Henry Inman

“ In approaching the Arkansas, a landscape of the most imposing and picturesque nature makes its appearance. While the green, glossy undulations of the prairie to the right seem to spread out in infinite succession, like waves subsiding after a storm, and covered with herds of gambolling buffalo, on the left, towering to the height of seventy-five to a hundred feet, rise the sun-gilt summits of the sand hills, along the base of which winds the broad, majestic river, bespeckled with verdant islets, thickly beset with cottonwood timber, the sand hills resembling heaps of driven snow. ”

“ So they marched for about three weeks, when they arrived at the crossing of the Walnut, where they saw the first signs of Indians. They had halted for that day; the mules were unharnessed, the camp-fires lighted, and the men just about to indulge in their refreshing coffee, when suddenly half a dozen Pawnees, mounted on their ponies, hideously painted and uttering the most demoniacal yells, rushed out of the tall grass on the river-bottom, where they had been ambushed, and swinging their buffalo-robes, attempted to stampede the herd picketed near the camp. ”

“ A terrific yell from the rear at this moment caused both Booth and Hallowell to look around, and the latter to inquire: "What's the matter now, Booth?" "They are coming down on us like lightning," said he; and, sure enough, those who had been prancing around their dead comrade were tearing along the Trail toward the wagon with a more hideous noise than when they began.
Hallowell yelled louder than ever and lashed the mules more furiously still, but the Indians gained upon them as easily as a blooded racer on a common farm plug. ”

“ In a few moments we slowly retraced our way to the Rock, where, taking our mules, we pushed on in the direction of the Missouri. We camped on the bank of the Arkansas that night, only a few miles from the terrible Rock; and while we were resting around our little fire of buffalo-chips, and our animals were quietly nibbling the dried grass at our feet, we could still hear the Kiowas chanting the death-song as they buried their lost warriors under the blackened sod of the prairie. ”

“ Foaming little torrents splash and sparkle in the sunshine, as they course through the fertile intervales. Their sources are cool mountain springs hidden in the dark recesses of the towering range, which were, until the restless "Gringo" invaded the solitude of the charming region at the advent of the iron trail to erect saw-mills, filled with that most epicurean and gamy of all the finny tribe, the speckled brook-trout. ”

“ He saw vast herds of buffalo, and as it was the rutting season, the bulls were making a wonderful ado; the prairie resounded with their low, deep grunting or bellowing, as they tore up the earth with their feet and horns, whisking their tails, and defying their rivals to battle. Large gangs of wild horses could be seen grazing on the plains and hillsides, and the neighing and squealing of stallions might be heard at all times of the night.
Captain Williams never used his rifle to procure meat, except when it was absolutely necessary, or could be done with perfect safety. ”

“ Pausing for a moment, cautiously looking around to assure himself that none of the paint-bedaubed fiends were lurking in the timber, he dismounted, tied his horse to an oak sapling, walked to where his dead friends lay, and silently contemplated the horrid butchery. He dared not think of the probable fate of the faithful young girl who had promised to be his wife, but he uttered bitter curses against the demons who had so wantonly, and without the slightest provocation, annihilated the peaceful little family. He swore to himself that he would have ten lives for one, in his determined revenge. ”

“ He was the cynosure of all eyes, as he was without question one of the noblest-looking savages ever seen on the plains. On that occasion he wore the full uniform of a major-general of the United States army. He was as correctly moulded as a statue when on horseback, and when mounted on his magnificent charger the morning he rode out with General Hancock to visit the immense Indian camp a few miles above the fort on Pawnee Fork, it would have been a difficult task to have determined which was the finer-looking man. ”

“ Some rode immediately in front of the mules, impeding their progress with the most infernal noises and attempts to spear them (the Indians having evidently exhausted all their arrows) —and the camp on the Walnut still a mile and a half away.
There was nothing left for our luckless travelers to do but whip and kick the mules and yell, all of which they did most lustily—Hallowell sitting as immovable as a sphinx, except his right arm, which from the time he had started had not ceased, and Booth kicking the poor animals and shouting in concert with their importunate foe. ”

“ As the night comes on apace in the distant valley beneath, the evening shadows drop down, pencilled with broad bands of rosy light as they creep slowly across the beautiful landscape, while the rugged vista below is enveloped in a diffused haze like that which marks the season of the Indian summer in the lower great plains. Above, the sky curves toward the relatively restricted horizon, with not a cloud to dim its intense blue, nowhere so beautiful as in these lofty altitudes. ”

“ They always pretended friendship for the whites, when any of them were inside of its sacred precincts, but their whole manner changed when they by some stroke of fortune caught a trapper or hunter alone on the prairie or in the foot-hills; he was a dead man sure, and his scalp was soon dangling at the belt of his cowardly assassins. Hardly a day passed without witnessing some poor fellow running for the fort with a band of the red devils after him; frequently he escaped the keen edge of their scalping-knife, but every once in a while a man was killed. ”

