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KALEIDOSCOPIC 
 LIVES. 
 
 A COMPANION BOOK 
 
 TO 
 
 FRONTIER ^ INDIAJf LIFE. 
 
 JOSEPH HENRY TAYLOR. 
 
 Author of "Twenty Years on the Trap Line" 
 
 "Frontier and Indian Life," Etc. 
 
 Iltasitratedl. 
 
 Printed and Published by the Author. 
 
 WASHBURN, N. Dak. 
 1901. 
 
 1 
 
THE LIBRARY OF 
 
 CONGRESS, 
 Two Copies Received 
 
 APR. 9 1901 
 
 Copyright entry 
 COPY B. 
 
 .T737 
 
 «apjjnflW 1890. 
 
 BY 
 JOSEPH HENRY TA.YIX>K. 
 
 C ^ C C C I 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 The Hickory (Irove at Zion 1 
 
 On the Plank Road at Chancellorsville 4 
 
 The Two Strangers 12 
 
 On Diverging Lines 20 
 
 A Frontier Chronicle 48 
 
 Blazing a Backward Trail 66 
 
 Of Two Graves in the Black Hills 78 
 
 The Bismarck Penitentiary 90 
 
 From West to East ^^ 
 
 Little Bear Woman 108 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 IN the introduction of this little book the writer 
 hopes to contribute his mite in affirmation of the 
 oft quoted saying that "truth is stranger than 
 fiction. '^ The scenes described are but realities 
 in manifold diversity of human character that is 
 to be seen in everyday life, though not always 
 or regularly made note of by students of the 
 diverse in this living, breathing mass of beings 
 that come and go. Our exhibit is from a few 
 turns only, as seen through the lens of a kaleido- 
 scope and in the swirls, we witness the transfor- 
 mation from light to shade — from moss agate to 
 diamonds — from pearl to oyster shell. 
 
 In some of the earlier editions of "Frontier and 
 Indian Life," two or three of the sketches herein 
 appearing were a part of that work, but after a 
 more perfect conception of the facts related and 
 some added information, were naturally placed 
 under proper title. The author also deems it 
 necessary to state that while the truthfulness of 
 these strangly dramatic doings herein chronicled 
 will stand without question, but for reasons 
 that the reader may readily understand, in 
 a few of the characters a non de plume is used, 
 and that while their lineal tracing may be vague, 
 the renditions are none the less perfect even 
 though in masked appellation. 
 
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THE HICKORY CROYE AT ZION. 
 
 FOR intense enthusiasm among the American 
 people few pohtical contests excelled the 
 presidential campaign of 1856. While lacking the 
 boisterous good nature that enlivened the Clay 
 and senior Harrison campaigns which were more 
 of the adulation or hero worship order — rather 
 than of discussion on the divergent principles of 
 eovernment evolved in the administration of its 
 affairs. The campaign of 1856, was, aside from 
 local or minor issues engendered, discussed on lines 
 marked out by eminent statesmen and on its edu- 
 cational merits. The slavery issue had become 
 paramount in the politics of the nation, and the 
 question — should Afro-American slavery be ex- 
 cluded from or extended to the western territories 
 was the subject ever under discussion during that 
 eventful year. But in the Lincoln-Breckinridge- 
 Douglas and Bell campaign that followed four 
 years later, argument on the slavery subject be- 
 came superfluous and the measured tread of the 
 newly formed wide-a-wake organizations bearing 
 torches and drilled in the military step, plainly 
 gave sign that a coming event were casting forth 
 its ominous shadow. 
 
 r3uring the 1856 campaign the writer, then a 
 
1 KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES 
 
 boy of tweive years of age, and residing under the 
 paternal roof near the Mason and Dixon hne, be- 
 came acutely interested in the public meeting^! and 
 parades of the various partisans, — the whole per- 
 formance being a peep into the unusual for one 
 whose years had been few, — the Pierce and Scott 
 campaign of four years before seeming as an im- 
 perfect dream. 
 
 About the middle of September large, printed 
 posters adorned the panels of village stores or on 
 finger boards at country cross roads, and with 
 spread-eagle cuts announced a political meeting 
 of the American or Fillmore party to be held at 
 the hickory grove at Zion. Zion was the name of 
 a little church some miles south of the Pennsylva- 
 nia line. Prominent speakers were to be in atten- 
 dance— so the posters read — and in the exhuber- 
 ence of youth I joined a party of campaigners with 
 flags unfurled and bunting flying, until the crowd 
 of people about the grand stand in the grove at- 
 tracted our attention and we become a part of the 
 assemblage. 
 
 There were fully one thousand people of both 
 sexes and of all ages from the infant in its mother's 
 arms, to the tottering old man who had marked 
 the passing of every presidential succession since 
 Washington's day. After music by the band came 
 the speakers who discussed themes from various 
 points of view but all bearing on the support of 
 Millard Fillmore for president. Maryland's future 
 senator — White — was there; J. Dixon Roman, a 
 Bakimore attorney of prominence was on hand,and 
 
THE HICKORY GROVE AT ZION 2 
 
 other rostrom speakers of lesser reputation made 
 short addresses interspersed with applause and 
 thus the afternoon hours were whiled away. By 
 and by the crimson sun hung- over the distant hills 
 of the Octoraro, and many rose from their seats in 
 the intervals of the addresses to prepare for their 
 home journeying. Scenes about the benches be- 
 came uproar and families were seeking their car- 
 riages, all seemingly satisfied with the program of 
 the day. While confusion was reigning among 
 the intending homegoers, a hack drove rapidly up 
 to the grand stand, a single occupant alighted and 
 the driver skurried out and away. The chairman 
 announced a new speaker, but the noise was so 
 deafening but few could catch the name. His 
 appearance would indicate a professor of some 
 school of learning. He seemed somewhat under- 
 sized, complexion of a florid hue; had grey or blue 
 eyes and a large shock of hair of auburn red. He 
 cultivated a heavy drooping mustache; otherwise 
 a smoothe shaven face with a serious expression. 
 He wore a jaunty cap and a man's shawl hung in 
 apparent negligence over his right shoulder. In 
 his opening remarks his voice was very low — so 
 indistinct, indeed, that their meaning could only 
 be guessed at. But as his tones modulated in 
 consonance with the gentle winds, — now high 
 now low — a soft cadence keeping in seeming unsion 
 with leaf-laden boughs of the hickories overhead, 
 had wonderful effect. With a boys observation I 
 noted the change in my environs. I found myself 
 hedged in by a living mass of silent beingi pres- 
 
;3 KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES 
 
 siii!^ lowarcl ihc. speaker's stantl. E\ery morlal of 
 them s'teiiiecl eniranced. Every eye fixed on the 
 sp(^:iker's stand and all apparently oblivious to 
 ilie iivino- world about theni save the wavinor 
 siiock of red hair and stranoe weird voice. People 
 had left their carriai^es, — the home goers had 
 tiirnc^d, ialtercd and tlien ioiiied the sur<jino- mass 
 — likened imto a hivinL,^ swarm ot bees. It was a 
 lariL^c! audience under an imknown S}3ell — a hyp- 
 notized coiigrei^ation. P^iilly an hour or niore the 
 speakers strangely musical tones went on. and as 
 if imiiatinof the; very trees overiu-ad, his voice 
 ^radualb-/ lulled, and then cam(; silence. A hack 
 suddenly dro\e up, the orator replaced his shawl 
 and cap and eiUerino' the vehicle was as hurriedlv 
 sped away as he had beeii brought. The spell 
 was broken. The chairman, as one wakino- from 
 a dream shouted: 
 
 " i hree cheers and a tiger for Henry Winter 
 Davis, the Henry Clay of Maryland." 
 
 And in response came a mighty roar from the 
 belated audience, that echoed and re-echoed among 
 these old wind shaken hickories of Zion — the like 
 of which never did occur nor doubt we, ever 
 will occur there again, 
 
 Henry Winter Davis, of Maryland! 
 
 While yet a student in the university through 
 his stiburb oratory he restrained the bad passions 
 of the Pluo- U^lies and Dead Rabbits two of the 
 most ungovernable bands of hard characters that 
 ever controlled the destiny of the then toughest 
 
THE HICKORY GROVE AT ZION 4 
 
 city in the United States — Baltimore. 
 
 Henry Winter Davis, of Maryland, who more 
 than any one man called off the mobs of Baltimore 
 that were attacking the troops under President 
 Lmcoln's first call in their passag^e through that 
 beligerent city. 
 
 Henry Winter Davis, of Maryland. Whose 
 loyalty to the Union there was no question As 
 a representative of Congress he stood forth almost 
 alone its Demothenies— its Cicero— its Henry Clay, 
 although as members about him sat Blaine, sat 
 Conkling, sat Schuyler Colfax. And after the elo- 
 quent Marylander's death in I865, when some 
 enthusiastic admirer of the New York statesman 
 said through a leading newspaper that the ''man- 
 tel of Henry Winter Davis had fallen on the broad 
 shoulders of Roscoe Conkling," or words to that 
 effect, and among other sentences elicited from 
 Blaine the now famous response: 
 
 "Mud to marble— dunghill to diamond! Oh, 
 ye gods save us a profination of his holy name." 
 
 Words that made a schism in the Republican 
 party; ruined Conkling and lost the presidency 
 of the United States to the intellectual giant from 
 Maine. 
 
ON THE PIiANK ROAD AT CHAN- 
 CELIiORSYILLH. 
 
 DESCRIPTION of a battle by an actual partici- 
 pant — contrary to general belief— is often 
 faulty and of limited scope. He may be accurate 
 in the occurances about him, and under his eye, 
 but on a great battle field covering several square 
 miles in which from one to two hundred thousand 
 men are engaged, with the smoke and dust; the 
 deafening roar of artillery and rattle of musketery 
 the groans of dying men and neighing of the disa- 
 bled horse — his description must necessarily be 
 imperfect. Nothing could better illistrate this 
 than to note how widely different people view an 
 ordinary street fight or saloon fracas as instranced 
 by the eye witnesses in a police court, although 
 they are sworn to tell the truth and "nothing but 
 the truth." It may be said in controvertion that 
 many of these court witnesses were partisans to the 
 case in question. But is it not the same on the 
 battlefield? For aside from the open enemy, bick- 
 erings and jealousies between, company, regimen- 
 tal, brigade, divisions or corps, enter into the col- 
 oring ot a description of a battle scene by an in- 
 terested eye witness. Passing strange, indeed, 
 if it did not. 
 
ON PLANK ROAD AT CHANCELLORSVILLE. 6 
 
 Of the many histories of the American civil war 
 by actual participants, imperfections as above no- 
 ted are frequent. Even the accounts of the gen- 
 erals in command differ widely on scenes and 
 actions in which there should be no divergence. 
 How much more pardonable then, in the accounts 
 given to the world by the war correspondent, the 
 understrapper or plain soldier. The truth is the 
 most realistic discriptions of great battles come 
 from writers who witessed only through the 
 "mind's eye," with the gathering of details that, 
 like pure wines improve with age. Official re- 
 ports and details of action placed in the hands of 
 a Victor Hugo as was the scenes at Waterloo, or 
 our own Washington Irving, Prescott or Lippard, 
 carry us nearer to our ideas of the actual than the 
 participant with a limited range. These reflec- 
 tions do not apply to a skirmish or engage- 
 ment of small compass, but to a Malvern Hill — a 
 Bull Run — a Chancellorsville or a Gettysburg. 
 
 On the 29th day of April, 1863, the writer found 
 himself astride of his ninth horse since the winter 
 of '61 and was moving with Pleasanton's cavalry 
 command across the Rappahannock at Kelly's 
 ford. Although putting down my name in one 
 company in the original make up, I had done duty 
 in another since leaving camp in Nicetovvn Lane, 
 on the old Germantown road near Philadelphia, 
 in August, 1 86 1. Had resented the perfidy of a 
 recruiting officer; had refused to muster, and in im- 
 itation of a knight errant went over into the 
 black horse (C) company and followed the for- 
 
7 KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES 
 
 tunes of the brave Irish leader through the first 
 lour campaigns of the Potomac army, and until his 
 death on the wilderness road south of the Chan- 
 cellorsville house. And even before, — though but 
 a "kid" of seventeen years — I had veteranized* — if 
 four month's term could be called such — under 
 President Lincon's first call after Fort Sumpter 
 had fallen and communication with the national 
 capital cut oft by a Baltimore mob. This by way 
 of preface. 
 
 On Saturday morning our squadron (C and D) 
 moved down the south side of the Rappahannock, 
 passing the old brick tavern of Chancellorsville to 
 our right and soon entered a timber lined road lead- 
 ing to an opening. On the under boughs of a big 
 tree sat a fine specimen of the Virginia horned 
 owl — and I think if ever this bird of wisdom kept 
 up his reputation, that old fellow did. The boys 
 yelled "hoo-hoo, hoo hoo," but never a word back 
 did he speak, although he might in truth have said: 
 ''Don't be too gay boys, you may need my face 
 by and by." In reaching a hollow, a halt was made 
 and skirmish line deployed. While waiting I had 
 a chat with a company D boy who had just been 
 returned from a Philadelphia hospital where he 
 was for six months or more. He looked in 
 robust health — said he felt splendid and had a 
 good time. We almost envied him his good for- 
 tune as he sat on his horse, togged out in a new 
 uniform and clean white collar. Alas! how swift 
 
 * In Co. G, 2u(\ Pa. Vol. 
 
ON PLANK ROAD AT CHANCELLORSVILLE. 8 
 
 the changes come to some of us. The young fel- 
 low's bright uniform drew attention from a Con- 
 federate sharp shooter; a bullet cut a jugular 
 vein and his body was taken to the rear and bur- 
 ied among the pines. All of this happening with- 
 in an hour's time. 
 
 After changing our position several times, we 
 filed down on the broad pike leading south and 
 again passing the Chancellorsville tavern to the 
 right. General Joe Hooker stood leaning against 
 a post watching us as we passed by, surrounded 
 by his aids and other officers. After advancing 
 a half mile or more we halted to the left of the 
 turnpike road and at the end of a clearing facing 
 a large body of scrub pine timber. Here was 
 found General Pleasonton with the greater part of 
 his cavalry division, dismounted, but not unsad- 
 dled. We afterward learned this move was to 
 support General Sickels, who was on the road 
 leading to Fredericksburg. We were also ordered 
 to dismount, but not unsaddle, and for the next 
 two or three hours lay around without much order 
 holding our horses by the bridle reins, and munch- 
 ing occasionally at our fast depleting seven days 
 rations with which we had loaded our haversacks 
 down at Falmouth, three days before. V/hile 
 reclining on a bed of grass looking up at the blue 
 sky, I noted a big bird — a bald or fish eagle sweep 
 across the cleared space, and high up in air. The 
 sun was rapidly sinking to the tops of the pine 
 trees and the air calm and serene, I remember of 
 wishing that I could have that high flyer's view 
 
9 KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES 
 
 and know just what was going on about us. It was 
 well for our content that the eagle alone saw the 
 culmination ol events that an hour would bring 
 forth; the veil of the future hid the scenes of the 
 coming day, for in this clearing in which we were 
 then so quietly resting was even before the light 
 of the morrow stewn with hundreds of ghastly 
 and bloody corpses uniformed in both the blue and 
 the grey. Here and there occasional cannonading 
 had been going on in our front all afternoon, but all 
 at once a continuous rattle of musketry and some 
 cannon shooting was heard down through the pine 
 forest to our right. Soon came skurring orderlies, 
 and Pleasanton called for Major Keenan, who af- 
 ter a few hurried words came toward us with that 
 well known smile that seem to come most to him 
 in critical times — or in other words it was a dan- 
 ger signal for his men. This was illustrated at 
 the time by young Early — the kid of the company 
 saying aloud as the Major approached: ''There is 
 something up boys, see old Baldy smile." "Baldy" 
 was the Major's pet name by his old company. A 
 second later Keenan's voice rang out: 
 
 ''Prepare to mount. Mount. To the right by 
 fours. Trot march," and down into the pines we 
 went, turning at the tirst left hand road. While 
 first a trot then a gallop, with Keenan at the head 
 head of "A" with the other companies of his com- 
 mand following in alphabetical order. 
 
 From the poet George Parsons Lathrop we now 
 call on to more clearly illustrate the finish in this 
 scenebysomeextracts from his*' Keenan's Charge:" 
 
ON PLANK ROAD ATCHANCELLORSVILLE. 10 
 
 The sun had set; 
 
 The leaves with dew were wet, — 
 Down fell a bloody dusk 
 
 Where Stonewall's corps, like a beast of prey, 
 Tore through with angry tusk. 
 
 The Eleventh corps breaking: — 
 
 Broke and fled. 
 
 Not one stayed, — but the dead! 
 With curses, shrieks, and cries, 
 
 Horses, and wagons, and men, 
 Tumbled back through the shuddering glen, 
 
 And above us the fading skies. 
 
 The charge: — 
 
 By the shrouded gleam of the Western skies 
 Brave Keen an looked into Pleasanton's eyes 
 
 For an instant, — clear, and cool and still; 
 Then, with a smile, he said: ^T will." 
 
 * Cavalry, chargel" Not a man of them shrank. 
 
 Their sharp, iull cheer, from rank on rank, 
 Rose joyously, with a willing breath, — 
 
 Rose like a greeting hail to death. 
 
 Then forward they sprang,and spurred, and clashed; 
 
 Shouted the officers, crimson -sashed; 
 Rode well the men, each brave as his fellow, 
 
 In their faded coacs of the blue and yellow; 
 And above in the air, with an instinct true. 
 
 Like a bird of war their pennon flew. 
 
 With clank of scabbard, and thunder of steeds, 
 And blades that shine like sunlit reeds, 
 
 And strong brown faces bravely pale 
 For fear their proud attempt shall fail, 
 
 Three hundred Pennsylvanians close 
 On twice ten thousand gallant foes. 
 
 Line after line the troopers came 
 
 To the edge of the wood that was ringed with 
 flame; 
 Rode in, and sabred, and shot, — and fell; 
 
 Nor one came back his wounds to tell. 
 And full in the midst rose Keenan, tall, 
 
 In the gloom like a martyr awaiting his fall. 
 
11 KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES 
 
 While the circle-stroke of his sabre, swung 
 
 'Round his head, like a halo there, luminous hung. 
 
 Line after line, ay, whole platoons. 
 
 Struck dead in their saddles, of brave draooons. 
 By the maddened horses were onward borne, 
 
 And into the vortex flung, trampled and torn; 
 As Keenan fought with his men, side by side, 
 
 So they rode, till there were no more to ride. 
 And over them, lying there shattered and mute. 
 
 What deep echo rolls?— 'Tis the death-salute 
 From the cannon in place; for, heroes, you braved 
 
 Your fate not in vain; the armv was saved! 
 
 Over them now, — year following year, — 
 
 Over their graves the pine-cones fall, 
 And the whippoorwill chants his spectre call; 
 
 But they stir not again, they raise no cheer; 
 They have ceased. But their glory shall never cease. 
 
 Nor their light be quenched in the light of peace. 
 The rush of their charge is resounding still 
 
 That saved the army at Chancellorsville. 
 
 We believe the opinion stands with all military 
 experts who witnessed or participated in the 
 events of Chancellorsville that the presence of 
 mind in Pleasanton putting up Keenan and his men 
 on the sacrifical alter saved Hooker's whole army 
 of over one hundred thousand men from a more 
 terrible disaster than befell McDowell at the first 
 Bull Run. And what was Pleasanton's reward? 
 Promotion! No. Sent out west to fight Marma- 
 duke and Pap Price, which he did to the finish, 
 and thirty years after the war was over, died in want 
 in a Washington garret, refusing the proffer of a 
 pitiful pension — as a direct insult from political 
 generals, to one of the most high minded and 
 patriotic officers of the American civil war. 
 
One of Keenan's Troopers. 
 
THE TWO STRANGERS. 
 
 ONE evening about the 20th of June, 1868, a 
 group of guests including the writer, sat in 
 the office of the old hotel with its varying names 
 of Ash, International and the Merchants, then 
 hostel headquarters of Yankton, Dakota's terri- 
 torial capital. Supper was over, and the loungers 
 were taking their ease. About this time, a young 
 man sprang nimbly in the doorway, and asked for 
 the proprietor. He seemed about twenty-four or 
 twenty-five years of age, of medium size, dark 
 grey eyes, smooth shaven face and dark head of 
 hair enclined to curl. His round full face had a 
 clerical cast, and the cut of his clothes — if they 
 had not such a seedy, threadbare look — would 
 have solified this impression. On the landlord's 
 appearance the stranger asked for supper, break- 
 fast and lodging. With a swift glance the host 
 asked his guest for his baggage, and on being in- 
 formed that he was not incumbered, the landlord 
 told him it was his rule in such cases to ask for 
 his pay in advance. This, after much rumaging^ 
 in his pockets, and some confusion in his manner, 
 was placed in the landlord's hands, after which 
 the stranger was shown in the dining room. With 
 the new arrival's exit trom the office some dispar- 
 aging remarks were indulged in by the lounger's 
 at the expense of the personal appearance of the 
 
13 KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES 
 
 travel-stained stranger. One remarked that his 
 shirt bosom had not seen soap suds for a mon^h. 
 while another, espied the stranger's bell crowned 
 beaver hanging upon the hat rack, said that ''such 
 a tile should be made to uniform wnth the rest 
 of his duds," and proceeded to smash in its 
 crown with his fists/-' 
 
 In the meantime the bossee of the hotel with 
 instructions from the proprietor, went out and 
 locked the stables securely, saying after having^ 
 done so. 
 
