INDEX
| Page | |||
| CHAPTER | [I] | General Conditions | [9] |
| CHAPTER | [II] | Santa Fe Trail | [13] |
| CHAPTER | [III] | Freighting on the Trail | [17] |
| CHAPTER | [IV] | No Man’s Land | [22] |
| CHAPTER | [V] | Cattle Round-Ups | [26] |
| CHAPTER | [VI] | Good Men and Bad | [28] |
| CHAPTER | [VII] | Catching Wild Horses | [41] |
| CHAPTER | [VIII] | Why I Came West | [52] |
| CHAPTER | [IX] | A Cow Boy Love Affair | [63] |
| CHAPTER | [X] | Entertaining the Hobo | [69] |
| CHAPTER | [XI] | The Man From Missouri | [76] |
| CHAPTER | [XII] | Organizing in Self Defense | [81] |
| CHAPTER | [XIII] | A New Venture or Hard Times | [95] |
| CHAPTER | [XIV] | Returning to Kansas, The Phenomenon | [127] |
| CHAPTER | [XV] | Postmasters of Early Days | [137] |
| CHAPTER | [XVI] | Messiah Craze | [144] |
| CHAPTER | [XVII] | Savages on Warpath | [167] |
| CHAPTER | [XVIII] | The Whirlwind Raid | [187] |
| CHAPTER | [XIX] | The Indian Sun Dance | [195] |
| CHAPTER | [XX] | The Adobe Wall Raid | [210] |
| CHAPTER | [XXI] | The Dull Knife Raid | [231] |
| CHAPTER | [XXII] | The Great Awakening of the West | [262] |
| CHAPTER | [XXIII] | P. H. Sheridan’s Arrival | [269] |
| CHAPTER | [XXIV] | Capture of Comanches and Kiowas | [276] |
| CHAPTER | [XXV] | California Joe’s Weakness | [283] |
| CHAPTER | [XXVI] | A Period of Unrest | [292] |
| CHAPTER | [XXVII] | A Decade of War | [301] |
| CHAPTER | [XXVIII] | Trouble With the Northern Cheyennes | [312] |
| CHAPTER | [XXIX] | Observations in Conclusion | [321] |
CHAPTER I.
General Conditions.
Someone has said, and I think very truthfully, too, that one-half of this world doesn’t know how the other half lives, and if he had added that one-half did not care, he would have hit the nail on the head. In order to verify this statement, go to the frontier of any new country, and you will readily see that the progressive, or producing class, is too busy and too much interested in trying to make a little home, and in providing the necessaries of life, for himself and family, to stop and inquire into the cause of such conditions which surround him. He is busy, very busy, with his own affairs. He must dig a well, build a dugout, and plough the sod to roof it. He must make a storm cave, as it is one of the essentials in Oklahoma and in Kansas, as a cyclone is liable to make a visitation, and he himself and all that he has, may very likely be nothing more than a memory. A storm cave is a very valuable asset, as it gives the family a place of safety in storms, and is a very great factor socially, as the neighbors, if there be any close enough, are most likely to drop around should there be a threatening cloud in the sky, for the sake of mutual encouragement and consolation. I have seen twenty-two persons in one cave that was no larger than eight by ten feet, and all seemed to be satisfied; at least I was.
At one time, of the early settlement of Western Kansas, Indian Territory and Western Texas, there were no mail routes established except between the military posts, Fort Dodge, Kansas, Fort Elliot, Texas, Camp Supply, Fort Reno and Fort Sill, I. T. About this time, 1870, Dodge City, Kansas, sprang into existence, and became the Mecca for the cowmen of the Southwest, and like Rome, all roads led to it. If mail was wanted, or trading was necessary, one had to go from fifty to seventy-five miles for the purpose, and in no case less than twenty, as the S. F. R. R. had a land grant of twenty miles on each side of the roadway, and one could not homestead inside of that limit more than eighty acres, and that is why settlers who wanted 160 acres went farther out.
In making those trips two neighbors usually went together, leaving their families in one place until their return. Their outfit for the journey consisted generally of a few blankets, a shot gun, a Winchester, a coffee pot, a frying pan, tow lariat ropes to picket out the horses, and a box of axle grease. The time required for the trip from three to five days and sometimes longer, owing to the distance and condition of the roads. There were no hotels on the way. In fact, there was nothing but the open prairie, and when it came to camping out time they picketed out the horses, gathered some buffalo chips for a fire, made coffee and flapjacks, fried some bacon and then satisfied their appetites with the fare at hand. Supper over, they discussed prospects for the future and then rolled up in their blankets for a good sound sleep with nothing to disturb them but the howling of the coyotes that were around looking for something to eat. At times something would stampede a herd of antelopes and in their mad flight they would create a noise like the roll of distant thunder. One thing that was in the favor of the camper-out was that it seldom rained and any dust that was made on the trail was blown away, leaving the way as clean as a pavement. The wind generally blew from the South for four days at a time, or thereabouts, at a rate of about forty miles an hour, and then returned at the same rate from the North.