The Old Santa Fe Trail: The Story of a Great Highway Part 19

Until the railroad reached the mountains, when the march of a wonderful immigration closely followed, usurping the lands claimed by the savages, and the latter were driven, perforce, upon reservations, the winter camps of the Kiowas, Arapahoes, and Cheyennes were strung along the Old Trail for miles, wherever a belt of timber on the margin of the Arkansas, or its tributaries, could be found large enough to furnish fuel for domestic purposes and cottonwood bark for the vast herds of ponies in the severe snow-storms.

At these various points the Indians congregated to trade with the whites. As stated, Bent's Fort, the Pueblo Fort, and Big Timbers were favourite resorts, and the trappers and old hunters pa.s.sed a lively three or four months every year, indulging in the amus.e.m.e.nts I have referred to. They were also wonderful story-tellers, and around their camp-fires many a tale of terrible adventure with Indians and vicious animals was nightly related.

Baptiste Brown was one of the most famous trappers. Few men had seen more of wild life in the great prairie wilderness. He had hunted with nearly every tribe of Indians on the plains and in the mountains, was often at Bent's Fort, and his soul-stirring narratives made him a most welcome guest at the camp-fire.

He lived most of his time in the Wind River Mountains, in a beautiful little valley named after him "Brown's Hole." It has a place on the maps to-day, and is on what was then called Prairie River, or Sheetskadee, by the Indians; it is now known as Green River, and is the source of the great Colorado.

The valley, which is several thousand feet above the sea-level, is about fifteen miles in circ.u.mference, surrounded by lofty hills, and is aptly, though not elegantly, characterized as a "hole." The mountain-gra.s.s is of the most nutritious quality; groves of cottonwood trees and willows are scattered through the sequestered spot, and the river, which enters it from the north, is a magnificent stream; in fact, it is the very ideal of a hunter's headquarters.

The temperature is very equable, and at one time, years ago, hundreds of trappers made it their winter quarters. Indians, too, of all the northern tribes, but more especially the Arapahoes, frequented it to trade with the white men.

Baptiste Brown was a Canadian who spoke villanous French and worse English; his vocabulary being largely interspersed with "enfant de garce," "sacre," "sacre enfant," and "d.a.m.n" until it was a difficult matter to tell what he was talking about.

He was married to an Arapahoe squaw, and his strange wooing and winning of the dusky maiden is a thrilling love-story.

Among the maidens who came with the Arapahoes, when that tribe made a visit to "Brown's Hole" one winter for the purpose of trading with the whites, was a young, merry, and very handsome girl, named "Unami," who after a few interviews completely captured Baptiste's heart. Nothing was more common, as I have stated, than marriages between the trappers and a beautiful redskin. Isolated absolutely from women of his own colour, the poor mountaineer forgets he is white, which, considering the embrowning influence of constant exposure and sunlight, is not so marvellous after all. For a portion of the year there is no hunting, and then idleness is the order of the day. At such times the mountaineer visits the lodges of his dark neighbours for amus.e.m.e.nt, and in the spirited dance many a heart is lost to the squaws. The young trapper, like other enamoured ones of his s.e.x in civilization, lingers around the house of his fair sweetheart while she transforms the soft skin of the doe into moccasins, ornamenting them richly with glittering beads or the coloured quills of the porcupine, all the time lightening the long hours with the plain-songs of their tribe. It was upon an occasion of this character that Baptiste, then in the prime of his youthful manhood, first loved the dark-eyed Arapahoe.

The course open to him was to woo and win her; but alas! savage papas are just like fathers in the best civilization--the only difference between them is that the former are more open and matter-of-fact, since in savage etiquette a consideration is required in exchange for the daughter, which belongs exclusively to the parent, and must be of equal marketable value to the girl.

The usual method is to select your best horse, take him to the lodge of your inamorata's parents, tie him to a tree, and walk away. If the animal is considered a fair exchange, matters are soon settled satisfactorily; if not, other gifts must be added.

