On the Border with Crook

by John Gregory Bourke

A grand council was the next feature of the evening’s entertainment. Around a huge fire of crackling boughs the officers of the command arranged themselves in two rows, the interest and curiosity depicted upon their countenances acting as a foil to the stolidity and imperturbable calmness of the Indians squatted upon the ground on the other side. The breezes blowing the smoke aside would occasionally enable the flames to bring out in bold and sudden relief the intense blackness of the night, the sepulchral whiteness of the tents and wagon-sheets, the blue coats of officers and soldiers (who thronged among the wagons behind their superiors), the red, white, yellow, and black beaded blankets of the savages, whose aquiline features and glittering eyes had become still more aquiline and still more glittering, and the small group in the centre of the circle composed of General Crook and his staff, the interpreters—Frank Gruard and “Big Bat” and Louis—and the Indian chiefs. One quadrant was reserved for the Shoshones, another for the Crows. Each tribe selected one spokesman, who repeated to his people the words of the General as they were made known by the interpreters. Ejaculations of “Ugh! ugh!” were the only signs of approval, but it was easy enough to see that nothing was lost that was addressed to them. Pipes of the same kind as those the Sioux have were kept in industrious circulation. The remarks made by General Crook were almost identical with those addressed to the Crows alone earlier in the evening; the Indians asked the privilege of scouting in their own way, which was conceded.

An adjournment was ordered at between ten and eleven o’clock to allow such of our allies as so desired to seek much-needed rest. The Shoshones had ridden sixty miles, and night was far advanced. The erroneousness of this assumption was disclosed very speedily. A long series of monotonous howls, shrieks, groans, and nasal yells, emphasized by a perfectly ear-piercing succession of thumps upon drums improvised from “parfleche” (tanned buffalo skin), attracted nearly all the soldiers and many of the officers not on duty to the allied camp. Peeping into the different lodges was very much like peeping through the key-hole of Hades.

Crouched around little fires not affording as much light as an ordinary tallow candle, the swarthy figures of the naked and half-naked Indians were visible, moving and chanting in unison with some leader. No words were distinguishable; the ceremony partook of the nature of an abominable incantation, and as far as I could judge had a semi-religious character. One of the Indians, mounted on a pony and stripped almost naked, passed along from lodge to lodge, stopping in front of each and calling upon the Great Spirit (so our interpreter said) to send them plenty of scalps, a big Sioux village, and lots of ponies. The inmates would respond with, if possible, increased vehemence, and the old saying about making night hideous was emphatically suggested. With this wild requiem ringing in his ears one of our soldiers, a patient in hospital, Private William Nelson, Company “L,” Third Cavalry, breathed his last. The herd of beef cattle, now reduced to six, became scared by the din and broke madly for the hills. All night the rain pattered down.

CHATO.

Among our Crows were said to be some very distinguished warriors; one of these pointed out to me had performed during the preceding winter the daring feat of stealing in alone upon a Sioux village and getting a fine pony, which he tied loosely to a stake outside; then he crept back, lifted up the flap of one of the lodges, and called gently to the sleepers, who, unsuspecting, answered the grunt, which awakened them, and thus betrayed just where the men were lying; the Crow took aim coolly and blew the head off of one of the Sioux, slipped down through the village, untied and mounted his pony, and was away like the wind before the astonished enemy could tell from the screaming and jabbering squaws what was the matter.

All through the next day, June 15, 1876, camp was a beehive of busy preparation. Colonel Chambers had succeeded in finding one hundred and seventy-five infantrymen who could ride, or were anxious to try, so as to see the whole trip through in proper shape. These were mounted upon mules from the wagon and pack trains, and the first hour’s experience with the reluctant Rosinantes equalled the best exhibition ever given by Barnum. Tom Moore organized a small detachment of packers who had had any amount of experience; two of them—Young and Delaney—had been with the English in India, in the wars with the Sikhs and Rohillas, and knew as much as most people do about campaigning and all its hardships and dangers. The medical staff was kept busy examining men unfit to go to the front, but it was remarkable that the men ordered to remain behind did so under protest. The wagons were parked in a great corral, itself a sort of fortification against which the Sioux would not heedlessly rush. Within this corral racks made of willow branches supported loads of wild meat, drying in the sun: deer and antelope venison, buffalo, elk, and grizzly-bear meat, the last two killed by a hunting party from the pack-train the previous day.

The preparations which our savage allies were making were no less noticeable: in both Snake and Crow camps could be seen squads of young warriors looking after their rifles, which, by the way, among the Shoshones, I forgot to mention, were of the latest model—calibre .45—and kept with scrupulous care in regular gun-racks. Some were sharpening lances or adorning them with feathers and paint; others were making “coup” sticks, which are long willow branches about twelve feet from end to end, stripped of leaves and bark, and having each some distinctive mark, in the way of feathers, bells, fur, paint, or bright-colored cloth or flannel. These serve a singular purpose: the great object of the Shoshones, Crows, Cheyennes, and Dakotas in making war is to set the enemy afoot. This done, his destruction is rendered more easy if not more certain. Ponies are also the wealth of the conquerors; hence, in dividing the spoil, each man claims the animals first struck by his “coup” stick.

With the Snakes were three white men—Cosgrove, Yarnell, and Eckles—all Texans; and one French-Canadian half-breed, named Luisant. Cosgrove, the leading spirit, was, during the Rebellion, a captain in the 32d Texas Cavalry, C. S. A., and showed he had not forgotten the lessons of the war by the appearance of discipline and good order evinced by his command, who, in this respect, were somewhat ahead of the Crows. We were informed that on the march over from Wind River, the Snakes, during one afternoon, killed one hundred and seventy-five buffaloes on the eastern slope of the Owl Creek Mountains. In the early hours of the afternoon the Crows had a foot-race, for twenty cartridges a side; the running was quite good for the distance of one hundred and fifty yards.

At sunset we buried Private Nelson, who had died the previous night. The funeral cortege was decidedly imposing, because, as on all former occasions of the same nature, all officers and men not engaged on other duty made it a point to be present at the grave of every dead comrade; the noise of the parting volleys brought our savages up on a gallop, persuaded that the Sioux were making a demonstration against some part of our lines; they dashed up to the side of the grave, and there they sat motionless upon their ponies, feathers nodding in the breeze, and lances gleaming in the sun. Some of them wore as many as four rings in each ear, the entire cartilage being perforated from apex to base.