A Day of Double Adventure

The Indians, many of them at least, were a good deal like children -- the difference being that children, when sick or in trouble, look to their parents, while the Indians turned to the white man.

The tender-hearted of us had so many visits of the good-Samaritan order to make, that frequently our walks and rides, otherwise purely for pleasure, were given definite objective in some hut where ailment or bereavement reigned. One such ride I so vigorously recall in connection with the adventure to which it led, and the events following it.

One evening, after an early dinner, the sky gave promise of one of those particularly gorgeous sunsets that nature so often gave us as compensation for the monotonous landscape of treeless prairie and the hardships of frontier life. In order to view it better, another lady of the garrison and I mounted our horses, to go out some little way from the post -- Poplar River, Montana -- to higher ground, where the coloring would hold unrestricted sway. We shaped our course along the foothills bordering the Missouri River bottom, and reveled in the view with as great enthusiasm as that inspired by our first sight of these wonderful riots of color, but the afterglow, or, as we are in the habit of designating the lingering sunset glory, twilight, slowly fades as though loath to leave the scene of the sun’s daily reign. While the spectator drinks in the wonder of the scene, the heavens are so gradually drained of their intoxicating color that the final realization of the empty, darkening sky is an unwelcome shock.

With our experience with the deceptive daylight that so suddenly ends in darkness, we hastened on our way. We were near an Indian village where lived a sick protege of mine, whom I was anxious to visit before turning home. A poor squaw had met with a painful accident a few days before. She (squaw-like) had been out after wood; the axe had slipped, severing the toes of her foot. The woman’s suffering had enlisted our sympathy, and one of the missionaries and I undertook to dress her wound. The surgeon was glad enough to give into the ladies’ hands cases that required but care and visiting. So every day one of us had made the pilgrimage to her tipi to see that matters were going well. It is a pleasure to recall here appreciation.

That evening, as we rode through the Indian camp, several of the inhabitants came out from their tipis to solicit aid or called from within for us to come and see them. More than once we recognized the voices of ailing or aged Indians, to whom we frequently carried food and delicacies. By the time our errands were accomplished, and we had turned out horses homeward, the stars were making their appearance in the yet bright sky. Reading this as a sign of fast approaching night, we started off at a rapid pace. Our horses were restive from waiting and willingly loped along the river bank. For some distance we rode, the fresh evening air in our faces, and were nearing the coulee which led to the first bench of the foothills, when we heard the sound of riders in our rear.

Not slackening our pace, we made up the coulee, and came in sight of the post lights, yet a considerable distance ahead. The riders back of us stood not upon ceremony, but made their presence known by calling loudly in Dakota to us to wait for them. The voices were those of Indian bucks. This fact, and the manner of its tone, did not increase our feeling of safety, when we realized that we were alone on the prairie, in a semi-hostile country. The Indians, at that period, were never really trustworthy, for the late Sitting Bull rebellion and the triumph of the Custer massacre were still very fresh in the memory of the entire tribe.

The call of our pursuers did not have the desired effect, for, putting the whip to my horse, I scampered off. At that the Indians called more harshly and whipped their ponies. To add to the confusion, my companion, whom I expected to follow me, reined in her horse, and raised her voice in protest at my riding away so rapidly, and remonstrated in jerky sentences: “They - will think - that we - are afraid - of them. Slow down a bit; we are - near - home. Don’t let them think - you are afraid - of them.”

My horse was tearing along over the uneven ground, without any effort or desire on my part to stop him; and the only reply I made to her was: “I am afraid of them! Come along!” and I kept on.

We had been running for perhaps a mile when I was seized with a severe pain in my side. It seemed an absolute necessity for me to slacken pace, no matter what the consequences, but I had started a pace so furious that it was extremely difficult to stop. My horse had been running just far enough either to be feeling good or to think that he was running away, and it was after the greatest effort that I finally succeeded in brining him down to a walk.

Our decided flight from their proffered company and attention had in no wise sweetened the Indians’ temper, and by the time they now caught up with us there were more overbearing even than perhaps had been their original intention. They were two husky young bucks, seemingly well-to-do, and said they belonged in the village which we had just visited. They evidently knew who were were; but they were strangers to us, and their antecedents could only be conjecture in our part.

Upon their approach, one of them placed himself beside my companion, and the other beside me, both separating us. This alarmed me still more. They inquired with superb impudence what we had gone to the village for, and where we were going now. By the way of introduction, they informed us that they had just returned from driving in their pony herd to camp, and upon seeing us leaving, they had started after us without dismounting.

