Chapter XIII: Part 13

He found Nikumi back at her tipi: the kettle was hung from the tripod of three sticks over the fire, and a savory smell arose which he sniffed with pleasure as he approached, for Nikumi was favored above her tribe in the supplies which she received from the camp, and which included great luxuries to the Indians. Nikumi was very generous to her relatives and friends, and often shared with them the pot which she had varied from the original Indian dish of similar origin by diligently observing the methods of the camp cooks.

She had learned to use dishes, too, and bringing forth two bowls, some spoons, and a tin cup, ladled some of the savory mixture into them, for she had evidently learned the same lesson as her white sisters: when you would get the best service from a man, feed him well.

On the present site of Fort Atkinson may be found, wherever the ground is plowed over or the piles of bricks and depressions that mark the cellars of the buildings are overhauled, a profusion of old buttons, fragments of firearms, cannon balls and shells, and many pieces of delf. A quaint old antiquarian who lives there has a large collection of them which he shows with delight.

Who knows but that some of the fragments are pieces of Nikumi's bowl, for as her brother told her of Gale's words to Sarpy, her face added to its bronze hue an indescribable grayish tinge, and starting suddenly, the bowl fell from her hand, striking the stones which formed a circle for the fire, and broke into fragments. She forgot to eat, and a rapid flow of words from her lips was accompanied by gestures that almost spoke. They should keep strict watch of the loading of the boats, she said, and of the voyageurs in charge of them, and when they saw signs of departure of them, she would take the child and go--and she pointed, but spoke no word. He must make a little cave in the hillside, and cover it with trees and boughs, and she would provide food. When the white medicine man had gone he could tell her by a strip of red tied in the branch of a tree like a bird, which could be seen down the ravine from her hiding place, and she would be found again in her tipi as if she had never been absent. He grunted assent as well as satisfaction at the innumerable bowls of soup, and then stretched himself comfortably and pulled out his pipe.

Meanwhile little Mary, the heroine of this intrigue, was eating soup and sucking a bone contentedly. Would she be an Indian or an English maiden? She was an Indian one now and happy, too. And Nikumi? She had come to her white husband and remained with him contented and happy. He had been good to her in the main, although he swore at her and abused her sometimes when he got drunk or played at cards too long, but he was better than the braves were to their squaws, and she did not have to work as they did; she had wood and food and she could buy at the trading post the blankets and the strouding and the gay red cloths, and the beads with which the squaws delighted to adorn their necks and to stitch with deer sinew into their moccasins. She had lived each day unconscious that there might not be a tomorrow like it. But it had dropped from the skies, this sudden knowledge that had changed everything.

Had she had no child she would doubtless have mourned silently for the man who had come and taken her life to be lived beside his and then left her worse than alone; but the greater blow had deadened the force of the lesser, and only her outraged mother love cried out.

She sat on the buffalo robe inside the tipi and watched the child rolling about outside with the little fat puppy, hugging it one moment, savagely spatting it over the eyes the next. She had no right to rebel; an Indian did what he would with his squaw, how much more a white man, and to any decree concerning herself she would doubtless have submitted silently, but to lose her child--that she would not do, and she knew how to save it.

All unconscious of this intrigue, Gale made his preparations for departure, and it was soon known through the camp that he was about to go to the "states."

He had taken pains to conceal the fact of his intended final departure for England.

He secretly made arrangements with the man who acted as cook for the boats to take charge of little Mary until they got to St. Louis, where they could get a servant, and going down the river would take but a few days.

Gale's condition of mind was not to be envied during the interval before he started. He scarcely felt the injustice to Nikumi in thus leaving her, but he could not quite reconcile with even his weak sense of her rights that he should take the child away from her, and yet he fully intended to do so. He spent much of the time with Nikumi at her summer residence, the tipi, and she treated him with the same gentle deference and quiet submissiveness that were usual to her, so completely deceiving him that he did not once surmise she knew anything of his plans. The last two or three days he occupied himself in packing a case of articles of various kinds that he had accumulated: an Indian pipe of the famous red pipestone of the Sioux country, with its long flat stem of wood cut out in various designs and decorated with feathers and bits of metal; moccasins of deer skin, handsomely beaded and trimmed with fringes, some of them made by Nikumi's own hands; specimens of the strange Mexican cloths woven from the plumage of birds, brought by the trading Mexicans up the Santa Fe trail; a pair of their beautiful blankets, one robe, a few very fine furs, among them a black bear skin of immense size, a little mat woven of the perfumed grasses, which the Indians could find but the white man never, some of the nose and ear rings worn by the squaws.

