Buckskin Mose

by George W. Perrie

  CHAPTER XIX.

  A LIVELY COMMENCEMENT--THE FIGHT IN THE DESERT--EXTERMINATION OF A BAND OF CUT-THROATS--THE CAVALRY SABRE--A CONTRAST--PERMITTED TO RETIRE AND RECEIVING PROMOTION--A LITTLE LOVE--CHANCE AND TROUBLE--WHAT CAME OF IT--"SMOKING OUT A VARMINT"--A FEW PRISONERS--THE INDIAN AGENT--NEW FRUIT ON A TREE--ALONE ON A TRAIL--THE END.

  After a brief council, in which Captain Smith, Harry Arnold, and myselfwere the principal ones who took a part, it was determined to surroundthem on the side where we then were, and immediately day had broken, todrive them to the desert. By doing this, we calculated scarcely one ofthem would have a chance of escaping.

  "At last, Mose!" said Le Roy, who happened to be near me, "we have theblood-thirsty devils! and may God not spare me, if I fail to kill, whilea single one of them is left alive."

  He scarcely seemed to be aware of the meaning of his muttered words. ButI knew of what he was thinking. It was of the death of Al. Simmons.

  In some forty minutes the necessary orders had been given, and we hadadvanced nearly within gun-shot of them. We had moved into our positionwith the most complete silence. What had startled the Indians, I was andstill am unable to imagine. They had, however, discovered our approach,and yelling out their war-whoop, dashed towards us, on our centre. Itwas just light enough for them to make out our strength. When theyfound this, they recoiled, and, almost at the same instant, made acharge upon our left. For some few minutes the boys and soldiers on thatside of our position had lively work, and then, finding out that therealso we were too strong for them, the red-skins started out on thedesert.

  We pursued them leisurely for some six miles. Then putting the spur toour horses, we galloped up and surrounded them.

  It was now daylight. We could see the work before us.

  Justice must be done even to such a rascally set of murdering thieves asSmoke-creek Sam's gang. When caught, they did fight, as I honestlybelieve no Pah-utes have ever before done. However, the blue-coatedservants of Uncle Sam and the Buckskin Rangers fought better. Thesoldiers rode amongst the red-skins, hewing them down with their sabres,while our boys were equally busy with revolver and knife.

  This had scarcely been going on for as many minutes as we had coveredmiles of the desert, when I marked one Indian. From descriptions ofSmoke-creek Sam, which we had almost all of us heard, I determined thatthis must be the scoundrel, and rode up to him. I was lying on the sideof my horse when he saw me. Lifting his revolver, he fired three or fourshots at me as rapidly as he could.

  The last of these crashed through the skull of the noble brute, that hadborne me so well and gallantly for so many years. I felt, even at themoment in which he fell--in spite of the enemy who were in the front andon all sides of me--a cruel pang.

  It so happened that when I fell, Arnold was near me and had seen theshot take effect on the animal I was mounted on. He knew how greatly Ivalued the gift of Jack Bird, not simply on account of the giver, but onits own account. I heard his voice, as the report of his own pistol rangon the ear, almost immediately following that of the red-skin's. Givingutterance to a fierce cry, he yelled out:

  "You have killed the Tipton Slasher. Take that, you red devil!"

  Harry's ball had broken the right arm of Smoke-creek Sam, and he hadgone to grass as it struck him, or, at all events, I thought so. The redruffian had certainly fallen, and, extricating myself from the pantingbody of my dying horse, I leapt towards him for the purpose of raisinghis hair. While I was in the act of doing this, I saw that he was notyet dead. With a desperate clutch of his left hand, he was trying tograsp the revolver which had fallen from his maimed limb upon theground. It was lying a trifle beyond his reach, and before I had timeeven to think of putting him out of his misery, I saw the gleam of acavalry sabre flashing through the air.

  The blade fell.

  In another instant, the savagely brutal head of Smoke-creek Sam washanging from his shorn neck, attached to it merely by a small portion ofbleeding flesh. At the same moment when this was effected, a voiceshrieked out:

  "Buckeeskin Mose, he now see whether Shoshonee John fight. Think himkill heap."

  There was clearly no more reason for doubting the sincerity of ourIndian ally.

  "Smoke-creek Sam?"

  This demand was made by me with an inquiring gesture, as, in doing so,I extended to him the scalp I had just lifted. Looking first at it, andthen at the head he had so nearly severed from the body it belonged to,as if to make sure of their former connection, he replied:

  "Heap sure."

