Over a century the title held. Adaptive Indian, Catholic Mexican, acceptive dragoon, one and all respected and believed in it. But then came the miner and the cowboy, and with them the new vocabulary. Monte San Matéo slinks in unmerited shame to hide its heralded deformity as Baldhead Butte. What devilish inspiration impelled the Forty-Niners to damn Monte San Pablo to go down to eternity as Bill Williams' Mountain? Who but an iconoclast would rend the sensitive ear with such barbarities as the Loss Angglees of to-day for the deep-vowelled Los Angeles of the last century? Who but a Yankee would swap the murky "Purgatoire" for Picketwire, and make Zumbro River of the Rivière des Ombres of brave old Père Marquette? And so, too, it goes through all the broad Northwest. Indian names, beautiful in themselves even though at times untranslatable, are tossed contemptuously aside to be replaced by the homeliest of every-day appellations, until the modern geography of Wyoming, Dakota, Montana, and Idaho bristles with innumerable Sage, Boxelder, Horse, and Pine Creeks.
Mini Pusa—Dry Water—have the Dakotas called for ages the sandy stream that twists and turns and glares in the hot sunshine down here in the vale behind us. "Muggins's Fork," some stockman said he heard it called a month ago. Far over there to the east—almost under the black shadow of the hills—we see another slender thread of questionable green; cottonwoods again, no doubt, for nothing but cottonwoods or sage-brush or grease-wood—worse yet—will grow down in the alkaline wastes of this Wyoming valley; and that thread or fringe betokens the existence of a stream in the spring-time,—one that the Sioux have ever called the Beaver, after the amphibious rodent who dammed its waters, and thereby rescued them from a like fate at the hands of modern residents. Far to the southeast, miles and miles away, dim and hazy through the heatwaves of the atmosphere one can almost see another twisting string of shade, the cottonwoods on the banks of the winding War Bonnet; at least so the Sioux named it, after their gorgeous crown of eagle feathers, but 'twas too polysyllabic, too poetic for the blunt-spoken frontiersman, who long since compromised on Hat Creek. We are in the heart of the Indian country, but the wild romance has fled. We are on dangerous ground, for there, straight away before our eyes, broad, beaten as a race-course, prominent as any public highway, descending the slope until lost in the timber of the South Cheyenne, then reappearing beyond, until far in the southeast it dwindles in perspective to a mere thread, and so dips into the valley of the War Bonnet and Indian Creek,—there lies the broad road from the reservations to the war-path. It is the trail over which for years the "Wards of the Nation" have borne the paid-up prices of their good behavior to sustain their brethren renegados in the Powder River Country far up here to the northwest. Over this road all winter long, all the spring-tide, and to this very week in June, arms, ammunition, ponies, bacon, flour, coffee, sugar, clothing, and warriors have been speeding to the hosts of Sitting Bull. The United States is sending to-day three or four thousand men at arms, equipped and supplied by the Department of War, to try conclusions with about twice that number of trained warriors similarly provided for by the Department of the Interior. It is odd, but it is a fact. Camping along the banks of the Rawhide, the first stream on the Indian side of the Platte, the officer in command of the advance-guard of the —th was surprised to see a train of wagons and without apparent escort. Galloping down to their fires, he accosted the wagon-master, who smilingly assured him that he and his train were in no danger from the Indians,—they were bringing them supplies. What supplies? Why, metallic cartridges, of course, Winchester and Henry, for their magazine-rifles, don't you know? Oh, yes. He understood well enough that they were all going out on the war-path, but he couldn't help that. He was paid so much a month to haul supplies from Sidney to Red Cloud agency, and if it happened to be powder and lead, 'tweren't none o' his business. How