On the Border with Crook

by John Gregory Bourke

While the severity of the weather had had but slight effect upon the command directly, the slippery trail, frozen like glass, imposed an unusual amount of hard labor upon both human and equine members, and it was only by the greatest exertion that serious accidents were averted in the crossing of the little ravines which intersected the trail every two or three hundred yards. One of the corporals of “D” Company, Third Cavalry, was internally injured, to what extent could not be told at the moment, by his horse falling upon him while walking by his side. A “travois” was made of two long saplings and a blanket, in which the sufferer was dragged along behind a mule. The detachment of guides, sent out several nights previously, returned this evening, reporting having found a recently abandoned village of sixty “tepis,” and every indication of long habitancy. The Indians belonging thereto had plenty of meat—buffalo, deer, and elk—some of which was left behind upon departure. A young puppy, strangled to death, was found hanging to a tree. This is one of the greatest delicacies of every well-regulated Sioux feast—choked pup. It also figures in their sacrifices, especially all those in any manner connected with war. The guides had brought back with them a supply of venison, which was roasted on the embers and pronounced delicious by hungry palates. The storm abated during the night, and there were glimpses of the moon behind fleeting clouds, but the cold became much more intense, and we began to suffer. The next morning our thermometer failed to register. It did not mark below -22° Fahrenheit, and the mercury had passed down into the bulb and congealed into a solid button, showing that at least -39° had been reached. The wind, however, had gone down, for which we were all thankful. The sun shone out bright and clear, the frost on the grass glistened like diamonds, and our poor horses were coated with ice and snow.

We marched north eight or nine miles down the Tongue River, which had to be crossed six times on the ice. This was a fine stream, between thirty and forty yards wide, its banks thickly fringed with box-elder, cottonwood, and willow. Grama grass was abundant in the foot-hills close by, and in all respects except cold this was the finest camp yet made. The main command halted and bivouacked at this point, to enable the guides to explore to the west, to the Rosebud, and beyond. On the night of March 11th we had a lovely moonlight, but the cold was still hard to bear, and the mercury was again congealed. Fortunately no one was frozen, for which fact some credit is due to the precautions taken in the matter of clothing, and to the great care manifested by our medical officer, Surgeon Munn. The exemption of the command from frost-bite was not more remarkable than the total absence of all ailments of a pneumonitic type; thus far, there had not been a single instance of pneumonia, influenza, or even simple cold. I have no hesitancy in saying that the climate of Wyoming or Montana is better suited for invalids suffering from lung disorders, not of an aggravated nature, than is that of Florida; I have some personal acquaintance with the two sections, and the above is my deliberate conviction.

Despite the hyperborean temperature, the genial good-humor and cheerfulness of the whole command was remarkable and deserving of honorable mention. Nothing tries the spirit and temper of the old veteran, not to mention the young recruit, as does campaigning under unusual climatic vicissitudes, at a time when no trace of the enemy is to be seen. To march into battle with banners flying, drums beating, and the pulse throbbing high with the promptings of honorable ambition and enthusiasm, in unison with the roar of artillery, does not call for half the nerve and determination that must be daily exercised to pursue mile after mile in such terrible weather, over rugged mountains and through unknown cañons, a foe whose habits of warfare are repugnant to every principle of humanity, and whose presence can be determined solely by the flash of the rifle which lays some poor sentry low, or the whoop and yell which stampede our stock from the grazing-grounds. The life of a soldier, in time of war, has scarcely a compensating feature; but he ordinarily expects palatable food whenever obtainable, and good warm quarters during the winter season. In campaigning against Indians, if anxious to gain success, he must lay aside every idea of good food and comfortable lodgings, and make up his mind to undergo with cheerfulness privations from which other soldiers would shrink back dismayed. His sole object should be to strike the enemy and to strike him hard, and this accomplished should be full compensation for all privations undergone. With all its disadvantages this system of Indian warfare is a grand school for the cavalrymen of the future, teaching them fortitude, vigilance, self-reliance, and dexterity, besides that instruction in handling, marching, feeding, and fighting troops which no school can impart in text-books.

This manner of theorizing upon the subject answered excellently well, except at breakfast, when it strained the nervous system immensely to admit that soldiers should under any circumstances be sent out on winter campaigns in this latitude. Our cook had first to chop with an axe the bacon which over night had frozen hard as marble; frequently the hatchet or axe was broken in the contest. Then if he had made any “soft bread,” that is, bread made of flour and baked in a frying-pan, he had to place that before a strong fire for several minutes to thaw it so it could be eaten, and all the forks, spoons, and knives had to be run through hot water or hot ashes to prevent them from taking the skin off the tongue. The same rule had to be observed with the bits when our horses were bridled. I have seen loaves of bread divided into two zones—the one nearer the blazing fire soft and eatable, the other still frozen hard as flint and cold as charity. The same thing was to be noticed in the pans of beans and other food served up for consumption.

