Out of plowshares and scrap iron, a blacksmith had forged for each of the outlaws a cuirass and helmet of plate armor, and now at the sound of the approaching train they dressed in this bullet-proof harness. Ned Kelly’s suit weighed ninety-seven pounds, and the others were similar, so clumsy that the wearer could neither run to attack nor mount a horse to escape. Moreover, with a rifle at the shoulder, it was impossible to see for taking aim. So armed, the robbers had got no farther than the hotel veranda when the police charged, and a fierce engagement began. The prisoners huddled within the house had no shelter from its frail board walls, and two of the children were wounded.
Byrne was drinking at the bar when a bullet struck him dead. Ned Kelly, attempting to desert his comrades, made for the yard, but finding that all the horses had been shot, strolled back laughing amid a storm of lead. Every bullet striking his armor made him reel, and he had been five times wounded, but now he began to walk about the yard emptying his revolvers into the police. Then a sergeant fired at his legs and the outlaw dropped, appealing abjectly for his life.
The escape of the panic-stricken prisoners had been arranged, but for hours the fight went on until toward noon the house stood a riddled and ghastly shell, with no sign of life. A bundle of straw was lighted against the gable end, and the building was soon ablaze. Rumors now spread that an old man lay wounded in the house, and a priest gallantly led in a rush of police to the rescue. The old man was saved, and under the thick smoke, Dan Kelly and Hart were seen lying dead upon the floor in their armor.
Ned Kelly died as he had lived, a coward, being almost carried to the gallows, and that evening his sister Kate exhibited herself as a show in a music-hall at Melbourne. So ended this bloody tragedy in hideous farce, and with the destruction of the outlaws closed a long period of disorder. Except in remote regions of the frontier, robbery under arms has ceased forever in the Australasian states.
XXIII
A. D. 1883 THE PASSING OF THE BISON
May I recommend a better book than this? If anybody wants to feel the veritable spirit of adventure, let him read My Life as an Indian, by F. W. Schultz. His life is an example in manliness, his record the best we have of a red Indian tribe, his book the most spacious and lovely in frontier literature.
The Blackfeet got their name from the oil-dressed, arrow-proof leather of their moccasins (skin shoes) which were dark in color. They were profoundly religious, scrupulously clean—bathing daily, even through thick ice, fastidiously moral, a gay light-hearted people of a temper like the French, and even among Indians, the most generous race in the world, they were famed for their hospitality. The savage is to the white man, what the child is to the grown-up, of lesser intellect, but much nearer to God.
When the white men reached the plains, the Blackfeet mustered about forty thousand mounted men, hunters. The national sport was stealing horses and scalps, but there was no organized war until the pressure of the whites drove the tribes westward, crowding them together, so that they had to fight for the good hunting grounds. Then there were wars in which the Blackfeet more than held their own. Next came the smallpox, and afterward the West was not so crowded. Whole nations were swept away, and those that lived were sorely reduced in numbers. After that came white frontiersmen to trade, to hunt, or as missionaries. The Indians called them Hat-wearers, but the Blackfeet had another name—the Stone-hearts. The whites were nearly always welcomed, but presently they came in larger numbers, claiming the land for mining camps and ranching, which drove away the game. The Indians fought the whites, fought for their land and their food, their liberty; but a savage with bow and arrows has no chance against a soldier with a rifle. For every white man killed a hundred would come to the funeral, so the Blackfeet saw that it was no use fighting.
In 1853 they made a treaty that secured them their hunting ground, forever free. The Great Father at Washington pledged his honor, and they were quite content. It was the same with every western tribe that the United States was pledged by solemn treaty which the Indians kept, and the white men always broke. Troops drove the settlers off, but went away and the settlers came back. So young warriors broke loose from the chiefs to scalp those settlers and burn their homes; and the army would break vengeance. Such were the conditions when Schultz, a green New England boy of nineteen, came by steamer up the Missouri to Fort Benton.
The truly respectable reader will be shocked to learn that this misguided youth went into partnership with a half-breed trader, selling water with a flavoring of whisky at very high prices to the Indians. In other words, he earned his living at a very risky trade. He married a Blackfoot girl, becoming a squaw-man, which, as everybody knows, is beneath contempt. In other words, he was honest enough to marry a most charming woman instead of betraying her to ruin. He went on guilty expeditions to snatch scalps and steal horses. He shared the national sports and so learned the inmost heart of a brave people.