At this juncture poor Baptiste was in a bad fix; he had disposed of all his season's earnings for his winter's subsistence, much of which consisted of an ample supply of whiskey and tobacco; so he had nothing left wherewith to purchase the indispensable horse. Without the animal no wife was to be had, and he was in a terrible predicament; for the hunting season was long since over, and it wanted a whole month of the time for a new starting out.

Baptiste was a very determined man, however, and he shouldered his rifle, intent on accomplis.h.i.+ng by a laborious prosecution of the chase the means of winning his loved one from her parents, notwithstanding that the elements and the times were against him. He worked industriously, and after many days was rewarded by a goodly supply of beavers, otters, and mink which he had trapped, besides many a deerskin whose wearer he had shot. Returning to his lodge, where he cached his peltry, he again started out for the forest with hope filling his heart.

Three weeks pa.s.sed in indifferent success, when one morning, having entered a deep canyon, which evidently led out to an open prairie where he thought game might be found, while busy cutting his way through a thicket of briers with his knife, he suddenly came upon a little valley, where he saw what caused him to retrace his footsteps into the thicket.

And here it is necessary to relate a custom peculiar to all Indian tribes. No young man, though his father were the greatest chief in the nation, can range himself among the warriors, be ent.i.tled to enter the marriage state, or enjoy any other rights of savage citizens.h.i.+p until he shall have performed some act of personal bravery and daring, or be sprinkled with the blood of his enemies. In the early springtime, therefore, all the young men who are of the proper age band themselves together and take to the forest in search--like the knight-errant of old--of adventure and danger. Having decided upon a secluded and secret spot, they collect a number of poles from twenty to thirty feet in length, and, las.h.i.+ng them together at the small ends, form a huge conical lodge, which they cover with gra.s.s and boughs. Inside they deposit various articles, with which to "make medicine," or as a propitiatory offering to the Great Spirit; generally a green buffalo head, kettles, scalps, blankets, and other things of value, of which the most prominent and revered is the sacred pipe. The party then enters the lodge and the first ceremony is smoking this pipe. One of the young men fills it with tobacco and herbs, places a coal on it from the fire that has been already kindled in the lodge, and, taking the stem in his mouth, inhales the smoke and expels it through his nostrils. The ground is touched with the bowl, the four points of the compa.s.s are in turn saluted, and with various ceremonies it makes the round of the lodge.

After many days of feasting and dancing the party is ready for a campaign, when they abandon the lodge, and it is death for any one else to enter, or by any means to desecrate it while its projectors are absent.

It was upon one of these mystic lodges that Baptiste had accidentally stumbled, and strange thoughts flashed through his mind; for within the sacred place were articles, doubtless, of value more than sufficient to purchase the necessary horse with which he could win the fair Unami.

Baptiste was sorely tempted, but there was an instinctive respect for religion in the minds of the old trappers, and Brown had too much honour to think of robbing the Indian temple, although he distinctly remembered a time when a poor white trapper, having been robbed of his poncho at the beginning of winter, made free with a blanket he had found in one of these Arapahoe sacred lodges. When he was brought before the medicine men of the tribe, charged with the sacrilege, his defence, that, having been robbed, the Great Spirit took pity on him and pointed out the blanket and ordered him to clothe himself, was considered good, on the theory that the Great Spirit had an undoubted right to give away his own property; consequently the trapper was set free.

Brown, after considering the case, was about to move away, when a hand was laid on his shoulder, and turning round there stood before him an Indian in full war-paint.

The greeting was friendly, for the young savage was the brother of Baptiste's love, to whom he had given many valuable presents during the past season.

"My white brother is very wakeful; he rises early."

Baptiste laughed, and replied: "Yes, because my lodge is empty. If I had Unami for a wife, I would not have to get out before the sun; and I would always have a soft seat for her brother; he will be a great warrior."

The young brave shook his head gravely, as he pointed to his belt, where not a scalp was to be seen, and said: "Five moons have gone to sleep and the Arapahoe hatchet has not been raised. The Blackfeet are dogs, and hide in their holes."

