With Sully into the Sioux Land Part 16

"Oh, the General seems to be having a lively time deciding what to do,"

answered Wallace. "It must be a hard question. He had all the Indian and half-breed scouts in here for hours to-day, questioning them about the routes to the Yellowstone. All of them, excepting one, told him they knew nothing of the country due west of us, which must be terribly rough bad lands, from what they say. They declare they have never ventured into it and advised the General to return to the Cannonball and then move west to the mouth of Powder River and down the Yellowstone to where the boats are to meet us. But that means a long, roundabout march of probably two or three weeks; so the General went and inspected the wagons to see if there were supplies enough to make it."

"Yes, I saw him," interrupted Al. "There are just six days' full rations left now."

"That's what he said when he came back," Wallace continued. "He was a good deal worked up, and told the guides they must find a way for the army to march straight west from here across the Little Missouri. But all of them said it was impossible, except one Yanktonais. He declared he had been back and forth across the Bad Lands of the Little Missouri a number of times on hunting expeditions, and he is sure he can lead the army through if some digging is done in the worst places to make a road for the wagons and artillery."

"Just one man?" exclaimed Al. "My gracious! suppose he should lead us into a trap?"

Wallace shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, of course, he might," he agreed. "But what else can be done?

There are not rations enough to last over the other route, nor even enough to take us back to Fort Rice. Anyway, the General has decided to trust this chap and make the attempt and we shall start up Heart River to-morrow morning. You know our rations are to be cut down from one-half to one-third, so as to make them last."

"Yes, I know," answered Al. "We were issuing reduced rations this evening. I hope we are not going to run into an ambush," he added. "But there is no doubt General Sully knows what he is doing; he always does."

That evening the troops were paraded and heard the General's congratulatory orders on their conduct in the recent battle. Soon after, they retired to rest, and it seemed that but a few moments had pa.s.sed in this refres.h.i.+ng occupation when reveille called them up to their labors again. The advance guard soon moved out, followed by the military wagon train with strong columns of troops of the Second Brigade on each flank, the First Brigade bringing up the rear. Then with much confusion and shouting, the Montana emigrant train finally got under way and moved out of the intrenched camp, leaving the latter to lie, with parapets slowly crumbling under the rains of summer and the blizzards of winter, an object of curiosity and vague uneasiness to straggling Indians and prowling wolves.

For three days the army pushed steadily westward up the valley of the Heart, through a pleasant country whose hills often showed the outcroppings of large veins of coal. Each night's camp was made in a spot well supplied with water, gra.s.s, and wood, and the men began to believe that the terrors of the country ahead, so vividly described by the Indian guides, had no existence save in the imaginations of the latter. No hostiles were seen, but the column pa.s.sed one camp ground, recently abandoned, which showed the sites of several hundred lodges; so no one could doubt that the stealthy enemy was still in the neighborhood and probably watching the progress of the column closely.

Toward evening on August 5, the third day of the march, the advance guard on arriving at the crest of a hill, similar to dozens of other hills they had crossed that day, suddenly came to a halt. The troops behind them could see by their gestures of excitement that they had discovered something unusual ahead. The army and the trains were halted and the General rode forward to the advance guard, accompanied by his staff.

When they reached the crest of the hill and looked out beyond it, not a man spoke for a moment, though at the first glance a few uttered e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of astonishment or dismay and then became silent. Before them in the brilliant sunlight and lengthening shadows of late afternoon spread a scene of such weird and desolate grandeur as has few parallels in the world. Six hundred feet below lay the bottom of a vast basin, apparently twenty-five or thirty miles in diameter. From rim to rim it was piled with cones and pyramids of volcanic rock or baked clay and other hills of every imaginable fantastic shape, some of the peaks rising to a level with the surrounding country and some lower, but all glowing with confused and varied color, from gray and yellow to blue and brick red. Over all this huge, extinct oven of what had doubtless been, sometime in ages gone, a great coal bed which had burned out, hardly a sign of vegetation was visible save here and there a few small, straggling cedars or bushes on the barren hillsides. The place resembled strongly the ruins of some mighty, prehistoric city, but more strongly still it reminded the beholder of some of Dante's vivid descriptions of the infernal regions.

They bivouacked that night on the prairie and early next morning marched down into the forbidding basin, knowing not whether they would ever emerge from it alive.