Nikumi came to his quarters while he was taking these things down from the walls and shelves where she had always cared for them with so much pride. In answer to her inquiring gaze he said: "I go Nikumi, to the far eastern land, and these I shall take with me to show my friends what we had that is beautiful in the land of the Indian and the buffalo, that they wish to know all about." "And when will you return to Nikumi and Mary?" "I can not tell; I hope before many moons; will you grieve to have me go Nikumi?" "Nikumi will look every day to the rising sun and ask the Great Spirit to send her pale-faced medicine man back safely to her and the child." He put his arms about her with a strange spasm of heart relenting, realizing for a moment the wrong he was purposing to commit. But ah, the stronger taking advantage of the weaker. The strong race using for their own pleasure the weak one. "Ye that are strong ought to help the weak." He also prepared at Sarpy's trading post, and by his advice, a smaller package of such things as would be desirable for little Mary's welfare and comfort.

It was greatly lacking in the articles we should consider necessary these times, but when we realize that every piece of merchandise which reached this far away post had to be transported thousands of miles by river it is matter of wonder how much there was.

The morning of the day before the boats were to start he occupied himself with some last preparations, giving Nikumi a number of articles that she had used around his quarters to take to her tipi, and telling her he would leave money with Sarpy so that she might get what was necessary for herself and Mary. In the afternoon he went down to the post and did not return to the quarters until late, where he supped at the mess table and then went in the direction of Nikumi's tent. He had devised, he thought, a cunning plan to get Nikumi to go the next morning for some fresh leaves of a shrub which she often procured for him to mix in his tobacco, and of which he was very fond; and after her departure he would make for the boat and embark hastily with little Mary, whom he would keep. Resolving the broaching of his plan as he approached the tipi, he did not notice that it failed to show the usual signs of habitation until he drew near when he observed that the kettle hanging from the tripod over the circle of stones had no fire beneath it, and no steam issuing from it, no dogs were playing about, and there was no sign of Nikumi and little Mary. He began to look about for them; the flap of skin usually fastened up to form a doorway was dropped down; he put it up and stooping, entered the tipi. It was almost entirely empty; the skins which had formed the beds were gone; the dishes seemed to be there, but the food of which he knew she always kept a supply, was all gone, and there were no signs of the articles of clothing belonging to them. Sarpy's words come to him, "I'm damned if I think you are smart enough to get the child away from its mother," and he knew that Nikumi had outwitted him. He should never see mother or child again.

He turned and traced angrily the narrow trail to Sarpy's. Striding in and down the low, dingy, fur odorous room to the rear where Sarpy sat lazily smoking his pipe he exclaimed, "You were right, Sarpy, Nikumi has gone with the child." Sarpy took his pipe from his mouth slowly, "Well I'm sorry you are disappointed, but it will be better for you and the child, too; she would have grieved herself to death, and worried you almost to the verge of lunacy first, and you would have had the burden on your conscience of Nikumi unhappy, and all for no good." "But I'll not give her up. I had set my heart on it; I shall start a search party for her at once." "And much good it will do you. There isn't a soldier in your camp that can find what an Indian chooses to hide, if it is not more than six feet away from him. You will only inform the camp of your design and of the fact that a squaw has outwitted you."

Gale knew too well the truth of his statement, but he paced up and down the building angrily for some time, determining at each turn towards the door to start out at the head of a search party, but turning again with an oath toward the rear as the futility of it all was forced upon him.

Sarpy regarded him quietly, a half smile in his eyes. He understood the conflict of feelings, the pain at leaving Nikumi, not very great, but enough to cause him some discomfort; the now added pain of separation from the child, also; the chagrin at being outwitted by a squaw, and one who had always seemed so submissive, and whom he had not dreamed possessed so much acuteness; the English obstinacy aroused by antagonism, all struggling against his knowledge that he could do nothing. Sarpy in his place would have invoked all the spirits of the darker regions, but he probably would never have put himself in a like predicament. To his class, seekers of fortunes in the New World, the Indian was simply a source of revenue and pleasure, treated fairly well to be sure, because that was the better policy; while it suited their convenience to use them they did so; when the need was supplied they cast them off; possibly Gale, if he analyzed the situation at all, thought the same, but under the present circumstances, a different set of emotions dominated him. Nikumi, superior to her tribe, had inspired inconveniently deep feelings, and he found his fatherly love a factor he had not counted on.

At last he approached Sarpy, and throwing himself in a chair, took out one of the two great soothers of man's woes, his pipe, lighted it and proceeded to mingle its smoke with that of Sarpy's. "I suppose I shall have to give it up, but I'm damned if I can submit to it with equanimity, yet; outwitted by an apparently innocent and submissive squaw, I suppose two months from now I'll be thanking my lucky stars that I'm not saddled with a brat of an Indian, and at intervals thereafter shall be falling upon my knees, and repeating the operation. But I'm blessed if I can see it so now."

"Yes it will be better for you as well as the others, and as soon as you get away from here you will view it very differently," said Sarpy.

And Nikumi in her cave dug into the bluff, held her baby tight in her arms, and listened to every sound, while she watched by aid of the rude but cunningly devised dark lantern, the reptiles and insects which crawled about, moving only to dispatch a snake or two that were venomous.

Could Gale have seen her would he have relented and left the child to her? Has it been the history of the union of the stronger and weaker races that the stronger have given up their desires?

