Thirty Years on the Frontier

XVI

A NEW LAND OF CANAAN

It was September of 1893. The Cherokee Strip, a large area of country in the Indian Territory, was about to be offered for settlement.

Guthrie, Oklahoma, was at this time filled with homeseekers who were camped about on vacant lots, in their wagons. They were men of good intentions. There was also a horde of gamblers and petty thieves who swarmed like ravening wolves scenting their prey. Saloons and gambling houses were open day and night, and many a poor fellow fell into the hands of these legalized bandits – to awaken from the effects of drugged liquor and find themselves robbed of every dollar they possessed, and their families without a day’s provisions ahead.

Never was there an American town where morals were at a lower ebb than Guthrie was at that time. Street quarrels were frequent, and men shot each other down in cold blood for trivial offenses. There were contests over claims in Oklahoma proper, and it was no uncommon thing for a witness to be shot down after he had finished testifying in the land office. Or perhaps he was called to his door at midnight to stop a bullet, or was shot through a window while sitting at home with his family.

Highway robbery, burglary, thieving, perjury, gambling and whisky-drinking ran riot. Courtesans and harlots, with painted faces and tinseled dresses, plied their arts of conquest in open day; while city officials, not to be outdone in the practices of the hour, took all manner of bribes from all manner of men. This state of immorality generated a stench over the town that all the perfume of Arabia the Blest could not sweeten.

The Dalton gang of bandits was robbing Santa Fe trains in the Cherokee Strip, while more than one hundred and fifty United States marshals were searching for outlaws. When one was found, however, he was usually shot first and the warrant for his arrest read to the corpse.

The men assembled at Guthrie at this time were from all quarters of the United States, and represented almost every nationality. As one rider dashed up the street on a very fine horse, a gust of wind lifted his sombrero and landed it near where I stood. I picked it up and was in the act of handing it to him when he exclaimed: “Hello, Bob, you here!”

“Yes,” I replied, scanning his face for an instant before recognizing him. Then the face came back to me with pleasant memories. He was my old friend – Mark Witherspoon. The reunion was, indeed, pleasant to both of us, and it was late that night before we retired to our respective abodes.

Mark had jostled about from pillar to post, in all parts of the world; he had been in the mining camps of Australia and on the Rand in South Africa; he had grown rich several times and lost all again and again, and now he wanted an Oklahoma farm where, he concluded, he would settle down and live quietly. Just as though wild and impulsive natures like his could ever be content with a simple farming life. We agreed to make the run together and, if possible locate our farms beside each other.

When the opening day came, a blazing southern sun beat down upon the heads of more than one hundred thousand men drawn upon the line that marked the border of the new El Dorado. Most of the country on the southern border lay in high ridges, or in valleys and deep ravines, which, in some places, were 100 feet in depth, with precipitous ledges of rock on either side. The country was but sparsely covered with timber and nearly void of water at this season of the year. The few streams were impregnated with a mineral poison which had an evil effect for a long time on the systems of those who drank the water. Yet these men – many of whom had pioneered the plains of Nebraska and Kansas – were forced, by the conditions of the times, to seek new homes in this wild waste. For more than a year, more than 20,000 families had lived like rats in dugouts along the banks of the Arkansas River, to the north. To say they lived is a mistake – they only existed. Parched corn and potatoes comprised the daily diet of hundreds. The winter of 1892 had been unusually severe for that section, and scant clothing and a lack of fuel added to the bitter suffering, while innumerable mounds of yellow earth stood silent monuments to those who braved the vicissitudes of the frontier in the hope of gaining homes.

In this new promised land there were some seventy Indian allotments to be made. These were located by government officials near townsites, for personal selfish purposes.

Then came an order from the Secretary of the Interior that all who would file on lands must register. That caused men to form in ranks miles long, to await their turn to register. It caused delay, and filled the pockets of government officials who, for pay, gave preference to the men of money. For days these men stood in line – a blazing sun above, and treeless, waterless plains about. Many sickened and were carried away to die, and, when the merciful night came, the others lay down on the bare, hard ground, to dream of happy homes – and shiver in the chill autumn darkness. The towns were platted by government employees. These plats contained false reservations for parks, and were sold to the men in line at a dollar each.

When we reached the line, a mighty caravan was there waiting, stretching as far as the eye could see, east and west, to the dim horizon on either side. Men were there with their families; in white covered wagons, in light running rigs and on horseback. Among them were the broad-hatted, swarthy fellows from the pampas and chaparalls of Texas. They were there from the deserts of New Mexico and Arizona. Old soldiers in the tattered blue of the Grand Army of the Republic were among the strugglers for homes. Just in front of all was another line, composed of the troops who were there to see that all kept back of the starting mark until the signal should be given. The gleam of the rifle could be seen in both lines. It was a thrilling scene; one upon which no man could look without mingled feelings of admiration and pity.