much had he? Oh, three or four hundred thousand rounds, he reckoned. To whom consigned? Why, the trader,—the Indian store at Red Cloud, of course,—Mr. ——'s. In speechless indignation the officer rides off and reports the matter to the colonel, and the colonel goes down and interviews the imperturbable "boss" with similar result, and more; for he comes back with a shrug of the shoulders and some honest blasphemy, for which may Heaven forgive him. (The fine inflicted by army regulations has not yet been collected.) "We can do nothing," he says. "That fellow has his papers straight from the Interior Department. He has been hauling cartridges all spring." And now, here is the advance-guard of the —th again far up on the Mini Pusa, just arrived, and that slender column of smoke rising from among the cottonwoods tells of a tiny fire where the men are boiling their coffee, while, miles away to the southwest, the rising dust-clouds proclaim the coming of the regiment itself. Out on the distant heights, on either side, other smokes are rising. Indian signals, that say to lurking warriors far and near, "Be on your guard; soldiers coming;" and so, here on the breaks of the Mini Pusa on this scorching Sabbath morn, the vanguard of the —th has reached and tapped the broad highway of Indian commerce. The laws of the nation they are sworn to defend prohibit their interfering with the distribution of ammunition by that same nation to the foes they are ordered to meet. The nation is impartial: it provides friend and foe alike. The War Office sends its cartridges to the —th through the ordnance officer, Lieutenant X. The Indian Bureau looks after its wards through Mr. ——at Red Cloud. And now the —th is ordered to stop those cartridges from getting to Sitting Bull up on the Rosebud. That is what brings them here to the Mini Pusa, and we see them now riding down in long dusty column into the valley, heedless of the dust they make, for the Indians have hovered on their flanks, out of sight, out of range, but seeing, ever since they crossed the Platte; and here they are, "old Stannard" and Billings with the advance, lying prone on their stomachs and searching through their field-glasses for any signs of Indian coming from the reservations, while with the column itself, in their battered slouch hats and rough flannel and buckskin, bristling with cartridges and ugly beards, burned and blistered and parched with scorching sun and winds tempered only with alkali dust, ride our Arizona friends,—many of them at least. Old Bucketts with his green goggles; Turner with his melancholy face and placid ways; Raymond, stern and swart; Canker, querulous and "nagging" with his men, but eager for any service; Stafford, who won his troop vice the noble-hearted Tanner whom we lost among the Apaches; Wayne, who is loquacity itself whenever he can find a listener, and who talks his patient subaltern almost deaf through the long day marches; and Crane and Wilkins, who are a good deal together at every halt, and consort more with Canker than other captains; and then there is the jolly element that ever clusters around Blake, whose spirits defy adversity, and whose merry quips and jests and boundless distortions of fact or fancy are the joy of the regiment. With Blake one always finds Merrill and Freeman and some of the jovial junior captains, and, of course, the boys,—Hunter, Dana, Briggs; and here they are on this blessed Sabbath of the Centennial June, sent up to stop Mr. ----'s cartridges, after they have become the property of "Mr. Lo;" and once a cartridge becomes Indian property, there is only one way of stopping it. The wealth of France is inadequate to purchase of Alfred Krupp a single gun from his shops at Essen, because his love for Fatherland will not let him place a power in the hands of the hereditary enemy. It takes enlightened England and free America to supply friends and foes alike with the means to kill.
Stannard closes his glass with a grunt of dissatisfaction, and turns to Billings. "None of those cartridges get through here this day anyhow; but how many do you suppose Mr. —— has sent up there already?" And he points as he speaks to the far northwest.
