Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/384

 horses shod, ammunition issued, provisions packed, and all stores in excess turned into the wagon-train. The allowance of baggage was cut down to the minimum: every officer and soldier was to have the clothes on his back and no more; one overcoat, one blanket (to be carried by the cavalry over the saddle blanket), and one India-rubber poncho or one-half of a shelter tent, was the allowance carried by General Crook, the members of his staff, and all the officers, soldiers, and packers. We had rations for fifteen days—half of bacon, sugar, coffee, and salt, and full of hard bread; none of vinegar, soap, pepper, etc. There were two hundred and fifty rounds of ammunition to the man; one hundred to be carried on the person, and the rest on the pack-mules, of which there were just three hundred and ninety-nine. The pack-train was in five divisions, each led by a bell-mare; no tents allowed, excepting one for the use of the surgeons attending to critical cases. "Travois" poles were hauled along to drag wounded in case it should become necessary.

Our mess, which now numbered eleven, was, beyond dispute, the most remarkable mess the army has ever known. I challenge comparison with it from anything that has ever been seen among our officers outside of Libby or Andersonville prisons. General Crook did not allow us either knife, fork, spoon, or plate. Each member carried strapped to the pommel of his saddle a tin cup, from which at balmy morn or dewy eve, as the poets would say, he might quaff the decoction called coffee. Our kitchen utensils comprised one frying-pan, one carving-knife, one carving-fork, one large coffee pot, one large tin platter, one large and two small tin ladles or spoons, and the necessary bags for carrying sugar, coffee, bacon, and hard bread. I forgot to say that we had also one sheet-iron mess pan. General Crook had determined to make his column as mobile as a column of Indians, and he knew that example was more potent than a score of general orders.

We marched down "Prairie Dog" Creek, to its junction with Tongue River, passing through a village of prairie dogs, which village was six miles long. The mental alienation of our unfortunate friend—Captain Cain—became more and more apparent. By preference, I rode with Colonel Stanton's scouts; they called themselves the "Montana Volunteers," but why they did so I never could understand, unless it was that every other State and