The signal for many to start to the eternal promised land came as the weary hours wore along. Worn with fatigue and exposure, and fainting from sunstroke and thirst, many fell from frantic horses that went dashing riderless over the plains. An officer rode down the line and halted near the railroad tracks. It was near noon, and an eager man took the action as a signal. There was a flash, a report. The man lay still in the sun-baked dust; a drunken soldier had taken a life and desolated a home. Some revolvers gleamed in the hands of angry Texans and in another moment the soldier lay writhing in the dust.

Just then an officer waved his sabre and the signal guns boomed down the line. Like a mighty tidal wave the dense mass of men, horses and wagons swayed for an instant and then went on with a rush. There were cries and shouts – and oaths and blasphemy from the drunken soldiers. The noise of rumbling wagons and the clatter of horses’ hoofs sounded like the distant roar of cannonading. On surged the swaying line, horsemen dashing out in front here and there. Every little distance was to be found the wreck of a wagon that had been crushed in the rush. Other wagons were stalled in ravines, horses dropped from exhaustion, throwing their riders, who lay in gullies or on the rocky sides of the mountain ridges, with mangled limbs, begging for a drop of water. But the mad fever of the rush was on all and little heed was paid to suffering.

Our horses were in fine condition and were fleet of foot and ere long we were in the lead, in a wild race with the wind. We sighted a stream of clear running water, whose banks were fringed with trees, and a valley which stretched out for miles to the north. We reached a grove and found the cornerstone that marked the dividing line of two sections. We fired our Winchesters as a signal to the others that those claims were taken, and immediately commenced throwing up earth to show that improvements were under way. Then, tired out with the excitement of the day, we sat down under the trees to rest and talk it all over, and, in the late afternoon, fell asleep from sheer exhaustion.

It was dark when Mark suddenly awoke and aroused me with the shout: “Get up, for your life, get up! The plains are on fire!”

I was on my feet in an instant. The southern sky was aglow. Great tongues of flame were leaping through the inky blackness of the night, with a hiss and roar that sounded like the coming of a storm. We hurriedly mounted our frantic horses and rode swiftly into the northern darkness – whither, we knew not; our only thought was to distance the fire far enough to give us a chance to burn a space about us and thus find safety.

Suddenly I felt a falling sensation. Then there were pains in my head and mysterious, dreadful aches in my legs. Visions flitted before apparently unseeing eyes and at last I came to realize that I was lying on a cot in a tent. Mark came in and I asked him where I was.

“Never mind now,” he said gently. Tomorrow came, and the next day, and still another, but Mark remained silent. Gradually my mind became normal and I distinctly recalled the last moments of consciousness; the prairie fire, the wild ride to safety. Mark then added the closing chapter. My horse had plunged into a rocky canon, fully 20 feet in depth. His horse had scented the danger and had reared, saving him from my fate. He back-fired the grass, and, in its light, saw me lying at the bottom of the canon. Tenderly he cared for me during the night and in the morning got a doctor, who set the broken limb, and here I was convalescing.

XVII

TOLD AROUND THE CAMPFIRE

“You knew Cora Belle Fellows, that white girl at Cheyenne Agency, South Dakota, who married a buck Indian, eh, Bill?”

“Yep,” Bill Hawkins answered, “and I know what the results were, too.

“About a year after she had left a fashionable seminary in New York state and came among the redskins to teach them manners and the like, she surprised and shocked everybody by announcing her marriage to Chaska, a full blood Sioux, twenty-one years of age. Then her troubles began. She was frowned upon by both whites and Indians. She went with Chaska to his tepee and lived upon the coarse chuck furnished by Uncle Sam.

“Her escapade was commented upon by all the newspapers of the country at the time, and a museum man of Chicago induced her and Chaska to place themselves upon exhibition. For two years she was inspected by the public, which in the meantime had made her presents until she had a carload of furniture.

“Then she concluded to go back to the Agency and make a farmer out of Chaska, and so with the money earned in the museum, she and her Indian lord returned. She purchased land some miles from the Agency and built a house.

“The agent and myself rode out there about six months after they had gone to housekeeping. We were both curious to know how they were getting along.

“It was a sight for your whiskers. Outside sat nearly all her furniture. The covers of plush had been ripped off for Indian horse trappings, the wood was stained and weather cracked.

“The house was without doors, worn blankets being hung instead. The floors were cold and bare. In a corner upon an old mattress lay Cora Belle Fellows or Mrs. Chaska. An old squaw sat by her side, crooning some lingo over her new born kid. She did not want to talk and we went away. Chaska soon after left her and took a wife from his own tribe, leaving her to live in a tepee about the Agency like any other squaw, feeding on Uncle Sam’s grub.