  The answering affirmative was uttered with a sententious gravity,exemplarily characteristic of his red ancestry, as Cooper has paintedsimilar races long since wiped out by our rushing civilization. Stridingfrom us, he then looked around the battle-field for more of hisbrethren, upon whom he could display the reality of his detestation ofthem, as well as his capacity as a headsman.

  However, by this time the strife was well-nigh over. Not one ofSmoke-creek Sam's gang could be seen standing upon his feet. The hardsoil of the desert, for more than quarter of a mile square, was strownwith their dead bodies. Eighty-one of the merciless scoundrels had paidwith an honorable end for their bloodily disgusting crimes. Not a singlered-skin had escaped from the bullet or the sabre. The band of torturingand villanous cut-throats and murderers had been totally exterminated.

  In this instance also, I can justly say, as I have done in ColonelConnor's battle on Bear River, that Captain Smith, although an officerin the regular service, did his work well and thoroughly.

  The Pah-utes, however, had not been reduced to tranquillity. As I haveearlier explained, this gang was merely a section of that tribe whoseatrocities and lawlessness had compelled their expulsion from it. Not,indeed, their atrocity and lawlessness against us, the white settlers,but that which they displayed at the expense of their red brethren.

  Scarcely had I returned and been, for a short time, in the society of mylittle wife, settled down in Susanville, when an incident occurred whichfully demonstrated this fact.

  At this time, a body of Uncle Sam's blue-coats were stationed in thevicinity of Summit Lake. The cavalry was under the command of CaptainHall, and the infantry under that of Captain Meyers. It happened thattwo of our most prominent citizens were crossing the mountains, somefour miles nearer than this post, when they were attacked by a party ofred-skins. The leg of one of them, named Kesler, was broken by arifle-ball at the first volley aimed at them by the attacking Indians.The other of the men was possessed of cool courage and indomitablepluck. This was Frank Drake. No sooner did he see his companion fall,than he asked briefly:

  "Are you wounded?"

  "The red cusses have broken my leg, Drake!"

  "Yer must be off, then."

  "How on airth can I?"

  "We'll soon see," cried Frank cheerily.

  Cutting one of the horses loose from their team, he helped Kesler on toit, in spite of the bullets which were rattling on the other side of thewagon. Then, bidding him ride to the Lake to ask for assistance from thesoldiers, he proposed to fight it out alone with the Indians. Keslerremonstrated vainly with him. Giving to the horse he had cut loose aheavy lash with the whip he had previously been using, he said:

  "Go, yer darned fool, unless yer wish both on us to be done for, by thered skunks."

  The animal started with Kesler, followed by a pelting shower of bullets.None of them, however, struck either him or the horse. This unusualhint, in all probability, accelerated the speed of the latter, for heseems to have made good time. In about twenty minutes, Kesler arrived atthe place where the blue-coats were stationed, and on seeing CaptainHall, told him the situation in which he had left Frank Drake, andbegged him to send his friend "help at once." This officer replied inthe usual official slang of the Plains:

  "I've lost no Indians, and I'll be hung, if I'm going to trot out my menfor nothing."

  "Nothing! Hain't I told yer Frank Drake is fighting the red devils, byhimself?"

&
nbsp; "By this time," was Hall's reply, "the man is killed. We shan't findhim."

  In spite of this refusal, in which Uncle Sam's servant persisted, somefew of his men, accompanied by several settlers who chanced to bepresent, at once mounted their horses and galloped off, leaving Keslerbehind, to have his leg attended to by the army surgeon, if the postrejoiced in such an appendage. This is by no means invariably the case.The party galloping to save the plucky Frank Drake, made even betterspeed than his companion had done.

  No sooner were their rapidly advancing hoofs heard, than the cowardlyIndians fled.

  Upon arriving at the point where the team had been left standing, they,at first, saw no living creature save one of the remaining horses. FrankDrake was found by them stretched under the wagon. When the red-skinsran, he knew relief was at hand, and had fainted away from loss ofblood. Wounded in almost every part of his body as he was, by greatluck, not one of the holes made by the Pah-utes was dangerous. Two ofthem were lying dead on the farther side of the road; and when herevived, he told those who had rescued him he thought he had seen athird of them carried away as they were approaching.