Without adding anything to this hint that none of the young men had been able to fulfil their vows, the disconsolate savage led the way to the camp of the other Arapahoes, his companions in the quest for scalps.

Baptiste was very glad to see the face of a fellow-creature once more, and he cheerfully followed the footsteps of the young brave, which were directed away from the medicine lodge toward the rocky canyon which he had already travelled that morning, where in the very centre of the dark defile, and within twenty feet of where he had recently pa.s.sed, was the camp of the disappointed band. Baptiste was cordially received, and invited to share the meal of which the party were about to partake, after which the pipe was pa.s.sed around. In a little while the Indians began to talk among themselves by signs, which made Baptiste feel somewhat uncomfortable, for it was apparent that he was the object of their interest.

They had argued that Brown's skin indicated that he belonged to the great tribe of their natural enemies, and with the blood of a white on their garments, they would have fulfilled the terms of their vow to their friends and the Great Spirit.

Noticing the trend of the debate, which would lead his friend into trouble, the brother of Unami arose, and waving his hand said:--

"The Arapahoe is a warrior; his feet outstrip the fleetest horse; his arrow is as the lightning of the Great Spirit; he is very brave. But a cloud is between him and the sun; he cannot see his enemy; there is yet no scalp in his lodge. The Great Spirit is good; he sends a victim, a man whose skin is white, but his heart is very red; the pale-face is a brother, and his long knife is turned from his friends, the Arapahoes; but the Great Spirit is all-powerful. My brother"--pointing to Baptiste--"is very full of blood; he can spare a little to stain the blankets of the young men, and his heart shall still be warm; I have spoken."

As Baptiste expressed it: "Sacre enfant de garce; d.a.m.n, de ting vas agin my grain, but de young Arapahoe he have saved my life."

Loud acclamation followed the speech of Unami's brother, and many of those most clamorous against the white trapper, being actuated by the earnest desire of returning home with their vow accomplished, when they would be received into the list of warriors, and have wives and other honours, were unanimous in agreeing to the proposed plan.

A flint lancet was produced, Baptiste's arm was bared, and the blood which flowed from the slight wound was carefully distributed, and scattered over the robes of the delighted Arapahoes.

The scene which followed was quite unexpected to Baptiste, who was only glad to escape the death to which the majority had doomed him. The Indians, perfectly satisfied that their vow of shedding an enemy's blood had been fulfilled, were all grat.i.tude; and to testify that grat.i.tude in a substantial manner each man sought his pack, and laid at the feet of the surprised Baptiste a rich present. One gave an otter skin, another that of a buffalo, and so on until his wealth in furs outstripped his most sanguine expectations from his hunt. The brother of Unami stood pa.s.sively looking on until all the others had successively honoured his guest, when he advanced toward Baptiste, leading by its bridle a magnificent horse, fully caparisoned, and a large pack-mule. To refuse would have been the most flagrant breach of Indian etiquette, and beside, Brown was too alive to the advantage that would accrue to him to be other than very thankful.

The camp was then broken up, and the kind savages were soon lost to Baptiste's sight as they pa.s.sed down the canyon; and he, as soon as he had gained a little strength, for he was weak from the blood he had shed in the good cause, mounted his horse, after loading the mule with his gifts, and made the best of his way to his lonely lodge, where he remained several days. He then sold his furs at a good price, as it was so early in the season, bartered for a large quant.i.ty of knives, beads, powder, and b.a.l.l.s, and returned to the Arapahoe village, where the horse was considered a fair exchange for the pretty Unami; and from that day, for over thirty years, they lived as happy as any couple in the highest civilization.

The fate of the Pueblo, where the trappers and hunters had such good times in the halcyon days of the border, like that which befell nearly all the trading-posts and ranches on the Old Santa Fe Trail, was to be partially destroyed by the savages. During the early months of the winter of 1854, the Utes swept down through the Arkansas valley, leaving a track of blood behind them, and frightening the settlers so thoroughly that many left the country never to return. The outbreak was as sudden as it was devastating. The Pueblo was captured by the savages, and every man, woman, and child in it murdered, with the exception of one aged Mexican, and he was so badly wounded that he died in a few days.

