When the West Was Young Part 28

As stage-driver, Indian fighter, and peace officer Wild Bill Hickok did a man's work in cleaning up the border. He was about to go and join the Custer expedition as a scout when one who thought the murder would give him renown shot him from behind as he was sitting in at a poker game in Deadwood. He died drawing his two guns, and the whole West mourned his pa.s.sing. It had never known a braver spirit.

The silent ranks grow thicker: young men, sunburned and booted for the saddle; the restless souls who forsook tame Eastern farm-lands, lured by the West's promise of adventure, and received the supreme fulfilment of that promise; the finest of the South's manhood drawn toward the setting sun to seek new homes. They come from a hundred boot-hills, from hundreds of solitary graves; from the banks of the Yellowstone, the Platte, the Arkansas, and the two forks of the Canadian.

There are so many among them who died exalted that the tongue would weary reciting the tales. This tattered group were with the fifty who drove off fifteen hundred Cheyennes and Kiowas on Beecher Island. The Battle of the Arickaree was the name men gave the stand; and the sands of the north fork of the Republican were red with the blood of the Indians slain by Forsythe and his half hundred when night fell.

These three who follow in boots, jean breeches, and Oregon s.h.i.+rts are Billy Tyler and the Shadler brothers, members of that company of twenty-eight buffalo hunters who made the big fight at Adobe Walls.

The sun was just rising when Quanah Parker, Little Robe, and White s.h.i.+eld led more than eight hundred Comanches and Kiowas in the first charge upon the four buildings which stood at the edge of the Llano Estacado, one hundred and fifty miles from the nearest settlement. The Shadler boys were slain in their wagon at that onslaught. Tyler was shot down at midday as he ventured forth from Myers & Leonard's store.

Before the afternoon was over the Indians sickened of their losses and drew off beyond range of the big-caliber Sharp's rifles. They ma.s.sacred one hundred and ninety people during their three months'

raiding but the handful behind the barricaded doors and windows was too much for them.

Private George W. Smith of the Sixth Cavalry is pa.s.sing now. You would need to look a second time to notice that he was a soldier, for the rifle under his arm is a long-barreled Sharp's single shot and he has put aside much of the old blue uniform for the ordinary Western raiment. That was the way of scouting expeditions, and he, with his five companions, was on the road from McClellan's Creek to Fort Supply when they met two hundred Indians on that September morning of 1874.

Up near the northeast corner of the Texas Panhandle, where the land rises to a divide between Gageby's Creek and the Was.h.i.+ta River, the five survivors dug his grave with butcher-knives. They pulled down the banks of a buffalo wallow over his body in the darkness of the night; and they left him in this shallow sepulcher, unmarked by stone or headboard. There his bones lie to this day, and no man knows when he is pa.s.sing over them.

The six of them had left General Miles's command two days before. At dawn on September 13, they were riding northward up the long open slope: Billy Dixon and Amos Chapman, two buffalo hunters serving as scouts, and the four troopers, Sergeant Z. T. Woodhull, Privates Peter Rath, John Harrington, and George W. Smith. You could hardly tell the soldiers from the plainsmen, had you seen them; a sombreroed group, booted to the knees and in their s.h.i.+rt-sleeves; all bore the heavy, fifty-caliber Sharp's single-shot rifles across their saddle-horns.

The bare land rolled away and away, dark velvet-brown toward the flus.h.i.+ng east. The sky was vivid crimson when they turned their horses up a little knoll. They reached its summit just as the sun was rising.

Here they drew rein. Two hundred Comanches and Kiowas were riding toward them at the bottom of the hill; the landscape had tricked them into ambush.

There pa.s.sed an instant during which astonishment held both parties motionless: the white men on the crest, unshaven, sunburned, their soiled sombreros drooping over their narrowed eyes; and at the slope's foot the ranks of half-naked braves all decked out in the war-path's gaudy panoply. Their lean torsos gleamed under the rays of the rising sun like old copper; patches of ocher and vermilion stood out in vivid contrast against the dusky skins; feathered war-bonnets and dyed scalp-locks fluttered, gay bits of color in the morning breeze. The instant pa.s.sed; the white men flung themselves from their saddles; the red men deployed forming a wide circle about them. A ululating yell, so fierce in its exultation that the cavalry horses pulled back upon their bridles in a frenzy of fear, broke the silence. Then the booming of the long Sharp's fifties on the summit mingled with the rattle of Springfields and needle-guns on the hill's flank.

Now, while the bullets threw the dust from the dry sod into their faces, five of the six dropped on their bellies in a ring. And by the sergeant's orders Private George Smith took charge of the panic-stricken horses. Perhaps that task fell to him because he was the poorest shot, perhaps it was because he had the least experience; but it was a man's job. He stood upright clinging to the tie-ropes, trying to soothe the plunging animals; and he became the target for a hundred of those rifles which were clattering along the hillside below him. For every warrior in the band knew that the first bullet that found its mark in his body would send the horses stampeding down the slope; and to put his foes afoot was the initial purpose of the plains Indian when he went into battle.