“ The commerce of the Great Plains over that broad path through the wilderness, the Santa Fé Trail, was at its height, and immense trains rolled day after day toward the blue hills which guard the portals of New Mexico. Oxen, mules, and sometimes horses, tugged wearily week after week through the monotony of their long journey, their precious freight ever tempting [59] the wily nomads to plunder, dissimulation, and murder. ”

“ The line of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad, which practically runs over the Old Trail for nearly its whole length to the mountains, is a fertile field of isolated graves. The savage and soldier, the teamster and scout, the solitary trapper or hunter, and many others who have gone down to their death fighting with the relentless nomad of the plains, or have been otherwise ruthlessly cut off, mark with their last resting-places that well-worn pathway across the continent. ”

“ We knew that now we had to come to terms, and make up our minds to accept anything that savored of reason and our lives, trusting to the future to escape if they kept us as prisoners.
"'The Kiowas are not prisoners, and they know brave men,' said the Indian; 'we will not kill you, though the prairie-grass is red with the blood of our warriors that have died by your hands. [165] We will give you a chance for your lives, and let you prove that the Great Spirit of the white man is powerful, and can save you. ”

“ On they came at a swinging gallop, rending the air with their wild war-whoops, each individual warrior in all his bravery of war paint and long braided scalp-lock tipped with eagles' feathers, and all stark naked but for their cartridge belts and moccasins, keeping their line almost perfectly, with a front of about sixty men all riding horseback, with only a loose lariat about their horses' bodies, and about a yard apart, and with a depth of six or seven ranks, forming together a compact body of massive fighting strength, and of almost resistless weight. ”

“ The old stage-coach days were times of Western romance and adventure, and the stories told of that era of the border have a singular fascination in this age of annihilation of distance.
Very few, if any, of the famous men who handled the "ribbons" in those dangerous days of the slow journey across the great plains are among the living; like the clumsy and forgotten coaches they drove, they have themselves been mouldering into dust these many years. ”

“ This final effort of the scout occurred on the extreme edge of a rocky shelf, whither both man and beast had been forced during their desperate fight. Below this shelf, at a distance of only a few feet, fortunately, the level prairie hugged the timber, the latter throwing a deep shade over the spot. Into this grassy little place both Hart and the panther fell—he insensible from loss of blood, with the lifeless beast alongside him.
In the cavalry camp on the Saline the troopers were busily grooming their horses at the picket-line. ”

“ In the event of a stampede, every animal of the separate, yet consolidated, herds rushed off together, as if they had all gone mad at once; for the buffalo, like the Texas steer, mule, or domestic horse, stampedes on the slightest provocation; frequently without any assignable cause. The simplest affair, sometimes, will start the whole herd; a prairie-dog barking at the entrance to his burrow, a shadow of one of themselves or that of a passing cloud, is sufficient to make them run for miles as if a real and dangerous enemy were at their heels. ”

“ Sometimes, following his trail for weeks, the Indian watched him set his traps on some timbered stream, and crawling up the bed of it, so that he left no tracks, he lay in the bushes until his victim came to examine his traps. Then, when he approached within a few feet of the ambush, whiz! flew the home-drawn arrow, which never failed at such close quarters to bring the unsuspecting hunter to the ground. But for one white scalp that dangled in the smoke of an Indian's lodge, a dozen black ones, at the end of the season, ornamented the camp-fires of the rendezvous where the furs were sold. ”

“ You are the greatest warrior of the Comanches? You are the buffalo that leads the herd? I am the old bull to be driven away by the cowardly coyote and die, leaving my bones to whiten? You ask me to follow you? Never! I never follow! I will go with you!"
The remainder of the band gathered around the two celebrated warriors. ”

“ From Santa Fe to Fort Union, where the arsenal was located, the road runs through the deep, rocky gorge known as Apache Canyon. It is one of the wildest spots in the mountains, the walls on each side rising from one to two thousand feet above the Trail, which is within the range of ordinary cannon from every point, and in many places of point-blank rifle-shot. Granite rocks and sands abound, and the hills are covered with long-leafed pine. It is a gateway which, in the hands of a skilful engineer and one hundred resolute men, can be made perfectly impregnable. ”

“ When the iron horse comes rushing into their solitudes, and snorting out his fierce alarms, the herds, though perhaps half a mile from his path, will lift their heads and gaze intently for a few minutes toward the object thus approaching them with a roar which causes the earth to tremble, and enveloped in a white cloud that streams further and higher than the dust of the old stage-coach ever did ”

“ Far below this magnificent vantage-ground lies the valley of the Rio Las Animas Perdidas. On the other verge of the great depression rise the peerless, everlastingly snow-wreathed Spanish Peaks,75 whose giant summits are grim sentinels that for untold ages have witnessed hundreds of sanguinary conflicts between the wily nomads of the vast plains watered by the silent Arkansas.
All around you snow-clad mountains lift their serrated crowns above the horizon, dim, white, and indistinct, like icebergs seen at sea by moonlight ”