To this point Red Cloud's son and wife came, but they returned with the others to their hunting-grounds in the Sioux country.
When the party under General Smith left the post in ambulances, etc., some felt "sea-sick," never having rode in a wagon before!
Once on the cars, it was kept as quiet as possible. At Frémont, forty-seven miles from Omaha, it had leaked out, and much excitement prevailed there, as it was reported that the Pawnees, the old and inveterate enemies of the Sioux, were coming in from their reservation (near there), and would attack the train and kill the Sioux chiefs. A number of them were there when the train came along, but they kept very quiet. One or two of the Pawnees went up and shook hands with their old enemies (with whom a deadly feud has existed for years), but they were closely watched by General Smith, lest a stab should be given with their knives. Although the Sioux chiefs were told of the danger, they were "as cool about it as a cucumber." They looked at their knives being all right, and that was all. Of course all along their route they were objects of curiosity to everybody; and had the government declined to have them go (as it was said at first they would), a war would have followed soon after!
[ PERILOUS ADVENTURE—PURSUIT OF A HORSE-THIEF. ]
A young man named Frank Hunter, born in Massachusetts, migrated to the Indian country, and was very successfully employed as a government detective in "Camp Carling," between Cheyenne and Fort Russell. In the winter of 1868, a bold robbery was committed by a man employed in taking care of horses by Major J. D. Woolley, the post-trader at Fort Russell.
One morning in December the stable-door was left open, and soon found out that the man and two valuable horses were missing. One of them belonged to Lieutenant Wanless, of the 2d United States Cavalry (who was East at the time on leave); this was the fastest pacing horse in the territory, and for which he had refused a high price in money. The other belonged to the major, and was of considerable value. The matter of catching the thief and horses was given into Mr. Hunter's hands, with instructions to spare no pains or expense in securing the thief, who had hired out on purpose to steal the fast nag. The following I copied from the detective's journal, and verified the facts from other sources.
Mr. Hunter started out to Colorado with ten cavalrymen and Lieutenant Belden on the road to Denver via Boulder City, to prevent the thief (who went by the name of Durant) from getting into the mountains, and so on to New Mexico. This trip proved fruitless. The alternative that suggested itself was that the thief had gone another road, towards the Smoky-Hill route. The first tidings revealed the fact to them, at the South Platte River, that the inferior horse had been disposed of near Godfrey's ranch on the Platte, where the writer's horse and a beautiful Cheyenne pony had been taken by horse-thieves in the preceding summer. The thief, hard pushed for money, had sold Mr. Woolley's horse to a man here named Perkins, who paid thirty-five dollars, while he was worth two hundred dollars. This he placed out of the way, some thirty miles off, thinking him safe from discovery.
Here the utmost caution and strategy were necessary to recover this horse they had secreted, and find out what road the rogues took with the thoroughbred animal. But it was done. The detective came back to Cheyenne with his escort and left it there. Then, on one of Wells, Fargo & Co.'s fast coaches, he embarked for Denver City. A heavy snow-storm set in and impeded the way. Thus the thief had nine days the start.
From Denver he made the best of his way—after being detained five days by the storm—for Sheridan, in Kansas, which was reached in five more days' time,—the trip being made usually by railroad in forty-eight hours. At Sheridan the cars were blockaded with snow, and quite a number of gentlemen were snow-bound, among them the members of Congress from New Mexico and Kansas. The detective proposed to these honorable gents the pleasure of a tramp as far as Fort Hays, only one hundred and thirty-five miles! All agreed, and the party set out, though the snow was very deep.
The expedition proved to be one of much interest; but the pursuit of the thief being the main object before us, we find the detective arrived at Fort Harker, Kansas, and in communication with a gentleman named Stone, who had seen the famous pacer, and had tried to buy him of the supposed owner; and from him the detective learned that the horse was near at hand, only twenty miles farther east, at a place called "Saline," on a small river, in Kansas. From this place the thief intended to convey the horse to Aurora, Illinois (his native town), to match him there with another, and thus to obtain a large sum of money for his thieving wickedness.