Chapter XVI: A New Land of Canaan 125 (2)

The news of the plan and chance of fate by which Rawlins was to lose his life had spread from one camp-fire to another during the night, and created an intense excitement.

Rawlins was standing by the fire, when I. P. Olive, one of the largest owners on the range, rode up.

“Look here, Rawlins, suppose you had won, would you shoot Anderson down like a dog this morning?”

“Certainly I would,” he replied, “and he would not be the first dog I have killed, either.”

“This thing cannot go on,” said Olive, decisively. “If you men have got to kill each other you must do it in a civilized fashion. Your plan is too cold-blooded; it has given the shivers to the entire camp.” He then rode over to the “Double Bar” camp, where Anderson lay sleeping.

“Get up from there, you wild ass of the plains,” he shouted. “Rawlins is waiting to be killed. Are you going to do it?”

Anderson was on his feet in an instant, facing Olive in the dim light of the camp-fire.

“It is none of your business what I intend to do!” and his yellow eyes gleamed dangerously as his hand stole to the handle of his sixshooter. Olive was a dangerous man himself and had a record of killing four men in Texas. He saw danger in the manner he had approached Anderson, and using a more conciliatory tone, said:

“Give Rawlins a show for his life and we will all think the more of you for it.”

Finding the sentiment of others who joined in with Olive strong against him, Anderson yielded to a change. This time the principals were to meet upon the plain a mile from camp, mounted and armed with revolvers. They were to fight within a circle of one hundred yards, outside of which they might retreat, reload and return to the combat.

It was a beautiful morning, all balm and bloom and verdure. The face of the sky was placid and benignant. The sun rose like a great golden disc on the purple and pearl of the distant sky line and clouds, airy and gossamer, floated away to the west.

The men stole away from camp in twos and threes, and were gathering on a knoll that overlooked the battle ground, while Rawlins and Anderson were selecting their horses from the remudas. Rawlins chose a Texas mustang, fleet of foot and supple as an Arab. Anderson chose a stocky built animal and appeared altogether indifferent as to any of his qualities. The two men were stationed at the edge of the circle formed of lariats with their backs toward each other.

Olive gave the word, “Ready!” The men grasped their bridle reins tightly and settled themselves in their stirrups.

“Wheel!” The trained horses turned as if upon pivots.

“Fire!” rang out Olive’s clear voice of command.

Anderson rode forward a few paces and stopped. Rawlins dug his spurs into his animal’s side, and came on with a rush, firing his revolver as he came. Four shots sped harmlessly over the plain.

The men were within a few feet of each other when Anderson fired his first shot. Rawlins reeled in his saddle a second, grasped the pommel, and bringing down his revolver sent a bullet through the brain of Anderson.

Both men fell from their horses, and there were two dead faces in the grass.

The horses dashed wildly away, with blood upon their trappings and sleek hides.

Two graves were dug, and the funeral was over before the sun had dried the dew upon the grass.

There was a girl in Nebraska without a lover, and a widowed mother in Texas without a son.

VIII.

PLEASANT HALFACRE’S REVENGE.

I was with a party of cowboys twenty-five miles west of Ogallala, Nebraska, in 1878, when a huge iron box was found in the sands of the Platte River by one of our party, which recalled a tradition of tragedy and revenge, unequaled in the annals of the west.

In one of those great bends of the Ohio River, opposite Three Mile Island and below the town of Newburgh, in Southern Indiana, there lived some forty years ago, a man who furnished cause for which his neighbors with one accord, joined in deporting him.

Pleasant Halfacre occupied a cabin in a small clearing, which opened on the south, facing the bayou which separated the island from the mainland on the Indiana side. On all other sides for a mile or more was a dense forest, where great hickory, pecan and beech trees furnished the winter provender for the grey squirrels, raccoons and opossums. In some places the woodland was low and swampy; there were great ponds where the water lilies grew and in winter the wild duck and brant paused long in their southern flight to feed. The bayou abounded in catfish and silvery perch.

In this little oasis in a desert of toilers, Halfacre had lived for nearly a quarter of a century. His wife, a big buxom woman, was the mother of eight tow-headed children who, when anyone chanced to come, acted like scared squirrels. They would scamper away into the woods and coyly peep at the stranger from behind big trees, while the dogs kept up an incessant barking.

In summer, the woman and children would cultivate the small clearing with hoes, while Plez would catch catfish and sometimes work in the harvest field a few days for some neighbor. This he did only when dire necessity compelled. The very sight of an agricultural implement, he declared, would make him sweat. The man loved nature and in his simplicity, would go into raptures over the coloring of the gorgeous sunset, or wade about the ponds for hours for water lilies, or the great blue, bell-shaped flowers which grew upon the wild flag and calimus stalks.

He would bedeck his ragged garments with these flowers and, with a string of catfish, would emerge, a gorgeous spectacle, from the forest on his way to the Evansville market.

In winter his children would gather pecans and hickory nuts, while he would take the dogs and hunt raccoons and opossums, the meat of which furnished the family food, while the pelts brought a small price at the market.

