Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/413

 whose daughter and granddaughter were standing by her side, the daughter nursing from the mother and the granddaughter from the daughter. On another occasion he was approached by one of Stanton's scouts—I really have not preserved his name, but it was the dark Mexican who several weeks after killed, and was killed by, Carey, his best friend. After being paid off, they got into some kind of a drunken row in a gambling saloon, in Deadwood, and shot each other to death. Well, this man drew near the butcher and began making complaint that the latter, without sufficient necessity, had cut up a pony which the guide was anxious to save for his own use. The discussion lasted for several minutes and terminated without satisfaction to the scout, who then turned to mount his pony and ride away; no pony was to be seen; he certainly had ridden one down, but it had vanished into vapor; he could see the saddle and bridle upon the ground, but of the animal not a trace; while he had been arguing with the butcher, the assistants of the latter had quickly unsaddled the mount and slaughtered and divided it, and the quarters were then on their way over to one of the battalions. It was a piece of rapid work worthy of the best skill of Chicago, but it confirmed one man in a tendency to profanity and cynicism.

Our maps led us into a very serious error: from them it appeared that the South Fork of Owl Creek was not more than twenty or twenty-five miles from the Belle Fourche, towards which we were trudging so wearily, the rain still beating down without pity. The foot soldiers, eager to make the march which was to end their troubles and lead them to food and rest, were ready for the trail by three on the morning of the 12th of September, and all of them strung out before four. As soon as it was light enough we saw that a portion of the trail had set off towards the east, and Major Upham was sent with one hundred and fifty men from the Fifth Cavalry to find out all about it. It proved to be moving in the direction of Bear Lodge Butte, and the intention evidently was to annoy the settlements in the Hills; one of Upham's men went off without permission, after antelope, and was killed and cut to pieces by the prowling bands watching the column. The clouds lifted once or twice during the march of the 12th and disclosed the outline of Bear Butte, a great satisfaction to us, as it proved that we were going in the right direction for Deadwood. The country was evenly divided between cactus and