Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/444

 his shirt so that his ribs were exposed; he took a small piece of tobacco, and pretended to swallow it. To all appearances, he became deathly sick: his countenance turned of an ashen hue, perspiration stood on his brow, the same lugubrious grunts issued from his stomach and throat, and I was for a moment or two in alarm about his condition; but he soon recovered consciousness, if he had ever lost it, and triumphantly drew the moist leaf of tobacco from beneath his ribs. He had been a great traveller in his day, and there was but little of the Missouri or Yellowstone drainage that he was not familiar with. I have known him to journey afoot from Red Cloud to Spotted Tail Agency, a distance of forty-three measured miles, between two in the morning and noon of the same day, bearing despatches. The Apaches, Mojaves, and other tribes of the Southwest are far better runners than the horse Indians of the plains, but I have known few of them who could excel "Sorrel Horse" in this respect.

Nothing was to be done at this time except wait for news from "Red Cloud" and "Crazy Horse." The Cheyennes were impatient to go out to war, but it was war against "Crazy Horse" and not the white man. However, the promise had been sent by General Crook to "Crazy Horse" that if he started in good faith and kept moving straight in to the agency, he should be allowed every reasonable facility for bringing all his people without molestation. "Red Cloud" sent word regularly of the march made each day: one of the half-breeds with him, a man who prided himself upon his educational attainments, wrote the letters to Lieutenant Clarke, who, with Major Randall, was in charge of the Indian scouts. The following will serve as an example:

A Pril 16th 1877.

Sir My Dear I have met some indians on road and thare say the indians on bear lodge creek on 16th april and I thought let you know it. And I think 1 will let you know better after I get to the camp so I sent the young man with this letter he have been to the camp before his name is arme blown off

.

When "Red Cloud" and his party reached "Crazy Horse" they found the statements made by the latter Indian were strictly correct. The thousands of square miles of country burned over during the preceding season were still gaunt and bare, and "Crazy Horse" was compelled to march with his famished ponies