"Bring Me His Ears"

by Clarence Edward Mulford

"It is well," replied the chief. After a moment's silence he looked keenly into Woodson's eyes. "The Pawnees are sad. White Bear and two of our young men have not returned to their people." His eyes flashed and a tenseness seized him and his companions. "Great Eagle wants to know if his white friends have seen them?"

"Great Eagle's friends found three brave Pawnees in front of their thunder guns and they feared our young men would fire the great medicine rifles and hurt the Pawnees. We sent out and brought White Bear and his warriors to our camp and treated them as welcome guests. Each of them shall have a horse and a musket, with powder and ball, that they will not misunderstand our roughness."

At that moment yells broke out on all sides of the encampment and warriors were seen dashing west along the trail. A well-armed caravan of twenty-two wagons crawled toward the creek, and Woodson secretly exulted. It was the annual fur caravan from Bent's Fort to the Missouri settlements and every member of it was an experienced man.

The fur train did not seem to be greatly excited by the charging horde, for it only interposed a line of mounted men between the wagons and the savages. The two leaders wheeled and rode slowly off to meet the Indians and soon a second parley was taking place. After a little time the fur caravan, which had moved steadily ahead, reached the encampment and swiftly formed on one side of it. With the coming of this re-enforcement of picked men all danger of war ceased.

Before noon the Pawnee chiefs and some of the elder warriors had paid their visit, received their presents, sold a few horses to wagoners who had jaded animals and then returned to their camp, pitched along the banks of the creek a short distance away. The afternoon was spent in visiting between the two encampments and the night in alert vigilance. At dawn the animals were turned out to graze under a strong guard and before noon the caravan was on its way again, its rear guard and flankers doubled in strength.

Shortly after leaving Ash Creek they came to great sections of the prairie where the buffalo grass was cropped as short as though a herd of sheep had crossed it. It marked the grazing ground of the more compact buffalo herds. The next creek was Pawnee Fork, but since it lay only six miles from the last stopping place, and because it was wise to put a greater distance between them and the Pawnees, the caravan crossed it close to where it emptied into the Arkansas, the trail circling at the double bend of the creek and crossing it twice. Great care was needed to keep the wagons from upsetting here, but it was put behind without accident and the night was spent on the open prairie not far from Little Coon Creek.

The fuel question was now solved and while the buffalo chips, plentiful all around them, made execrable, smudgy fires in wet weather if they would burn at all, in dry weather they gave a quick, hot fire excellent to cook on and one which threw out more heat, with equal amounts of fuel, than one of wood; and after an amusing activity in collecting the chips the entire camp was soon girdled by glowing fires.

The next day saw them nooning at the last named creek, and before nightfall they had crossed Big Coon Creek. For the last score of miles they had found such numbers of rattlesnakes that the reptiles became a nuisance; but notwithstanding this they camped here for the night, which was made more or less exciting because several snakes sought warmth in the blankets of some of the travelers. It is not a pleasant feeling to wake up and find a three-foot prairie rattlesnake coiled up against one's stomach. Fortunately there were no casualties among the travelers but, needless to say, there was very little sleep.

Next came the lower crossing of the Arkansas, where there was some wrangling about the choice of fords; many, fearing the seasonal rise of the river, which they thought was due almost any minute, urged that it be crossed here, despite the scarcity of water, and the heavy pulling among the sand-hills on the other side.

Woodson and the more experienced traders and hunters preferred to chance the rise, even at the cost of a few days' delay, and to cross at the upper ford. This would give them better roads, plenty of water and grass, a safer ford and a shorter drive across the desert-like plain between the Arkansas and the Cimarron. Eventually he had his way and after spending the night at the older ford the caravan went on again along the north bank of the river, and reached The Caches in time to camp near them. The grass-covered pits were a curiosity and the story of how Baird and Chambers had been forced to dig them to cache their goods twenty years before, found many interested listeners.