  The preceding incident of frontier life is mentioned by me for thepurpose of striking a just balance with regard to the protectionafforded the settlements by the Government. This will be the betterappreciated by the reader, when he hears I have been told that CaptainSmith was "permitted to retire," while Captain Hall has since receivedthe reward due to his services, by promotion.

  Let me, before closing this volume, relate another incident whichdisplays, in an even more striking light, the love for Uncle Sam'srelatives which is so very generally exhibited by his servants.

  Some time in 1865 or 1866, a family had moved into Honey Lake Valleyconsisting of an old man and his wife, with a daughter, whose charmingface and winning manners might have entitled her to a place in farbetter society than Susanville could by any possibility afford her. Thename of the family was Pierson. Their child was called Hattie. They hadsettled on a ranche just below Laithrop's place and near the HotSprings. Butch' Hasbrouck had, shortly after the family arrived, becomeacquainted with them, and greatly to the pleasure of the parents, hadmade arrangements to reside under their roof.

  Of course, such fair readers as I may not have terrified into closingthis volume, by the too bloody tales I have written out in these pages,will readily enough divine the reason which had led him so quickly intoan intimacy with the parents and their daughter.

  Hasbrouck loved Hattie Pierson.

  He had, I believe, told me, only, of his happiness when he becameengaged to her. Certainly, it was not generally known. She was still soyoung, that her father had insisted upon the marriage being deferreduntil the following year.

  In the meantime, Hattie's beauty had attracted other admirers.

  These she had managed to make understand that she did not love them,without inflicting upon them, or her own kindly and gentle nature, thepain of a refusal. One of them was, however, more obstinatelypertinacious. This was a man of the name of Cockrell, who, in spite ofevery hint she had given him, persisted in his attentions, and at lastmade her an offer of marriage. Being thus cornered, as it were, the girlwas compelled to refuse him. In the hope of softening her refusal bygiving him a positive reason for it, she blushingly owned that she wasengaged to Butch' Hasbrouck. She had learnt to give him the sameappellation which all his friends had so long done.

  What was her horror when Cockrell burst into a furious fit of passion,not only reproaching her in the vilest manner, but swearing not only tokill him but the girl also.

  When this occurred, Butch' had been absent with the Rangers. This wasonly for a short time, and on his return, Hattie told him how Cockrellhad terrified her. Her lover comforted her by laughing away her fears.However, on the next day, he made his appearance where I was living, andasked me to go with him in search of this man.

  "What for, Butch'?" I asked.

  "Nare yer mind, Mose! When I find the darned cuss, yer'll know, soonenough."

  Of course, I went with him. But our search was a fruitless one. Cockrellhad disappeared from Susanville the day before. No sooner had he heardthat the Rangers had returned than he had quitted the place. WhenHasbrouck found that this was positively so, he frankly told me thereason which induced him to search for the fellow.

  "But if you had found him, Butch', what was it you meant to do?"

  "What war it I meant to do? In course, shoot the darned blackguard."

  Up to this moment, he had been as cool as a cucumber, or, rather, as thewinter snow on Bear River during my campaign in that locality. Yourquiet men are always dangerous, and so I told him. At the same time, Iconsoled him with the reflection that Cockrell's conduct had proved thisfact. After abusing little Hattie Pierson like a dastardly cur, he hadcleared out, immediately after the return of her plighted lover.

  "P'raps yer're right, Mose!"

  "I know I am, my boy! A white liver always tells. So has his."

  "The varmint has run tu the nearest hole he could find," he said with asmile.

  "If we catch him, we'll smoke him out."

  We both laughed, and we were both wrong to laugh. In the following year,we again went upon the Humboldt, and shortly after we had done so, oldMr. Pierson decided to move further south, to Winamucca Valley, near RedRock. When the family were passing up the east side of Honey Lake, theywere attacked by Indians and all of them were murdered. When found, thebody of the old man was literally riddled with bullets. Mrs. Pierson andHattie were lying in each other's arms, clasped tightly, as if in theeffort to shield each other from death. They had been slain in the samemanner.

  Intelligence of this was brought to us. And I can never forget theeffect it had upon Butch' Hasbrouck when he heard it.

  His face became lividly white, in spite of the tanning by exposure ithad so long had. Without a word, he turned, lifted his rifle and hisshot-pouch, took a small bag which he filled with parched corn, and wasleaving us. Throwing my arm around his neck, I said:

  "Where are you going?"

  "After them as killed my Hattie."

  "Do you think I shall not go with you?" I asked.

