Save for the Custer dogs, who were constantly chasing rabbits and wolves, with now and then an antelope, the march west was not exciting. After a time signs of the railroad ceased, and there were only the stage stations, with occasional ranches, and with one or two settlements. Ninety miles along the Smoky Hill route was another Seventh Cavalry post, Fort Harker, formerly named Fort Ellsworth. This was not much of a fort, being composed of just a few bare, sod-roofed log cabins, bravely floating the Stars and Stripes. Still further west were Fort Hays and Fort Wallace or Pond Creek. However, increased at Fort Harker by two more troops of the Seventh, the expedition turned off south for Fort Larned, seventy miles across country, down by the Arkansas River and the old Santa Fé Trail into New Mexico. A wagon road branched off for it, from Harker.
At Fort Harker the expedition was met by a tall, bearded, soldierly man who, Ned speedily heard as the word traveled through the column, was Colonel Jesse H. Leavenworth, son of the older army man for[68] whom Fort Leavenworth was named, and formerly an army officer himself.
“He served out on the Colorado plains during the war,” at noon halt explained Sergeant Kennedy—whom Ned much liked. “Commanded the Rocky Mountain Rangers. A fine officer, they say. Now he’s the agent for the Comanches and Kiowas, down at Larned. There’s another army man and agent, too, at the same place: Major Wyncoop. His Injuns are Arapahos, Cheyennes and ’Paches. Each agent blames t’other one for damage done.”
“How big is Fort Larned?” queried Ned.
“Well, Larned’s a fair post, but nothing like Riley, in size. Lots of Injuns come in there, for their supplies and to trade buffalo-robes. Stages and emigrants stop there, too.”
The weather continued mild and pleasant, and the march might have seemed only a practice march, had it not been for the scouts now riding more widely in front and on the flanks, examining the landscape. By this might it be known that the real Indian country had been reached.
However, no Indians at all came near the march. They still were in their winter villages, awaiting the signal of the bursting willow buds and the greening grass. On duty regularly at headquarters tent, Ned could not help but hear most of the conversation; and he heard Colonel Leavenworth talking with General Custer.
“My Indians are mostly camped down south, on[69] the Texas border,” was explaining Colonel Leavenworth. “It will be hard to get them up this far, until they draw their rations. Satanta is coming, though, to tell you what he thinks.”
“The red rascal,” accused General Custer, roundly.
“N-no, he’s a smart Injun. He’s quite a man, Custer,” declared the colonel. “I can count on Satanta, and he’s the chief of the Kiowas. The Injuns you fellows want to look close after are that crowd of Wyncoop’s. I understand Wyncoop has sent out word for them to come in to Larned and meet you in a council.”
“Well, we’ll hear what old Satanta has to say, and what the others have to say; but Hancock is out to make it plain that we have something to say, too,” answered General Custer. “We’ll smoke the peace-pipe—and if they want war we can give it to them in any shape, by horse, foot and artillery. That’s my understanding of the situation and I’m ready to turn my Seventh Cavalry loose, if necessary. After a winter of drill and discipline they’re in fair shape. They need only one fight, shoulder to shoulder, to make a real regiment of them.”
The terraced plateaus bordering the Smoky Hill Fork had been left behind; the flatly rolling plains grew sandier and sandier; and, finally, four days out of Fort Harker, on the seventh of April was sighted again a garrison flag streaming red, white and blue in the prairie wind.
[70]
Here, then, where the Pawnee Fork River from the West emptied into the Great Bend of the Arkansas, was Fort Larned, guarding its section of southwestern Kansas, and the Santa Fé Trail travel to Colorado and New Mexico. Rather similar to Riley was Fort Larned, being constructed partly of stone. It was the agency for the Arapahos and Cheyennes and a few Apaches, who hunted north of it, and for the Kiowas and Comanches, who hunted south of it. Hither the Indians brought in thousands of buffalo robes, to trade for sugar, coffee and cloth and trinkets.
It might be expected that camped about Fort Larned would be Indians; but there was not one tipi in sight, except a few rude tents sheltering some half-breeds or squaw-men as they were called—traders and hangers-on. It was reported that up the Pawnee Fork about thirty miles was a winter village under Chief Pawnee Killer of the Sioux and Chief White Horse of the Cheyennes, but the march was not continued here. When the troops went into noon camp outside the post, General Hancock and his staff were met by Agent Wyncoop, of the Arapahos, Cheyennes and Apaches.
“The tribes of my agency are peacefully inclined,” proclaimed Major Wyncoop, hotly. Whereas Colonel Leavenworth, standing near, smiled. “They rarely have committed any offences against the laws, and they have been charged with crimes perpetrated by[71] other tribes. They have suffered heavily because of the Kiowas in particular, who are the most turbulent Indians on the plains and deserve punishment more than any others. I have sent runners to the various villages, as requested, and the chiefs have returned word that they will be in for a council on April 10. If the commanding general will wait until then, which is only three days, I am sure that everything will be adjusted satisfactorily.”