In all the forty years of his life, Halfacre had not been twenty miles away from his home. He could neither read nor write and the world to him ended at the blue rim of the northern horizon beyond the cypress hills. The man was totally devoid of any sense of responsibility, either to his Creator, his neighbors or himself. Once when the good preacher, who held services at the “Epworth meeting house” twice a month, reproved him for some misdemeanor by threatening him with the hereafter, he replied, “The devil can’t inflict any more punishment on me than I can stand, if he does, he will kill me.” With this logic to soothe his conscience, and his love of idleness thoroughly gratified, Halfacre was very well contented.

For a long time the neighbors, for many miles around, had been missing articles of small value, the loss of which caused much delay in their work as well as vexation and annoyance.

A farmer would be all ready to go to market and when he came to hitch up, he would find the coupling bolt to his wagon gone, or perhaps the singletree would be missing; or if ploughing in the field he would take the horses out to where he had left the plow the night before and find that the clevis or some bolts had been stolen. The good matrons would have their dinner horns or bells taken away at night. Nothing of any considerable value was stolen and no organized search was made until one day, Farmer Beasley was floating down the bayou in a dinkey boat when he came upon one of Plez Halfacre’s children sitting on the bank eating mush and milk out of the blue flowered shaving mug which old Tippecanoe Harrison had presented to his grandfather, while another one of the Halfacre children sat upon a log, making a paw-paw whistle with his ancestor’s razor.

This was too much for Farmer Beasley. He turned the dinkey boat around, paddled back to Newburgh and swore out a search warrant for the Halfacre cabin.

In the loft they found a collection of articles which was a wonder to behold. There were grindstones, iron wedges for splitting rails, harrow teeth and a miscellaneous lot of plunder, enough to start a second hand store.

The word was passed and the next day the farmers began to assemble. They came by the score; some in wagons bringing the entire family and their dinners, and the day was spent identifying stolen articles.

Meantime, while all this was going on Pleasant Halfacre sat to one side, looking the very picture of dejection. A council was held and it was decided that if they sent Plez to jail, the county would have to support his family, and as taxes were already high, it was decided to deport him, his family and chattels.

Nearby, a house boat was found, which the owner offered to sell for twenty dollars. It was purchased and Halfacre, his family and effects were placed aboard and warned never to return, whereupon the boat was shoved out into the stream.

It was a sad blow and one the least expected. “To leave the cabin and go away where he should never again see the water lilies, out into the world where he just didn’t know nobody.” This was the burden of his lamentations as he sat upon the bow of the boat and wept.

Some of the women cried softly when they saw such evidence of his grief and love of home, humble and poverty stricken as it was, and they rode home in silence, wishing to forget the scene of the grief stricken man, who had said the birds would never sing so sweetly to him again.

When the word went around a day or two later, that Plez and his family were again living in the cabin, there was a general sigh of relief, and when the preacher spoke of forgiving “Those who trespass against us,” there were some heartfelt Amens that went up from the holy corner of the “Epworth Church.”

Winter had come and the Halfacres were discussed by the good dames who gathered at each others homes at quilting parties, and many were the articles of outgrown clothing that were sent to the destitute cabin.

There was a January thaw and the ice in the river was breaking up, when one morning in the grey dawn a barge came drifting down the stream amid the cakes of ice that were piling high upon the head of the island. A man was standing upon the deck, frantically calling for help, for it was certain the barge would be crushed in the great pack of ice when it struck the head of the island.

A crowd had followed along the shore, but none seemed to know what to do or to have the courage to venture to the man’s rescue.

Suddenly Plez Halfacre was seen to launch a skiff from among a clump of willows and standing on the bow, fought his way through the ice floes with an oar, rescued the man from his perilous position and landed safely below the head of the island.

The barge was lost and Plez became the hero of the hour.

The rescued man proved to be a wealthy coal mine owner from the neighborhood of Cannelton, and in his gratitude some days later he presented Halfacre with a cheque for $5,000.

Again a pressure of the neighborhood was brought to bear, and Halfacre emigrated to the west. He started alone with his family from Omaha in a prairie schooner, intending to settle in the neighborhood of Denver. When twenty-five miles west of Ogallala he left his family in camp one afternoon and wandered some miles away over the plain in search of antelope.

When he returned some hours later he found his wife and children slain by the Indians and their mutilated bodies lying about the smoldering ruins of his wagon. The horses had been driven away.

Wild with grief and rage, he did the best he could in burying his dead, and then made his way back to Omaha. He met with much sympathy from the pioneers along the route, but for this he seemed to care but little. He went about in a gloomy, abstracted way that caused people to say he was losing his mind.

One day he appeared at a blacksmith shop in Omaha, and ordered a big wagon box made of plow steel, which he paid for in advance. When it was completed he loaded it upon a wagon and covered it with a white cover, until it looked like an ordinary prairie schooner. Into this he loaded a barrel for water and provisions enough to last for six months. He also stored in the iron box, a large quantity of ammunition, with two or three rifles and revolvers. The sides, bottom and top of the box were loopholed, protected with iron slides.