"You will have to look out for Mary, too, Sarpy, as you have promised to do for Nikumi. I haven't any more money to leave with you at present, but I will send you some from England. I don't want her to grow up without any education at all, and have to slave and toil as squaws do generally, nor Nikumi either." "I'll see to them," said Sarpy, briefly, "there isn't much chance for education unless they keep up the post here and she be permitted to learn with the white children; for I don't suppose Nikumi will ever let her go away to school as Fontenelle sends his boys, but she shall have what education she can get and Nikumi shall not be obliged to go back to her tribe for support as long as I am here," and the smoke of the Frenchman's and Englishman's pipes ascended to ratify this compact.

The next day at sunrise the boats dropped swiftly down the river. A figure at the stern of one of them watched until the last sign of the landing place faded in the early morning light.

Dr. Gale had played a brief part in the settlement of a new country from which he now disappeared as if he had never been.

In after years only the few who belonged to that early settlement remembered that Mary was his child, and told of it sometimes, when they recounted the adventurous life of those early days. A young man listened to these reminiscences from the lips of the strange, irascible, but warm hearted Frenchman, and treasured them in memory. Hence this true tale. Nikumi released from her reptile inhabited cave by the little red bird in the tree down the ravine, came back to her tipi. She had kept her child but she had lost her lover and her life. How should she take it up again? She had been always quiet and little given to the chatter and laughter of the young squaws; she was only a little more quiet now, and Mary's lot was decided; she would always be an Indian woman.

One day Sarpy came to her and told her that Gale had left money for her and she was to come to the fort for what she wished. And after a time it came to pass that Sarpy took her to wife as Gale had done. Perhaps that was in his mind when he looked at Gale with a smile in his eyes; but Nikumi would not listen to him till she had waited long, and until Sarpy told her and she heard from others that Gale would never come again. And she was his faithful wife for many years, occupying always, because of her inherent dignity and real womanliness, a position high in the estimation both of the white and the red men. Many tales are told of her life with Sarpy, how at one time she carried him miles on her back when he was stricken with fever in the mountains, until she brought him to aid and safety. Another time when he had given orders that no more goods should be given her from the post (she was always very liberal to her relatives and he wished to check it) she quietly picked up two or three bolts of calico, and walking to the river bank, threw them in; a second armful followed, and then the enemy capitulated. And still another time when Sarpy had bought a beautiful black mare, "Starlight," to minister to the pleasure of a designing English widow, she one day quietly appeared when the horse was driven round by Sarpy's black servant, and ordered it taken to the stable, and enforced the order, too. But this is another story.

In later years, as Sarpy's dominion ceased with the gradual decline of the fur company, and he spent much of his time in St. Louis, Nikumi lived with Mary, who had married an Indian like herself, with a mixture of white blood in his veins, although he was French, and who occupied a prominent position in one of the tribes to whom was given a distinct reservation. From this mixture of English, French, and Indian bloods has arisen a family which stands at the head of their tribe, and one member who is known throughout this country. It is worthy of notice, too, that with one exception it has been the women of the family who have shown the qualities which gave them preÎminence.

Nikumi died March 23, 1888, at the home of her daughter Mary; but her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren live to show that sometimes the mixture of races tends to development of the virtues, and not, as has been so often said, of the vices of both races.

THE HEROINE OF THE JULES-SLADE TRAGEDY

BY MRS. HARRIET S. MACMURPHY

Our two weeks' ride over Iowa prairies was ended and we had reached our new home in Nebraska. I sat in the buggy, a child of twelve, with my three-year-old brother beside me, on the eastern bank of the Missouri river, while father went down where the ferry boat lay, to make ready for our crossing.

In the doorway of a log cabin near by stood a young girl two or three years older than I. We gazed at each other shyly. She was bare-headed and bare-footed, her cheeks tanned, and her abundant black hair roughened with the wind, but her eyes were dark and her figure had the grace of untrammeled out door life. To my girl's standard she did not appeal, and I had not then the faintest conception of the romance and tragedy of which she was the heroine.

We gazed at each other until father gave the signal for me to drive down on the clumsy raft-like boat behind the covered half-wagon half-carriage that held the other members of our family, which I did in fear and trembling that did not cease until we had swung in and out as the boat strained at the rope to which it was attached, the waters of the "Old Muddy," the like of which I had never seen before, straining and drawing it down with the current, and a fresh spasm of fear was added as we reached the far shore and dropped off the boat with a thud down into the soft bank. We had reached Decatur, our future Nebraska home, adjoining the Indian reservation with its thousand Omahas.

For a long time I did not know anything further of the girl of the log cabin by the river side, only that they told us the family were named Keyou and the men were boatmen and fishermen and ran the ferry. This first chapter of my little story opened in the spring of 1863.

Six years later my girlhood's romance brought marriage with my home-coming soldier, who in his first days in the territory of Nebraska had passed through many of the romantic events that a life among the Indians would bring, among them clerking in a trading post with one "Billy" Becksted, now the husband of my maiden of the riverside log cabin. And Billy and John always continued the comradeship of the free, happy, prairie hunting life, riding the "buckskin" ponies with which they began life together, although they came together from very different walks of life.

