Our informant having seen enough of these horrid performances to satisfy his curiosity, left with his companions, "without waiting to see the dance through." The dance, with its bloody orgies, lasted three whole days. This Sun Dance is not as common as formerly, and as the Indians settle on reservations, it is wholly done away with. The origin of the custom is uncertain.
My experience on the plains dates from September, 1867. The government ordered me to report to Fort Sedgwick, a post on the south side of the Platte River, three hundred and seventy-seven miles west of Omaha. This post lies four miles south of Julesburg, then the end of the Union Pacific Railroad. There were five thousand people there, and it was said to be the most wicked city in the world. Thieves and escaped convicts came here to gamble and lead bad lives, as they had done in Eastern cities, until driven away for fear of punishment; and often three or four would be shot down at night in drunken rows with their companions in vice and crime.
A mammoth tent was erected for a dance-house and gambling purposes. It was called "The King of the Hills," and was filled up with handsome mirrors, pianos, and furniture, and was the scene of all kinds of wickedness. It rented for six hundred dollars a day!
Here hundreds of men, engaged as freighters, teamsters, and "bull-whackers,"—as they were called, and who were in the employ of Wells, Fargo & Co. in freighting goods in large wagons to Idaho, Montana, Salt Lake, and California,—would congregate at night and gamble and carouse, spending all their three months' earnings, only to go back, earn more, and spend it again in this foolish and wicked manner.
One day I came over to the city, and while driving from the express office, heard pistol-shots, and soon saw the men, women, and children running in every direction. I got out of the way, fearing danger, and listened, till I had heard at least twenty shots, and then all was still. I went round to ascertain the cause, and soon found myself among a crowd of excited persons. I learned that a bad young man had robbed a poor negro boy of one hundred and thirty dollars he had earned at the railroad station, and had laid it by to go to his home in Baltimore. The fellow denied it, and said "he'd shoot any one who tried to arrest him." A police officer followed him into a saloon, when the thief at once turned and fired at the officer, wounding him in his right elbow, so he could not reach his pistols in his belt. But some friend handed him one, and with it he knocked the villain down, behind a stove. He then begged for his life, saying he would give up the money and a thousand dollars for his life. But it was too late. The officer shot him in the forehead, and when I entered, he was weltering in a pool of blood. All said, "Served him right!" This is a law of Western life. If two men get into a dispute, and one puts his hand to his pocket, as if to draw a weapon, the other is sure to shoot his enemy, as the law is, "a life for a life."
Julesburg took its name from a small place just below Sedgwick, where a Frenchman named Jules built a ranch and raised cattle a long time before the railroad was built. Here passengers to Denver would get their meals, and the horses were changed on the stage route to Denver and to Salt Lake. Some Indians it is said killed the old man Jules, and his ranch having been taken possession of by the Indians, was shelled by cannon from Fort Sedgwick, and burned down. Mr. Greeley must remember this station, which he and Mr. Colfax and Gov. Bross, of Illinois, passed on their overland trip to California some ten years ago, and where they dined upon the universal fare,—corn-bread, coffee, and bacon.
The city of Julesburg, as it was called in 1867, was visited by a party of editors from Chicago, Cleveland, etc. They came in one of Pullman's palace cars to see the contractor of the Union Pacific Railroad lay the track, as many as four miles each day. Being anxious to write home to their papers all the wonderful things they saw and heard, they came across a strange, wild-looking man named "Sam Stanton," dressed in a buckskin suit, with a broad-brimmed hat. Sam was a returned California miner, of long experience on the plains. Him they invited to come into the beautiful car, to tell them some stories of pioneer life; and, in order to incite him, or excite his imagination to do so, they invited him to drink some champagne wine. As it happened, Sam had never before tasted any stimulants but common whisky, and the champagne getting into his head, made him a little tipsy.
"You want me to show you how we put out the lights in the ranches, I suppose?"
"Yes," they said; "tell us anything of Western life."