Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/418

 command to "Red Cloud" and "Spotted Tail" and superintend the work there instead of remaining in the Hills as Crook wished to do, and continue the campaign from there with some of the towns, either Deadwood or Custer City, as might be found best adapted to the purpose, as a base. Congress had authorized the enlistment of four hundred additional Indian scouts, and had also appropriated a liberal sum for the construction of the posts on the Yellowstone. Crook was to turn over the command to Merritt, and proceed in person, as rapidly as possible, to confer with Sheridan, who was awaiting him at Fort Laramie, with a view to designating the force to occupy the site of old Fort Reno during the winter.

After enduring the hardships and discomforts of the march from the head of Heart River, the situation in the bivouac on the Whitewood, a beautiful stream flowing out of the Hills at their northern extremity, was most romantic and pleasurable. The surrounding knolls were thickly grassed; cold, clear water stood in deep pools hemmed in by thick belts of timber; and there was an abundance of juicy wild plums, grapes, and bull berries, now fully ripe, and adding a grateful finish to meals which included nearly everything that man could desire, brought down in wagons by the enterprising dealers of Deadwood, who reaped a golden harvest. We were somewhat bewildered at sitting down before a canvas upon which were to be seen warm bread baked in ovens dug in the ground, delicious coffee, to the aroma of which we had been for so long a time strangers, broiled and stewed meat, fresh eggs, pickles, preserves, and fresh vegetables. Soldiers are in one respect like children: they forget the sorrows of yesterday in the delights of to-day, and give to glad song the same voices which a few hours ago were loudest in grumbling and petty complaint. So it was with our camp: the blazing fires were surrounded by crowds of happy warriors, each rivalling the other in tales of the "times we had" in a march whose severity has never been approached by that made by any column of our army of the same size, and of which so little is known that it may truly be said that the hardest work is the soonest forgotten.

Crook bade good-by to the officers and men who had toiled along with him through the spring and summer, and then headed for the post of Fort Robinson, Nebraska, one hundred and sixty