  "Hand H'i too?" exclaimed Brighton Bill.

  Arnold and Painter were already preparing to accompany him, and, in lessthan an hour, we were all upon the homeward road.

  Our search was, for some two weeks, completely in vain. Although, nearthe scene of the murder, keen eyes could make out the trail, it was lostat a short distance from it, owing to the rocky nature of the soil.However, where we had first seen it, Butch' affirmed that he haddiscovered the track of a white man. Arnold and myself thought as hedid. If so, this man was Cockrell. The belief in this fact madeHasbrouck untiring in his attempt to recover the trail.

  In spite of every effort on his part and ours, we were unable to do so.It was a providential chance which enabled us, at last, to fasten upon aportion of the guilty parties. These were, unfortunately, all red-skins.

  One morning, while on Willow Creek, we fell in with five Pah-utes. Itwas a surprise party both for them and us, and a luckless surprise forthe red-skins. There was no chance for their showing fight. We werenearly five times their own number. Neither could they fly; we hadsurrounded them. Butch' had at once recognized upon them portions of oldPierson's clothing and some of Hattie's trinkets. We could not shootthem down in cold blood, and after a brief council, decided upondisarming and taking them with us as prisoners to Susanville. HadCockrell been with them, I honestly believe he would never have left thespot alive. Hasbrouck would certainly have slain him where he stood.Nevertheless, he made no opposition to our present purpose. In hishorror and wrath at the crime of the white scoundrel, he seemed to passover that of the red devils who had aided him in accomplishing it, asscarcely worthy of notice.

  Accordingly, they were taken to Susanville and placed in a species oflock-up which there did duty as a jail.

  As we quitted Willow Creek, it may perhaps be mentioned that one of th
ered ruffians appealed to us to let him go, on the score that he had donenothing but "shoot him gun into old white man." This plea of innocencewas necessarily unattended to.

  We had intended to give them a fair trial, and it was to come off veryquickly. It is only in large cities that justice is slow and dilatory.But on the morning immediately preceding the day which had been fixedfor it, I mean the second morning of their imprisonment, Harry Arnold,in company with Butch' Hasbrouck, met me. It was in front of J. I.Steward's hotel. The former said:

  "Cap! we were coming to see you."

  "What is up now?"

  He had given me the rank I had held when out with the Rangers. This heseldom did, even then, unless we were in active and trying pursuit ofthe red-skins. What did it mean?

  "Wall, Mose, du yer want the infarnal red cusses who helped murder myHattie to git clean off?" demanded Butch'.

  "Certainly not!"

  "Shut up, Butch'," exclaimed Harry, "until we are somewhere, where nonecan hear a word you are saying."

  "Ye're jist right. I will."

  When Arnold spoke last, I noticed that his strong fingers had graspedthe arm of his companion, tightly. Moreover, I was enabled to remarkthat the face of the latter had more of its old vitality. This was,however, at present, by no means of an alluringly agreeable character.His eyes seemed to have the very devil in them. When he replied toHarry, he strode rapidly up the street. Arnold and myself followed him,until we had passed the last house or log shanty in it, and had reacheda clear and open spot. Here I came to a dead halt.

  "And now, man, what is it you have to tell me?"

  "Du yer know the skunk the folks in Washington sent to Pyramid Lake,last fall, as [3]Injun agint?"

  "Yes!"

  "What d'yer think he's a' goin' tu du with the cuss'd red devils wecotched up thar," as he said this, he gave a jerk with his thumb in thedirection leading to it, "at Willier Crik?"

  "What can he do with them?"

  "He's a' goin' to rin 'em off to-morrer, on to the Resarvation. So wecan't du nothing with them," Hasbrouck replied savagely.

  "You must be dreaming, Butch'," I exclaimed angrily. "The thievingscoundrel doesn't dare do it."

  "Doesn't he?" asked Arnold, with a bitter smile. "Why! he isn't even oneof Uncle Sam's blue-coats!"

  Arnold then explained to me how the other Ranger had learned that thisplan had actually been decided upon, and gave me the names of some ofour more timidly loyal fellow-citizens, who had been induced by theagent to guarantee him their support. What was there for us to do? Thisfellow actually represented our respected Uncle! He had probably calledfor the assistance of the regulars stationed in the vicinity ofSusanville. Little doubt, perhaps, existed in our minds that our boyscould have whipped them with the help of their friends, who, I firmlybelieve, would have turned out in mass, at such a call as we might havemade. But this would have been insurrection, or treason, or something ofthe sort. I could see nothing left for us to do, but to grin and bearit. That was a natural necessity.