Theirs was decidedly the advantage, and civility was the only weapon left, so we answered them quietly enough, saying we had been visiting the sick, and were hurrying home, as it was late. Then, hoping to end the audience, I started up my horse again, and said good-by.

The young gallant was far from satisfied at that, and, keeping pace with me, he insisted that I ride with him. Indians are generally afraid to excite jealousy, so I told him that my husband would not like to have me riding with a strange man, and he would have to leave me, and go in some other direction. But instead of being frightened he became much incensed. Our altercation attracted the attention of my companion, who talked the Sioux and sign language very well, and understood the Indians better than did I at that time.

She called to me in English, “For goodness’ sake, don’t talk like a goose. Let him alone. Tell him he can go as far as the sutler’s store with you, to pacify him. It will be all right, if we treat them right.”

Our lack of encouragement in the early moments of contact, however, had left them in an ugly temper, and such a ride seemed far too short for our erstwhile admirers, and it was in no honeyed tones that they insisted upon a longer ride with us than that.

The buck who rode with me became so decidedly insistent that he made bold to grasp the bridle of my horse and turn him in an opposite direction from the post, for which we were anxiously heading. At that, my mount suddenly and in quite a startling manner, turned protector. Without warning, he snorted and bolted. The cause was the nearness of the Indian pony, for which the American horse (for as such they were designated) always showed a decided antipathy. When the pony’s flank touched my horse in process of turning, the latter felt outraged, and immediately took steps to rid himself of the hateful proximity.

I clung for dear life (I was not worrying about my appearance). The horse worked himself into a perfect frenzy, shaking himself and foaming at the mouth as he tore along. To make matters the more uncomfortable for me, the now infuriated Indian whipped his pony up and followed as closely as possible, taking all the time. I had no wish to interpret his words, and perhaps it is just as well that I paid no closer heed to them. For over a mile we raced along, my horse steadily outdistancing the pony, until his rider’s voice became more and more indistinct, and finally ceased entirely, though at just what point I lost them interested me but little.

Fully realizing that if my horse wanted to run I could not stop him now, I let him have the bridle, and trusted him to land me safely at camp. What was my astonishment, then, when he circled a trifle, and stopped abruptly at the sutler’s store, where he was in the habit of being ridden. He made such a scamper stopping in his wild career that the trader hurried out to investigate the commotion. When he saw who it was he exclaimed: “I’m so glad to see you, “Cola” (“my friend”). Do hurry home, They are so uneasy about you, and were just about to start out in search for you.”

My breath had not yet returned sufficiently for me to talk; but upon hearing of the alarm I started again, and was met a few yards from our quarters by my anxious husband.

It took me a bit longer than usual to get settled for the night, for the uneasiness of mind, as well as body, had left me quite nervous. I had scarcely fallen into sleep when the reports of rifles and the noise of running feet by our quarters suddenly aroused and startled me.

The guard was quickly out, and orders were hastily issued for different squads to take their positions of defense. No one seemed to know what was the meaning of the rifle shots, except that they came from the direction of the Indian camp, and the long-talked-of attack seemed now a reality. The troops formed in less time than I can tell it, and by that time the whole garrison was aroused. The firing continued, but there was no sign of a rush or other advance on the post.

There seemed nothing unusual about the firing. The Indians seemed to draw no nearer, and as the demonstration came no closer, we began to think the Sioux were having a family row, or else had been attacked by the Crows or some other of their enemies. The affair was puzzling until some one noticed that the moon was undergoing a partial eclipse. Investigation then revealed that the red men were shooting at it to drive away the evil spirits! Then we enjoyed the somewhat curious spectacle of our scientifically evolved weapons of warfare being used by these savage owners to drive away the intangible beings who were only represented in the superstitious religion of nature’s untrained people. The knowledge that the Indians were shooting at intangible targets instead at us was very comforting, but it did not alter the fact nor prevent the unquestionably tangible bullets from plumping against and into our houses, and tearing up tufts of grass on our parade ground.

When the real facts of the situation were known, the disgusted soldiers returned to their interrupted night’s rest, content to let the Indians shoot fruitlessly, as the helpless hound bays at “the lesser light that rules the night.” The sentries paced on in stolid indifference, confident in his knowledge that soon the lunar phenomenon would respond to nature’s cry of “All’s well,” and filled with condescending pity for the Indian, whose fears kept him anxious so far into the night.

The midnight attack on the moon was the last straw to be heaped upon my worn-out frame, and from this climax of excitement I literally swooned into dreamland.