Indian encampment

“ Arm!" So they leaped to their feet, and, [Pg 80] seizing some muskets which were beside them, shot them off. As they did so, again the terrible wail sounded from the forest.
"Woach! Woach! Ha-Ha-Ha-Hack—Woach!"
But this soon ceased, and all was quiet in the sombre woodland.
Nothing more occurred until about five in the morning, when one of the Puritans came running to the camp, shouting: "Men are coming to attack us! Indians! Indians!" And, as he spoke, a cloud of arrows came flying into the encampment. ”

“ At most, it could be but a temporary refuge for the fugitives.
The thought occurred to both father and son that the Indians must soon discover this refuge, which would be welcome to them and their animals while the piercing blast was sweeping across the prairie. The eddying snow had almost ceased, but the wind blew fitfully, and whenever it touched the face or bare hand, it was like a needle of ice. The American Indian is one of the toughest of creatures, but he does not disdain shelter for himself and beast from the merciless blizzard, or driving tempest. ”

“ Their repeated failures are not difficult of explanation, though it is hard for one unacquainted with Indian warfare to understand why a small band like this, which seems never to have contained more than three hundred warriors, has not been subjugated or exterminated. One of the reasons is, that the Indians live in an unexplored wilderness, without fixed habitations, camping in small bodies, here to-day and off to-morrow, and ever ready to scatter at the signal of danger. ”

“ Besides this acknowledged necessity for fighting whenever and wherever Indians were met with in the Blackfeet and Crow countries, almost every trapper had some private injury to avenge—some theft, or wound, or imprisonment, or at the very least, some terrible fright sustained at the hands of the universal foe. Therefore there was no reluctance to shoot into an Indian camp, provided the position of the man shooting was a safe one, or more defensible than that of the man shot at. ”

“ Forming an ambush in the brush, the Indians fired their guns as the whites approached, just at nightfall, and rose up and charged with a wild yell. The drunken volunteers at once turned and fled, the panic gathering force as they went. The fugitives rushed through the camp pell-mell, and all who were left there joined in the stampede. In their desperate fear, every soldier thought every other an Indian and fired hither and yon. ”

“ Many parts of the borders of this lake appear to be a favourite place of encampment for the Indians, whose number in this country is estimated at 140,000. They retain, still unaltered, most of the features of the savage character. They procure food almost solely by hunting; and to surprise a hostile tribe, to massacre them with every exercise of savage cruelty, and to carry off their scalps as trophies, is their highest ambition. Their domestic behaviour, however, is orderly and peaceable; and they seldom kill or rob a white man. ”

“ Under their shelter the Indians were able to attack at will and without warning, and though they would fight to the death against any odds when cornered, they invariably strove to make their attacks on the most helpless, on those who were powerless to resist. It was not the armed frontier levies, it was the immigrants coming in by pack train or by flat boat,—it was the unsuspecting settlers with their wives and little ones who had most to fear from an Indian fray; while, when once the blow was delivered, the savages vanished as smoke vanishes in the open. ”

“ Even the Indians, who are educated to repress all outward signs of emotion, could not wholly conceal their sorrow at parting with their adopted relatives and friends. Cruel as the Indian is in his warfare, to his captives who have been adopted into his tribe he is uniformly kind, making no distinction between them and those of his own race. To those now restored they offered furs and choice articles of food, and even [223] begged leave to follow the army home, that they might hunt for the captives, and supply them with better food than that furnished to the soldiers. ”

“ Undoubtedly the Indians have had a great many provocations, but, so far as restraint through fear is concerned, they have been subjected to very little of this very necessary discipline. Large bands of armed Indians have been able to keep brave but small detachments of United States troops within small camps or forts, to isolate them and taunt them for days in succession, to steal cattle, murder settlers, desolate the country, all because they had contempt for an army which was so small that it never could oppose more than a handful to any Indian raid which might suddenly be made. ”

“ Before sunrise they were forced to seek such concealment as they could find in a washout, a dry ravine, within sight and sound of the Indian camps. Providence certainly protected them, for if any of the Indians had happened to wander in their direction there was nothing to prevent their discovery; and if the savages had stumbled upon their hiding-place it would have been all up with them. Death by torture would have been inevitable if they were taken alive, and the only way to prevent that would be suicide. ”

“ There was a time when Indian campfires stretched from Walla Walla to the sea, when fortifications were erected, and when Indian flint factories supplied the weapons of countless warriors. But they are gone. The first settlers found sloughs and bayous lined with burial canoes, until the dead were more than the living. No Indians knew whose bones they were, "those old, old, old people." Red children and white tumbled them out of the cedar coffins and carried away the dead men's treasures. ”

“ In those days Indians knew very little about using guns, and the mules we knew did not belong to them, for they did not have any mules, only as they could steal them from the emigrants.
We watched them until they came to a nice little stream, where they stopped, staked their saddle-horses out, and as it was almost night, we were confident from their movements that they were going into camp. Being not more than three miles from where we were, we staked out horses on the grass, ate a cold lunch, and it now being dark we started afoot for the Indian camp. ”

“ Unscrupulous white men, agents of the invaders, would be quickly on hand to foment this tendency. An evacuation by the Indians, and possibly an extensive one, of the very region which is held by the Government against the intruders on the very ground that it is reserved for Indian settlement, would be the consequence, and that just at the moment when the Government has the struggle for the integrity of the Indian Territory on its hands, and it requires the greatest watchfulness and energy to defeat the invasion. ”