All day long in suffocating heat and under the glare of an almost intolerable sun they toiled forward, winding in and out through gorges with high, perpendicular walls and yawning ravines so narrow that only one wagon could pa.s.s at a time. No water could be found save a little which was bitter with alkali. A large pioneer party was in advance, grading along hillsides and filling gullies so that the wagons might pa.s.s; by nightfall the army had succeeded in covering twelve miles and found itself on the bank of the Little Missouri, where at least water and gra.s.s were abundant. But the expedition was literally buried in the Bad Lands, which, on the western side of the stream, still stretched before them in a wilderness of mountains and gorges even more forbidding than those they had already pa.s.sed. Fortunately no Indians had yet opposed them, and many of the men, especially those in the advance and on the flanks, had found some pleasure mixed with their labor in viewing the strange and beautiful rock formations through which they pa.s.sed. Here were many petrified stumps and fallen trunks of trees on the tops and sides of the hills. Some of them were of immense size and wonderfully preserved, showing the bark, the stumps of branches, and the age rings of the interior wood. At one place was seen what the men called a "petrified sawmill", consisting of what appeared like a pile of lumber and slabs under the edge of a hill and, close by it, a large tree, cut up into logs of exact length, such as might be found around any sawmill, but all of stone as hard as granite. In addition to the trees, many of the men found impressions of leaves in the rocks of sizes and shapes belonging to no vegetation of the present age, while others discovered the footprints of unknown animals which had once inhabited this ancient land.

Colonel Pattee with his detachment of the Seventh Iowa crossed the Little Missouri the following morning to trace out, if possible, with the Yanktonais guide, a route leading westward from the river. He was gone for some hours and, meanwhile, a few of the men seized the opportunity to take their horses outside the lines in search of better grazing. They had not been out very long when they saw a party of thirty or forty Indians bearing down upon them, intent on cutting them off from camp. The soldiers were too few to think of fighting, so they fled at utmost speed, and all succeeded in getting in, though several escaped very narrowly. The attempted surprise seemed to be the signal of the Indians for the beginning of a general attack on the army, for in a moment the bluffs across the river were swarming with warriors, who opened a hot fire on the camp, though at such long range that their bullets could not reach half the distance. Just after they began firing, a horseman dashed out of the ravine directly beneath their position, which Colonel Pattee's detachment had ascended, and plunging into the river, trotted and galloped his horse across amid a great splas.h.i.+ng of water. It was Lieutenant Dale, who had followed Colonel Pattee with an order an hour or two before. General Sully met him at the river bank.

"What's the matter?" he demanded, the moment the Lieutenant reached him.

"The Seventh Iowa is attacked back there two or three miles, in the hills," replied Dale. "Colonel Pattee wants reinforcements."

He had scarcely finished speaking when there arose the sound of many hurried hoof beats in the ravine from which he had just emerged. The General looked toward it with a growing smile which presently broke into a laugh as a confused crowd of cavalry rushed from the ravine and galloped furiously down to and through the river.

"The Seventh has evidently come after its own reinforcements, Lieutenant," said he. "They must be in a hurry for them."

"It looks like it," answered Dale, grinning.

He retired, while the leading officer of the frightened cavalry hastily explained to the General that the Indians had come upon them in such a position and in such numbers that the only way they could save themselves was by instant flight.

"Is that so?" asked Al of the Lieutenant, after hearing this explanation.

"No," returned Dale, laughing, as he dismounted and sat down cross-legged on the ground for a moment's rest. "They were just scared, but it's no wonder. There are enough redskins around to have made it true. I believe the whole Sioux Nation is out in front of us there. They pretty nearly got me; tumbled a couple of ton rock down when I was coming through that ravine and just missed my horse by about six inches, and they fairly singed my hair with bullets. I guess the ball has started again."

The ball had started again, sure enough, for when the army crossed the river next morning and began threading the succession of ravines and canyons which Colonel Pattee had traced and partially dug out the day before, it was instantly attacked by the Sioux on all sides, in numbers seemingly as great as had fought at Tahkahokuty. On this day detachments from the Second Brigade formed the advance guard, under Major Robert H.

Rose, of the Second Minnesota, supported by Jones's battery. The rest of the Second Brigade guarded the army wagon train, with strong flanking parties out on each side to hold the hills and transverse valleys from which the enemy might fire upon or charge the train. Behind the Second Brigade came the First, similarly protecting the Montana emigrant train, the Coyotes and two companies of the Sixth Iowa bringing up the rear, while Pope's battery held itself ready to sh.e.l.l the hills or ravines whenever the enemy appeared in sufficient force to justify unlimbering the guns.

The march was slow and fatiguing in the extreme. The Indians, holding the tops and sides of the long succession of narrow pa.s.ses or canyons through which the army must go, poured their fire down upon the troops until dislodged by the fire of the artillery or the approach of the flankers, when they would fall back to another position of like strength and repeat their tactics. The wagons, after advancing about three miles, were parked in a s.p.a.ce where the pa.s.s opened to a somewhat greater width; while the troops, pus.h.i.+ng on, cleared the hills to allow the fatigue parties to dig out and level some three miles more of road. Then once more the unwieldy train unwound into column and crept carefully forward along the trail. The latter, in spite of the efforts of the pioneers, was often so narrow and slanting that it was all several men could do to keep the wagons from overturning and blocking the road permanently. Officers and men were working together on the firing line and among the trains, coatless and dripping with sweat in a temperature of one hundred and ten degrees in the shade. Their throats were parched with thirst, for the water brought from the Little Missouri was soon exhausted, and no more could be obtained throughout the day except at one tiny spring, to which the Indians clung so stubbornly that they were only dislodged by the Second Minnesota after a sharp fight.