“We will wait,” remarked General Hancock, tersely. “Colonel Leavenworth, have you anything that you desire to say?”
“Nothing more than I have already said, sir,” answered Colonel Leavenworth. “I can only repeat that in my opinion the Kiowas and Comanches are the ones who have been wronged—grossly wronged by having had laid at their doors numerous misdeeds for which the other tribes of this district are responsible and for which they should be severely chastised. Here!” he added. “Here’s Satanta himself. He’ll speak for the Kiowas.”
From down the Santa Fé trail were approaching at a gallop a small party of Indians, their blankets and head-dresses tossing in the clear air. Foremost rode a man who might have been a soldier, for he wore a shirt and a sabre; but feathers in his hair announced the Indian. Diverging from the trail, to cross the level sandy sod, at a short distance from the gathering he dismounted, on the edge of camp, and leaving[72] his horse (a superb bay, gaily decorated with paint and trappings), accompanied by the other Indians, also dismounted, he advanced on foot.
“Satanta!” ran a murmur; and officers and men stared openly.
Ned, as well as everybody else in the West, knew of Satanta, the celebrated war chief of the fighting Kiowas; leader in many a raid, and crafty and eloquent. Of medium height, but burly and muscular, he bore himself proudly. His black hair, stained vermillion at the parting, was combed smoothly down upon either side of a rather good-natured face. At the left it lengthened into a braid but at the right it was clipped short—the sign of the Kiowa. An eagle feather was stuck through, above the braid. His eyes were shrewd and twinkling, his forehead was broad and high, and under a broad straight nose was set a thin-lipped, straight mouth. From his chin grew a few bristles, but the majority evidently had been plucked out. All in all, he had an intelligent face, with a humorous touch to it.
As he strode, with his powerful frame and heavy body he made a fine figure. His sabre clanked against his bare legs, to his satisfaction, and upon the bosom of his stained cotton shirt he wore a dangling silver pendant.
“Satanta! Satanta!”
“How?” grunted Satanta, as the circle opened to greet him. He shook hands all around; and with[73] sundry “Hows?” his companions also shook hands.
The Indians stolidly seated themselves; so did the officers. From one of his followers Satanta accepted, in princely fashion, a long-stemmed pipe. It had been filled, and now with flint and steel it was lighted, and starting with Satanta was passed about. Everybody in turn solemnly took a puff. General Custer almost choked, for he did not use tobacco.
“Let one of the scouts interpret,” bade General Hancock.
“Romeo,” bade General Custer.
“Tell him that we’re ready to hear what he has to say,” instructed General Hancock, to Romeo the little Mexican.
Romeo spoke a guttural sentence to the chief; Satanta grunted shortly.
“He wants presents,” translated Romeo.
“Presents will be brought,” answered the general.
The preliminaries having been concluded, Satanta majestically arose, for his speech. With shoulders back he stood, facing the half circle of white men, his arms folded. He began to speak. As he proceeded, Romeo the Mexican translated sentence by sentence, the chief each time waiting for him to do so.
“I call on the sun to witness that I will talk straight,” said Satanta. “My tongue is not forked. It cannot tell lies. I understand that you were coming down to see us. My heart is glad and I shall hide nothing from you. I have moved away from those[74] Indians who want war, and I have come also to see you and speak with you. The Kiowas and the Comanches are not those who have been fighting. The Cheyennes are the ones who fight. They fight in the day, and not in the night. If I had been fighting, I would have fought by day, too. Two years ago I made peace with your chiefs, Harney, Sanborn and Leavenworth, at the mouth of the Little Arkansas. This peace I have never broken. I have not done anything and I am not afraid. I am ready to listen to good words. We have been waiting a long time to see you, and we were getting tired. All the land south of the Arkansas belongs to the Kiowas and Comanches, and I don’t want to give any of it away. I love the land and the buffalo, and will not part with it. When your soldiers come through the land, they kill many buffalo and let them lie. Is the white man a child, that he should recklessly kill and not eat? When the red men kill game, they do so that they may live and not starve. I want you to understand well what I say. Put it on paper. Let the Great Father at Washington see it, and let me know what he says. I hear a great deal of good talk from the teachers that the Great Father sends to us, but they never do what they say they will do. I don’t want any of the medicine lodges (schools and churches) in my country. I want my children raised as I was. We thank you for your presents. We know you are doing the best you can. I and my head men also will do the best we can. You[75] are all big chiefs. When you are in the country we go to sleep happy and are not afraid. I have heard that you intend to settle us on a reservation. I don’t want to settle,” and Satanta’s voice was high. “I love to roam the prairies. There I feel free and happy, but when we settle down we grow pale and die. I have laid aside my lance and shield and bow, because I feel safe in your presence. I have told you the truth. I have no little lies hid about me, but I don’t know how it is with you. Are you as clear as I am? A long time ago all this land belonged to our fathers. Now when I go beside the river I see camps of soldiers on its banks. These soldiers cut down my timber; they kill my buffalo; and when I see that, my heart feels like bursting. As I came here to-day, upon the trail I picked up a little switch that had been torn up and thrown away. It hurt me to see this. I thought, if this little twig had been allowed to grow, it would have made a mighty tree, to shelter my people and supply them with shade and wood. The white men destroyed it.” Satanta here made a wide gesture. “But as I look around over the prairie I see that it is large and good, and I do not want it stained with the blood of the whites. If the treaty brings to us prosperity, as you say, we will like it all the better. But if it brings us good or ill, we will not abandon it. When I make a peace, it is a long and lasting peace. I have spoken.”