His story was that the Utes came to the gates of the fort on Christmas morning, professing the greatest friends.h.i.+p, and asking permission to be allowed to come inside and hold a peace conference. All who were in the fort at the time were Mexicans, and as their cupidity led them to believe that they could do some advantageous trading with the Indians, they foolishly permitted the whole band to enter. The result was that a wholesale ma.s.sacre followed. There were seventeen persons in all quartered there, only one of whom escaped death--the old man referred to--and a woman and her two children, who were carried off as captives; but even she was killed before the savages had gone a mile from the place. What became of the children was never known; they probably met the same fate.

CHAPTER XV. UNCLE JOHN SMITH.

Many of the men of the border were blunt in manners, rude in speech, driven to the absolute liberty of the far West with better natures shattered and hopes blasted, to seek in the exciting life of the plainsman and mountaineer oblivion of some incidents of their youthful days, which were better forgotten. Yet these aliens from society, these strangers to the refinements of civilization, who would tear off a b.l.o.o.d.y scalp even with grim smiles of satisfaction, were fine fellows, full of the milk of human kindness, and would share their last slapjack with a hungry stranger.

Uncle John Smith, as he was known to every trapper, trader, and hunter from the Yellowstone to the Gila, was one of the most famous and eccentric men of the early days. In 1826, as a boy, he ran away from St.

Louis with a party of Santa Fe traders, and so fascinated was he with the desultory and exciting life, that he chose to sit cross-legged, smoking the long Indian pipe, in the comfortable buffalo-skin teepee, rather than cross legs on the broad table of his master, a tailor to whom he had been apprenticed when he took French leave from St. Louis.

He spent his first winter with the Blackfeet Indians, but came very near losing his scalp in their continual quarrels, and therefore allied himself with the more peaceable Sioux. Once while on the trail of a horse-stealing band of Arapahoes near the head waters of the Arkansas, the susceptible young hunter fell in love with a very pretty Cheyenne squaw, married her, and remained true to the object of his early affection during all his long and eventful life, extending over a period of forty years. For many decades he lived with his dusky wife as the Indians did, having been adopted by the tribe. He owned a large number of horses, which const.i.tuted the wealth of the plains Indians, upon the sale of which he depended almost entirely for his subsistence. He became very powerful in the Cheyenne nation; was regarded as a chief, taking an active part in the councils, and exercising much authority. His excellent judgment as a trader with the various bands of Indians while he was employed by the great fur companies made his services invaluable in the strange business complications of the remote border. Besides understanding the Cheyenne language as well as his native tongue, he also spoke three other Indian dialects, French, and Spanish, but with many Western expressions that sometimes grated harshly upon the grammatical ear.

He became a sort of autocrat on the plains and in the mountains; and for an Indian or Mexican to attempt to effect a trade without Uncle John Smith having something to say about it, and its conditions, was hardly possible. The New Mexicans often came in small parties to his Indian village, their burros packed with dry pumpkin, corn, etc., to trade for buffalo-robes, bearskins, meat, and ponies; and Smith, who knew his power, exacted tribute, which was always paid. At one time, however, when for some reason a party of strange Mexicans refused, Uncle John harangued the people of the village, and called the young warriors together, who emptied every sack of goods belonging to the cowering Mexicans on the ground, Smith ordering the women and children to help themselves, an order which was obeyed with alacrity. The frightened Mexicans left hurriedly for El Valle de Taos, whence they had come, crossing themselves and uttering thanks to Heaven for having retained their scalps. This and other similar cases so intimidated the poor Greasers, and impressed them so deeply with a sense of Smith's power, that, ever after, his permission to trade was craved by a special deputation of the parties, accompanied by peace-offerings of corn, pumpkin, and pinole. At one time, when Smith was journeying by himself a day's ride from the Cheyenne village, he was met by a party of forty or more corn traders, who, instead of putting such a bane to their prospects speedily out of the way, gravely asked him if they could proceed, and offered him every third robe they had to accompany them, which he did. Indeed, he became so regardless of justice, in his condescension to the natives of New Mexico, that the governor of that province offered a reward of five hundred dollars for him alive or dead, but fear of the Cheyennes was so prevalent that his capture was never even attempted.