And I learned of my husband that "Addie," as we had learned to call her, young as she was when first I saw her, had been the wife of a Frenchman named Jules, after whom the town of Julesburg (Colorado) is named, and his dreadful death at the hands of one Slade was one of the stock stories of the plains well known to every early settler.

Billy and Addie after a time drifted away from Decatur down the river and we lost sight of them.

We, too, left the home town and became residents of Plattsmouth.

One day my husband, returning from a trip in the country said, "I ran across Billy and Addie Becksted today and they were so glad to see me that Addie put her arms round me and kissed me, with tears in her eyes." Later we learned with sorrow that Billy was drinking and then that he had come down to Plattsmouth and tried to find my husband, who was out of town and had gone back home and when almost there had taken a dose of morphine, and they had found him unconscious and dying near their log cabin under the bluffs half a mile above the Bellevue station. And my husband really mourned that he had not been at home, perhaps to have kept good-hearted Billy from his woeful fate. After a time Addie married Elton, a brother of Billy's, and one Sunday I persuaded my husband to go down to them in their cabin under the bluffs.

"I have always wanted to get Addie to tell me her story of her life with Jules," I said.

"I don't believe you can get her to talk about it," said Mac, "she never speaks of it, Elton says."

We went, and they were delighted to see us, killed the fatted chicken and gathered for us some of the wild berries that grew in the bluffs, and then as we sat under the trees with the bluff towering above us, I asked her for the story of her girlhood's days out on the plains, when only a single house that sheltered three or four people was her home, and not another for many miles.

"I was just a child," she said, "and Jules was more like my father than my husband. But there were few women in the country in those days and Jules said to my parents that he would take good care of me, and so they gave me to him, and they went on to Denver. He had a man and his wife to take care of the place and do the work, and I just did whatever I wanted to. We were on the great trail to California and Pike's Peak and trains would come by and purchase supplies from us, so I did not get lonesome. Jules had had some trouble with a man named Slade a few years before and had shot Slade, but had taken him to Denver and put him in a hospital and paid to have him cared for and Slade and he had made it all up, my husband thought. Slade's ranch was further west and on the other side of his ranch Jules had another ranch with cattle on, and one day he started off with two or three men to bring some of the cattle back. He had been told that Slade had threatened to kill him but he did not believe it, although he went armed and with good men, he thought. This time he did not take me along as he had the cattle to drive. When he got near Slade's place Slade and his gang came down on Jules and his men, shouting and shooting, drove off Jules' men, took him and carried him to Slade's ranch. One of Jules' men followed them and saw them tie Jules up to a great box and then Slade stood a ways off with his rifle and shot at Jules, just missing his ear or his neck or his hand that was stretched out and tied; sometimes hitting him just enough to draw the blood. He kept this up all the rest of the day and then towards night he fired a shot that killed him. The boys who were with Jules came back to us and told us what had been done. We were so frightened we did not know what to do at first, for we expected every minute that Slade and his gang would come and kill us. They did come the next day and carried off a lot of the stuff we had in the trading post but did not do any harm to us. The man and his wife that were with us and the boys then got a team together and put enough stuff into the wagon to do us until we could get to Denver. All the rest and the cattle I guess Slade got. Jules had money in some bank in Denver, he had always said, but we never could find it. I found my folks and after a while we came back here where we had lived before we went to Denver."

She told her story in the simplest commonplace manner, but it did not need any addition of word or gesture to paint on my memory for all time the pathos beneath.

A girl of fourteen, happy and care-free under the protection of her father husband one day, putting him in the place of father, and mother, trusting to him, and suddenly standing beside the rude trading post way out on the treeless spaces of the trail that seemed to come from solitude and lead away to it again, and listening to the story of the frightened cowboy on his broncho whose almost unintelligible words finally made her understand that her protector, the kind man she had learned to love, had died a death so horrible it would make the strongest man shudder. And with only three or four frightened, irresponsible people to save her, perhaps from a similar or worse fate? But the women of the plains had but little childhood, and must act the part that came to them no matter what it might be.

Afterward she told me more of her strange life with Jules, of his fatherly, protecting care of her, of his good heart, of the trouble with Slade, which was Slade's fault in the first place, and it was plain to see the ideal that had always been cherished way down in her subconsciousness of the man who played such an eventful but brief part in her life. It was a wrong, perhaps, but natural feeling to have when I found by after reading of annals of the plains that Slade died the death that such a fiendish nature should have suffered.

Addie Becksted still lives in a little cabin down among the hills about Bellevue, her children and grandchildren about her, and still bears traces of the beauty that was hers as a girl. She is only about ten miles distant from Omaha but has not visited it for years.

When I go to see her, as I do occasionally, she puts her arms about me and kisses me on the cheek. And her still bright brown eyes look the affection of all the years and events that we have known together.

