Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/287

 made in Saint Paul of canvas, lined with the heaviest blanket, and strapped and belted tight about the waist, were pronounced sufficient. The head was protected by a cap of cloth, with fur border to pull down over the ears; a fur collar enclosed the neck and screened the mouth and nose from the keen blasts; and the hands were covered by woollen gloves and over-gauntlets of beaver or musk-rat fur. For rainy or snowy weather most of the command had two india-rubber ponchos sewed together, which covered both rider and horse. This was found very cumbersome and was generally discarded, but at night it was decidedly valuable for the exclusion of dampness from either ground or sky. Our bedding while with the wagon-trains was ample, and there was no complaint from either officers or men. Everybody adhered to the one style; buffalo robes were conceded to be the most suitable covering. First, there would be spread down upon the ground the strip of canvas in which the blankets or robes were to be rolled for the march; then the india-rubber ponchos spoken of; then, for those who had them, a mattress made of chopped cork, of a total thickness of one inch, sewed in transverse layers so as to admit of being rolled more compactly; lastly, the buffalo robes and the blankets or cotton comforters, according to preference. The old wise-heads provided themselves with bags of buffalo robe, in which to insert the feet, and with small canvas cylinders, extending across the bed and not more than eight inches in diameter, which became a safe receptacle for extra underwear, socks, handkerchiefs, and any papers that it might be necessary to carry along. In all cases, where a man has the choice of making a winter campaign or staying at home, I would advise him to remember Punch's advice to those who were thinking of getting married.

General Crook had had much previous experience in his campaign against the Pi-Utes and Snakes of Idaho and northern Nevada in 1866-7, during which time his pack-trains had been obliged to break their way through snow girth deep, and his whole command had been able to make but thirty-three miles in twelve days—a campaign of which little has been written, but which deserves a glorious page in American history as resulting in the complete subjugation of a fierce and crafty tribe, and in being the means of securing safety to the miners of Nevada while they developed ledges which soon afterwards