“You might as well have tried to shove butter down a wildcat’s neck with a hot awl as to have tried to talk that gal out of marrying the buck.”

“Marrying is bad business, anyway, unless they are both hooked up right,” observed the cook. “There is old Ben Berkley living over on the Cottonwood. He was pretty well fixed before he married that widder. She was a spiritualist or something of the sort, and used to go off in trances and have white lights coming around until she scared old Ben nearly to death. She was always running over the country telling people’s future and leaving Ben at home to cook. He took to drinking and one day got the D. T.’s and thought a freight engine was chasing him up and down the alleys of the town, and he finally crawled under a barn to keep out of its way, when the boys rescued him. After that he would not drink any more, but poured the licker in his boots and would get as full as a tick by absorption.

“His wife had brought to the ranch a measley water Spaniel, which Ben used to amuse himself with by throwing cobs and sticks into the river and teaching the dog to swim in and get them and bring them back to him, not thinking of the great blessing it was finally to be to him.

“Ben had been blasting out a hole for a cyclone cellar with sticks of gun-cotton, when his wife took it into her head that she wanted a mess of fish.

“‘No time to fish,’ said Ben. ‘Take a stick of that dynamite and go down to the creek where the water is still and blow out a mess for yourself.’

“His wife took the cartridge and lit the fuse, then gave the thing a toss into the creek. The dog was there and thinking she was playing with him, swam in and got the cartridge and came running up the bank to give it to her. Then she started to run over the plowed ground, yelling at the top of her voice, ‘Drap it, Tige! Drap it!’ There was an explosion and a hole in the ground big enough to bury a horse. The dog had gone up higher than Elijah, while Mrs. Berkley was laying in a furrow with one leg injured by the cartridge. In a day or two the leg swelled up and old Ben sent for the cross-roads doctor, who decided that the injured leg would have to come off.

“The doctor went to town the next day to get some tools, and was so glad over getting a job that he filled up on cactus whiskey and came back and cut off the wrong leg. The sore leg got well afterwards, but, Gee-whiz! It tickled old Ben nearly to death, for she has to stay at home now.”

“Story sounds fishy to me,” remarked Ned Antler.

“Billy Bolton nearly lost his life for using that word,” said Hank Pool. “You all know Billy runs a paper over at Woodward, on the Panhandle trail.

“There had been a hold-up in town, and Jim Belden was accused of it. After the trial before a justice of the peace, Belden was acquitted. In commenting on the affair in his paper the next day, Billy said Belden’s story which secured his release sounded fishy. Belden was a bad man. He saddled his broncho, filled his saddle pockets with grub, and his skin full of whiskey and went over to Billy’s printing office. He hitched the broncho in front, and with the paper in one hand and his Winchester in the other he went in and asked Billy what he meant by saying his story was fishy. Billy was taken by surprise, for he saw that Belden meant to kill him, as he was all ready to hit the trail.

“‘Fishy,’ says Billy. ‘Aha, fishy, fishy. Why that’s a compliment, my dear boy. Saint Peter used to fish and said so many good things that people used to call his sayings fishy. It was a favorite expression with Aristotle and Socrates, when they addressed Napoleon the Great, to say, ‘I hope your royal majesty will speak some imperial fishy things today.’ It is – ah, ahah, sort of an international e pluribus unum expression, a general sort of a non compos mentis, as it were, you understand.’

“‘Oh, well, if that’s all,’ said Belden, ‘it’s all right, but I wouldn’t use the word often if I were you, for some of the boys might not be as well posted as I am. Much obliged, Billy. I was just passing and thought I would subscribe for the paper for a year. Here is $2.00. Mail it to me at Lampassas.”

“Bolton got off light,” said Tom Tyler. “Over at Las Vegas two years ago a sheep man called ‘Doc’ Kinnie a liar and before the fellow could think twice Doc had his ear sliced off, and he went around afterwards using it for a beer check. He would call up the house and pay for the drinks with the sheepman’s ear; he always redeemed it, though, for fear the owner would buy it back.” “Cut it out, boys, cut it out, get to roost in your blankets,” said the boss. “We hit the trail at 5 o’clock in the morning and make the drive to Cimarron by noon.”

An hour later, the fire had smouldered to embers, the stars twinkled in the great dark blue dome of the sky, a soft south breeze fanned the Oklahoma plains and all was silent, save the tramp of horses’ hoofs as the outriders circled the herd of bedded cattle.

XVIII

THE LONE GRAVE ON THE MESA

High upon the mesa northwest of Colorado City, Colo., and near the old cemetery used by the pioneers of the early sixties, there is a lonely grave, around which clings a romance of the early days, which is recalled by the phenomena which many persons say they have witnessed when passing at night.