 "Yes sir-ee, w^e have a horse thief with us to 
 night, and we'll have to watch things?" 
 
 It is needless to add that the stranger w^as shad- 
 owed until retiring to his room for the nights rest. 
 Morning found everything safe about the hotel, 
 and the young man under suspicion's ban politely 
 announced that he was seeking employment, and 
 would be glad to obtain it. The usual spring rush 
 of young men from the east had filled up the va- 
 cant places, and the only job in sight ofiered was 
 a line of post holes to be dug at the edge of town 
 and although in the full heat of summer days he 
 cheerfully accepted the task, and with coat off and 
 bared head he tugged and perspired at his work 
 the long days through, and although doubtlessl . 
 
 *This act was done by a burly brute naoied Du- 
 gan, w^ho through a court technecaiity had just been 
 released from custody for the cowardly murder of 
 a twelve year old boy at or near Cheyenne, Wyo- 
 ming-. A year later he reached ihe end of a vigi- 
 lante's rope for the murder of an old man near 
 Denver, Colorado 
 
low 
 
 THE TWO STRANGERS. 14 
 
 ell lagged when the sun hid itself behind the 
 range of hills overlooking this little frontier 
 cLiplial, he did not complain of it. The idlers on 
 the \ cranda of the hotel who were vainly waiting 
 Dame Fortune's deferred visit, with broad grins 
 on their faces and ''cutting" remarks with their 
 tongues, as they watched the weary toiler take 
 ofi his heavy plug and sit it on the ground beside 
 himself while at work. 
 
 The writer of these lines was employed at this 
 time on a printer's case in the old Dakotain office 
 on Territorial book work, and after meals at the 
 hotel it was cusiomary before going to my case in 
 the office to take a few minutes stroll to the river 
 front in recreadve exercise. I noted, also at this 
 time that the stranger had the same habit and we 
 sometimes met there. One morning after break- 
 fast an incident of this kind occurred. The 
 opening of the day was beautiful, — a heavy fog 
 just raising above the sand bars in our front, 
 while the big rising sun seemed in crimson blush, 
 now and again obscured by the passing of the 
 fot/ veil, 1 o our right under the chalky bluffs, 
 Presho's woods — now but a memory — Its forest of 
 dew bathed leaves glinted and danced in the rays 
 of the sun beams. In the high willows facing the 
 timber, fifteen or twenty lodges of the red San- 
 tees were serenely poising, and now and again a 
 wreath of blue smoke curling high in air, A few 
 of the swarthy occupants w^ere sauntering upon 
 the sands or tileing along the narrow foot trail to- 
 ward's "Shad-owa towa" or ''Charley Pecotte's 
 
15 KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES. 
 
 town" as the native red people thereabout persist- 
 ed in caUing the ambitious capital city to the dis- 
 traction of some of its good people. 
 
 The stranger stood for some moments with a 
 gloomy face as he peered out upon the river, and 
 the living panorama spread before him. Whatever 
 his thoughts were I could not conjure. Was he ga- 
 zing beyond the rising mist, if so what did he see? 
 Suddenly the lines of his smooth round face lost 
 its care worn look, his grey eyes heretofore shaded 
 or hid in their sockets by pertruding brows, now 
 seemed beaming in playfull mood, and assuming 
 an elocutionary attitude and waving his hand in 
 the direction of the tepees in the willows, with 
 real eloquent pathos declaimed Pope's beautiful 
 lines beg^inning with: — 
 
 "Lo the poor Indian whose mitutored mind 
 Sees God in the clouds, and hears him in the wind. 
 His soul proud science never taught to stray 
 Far as the solar walk or milky way; 
 Yet simple nature to his hopes has given, 
 Behind the cloud-topped hill, a humbler heaven; 
 Some safer world in depth of moods embraced. 
 Some happier island in the watery waste. 
 Where slaves once more their native land behold, 
 No fiends tormants, no Christian thirst for gold." 
 
 After a lew compliments on his declamatory 
 style, we dropped into a discourse, ana in conclu- 
 ding said that he supposed, in his present plight, 
 it would be hard work to convince the people of 
 Yankton that he was the brother of a doctor; the 
 son of a doctor; a graduate of Ann Arbor L^ni- 
 
THE TWO STRANGERS. 16 
 
 son of a doctor; a graduate of Ann Arbor Uni- 
 versity a practitioner physican himself with a grad- 
 uating course finished and a diplomo to show for 
 it. In reply I freely admitted such a declaration 
 would be in the nature of a surprise to the people 
 there; that there was room for another physician 
 in the Territory; that I would issue the inidal 
 number of the Dakota Democrat in a few days, 
 and as an earnest of my faith in his ascending 
 star would publish his card in the first issue with- 
 out any charge to himself — and so a surprise was 
 sprung on that line, in the first issue of the Dsmo- 
 CRAT, July 8th, 1868. 
 
 About two weeks or more after the paper had 
 appeared, this doctor or ''quack" as the loungers 
 persisted in calling him — invited me to his room 
 at our hotel. He was in good spirits and said 
 things were going right with him. On his table 
 a brimming bucket of beer had been placed, fresh 
 on tap from Russtacher's frontier brewery. We 
 were not alone. Sitting on a chair and reclining 
 against the wall was the face of a stranger. He 
 arose and was introduced as "Mr. Stevenson, of 
 Iowa, tragedian and dramatic reader." The man 
 was young, tall, rather sandy complexioned, with a 
 gruff hearty, self-assuring manner. Had just took 
 a run up there from Sioux City, he said, to sec a 
 link in his destiny. The link though a lately 
 welded one he added, was none the less well 
 forged, and of good material. 
 
 After some pleasant repartee, in which I joined, 
 they mutually told the story of their first meeting 
 
17 KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES. 
 
 at Missouri Valley Juncton, some weeks before. 
 They were both financially stranded, contided their 
 troubles to each other, and mutually agreed to 
 * 'raise the wind." They footed it over to Magnolia, 
 twenty miles or more, rented a hall on promises, 
 ''Stood off' the printer and billed the town for 
 Shakesperian readings and comicalities. After 
 two or three nights,— printers bill paid, they came 
 up the grade and landed with three dollars and 
 seventy-five cents wrapped up in the company 
 exchequer. A division of sentiment as to business 
 prospects in that town demanded a division of com- 
 pany property, and stranger Number One crossed 
 Big Sioux bridge with one dollar and thirty-five 
 cents to meet his star of destiny in the land of 
 the Dakotas. It was in this manner they had 
 told their story. After the departure of the 
 next Iowa bound stage, the face of stranger Num- 
 ber Two, was missing at the International. 
 
 Many years later — being in a reminiscent mood 
 while resting at a ranch — I told this story. Com- 
 rade Mercer, who had been listening, thought he 
 could help me a little further along with stranger 
 Number Two, and begged pardon for the inter- 
 ruption. Here is what he said: 
 
 ''I was down working in a brick yard in Sioux 
 City, Iowa, in the autumn of 1868. One night 
 in early September, I saw a large crowd gathering 
 in front of the balcony of the leading hotel. Up- 
 on enquiry, I was told it was an open air political 
 meeting, — so elbowed m\ way along the street^ 
 
THE TWO STRANGERS. 18 
 
 following up the crowd. I could hear the speaker 
 making his sallies, and see the clouds of hats go 
 up, and hear the thunders ot applause that greet- 
 ed his eloquent passages of approving words. 
 *' Who is that speaker, " I asked of an old cit- 
 izen as I passed along, "making all that uproar 
 up yonder? " 
 
 "Oh, that is Orator Stevenson," said old 
 citizen. 
 
 "Who is Orator Stevenson?" I asked, for 
 I was an eastern tenderfoot then. 
 
 "Oh. I don't know," replied old citizen, 
 tersely, "the Republican State Central Committee 
 have engaged him to even up the State ticket 
 majorities with Grant and Colfax, and I guess he 
 can do it — if any talker can." ' 
 
 And he did. Results lined up with the orator's 
 efforts on the stump and the hall rostrum. 
 
 About the horse thief suspect of the Inter- 
 naiional — Yankton's quack saw bones — or Stran- 
 ger Number One — the reader might kindly en- 
 quire — what had became of him» We can an- 
 swer, referring to the old adage about sometime 
 deception on first appearance, that it will hold good 
 in this case. Stranger Number One had a large 
 compass to go on, but in our concluding here, his 
 later movements will be curtly told. Somtime 
 after the events I have related in these opening 
 pages, he courted and married a daughter of the 
 leading Dakotain — called in those early days the 
 Father of the Territory. He, also like Stranger 
 
19 KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES. 
 
 Number Two, became a party leader and an able, 
 eloquent public speaker. And medical quack, — 
 well — for over twenty years thereafter — or un- 
 til his death — ^he stood Territorial Dakota's 
 formost physician. 
 
Long Soldier, 
 
 Uncpapa Chief, whose band har- 
 
 rassed the Garrison at old 
 
 Fort Rice in the 
 
 Sixties. 
 
ON DIYERGINC IiINBS. 
 
 ON the south bank of the Missouri, nine miles 
 north of where the Cannonball river joins 
 that great Continental artery, terminate the range 
 of isolated and uneven highlands now generally- 
 termed the Little Heart ridge. If the Gros Ven- 
 tre Indians can bring forth plain truth from their 
 legend of the summit of these upheaved crags, it 
 was here one fifth of the remnant of that tribe 
 rested and were saved from the destruction that 
 overwhelmed so many of their people several 
 hundred years ago, when the floodgates from the 
 ice bound Arctic seas were unloosened and a de- 
 luge of waters poured down the Saskatchewan 
 depression, and submerged all but the extreme 
 high points of land, only decreasing in depth 
 as the waters spread out on the wide southern 
 plains on its destructive path to join the tepid 
 stream in the Mexican gulf. 
 
 About one mile south of this ridge can be seen 
 a few isolated blufifs for the most part bare of veg- 
 etation, and on their topmost peaks, round open- 
 ings, that at the distance of the bluff's base, to an 
 ordinary eye, seem poriholes from a frowning 
 fortress. In these cones, as early as the openin:^ 
 days of this century, the first intrepid explorers 
 of the now dominent race, saw flying hither and 
 thither from these apertures the proudest birds in 
 all this land — the war eagle of the wild Indians. 
 
21 KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES. 
 
 Across the Missouri, and northeast of these 
 described lands, but some miles away was a body 
 of water known to the native Sioux as "Mde Hans- 
 ka" or the Long Lake. Apart from its shape — 
 long and narrow — the lake had no significance, 
 except that its boggy shores sheltered broods of 
 wild fowl, and its location a convenient camping 
 place for hunters of the antelope. 
 
 In the order of marking time— being then the 
 month of July, 1864^ — part of the Sully expedi- - 
 tion, a command of several thousand soldiers sertt ' 
 out by the government to punish and subdue cer- ' 
 tain hostile bands of the Sioux in the nortwest, 
 had reached this vicinity, just described, when 
 a detatchment of the 50th regiment of Wisconsin 
 volunteers, acting under orders from the Wash- 
 ington war office, and who were encamped near 
 the creek at the base of the cone hills, commenced 
 to slash down the timber of neighboring groves, 
 and tear up the virgin sod and manufacture 
 adobe or sun dried brick, — so familiar in the con- 
 struction of dwellings of the natives of New and 
 old Mexico. 
 
 The building of a "soldier tepee" at that point 
 was not relished by the wary Sioux. They could 
 not understand the motive of the white soldiers 
 in wanting to build a "big v/ar house" among the 
 cone hills that had long been sacred precincts of 
 incubation of this bird of war; whose tail feath- 
 ers transferred to their own heads were badges 
 of a warrior's rank — marked in degree — one tail 
 feather for each "coo" that would count for an 
 
ON DIVERGING LINES. 22 
 
 enemy slain. Thus in pride, not even in name 
 would they associate these invading white soldiers 
 with the home of the war eagle, or the miniature 
 Mount Arrat of the Gros v^entres, but as long as 
 the banner floated in the breeze, or a log rested up- 
 on the site of barrack or watch tower, that marked 
 the historic ground of old Fort Rice, the Yankton 
 Sioux and their alhed bands persisted in calling 
 that military post, -'Mde Hanska Akecita Tepee" 
 or as interpreted into plain English, — Long Lake 
 Soldier house. 
 
 Across the river from Fort Rice in these days 
 of the military occupation, and a few miles down 
 stream was a piece of low land known as the 
 'lower hay bottom." It was here — except in 
 very -dry seasons — that the hay contractor could 
 finish up his provender contract with the post 
 quartermaster, but in these exceptional cases a 
 further haul was made upon the matted hay lands 
 of the Horsehead, a few miles further down 
 stream. But it was the ''lower hay bottom" that 
 interested the writer and some traveling compan- 
 ions in the autumn of 1869, when a comrade who 
 had done duty in the regimental band at the fort 
 had told his story of an incident of the haying 
 season, and pointed out a clump of oak as the 
 spot made noted by a fortold death. Our musi- 
 cal comrade of the journey had joined us at Fort 
 Sully, being on his return from a furlough cast. 
 Upon after inquiry among the soldiers of the gar- 
 rison his story was confirmed, and one of these 
 
23 KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES. 
 
 soldiers and after scout — Gros Ventre Thompson 
 — recounted this dream mystery, frequently, up 
 to the day of his death — twenty eight years after. 
 Here is the record as related at the time: 
 In the haying season at the frontier miHtary 
 posts, especially when there was danger from 
 hostile Indian raids, it was customary for post 
 commanders to furnish the hay contractors' 
 w!th a soldier escort both for the hay camp proper 
 as well as the moving train of hay haulers. The 
 camp detail was usually made for the week, com- 
 mencing Monday mornings. At the opening of 
 the haying season of 1868 at Fort Rice, the usual 
 demand was made on the post commandant lor 
 escort for the lower haying camp, as small war 
 parties of hostile Indians were known to be on the 
 move. The detail was ordered and among the 
 names of those, who. in the order of chance was 
 placed upon the hrst sergeant s roll, was that of a 
 young soldier named Vane. On hearing his name 
 called for the detail, the soldier boy bursts into 
 tears, and begged to be transferred to some other 
 duty. When pressed for reasons — he related a 
 strange dream of the previous night, in which he 
 stood in the crotch of a low growing and scrags^y 
 oak tree, looking over a plain of waving grass, 
 wlu-n he saw that he was shot ^ik\ felt himself 
 in the sensations of dying, and was thus in affriglu ^ 
 when the bugle sounded the morning revelle. 
 
 He was ridiculed by his companions, but he 
 could not be comforted and even went to the post 
 commander witf. his plea, but the result was he 
 
ON DIVERGING LINES. 24 
 
 joined the escort and went down to the hay held. 
 As he came near the camp he pointed to the tree 
 clump of his dream. Calmness reigned in air 
 on water and within the troubled breast. The 
 low muffled sounds of the mowing machines at 
 work, alone reached the ears of the soldier escort 
 as they lay curled in the tent shade watching laz- 
 ily the hay pitchers sweltering under an August 
 
 sun. 
 
 ''Indians!' 
 
 "Oh, Indians be damned," yawned a soldier, 
 "not a hostile scare crow within a long hundred 
 miles." 
 
 The timjd antelope feed quietly in sight upon 
 the neighboring^ bluffs. The ravan croaks and 
 caws unconcernedly in airial flight, — hovering be- 
 tween bluff and woodland. The little yellow 
 flanked swifts, trot around windward of the camp 
 fire, sniffing with unappeased hunger. 
 
 "Indians!" 
 
 "How scary those haymakers must be!" drawled 
 a peevish escort, "to have us dragged down here 
 to watch Indians for them. Bah!" 
 
 Some soldiers arise and whist the straws from 
 their woolen cloths and walk here and there to pass 
 slow time away. Some go over and talk to the 
 haymakers; some to the river and two or three 
 wander to the blufl"s. The report of a gun now 
 break the stillness. A bevy of chickens skurry 
 through the air in affright. The ravans cease 
 their cawing; the swifts had slunk away; the day 
 orb casting its lengthing shadow across hill and 
 
25 KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES. 
 
 valley,— the big crimson ball seemingly linger- 
 ing behind the darkened rear base of the long 
 high peaks where once the Gros Ventres hoped 
 and prayed. The rays ivaft back a stream of 
 purple across the profile on Horshead hills, and 
 die verest glimpse of receeding shadows of 
 some horsemen in single file are noted ere they 
 vanish. 
 
 The alarm is given and both soldiers and hay- 
 makers centre at the camp. Vane alone is miss 
 ing. A search is ordered and a report reached. 
 
 "Did you find him?" asked the corporal com- 
 manding, of an Irish soldier who had lingered in 
 the search. 
 
 "Yes sir!' 
 
 "Where was he?" 
 
 "In the oak clump." 
 
 "Asleep?" 
 
 "No, Dead. Bullet in his head. Scalp torn 
 off. Stripped and mutilated." 
 
 "Saw no Indians?" 
 
 "None." 
 
 II 
 
 There are times in the matter of unimportant 
 detail where memory refuses to "catch on" or 
 help out, when a record of the event sought be- 
 come misplaced. I wave positiveness in saying it 
 was the steamer Big Horn, that brought General 
 Hancock and party from Fort Stevenson to hort 
 Rice, on the 4th of July 1869, though personally 
 fortur^ate to be — at least temporarily--of the party. 
 But as this chronicle is a record of events and of 
 
ON DIVERGING LINES. 2G 
 
 characters of which the Hancock party had noth- 
 ing to do, — I beg pardon of of my readers for 
 this opening digression. But upon this occasion 
 while that distinguested officer was entertaining 
 the commandant at Fort Rice and fellow officers 
 with a flow of claret and champagne from the re- 
 cepdon cabin on the steamer, the chronicler of 
 these pages had hied himself up the gangway, 
 and after a few hundred yards stroll found himself 
 on a cracker box seat at Durfee & Peck's trading 
 house and sutler store for the garrison. 
 
 Gala day had brought all the post characters 
 there. Leaning against the counter with his legs 
 crossed rested Frank Lafrombeau, the half breed 
 Sioux mterpreter, who seemed dreaming of the 
 awaiting ferryman about to take him across the 
 dark river. Beside him and watching the display of 
 red and black blankets and bright caicoes, was the 
 interpreter's Sioux brother-in-law — One Hundred, 
 at that dme the most noted Indian horse thief on 
 the Upper Missouri, Some soldiers were joshing 
 him and he was giving "back talk" in fair English. 
 He had previously made a trip to St. Louis city; 
 had picked up considerable roguery, and but lit- 
 tle else, other than his language addidon that was 
 any real benefit, — rather the reverse. 
 
 Further along the counter, stood a tall black 
 man examining some newly purchased articles in 
 
 company with the partner of his bosom a smiling 
 
 Sioux matron. He ratded away in Sioux now 
 
 to his red painted wife — now to One Hundred 
 
27 KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES 
 
 now to some loung^ing Sioux scouts, — ^speaking to 
 the white soldier or citizen, only when spoken to. 
 Why should ke do otherwise? Let the magician 
 now wave a prophet's wand over this black man's 
 head, and call down time for a year on what is to 
 be. What do we see? A covering of cold earth 
 for Lafrombeau — a post interpretor's garlands for 
 this Africo-Amerlcan. Again raise the wand of 
 magic over this kinky head — call time's advance 
 seven years, lacking nine days. What do we see? 
 A vale containing hundreds of dead and mutilated 
 soldiers. A vale containing thousands of excited 
 Indians putting to torture a giant black. Ramrods 
 are used to punch out his eyes; his feet and 
 legs filled with shot and small balls. 
 
 ''Why this fiendishness?" asked the writhing 
 b!ack. ''Why this hypocrisy?" answered back his 
 red tormentors, **and why assist these white dogs 
 in spying us out aud destroying your wife's peo- 
 ple?" Thus had black Isaiah fallen — Fort Rice's 
 second interpreter. 
 
 But away with the magicians spell, Away with 
 the events of what was to be. Let Isaiah talk 
 on with One Hundred — let the soldiers joke and 
 josh in the Durfce & Peck trading house. It Is all 
 a part of the life drama that they are billed for. 
 But another actor now appears at the doorway. 
 A boyish face, and form tall and slim. Eyes, blue, 
 and with a restless glance, scanning the faces to 
 the right and left of him as he strides softly along. 
 
 "How, Melbourne," spoke out some one from 
 among the group of soldiers. 
 
ON DIVERGING LINES 28 
 
 ''How," tarily replied the young fellow spoken 
 to, as he turned on his heels and walked out the 
 doorway, and who was evidently searching for 
 some one not within the store room. 
 
 "Melbourne seems restless since he received his 
 bobtail," spoke up another soldier, as he looked 
 toward the door. 
 
 ''Make anybody restless under the circumstan- 
 ces." added still another soldier, "and almost hate 
 one's own race and kind." 
 
 "Yes," chimed in a bystanding citizen, "it was a 
 pretty tough case, as I understand it." 
 
 At that moment the steamer's whistle at the 
 landing warned all its passenq^ers that time had 
 arrived to pull in the gang planks for a further 
 journey down stream, and half an hour later Fort 
 Rice and all its "pomp and circumstance of war," 
 was — for the time being — receding from our view. 
 
