Red Cloud, the Solitary Sioux: A Story of the Great Prairie

by Sir William Francis Butler

Meanwhile the trader’s two attendants had sprung to their saddles, apparently more ready for flight than for fight. The onslaught of the Sioux was so sudden and so unexpected that these men had no time to realize the fact that there was only one assailant; more than this, they had engaged with their master to trade, not to fight; and, though neither of them was thoroughly deficient in courage, the first impulse of both on this occasion, was to fly; and had the Sioux been permitted to continue his onward career full upon McDermott he would have found himself alone face to face with his hated foe; but such was not to be.

Between the Sioux and the trader there lay a small swampy spot, half stagnant water, half morass, not more than six paces across; it ran inland from the pool for some distance. The blackened ground lying on every side had completely hidden from the keen eye of the Indian the dangerous nature of the spot. All at once he saw before his horse, now at full gallop, this fatal obstacle. To have checked his horse would have been no easy matter, so impetuous was his rate of motion; but had it been possible to have stayed his own charger, he would have presented such a sure mark for the keen eyes of the men on the further side of the pond as to ensure the destruction of both horse and rider. There was nothing for it then but to go full at the dangerous spot, and trust to strength of horse and skill of rider to come through.

Raising the horse a little in his pace, the Sioux held straight upon his course; the soft ground broke beneath the horse’s feet, but so rapid were the movements of his legs, and so strong were his efforts to draw himself clear of the spongy soil, that for a second or two it seemed as though he would pull through and win the other side. At the far edge, however, a softer and deeper spot opened beneath the vigorous hoof, and, despite all efforts, the brave little animal sank helpless to his girths.

The Sioux sprang to his feet, and in another second he had gained the dry, firm ground at the farther side; but the water of the swamp had for a moment covered his gun, the priming had become hopelessly clogged, and the weapon utterly useless to him. The mishap had given his adversary time for reflection and preparation; and the two retainers, realizing the fact that they were attacked by only one assailant, and that even that one was already half engulfed amid a swamp, took heart and came down to the assistance of their employer; while the trader himself had profited by the delay to jump into his saddle and to fall back out of reach of the Sioux in order to reload his gun.

Long practice in following the herds of buffalo over the prairies at headlong speed, had made him an expert hand at rapid loading and firing on horseback. To throw from his powder-horn a charge of powder loosely into the gun; to spit from his mouth a ball down the muzzle, so that the action caused at the same instant the powder to press out into the priming-pan and the bullet to fit against the powder—these motions of the buffalo-hunter took him but a few seconds, and wheeling his horse at the charge, he now came thundering down full at the Sioux. But though little time had been lost in these movements of loading, enough had passed to enable Red Cloud to change his tactics and to secure himself from the first furious onslaught which he saw impending. Springing across the treacherous morass, he gained the side on which he had first entered it, and with his bow at the “ready” he calmly awaited the charge of his enemy.

While yet fully one hundred yards distant, McDermott saw and realized the change on the part of the Sioux, and knowing the fatal nature of the ground, he forbore not only to risk his horse across the swamp, but to approach within fifty yards of its nearer side—a distance which would have brought him within range of his enemy’s fire; he however looked upon the fate of the Sioux as certain; and well it might appear so to him.

All chance of escape was now cut off; the horse still lay helpless in the morass, buried to the girths; his rider, active and expert though he was on foot, could only hope to delay his fate when pitted in fight against three horsemen, and with nothing but a bow and arrow to oppose to their fire-arms. If the position could not be forced in front, there was ample room to turn its flank and move round it on the hill side. Thus menaced in front and attacked in rear, the position of the Sioux might well seem desperate.

Fully did Red Cloud in these few seconds of time realize the dangers that encompassed him; nevertheless, he thought far less of his own peril than of his inability to meet his deadly foe. Bitterly he repented of his rash onslaught, and still more bitter were his regrets that he should have left his trusty double-barrelled rifle—which he usually carried slung upon his back—in the camp that morning, and that he had no more effective weapon now than the bow and arrows, which he could so dexterously handle, but which were only of use at fifty or sixty yards, while his rifle would have enabled him to cover his enemies at four times that distance. McDermott was, as we have said, no novice in the art of prairie war or chase. He quickly saw the strength or weakness of his adversary’s position.

Calling to his attendants to watch the side of the small swamp nearest to where he stood, and thus prevent the Sioux from again executing a movement across it, he wheeled his horse rapidly to one side, and rode furiously towards the base of the hill, so as to pass round upon the dry ground at the end of the swamp, and bear down upon his foe from behind. As he passed his retainers, he shouted to them to ride up and fire upon the Sioux, promising that the horse and all that belonged to its rider should be the reward of him who would bring the foe to the ground.

The French half-breed showed little inclination, however, to render the already long odds against the Sioux still more desperate; but the Salteaux belonged to a tribe long at deadly enmity with the Sioux nation, and he also inherited much of the cowardly ferocity of his own tribe, who, unable to cope in the open country with their enemies, never scrupled to obtain trophies which they could not win in war, by the aid of treacherous surprise or dastardly night attacks. The present was a kind of warfare peculiarly suited to his instincts, and he now rode forward to fire upon the Sioux across the swamp, at the moment when he would be engaged with a more formidable enemy on his own side.