Under that blue dome, cloudless, glaring; under the sentinel peaks of the Big Horn shimmering there in the distance, over the rolling divide in that glorious upland that heaves and rolls and tosses between the Rosebud and the swirling stream in the broad valley farther west, another regiment—that of which we spoke, whose leader is famed in song and story—is riding rapidly this still Sunday morning in search of Mr. ----'s cartridges. Some say the ta
ll, blue-eyed, blond-bearded captain who leads that beautiful troop of bays is Mr. ——'s brother. Odd! yet how can the Indian Bureau know that Crazy Horse and Two Bears and Kicking Mule want to buy Mr. ——'s bullets to kill his brother with? How, indeed, should Mr. —— know? Army officers, 'tis true, have warned them time and again; but when were army officers' statements ever potent in the Interior Department against the unendorsed assertion of Crazy Horse or Kicking Mule that he only wanted to kill buffalo? Indeed, is not Mr. —— himself eager to go bail for the purchaser, since his profits are so high? Over the divide, hot on the broad, beaten trail goes the long column. How different are they from our sombre friends of the —th, who, miles and marches away to the southeast, are dismounting and unsaddling under the cottonwoods! Years in Arizona have robbed the latter of all the old love for the pomp and panoply of war. There is not a bit of finery in the command, there is hardly a vestige of uniform; but look here, look here at the brilliance of the Seventh. Bright guidons flutter at the head of every troop; bright chevrons, stripes, and buttons gleam on the dress of many an officer and man; the steeds, though worn and jaded with an almost ceaseless trot of thirty-six hours, are spirited and beautiful; some are gayly decked. Foremost rides their tried leader, clad from head to foot in beaded buckskin. "The Long Hair" the Sioux still call him, though now the long hair waves not on the breeze, and an auburn beard conceals the handsome outline of the face all troopers know so well. Near him rides his adjutant, dressed like himself in their favorite buckskin, so too are others among the officers, though many wear the jaunty fatigue uniform of the cavalry, and the rank and file are all, or nearly all, in blue. But a short way back they have come upon the scaffolding sepulchre of Indian warriors lately slain in battle; but a few miles ahead they see a broad valley from which, far from south to north, a vast dust-cloud is rising, and for this there can be but one explanation,—thousands of Indian ponies in excited motion. Ay, scouts in advance already sight indications of the near presence of a great Indian community, and the column resolves itself into three, trotting in parallel lines across the treeless upland a mile or so apart. With the northernmost, the largest, rides now the leader of all, while between them gallop couriers carrying rapid orders. Every face sets eagerly westward. Every heart beats high with the thrill of coming battle. Some there are who note the immensity of the dust-cloud, who reason silently that for miles and miles the valley before them is covered by the scurrying herds; ten thousand ponies at least must there be to stir up such a volume; then, how many warriors are there to meet these seven hundred? No matter what one thinks, not a man falters.
Far to the south the snow peaks glisten over the pine-crested range of the Big Horn. Nearer at hand deep, dark cañons burrow in towards the bowels of the mountains. Then from their bases leap the rolling foot-hills, brown and bare but for the dense growth of the sun-cured buffalo-grass. Westward, open and undulating sweeps the broad expanse of almost level valley beyond the bluffs, close under which is curling the fatal stream,—the "Greasy Grass" of the Dakotas. Far to the north in the same endless waves the prairie rolls to the horizon, beyond which lies the shallow river where the transports are toiling up-stream with comrade soldiery. Behind the column, eastward, dip the sheltered valleys of the Rosebud and the breaks of the Tongue among the Cheetish Mountains; and there, not fifty miles away as the crow flies, the soldiers of the Gray Fox, over two thousand strong, are camped, awaiting reinforcements before renewing the attempt to advance upon these lurking bands of Sitting Bull. Not two days' march away, on both flanks, are four times his numbers in friends and allies; not two miles away, in his front, are ten times his force in foemen, savage, but skilled; yet all alone and unsupported, the Long Hair rides dauntlessly to the attack, even though he and his well know it must be battle to the death, for Indian warfare knows no mercy.