 Aiter a rapid down stream run of twenty hours 
 the steamer tied up at Cheyenne agency long 
 enough to get ourselves and luggage ashore and 
 say good bye to casual acquaintences. A week 
 or more of observation among the Minnecon- 
 jous, Sans Arcs and Etasapa Sioux, I crossed the 
 big river, and made camp with some lumbermen 
 at Litde Bend. 1 here met some ex-soldiers who 
 had seen service at Fort Rice. Enquiry was 
 made about the mystery of the Melbourne case, 
 and here were some of the facts elicited: 
 
 Melbourne was certainly under the lawful age 
 when he enlisted as a soldier, (hough his height 
 
29 KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES. 
 
 carried him on the rolls. He had enlisted alone, 
 and none amono his new found comrades seem to 
 know from whence he came. It was soon discov- 
 ered he was a boy of artistic tastes; showed con- 
 siderable book knowledge for one so young- in 
 years, and had a remarkable gift in imitative pen- 
 manship. In his general make up. the boy had a 
 docile, tractable disposition with modest demeanor 
 and obliging ways. 
 
 Many of the older enlisted soldiers at the fron- 
 tier posts, in those days, were confirmed topers, 
 and some of them, at least could date their en- 
 listment from an effort to break away from envi- 
 rons that held them in hopeless bondage. A 
 small allowance of whiskey, within the scope of 
 the army regulations, was habitually served from 
 die sutler store of the garrison for such of these 
 soldiers whose appetite for intoxicating drinks 
 still had control of them. In certain emergencies 
 the commander of the post was authorized by the 
 war department to allow over his signature, the is- 
 suance of a certain amount of whiskey or brandy 
 to the party holding the order. In apparent jest 
 some of the older heads asked Melbourne to 
 write out a whiskey order and sign the post com- 
 mandment's name to it. The work was done so 
 well that it was repeated again, until the com- 
 mander wondered where the laxity came in that 
 made a drunken mob which filled the guard house 
 with so many of his soldiers, His wonderment 
 grew more intense when shown the leak in com- 
 missary whiskey over his own signature, and com- 
 
ON DlVERGmG LINES 30 
 
 mencecl to fear thai he had been "out of his head" 
 at limes, as his signed name was so apparently 
 genuine he could not doubt the authorship. 
 
 The young soldier became fearful of exposure, 
 and the consequences thereof, so when solicited 
 by his comrades for a renewal of forged orders, 
 he absolutely refused. In consequence of re- 
 fusal these same soldiers reported to the post 
 commander that the boy Melbourne was the 
 author of the whiskey forgeries. As was to be 
 expected the young fellow^ was thrown in'the post 
 guard house, and while saved from the penitentiary 
 by the influence of an officer' s wife — dishonorably 
 discharged from the United States army. 
 
 During the closing days of August of that year 
 1869, the chronicler found himself employed as 
 camp lookout or day guard for the two contractors, 
 Dillon & McCartney's haying camp, having tem- 
 porarily pitched our tent on the west side of the 
 big river two miles north of the Grand River 
 Agency. The shooting down of Cook a few days 
 previous, without excuse or provocation, by a 
 brother of the Uncpapa chief, Long soldier, and 
 his open boast that this herder would not be the 
 last he would send to the ''white man's happy 
 hunting ground," with the lionizing he received in 
 this big brother's camp, put us on our guard. My 
 duty was to watch every movement indicating a 
 grouping of Indians between their camps on Oak 
 creek and the hay cutters at work. They had 
 made many threats, and we were hourly in expec- 
 
'il KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES. 
 
 tancy of trouble. Some distance above our camp 
 was that of the cattle contractor's herd, with the 
 two Mulls— Faddcn and Herron in charge. The 
 lands about here were full of historic interest to 
 the Indian race, especially the persecuted Arica- 
 rees. Three miles away on the south — forcing its 
 way through a semi-sterile line of tortuous bluffs 
 from the west comes in the swift flowing, modern 
 Grand, but named with two centuries of practice — 
 in courtesy by the all conquering Sioux, — Pah- 
 donee Towa Wakpah — or as interpreted into 
 the English tongue — Rees Own River. Beyond 
 its banks of alternate sand and clay and midway 
 with Oak creek's parallel lines, the uneven ground 
 mounds and depressions mark the site of the old 
 village where the Aricaree chiefs scorned the 
 profcred whiskey tendered them by Lewis and 
 Clark in 1804, with the sensible remark that "peo 
 pie who tried to make fools of us by taking 
 away our wits, could not be our friends." 
 
 From my camp observatory— on the bench lands 
 near by was another interesting site— and like the 
 dreamer that I was, went down from my perch 
 one pleasant afternoon to revel among rhe ruins. 
 It was here thirty six years before, that this little 
 Aricaree town consisti'ig of about one hundred 
 and fitty lodges, poorly palisaded— yielded up as 
 a sacrifice on the alter of helpless prejudice the 
 warm blood of many of its n:othcrs and iis 
 daughters— of sons and fathers. From my stony 
 guard perch on yonder hill, had belched fordi 
 from big morter guns shot and shell on this hap- 
 
ON DIVERGING LINES 32 
 
 less town. General Atkinson of the United 
 States army, in command of an expedition con- 
 sisting of a thousand soldiers — having a section 
 of artillery with a regiment of dragoons, had 
 marched, from the borders of eastern Iowa, com- 
 ing over one thousand miles to punish these Arica- 
 rees. With the soldiers, came also — as vultures 
 to an intending feast — a great camp of Sioux 
 warriors to "rub out" their hated foe. You can 
 wonder as I had done, how any of these Aricarees 
 got away. But they did— though a large portion 
 of them were left to (eeA the coyote, the magpie 
 and the buzzard. I could see this village as Catlin 
 the painter had portrayed it on canvas two years 
 before its destruction. I could see its frail pickets 
 behind which the happy villagers reveled in all the 
 pleasures, Indian life gives. In fancy, I could see 
 these inmates scan from their house tops, objects 
 whose sameness never seem to tire the eye. From 
 youth to old age, the stone guard of the pinnacle 
 is more familiar to the village inmate, than was 
 a member the family, inasmuch as time's eternal 
 transit would leave no impress. I pass on to the 
 last struggle and see hopelessness and dispair on 
 the one side, — an anticipated carnival of blood 
 on the other. — 
 
 **Hello there!" 
 
 My dream or conjuration vanished at the sound. 
 Before me stood a tall, pale faced young fellow, 
 of 17 or 18 years, with his blue orbs gazing stead- 
 ily in my face. I made a venture at recognition 
 
S3 KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES. 
 
 "Your name is Melbourne, I believe." 
 
 "That's what it is." 
 
 "Sit down then. I want to talk. 1 have some 
 questions to ask of ) ou?" 
 
 He sat down quietly on a mound with an in- 
 tense look of anxious inquiry pictured on his 
 boyish looking face. He gave a look of surprise 
 when questioned about his boyhood but his replies 
 were so studiously evasive that I changed tack to 
 Fort Rice, and of the troubles that led to his dis- 
 missel from the army. He made but little more 
 admission than what has already been told. It 
 was plain to be seen the subject was distaseful. 
 
 "HeI!o, "said he suddenly looking up towards 
 the hills, "there goes a crowd of Indians to the 
 cow camp, and I must go — won't you come along?" 
 
 "Yes, I'll go long" I replied, "and see your 
 outfit." 
 
 •'I am going to ask some old Sioux patriarch 
 all about that Rce village," said he, tossing back 
 his arm as we jogged along. 
 
 After reaching the herd camp, we found about 
 one dozen Indians of both sexes standing around. 
 Notwithstanding my limited amount of Sioux, I 
 undertook to draw some information about the old 
 Arlcaree village from a veteran Uncpapa, but the 
 grey haired warrior referred to his chief the noted 
 orator Running Antelope, as one of the few still 
 living who participated in the destruction of that 
 village. 
 
 My dialectic twists aud imperfect rendition of 
 the Sioux caught Melbourn's attention, and com- 
 
ON DIVERGING LINES 
 
 "in^ up to where I was standing, said, ^Oh! jude, 
 let me talk," and surprijfed me with an exhibition 
 of a masterful rendition of the Sioux tongue; 
 going ftom one to another, male and female, con- 
 versing with perfect control of the guttcral stum- 
 bling blocks, to amateur linguists in the language 
 of the Sioux. In surprise, I said: 
 
 "Where did you pick up such perfect Sioux." 
 
 "Where do I pick anything up," he replied 
 "tell mr and I'll tell you." Then after a moment 
 of silence he resumed: "I suppose you think all 
 I need is sl blanket to make a good Indian — or 
 a bad one!" 
 
 After bidding him good day and starting back 
 to camp, he called out: 
 
 "You see this hooded Indian here. He's the 
 fellow that plugged the arrows into Cook." 
 
 I had an occasion to reme mber Cook. With a 
 rough wagon and a span of mules, I took him 
 from the agency physician's care at Grand River, 
 and in two days landed him in the surgeon's care 
 at F'ort Sully — distance without trail — 120 miles. 
 This, to prolong Cook's life. 
 
 In the autumn of 1883. a party of Minnccon- 
 jous who had been absent from their ag^ency for 
 over two years returned and encamped near the 
 mouth of Big Cheyenne river. They were what 
 vvas termed at the agency, "hostiles" and were 
 known to have been with Pawnee Killer and his 
 band of Brules on the Platte river. Through 
 some of the agency Indians it was learned that 
 
35 KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES. 
 
 they had been concerned in the massacre of the 
 Buck surveying party in which Contractor Buck 
 and his party, consisting of twelve men. in all, lost 
 their lives by the hands of these hostilcs. They 
 claim 2 i that the bbody work had been care- 
 fully planned and its execution intrusted to a 
 young white man who had been with the party 
 for some time, and known as the White Soldier. 
 These murders took place in western Nebraska, 
 near the country known as the Sand Hills. No 
 details could be elicited further than whatever 
 blame was attached or credit given — as viewed on 
 diverse lines, — must be given to this white man. 
 The Indians described him as but a tall boy, a good 
 linguist in the Sioux tongue, dressy and vain He 
 painted in true Indian style, with pendants, hair 
 ornaments and beaded blankets. After the mas- 
 sacre of the surveyors, he decked his head with 
 many war eagle feathers as his right, thus an envy 
 was created— and soon after through some fancied 
 grievance from a jealous red, he was tomahawked 
 to death, and with true savagery his body mutila- 
 ted and left uncovered to rot upon the prairie. 
 
 The identity ot the renegade soldier was not long 
 a mystery. Among this band of Minncconjous, 
 was a young fellow who had picked up some En- 
 glish around the old agency at Grand river. He 
 was asked about the white renegade and If. he 
 knew him. He answered that he knew him well, 
 as did his questioners. "Minneconjous call Kim 
 White Soldier" said he, ''but white soldiers called 
 him Melbourne." 
 
ON DIVERGING LINES. 36 
 
 III 
 I WAS sitting in the doorstep of the Httle fort- 
 fied homestead claim at the Woods, wonder- 
 ing as many another had done before -and atter 
 that date— August. 1873 — when, land values 
 would lake a jump and either let us out of the 
 farm, or bring some encouragement to remain 
 in posssession. The timber point in which 1 was 
 domiciled, had been the first squatter land claim 
 staked off along the Missouri north of the North- 
 ern Pacific railroad, and although the time had been 
 but Ititle over a \ ear since the advent of the loco- 
 motive, the strain of expectancy had a disturbing 
 effect on the nerves, notwithstanding the spice of 
 existence was somtimes enlivened by the self in- 
 troduction of some "characier." Character study 
 always inieresting, sometimes assumes even 
 a poetic olint, when the conditions of the mind 
 harmonize with the poetry in nature. At no 
 period in ihe revclxing of the seasons does the 
 poeiic or the visionary take possession of the 
 ihe soul within us, as on line August days. Espe- 
 cial! v i:: this true to the denizens v\ho live along 
 the changing banks of the Upper Missouri river, 
 which mighty stream save v>hen bound by icy fet- 
 ters, is ever presenting itself to the human eye, 
 ihrough the revolving lens of the kaleidoscope. 
 Yet with all its shiking moods of anger or serenity 
 ihcre is no charm so entransing to the poetical 
 dreamer, in solitart. of the revery, as along the 
 changing and falling banks and withiii hearing of 
 
37 KALEIDUSCOJMC LIVES. 
 
 the miililtid noises of ihe swirling waters of ihls 
 strange old river, on tranquil autumn n:ornings. 
 
 Thus within hearin^r of the low ruari- g waters 
 girdled with a heavy forest of great cottonwoods, 
 that hide you in continuous shade, — what wonder 
 that the mind becomes mellowed in revery. 
 Characters — no*: mithical ones — but of the plain 
 flesh and blood kind, pass in review. Here at 
 the gate of this stockade had appeared a war party 
 whose only trophy of their prowess to show, had 
 had been the crimson blotched scalp of a sixteen 
 year old, Sioux girl. Characters had been here 
 who had talked wisdom from an owl. Characters 
 had been here who had seen phantom bc-als 
 manned by phantom crews move noiselessly 
 down stream. Less than a year before a young 
 man of fine physical carriage had passed up the 
 trail with no weapon but a hatchet, afoot and alone 
 ''looking for a team just a little ways ahead." Six 
 months later he had reappeared. Frozen hands; 
 frozen feet — frozen face. Clothed in tatters and 
 bareheaded. 
 
 "Where have you been?" had asked a transient 
 companion of mine, on the man's reappearance. 
 
 "Living with the deer." 
 
 That was all he had for answer — living with the 
 deer. Show me Burleigh City's graveyard and I 
 will show you this man's grave. No questions as 
 to his name? No questions about where he was 
 from? No inquiry about the young wife who had 
 gone estray? For we will answer no questions 
 here. But trom his first arrival on the Slope, this 
 
ON DIVERGING LINES. 38 
 
 cloudy wanderer's one central thought was in 
 looking for that team — "just a Htt!e ways ahead." 
 
 Out from this revery. Out from gazing on 
 these shifting characters in transit across the 
 Woods. They march along the boards like the 
 stage actors in the Cassandria play. Reynolds — 
 McCall the Miner— Bloody Knife — Guppy— Chiss 
 Chippereen — Johnny of the Rose Buds — Dia- 
 mond the VVolfer — Long Hair Mary. They all 
 move across — noiseless phantoms drawn out in 
 review to the unseen eye by the brain's conjuration. 
 While thus in silent rumination sounds of a walk- 
 ing horse was heard, and a moment later there 
 appeared at the timber opening a tall man lead- 
 ing a scrub pony, coming toward the stockade, 
 The man ambled forward in an ungainly way. A 
 long tom ritie of the old style — days of our grand- 
 father epoch— angled across his shoulder. A 
 coon skin cap was pressed down over his massive 
 l:ead of matted hair. A long grease soiled 
 buckskin shirt, with tangled fringes, hung loosely 
 over his unshapely form. And over it all hung 
 a huge old fashioned cow powder horn. A poor 
 old pony— having the appearance of being an 
 Indian's 'turned out, "with a fairly decent saddle, 
 and across the seat were thrown a roll of blankets, 
 while tied to the pummel was a gunny sack with 
 a mess of flour, and two or three blackened peach 
 cans that evidently did duty in the culinary. 
 
 I had seen such habiliments in which this stran- 
 ger was attired, pictured in the old early Ohio 
 books that told us all about Simon Girty, Lewis 
 
39 KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES. 
 
 Whetzel or old Daniel Boone. Could my eyes 
 deceive me, or was this another Rip Van Win- 
 kle case; a ninety years sleep? At any rate my 
 fad was gratified. 1 had a new character to solve. 
 
 '•You arc a hunter, I guess," I had ventured 
 to say. 
 
 'That what I am" he retorted, 
 
 ''Where have yiu been hunting? ' 
 
 "Of late— down around Fort Rice.' 
 
 "Get any game down that way?" 
 
 "I reckon I did. Elk, antelope, deer, bear and 
 moose.' 
 
 "Moose?" 
 
 "That's what I said. Moose!" 
 
 "There is no moose on this river." 
 
 "1 reckon there is moose on this river. I killed 
 a young bull moose on the bottom this side of 
 Fort Rice. I reckon I know what I'm talking 
 about. I'm a moose hunter from Maine! 
 
 "A moose hunter from Maine?" 
 
 "That's what I am. A moose hunter from 
 Maine." 
 
 "Well, unsaddle and bring your donnage in?" 
 
 That's what I'll do, for I'm going to stay a 
 whole month with you." 
 
 "Baited with curiosity and springing my own 
 trap,' said I softly. 
 
 On the following morning my unkempt guest 
 said his desire was to use the stockade as a kind 
 of headquarters. He wou!d hunt a little; visit a 
 little; with an occasional trip to the town by the 
 railroad. This he did, but in his hunts he never 
 
0:s DiVEiiGixVG LiXES. lO 
 
 brought back any game; In his visits to distant 
 woodyards he brought back no greeting and 
 in his weekly visits to the town he brought no in- 
 formation from the outside world. 
 
 One day we concluded to visit the Burnt woods 
 on the west side where Williams & Wheeler were 
 getting out cordwood for the steamboats, Chris 
 Weaver here told the story of his premonition at 
 the Spanish Woodyard whereby the warning had 
 saved his life. The moose hunter was greatly 
 interested in its recital. On our road home in 
 passing through the long bottom above the little 
 fort we espied a traveling war party, and I sug- 
 gested we keep out of sight until they passed. 
 He complied with alacrity. But some of the red 
 warriors had already seen us, and in our fancied 
 security were treated to a surprise. They had 
 us surrounded. They were Gros Ventres, how- 
 ever, and took in the moose hunter at a glance. 
 After surveying his muzzle loading long tom, one 
 warrior extending his open palm said in English: 
 
 "Caps!" 
 
 In a second the moose hunter handed him a 
 full box of percussions, and the Gros Ventre 
 clasped them and made off. 
 
 "Wny, what a dough-god to give that Indian all 
 your gun caps" I said chidingly. 
 
 "Oh, I've got another box," he replied, "and if 
 I did'nt have, it would't be much loss," he added 
 philosophically. 
 
 A few days later, the hunter said he would 
 ''take a ramble up to Forts Stevenson and Ber 
 
41 KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES. 
 
 thold," which he did, but failed to return. A Fort 
 Buford mail carrier had noted him as a "queer old 
 bloke who had stopped at every Indian camp and 
 wood yard that he came to." 
 
 The year following the steamer Nellie Peck 
 tied up for the night at Mercer & Gray's yard at 
 Painted Woods landing. Dr. Terry a St. Louis 
 ex-physician was acting as clerk and purchasing 
 furs for the Durfee & Peck company. Sitdngin 
 the boats cabin were a party relating incidents of 
 happenings along the river. Among others the 
 writer told of his experience with the moose 
 hunter from Maine. At conclusion of the reci- 
 tal, Dr. Terry, volunteered the following ad- 
 denda: 
 
 ^'I happen to know something about your 
 moose hunter. You had seen him in a clever 
 make-up. He is a good trailer. But he is bet- 
 ter at hunting: men than moose. He has a coun 
 try-wide reputation as one of the shrewdest 
 sleuths on the Pinkerton detective force." 
 
 At the close of the month of /\pril, i^^.b). two 
 men »at astride log stools looking into the blazing- 
 fire in a little makeshift cabin at the lower bend 
 of what was known in those days as "Out a luck 
 Point." being the second timber bend on the west 
 side of the river Missouri above Fi rt Stevenson. 
 Both were looking into the blaze in silent cogita- 
 tion, but whither dreaming over the past or into 
 the future the chronicler could not divine. With 
 
ON DIVEEGING LINES. 42 
 
 each of these men past dreams were far from 
 pleasant lingerings, and it was well for their peace 
 of mind that their dreams ot the future were in 
 wide divergence from the actual. But as before 
 stated their dreams were known only to them 
 selves, but the coming of what was to be, as far 
 as their earthly tenure was concerned, became a 
 part of the records of their surviving contempor- 
 aries. Had the veil hiding actuality of the future 
 been raised beyond the burning brands in which 
 each of them were silently gazing, each could 
 have beheld a thorny path in their few remaining 
 years. One could have seen himself shot to 
 death, his body placed in a shallow grave with a 
 l.lanket both for shroud and coffin. The site that 
 marked his grave now mark the path of swift 
 iiowing. channel waters. His companion had lin- 
 gered in life a few years later A gloomy forest 
 shrouded him — alone and unseen by mortal man 
 he died a maniac's death. Buzzards feasted upon 
 his decayed fiesh; badgers sported with his scat- 
 tered bones. 
 
 "I seed the shadow of that Injun to night agin, 
 and don't like it, ' said one of the men without 
 withdrawing his gaze from the burning coals. He 
 was the larger and older of the two. 
 
 'Kind'a queer,"' answered his companion, ^'if 
 he belonged up in the village and not come around 
 here. Been poking about the bluffs for five or 
 six days." 
 
 ''list a week to ni^ht since I first seed him!" 
 
43 KALEIDOSCOPIC LIYE8. 
 
 "Did you cache the stock in a new place to 
 nig^ht." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Wc ought to rest easy then/' 
 
 They did, but in going out to their stock caihe 
 next morning their animals were missing. Two fine 
 mules and two work ponies. The loss of stock 
 forced the abandonment of the woodyard. 
 
