Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/329

 Colonel Guy V. Henry, Third Cavalry, read in a very feeling manner the burial service from the "Book of Common Prayer," the cavalry trumpets sounded "taps," a handful of earth was thrown down upon the remains, the grave was rapidly filled up, and the companies at quick step returned to their tents. There was no labored panegyric delivered over the body of Tiernan, but the kind reminiscences of his comrades were equivalent to an eulogy of which an archbishop might have been proud. Soldiers are the freest from care of any set of men on earth; the grave had not closed on their comrade before they were discussing other incidents of the day, and had forgotten the sad rites of sepulture in which they had just participated. To be more charitable, we were seeing so much that was novel and interesting that it was impossible to chain the mind down to one train of thought. Captain Noyes had wandered off during the storm of the night previous, and remained out of camp all night hunting for good trout pools. A herd of buffaloes had trotted down close to our bivouac, and many of our command had been unable to resist the temptation to go out and have a shot; we knocked over half a dozen or more of the old bulls, and brought the meat back for the use of the messes.

The conversation ran upon the difficulty experienced by the pioneer party under Captain Andrews, Third Cavalry, in smoothing and straightening the road during the marches of the past two or three days. General Crook had been successful in finding the nests and the eggs of some rare birds, the white-ringed blackbird, the Missouri skylark, and the crow of this region. He had all his life been an enthusiastic collector of specimens in natural history, especially in all that relates to nests and eggs, and had been an appreciative observer of the valuable work done on the frontier in that direction by Captain Charles Bendire, of the First Cavalry.

During the 8th of June there was some excitement among us, owing to the interchange of conversation between our pickets and a party of Indians late the previous night. It could not be determined at the moment whether the language used was Sioux or Crow, or both, but there was a series of calls and questions which our men did not fully understand; one query was to the effect that ours might be a Crow camp. A pony was found outside our lines, evidently left by the visitors. Despatches were