There be those who say the assault was rash; the speed unauthorized; the whole effort mad as Lucan's launch of the Light Brigade at Balaclava; but once there in view of the fatal valley, the sight is one to fire the brain of any trooper. Galloping to a little mound to the right front, the broad expanse lies before the leader's eyes, and far as he can see, out to the west and northwest, the dust-cloud rises heavily over the prairie; here and there, nearer at hand, are the scurrying ponies and, close down by the stream, excited bands of Indians tearing down lodge after lodge and preparing for rapid flight. But one conclusion can he draw. They are panic-stricken, stampeded. They are "on the run" already, and unless attacked at once can never be overhauled. They will scatter over the face of the wild Northwest in an hour's time. He cannot see what we know so well to-day: that only the northern limits of the great villages are open to his gaze; that the sheltering bluffs hide from him all the crowded lodges of the bands farthest to the south, and that while squaws and children are indeed being hurried off to the west, hundreds, thousands of exultant young warriors are galloping in from the western prairies, herding the war-ponies before them. He cannot see the scores that, rifle in hand, are rushing into the willows and cottonwoods along the stream, eager and ready to welcome his coming; he sends hurried orders to the leaders of the little columns on his left: "Push ahead; cross the stream; gallop northward when you reach the western bank, and attack that end of the village while I strike from the east." He never dreams that behind that solid curtain of bluff Ogallalla, Sans Arc, Uncapapa, and Blackfoot lurk in myriads. "The biggest Indian village on the continent!" they say, he shouts to the nearest column; but only the northern limits of it could he see. Far, far away in the East the church-bells are ringing out their glad welcome to the God-given day of rest. Mothers, sisters, wives, lift up a prayer for the loved ones on the savage frontier. Aloft the sun in cloudless splendor looks down on all. Westward press the comrade columns, until, reaching the head of a shallow ravine that leads northwestward towards the stream, the Long Hair spurs to the front,—Oh, those beautiful Kentucky sorrels! Oh, those gallant, loyal hearts!—and the eager, bearded faces, the erect, athletic forms, the fluttering guidons, one by one are lost to view as they wind away down the coulée; one by one they disappear from sight, from hearing, of the comrades now trotting down the bluffs to the west. Take the last look upon them, fellows,—five fated companies. Obedient to their leader's order, loyal, steadfast, unmurmuring to the bitter end, they vanish once and for all from loving eyes. Only as gashed, lifeless, mutilated forms will we ever see them again.
Who has not read the story of the Little Horn? Why repeat it here? Who that was there will ever forget the sight that burst upon the astonished eyes of Reno's men when, breaking through the willows along the stream and reaching the level bench, they saw, not five miles away to the north, as was the first idea, but here in their very front, only long rifle-shot away, the southern outskirts of the great Indian metropolis that stretched away for miles to the north. God of battles! was this a position, was this a force to be assailed by one regiment? Why linger over it?—the half-hearted advance of the dismounted skirmish line; the hesitating rally; then the volley from the willows; the flanking warriors on the west; the sudden consciousness of their pitiful numbers as against the hordes now swarming upon them; the mad rush for the bluffs, with the yelling Indians dragging the rearmost from their steeds and butchering them as they rode; the Henrys and Winchesters pumping their bullets into the fleeing mass; the plunge into the seething waters; the panting scramble up the steep and slippery banks; the breathless halt at the crest, and then, then the backward glance at the field and the fallen. Who will forget McIntosh, striving to rally the rearmost, dragged from the saddle and hacked to death upon the sward? Who will forget Benny Hodgson's brave young face,—the pet, the pride of the whole regiment? Even the daring and devotion of his men could not save him from the hissing lead of those savage marksmen. Then the strained suspense, the half-hour's listening to the fierce, the awful volleying to the north that told of a fearful struggle. The flutter of hope that it might be the stronger battalion fighting its way through to the rel
ief of theirs, the weak one; the blank faces that gazed one into another with awe-stricken inquiry as trumpet blare and rallying shout and rattling volley receded, not approached; died away, not thundered anew in coming triumph; the pall of certainty that fell on every man when silence so soon reigned in the distance, and pandemonium broke out afresh around them. Back from their bloody work, drunk with blood and victory, came by thousands the savage warriors to swell the forces that had driven the white soldiers to cover. Up, thank God! not an instant too soon, came the comrades from the distant left, and Benteen and MacDougall riding in with four full companies and the needed ammunition gave them strength to hold out. Through the hours of fierce battle that followed, through that dread "running the gauntlet" for water that the wounded craved, through the stern suspense and strain of the day and night that intervened before the rescuing forces of Terry came cautiously up the valley, and the Sioux melted away before them, ah! how many a time was the question asked, "What can have become of Custer?"
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