One of the Shoshones dropped a lighted match in the dry grass near his lodge, and in a second a rattle and crackle warned the camp of its danger. All hands, Indian and white, near by rushed up with blankets, blouses, switches, and branches of trees to beat back the flames. This was a dangerous task; as, one after another, the Shoshone frame shelters were enveloped in the fiery embrace of the surging flames, the explosion of cartridges and the whistling of bullets drove our men back to places of safety. In the tall and dry grass the flames held high revel; the whole infantry command was turned out, and bravely set to work, and, aided by a change in the wind, secured camp from destruction. While thus engaged, they discovered a body of Indians moving down the declivity of the mountain; they immediately sprang to arms and prepared to resist attack; a couple of white men advanced from the Indian column and called out to the soldiers that they were a band of Utes and Shoshones from Camp Brown, coming to join General Crook.
Our men welcomed and led them into camp, where friends gave them a warm reception, which included the invariable war-dance and the evening serenade. Some of the new-comers strolled over to chat with the Shoshones who had been wounded in the Rosebud fight, and who, although horribly cut up with bullet wounds in the thigh or in the flanks, as the case was, had recovered completely under the care of their own doctors, who applied, nothing but cool water as a dressing; but I noticed that they were not all the time washing out the wounds as Americans would have done, which treatment as they think would only irritate the tender surfaces. The new-comers proved to be a band of thirty-five, and were all good men.
On the 2d of August camp was greatly excited over what was termed a game of base-ball between the officers of the infantry and cavalry; quite a number managed to hit the ball, and one or two catches were made; the playing was in much the same style, and of about the same comparative excellence, as the amateur theatrical exhibitions, where those who come to scoff remain to pray that they may never have to come again.
CHAPTER XX.
THE JUNCTION WITH MERRITT AND THE MARCH TO MEET TERRY—THE COUNTRY ON FIRE—MERRITT AND HIS COMMAND—MR. “GRAPHIC”—STANTON AND HIS “IRREGULARS”—“UTE JOHN”—THE SITE OF THE HOSTILE CAMP—A SIOUX CEMETERY—MEETING TERRY’S COMMAND—FINDING TWO SKELETONS—IN THE BAD LANDS—LANCING RATTLESNAKES—BATHING IN THE YELLOWSTONE—MACKINAW BOATS AND “BULL” BOATS—THE REES HAVE A PONY DANCE—SOME TERRIBLE STORMS—LIEUTENANT WILLIAM P. CLARKE.
On the 3d of August, 1876, Crook’s command marched twenty miles north-northeast to Goose Creek, where Merritt had been ordered to await its arrival. The flames of prairie fires had parched and disfigured the country. “Big Bat” took me a short cut across a petty affluent of the Goose, which had been full of running water but was now dry as a bone, choked with ashes and dust, the cottonwoods along its banks on fire, and every sign that its current had been dried up by the intense heat of the flames. In an hour or so more the pent-up waters forced a passage through the ashes, and again flowed down to mingle with the Yellowstone. The Sioux had also set fire to the timber in the Big Horn, and at night the sight was a beautiful one of the great line of the foot-hills depicted in a tracery of gold.
General Merritt received us most kindly. He was at that time a very young man, but had had great experience during the war in command of mounted troops. He was blessed with a powerful physique, and seemed to be specially well adapted to undergo any measure of fatigue and privation that might befall him. His force consisted of ten companies of the Fifth Cavalry, and he had also brought along with him seventy-six recruits for the Second and Third Regiments, and over sixty surplus horses, besides an abundance of ammunition.