When all was ready he purchased horses and drove to the place near the Platte river, where his family had been slain. Here he picketed his horses and deliberately built a camp-fire. He did not have long to wait for results. The Indians saw the smoke, and seeing only one man, they swept down upon his camp. He waited until they were reasonably near and went inside his iron box. When they came to within a few yards, he opened fire from the loop-holes, killing a number of them before they retreated. The Indians could not make out the situation, and that night they crept through the grass and tried to kindle a fire beneath his wagon. Halfacre was alert, and shot them from the bottom loop holes. After two or three assaults, in which they lost many of their number, the Indians went away and ever afterwards avoided the place, as they believed it protected by evil spirits.

Halfacre lived in his wagon for more than a year, making incursions into the Indian camps at night, where his rifle dealt death.

To the Indians, he was an avenging spirit and they spoke of him in whispers. His remains were found some miles away, long afterwards by soldiers, who believed he had frozen to death in a blizzard. The rusted relic on the banks of the Platte River, slowly disappearing beneath the quicksands, was the only memento left of the tragedies there enacted.

IX.

CAPTURING WILD HORSES.

Lying upon the plain with his shoulder dislocated and his foot tangled up in a lariat, O. E. Kimsey held the head of his fallen horse close to the ground, in No Man’s Land, for four hours, to prevent him from rising and dragging him to certain death.

We had gone to No Man’s Land, now Beaver county, Oklahoma, in 1887, to capture wild mustangs, to be sold to the ranchmen of Kansas and Colorado. We had become separated in our search for them. Kimsey was far out on the plain when his horse stumbled into a coyote hole and as he fell beneath the horse his shoulder was dislocated. In a moment he realized that his foot was tangled in his lariat, which hung from the pommel of his saddle, with one end tightly fastened there. The horse attempted to rise, but to allow him to do so would mean being dragged to death.

Kimsey threw his uninjured arm over the horse’s head and held him down. To call for help was useless in that barren and uninhabited plain, and he could do nothing else but hold the horse’s head close to the ground. Night was coming on and he saw the hungry coyotes gathering. His strength was failing as the hours dragged by. He had almost lost all hope when he thought he heard the tramp of a horse’s hoofs, and he shouted loud and long. He was right. I was in search of him and came to his rescue.

Our trip lasted five months, and in capturing the wild mustangs we followed a different plan from the Texas hunters. The latter pursued the horses night and day, using relays of mounts, until the horses were exhausted, when they were driven into a corral.

We had started early in the spring, in time to reach the wild horse country just as the first grass was covering the plains with green.

The mustangs were then gaunt and thin from the hardships of winter and the new grass was not nutritious enough to strengthen them quickly.

A boy kept camp for us while Kimsey and I followed the horses. A spring wagon, under which we could sleep at night, was filled with provisions and grain. A dozen of the best saddle horses that could be found, that were selected for fleetness and endurance, were a part of the outfit. There was no hurrah and wild pursuit when the horses first came in sight. We rode toward them leisurely and took precautions to alarm them as little as possible. At first it was difficult to approach closer than three or four miles. Each band was led by a stallion that circled round and round. Sometimes there were three or four stallions with a band of twenty or thirty mares and their foals. Generally, however, each band consisted of five to a dozen mares and a stallion. The moment we appeared the horses would begin to move. If they were followed close they would break into a gallop, keeping on the ridges from which they could view the surrounding country.

I know of nothing more fascinating than a band of moving wild horses. Their manes and tails are quite long and add grace to their movements as they sweep along in the wind. At a distance a tenderfoot imagines a wild horse to be a majestic animal, large in size, beautiful in color, clean of limb and fleet of foot. At close range they are a disappointment, especially in the spring when their coats are rough. They have great endurance, some of them being able to carry a man 70 miles between suns, and their recuperative power is wonderful.

We pursued the largest band we could find, but, use the best precaution we could, the horses would take fright at first and run for ten or twelve miles before stopping. We tried to keep in sight of them if possible, and always made it a point to be close to them at sundown, as they sought water, and if not disturbed would remain near the spot all night. If startled they would move, and before morning would be many miles away. They were on the move at the first streak of dawn. After we followed them two or three days the mustangs grew less wary, and we began teaching them to drive.

A characteristic of the wild horse is that if an attempt is made to ride to the right of them, for the purpose of turning them to the left, they will invariably bolt to the right, and run directly across the path of their pursuers.