 The mules were the property of Trader Mal- 
 
 nori, of Fort Berthold. In about four weeks 
 
 from date of disapearance of the animals the 
 
 trader received the following note through a scout 
 
 dispatch bearer. The language was in French 
 
 with the following English interpretation: 
 
 Fort Rice, (no date.) 
 Mr. C. Malnori: Opanwinge says he found your 
 mules. * Send a man down with $200 and take them 
 home. Yours with regards, F. LaFrombois^. 
 
 The man and money was sent to Fort Rice and 
 
 mules and man came home. 
 
 '•I guess, I'll try wood-yarding a little nearer 
 home/' said Trader Malnori when his mules were 
 brought to his stables at Fort Berthold. He had 
 some wood cut opposite to the fort. The same 
 mules were sent across the river to do the wood 
 hauling and the same man sent with them who had 
 had charge of their keeping at Point Out-a-luck. 
 A man known as Jimmy Deer and two red mat- 
 rons crossed over the river in a bull boat to pile 
 the cord wood brought to bank. The trail of the 
 hauler led through a line of willows for half a 
 mile or more. For two or three days all went 
 
ON DiVEKCilNG LINE^. 44 
 
 well. But it was a dangerous neiohborhood. The 
 driver from Out-a luck had provided himself with 
 a Colt's army and a double barreled shot gun 
 heavily charged with buck shot. One fine morn- 
 ing the driver hitched up his mules as usual and 
 trotted the team over the rough bottom road gaily 
 to the crib pite. His pistol and shot gun were 
 bouncing up and down in the wagon box as he 
 hummed an old French son^. At a point where 
 the w^illows lined a sand ridge a naked Indian 
 arose quickly, pointing a gun at the wagon box 
 fired away. The driver, forgeting all about his 
 buckshot gun and pistol, dropped his lines and 
 springing from the w-agon on the opposite side to 
 the Indian dashed into the willows. The red man 
 hopped into the w^agon, gathered up the lines of 
 the now excited mules drove out toward the bluffs 
 as far as the wood trail led, unhitched and unhar- 
 nessed the mules, gathered up the pistol and shot 
 gun, jumped astride of one of the animals, and was 
 off on fast time over the hills. Meantime the shot 
 alarmed the corder and the two matrons who had 
 made a rush far the boat and in the excitement of 
 i»mbarkation sunk it and nearly drowned all hands. 
 About one month later Trader Malnori received 
 the following note through an Indian runner from 
 Fort Rice, written as the former one, in PVench, 
 with the following English interpretation: 
 
 Fort Rice, (no date) 
 Mr. C. Malnori. — Opanwioge has found your mules 
 again. Send down a man with §200. Yours with 
 regards, F, LaFeombotse. 
 
 There is no record of Malnori's answer, but 
 Opanwinge kept the mules. 
 
45 KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES 
 
 \' 
 
 About the middle of July, 1871, while journey- 
 ing down the Missouri with a single companion, in 
 a precariously constructed bull boat, we hauled in 
 at Fort Rice, and walked up to the trader's store 
 for the purpose of making a few purchases Here 
 and there we noted a few^ familiar faces of past 
 visits to the post, but for the most part the loungers 
 at the trading establishment were strangers. One 
 young fellow with a dark skin was masquerading in 
 boorish antics with some Indians. Inqury solicited 
 the information that he was a Mexican lad who 
 had enlisted as a scout. Another conspicuous 
 character — from his manner of speech— was a red 
 headed, freckled faced young man, who was fa- 
 miliarly termed "Reddy" but was spoken of as 
 Red Clark. Among a group of scouts gathered 
 near the doorway wasa^mall, fine featured Indian 
 boy dressed in blue uniform of which he seemed 
 quite proud. This boy was a Sioux, and recently 
 distinguished himself in saving the post herd from 
 a well planned raid by a war party of his hostile 
 countrymen. The raiders suddenly swarmed out 
 of a coulee on the apparently unprotected herd, 
 but the boy Bad Bird instead of fleeing for his lile 
 as many another in his place would have done, 
 counteracted the efforts of the hostile raiders frcMii 
 stampeding the cattle until help came from the 
 fort. The baffled warriors hred a few shots after 
 the boy. but luckily none taking effect, he rode 
 back to the post the hero of the hour. 
 
 In the move of events from that date — some 
 
ON DIVERaiNG LINES, -i-; 
 
 two years or niwre — Red Clark and Bad Bird be- 
 came ituiinate friends, as people saw diem. They 
 started out on a trip across the bi^ river one night 
 opposite to Fort Rice with jovial parting s^ood by's 
 to the ferryman. They entered the heavy brush 
 beyond the ferryman's ken, together. Clark came 
 back alone. The next day Bad Bird's corpse was 
 found with a bullet mark through his head. Clark 
 was tried and acqui'ited for this murder. He plead 
 self defence; night had hid the crime and no one 
 could prove to the contrary. Besides this the 
 dead Indian boy was of cne race, the judge, jury, 
 witnessfs and prisoner of another. 
 
 Five years passed by and Clark stood leaning 
 against the counter of a dive in Butte, Montana. 
 A stranger entered the place, called for a drink of 
 whiskey and threw a silver dollar on the counter to 
 the barkeeper for payment. Clark looked up to 
 the man who would not stand treat, and clapping 
 his open palm across the silver piece, said jocosely: . 
 
 "That's mine." 
 
 "No," said the stranger, "That is not yours." 
 
 "That's mine," reiterated Clark with an at- 
 tempt at gravity, and the next second a bullet 
 w^ent crashing though his skull. 
 
 A closing word about the Mexican lad and our 
 curtain falls on these events of Fort Rice's earlv 
 history. Santa, later, developed a .penchant for 
 wild Indian life and made the acquaintance of a 
 Sioux hanger-on named Black Vox, and the tw^o 
 connived plan for a trip to the hostile Sioux, then 
 in camp on Powder river. Santa Anna deserted 
 
47 KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES 
 
 his command and quarters on a November even - 
 ino- takinor his horse, orun and amunition with him. 
 besides a well filled sack of provisions. Black 
 Fox was also similarily equipped, lacking the pro- 
 visions. Riding back on the highlands they made 
 themselves conspicuous by facing about from 
 the dome of a conical butte and surveying the 
 beautiful tinted landscape. The trim post was as 
 silent and inactive in its surroundings as a military 
 fort could well be. The mellow rays from the 
 setting sun shone in glittering splendor from the 
 west end of the buildings. The long line of brown 
 marked the course of ice conjested waters of the 
 Missouri that the crisp air had wrought. Santa An- 
 na had probably wondered why his known deser- 
 tion had caused so little stir down by the garri- 
 son. The soldier still paced his lonely beat in 
 seemingly meditative mood; the sound of axes at 
 the evening wood pile sounded loud and merrily. 
 Loiterers continue walking to and fro in their 
 usual L^ait, the tethered ponies nibbling at grass 
 roots about the outshirts — or drooping lazily; even 
 the shaggy wolf dogs were basking contentedly 
 about the red faced scouts quarters oblivious to all 
 the Hving world. Perhaps the thought came to 
 the )oung Mexican how little he was to this globe 
 and perhaps the same thought Hitted across the 
 brain of his sombre hued companion. A black, 
 moonless nioht screened the last act in Santa's 
 life p'ay. No rehersal. No need of that. A 
 deadly blow — a mangled body and all was over. 
 Black Fox strode into Grand River Agency next 
 mornino. ridinij the Mexican's steed and leadino^ 
 his own. Proud man of war. Within twelve hours 
 h(^ hcjA c:\\)*A\vcd a horse and won a feather. 
 
Long Dog, 
 
 Sioux- Aricaree Bandit Chief 
 who ranged along the upper 
 Missouri during the Seventies. 
 
A FRONTIER Cl-IROniSLS. 
 I 
 
 IT takes all kind ot people to make a world," 
 is a saying as old as the lanjj^uage with which 
 it is spoken, in a lesser decree — lessened only 
 in proportion as to its material numbers — every 
 separate community of the human race is diver- 
 sified by all manner and shade of character. 
 
 In the order of creation by the light given us we 
 behold a great variety of life— quadrupeds of 
 the earth's surface — birds of the air, and fishe» 
 in the sea Though all around and about us, and 
 breathing the air with us — warmed by the same 
 sun of light — subject alike to soccora winds or 
 frozen blasts — yet otherwise each and all of these 
 diversified kinds of animal life live, apparently, 
 in a sphere of their own. Though the strong 
 prey upon the weak — the vicious upon the gentle, 
 yet in all the generations that come and go the 
 status of animal and bird life remain much the 
 same. It is only through the agency of man or 
 some great convulsion of the earth's surface or 
 ravages of some special epidemic, when the 
 equilibrium changes. With man as master the 
 propagation or destruction of many of these ani- 
 mals, bird or fish kinds of creation are subject to 
 hisvvishes and may survive or perish at his will. 
 Entire species may at his pleasure or displeasure 
 disappear in untimely death. But do they go for- 
 ever'* Does death end all? Go ask tkc dark 
 
49 KAlfElDGSCOPIC LIVES 
 
 skinned millions of humans ikat spread them- 
 selves over rhe fertile plains of Hindoostanj 
 along the populous vales of the cradle of civil- 
 ized man, the rivers E.iphrate^, the Indus and the 
 Ganges, or harken to the red Indian seers of the 
 Americas, 
 
 Or to delve deeper with the subject in its pro- 
 fundity as such would deserve, ask the intellectual 
 giants of our own race — formost among^ thinkers, 
 or go seek the tombs of the sages of all nations 
 in all ages, who by their works and by their 
 acts will have told you that these birds of the air 
 and the animals of the fields, woods and jungle, 
 long since mouldering with the dust of other 
 days, did not die — but that you, my reader friend, 
 may be one of them — in the evolving changes in 
 the transmigration of souls. 
 
 Thus in this human family of ours, we frequently 
 mark the action and even ^he facial countenance 
 of some animal of the four footed order. Here 
 and there among our kind, we see the industrious 
 beaver with architectural skill, tiding adverse ele- 
 ment which, though he could forsee he could not 
 hinder. He can build but cannot distroy. He 
 will endure suffering but will not revenge himself 
 by inflicting suffering upon others. Alas; that 
 we have so few human beavers among us. 
 
 Then comes the human porcupine who never 
 seeks to harm others until first assaulted. Then 
 he strikes back with fury. He resolves himself 
 into a catapult, and flings, at once, a sliower of 
 sharpened arrows upon his adversaries. 
 
A FRONTiKK CHKOMCLE, 50 
 
 Then we see the crafty, pointed eared fox, 
 who thrives on his wits— head work, with coW 
 calculating points well in hand before he makes 
 his deadly sprinor upon his bewildered victim. He 
 relies as much for hi.- success on the stupidity of 
 his intended prey as upon the more subtle 
 moves of his own cunning. 
 
 Then conies the cat kinds — born ingrates. Sly, 
 soft in. tread, gentle voiced with moonish face, 
 pleasant and purring in the presence of those 
 they would destroy. Though creeping on velvet 
 paws, — silent as a falHng feather, the presence of 
 the catman's sinister designs is often betrayed to 
 those he Vv^ould wrong by a softer, subtler, sub- 
 conscious presence we call a presentiment,— a 
 <Teeping something we can feel and yet cannot 
 see. 
 
 Then the mycetes — howling monkey can fre- 
 quently be met with, having more energy in voice 
 than in action. Then the sloth rotting in his lazi- 
 ness, waitins: for choice vegirables to ripen— starv- 
 ing or sleeping life away in the mearatime. Then 
 we see the kahau in its reddish brown, basking m 
 the tree shade— pestered by insects until its paws 
 become by lapses of brain action almost perpetual 
 in motion as though the swinging of arms and 
 motions of its hands were the only relief from 
 torment. Theri the gazelle, soft-eyed, unsuspi 
 cions, innocent; then the antelope, by times 
 watchful and wary — by times a victim of its own 
 curiosity or short sightedness. 
 
51 KALSIDOSCOPIO LIVES 
 
 The animals abov-e named are but a small groap 
 of ^e four footed beasts typified in hunmn souls. 
 If not transanimation is it absorption of souls? 
 l( absorf)tion is it entailed? And if entailed, is 
 the subtle working of the human mind made 
 clearer? Transmigration of soul is defined as the 
 passage of soul on death of one body into another 
 body born at this same instant without referance 
 to species, kind or kindred. Then wherefrom 
 this manifold duplixity of character in one human 
 breast. The human beaver of to-day transformed 
 into the human wolf or lynx of to-morrow. Where- 
 from, or whv so, the promptings of these kaleidos- 
 copic lives whose duplicity of moves mystify even 
 their own minds by inconsistency of action ? 
 
 II 
 
 In the writer's wanderings as a book seller over 
 sections of territory separated by a great expanse 
 the opportunity came for learning much of human 
 nature, the diversity of minds and the separate 
 aims of individual life. It is very doubtful if any 
 other vocation in life will give one a clearer idea 
 of human nature as we find it than that of a book 
 agent. He will see people of separted vocations 
 following a line of similar tastes other than their 
 special line of business. The agent in canvassing 
 a strange neighborhood, will be chary of a grocer, 
 a blacksmith or a saloon man or the frequenter of 
 saloons. While there is occasional exceptions in 
 the two first named classes, the two latter classes 
 invariably inform the literary vender that they 
 "iTave i>o iig« for ho(^'s." Indeed a hotel and sa- 
 
A f::().\tikji cukomlle. 52 
 
 loon keeper of thirl)' years -sLanclin(^r once candidlv 
 informed the wrii^M" il was a j3art of their business 
 to<lipconra_-e die \e,ui<-r of books at all times and 
 under all circunisiarjces. 
 
 On die odier hand a book agent seldom calls 
 up n a telegraph tower along lines of railroad be- 
 tween towns, or the modest country grist mill hid 
 along some winding stream but that he usually 
 meets with couaesy, if approached properly, and 
 if his stock (-f books at all in line with the miller's 
 or electrical man's thoughts, starts the book- 
 ir.an off widi a more cheerful heart, heavier in 
 piirs-e an.d lighter in pack. 
 
 The country miller is usually the oricle of his 
 neighborhood. Amidst the grinding of burrs and 
 spashing of water over rcvolvmg wheels ke finds 
 magic comfort in drowsily ruminating through the 
 pages of a b(jok of information when not actually 
 ^jigaged in filling np his grain hoppers or direct- 
 ing the machinism of his milL . 
 
 Ill 
 On a January evening, bhistry with driving 
 snow, in the year 1894, ^ ^ew lounging guests 
 were in a talking mood in the setting room of the 
 Merchants hotel Washburn, McLean's county 
 capital, North Dakota- Matters religious, phih^.- 
 sopkical and speculative passed in review with the 
 group, until the conversation narrowed down to 
 events within county limits and to a historical des- 
 ertation on its early settlement and organization. 
 
 '*Do you remember G one of our firit 
 
 county officers?" queried one o( the conversa- 
 
5;j KALEIDOSCOPIC Ll^TKS 
 
 tionists, who was— at the time— conducrino- the 
 
 Washhurn Hourino- mill. 
 
 "Oh, yes responded another, "he's dead. Died 
 several years ago." 
 
 "Not so," said the hrst speaker, ''and I will tell 
 you why I know." 
 
 Thus with the miller's introductory narrative on 
 that winter evening, and the writer's after trailing,! 
 herewith present places and characters personnel 
 of this chronicle of Dog Den range. 
 
 IV 
 It was in the year 1883, some mondis af'er its 
 organization, that the county of McLean experi- 
 enced what in popular parlance was termed a 
 •'boom," viz: a large number of new settlers had 
 arrived and made themselves homes upon the var- 
 ious tracts of vacant lands that was spread out l^e. 
 fore them, to be had bv occupation and a limited 
 cultivation of the land. The little village of 
 Washburn on the Missouri, previously spoken of 
 was headquarters for both the land squatter and 
 his more thrifty coadjutor the speculator. South 
 of that town in the summer of the year above re- 
 ferred to, a party of land hunters made camp in 
 what was known as Mill coulee, a flouring mill 
 being then in course of erection near iis abrupt 
 banks on the bench land facing the Missouri. 
 
 Of this party our chronicle has nothing to re- 
 cord except in a persona) way, the discriptive out- 
 line in the appearance of one individual. He was 
 about fifty years of age, erect in carriage, blue 
 eyes, and hair streaked with silver. He had a 
 
A F:{ONTlb:U CHHOMCLR, 54 
 
 restless manner and in convereation exhibited 
 scholarly mind with a ranoe of current informa- 
 tion well in hand Afcer some conversation with 
 the leaders of the conn y organization his suburb 
 equipment in that line uuogested him a proper 
 person for the office of register of deeds and as 
 such his name appears on that county's records, 
 a^ its first register. 
 
 But in the selecaon of his homestead he had 
 chosen a fertile tract around the shores of Lake 
 Mandan. in another county, and as a consequence 
 
 of the law's demand. Mc. G— choose to re- 
 
 sio-n his office rather than surrender his land. 
 
 In the year 1884, the great ridge or "Hills of 
 ihe Prairie" (if we make literal translation from 
 the French name applied in early maps of the 
 couniry) was as yet a vast tract of vacant land, 
 as far as human habitation was concerned. In the 
 early summer days of that year, an adventurous 
 siockman moved his herds in the neighborhood 
 of a heavy timbered coulee, a few miles north of 
 die Dog Den buttes— the highest point of land 
 on the range. The ranch locauon was pictur- 
 esque, ddie timbered front faced a great grassy 
 plain to the eastward terminaung miles away in 
 the tree ^reen timber line of Mouse river and the 
 high jagg'^ed hills beyond. The towering buttes 
 of the Dog Den that had- once upon a time- 
 stood a water belted island, lashed by an angary 
 sea. When this ranch among the hills was com- 
 pleted, and the cured grasses stacked up for the 
 snowy days, its Virginia proprietor placed a man 
 
55 KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES 
 
 in cliarge, while himself and residue of ihe p:\v:y 
 hied themselves to their rendezvous on ihe Mis 
 souri. The man in charge was the ex-regis:.er ol 
 deeds from Washburn, and he was now elected 
 to lead a hermit's life. His only neighbors on 
 the range were a mysterious pair located imme- 
 diately under the Dog Den butte. and had but 
 recently located there. They had proved to 
 be a pair of human falcons wlio watch their in- 
 tended prey from perch, or in arid flight, and dart 
 swiftly on their victim. F*or this had they builded 
 a nest in a heavy ravine on the seamed sides o{ 
 these historic hills, and flew to other lands only 
 when the melting snows uncovered, — for others to 
 view — a grusome skeleton. 
 
 A rigorous winter of deep snow was the ex- 
 reeister's inidation into a hermit ranchman's life 
 In the intervals between careing for his Lovine 
 herds and rustling up his fuel, he had but little to 
 lighten the load that time was bearing upon him 
 save fitful naps; trying to appease an unsatisfied 
 appetite or dreaming away in lonesome reverie in 
 front of the cheerful glare thrown out from the 
 blaze on his hearthstone. 
 
 VI 
 
 Up to 1880 the Souris or Mouse river 'ox 
 bow" so called had known no human habitations 
 other than the skin *^tepee" of the native red men 
 or the "shacks'* of their half cast, half wild broth- 
 ers. But with rumors of westward extension of 
 continental lines a few pioneers with teams, 
 wagons and household effects appeared and se- 
 
A FKONTIh^liCHKONlULE. iO 
 
 lectcd some choice locations between the Riviere 
 des Lac and the bio bend of the Mouse at the 
 mouth of the shallow watrrs of Wintering river. 
 Between these two points in its primitive days 
 were several groves of hardy oaks following the 
 river's course, that, in summer days, looked sub- 
 limely beautiful. The dark green compact groves 
 of oak mingled with groups of the lighter green 
 of the ash or lowly willow. Shutting their eyes 
 and closing their memories to the rigors of its 
 wintry days, the valley of the upper Mouse river, 
 would seem a veritable paradise to the summer 
 time homesteader. 
 
 It was one of the summer days of 1883, that a 
 canvass covered wagon with stout team of 
 horses in front, came slowly trailing over the 
 prairies from the eastward and halted near one 
 of these oak groves of the Souris. The horses 
 were unhitched and picketed near by, and the oc- 
 cupants of the vehicle— three in number— mean- 
 dered to the top of a nearby bluff to look about 
 them. Far as their eyes could scan was a prim- 
 ival solitude. True, a bird of prey now and then 
 darted from some leafy coverlet; a red deer here 
 and there went trailing in the open to disappear 
 into another clump as quickly as it had come, 
 but these incidents alone gave diversity to a still- 
 ness as though it was a painted picture spread 
 out on an artist's canvass. 
 
 We hear no converse now. We gaze upon,- not 
 listening to this trio on the hill. In one we see a 
 venerable looking man in the youth of old age. 
 
57 KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES 
 
 He stood out erect with face aglow, with spark- 
 ling eyes and arms in constant motion as though 
 a battery indicator, His two companions were 
 women — mother and daughter — if we judge by 
 appearance, one a women of forty or more — the 
 other a girl of fifteen They, too. had a happy 
 look for it was decided among them to here build 
 themselves a home. 
 
 Day by day work went on with this trio of the 
 wilderness, until house and stables were finished. 
 Then they looked about them to find they had 
 been followed by other settlers who also mad*- 
 choice homes along the Mouse river valley. In 
 the )ear that followed, habits of industry Irought 
 forth good work. Fields of grain, pasturing cat. 
 tie, rooting hogs, bleating lambs, quaking ducks. 
 crowing roosters and cackling hens made this 
 late wilderness solitude seem homelike. 
 
