Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/301

 decided that they would get down without being a source of solicitude to those in charge of them; nothing was more amusing than to see some old patriarch of the train approach the glassy ramp leading to the bottom of the ravine, adjust his hind feet close together and slide in triumph with his load secure on his back. This came near raising a terrible row among the packers, who, in the absence of other topics of conversation, began to dispute concerning the amount of sense or "savey" exhibited by their respective pets. One cold afternoon it looked as if the enthusiastic champions of the respective claims of "Pinto Jim" and "Keno" would draw their knives on each other, but the affair quieted down without bloodshed. Only one mule had been injured during this kind of marching and sliding—one broke its back while descending an icy ravine leading to the "Clear Fork" of the Powder.

Not many moments were lost after getting into bivouac before all would be in what sailors call "ship shape." Companies would take the positions assigned them, mounted vedettes would be at once thrown out on the nearest commanding hills, horses unsaddled and led to the grazing-grounds, mules unpacked and driven after, and wood and water collected in quantities for the cooks, whose enormous pots of beans and coffee would exhale a most tempting aroma. After eating dinner or supper, as you please, soldiers, packers, and officers would gather around the fires, and in groups discuss the happenings of the day and the probabilities of the future. The Spaniards have a proverb which may be translated—"A man with a good dinner inside of him looks upon the world through rosy spectacles":

"Barriga llena, Corazon contento."

There was less doubt expressed of our catching Indians; the evidences of their presence were too tangible to admit of any ambiguity, and all felt now that we should run in upon a party of considerable size unless they had all withdrawn to the north of the Yellowstone. These opinions were confirmed by the return of Frank Gruard with a fine young mule which had been left behind by the Sioux in one of the many villages occupied by them along this stream-bed; the animal was in fine condition, and its abandonment was very good proof of the abundance of stock with which the savages must be blessed.