“ But there was a strong objection to moving our camp: the Indians frequently during the march had desired us to pitch our tents among them, but we had always declined, preferring to be by ourselves. What would they say if we should now break up our encampment and go among them? ‘White men are cowards! ”

“ Betrayed at last by a treacherous member of their own tribe, the Indians were surprised and nearly all destroyed. There is scarcely a resident in the valley except those connected with the running of the stages during the summer months, and those who are attached to the hotel. It is quite inaccessible in winter. An encampment of native Indians is generally to be seen in the warm months, located on the river's bank, under the shade of a grove of tall trees; the river and the forest afford these aborigines ample food. ”

“ Willis' soldiers fired into the Indian camp, where dwelt something like 1500 Indians, mostly old squaws and papooses with a few able-bodied warriors. Few escaped with their lives and those who did escape were entirely destitute for the soldiers set fire to their tents after loading their wagons to the hilt with whatever they considered might be of value, buffalo robes, moccasins, blankets and other assets, together with all the provisions from the camp. ”

“ An Indian will risk his life rather than leave a dead member of his band in the white man's possession. It is an old superstition that if a warrior loses his scalp he forfeits his hope of ever reaching the "happy hunting ground." Col. Willis and Kit Carson camped there until two o'clock in the morning when they went down off of the stone ridge out onto the open prairie twenty miles distant, where they again camped. After dark they again started out on the trail. Indians hardly ever attack at night. ”

“ Although we did not apprehend any attack from the fugitive savages, many of whom had doubtless killed themselves by leaping off the high banks into the river which dashed over rocks, and who too possessed no weapons that could be dangerous to us, we still posted sentries on both sides of the camp, and lit large fires in order to be able to watch the horses, as it was very probable that the Indians would attempt to recover them toward morning, after the moon had gone down. ”

“ No one could leave the enclosure, except native servants determined on escape; not an inch of ground belonged to the British beyond the limits of the intrenched position; and therefore whatever had to be put out of sight—dead bodies of human beings, carcasses of bullocks and horses, garbage and refuse of every kind—could only so be treated by being buried underground in the few open spots between the buildings. And this, too, in the August of an Indian climate, when even the best sanitary arrangements fail to remove offensive odours. ”

“ Shall we look upon our ruined dwellings—upon the murdered and mangled remains of men, women, and children—then meekly say, ‘The poor Indians have done this; we must be merciful and humane to them; we will not set our dogs upon them. O no! that would be more horrible than these butcheries.’ Those who are safe from Indian alarms, in distant cities and peaceful lands, may indulge in gentle strains of humanity and brotherly love—were they dwellers in the log-cabins of Florida, they would attune their notes to harsher measures. ”

“ White men—some of them not even citizens of the United States—in violation of law enter the Indian reservation, steal the Indians’ ponies, drive off their cattle, shoot down a few of the Indians for resisting them, or perhaps for the mere fun of the thing. The Indians, maddened by the wrongs inflicted upon them, go on the war-path. ”

“ When there are camps outside I always feel a little more protected from the Indians. I am kept awake hours every night by my uncontrollable fear of their getting on top of the parapet and cutting holes in the canvas over our very heads and getting into the room that way. A sentry is supposed to walk around the top every few minutes, but I have very little confidence in his protection. I really rely upon Hal more than the sentry to give warning, for that dog can hear the stealthy step of an Indian when a long distance from him. ”

“ They had heard enough, young as they were, of Indian captivity, to guess what was in store for them—that, even at the very best, there would be years of wild, uncivilized life before them, should they be spared to live at all. But hiding the sinking of his heart, the oldest took the small buckskin bag which was given him to carry, with outward cheerfulness, and entered with spirit into the search of the Indians after the horses of the white men. The bag, from its weight, he supposed to contain money, the product of their depredations upon the white community. ”

“ In a country infested by hostile Indians, the ground in the vicinity of which it is proposed to encamp should be cautiously examined for tracks and other Indian signs by making a circuit around the locality previous to unharnessing the animals. After Indians have succeeded in stampeding a herd of horses or mules, and desire to drive them away, they are in the habit of pushing them forward as rapidly as possible for the first few days, in order to place a wide interval between themselves and any party that may be in pursuit. ”

“ They are not afraid to [Pg 281] leave their belongings while they go back to the foot of the falls, for no Indian would think of stealing anything he found in this way.
You can see why the Indians do not use white men's boats, for no white man's boat is as light as the birch bark canoe. You can also see why they do not take much food from the post. They cannot carry it and all they need for camping and hunting too. They must have the tent and traps, so they take only food enough to last until they get far enough from the post to find game. ”

“ In the interior to-day are some Indians such as they were who are accused of cannibalism, and who have necessitated warlike defences at distant trading-posts. Travellers who escaped Indian treachery risked starvation, and stood their chances of losing their reckoning, of freezing to death, of encounters with grizzlies, of snow-slides, of canoe accidents in rapids, and of all the other casualties of life in a territory which to-day is not half explored. Those are not the trunks of Hudson Bay men, for such would have been sent home to English and Scottish mourners ”

“ The white settlers on the frontiers found no peace from Indian alarms and onsets save in the winter. From spring to the early part of the autumn, the settlers, cooped up in the forts, or ever at watch in their fields, had no security or comfort. The approach of winter was hailed as a jubilee in cabin and farm, with bustle and hilarity. But after the first set-in of winter aspects came a longer or shorter interval of warm, smoky, hazy weather, which would tempt the Indians—as if a brief return of summer—to renew their incursions on the frontiers. ”