 The venerable head of the tro just described 
 was a minister of the Gospel, and rode out among 
 his scattering neighbors preaching the good word 
 when not busy cultivating his few acre.^ of rich 
 and respondent soil. To ride thus among the 
 newcomers of the valley, he deemed a duty or- 
 dained. To radiate with the happy — to console 
 the disconsolate — to lighten dark paths and to 
 cheer and to guide the doubting, and lead them on 
 a better way, w^ere life lines in this good mans 
 work. The familiar figure encased in black, with 
 long streaming silvery hair; a pleasant nod and 
 cheery word for every parser by, linger yet in 
 
A FKONTIKK CHRONICLE. 58 
 
 kind memory with many of the first settlers of 
 the Mouse river valley. 
 
 VII 
 
 One August day in the year 1885, there came 
 riding down upon the plain from the ridgee of 
 the Dog Den range, a lone horseman. He was 
 riding about in zigzag trails, seeking depressions 
 of land or "draws, " as though serching forestrays 
 from some herd. Such, indeed, his actions proved 
 for the !i ^rseman was none other than the hermit 
 ranchman from Winston's ranch on the prairie 
 mountains. He had never visited the valley of 
 the Mouse before, but now both curiosity and duty 
 impelled him onward to the scattered and dis- 
 tant settlements, where here and there mark of 
 improvements bordering the groves of timber had 
 caught his scanning eyes. As he rode near the 
 dwellings, the green potato tops — the creeping 
 vines of melon and squash — the tasseled corn 
 wiih its justing ears of glossy silk were of more 
 beaut) and interest to this man from the Dog Den 
 than was any oiher sight that could have greeted 
 his vision. He thought of his larder at the ranch 
 on the range, that he had left as bare — almost — 
 as the one visited by Mother Hubbard in song 
 and story. The memory of ihe hard dry dough- 
 gods, jack rabbit soup and black coffee that had 
 kept his spark of existence aflame all the long 
 winters and variable summers, brought a feeling 
 of having lost some time space. 
 
 Thus ruminating as he moved along, he espied 
 ahead a neater and more homelike dwelling than 
 
59 KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES 
 
 any he had yet passed. In front of the house 
 a much neater and thriftier patch ,of corn was 
 noticed than any he had yet met with in the valley. 
 
 A woman with a well shaded sun bonnet, stood 
 industriously hoeing among the corn, oblivious to 
 all surroundings. The man on horseback invol- 
 untarily paused, saying to himself: 
 
 "I've gone far enough. These roasting ears 
 are tempting and I must have some. I shall beg 
 or buy an armful from that woman." Thus with- 
 out more adoo he rode up near where the woman 
 was working and told of his desires. Something 
 in the man's voice had startled her. She peered 
 cautiously from her half closed bonnet at the un- 
 kempt being before her. "Was it possible? No, 
 it could not be." A crimson flush crossed her face, 
 but the bonnet folds saved betrayal. At length the 
 woman stammered aloud: 
 
 ''Are you not Mr. T ." 
 
 "Possibly, possibly," replied the man with a 
 startled look, "and you, and you are — " 
 
 "Mrs. H the minister's wife" she snpli- 
 
 mented, but you must get down and come to the 
 house and see your child. Fourteen years is a 
 very long, long time," she said in an absent wav. 
 
 VI 
 
 The reverand head of the household was absent 
 from home at this time. He was ridinof out on 
 his accustomed circuit preaching faith hope and 
 charity to his little world of followers and be- 
 lievers who were always ready to hear the faith- 
 ful churchman expound the good word. 
 
A. FRONTlKk CHRONICLE, 60 
 
 BiHt the ranchman and miras-ter met and soon 
 after formed an acquaintance with each other. 
 The former became restless with his hermitage 
 among the hills, and his journeys to and fro across 
 the green stretch of plains to the shady banks of 
 the Mouse, were both frequent and regular. The 
 minister on some of these visits was "at home" to 
 his guest, who had explained his appearance there 
 with a gloomy worded retrospect of his bache- 
 lor life on the lonelv mountains of the prairie. 
 
 In whatever way the door of friendship was 
 was left ajar; by what manner the screen of the 
 b )udoier was pulled aside we know not. We 
 know only that the minister's wife, heretofore so 
 devotedly attached to her frontier hc^ne became 
 suddenly discontented. The joys of home became 
 distastful, as here presented. A vision— vaugue 
 and unreal at first, but with brighter colors and 
 many fantastic shapes as it appeared again and 
 again to this woman's wandering mind. To see 
 and be seen by strange peoples in a crowded city; 
 education for her gl^owing daaughter — ease for 
 herself and a longing for change — all worked to 
 ward a blending or concentration of shifting 
 ideals floating in an orbi-t. Strangely enough the 
 hermit ranchman, also, saw the necessity of 
 change. He, too, would leave the land of isola- 
 tion and abide in a city by the Rocky Mountains. 
 In its incipiency this subject of change of resi- 
 dence was kept from the head of the family, but 
 as the time for action approached, he was gently 
 apprized of it. The old gentleman consented to 
 
CI KALh:iD0SCOPlC LIVES 
 
 a change of home with great reluctance He 
 was contented and happy in his surroundings and 
 did not want to tread hidden paths too far. Had 
 no desires to change the known for the unknown. 
 Why not leave well enough enough alone?^ The 
 tactful wife was equal to every emergency and 
 smoothed down every objection from her devoted 
 husband. She kindly planned a way to sotten 
 the proposed change. The good minister was 
 advised, in as much as he had not visited among 
 his relatives in the far east for many years the 
 lime was propitious to do so. Dnring his ah 
 sence the sale of property and the packing up and 
 other incidents of a confusing period would be 
 lifted from the careworn shoulders of the venera- 
 ble man. When he came again he would find 
 them in their cozy home in the Rocky Mountain 
 city. The minister was speedily assisted Vj be off 
 upon his eastern journey with many well wishes 
 that the good angles protect him on his way. 
 
 IX 
 In due time after much bustle and confusion the 
 chaange of location by the minister's wife and her 
 daughter came to pass. A handsome and nicely 
 iurnished house in the mountain city of Butte had 
 bef^n put in preparation for tlieir coming. The 
 now thoroughly interested hermit ranchman of the 
 Dog Den had preceeded them many days and put 
 things in order. 
 
 Time passed happily for the trio. The bracing 
 autumn days glided smoothly with the newcomers 
 
A FKOxNTliai CHRONICLE. 62 
 
 and diversity from thtir former manner of life 
 was hailed widi the same delight thai would effect 
 the deliverance from distasteful task by broken 
 shackels to some maltreated bondman. 
 
 But other changes must come now. The time 
 had arrived when the minister's visit to the 
 far east should end by the limitation previously 
 jDut upon it. A letter had been received by his 
 wife widi the number of train and date of day 
 when he might be expected. 
 
 At the promised time the long jointed west 
 bound train moved slowly up to the depot at 
 Dutte. Among the jostling passengers that came 
 crowding down from a car platform w^as an elderly 
 gentleman with a nervous manner, clad in a gar- 
 men: of sombre hue. He was recognized by two 
 persons in waiting seats — the minister's wife and 
 the hermit ranchman of the Dog Den range, who 
 
 arose to meet the minister- — for it was he but 
 
 in.. the lady's greeting a wifely salutation w^as 
 wanting. . She leaned upon the preacher's right 
 arm while the politic ranchmen stood escort in 
 waiting on his left, taking the wearied old gentle- 
 man's grip in one hand with feigned courtes} ten- 
 dered his arm and the trio for a minute or more 
 walked along the sidewalk in silence. 
 
 "I may as well tell you now^" said the ex- 
 ranchman from the Dog Den, addressing the 
 minister, "that this is my wife not yours." ''But." 
 he went on "You can have a home with us, just 
 as before; you can have a room; you will be wel- 
 
(53 KALElD08COFdC LIVES 
 
 eoiiie at our table — only remember she is my 
 wife — not yours." 
 
 The sudden and entirely unexpected wordK 
 fell with the force of a terrific blow upon the heart 
 of the guileless old man. No lurid bolt of un- 
 chained lightening from lowering clouds could 
 have been more overwhelming — less immediately 
 fatal. His trembling limbs grew weak — his pal- 
 sied tongue refused to give forth words, and he 
 could only turn and stare appealingly to his~wife. 
 The woman turned her face from the stricken 
 husband as th^e tender hearted child will Uirn its 
 head from the dying gasps of some dear pet of 
 its childish hours. She would soothe but could 
 not. She could relent but would not. 
 
 X 
 Back on the Mou«e river. Back to the old pio- 
 neer farm, the veteran minister had paced his 
 way. Let us follow the old man as he stalks 
 about the homestead of his creation like a spectre 
 on the eve of twilight. Resting his weary head 
 ivpon a stone underneath the leafless branches of 
 an ancient oak, in unquieting trance 'of past 
 events we will extract the story that is drawing his 
 life away. Let us listen to his mumbling as he 
 sleeps: Sixteen years ago a contented pastor — a 
 faithful flock — a happy home'underneath stately 
 sycamores, — by the side of a wide, swift flow- 
 ing river. Back to that morning of sorrow when 
 confiding members of^his congregation whispered 
 to him the startling' details of a crime and the 
 flight of the perpretrator; of an abandonted wife 
 
A FR' NTIER CRONICI.E 4 
 
 9.-': new born child buffe ng v : ves of reproa'.h, 
 neglect and poverty. Of his own thoughts as to 
 his pi in lii ■ of duty in the premises as a man of 
 God, with a natural, sympathetic heart for distress 
 in the unbidden calamities of the unfortunate. 
 Come one, two, three, four, five or yet six years, 
 and no word from recreant husband and father 
 '". ve an uncontradicted word that he was dead. 
 
 Meantime the minister's interest in the forsaken 
 woman drifted beyond the sympathetic and had 
 glided into the tangled and inexplicable bonds of 
 love. The forlorn one reciprocated with grati- 
 tude for affection — attention given for kindness 
 bestowed. There is n;* love without affection, 
 but is there not affection without love? You, 
 who are wise in the heart's secrets, make answer. 
 
 It might have been a year or more after the 
 closino- events herein narrated, when an old man 
 was noticed boarding the eastern bound midnight 
 express on the Great Northern, at the first station 
 beyond the Souns. The lighted train glides rapidly 
 across the dark prairies — the grating of wheels— 
 the bumping of coaches over the uneven bed — 
 the screaching of the locomotive whisde at way- 
 side staUons or danger signals at dubious cross- 
 ings, all tend to ''make a night of it" for the lone- 
 some passenger. After the slowing up in cross- 
 ing over the great arches of the Mississippi bridge 
 the conductor of the train found th'ib passenger's 
 c iiiipartment vacated. A part of a crumpled let- 
 ter with a late postmark,— and evidently f ©nat d 
 
65 KALErJDOSCOPIC LIVES 
 
 by a feminiHC kand, in wbich the iollowiuo scraps 
 rejoin ted, tel'ls its own story: 
 
 DEx\r Mr. H 1 take my pen to ask may we 
 
 come to you again. I direct this letter to >1 — 
 ill which neighborhood I h(*pe you now are. 
 
 * * ♦ « * ^ 
 
 Ed is dead. He fellowed his trade as bricklayer 
 after 3^ou went awa^^ One month ago 3^esterda,y, 
 he went to work as usual. In mounting a ladder 
 to the scaffolding, he had nearly- reached the top, 
 when a fellow workiaian heard him say '^I'm goiwg 
 blind," and immediatel}^ fell backward and down 
 ward — and was picked up from the ground a iran- 
 gied corpse. * * * * * 
 
 Myra sends her love to 3"ou. 1 do hope you will 
 forgive if you cannot forget. Please write at once. 
 From your heartbroken and sorrowing — 
 
 "Cheated himself by shortening a paid ride." 
 said the train's conductor, carelessly, as he threw 
 down the bits of writing, on the non re-appearance 
 of the apparently absent-minded passenger. 
 
 Out in the night for a pathless walk where 
 anywhere lead to everywhere. Ont, and on, heart 
 stricken one, — the mantle of darkness envelope 
 and environ you. Though you may have hidden 
 your dross,y covering of clay by forest ot tamarack; 
 in a lake jungle; in a bottomless swamp or aii un- 
 traversed plain, the sleepless .fecial will hnd and 
 uncover you at the finality, and black ncvvs«i3aper 
 headlines make record of another "eccentric a«id 
 lone.ly old man found dead." 
 
THE OliD AVASHBrRW MIBIt. 
 
Bl^AZING A BACKWARD TRAIL 
 
 SOM}^^ iiionihs akcr thtt Sioux Indian outbreak 
 ill Minuesoia on ihat fateful i8th of August, 
 1862, measures were taken by the State govern- 
 nieiu of Iowa loi^kiriL^ 10 a better protection of 
 their nonhN-^estern border from incursions of de- 
 tached war parties ivov\ die main camps of the 
 hosiiies. Gettysburg and V'icksburg had not yet 
 been fought in the Southern war, the federal gov- 
 ern n^ent was loth to spare troops from the front, 
 and the Suites withi?) the bounds of the Indian 
 insurrection were enjoined to raise troops for 
 their own protection^ beyond some skeleton reg- 
 iments officered by commanders who had pre- 
 viously experienced some service in Indian cam- 
 paigns on the far western plains. In addition to 
 two regiments of Iowa volunteer cavalry already 
 mustered in the United States service. Col. James 
 Sawyer, of Sioux city raised a mounted batallion 
 of boi'dermen for defence along the northwestern 
 part of that State, Though originally raised for 
 local defense only, in September, 1863 ^^^ com- 
 mand was re organized and placed upon the same 
 status as other volunteer cavalry — and to do duty 
 out of the State as well as within its borders 
 when called upon. A line of double bastioned 
 posts were constructed beginning at the T'ort 
 Dodge 81 Sioux City stage crossing of the West 
 
€7 KALEIDOSCOPIG LIVES. 
 
 Fork of Little Sioux river and extendinor in forti- 
 fied chain to Esterville on the Minnesota State 
 line. Beginning with the one at West Fork 
 which was within twenty miles of Sioux City, one 
 was established at Correctionville on the Little 
 Sioux river proper — one at Cherokee thirty miles 
 further up stream; one at Peterson twenty miles 
 further along, and one at the Spirit Lake. 
 
 Upon the reorganization of the battallion the 
 writer found himself in transfer from an eastern 
 command and was stationed at the Correctionville 
 post — called Fort White in honor of its company 
 commander. The soldier duties were divided 
 between detail for scouting service, construction 
 and hay making parties. The water was good, 
 climatic conditions fme and the exercise exhilera- 
 ting and healthful. 
 
 On one of the closing days of September, when 
 haying was well finished, a group of the soldiers led 
 forth some of their spry and well groomed charg- 
 ers (or a trial of speed upon the race course, east 
 of the fort. While engaged in this sport, a small 
 sized man mounted upon a venerable ill-shaped 
 pony rode up to the excitable group of money 
 changers. Besides his rediculous looking mount. the 
 man wore an ill fitting^ suit of clothes, topped off 
 with an old slouch hat— points well down— and for 
 all the world looked the mounted dummy about lo 
 close a circus performance. Everybody greeted 
 him with a laugh in which he seemed to heartily 
 join. He bet his money freely upon the racers^ 
 and, as happened in most cases, lost. 
 
BLAZING A BACKWARD TRAIL. 68 
 
 The orderly sergeant of the company — a man 
 of middle age and rotund physique — was an in- 
 veterate gamester and prided himself on his keen 
 wit. He jokingly offered to run on, foo*; against 
 the steed of the stranger for a live dollar ereen- 
 back provided the stranger done his own jockving. 
 As all hands wanted to see the race on, the stran- 
 ger cheerfully covered the orderly-sergeant's five 
 with a new treasury issue. Much to the surprise of 
 all the pony and its rider won by a bare scratch, 
 
 7'he victor then rode up t • the company officer's 
 quarters, asked to have his name put upon the 
 company's rolls. He gave in his name as Smith, 
 but whether the prefix was John, lames or William 
 we no longer remember. On account of his un- 
 der size~-having a somewhat dimiinative appear- 
 ance, or for his little pony, had already been jug- 
 handled by the buys and was known as Pony Smith. 
 
 Pony, being a round shouldered, bow legged, 
 burlesque specimen of humanity, with clownish 
 ways was quite a favorite with many, though 
 some were viciims oi his boorish practical jokes. 
 The writer though somewhat chummy with Pony 
 was one of his victims — and a long suffering one — 
 had vowed to pick a big black crow with him if ever 
 ihey came togedier again in this broad old w orld. 
 The orderly sergeant, however, never forgave 
 this recruit from the day oi the pony- foot race, 
 and afier many passes of ill-tempered repartee, 
 poor P<jny Sniidi was banished over to the West 
 P^ork, the Botany Bay of die State company chain. 
 Plere he remained like Xapoleon on Helena's isle 
 
69 KA1J^:1'DOSCOP1C LIVES 
 
 until after the mustering out of the l>aiailioiK 
 
 After an absence of over thirty long \-ears, the 
 writer crossed over the iron bridge across Big 
 Sioux river from the west in retrospect. The 
 little town of Sioux City — that was — which clns 
 tered around the old steamboat landing stood out 
 a magnificent city spread back upon the hills 
 Great buildings of brick and marble had supplant- 
 ed the log and frame structures of th(! chiys of 
 the Sioux outbreak. Electric lights and trolly 
 cars had run out the street lamp and the omni- 
 bus. 
 
 While standing in wonderment where the old 
 Hagy House had stood, I saw along funeral train 
 slowly passing up the street. A pioneer judge 
 was being taken to his last resting place. Close 
 following the hearse — bowed down in medatative 
 thought rode a cluster of old white headed men, 
 the Bogues, the Hedges, the Hagys' of long 
 ago, — comb gatherers and makers of this human 
 hive. In remembering their vigorous physical 
 frames and mental push of thirty years before 
 and now gazing upon the listless eyes and fur- 
 rowed cheeks of these broken men following one 
 of their own group to the grave — each as silent 
 as the enshrouded occupant of the hearse, I could 
 almost fancy their bloodless lips were repeathig: 
 
 "We are passing awaj^, 
 
 We are passing away 
 
 To that great judgment da3\" 
 
 I had looked in vain for one face in that group 
 
BLAZIXG A BACKWARD TRAIL. 70 
 
 — Col. Jim Sawyer — and setting myself down cm 
 a seat tnder the varanda of a comfortable holMry 
 its venerable proprietor — himself a pioneer — 
 chequed off time incidents concerning members 
 of our old frontier soldier organization that I 
 attentively listened to, after aa absence in person 
 and lack of all information concerning th^r where- 
 abouts for over a quarter of a century. 
 
 Col. Jim Sawyer had played hit and miss with 
 business many years after the close of the civil 
 war until his worldly possessions were wrapped 
 up in the proprietorship of a terry boat. This 
 would have been all right had the boat stayed 
 above water, which, unfortunately for the Coloael 
 did not. He had stood upon ^he levee and 
 watched his boat go down benoath ^he muddy 
 waves of the Missouri, and himself reduced to 
 poverty — the boat being so rickety no company 
 would insure. Though the waters had swallowed 
 up the remnants of his fortune it had left him his 
 grit. His age at that time was aboHt sixty 
 year^ — a^ time of life when the ordinary man 
 drops oukfi'om active life and sits down; a time 
 of life for some people thus stricken in misfortunte 
 who would have staggered and wilted under the 
 strain,- crawled in their bunks and called loudly 
 on the old man with the scythe to hit hard a lick 
 for keeps. Not «o with Colonel Sawyer. By hook 
 and by crook he raised a little means and hied 
 himself off to the mining regions of Arizonia. 
 Ten years later he had been heard from through 
 
71 KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES 
 
 soune financial institution. H-is rating was ^\cif 
 up then,— climing close to that of a millionare. 
 Our old captain, after whom Fort White was 
 named had died a bankrupt in New Orleans. One 
 ot our lieutenants was a prominent citizen of the 
 neighboring town of Onawa. Corporal Ordway, 
 was living happily with his wife and their daugh- 
 ters out on Maple river. The orderly sergeant 
 had died in a Minnesota town of two much "wo- 
 man on the brain." His tormentor, Pony Smith, 
 was living somewhere along the Sioux valley,— 
 informant did not know just where but thought I 
 might meet him iu my travels. Of the Comstock 
 brothers, two were dead and one insane. Pioneer 
 Perry lived a batchelor hermit on the lower Sioux 
 Many others were dead or moved away and never 
 where heard from— and so the list ran. 
 
 A bright and warm luly day after a few days 
 of wonder seeing in this big low^a town, I drove 
 out alone in a buckboard rig trying to recognize 
 something familiar along the old Fort Dodge 
 stage trail. The Floyd stream was passed after 
 which a vain look for recognition was had of the 
 old Hunkerford place, — once the outward farm of 
 the environed settlement. Twenty-nine years 
 before 1 had followed this trail for forty miles with 
 but one sheltered house between, and with the ex- 
 ception of those at the West Fork crossing not 
 a tree or a bush even, to be seen. Nought but 
 immovable billows to view in a great prairie sea. 
 But on this view retrospect, fine farm houses and 
 beautiful groves of green trees were to met with 
 
BLAZING A BACKWJiRD TRAIL 72 
 
 or noted uhcrever our ^eeting eyes turncd^lhe 
 pony's and mine. Over on the West Fork, the 
 vt>ry personation r>( loneliness in frontier days, is a 
 garden now -aim] beautiful to behold. A mile or 
 two down from the old State company stockade, 
 now placidly sits the town of Moville with long 
 trains of loaded ears passing and repassing, sig- 
 nalling their presence in a wreath of smoke or in 
 the loud screech of the steam whistle. 
 