So Private Smith clinched his teeth and did his best, while the deep-toned buffalo-guns roared and the rifles of the savages answered in a never-ending volley all around him. The leaden slugs droned past his ears as thick as swarming bees; the plunging hoofs showed through the brown dust-clouds, and his arms ached from the strain of the tie-ropes.

Billy Dixon had thrown away his wide-rimmed sombrero and his long hair rippled in the wind. He had been through the battle at Adobe Walls and men knew him for one of the best shots in the country south of the Arkansas River. He was taking it slowly, lining his sights with the coolness of an old hand on a target-range. Now he raised his head.

"Here they come," he shouted.

The circle was drawing inward where the land sloped up at the easiest angle. A hundred half-naked riders swung toward the summit, and the thud-thud of the ponies' little hoofs was audible through the rattle of the rifles. The buffalo-guns boomed in slow succession like the strokes of a tolling bell. Empty saddles began to show in the forefront. The charge swerved off, and as it pa.s.sed at point-blank range a curtain of powder smoke unrolled along the whole flank.

Private George Smith pitched forward on his face. His rifle flew far from him. He lay there motionless. A trooper binding his wounded thigh glanced around when the a.s.sault had become a swift retreat.

"Look!" he cried. "They've got Smith."

"Set us afoot," another growled and pointed after the stampeded horses.

Smith lay quite still as he had fallen. They thought him dead. Within the hour, a dozen whooping Comanches ran their ponies up the hill toward his limp form. To gain that scalp-lock under fire would be an exploit worth telling to their grandchildren in after years. And there was the long-barreled rifle as a bit of plunder. But the five white men, who had changed their position under a second charge, emptied four saddles before the warriors were within a hundred yards of the spot, and the eight survivors whipped their ponies down the slope again.

The sun was climbing high when Amos Chapman rolled over on his side and called to Billy Dixon that his leg was broken. Dixon lifted his head and surveyed the situation. The Indians were gathering for another rush. Thus far they had taken things as though they were so sure of the ultimate result that they did not see fit to run great chances. But this could not last. The next charge might be the final one. Down on a little mesquite flat about two hundred yards distant, he saw a buffalo wallow. He pointed to it.

"We got to make it," he told the others, and they followed him as he ran for the shelter. But Amos Chapman crawled only a dozen paces or so before he had to give it up. The four fell to work with their butcher-knives heaping up the sand at the summit of the low bank which surrounded the shallow circular depression. They dropped their knives and picked up their rifles, for the savages were sweeping down upon them.

So they dug and fought and fought and dug for another hour and then Billy Dixon was unable to stand the sight of his partner lying helpless on the summit of the knoll.

"I'm going to get Amos," he announced, and set forth amid a rain of bullets. Those who saw him after the fight was over--and General Miles was among them--said that his s.h.i.+rt was ripped in twenty places by flying lead. He halted on the hilltop and took up Chapman pick-a-back, then bore him slowly down the slope to the little shelter.

Noon came on. The sun shone hot. Dixon had got a bullet in the calf of his leg when he was bearing his companion on his back. Private Rath was the only man who was not wounded. They all thirsted as only men can thirst who have been keyed up to the high pitch of endeavor for hours. The savages charged thrice more; and when they came, numbers of them always deployed toward the top of the knoll where Private Smith lay dying: dead his companions thought, but they were grim in their determination that the red men should never get the scalp which they coveted so sorely. The big Sharps boomed; the saddles emptied to their booming. Private Smith wakened from one swoon only to fall into another. Sometimes he wakened to the thudding of hoofs and saw the savages sweeping toward him on their ponies.

Near midafternoon the warriors formed for a charge and it was evident from the manner of their ma.s.sing that they were going to ride down on the buffalo wallow in one solid body. But while their ranks were gathering there came up one of those sudden thunderstorms for which the Staked Plains were famous. The rain fell in sheets; the lightning blazed with scarcely an intermission between flashes. And the charge was given up for the time being. The braves drew off beyond rifle-shot and huddled up within their blankets.

Morris Rath seized the respite to go for ammunition. For Smith's cartridge-belts were full. He came back from the knoll breathless.

"Smith's living," he cried.

"Come on," Billy Dixon bade him and the two went back to the summit.

"I can walk if you two hold me up," Private George Smith whispered. A bullet had pa.s.sed through his lungs and when he breathed the air whistled from a hole beneath his shoulder-blade. They supported him on either side and half-carried him to the buffalo wallow.

The thunder-shower had pa.s.sed. Another was coming fast. The Indians were gathering to take advantage of the brief interval. The agony which had come from rough motion was keeping Smith from swooning now.

He saw his companions preparing to stand off the a.s.sault. Amos Chapman was holding himself upright by bracing his body against the side of the wallow. Private Smith whispered to the others,

"Set me up like Chapman. They'll think there's more of us fit to shoot that way." And they did as he had asked them.

So he held his body erect while the life was ebbing from it; and the rain came down again in sheets. The Indians fell back before the charge was well begun. It was their last attempt.

