—it is all a plan of the cattlemen to steal my lands. Tell them that we have smoked over this news—we have decided. This fence will not be built.”
When “Johnny Smoker” brought this stern message to the camp of the surveyors some of them promptly threw up their hands. Jim Bellows, scout and interpreter, was among these, and his opinion had weight, for he wore his hair long and posed as an Indian fighter of large experience.
“Boys,” he began, impressively, “we got to get out o’ here as soon as darkness covers us. We’re sixty miles from the fort, and only fifteen all told, and not half-armed. Old Lone Wolf holds over us, and we might as well quit and get help.”
This verdict carried the camp, and the party precipitately returned to Darlington to confer with the managers of the company.
Pierce, the chief man, had reasons for not calling on the military authorities. His lease was as yet merely a semi-private arrangement between the Secretary of the Interior and himself, and he feared the consequences of a fight with Lone Wolf—publicity, friction, might cause the withdrawal of his lease; therefore he called in John Seger, and said:
“Jack, can you put that line through?”
“I could, but I don’t want to. Lone Wolf is a good friend of mine, and I don’t want to be mixed up in a mean job.”
“Oh, come now—you mustn’t show the white flag. I need you. I want you to pick out five or six men of grit and go along and see that this line is run. I can’t be fooling around here all summer. Here’s my lease, signed by the Secretary, as you see. It’s all straight, and this old fool of an Indian must move.”
Jack reluctantly consented, and set to work to hire a half dozen men of whose courage he had personal knowledge. Among these was a man by the name of Tom Speed, a border man of great hardihood and experience. To him he said:
“Tom, I don’t like to go into this thing; but I’m hard up, and Pierce has given me the contract to build the fence if we run the line, and it looks like we got to do it. Now I wish you’d saddle up and help me stave off trouble. How does it strike you?”
“It’s nasty business, Jack; but I reckon we might better do it than let some tenderfoot go in and start a killin’. I’m busted flat, and if the pay is good, I jest about feel obliged to take it.”
So it happened that two avowed friends of the red man led this second expedition against Lone Wolf’s camp. Pierce sent his brother as boss, and with him went the son of one of the principal owners, a Boston man, by the name of Ross. Speed always called him “the Dude,” though he dressed quite simply, as dress goes in Roxbury. He wore a light suit of gray wool, “low-quartered shoes,” and a “grape box hat.” He was armed with a pistol, which wouldn’t kill a turtledove at fifteen feet. Henry Pierce, on the contrary, was a reckless and determined man.
Moving swiftly across the Divide, they took up the line on Elk Creek, and started directly toward Lone Wolf’s camp. As they were nearing the bend in the river where Lone Wolf was camped, a couple of young warriors came riding leisurely up from the south. They were very cordial in their greeting, and after shaking hands all around pleasantly inquired:
“What are you doing here?”
“Running a line to mark out the land which the cattlemen have leased of the Cheyennes.”
“We will go along and see where you are going,” they replied.
A couple of hours later, while they were still with the camp, two others came riding quietly in from the east. They said, “We are looking for horses,” and after shaking hands and asking Seger what the white men were doing, rode forward to join their companions, who seemed deeply interested in the surveyors and their instruments. Turning to Pierce, Jack said,
“You noticed that these four men were armed, I reckon?”
“Oh, yes, but they are all right. Didn’t you see how they shook hands all round? They’re just out hunting up ponies.”
“Yes, I saw that; but I noticed they had plenty of ammunition and that their guns were bright. Indians don’t hunt horses in squads, Mr. Pierce.”
Pierce smiled, giving Seger a sidewise glance. “Are you getting nervous? If you are, you can drop to the rear.”
Now Seger had lived for the larger part of his life among the red people, and knew their ways. He answered, quietly:
“There are only four of them now; you’ll see more of them soon,” and he pointed away to the north, where the heads of three mounted men were rising into sight over a ridge. These also proved to be young Kiowas, thoroughly armed, who asked the same question of the manager, and in conclusion pleasantly said,
“We’ll just go along and see how you do it.”
As they rode forward Seger uttered a more pointed warning.