It requires much time and patience to teach them to run in the opposite direction. We won our first point when we taught the horses to be driven. We then began driving them in a circle, which at first had a large circumference. As the horses grew weaker from want of rest and food, the circle grew smaller until its diameter did not exceed a quarter of a mile. Meantime, we were using relays of fresh horses. Then they were taught another lesson. A long lariat was stretched on the ground, and in the path of the horses. Wild mustangs are very sagacious and quick to suspect a trap. The rope always frightened them greatly at first, but in time they grew accustomed to it, and could be driven across it. We were now ready for business. The lariat was strongly anchored in the ground by tying it to a buried log. The best horses were now brought out and saddled. Riding as swiftly as possible, we started the wild horses moving in a circle and kept after them until our own horses were exhausted. The boy then took our place and maintained the swift pace, while we saddled fresh horses. Before a great while a colt would give out and drift, toward the center of the circle where it would be joined by its mother.

A band of wild horses will not desert one another and there was no longer any fear that the running horses would bolt from the circle in which they were moving. In the free end of the lariat a big running noose had been tied. As the circle grew smaller the horses would begin running over the noose. The boy kept close watch and gave a strong pull on the lariat when he saw that a horse had stepped into the noose. The horse would fall, snared by the foot. A heavy log chain about three feet long was fastened to one of its forelegs with a leather and the horse turned loose. The animal would spring to its feet and start away at a breakneck speed, only to turn a somersault, caught by the swinging chain encircling its forelegs.

When half a dozen horses had been caught in this manner the others would begin shying away from the noose, which was then abandoned for the time being. Then we would coil our lariats and ride straight into the midst of the band and rope them until the band was scattered.

The captured horses were then rounded up, and the lesson of teaching the others to pass over the rope was resumed. After a time, when their fear had abated, they would again pass over the rope without hesitancy. In this manner we caught one hundred and nine the first season. The work grew more difficult as the summer advanced; the grass was better, giving greater strength to the wild mustangs, while our own had become worn and thin with hard service. The captured horses soon became accustomed to being driven and herded and it was not difficult to move them across the plains to Kansas and Colorado, where they were sold. Kimsey usually selected the best ones and broke them to the saddle, an exciting and dangerous business.

Wild horses gave much trouble to ranchmen in those days. Tame horses are quick to follow wild ones away, but a wild horse never voluntarily forsakes the freedom of the plains for the corn fodder of the corral. The wild stallions are constantly seeking to increase their harem of mares. On the plains they do it through their ability as fighters and their superior generalship over weaker stallions. They resort to extreme violence in adding tame mares to their bands. I have seen a wild stallion gallop up to a herd of domestic horses, select a mare, and then begin maneuvering to drive her away. Sometimes the mare is lying down and refuses to get up. The stallion throws back his ears and breaks for her at full speed. If she does not move he seizes her with his teeth and bites her so violently that she is glad to spring to her feet. Once moving, she is lost, as the stallion keeps close behind, biting and pawing at her until she is driven into his band, when all of them gallop away. In time they drive away many horses, and in the old days ranchmen often united and killed wild stallions as they killed wolves. The stallions are constantly fighting among themselves, but as a rule without great injury to each other. Domestic stallions fight to the death, but the wild ones seem to know when they are worsted and the weaker ones run away. There were usually about as many wild stallions as mares, and as each successful stallion had from six to a dozen mares, there were necessarily a number of stallions who were freebooters on the plains. These were mostly old stallions, grown weak with age, and young ones not old enough to win their fights. I have seen as many as seventy-five such stallions in a band.

It was November when Kimsey and I sat in the Albany Hotel in Denver and divided almost $3,000 as the profits of our season’s work.

“Where to now, Kimsey?” I asked. “I go to San Antonio for the winter; and you?” “To the C. C. Ranch, on the Cimarron,” I replied.

X.

AN EXPEDITION THAT FAILED.

Five men sat about a table in an upper room of the Coates House in Kansas City. The names of several of them I omit, as they will sleep easier. Upon the table was a plate of shining gold nuggets of a value of $1,600. Charley Cole, the owner, was a miner from the northwest.

He had met the party the day before, and offered to show them where the nuggets came from for $2,000, saying his reason for so doing was that he wanted to clean up and go to the Transvaal, then the Mecca of the gold-seeker.

This incident was in June, 188--. Around that table a party was organized, but with the understanding that no money should be paid until the gold was found to our satisfaction, and with the further understanding that if Cole was deceiving us with the idea of leading us into a bandit trap to secure our money, he should be the first man shot.

To this he agreed and the next day the party was increased to six by a young doctor. Ten days later we were in Rawlins, Wyoming, where horses and a general outfit were purchased and the journey to the Wind River country in the Shoshone Indian reservation was begun.

July had come and the plains and valleys were beautiful in billowy green. Cole, always in the lead, headed west of Lander. There was nothing I could see about the man to indicate that he was other than he represented, although several of the party whispered suspicions as, day by day, we penetrated the wild and almost uninhabited country.

We entered the reservation at a point about thirty miles west of Lander, which town we had purposely avoided, not wishing to incite others to a gold hunt.

We broke camp and were riding down a beautiful valley one morning, when we came upon some antelope. I wounded one, and as it was getting away I spurred my horse after the antelope on the run. My horse stumbled into a badger hole, and the next thing I remember distinctly was the awful pain as the doctor of our party was setting my broken ankle.