 A few miles north eastward of the West Fork, 
 the abrupt ridges mark a near approach to the 
 Liiih: Sioux valley, proper. Every change from 
 the priiniiive days of the borderman was noted 
 and every innovation interesting. The sheep 
 rtc^cks, the hog droves the herds of cattle that 
 were feeding upon the hills and vales were once 
 we had roamed in quest of the herd remnants of 
 the elk and the antelope. 
 
 A fine, sleeking looking drove of hogs drew my 
 attention, (he old fellows of the bunch appeared 
 languid from fat carrying and the little chubby 
 porkers' tails seemed to curl over their backs 
 more proudly than those previously seen along 
 the route, so on noting their care taker had a self 
 satisfied air, I opened up the conversation: 
 
 • Well my friend you have a large, healthy look- 
 ing drove of porkers here." 
 
 "Big drove of hogs you say mister," replied 
 the swine herder, "why you ought to see Moon's 
 piggery above Correctionville!" 
 
 Passing further up the deep cut roads I noted 
 
73 KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES. 
 
 a particularly neat farm house with a suitable ad- 
 junct of outbuildings with an inticeing looking 
 water trough to a very dry pony. The farmer 
 came out from a nearby building on my approach, 
 and finding him in a talkative mood, I plied him 
 with some questions: 
 
 ''Your neighbors all look pros-perous here," I 
 said, ''they must have good bank accounts." 
 
 "O, no," replied the farmer, "not many — a few 
 of our people have some money in bank. There 
 is Mr. Moon above Correctionville — he usually 
 has a good many thousands deposited with the 
 banks — but then he is an exception." 
 
 A further drive of a half hour or more and I 
 sit rigidly from my seat in the buckboard — and for 
 a moment scanned up and down the valley of the 
 Little Sioux — a strant/er to a familiar land. Two 
 lines of railway strung out from a compact town 
 where Fort White had stood. Gre^n trees yet 
 fringed the river and nestled up in the sheltered 
 pockets of the uplands. I made inquiry concern- 
 ing the farms and was pointed out a magnihcant 
 appearing place and fortunately found its pro^^ri- 
 etor taking his ease in a rocker on the poarch. 
 
 I introduced my subject bluntly: 
 
 "They tell me you own two thousand acres of 
 land here — and two thousand acres covers a great 
 deal of soil." 
 
 *'Well, yes," replied the landowner "two th(Ai- 
 sand acres is all right as far as it goes, but there 
 is Moon above Correctionville, — he has seven 
 thousand acres of land, and all in one body." 
 
BLAZING A BACKWARD TRAIL. 74 
 
 Bidding the land owner adieu, I followed along 
 the valley road some distance in parallel lines 
 with the railway grade, then crossing the track 
 and over the iron structure that spanned the 
 Little Sioux river facing Correctionville from the 
 south. As the dull sounds from the pony's hoofs 
 intermingled^tfi the stillness of the air with the 
 gurgling waters, past memories rose unbidden to 
 distress the mind and grate upon the restful heart. 
 Memories with all its fitful shadows of gaiety and 
 gloom — hope and dispair that had marked the 
 day dreams of thirty-three and thirty years before, 
 now again brought vividly to mind at the familiar 
 sight of the stony bed river, the basswood groves 
 and sweet songs of musical birds. Almost un- 
 consciously I had halted on the further arch of 
 the long high bridge and gazed backward and 
 across on the opposite shore as though to catch 
 one more glimpse of the pick-garbed, pale-faced 
 maid, who had once in fancy stood with bared 
 feet upon the marginal waters by rock and brush 
 to reveal some warning events yet to come. This, 
 though but the record of a dream of thirty years 
 gone, its revelation had been faithfully perfect in 
 all detail. 
 
 Up the road and on a rise of ground where 
 Fort White had stood. What do w^e see? No 
 stockade — no turreted bastons — nor a log or a 
 stone even, marked the spot where the frontier 
 fort had stood. Instead, around and about the 
 environed plain nestled a town of 2000 people. 
 
70 KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES. 
 
 At one of the large hotels I met an only re- 
 minder of my closing experience in early Correc- 
 tionville. An old and tottering inebriate, whose 
 faltering, self betrayel in our presence,reminded us 
 of the old saw ''that a guilty conscience need no ac- 
 cuser. "Further in that man's case silence is charity. 
 
 Through the handsome burg and out along the 
 Cherokee trail we noted great changes and at a 
 bend in the river met a couple of husky boys with 
 a small drove of apparently unmanageable steers. 
 
 "Boys," I ventured to remark. "You have a 
 very unruly herd to manage." 
 
 '*Herd h ," tartly replied one of the lads, 
 
 "go on up and see Moon's big bunch if you want 
 to see a herd. 
 
 Passing along through ravines and across cul- 
 vercted roads 1 drew reins in front of Mr. Moon's 
 house, to which I had been directed by his neigh- 
 bors, and after a critical survey of the Sioux val- 
 ley magnate of so many leading parts, made my- 
 self known to him, received a generous welcome 
 and was his guest for a couple of days, 'lakin^ 
 a walk with the proud proprietor to view over his 
 vast and unincumbered land possessions and to 
 see his herds of shorthorns and long longhorns — 
 Percherons and Clydesdales — Poland-China's and 
 Chester Whites,— and in a daze of admiration for 
 all I had seen, — with a burst of inquisitive inquiry 
 after all I had known, — patted Mr. Moon with old 
 time familarity on his hard round shoulders, in a 
 bandying way, blurted out: — 
 
 "Pony — old boy — when did yo'i hook on to this 
 name of Muon?" 
 
BLAZING A BACKWARD TRAIL. 76 
 
 Out upon the road again — now over hills and 
 in sight of thrifty towns — now down in the valley 
 of the almost Indian trail of State company days. 
 The only habitable dwelling in those days in the 
 valley beUveen Correctionville and Cherokee — 
 distance thirty miles — was the Parry homestead. 
 The soldiers were under many obligations to the 
 hospitable pair who had here built themselves a 
 home. Answers to inquiry told me the old gen- 
 tleman had been resing under green sods for many 
 a long day, but the old lady then passing seventy 
 years survived and was near by, so called for the 
 last time to pay my respects to her, and on hehalf 
 of my soldier comrades thank her for the kind- 
 ness she had ever shown toward us. 
 
 Then loomed up the town ot Cherokee with its 
 three thousand people. Ihirty years before, on 
 my last adieu to this town less than half dozen 
 families comprised its inhabitants, but it was then 
 as now a county capital. In those days of the 
 sixties, besides the soldier garrison were many 
 young me*.n, but only tvvo girls of marriageable age 
 in the town. One a modest little maid, daughter 
 of ihe hotel proprietor kept noboddy's company 
 but her mamma's. The other young lady was 
 delighted with attention from many earnest woo- 
 ers. She had engaged hei-'^lf to be maKried to 
 the corporal commanding the post, and while he 
 was absent purchasing a trosseau for ihe nuptial 
 event, she met the advances of another soldier 
 and married him before the return of affianced 
 
77 KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES. 
 
 husband that was to have been. It was a case of 
 inexcusable deception on the girl's part as we had 
 rendered judgment then, and much sympathy felt 
 for the young commander for his misplaced confi- 
 dence. I now inquired of some old ^.imers of the 
 after days of this coquettish woman, and learned 
 she had made a miserable life for herself by her 
 misadventure. A few years of unhappy married 
 life she had been left to shift for herself, widi a 
 lot of children to raise and care for. 
 
 As author and publisher of two little books one 
 which I was introducing into public and private 
 libraries; had been told by a newspaper editor 
 there, that a banker's wife was treasurer and gen- 
 eral manger of Cherokee's public library, and ad- 
 vised my calling on the lady, as perfatory thereto. 
 
 Accordingly, acting on the suggestion, I saun- 
 tered wonderingly along a shade-lined boulevard, 
 until coming in front of a beautiful and costly re 
 sidence that looked the ideal banker's home, and 
 sent up my card to the mistress of this mansion. 
 
 "So your book has something to say about 
 early Cherokee history" the lady said, after 1 had 
 introduced the object of my call, "what is it facts 
 or romance?" 
 
 "A little of both, perhaps" I answered. 
 
 "I will get your book for the library," she 
 rejoined, "but I guess I was living here in this 
 town before you ever you saw it!" 
 
 Ihen dawned light. Bidding the lady adieu, I 
 passed out under the silver maples, drawing on 
 a nearly forgotten memory of past events, "I have 
 it now" I murmered, softly "I have been talking 
 to this town's first hotel keeper's daughter — to 
 'mamma's girl' of early Cherokee." ' 
 
OF TWO aRAVSS lU TH3 BLACK H1LL3. 
 
 DURING the winter of 1869-70, while passing 
 that inclement season among the w^oodchop- 
 pers and adventurers assembled at Tough timber 
 Point, now Hancock, N. D.— I made acquaintance 
 with a light limbed Texan co.vboy. While born 
 and raised on the plains of Texas, the young man 
 had put in some tinne among the vmeyards of 
 lower Cariornia and abo a few years in thf^ stock 
 ranges of eastern Oregon. Then an adventurous 
 trip across the mountains of Montana to the head- 
 waters of the Missouri river, with a short sojourn 
 and an inkling of life wiih the professional wolfers 
 of Milk River Valley. Later he had drifted down 
 the Missouri and became a transient in one of 
 Iowa's Tan^.ed towns. 
 
 While in diat ci:y by the watery border, chance 
 lot threw him in the society of a budding maid, 
 the daughter of respected parentage — w^hich in a 
 short time ripened in an affectioii that ended in 
 marriage. The girl was a native lowan, blooming 
 into womanhood early, and at the time of her 
 wedding was scarcely more than fourteen years 
 of age, 
 
 rhc young husband had but little of this world^s 
 goods, and after short honeymoon, in considering 
 his circumstances, accepted a flatering offer from 
 a venturesome firm, and hired out as cook for the 
 
70 KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES. 
 
 season nine hundred mil t^s from the starting point 
 in the ihen unho^pitable and vaguely known land, 
 the Painted Woods country of the Upper Missou- 
 ri, and in the order of distribution was assigned 
 to the lonely woodyard at Toughtimber. 
 
 At the yard in the assignment of quarters, !o: 
 threw the young Texan and the writer together as 
 room mates and while sitting in front of the 
 evening fire in the cook room, he gradually un- 
 folded his life &tory and told how his wife was 
 won, and dwelt on the ever to him interesting sub- 
 ject, long and fondly. He anxiously counted the 
 days that would elapse before the great river in 
 front of our stockade would loosen its frozen fet- 
 ters, and pleasantly anticipated the time when 
 from the hurricane deck of a returning steamer 
 he might get welcome sight of the city that con- 
 tained, — as he tenderly expressed it — "the finest 
 little woman in the world." 
 
 Like many others born and raised beyond^ the 
 line of schools on the Texan frontier border, this 
 young man could neither read nor write in the 
 simplest English. Now, of all times, he felt the 
 needs of chirographic communication most. 
 There were hundred of miles of frozen plains be- 
 tween him and his wife, it was true, yet as isola- 
 ted as our woodyard^ was, eastern mail reached 
 our door only one week old. The delicate duty 
 therefore, of reading and writing answers confi- 
 ding letters between husband and wife fell to n^y 
 lot as the sequence of the Texan's neglected 
 educaiion. 
 
OF TWO GRAVES iN THE BLACK HILlS 80 
 
 As the sun grew higher in the heavens in its 
 daily evolutionary course of planet movements, 
 and glad spring was being^welcomed by the faith- 
 ful little harbinger of warmer days — the soft- 
 chirping chickadee of the woodland, a new theme 
 occupied a large space in the young wife's letters 
 to her husband. She was about to become a 
 mother and her hopes and fears for the event give 
 pathos to its wording, and in angelic tenderness 
 begged that her husband might be with her in the 
 supreme hour. Thus closed the correspondence 
 as far as the third party was concerned but the 
 recollection of those tender epistles from the girl 
 wife to her absent husband remain as fresh in 
 mind as a memory of yesterday. 
 
 The summer following, the writer of these lines 
 chased up and down the great valley in the vicin- 
 ity of the Fort Buford counuy, bracing up v/hh 
 the exhilerating and pleasurable excitement of .he 
 almost daily send ofi, in Indian scares wkh the 
 astute Silling Bull and sardonic Long Dog as the 
 dread faced \|ack-in the-boxcs that spring them- 
 selves out from the clumps oi sao;e brush or grease 
 wood that mark the wallows and washouts of the 
 plains surrounding the showy frontier fort whxh 
 bore the honored name of a New Jersey eav- 
 airy leader of the civil war. 
 
 At the beginning of Autumn, some nine of a 
 party started out in an open beat from Fort Bu- 
 ford in charge of adeput) marshal as witnesses m 
 a United States court case at Yankton, the then 
 
81 KALElDOSa^PlC LIVES. 
 
 capital of the Territory — over a li^ousands miles 
 by the river's course. As we drifted along ^n our 
 lenu^thy trip we touched ast woodyard, post and 
 Indian camp, until the famiUar fort was reached 
 that sat so handsomely on the yellow plain below 
 the sluggish wafers of Douglass river. Down 
 toward the boat landing we slowly drifed along 
 the cut bar, thence to the tie-up. 
 
 Among the first acquaintances that came down 
 from the fort to greet us was the young Texan. 
 He was a happy man. His wife and l:>abc was 
 with him at the post, he told us, and he had the 
 post commander's permission to run an eating 
 restaurant in connection with the post trader's 
 store. 
 
 "You must come up and see us'* he said cheer 
 ily to the writer, *'She knows you now; I told 
 her all about the letters." 
 
 We then started up to the fort by the "water 
 roaa*' crossing the Garrison creek bridge to the 
 new restaurant west of the officers quarters. On 
 our way along a painful item of news was imparted 
 to the Texan. A subpoene was served on him to 
 appear with the rest of us at Yankton. He ral- 
 lied, but with a sad attempt at gaiety presented us 
 to his wife. She was a very beautiful blonde, and 
 with a neatly dressed, romping child in her arms, 
 heightened the color of a pretty picture. The 
 shade that w^as thow^n across it happily for us, was 
 reserved for our departure. The parting scene 
 between this young couple, we did not see. — 
 Neither did we wish to see. In beino left with 
 
OF TWO GRAVES IN THIC BLACK HILLS. £2 
 
 her tender babe b(iliiiKl, — she would have neither 
 father or mother husband or brother to protect 
 her now. Here was a hberline's opportunity, — and 
 also a coward's. There is but little more to say. 
 A tongue of deceit— a subtle drug— a trumpted 
 up situation — and darkness and despair for this 
 child wife. 
 
 A personal friend of the chronicler of these 
 pages had occasion to pass some years of his life 
 in the Black Hills immediately after the inrush 
 of miners and adventurers succeeding the Custer 
 expedition of 1874. Among the incidents of ihe 
 early days of Deadwood, the chief town there, this 
 friend related the closing account of a life wreck. 
 The story pitiful as it was, might have passed my 
 mind as many another of its like had done, but 
 
 some personal recollections of an earlier day and 
 
 to the poor victim a purer and surely a happier one, 
 gives painful interest in telling this plain truthful 
 story that I here narrate, curtailed somewhat in 
 order of abrieviation from the verbal to writing. 
 
 The verbal narrator told how, one wintry day 
 he had received information while walking along 
 Deadwood's primitive thoroughfare, that a young 
 woman, with scant means was either dead or dy- 
 ing in a lowly miner's cabin near the outskirts of 
 the town. Thinking over the circumstances of 
 her past life — for he, too, had known her long and 
 well — induced him to go search that he might 
 find her, and if not already dead contribute some- 
 thing for comfort in her dying hour. 
 
82 KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES 
 
 She was not dead but her last hour had come. 
 On a regulation miner's "bunk" with a few tat- 
 tered quilts, within a close room scant of furnish- 
 ings lay the young woman, with the pallor of death 
 fast spreading over her emaciated features. 
 
 On a chair at the bedside of the dying girl sat 
 an attendent — a female ot another race, — who 
 although faults they may have — yet for unself- 
 ish ministrations to the sick and unfortunate, the 
 Aunt Sally's and Aunt Dinah's of the colored race 
 occupy a distinction gratefully acknowledged by 
 the unprejudiced everywhere. 
 
 Among the scant trappings surrounding the 
 sick woman lay a letter which >he had evidently 
 received frum some one in answer to her asking for 
 financial aid. Thr short answer had told of its 
 failure: — "Your brother says he has no sister." 
 
 On a shelf with some half emptied bottles of 
 medicine, lay a well thummed copy of "McLeod 
 of Dare, " and a page marker iov\ard the last of 
 the book, which place the faithful nurse told my 
 informant, that her patient had been frequently 
 reading before she had become so weakened by 
 sickness as to be unable to hold the little book 
 in h^.r hands. The marker rested on the closing 
 death scene of Black's hero and evidently refiecred 
 the state of her mind at the time: 
 
 "King Death was a rare old fellow, 
 He sat where no sun could shine; 
 
 And he lifted his hand so yellow, 
 And poured out his coal-black wine! 
 
OF TWO GRAVES IN THE BLACK HILLS. 84 
 
 There came to him many a maiden, 
 
 Whose eyes had forgot to shine, 
 And widows with grief o'er laden, 
 
 For draught of his sleepy winel 
 Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah! for the coal-black 
 
 wine! 
 
 « * «« « « « m^ 4» 
 
 All came to the rare old fellow, 
 
 Who laughed till his eyes dropped brine, 
 
 As he gave them his hand so yellow, 
 
 And pledged them, in Death's black wine! 
 
 Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah! for the coal-black 
 wine!" 
 
 ONE clay toward the latter part of May, 
 1883, whilf working on a piece of government 
 land near Painted Woods, N. D., endeavoring to 
 secure private title by following the intent of the 
 law as to the planting and cultivation of young trees, 
 my attention was called to the approach of a man 
 coming from the river, makingdirectly for the place 
 where I was at work. It proved to be Sunda, (or 
 at least that is what we will call him in this chroni- 
 cle,) a hunter, trapper, scout and Indian fighter of 
 more than passing repute in a country where the 
 the lens of the revolving kaleidescope are ever 
 turning over in the jumble of the crescents, some act 
 of heroism or mark that bring sudden and some- 
 times bewildering fame to the border adventurer. 
 The man before me was an old acquaintance and 
 our recognition was mutual, although nine years had 
 passed since as camp partners on the trap line we 
 had parted on White Earth river, and only once 
 
85 KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES 
 
 after, sixteen months later at Scott's vvoodyard 
 below the Yellowstone's mouth, 1 had bid him 
 a last adieu until this meet at the tree claim. 
 
 It was at Scott's yard shortly after our interview 
 there that Sunda made his reputation as a very 
 quick and dead shot in shooting a sneaking hostile 
 who was drawing bead on unsuspecting Deacon 
 Hemmingway while the latter was chopping cord- 
 wood for Scott in a grove near the prairie. The 
 crack of the hunter's rifle and the falling of a red 
 painted Indian from behind a tree was the first in- 
 timation the startled Deacon had of his danger. 
 
 The next I heard of the hunter was a year 
 later on Yellowstone river where a shot from his 
 rifle had penetrated the supposed invulnerable 
 body of a hostile Sioux medicine man. The war- 
 rior was making a "holy show" of himself with 
 an idea, evidently, of encouraging^ his more timid 
 companions to openly attack the crew of a steam- 
 boat while the vessel was "hugging the shore." 
 
 Still later I had heard that this quandam partner 
 of mine had visited Bismarck, and after equipping 
 for the northern buffalo grounds; hired a boy, and 
 secured a young woman from "across the track," 
 for campkeeper, and when all was made ready 
 had taken the train west for Glendive, and 
 through a newspaper clipping from that point, I 
 learned that this strangely selected party of hide 
 hunters were in among the last of the northern 
 buffalo herd and that Sunda had^brought down 
 7000 buffalo hides as the result of the first winter's 
 shoot the product, mostly, of his own rifle. 
 
UF TWO GRAVES IN THE BLACK HILLS. 8(5 
 
 Upon the occasion of this meet at the tree claim, 
 after first greeting, we walked back to the old lo^ 
 stockade where as two of a party of three we had 
 had made winter camp during cold days ot the 
 months of January and February 1874. Of course 
 after so long an absence on different lines we had 
 mutual queries to ask, but it was not until after the 
 red sun had sunk behind the high ridges of Oliver 
 county that the hunter guest began to tell of the 
 events at Redwater preceeding the extermination 
 of the last of that magnificant band of buffalo de- 
 nominated the northern herd. 
 