It is well worth while to have these humble friends who have lived through the pioneer days with us.

THE LAST ROMANTIC BUFFALO HUNT ON THE PLAINS OF NEBRASKA

BY JOHN LEE WEBSTER

In the autumn of 1872 a group of men, some of whom were then prominent in Nebraska history, Judge Elmer S. Dundy and Colonel Watson B. Smith, and one who afterward achieved national fame as an American explorer, Lieutenant Frederick Schwatka, and another who has since become known throughout Europe and America as a picturesque character and showman, Colonel Wm. F. Cody, participated in what proved to be the last romantic buffalo hunt upon the western plains of the state of Nebraska.

Elmer S. Dundy was a pioneer who had come to Nebraska in 1857. He had been a member of the territorial legislature for two successive terms; he was appointed a territorial judge in 1863, and became the first United States district judge after the admission of the state into the union. Colonel Watson B. Smith at that time held the office of clerk of the United States district and circuit courts for the district of Nebraska. Some years afterward he met a tragic death by being shot (accidentally or by assassination) in the corridors of the federal building in the city of Omaha. Colonel Smith was a lovable man, of the highest unimpeachable integrity and a most efficient public officer. There was also among the number James Neville, who at that time held the office of United States attorney and who afterward became a judge of the district court of Douglas county. He added zest, vim, and spirit by reason of some personal peculiarities to be mentioned later on.

These men, with the writer of this sketch, were anxious to have the experience and the enjoyment of the stimulating excitement of participating in a buffalo hunt before those native wild animals of the plains should become entirely extinct. To them it was to be a romantic incident in their lives and long to be remembered as an event of pioneer days. They enjoyed the luxury of a pullman car from Omaha to North Platte, which at that time was little more than a railway station at a division point upon the Union Pacific, and where was also located a military post occupied by a battalion of United States cavalry.

Erected in Antelope Park, Lincoln, Nebraska, by Deborah Avery Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, in memory of Mary M. A. Stevens, First Regent of the Chapter (1896-1898). Dedicated, June 17, 1914. Cost $300]

Lieutenant Frederick Schwatka, a regular army officer and American explorer, at one time commanded an arctic expedition in search of traces of the remains of Dr. Franklin. At another time he was in command of an exploring expedition of the Yukon river. At another time he commanded an expedition into the northernmost regions of Alaska in the interest of the New York _Times_. He also became a writer and the author of three quite well known books: _Along Alaska's Great River_, _Nimrod in the North_, and _Children of the Cold_.

At the time of which we are speaking Lieutenant Schwatka was stationed at the military post at North Platte. He furnished us with the necessary army horses and equipment for the hunting expedition, and he himself went along in command of a squad of cavalry which acted as an escort to protect us if need be when we should get into the frontier regions where the Indians were at times still engaged in the quest of game and sometimes in unfriendly raids.

William F. Cody, familiarly known as "Buffalo Bill," who had already achieved a reputation as a guide and hunter and who has since won a world reputation as a showman, went along with us as courier and chief hunter. He went on similar expeditions into the wilder regions of Wyoming with General Phil Sheridan, the Grand Duke Alexis, and others quite equally celebrated.

This Omaha group of amateur buffalo hunters, led by Buffalo Bill and escorted by Lieutenant Schwatka and his squad of cavalry, rode on the afternoon of the first day from North Platte to Fort McPherson and there camped for the night with the bare earth and a blanket for a bed and a small army tent for shelter and cover.

On the next morning after a rude army breakfast, eaten while we sat about upon the ground, and without the luxury of a bath or a change of wearing apparel, this cavalcade renewed its journey in a southwesterly direction expecting ultimately to reach the valley of the Republican. We consumed the entire day in traveling over what seemed almost a barren waste of undulating prairie, except where here and there it was broken by a higher upland and now and then crossed by a ravine and occasionally by a small stream of running water, along the banks of which might be found a small growth of timber. The visible area of the landscape was so great that it seemed boundless--an immense wilderness of space, and the altitude added to the invigorating and stimulating effect of the atmosphere.

We amateurs were constantly in anticipation of seeing either wild animals or Indians that might add to the spirit and zest of the expedition. There were no habitations, no fields, no farms. There was the vast expanse of plain in front of us ascending gradually westward toward the mountains with the blue sky and sunshine overhead. I do not recollect of seeing more than one little cabin or one little pioneer ranch during that whole day's ride. I do know that as the afternoon wore on those of us who were amateur horsemen were pleased to take our turns as the opportunity offered of riding in the army wagon which carried our supplies, and leading our horses.

When the shades of night of the second day had come we had seen many antelope and now and then heard the cry of the coyote and the wolf but we had not seen any sign of buffalo, but we did receive information from some cattlemen or plain wanderers that there was a band of roving Indians in that vicinity which created in us a feeling of some anxiety--not so much for our personal safety as that our horses might be stolen and we be left in these remote regions without the necessary facilities for traveling homeward.