  But somehow or other, on that night the matter was removed from ourhands, as well as that of the Indian agent aforesaid. While we were allsleeping the sound slumber of law-abiding citizens of the United States,a party of masked men overpowered the jailer, and broke into theprison.

  On the next morning, a fine tree which stood at the side of AlbertSmith's dwelling-house bore a new kind of fruit. The red-skins who hadmurdered Hattie Pierson and her parents were dangling from its branches.They had paid for their crime with its legitimate penalty.

  It was a sound and vigorous specimen of frontier justice.

  Suspicion pointed its finger at many of my fellow-citizens, possibly,myself included. The Indian agent was furious. But the perpetrators ofthis act of justice, outside of law, kept their own counsel. Up to thepresent, as I have reason to know, suspicion has failed to obtainpositive proof of the hands that hung the five Pah-ute assassins.

  This volume is now drawing to a close, as in 1869 I quitted that portionof the country in which I had so long been residing. Nevertheless, inthe preceding year, one more bloody act occurred which it may benecessary to record. Hiram Partridge and Vesper Coburn were at thisperiod keeping the station at Deep Hole Springs, to which my pilgrimagein the winter of 1861 with lame Tom Bear may be remembered by any onewho has not shrunken from my company up to the present time. Hiram was acousin of John Partridge, and had once been a partner with me in workingmy claim at the mines on the Humboldt. Vesper Coburn was an oldschoolfellow and playmate of mine, when we were no more than children.Consequently, I no sooner heard of their murder than I determined, wereit within my power, to avenge it.

  Previous to this, the organization of the Buckskin Rangers had beenbroken up.

  Susanville had somewhat declined from its old prosperity. If thesettlement round Honey Lake had been growing at all, it was certainlynot doing so, at its right end. Montana had sprung into suddenprominence, Idaho was greatly increasing in wealth and the number of itsinhabitants, while other places in the surrounding section of thecountry, to the south and west, were rapidly outstripping us. Many of myold comrades had gone to the two places I have more distinctly named,while some of them had struck on beyond, as far as Lower California.

  When this outrage occurred, I chanced to be at Reno, a small town on theline of the Central Pacific Railroad, which was then completed as far asSalt Lake City. It is at Reno the junction is now formed with the linefor Virginia City, Nevada.

  Some months had passed subsequent to the death of Partridge and Coburn,when I encountered three red-skins in the vicinity of this place, andrecognized the horse on which one of them was mounted as Hiram'sproperty. Beside this, they all of them wore articles of clothing whichwere decidedly not made by the Indians. Had anything else been wantingto convince me of their being the criminals, this was supplied by mypersonal knowledge of the faces of two of them. These had been in theactual employment of the murdered men.

  They started on their return to the mountains, and I followed them.

  My pursuit only counted one white, all told--myself. Their number wastriple mine. The odds were sufficient to justify the weaker party inemploying stratagem. Suffice it that I did so, and counted three scalpsagainst the deaths of my old playmate and recent partner.

  If any doubt had been entertained by me of the justice of this action,it would have been speedily dispelled by the additional proof shortlyafter afforded me. It was only a few days after my return to theHumboldt, that a red-skin, known by me as Pah-ute Jim, accused me ofkilling his brother, one of the two Indians who had been employed by mymurdered friends.

  "Yes!" I unhesitatingly answered. "I did kill him, because he helped tokill Partridge and Coburn."

  "Umph!" he ejaculated. "Natches heap tell 'um kill. No kill, Natchesheap kill Injin."

  Natches, I ought possibly to mention, was, at this time, the chief ofthe Pah-utes.

  * * * * *

  With this incident, I may fairly conclude. My Indian hunting, trapping,and fighting ended with it. Since this I have been engaged in mining andother pursuits, having resided for some length of time in Salt Lake Cityamong the Mormons. Should my first literary venture, my dear reader,prove tolerably successful, Heaven only can tell whether it may not befollowed by another. If so, it is just within the range of possibility,I may turn from Indian fighting to Mormon polygamy. I can scarcely saywhich you may think the least interesting. But I can honestly vouch forit, the many-wife business will be the most amusing.

  FOOTNOTE:

  [3] Unfortunately, I am unable to recall the name of thisindividual, and therefore cannot pillory it.