Attack after attack was launched on the advance guard; and when repulsed there by the steady volleys of the cavalry carbines and sh.e.l.ls of the Third Minnesota Battery, the warriors would concentrate and rush upon one or the other flank, if the ground was open, or else lie in concealment and fire upon it as it approached. Up and down the hills in every direction the braves could be seen, riding their nimble-footed ponies along slopes so steep that it seemed even a dismounted man could not keep his footing there.

Toward noon a serious misfortune fell on the army in the loss of the Yanktonais guide, the only man who knew the country through which they were pa.s.sing. He had proved very faithful to his trust, and in his zeal to lead the march correctly, he had ventured too far to the front, where he was severely wounded in the breast, the bullet coming out under his shoulder blade.

All day long the members of the General's staff were on the run, carrying orders, suggestions or cautions to the commanders of the various organizations, hurrying forward the lagging wagons and sometimes themselves becoming involved in one or another of the many skirmishes constantly blazing up among the tumbled hills. Once Lieutenant Dale rode back to the General's position near the head of the column, with the blood running over his face from a wound in the cheek.

"Oh, are you badly hurt?" asked Al, who happened to be there, startled and anxious.

"No," the Lieutenant returned, lightly, dabbing some of the blood from his cheek. "I've been back to the rear guard to tell Captain Miner that the redskins were getting ready to swing around on him. They did, just about as I got there, and stirred him up pretty lively, but the boys repulsed them. One fellow grazed my cheek, that's all. Just look at them!" His glance swept the surrounding hills, on every one of which groups or ma.s.ses of Indians were to be seen. "They seem to be everywhere, and for every one killed it looks as though ten new ones sprang out of the ground." He looked at Al and an ominous expression pa.s.sed over his face. "Have you ever heard of Kabul Pa.s.s?" he inquired, in a low tone.

Al returned his glance steadily.

"Yes, I have," he admitted, slowly.

"It looks something like that around here, doesn't it?" the Lieutenant continued. "Only one man came out of Kabul Pa.s.s alive, you remember."

"Why, you're right," answered Al, feeling a pa.s.sing throb of foreboding.

"But I think we shall do better than that," he added, hopefully.

"Oh, no doubt," agreed Dale. "I was just thinking of the similarity of positions, that's all."

In an instant his mood changed and he laughed at a sudden recollection.

"I saw a funny thing back there," he chuckled. "You know the oxen those emigrants are driving are pretty well f.a.gged out; every now and then one of them lies down and has to be exchanged for a fresh one from the herd.

The rear guard has orders to shoot all the exhausted animals, so the Indians won't get them. While I was back there one big ox fell over, and he was unyoked and left on the ground, looking as good as dead. But as the rear guard pa.s.sed him, he heard their shots and then the yells of the redskins close behind, and he raised his head and looked at the Indians. They were pus.h.i.+ng up, hoping to catch him alive. I guess he didn't like their looks, for all at once he scrambled to his feet and made a bolt for the herd, charging right through the rear guard with his tail sticking straight out and his eyes bulging with fright. Now he's travelling with the rest of the cattle and seems as well as any of them."

Al laughed heartily. "He ought to have a medal," he declared.

"Yes, he had," agreed Lieutenant Dale, "a leather one, anyway."

A long time after noon, the walls of the canyon through which the column was marching became gradually lower, and after a while the hard-pressed troops and trains found themselves pa.s.sing out of the dangerous defile upon a comparatively level plateau, higher than most of the surrounding Bad Lands, though it was girt on all sides by the characteristic peaks and gulches of the region. Here General Sully decided to make camp for the night, though he had marched only ten miles, for here had been found a little gra.s.s and a large pool of stagnant, muddy rain water, which, however, was better than none at all, and no one could tell whether any existed farther on. The troops were placed in very compact formation and the trains corralled, the emigrants a little to the east of the military camp.

CHAPTER XIV

TE-O-KUN-KO

After supper had been eaten and rations distributed for the next day, it was nearly sunset, and Al and Wallace sat down on the ground near General Sully's tent to clean their weapons and enjoy a few minutes of welcome rest.

"I never saw anything like that canyon we were in to-day," said Wallace.

"More than once I thought we were going to be cleaned out there, and we would have been if we'd had civilized troops to deal with."

"Why, of course," Al answered. "Civilized troops one-tenth as strong as we could have held it against us for a year. Yet we've lost only eight or ten men wounded all day. The Indians haven't enough staying qualities, though they have plenty of dash and are magnificent hors.e.m.e.n."

"Yes, that's true," agreed Wallace. Then suddenly he dropped his ram-rod and sprang to his feet. "Look there!" he exclaimed. "Are they going to try some more of their dash this evening, after all they've done to-day?"