Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/369

 enemy, are deserving of my warmest acknowledgments. Lieutenant Sibley, although one of the youngest officers in this department, has shown a gallantry that is an honor to himself and the service." A very vivid and interesting description of this perilous affair has been given by Finerty in his fascinating volume, "War-Path and Bivouac." During the absence of the Sibley party General Crook ascended the mountains to secure meat for the command; we had a sufficiency of bacon, and all the trout the men could possibly eat, but fresh meat was not to be had in quantity, and the amount of deer, elk, antelope, and bear brought in by our hunters, although considerable in itself, cut no figure when portioned out among so many hundreds of hungry mouths. The failure to hear from Terry or Gibbon distressed Crook a great deal more than he cared to admit; he feared for the worst, obliged to give ear to all the wild stories brought in by couriers and others reaching the command from the forts and agencies. By getting to the summit of the high peaks which overlooked our camps in the drainage of the Tongue, the surrounding territory for a distance of at least one hundred miles in every direction could be examined through glasses, and anything unusual going on detected. Every afternoon we were now subjected to storms of rain and lightning, preceded by gusts of wind. They came with such regularity that one could almost set his watch by them.

Major Noyes, one of our most earnest fishermen, did not return from one of his trips, and, on account of the very severe storm assailing us that afternoon, it was feared that some accident had befallen him: that he had been attacked by a bear or other wild animal, had fallen over some ledge of rocks, been carried away in the current of the stream, or in some other manner met with disaster. Lieutenant Kingsbury, Second Cavalry, went out to hunt him, accompanied by a mounted detachment and a hound. Noyes was found fast asleep under a tree, completely exhausted by his hard work: he was afoot and unable to reach camp with his great haul of fish, over one hundred and ten in number; he had played himself out, but had broken the record, and was snoring serenely. Mr. Stevens, chief clerk for Major Furey, the quartermaster, was another sportsman whose chief delight in life seemed to be in tearing the clothes off his back in efforts to get more and bigger fish than any one else.