During Sheridan's memorable winter campaign against the allied tribes in 1868-69, the old man, for he was then about sixty, was my guide and interpreter. He shared my tent and mess, a most welcome addition to the few who sat at my table, and beguiled many a weary hour at night, after our tedious marches through the apparently interminable sand dunes and barren stretches of our monotonous route, with his tales of that period, more than half a century ago, when our mid-continent region was as little known as the topography of the planet Mars.

At the close of December, 1868, a few weeks after the battle of the Was.h.i.+ta, I was camping with my command on the bank of that historic stream in the Indian Territory, waiting with an immense wagon-train of supplies for the arrival of General Custer's command, the famous Seventh Cavalry, and also the Nineteenth Kansas, which were supposed to be lost, or wandering aimlessly somewhere in the region south of us.

I had been ordered to that point by General Sheridan, with instructions to keep fires constantly burning on three or four of the highest peaks in the vicinity of our camp, until the lost troops should be guided to the spot by our signals. These signals were veritable pillars of fire by night and pillars of cloud by day; for there was an abundance of wood and hundreds of men ready to feed the hungry flames.

It was more than two weeks before General Custer and his famished troopers began to straggle in. During that period of anxious waiting we lived almost exclusively on wild turkey, and longed for nature's meat--the buffalo; but there were none of the s.h.a.ggy beasts at that time in the vicinity, so we had to content ourselves with the birds, of which we became heartily tired.

For several days after our arrival on the creek, the men had been urging Uncle John to tell them another story of his early adventures; but the old trapper was in one of his silent moods--he frequently had them--and could not be persuaded to emerge from his sh.e.l.l of reticence despite their most earnest entreaties. I knew it would be of no use for me to press him. I could, of course, order him to any duty, and he would promptly obey; but his tongue, like the hand of Douglas, was his own. I knew, also, that when he got ready, which would be when some incident of camp-life inspired him, he would be as garrulous as ever.

One evening just before supper, a party of enlisted men who had been up the creek to catch fish, but had failed to take anything owing to the frozen condition of the stream, returned with the skeleton of a Cheyenne Indian which they had picked up on the battle-ground of a month previously--one of Custer's victims in his engagement with Black Kettle.

This was the incentive Uncle John required. As he gazed on the bleached bones of the warrior, he said: "Boys, I'm going to tell you a good long story to-night. Them Ingin's bones has put me in mind of it. After we've eat, if you fellows wants to hear it, come down to headquarters tent, and I'll give it to you."

Of course word was rapidly pa.s.sed from one to another, as the whole camp was eager to hear the old trapper again. In a short time, every man not on guard or detailed to keep up the signals on the hills gathered around the dying embers of the cook's fire in front of my tent; the enlisted men and teamsters in groups by themselves, the officers a little closer in a circle, in the centre of which Uncle John sat.

The night was cold, the sky covered with great fleecy patches, through which the full moon, just fairly risen, appeared to be racing, under the effect of that optical illusion caused by the rapidly moving clouds. The coyotes had commenced their nocturnal concert in the timbered recesses of the creek not far away, and on the battle-field a short distance beyond, as they battened and fought over the dead warriors and the carca.s.ses of twelve hundred ponies killed in that terrible slaughter by the intrepid Custer and his troopers. The signals on the hills leaped into the crisp air like the tongues of dragons in the myths of the ancients; in fact, the whole aspect of the place, as we sat around the blazing logs of our camp-fire, was weird and uncanny.