Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/393

 from Fort Ellis with a piece of artillery. Here we lunched with Clarke and Colonel Carr, of the Fifth Cavalry, stormbound like ourselves. The Ree scouts attached to Terry's column favored our Utes and Shoshones with a "pony" dance after nightfall. The performers were almost naked, and, with their ponies, bedaubed and painted from head to foot. They advanced in a regular line, which was not broken for any purpose, going over every obstruction, even trampling down the rude structures of cottonwood branches erected by the Utes and Shoshones for protection from the elements. As soon as they had come within a few yards of the camp-fires of the Shoshones, the latter, with the Utes, joined the Rees in their chant and also jumped upon their ponies, which staggered for some minutes around camp under their double and even treble load, until, thank Heaven! the affair ended. Although I had what might be called a "deadhead" view of the dance, I did not enjoy it at all, and was not sorry when the Rees said that they would have to go back to their own camp.

There was not very much to eat down on the Yellowstone, and one could count on his fingers the "square" meals in that lovely valley. Conspicuous among them should be the feast of hot bacon and beans, to which Tom Moore invited Hartsuff, Stanton, Bubb, Wasson, Strahorn, Schuyler, and myself long after the camp was wrapped in slumber. The beans were cooked to a turn; there was plenty of hard-tack and coffee, with a small quantity of sugar; each knew the other, there was much to talk about, and in the light and genial warmth of the fire, with stomachs filled, we passed a delightful time until morning had almost dawned.

On the 20th of August, our Utes and Shoshones left, and word was also received from the Crows that they were afraid to let any of the young men leave their own country while such numbers of the Sioux and Cheyennes were in hostility, and so close to them. General Crook had a flag prepared for his headquarters after the style prevailing in Terry's column, which served the excellent purpose of directing orderlies and officers promptly to the battalion or other command to which a message was to be delivered. This standard, for the construction of which we were indebted to the industry of Randall and Schuyler, was rather primitive in design and general make-up. It was a