The Border and the Buffalo: An Untold Story of the Southwest Plains / The Bloody Border of Missouri and Kansas. The Story of the Slaughter of the Buffalo. Westward among the Big Game and Wild Tribes. A Story of Mountain and Plain

by John R. Cook

The pony signs, at this camp indicated that they must have six or seven hundred head. Signs were scattered over more than a square mile; and here at this camp the old chief had played his ruse by starting a travois trail towards Fort Sill, when as a matter of fact he had sent his women and children on west to the extreme head of Thompson's Cañon, twenty miles east of the Casa Amarilla (Spanish for Yellow House), so called on account of a bold rugged bluff with natural and excavated caverns dug out by these Indians thirty years before. On top of this bluff was a stone half-circle breastwork. This is the place where, at the time mentioned, the entire Sioux nation came down from their northern homes and fought the Cheyenne, Arapahoe, Kiowa and Comanche alliance. We followed the travois trail to Thompson's Cañon. There we found a night camp, where they had held a scalp-and war-dance. There was a circle thirty-five feet in diameter literally tramped and padded down, where in their night orgies they probably eulogized each other as big braves.

From this camp they continued their travois trail north toward White Cañon, and after getting about six miles out on a great plain, as level as a smooth sea, they commenced to scatter out again, dropping their lodge-poles as they went. Then it was more guess-work, and this time we guessed right, that the camp was up Thompson's Cañon back of us and up the stream from where we crossed it. We turned to the southwest.

I was ordered to go with and stay with the Mexican scout and guide. I could now talk a little Greaser and make understandable signs, and Hosea wanted me with him. Here was where Commander Campbell's advisory board assumed its first prerogative. At the request of the guide we advised that the entire outfit should stop and wait for a signal from us. That was Hosea, Louie Keyes, and myself. We were to ride on to the cañon and follow it up, looking for Indian signs, and if we thought that the Indians were still above us, that one of us would ride back in sight of the outfit and ride his horse in a circle until he was answered by a horseman; that Campbell would send out to one side and ride around in the same manner as the scout did. That would mean for the entire party to come on to the place where the scout was.

This being thoroughly understood, the three of us started and rode quite rapidly for about seven or eight miles. Then we were on the breaks of the cañon. Here we halted, and with our field-glasses we scanned the cañon up and down as far as the windings of the same would permit. Then we took the long-range view, and looking back to where we had left the boys we could see them as plainly as we could see them with the naked eye had they been close to us. There was a higher bluff on up the cañon nearly a mile, and upon looking to the south and west a distance of perhaps five or six miles we plainly saw five pack animals loaded with meat, and ten Indians, seven of which we made out to be squaws. They were all strung out in single file and were going west.

"Now," said the Mexican guide, "I know where their camp is." That was what every one wanted to know. We watched them for several minutes, they still going west until they passed over a rise in the ground and out of sight on the slope of the draw at the extreme head-waters of the Thompson Cañon, which Hosea told us was about eight miles from where we were.

Louie Keyes now rode back toward our boys for about two miles, and he rode the circle. Hosea and I looked until we saw one of the men ride from the outfit and he rode the circle in response. Then we saw the whole outfit in motion, coming toward us. This was plains telegraphy. The man who invented long-visional binoculars was surely a benefactor. In this case they were a great economizer of horseflesh, and told us, as it were, where the Indians were encamped, though Hosea and I were eight miles from them. Upon looking again we saw several more Indians with pack-ponies going out from where the camp was supposed to be, traveling in the direction the loaded ones came from. This was evident proof, in my mind, that the camp was located where the guide had indicated.

Everyone who has followed up the Thompson Cañon, of the Double Mountain Fork of the Brazos well remembers the grand, bold cold-water stream that comes flowing out of a nearly perpendicular bluff from the south side. Just below this place is a side draw with an overhanging cliff where the all-but level plain comes up to, and which is in the form of a crescent. "Venga aca, Señor Cocinero!" (Come here, Mr. Cook), said the Mexican, who had ridden some 200 yards farther up the cañon, while I was first looking at the Indians and back towards our approaching hunters. When I rode up to where he was he pointed down to this best of hiding-places and said: "Esta bueno campo; Indio no le viese." (This is a good camp; the Indians can't see it.) I told him to stay here and keep a good lookout until I returned.

I then rode back to where Louie Keyes was, and said, "Let's move so as to lead the boys into the cañon below here, then follow it up. Their camp is surely where Hosea said it was. And you know yesterday it was agreed in a general talk that we must try to surprise their camp, and open up on it just at the peep of day if we could do so. There is a splendid place to hide ourselves, horses, wagons and all, just a little way above where you left us; and if we can only get there without being seen by them I'll call it good luck."

"In that case," he said, "I will ride right to them and report to you all we have found." And at a good gallop he was off.