 Time and place have much to do with the im- 
 press of a story. A cabin surrounded with giant 
 cottonwoods just putting forth their pea green 
 leaves; songs in various notes and cadence 
 from the throats of a thousand happy birds cele- 
 bratmg safe arrival in their summer nesting 
 grounds; air laden with the fragrance of bursting 
 buds and a light breeze wafting from the river 
 sounds of the waters' rush by sand bar and saw- 
 yer. A propitious hour, surely, for song or story. 
 Sunda said he would tell all about the girl he 
 had taken west from Bismarck if I had patience 
 to give attention. In answer said I was but too glad 
 to hear all he choose to tell. Introducing his sub- 
 ject, said, the young woman had come up from 
 Kansas City on a river steamer. As a native of 
 Jackson county Missouri, the hiding place and 
 headquarters of several desperate gangs of bush- 
 wackers during civil war times, and with such sur- 
 
87 KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES. 
 
 roundings and invironment, and while yet a little 
 girl^ she had witnessed the cruel, inexcusible and 
 violent death of her father from their hands, and 
 knew that she had lost a brother also through 
 their bloody work. Following this she met with 
 betrayal from one who should have been her 
 protector; had found deceit where true afifec 
 tion should have reigned, and being inexperienced 
 in the ways of this selfish world had fallen by the 
 wayside. 
 
 My friend the hunter was a fine specimen of 
 the physical man. His a^e at this lime was 
 twenty five years. To his question would she 
 go with him to the buffalo grounds, her answer 
 "I will go with you any where" told of her true 
 nature hoping for the best. For two years she 
 shared every discomfort with her consort on the 
 open range. The howling blizzards, the lurking 
 war party the veering of stair-peding buffalo herds 
 brought no wavering of her loyalty— no word of 
 complaint. She was with the man she loved and 
 if he choose to be there in savage squalor — it was 
 her place also. Twice only he had seen her in 
 tears. The boy who had formed the trio acci- 
 dently shot himself and she tore strips from her 
 dress to staunch ^he flow of blood from the dy'ng 
 bov. Wh<*n the lad was dead she sat down and 
 cried as if her heart would break. She would 
 take the place of the absent mother,— he said, 
 as far as in her power, and do the best that could 
 be done fur the dead in that wintrv wilderness. 
 
OF TWO GRAVES IN THE BLACK HILLS. S8 
 
 But the last of the buffalo were shot down cold. 
 Sunda alone had killed 10,000. His th oughts 
 took a restless turn. His mind wandered to the 
 broad Chesapeake the home of his boyhood. He 
 became irritable in camp though his brave partner 
 must have noticed the change her poor, palpitating 
 heart refused to yield. Every rebuff was met by 
 pleading eyes. But the hunter finally brought 
 his courage to bear and he told her the state of 
 his mind. As her share for the indurance of two 
 vears hardship he tendered the twice betrayed 
 girl $1000 and at the same time frankly told this 
 loyal consort the time had now come for them to 
 part forever. 
 
 **Sunda, I love the ground you walk on," she 
 replied "but if you don't want me Fll not follow 
 you— I am too proud for that." Then holding up 
 the roll of money, she continued; — "When this is 
 gone I am gone.'*. With these words and a burst of 
 tears she was away. 
 
 Some months after this Sunda, received a 
 letter from a friend in Deadwood describing the 
 tragic end of a girl in a public dance hall. It was 
 at the close of a quadrille amidst the dying strains 
 of music, a richly dressed girl rushed out to the 
 centre of the hall, drew a pistol and fired a bullet 
 through her heart before she could be reached. A 
 newspaper slip gave after particulars. In the para- 
 graph mention was made of the rich dress and glit- 
 tering jewels that adorned the person of the suicide 
 but that no money was found about her. From 
 the description of some mementoes found among 
 her belongings, Sunda knew the dead girl and his 
 consort of the Red water was one and the same. It 
 
89 KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES 
 
 was now too late to make amends and too plow to 
 realize that henceforth his heart was buried to the 
 world and would linger only for the memory of one 
 who had given up her life that she might forget 
 the ingratitude of her heart's chosen one. 
 
 Sunda had been setting in the cabin door while 
 reciting his story— and at its close the beams of the 
 sitting moon falling full in his face disclosed tears 
 like glistening beads chasing each other down this 
 strong man's cheeks. Oppressive silence followed 
 within and without. The lively birds had hours 
 before ceased their chirping and twittering among 
 the trees about us and the branches that had rubbed 
 and swayed with the breeze of the day were calm 
 and at rest. Without further words the hunter rolled 
 up in his blankets and soon after his troubled con- 
 science and aching heart was soothed in refreshing 
 Blumber— if not in pleasant dreams. 
 
 -^^^^ 
 
Dan. Williams, 
 First Warden BisinaiTk Penitentiary. 
 
TKS BISMARCK PSNITSNTIARY. 
 
 SOMETIMP: during the winter of 1886, the 
 vvriterof these sketches accepted an invitation 
 for a few days visit to the North Dakota Peniten- 
 tiary. The institution is located within a mile of 
 Bismarck, the State capital, and directly along the 
 main line of the Northern Pacific Railway. The 
 invitation had come from Dan Williams first war- 
 den of the institution and who gave seven years 
 creditable service as its first officer. And thus was 
 I urshered wiihin- these grim walls of rock and 
 iron. 
 
 Penitentaries have but little interest to the liv- 
 ing world except as places to keep away from, 
 and only the morbidly curious or those interested 
 in some relative or friend behind the iron gates 
 are to be found among the registered list of visit- 
 ors, and as a consequence there is no ban to in- 
 trusion when not in interferance with the strict 
 decipline which must never be relaxed or lost 
 sight of about a penal institution. 
 
 The Bismarck penitentiary was built in the year 
 1885, and consequently at the time of my visit 
 everything about the premises was neat and clean 
 with an air of freshness prevading thereabout. It 
 is said a preceptible feeling of incomprehensible 
 gloom prevade the mind within the walls of an 
 
n KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES 
 
 'A[^tti\ prison — a rellex as it wertt of the hroot'iii!^^ 
 iniiids and aching heiaris whose impress were leti 
 wiihin the sunless walls that had environed them. 
 As old nurses or attendants at asylums Jor the 
 in.ane are known to rrequ(^ntly bc^come maniacs 
 th(^msel\'es diroui^h some strange transmis.sion 
 or contagion, so too, attendants and keepers ot 
 prisons by some mysterious influence loose men- 
 tal balance and in after tin.e are controlled by 
 criminal instincts strangely at variance with their 
 former action and which frequently ends in a 
 suicide's grave or a felon's cell. 
 
 A life sentence within penitentiary walls is but 
 a life burial to the unhappy mortal whose trans- 
 gression or misfortune forced it. Old accquain- 
 tances fall away and forget or class him with the 
 dead and in his isolation^ has no chance to form 
 new ones. He seldom sees the sun moon and 
 stars. No pure fresh air; no green grass; no 
 leafy foliage; no beautiful Howers save those 
 oderless ones upon the casements about the 
 naked prison walls. 
 
 Some months before my visit to the Bismarck 
 institution there had been a young attorney from 
 a neighboring State, incarcerated and ser\ing 
 time in the Sioux Falls penitentiary,— and had 
 been placed there through the instrumentality of 
 his wife, — a heartless and extravagant wimian who 
 had sought this means of ridding herself of 
 her husband for another she had already selected. 
 The laws of the State gave her the right of divorce 
 
THE BISMARCK PENITENTIARY. 92 
 
 ihroiigh the courts, and chance, — opportunity and 
 inherent depravity and subversion of her better 
 self — did the rest. 
 
 During my short stay at the Bismarck peniten- 
 tiary a case just the opposite of the above came 
 under my observation which offset the discredit 
 b'oucrht on the sex, and wifely loyalty by the 
 Sioux Falls woman. A youngs man convicted of 
 homicide and sentenced to four years hard labor 
 wirhin its uninviting walls. He had some time 
 before his trouble married a most esdmable young 
 and beautiful girl, the petted daughter of wealthy 
 parents and of high social position in the Hawk- 
 eye state. From the hour of the beginning of 
 her husband's misfortune, she devoted her whole 
 time and a large portion of her wealth to save 
 her youthful iiusbaud from conviction in the court 
 and failing, hung about the cage of her imprisoned 
 mate as would a bluebird or robin red breast, ever 
 ready to minister to his wants and prove her un- 
 selfish devotion save when the cold hand of disci- 
 pline and the stern and rigid rules of the prison 
 tbrbade. Through her husband's good behavior 
 and her own persistent efforts in his behalf she 
 was rewarded at last. A change in public opinion 
 gave opportunity lor the acting governor to ex- 
 tend his clemency, so a fuil pardon was heartily 
 approved, and the now happy young lady led 
 forth her husband, past barred windows and iron 
 doors, a tree man. The glad wish of all who were 
 witnesses to the closing act of this drama went to 
 the young people, and the hope of those whose 
 
93 KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES 
 
 hearts were enlisted, that this young husliand 
 would never again give occasion to so try the de- 
 votion of his faithful wife. 
 
 There is seldom a conviction of a criminal but 
 what entails suffering more or less upon his or 
 her innocent family or friends. It is the thought 
 of this — even under dire distress or great provo- 
 cation — that often stay the arm of the passionate 
 or revengefully disposed But, then again, there 
 are those blinded to all consequences — the blow- 
 was struck — the deed was done, and scenes like 
 the following that came under my observation 
 during this visit, is too often in line with the after- 
 math: 
 
 A young man from the eastern part of the State 
 had been convicted for manslaug^hter and sen- 
 tenced to twelve years hard labor in the the pen- 
 itentiary. His uncle was the head of one of the 
 most widely known of Minnesota business houses 
 and his father, too was a wealthy and influential 
 man. His social position was also of high order. 
 Famous and high priced lawyers had been retained 
 at great expense, yet thanks to an honest jury and 
 an upright judge, justice in this particular case 
 was not altogether thwartrd. He was now in con- 
 vict's garb, and the venerable careworn old father 
 had come to bid him good-bye. It was .Sunday, 
 and services were going on, — the prison choir 
 commenced to sing, accompanied by the solemn 
 toned organ, — 
 
 *'Do they miss me at lioine do tliey miss me 
 'T would be nn nssur;inre mc^st deai*. 
 
THE BISMARCK PENITENTIARY. 94 
 
 To know that this moment some loved one. 
 Were sa3nng I wish he were here? 
 
 To feel that the group at the fireside, 
 Were thinking of me as I roam, 
 
 Oh, yes 'twould be joy beyond measure, 
 To know that they miss at me home. 
 
 . When twilight approaches, the season 
 
 That ever is sacred to song, 
 Does some one repeat m}^ name over, 
 
 And sigh that I tarry so long? 
 And is there a chord in the music. 
 
 That's missed when my voice is away, 
 And a chord in each heart that awaketh 
 
 Regret at my wearisome stay? 
 
 ****** 
 
 Do they miss me at home — do they miss me 
 
 At morning, at noon, or at night? 
 And lingers one gloomy shade round them. 
 
 That only my presence can light? 
 Are joys less invitingly welcome. 
 
 And pleasures less hale than before, 
 Becaust^ one is missed from the circle, 
 
 Because I am with them no more? 
 
 The sad tones of the organ seemed to go to 
 the father's heart, for after casting his eye upon 
 the troubled features of his boy he turned his face 
 to the wall and burst into a flood of tears. "Oh 
 am I crazy, — oh, am I crazy," he said as he rocked 
 his body to and fro in mental anguish. I could 
 stand it no longer and passed out of the room. 
 
 Early one morning a letter came up for the 
 warden's inspecdon from the cell room. It was 
 from a convict who said in substance that this was 
 
95 KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES 
 
 his second term in prison, that his lather had 
 died in jail, that his mother was now serving at 
 JoHet, and that his only brother was also serving 
 a long term at Fort Madison, Iowa. 
 
 '*! am bred and born a thief," he went on, and 
 if free to-morrow I could not help stealing. As 
 I am no use and all harm in the world, I may as 
 well die, and to that end have pounded up and 
 swallowed nearly a pint of glass. There is no 
 help for me now. If there is a hell and I go there 
 it will make but little difference if I go sooner than 
 I might. If there is a heaven and I go there, the 
 sooner I go the better. And if there in neither 
 heaven nor hell, it will make no difference any- 
 how." 
 
 The warden instantly telephoned for the prison 
 physician, and with a deputy warden hastened 
 down to the cell with a quart of oil, pried open 
 the jaws of the would be suicide, and poured the 
 contents down his throat. By a miricle his life 
 was saved, thous^h he had to be closely watched 
 from making another attempt when an opportunity 
 presented. In searching the prisoner's cell noth- 
 ing particular was f )LiiKl. Trie last two verses u( 
 Cowper's "Castaway" were pinned on the wall. 
 The Castaway, it will be remembered, was the 
 last production during the last lucid interval of 
 that unfortunate poet. We quote the two verses: 
 
 'T therefore purpose not or dream. 
 
 Disc-anting on his fate, 
 '\\) <y\vc the mehineholy theme 
 
THE BISMARCK PENITENTIARY 96 
 
 A inore enduring date; 
 
 But misery still delights to trace 
 
 Its semblance in another's case. 
 
 "No voice divine the storm allay 'd, 
 No light propitious shone, 
 
 When, snatch'd from all effectual aid, 
 We perish'd, each alone; 
 
 But I beneath a rougher sea, 
 And whelmed in deeper gulfs than he/' 
 Among the outside of gate or trusty prisoners 
 was one Mike Finnegan, with a face of Hibernian 
 cast. Michael's acquintance was not difficult to 
 acquire, nor was he backward in exploiting on the 
 misadventure that caused him to "do time" in 
 the penitentiary. He had been "put over the 
 road," he said by way of apology or explanation, 
 for "unloosning Teddy Roosevelt's skiff." He 
 explained further that himself and partner had 
 made a miscalculation and supposed the nervy 
 New Yorker was an ordinary eastern tenderfoot, 
 and if he missed his nicely painted blue boat on a 
 stormy day, would wait for the weather to clear 
 up before the drifts were examined down stream. 
 "But that's where our miscalculation come in," 
 went on the verboose Finnegan, "You see we 
 wanted to trap and shoot beaver while the Little 
 Missouri was in flood, and didn't have much of a 
 boat, so concluded to swap sight-unseen with this 
 Medora ranchman. Of course it was night and 
 we couldn't see — and the owner was in his dreams. 
 Well the worst storm 1 ever got caug^ht out in 
 rounded us in at the mouth of Cherry, and we 
 
1^7 
 
 KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES 
 
 went into camp. Mn! how' it snowed and the 
 wind howled 'W^eVe all right here Bully Boy, said 
 my pard, and I thought the same thing — without 
 talking. Supprised you might say — wasn't we 
 though— when tliat d d New Yorker cov- 
 ered us with his guns for a hands up. What 
 could we do with our flukes wet and full of mud, 
 our clothes ringing wet and minds preoccupied. 
 What would you have done? The New Yorker 
 aot the best of us — and here I am." 
 
FROM WSST TO E'AST. 
 
 AF'TER having ivaiched from the oalleries of 
 the hall ot Representatives, the pr^ ceedings 
 of the North Dakota constitutional convention 
 from the opening to the closing day, in July, 
 I889, I prepared for a long projected trip to the 
 Atlantic's coast lands after an absence of twenty- 
 two years, nearly the whole of w^hich time had 
 been passed in isolation on the plains or wood- 
 lands of the Dakotas. It was, therefore with a 
 strange, half forsaken feeling, when I took a seat 
 in an eastern bound passenger train at the Bis- 
 marck depot at the hour of midnight, and passed 
 swiftly from the sle<^ping city, and through long 
 stretches of silent, sparcely settled prairies. James- 
 town at the crossing of the historic old Riviere 
 Jaques, is passed at sunri.-e, then Sanborn, next 
 Valley City and later on the broad expanse of the 
 Red River Valley, the greatest wheat growing 
 district in the world. On eastward the train surges 
 and thumps until the beautiful Detroit Lake is 
 seen — the dividing line between the timber and 
 prairie lands. Brainard on the Mississippi is 
 reached; cars and directions are changed, and the 
 train glides like a section serpent through the 
 dark forests of pine and tamarack that mark the 
 country bordering Lake Superior the greatest of 
 
09 KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVKS 
 
 our inland lakes. A few Isolated lumbermen; 
 some railroad employes scattered at intervals along- 
 the route, and here and there the brush lodge of 
 a forlorn group of the red Chippeways gave tlic: 
 scenes a variable turn a.i we were hurled along 
 until sighting the vast watery expanse, and the 
 life and bustle of the "Zenith city of the unsalted 
 seas." 
 
 Another day, and as passenger on the fintt 
 steamer China, we were plowing the pine tinted 
 bosom of the largest chain of fresh water lakes in 
 the world. Familiar, as I had been as a seeker of 
 information concerning this region — had deliohied 
 in tracing the details of early explorations and the 
 varied careers of its hrst explorers, my imagmaiive 
 ideal of the country as dreamed over fell far short 
 of the real as actually observed. Eleven hundred 
 miles by fast steamer — traveling night and day, 
 sometimes out of sight of land, and even then 
 stopped short of the terminal of the lakes' chain. 
 The hottest days of July and August never change 
 the temperture of the deep waters of Lake Superior 
 — always ice cold. Heavy pine forests line its 
 shores, and as we skirled the American side some 
 lurid conflagrations were in sight and dense clouds 
 of black smoke enveloped us as we moved swiftly 
 along. Mackanaw, old St. Mary's and other 
 places of historic interest were carefully scanned, 
 and the changes from early historic times noted. 
 
 As the boat meandered through the narrow bed 
 of the St. Clair river highly cultivated farms were 
 seen on either bank; but more beautiful to me 
 
FROM WEST TO EAST. TOO 
 
 than stately mansions or rows of tasseled corn 
 were the Httle low limbed broad leafed apple 
 trees the sight of one I had not witnessed in twen- 
 ty two years Passing Port Huron; passing Bri- 
 tish Sarnia; passing historic old Detroit, and the 
 boisterous waters of Lake Erie is reached. On 
 sped the China signaling passing vessels by night 
 aiKJ by day. Erie city is reached and passed; 
 Cleveland is passed, and on the seventh da)^ the 
 port of Buffalo city is entered; the steamer aban- 
 d(Mied^ and an enjoyable trip ended — and the only 
 regretable incidents while in the good steamer's 
 care were the blackmailing insolence of its porters. 
 Anothe»' ride in the cars and a stop for a day's 
 recreation around the shores^of Canandiao^uai, one 
 of the most picturesque of the many beautiful lakes 
 in western New York. Then, aeain riding^ behind 
 the screeching locomotive, passing the lights of 
 queenly Elmira at the midnight hour thence down 
 the deep cut valleys of the forest-lined Susque- 
 hanna until Pennsylvania's capitol cam(' in sight — 
 thence through the rich farm lands of the "Penn- 
 sylvania Dutch " the thriftiest (;f America's farmers 
 and people as a class who love the comforts of 
 home life as glimpses from the car windowreveals 
 the plain and unpretentious though roomy dwel- 
 lings, large barns, numerous outbuildings and 
 cleanly cultivated tields and gardens. Through 
 Lancaster and across the stagnant Conestoga. the 
 swift Octorara, the stony bedded, bubble-chasing 
 Ikandyvvine, when West Chester, the Athens of 
 the Keystone State is reached. Here, twenty- 
 
101 KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES 
 
 eight and thirty years before, the writer, asahope- 
 ful typo labored on the old Chester County Times, 
 long since among the grand array of newspaper 
 "has beens." The town then as now the county 
 capital — but in those days a model little town of 
 3,000 people now numbering 15,000. Then the 
 town had four modest weekly papers — now three 
 ambitious dailies, and some half dozen weeklies to 
 prod them along. On the morning of my arrival 
 in West Chester, a reporter noting a contractor's 
 crew on the construction works of a railroad en- 
 tering the town, after explaining in his paper that 
 in nativity most of the crew were either Italians or 
 Hungarians asked in wonderment, "Where are 
 the Irish? Twenty years ago the railroad consiruc 
 tion crews were Irish, now you seldom see one on 
 the works." I could not answer then, I was a 
 strange there But I could have answered a little 
 later on after having made a few trips across the 
 county, where the railroading Irish were. They 
 were in possession of some of the best of the 
 Quakers' farms. 
 
 Across the county by easy rambles presents 
 ne\v scenes and recalls almcxst t'orgotten events of 
 an earlier day. Passing along roads lined and 
 shaded with cherry, apple, peach, pear and the 
 tall chestnut; beautiful gardens and conservatories 
 filled with ferns and flowers, and fields of tasseled 
 corn and sweet smelling "second" clover entice 
 the strolling reviewer in tireless walks. Passing 
 gloomy Longwood and its associations; passing 
 Bayard laylor's Cedercroft mansion — silent now, 
 
FROM WEST TO EAST. 102 
 
 alriiost as a cluirchyard. Down along l^oughken- 
 anion hills, in whose primiiive groves ihe writer in 
 boyhood days "played Indian" by camping out 
 amid lealy boughs or lishing around the old stone 
 bridge. How changed in thirty year.i! Two rail- 
 roads intersecting here — two towns, marble, stone, 
 lime and kaolen quarries. On down over the 
 hills of New London where the old brick academy 
 stands as unadorned as in the earlier days of our 
 disciplined, student career there. 
 
