Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/396

 years' interval. The bad weather had the good effects of bringing to the surface all the dormant geniality of Colonel Evans's disposition: he was the Mark Tapley of the column; the harder it rained, the louder he laughed; the bright shafts of lightning revealed nothing more inspiriting than our worthy friend's smile of serene contentment. In Colonel Evans's opinion, which he was not at all diffident about expressing, the time had come for the young men of the command to see what real service was like. "There had been entirely too much of this playing soldier, sir; what had been done by soldiers who were soldiers, sir, before the war, sir, had never been properly appreciated, sir, and never would be until these young men got a small taste of it themselves, sir."

General Merritt's division of the command was provided with a signal apparatus, and the flags were of great use in conveying messages to camp from the outlying pickets, and thus saving the wear and tear of horse-flesh; but in this dark and rainy season the system was a failure, and many thought that it would have been well to introduce a code of signals by whistles, but it was not possible to do so under our circumstances.

The "Far West" had made several trips to the depot at the mouth of the Rosebud, and had brought down a supply of shoes, which was almost sufficient for our infantry battalions, but there was little of anything else, and Bubb, our commissary, was unable to obtain more than eleven pounds of tobacco for the entire force.

We were now laboring under the serious disadvantage of having no native scouts, and were obliged to start out without further delay, if anything was to be done with the trail of the Sioux, which had been left several marches up the Powder, before we started down to the Yellowstone to get supplies. Crook had sent out Frank Gruard, "Big Bat," and a small party to learn all that could be learned of that trail, which was found striking east and south. Terry's scouts had gone to the north of the Yellowstone to hunt for the signs of bands passing across the Missouri. The report came in that they had found some in that direction, and the two columns separated, Terry going in one direction, and Crook keeping his course and following the large trail, which he shrewdly surmised would lead over towards the Black Hills, where the savages would find easy victims in the settlers pouring into the newly discovered mining claims.