A morning’s bag of prairie chicken in South Dakota
Seth Bullock is second from the left, and R. H. Munro Ferguson third
The year before I went with my father to Africa, R. H. Munro Ferguson and myself joined the Captain in South Dakota for a prairie-chicken hunt. We were to shoot in the vicinity of the Cheyenne Indian reservation, and the Captain took us through the reservation to show us how the Indian question was being handled. The court was excellently run, but what impressed us most was the judge’s name, for he was called Judge No Heart. Some of our hunting companions rejoiced in equally unusual names. There were Spotted Rabbit, No Flesh, Yellow Owl, and High Hawk, not to forget Spotted Horses, whose prolific wife was known as Mrs. Drops-Two-at-a-Time. We had with us another man named Dave Snowball, who looked and talked just like a Southern darky. As a matter of fact, he was half negro and half Indian. In the old days negro slaves not infrequently escaped and joined the Indians. I went to see Dave’s father. There was no mistaking him for what he was, but when I spoke to him he would answer me in Sioux and the only English words I could extract from him were “No speak English.” He may have had some hazy idea that if he talked English some one would arrest him and send him back to his old masters, although they had probably been dead for thirty or forty years. Possibly living so long among the Sioux, he had genuinely forgotten the language of his childhood.
High Hawk and Oliver Black Hawk were old “hostiles.” So was Red Bear. We came upon him moving house. The tepee had just been dismantled, and the support poles were being secured to a violently objecting pony. A few weeks later when we were on the train going East, Frederic Remington joined us. He was returning from Montana, and upon hearing that we had been on the Cheyenne reservation he asked if we had run into old Red Bear, who had once saved his life. He told us that many years before he had been picked up by a party of hostiles, and they had determined to give him short shrift, when Red Bear, with whom he had previously struck a friendship, turned up, and successfully interceded with his captors. One reminiscence led to another, and we were soon almost as grateful to Red Bear for having opened such a store as Remington had been for having his life spared. Frederic Remington was a born raconteur, and pointed his stories with a bluff, homely philosophy, redolent of the plains and the sage-brush.
The night before we left the Indians the Captain called a council. All the old “hostiles” and many of the younger generation gathered. The peace-pipes circulated. We had brought with us from New York a quantity of German porcelain pipes to trade with the Indians. Among them was one monster with a bowl that must have held from an eighth to a quarter of a pound of tobacco. The Indians ordinarily smoke “kinnikinick,” which is chopped-up willow bark. It is mild and gives a pleasant, aromatic smoke. The tobacco which we had was a coarse, strong shag. We filled the huge pipe with it, and, lighting it, passed it round among the silent, solemn figures grouped about the fire. The change was as instantaneous as it was unpremeditated. The first “brave” drew deeply and inhaled a few strong puffs; with a choking splutter he handed the pipe to his nearest companion. The scene was repeated, and as each Indian, heedless of the fate of his comrades, inhaled the smoke of the strong shag, he would break out coughing, until the pipe had completed the circuit and the entire group was coughing in unison. Order was restored and willow bark substituted for tobacco, with satisfactory results. Then we each tried our hand at speaking. One by one the Indians took up the thread, grunting out their words between puffs. The firelight rose and fell, lighting up the shrouded shapes. When my turn came I spoke through an interpreter. Coached by the Captain as to what were their most lamentable failings—those that most frequently were the means of his making their acquaintance—I gave a learned discourse upon the evils of rustling ponies, and the pleasant life that lay before those who abstained from doing so. Grunts of approval, how sincere I know not, were the gratifying reply to my efforts. The powwow broke up with a substantial feast of barbecued sheep, and next morning we left our nomadic hosts to continue their losing fight to maintain their hereditary form of existence, hemmed in by an ever-encroaching white man’s civilization.
Near the reservation we came upon two old outlaw buffaloes, last survivors of the great herds that not so many years previously had roamed these plains, providing food and clothing for the Indians until wiped out by the ruthless white man. These two bulls, living on because they were too old and tough for any one to bother about, were the last survivors left in freedom. A few days later we were shown by Scottie Phillips over his herd. He had many pure breeds but more hybrids, and the latter looked the healthier. Scottie had done a valuable work in preserving these buffalo. He was a squaw-man, and his pleasant Indian wife gave us excellent buffalo-berry preserves that she had put up.
Scottie’s ranch typified the end of both buffalo and Indian. Before a generation is past the buffalo will survive only in the traces of it left by crossing with cattle; and the same fate eventually awaits the Indian. No matter how wise be the course followed in governing the remnants of the Indian race, it can only be a question of time before their individuality sinks and they are absorbed.
The spring following this expedition I set off with father for Africa. The Captain took a great deal of interest in the plans for the trip. A week before we sailed he wrote:
I send you to-day by American Express the best gun I know of for you to carry when in Africa. It is a single action Colts 38 on a heavy frame. It is a business weapon, always reliable, and will shoot where you hold it. When loaded, carry it on the safety, or first cock of the hammer.
Seth Bullock was a hero-worshipper and father was his great hero. It would have made no difference what father did or said, the Captain would have been unshakably convinced without going into the matter at all that father was justified. There is an old adage that runs: “Any one can have friends that stand by him when he’s right; what you want is friends that stand by you when you’re wrong.” Seth Bullock, had occasion ever demanded it, would have been one of the latter.
In the Cuban War he was unable to get into the Rough Riders, and so joined a cowboy regiment which was never fortunate enough to get over to Cuba, but suffered all its casualties—and there were plenty of them—from typhoid fever, in a camp somewhere in the South. He was made a sort of honorary member of the Rough Riders, and when there were informal reunions held in Washington he was counted upon to take part in them. He was a favorite with every one, from the White House ushers to the French Ambassador. As an honorary member of the Tennis Cabinet he was present at the farewell dinner held in the White House three days before father left the presidency. A bronze cougar by Proctor had been selected as a parting gift, and it was concealed under a mass of flowers in the centre of the table. The Captain had been chosen to make the presentation speech, and when he got up and started fumbling with flowers to disclose the cougar father could not make out what had happened.