The wind rose, biting raw. The savages melted away as dusk drew down over the brown land. Some one looked at Smith. His head was sunk and he was moaning with pain. They found a willow switch and tamped a handkerchief into the wound. And then they laid him down in the rain-water which had gathered in the wallow. His blood and the blood of the others turned that water a dull red.

Some time near midnight he died. And several days later, when General Miles's troops came to rescue them, the five others buried his body.

It was night-time. The fires of the troopers glowed down at the foot of the slope. They made the grave with their butcher-knives by pulling down the sand from the wallow's side upon the body. And then they went to the camp-fires of the soldiers.

They are pa.s.sing from bleak graveyards on the alkali flats and in the northern mountains where the sage-brush meets the pines: gaunt men in laced boots and faded blue overalls who traveled once too often through the desert's mirage searching for the golden ledges; big-boned hard rock men who died in underground pa.s.sages where the steel was battering the living granite; men with soft hands and cold eyes who fattened on the fruits of robbery and murder.

This swarthy black-haired one in the soft silk s.h.i.+rt and spotless raiment of the gambler is Cherokee Bob, who killed and plundered unchallenged throughout eastern Was.h.i.+ngton and Idaho during the early sixties; until the camp of Florence celebrated its third New Year's Eve with a ball in which respectability held sway, and he took his consort thither to mingle with the wives of others. Then he kindled a flame of resentment which his blackest murders had failed to rouse.

The next morning the entire camp turned out to drive him forth together with Bill Willoughby, his partner. The two retreated slowly, from building to building, facing the mob. Shotguns bellowed; rifle-bullets sang about their ears, and they answered with their revolvers, until death left their trigger fingers limp.

Here comes one with catlike tread, slender and with a dignity of presence which proclaims the gentleman. But when you glance at the lean immobile face, there is that in the pale eyes which checks your blood; their gray is like the gray of old ice late in the wintertime.

This is Henry Plummer. Behind him troop thirty others, bearded men, and the evil of their deeds is plainly written on their features; the members of his band who slew for gold, leaving the dead to mark their trail through Was.h.i.+ngton, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana. In Alder Gulch their leader was elected sheriff and planned their murders for them while he held the office. Finally such men as Sam Hauser, N. P.

Langford, J. X. Beidler, and Colonel W. F. Saunders took their lives in their hands and organized a vigilance committee at Virginia City.

They got their evidence; and in January, 1864, they lynched the sheriff and his thirty, whose deeds would make a long story were they worthy of a place within this chronicle. But the mining camps never produced the type of desperado who was willing to take his share of chances in a shooting affair; excepting when the cattle country was close by. The bad man who could command a measure of admiration always was a horseman.

Here pa.s.s those who died boldly in the glaring lands by the Arizona border; a mult.i.tude of sunburned men with revolvers swinging low beside their hips and in their hands the deadly Winchesters. One comes among them, rugged of frame, big-featured, red from weather and the fulness of his blood. There is, in the poise of his head and in his eyes, a fierce intolerance. This is Joe Phy. More than forty years have pa.s.sed since they buried him in the little boot-hill at Florence, Arizona. To-day the town is as conventional as any Eastern village, but it saw a time when men lived up to the rude clean code of our American age of chivalry. During that era Joe Phy met his end with a grimness befitting a son of the Old West.

Florence was the county-seat and Pete Gabriel was sheriff. He was a handsome man with his twisted mustache and Napoleon goatee, free-handed with his money, widely liked. Moreover he was a wonderful shot with his rifle and deadly quick with a single-action revolver.

Among the gun-fighters of southern Arizona none was better known than he, and Joe Phy was his deputy.

The county of Pinal extended from the glaring flats below the Gila northward beyond the Superst.i.tion Mountains, a savage land where the sun was killing hot in summer-time, where forests of giant cacti stretched for miles like the pine woods that cloaked the higher plateaus. Phy and Gabriel rode together through the country on many a bold errand; they shared their blankets and the hards.h.i.+ps of dry camps; they fought beside each other while the bullets of wanted men snarled, ricochetting from the rocks about them.

Then politics brought a rift in their friends.h.i.+p and the day came when the deputy ran for office against his former chief. The campaign was made bitter by accusations. There was, men said, a court-house ring; the big companies were dodging taxes, the small ranchers were getting the worst of it. Election came and the rancor of the reformers grew hotter when the count showed that Gabriel had won. Many openly proclaimed that the court-house crowd had juggled with the ballots, and Phy was among these. When a contest was inst.i.tuted and the result of the election was carried to the courts, he grew to hate Gabriel.

The hatred flamed within him until he could stand it no longer and one night he hunted the town over until he found the sheriff in Keating's saloon.

"Pete," he said, "I'm going home after my six-shooter and I'm coming back to fight it out with you. Get ready while I'm gone."

And Gabriel answered quietly, "All right, Joe. I'll be here when you come back."

The swinging doors closed behind Phy's back and the sheriff turned to the man behind the bar.