Our horses arrived the next morning all safe, excepting a few skin bruises, the steed Cynocephalus, however, being a trifle stiffer than usual, from the motion of the cars. When they were trotted out for inspection, by some hostlers whom we had hired that morning for our trip, the inhabitants must have considered the sight the next best thing to a circus.
Apropos of circuses, we learned that one had exhibited for the first and only time on the plains a few months before. In that country, dear reader, Æolus has a habit of loafing around with some of his sacks in which young whirlwinds are put up ready for use. One of these is liable to be shaken out at any moment, and the first intimation afforded you that the spirit which feeds on trees and fences is loose, is when it snatches your hat, and begins flinging dust and pebbles in your eyes. But to return to our circus performance. For awhile all passed off admirably. The big tent swallowed the multitude, and it in turn swallowed the jokes of the clown, older, of course, than himself. In the customary little tent the living skeleton embodied Sidney Smith's wish and sat cooling in his bones, while the learned pig and monkey danced to the melodious accompaniment of the hand-organ.
GENTLE ZEPHYRS—"GOING OFF WITHOUT A DRAWBACK.
Suddenly there was a clatter of poles, and two canvass clouds flew out of sight like balloons. The living skeleton found himself on a distant ridge, with the wind whistling among his ribs, while the monkey performed somersaults which would have astonished the original Cynocephalus. The pig meanwhile found refuge behind the organ, which the hurricane, with a better ear for music than man, refused to turn.
"Mademoiselle Zavenowski, the beautiful leading equestrienne of the world," just preparing to jump through a hoop, went through her own with a whirl, and stood upon the plains feeding the hungry storm with her charms. The graceful young rider, lately perforating hearts with the kisses she flung at them, in a trice had become a maiden of fifty, noticeably the worse for wear.
An eye-witness, in describing the scene to us, said the circus went off without a single drawback. It was as if a ton of gunpowder had been fired under the ring. Just as the clown was rubbing his leg, as the result of calling the sensitive ring-master a fool (a sham suffering, though for truth's sake), there was a sharp crack, and the establishment dissolved. High in air went hats and bonnets, like fragments shot out of a volcano. The spirits of zephyr-land carried off uncounted hundreds of tiles, both military and civil, and we desire to place it upon record that should a future missionary, in some remote northern tribe, find traditions of a time when the sky rained hats, they may all be accounted for on purely scientific grounds.
Much property was lost, but no lives. The immediate results were a bankrupt showman and a run on liniments and sticking-plaster.
Our first hunt was to be on the Saline, which comes down from the west about fifteen miles north of Hays City.
Before starting, we carefully overhauled our entire outfit. For a long, busy day nothing was thought of save the cleaning of guns, the oiling of straps, and the examination of saddles, with sundry additions to wardrobe and larder. Shamus became a mighty man among grocery-keepers, and could scarcely have been more popular had he been an Indian supply agent. The inventory which he gave us of his purchases comprised twelve cans of condensed milk, with coffee, tea, and sugar, in proportion; several pounds each of butter, bacon, and crackers; a few loaves of bread, two sacks of flour, some pickles, and a sufficient number of tin-plates, cups, and spoons. To these he subsequently added a half-dozen hams and something like fifty yards of Bologna sausage, which he told us were for use when we should tire of fresh meat. Sachem entered protest, declaring that sausage and ham, in a country full of game, reflected upon us.
"LOOKED LIKE THE END OF A TAIL."
THE RARE OLD PLAINSMAN OF THE NOVELS.
Of course, we found use for every item of the above, and especially for the Bologna. If one can feel satisfied in his own mind as to what portion of the brute creation is entering into him, a half-yard of Bologna, tied to the saddle, stays the stomach wonderfully on an all day's ride. It is so handy to reach it, while trotting along, and with one's hunting-knife cut off a few inches for immediate consumption. Semi-Colon, however, who was a youth of delicate stomach, sickened on his ration one day, because he found something in it which, he said, looked like the end of a tail. It is a debatable question, to my mind, whether Satan, among his many ways of entering into man, does not occasionally do so in the folds of Bologna sausage. Certain it is that, after such repast, one often feels like Old Nick, and woe be to the man at any time who is at all dyspeptic. All the forces of one's gastric juices may then prove insufficient to wage successful battle with the evil genius which rends him.
Our outfit, as regards transportation, consisted of the animals heretofore mentioned, and two teams which we hired at Hays, for the baggage and commissary supplies.
The evening before our departure we rode over to the fort and called upon General Sheridan. "Little Phil" had pitched his camp on the bank of Big Creek, a short distance below the fort, preferring a soldier's life in the tent to the more comfortable officer's quarters. This we thought eminently characteristic of the man. He is an accumulation of tremendous energy in small compass, a sort of embodied nitro-glycerine, but dangerous only to his enemies. Famous principally as a cavalry leader, because Providence flung him into the saddle and started him off at a gallop, had his destiny been infantry, he would have led it to victory on the run. And now, officer after officer having got sadly tangled in the Indian web, which was weaving its strong threads over so fair a portion of our land, Sheridan was sent forward to cut his way through it.
The camp was a pretty picture with its line of white tents, the timber along the creek for a background, and the solemn, apparently illimitable plains stretching away to the horizon in front. Taken altogether, it looked more like the comfortable nooning spot of a cavalry scout than the quarters of a famous General. Our chieftain stood in front of the center tent, with a few staff-officers lounging near by, his short, thick-set figure and firm head giving us somehow the idea of a small, sinewy lion.
We found the General thoroughly conversant with the difficult task to which he had been called. "Place the Indians on reservations," he said, "under their own chiefs, with an honest white superintendency. Let the civil law reign on the reservation, military law away from it, every Indian found by the troops off from his proper limits to be treated as an outlaw." It seemed to me that in a few brief sentences this mapped out a successful Indian policy, part of which indeed has since been adopted, and the remainder may yet be.
When speaking of late savageries on the plains the eyes of "Little Phil" glittered wickedly. In one case, on Spillman's Creek, a band of Cheyennes had thrust a rusty sword into the body of a woman with child, piercing alike mother and offspring, and, giving it a fiendish twist, left the weapon in her body, the poor woman being found by our soldiers yet living.
"I believe it possible," said Sheridan, "at once and forever to stop these terrible crimes." As he spoke, however, we saw what he apparently did not, a long string of red tape, of which one end was pinned to his official coat-tail, while the other remained in the hands of the Department at Washington. Soon after, as Sheridan pushed forward, the Washington end twitched vigorously. He managed, however, with his right arm, Custer, to deal a sledge-hammer blow, which broke to fragments the Cheyenne Black-kettle and his band. Whether or not that band had been guilty of the recent murders, the property of the slain was found in their possession, and the terrible punishment caused the residue of the tribe to sue for peace. It was the first time for years that the war spirit had placed any horrors at their doors, and that one terrible lesson prepared the savage mind for the advent of peace