“Mr. Pierce, I reckon you’d better make some better disposition of your men. They are all strung out here, with their guns on their backs, in no kind of shape to make a defense.”
Pierce was a little impressed by the scout’s earnestness, and took trouble to point out the discrepancy between “a bunch of seven cowardly Indians” and his own band of twenty brave and experienced men.
“That’s all right,” replied Seger; “but these seven men are only spies, sent out to see what we are going to do. We’ll have to buckle up with Lone Wolf’s whole band very soon.”
A few minutes later the seven young men rode quietly by and took a stand on a ridge a little in front of the surveyors. As he approached them, Seger perceived a very great change in their demeanor. They no longer smiled; they seemed grim, resolute, and much older. From a careless, laughing group of young men they had become soldiers—determined, disciplined, and dignified. Their leader, riding forth, held up his hand, and said,
“Stop; you must wait here till Lone Wolf comes.”
Meanwhile, in the little city of tents, a brave drama was being enacted. Lone Wolf, a powerful man of middle age, was sitting in council with his people. The long-expected had happened—the cattlemen had begun to mark off the red man’s land as their own, and the time had come either to submit or to repel the invaders. To submit was hard, to fight hopeless. Their world was still narrow, but they had a benumbing conception of the power and the remorseless greed of the white man.
A Modern Comanche Indian
In the ’nineties the Comanche of the Fort Sill region was considered a good type of the Indian of that day. Not only was he the most expert horse-stealer on the plains—a title of honor rather than reproach among Indians—but he was particularly noteworthy for knowing more about a horse and horse-breeding than any other Indian.
A Band of Piegan Indians in the Mountains
Having made out the camp of the Crow Indians in the plain many miles below, the Piegans are making their way slowly through the mountains on foot, their object being to raid the Crow camp and steal their war ponies.
“We can kill those who come,” said Lone Wolf. “They are few, but behind them are the soldiers and men who plough.”
At last old White Buffalo rose—he had been a great leader in his day, and was still much respected, though he had laid aside his chieftainship. He was bent and gray and wrinkled, but his voice was still strong, and his eyes keen.
“My friends, listen to me! During seventy years of my life I lived without touching the hand of a white man. I have always opposed warfare, except when it was necessary; but now the time has come to fight. Let me tell you what to do. I see here some thirty old men, who, like me, are nearing the grave. This thing we will do—we old men—we will go out to war against these cattlemen. We will go forth and die in defense of our lands. Big Wolf, come—and you, my brother, Standing Bear.”
As he called the roll of the gray old defenders, the old women broke into heart-piercing wailing, intermingled with exultant cries as some brave wife or sister caught the force of the heroic responses, which leaped from the lips of their fathers and husbands. A feeling of awe fell over the young men as they watched the fires flame once more in the dim eyes of their grandsires, and when all had spoken, Lone Wolf rose and stepped forth, and said,
“Very well; then I will lead you.”
“Whosoever leads us goes to certain death,” said White Buffalo. “It is the custom of the white men to kill the leader. You will fall at the first fire. I will lead.”
Lone Wolf’s face grew stern. “Am I not your war chief? Whose place is it to lead? If I die, I fall in combat for my land, and you, my children, will preserve my name in song. We do not know how this will end, but it is better to end in battle than to have our lands cut in half beneath our feet.”
The bustle and preparation began at once. When all was ready the thirty gray and withered old men, beginning a low humming song, swept through the camp and started on their desperate charge, Lone Wolf leading them. “Some of those who go will return, but if the white men fight, I will not return,” he sang, as they began to climb the hill on whose top the white man could be seen awaiting their coming.
Halfway up the hill they met some of the young warriors. “Go bring all the white men to the council,” said Lone Wolf.
As the white men watched the band leaving the village and beginning to ascend the hill, Speed turned and said: “Well, Jack, what do you think of it? Here comes a war party—painted and armed.”
“I think it’s about an even chance whether we ever cross the Washita again or not. Now, you are a married man with children, and I wouldn’t blame you if you pulled out right this minute.”
“I feel meaner about this than anything I ever did,” replied Speed, “but I am going to stay with the expedition.”