As the story goes, Marie Tinville, the beautiful daughter of Victor Tinville lived with her parents in a cabin near Colorado City, in 1863. About that time Leon Murat, a dashing young fellow of about 20 years came out from St. Louis and found employment on her father’s ranch. It was a case of love at first sight, intensified by isolated conditions and an almost constant companionship.

The cabin stood near the now famous Garden of the Gods, and many were the evenings the young people wandered among the towering rocks in the wondrous bright moonlight of that region, and talked of love, while the shadows of Pike’s Peak shrouded the dreamy valley.

Love’s young dream was rudely awakened one day in the autumn of 1864, by the call to arms to join Colonel Chivington in his campaign against the hostile Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians, who were then murdering the settlers of Colorado.

Men were needed, and Leon was brave. He kissed his sweetheart good-bye and rode away with that avenging column of horsemen who fought the battle of Sand Creek in Colorado, November 29, 1864.

Murat’s command did nearly three months’ campaigning over the dry, heated plains before any effective work was accomplished.

Early in November a mounted column of 65 °Colorado volunteers of Colonel Shoup’s Third Regiment, 175 of the First Regiment and a few mounted Mexicans, formed the fighting force under Colonel Chivington. A large band of Indians was located on the banks of Sand Creek, about forty miles north of where Ft. Lyons now stands and near the village of Kit Carson.

Bent’s Fort, a rude frontier structure of palisades, stood some miles below Ft. Lyons. It was to this point that Colonel Chivington led his men when he learned that Black Kettle and White Antelope with some three thousand braves, were encamped upon the banks of Sand Creek.

The column made prisoners of all whom they met, lest word should reach the Indians that they were pushing forward to the attack. At Bent’s Fort a halt was made to rest riders and horses. On the night of the 28th the column headed for the encampment on Sand Creek, taking as a guide, a half breed son of Colonel Bent, and carrying in their rear a small brass cannon and ammunition wagon.

The night was cold and a bleak wind blew from the north. With jingle of spur and clank of sabre the column rode fours abreast through the darkness. The Indian guide led them through a shallow lake in the hope that the ammunition might become wet. When about half way through the lake Murat’s horse floundered and wet him completely in the icy waters. The column rode on while Anthony Bott remained to assist him. After dividing his own dry clothing with Murat the two started to find the trail of the flying column in the darkness. They were favored both by their knowledge of the plains and the instinct of their horses, but for five hours they were alone in the darkness of a hostile country.

They came up with their command in the grey dawn of the morning as they were forming for battle behind a ridge that overlooked the Indian camp. Here Colonel Chivington divided his men, sending a column of twos in opposite directions so as to surround the camp. The Indians were in their tepees when the cannon sent a crash of iron into their midst. The battle was on. Chief White Antelope came rushing from his tepee brandishing a rifle, urging on his followers. The encircling horsemen closing in on them emptied their rifles and revolvers into the confused mass of Indians.

Indian depredations had been so numerous in Colorado and the atrocities so cruel, that the men, many of whom had been victims of Indian raids and had lost their all, their families or friends being butchered, gave no quarter, and when the battle ended they felt even more justified when there was found within the tepees a number of scalps recently torn from the heads of white women and children. Nearly 1,000 Indians were killed when the firing ceased, and a crimson tide ebbed into the creek and reddened its waters with blood.

A squaw and a boy were found hiding in the tall grass. Murat shot the squaw and captured the boy. Bott bought the young Indian, intending to bring him up in civilization. The boy was standing by his side when, an hour later a pistol shot rang out from a group of men some yards away and the young Indian fell dead. Bott was angered, and drawing his own revolver, offered one hundred dollars to anyone who would point out the man who fired the shot. No one would tell.

Murat with a companion was trying to capture some of the Indians’ horses far out on the plain, when one of Black Kettle’s fleeing Indians rose from behind a hillock and shot him dead. White Antelope was killed, while a large number of Indians under Black Kettle escaped by scattering like quail over the plain and hiding in the grass.

While the battle was raging the families of many of the soldiers from Colorado City had gathered in the Anway Fort at that place, and a telepathic wave of horror spread over all. Many were praying and weeping, and all seemed to feel that a dreadful thing was being enacted in which their loved ones were taking part.

When the news of the battle reached the fort and the death of young Murat was announced, Marie Tinville fell in a swoon, after which her mind was a blank. From that time on her decline was rapid and in a few months she was laid in the lonely grave upon the mesa.

After that stories were told of strange things. A white light was seen about the grave, which vanished on close approach. Once old Ben Jordan an antelope hunter, came to town at night, his long hair fairly on end, saying that a white light had risen in front of him near the grave, out of which protruded a naked arm. The incredulous asked him what he had been drinking, but he stuck to the story as long as he lived.