 Down among the laurel crowned hills ot the 
 Elk creeks that send their clarified waters into the 
 broad, briny, Chesapeake bay. Among these hills 
 and vales, we rest. Here, memory, kind or un- 
 kind, in shifting moods, bid us linger. Changes 
 in forty years! The hills and valleys, creeks and 
 rivulets remain much the same; but in places hills 
 shorn of their timber cover; old homesteads either 
 remodeled, or been blotted out altogether and 
 succeeded in many cases by more pretentious 
 edifices and st.t-ange designs that mark the wealth 
 ot some new owner; but more often the case, 
 smaller and less pretensions dwellings dotted 
 about here and there that record the subdivided 
 farms. The chubby faced school boy and his dim- 
 ple faced, rosy cheeked companion, have reached 
 the time of wrinkles and grey hairs, while their 
 places at the scholars desk o\' under the swinging 
 vine is occupied as of yore, and laughter, tears 
 and song are heard on the school's play ground 
 with the same hilarity or pathos, as fort)- years 
 before. But save now and then a whitened head, 
 
103 KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES 
 
 the man and matron of middle lite of our boyhood 
 days, have passed to the narrow enclosure that 
 mark the silent city of the sepulchered dead. 
 
 Though a prosaic land and prosaic people, the 
 robed chameleon of romance, here as elsewhere, 
 tiijge the lives of those who have became drawn 
 into the charmed vortex of its mysteries. 0\ er 
 on the Maryland side of the State line lived an 
 old couple. Being childless, they w^ere solicited 
 by members of an orphans' aid society to undertake 
 the care of two little w^aifs that had been aban- 
 doned to the world's mercy and rescued as found 
 lings in the streets of the great city by the river 
 Delaware. The charitable kind hearted old folks 
 accepted the trust, and the children though ai first 
 when thrown in each others company were stran- 
 gers, learned to be inseparable in their friencship. 
 The foster parents were kind, the children grate- 
 ful. Work around the farm was light in their 
 more tender years and they had the advantages 
 of regularly attending an excellent neighborhood 
 school. As the children grew up together they 
 not only learned to respect and love their foster 
 parents but to adore each other, At the time of 
 the writer's visit the boy and girl now man and 
 woman grown, still cling to the old homestead, 
 which they had beautified and adorned. Hiey 
 had been dutiful children loyal in devotion to the 
 unselfish benefactors, and when life's evening- 
 closed calmly around the good foster parents; they 
 gave the youthful pair their blessing, had enjoined 
 them to wedlock and willed them the farm 
 
FROM WEST TO EAST. 104 
 
 On the Pennsylvania side of the state line and 
 within less than a mile of the homestead we have 
 described, lived another kindly pair, well up in 
 years, and childless, also. This farm, too, was 
 beautifully located on the foggy lined banks of the 
 Little Elk creek. The farm house surroundings 
 were shaded with orchards of apple, cherry, peach 
 and pear trees. Groves of walnut, chestnut, 
 stately populars and spotted barked butternuts 
 side the creek boundaries. In summer days the 
 trarden walks lined with flowers which out from 
 their sweet fragrant bulbs and the white clover 
 lawn, gave joy to the industrious honey bees that 
 were domiciled in a circle of hives on benches 
 within the garden enclosure. 
 
 An orphan's aid society, here too visited as a 
 promising field, and had prevailed upon this good 
 couple to take to their home a little girl waif, — a 
 tiny drift as it were, from the ^reat human stream 
 pouring oiit from the "city of brotherly love." 
 Never could a homeless child have fallen in gen- 
 tler hands than this blue eyed delicate babe, when 
 it came to the home of the guileless, tenderhearted 
 farmer and wife. A pretty face, a sunny temper, 
 she brought joy and sunshine with her entry into 
 the home of her "new papa and mamma," as in 
 exhuberance of childish glee she named her lov- 
 ing guardians. 
 
 In quiet and peace the early years sped on in 
 this orphan girl's home on the Elk farm. No 
 child of fortiHie could have been more petted, 
 though to others the gorgeous show of wealth 
 
105 KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES 
 
 might liave l^een lavished with more prodigal 
 liands. Such was the little maid's life until she 
 reached her fifteenth year, She grew up a fragile, 
 delicate blond, "a sh\', d(;niur(^ appearing litlhi 
 Ouak(^ress," — her neighbors saii, — when they 
 told me the story. 
 
 Across the creek, less than a mile aw^ay from 
 the little girl's home lived another neighbor — 
 good kind old souls that the writer remembers in- 
 timately from his earliest day. I he man, his wife 
 and their family of children owaied and culti\ated 
 a little farm the right and title to w^hich they had 
 earned by econom}' and hard work. One of the 
 two boys of the family w^as employed by the neigh 
 bors whom we have just discribed, and it was in 
 this way and during trips to school in which both 
 traveled the same beaten path across lots, that a 
 triendh' intimacy sprang up between the rugged 
 lad and the little blond maid from over the way. 
 Thoughtful, kind acts; lugging her dinner pail or 
 books, won its way by degrees until she regarded 
 his presence a pleasure either in public gathering 
 or in the quiet duties of the farm. Attentions 
 begun in this way so often follow along the line 
 of natural law, that drifts into the inexplicable 
 depths of the very soul of being, beyond the 
 rescue of, and where the power of mind avail not. 
 
 The fragile, gentle minded girl, lonely from 
 absence of childish companionship, in the nature of 
 the sympathetic heart, would entwine with a tight 
 ening coil the object of her girlish adoration. 
 The brawny, roistering boy with the inexperience 
 
FROM WEST TO EAST. loO 
 
 of youth, ignorant of the SLibtlery of the world's 
 manifold ways, could not have given much heed, 
 but the girl, unaware perhaps, or unable to stay 
 the promptings of a tender heart had centered her 
 affection on the farmer lad, and in the trancience 
 of mesmeric swiftness, had passed out of her reach 
 or recall. An uncontrollable yearning for the 
 lad's presence, the subtle undePinable gratings in 
 her breast, and t-very fancihil slight from her boy 
 lover, threw her in morbid repinings, and all the 
 kindness and care of her foster parents could not 
 rescue her from a lethergic state of mind into 
 which she had drifted. The bright lustre of the 
 eyes, the hectic, flushed cheeks, spells of melan- 
 choly that marked the girl's condition hastens our 
 story to its end. 
 
 The parents of the young man, (for time was 
 passing,) had intervened. He was sent out in a 
 western state and asked to live and forget, while 
 it is said the girl was frankly told that her unknown 
 parentage was the abrupt and imscalable barrier 
 that must end forever her hopes of becoming 
 "John's wife." It was even said that John, him- 
 self, long before, had unguardedly told her the 
 same, and this was the dead secret eatinor her life 
 away, though she had striven so hard to forget it. 
 
 The young man was obedient to his parents; 
 for<JOL all, and married in the west But this 
 information was kept from the stricken and de- 
 serted girl. Her time on earth was short now. 
 To every greeting by kind neighbors she would 
 pcrface her remarks: ''Has john come." or 
 
107 KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES 
 
 "Why don't he come to me, 1 am so lonely?"' 
 Evasive replies fell heedless. She was hoping' 
 against hope. In her sick room when unable 
 from weakness to arise from her bed she asked 
 to have her pillows so arranged that she could 
 look out of the window to "see John a coming." 
 Out of the window she peered day after day across 
 the woodland strip that divided the farms. One 
 by one, the yellow, seared leaves dropped from 
 the intervening trees; the neighboring house came 
 in view through the naked branches, but no fami- 
 liar figure was seen, or no familiar footsteps heard 
 along this pathway, and weary with watching and 
 tired out with ceaseless waiting the drooping girl 
 sank exhausted in her last, long sleep. 
 
I 
 
 I 
 
o 
 1^ 
 
 
i[)V\oohO(n}L[/rA .:, ( 
 
 LITTLE BEAR WOMAN. 
 
 SUCH of our readers who may have perused a 
 copy of FoNTiER AND Indian Life, will re- 
 member in a passage in the sketch, — The Letter 
 in Cipher, — some account of the murder of Carlos 
 Reider, but more familiarly known among his En- 
 glish speakino^ acquaintances as Charley Reeder, 
 a German woodyard proprietor in the lower 
 Painted Woods of the Upper Missouri Valley. 
 The tragedy happened at Reeder's stockaded 
 cabin near the river's east bank, opposite to the 
 present site of Mercer's ranch, on the morning of 
 the 1 1 th day of June, 1870. 
 
 At the time of his death, Reeder was married 
 — in the Indian way — to an Aricaree-Mandan 
 dame, from which union a girl babe came forth to 
 draw their mutual love, and at the time of her 
 father's death the child was about four years old. 
 The Aricaree name given to the little girl — Pah- 
 nonee Talka, or as interpreted into the English 
 tongue — Prairie White Rose, — but in the order of 
 abbreviation, she was called plain Rosa by her 
 tond father. 
 
 In memory of the air castles in which Reeder 
 had enthroned his child in his moments of good 
 cheer and happy day dreams in that cabin among 
 the painted trees — and before cruel fate and evil 
 
109 KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES 
 
 passions sent him to realms of the unknown— the 
 writer of these Hnes felt himself interested enough 
 in the child's welfare to try and have her parent 
 consent to starting the little one off with the tirst 
 batch of red children sent to the Indian schools at 
 Carlisle and Hampton Roads. But the mother 
 — through lack of confidence in the outcome — 
 was prejudiced and obstinate and thus the matter 
 ended. 
 
 With the closing out of a trapper's life the 
 necessity of the writer's frequent visits lo the Aric- 
 aree Indian camp at old Fort Berthold had ended, 
 and it was only occassionally after that date I could 
 hear from mother and child. Had learned that at 
 the age oi thirteen or fourteen, the girl married a 
 young Aricaree, whose principal characteristics, 
 as I remember him, was of the dudish order and 
 who seemed to give more thought to the niceties 
 of personal appearance than the practical affairs 
 of everyday life, and as a sequence, although 
 taking a "land in severaly" claim on the bench 
 land facing the coulee of t^Vuir Bears and builded 
 himself a house — its construction followed in dis- 
 criptive text the home of the Arkansas traveler. 
 As a consequence an early winter storm caught 
 them unprepared to withstand its Arctic fury, and 
 as sequel to all, the child wife was found in the 
 throes of childbirth, in isolation and with bitter 
 cold to indure. Rosa's mother had but recently 
 been buried, and none but a decrepit old grand- 
 mother was with the child matron to see a little 
 duaghter born and the young mother die. 
 
LITTLI': BEAR WOMAN. 110 
 
 Flere my information ab(jut the mishaps of the 
 Reeder family had closed. But after returning lo 
 North Dakota in the sprin^^ of 1892, trom an 
 eastern tour of some years duration, I made a 
 trip to the new Indian Agency at Elbowoods. On 
 the return early in May, was caught in a furious 
 snow storm, and in blindness, myself and pony 
 half famished bumped up against an Indian house 
 near the bluff opening at the Coulee of Four 
 Bears The domicile was occupied by Medicine 
 Shield, an hospitable Aricaree and his venerable 
 helpmate w^ho prided hrrself in being a sister of 
 John Grass, a leader among his people and Chief 
 Justice of the Sioux nation. This w^oman had 
 native intelligence of a high degree and an ex- 
 traordinary memory for details, some of which 
 have already appeared in various items of historic 
 interest, in preceeding pages of this work for its 
 reader's edification. 
 
 During my comfortable stay there, shielded 
 from adverse elements without, I gleaned much 
 passing information of some local happenings 
 during my many years absence from the Arica- 
 rees. Among other particulars the story of the 
 Reeder family was brought out in detail, and was 
 told that if I would sometime call at the large 
 school building at Elbowoods, Reeder's grand- 
 daug^hter could be seen there. On my next visit 
 to that place, through courtesy of Superintendent 
 Gates of the Agency boarding school, I was 
 shown a pleasant, olive faced little girl, known to 
 that institute as Lottie Styles, and in a later visit 
 
Ill KALEIDOSCOPIC LIVES 
 
 th(- Superintendent supplemented his interest in 
 th(^ writer's curiousity by having the young Miss 
 brush up her hair and stand upon the green for a 
 glance at the camera. 
 
 While watching this blithesome little maid upon 
 the prairie sward, dressed so nattily, — all smiles 
 and all sunshine, — my mind went back to the 
 spring snow storm of hve years before, when 
 Medicine Shield's wife had told me for the first 
 time the early child life of Little Bear Woman, 
 and remembering it well, felt pleased now to bear 
 witness to the evolving' confast. 
 
 In her story of these intervening days, the 
 Medicine Shield woman said at that time among 
 the x^ricarees, deaths were both frequent and 
 numerous, and that the sudden passing away of 
 Mrs. Reader and her daughter Rosa, was almost 
 unnoticed among members of their tribe. The 
 shriveled and nearly sightless great grandmother 
 to Rosa's child — herself neglected by her kindred 
 in her old age and decrepitude, and apparently 
 forsaken by all the living world-^ took her pre- 
 cious charge wrapped in bits of blankets to an 
 abandoned and almost uninhabitable dirt covered 
 lodge situated among the fast disappearing group 
 of decaying habitations that marked the site of 
 the last village connecting the Mandans, Gros 
 Ventres and Aricarees with the associations of 
 their dreamy past. 
 
 Cooped in her dark corner, as the days passed 
 one upon another, this broken belldame with the 
 precious mite of inheritance bundled in her lap — 
 
Little Ihiwi Woman. 
 
LITTLE BEAR WOMAN. 112 
 
 sat in silence save now and then a plaintive native 
 ditt)' that came from lips of parfleshe, to quiet the 
 restless babe. Her palsied arms swaying to and 
 fro served as cradle, rocking baby to sleep in its 
 fitfull periods of unrest, and anon her fleshless 
 and withered hands smoothed the fevered infant's 
 cheeks in sickness, or caiiced and bony fingers 
 stroked down its temples in the glow of health. 
 The tattered couch of discarded rags that could 
 no longer be used by the young and the proud, 
 had been idly tossed to her for such comfort as 
 could be made of them for herself and the little 
 pinched faced elf, that she hugged so tenderly to 
 her cold bosom. From her nest of gloom and 
 shabby poverty the old woman's mind often 
 wandered to other scenes of her own young girl 
 life at old Fort Clark, or along the banks of 
 Rees Own River. Through the cracks and 
 crevices of her mouldy lodge roof, she beheld the 
 great firmanent and found a name for the nest- 
 ling babe — Plenty of Stars, — although the un- 
 kempt hair and dirty face that greeted the child's 
 first toddling into the presence of gamins of ad- 
 joining lodges, earned for itself from her teasers 
 the sobriquet — Litde Bear Woman. 
 
 As time sped slowly on giving strength to the 
 young and bringing weakness to the aged, in this 
 lowly home of the Aricaree quarter, there came a 
 day when out from cold and clammy arms a 
 healthy, though tear-stained little brunette maid 
 was lifted up and away by interested though tardy 
 helpers, for the chastened spirit of the good old 
 
113 KALEIDOSCOl^IC LIVKS 
 
 soul that had walchtd over Littlt! Bear Woman 
 so lovingly and so tenderly, had gone forth to 
 join the happy villagers in shadowy lands where 
 hunger, neglect and distress are unknown, and 
 age not counted. 
 
FRONTIER AND INDIAN LIFE. 
 
 By JOSEPH HENRY TAYLOR. 
 
 Printed and Published by the Author at Washburn, N. D. 
 
 PKOFg Sri.V SI^IilHTRATED 306 PAOES. PRICE »1. 
 
 SOME PRESS COMMENTS. 
 •His extended observation and experience have 
 given abundant material to fill several volumes. 
 His sketches of Indian character, their habits 
 and treatment by the Government are well written 
 in the present volume, — Oxford {Pa.) Press 
 
 *-It contains some very interesting sketches of 
 early days in the Northwest and some matters of 
 historical moment which will deserve a permanent 
 record. His story of. the treatment of Inkpaduta 
 by the early settlers of Northwestern Iowa tlirows 
 31 ew light on the origin of the famous Spirit Lake 
 Massacre, and, while two wrongs do not make one 
 right, it is plain that there were two sides to the 
 question in the events that led up to that terrible 
 affair, "-r/z^ Seftler,{Bisjnarck, .Y- D ) 
 
 <x:x> 
 
 One of the old timers in Dakota Territory is 
 
 Joseph H, Taylor, who resides at Washburn, N. D 
 
 and who has been a continuous resident here since 
 
 lb6", thiuigii being- here even before that date. He 
 
 is a charming writer, and has the faculty of close 
 
 observation usually well cultivated as is usual with 
 
 all frontiersman. The third edition of his work 
 
 Sketches of Frontier and Indian Life on the Upper 
 
 Missouri and Great Plains has just appeared- the 
 
 tii-st appearing in 1859 and the second in 1885. ' The 
 
 piesent edition contains much new matter. The 
 
 woik embraces over 300 pages and is embelished 
 
 with good illustrations. The book is valuable from 
 
 a historical standpoint as it contains many events 
 
 of interest, and the Indian legends are graphicallv 
 
 told. The work is one that will interest every 
 
 i(^ader. — /v//'i>V; i.Y./)'^ Foritrn. 
 
So I { til e rri ( \ \i . . ) IT 0/ 'km an . 
 
 Frontier anj) Indian Life. Joseph Henry Taylor 
 Author and Publisher, Washburn, N. D., is a series 
 of sketches drawn from the author's own experi- 
 ence of over thirty years on the Indian frontier. As 
 an enlisted soldier, a hunter and trapper, a woods- 
 man and a journalist, he has gained a personal 
 knowledge of his subject from both the red and the 
 white man's standpoint that makes his stories 
 particularly interesting. 
 
 The volume opens with the story of Inkpaduta 
 and the Spirit Lake massacre, showing the causes 
 which led to the first Sioux outbreak of history; 
 and later tel's of the revenge of Inkpaduta'g sons 
 on the battlefield of iheLittla Big Horn, and gives 
 Sitting Bull's denial of the part usually ascribed to 
 him in thot unhappy, affair. 
 
 Next comes an incident in which a brave little 
 band of Indians rather than be taken by the foe, 
 marched deliberately into an ice hol^ on the river, 
 and one by one passed forever out of sight into the 
 current beneath. 
 
 Then comes the pathetic story of "Bummer Dan,"" 
 a white man who found and lost a fortune in Colo- 
 rado's early mining days, and then again the legend 
 of The Scalpless Warrior and his Daughter, a tale 
 in which history, romance and folklore are admira- 
 bly blended. 
 
 The Great Plains of 18G4, Fort Berthold in 1869, 
 Early days arcmnd Fort Buford, With a Gros Ven- 
 tre War Party, Bull-boating through the Sioux 
 country, and many others of similar nature gives 
 glimpses of Indian life and thought in the early 
 days that are both interesting and valuable. Lone- 
 some Charley, Buckskin Joe and others are western 
 character sketches of a tvpe now rapidly passing 
 away. 
 
 Altogether the collection is unique, and bears an 
 interest not only for the Indian scholar but for the 
 general reader who likes an occasional dip into the 
 unusual." 
 
 <x:^c> 
 
Hanilhi irnrhnuJ to (he Author :--' '~^ omv 
 book does justice to the Indian.** 
 
 <X» 
 
 Waid County kK' B ) Reporter. 
 
 ' It cannot be said of Mr. Taylor, as of so many 
 of the writers, who take up space in even the 
 best of our macrazines. that he has rushed into 
 print when he had no story to t«^ll. 
 
 Thirty years ago, when all Dakota was one vast 
 battleground for the "blood thursty Sioux," the 
 '•Frost eared Assinnaboines," "Blackleg Anatha- 
 ways," "painted Gros Ventres" "hiddrn faced 
 Sissetons" and other savage tribes, all engaged 
 in a war of extermination, one tribe against an- 
 other and all against the buffalo and the pale face, 
 Mr, Taylor was a hunter and trapper at Painted 
 Woods on the Missouri. Strange indeed, if any 
 man who had passed so many years in this wild 
 life should not have a tale to tell that were worth 
 reading and Mr. Taylor had rare ability as well as 
 opportunity for collecdng material for his book. 
 
 He has set out in a natural and modest way 
 many dramatic incidents in his own life and in the 
 lives of those with whom he was brought in con- 
 tact. Tales are told of batdes fought and friend- 
 ships made; of desperate struggles with cold and 
 hunger in the terrible blizzard, of Indian love and 
 vengence from which neither age nor infancy, 
 womanhood nor weakness could hope for pity. 
 
 Yet this man, who surely knows them well, is 
 no enemy of the Indians and his book is no mere 
 tale but a study of these people. 
 
 A 'Fated War Party" vs the story of a tribe, 
 ''Band of Canoes" whomade their home in our 
 own Mouse river valley The scenes of many of 
 
)^- 
 
 the 'ales are familiar Lo i;s aiic! since reading- Mr^ 
 Taylor's book, they have an added charm, thiat 
 which historical associations ^i^ive. 
 
 We call attention of our readers to the x\^it(\ of 
 fostering" the love for om' surroundings especially 
 in our y(3nn!^^ peopU: arid recommend "Frontier 
 and Indian Life" as a means. 
 
 Twenty Years on The Trap Line. 
 
 CAMI^ SKETCH KS OF A TRAIT^FR'S LIFF. 
 
 i!V Josr.ni Hh:^Kv T-wlor. 
 
 Ht'ing a collection of revised camp notes written 
 at intervals during a tw^enty years experience in 
 trapping, wtdfing and hunting on the great north- 
 western plains; I-H pages — many illustrations. 
 Bound both in cloth and hoards. Price 60 cents. 
 Book out ot print and but few left. Address the 
 author and pul)lisiier, Washburn. X. I). 
 
 .RB S It 
 
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