Our camp for the night was made upon a spot of low ground near the bank of a small creek which was bordered by hills on either side and sheltered by a small grove of timber near at hand. The surrounding hills would cut off the sight of the evening camp fires, and the timber would obscure the ascending columns of smoke as they spread into space through the branches of the trees.

The horses were picketed near the camp around the commissary wagon and Lieutenant Schwatka placed the cavalrymen upon sentinel duty. The night was spent with some restlessness and sleep was somewhat disturbed in anticipation of a possible danger, and I believe that all of us rather anxiously awaited the coming of the morning with the eastern sunlight that we might be restored to that feeling of security that would come with freedom of action and the opportunity for "preparedness." When morning did come we had the pleasure of greeting each other with pleasant smiles and a feeling of happy contentment. We had not been molested by the Indians and our military sentinels had not seen them.

On the afternoon of the third day of our march into the wilderness we reached the farther margin of a high upland of the rim of a plain, where we had an opportunity of looking down over a large area of bottom land covered by vegetation and where there appeared to be signs of water. From this point of vantage we discovered a small herd of browsing buffalo but so far away from us as to be beyond rifle range. These animals were apparently so far away from civilization or human habitation of any kind that their animal instinct gave them a feeling of safety and security.

We well knew that these animals could scent the approach of men and horses even when beyond the line of vision. We must study the currents of the air and plan our maneuvers with the utmost caution if we expected to be able to approach within any reasonable distance without being first discovered by them.

We intrusted ourselves to the guidance of Buffalo Bill, whose experience added to his good judgment, and so skilfully did he conduct our maneuvers around the hills and up and down ravines that within an hour we were within a reasonable distance of these wild animals before they discovered us, and then the chase began. It was a part of the plan that we should surround them but we were prudently cautioned by Mr. Cody that a buffalo could run faster for a short distance than our horses. Therefore we must keep far enough away so that if the buffalo should turn toward any of us we could immediately turn and flee in the opposite direction as fast as our horses could carry us.

I must stop for a moment to recite a romantic incident which made this buffalo chase especially picturesque and amusing. Judge Neville had been in the habit of wearing in Omaha a high silk hat and a full dress coat (in common parlance a spiketail). He started out on this expedition wearing this suit of clothes and without any change of garments to wear on the hunt. So it came about that when this group of amateur buffalo huntsmen went riding pell-mell over the prairies after the buffalo, and likewise when pursued by them in turn, Judge Neville sat astride his running war-horse wearing his high silk hat and the long flaps of his spiketail coat floating out behind him on the breeze as if waving a farewell adieu to all his companions. He presented a picture against the horizon that does not have its parallel in all pioneer history.

It was entirely impossible for us inexperienced buffalo hunters while riding galloping horses across the plains to fire our rifles with any degree of accuracy. Suffice it to say we did not succeed in shooting any buffalo and I don't now even know that we tried to do so. We were too much taken up with the excitement of the chase and of being chased in turn. At one time we were the pursuers and at another time we were being pursued, but the excitement was so intense that there was no limit to our enjoyment or enthusiasm.

Buffalo Bill furnished us the unusual and soul-stirring amusement of that afternoon. He took it upon himself individually to lasso the largest bull buffalo of the herd while the rest of us did but little more than to direct the course of the flight of these wild animals, or perhaps, more correctly expressed--to keep out of their way. It did not take Buffalo Bill very long to lasso the large bull buffalo as his fleet blooded horse circled around the startled wild animal. When evening came we left the lassoed buffalo out on the plains solitary and alone, lariated to a stake driven into the ground so firmly that we felt quite sure he could not escape. It is my impression that we captured a young buffalo out of the small herd, which we placed in a corral found in that vicinity.

On the following morning we went out upon the plains to get the lassoed buffalo and found that in his efforts to break away he had broken one of his legs. We were confronted with the question whether we should let the animal loose upon the prairies in his crippled condition or whether it would be a more merciful thing to shoot him and put him out of his pain and suffering. Buffalo Bill solved the vexatious problem by concluding to lead the crippled animal over to the ranchman's house and there he obtained such instruments as he could, including a butcher knife, a hand-saw, and a bar of iron. He amputated the limb of the buffalo above the point of the break in the bone and seared it over with a hot iron to close the artery and prevent the animal from bleeding to death. The surgical operation thus rudely performed upon this big, robust wild animal of the prairie seemed to be quite well and successfully performed. The buffalo was then left in the ranchman's corral with the understanding that he would see it was well fed and watered.

We were now quite a way from civilization and near the Colorado border line, and notwithstanding our subsequent riding over the hills and uplands during the following day we did not discover any other buffalo and those which had gotten away from us on the preceding day could not be found. During that day we turned northward, and I can remember that about noon we came to a cattleman's ranch where for the first time since our start on the journey we sat down to a wooden table in a log cabin for our noonday meal. During the afternoon we traveled northward as rapidly as our horses could carry us but night came on when we were twenty miles or more southwest of Fort McPherson and we found it again necessary to go into camp for the night, sleeping in the little army tents which we carried along with us in the commissary wagon.