My horse was also lame, but later in the day I made out to ride him five miles to the camp of some Shoshone Indians.

The pain in my limb was so great I could go no further, and as the Indians were friendly and hospitable, I begged to be left in their camp. A bed was made for me upon the ground in one of the tepees, and after giving me surgical attention, and leaving me such comforts as we carried, the party proceeded, at my request, for I knew it would be weeks before I could travel, and even then I would be a hindrance.

I felt secure from the kindly attention I had received from the Indians, who seemed desirous in many ways of alleviating my sufferings. Knowing that the Indian despises any manifestation of pain, I managed never to utter a groan, or show distress in my face, no matter how excruciating was Nature’s process of healing.

After three or four days an Indian cut away the doctor’s splints and bound my limb in a huge pack of wet clay. From that moment the pain grew less, and as I felt more like talking, the Indians would gather in the tepee and sit about like children. I made pictures to amuse them, taught them the game of mumbledy-peg, and in various ways won their simple affections.

The days had been dragging wearily, when the monotony was broken by an Indian wedding. Bright Eyes, a damsel of no exceeding beauty, was of that age when the consent of her father could be secured for her marriage for a consideration of ponies.

Several young bucks had been staking their ropes for the catch, each hoping he would be the fortunate one in securing her for a partner. Some of them had offered as high as nine ponies. But Wah-ne-a-tah, which means in English, “it is hurting him,” came forward with a dozen ponies and secured the prize. A beef from the Agency had been secured and roasted, as well as other things good to the palate of a hungry Indian. At about 4 o’clock the bride was taken to a tepee set apart from the others, where some twenty squaw attendants dressed her out in a “rig” that for decoration resembled a general or an admiral’s uniform.

Not wishing to get married at this time, she kept her attendants in tears by her lamentations. Some one in Lander had sold her father an old hearse as being just the thing for a family carriage. The top had been taken off, but the plumes remained, and into it she was loaded. The horses were gaily decorated and an Indian walked at the head of each horse. As she took her seat in the carriage, I obtained the first good view of the bride. A description of her dress is impossible, but it was a curious mixture of every color imaginable. She had proceeded but a little way down the valley, when at breakneck speed came a buck and three squaws who were running to the bride. The first squaw to reach the bride was to receive her raiment, the second a pony and the third a blanket. The bride was escorted to a tepee belonging to a relative of the groom. Here she was placed on a blanket and wrapped up until no part of her was visible and then carried to the tepee set apart for the happy couple. Arriving there she was unwrapped in the presence of the guests and her clothing immediately claimed by the squaw who came out best in the race. The bride was re-dressed, the groom summoned and seated on the blanket beside her. They were now married in the eyes of the Indians. Then came a feast, participated in only by the happy couple and the guests departed to the general feast.

Three weeks had passed when one day an officer of the Indian police came to our camp and through him I learned of Cole’s former camp on a tributary of Wind River, and he said the gulches and sands of the stream were plentifully besprinkled with nuggets, that the reason white men were not there in multitudes was they were kept away by the Indian police.

He said that Cole was permitted to stay because he furnished the Indians with whisky. This Cole doubtless made from drugs.

At the end of another week my party returned without Cole. They came hastily and seemed in a hurry to get away. I asked if they found gold. They replied, “Yes, plenty of it, but Cole’s treachery has defeated every plan.” Beyond this they would say nothing.

As I was in no condition to accompany them and was as comfortable as circumstances would permit, they left me in the Indian camp. Here I remained for a month longer, when Red Jacket and Spotted Horse rode with me to Rawlins. Two truer hearts I never expect to find among any race. I had our photographs taken and made them presents, as well as sending a flour sack of candies back to the camp. When our train rolled away they stood on the platform and watched us out of sight.

The mystery of the fate of Cole was cleared some years later when I called on one of the parties in Kansas City. It seems they reached Cole’s cabin in the wilds of the Wind River country and that he showed them fine placer mines, and that after a few days he produced a vile decoction of whisky which he and a younger member of the party drank. A quarrel between the two men, crazed with the drink, ensued, in which Cole was killed.

XI.

ACROSS THE PALM DESERT.

An ancient fight--as ancient as the time dividing the bird from the serpent, a fight thousands of times repeated in the lonely places of the earth each year, but which man seldom sees, was witnessed by Mark Witherspoon and myself on the borders of the Palm Desert in California, where we had come in the search for gold. It was a struggle to the finish between an eagle and a big rattlesnake. Death was the referee, as he is in all the contests waged under nature’s code of fang and claw.

There are two things men may not know, so it is said: “The way of the serpent upon the rock; the eagle soaring in the sky.” Each has a wonderful power which man does not understand--does not understand any more than he does why they always fight when they meet and that they always should and will, so long as there are serpents upon the rocks and eagles soaring in the sky. If there were no eagles, the rattlesnakes would have no enemy in the sky or upon the earth, save man, to fear. The eagle likewise has no fear of anything, unless it be the glistening yellow and brown poisonous creature of the rocks--the rattler.

