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

by Sir William Francis Butler

For some miles we had followed a tract of low meadow-land along the river; but now the Sioux led across the frozen stream, and slipping his feet from the snowshoe-strings as he gained the farther shore, he began to ascend a very steep ridge that rose directly from the opposite bank.

The dogs worked might and main to follow their leader. I urged them with voice and whip from behind; and up the slippery ridge we scrambled until the top was gained. Here a halt was made, to recover breath and take a survey of the scene.

Beneath, spreading away for many a mile, lay a broken and wooded region, over which patches of dark green pine-trees stood in marked contrast to the snowy surface of level and ridge. Here and there the eye caught glimpses of unbroken sheets of snow, telling the presence of frozen lakelets beneath. Indeed, the pine-trees were themselves sufficient to indicate the fact of water in abundance being there, for it was water alone that had protected them in the dry autumn days from the wild ravage of the prairie fire.

The Sioux scanned with careful sweep of vision all the wide scene from east to west. Then seemingly satisfied with his scrutiny, he resumed his snowshoes, and struck down a long gradual incline towards the belt of woodland.

It wanted but an hour of sunset when the first pine-trees were reached; and shortly after, the small grey owl’s hoot sounding through the vast solitude bade us select a thick clump of firs, in the midst of which a cosey camp was quickly made.

Few who have not experienced it can realize the full measure of comfort which the wilderness, even in the depth of winter, can hold forth to its denizens. It seems difficult to believe that a camp, made in the open snow, amid a clump of fir-trees, with nought save the branches between the traveller and the sky, with only the frozen earth swept clear of snow for his floor, and with blankets and a skin for bed and covering, could be anything save the most miserable of lodging-places. But it is marvellous how quickly the wild hunter will change these unpromising materials into a spot where genial warmth can be felt, where rest can come to weary limbs, where food can fill hungry stomachs, and the pipe of peace can be smoked in pleasant repose.

At first the night was still and fine; but as the midnight hour drew on the wind arose, and the tree-tops began to bend their heads, and the melancholy cadence of the swaying branches fell upon our ears as we slept.

Long habit had given the Sioux the faculty of consciousness in sleep; the senses, all save that of sight, still carried to his brain their various messages.

The swaying of the branches soon roused him to wakefulness, and throwing aside his robe he looked out at the night. The fire had burned down to ashes, which the night-wind, when its gusts came strongly now and again, blew into dull red embers. The snow-light made visible the tree-trunks around. Overhead he could mark the clouds moving rapidly from the east; the storm was rising.

He got up, raked the ashes together, threw some wood upon the embers, and sat down to watch the flickering flames and to wait for the dawn. The noise awoke me, and I watched him from where I lay. Oftentimes it was his wont thus to sit watching in those hours of the late night. More than once I had, on other occasions, looked out from my robe, to see thus seated before a few embers the figure of my friend. Who can tell the thoughts that at such moments passed through the mind of this strange man? Memories of that great wilderness he loved so well—of these vast solitudes, which to him had nothing awful. Glimpses of far-stretching prairies—of rivers flowing in wide curves through endless distances—of trees sinking beneath waves of meadow-land. Such were the scenes he saw in the pine-fire embers. Then too he would listen to the voice of the tempest in far-off forests; and as the sound swept through the lone hours of the night, there came to him many a thought of boyhood in the land lost to his tribe. But always, as he has often told me, his mind running along those grooves found the same resting-place—the spot where, in the island of the mountains, lay the bones of his murdered father. And then, with all the bitter wrath of his heart fanned into flame, he would rise to his feet, and stalk away into the dark forest or the silent prairie, and looking up at the cold stars he would cry, “Father, thy son does not sleep. He wanders over the earth only to revenge thy fate.”