Colonel Cody on this journey had been riding his own private horse--a beautiful animal, capable of great speed. I can remember quite well that Mr. Cody said that he never slept out at night when within twenty miles of his own home. He declined to go into camp with us but turned his horse to the northward and gave him the full rein and started off at a rapid gallop over the plains, expecting to reach his home before the hour of midnight. It seemed to us that it would be a desolate, dreary, lonesome and perilous ride over the solitude of that waste of country, without roads, without lights, without sign boards or guides, but Buffalo Bill said he knew the direction from the stars and that he would trust his good horse to safely carry him over depressions and ravines notwithstanding the darkness of the night. So on he sped northward toward his home.

On the next day we amateur buffalo hunters rode on to Fort McPherson and thence to North Platte where we returned our army horses to the military post with a debt of gratitude to Lieutenant Schwatka, who at all times had been generous, courteous, and polite to us, as well as an interesting social companion.

So ended the last romantic and rather unsuccessful buffalo hunt over the western plains of the state of Nebraska--a region then desolate, arid, barren, and almost totally uninhabited, but today a wealthy and productive part of our state.

The story of the buffalo hunt in and of itself is not an incident of much importance but it furnishes the material for a most remarkable contrast of development within a period of a generation. The wild buffalo has gone. The aboriginal red man of the plains has disappeared. The white man with the new civilization has stepped into their places. It all seems to have been a part of Nature's great plan. Out of the desolation of the past there has come the new life with the new civilization, just as new worlds and their satellites have been created out of the dust of dead worlds.

There was a glory of the wilderness but it has gone. There was a mystery that haunted all those barren plains but that too has gone. Now there are fields and houses and schools and groves of forest trees and villages and towns, all prosperous under the same warm sunshine as of a generation ago when the buffalo grazed on the meadow lands and the aboriginal Indians hunted over the plains.

Twelfth State Regent, Nebraska Society, Daughters of the American Revolution. 1915-1916]

OUTLINE HISTORY OF THE NEBRASKA SOCIETY, DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

BY MRS. CHARLES H. AULL, _State Regent_

The National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution was organized in Washington, District of Columbia, October 11, 1890, and incorporated under the laws of Congress, June 8, 1891. Its charter membership numbered 818. Its declared object was:

"To perpetuate the memory of the spirit of the men and women who
achieved American Independence by the acquisition and protection of
historical spots, and the erection of monuments; by the
encouragement of historical research in relation to the Revolution
and the publication of its results; by the preservation of
documents and relics, and of the records of the individual services
of revolutionary soldiers and patriots, and by the promotion of
celebrations of all patriotic anniversaries.

"To carry out the injunction of Washington in his farewell address
to the American people, 'to promote, as an object of primary
importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge,'
thus developing an enlightened public opinion, and affording to
young and old such advantages as shall develop in them the largest
capacity for performing the duties of American citizens.

"To cherish, maintain, and extend the institutions of American
freedom, to foster true patriotism and love of country, and to aid
in securing for mankind all the blessings of liberty."

Although there were previously some "members at large" in Nebraska, no chapter had been organized until the formation of Deborah Avery chapter in 1896. At present (1916) there are thirty-three chapters with a membership of fifteen hundred, and a well organized state society actively engaged in historical, educational, and patriotic work. Each chapter pays to the state society a per capita tax of twenty-five cents. A conference is held annually to plan the state work and promote the purposes of the national society.

Mrs. Charlotte F. Palmer of Omaha was appointed by the national society as organizing regent for Nebraska, June 7, 1894. She was reappointed in February, 1895, and again in February, 1896.

No chapters were formed until in 1896, when Mary M. A. Stevens of Lincoln was admitted to membership in the national society, January 8, and was made organizing regent by Mrs. Philip Hichborn, vice-president general in charge of organization. Under the direction of Miss Stevens, Deborah Avery chapter was formed May 15, 1896, and chartered June 17 following.

In May, 1896, Mrs. Laura B. Pound of Lincoln was appointed state regent to succeed Mrs. Palmer and the real work of organization was begun.

Omaha chapter was formed June 29, 1896, and approved by the national society October 1, 1896. In December, 1896, Mrs. Elizabeth C. Langworthy was appointed organizing regent at Seward but a chapter was not completed there until nine years later. In February, 1897, Mary M. A. Stevens of Deborah Avery chapter and Mrs. Henry L. Jaynes of Omaha chapter were delegates to the continental congress at Washington. Miss Stevens nominated Mrs. Pound for state regent and Mrs. Jaynes nominated Mrs. John M. Thurston of Omaha for vice-president general from Nebraska. Their election followed. Mrs. Thurston died March 14, 1898, and her sister-in-law, Mrs. Angie Thurston Newman of Lincoln was elected at the following congress to succeed her. No new chapters were perfected in 1897 but Minnie Shedd Cline of Minden and Mrs. Sarah G. Bates of Valentine were appointed organizing regents.