Thus it lives forever--the death feud of the eagle of the Montezumas and the serpent father of the Moki’s--the rattler.

How it began I did not see. I was standing near the top of a big stony crag that glistened in the bright light looking over the vast opens and great basins of the Palm Desert which we were to cross, when my attention was attracted by the flop of something striking the sands a hundred feet away. I could not see what it was, but a moment later I saw an eagle swoop down and rise slowly, holding within its mailed claws, a snake. The big bird soared up a hundred feet or more and shook the snake loose, which fell twisting and coiling with a distinctly audible “flop”--the noise that first attracted my attention. Again and again the bird swooped, arose with the serpent and dropped it, while Witherspoon drew closer and closer to watch.

Then the eagle--a young one, as we could tell by its size and plumage--struck and failed to rise. Witherspoon was now close enough to see everything that happened.

The young bird had almost exhausted itself in its struggles with the snake, and may, too, have been bitten by it. At any rate, it was upon the sands, its wings slightly spread, as if from the heat--its mouth open. The snake was recovering from its jolting fall, and slowly gathering its coils.

It rested a moment in position, and then struck the eagle, the fangs entering the corner of the bird’s mouth, in the soft tissues at the base of the beak.

The eagle recovered from the shock, stood motionless a few seconds, while the rattler watched as only a rattler can, and spreading out its wings, toppled over.

Then the man--man who hates serpents as the eagle does--put forth his hand, using a power more wonderful than that of either. There was a puff of white smoke in the clear air and the report of a pistol rang among the glistening wind-polished rocks, and the snake was a mangled, bright, still thing that the ants began to gather about.

“It was unjust maybe,” remarked Witherspoon. “The snake had won fairly--he was entitled to go his way, a terror for all the furry little bright things hereabouts.” “But I couldn’t help it.” “Someway that slaying by poison, even if it is done in the open, doesn’t seem fair.” “Then, too, a man hates to see the emblem of his country’s armies and navies, the triumphant eagle of thunderbolts, lying in the sunshine dead, and that by a serpent.”

We had purchased a mustang in San Luis Obispo and loaded him with our stock of flour, bacon, frying pans, blankets, etc., and was resting on the borders of the Palm Desert, which we intended to cross the next morning, to the Mexican dry diggings, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, when the battle between the eagle and rattler furnished the topic of conversation all the afternoon. From San Luis Obispo we had taken the trail that led over the mountains and through the beautiful Santa Margarita Valley. Of all the places I have ever seen, I think this valley came the nearest to being an earthly paradise. It is seven miles in length, five in breadth, and is walled on all sides, except a narrow pass, by the lofty Santa Lucia Mountains. Through the center of the valley flows the headwaters of the Salanis River. Giant live oak trees studded the valley at almost regular intervals, as if they had been planted by the hand of man. The earth was a carpet of green verdure, with splashes of the yellow wild mustard and varied hues of the many different semi-tropical flowers. Two days after passing through this Eden, we began our toilsome march across an arm of the Palm Desert. When we reached the diggings we found a group of motley Mexicans, who good naturedly swarmed about us and showed us a camping place near a spring, but its waters were so impregnated with sulphates of magnesia and sodium, that we found it impossible to use it. We moved our camp about a mile further up the canyon, near the quarters of a sheep herder, where we found good water and were free from the Mexicans. They taught us, however, the art of dry washing the gold from the loose earth of the placer claim which we had staked off. Here, for more than three months, we toiled. When our supplies run short, we sent for more by the man who came once a week to bring provisions and look after his interests on the sheep ranch. I always pitied that sheep herder. He had several hundred to care for, and their continual bleating sounded dismally in the solitude of the mountains, and when he lighted his bivouac fire at night, it always seemed like a signal of distress.

From the red earth we gathered the golden grains, and when the stars came out at night, and the mountains took on their shadowy gloom, we talked of home two thousand miles away, and often wondered at the enigma of creation. Then came a time when by exposure to the damp and dews, and living upon poor food, we both began to fall sick. Medicine was out of the question, and so with our precious packet of gold dust upon our persons, we loaded our mustang with our camp equipments and took up our march toward San Luis Obispo.

It was in the early dawn of the morning when we started across the arm of the Palm Desert. The sun rose like a ball of fire in a cloudless sky and heated the sands until they parched and blistered our faces. By noon our water supply was exhausted, and soon after I threw away the Winchester which I carried, for I could no longer bear the burden. If it has not been found by some weary pilgrim it lies there today with its barrel as bright in that rainless valley as it was when I threw it down.

We walked in silence all that torrid afternoon. The poor mustang crept along, led by Mark, while we, with bloodshot eyes and fevered brains, could but feebly keep in sight the jutting mountain spur where we would find a haven of rest.

Exhausted, I sat down in the scant shade of a desert palm. Its sparse branches rattled in the hot wind like dried sunflower stalks, and then, in my imagination, I stood a few feet away and saw myself lying dead on the sands, with face drawn and withered and dead eyes staring at the skies.

