On the sixth day Forsyth assembled his men about him, and told them that those who were well enough to leave the island would better do so and make for Fort Wallace; that it was more than possible that none of the messengers had succeeded in getting through; that the men had stood by him heroically, and that they would all starve to death where they were unless relief should come; and that they were entitled to a chance for their lives. He believed the Indians, who had at last disappeared, had received such a severe lesson that they would not attack again, and that if the men were circumspect they could get through to Fort Wallace in safety. The wounded, including himself, must be left to take care of themselves and take the chances of escape from the island.
The proposition was received in surprised silence for a few moments, and then there was a simultaneous shout of refusal from every man: “Never! We’ll stand by you.” McCall, the first sergeant and Forsyth’s right-hand man since Beecher had been killed, shouted out emphatically: “We’ve fought together, and, by Heaven, if need be, we’ll die together.”
They could not carry the wounded; they would not abandon them. Remember these men were not regular soldiers. They were simply a company of scouts, more or less loosely bound together, but, as McCall had pointed out, they were tied to one another by something stronger than discipline. Not a man left the island, although it would have been easy for the unwounded to do so, and possibly they might have escaped in safety.
For two more days they stood it out. There was no fighting during this time, but the presence of an Indian vedette indicated that they were under observation. They gathered some wild plums and made some jelly for the wounded; but no game came their way, and there was little for them to do but draw in their belts a little tighter and go hungry, or, better, go hungrier. On the morning of the ninth day, one of the men on watch suddenly sprang to his feet, shouting:
“There are moving men on the hills.” Everybody who could stand was up in an instant, and Grover, the keen-eyed scout, shouted triumphantly:
“By the God above us, there’s an ambulance!” They were rescued at last.
Note.—The serial publication of this article called forth another version of this affair, differing from it in some non-essential features, which was written by Mr. Herbert Myrick, and published serially. Mr. Myrick accounts for the “mysterious voice” which the scouts heard saying in English, “There goes the last of their horses anyway,” by disclosing the interesting fact that there were two renegade white men among the Indians. One of them was called “Nibsi” or “Black Jack,” a notorious desperado, who was afterwards hung for murder. The other was Jack Clybor, once a trooper of the Seventh Cavalry. Having been shot and left for dead in an engagement, the Indians captured him, nursed him back to life, adopted him, and named him “Comanche.” He was a singular compound of good and evil, and became as notorious for his good deeds as for his bad acts. Mr. Myrick has been collecting a mass of unknown and unpublished Western material for many years, which when published will undoubtedly clear up many mysteries, throw light upon many disputed questions, and prove of the deepest interest as well.
[28]. General Fry, in his valuable book, “Army Sacrifices,” now unfortunately out of print and scarce, thus graphically describes him: “A veritable man of war, the shock of battle and scenes of carnage and cruelty were as of the breath of his nostrils; about thirty years of age, standing six feet three inches high, he towered giant-like above his companions. A grand head with strongly marked features, lighted by a pair of fierce black eyes; a large mouth with thin lips, through which gleamed rows of strong, white teeth; a Roman nose with dilated nostrils like those of a thoroughbred horse, first attracted attention, while a broad chest, with symmetrical limbs on which the muscles under the bronze of his skin stood out like twisted wire, were some of the points of this splendid animal. Clad in buckskin leggings and moccasins elaborately embroidered with beads and feathers, with a single eagle feather in his scalp-lock, and with that rarest of robes, a white buffalo, beautifully tanned and soft as cashmere, thrown over his naked shoulders, he stood forth, the war chief of the Cheyennes.”