We are right in the heart of the Indian country, almost on the line between Kansas and the Indian Territory, and are surrounded by any number of villages of hostile Indians. We are forty miles from Camp Supply and about the same distance from Fort Dodge. The weather is delightful—sunny and very warm.
I was prevented from finishing this the other day by the coming of a dozen or more Arapahoe Indians, but as the mail does not go north until to-morrow morning, I can tell you of the more than busy time we have had since then.
For two or three days the weather had been unseasonably warm—almost like summer—and one evening it was not only hot, but so sultry one wondered where all the air had gone. About midnight, however, a terrific wind came up, cold and piercing, and very soon snow began to fall, and then we knew that we were having a "Texas norther," a storm that is feared by all old frontiersmen. Of course we were perfectly safe from the wind, for only a cyclone could tear down these thick walls of sand, but the snow sifted in every place—between the logs of the inner wall, around the windows—and almost buried us. And the cold became intense.
In the morning the logs of that entire wall from top to bottom, were white inside with snow, and looked like a forest in the far North. The floor was covered with snow, and so was the foot of the bed! Our rooms were facing just right to catch the full force of the blizzard. The straightening-out was exceedingly unpleasant, for a fire could not be started in either stove until after the snow had been swept out. But a few soldiers can work miracles at times, and this proved to be one of the times. I went over to the orderly room while they brushed and scraped everywhere and fixed us up nicely, and we were soon warm and dry.
The norther continued twenty-four hours, and the cold is still freezing. All the wood inside was soon consumed, and the men were compelled to go outside the redoubt for it, and to split it, too. The storm was so fierce and wholly blinding that it was necessary to fasten the end of a rope around the waist of each man as he went out, and tie the other end to the entrance gate to prevent him from losing his direction and wandering out on the plains. Even with this precaution it was impossible for a man to remain out longer than ten minutes, because of the terribly cold wind that at times was almost impossible to stand up against.
Faye says that he cannot understand why the place has never been made habitable, or why Lieutenant Cole did not have the wood brought inside, where it would be convenient in case of a storm. Some of the men are working at the wood still, and others are making their quarters' a little more decent. Every tiny opening in our own log walls has been chinked with pieces of blanket or anything that could be found, and the entire dirt floor has been covered with clean grain sacks that are held down smooth and tight by little pegs of wood, and over this rough carpet we have three rugs we brought with us. At the small window are turkey-red curtains that make very good shades when let down at night. There are warm army blankets on the camp bed, and a folded red squaw blanket on the trunk. The stove is as bright and shining as the strong arm of a soldier could make it, and on it is a little brass teakettle singing merrily.
Altogether the little place looks clean and cheerful, quite unlike the "hole" we came to. Farrar has attended to his part in the kitchen also, and things look neat and orderly there. A wall tent has been pitched just outside our door that gives us a large storeroom and at the same time screens us from the men's quarters that are along one side of the sandbag walls.
On the side farthest from us the mules and horses are stabled, but one would never know that an animal was near if those big-headed mules did not occasionally raise their voices in brays that sound like old squeaky pumps. When it is pleasant they are all picketed out.
At the first coming of the blizzard the sentry was ordered from the parapet, and is still off, and I am positive that unless one goes on soon at night I shall be wholly deaf, because I strain my ears the whole night through listening for Indians. The men are supposed to be ever ready for an attack, but if they require drums and cannon to awaken them in a garrison, how can they possibly hear the stealthy step of an Indian here? It is foolish to expect anything so unreasonable.
CIMARRON REDOUBT, KANSAS, January, 1873.