Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/380



THE JUNCTION WITH MERRITT AND THE MARCH TO MEET TERRY—THE COUNTRY ON FIRE—MERRITT AND HIS COMMAND—MR. "GRAPHIC"—STANTON AND HIS "IRREGULARS"—"UTE JOHN"—THE SITE OF THE HOSTILE CAMP—A SIOUX CEMETERY—MEETING TERRY'S COMMAND—FINDING TWO SKELETONS—IN THE BAD LANDS—LANCING RATTLESNAKES—BATHING IN THE YELLOWSTONE—MACKINAW BOATS AND "BULL" BOATS—THE REES HAVE A PONY DANCE—SOME TERRIBLE STORMS—LIEUTENANT WILLIAM P. CLARKE.

On the 3d of August, 1876, Crook's command marched twenty miles north-northeast to Goose Creek, where Merritt had been ordered to await its arrival. The flames of prairie fires had parched and disfigured the country. "Big Bat" took me a short cut across a petty affluent of the Goose, which had been full of running water but was now dry as a bone, choked with ashes and dust, the cottonwoods along its banks on fire, and every sign that its current had been dried up by the intense heat of the flames. In an hour or so more the pent-up waters forced a passage through the ashes, and again flowed down to mingle with the Yellowstone. The Sioux had also set fire to the timber in the Big Horn, and at night the sight was a beautiful one of the great line of the foot-hills depicted in a tracery of gold.

General Merritt received us most kindly. He was at that time a very young man, but had had great experience during the war in command of mounted troops. He was blessed with a powerful physique, and seemed to be specially well adapted to undergo any measure of fatigue and privation that might befall him. His force consisted of ten companies of the Fifth Cavalry, and he had also brought along with him seventy-six recruits for the Second and Third Regiments, and over sixty surplus horses, besides an abundance of ammunition.

The officers with General Merritt, or whose names have not