Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/322

 of the industrial capabilities of our aborigines. The stem was a long reed or handle of ash, perforated and beautifully ornamented with feathers and porcupine quills. Each smoker would take three or four whiffs, and then pass the pipe to the neighbor on his left.

General Crook was grievously disappointed at the turn affairs had taken, but he said nothing and kept his own counsel. Had he obtained three or four hundred warriors from Red Cloud and Spotted Tail the hostile element would have been reduced to that extent, and the danger to the feeble and poorly protected settlements along the Union Pacific lessened in the same ratio, leaving out of consideration any possible value these young men might be as scouts and trailers, familiar with all the haunts and devices of the hostiles. Be it remembered that while these efforts were going on, the hay scales at the Red Cloud Agency had been burned, and the government herds run off from both Red Cloud and Spotted Tail Agencies.

We left the Red Cloud Agency at four o'clock in the morning, and began the ascent of the Valley of the "White Earth" creek. After going several miles, on looking back we saw a great cloud of signal smoke puff up from the bluffs back of the Indian villages, but just what sort of a signal it was no one in our party knew. As it happened, we had a strong force, and instead of the usual escort of ten men or less, with which General Crook travelled from one post or agency to another, we had no less than sixty-five men all told, made up of Crook's own escort, the escort of Paymaster Stanton, returning from the pay trip. Colonel Ludington, Inspector General of the Department of the Platte, was also present with his escort, returning from a tour of inspection of the troops and camps along the northern border. A dozen or more of the ranchers and others living in the country had improved the opportunity to get to the railroad with perfect safety, and thus we were a formidable body. At the head of the White Earth we halted alongside of a pretty spring to eat some lunch, and there were passed by the mail-rider, a man named Clark, who exchanged the compliments of the day, and then drove on toward the post which he was never to reach. He was ambuscaded and killed by the band of Sioux who had planned to assassinate Crook but were deterred by our unexpectedly large force, and, rather than go without killing something, slaughtered