Mrs. Frances Avery Haggard of Lincoln was elected state regent by the continental congress in February, 1898. She devoted her energies to raising money and supplies for the relief work undertaken by the Daughters during the Spanish-American war. At the close of her first term Mrs. Haggard declined a renomination.

The third state regent was Mrs. Elizabeth Towle of Omaha, who was first elected in 1899 and reÎlected in 1900. Miss Anna Day of Beatrice was appointed organizing regent by Mrs. Towle.

In 1901 Mrs. Laura B. Pound was again elected state regent and served two terms. The national society having made provision for state vice-regents, Mrs. Mildred L. Allee of Omaha was elected to that office. Mrs. Annie Strickland Steele was appointed organizing regent at Fairbury, Mrs. Janet K. Hollenbeck at Fremont, and Mrs. Olive A. Haldeman at Ord. In her last report as state regent Mrs. Pound recorded two new chapters, Quivira chapter at Fairbury, organized December 3, 1902, and Lewis-Clark chapter at Fremont, January 17, 1903, with chapters at Beatrice and Ord in process of formation. Quivira chapter was chartered February 3, 1903, and Lewis-Clark chapter was chartered February 13, 1903.

The first state conference was called by Mrs. Pound in October, 1902, and was held in Lincoln at the home of the late Mrs. Addison S. Tibbetts. This conference was called to nominate a state regent and plan for observing the centennial of the Lewis and Clark expedition. This event was celebrated August 3, 1904, the anniversary of the council of Lewis and Clark with the Otoe and Missouri Indians. On this date a Nebraska boulder was dedicated at Fort Calhoun with appropriate exercises, participated in by the Sons of the American Revolution and the Nebraska State Historical Society. This was the first historical event commemorated by the Daughters in Nebraska.

Mrs. Mildred L. Allee of Omaha was nominated for state regent at the conference in 1902, and Mrs. Emma Kellogg of Lincoln for vice-regent. These nominations were approved at the continental congress in 1903 and both nominees were elected, and reÎlected in 1904.

Coronado chapter at Ord was organized January 25, 1904, and Elizabeth Montague chapter at Beatrice June 17, 1904. The former was chartered September 30, 1904, and the latter June 21, 1905.

On October 20, 1903, the second annual state conference was held in Omaha. Mrs. Charles Warren Fairbanks, president general of the national society, was the guest of honor and delivered an address upon the subject, "The Mission of the Daughters of the American Revolution."

The third annual state conference assembled in Lincoln, October 19, 1904, for a two days' session. Mrs. Elizabeth C. Langworthy of Seward was chosen for state regent and Mrs. Janet K. Hollenbeck of Fremont was the choice of the conference for vice-regent. Both were elected, and both were renominated at the fourth state conference held at Fairbury in October, 1905. Mrs. Langworthy organized the Margaret Holmes chapter at Seward April 10, 1905, and Nikumi chapter at Blair, February 23, 1906.

Lincoln entertained the fifth annual state conference October 29-30, 1906, Mrs. Donald McLean, president general, being the guest of honor. At this conference a state organization was perfected and by-laws adopted providing that nominations for state regent and vice-regent should be made by the state board of management and submitted to the continental congress for election. Other officers for the state organization were to be elected at the annual conference. This system was followed until 1910, when the by-laws of the national society were changed to permit each state organization to elect its own regent and vice-regent.

Mrs. Charles B. Letton of Quivira chapter, Fairbury, was nominated for state regent and Mrs. Janet K. Hollenbeck for vice-regent at the meeting of the board of management in the spring of 1907, and were elected at the national congress immediately following. Mrs. Letton was reÎlected in 1908 and Mrs. S. D. Barkalow of Omaha was elected vice-regent.

The sixth annual state conference was held in Omaha October 22-23, 1907. Mrs. Letton appointed three organizing regents, one at Aurora, where no chapter has yet been formed; Mrs. Arthur E. Allyn at Hastings, and Mrs. Charles Oliver Norton at Kearney. On May 16, 1908, she organized the Fort Kearney chapter at Kearney, which was chartered October 27, 1908, with Mrs. Norton as its first regent.

Mrs. Richard C. Hoyt presented the following resolution to the sixth annual conference and moved its adoption, the motion being seconded by Mrs. Henrietta M. Rees:

"Therefore, be it resolved that the D. A. R. of Nebraska coˆperate with the State Historical Society in taking some steps toward marking the old Oregon trail in Nebraska and that a committee be appointed to act in unison with the Historical Society."

The resolution was adopted. Members of the Omaha chapter who were interested in this matter at the time, say that the idea was suggested by Dr. George L. Miller of Omaha, then president of the State Historical Society. In accordance with the foregoing resolution Mrs. Letton, state regent, appointed the following committee: Mrs. John J. Stubbs, Omaha; Mrs. George H. Brash, Beatrice; and Mrs. Stephen B. Pound, Lincoln.

Erected by Omaha Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution]

Erected by Omaha Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution]