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Thirty Years onThe Frontier
Thirty Years onThe Frontier
....BY.... ROBERT McREYNOLDS, AUTHOR OF Rodney Wilkes ,” “ The Luxury of Poverty ,” “ A Modern Jean Valjean ,” “ Facts and Fancies .” Colophon EL PASO PUBLISHING CO. COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. 1906 Copyright by Robert McReynolds . 1906. To Louis Taliaferro , Colorado Springs, Colorado . Thirty Years on the Frontier IN DAYS OF INNOCENCE. In the following pages I shall tell of much personal experience as well as important incidents which have come under my observation during thirty years on the front
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I.
I.
The things my grandfather said and did to me when he returned from church does not concern the public. But when he had finished, I was fully convinced that I was all to blame, and that I owed Mr. Woods $150 for his demolished mule. Then followed long lectures from my mother and grandmother, and to add to my discomfiture was Mr. Woods’ lamentations and his expressed regrets that it was not me, instead of his mule, that was blown up. I was the owner of an old musket with which I spent most of my t
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II.
II.
We were eight days out from Cheyenne, and several inches of snow had fallen during the night, but the sun rose clear on the biting cold of the morning. Suddenly we heard shots ahead. “Indians! Indians!” shouted one driver to another and then the wagons were quickly formed in a circle, the mules being unhitched and brought to the center of the circle. Then for the first time I saw the hideous forms of a band of half-naked savages mounted on their ponies in the distance. They were galloping in a c
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III.
III.
“You fellows can’t tell anything about it. Sounds of rushing water are always carried a long distance by rocks.” “But we are not in the rocks now, we are in a clay bank.” “Clay does the same thing; keep on digging.” Two days later and there was a commotion at the lower end of the tunnel, when a full head of water came rushing out, bearing with it men, wheelbarrows and shovels. They were nearly drowned, and half frozen, when they scrambled out of the creek. Mad as hornets, they sought their civil
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IV.
IV.
An army in this trackless waste was at that time at the mercy of guides and scouts. The sun rose in the east and shone all day upon a vast expanse of sagebrush and grass and as it set in the west cast its dull rays into a thousand ravines that neither man nor beast could cross; to go north or south could only be decided by personal effort. An insignificant turn to the wrong side of a little knoll or buffalo wallow would ofttimes lead the scout into ravine after ravine, or over bluff after bluff,
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V.
V.
Gathering Up the Dead at Wounded Knee ( page 37 ). Hunters and scouts had seen the sentinel-beat among the graves in the light of noon-day, when men could not be mistaken. The path ran from grave to grave, winding about to take in every one, and then it ran to the river and disappeared in a ledge of rocks. Scouts said it was a path beaten by human feet. The Indians said that a shadow or spirit alone could remain in that lonely spot, having only the company of wild beasts and the graves of the lo
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VI.
VI.
At that moment the old man’s half Indian boy and myself came up from the corral. This incident furnished the cause for an ugly Indian fight which occurred on Rock creek, northeastern Colorado, on June 12, 1877. “Doc” Kinnie, Charley Hayes and myself had come from Deadwood to Cheyenne as an escort for a stage coach carrying the Wells-Fargo express, when Stephenson offered us better pay to work on his cattle ranch. Four days before the incident of the bloody head, Stephenson had missed seven head
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VII.
VII.
Anderson then spent a month’s wages buying drinks for the boys, and kindly gave Rawlins until sunrise the next morning to live. Rawlins accepted his fate with stoicism and returned to camp, rolled in his blankets and slept soundly. Inured to danger for years, he knew sooner or later the end would come, and so gave himself but little concern about it. It was the spring round up and there were fifteen outfits in camp within two miles of North Platte, and the round up would begin as soon as two mor
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VIII.
VIII.
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 neith
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IX.
IX.
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 select
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X.
X.
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.
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XI.
XI.
Truer hearts I never expect to find ( page 78 ). 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 coi
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XII.
XII.
Battlefield at Wounded Knee ( page 87 ). 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
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XIII.
XIII.
Captain Watt needed a strip of leather. There was none to be found. Finally, his eye rested upon the old valise which had once been the property of Irwin Baker, which had tumbled about prospectors’ cabins for the last ten years. It was worn out, but the sides would make the strip of leather the captain wanted. The first slash of his knife revealed between the outside and the lining a folded sheet of paper, yellowed with age, and a closer examination proved it to be the carefully prepared map whi
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XIV.
XIV.
At the first session of the Territorial Legislature, a bill was introduced to remove the capital to Oklahoma City. When it was about to be placed upon its passage Arthur Daniels, the Speaker of the House, seized the bill and started on a run for the Santa Fe depot, where a special engine was waiting. Nearly all the members of the legislature started in pursuit, firing their revolvers at the fleeing speaker. He safely eluded them; and as the term of the legislature expired by law that night, the
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XV.
XV.
“My heart hurts me tonight,” he said, “and I am afraid I am going to die. I wouldn’t mind all this so much if it wasn’t for my boy with his mother over in the Osage nation, but I hate to see that boy go the way I have. If I could find a good man I’d make him my boys’ guardian and fix him for life.” The guard stopped and came over to the iron grating. “It is like this,” continued Doolin. “I have got $30,000 in gold for some good man who will bring that boy up in the way he should go and be a fath
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XVI.