When Satanta had finished, a murmur of approval,[76] in satisfied grunts, arose from the other Indians; and even the officers exchanged words of admiration. Satanta had made a great speech.
“Tell him,” quoth General Hancock, to Romeo, “that we have heard, and are glad to know that he is our friend. We do not come in war, but in peace. Tell him that in token of our friendship we give him the uniform of a great white chief.”
At a sign by the general another officer brought forward, to Satanta, the coat and sash and hat of a major-general. They were of a style that had been changed by later regulations but this made no difference to Satanta, who seemed much pleased with the epaulets and the double row of brass buttons, and the red silk sash, and the cocked hat adorned by a black curling plume. He immediately donned the new rig, to strut about, bare-legged, in it, dragging his sabre.
Presently he and all his braves, after procuring what they could at the fort, took the trail whence they had come.
“That, gentlemen, was a marvelous speech. It would be a credit to a white man,” commented General Hancock, impressively, to the assembled audience.
“I’ve known Satanta or White Bear ever since I was a small boy and followed my father about, out here on the plains,” said Colonel Leavenworth. “I regard him as the greatest Indian. He lives in style at his tipi. Has a brass horn that he blows for meals, and a carpet, and brass-studded lapboards to eat from.”
[77]
“In my opinion Satanta is a rascal, gentlemen,” spoke quietly Wild Bill. “Nobody can deny that he makes a big talk; but deeds count, in this country—and if that fellow doesn’t make more trouble, at his first chance, I don’t know Injuns. He’s smart, and he’s crooked as a prairie dog burrow.”
Ned kept his eyes open for the figure of Pawnee Killer. He hoped that Pawnee Killer would visit, from the village, and might be made to tell General Hancock or General Custer where his, Ned’s, sister was.
“No Injuns will come in till the tenth,” asserted Sergeant Kennedy. “’Tisn’t Injun etiquette to appear before the date of the council.”
“The infarnal rascals may not come anyhow,” declared California Joe, wagging his head. “They’re the onsartinest liars that ever was created. But we’re goin’ to have our hands full without ’em, for some sort of a pesky storm is breedin’. Do ye mark how geese are flyin’ south, ’stead o’ north? Mebbe they think it’s fall ’stead o’ spring; but I never ketched wild honkers bein’ mistook on dates.”
The day was warm and sunny—almost too warm. The evening stayed clear, while the camp peacefully slept, but the morning dawned with a haze and a chill wind from the north. Speedily the haze thickened, the wind grew colder; and before breakfast was over the snow was sifting faster and faster.
It was a big storm for the ninth of April. All[78] day the flakes fell furiously, while the cold increased. By night the snow was eight inches deep. Long before night the officers and men had piled on all the extra clothes that they could find, and were huddled about wrapped in overcoats and blankets, handkerchiefs bent over their ears. California Joe made a comical figure, his wide-brimmed sombrero tied down with a rope into a coal-scuttle shape, so that its brim on either side touched his shoulders. Around his neck was a red tippet that looked as if it once might have encircled an Indian’s waist. The tail of his cavalry overcoat was singed by camp-fires. On his feet were gunny-sacks wrapped tightly about, to make a bundle, and his hands were deeply buried in his overcoat pockets while under the scoop of his hat issued volumes of smoke from his black pipe.
He looked funny, did California Joe; but not all things were funny. Of course, there were no tents or fires for the horses. They were tied along a picket rope stretched from stake to stake; and here they turned tail to the cutting wind and shivered and shrank, as the snow piled upon their backs. Yes, and undoubtedly they would have perished, if General Custer had not ordered that they be given double rations of oats, and that the guards pass up and down, up and down, during the night, whipping them to make them move. Twice Ned stole away to inspect Buckie; and found him doing as well as possible.