There is always a sentry at our corner of the garrison, and it was this sentinel who was attacked, and it is the general belief among the officers that the Indians came to this corner hoping to get the-troops concentrated at the beat farthest from the stables, and thus give them a chance to steal some, if not all, of the cavalry horses. But Mr. Red Man's strategy is not quite equal to that of the Great Father's soldiers, or he would have known that troops would be sent at once to protect the horses.
There were a great many pony tracks to be seen in the sand the next morning, and there was a mounted sentinel on a hill a mile or so away. It was amusing to watch him through a powerful field glass, and we wished that he could know just how his every movement could be seen. He sat there on his pony for hours, both Indian and horse apparently perfectly motionless, but with his face always turned toward the post, ready to signal to his people the slightest movement of the troops.
Faye says that the colored troops were real soldiers that night, alert and plucky. I can readily believe that some of them can be alert, and possibly good soldiers, and that they can be good thieves too, for last Saturday night they stole from us the commissary stores we had expected to last us one week—everything, in fact, except coffee, sugar, and such things that we keep in the kitchen, where it is dry.
The commissary is open Saturday mornings only, at which time we are requested to purchase all supplies we will need from there for the following week, and as we have no fresh vegetables whatever, and no meat except beef, we are very dependent upon the canned goods and other things in the commissary.
Last Saturday Mrs. Hunt and I sent over as usual, and most of the supplies were put in a little dug-out cellar in the yard that we use together—she having one side, I the other. On Sunday morning Farrar happened to be the first cook to go out for things for breakfast, and he found that the door had been broken open and the shelves as bare as Mother Hubbard's. Everything had been carried off except a few candles on Mrs. Hunt's side, and a few cakes of laundry soap on mine! The candles they had no use for, and the thieves were probably of a class that had no use for soap, either.
Our breakfast that morning was rather light, but as soon as word got abroad of our starving condition, true army hospitality and generosity manifested itself. We were invited out to luncheon, and to dinner, and to breakfast the next morning. You can see how like one big family a garrison can be, and how in times of trouble we go to each other's assistance. Of course, now and then we have disagreeable persons with us—those who will give you only three hours to move out of your house, or one who will order your cook from you.
CAMP SUPPLY, INDIAN TERRITORY, January, 1873.
ALL that remained of Captain White was carried to the little cemetery yesterday, with all the military honors possible at such a far-away post We have no chaplain, therefore one of the cavalry officers read the service for the dead at the house, just before the march to the cemetery. Almost all of the cavalry of the garrison was out, mounted, Captain White's own troop having the lead, of course, and the greater part of the infantry was out also, and there was a firing detail, with guns reversed.
The casket, covered with a large flag, was carried on a caisson, and his horse, led by an orderly, was covered with a large blanket of black cloth. Over this was the saddle, and on top of the saddle rested his helmet—the yellow horsehair plume and gold trimmings looking soiled by long service. His sabre was there, too, and strapped to the saddle on each side were his uniform boots, toes in stirrups—all reversed! This riderless horse, with its pall of black, yellow helmet, and footless boots, was the saddest sight imaginable.
I did not go to the cemetery, but we heard distinctly the firing of the three volleys over the grave and the sounding of taps on the bugles. The garrison flag had been drawn to half mast almost the moment of Captain White's death, but at the last sound of taps it was immediately pulled up to full mast, and soon the troops came back to their quarters, the field music playing lively airs.