I roused myself from the horrible dream and walked on. It was long after the sun had dipped beyond the mountain crest, and the Palm Desert was shrouded in the gloom of night, that we reached a pool of clear water, fed by a generous spring. We drank of its waters and bathed our fevered brows, and lay down in the warm sands to awake ever and anon in fitful dreams. It seemed I was buried in the stone coffins of Egypt, where I lay for a thousand years in torrid heat, with unquenchable thirst. Whenever I awoke, I drew myself to the edge of the pool, drank deeply of its refreshing waters, and fell asleep again, repeating the same thing perhaps twenty times during the night.

How soon we forget our troubles, and oh, how soon we forget that we have passed through the valley of the shadow, and that a merciful God has watched over our destinies. Within a week after this, when Mark and I came so near perishing on the Palm Desert, we had purchased new summer clothes and were sitting about the best hotel in San Luis Obispo, smoking fine cigars and playing the part of high-toned young gentlemen generally.

XII.

THE LAST STAND OF A DYING RACE.

The battle of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, occurred December 29, 1890. It was the last stand of a dying race, the last Indian battle fought on the soil of the United States.

Whatever views I may have held at the time, and whatever part I may have taken in the engagement is mitigated by previous experiences and circumstances; but with time there comes a belief that somebody grievously erred.

Nearly every nation in its decline has looked for the coming of a Redeemer to lead them back to the glory and valor of former days. This has been especially true of the Indian races. The few remaining Aztec tribes yet look for the coming of Montezuma, while the Indians in the mountains of Peru believe that Huascar will again appear and re-establish the magnificent empire of which the mailed heels of a conquering Pizarro host clanked the dying knell nearly four centuries ago.

In the autumn of 1890 there appeared in an Indian village in Nevada a man who was strange to them and to the neighboring tribes. He told them a wondrous story. He had come from a far-off land beyond the setting sun, and was sent by the Great Spirit to rescue the redmen from the oppression of the paleface, to restore to them their hunting grounds and to populate the plains once more with the buffalo and the antelope. He taught them a new form of the death dance and made a garment, decorated it with hieroglyphics and blessed it, and said that it would turn the bullets of the white man. They received his tale with great rejoicing and started immediately to carry the tidings to the tribes on the plains to the east. Great enthusiasm among the Indians marked the progress of the march across the country, and when he reached the Rosebud Agency in South Dakota, so exaggerated were the wondrous stories that preceded him, he was fairly worshipped as a deity. Chiefs Red Cloud, Crow Dog and Two Strikes brought him before the Great Council at Pine Ridge Agency, some fifty miles distant from Rosebud.

For more than three months after his arrival thousands of the Sioux warriors kept up the ghost dance almost nightly. The quantities of unbleached domestic that they were purchasing at the agency stores and making up into “ghost shirts,” together with the ammunition they were known to be hoarding convinced the agency authorities at Pine Ridge that an outbreak was imminent. A call was made for United States troops, but before any considerable number arrived hostilities had begun. A cattle herder was killed and a large herd of cattle belonging to the government was driven into the bad-lands. The same night Chief Red Cloud, who had become almost blind in his extreme old age, was taken forcibly from his home near the Pine Ridge agency building and made to lead the hostile attack on the Jesuit Mission some four miles distant. A desultory firing was kept up on the agency for some nights afterward, when a reinforcement of troops arrived and the hostiles withdrew to the natural fortresses of the bad-lands.

Chief American Horse appears to have doubted the divine origin of the Indian Messiah, and held in check some six or seven thousand of his people encamped on a creek near the agency. In the meantime General Miles arrived with a strong force of cavalry and artillery. Batteries were trained on the tepees of the Brule Sioux under American Horse, and they were ordered not to congregate, which order was respected up to the close of the campaign.

Rumors of Indian depredations were of every day occurrence. Settlers were fleeing from their homes and seeking refuge in the villages. So great was the terror in northwestern Nebraska that General John M. Thayer, then governor, ordered out the entire force of the National Guard, numbering about two thousand men, under Brigadier General Leonard W. Colby, to protect the Nebraska frontier.

The main body of hostiles was safely intrenched in the bad-lands and was only awaiting the springtime, when grass would furnish provender for their ponies; when they intended to begin their work of destruction on the white settlements.

Up to this time no Indian had been killed or wounded, although there was some heavy firing done in defense of the mission and the agency. This fact tended to strengthen their belief in the invulnerability of the ghost shirt which, by this time, was worn by all the warriors. So great was their faith in the efficacy of this garment to turn the bullets of their white foe, that Big Foot and a band of about four hundred ventured to leave the stronghold and commit some petty depredations within thirty miles of Pine Ridge.

