Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/312

 horns, shaved down fine, surmounting the head. Altogether, these feather head-dresses of the tribes in the Missouri drainage were the most impressive and elegant thing to be seen on the border. They represented an investment of considerable money, and were highly treasured by the proud possessors. They were not only the indicia of wealth, but from the manner in which the feathers were placed and nicked, the style of the ornamentation, and other minute points readily recognizable by the other members of the tribe, all the achievements of the wearer were recorded. One could tell at a glance whether he had ever stolen ponies, killed men, women, or children, been wounded, counted "coup," or in any other manner demonstrated that his deeds of heroism were worthy of being chanted in the dances and around the camp-fires. In each lodge there were knives and forks, spoons, tin cups, platters, mess-pans, frying-pans, pots and kettles of divers shapes, axes, hatchets, hunting-knives, water-kegs, blankets, pillows, and every conceivable kind of truck in great profusion. Of the weight of dried and fresh buffalo meat and venison no adequate idea can be given; in three or four lodges I estimated that there were not less than one thousand pounds. As for ammunition, there was enough for a regiment; besides powder, there was pig-lead with the moulds for casting, metallic cartridges, and percussion caps. One hundred and fifty saddles were given to the flames.

Mills and Egan were doing excellent work in the village itself; the herd of ponies was in Noyes's hands, and why we should not have held our place there, and if necessary fortified and sent word to Crook to come across the trail and join us, is one of those things that no man can explain. We had lost three killed, and had another man wounded mortally. General Reynolds concluded suddenly to withdraw from the village, and the movement was carried out so precipitately that we practically abandoned the victory to the savages. There were over seven hundred ponies, over one hundred and fifty saddles, tons upon tons of meat, hundreds of blankets and robes, and a very appreciable addition to our own stock of ammunition in our hands, and the enemy driven into the hills, while we had Crook and his four companies to depend upon as a reserve, and yet we fell back at such a rate that our dead were left in the hands of the Indians, and, as was whispered among the men, one of our poor soldiers