XVI.
The men assembled at Guthrie at this time were from all quarters of the United States, and represented almost every nationality. As one rider dashed up the street on a very fine horse, a gust of wind lifted his sombrero and landed it near where I stood. I picked it up and was in the act of handing it to him when he exclaimed: “Hello, Bob, you here!” “Yes,” I replied, scanning his face for an instant before recognizing him. Then the face came back to me with pleasant memories. He was my old frien
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XVII.
XVII.
“The agent and myself rode out there about six months after they had gone to housekeeping. We were both curious to know how they were getting along. “It was a sight for your whiskers. Outside sat nearly all her furniture. The covers of plush had been ripped off for Indian horse trappings, the wood was stained and weather cracked. “The house was without doors, worn blankets being hung instead. The floors were cold and bare. In a corner upon an old mattress lay Cora Belle Fellows or Mrs. Chaska. A
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XVIII.
XVIII.
Murat’s command did nearly three months’ campaigning over the dry, heated plains before any effective work was accomplished. Early in November a mounted column of 650 Colorado volunteers of Colonel Shoup’s Third Regiment, 175 of the First Regiment and a few mounted Mexicans, formed the fighting force under Colonel Chivington. A large band of Indians was located on the banks of Sand Creek, about forty miles north of where Ft. Lyons now stands and near the village of Kit Carson. Bent’s Fort, a rud
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XIX.
XIX.
On the night we were ready to start the distinguishing lights of a revenue cutter were seen, so we lay close in a little cove and banked the fires in our furnace until four o’clock the next afternoon, when we slipped out and put for the high seas, headed straight for the coast of Cuba. When night fairly set in, there came small squalls and a drizzling rain. We had no signal lights out and every sound was muffled, even the funnel was so protected that not a spark could escape. All night long ever
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XX.
XX.
The Spaniards threw a double cordon of infantry at bayonet charge against our cavalry, but the Texans’ revolvers opened a gap and the column rode through the demoralized camp, doing its fearful work. On the column plunged, fire leaping from the deadly revolvers on either side. When beyond the Spanish camp, the bugle sounded wheel, and back we rode among the panic stricken soldiers, dealing death until they broke in confusion, and gained the cover of the forest. We halted long enough to gather up
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XXI.
XXI.
“It was getting dark and we were crossing a wide stretch of the then desolate plain that lay between the Platte River and Osceola. I was enjoying a cigar and felt at peace with all the world, when a devilish thought struck me, and I asked, ‘What has been your business?’ “‘Well, sir,’ he replied, ‘I have been a cow boy.’ “‘The deuce you have,’ said I, ‘Shake, old man, you are a fellow after my own heart, and since you have been so kind to tell me your business, I will let you know who I am. I, si
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XXII.
XXII.
The cowboy story differs from any I have ever heard, both in extravagance of statement and manner of telling. They relate to anything and everything that has ever come under his acute observation. “I always had an especial desire to make governors my associates,” said “Beaut” Bowers, “so with a view to a pleasant acquaintance I once called upon Governor Waite, presenting the compliments of Governor Rentfrow of Oklahoma and several other governors, none of whom had sent any compliments, but then
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XXIII.
XXIII.
Swiftly flows the Rio Grande along its shallow banks, from whence here and there runs an irrigating ditch which waters a patch of corn or vineyard, near the adobe houses which are scattered thickly along the banks of the river, from the Sangre de Christo mountains to the Mexican sea. Here for over three hundred years a semi-Spanish civilization has existed in a sweet contentment to which the Anglo-Saxon race was born a stranger. Here is the Egypt of America, teeming with the traditions of a simp
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XXIV.
XXIV.
One great boulder is named the Hooded Monk, because of its resemblance to the human head in a monk’s cowl. There is a Gog and Magog. The Sphynx, the Lone Fisherman, and many other images of man, bird and beast, wrought by nature’s hand in stone. We glided by one of the loveliest glens in all the mountains; it was called Shady Springs. Here the oriole, the raven and the big blue jay of the mountains have builded their nests and take their morning baths in waters clear as crystal from a spring tha
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XXV.
XXV.
At the entrance of the Cave of the Winds one follows the guide into the dark pathway that leads into the subterranean chambers, where at some remote period a wild mountain cataract has whirled and plunged its maddening waters, in swirl and maelstrom into the black abyss of the earth. One is so suddenly transported from the gladsome and awe-inspiring scenes without, that the lamp and figure of the guide become spectral, his voice sounds in hollow tones and is echoed back from cavernous depths as
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XXVI.
XXVI.
Captain Jack Crawford ( page 208 ). Captain Jack is one of the very few thrown together with the wild, rough element of the frontier who maintained a strictly moral character. I knew him in the “Hills” in 1876 and have known him ever since, and have always found him to be the same genial, whole-souled, brave Captain Jack. John McCoach, a pioneer of the sixties, was a among a party near the headwaters of Wind River, Wyoming, in August, 1866, who defeated a thousand warriors with the first Henri r
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