General Miles promptly dispatched Colonel Forsythe and a troop of two companies of the Seventh Cavalry to subdue them. It will be remembered that the Seventh was General Custer’s old regiment that met the Indians on the Little Big Horn on that memorable 25th of June, 1876, when every man taking part in the engagement was massacred by this _same tribe of Sioux Indians_ which this detachment under Colonel Forsythe was seeking. On the evening of the twenty-eighth of December, Colonel Forsythe came upon Big Foot’s band. No resistance was offered at the time, although the demeanor of the braves foreboded the terrible tragedy soon to follow. The Indians were escorted some miles distant and ordered to go into camp on the banks of Wounded Knee Creek, which flows through a wide, open valley skirted for miles on either side by high, sandy bluffs and scant growth of fir, cedar and pine. The Indians were made to pitch their tepees in a semi-circle and park their wagons and ponies behind them. The soldiers formed in a triangle in front of the semi-circle with a Hotchkiss gun under command of Sergeant Wingate in the center of the triangle. The men stood by their guns throughout the bitter cold of the Dakota night, while the Indians were comfortably wrapped in their blankets within the shelter of the tepees. As the first rays of the sun were slanting across the bleak and cheerless plain, the shrill notes of a bugle rang out on the frosty air. It was the signal to arouse the Indian camp. They came from their tepees with blankets swathed about them, and desperation was stamped upon their faces. Big Foot, who was ill with pneumonia, was first carried out and laid upon a bed of fur in front of his tepee, and then two hundred and fifty braves seated themselves in rows about him. Through an interpreter they were ordered by Captain Wallace to lay down their arms. They were armed mostly with Winchesters which were concealed beneath the blankets about them. Suddenly the medicine man of the tribe sprang to his feet and threw a handful of dirt into the air. It was a signal, and in another instant the death-like shrieks--the Sioux war-cry, “Hi-yi-hip-yi!” echoed up and down the valley, and the blaze of two hundred Winchesters sent their deadly missiles into the faces of the soldiers not over thirty feet away. There was an instant of hush--then a crash of musketry, and the last Sioux Indian battle was on! There were wavering ranks of blue as men fell to the ground wounded or dying; frantic horses dashed riderless over the plain; forms in red blankets were running hither and thither as the deadly triangle poured a withering crossfire into the struggling mass about the tepees. There were swift retreats of small parties, followed by swifter pursuit of horsemen. Indians were shot right and left as the mellow cadence of the bugle said, “Fire at will.” Squaws were dashing right and left, attempting to stab the soldiers with their long, copper-handled scalping knives; boys kneeled on the ground and coolly fired rifles at the soldiers. They, too, were shot, and meanwhile the terrible Hotchkiss gun boomed death. Small fleeing parties gained the sand bluffs and shot the pursuing soldiers. A wagon, drawn by two ponies and loaded with bucks and squaws who were trying to get away, was struck by a six-inch shell and literally blown to pieces. Brave Captain Wallace was killed with a blow from a stone battle-ax as he was entering a tepee.

The field of carnage is a dreadful sight. The mind shrinks from contemplating it. Human life has there passed away. Agony and suffering is everywhere. Gloom is on men’s faces and dark frowns on their brows. One wishes it were effaced from memory, for in years to come one must see in fancy and hear again in fitful slumber the dying shrieks and piteous cries of agony.

That evening the sun set behind a bank of crimson clouds. Sickening odors came from the smouldering tepees. Stark faces, stiffening in death, were turned to the skies. There, too, were the wounded with the dew of death already upon their brows. Strong lines were drawn upon the faces of the dead that told of the awful desperation of the soul at the moment they fell. Weapons were clutched in pulseless hands, and piteous was the sight of the struggling, wounded horses in their vain attempt to join their mates in the wild chase among the hills. Amid these scenes could be heard the prattle of childish voices about the Indian tepees. In the tenderness of their years and the savagery of their nature they were unable to comprehend the awfulness of the hour. When darkness came over the scene like a pall, the booming gun had ceased, but the plains were aglow with the lurid fires in the high grass--a weird and fantastic scene. Two hours later and the crimson clouds, which at sunset had portended evil, burst into fury, and a blizzard, with icy winds and drifting snows, raged as if to aid the soldiers in their determination that no living thing should survive the day.

When, four days later, the winds had spent their fury, and General Colby was riding over the field with his party, a cry was heard from a snow-bank that covered the dead bodies of some squaws. A soldier dismounted and found an Indian pappoose tied to its dead mother’s back, and clasped in the child’s arms was a soiled, little rag doll which the baby fought to retain. General Colby immediately had the little waif cared for and afterwards adopted her. The Indians named her “Ziutka Lanuni,” which in the white man’s tongue means “Lost Bird.” She is now living at the home of Mrs. L. W. Colby in Washington, D. C., a beautiful Indian girl, well educated, speaking the tongue of the white man, for she never had the opportunity to learn the language of her people.

A few days after the battle the great Sioux chief, Sitting Bull, was slain by the Indian police. The news of the battle spread among the hostile Indians. They learned that the much prized ghost shirt was no protection against the white man’s bullets, and the closing scene of this drama occurred some weeks later when the hills about Pine Ridge agency fairly swarmed with returning hostiles.