For several days we had similar experiences which need not be repeated. Our line of march still continued northward, going down the Tongue River, whose valley for a long distance narrowed to a little gorge bordered by bluffs of red and yellow sandstone, between one hundred and fifty and two hundred feet high—in some places much higher—well fringed with scrub pine and juniper. Coal measures of a quality not definitely determined cropped out in all parts of the country. By this time we were pretty far advanced across the borders of the Territory of Montana, and in a region well grassed with grama and the “black sage,” a plant almost as nutritious as oats. The land in the stream bottoms seemed to be adapted for cultivation. Again the scouts crossed over to the Rosebud, finding no signs of the hostiles, but bringing back the meat of two buffalo bulls which they had killed. This was a welcome addition to the food of men without fresh meat of any kind; our efforts to coax some of the fish in the stream to bite did not meet with success; the weather was too cold for them to come out of the deep pools in which they were passing the winter. The ice was not far from two feet in thickness, and the trout were torpid. The scouts could not explain why they had not been able to place the villages of the hostiles, and some of our people were beginning to believe that there were none out from the reservations, and that all had gone in upon hearing that the troops had moved out after them; in this view neither Frank Gruard, “Big Bat,” nor the others of the older heads concurred.

“We’ll find them pretty soon” was all that Frank would say. As we approached the Yellowstone we came upon abandoned villages, with the frame-work of branches upon which the squaws had been drying meat; one or two, or it may have been three, of these villages had been palisaded as a protection against the incursions of the Absaroka or Crows of Montana, who raided upon the villages of the Sioux when the latter were not raiding upon theirs. Cottonwood by the hundreds of cords lay scattered about the villages, felled by the Sioux as a food for their ponies, which derive a small amount of nourishment from the inner bark. There were Indian graves in numbers: the corpse, wrapped in its best blankets and buffalo robes, was placed upon a scaffold in the branches of trees, and there allowed to dry and to decay. The cottonwood trees here attained a great size: four, five, and six feet in diameter; and all the conditions for making good camps were satisfied: the water was excellent, after the ice had been broken; a great sufficiency of succulent grass was to be found in the nooks sheltered from the wind; and as for wood, there was more than we could properly use in a generation. One of the cooks, by mistake, made a fire at the foot of a great hollow cottonwood stump; in a few moments the combustible interior was a mass of flame, which hissed and roared through that strange chimney until it had reached an apparent height of a hundred feet above the astonished packers seated at its base. Buffalo could be seen every day, and the meat appeared at every meal to the satisfaction of all, notwithstanding its stringiness and exceeding toughness, because we could hit nothing but the old bulls. A party of scouts was sent on in front to examine the country as far as the valley of the Yellowstone, the bluffs on whose northern bank were in plain sight.

There was a great and unexpected mildness of temperature for one or two days, and the thermometer indicated for several hours as high as 20° above zero, very warm in comparison with what we had had. General Crook and the half-breeds adopted a plan of making themselves comfortable which was generally imitated by their comrades. As soon as possible after coming into camp, they would sweep clear of snow the piece of ground upon which they intended making down their blankets for the night; a fire would next be built and allowed to burn fiercely for an hour, or as much longer as possible. When the embers had been brushed away and the canvas and blankets spread out, the warmth under the sleeper was astonishingly comfortable. Our pack-mules, too, showed an amazing amount of intelligence. I have alluded to the great trouble and danger experienced in getting them and our horses across the different “draws” or “coulées” impeding the march. The pack-mules, of their own motion, decided that they would get down without being a source of solicitude to those in charge of them; nothing was more amusing than to see some old patriarch of the train approach the glassy ramp leading to the bottom of the ravine, adjust his hind feet close together and slide in triumph with his load secure on his back. This came near raising a terrible row among the packers, who, in the absence of other topics of conversation, began to dispute concerning the amount of sense or “savey” exhibited by their respective pets. One cold afternoon it looked as if the enthusiastic champions of the respective claims of “Pinto Jim” and “Keno” would draw their knives on each other, but the affair quieted down without bloodshed. Only one mule had been injured during this kind of marching and sliding—one broke its back while descending an icy ravine leading to the “Clear Fork” of the Powder.

Not many moments were lost after getting into bivouac before all would be in what sailors call “ship shape.” Companies would take the positions assigned them, mounted vedettes would be at once thrown out on the nearest commanding hills, horses unsaddled and led to the grazing-grounds, mules unpacked and driven after, and wood and water collected in quantities for the cooks, whose enormous pots of beans and coffee would exhale a most tempting aroma. After eating dinner or supper, as you please, soldiers, packers, and officers would gather around the fires, and in groups discuss the happenings of the day and the probabilities of the future. The Spaniards have a proverb which may be translated—“A man with a good dinner inside of him looks upon the world through rosy spectacles”:

“Barriga llena,

Corazon contento.”