Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/389

 Cavalry was in need of reorganization, half of its original numbers having been killed or wounded in the affair of the Big Horn; the pack-train, made up, as it necessarily was, of animals taken out of the traces of the heavy wagons, was the saddest burlesque in that direction which it has ever been my lot to witness—for this no blame was ascribable to Terry, who was doing the best he could with the means allowed him from Washington. The Second Cavalry was in good shape, and so was Gibbon's column of infantry, which seemed ready to go wherever ordered and go at once. Crook's pack-train was a marvel of system; it maintained a discipline much severer than had been attained by any company in either column; under the indefatigable supervision of Tom Moore, Dave Mears, and others, who had had an experience of more than a quarter of a century, our mules moved with a precision to which the worn-out comparison of "clockwork" is justly adapted. The mules had been continuously in training since the preceding December, making long marches, carrying heavy burdens in the worst sort of weather. Consequently, they were hardened to the hardness and toughness of wrought-iron and whalebone. They followed the bell, and were as well trained as any soldiers in the command. Behind them one could see the other pack-train, a string of mules, of all sizes, each led by one soldier and beaten and driven along by another—attendants often rivalling animals in dumbness—and it was hard to repress a smile except by the reflection that this was the motive power of a column supposed to be in pursuit of savages. On the first day's march, after meeting Crook, Terry's pack-train dropped, lost, or damaged more stores than Crook's command had spoiled from the same causes from the time when the campaign commenced.

When the united columns struck the Tongue, the trail of the hostile bands had split into three: one going up stream, one down, and one across country east towards the Powder. Crook ordered his scouts to examine in front and on flanks, and in the mean time the commands unsaddled and went into camp; the scouts did not return until almost dark, when they brought information that the main trail had kept on in the direction of the Powder. Colonel Royall's command found the skeletons of two mining prospectors in the bushes near the Tongue; appearances indicated that the Sioux had captured these men and roasted them alive. On this march we saw a large "medicine rock," in