That night the rain continued, and at daybreak on the 14th the Fifth Cavalry got up and spent an hour or so in vain attempts at wringing the wet from blanket and overcoat. By 7.15 we all moved northward again, though I could see scouts far out on the low hills on our right flank. For half an hour we of the Fifth marched side by side with the Seventh, and our gaunt horses and ragged-looking riders made but a poor appearance in such society. Nearing a ford of the Tongue River, we found some little crowding and confusion. The heads of columns were approaching the same point upon the bank, and we were just about hunting for a new ford when the Seventh Cavalry made a rapid oblique, and Major Reno doffed his straw hat to General Carr, with the intimation that we had the "right of way"—a piece of courtesy which our commander did not fail to acknowledge.
Another ford, from the left bank this time, and before us, coming in from the east, is a valley bounded by low, rolling hills for a few miles, but farther to the eastward we note that high bulwarks of rock are thrown up against the sky. Into this valley we turn; the grass is good, the water is all too plentiful; occasional fallen trees in the stream promise fuel in abundance; but we look somewhat wistfully down the Tongue, for not more than fifteen miles away rolls the Yellowstone. And now once more, as the rain comes down in torrents, we unsaddle, turn our horses out to graze, Kellogg and Company "I" are posted as guards, and we wonder what is going to be done. Only noon, and only ten miles have we come from last camp. Colonel Royall marches his "brigade" farther up stream and follows our example, and then comes over to exchange commiserations with General Carr. The veterans are neither of them in best possible humor. A story is going the rounds about Royall that does us all good, even in that dismal weather. A day or two before, so it was told, Royall ordered one of his battalion commanders to "put that battalion in camp on the other side of the river, facing east." A prominent and well-known characteristic of the subordinate officer referred to was a tendency to split hairs, discuss orders, and, in fine, to make trouble where there was a ghost of a chance of so doing unpunished. Presently the colonel saw that his instructions were not being carried out, and, not being in a mood for indirect action, he put spurs to his horse, dashed through the stream, and reined up alongside the victim with, "Didn't I order you, sir, to put your battalion in camp along the river—facing east?"
"Yes, sir; but this ain't a river. It's only a creek."
"Creek be d—d, sir! It's a river—a river from this time forth, by order, sir. Now do as I tell you."
There was no further delay.
All that day and night we lay along Pumpkin Creek. "Squashy Creek" was suggested as a name at once more descriptive and appropriate. The soil was like sponge from the continuous rain. At daybreak it was still raining, and we mounted and rode away eastward—Terry and Crook, cavalry and infantry, pack-mules and all, over an unmistakable Indian trail that soon left the Pumpkin, worked through the "malpais," and carried us finally to the crest of a high, commanding ridge, from which we could see the country in every direction for miles. The rain held up a while—not long enough for us to get dry, but to admit of our looking about and becoming convinced of the desolation of our surroundings. The trail grew narrow and more tortuous, plunged down into a cañon ahead, and as we left the crest I glanced back for a last view of the now distant valley of the Tongue. What it might be in beautiful weather no words of mine would accurately describe, because at such times I have not seen it. What it is in rainy weather no words could describe. And yet it was comfort compared to what was before us.
At noon we were gazing out over the broad valley of Powder River, the Chakadee Wakpa of the Sioux. Below us the Mizpah, flowing from the southwest, made junction with the broader stream, and we, guided by our Indians, forded both above the confluence, and went on down the valley. And so it was for two more days; rain, mud, wet, and cold. Rations were soaked; and we, who had nothing but salt meat and hard-tack, began to note symptoms of scurvy among the men. But we were pushing for supplies now. The Indians had scattered up every valley to the eastward; their pony-tracks led in myriads over the prairie slopes east of the Powder. We could go no farther without sustenance of some kind, and so, on the afternoon of Thursday, the 17th, we toiled down to the valley of the Yellowstone and scattered in bivouac along its ugly, muddy banks. The rain ceased for a while, but not a boat was in sight, no news from home, no mail, no supplies—nothing but dirt and discomfort. We could only submit to the inevitable, and wait.
CHAPTER VIII.
AGAIN ON THE TRAIL.