The officers with General Merritt, or whose names have not already been mentioned in these pages, were: Lieutenant-Colonel E. A. Carr, Major John V. Upham, Lieutenant A. D. B. Smead, A. D. King, George O. Eaton, Captain Robert H. Montgomery, Emil Adam, Lieutenant E. L. Keyes, Captain Samuel Sumner, Lieutenant C. P. Rodgers, Captain George F. Price, Captain J. Scott Payne, Lieutenants A. B. Bache, William P. Hall, Captain E. M. Hayes, Lieutenant Hoel S. Bishop, Captain Sanford C. Kellogg, Lieutenants Bernard Reilly and Robert London, Captain Julius W. Mason, Lieutenant Charles King, Captain Edward H. Leib, Captain William H. Powell, Captain James Kennington, Lieutenant John Murphy, Lieutenant Charles Lloyd, Captain Daniel W. Burke, Lieutenant F. S. Calhoun, Captain Thomas F. Tobey, Lieutenant Frank Taylor, Lieutenant Richard T. Yeatman, Lieutenants Julius H. Pardee, Robert H. Young, Rockefeller, and Satterlle C. Plummer, with Lieutenants W. C. Forbush as Adjutant, and Charles H. Rockwell as Quartermaster of the Fifth Cavalry, and Assistant Surgeons Grimes, Lecompt, and Surgeon B. H. Clements, who was announced as Medical Director of the united commands by virtue of rank. Colonel T. H. Stanton was announced as in command of the irregulars and citizen volunteers, who in small numbers accompanied the expedition. He was assisted by Lieutenant Robert H. Young, Fourth Infantry, a gallant and efficient soldier of great experience. At the head of the scouts with Merritt rode William F. Cody, better known to the world at large by his dramatic representation which has since traversed two continents: “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.”
Major Furey was directed to remain at this point, or in some eligible locality close to it, and keep with him the wagon-train and the disabled. Paymaster Arthur was to stay with him; and outside of that there were three casualties in the two commands: Sutorius, dismissed by sentence of general court-martial; Wilson, resigned July 29th; and Cain, whose mind betrayed symptoms of unsoundness, and who was ordered to remain with Furey, but persisted in keeping with the column until the Yellowstone had been reached. Couriers arrived with telegrams from General Sheridan at Chicago, Williams at Omaha, and Colonel Townsend, commanding at Fort Laramie; all of whom had likewise sent clippings from the latest papers, furnishing information from all points in the Indian country. From these clippings it was learned that the stream of adventurers pouring into the Black Hills was unabated, and that at the confluence of the Deadwood and Whitewood Creeks a large town or city of no less than four thousand inhabitants had sprung up and was working the gold “placers,” all the time exposed to desperate attacks from the Indians, who, according to one statement, which was afterwards shown to be perfectly true, had murdered more than eighty men in less than eight days. These men were not killed within the limits of the town, but in its environs and in the exposed “claims” out in the Hills.
Several new correspondents had attached themselves to Merritt’s column; among them I recall Mills, of the New York Times, and Lathrop, of the Bulletin, of San Francisco. These, I believe, were the only real correspondents in the party, although there were others who vaunted their pretensions; one of these last, name now forgotten, claimed to have been sent out by the New York Graphic, a statement very few were inclined to admit. He was the greenest thing I ever saw without feathers; he had never been outside of New York before, and the way the scouts, packers, and soldiers “laid for” that man was a caution. Let the other newspaper men growl as they might about the lack of news, Mr. “Graphic,” as I must call him, never had any right to complain on that score. Never was packer or scout or soldier—shall I add officer?—so weary, wet, hungry, or miserable at the end of a day’s march that he couldn’t devote a half-hour to the congenial task of “stuffin’ the tenderfoot,” The stories told of Indian atrocities to captives, especially those found with paper and lead-pencils, were enough to make the stoutest veteran’s teeth chatter, and at times our newly-discovered acquisition manifested a disinclination to swallow, unstrained, the stories told him; but his murmurs of mild dissent were drowned in an inundation of “Oh, that hain’t nawthin’ to what I’ve seed ’em do.” Who the poor fellow was I do not know; no one seemed to know him by any other designation than “The Tenderfoot.” He had no money, he could not draw, and was dependent upon the packers and others for every meal; I must say that he never lacked food, provided he swallowed it with tales of border horrors which would cause the pages of the Boys’ Own Five-Cent Novelette series to creak with terror. I never saw him smile but once, and that was under provocation sufficient to lead a corpse to laugh itself out of its shroud.