As Lone Wolf and his heroic old guard drew near, Seger thrilled with the significance of this strange and solemn company of old men in full war-paint, armed with all kinds of old-fashioned guns, and bows and arrows. As he looked into their wrinkled faces, the scout perceived that these grandsires had come resolved to die. He divined what had taken place in camp. Their exalted heroism was written in the somber droop of their lips. “We can die, but we will not retreat!” In such wise our grandsires fought.
Lone Wolf led his Spartan host steadily on till near enough to be heard without effort. He then halted, took off his war-bonnet and hung it on the pommel of his saddle. Lifting both palms to the sky, he spoke, and his voice had a solemn boom in it: “The Great Father is looking down on us. He sees us. He knows I speak the truth. He gave us this land. We are the first to inhabit it. No one else has any claim to it. It is ours, and I will go under the sod before any cattlemen shall divide it and take it away from us. I have said it.”
When this was interpreted to him, Pierce with a look of inquiry turned to Speed. “Tell the old fool this line is going to be run, and no old scarecrows like these can stop us.”
Seger, lifting his hand, signed: “Lone Wolf, you know me. I am your friend. I do not come to do you harm. I come to tell you you are wrong. All the land on my left hand the Great Father says is Cheyenne land. All on my right is Kiowa land. The Cheyennes have sold the right to their land to the white man, and we are here to mark out the line. We take only Cheyenne land.”
“I do not believe it,” replied the chief. “My agent knows nothing of it. Washington has not written anything to me about it. This is the work of robbers. Cattlemen will do anything for money. They are wolves. They shall not go on.”
“What does he say?” asked Pierce.
“He says we must not go on.”
“You tell him that he can’t run any such bluff on me with his old scarecrow warriors. This lines goes through.”
Lone Wolf, tense and eager, asked, “What says the white chief?”
“He says we must run the line.”
Lone Wolf turned to his guard. “You may as well get ready,” he said, quietly.
The old men drew closer together with a mutter of low words, and each pair of dim eyes selected their man. The clicking of their guns was ominous, and Pierce turned white.
Speed drew his revolver-holster round to the front. “They’re going to fight,” he said. “Every man get ready!”
But Seger, eager to avoid the appalling contest, cried out to Pierce:
“Don’t do that! It’s suicide to go on. These old men have come out to fight till death.” To Lone Wolf he signed: “Don’t shoot, my friend!—let us consider this matter. Put up your guns.”
Into the hot mist of Pierce’s wrath came a realization that these old men were in mighty earnest. He hesitated.
Lone Wolf saw his hesitation, and said: “If you are here by right, why do you not get the soldier chief to come and tell me? If the Great Father has ordered this—then I am like a man with his hands tied. The soldiers do not lie. Bring them!”
Seger grasped eagerly at this declaration. “There is your chance, Pierce. The chief says he will submit if the soldiers come to make the survey. Let me tell him that you will bring an officer from the fort to prove that the government is behind you.”
Pierce, now fully aware of the desperate bravery of the old men, was looking for a knothole of escape. “All right, fix it up with him,” he said.
Seger turned to Lone Wolf. “The chief of the surveyors says: ‘Let us be friends. I will not run the line.’”
“Ho, ho!” cried the old warriors, and their faces, grim and wrinkled, broke up into smiles. They laughed, they shook hands, while tears of joy filled their eyes. They were like men delivered from sentence of death. The desperate courage of their approach was now revealed even to Pierce. They were joyous as children over their sudden release from slaughter.
Lone Wolf, approaching Seger, dismounted, and laid his arm over his friend’s shoulder. “My friend,” he said, with grave tenderness, “I wondered why you were with these men, and my heart was heavy; but now I see that you were here to turn aside the guns of the cattlemen. My heart is big with friendship for you. Once more you have proved my good counselor.” And tears dimmed the fierceness of his eyes.
A week later, a slim, smooth-cheeked second lieutenant, by virtue of his cap and the crossed arms which decorated his collar, ran the line, and Lone Wolf made no resistance. “I have no fight with the soldiers of the Great Father,” he said: “they do not come to gain my land. I now see that Washington has decreed that this fence shall be built.” Nevertheless, his heart was very heavy, and in his camp his heroic old guard sat waiting, waiting!
BIG MOGGASEN